July 2007 Archives

[13:06] maury_cohen: isn't september in the fall?
[13:06] coworker: dude your seasons perception is totaly off
[13:07] maury_cohen: this is becuse i grew up where we had only one season
[13:07] maury_cohen: well, two
[13:07] maury_cohen: we had
[13:07] maury_cohen: the HOT season
[13:08] maury_cohen: and the FUCKING HOT OH MY GOD season

a great interview with the man responsible for ruining air travel.

my favorite quote so far:

"If the TSO throws your liquids in the trash, they don't find you a threat."

if you're not a threat, then why did they throw your liquid away??

also good:

"In the meantime, we have begun using hand-held devices that can recognize threat liquids through factory-sealed containers"

what? factory-sealed bomb containers?

An idea for a new miracle breakfast cereal, what cures cancer, baldness, impotence, bowel obstructions, and deafness. Also de-spoils spoiled milk and cleans your silverware while you eat. Sharpens the eyesight and improves the breath, and so much more.

PLACEB-O's breakfast cereal.

Coming soon to a grocery store near you.

Also, keep an eye out for new PLACEB-O's spaghetti-like dinner in a can.

Regardless of any pretensions towrds "art", Korn is knuckledragging MookRock for rural meth-tards.

As I stared into the mirror, for a brief moment, for an eternity nearly too quick to notice, but too intense to ignore, I was what always was and what always will be.

I wonder now why it is that I spend so much time looking in mirrors, and why, so often, I think and write about them. The mirror holds a separated reality, a hyper-reality where not only has everything translated to the place where it should be, but the center of that translation, the center of that universe, is me myself. In the mirror, I see the strangest image of all, the image that will always escape me otherwise, the one thing that my eyes will never by themselves see, myself.

But that is not what I saw that day, when, unbidden, I experienced Oblivion. For a moment then, I saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing. For a moment, I was No-thing. For free and without trying (much less wanting) it, I got what every serious student of meditation, drugs, religion, and pornography is looking for: a sneak peek at the next life. And like a good American, I let it change me not one whit. Though for the tiniest of intervals I experienced perhaps the greatest terror of my life, the total absence of all things, including myself, it passed quickly enough that I was not forced to confront it. In passing, it was easily put aside, and I chose, in my own sly nod to free will, to ignore it until later.

In the mirror, I can see all that I know. Everything not shown is hearsay. I lock eyes with myself, and we can agree that I exist. I can reach no such consensus elsewhere. Yet even this is false.

For several weeks after my experience, I had recurrences, sometimes within sight of a mirror, and sometimes not. Each time it happened, I was quick to put the universe, in its fullness without me, out of my mind. I am convinced of little, held to even fewer convictions, but stand bound by the conclusion that of all things that are a waste of time to ponder, nothing tops speculations of what lies beyond this life.

self.help = None # ain't that the truth!

way back when, in the olden days, when i did solo hikes, i found myself once challenged by the challenge of how many phrases i could construct that began with "when in doubt" and ended in a meaningful, rhyming suggestion for how to deal with doubt. this endeavour was inspired, no doubt, by a breakfast-time encounter with spoilt milk, which surely (i'm speculating here, because my memory isn't that sharp) would have brought to mind the maxim: when in doubt, throw it out.

here are some of the others that i came up with:
when in doubt, scream and shout
when in doubt, flail about
when in doubt, frown and pout

and so on

but of course, it wasn't until this very afternoon when i came up with the most useful remedy of all:

when in doubt, drink my stout

according to the calendar in my office on what i worked out my lift-400-by-november progression scheme, i was sposed to do 5x335 last week and 5x340 this week. instead, i somehow did 5x340 last week (a pr, huzzar) and this week, based on the difficulty of last week, "reset" the progression to 330 (which i made, despite my failure to lift 390).

somehow i got ahead. my undisciplined rush to 390 is probably to blame for my failure to make 390.

this reminds me of a favorite story from my youth. once upon a time, i was younger and i thought maybe i'd become a monk of some sort and live in a monastery. instead, i went to college and didn't speak to anyone for about 10 years. i got the monastic experience and a BS in CS, like a double feature of wasted time. now, I have an affinity for Rochefort, which is brewed by actual monks. Coincidence??

