Behind the scenes at Webcasting Central

I'm sure you're all wondering what it was like to appear on a big-time live webcast, so I thought I'd give you a glimpse into a world rarely seen by outsiders: the Midland Reporter-Telegram's studio.

Keep in mind that the MRT is a newspaper and so it hasn't felt a great need to invest a lot of money in video technology, for obvious reasons. The "studio" itself is all the way in the back of the building and up a flight of stairs that opens into a medium-sized room that may well have once seen duty as a storeroom. Or the publisher's office...it's hard to say. Jimmy Patterson and his ace webguy, Jim Slusher have cleared out a smallish space for a couple of tables, a couple of chairs, a backdrop which rolls down on a length of PVC pipe, a couple of monitors, one computer and one tripod-mounted digicam. A microphone runs from the camera under the table and is taped to the edge in front of the webcastees. Here's a photo of the setup:

Jimmy kept apologizing for the spareness of the setting but I thought it was less intimidating than a fancy, formal studio. Everything worked as intended and that's what's important. I was temporarily distracted by the monitor in front of us which I thought was supposed to show what was going out live, but it had a disconcerting lag in the video so I finally just ignored it.

Jim Slusher and Jimmy Patterson

What they really need now is some theme music. I suggested that they have a contest to see who could compose the best theme song. I know a few Gazette readers who are more than talented enough to come up with something to fit the bill.

Be the Nut

The toils and snares of life serve oft to distract from the pleasant interludes found in less-traveled paths, and I find that I can't even recall how much I miss them until serendipity brings me back. I suspect we'd all be better off if we spent a bit more time reading things like this exquisite ode to the pecan and its namesake pie, prepared for our savoring by the inimitable PTMYB Bakerina herself.

How good is she? The Gazette now has a new category of posts, the main purpose of which is to remind me to not be a stranger.

Technorati tag: Pecan Pie

Reality isn't all it's cracked up to be

There were times during this morning's webcast where I felt as though I was a spirit, disassociated from my body and floating above it, looking down on the proceedings and thinking, "oh my, why doesn't he just open a vein right there on camera and get it over with?"

I once considered myself to be reasonably intelligent and sporadically coherent. No more. There are good reasons why I don't do v-blogging or podcasts. If you missed the live event, do me a favor and skip the archived version as well. I know I'm going to.

And I hope Jimmy Patterson will accept my apologies, as I'm fairly confident he was expecting a lucid interviewee.

Finally, some truth in advertising

Those of us who are otherwise fortunate enough to be residents of Texas are currently being treated to an ad campaign by the state lottery commission touting the fun and thrills of playing a scratch-off game patterned after a poker hand. One ad shows a poker game in progress in front of the refrigeration case of a convenience store, and the play is interrupted -- apparently at a critical juncture in the game -- by a woman asking one of the players to hand her a carton of milk.

The the commentator who's been giving us the play-by-play of the game is amazed: "whoa...he didn't see that coming!" Then the voiceover comes in to inform us that this newest lottery game "captures all the excitement of the world poker tour."

Yeah, I'd say that's about right.

Lafite Seat

I never remember the annual Champagne Chair Design contest sponsored by upscale furniture retailer Design Within Reach. The rules are simple: "...create a miniature chair using only the cork, wire and foil from no more than two champagne bottles."

Fortunately, I have Deb over at Write Lightning to keep me apprised when the winners are announced.

Technorati tag: Champagne Chair Contest

Our Baby J Connection

I shouldn't be surprised at the hoopla over Jessica McClure's wedding this weekend in Midland. After all, pretty much the entire nation tuned in to see Baby Jessica rescued from that well eighteen years ago. It was a great story with a great ending, although subsequent chapters weren't so happy.

Anyway, for lack of anything interesting to post (don't say it) I thought I'd let you in on a little secret: Baby Jessica's mom is Abbye's groomer. Well, actually, she owns the grooming business; I don't think she does much of the regular hands-on work herself. And, of course, she's a big Abbye fan.

And, for the record, I've never asked her anything about the event that thrust her into the world's spotlight, nor about her daughter, whom I hope has a long, happy and relatively uneventful marriage.

Technorati tags: Baby Jessica

Think he'll send Vince a Christmas card?

Mack Brown's getting a few hundred grand a year more in the wake of UT's Rose Bowl victory, according to this AP report. His 2006 salary will be "at least" $2.5 million, compared to just over $2.1 million last year. This keeps him in the top five highest paid college football coaches nationally (well, that probably extends throughout the entire universe, AFAIK), with the USC coach, Pete Carroll, leading the pack at $3MM per. Wonder if Pete'll get a raise this year?

Julie's Bookplate Contest

And as long as we're on the subject of books, it's worth mentioning that Julie Neidlinger has just announced a contest in which the prize will be a custom designed bookplate. It's an imaginative idea, and the rules are almost too simple, so send her an entry. Your books will thank you.

Book Review: "A Reader's Manifesto"

The subtitle to B.R. Myers's A Reader's Manifesto is An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose. This slim (89 pages) volume is indeed an attack, and it apparently struck its intended targets. After one lukewarm attempt at self-publishing the original manuscript under the title of Gorgons in the Pool, it was picked up and published as a severely-edited article in the July/August 2001 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, where it generated a strong enough response to prompt Myers to publish the book in its "original tone and length."

A Reader's Manifesto is the literary critic's version of The Emperor's New Clothes. The author makes an impassioned case that a lot of what passes for Serious Writing nowadays is overwrought, hard to read and impossible to comprehend, and, well, pretentious. He not only names names, holding up specific passages from highly acclaimed and award-winning authors, but takes on those professional book reviewers who, he says, have fallen victim to the siren song of literary hokum.

By turns, Myers examines passages from novels by the following authors:

• Annie Proulx - Winner of the 1993 National Book Award and 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (The Shipping News) and most recently revered for writing Brokeback Mountain.


• Don DeLillo - Winner of the National Book Award for White Noise (1985), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Mao II (1991) and the first American winner of The Jerusalem Prize.


• Cormac McCarthy - Winner of the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award for All the Pretty Horses


• Paul Auster - Recipient of the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters


• David Guterson - Winner of the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award (Snow Falling on Cedars)

Myers contrasts passages from the writing of these authors with excerpts from acknowledged past masters such as James Joyce, Saul Bellow, Honoré de Balzac, Samuel Beckett and even Louis L'Amour. These comparisons are often amusing, generally biting, and bound to be encouraging to anyone who's ever picked up a "modern novel," read it, and then wondered silently and perhaps a little ashamedly, "just what the heck was that all about?"

At the risk of making him sound a little paranoid, here's one of his conclusions.

This is what the cultural elite wants us to believe: if our writers make no sense, or bore us to tears, that can only mean that we aren't worthy of them. ... But today's Serious Writers fail even on their own postmodern terms. They urge us to move beyond our old-fashioned preoccupation with content and plot, to focus on form instead – and then they subject us to the least expressive form, the least expressive sentences, in the history of the American novel.

Whether you agree with the strategy Myers employs in skewering specific authors -- and I must admit that he's very good at it -- it's hard to argue with his main premise, that "great prose isn't always easy, but it's always lucid," and that the reader has a sacrosanct right to dismiss works that don't meet that criterion.

If Jackie Collins, Tom Clancy and Stephen King (all authors which Myers refuses to condemn for their popularity) write books that prick your imagination, then there's no shame in reading them. And if the Literary Elite have a problem with that, well, it's their problem, not yours.

