In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Here’s a brief list of good things that happened this week, for anyone who missed them:
- Taylor Hicks won American Idol, thus partially restoring my faith in what I thought was a bloated, vain, idle, lazy, visible-rib-cage-obsessed population. Now if they can just make it equally fashionable to be an activist liberal I’ll be completely happy.
- Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were convicted and face life in prison.
- I discovered the song “Waiting For The Siren’s Call” by New Order. I’m a bit puzzled as to exactly how I missed it all this time, but there you go.
- I ran four miles and that weird eye twitch thing didn’t happen.
- A House panel voted to enforce strict net neutrality standards on ISPs. For those of who unfamiliar with the whole debacle, this essentially means your ISP can’t make you (or the producers of the websites you surf) pay extra for “fast lanes” on the internet. It also means parity access for anyone willing to pay the monthly fees we’re all used to. ~

Random thoughts on House Of Leaves

House Of Leaves is a bit of a masterpiece, I think. Set in rural Virginia in the not too distant past, it’s a modern haunted house tale. The story concerns a traveling photographer and his wife and two children. They move into a house in the woods, far from the madness of the urban northeast. Slowly he begins to relax into a life with no foreign assignments or long stays overseas, partly by documenting his family’s move on film. Everything changes rapidly one day when, with family and a friend present, he films a door that has appeared in his living room leading into a hallway. Without giving too much away, the five and a half minute hallway is just the beginning.
I’m rereading it now, and I’m having two ideas about it. Both ideas concern things that most of us don’t take seriously but as children develop often unhealthy obsessions with. The first is time travel. When I was a kid I really liked the Back To The Future movies. I would get hung up on the physics of it all though, which led to a summer spent giving myself an amateur education (and a headache) in quantum physics. From time to time even now I’ll have dreams or waking fantasies about being able to slide effortlessly from decade to decade. Imagine not only reading about the D-Day landings, or the fall of the Berlin wall, or the first Thanksgiving. Or visiting your hometown 40 years from now, or getting the financial section of the newspaper from two weeks in the future so you can dump some stock before it tanks. It’s thoughts like these that can feed a curious imagination for days on end, the tendrils of them sneaking into daily experiences and making fun out of the tedious. House Of Leaves deals instead with travel within one’s own house, remembering of course that in dreams houses represent our own lives.
As our lives expand and stretch ever onward it gets harder and harder to remember experiences as vividly as we once did. Though modern science deals in cold technicalities when it talks about time travel–explaining in graphic detail the quantum necessities and multiple universes of time dilation–sometimes the most fun is thinking about travel within ones own life. It’s the most obvious wish after all, especially for anyone who ever flubbed a line in the school play or said something we really didn’t mean in an argument. We long to live in a world without paradoxes, where not only is every possibility happening at once but is available to us like items on a menu. It isn’t possible of course, and wishing isn’t planning, but we go on wishing anyway.
The other thing I’ve been thinking of is the need we have to be scared, if only to be saved. I tormented myself with the commercials from horror movies when I was little. Something about the experience of seeing a movie made it real to me, and so the movie trailers seemed more like teasers for documentaries than harmless entertainments. As these movies wind up on cable in my late twenties I can’t help but chuckle my way through them, thinking about the way they used to rearrange my sleep patterns and keep my poor parents awake manning the drinking glass. I’m not above being terrified every now and then, but as an adult we learn an ability to talk ourselves down. A minute with the light on thinking about tomorrow’s meeting can put the nightmare at a safe distance now, and in some small way deep down we feel proud of our ability to self-console. Soon fear is gone almost completely, and danger or excitement leads to disbelief instead of the old fashioned terror.
Anyway, I say all this partly to empty my head of the logorrhea before I go to sleep and partly to recommend this book. Even for the steadfast it will take several passes; it’s well footnoted, in four or five languages and at least five typefaces. Hell, even some of the footnotes have footnotes. But past all the pseudo-Nabokavian tricks there’s a great story, and perhaps a little window into some things you never knew about the kid you see in the mirror every morning.~

A very nice guide to eating sushi. I’m glad to say that my companions and I have abided by most of these suggestions when eating sushi without having seen the guide. It’s really pretty easy since most of them are based on politeness (and my new best pal common sense.) ~

