So...I was doing some online stuff just now, and I got a couple of those security verification word-pictures that I thought were funny.

The first one was the funniest, maybe because of the colors, but the rest are decent.

Just a little weird humor.

This is the first one that caught my interest. Polyps are neither neither sunny, nor colorful, but somehow, this puts a smiley face on it.


Crusher. The crusher, kinda crushed itself. Ironic.



A jubilant jubilee.



Gunboats are cool.


This one is kinda deep. Victim. But the word is not presented in a "strong" typeface. It's presented in more of a distinctively weak font. The "victim" is a victim.

That's all I got.

Usually I drop these after I've been on a rant, but I'm gonna go with it for the sake of consistency:
Know what I'm Sayin'??

First, some background. I don't remember where I got this particular copy, but it's an old copy. If I had to guess, I'd say that it's one that my parents picked up in a thrift store many years ago (the thrift store is a great place to pick up books, the good ones never go out of style). The copy I have is a Signet Book which I think was printed in 1966. It's retail price was 95 cents.

Ralph Waldo Ellison was born in Oklahoma City in the year 1913. He entered Tuskegee Institute on a scholarship to study music at the age of 20 with a desire to write a symphony. He stayed at Tuskegee for 3 years, until the money ran out, and he was forced to leave school. He went to New York City, where he met Richard Wright, who was just beginning his own writing career. Richard convinced Ralph to leave music and instead to write. Between 1937 and 1944 he wrote for New York publications like New Challenge and New Masses, which published his short stories, articles, and over 20 book reviews. He wrote Invisible Man in the late 1940s, which won the National Book Award in 1953.

Shadow and Act is a collection of Mr. Ellison's personal political, social and critical essays. It was first published in hardcover in 1964.

One day, a few years ago, I pulled this book off the shelf, and decided to read something written by one of the great authors of our history. I settled on Shadow and Act. Some say that the personal nature of it's essays turns the book into a sort of autobiography. I can't honestly say whether or not I agree, because I have never read the book. I never got past the Introduction.

I think that in order to truly enjoy a book, or a movie, (not sure I'm comfortable applying this to television programs), you have to open yourself to it. You have to dispell a certain amount of your cynicism, and it's best not to try to solve the case immediately after the murder. Just let the book/movie unfold, and save your questions and comments for later.

Anyway, I say that to say that I was prepared to be...touched by this book. And touched I was. Only not by the book, but it's Introduction.

What I will share with you here are a few snippets from the Introduction to Shadow and Act, written by it's author, the distinguished late Mr. Ralph Waldo Ellison. Perhaps these snippets will touch you as they did me.

"...the earliest, most agonizingly written pieces presented here (none has been retouched) were the results of a crucial conflict raging deep within me, the products of an activity, dreamlike yet intense, which was waxing on the dark side of my mind"

"At stake here, beyond the veil of consciousness, was the question of what seemed possible for me in terms of self-achievement, and linked to this was the question of what was the most desirable agency for defining myself."

"...in the beginning writing was far from a serious matter, it was playing with the secret lore of a fascinating but less glorious art to which I owed, I believed, no prior dedication."..."Rather it was a reflex of reading, an extension of a source of leisure, escape and instruction. In fact, I had become curious about writing by way of seeking to understand the aesthetic nature of literary power, the devices through which literature could command my mind and emotions. It was not, then, the process of writing which initially claimed my attention, but the finished creations was, therefore, an amusing investigation of what seemed at best a secondary talent, an exploration, like dabbling in sculpture, of one's potentialities as a 'renaissance man.' "

He goes on here to talk about this whole "renaissance man" concept, and how he may have come to be one.

More:

"...ours was a chaotic community, still characterized by frontier attitudes and by that strange mixture of the naive and sophisticated, the benign and malignant, which makes the American past so puzzling and its present so confusing..."

Still timely, methinks.

I feel like I'm typing out the whole Intro, but it's giving me an excuse to read it again:

"The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike."

"I had undergone, not too many months before taking the path to writing, the humiliation of being taught in a class in sociology at a Negro College (from Park and Burgess, the leading textbook in the field) that Negroes represented the 'lady of the races.' This contention the Negro instructor passed blandly along to us without even bothering to wash his hands, much less his teeth."

"...I found the greatest difficult for a Negro writer as the problem of revealing what he truly felt, rather than serving up what Negroes were supposed to feel, and were encouraged to feel."