This book was intended to be controversial, and I recommend it to every aspiring writer as well as anyone who feels the call to be a book reviewer. It's both a lens and a mirror, useful for clarifying one's personal tastes and aspirations in literature.

Technorati tags: B.R. Myers | A Reader's Manifesto

Posted by Eric at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

How dum do they think we are?

While perusing a bag of Salt and Vinegar potato chips today at lunch*, I noticed that the website for Schlotsky's Deli is CoolDeli.com.

I find it objectionable and personally offensive that Shlotsky's would have so little faith in the ability of the American public to spell "Schotskies" correctly that it would stoop to such obviously patronizing methods. I mean, who does Schlozkee's think it is, anyway, that it can't even use its own name in its website URL?

I think the message is clear: Sholshkey's Deli doesn't credit its own customers with even the most rudimentary spelling skills. That, or it's ashamed of its own name. Either way, I have to say, "shame, shame on you, Shlawtski's Deli."

*Yep, lunch after church is a big deal 'round these parts.

The Gazette's Store Reopens!

After an extended hiatus for reasons best left unexamined, the Fire Ant Gazette's CafePress store is once again open for business*...just in time for Valentine's Day! Now every member of the family -- including the dog! -- can snarf up some of that Gazette mystique and stride proudly and boldly through any trailer park in the country.

Did I mention that your canine compadres can get in on the Fire Ant craze that's literally sweeping the nation? Take a gander at this little gem:

Now, I'm not saying that Abbye would actually be caught dead in one of these shirts. She's more the basic black shift with a string of pearls type of pooch, but not everyone's so hoity-toity.

All merchandise sports the official Classic® Fire™ Ant© logo (mainly because I'm too lazy to update it). And all proceeds are guaranteed to go toward either that operation I've been saving up for or the first 12-pack of Black Cherry Fresca I run across.

Anyhoo, feel free to browse through the store for the ultimate in conspicuous consumption gear. And stay tuned...black t-shirts are on their way! Awesome, d00d!

*In case you're wondering if the store violates the terms of my charter membership in the Coalition of Unpaid Bloggers, rest assured that if sales from the reopened store were to increase by 1,000% over the previous performance, the profits still wouldn't cover hosting for this here blog.

It's raining!

Just heard a thunderclap, then a strangely familiar sound...the comforting patter of raindrops on the skylight. It was about three months ago to the day that we last heard either of those things.

Judging by the thin clouds, it won't last long, just a teaser. It's nice to know that it could still rain, if it wanted to.

Think you're a good housekeeper?

Just try replacing your 15-year old canister vacuum cleaner with a new Dyson DC14 upright model.

[Insert obligatory "man, does that thing suck!" comment here.]

I'm not an evolutionist, but I'm more than a little swayed by seeing what our dust bunnies had mutated into.

BlogSpeakGreet

Rachel is a New Zealand blogger with that captivating Kiwi accent. She recently wrote about her upcoming trip to the States which will include her first visit to Texas, and in that post she evidenced her excited anticipation with a Lone Star-like "yee-ha!" I hinted that I'd really like to hear that yee-ha done with a Kiwi accent and she obliged with a short recording.

She then took things a step further, and recorded a couple of greetings for her blog (one in English and one in Maori)...and then challenged other bloggers to do the same (um, except for the Maori part). I thought that was a cool idea, and I've finally gotten around to recording and uploading one for the Gazette. You'll see a link to it in the sidebar near the upper right corner of the front page (if you're not there already). It's a 30kb mp3 of dubious quality, but perhaps it gets the message across.

I started to feel a little self-conscious about how I sound, but next week's webcast is going to do away with any pretense I ever had of staying faceless and voiceless anyway, so I guess it's no big deal.

If you've got a blog, I extend Rachel's challenge -- or encouragement; I think she'd agree with that term -- to do the same.

Me? On a webcast? Be very afraid...

Want to know the true extent of the fall in the fortunes of the MSM? Consider this: I've been asked to appear on the weekly webcast produced by our local newspaper, the Midland Reporter-Telegram. Jimmy Patterson, webcast host, man-about-town, and a fellow blogger, will presumably be trying to expose the seamier side of the Gazette and the peculiar delusions and neuroses afflicting its creator, the existence of which is proven by his agreement to submit to such scrutiny.

The program, barring last minute intervention by the FCC or FDA or any of the dozen or so agencies who might rightly claim jurisdiction over this scary thing, is scheduled to "air" around 10:00 a.m. (CST or GMT-6) next Tuesday, January 31.

I don't know how many paradigms we're busting here, with two bloggers, one of which is also an MSM lackey, appearing via New Media which is owned by Old Media. It's unnatural and it makes my head vibrate a bit, thinking about it.

Now, here's the real deal. If I understand this thing correctly, the viewing audience will be able to submit questions and/or comments during the 'cast. I urge you to participate because, frankly, Jimmy and I have absolutely no chemistry together and without some external stimuli, the program will likely start out as a staring contest and devolve from there to my doodling on that icky green wall with a Magic Marker®. But we need to impose some kind of structure on your participation because I know you and the mischief you're capable of, left unsupervised. So, here are the acceptable topics for your input:

• Abbye's health, as long as you preface any questions with an acknowledgement of her overwhelming cuteness (that's her requirement, by the way, not mine)
• the Geico Gecko
• Ballroom dancing
• the philosophical underpinnings of Galaxy Quest

Stick with those subjects and we'll all be better off.

Finally, in the time-honored tradition of making fun of one's host, thereby ensuring lively interaction possibly involving folding chairs, I present to you a personal invitation from the webcast page to join us in a hitherto unknown dimension. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call...the TalkBackLive Zone.

$60/Barrel Misers?

I had lunch today with an executive of one of the larger foundations serving our area and our conversation turned to the state of philanthropy in an economic climate where our community is the beneficiary of high oil and gas prices. I opined that these must be the best of times in the world of philanthropy and nonprofit organizations and his response was that it just wasn't so.

He said that the foundation had not seen any signficant increase in donors or donated amounts since the runup in oil prices. Further, the general population of nonprofit organizations in our area were still struggling to raise money, just as they always had. We discussed the most obvious examples of Midland's United Way campaign falling a few thousand dollars short in its just-completed campaign, while the Odessa United Way met its much smaller goal by just a few thousand dollars.

I'm having a hard time reconciling those very credible observations with what I see in the way of proliferation of new Hummers and Escalades on our local streets and $300,000+ homes under construction and packed parking lots at Best Buy and the tony new restaurants in town. A lot of people are making more money than they've ever made before in their lives. So why isn't that fact translating into a more obvious increase in financial support in the areas that make us stronger as a community?

I've got three theories, none of which I can prove. First, it could be that the philanthropy is being conducted outside our community, perhaps at various universities and colleges around the state and country. Perhaps those investments seem more glamorous, somehow, than an equal grant to the local Meals on Wheels program.

Then again, maybe the beneficiaries of this -- dare I say it? -- windfall are "hunkering down," determined not to squander their new wealth as in past boom times. If this is the case, and I hope I'm wrong, then it's evidence of what I think are misplaced priorities.

I'm not going to try to tell someone they have a moral obligation to fund a daycare program instead of buying a new Corvette, and I won't argue that the latter purchase doesn't play some small role in keeping our economy healthy. But it should be obvious that if everyone makes that same decision, our community will eventually suffer as a result.

Finally, maybe there's the feeling that $60 oil and $8 gas means that no one in Midland needs the help. I won't dignify that fallacy with a response.