I made it home today in time to flip past Anderson Cooper on Oprah. I want to like him, so I watched for a few minutes. In all honesty, despite his lineage, he seems to be genuine about not relying on his name or family to do what he does. I found his coverage of hurricane Katrina to exude the perfect mix of compassion and outrage, and I credit him in some ways with helping to turn the tide on Bush. I’d agree that he ends up becoming the story sometimes instead of merely reporting it, but such is the way of television news.
I was unaware that he left a decent job with a teen-focused news show to shoot his own stories in Myanmar during the 8888 Uprising, without anything to fall back on and only a gut feeling to guide him. As obvious has he can be at times it’s often just what the world needs; I told someone the other day that often we need someone to remind the world about that thing called “common sense.” ~

I’ve spent the day bouncing between hacking out HTML for a client, mailing out eBay winnings and perfecting my recipe for Coq au Vin. In other words, it’s a slow news day. The worst part is, in the immortal words of Dante Hicks, I’m not even supposed to be here today. ~

How to Publish State Secrets on an Open Blog (a primer)

1) Establish a tiny but loyal readership.
2) String them along with general interest entries about sports, the weather and politics.
3) Write a long screed on a video game system, of at least 10 paragraphs, full of conjecture and opinion.
4) Watch your loyal readers and the public at large scramble.
5) Publish those missile schematics! With no readers, there’s no proof!

Hey, step three worked like a charm for me. Stella! Come back! ~

Nintendo: Third Mover Advantage

If video games and consumer speculation bore you (not to mention aggressively mediocre writing) you may want to skip this one.

Shortly after Microsoft announced the Xbox 360 rumors began to fly about system specifications and launch titles. The new console’s muscular hardware made many gamers swoon with anticipation, and the $399 price tag for the high-end bundle seemed in line with estimates. With pre-sale claim checks in hand the world waited for something from Sony, whose Playstation 2 had held a slight edge over the first generation Xbox in terms of sales and user base. Weeks went by. Photos purporting to show a batwing-like controller from Sony appeared and disappeared, but still the giant was silent.
After months of tight lips, Ken Kutaragi finally conceded in the press that in contrast to the Xbox 360 the PS3 would be “expensive.” Sounds like an outrageous thing to say when you’re trying to sell consoles, and you’ve already lost first mover advantage. But rumors of an expensive price tag had swirled about before Microsoft had announced any price point; it’s a safe bet Kutaragi was trying to goad a price war. But what was the reasoning now?
Without much fanfare 9 months ago, Nintendo released pictures of a concept version of its Revolution (now called Wii) game console. Realizing the console wars were in full swing by now, Nintendo made several definite announcements about its new product. Soon photos of almost every component of the system—including its wild new controller and many new Mario theme launch titles—were making the rounds on the internet. E3 was approaching. Sony and Nintendo had everything to lose should they give bad demos of their systems at the all-important gaming con. Leading up to E3, Nintendo landed several swift punches; the console was renamed, which brought it back to the attention of the media and gamers; actual screenshots of game play originating from Nintendo showed many titles that included fan-favorite characters like Mario; and best of all, Nintendo announced a $199 price point.
This is the blow that stopped any hope that Sony ever had of winning this round of the console wars. Why? The day before, Sony announced that a high end PS3 would retail for $600 at launch. So much for shot in the arm Sony needs after losing the iPod war, and after the PSP sales slump. Sony has also elected to include a Blu Ray hi definition DVD drive in the PS3 at a time when HD-DVD looks poised to become the de facto standard. So, our lines are drawn. All that’s left to do is look at what makes Sony commit these kinds of blunders.

I. Not Made Here syndrome
Sony has a big problem with anything they didn’t invent or in which they had no hand in development. Kutaragi feels that providing his flagship product as test case is a wise move, and will provide an instant installed base of Blu Ray drives equal to the number of shipping PS3s. Unfortunately, as with any number of Sony-helmed media and media devices, it’s just not. Anyone remember Beta? Minidisc? Rented a UMD movie lately? Yeah, me neither. We have standard media for a reason, a reason Nintendo picked up on when it included an SD card reader on the Wii. The “not made here” syndrome is why Sony has tried five times with five products to unseat the iPod with zero success. Sony is uncomfortable in any arena unless it built said arena, which brings me to my next point.

II. Sony created this market, and now wants to change it
There’s nothing wrong with flipping the script if you’ve got the chops to do it. MP3 players were nothing until Apple re-imagined them, and one could argue that the portable audio market was solely Sony’s until that very day. And in much the same way, though Nintendo really made video game consoles “cool”, it was Sony that re-imagined consoles as “media centers”. They see the PS3 as the logical progression of the PS2; faster, more complex, more capable, and therefore more expensive. And this is true to a degree. I think what Sony and Kutaragi fail to realize is that essentially what they’ve done is make a Media Center PC. By trying so desperately to change the battlefield and its rules—and take over in the process— they’ve simply left the battlefield. In a way I feel for Sony because they seem like pre-1999 Apple when they do this sort of thing. For years Apple was forced to share shelf space with beige PCs that were so often slower and less compelling. But trying to convince someone to buy a Mac over a PC based on intangibles like value and performance was damn near impossible when the Pentium 90 was $1499 and the PowerPC 120 was $2599. I can see the novelty in fighting this battle, but I can also see Sony losing it to the tune of millions just like Apple did. How did Apple fix it? Lots of ways, starting with their own chain of retail stores. Listening Sony?