You decide.

fucking blog spammers!

nobody reads my postings, who's gonna read your stupid spam?

i had a bit of a rough weekend, and it seems that the oncoming week is shaping up to be a bit rough as well. but first, because i'm a positive guy, a word on a few bits of encouragement i got over the weekend.

if i had to pick one word to describe the sphere of my life and influence, and now i do have to because of the setup right there, it would have to be "small". because i don't know a lot of people, and because i rarely get invited to social events, and because i even more rarely attend the ones i get invited to, i don't get a lot of feedback on the sort of things that the sort of people who go to those sorts of things get feedback on. like, for instance, whether it's a party foul to end a sentence in a preposition, or a proposition, for that matter, which, of course, while a nice little pun, brings to mind a whole unproductive train of thought.

so enough of that, i'm too tired, hot, and beset by allergies for unproductive trains of thought. so i'm switching trains (oh, damn youse, mind and memory! there it is again): i got a little tiny bit of feedback over the weekend, by way of two separate occasions, on the quality of my beer. in the past, i'd gotten compliments, ranging from the sort that i like (i.e. experienced beer drinkers who claimed that mine was pretty good) to the sort that i didn't like (i.e. experienced beer slummers who claimed that my beer #2 was good because it reminded them of bud lite, which is their favorite beer). but in general, everyone who tried it said it was pretty good, to very good, to great. i, in fact, like all of my beers to varying degrees (except #2 because it probably *does* taste like bud). but i reckoned that folks were just being polite.

the weekend afforded me the opportunity to sample the efforts of multiple homebrewers. because i'm the kind of guy who prefers to watch opportunities march on by rather than stop them to shake their hands, i sampled, out of "many", exactly two. it's quite possible that of the "many", there were "quite a few" that were good, but of the exactly two that i did try, exactly zero of them were on the good side of "awful".

one was a "belgian wit". now, i admit that i am no expert on the style, having had only one that i know of, and having forgotten its name. however, the one name-forgotten one that i have had, had an abundance of orange peel and coriander and wheat and malt and was overall a delightful experience. it was also a commercial beer, but that's no excuse.

the homebrew version that i had was sour (which, i understand, may be true to style), astringent (which is the one unforgivable beverage sin in my book), and overall just plain yucchy (which is not true to style). now, i don't claim to have the ability to brew a better wit, but i do claim to have the good sense not to share my embarrassingly bad beer with people who know what good beer tastes like.

the other'n was a pretty bad stout with whose creator i had the fortune of conversing. this was encouraging on two fronts: his explanation for its wildly inappropriate hoppiness proved that while i know very little about brewing, there are people who brew yet know very littler than i.

so that was swell. i make goodish beer, it seems, and it's not just that people are polite, it seems to be a fact that there's stuff out there, even in the world of homebrew where quality is supposed to be higher, that sucks a lot more than mine. and it will stay that way, because some folks have no idea how to fix what makes it bad (the stout hopster surmised that his product was too bitter and overwhelmingly aromatically hoppy because he'd pushed the boilover crud back into the boil (i double checked: he didn't mean he pushed the kreusen back into the fermenter), and further, he claimed that he didn't like how "this bottle came out", which could only mean that he dry hopped this bottle individually, with maybe 3oz of magnum, then filtered it, recapped, recarbonated, chilled, and served it to us).

so there you have it. i'm better than some folks. yay me.

unfortunately, i'm not better than the me of last week. failed again at 390, then proceeded to fail at 385 (no surprise there).

thinking back upon my lifting career, the pattern is clear. it goes a little something like this:
lift
lift
make progress
make great progress
make more progress
get too enthusiastic, skip a natural progression step
lose some enthusiasm but not too much
fail again at the same poundage
take 2 weeks off
start over

and always, the big question is: what means "start over"?

my current routine has been wildly successful, but clearly it's reached its limit. so after my rest, do i resume where i left off? do i go for broke and attempt 400? do i drop poundage and continue in a progression? do i change the workout?

i'm not sure, but i guess i've got two weeks to figure it out.

didn't there used to be a chin under there?

now that's something.

evidently, trip to visit in-laws in mo = restful
trip to visit parents in socal = stressful

wait, scratch "evidently", that should have been obvious.

i made a pr with my two sets of five, but as soon as i was strapped in to my 390 (yep, 390, even though i was only supposed to do 385. here's the reasoning: anyone can deadlift 10lbs, that's super easy even for a 5 year old. i can deadlift 380, so if i can do that and 10lbs is easy, i can do 390 no problem. also, if i was going to do 385 anyhow, 390 is just 5 more than that, so it should be, again, easy.) i forgot how to deadlift. that's how i know i'm not going to make it, when i'm all poised and ready to go and i can't remember just how it was that i had planned to lift all that.

two attempts later i figured it was time to quit. next time, i guess.

those desert-swollen tonsils probably didn't help, nor did the bay-area allergyruns. so many hurdles. fortunately, november is a long way off.

