[email composed 24 September 2001]
Hello everybody,
I've been very busy with work--no, really; I can't believe it either, but, hey, it was bound to happen eventually. Next weekend is the last dragon boating tournament of the season, up in San Francisco. After that I'm going to Reno for a few days, constituting the first real vacation I've taken in the two years I've had my current job. Maybe after that I'll get a more proper message out.
In the meantime, I'll offer the following passage from J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (which I've been reading), as Holden's old English teacher, Mr. Antolini, quotes a psychoanalyst named Wilhelm Stekel:
"...'The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he want to live humbly for one.'"
p.s. Yeah, Antolini turns out to be an alcoholic pedophile, but let's not judge the message by the messenger.
Monday, September 24, 2001
Monday, August 20, 2001
another modest proposal
[email rant composed 20 August 2001]
Hello URODIR,
This evening I went down to my car--which, of course, sits idly in a parking lot across the street from my apartment all day while I'm at work (since I take the train)--only to discover that someone had ripped the antenna off my car. Not broken it off: ripped the entire long thin cylinder out. Here's the thing: some production company was filming outside my building all day (filming what I don't know); anybody who's ever seen it going on knows where there's filming, there's a lot of cops standing around.
I think there's only one logical reaction to this violation of my vehicle: All hope for humanity is lost, and the sooner we get the Chinese pissed off enough to launch their nuclear arsenal at us, the sooner the scourge known as mankind will be wiped from the face of the earth (maybe we should support the new "Star Wars" defense system). Or maybe science will simply unleash some airborne virus that will eliminate us (while, with any luck, leaving the rest of the animal kingdom untouched). I'm not that concerned with the specifics: our species has to go.
I realize there's some decent people out there who'll be dragged down with the scum, but, well, as long as there's some of us still around, there's someone left to senselessly do very minor damage to the cars of strangers, and I care too much about my fellow man to allow another to experience the seconds of anguish that I did when I found nothing where my antenna used to be.
I don't believe in throwing out the baby with the bathwater; I say we obliterate the bathtub altogether, before the baby even gets wet.
So then I got in my car and could still pick up all the stations I have as presets. And there were idiots sitting in the fast lane barely going the speed limit. Just as I was starting to reconsider the end of mankind, this renewed my enthusiasm for the project. Imagine how wonderful the freeways will be with nobody on them.
But yes, I had a good weekend. Thanks for asking.
doug
Humanitarian of the Millennium
p.s. "Unfortunate Recipients Of Doug's Inane Rambling" (like you hadn't already figured that out on your own)
[Note 26 March 2004: Still have not replaced the antenna.]
Hello URODIR,
This evening I went down to my car--which, of course, sits idly in a parking lot across the street from my apartment all day while I'm at work (since I take the train)--only to discover that someone had ripped the antenna off my car. Not broken it off: ripped the entire long thin cylinder out. Here's the thing: some production company was filming outside my building all day (filming what I don't know); anybody who's ever seen it going on knows where there's filming, there's a lot of cops standing around.
I think there's only one logical reaction to this violation of my vehicle: All hope for humanity is lost, and the sooner we get the Chinese pissed off enough to launch their nuclear arsenal at us, the sooner the scourge known as mankind will be wiped from the face of the earth (maybe we should support the new "Star Wars" defense system). Or maybe science will simply unleash some airborne virus that will eliminate us (while, with any luck, leaving the rest of the animal kingdom untouched). I'm not that concerned with the specifics: our species has to go.
I realize there's some decent people out there who'll be dragged down with the scum, but, well, as long as there's some of us still around, there's someone left to senselessly do very minor damage to the cars of strangers, and I care too much about my fellow man to allow another to experience the seconds of anguish that I did when I found nothing where my antenna used to be.
I don't believe in throwing out the baby with the bathwater; I say we obliterate the bathtub altogether, before the baby even gets wet.
So then I got in my car and could still pick up all the stations I have as presets. And there were idiots sitting in the fast lane barely going the speed limit. Just as I was starting to reconsider the end of mankind, this renewed my enthusiasm for the project. Imagine how wonderful the freeways will be with nobody on them.
