Discussing the meaning of irony with Dakota

"Dad, do we have any Lays?"

"Check in there," I say, pointing to the Frito-Lay variety pak.

Cheetos, Fritos, Regular D'Oritos. The kids love the lays. I had purchased Pringles snak paks as a decoy but Jason, outraged, opened them all and stomped on them.

Dakota was disappointed. Consoling her I said, "Gotta stop Jason from opening the chips, eating two and then opening another. Jason can eat just one."

I looked up at the ceiling, as I often do when I am pleased with how clever I am to talk over the head of a child. That's when we both spotted the 6-pak of Lays.

"Hey!" we shouted in unison.

Opening it up, Dakota asked me, "Why did you put it up there?"

"Its my stash for when I want chips not broken up by Jason, I forgot about it."

"How ironic."

"Dakota, what do you think ironic means?"

"Very silly."

I paused, reflecting on how Eugene talked me out of saying "a keen sense of irony" was one of my greatest strengths on my Rice application. I thought about the nights I spent puzzling over my Swearingen's "Rhetoric and Irony" readings for Tyler's class, wondering if maybe I had the book upside-down.  I thought about how I was sent back to physical therapy because after finally completing physical therapy for my achilles, I decided to get some shorts at "sports authority" and I got whiplash and aggravated a herniated disc in my lumbar from being rear-ended in the parking lot of the "sports authority." I remembered the first time, as a senior developer, that I told an end user that a feature he hated wasn't a bug, but the correct and intended functionality; and the first time, as an IT manager, that I told an overloaded employee to work smarter instead of harder. I thought about how badly I wanted to have a real conversation with my father but how unbearable it was to listen to his spiel on any topic until we found that we could talk candidly and without acrimony about my career, then he died just as I started to have one.

. . .

While all of these thoughts and memories raced through my mind and Dakota looked at me, searching for approval: her big wide eyes, paired with a sly sideways smile.

"I can't think of a better definition that that. Enjoy your chips."

High Comedy

Thinking about the best family moments growing up, it was the high
comedy that just came from Mom, Eugene, and I taking a funny situation
and making observational humor. All great improv high comedy relies
upon the players catching each others' groove and keeping it going.
You know what I mean, right?

Haven't you ever thought, when you were with your family or friends,
"Wow, that could be on TV"

I have a segue here jealously against Bill Cosby actually putting that
experience on TV but anyway...

It makes me happy to see the kids crack each other up. In particular,
I can see how each has their own shticks and style of madcap humor.
Nevertheless, both do impressions, props, spit takes, prat falls and
irony. Dakota seems to also like puns and observations. Jason likes
funny faces. Neither kid goes blue.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Count Your Blessings

I admit that I don't often count my blessings. Part of it is fatalism: enumerating and explicating the good things in life is an invitation to have those things taken away. In part it is also because I often can be an ungrateful jerk who likes to complain about and expand upon the many hardships in life; big and little. But, Thanksgiving receives special dispensation from curses, so the first part is not a concern. And I'm working on the second part. Ergo:

 

1. My children. Every day with them is like gold.
2. My parents. They've gone on ahead, but are not gone. I am proud to be the link from #1 to #2 on this list.
3. Eugene. He likes brevity so...
4. Jo, my nieces, and the extended Li family
5. My sense of humor. Mom was right. It is really important for me in so many ways. Some guy yesterday said to me "You are aggressively smart, but you also seem like a funny guy and that makes you alright." If that could be the first impression that I make for the rest of my life, I'll take it!
6. Old friends. This trip has been like a mini-reunion, I've seen a lot of old friends. Its great to know that there are people out there who really get me, but they are spread all over the world. There are different ways to view that. I'll choose to say that they're inflitrating the collective unconsciousness, such that one day everyone will get me. I just read that over. Maybe I don't want the world to get me. "Ahhhh!!! The world's gonna get me!"
7. This photo of Cthulutu at carnivale (Thanks, Louren)
8. Being a lawyer. It was worth it. The point is not lost on me about how culture has really done a whole song and dance number on the profession on the profession in an effort to tarnish it's esteem. Nor am I blind to the proclivity of a few lawyers to live down to that dirtiness. But lawyers are like everybody else, and the system works to produce and maintain a competent group of qualified professionals.  The result of this effort is nothing less than the frontline of keeping this great experiment called the United States going. Many areas of law (I had a list here, but it got lengthy; lengthier than this parenthetical remark; and anyhow it was besides the point, so the list is gone) seem to draw out attempts to impeach the character of practioners in that area who are merely doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, which is to diffuse power. I know I've gone on at length before about Federalist No 51 "if men were angels, there'd be know need for government" and whatnot, but the crucial vitality of our system of checks and balances matters. It matters as much today as it ever did. To quote one of my greatest law professors "People around the world are literally willing to kill and die in order to have a legal system as good as ours"
9. walking. Spend some time on crutches and it'll be in your list too
10. information. I said I'd get back to this topic a few posts ago. Here it is: Although law school has totally cured me of the desire (and means) to ever be a student again, my appetite for consuming and digesting raw iinformation lives on. Yay!
11. Holidays. I needed a break and this is that break.