Here's a doozie:

"In this sense fiction became the agency of my efforts to answer the questions: Who am I, what am I, how did I come to be? What shall I make of the life around me, what celebrate, what reject, how confront the snarl of good and evil which is inevitable? What does American society mean when regarded out of my own eyes, when informed by my own sense of the past and viewed by my own complex sense of the present? How, in other words, should I think of myself and my pluralistic sense of the world, how express my vision of the human predicament, without reducing it to a point which would render it sterile before that necessary and tragic - though enhancing - reduction which must occur before the fictive vision can come alive?"

He kinda wraps it up after that.

- Deep Breath -

I think these words would ring true and personal to any artist. Consider this: Do any of YOUR favorite books evoke the sense that the author had these kinds of questions in mind as they wrote?

Thank you for sharing this with me. I must admit, that I have not shared this with many people. I hope that I have not..."reduced it to a point which had rendered it sterile." Rather I hope that I have managed to distilled the spirit of what the author was trying to say into a more condensed form that will inspire you to check out the full text of Introduction, if not the entire book.

As for me, I won't read the book itself just yet. I think I'm afraid that it won't live up to the hype that the Introduction has created in me. I'll continue to let the Introduction stand on its own. On its own it recharges and inspires me.

Thank You, Mr. Ralph Waldo Ellison.

Know What I'm Sayin'??

Let's talk about the standard bathroom process.

1. You go in.
2. You use the bathroom.
3. You grab the nasty handle and flush. Your hand is nasty.
4. You grab the nasty handle and turn the water on. Your hand is nasty.
5. You one way or another touch the nasty soap dispenser. Your hand is nasty.
6. You wash.
7. You use your (now clean) hand to grab the nasty handle and turn the water off. That hand is nasty again.
8. You grab some paper towels. If the dispenser is the kind that you have to touch, it's probably nasty.
9. You leave. (Did you touch the door handle with your hand, or did you use a paper towel?) I do my due diligence, and grab the handle with a paper towel on my way out. Some say to just drop the paper towel on the floor, but I prefer to throw it away. This usually means I grab the handle with a paper towel, pull the door open, and either hold it open with my foot while I dispose of the paper towel, or throw it away with out holding the door and just move really fast. Either way it's undue acrobatics.
   

At the end of my process, and usually during, I'm always left thinking..."There's gotta be a better way."

Please don't misunderstand me. I have noticed people trying, and progress has been made:

• The whole motion detecting toilets and urinals. These work well. I even saw a toilet in an airport once that had a little seat cover that changed itself after each use.
• The sinks. The motion detecting sinks. They work decently, but I think in the past I've seen a method of doing this that involved some sort of foot pedal. I think this should be brought back.
• The maze entrance. This is another one that is in use in airports. I think it works. There's no door to touch, and no breach of privacy from an open door. Alternatives here could an opaque hybrid of the the "seeing-eye" revolving door, or something similar to what is used in grocery stores.

Some of the new stuff doesn't work quite so well.

• The automatic soap dispenser. This thing needs some tweaking. I've seen it dispense soap, when there's no hand waiting.
• The automatic paper towel dispenser. This thing is the worst. I just feel silly standing there waving my hand in front of the thing. Reminds me of Luke Skywalker. "These aren't the droids you're looking for." Only it worked for Luke. If I said "Open Sesame" in a fake deep voice, then I'd be a shoo-in for a cheesy role in an even cheesier movie.
  

So, in summation, there really does need to be a revolution in public restrooms. To be sure, some of the public restrooms are much further along than others. What confuses me is that you'd think that the new restrooms would begin to combine the best features of all the public restrooms out there, but it doesn't seem like they're learning from each other, or themselves. I mean, shouldn't places like McDonald's have perfect restrooms by now?

Know What I'm Sayin'??

Earlier today a brief wave of frustration washed across my being. I got
frustrated because I was painfully aware that it's been a few days since
I've written anything. For the record, let me say that the most
remarkable thing about this is that in the less than two months that
I've been writing here, my soul has so enjoyed it that it the lack of it
was...an irritant. An itch. It bothered me. To me, that's growth. My
artistic spirit is (again) awake, and I'm honored to say it. The icing
on that cake is...that was only my first epiphany of the evening.

The Second Epiphany

So on the heels of that frustrated feeling my inner frustrated problem
solver instinct kicked in.

"I must write something!"
"What do I write?"
"Wait a minute, haven't I posted in the past about what I would be writing?"
"Yeah, but I haven't come across anything lately that I feel like
writing about. No great books or anything."
"Okay...didn't I somewhere post about an exact topic that I would write
about in the future?"
"Yes! That's it. Let's do it."

Sorry for the long post, folkz, but sometimes it's like that.

