Catullus 5's Journal

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Lighter as in burning
At the beginning of last week, I wrote, bitterly and largely unseriously:

"You really should try getting rejected by the only girl you truly longed for. It works great. You'll easily lose three pounds in just the first miserable, cold, pointless, lonely, nihilistic week."

The week is over, and as it turned out, that actually happened.

So that's pretty good news. I ought to appreciate it, and disregard the part of me that's saying: Whoopdy goddamn doo, that sure ought to keep me warm at night.

Fine as in dust
By the way, I really wish she hadn't told me she was, when we first started talking again, more open to us dating than she is now. Know what that does for me? It lets me play What If, over and over, all day every day. What If. If Only. Why Didn't I. Well, I know why I didn't - she was (sort of) seeing someone else at the time - but it turns out that would have been my only shot.

I can only thank God it was not too late.

Get this song out of my head already.

The streak of getting up early to go running is over after four days. I overslept today but I'll probably go running at lunch or after work. I already feel myself becoming a new person. Specifically, a person who for the rest of the day gets winded climbing stairs; a person who falls asleep at 11 instead of 12:30.

Weary, I am.

Good movies, a continuing series
You know what else is an overlooked movie that I liked a lot? Spy Game. It's a fast-paced Hollywood thriller, yet it comes at the spy-movie plot from an unanticipated angle. Brad Pitt and Robert Redford do great acting, and thematically there's a lot more than meets the eye. It goes beyond, say, picking locks and dropping the poison in the guard's coffee from the ceiling vent, to look at deeper aspects of spycraft - how does it feel to live no life behind the lie, suppress all compassion and humanitarian instincts, forswear interpersonal intimacy in service of the job? The movie has betrayal, devotion, crisis of conscience, friendship versus loyalty, and redemption. That's a lot of meaning for a Tony Scott movie. And it never ceases to be exciting, whether it's Brad Pitt with a gun or Robert Redford with a briefcase.

Depress Your Way To A Fitter You
So I avoided most red meat throughout January. Not religiously or absolutely - I made a wanton exception for In-N-Out Burger, and then I cheated a few other times - but enough to find myself consciously choosing the chicken instead of the beef nearly every day.

You know how, in a lot of pursuits, the last 10 percent takes 90 percent of the effort? Giving up the last 10 percent of red meat consumption is no different. So I'm not going to bother. If someone offers an extra slice of pepperoni pizza, I'm not going to push it away or bother picking them off. I'm just going to eat it and not worry about it. I'm still getting 90 percent of the benefits. I like this scheme and I think I'll continue it.

Now that it's February, I appear to have started another initiative. I've started waking up early to go to the gym. Before yesterday, I had never done this once. On Sundays in the summer I would occasionally go running at 6 AM after a Rocky party, instead of crashing, but that's at the end of my day, and not a workday.

I don't know what drove me to spontaneously do this. It's basically a....

Oh wait, I know exactly what drove me to do this. Also, I seem to have no appetite anymore either. A winning combination! You really should try getting rejected by the only girl you truly longed for. It works great. You'll easily lose three pounds in just the first miserable, cold, pointless, lonely, nihilistic week.

Two days into the month, and I've gone running before work twice now. So far, it's meh. It doesn't make me feel better (but then, under the circumstances, what could?) yet at least it doesn't make me tired during the day. Still, I doubt I'll succeed in doing this every weekday of the month. It's pretty hard to force myself out of bed. I assume it will get even harder as I calm down and my laziness returns to a healthy level. And running five days in a row is hard no matter what.

I'm already fast for a football official, but I'd say looking fast is more important than actually being fast. If I can keep this up, and especially if I keep listlessly staring at my food, losing 25 pounds by July in time for the college football clinic is doable.

Angel Dream

I dreamed you,
I saw your face.
Cut my lifeline when drifting through space.
I saw an angel,
I saw my fate.
I can only thank God it was not too late.

The lyrics of a song gave me the courage to ask her out again. Yes, two years after we last dated. It seems corny but it's not. Music is a big deal to me. I've often said I would know I was in love when a woman made me feel the way the best music can, only all the time.

Every time I played this song, I would think about her, and every time I thought about her, I would become more certain that I needed her. That she was special and that I had known this all along. And that I just might have one chance at a second chance.

So I tried.