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Louren Li <lourenli@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:25:49 -0500
Subject: Chthulu at carnivale
To: William Li <william.li@gmail.com>

 

--
Sent from my mobile device

Sandwich Therapy

At UHLC, there was a Subway that I ate at lots of times. (If this were spoken word, I would loop "ate at" and put it into the background as a hook. Get back!) I got really burned out on the food. Everyone is quick to blame it on being a bad location, but in all fairness, it was like any other Subway. I actually got burned out on the food itself: Sandwiches.

Strangely, the runner up restaurant, Popeye's Chicken, actually has a lasting place in my heart as a sentimental favorite. Probably also a place in my heart requiring statins, but nevermind...

Dakota, tragically, really likes Subway and I never want to go. But the Subway problem goes deeper. I find that I have acquired an antipathy to cold meat sandwiches. I mean, I can still eat a hot Panini sandwich melt, or one of the cold mayonnaise sandwiches (egg, chicken, tuna), or grilled cheese, or cheese and pickle, and marmite soldiers are still ok too... But the mainstay of sandwiches: a delicious stack of three types of meat on a hearty bread or hero loaded up with veggies cheeses and spreads, simply no longer appeals to me.

What made this really hit home was this crazy dream that I had last night. A mysterious old woman asked me to fly to London and prepare proper a sandwich (one without butter on the bread, and the correct sequence: slice of bread, lettuce, meat, tomato in the MIDDLE, cheese, more meat, lettuce, even coat of mayo or mustard, bread, push down with a clean hand until the lettuce crackles, cut into triangles, and served with a water-bath chilled crudite of julienned carrot sticks, cucumber, pitted black olives, celery with the strings pulled off, and asparagus spears) and deliver it to the niece of the old woman. Naturally, the whole thing was an elaborate ruse devised to draw me into the heart of an internecine conflict between irreconcilable factions of a secret society (witch-fighting spies who can phase matter and cut and cook food with their minds) where the object of the struggle was to control a mystical winged giraffe/camel/cow (very very very hungry pet with many stomach) creature.

Anyhow, while evading agents from within the secret society, I was put into harm's way and had to battle witches and their familiars by fixing them sandwiches, but none of the sandwiches in my dream looked yummy to me.

Today, I went to the deli and got a panini. Nothing on the menu looked good.

I think I need to really dedicate some time to rediscovering what I like about sandwiches: different breads, cold cuts, vegetables, spreads.

I still only like Helmann's mayonnaise and get violently ill when I think of Miracle Whip... So that part of this journey is over.

Also the "TV knife" that Eugene got me, is still just as sharp as the day I first used it. It's amazingly versatile. Light, thin, made of surgical steel.  It slices, it dices.  Sturdy enough to saw through a lamb shank and yet tomato after tomato comes out beautifully. Once I set the whole thing on fire by accident, the handle got a bit morphed, but the utensil is still in great shape.  It proudly shares my knife block with my Henckles set.  I might need 5 more knives of different shapes and varieties were it not for this beauty.  And did I mention it never needs sharpening?  How much would you pay for a knife like this? I DONT KNOW IT WAS A GIFT!
--
Sent from my mobile device

Home

About two years ago, I lived in Sugar Land, Texas. I went across the railroad tracks to live next to the prison farm. How very bluesman.

On Memorial day this year, I let some of the blues out of my hohner pro harp with the blown reed at a biker bar's open mic jam session. That was so blues, it could be metal.

This weekend, I excitedly went to the grand opening of a new Kroeger. Its not just a grocery store. They also have an in-store starbucks and they sell a lot of home decor. I bought some eggs and drove home.
Passing the entrance of my subdivision, I waved to Officer Mac, who patrols our neighborhood. He was in his hiding spot by the tennis court.

I also passed the undeveloped and undevelopable part of the subdivision; under the raised power lines that run back to the power substation transformer. Seeing it always makes me think back

When Eugene and I picked a final resting place for my Dad, it was on a hill next to the same power line structures; like the bones of giants, all of whom struck dead at once by a wizard, while they were reaching up to the sky. Eugene said "I am not sure about leaving him here, its peaceful and green but I don't like the power lines."

