paintedlines

Call me old skool, but the Magnum is still one of my favorites. That turn and the view. Damn fun.

On the road again ... blah, blah, blah. Into the wonder that is Ohio, heading to "America's RollerCOAST!" You have to love tradition, even if its rather sadistic on some levels. Its a love hate relationship with my legs, and the park that I layout before them. - cue Survivor music ... Who will win? ... dun dun da!

Come Monday morning its: Wagons Ho! Setting sail in the silver Sable, to destinations north and west. And so begins the first leg of my summer...

Charged, packed and medicated ... is it Monday yet? Damn.

None the less, im on vacation, hence so is this blog. See ya sometime soon, hopefully with pics and a vid or two! In the mean time, check out the webcams - see what you are missing

Lines are for the able-bodied ... Suckers.

Ok, a lil deep, maybe not, but its what you get when alone talking aloud since the cat wount talk back

I don't have many friends. For years I have labored under the idea that this fact was by choice. Now at the age of 24 I'm beginning to think that it is really a matter of me. In so much, as it not being a consciously controlled goal.

I regular refer to myself as odd, mostly for the sake of sarcasm or tonal effect. The kicker is, maybe that is closer to reality. I may be odd, but not in the way of:

One of these things is not like the other

But, odd in how I approach and interact with others. Not to say any of this is bad, it has just become more apparent as part of me, like it or not. Its hard to really verbalize. In the end it may just be an extension of my habit of grasping tightly on to the little things in my life that I know I can control. No matter if they have any relevance in the long term.

To be cliche, its almost as if I am a pinball. Every collision is a relationship with a person, be good it, or bad. But, as if to buffer impact, I change my personality and demeanor to suit, or what I think will suit, the target I'm about to hit.

These changes then guide all future interactions and have no baring on changes made from other impacts. Each relationship exists on its own plane. Strictly segmented.

Some collisions result in life long friendships, others passing acquaintances or pure hate. Some are merely crushes. Then, adding time and another impact the crush morphs to acquaintance, and/or back again. Always in flux.

But sometimes the planes merge and there is more than one impact and reaction to deal with. This, as my experience has taught me, is never good. The preexisting guidelines over lap from the past impacts - it basically f*cks with my head.

Maybe I'm just odd. Maybe I think too much. Maybe its just how I cope. Maybe its just an excuse not to cope. Maybe I live too much of life from within my own head. Maybe its my friends that make it worth pondering at all.

Then again, I spoke at length with one about cloning, organ regeneration, tampering with nature, how in playing god or just being careless with science or our own bodies, humanity may wipe itself out. Nothing with clear answers or out comes - other than cerebral palsy (Spastic Diplegia) not being genetic.

Odd, don't you think?

Hey, yeah I've been here and there, echoing in my own head, and mostly testing. Cheers.

Leave it to me to find meaning the the lyrics of trashy euro-techno-pop dance music. But as of late M1 Live has been my station of choice. Streaming from "over the pond."

I could call it a guilty pleasure, but since radio in the states pretty much sucks, at least for being mainly dance remixes, there is variety. And not the schizo play lists of our local BOBfm. Someone really needs to slap the sh*t outta BOB, and while you are at it, go after his bastard siblings JACK, JOE, DAVE, ABE, and BENfm! ... Here's round one!

You know, there is a reason that my non-Apple mp3 player (don't get me started) is loaded with podcasts. For the most part...

Pittsburgh Radio Sucks!

But what to do about it? Glad you asked. I will state now, my fixes are purely greedy and self serving. If you don't like it, why are you even reading my blog?

We basically need two stations to make me happy. A FREEfm and an Air America. Well not really a FREEfm, just a station that will carry Penn Jillette's radio show. Its good, its bold, its what Stern could never hope to be. In short, its good radio. And thats why we need it and why I download the damn podcast everyday. And yes, he is the Penn of Penn and Teller, the same guys that do Bullsh*t.

And speaking of things that drop out of the bovine buttock: 104.7 - the reason we need an Air America affiliate. 104.7 (no link because it would foul the site too much) is the home of the Pig Man (Limbaugh, the deaf: be hard on drug use - pill popper), the Piglet Bastard (Hannity), and our own local bunker-dwelling, wing-nut, neo-con: Jim Quinn. These and the whole host of conservative talkers are more than willing to drink the Kool Aid when Raisin Brains (Bush no.2 aka: Bush the Lesser, or Shrub, for short) and their God (the blond, blue eyed, evangelical one!) tells them to and they have no problem taking the rest of us with them...