Sing a little song of loneliness,
Sing one to make me smile.
Another round for everyone,
I'll be here for a little while.

But now I don't know if I can bear to hear this song anymore.

And all I have are the memories of when I had... something and didn't know what.

This beautiful song is now reduced to the bitterest irony, and it crushes me. I can't stand hearing it. But I can't get it out of my head. And I can't get her out of my head either.

Now I'm walkin'
This street on my own.
But she's with me everywhere I go.
Yeah, I found an angel,
I found my place.
I can only thank God it was not too late.
I can only thank God it was not too late.
I can only thank God it was not too late.

Memory > money
I heard a George Carlin bit on the radio today, and suddenly became filled with soul-lifting relief and gladness for having seen him perform one time before he died. It cost me sixty dollars at the MGM Grand a few years ago, and I came really close to saving the money instead. But then I'd be kicking myself to this day for never having seen the legend perform before it was too late.

Sometimes I worry about the money I spend on travel, shows, and other such things that don't last - until I remind myself that yes they do. They most certainly last. Sometimes forever.

Anyone writing some good slash?
Why do people say "forward slash?" It's called a slash. Just say slash. I'm pretty sure nobody will confuse it with a backslash if you don't specifically say backslash. Hardly anything uses backslashes anymore. Not Unix paths and especially not URLs. URLs do not have backslashes and never have. Saying "forward slash" clarifies nothing and just makes you sound like an old ninny who doesn't know how to use the internet. "You have to type in, H... T... T... P... Colon... Forward slash... Forward slash..." Duhhh, I got it, Grandma.

Another article I agreed with
This is a really good op-ed-piece. No, it's not a strident hardcore libertarian screed or anything; It's David Brooks in the New York Times.

Politics, some believe, is the organization of hatreds. The people who try to divide society on the basis of ethnicity we call racists. The people who try to divide it on the basis of religion we call sectarians. The people who try to divide it on the basis of social class we call either populists or elitists.
...
It’s easy to see why politicians would be drawn to the populist pose. First, it makes everything so simple. The economic crisis was caused by a complex web of factors, including global imbalances caused by the rise of China. But with the populist narrative, you can just blame Goldman Sachs.

Second, it absolves voters of responsibility for their problems. Over the past few years, many investment bankers behaved like idiots, but so did average Americans, racking up unprecedented levels of personal debt. With the populist narrative, you can accuse the former and absolve the latter.
...
Voters are capable of holding two ideas in their heads at one time: First, that the rich and the powerful do rig the game in their own favor; and second, that simply bashing the rich and the powerful will still not solve the country’s problems.

Political populists never get that second point. They can’t seem to grasp that a politics based on punishing the elites won’t produce a better-educated work force, more investment, more innovation or any of the other things required for progress and growth.

I think that's nearly half of the thing. This is one of those pieces where every paragraph is worth quoting.

SLC Critic
Now that I went to Salt Lake City, I kinda want to watch SLC Punk again. It's a movie about a teenaged punk rock fan coming of age and trying to stay punk and individual - in one of America's most square and whitebread cities. It's a lot like "The Catcher In The Rye" - a young protagonist confronting adulthood and searching for identity. One of the greatest and most famous attributes of Salinger's novel is how easy it is for nearly any reader to identify with his protagonist. I got the same vibe from SLC Punk. I really enjoyed this movie, but it's been largely overlooked. Matthew Lillard plays the main character, and he's actually pretty darn good in the role. Yes, the guy from Without A Paddle, Summer Catch, Wing Commander, and the Scooby Doo movies can actually act. It's weird. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think you'd like SLC Punk.

Filler
I want to write a lot about my travels to Vegas and Los Angeles and San Francisco and Park City, but it's going to take a while. In the meantime here is some completely inessential quasi-humor.

1. I wonder why no one has marketed a flu medicine called Cowbell. It would be as if you got a successful viral advertising campaign, already up and running, for free.

2. On the subject of advertising, I also wonder when some company - Nike would be a good candidate - is going to gradually adjust their logo so it gets fainter and fainter over time, until finally their logo is nothing but blank space. Like, this year's ads have a big square with a small logo in the corner, then next year's ads have an even smaller logo, then the next year's ads have a thinner border on the square, and so on. Once blank space is your logo, then the entire world becomes your ad campaign. You've just put your logo on every wall of every building in the whole world, like magic. Slipping further into fantasyland, you could sue the whole world for violating your trademark if they ever erect or paint an exterior wall.