"That's so funny, this is the first place I like and its ONLY because of the power lines"

And of course, I grew up with a power substantion transformer behind my back yard....

Back at the house, I made a salad and listened to Ben Folds.

Later, I heard a joke "What's a pirates favorite type of sock? ARRRRgyle!"

"I used the same thinking to pick my model toyota..."

No response.

I stayed up late chatting online with the Kongai crowd. My main deck no longer leads with CC equiped with Necromantic Tomes, does this mean that strategy is played out? Does it even matter with series two now in late beta? One of the more experienced players typed, " Srysly! o.O"

(Carmelo's)

Today, I am having an early dinner at "Carmelo's", a tacqueria, and one of four places where I am greated with "Hey, Mr. William! The usual?"

When I was a sophmore at Rice, I decided to try to write fiction. I used an old manual typewriter and tried to start stories before the beginning and end them after the end, as if watching drama unfold at a
subway or bus stop; people watching rather than narration. Good in theory, but I'm not Uatu.

More accuarate is that much of my narrative does not have much point. For example, the point of this post is that I feel at home. As per usual, I have made the point after a painfully long build-up.  Now I got two choices: end this post abruptly or trail off.

Before I make the choice, I want to let you know: the painfully long build up is not on purpose, I swear. Its just a product of that part of me where I lack self-awareness. Once I realize that it's happened again, then the sudden end or trailing off

3AM at Walmart

I have a confession to make: I like to shop at Walmart at 3AM on Sunday morning when the kids are with Louren. I buy kitty litter, biscuit dough, fruit roll ups, milk... stuff like that. I got really crazy last time and bought a light fixture that doesn't work.  I admit, in this time of no shame, that's not much of a confession. But it's not nothing, I suppose.  I am supposed to be a snob, right? I'm supposed to not like Walmart because they don't sell brie and their customers are fashion victims?  To hell with that.  At 3AM, the store is brightly lit and busy with restocking activity.  The ratio of employees to customers is about 8 to 3. I can alway find what I am looking for, which is usually kitty litter, biscuit dough, fruit roll ups, milk... stuff like that. More importantly is that, I should be tired, but I'm not.  I can't sleep.

Recently, Eugene gave me the brilliant advice "lay in bed and breathe deeply". Its like telling an illiterate person to sound out the words.

There is actually a decent episode of Family Ties about insomnia. Elsie ultimately tells Alex to try to appreciate that its a time to be quietly enjoyed rather than merely endured or vainly fought.

I learned all about not sleeping in college. Not sleeping was actually pretty good for certain COMP classes. Not sleeping also allowed me to cover a double-shift at KTRU with Andy Chen.  This lead me to London, which had its offies (I almost certainly went to one of these on Calloway Road mentioned in this article) and its casinos (Can you bring me a double scotch and a pickle and Leicester sandwich?), dubious raves in warehouses under bridges, or you could just wander the empty streets until the tubes re-open (weren't you worried about getting mugged? if a mugger wanted my London A-Z, he was welcome to it), or there was always the cyberspace stand-by in the form of the VT220 terminals in the refrectory that I had the Uni turn on so that Chewy, Big I, and Duncan could play Nanveant ("Pass the felix, I'm going to smoke a fag while Cheeselord completes the Lily quest, again."). And not sleeping lead me all over Europe on trains that ran all the time and went various places.

What I learned about not sleeping is that night turns into day. There isn't anything mystical about staying up.

I also learned that sleep is important because the one of most powerful forces in humanity is narrative, which likes to be episodic. You can't roll credits on the day unless you go to sleep.

Also not sleeping makes you tired.

To be continued....

Please visit the memorial website for my mother.

Eugene and I put up this page to honor her memory.

http://gladysmli.blogspot.com

While I invite you to share memories in honor of my mother on her site, I must also apologize for removing all the contributors to 3 of 4, but in this case, I really must insist on having the last word.

Did you ever notice that whenever there is a lull in the conversation, you talk about Abraham Lincoln? There was never a lull in the conversation with Mom, but she did talk at great length about Lincoln. Dakota also likes Abraham Lincoln, too. A few years ago, Mom sent me a charcoal drawing of Abraham Lincoln that my Grandpa did. She sent it because Dakota told "Gran" all about our 16th President on the telephone.

Mom meant the picture to go in my office but Dakota and I assumed it was for her, and I hung it in Dakota's room. When Mom came to visit and saw it there, she laughed. One day, maybe Dakota will be President. I told Mom about that idea and she was all for it.

