Tweaking Pt 2

Wow, what a pain. I have no idea how people get this stuff to work. First, bbLean killed my system. There's a plugin called bbSysMon that lets me look at what my system is doing - how much RAM is being used and how much the CPU is being tasked. I could sit and do nothing and watch the RAM fill up, and once it got full, that was all she wrote for my system. Trav at work calls this "memory leak." I figured out, though, that the memory leak was mainly caused by the plug-in. When I run bbLean without the system monitor, I can get a good twenty-thirty minutes out of it instead of 5. Eh.

So I decided to go ahead and try LiteStep, since it's the most established. I downloaded it and installed it; it worked like a dream compared to bbLean. Then I signed off my computer and came back to sign on again later in the day. Windows wouldn't start. I had to boot up in Safe mode and switch my shell back to Explorer. When I got back up and running, I tried to run LiteStep again to see if I could fix it. It was gone. The entire folder had been deleted from my hard drive. So I reinstalled it and tried downloading a couple of themes, but I couldn't find any that I liked that also worked with Windows 98. This time when I shut down, I made sure to switch my shell back to Explorer first. However, when my wife tried to get on later in the day, once again, she had to boot up in safe mode, and the LiteStep folder is gone once again, as well as another random folder on the hard drive. So no more LiteStep for me.

I've never been much impressed with Windows. Windows always seemed to be trying to do what other operating systems (like Amiga and Mac) seemed to do so easily with far less bloat. But I have new respect for Windows now. I still think it could improve a lot, but after trying a couple of alternatives, I get the idea that this stuff is really hard to do right. I still wish I could have a lean operating system without so many elements I'm never going to use filling up my hard drive, but overall, I guess I'm going to stick with Windows 98 for now. My new computer fever isn't over, but I'm going to have to find some other way to fight it, I guess.

Maybe I'll try just one more shell...

Tweaking

Writers meeting last night. It was a lot of fun, although I drank a bit too much port.

In an attempt to cure or at least vitiate my new computer fever, I've been looking into tweaking my current system with some addo-ons. I started out to investigate new shells. I had initially been interested in something called Litestep, but I read several articles on-line that mentioned that it was difficult to configure. So instead I downloaded something called bbLean. It looks really cool, but I had serious performance problems with it (probably something I was doing wrong, but it served to make me leery of it). So I may try some other shells before giving up on the idea. My ultimate goal is to put together a complete computer experience: from log-on to log-off, I want the entire experience to be entirely seamless, stable and fast. This means customizing the look and feel of the OS, as well as the log-on screens for Windows (and eventually the manufacturer's logo coming off the BIOS as well). Pretty ambitious for a non-tech savvy guy, and I'm not sure how successful I'll be, considering the machine I'm wanting to customize is a PII I'm using for writing in my office. But I hope it will be fun and that I'll come out the other side both more knowledgeable and having more fun with writing.

Cheap Shoes

I have this thing I do with the big toe on my right foot. I apparently lift it when I'm walking so that it presses against the top of the shoe; I know this because I sometimes develop a hole in the top of my right shoe right over the toe. I've got a pair of sneakers that I bought cheap at Wal-Mart a few months ago, and already they're developing the same hole. Right now, it's more like a cut; invisible until I lift my right foot and then the white of my sock flashes briefly through the hole in the black shoe. When I curl my toe down, the slit closes and the white disappears.

So now I'm very self-conscious when I walk, trying to consciously turn my toes down. It's a pain in the ass.

Vegetarians and odd sales pitches

Okay, first off, this is pretty awesome.

Now that that's out of the way, I was skiimming my friend Matt's blog yesterday and started following links here and there, and ended up on the blog of another writer (I'm not linking or naming names because I'm not going to be too complimentary here). I'm reading her blog, and she's describing the panoply of health-problems she's having and the array of medications she takes and the delicate balancing act that requires and the fact that she goes to have blood work done so often that the folks at the lab know her on sight now, and I'm thinking "wow, sucks to be her."

So the blog links to her website and I jump over there and end up on a page where she describes the reasons she has adopted a vegetarian lifestyle. What's reason number two? You guessed it: because it's so healthy.

Not to be unsympathetic or anything, but if you're going to proselityze for the vegetarian lifestyle based on the supposed health benefits, you might want to spend a little less time complaining about the wreck you've made of your "meat suit" and the medley of medicines you have to take to get through every day. Because that'll send me running for a bacon cheeseburger every time.

I know, I'm going to hell. But you know what? I'll bet you can eat veal there, and nobody will try to make you feel guilty for it. So save me a seat.

UPDATE: did a little more skimming and found out she has lupus. Doesn't change my point, but yeah, my face got a little red for a moment.

BTW, my daughter got an electronic toy for her birthday that we finally opened the other day. I had to go scrounging all through the house for three AA batteries to run the thing; eventually scavenged them out of a talking Tigger doll. Also included in the box was an electronic sound unit that would give a sales pitch about the educational benefits of the toy in question. Printed on the side, it says, "Please discard this sound unit when disposing of package. It is not part of the toy." I got curious about whether I could use the guts for anything else, so I took it apart before throwing it away. Guess what was inside? That's right.