Much that's good about our community was built on the generosity of people who felt it important to give away their money. Interestingly, not all of those people were wealthy. There are plenty of scholarship funds, for example, set up by teachers, coaches, small business owners, and retirees who lived lives of modesty and humility and viewed their stewardship of whatever resources they'd been given as being best fulfilled by sharing those resources.

It saddens me to think that this is somehow changing, that there's not a new generation of philanthropists stepping up to continue the work of community-strengthening that's long been the hallmark of west Texas. I hope I'm wrong; I hope that what we're perceiving is simply a lull, a catching of the breath before a great release of funds into the economy of giving.

I hope that, but I'm not confident. One of the last things my lunch companion expressed was a perception -- and keep in mind that he's an expert in these things -- that the quality of volunteers to serve on the boards of various nonprofits was declining to the point where some organizations were experiencing significant problems. Too many board members viewed their service as either a favor to the organization, or simply something to pad their resumes.

Such stinginess with one's time and expertise coupled with financial stinginess paints a disturbing picture about the future of our quality of life.

Technorati tag: Philanthropy

Roadmaps for Illegal Immigrants

A Tucson-based organization called Humane Borders has prepared detailed maps of certain remote portions of the US/Mexico border to assist illegal immigrants in their journeys. The maps show, among other things, the locations of water stations and rescue beacons (which may be activated by people in distress to attract the attention of the US Border Patrol), and the extent of cell phone coverage in the mapped areas.

The group has also prepared and will distribute warning posters describing the dangers of attempting to cross in these remote areas. (For a graphic description of those dangers, read Urrea's The Devil's Highway, a review of which is here.) These posters (and the maps, for that matter) also pinpoint known locations of previous deaths related to attempts to cross the border, presumably as a warning to those contemplating a similar undertaking. Somewhat ironically, the posters also show the estimated walking time to cover the required distance.

I don't question the righteous intentions of the folks behind this project -- they want to save human lives -- but I do believe they're seriously naive about what it will accomplish. For example, setting aside the fact that the group is facilitating an illegal activity, here are a few flaws in their approach:

• It's unlikely that most illegals will have either the skill or the equipment to effectively use these maps; I doubt that most have ever seen a compass, much less used one. In any event, they'll likely be relying on a coyote or guide (often with disastrous results, as Urrea points out in the above-linked book).


• Even if you have a map and the skill to use it, that shouldn't give you the confidence of surviving the hellish trek through the Sonoran desert in high summer. How many people will overestimate their survival abilities based on having a map? How many can actually assimilate the reality of walking 40 miles over brutal terrain in 100° temperatures -- at night?


• The posters are designed to educate and warn folks about that previous point, but how many of the immigrants (a) can read, or (b) will view them as anything other than American propaganda designed to keep them from the Land of Opportunity? In any event, I doubt such posters will remain posted very long considering the huge amounts of cash accruing to the organized criminals engaged in smuggling human cargo across the border.

The real problem is, of course, the last thing we need to do is provide a terrorist with resources designed to make undetected entry into our country easier. A terrorist who, by the way, will surely have both the skills and the equipment needed use those resources.

In a pre-9/11 world, we might just shake our heads at the well-intentioned but ultimately misguided efforts of these folks. Today, however, the stakes are considerably higher, and the unintended consequences could literally reverberate through our nation.

Tip: GOPUSA's The Loft

Technorati tags: Illegal Immigration | Humane Borders

Mac Yin/Intel Yang

How will you know when your favorite Mac application will run on a new Intel chip powered model? Just look for the dual Mac/Universal logo, shown at right.

Apple has a new licensing program in place for developers wishing to display the Universal logo on their products.

According to this MacWorld article, there are at least 200 currently-shipping products that run natively on the Intel-powered Macs. However, this list shows only 40 (most of them minor utilities), MacInTouch's list has more but its format makes it more difficult to quantify the exact number, and Apple's Product Guide seems to be the most complete with over 300 items. Regardless, this is just a drop in the bucket, considering the thousands of applications currently compatible with OS X.

Technorati tags: Universal Logo Program | Apple | Intel Based Macs

Abbye Update

Abbye's treatment for Cushing's Disease has gone well, I'm pleased to report. She was taking lysodren daily up until last week, when a blood test revealed that the adrenal suppression was working and a lower dosage was called for.

Um, perhaps I should back up a bit. As you may or may not recall, Cushing's is a malady where the adrenal glands produce too much cortisol, which has all kinds of unpleasant physical effects. Cushing's is most often caused by tumors on either the adrenal or pituitary glands.

In Abbye's case, an MRI ruled out any tumors, which was mostly good news except it left us not knowing the cause. But it also made it easy to decide to address the primary symptom: the overactive adrenal glands. The most common treatement for this is a drug called lysodren, which is used primarily in human chemotherapy. It's an adrenal suppressant, very powerful with some scary side effects. Too little and it's ineffective; too much and it can destroy the adrenal glands and kill the patient.

Our vet made the right call with the initial dosage, however. After a week on lysodren, Abbye's cortisol levels had come back near the normal range. We've reduced the dosage to twice weekly, and are awaiting the results of another blood test which we hope will show a completely normal reading. The icing on the cake is that she -- the one who has historically managed to exhibit every known bad side effect of every known medication -- experienced none of the problems generally associated with lysodren. That was a miracle in and of itself.

She's obviously feeling better. Her limp -- which I'm not sure I ever wrote about -- is gone and we're back on our regular walk schedule. She's still a bit slower paced than usual, especially in the afternoon...but, then, aren't we all? I sometimes forget that she's going on twelve years old, and some slowdown is natural.

She's still not eating at pre-diagnosis levels, and has lost a couple of pounds, although I might be so ungentlemanly as to suggest that she probably can afford them. But she doesn't turn up her nose at regular offerings of scrambled eggs and lunch meat, so we're not too worried.

The biggest annoyance is that she's still drinking a lot more water than normal, which wouldn't be a problem except that what goes in must come out and she's getting up 2-3 times every night to go outside. That also wouldn't be a problem except that we don't have a doggie-door and one of us has to act as a doorman. Or, doorwoman as it happens to work out (I'm apparently a very sound sleeper...I've yet to be awakened by a piercing canine stare, something my wife in her infinitely greater sensitivity cannot claim).

So, there you have it...a complete update on our dog's recent medical history. Did I mention the almost $1,000 we've spent to get to this point? Of course I haven't; that, too, would be unchivalrous.

Disney/Pixar 2.0

Today's Wall Street Journal discusses the potential conflicts of interest if Steve Jobs lands on the Disney board of directors if the Disney acquisition of Pixar becomes a reality. As Apple becomes increasingly active as a provider/facilitator of entertainment content, the relationship of that company and Disney as competitors/collaborators/supply-chain-participants starts to get muddled.

The article states that most observers think that Jobs could handle the dual roles without problem, but that may not be within his control, depending on how high the wall is built to ensure arms-length objectivity. Jobs has apparently been able to limit his involvement at Pixar to true high-level management, while he continues to be an incredibly hands-on, detailed manager at Apple. There's no reason to think he couldn't do the same at Disney...except that he might find that he's not working with the same level of managerial and creative talent at Disney that he's got at Pixar, nor will the creative constraints be as loose.

One interesting footnote to this story is the revelation that Jobs's investment in Pixar is now worth $3.5 billion. He paid $10 million for Pixar in 1986.

Finally, in the wake of my rather tacky post last week about the potential acquisition of Pixar by Disney, I'm gratified to see that the WSJ's "Question of the Day" is "Which company stands to benefit more in a Disney-Pixar deal?" and, more to the point, 74% of the respondents think the deal will benefit Disney more than Pixar. I have no idea what planet the other 24% are logging in from.