Le Handicapper General
In France, if you own a store, you are not allowed to have a sale except when the government says you can. Please tell me you don't have to be an out-and-out libertarian like me to find that absurd!

Oh, but here's the high-minded rationale:

Like everything else in this country, there is specific legislation relating to sales - laws designed to stop unfair competition and protect small shopkeepers from those "all year" sales by large stores who can afford to sell some items at a loss.

In France out of the sales period, it is actually an offence to knowingly sell odds at a loss, again a measure designed to protect small shopkeepers from large retail groups.

Trading laws stipulate that there are two periods for sales in France. Winter sales from January to February and summer sales from June to July. In each case, the sales last for five weeks.... Retailers are allowed to reduce their prices three times in the sales - after the first fortnight, and again in the final week.

Outside the official sale periods, retailers are allowed two weeks in the year, to use at their discretion, for extra sales such as pre-christmas sales or spring sales.

First of all, "unfair competition" is a contradiction in terms. If Company A runs their business very well and can thus offer the shopping public a better deal than Company B, what on earth makes that unfair? I don't understand how Company A is wronging anybody just by being stronger and more fit. (Undercutting Company B at a loss, to get people in the door, isn't unfair either. There's no difference in principle between "This Sunday, just for showing up, all customers get a free lollipop" as opposed to "all customers get a below-cost sales item." I fail to see how either of those examples are "unfair," that is, how Company A is committing any sort of wrong against Company B.)

Secondly, usually when quasi-socialist governments hamstring free enterprise, they do so for populist reasons. But not even that dubious demagogic goal is met here. France isn't doing Jean Q. Shopper any favors by handicapping Company A like Harrison Bergeron. All this does is keep prices artificially high, higher than they'd be if companies were legally allowed to cut prices. The government is harming both Company A and the public, all to keep Company B in business when there's no indication that it deserves to be.

This piece doesn't clarify whether it's always illegal to reduce prices when the government hasn't given the okay, or whether you can reduce prices as long as you don't call it a sale. Either way, this is absolutely ridiculous.

Outdoor Sturmface FTW
The NHL Winter Classic was a lot of fun, and had a storybook ending. I'm glad I went.

On the other hand I hope I never spend that much money for a seat that far away, ever again. It was worth the price for a one-time special event, but not a second time.

The horn sounds
The Bruins closed out the 2000-Aughts with a winning record, thanks to last night's 4-0 victory. The final tally since 1/1/00: 345 wins, 344 losses.

2009: The Year That Elapsed
And now a look back on my year in LiveJournal posts. Here's the beginning of the first (substantive) post from each month. This year's crop turned out to be pretty representative of my news, but not necessarily of my psyche.

January, Say it's true, it's true... and we can break through. One would like every New Year's Day to be optimistic, auspicious, and fun, but you can't win 'em all.

February, *I* was saying Boo-ruins. Montreal was cool.

March, Hours of energy with no crash! Went to a Bruins game. Tim Thomas stopped three breakaways to force overtime, but then promptly let in a 100-foot shot.

April, Quick, before hockey season starts. Tomorrow I'm going to California on short notice, just for fun.

May, Saving you from yourself, and then some.
I recently threw in two cents on a b0st0n flamewar, just like old times, and now I feel like elaborating more generally and less apropos on a point I made: You can't use the mere fact that the government pays for a lot of people's health care, to justify restricting people's freedoms to do anything you disapprove of.

June, This Pixar film is shopped. I can tell from some of the pixels. We can create animated characters without ever bringing a real person or rabbit into the studio.

July, Happy Canada Day! July 1 commemorates the 1867 founding, as a unified country, of the Crown's Northern Dominion, which was eventually abbreviated as "C, eh. N, eh. D, eh."

August, Running of the refs. Queensryche was pretty damn good, I must say.

September, Beer and television. Pumpkin spice beer! I brewed it Sunday and it should be ready before October.

October, Check this out, ELLIPSIS. Just now a pregame show quoted a football player: "As Spartans we're taught to respect our opponent. And the lack of respect they have, period, is just sickening."