"Dakota is very capable, I think she'd be a great president, if that's what she decides she wants to be. But just let Dakota enjoy being Dakota. That's what's really important."

Canonical rant: kid food

I am at the Pantera house of soft guitar, salad, and overblown rolls.
Its only because Dakota likes the chicken noodle soup served in a
"bread bowl" that we are here. The other customers are glaring at me
because Jason is playing missile command with imaginary nukes falling
over the table. He is using the table number holder as the missile and
making not only launch noises but "incoming target acquired... Ready.
FIRE!!!!!!!"

Who said "F*** 'em if they can't take a joke"?

Anyway, what Who said. Besides the aggravating factor is probably that
to the other patrons, I seem disengaged with my kids' antics, as I
gamely tap away at my Blackberry. Foolish suburbanites, I am merely
typing the prologue to a Canonical Rant (tm).

[Mental note, register trademark]

Canonical Rant: Kid food.
Our paternalistic society lectures parents and everyone else about how
we are unhealthy in our eating choices, starting from childhood. The
blame is placed on mixed messages from society. True, but the gun is
pointed at the wrong hypocrisy. The problems are the odious paring of
toy food and toy-shaped kids food.

What the hell is wrong with people? We tell kids:

"Don't eat your toys" and give them impossibly tasty looking plastic
hamburgers, Play doh sushi makers, wood block carrots.

Then we say;

"Don't play with your food" and give them chicken nuggets shaped like
rocket ships and dinosaurs. By the way the word "food" for kids food
ought to be used loosely. There is little substantive difference
between the nutritional contents of a nugget and of the box it comes
in.

Nor do I accept the whole "make your kids fun easy organic food"
notion. This is America, damnit. its the land of convenient service.
Kids food should look like food and taste good and be healthy and be
cheap. Its a market failure when middle class people "opt out of
consumerism". Whatever the hell that means. Yeah, all those organic
food making appliances and supplies, not to mention your fetish farmers market food.
Way to opt out, comrade.

There is are several finishes to this canonical rant. I'll do all the variants.

Variant 1: regulate
There outta be a law.
The only really good way to change the balance of power between
relatively weak and diffuse consumer and the relatively large number
of offending food producers is to make kids food required on all
menus and to prohibit terrible kids food.

My conservative libertarian friends recoil in horror "you'll drive
restaurants out of business" and "its not free market. " There are
times I can see your point and not disrespect it, but in general this
isn't one of those times. Its hardly axiomatic that free markets
require caveat emptor and that society should accept the cost of
vendors selling Styrofoam sandwiches sprinkled in glass shards.

more importantly the claims that its overly paternalistic on consumers
is nonsense. Consumers don't want Styrofoam sandwiches but if vendors
refuse to stop making them, they will be forced to buy them. If you
don't believe that, then how else can you explain that I bought a
Yaris? Anyhow its the conservatives who are being paternalistic to
capitalists. Capitalists are ingenious. Tell them: make money selling
food but the rule is no Styrofoam sandwiches and they will figure it
out.

Get to work, Congress. Ban food that looks like toys and toys that
look like food.

Variant 2: litigate

Replace para 1 of the above with:
Everyone ought to sue everyone.

Replace the last paragraph with:
Civil litigation is a great tool of reform, especially against a
recalcitrant defendant with lobbying power. We owe the plaintiff's
bar a great debt for protecting our democratic ideals. I refer you to
Federalist Paper No. 51. Yes, its about a system of checks and
balances in the offices of government, but its also about the nature
of our courts to make power more diffuse. The diffusion of power
amongst all members of society is a disruptive but critical aspect of
society.

Variant 3: heartwarming anecdote
(This is an add-on to variant 1)

When I was in elementary school and my parents marriage was nearly done
for, my mom purchased a glass top coffee table for the living room.
The living room itself was an area ironically named in the waning days
of the marriage. In the 70's my parents entertained guests there and I
think when Eugene was left at home by himself he'd get into "risky
business" type mischief there; maybe that's just hero worship on my
part.

Anyhow, my mom decided that the thing to put on the monstrosity was a
glass candy dish and these horrendous hard candies. A glass bowl on a
glass surface + elementary school kids. Insanity, but somehow I didn't
break it. Instead, after a layer of dust got on the candy, I slid it
into the sun and it got gooey. Then I threw the candy out

"William, where did the display candy go?"

"Display candy, display for who?"

"Whom"

"Anyhow it got sticky... Gross"

"Oh... Good. Did you put your marbles in the bowl?!?"

"Yes... Don't they look tasty?"