Three AA batteries.

Short Short

My writers group is having a cookout Saturday. Instead of the normal readings, we're going to have a contest: the challenge is to write a ghost/monster story, the kind of thing that could be told around a campfire, in 1,000 words or less. I sat own and did mine yesterday. Less than 450 words. Is it good? Eh. I think it will get a laugh, which is about all I'm hoping for. Considering I still have over 500 words to play with, I suppose I could try to expand and deepen it, but really, what's the point? It works as a little vignette, a scrap, a slice, and adding depth to it will just muddle the impact of the twist ending. It's like yanking off a Band-Aid. Get it over with as quickly and painlessly as possible.

I was in a car accident yesterday. I was pulling into the Taco Mayo parking lot, where a pickup was in the process of pulling out. I stopped to let the truck out, because I really hate it when I'm halfway out of a parking spot and some impatient asshole decides to zoom on past. Next thing I know, my rear view mirror turns gray, because there's a Chevy Tahoe looming up behind me, and CRUNCH! It didn't feel like much, but my tail light lens is broken out, and it looks like a couple of body pieces have been shoved in. I need to get an estimate quickly, because I want my tail light fixed.

And this the day after a body shop guy told me my front end problems were not frame damage-related. I was all happy, thinking my car could be fixed more easily and cheaply than I had thought, and then, BAM! Now I'm back a square.

Changes

Well, after 4 1/2 years, I went out and got my hair cut. Since it was kind of an event, I decided to splurge a little. I went to this place called Troy Mitchell's, where they gave me a complimentary beer and cut my hair in this padded easy chair that made the stylist lean way over to cut my bangs. I look a lot younger (and a lot grayer, sadly). I didn't realize until it was gone just how much I had come to dread brushing my hair after a shower; my hair is very fine and tangles easily. Now it's just swipe, swipe and I'm done. Now I can start riding with the top down on the Batmobile.

Speaking of, The Girl was riding with me the other day and started talking about the ledge behind the seats being the car's throat, which would make the red leather interior a big red mouth. Like I really needed that image.

So lots of stuff is happening at work that I don't want to talk about because people get fired over that sort of thing. But we have this show called Starting Over that, God help me, I'm actually getting into. I hate to admit it, because it's one of those chick shows, and it features Iyanla Vanzant, whose awful talk show used to air on our station (the promos used to feature her laughing, and I swear, if you weren't looking at the screen, you'd think the promo had switched to one for The Simpsons featuring Krusty the Clown). But Starting Over is fascinating, because it is about women trying to change their lives, and there's this amazing tension between the women being asked to do all this bullshit navel-gazing and female empowerment stuff, and then being called on their BS when they fall into the same defensive patterns over and over again. It's also interesting to see how they react when they are pushed to step outside their comfort zones.

Evolutionary Fitness

There are two blogs I read every day. One is Lileks, which I've mentioned before. The other is Arthur De Vany's. I discovered him several years ago (I want to say 1999), when I was starting to explore the low-carb/paleo diet philosophy (one which I endorse intellectually more than by actual example). De Vany's website included pictures of an incredibly fit man in his late 50's/early 60's, along with a fascinating description of the diet and fitness lifestyle he follows, which he claims is derived from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle our ancestors were evolved to follow. There was no plan to adopt, per se; part of De Vany's philosophy is play, which means free-form activities that don't lend themselves to rigid plans. Similarly, his diet advice was less than complete, but basically "meat plus vegetables - play with the colors."

Of course, the reason why the information on his site was limited was because he was in the process of writing a book, or the process of planning to write a book. Now it's 2005, and according to his new blog, he's fixing to get around to writing that book any second now. In the meantime, the blog itself is fascinating stuff: thoughts on health and fitness and diet and disease and economics. He may never get around to writing the book, but then again, I might not be able to follow the "Evo-Fitness" lifestyle even if he did. For now, I'm just enjoying the daily thoughts.

Fighting the Urge

I'm deep in the throes of new computer fever right now. I think I've managed to fight it off for now; I have too many other things to spend my money on, and if I got the computer I want, I would have no wiggle room for future emergencies. But oh, i's on sale and so sweet. Trying to talk myself into just getting a new game (actually, an old game, since my present machine can't play new games, but new to me - Half-Life or Heroes of Might and Magic 4) instead, but it's funny. I'd rather pay $1200 for a new computer on credit than reach in my pocket and pull out $20 cash to buy a game. How odd is that?

A couple of friends have new books out. Richard Cox's The God Particle went on sale in stores yesterday. I read the MS, and it's a good techno-thriller, with all you'd want to know about particle physics and the rigors of being a TV news reporter. And my friend John Wooley has two new books coming out: Voices from the Hill, a history of Oklahoma Military Academy (coming soon), and The Big Book of Biker Flicks, co-written with Michael Price. I wasn't too excited about this one, until I saw him talking about it on OETA the other night, and his enthusiasm got me excited. So I may have to pick it up.