Atlanta is a driving city. We have a relatively viable mass transit system, but for the vast majority of ATLiens, it just doesn't fit our needs.

The point of that is that I drive my car every day. I drive a 1997 Cadillac STS. It's got the Northstar, and it's name is Bruce. It's better on gas than you might think, and it's a total joy to take on road trips. Which brings us to the subject of: gas. Most days I take the same route away from my house into town. Along that route I pass a QT. Just about every time I pass the QT, I check out the price for the premium gas that Bruce requires.

The gas price is my barometer for the state of affairs in the US. Since I don't watch the news (that's another post), I have lots of faith in this barometer.

The gas price gives me two pieces of information:
1. The current price
2. The price change from the last time I passed the station

Knowing the current price helps me to get a point of comparison for the other prices that I see in my travels. Try it, especially if you live a decent distance from the middle of town. I've seen the difference between what I pay and the price in certain other parts of town vary by as much as .15! This, combined with what I know about other parts of town, usually means that I could probably come up with two gas stations in town that have a difference of at least .20, which is ridiculous, and at times, infuriating.

Okay...here's my beef. My issue. My cause for concern. The price changes are off the wall. OFF THE WALL. Let's go back say...3 weeks. Back to like mid-February. Things are going well in the world of gas prices, from the consumer perspective. Prices are dropping. A few cents every day or two. Happiness. Prices for regular unleaded even dropped below $2.00 in a few places. The difference between regular unleaded and premium being a dependable .20 and allowing for some wiggle room, say the good stuff was...$2.25 per gallon. Good.

In the space of ONE DAY, the price goes up by a whole dime. I'm on the phone with my Mom, which I somehow often am on the way towards or away from home, and I have to mention it. Not cool. Not cool at all. But I get over it relatively quickly. After all, I have places to be, and I haven't gotten fed up enough to get rid of Bruce (YET), so I pay what they say.


THE NEXT DAY IT'S UP BY ANOTHER DIME. I call my Mom and rant for a few minutes.

The next day, it's gone down. By a penny. Whatever.

So it hovers there for a few days. By now we're up to early March. Call it March 6th, my boy Chris' birthday. For those not keeping up, we're now at $2.44 per gallon from March 6th through March 8th. Today, March 9th, I'm leaving the house around 8pm, heading towards my fiancee's aunt's house. It's down to $2.41. The barometer tells me that it's been a decent week. No severe weather anywhere close. No one has died in Iraq for a few days, I suppose. 3 AND A HALF HOURS LATER, IT'S GONE UP BY 8 CENTS. Tell me. What happened in those 3.5 hours?

Okay, so for a moment let's assume that "something" happened. What happened that was so world-changing that it merited an .08 rise?

At this point, I stop and do a little research on gas prices. Reading is Fundamental, and Knowledge is Power.

Here's what I found:

There are four components to the price of gas. In order of decreasing percentages, they are:
1. Crude Oil Prices
2. Federal and State Taxes
3. Refining Costs and Profits
4. Distribution and Marketing

Simple enough.

Now, there are a few things that can cause...fluctuations...in the actual final price that this adds up to.
- Seasonality of Demand - People drive more and burn more gas during warmer months because of the desire to travel.
- Cost of Crude - Obviously
- Supply/Demand Imbalance - Obviously

Finally, there are a few things that, in addition to the other factors, can cause differences in your local price:
- Proximity to Supply - most of our gas comes from the Gulf Coast. The farther you are away from there, the higher your price might be.
- Supply Disruptions - Of course. This is probably the main reason prices skyrocketed during and after Katrina. The supply from the major Gulf Coast refineries in the Louisiana area was dirupted.
- Local Competition - Competition is a standard concept in Economics. Let me know if you need a primer on this.

Oh yeah...don't forget the laws in California and other areas that result in more stringent requirements in emissions and such.

Okay...I have armed myself with information, but I'm still not satisfied. This doesn't explain the 8 cent hike, or the successive 10 cent hikes. You can't convince me that we dropped bombs and my gas went up 3.5 hours later. Not gonna happen. It's a racket.

I'm done ranting for a few minutes. I feel better now.

Please let me take this opportunity to mark the introduction of a recurring feature here - "There needs to be a revolution in...". These posts will focus on processes and stuff that either are just jacked up, or have been the same way for a really long, and I think that with our modern technology and thought processes, we could really do better as a people. One example that will be addressed in the near future - The whole public bathroom process. Flushing, handwashing, and touching stuff.

Good night.

Know what I'm sayin'??