Technorati tags: Disney | Pixar | Steve Jobs

Can we get a review of that call?

I'm not sure how I ended up at the official website of Super Bowl XL, but the headline caught my eye. "Vote for the best Super Bowl commercial of all time." Imagine my surprise when I found that the link led to a rather disappointing list of only about fifteen ads, and it hadn't been updated after the 2004 game.

I went back to the Super Bowl page to take another look at the linked story, to see if I'd missed something...which I had. The NFL apparently hasn't run spellcheck on their website since 2004 either.

And speaking of Super Bowl commercials (again), don't hold your breath to see another one from Go Daddy in this year's lineup. According to Go Daddy's website, they've now had ten submissions rejected by ABC (which is broadcasting the game). I'm sure our lives will be the poorer as a result.

Technorati tag: Super Bowl Commercials

Super Bowl Matchup

So it's going to be the Steelers vs. the Seahawks*. No offense to Jim and Jeff and the other Keystone Kompadres, but...<yawn>

I'm sure I'll liveblog the commercials again, though.

*I'm taking a rather insignificant leap of faith that Carolina won't come back to beat Seattle. If they do, however, consider my reaction to the next matchup as doubled in intensity.

Technorati tag: Super Bowl

The Gospel According to My Birthday

I'm sure this has been done somewhere in the blogosphere before now, but I stole appropriated the idea from emailed devotional of Berry Simpson, a Midland City Councilman and fellow church member. He decided to look up all the verses in the Bible that corresponded to his birthday, which happens to be June 23. So he went through Scripture and pulled out all the chapters 6 and verses 23 to see if they had anything special to tell him. According to his research, there were only 21 out of the 66 books that had a 6:23 and, frankly, he was a bit underwhelmed by what those 21 verses had to say, overall.

I still think it's an interesting exercise, but I decided to make it a little easier to carry out, so mine is limited to the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. My birthday is June 28 (close to Berry's), and here are the verses that correspond to that month and day.

Matthew 6:28:

Ah. A propitious start, with a pronouncement from the Messiah himself. Although he surely understands that I'm the last person he needs to caution about worrying about clothes, given my usual sartorial underachievement.

Mark 6:28:

OK, this one creeps me out. It refers of course to the beheading of John the Baptist at the behest of the revolting queen Herodias, a world class harpy.

Luke 6:28:

Another one from Jesus. Um, this one's a bit more meddlesome than the previous one, however.

John 6:28:

An interesting question posed to Jesus by a crowd which followed him around the Sea of Galilee. As usual, the answer is more simple than we expect: "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

What's the real point of this exercise? Well, it's whatever you want to read into it, but at the very least, it's an interesting excuse to do a little Scriptural searching that you might not otherwise undertake. So give it a try (I've already confirmed that every day of the year will be found in at least one of the Gospels, so nobody gets shut out).

Oh, and for a bonus, take a look at your birthday chapter and verse in the book of Revelation. I'd reveal mine to you, except I don't have one. Chapter 6 has only 17 verses.

Perhaps someone can point me to the Lost Verses of Revelation.

How to Die

As Jimmy said, it's OK to read this.

Look for God in the little things; you'll find Him.

Hacking for Christ

Gervase Markham is a young fellow living and working in the UK as a programmer and is a contributor to the Mozilla Foundation which has brought us the gift of Firefox, among other wonderful things. Gerv's geek dial is pegged to the right (and I mean that as a compliment). He's also a Christian, and his blog is entitled Hacking for Christ.

He apparently gets a lot of questions about the meaning of that title, and he's finally posted an explanation. It's a short and clever article, and I commend him for publishing it. It's a good reminder that no matter what gifts and talents we've been given, we can (and should) exercise them to the glory of the One Who bestowed them.

I just wish I understood more of Gerv's tech postings. ;-)

"Serenity" Redux

I liked "Serenity" plenty when last I saw it at the theater. But I've just watched it again on DVD and I've revised my opinion. This may be one of the least flawed sci-fi movies ever made. I rate it up there with Blade Runner, Star Wars and Jurassic Park.

There's almost nothing that doesn't ring true in Serenity, be it plot, f/x or dialog. Especially dialog. The odd cadence and juxtaposition of old west phrasing and the occasional Cantonese outburst just works, and I didn't realize how well until I watched the movie again.

Serenity is the movie that George Lucas somehow forgot how to make for a dozen years. Fortunately, we had Joss Whedon to stand in the gap.

Summer Glau still rocks. And I just realized that David Krumholtz (Mr. Universe) is the brainy cat in Numb3rs.

Technorati tags: Serenity

Shiira: Safari on Steroids?

Shiira is a relatively new open-source browser for Mac OS X under development by a Japanese project team. The team's goals are lofty:

The browser has some intriguing features including a tabbed sidebar (at what point do we become "over-tabbed," I wonder?) and a "tab Exposé" feature that allows you to view simultaneous thumbnails of all tabbed pages similar to the window-viewing capability of OS X's Exposé (at what point will Apple's legal department squash the reference to Exposé in this project?). Shiira also takes advantage of the enhanced graphics capabilities of Tiger's Core Image, incorporating it into a "page transition" effect that allows you move between windows with an actual page turning effect. It's undeniably cool, although its practical application is iffy.

I'm going to download and install the browser, even though I'm not running Tiger, just to see how it stacks up to Firefox (I never use Safari). If you're a Mac user and have installed Tiger, Shiira looks to be worth checking out.

Tip of the hat to William over at the elegantly designed and executed seaSons.

Technorati tags: Shiira Project | Safari

The Dummy's Guide to Ruining a Good Company

Step 1: Sell it to a bad one.

Step 2: There is no Step 2.

I'd be happy to entertain insights as to how this deal will enhance Pixar's creative capital and climate.

Technorati tags: Pixar | Disney | Execs Thrive; Employees Dive

Wonked Out

OK, I admit it. When I read this, I immediately thought this:

Yeah, like you didn't think the same thing?

Technorati tag: Chocolate City

Geico Gecko Redux

The fact that many of us are not impressed by the Cockney accent now sported by Geico's spokeslizard may come as a shock to the team that granted him that gift of speech. They seem to be quite proud of their handiwork.

Regardless of how you react to the news ads, you can't accuse the creators of slacking off during their creation:

I agree that the animation is impressive. But I can't help wondering if this is yet another case of "just because you can do something doesn't mean you should."

Technorati tags: Geico Gecko | Framestore CFC NY | Spokeslizards

Llano Estacado essay collection now online

Burr Williams's collection of more than 300 essays about the people, history and natural environment of the Llano Estacado (west Texas and eastern New Mexico) is now online at the Sibley Nature Center's website. He's placed them into a dozen or so categories within two major sections. "Wild on the Prairie" focuses on the plants, animals and ecology of the region while "Moseying" contains essays about the history and culture of "Los Llaneros" (i.e. those of us who live here).

The collection is searchable, making it easy to find information about specific organisms, towns or other natural phenomena. This could easily become one of the most important resources for research about this region, given Burr's ongoing and prolific documentation of an amazingly wide range of topics.

Technorati tags: Llano Estacado | Burr Williams | Sibley Nature Center

"The Brain Transplant was a Success"

The Wall Street Journal's technology editor, Walter Mossberg, has spent the past week testing Apple's new Intel-based iMac and reports that "the best consumer desktop PC on the market" has just gotten better.

Mossberg has become an enthusiastic Mac evangelist over the past few years, but that doesn't mean that he's not objective or well-informed. His product testing tends to mimic the way you and I might use a computer in our day-to-day routines, rather than setting up elaborate and esoteric benchmarking schemes that favor a preconceived outcome.