"They do, actually"

Inside I was thinking about the fact that glass candy was hysterically
immoral and laughing.

It was a tough time for us (mom and I) back then but in retrospect, I
have a lot more sympathy for the idea that as her life became a
shambles, and the things she built up went down in flames, why not have
a piece of gleaming crystal interior decor on top of an ostentatious
and impractical furnishing? It could hardly be the worst thing that
one could do in response! Except if toy food was illegal. Then they
would have arrested me. I wonder if I would have been tried as an
adult.

Probably. Reagan was tough on crime.

--
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The Slate discovers that people outside of California like sci-fi

Here's the video:
Don Omar - The Chosen & Virtual Diva [ IDON : System Upgrade ]


Here's the article in Slate.
First of all, the older cyberpunk gets, the cornier it seems; like Will Robinson lost in space levels of corny, but I still have a nostaglic affection for being in middle school and having subscriptions both to "Isaac Asimov Science Fiction Monthly" and "Analog" There was a time when 2400 baud and people like Steve Lowell Inness were dreaming up touch-screens and B1ff really was kewl b/c Amigaz rox!!!1 c u l8r...

Second, I confess that I freakin' love reggaetón; ever since Houston Press put me onto Daddy Yankee. I drove a lot during law school, through constant construction on  I-10 and 59. The radio in my Jeep developed a problem with the antenna such that I could only get NPR and Mega 101. During NPR pledge week, would switch over to Mega 101. I would thrill to recognize the six words of Spanish that I know in lyrics, and many of the song lyrics were partially in English anyway. It was a welcome break both from the law, and my Jeep breaking down on the side of the road, and obsessing over whether my missed class would trigger the ABA-mandated "5 absences and you must fail" policy. Listening to some rhymes that I don't understand was preferable to being crushed by the enormous pressures that I both put on myself and kept bottled up inside. Mostly, I just heard the moderate tempo bass carrying the man shouting over the loops which skip a beat every 3 1/2 beats. I can relate to that beat.

Here's an aside: when Dakota was little, she used to bang on stuff in the kitchen. Now that she's a big girl she does it less. I used encourage her to make percusive noises. When she would stop, I'd say "Dakota, bring that beat back. Bring. That. Beat. Back." Then I'd smile to myself at what a hip funny joke I made. Eugene heard me do that once and just sighed. I never did it again after that. Anyway, Dakota has moved on to liking actual music. Time marches on. On to the point of this blog entry...

Dear Slate,

It is not necessary to be a snotty dork from Silicon Valley in order to like science fiction. Crimony! Your ethnocentric condescension hangs off you like stinky cheese.


And by the way: Rock on, iDon!

Big yellow taxi

Westpark tollway like a river of no dreams allows time to think.

I saw a taxi at Dakota's school today. It pulled up to the grass
rather than a sidewalk and a sad looking boy was ejected from the
vehicile. No jacket, No backpack. He turned to look for... Goodbye?
Have a good day? Some sort of recognition that he wasn't just a
shipment. But the cab already pulled away. Resigned, he trudged
across the dewy grass. His socks will be wet and I can see his breath.
The temperature this morning is what us content suburban types call "crisp"

I find myself incurious about what happened. I heard enough from
Eugene and Louren to know that sad situations aren't just elsewhere.
They are here, too. But... Damnit, Couldn't the cab at least brought him
to the school door? Why the walk of shame?

The kid's got the countenance of a 4th grader; last traces of baby fat
being replaced by grown-up fast food fat. Whatever vunerability his
expression and posture betrayed before are replaced with every step he takes towards the school by a
mendacious scowl.

Is this the bully who kicks Dakota"s wheeled
backpack? If he is, I won't hesitate to demand that the school protect
Dakota from him.

My exit approaches. I still need to drop off the boy. I am crazy late
for work. Not so late not to hug jason all the way to his room, talk
to his teacher for a moment, and then leave when jason is eating or
playing. Its never too late to do that.

--
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The Light of New York

Years ago, I commented to my brother, Eugene, that the light in New York was different. He said it had to do with latitude. I doubt it. New York has a similiar latitude to Madrid and Rome, but the light is different.

The first time I noticed it was not when I went to Rice. It was when I was four.
"Three's Company" was shot on video, but "M*A*S*H" and "Happy Days" were filmed. Even filmed, the lighting for "Charlie's Angels" was not the same as "M*A*S*H" and "Happy Days." Those shows were the stark light of reality. The light of New York.

In the years I have spent away from New York, I tend to forget how harsh and disconcerting it is, how steeped it is with my own pasts, the ghosts of my unknown ancestors, and the forgotten memories of things I should understand happened here but don't.