III. Sony makes other stuff they can’t afford to cannibalize
When the PS3 ships, Sony will be trying to sell standalone Blu Ray players as well. Can you imagine the nightmare of trying to prevent the cannibalization of those sales? Sony’s logic says that if it prices the PS3 well beyond standalone Blu Ray players it will spare those sales. And it will; but at what cost?

Unfortunately there are more anecdotal reasons that Sony can’t win. For starters Microsoft will surely reduce the 360’s price tag for the 2006 holiday season, probably to the tune of $100. This will put them in direct competition with Nintendo for the hearts and minds of the gaming public. There’s also the bad press of crashing E3 demo units and pre-rendered “game footage” that doesn’t look anything like the real deal. Nintendo has been cleaning up at E3, though, with lines forming on the show floor for a chance to test the Wii for just three minutes. Not to mention the fact that the Wii’s graphics, gameplay and hardware make it easy to buy and fun to play. If you want to know why Nintendo has been doing this for 25 years look at the Wii. It isn’t all about titles, or badass hardware. It just plays games—fun, exciting, challenging games. While Microsoft and Sony are designing overpriced, purpose built PCs that happen to connect to your TV, Nintendo still remembers how much fun Duck Hunt was. The Wii will succeed for the same reason the GameCube didn’t do so well: we’re finally tired of reading spec sheets and watching a billion polygons a millisecond. We finally just want to play cool games. And in a field of consoles that stress hardware over fun, the Wii wins by being different —just like the GameCube—in a moment in time when we’re ready to just have fun.

Exhaustive list of characters from Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Tomorry the Ostrich was so great. ~

And while I’m just pasting in things that other people wrote, here’s John Conyers’ response to Tim Russert (Russert insinuated that Conyers would most certainly try to lead the charge to impeach Bush if the Dems win enough seats in the midterms, in an effort to scare all his Republican buddies into action.)

Perhaps Mr. Russert has forgotten, but I have been a Chairman before. For five years, from 1989 to 1994, I was the Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, now called the Government Reform Committee. I have a record of trying to expose government waste, fraud and abuse.
That was back when Congress did something called “oversight.” You know, in our tri-partite system of government, when Congress actually acted like a co-equal branch. The Republican Congress decided to be a rubber stamp for President Bush instead.
Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we wouldn’t be mired in a war based on false pretenses in which we have lost thousands of our brave men and women in uniform and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
Perhaps we would not have had an energy policy drawn up in secret with oil company executives that has led to gas prices of more than three dollars per gallon.
Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we wouldn’t have a prescription drug plan written by the pharmaceutical companies, that prohibits the government from negotiating for lower prices with the same drug companies, and that no one really understands.
Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we would know the extent to which our own government is spying on our phone calls, emails and other communications, contrary to the law of the land.

Hell yeah, dude. You go. ~

This week may be tense and also very exciting, nick, as there is going to be a Full Moon in your sign on Saturday. All those seeds that you have been planting in previous weeks will begin to show fruit at this time. You may also be aware of an increase in feeling as the week progresses. Don’t let impatience or irritability encourage you to make any rash decisions. Stay cool, calm, and collected if you can. Wednesday is great for spiritual issues, or for coming up with vibrant and imaginative ideas that you and your lover or work colleagues can revel in. But don’t try and force any practical arrangements or make firm commitments as these might not work out so well. There is too much confusion in the air for this to be practical. Thursday is great for all kinds of relationships and for meeting new people, including clients and customers. Whatever problems you may have this is the time to sort them out and come to an agreement that suits everyone. Friday may bring a new love relationship your way that you had not expected. You can’t prepare for this, so stay alert and listen to your intuition.

I’m starting to listen now. ~

Bob Pollard is going to drop three albums–one every other week–this month as part of the Fading Captains Series. Oh to be this prolific. ~

Me thinks me have serious problem. Me thinks me addicted. But since when it acceptable to call addict monster? It affliction. It disease. It burden. But does it make me monster?

Cookie Monster Searches Deep Within Himself and Asks: Is Me Really Monster? (via) ~

You are here. Amazing (and huge) true color images of earth. ~