Thus, when he says that Rosetta, Apple's translator software that allows PowerPC software to run on the Intel CPU, works well and with no apparent performance hit, that's significant feedback that might even be the tipping point for someone on the bubble about buying a new Mac. (Actually, his exact quote is this: ...and any slowdowns it [Rosetta] imposed were so slight as to be indiscernible.

Mossberg says that the 2-4 times speed advantage over the previously Macs touted by Apple CEO and Chief Reality Distorter Steve Jobs was not seen in his "real world" tests, something that will surprise absolutely no one. However, he did observe some signficant improved performance in those applications which have been optimized for the Intel chip:

Mossberg's review of the new iMac is the clearest signal to-date that Apple has indeed taken a significant step to ensure the competitiveness of its computers for years to come.

Technorati tags: Rosetta | Walter Mossberg | Apple

"You're so vain, you probably think this book is about you."

The book I'm now reading is entitled "A Reader's Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose."

Let the fun begin.

50 Most Influential Christians

The good and wise folks who frequent The Thinklings are, by and large, put off by The Church Report's list of The 50 Most Influential Christians in America.

I don't understand most of their objections. It might be different if the list was titled "The 50 BEST Christians" or "The 50 Most THEOLOGICALLY CORRECT Christians" (sidenote: isn't it a shame that "theologically correct" would ever be an appropriate adjectival modifier for "Christian"?) or "The 50 Most EVANGELICAL Christians" (same sidenote applies) or even "The 50 BEST LOOKING Christians." One of the commenters felt that the list was deficient from a "truth-in-labeling" perspective, but in my estimation, it's spot on. It is what it says it is.

Look. We can argue until the cows come home about the meaninglessness of book sales or church membership numbers or crusade headcount or TV audience size or days per year on the lecture circuit but when it comes right down to it, all of those things are legitimate measurements of the potential for influencing people. Doesn't mean that the influence is good or bad, doctrinally correct or flawed. It simply means that these folks are being heard and seen and thus are influencing more people in our nation than anyone else you or I know personally, regardless of how saint-like our personal "heros of the faith" may be.

Of course, it may well be that the only reason the list was compiled to begin with is to generate some discussion. If so...mission accomplished!

Counting the Cost

Today's newspaper carries a review of End of the Spear written by one James Ward who is apparently the entertainment editor of the Visalia Times-Delta. I couldn't quickly locate the review online so there's no link. But Mr. Ward's odd perspective on this movie raises a couple of questions that bear further investigation, not the least of which is whether he has a clue about being a missionary of Christ.

In case you don't know, the recently-released End of the Spear is the story of five missionaries who were killed fifty years ago in the jungles of Ecuador by the tribesmen to whom they were attempting to bring the Gospel. I find it interesting that the release of End of the Spear comes so closely on the heels of a 2005 documentary about these events entitled Beyond the Gates of Splendor. In fact, when I first saw the trailer for Spear (which, by the way, I have not seen; don't worry...I don't intend to review it anyway ;-) I confused it for Splendor, so closely did the scenes of the two movies align.

Anyway, in his review of Spear James Ward remarks in a couple of places about what he views as bad behavior on the part of the murdered missionaries, referring to their behaviors as "reckless," "irresponsible" and -- apparently worst of all -- motivated by "hubris." How dare missionaries go into dangerous territory unarmed (in the physical sense), especially since they had families of their own? He was further aghast when the family members of the slain men attempt to make unarmed contact with the villagers. As he puts it, "...where are the folks from Child Protective Services when you need them?" (Oh, yes...that quote alone could keep us busy for days, couldn't it?)

So, is Ward right? Could it be that these missionaries were at best ill-prepared and at worst filled with a fatal pride and absolute lack of caring about their own loved ones? I have an idea; why don't we see what the Bible has to say about this.

In one of those fascinating "coincidences" that seem to happen so often, my daily Bible reading this morning was in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 10 (I love it when God allows me to do my research ahead of the question!). In this passage, Jesus is giving His disciples their marching orders for their first forays into the mission field. Wonder how He prepared and equipped them, physically and spiritually? Look no further than verses 9-20:

Gee. No handguns, nor even any hand-to-hand combat training. No provisions of any kind, for that matter. And He warned them not that they might encounter hostility, but that it would happen.

But what of their families? Jesus made it pretty clear that the cost of carrying the Gospel could get pretty high in a hurry. From verses 37-39, same chapter:

Those are harsh sounding words, and I don't think that Jesus was telling us that our families are unimportant...rather that there are more important things in life than, well, life. I'm pretty sure that James Ward doesn't have a full grasp of that subtlety. Thank God that men like Jim Elliott and Nate Saint and their fellow martyrs and families did because ultimately those who killed the men found God and forgiveness...and salvation.

As I mentioned earlier, I haven't seen Spear but we did watch Splendor (thanks to NetFlix) and I suspect that however well done the former is, it still won't match the impact of the latter. There's something about hearing the story told by those same family members who James Ward believes were recklessly left behind that makes you understand that there are, indeed, sacrifices worth making.

Technorati tags: End of the Spear | Beyond the Gates of Splendor

Real Life Intrudes

Busy Monday...real work and all that...some of it even pays!

Later...

Riding the Holy Ghoster Coaster

Julie is exercised over Pat Robertson's plans to build a "Christian theme park" in Israel, from which project, thankfully, Israel has withdrawn its approval in the wake of Robertson's unfortunate "judgment of God" pronouncement upon Ariel Sharon.

I share Julie's groaning dismay about such concepts, although I lack her ability to transfer that dismay into the written word. Anyway, toward the end of the post she hypothesizes about other off-the-wall theme parks. My favorite is the "Feng Shui Theme Park":

Perhaps the Unitarian Universalists could be persuaded to build an adjoining theme park, and it wouldn't matter which car you left in at the end of the day.

Jimmy's mom is home

Jimmy Patterson's mom is home at last, and enjoying a healthy mind and body.

Please remember those she temporarily leaves behind, as it's still hard on them.

Movie Review: "Glory Road"

Glory Road is a rarity: it's manipulative, formulaic and predictable. But it's also moving, suspenseful (sounds contradictory, doesn't it?) and satisfying. It's not a masterpiece, but it is the kind of film that lays to rest any argument that a movie has to be R-rated (or worse) to be smart, funny and thought-provoking. You can take your kids to this one, although it's got a couple of pretty intense scenes in it.

You probably know the story already. A new coach at a little-known Texas college puts the first all-black basketball team on the court, and changes the game forever. It's hard to believe that this occurred as recently as the mid-60s. And it's often extremely painful to watch and consider how we Americans treated each other back then (and to reflect on whether we've learned anything since). One IMDB reviewer commented that it works better as a movie than as a history lesson, because it plays fast and loose with a few facts here and there, but overall, it's a pretty decent retrospective of a time in history that wasn't our best as a nation. It's also an example of how something as simple as a basketball can be used to crack -- if not demolish -- some pretty thick and offensive barriers.

Go see Glory Road. If you find yourself in a theater full of people applauding at the end of the movie, as we did, don't be surprised if you also find that you're joining them.

Technorati tag: Glory Road

A little MSM fact-checking...

Midland got a mention this morning on Fox & Friends when the hosts discussed this report about an attempted purchase at a local Wal-Mart of a large number of disposable cell phones, and the investigation into possible ties between the would-be buyers and a terrorist cell in "the Metroplex" (which we all recognize as the Dallas-Fort Worth area).