The light of New York is indelible. It soaks into the granite and steel. It attaches to the soot and rain. It has a smell. Indelible is one of those great English words that I learned in LING 201 that entered the English language more than once thanks to the Romans. It's related to the word "delete." I would know more about the word if I had studied real linguistics past LING 201, but I was interested in what Dave kindly once referred to as "total nonsense."

I had a point here, but I forgot what it was. Ok, I remember now. It was a point about nonsense. And here, will be one of the few times that I actually explain what I am saying, rather than trailing off.

Ultimately, I admit that the light in New York looks no different than other places. But honestly, I truly perceive a difference in the quality of the light. Amazingly, the latitude theory is offered by someone who does not have that perception; a theory that I would not have come up with.

This is what it means to cope, to be part of a family. It's a shared nonsense. And if its a fact, I believe it. And the fact is that the light of reality can be harsh, in New York and elsewhere. Believe it.

Believe it.

Becks heads US invasion

Here's the link: The Sun Online - Football: Becks heads US invasion

Now the anecdote. True story. Trav, or maybe it was Eugene (anyhow) gave me a DC United t-shirt as a gift before I went to study in London. I wore it all the time, normally without comment. Once, at a "rave" (can London raves be like a Rice party... old teens standing around a half-empty dance floor ignoring the lights and music and the EANABS? They can!) a really short girl walked up to me and said, "What the hell is that?"

"It's my DC United t-shirt"

"Ok... is that like a fake team?"

"No..."

The girl went back to ignoring the people she knew.


Story #2: My comment about Team USA

I once compared them unfavorably to the reserve squad for the East LLagollen One-Legged FC. I then demonstrated how "The Hoppers" could beat the US 5-0.

Story #3 (short): The LA Kings

Didn't become great with the Great One.


What is your point?

My point is that Beckham's move will raise interest in the MLS, but that interest will all come from Europe, particularly the UK. And when I say "interest" I mean derision.

Why I am glad that Harry Knowles is not Dakota's uncle

Read this here. Specifically the last three paragraphs (okay, not the last one, but the next to last two).

Taking a 5 year old to see a horror movie, so the kid will learn to be good? Nice.

I know that Owen would never take Dakota (or Jason for that matter) to see an inapropriately scary movie at age 5.

And I know that Eugene would never take Dakota to a movie (because that would necesitate Stephanie being there as well, and probably end up including Teresa too - and be something like The Sugar Princess Ponies Tea Party Adventure - Part 3 IMAX - and there is no way that would ever happen, because have you seen what movie tickets cost in New York?)

I guess what I am saying is that I am glad that my kids' uncles (and "uncles" - Dave, Trav, Erik, Jeff, Andy, etc) are smart enough to know what movies are and are not good for a 5 year old.

The "Aqualung" game

I admit that I am still a bit freaked out by Jason's hospital visits. One moment he is happy, sleeping, being a good boy. The next he is in the emergency room. We've been less nervous parents with Jason than with Dakota, the whole 2nd child confidence thing. Still, raising Jason has been more humbling -- in its own way. Jason has such a different temperment. I did not do anything to influence that, just like, so the doctor tells me, nothing I could have done would have stopped Jason from getting sick, and (if it was a virus) nothing but Jason's own immune system would help him get better.

In the Greek tragedies, all of the heroes seem surprised by their undoing. Their Hubris is such that they don't perceive how small they really are next to greater forces like -- the World, Fate, and the Acts of God. When I say things like "How could he have gotten sick? This must be my fault." That's hubris. Jason's classmates don't stop sneezing and their rhinoviruses don't stop being airborne or landing on surfaces. I really have to get a grip.

So I'm thinking about this as I was driving home, when I started playing the Aqualung game. The first time I played the Aqualung game just sort of happened at Eugene's wedding. Billy Wilson was asking me about the hot tub in my hotel room (Eugene put Louren and I in a room with a hot tub) and I said

"SIT-ting in the the HOT-TUB"

just like

Sitting on a park bench

Which is funny, but in truth -- this line works for just about any place to sit:

Sitting on the sofa
Sitting in my office
Sitting in the move-ees

Which then becomes the basis of the game.. If I want to give a shout-out to the blog that this blog is a parody of I'd say:

How ya do ing Trav-is?

One of Kerry's patients might ask her:

What is the prog nose sis?

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

PRAC tice practice PRAC TICE

Pretty soon, you are hooked and just about every sentence you utter

comes out being lyrics

I always (as in never) have said there are two Jethros in the cultural consciousness that are a real blight: the other one was Bodine.