somebody cleaned my keyboard while i was out.

with alcohol wipes, or something. it hasn't been this clean in years.

they got the mouse, too. thanks, i guess.

those folks hiking the dog poop trail when it's cool aren't my people.

those folks up there with us today when it was 95F and sunny, those are my people.

the ones with no water bottles.

it's not always "like i said", sometimes it's bewilderment that everyone else doesn't see things his (delusional) way.

exploding bottles!

well, just one. back when we had the wedding, the wedding brew foamed out of our guests' bottles. at the time, we thought it was just because they'd been shaken up in transit (the beer, not the guests).

later, one gushed at home: having sat unmolested in a closet for a month. clearly this was not a matter of perturbation. i talked to my homebrew buddies and they suspected infection or premature bottling. i favor the latter theory since the beer tastes just fine.

inspecing the bottles revealed that the cap dimples had popped, indicating overpressurization. for safety, i moved many of the questionable bottles into a big plastic storage thingy lined with a garbage bag.

last night as i was accessing the beer closet, i smelled a funk. a funky funk, more funky than a marky-mark. i sniffed and snuffed and poked around, and lifted the lid of my secure beer tank. fwooosh! it was clearly the source of the funk.

we removed the tank and lo and behold, an exploded bottle lay inside, and the cardboard separaters were soaked through. we moved several of the worst looking poptops into the fridge, securely wrapped, with the idea that chilling would reduce explosion risk. finally, we moved the rest out to the livings room to remind us to drink them.

how fun!

i dont listen to many speeches by our current potus. but he's on the radio right now and i've finally put my finger on what-it-is about his speech pattern: every sentence is followed by an unspoken but implicit "just like i told you!"

"in the supplemental blah blah congress blah blah full report by september the blah blah my cabinet submitted an interim report" -- just like i told you!

it's a "why weren't you listening to my important words?" "just like i told you". it's a "look mommy, i made a sentence and you missed it!" "just like i told you". it's a "i did a logics, karl!" "just like i told you".

it's irritating and it always has been.

way back when it was easy to brew. get my DME, a bit of hops, some water, and fire up the electric stove. 3 hours later I was pitched, cleaned, and ready for a 2 week wait.

now it's weeks of planning, tons of equipment, tons of effort, and a long-ass wait for fermentation to stop.

small batches are coming. i'm gonna figure out stovetop all-grain for small test batches. that will rule.

today was 380 day, and in the interest of avoiding suspense, i'll reveal now that I made it. right next to the "PR" in my notebook I wrote "kinda hard". it was indeed kinda hard, unlike last week's 375.

still, encouraged by last Friday's bench press PR, I went ahead and added a fiver on top of that and bench pressed 260 for a PR. this is the first time i've bench pressed on a monday since i began this rush to 400, and only the second time i've bench pressed in the last month or so.

i can't say that this was the hardest workout i've ever done, but it was certainly the most record-shaking -- a DL PR and a BP PR and two DL sets of five at my current recorded max. but that's nothing compared to next week, when i'll have to do 385 plus a BP PR (why not?) plus two PR sets of five. and then, rest.

speaking of which, this resting stuff is really great. true, my size 36 pants are all getting a very long rest, but in the meantime, i'm kinda jazzed that i picked up a bar and BPed a record just out of the blue, more or less.

the last time I tried a powerlifting routine, two or three or four years ago, i can't recall exactly, i did a round of sheiko's beginner program, which translates to high volume workouts three times a week. at the end of it i tried for 260 in the BP and failed, then tried 250 and was too tired from the 260 to make it. i did manage a 325DL at that time, but the point is this: by focusing on one lift and getting enough rest (and, clearly, food) i've managed to progress automagically in another lift.

i plan, on the day that i make my 400, to go for 1000+ combined. that means DL, BP, and squat. since my 400 is (supposedly) only 4 weeks away now, sometime in the next week or two i'm going to have to try my hand (er... legs and back) at the squat again so that 400 day isn't the first time in a year i've done one.

i love youse guys, but i can't stick youse with a plastic fork! how shall i eats my lunch??

i wonder why i get this?

is it sunburn related? is it an insect bite? is it accumulated histamines? wtf? it sucks.

what's next?

xkcd said it better than me

yesterday on the radio i heard a retired police commissioner, of pittsburgh, i think it was, who said that after the events of the last week, wherein UK CCTV cameras led to the capture of the terrorists that tried to blow up an airport in scotland, he, the retired commissioner, had changed his stance on the police use of video cameras. in 2001 he was not a fan, but now, he says, he is much in favor of them.