Steve Doocy, one of the hosts, mentioned in passing that Midland/Odessa also "has a Metroplex" [sic], a comment which triggered my OCD and prompted me to fire off an email pointing out that we referred to ourselves as "the Petroplex" in recognition of our status within the oil and gas industry. The text of my short email:

I was, of course, motivated by the selfless desire to have strict accuracy in media reports, although if Fox News wished to display the Gazette's URL and describe it and its proprietor in glowing terms of adulation, well, that would be cool, too.

While the latter didn't happen (as far as I know; I had to run Abbye to the vet's office for a blood test), I did receive the following reply to my email within eight minutes after sending mine:

I can't decide whether Doocy needs additional correction or if he used that spelling intentionally so that I'd know that he knew the root reference of the term "Petroplex." What the heck; it's Friday...I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

But we're watching, boy-o...the bloggers are watching, and no detail is too arcane or insignificant to escape our eagle eyes.

Update: My wife just informed me that Fox did indeed correct its usage of "Metroplex" in relation to Midland/Odessa. Unfortunately, they corrected it to "Petrolplex" (as in Doocy's email) instead of "Petroplex." Given everything else going on in the world, that's close enough. I did what I could.

One sign that your tech support call will likely end badly...

...is when the voice on the other end of the line asks meekly, "would you spell 'Texas' for me, please?"

Anecdote relayed by one of our local city councilpersons as he confesses to sending his Treo 600 through one wash cycle and two rinse cycles. I feel your pain, amigo.

CNOOC Buys Nigerian Oilfield; Credits "Lucky Email"

The Chinese National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) is reporting that it will spend $2 billion to buy a Nigerian oilfield, and credits the receipt of a fortuitous email with giving the company a leg up on the competition.

A CNOOC spokesman said that the availability of the deal came to the attention of the company when one of its vice-presidents, Yao-Zha Wie, received an email from the wife of a recently deceased assistant oil minister in the Nigerian government. "We were extremely lucky to have opened that email, and we immediately recognized that this was a unique opportunity to not only enter into CNOOC's largest acquisition to-date, but to also provide some badly needed help to a grieving widow," said the spokesman. Further, he said, it simply made financial sense. "The 'urgent business relationship' sought by Mrs. Mukombe is precisely the kind of proposal that meets our investment criteria."

The deal is scheduled to close next week in Amsterdam, as soon as CNOOC officials can get a cashier's check and Google the location of the hotel specified in the email message.

According to a company press release, this transaction will provide a boost not only for CNOOC but for the nation as a whole. "We feel confident that this will prove to the world that China can hold its own in the global marketplace."

Insiders have noted that CNOOC is now evaluating similar proposals from Dubai and the Ivory Coast, although the company will not confirm this, presumably to stave off competition.

Technorati tags: CNOOC | Nigerian Email Scams | Satire

Clueless? Humorless? We report...you decide.

A couple of days ago I watched Galaxy Quest during my treadmill session. You no doubt remember the movie, one of the more entertaining comedies of 1999, starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman. Anyway, the plot centers around the plight of an alien civilization -- the Thermians, who are cute and cuddly in an alien sort of way -- which is being threatened with extinction by another alien civilization, who are butt-ugly in a spiky Klingon sort of way.

The Thermians come to earth to plead with Allen's character to help them, believing that he is actually the character in a long-canceled Star Trek-like TV show, the transmissions of which they intercepted in deep space and have labeled "The Historical Records." The Thermians don't recognize the transmissions as entertainment; they have no concept of irony, sarcasm, satire, etc.

Well, have I got a scoop for you, worthy of the National Enquirer: the Thermians are alive and well, on earth of all places. And wouldn't you know it? They're on LiveJournal.

Alert Gazette readers will recall this post as the context for, um, this post.

Say what?

Couple of real life examples as reminders of how the little things are important in making sure your message is getting across...

• The TV commercial is for a headache relief medication that you apply directly to your foreheard (anyone remember the DMSO fad in the late 70s?). The female voiceover at the end declares the product to be "safe and effective," except that because of some dubious elocution, I hear "safe an defective." Ooh. Might want to consider flipping the adjectival order next time.


• A headline in this morning's business section reads "Oil prices march upward in spite of rising stocks." That seems odd to me, since everyone knows that oil prices are not affected by stock prices -- it's the other way around, so the headline should really be "Stock prices increase despite rising oil prices" (which was indeed the case yesterday). I had to read a few lines of the article to realize that "stocks" in this case meant "supply." While I'm sure that someone more rhetorically gifted than me (calling David Foster Wallace) could describe the distinction between the two words and why the former really is the correct one in this situation, I suspect I'm not the only one who will be briefly misled by the headline.

Note to self: Humility in all things...you're gonna need it.

The View From the Top (of the Ant Mound)

Just noticed that a visitor came to the Gazette after asking Jeeves How does the fire ant interact with the rest of creation around it?.

I hope he or she went away thinking "quite well, actually" or something to that effect.

Top 10 Fonts of 2005

As I've mentioned previously, I could spend all my disposable income at MyFonts.com, which is ideally designed for giving type junkies a fix.

MyFonts.com has just released its "Top 10 Fonts of 2005" based on sales, but it was wise enough not to use absolute sales numbers (can you say "Helvetica"?) but instead to choose the best seller in each of ten categories plus some editorial discretion. There are some great choices in the list (click on the links to see font samples; tacky and/or inane parenthetical observations are, sadly, mine):

• Best San Serif: Elektra (Lousy movie; cool font)


• Best Serif: Esta (When Times Roman just won't cut it (as if it ever did))


• Best Antiqued: Garfield (As in "the president," not "the cat")


• Best Floral Deco: Bodoni Classic Deco (More flourishes than a night at the Tonys)


• Best Comic: Grilled Cheese (There's something slightly askew about this font, not unlike my sense of humor.)


• Best Cursive Rough Script: Baka (Bold and artful, with just a whiff of insouciance)


• Best Grunge Poster: Kab (The only way to publicize your next doof doof rave.)


• Best Brush Script: Qwigley ROB (Umm...I dunno; looks a lot like Mistral to me.)


• Best Calligraphic: Pendulum (All I can see now is bunny ears.)


• Best Grunge Script: Chato Band (Because even bangers sometimes have to write thank-you notes)

Lileks + Midland = Kismet

As if we needed any additional confirmation that James Lileks was born to live in west Texas:

No Peak Oil theorist he. Deep down inside, we're all hopeful abiogenicists down here. Move toward the dust light, James, move toward the light.

Technorati tags: Lileks | Where's the Living's Easy and the Birds are Clean

Book Review: "Consider the Lobster"

Update: For a more interesting and knowledgeable review of this book, with the not inconsequential advantage of brevity, go here.

N.B. -- Owing to the unjustifiable length of and certain peculiarities in the layout of this post, I've elected to shift everything "below the fold," so to speak. Just click the "Continue" link below if you dare. And if you're coming here via any route other than the Gazette's main page, this makes absolutely no sense. Which, I suppose, is fine preparation for what follows.

I think there are two basic reasons why people read a collection of unrelated non-fiction essays.¹ The first is that they believe that the topics of the essays in general are interesting, if not interrelated. The second is that they enjoy the writing of the author, regardless of the topic. I suspect that not infrequently the latter reason supplants the former, and that is indeed the case with me² and Consider the Lobster, a recently-published compilation of ten essays by David Foster Wallace.