Sunday Noon(ish) Update

You guessed it.

Will says that hopefully someone told Jason that it would be a cold day in Sugar Land before he was born. It is now 42 (feeling like 37 with the humidity and wind), so this would be a good time for him to appear. Especially since we have all these cute January baby clothes for cold weather from Stephanie, via Eugene and Joann. Trust me, Jason will not be wearing pink.

In roughly 48 hours, he could be here, as I am calling a before noon baby, since my induction is starting at 5:30am. I could be wrong, but I labored "wow, fast!" as my doctor recalls via her notes from last time.

I am calling 9 lbs even for the weight. My mom has 9 lbs, 3 oz, and Will has 9 lbs 6 oz. Any other takers?

As for length, that is less important, but I am thinking 21 inches. We will see.

More procrastination from studying for Torts

If there is one area where I am still not solid, its Duty of Care as it applies to omissions. This hurt me on Crim Law also. It's counter-intuitive. The gut instinct is that morally you should help people, so legally you should too. Then, GOTCHA! All sorts of legal and moral hazards come up in creating these sorts of duties, the type that can't be explained away with "bumper-sticker" phrases like "It's bad to legislate morality"

anyway. On to the procrastination:

HoustonChronicle.com - Partners create local 'Japanimation' station

Actually, I've got nothing to say about this article. I've been rewatching Last Exile on the new combined G4 TechTV network (I've got a separate rant on how Tech TV isn't nearly nerdy enough but I'll skip it for now) which I've previously talked about how this show is like the best video game ever. That doesn't push the heresy envelop near far enough, so here is one which I've been roasting on for a while.

This show is an above-average done but fairly standard anime. That said, it is an epic vision of a different world like our own but with its won history, legends, technology, culture, faiths, social classes and darn it if it doesn't even have its own physics. These are all the things that Kevin Smith says is so brilliant about "Star Wars" with a strong implication that Lucas is somehow singular in his ability to read Jospeh Campbell and paint by numbers.

At a certain point, however, I have to admit that their are visions of other worlds that are much more compelling and far less cheesy than Lucas. It's a bit sad that with only a few months to go before the last movie of the epic, the illusion seems to be wearing off, especially since I was such a big far for these last twenty-seven years.

The last straw was not this Japanese Cartoon but an article in EW about the Star Wars Holiday Special and the realization that I definitely saw it on TV when it aired in 1978. I saw this and a little more than a year later, the episode of the Muppet show with Mark Hamill, and the following year R2-D2 and C3PO on Sesame Street (couldn't find any good links). I was as uncritically positive about these airings as one might expect from a preschooler, kindergartener, and first grader. I remember talking my friend, Larry, about how Sesame Street was getting kind of babyish, except for that "totally mint" episode with the 'droids. I also remember going to the public library and listening to the soundtrack on vinyl with other 1st graders.

Eugene, of course, thought that the whole thing was stupid and likes to make fun of me about liking Star Wars. I didn't understand this at all, since we both liked the original movie. But over the years, I filled in the blanks by seeing the movies that he saw that I didn't like "2001:A Space Oddessey," "The Man that Fell to Earth," "West World," and "Logan's Run"

and his disdain for Star Wars fandom is more understandable.

I suppose what I am saying (here comes the heresy) is that George Lucas ain't all that. His vision isn't timeless nor even all that epic and that after the last movie comes out, more than anything else, I will probably just feel a sense of relief.

The Story of Thanksgiving

In honor of THANKSGIVING I wanted to tell the story of Thanksgiving.

After being warned by John Wayne to get out of England. The puritans headed to Amsterdam, in order to enjoy religious freedom. They found that the Dutch value freedom a bit too much, so they got together and said, "Let's go to some semi-frozen wasteland where there are savages and disease and hardship." "Why should we do that?" "Then we can practice religious freedom our way! People will be free to only believe what we believe!" "Hooray!"

So they hitched a ride with some merchants who dropped them off at some Plymouth Rock "This wasn't were we wanted to go" "we are sick of you, see ya"

They promptly failed to get their crop of rice, barley, and foolishlyrelyonmetolivebecauseIamabigstupid berry and most of them died.

Then Tonto showed up and suppressing his better instincts to kill the invader of his homeland, decided instead to teach them to plant corn with rotting fish it makes the corn grow better.

WARNING THIS NEXT BIT IS A LIBERAL DOWNER!

That fall in 1621, the Pilgrims were so happy not to be dead that they had a party to thank their Native American friends "We promise that our descendants won't wipe you out in a racist frenzy"

"Okee dookee"

AMERICANS ARE BAD! BAD! BAD! BAD! Bleah!
This message brought to you by liberals.