this i heard in close proximity to a lengthy discussion of the life and deeds of alexander hamilton, who, if i recall my civics lessons, was a supporter of a strong federal government. he and i would have disagreed on a number of things, but i suspect we could have shared a beer and a laugh, if indeed he were the sort of guy to share a laugh, which, by all accounts related yesterday, he was not.

later that day, on the same radio station, i caught parts of an interview with an architect working on monuments in our nation's capital. he said he took inspiration from greek and roman architecture, and used that inspiration to build monuments to democracy.

i find that any excuse for a little thinking is a good excuse, and as i watched fireworks last night in celebration of our revolution against imperialism, i thought for a bit. after all, what good is a holiday if it's just an escape from a day of work? an escape from a day of work is as simple as a letter of resignation. a day of thought and reflection is a bit harder.

hamilton and i part ways on the role of central government, and possibly on the role of government itself. we may have disagreed even on the pointfulness of bothering to spend ones life in the endeavour of setting up a government. but yesterday, listening to the blather on taxpayer radio, i think he and i would have been saddened alike.

we, as a people, our former imperial masters included (and leading the way), have decided that we wish to have a society that is structured for the convenience of the police. court ruling after court ruling confirms this. law after law is passed to enforce this. we buy more guns and more armor and more military uniforms for our police with each passing year, and because we're so frightened of everything, we fast-track the unqualified into pseudo-police jobs, positions of police-like power over life, death, and liberty that require little or no training.

and all we ever want is more of it.

show me a terrorist who was stopped by CCTV and I'll be impressed. as it stands, the UK has used their marvelous citizen tracking technology only to catch suspects after an attack.

the terrorists who ignited their vehicle in front of the airport were idiots. idiots with MDs, but idiots nonetheless. this is a point which i think bears repeating: they were idiots. they attempted a movie-plot attack and were too stupid to make it happen.

my friend bruce had this to say:

putting a propane tank into a car and driving into a building at high speed is the sort of thing that only works in old episodes of The A Team. On television, you get a massive, extensive explosion. In real life, you only get a small localized fire.

here is the point: these terrorist special olympiads were too stupid to carry out a suicide car bombing. it does not necessarily follow that they're too stupid to evade the police in the absence of CCTV, but it is strongly indicated. am i to believe that scotland yard would not be capable of finding these flaming braniacs without having had them on tape?

and yet the good comissioner, retired, of police of a major US city is so frightened by a bunch of loonies who've watched too many episodes of McGuyver that he's flipped his opinion on intrusive surveillance?

the program on the radio went on to explain that many of the CCTV cameras were installed to prevent people from speeding through toll roads without paying.

that's right: their original purpose was fundraising for the police department.

my best friend, my spouse, and my climbing instructor make fun of me for being alarmed that my brother had to submit fingerprints for a job interview at a state school library. he was not applying to guard nuclear secrets at area 51. he was not applying to be a bodyguard for the POTUS. he was not applying to screen baggage at SFO. he wanted to fix computers for a library at sjsu.

when my not-yet-spouse wanted to carry a gun for the government of the united states, they didn't even bother to finish her background check before her commission had expired.

we want more police.

we want more fingerprints in databases. for what? how does it benefit we the people? who does it benefit?

if we can't
trust the government, who can we trust?

here's where alex and i would share a moment of agreement.

hamilton, for all his love of federalism, was still a revolutionary. he loved freedom from the government, not freedom of the government. and one thing i suspect that he knew, one thing that the government he helped create knows very well, is what i learned from mao by way of alabama 3: change comes through the barrel of a gun.

one reason many of the founders were against a standing army is that they feared losing the ability to overthrow the government.

it's illegal for the US military to operate inside the borders of the US. but who needs a "standing army" of militarymen when you've already got one of policemen?

the architect on the radio spoke of shrines to democracy inspired by roman architecture. this man struck me as about as bright as a terrorist who expects a propane tank to explode. the romans had a piss-poor democracy, but they had one helluva big empire. and so it is quite appropriate for us to build roman inspired monuments in our nation's capital (after all, with the news story right now of Al Gore III's drug arrest drowning out the story of our POTUS's shady commutation of a henchman's sentence for lying to a judge, we've certainly got down pat our bread and circuses), as we have become since our founding a piss-poor democracy bent on empire.

empires are destroyed as much from within as from without, as those who study and try to create empires must know. from baudilere by way of keyzer soze we learn: The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

the greatest trick our imperial masters have ever pulled was convincing us that danger comes from far away, and not from our friendly neighborhood anti-revolutionaries.

i missed something during my chroot.

now the timestamps are proper-like.