But yes, I had a good weekend. Thanks for asking.
doug
Humanitarian of the Millennium
p.s. "Unfortunate Recipients Of Doug's Inane Rambling" (like you hadn't already figured that out on your own)
[Note 26 March 2004: Still have not replaced the antenna.]
Tuesday, August 14, 2001
Be good to yourself
[email composed 14 August 2001 for no particular reason]
If you're not having a particularly good day, pick it up by following the sage advice of the godfather of soul, James Brown:
Make it funky! (Hyeoow!)
And if you are having a pretty good day, make it better by getting down with your bad self. (Do proper stretches first if necessary to avoid injuring yourself.)
And for you intellectuals:
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are rearranging their prejudices."
- William James
If you're not having a particularly good day, pick it up by following the sage advice of the godfather of soul, James Brown:
Make it funky! (Hyeoow!)
And if you are having a pretty good day, make it better by getting down with your bad self. (Do proper stretches first if necessary to avoid injuring yourself.)
And for you intellectuals:
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are rearranging their prejudices."
- William James
Friday, June 22, 2001
Welcome to summer
[email composed 22 June 2001]
Whether you realized it or not, today (or by the time most of you read this, yesterday) was the longest amount of daylight the northern hemisphere would see all year, a.k.a. the Summer Solstice. If you didn't take advantage of it, don't worry: tomorrow will have only slightly less daylight--you probably won't notice.
And if you enjoy the night, remember that this means that the sun will be setting a teeny bit earlier every day from now until December.
Tomorrow (or today as most of you read this) I am off to Vancouver, British Columbia, to compete with my dragon boating team, the Killer Guppies, in a large tournament. This is our first "international" competition, and it should be interesting to see how the team responds to the environment. If we win a medal, great, and if we don't, well, I'll just enjoy being away from the office for a few days. (Dragon boating is a paddling sport, just for the record. Amazingly, I've been doing this for over a year now. Eh, it forces me to exercise regularly, if nothing else. And the people on the team are pretty cool, too.)
I'll let you know how well we did (and how good a time we had at the party after the races) when I return next week. If I can remember.
Whether you realized it or not, today (or by the time most of you read this, yesterday) was the longest amount of daylight the northern hemisphere would see all year, a.k.a. the Summer Solstice. If you didn't take advantage of it, don't worry: tomorrow will have only slightly less daylight--you probably won't notice.
And if you enjoy the night, remember that this means that the sun will be setting a teeny bit earlier every day from now until December.
Tomorrow (or today as most of you read this) I am off to Vancouver, British Columbia, to compete with my dragon boating team, the Killer Guppies, in a large tournament. This is our first "international" competition, and it should be interesting to see how the team responds to the environment. If we win a medal, great, and if we don't, well, I'll just enjoy being away from the office for a few days. (Dragon boating is a paddling sport, just for the record. Amazingly, I've been doing this for over a year now. Eh, it forces me to exercise regularly, if nothing else. And the people on the team are pretty cool, too.)
I'll let you know how well we did (and how good a time we had at the party after the races) when I return next week. If I can remember.
Wednesday, May 30, 2001
cable tv roulette
[email composed 30 May 2001]
Just now I was flipping through the movie channels and discovered three different Guy Pearce roles playing simultaneously: on Showtime, as a military prosecutor in "Rules of Engagement," on Cinemax as a reluctant cannibal in "Ravenous," and on The Movie Channel, (in the only role where he gets to use his native accent) as a drag queen traveling through the Australian outback in "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert."
Coincidence? Perhaps.
If only HBO was showing "L.A. Confidential" he could have hit for the cycle...
Just now I was flipping through the movie channels and discovered three different Guy Pearce roles playing simultaneously: on Showtime, as a military prosecutor in "Rules of Engagement," on Cinemax as a reluctant cannibal in "Ravenous," and on The Movie Channel, (in the only role where he gets to use his native accent) as a drag queen traveling through the Australian outback in "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert."
Coincidence? Perhaps.
If only HBO was showing "L.A. Confidential" he could have hit for the cycle...
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