Years later Benjamin Franklin said, "Wild Turkey is a noble and beautiful... what was the question?"

Then George Washington declared that all Americans would celebrate a big feast to kick off the Christmas shopping season.

Oh... and something about football.

Then there was the part where Peppermint Patty invited Franklin and a bunch of other people over to Charlie Brown's house and Snoopy served them toast and popcorn.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My favorite Thanksgiving memory from my childhood is when we took my Grandma to a fancy new French restaurant on Central Park West. We enjoyed all enjoyed a pretentious family dinner of prix fixe entrees. My French reading comprehension was near its peak so I could almost read what it said on the menu, but luckily we had the waiter to act like a bad 1970's sitcom stereotype of a snooty waiter.

"What is Dinde?"

"C'est turKEY, petit homme."

The waiter looked at me with disgust and disdain as if to say "See what your abomniable culture has forced us to cook?"

I looked at the waiter and said "If we really wanted Turkey, do you think that we would have come here?"

At that point, my Mom scolded me.

"William!"

After dinner we went back to Grandma's apartment and played Scrabble. Eugene won on the last word. It was typical Eugene Scrabble. I put down something like "ICON" which he turns into "LEXICON" with the X on a triple letter and the L on a double word and he clears his rack and there are no more letters and Mom and I both had seven letters in our rack and mom was holding onto a "Z" because she saw "UNFROZEN" for her next turn, which would have been like a billion points.

Happy Birthday, Mom

My mom was born on July 25th and 2 plus five equals seven.

I once wrote a short story that got longer and longer and less good the more I wrote about a lecture that Dr. Tyler gave about a people who saw the face as being the area starting from the eyes and going up (so... The forehead) and who saw clean toes as a measure of good character (so a bad big toe was a bad person) and his point was that different people analyze (by which he meant categorize or parse or cut-up) the world differently and that we shouldn't assume that our assumptions of how the world is organized is any more natural or that other people's way of cutting up the world is weird. In fact, he spent the whole semester giving weird examples of weird people who cut up the world in ways that we would find weird. He would then juxtapose this with things that we should find both weird and horrible, like how they delayed the end of the 1st world war until 11/11 so that it could have nicely symbolic symbolism and in the interceeding period between when they could have ended the war and when they did, thousands of people died.

Anyhow... I didn't need Dr. Tyler to tell me that people can have an extremely different world view or that the dominant portions of society can find this difference to be very alien because I have my mom.

This is the sort of statement that I make which can be taken the wrong way, if viewed out of context. So if you want to conclude that I am a bad son and a bad person, stop reading now. Not just this blog, just stop reading. Go back to watching game shows on the weather channel and listening to the Dave Matthews band duet with Kenny G.

Still there? Good. Now a tribute to my mom:

My mom has never felt the need to apologize for having a mind of her own, or more precisely I don't think that it has every occurred to her to do so. From her example, especially in contradistinction to much of the phony "non-conformity" that I witnessed in High School and College (see my cannonical rant on vegetarianism from May 3rd) I came to understand the meaning (and the price) of truly independent thought.

I deleted a long digression here that wanders far afield from my intended point in which I talk about an interesting book writing by Montana Katz where I end up making my poor mom carry the cross for all of feminism and all of intellectual purity. Goodness! I've made her life is hard enough without having to put that on her.

Rather, I mean that my mom has made up her own mind about what it means to live a good life, based on her own evaluations and her own axioms. This sort of freedom and independence has become increasingly difficult to achieve. More importantly, those people who do have such an oppurtunity often squander it through selfish, unethical conduct.

I also mean that my mom is quite a colorful character.

I also mean that my mom was very happy to let me become my own person and that I intend to do the same for my kids.

I also mean that I often have no idea what she is talking about like when she says stuff like, "Its quite interesting that I was born on July 25th"

"What's interesting about that, Mom?"

"Well... Two plus five equals seven and you were born on June 1st and six plus one equals seven"

"Ok... But Eugene was born June 18"

"Yes, but six plus one plus eight..."

"Equals fifteen. And?"

"Fifteen is three times five... The Greeks liked threes and fives and sevens so I've got all the bases covered"

"Happy Birthday, Mom"

Happy Birthday, Eugene

With a brother who is seven years older, he would (at times) take on Daniel Boone-like qualities.

 

• "Once my brother went backstage at the Hollywood Bowl"
• "Once my brother held the spotlight on-stage at the Palladium"
• "Once my brother met Brooke Shields and pretended like he thought she was Gilda Radner"

 

Here's to my brother, King of the Wild frontier.