Everybody sing the praises of President Chuckle Nuts while you line up at the punch bowl. All the ditto-heads togther now! Oh and leave extra for Rush, who knows how much its gonna take to work on that drug addled hypocrite.

So its only fair to have a counter point, and our local try - WPTT, christ - they still carry Laura Ingraham - is weak at best. Hopefully the three rivers with ring with the voices of Al Franken, the goddes of the radio: Randi Rhodes and Mike Malloy - the Anti-Quinn (who I cribbed some nick names from) soon. I can only hope ... to God (the one that looks like he was born in Bethlehem - ya know, sorta Middle Eastern-ish!)

Wow, ok, rant over, now back to the reason for this post - meaning in the lyrics of trashy euro-techno-pop dance music:

...and there are some who say there are so many things I need so I run or I fight and I crawl or I scream and I bleed ... Well, it's a lie, it's a lie - don't you believe it. If you're fine then you're fine - it's all how you see it. Oh, there never will be no conspiracy of happiness.

The song is "On A High" - its actually from a 2001 release by Duncan Sheik. Yeah, I know, who knew he had more than one cd? Pretty much though -One Hit Wonder- after "Barely Breathing". None the less, I like the lyrics. Makes you think.

Thinking is good.

Happy Cino De Mayo! Pass the Doritoes and Chimichangas * - what do you mean, they aint "real" Mexican?

It's odd, you really wouldn't think that planning for a three-day trip would take so much. Then again I may just be neurotic. That, and any trip is a great excuse to spend money on things that you otherwise couldn't rationally justify to yourself. Nice how that works.

Lets see what we have so far:

A motel room at the fabulous (read: has no major pest/rodent/roach problem) Comfort Inn MainGate in the vacation mecca (read: the park is the only thing keeping this town alive) of Sandusky Ohio.

One digital camera that seems to be able to do everything but your taxes. And enough Secure Digital Media cards to film just about every minute of the trip. Something tells me, if this trip is anything like the last ... we really don't want to have every waking moment documented. Eh, maybe its just me. Only time and the glory that is hindsight will tell on that one.

The geek purchase for this excursion, which I just got in the mail, is a Secure Digital Media Card Case by Hakuba. It's blue - oh joy - what more can you want? But color aside, the function of this means we won't have to deal with those annoying lil clear plastic cases that the cards come in. And since it holds four, we can keep them together. Odd, though, the lil white logo on the case got gummy and I could easily wipe it cleanly off. Not sure what that bodes for the lifespan of the item. What can I say, is that my inner geek is happy. He is actually dancing, which really isn't a pretty sight. Moving on...

As for transport, we actually have a car that can make the trip. Being the third go into Ohio, a state that has mixed emotions about me, you'd think we would get this one right. Heres to hoping and to making sure I have my AAA card and a charged cell phone. Anyone know how good Cingular reception is on the Ohio turnpike?

Bases yet to be covered:

Well the big one, tickets. With so many options and locations for purchase, it's hard to decide, but methinks it will be a main gate purchase as usual. Unless, of course, we want to toss caution to the wind and see how trusty the print-your-own option on the website is. Can you say: Connection error ... Unable to fulfill your request ... Your card WILL be charged ... thank you

Rounding things out, is the last purchase needed, at least the last thing I can think of, beyond food and that sort of thing. A tape adapter . Yep, an analog compact audio cassette adapter - so we can jack a cd player or mp3 player into the car. That right, I ride old skool damn it! Freak'n lucky we ain't rock'n the 8-trac...

The countdown nears the single digits ... May 15, 16 17. Suddenly I feel like NASA Mission Control ... hell I have the shirt.

Amusementparkapalooza™
- learn it, live it, love it!

Trademark used with permission. I think - well he was drunk at the time. That counts, right?

* The history of the Chimichanga.

A technology whore, but alas, give me the printed word over screens of text any day

I read a lot. It's not an overstatement or hyperbole . I scan at least two papers everyday: my local daily paper, the Post-Gazette , and The Financial Times, plus the International Herald Tribune online. I subscribe to Time, The Advocate and Smithsonian, and PC World, not to mention the TV Guide. I'm also considering adding Computer Shopper (a free subscription) and Wired to the mix.

Books, hardback books are sort of an obsession with me. You can check out my collection at LibraryThing. I would rather have hardbacks over paperback, if given the choice. Ironic, since two of the three books on my reading shelf at the moment are just that. Lea's Book of Rules for the World and Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly. And, The Anarchist in the Library, rounds out the three as the only hardback. Political satire, lesbian satire and alt tech essays and analysis. Yeah I'm odd, and I like it that way. That, and I'm not really happy unless I know I have a book in the mail on its way to me .