None of these essays was penned just for this collection; each was previously published in national periodicals, including Gourmet, Rolling Stone, Atlantic Monthly and Harper's, with publication dates ranging from 1997 to 2005. The diversity of the subject matter is not surprising as it coincides with the equally diverse venues for original release.

Here's a quick synopsis of each essay, in the order in which they appear in the book:

• The Big Red Son – This is an exposé³ of what goes on behind the scenes at the Adult Video News Awards, which is the porn industry's equivalent to the Academy Awards. Also includes coverage of the Adult Software exhibition, which in 1998 was one of the venues of the International Consumer Electronics Show. I'm pretty sure that the CES no longer is associated with said exhibition.
  
  I'm not sure why this article, written for Premier, was chosen as the lead-off, but I thought I would have to toss the book if it exemplified the rest of the essays. Fortunately, it didn't, but I can assure you that Wallace's graphic descriptions of the industry and its participants are just as sordid and offensive as the acts the industry peddles.⁴


• Certainly the End of Something or Other, One Would sort of Have to Think – This 1998 review of John Updike's Toward the End of Time was as yawningly uninteresting⁵ as the previous essay was offensive. Strike two.


• Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed – Apart from the title, this 1999 exploration of Franz Kafka's⁶ use of humor left me searching for the TV remote control. Strike 2.5.


• Authority and American Usage – Just when I was about to give it up as a lost cause, this absolute jewel of an essay pops into view. It's another book review -- although only in the way that King Kong is a story about a monkey -- and for yet another relatively non-mainstream publication: Bryan A. Garner's A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. Wallace waxes rhapsodic in his admiration for Garner's work, but the article is really just a jumping off point for a broader discussion: who decides which words appear in the dictionary, and which combinations of words represent proper usage? If you love to write, or have a love of the written word, this essay will educate and entertain⁷ you, even though it's something of a slog due to the author's stylistic eccentricities (more about these later). This article alone is worth the price of admission.


• The View from Mrs. Thompson's – Written in 2001, this is an account of the author's and his neighbors' reactions to the events of 9/11 from his then-home in Bloomington, Indiana. If you're from any coastal metropolitan area, his observations might be enlightening, but those of us living in "the Heartland" won't be particularly edified, because we've already lived them.



• How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart – Wallace was a gifted young tennis player, by his own account, and it's natural that he should, well, have a thing for other gifted young tennis players. In this essay, he reviews Tracy Austin's autobiography, against his better judgment, and finds it to be lacking in almost every important respect. But in analyzing his disappointment with the book -- and with athletes' autobiographies in general -- he discusses the interesting possibility that some of the very attributes that make them successful in their careers also doom their attempts to describe in any entertaining and enlightening ways those successes after the fact.


• Up, Simba⁸ – Rolling Stone hired Wallace to tag along with John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. It's hard not to draw some comparisons with Hunter S. Thompson's coverage of Nixon's and McGovern's 1972 campaigns (did RS also commission that work?), but Wallace manages not to totally don the gonzo journalist's persona even though he obviously tailors the story to the perceived Rolling Stone demographic (young, cynical, politically apathetic). He never explicitly reveals his own political leanings, although his repeated references to George W. Bush as "Shrub" probably gives us a clue. However, he was obviously smitten by McCain's perceived forthrightness and work ethic.


• Consider the Lobster – Wallace was engaged by Gourmet to cover the 2004 Maine Lobster Festival. He spends much of his time dwelling on the question of whether lobsters feel pain when being boiled alive, and extends his musings to the deaths of higher-ordered creatures to fulfil American culinary demands. One wonders how the editors of Gourmet received this essay. Wallace also muses on the necessary evil that is tourism: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing. Chambers of commerce must love him.


• Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky – Had this fallen nearer the top of the table of contents, it would likely have been strike three and I'd have abandoned the book. I've never read anything by Dostoevsky⁹, and for that simple reason I'm not intrigued by the breadth or depth of Frank's five volume project about the "life, times and writing" of Mr. D. Wallace, for the record, is quite impressed. With Frank's books, not with my literary lightweightedness, that is. Although, admittedly, that's just a guess.


• Host – This essay appear in Atlantic Monthly in 2005 and is an insider look at life as a conservative talk-radio host. It focuses on a well-traveled (a euphemism for a guy who seems to have trouble hanging onto a gig) man named John Ziegler¹⁰, who at the time of the article was hosting a weeknight show on KFI-AM in Southern California. There's plenty of interesting stuff here about radio personalities, of both on-air and support varieties, as well as some engaging discussion about exactly why conservative talk radio is so successful while its liberal counterpart is floundering (to put it mildly): ...the single biggest reason why left-wing talk radio experiments like Air America or the Ed Schultz program are not likely to succeed, at least not on a national level, is that their potential audience is just not dissatisfied enough with today's mainstream new sources to feel that they have to patronize a special type of media to get the unbiased truth.

So, those are the essays. Three are excellent, three were passably interesting, three are deathly dull to this literary philistine and I found one to be incredibly offensive. But setting aside the individual works for a moment, there are a few things about the author's style and the way the book is marketed that mystify me.

The publisher is marketing this book as a collection of hilarious essays. Now, it's true that Wallace has a droll and often self-deprecating sense of humor, but he's no Dave Barry. I'll cop to the occasional snicker, and even a chuckle or two (primarily when he's poking fun at SNOOTs in Authority and American Usage but if you buy this book expecting to get the text equivalent of, say, Calvin and Hobbes, you'll be sorely disappointed.

And what's with the footnotes, amigo?¹¹ If you read the review from Publisher's Weekly on the Amazon.com link at the top of this overwrought post, you'll see what I'm referring to. Wallace has no qualms about footnoting his footnotes, and adding parenthetical interventions to the footnoted footnotes, with the unfortunate publishing effect of requiring 6 point type that will likely be illegible to half the reading population...not to mention the havoc that the technique wreaks upon continuity. But, it gets worse, as he introduces a footnoting technique in Host that causes the reader to wonder if whatever she was previously eyeballing has suddenly been replaced with a copy of, like, The American Journal of Flowcharting. If you're having trouble visualizing what I mean, click on the little thumbnail image at right. Those things that look like proofreader's marks are actually pseudo-footnotes and quasi-parenthetical comments. Sure, they beat 6 point type, but not by much. In addition to the challenges this eccentric affectation presents to the reader, there's at least one obvious practical implication: how the heck do they translate this non-linear presentation into an audiobook?

Finally (hold your applause), the author's command of English vocabulary (well, you can throw Latin in there, too) is intimidating (yes, it was this book that gave rise to this post). I suppose I should feel embarassed at having to look up words like psephology, prolegomenous, bruit and apsidal but frankly, after finding out what they mean, I contend there would have been no shame in the author's using more simple substitutes. (Except for psephology...there's no easy one-word synonym for this sociological term. What? Look it up yourself; I'm not running a grammar school here.) But I'll admit that while those and the other couple score or so unfamiliar words that were scattered through the essays made them temporarily less readable (and me more neurasthenic and luxated, to the point of being in a swivet), the time I spent adding to my education was probably worthwhile.

In the end, this is a book for those who love reading the English language when it's made to bend absolutely to the writer's will. Whether any of the topics of any of the essays interest you is almost beside the point; Wallace crafts words in such exquisite fashion as to make you either want to quit writing completely, or renew your attempts to gain a similar mastery.