November, Backlights and blacklights. The moment when the first notes of "This Is Halloween" struck, and Kyle slowly emerged in a bath of fog and white backlighting to a sold out audience erupting in cheers of delight, is something I don't think I'll ever forget.

December, Hollywood nose job. I didn't get a football playoff... again.

Strategy for New Year's resolutions that actually fly, and don't augur into a cornfield
I read about a great idea that I'm going to make into a New Year's resolution. It's called the One Minute Rule, and simply put, it's this:

If there's a task that you can complete in under one minute, you have to do it right now.

That's all. It's that simple.

When a mountain of tasks piles up, it can stress you out and affect your mood. The One Minute Rule is supposed to prevent that from ever happening, keeping you in comfort while also giving you momentum to tackle the larger tasks you face.

This same blog has some good general tips for writing resolutions that are feasible. Choose goals that are small, measurable, achievable, and short-term. This way, not only does one find it easier to meet the goals, but one's success will beget yet more motivation, in a virtuous circle.

So, I'm going to make this additional resolution, but apply it for only one month. I'll see where I stand at the end of January:

No red meat in January. Pork counts as red meat.

See, this is both more concrete and more achievable than an airy "Lose weight" or "Fewer fatty foods in 2010." I really think this could....

Wait a second.... No red meat means no In-N-Out Burger while in California. I cannot abide this. No, no, this won't do at all.

Suppose I said no red meat in the Eastern time zone. Is that still legitimate, or wimpy and pathetic like a drug addict promising "okay, okay, just twelve more hits and then I'll quit"?

Dave Barry on 2009
Ah, Dave Barry. I miss his weekly columns. Dave Barry was a strong influence on my sense of humor. Growing up, the four funniest things were Dave Barry, P. J. O'Rourke, The Simpsons, and Calvin And Hobbes. Mr. Barry is semi-retired now, writing only on certain occasions instead of regularly. Fortunately, the end of the year is such an occasion.

Don't you love it when you glance at the very beginning of something and can immediately tell that the rest of it is going to be great?

It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result Washington, rejecting "business as usual," finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it.

News flash: Free tickets are innately worth more than zero
Oh, those wicked scalpers.

Let's compare a world with scalpers to a world without scalpers, in chart form.

Can you get tickets at face value (free in this case)?
Without scalpers: Not unless you're incredibly lucky
With scalpers: Not unless you're incredibly lucky

Can you get tickets at the market-clearing rate?
Without scalpers: No
With scalpers: Yes

So how exactly is the real world with scalpers so much worse than a fantasy world without them?

This is another topic I've gone over before, but again I can't find my old work. I should just write a script that screen-scrapes all my old posts once and for all so I can find them immediately. It's curious that my own Catullus 5 search engine would be a better solution than Google. What gives? I mean, 99% of my LJ posts are open to the general public and spiders. A few do show up, so it's not like Google skips .livejournal.com as a matter of policy. Its coverage is just really incomplete for some reason.

a formula inside
A punk cover song has got to be more than merely turning everything into a straight-ahead power chord, then faking a half-British accent for three and a half minutes.

For God's sake, do something surprising once in a while. At least make it so I can't predict in my head exactly how the song will sound before I've even heard it.

In fact, the same applies to punk in general. With punk it's all too easy to just turn the crank and churn out dozens of copies of the same predictable formula, all alike and all completely inessential. It's so much harder to find the few that actually break new ground. Punk is to music as romantic comedy is to movies.

I swear I made this comparison before, but Google has stopped reliably indexing my older LJ entries.

EDIT: Here's me on two romantic comedies that don't suck.

My 46 favorite songs ever
Does anyone else use iTunes's star rating feature? If I think to rate a song, I'll do it, but I've only rated about 15% of my collection. I am very stingy about awarding five stars. I added a five-star song today ("Angel Dream" by Tom Petty - wow, what an incredibly emotional tune - I wish I'd known this song existed before today!) and that brings the total to just 46 five-star ratings out of 1125.

I posted a list of my five-star songs a few years ago; here's an update. These are my 46 favorite songs in the world. Some are famous, some are obscure. Consistent with their status as my two favorite bands, Opeth and Porcupine Tree are heavily represented. I notice I'm not exclusive to one genre, even at the high end of the bell curve. There's metal, standard rock, some very slow stuff, and even some Ludwig Van.

( The 46... )