If you are not a devout fan of Fox's 24, then you have absolutely no
idea what the hell I'm talking about

If you are a fan, however, you mourn with me.

For the uninitiated, Edgar Styles is (was) a character on 24. Played by
Louis Lombardi, we first met Edgar during Day/Season 4. He is (was) a
competent, if somewhat easily distracted analyst for the Los Angeles
branch of the Counter Terrorism Unit, a fictional version of Homeland
Security, if you will. On a show which heretofore has had a planted
double agent, or at least a tragically flawed leader, Edgar was a breath
of fresh air. Honest to the point of being vulnerable, and hopelessly
in love with another character, Chloe Sullivan.

Edgar's most endearing moments came last season when he was charged with
disarming about 100 nuclear plants which had been set to overload by
terrorists. He successfully disarmed all but a handful, saving tens of
thousands of lives, but then was hopeless to save his own elderly
mother, who happened to be in the danger zone for one of the nuclear
plants he couldn't disarm. He was told that there were just not
National Guard, police, and other public service personnel for one to be
spared long enough to go save his mother. When he threw a tantrum about
it, he was simply told to get over it and get back to work.

That's enough background story. Back to this season. For those of you
who TIVOed it, or plan on watching it soon, let me give you the short
version. CTU was compromised. Toxic nerve gas. They had to
evacuate. Edgar went to look for someone who he had snapped at, and
sent on an errand, instead of high-tailing it out of there. Finds the
chick dead. Meanwhile, those left in CTU realize that it's too late to
get out of there and end up sealing themselves in a few rooms that were
safe. They're sealed in. Looking out through the all-glass doors and
walls, and in stumbles poor Edgar. He already feels bad about the chick
that he sent to her death. He's probably flashed on the last crisis in
which he lost his mother. Sees the gas refugees in the sealed off room,
and instantly understands that he's a dead man. Everyone in the sealed
room who counts remembers what happened to his mother, and they're all
of a sudden very sad, and their eyes are getting moist, including Chloe,
who probably had a little crush on Edgar, too, but just couldn't admit
it to him, much less herself. Edgar collapses to the floor.

Probably the most tender moment to date I've seen on 24.

Know what I'm sayin'??

This post is about a flash of brilliance; not mine, but a young man named Andy Medlin.

Andy is a student a Georgia State University. I'm a little sketchy on the details, but here's one version of what might have happened:

The Group: Let's make a movie and enter it in this competition. Anyone have any ideas?

Andy: I've got an idea. Let's get thousands of people mad at us.

RGM(Random Group Member) 1: Sounds promising. Tell us more.

Andy: Okay. What's the speed limit on 285?

RGM 2: 55, but I usually run about 65 at least.

Andy. Right, because a speed limit of 55 is silly. Nobody goes that slow, so why don't they set more realistic speed limits. I'll tell you why, so that whenever the governments want to make a little extra money, they can just throw a bunch of cops out there and dole out hundreds of tickets. It's a brilliant money-making scam, but it's a scam all of the same. It sucks, and I'm sick of it!

RGM 3: Whoa. Calm down there, buddy. But I think you may be on to something.

Andy: Sorry. Got a little carried away there. Here's the point. We get on 285, and actually go the speed limit. We can put cameras in the cars. Maybe set up a couple on some bridges over the highway. It'll be great. We can do it during the morning rush hour for maximum effect.

RGM 4: Smashing idea, chap. Count me in.

RGM 1: Cool! I'm in. What do you think Jordan?

Jordan (The Experienced Filmmaker): Yeah. I can work with that. I think it'll come out cool, if we get it right.

RGM 3: Okay. Let's do it.

RGM 2: I'm down. RDM 5? (Heretofore silent)

RGM 5: Huh? (Pauses his Playstation) Sure. Whatever.

And so, the plan was born.

This intrepid group, on a chilly January morning, got on Atlanta's Highway 285, and drove at 55ish for 30 minutes.



For the uninititated, we call 285 "The Perimeter". The Perimeter is a rough circle that runs all the way around Atlanta. There are certain parts of it that get congested everyday. "ITP" and "OTP" are common abbreviations used here, for "Inside the Perimeter" and "Outside the Perimeter". This gives people a rough idea of where something is. It works for us. At any rate, The Perimeter is a major Atlanta highway, it gets congested pretty much everyday. The other half of why this was such a big deal is that here in Atlanta, we drive fast. The speed limit is 55, but I'd guess the average speed is more like 75.

So, now you begin to see why this was such a big deal.