On the net I'm a daily visitor to Cnet's News.com, the socio-pop-tech blog BoingBoing, theBBC's news sections, and I hit Digg every few hours. Add to that the hours spent reading the lastest in net design and CSS tricks, IE workarounds, and the dissection and admiration of other peoples sites - I damn near OD on tech. And that dosn't even take into consideration the pod and vodcasts, like Crankygeeks, that I consume like the fat kid in Willy Wonka, drowning in a river of geeky goodness.

All of this is why I'm working on feedfarm.  Need to consolidate just a tad! Now back on topic...

The latest bit of consumed text is a piece in the Wall Street Journal , courtesy of a link in Digg. Hollywood's Take on the Internet Often Favors Fun Over Fact. Not that its anything even remotely near a shock. But damn, as society advances, and it's near impossible not to touch a computer, let alone use the net, Hollywood takes us for fools.

Its not flashy and immersive (well not the way they think or the way we would like), it can't suck in your thoughts, or suck out your mind or your soul for that matter, and half the time it doesn't even work. But the bright lights hit it and it becomes either the savior of man or his down fall. As a geek I have issues with all of this. Sigh, but Hollywood doesn't even try, Matrix aside. Enough of the rant, since the article , which I recommend, takes the same point and dose it better - why re-hash?

But I will say this:  Hackers may be hokey but I have it on DVD, and there is part of me that wishes that tech and tech world really was that fun. And this was the film that started my long term love affare with, the now disbanded, Orbital. Opening credits on the plane - woo!

No matter what, even if the tech was wrong, the attitude was right. The little guy with the right skills can take down the arrogant even if they have the money and the power. Information should be, yearns to be, and will always - in the end - find a way to be free. That you can't stop the trends, growth, and the developement of technology. Good or bad, it is here and it will be used. The Conscience of a Hacker (a.k.a. The Hacker Manifesto) :

... We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals ...

So, I'm an idealist on the realm of things cyber. I may not be the most skilled, or even the most well read about this or any other topic, but I believe in it, and am open to what it has to offer and teach me. The written word was meant to be consumed, known and used, in any form it takes, paper preference aside.

Maybe, as one friend said, he should just call me Tron - if I only had a lightcycle!

Like Gorillas In the Mist - I watch the bar-goer in their natural habitat - lets hope I don't die in a bar brawl

For a large portion of my life, over 23 years, I basically went without alcohol . Its not a moral issue or that of addiction. It's something along the lines of: "I don't really hate it, but don't really like it." Just like the concept of iPod/iTunes - I can live happily without it.

I tent to pin it to a pyschological thing. Maybe a psychosomatic tick. In any event, for the sake of time and not seeming too odd, that topic is for another post.

So why did I finally break down a order a drink or two? Simple. Once again it wasn't an issue of falling to peer pressure, although my friends had been damn near relentless. And I have not, nor will I ever go a on bender. I just wanted to shut them the hell up! In the grand scheme of things, spending some money on a mostly god-awful liquid served w/ a straw is worth it.

I love my friends, like family, conversely, just like family they can bug the hell outta you.

Well, since I'm no longer holding to my "Sprite only" policy, and its way too late to reverse course, well at least around friends, less I be harassed a hypocrite - I end up at the bar. What the hell else is there to do for people in my age range? Yeah, thats what I thought.

In celebration of my birthday, I spent 6, yes, SIX hours, over the weekend, down at the "gun club." In honor of that, the breakdown:

• six hours in a bar
• one order of chicken strips - cuz, chickens, as I have become aware, do not have fingers
• two jack 'n cokes
• who knows how many pretzel sticks
• six or seven shots - too damn small the keep track
• one piece of jerky - don't really like the stuff but after six hours I was hungry again!
• oh yeah, and some almond-flavored-thingy, that wasn't half bad, but at the moment the name escapes me.

All in all it was fun, then again I don't go the the bar for the booze , I go for the people, or at least to watch them. (It also happens to tbe the place thet Tim drives to - I'm along for the ride as always.) Thats me: the sociological barfly. The drink is secondary, although my curiosity is getting the better of me. As I sat there passing the last hour, I began to ponder the idea of trying something different at every visit.

Why not, I'm not a regular drinker and I don't really have a preference - the same thing sorta bores me. Vodka and cranberry juice , Vodka and cranberry juice , Vodka and cranberry juice ... So why not take a sampler tour of the spirits behind the bar? Then it hit me. The only reason I was even having that thought was, besides the bar tender, in her flip-flops, I was possibly the only other person there that was sober at 1 am.

Although its is a rather novel idea...

Drinking for self-betterment!