August 2002

Firenight

/ fire

It was firenight at Cafe Mundi again, as it almost always is on Tuesday. I got pictures

It was a noteworthy firenight for the fire-fan performance by 10-year-old Hannah. Pretty amazing. Very dynamic, and graceful beyond her years.

360 Southbound

/ cycling

Rode 360 southbound today. 28 miles. Hot hot hot. Ugh. I haven’t been riding enough and wasn’t prepared for the heat (nominally 99°F–actually a lot more out on the road). I was reduced to my bailout gears by the last couple hills on 360, grinding along at a miserable 6 mph, under a cloudless sky and atop egg-frying pavement.

Lovely & Amazing

/ movies

Saw Lovely & Amazing with Gwen yesterday. Good movie. Very good acting. The little non-verbal ways in which the characters conveyed their feelings towards each other impressed both of us, and the interactions were very true to life.

It was also refreshing that, although serious things happened to the characters in the movie, we weren’t hit over the head to convey “hey, this is serious!”–the filmmakers trusted us enough to figure that out for ourselves. Also refreshing is the fact that not everything was wrapped up with a bow by the end.

Catherine Keener may have already typecast herself with bitchy roles, though. While her character in this movie was somewhat bitchy, my initial reaction to her was that she was especially so (I don’t imagine she’s like that in real life, of course). It took a while to see past that in this movie.

More fun with SUVs

/ current events

According to the New York Times (registration required), some folks are demonstrating their dislike for SUVs by sticking mock tickets on their windshields. This seems to inspire a lot of anger. According to the article, some people write the organization to express their displeasure, or to defend their choice of vehicle.

One man told a sobering story. “You have no idea why I drive the vehicle I have,” his message said. “Maybe, just maybe, it’s because my wife and myself have lost a son in an accident and want my family to be safe. Try losing a child.”

This guy is guilty of two lapses in thinking: 1. For the occupants, SUVs are not safer than cars, they just make you feel that they are (and because of the risk-compensation mechanism, might actually be even more dangerous than they seem); 2. SUVs are much more dangerous to surrounding vehicles. So, hey, who knows–maybe this guy, having lost his child, will cause someone else to lose one.

Austin blogging

/ personal

There was a meetup of Austin bloggers a few days ago, at the Bouldin Creek coffee house. It was fun. A total of six people showed: Jon Lebkowsky, Jenny Nazak, Rebecca Robertson, David Nunez, Rob Fischler, and myself. Completely coincidentally, I also just discovered an Austin bloggers webring.

It’s interesting to peruse some of the other meetups listed on this site (I hadn’t even been aware of this system until I heard about the blog meetup). A lot of lonely groups out there, with only one person. Perhaps the Bruce Springsteen group could get together with the Prince group. And to compare the memberships of groups dedicated to various websites I like. Apparently Metafilter (10 members) is more popular than Plastic (only 4) or Kuro5hin (6). Perhaps because Metafilter is a faster read.

Blogger code

/ tidbit

From time to time I’ll see a cryptic string of numbers and letters in the signature line of someone’s e-mail. This, I have learned, is a “geek code,” denoting in highly compressed fashion the degrees and dimensions of one’s geekiness. Well, I just ran across the equivalent for bloggers. Apparently I’m a B4 d+ t+ k s- u- f i o+ x e+ l c

DVD region codes to fade away?

/ current events

Apparently, Hollywood may be giving up on the whole region-code scheme for DVDs, which prevented a person from (perfectly legally) buying a DVD in, say, the USA and then playing it in, say, Japan. Or vice-versa. This system is so obviously anti-consumer that some countries have made region-code locking illegal. Of course, I’ve got one of the first DVD players that allowed the user to hack the region code, but I’m still pleased. Score one for the rest of us.

Open Letter to America from a Canadian

/ current events / 1 Comment

This is one of the best bits of vitriol I’ve read in a while:

Go get your ten-billionth burger, America. Fatten your already fat asses with bacteria-and-hormone-ridden meat and do nothing as you sit stupefied before your mind-numbing television sets awaiting the next episode of sad families being humiliated on “Cops.”

Of course, this was written by a Canadian, and as we all know, Canada is just a suburb of the USA.

via Plastic

Firenight

/ fire

Another Tuesday, another firenight.

I had been feeling that my usual wicks were a bit too light, so I made a set of monster wicks, and used them last night. I haven’t had that much of a thrill firedancing since the very first time I lit up–the intense sensations of noise and heat, the excitement and surprise and fear. These monster wicks are a little too heavy for me to be comfortable with (so far), and I have a lot of almost-blisters from the force, but that was fun.

CQ

/ movies

Saw CQ at the Alamo last night with Gwen and Jenny. Interesting movie. Visually entertaining, and with enough ideas behind it to make me feel like I need to chew on it some more.

Deep Eddy gig

/ fire / 1 Comment

adam_deep_eddy_thumb.jpegThe gig at Deep Eddy was fun. A lot of families, a lot of young kids, some of whom seemed to know exactly what was going to happen before we went on, and came over to talk to us while we were getting ready. Gwen got some pictures.

My arms are still killing me from the staff number.

Xanadu

/ movies

Saw Mister Sinus’ inimitable treatment of that Olivia Newton-John classic, Xanadu. As usual, they put on a wonderful show. The movie itself made me wish I took drugs–some of those fantasy dance numbers probably would have benefited.

Almost everything about the movie was awful. The acting, the dancing, the plot, the continuity. The costumes were very entertaining, but in an unintentional way.

Arguably even more entertaining were the trailers they dug up for other roller-skating movies like Roller Boogie or Skatetown USA (amazing that this didn’t end Patrick Swayze’s dubious career before it even began).

Strange search requests

/ net stuff

Disturbing Search Requests has introduced lots of people to the sport of analyzing their server logs for strange referrers. Just for grins, I spent a little time analyzing mine today. Following are some of the phrases typed into Google that somehow brought crossroads.net up as a search result, and (more importantly) that the searcher decided to click on.

pajama pocket speed

dildo shoes

masturbation and air stewardess

smell fear?? maybe you have a leaky nose n not able to smell

good towel head bad towel head photo

creampuff adult video

child pantyhose head

makeovers involving piercing

There were also a bunch of requests that were so specific and spot-on it seemed as if the searcher must have already known they’d find that they wanted here.

Tenth Anniversary: SOS ordinance

/ personal

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the SOS ordinance, which was originally passed to protect Barton Springs, often considered the spiritual heart of Austin, and a damn fine swimming hole if nothing else. Admission to the Springs was free, and there was pretty good live music playing all day.

The great irony is that, a few days before this anniversary, the city essentially caved in to development pressure and nullified the ordinance.

This also gave me a moment of reflection: I moved back to Austin ten years ago, right around the time the ordinance passed. At the time, I was already dismayed at the growth in Austin, and predicted the town had another 10-15 good years left in it, after which I would probably leave. And here I am, ten years later. I’m still dismayed at the growth, but still here. I live in an idyllic part of town, I don’t need to wrestle with the traffic on a regular basis, and so I am insulated from the worst of it. But sometimes I think of the frog-in-boiling-water metaphor, and wonder if that applies to me.