Turns that in addition to winning the award for Best Comedy for Georgia in the Campus MovieFest, a traveling movie competition, the movie, entitled "A Meditation on the Speed Limit" has also garnered mention on ABC's World News Tonight. It will compete against other states' winners in the Spring.

I read comments on the...stunt..., and public reactions have been mixed. Some feel that the cohorts should be fined, and their licenses revoked. Some have pointed to specific sections of Georgia Law that declare the...feat...illegal. There is a group that can't help but grant that nothing illegal was done. This group includes a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Transportation. Then there are the worst-case scenrario folkz that feel that the...demonstration...was extremely dangerouus, if for no other reason than because emergency vehicles couldn't get through. However, at 55mph, one could argue that the chances of an accident were greatly reduced.

I say this...coup...was timely, not unappropriate, clever, and shrewd. Kudos.

Know What I'm Sayin'??

Atlanta, Ga
April 12-15, 2006

Non-member attendees who want one of those name tags and the official program: $5 day of.

Nuff said.

BUT

Hold on. As I read further, I see that for nonmembers, if you WANT the dorky nametag and the program, the cost is $50. That must be one helluva program, right? You might think so, but the program is online at the conference site, so why pay for it? Okay, so membersip in one of the Association is $50 also. I wonder if you have to be a member of one of these associations to attend?

Okay. These pop culture guys need a little bit of consulting help. Says on the site that they charge you extra if you register online, because of some surcharge from the service that they're using for online event payment and registration. I thought these days events charged extra for snail-mail registrations because of the hassle of dealing with paper and typing and such.
The event registration company must be making a killing! They're called Actēva.

Okay...this is getting more interersting by the minute. Popular Culture has a Journal, and because there apparently so much Pop Culture these days, they're expanding from 4, to 6 issues. Also, apparently they distribute a commemorative poster every year or something, because it's really important that you give a good mailing address so that you can get yours. Also, I guess they put out the posters a year early, or maybe they are just collecting mailing addresses for next year's poster, because they are specifically talking about the 2007 poster. A little bit confusing.

More: The scholar on me is not letting this Pop Culture thing go. Apparently the PCA was founded in the 1960s. If you were wondering what the difference is between the PCA and the ACA, the PCA waves the flag that Popular Culture is not necessarily contemporary, and definitely not always American.

I can't say that there are many organizations that I've ever had a hankering to join, but let me for now, say this: I'll try to attend at least some of the conference, and then I'll decide if I'll join one of the Associations. I'll keep you posted.

Know what I'm sayin'??

I honestly have no idea how many people are reading this, but I keep
writing anyway. The reason I mention is that is because I'm dying to
know how many of y'all love watching Good Eats. I can't say that I set my TV to tune to it automatically, or anything, but if I see that it's on,
then my decision is made.

What makes Alton stand out from the rest of the Food Network shows is
that he doesn't just tell you /what/ to do. He tells you /why/ to do
it. That way you can take the knowledge and underlying concepts, and
expand upon them to your needs. He hates uni-taskers (tools or gadgets
meant and only useful for one purpose), and he is a big fan of common
sense. I watched it tonight, and he made a smoker out of two terra
cotta pots, a hot plate, and a BBQ grate. Like 50 bucks in materials.

An other thing I like is that the guy lives right here in Atlanta,
somewhere. Whenever he visits stores he flashes the name of the place
up in the corner of the screen, and I'm like "I've been there!". Cool
stuff.

So, if anyone happens to know him, or can get to him within a degree or
two of separation, make an introduction. Hook me up.

Know what I'm sayin'??

Octavia Butler was a noted, and in my opinion, prolific Black Science Fiction author. She tragically died last Friday, February 24th 2006 in her home town of Seattle.

She was the author of 13.somethng books, including three series and a collection of short stories entitled Bloodchild and Other Stories. Her latest book, Fledgling, was just published in October 2005, and I personally was hoping that it would be the start of yet another series.

Her books are marvelously critical and "parabalisic", if that makes sense. She used them as a forum to voice her opinions on the shortcomings and the strengths of our society, as well as certain corners that our history and culture have unfortunately painted us into, like racial and sexual discrimination.

I have recently learned a few new things about Octavia. She was a lesbian, a feminist (quite clear from reading her books, now that I think about it), and self-described hermit, and I'd say her books will be treasured for generations to come. I don't have all of her books, but if anyone has any that they'd like to send me, let me know. Otherwise, I'll make it my mission to remedy that in short order. That way I know I'll have them, so my children, and my children's children, and my children's children's children can enjoy them.

The world will miss Octavia Butler, may it never forget her.

know I'm sayin'?