¹ Well, I suppose this is probably true for any book. [return]
² Although in this case, there's a third reason: I was given the book for review purposes by my delightfully perspicacious Book Angel at Time Warner Book Group, Miriam Parker. [return]
³ Pun intended; boy, is it ever. [return]
⁴Yes, I'm making a moral judgment. If you're new here, well, that's what I do. If you're not, then you're not suprised. [return]
⁵It did have the somewhat redeeming characteristic of being enthusiastically negative about Updike's book. It's always fun to see one writer trash another's work. [return]
⁶I'm pretty sure Kafka never spent much time with, say, Mel Brooks. It's also worth noting, by the way, that Wallace is inordinately fond of the word "funniness." In his defense it is, well, fun to mouth sotto vocelly while reading. [return]
⁷If only by requiring you to assess whether or not you are a SNOOT. [return]
⁸The essay title comes from an obscure reference to a piece of broadcasting equipment that plays no major role in the story. [return]
⁹If that revelation shreds the last iota of I had as a reviewer of books, so be it. [return]
¹⁰Ziegler's still there. [return]
¹¹Makes more sense to you now, doesn't it? [return]

Technorati tags: Consider The Lobster | David Foster Wallace | Book Reviews | Time Warner Book Group

Lame Lacertilian Linguistics

Say, am I alone in thinking that giving the Geico Gecko a voice is a bad idea?

Just because the AFLAC Duck has garnered worldwide notoriety with his vocalizations doesn't mean that the Gecko is deficient by comparison. After all, he's got nothing left to prove. And although geckos are the only lizards which, in life outside of television, actually have "voices," do we really need that kind of realism in our advertising?

And, pray tell, why the British accent? (Is it Cockney? It's been too long since I watched My Fair Lady.) Geico's an American company, and I'm wondering if the UK even has geckos.

It's all very confusing and not a little disturbing, akin to the metaphorical mustache on the Mona Lisa.

Technorati tag: Geico Gecko

Apple Powerbook: The King is Dead; Long Live the King

It's official: Apple has announced the first shipping models of its Intel-powered computers, beginning with its newest top-of-the-line notebook, the MacBook Pro. I can't tell you how much I loathe that name, evocative as it is of golden arches, nor how badly I want one!

Think the "Megahertz Myth" was just a defensive marketing gimmick? Try this on for size. The new MacBooks are powered by a chip called the Intel Core Duo. It's clocked at an apparently pedestrian 1.83 GHz. But because of its architecture (essentially two processors on the same chip, plus ample amounts of cache, a speedy frontside bus and fast RAM), Apple's claiming a 400% increase in speed over it Motorola-powered G4 PowerBook running at 1.67 GHz.

There's too much about the new computer for me to grasp, let alone describe. The big question mark is, of course, will any of my programs run on it? The move to Intel chips requires some adjustments to software, and not all vendors have made those adjustments or even the commitment to make them. In the meantime, Apple is including an emulator called Rosetta which is supposed to allow PowerPC-optimized software to run on the Intel models, but I haven't seen any benchmarks as to how efficient this process is in real life.

Apple's taking orders for the new MacBook (as well as for an Intel iMac), but shipping isn't expected until next month.

As a not insignificant footnote, as far as I can tell from the photos on Apple's website, there is not an "Intel Inside" sticker on the machine.

Technorati tags: Apple | Intel | MacBook Pro

"The Book of Daniel"

If you, like me, didn't catch the premier of the "controversial" new NBC-TV show The Book of Daniel, and also, like me, were treated to a number of negative reviews which, ironically, came from people who also didn't see the show, you might want to see what Deb -- who did see the show -- thought about it.

Technorati tags: The Book of Daniel

Another Dodge Muscle Car?

The 2006 edition of the North American International Auto Show takes place this week and as usual we'll be treated to some tantalizing glimpses into a possible future for car enthusiasts.

One of the concepts on display is Dodge's re-casting of the Challenger, which in its original incarnation was manufactured from 1971-74. It was offered in several engine configurations but the Big Kahuna, in terms of power, sported a 425 horsepower 426ci Hemi.

The photo shown below is actually a 1970 T/A model (stands for "Trans Am," of course), which had a smaller but still pretty powerful engine.

Dodge's new concept features a 6.1 liter 425 hp Hemi V8 with a 6-speed manual transmission that will go 0-60 in 4.5 seconds, and turn a quarter mile in 13 seconds, according to this report. But what's most appealing to me is that they've managed to capture the essence of the styling of the original vehicle, something they missed badly on with the Dodge Charger. Here's the new Challenger concept:

All it lacks is a shaker hood scoop, and it's good to go. Here's hoping that Dodge doesn't let the suits override the designers and engineers in bringing this one to the market.

Technorati tags: Dodge Challenger | International Auto Show

The Terror Alert may be at yellow...

...but the ice cream alert should be red (with a bullet).

The supermarket where we do most of our shopping is completely out of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream, every variety.

I could hear wailing and gnashing of teeth all over the store. It was, of course, me.

This is a disaster of epic proportions.

And 11 Coaches Lift an Audible Prayer of Thanksgiving

Vince Young is going pro.

OK, make that twelve coaches. I'm sure USC doesn't want to face him again.

Ten Years of Concealed Carry in Texas

I don't have a concealed carry permit for a handgun, although MLB and I have recently discussed the idea of taking the course that would qualify us for one. I don't feel a great need (well, any need, to be accurate) to carry a gun on my person 99.9% of the time, and I haven't concocted any good solution as to how, exactly, I might go about concealing a 2.5 pound .357 revolver with a 6" barrel, short of investing in one of those dusters that would result in my looking even goofier than usual. But we do occasionally find ourselves out in the middle of nowhere on our bicycle, and the ability to pack a small pistol in those situations offers some not inconsequential reassurance.

But almost a quarter of a million of my fellow Texans have availed themselves of this privilege since it became available a decade ago, and it's interesting to read about the perceived effects of the concealed carry legislation since its adoption.

There's this:

And this:

And, finally, this:

Frankly, I'm a bit skeptical that concealed carry by 1% of the population should get the credit for the statistical drop in crime, and I would also argue -- with respect to the second quote above -- that those who are predisposed to commit violent crimes are also probably not going to fret too much about whether they're carrying their SNSs legally or not. But the point to be understood is that while concealed carry may or may not have made things safer in Texas, it surely hasn't made them less safe. The daily bloodbaths predicted by opponents to the measure simply haven't materialized, and the linked article provides several quotes from people originally opposed to the legislation who now admit they were wrong.

I don't know if we'll ever follow through on our discussion, but it would be a good excuse to buy one of these.

Technorati tag: Concealed Handguns | Crime Statistics

Significant GOM Production Still Shut-in

The situation isn't getting a lot of press but the Minerals Management Service reports that almost 27% of oil production and almost 19% of natural gas production from the Gulf of Mexico is still shut-in due to damage inflicted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That's more than 400,000 barrels of oil per day and almost 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day that's not making it to US refiners or into the nation's gas distribution system.

Fortunately, it's been a mild winter and natural gas prices actually closed at a four-month low yesterday, although both crude and natural gas are up today.

The MMS issues twice-weekly status reports on the shut-in production in the GOM, if you're interested in tracking the industry's progress in getting things back online.

Strange Bedfellows

The word for the day is "irony," and it applies in many layers to the apparent agreement between Pat Robertson, who needs no introduction (unfortunately) and a "a radical Palestinian leader in Damascus" named Ahmed Jibril. Each is claiming that Ariel Sharon's stroke and likely impending death is a direct result of God's judgment on the man, the only difference being that Pat thinks it's because Sharon gave up too much of Israel and Ahmed thinks it's because he gave up too little.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), neither pronouncement should come as a surprise, and neither should be attributed any more significance than the utterances of your favorite comic strip character. Although, now that I think about it, I seem to fin