The End of "Star Wars"?

Finally saw "Revenge of the Sith." Funny thing: I didn't hate either "The Phantom Menace" or "Attack of the Clones" nearly as much as a lot of others did, but I wasn't nearly as blown away by the new one. It felt half-hearted and rushed to me. There were so many threads from Ep 2 that Lucas had to resolve, and so many pieces of Ep. 4 that he had to lay the groundwork for, that it felt like Lucas spent most of the movie just rushing from obligatory scene to obligatory scene, trying to hit all his marks before time ran out on him. Hayden Christensen was stiff and Natalie Portman just looked like she wanted to be somewhere else. I thought the movie was structured wrong; two major scenes should have been reversed, in my opinion, which would have given the entire dramatic arc a much stronger spine. I loved the first "Star Wars" when it came out, and I've been a fan of the series ever since, but when I walked out of the theater this time, I was feeling sort of, "Meh." The whole thing feels like a first draft.

Pressure

You know, when I first got the idea of doing a blog, I thought it would be a neat no-pressure thing. Just post and go; anything and everything I want to mention, just mention and move on. But for some reason, it hasn't worked out that way.

It's the same sort of self-imposed pressure for perfection that kept me from getting many dates as a high-schooler, kept me from being able to speak Korean (as opposed to reading it) in the Army, and keeps me from finishing a ton of writing projects. I want to speak, but often don't unless I a) have something to say, and b) can say it correctly. I have trouble throwing caution to the winds, having fun and letting myself perhaps look foolish in the process.

On a more positive note, I have been more active in sending out writing submissions, and I did something the other day that I've long toyed with doing, so I feel as if I'm making progress. Granted, two of the submissions were rejected almost immediately, but oh well. The other thing I did was to hang up a heavy bag for punching.

I've thought about getting myself a punching bag for a long time, but I was afraid to try to hang one, and besides, they're so damned expensive. But I got over my tool fear (easier since changing out my shocks and springs), and just went out and did it. I knew I had to screw the hook into a support beam. I thought about using the old tried-and-true method of using a hammer (which I'd never really done, but I'd seen it done), but then I noticed Mom-in-Law's electronic stud finder, so I grabbed that. After I'd drilled four dry wells, with the drill bits coming out wrapped in insulation, I decided to go Stone Age (okay, Iron Age) and revert to the hammer. BAM! First try. But then I had to switch from the battery-operated drill to the one with the cord to get enough power to drill into the beam. And by the way, if the drill is set on "reverse," you're going to be waiting a long time for the bit to go anywhere.

For the punching bag, I used Patrick Swayze's field-expedient version from "Roadhouse." I used an old Army duffel bag, stuffed with old uniforms and other clothes, hanging by a rope from a D-ring. I still need to stuff it a bit more, to make it heavier so it won't swing as much, but it's fun to hit. I bought handwraps and bag gloves from a sporting goods store and took it for a test drive the other day. I'm looking forward to incorporating more boxing training into my workouts. I want my body to look like Sergio Mora's from The Contender. Okay, I'll never look like that, but I can only look better, right?

The Big Paradox

Well, there are actually lots of big paradoxes, but this is one that's on my mind lately. You know how people are always saying that one reason to exercise and get in shape is how much better you'll feel? It's just the opposite for me.

Don't get me wrong. It feels great to be able to do stuff that I was never capable of doing before, or to do something easily that was once insanely hard. But in general, when I'm on a workout cycle (like now), I don't feel great. In fact, I'm in pain all the time. Every day, I hurt. The pain moves around - one day, it's my legs, the next, my shoulders or lower back or chest - but it's always lurking there somewhere. You know when I feel really good? About a week after I quit working out. But that's not too great an advertising slogan, is it? Sounds too much like a crappy old joke. Why exercise? Because you'll feel so good when you quit...

I'm Back

I was out for drinks last night with a couple of buddies who got me feeling guilty that I hadn't posted here in so long, so I'll start again. It's been hard to get my strength up for blogging. I've been through the mill the last couple of months: I had to replace the shocks and springs in my car, I had to work an extra day per week for a while there, and I've been working out 5-6 days per week. I'm one week away from the end of this workout cycle. I have to say, it's not perfect, but P90X is the real deal for people in halfway decent shape who want to get ripped. I'm not super-ripped, mostly because I haven't been eating well at all, but The Wife keeps commenting on how much better I look, so something must be working.

I'm pissed off at movie trailers. There's this thing they do where they fade in and out of shots now, instead of cutting. It's hella annoying, and it seems like everyone's doing it. The worst offenders so far have been "Zathura" and "War Of the Worlds." Seriously, when I was in the theater watching the "War of the Worlds" trailer, it was so annoying I just closed my eyes until the damn thing was finished. It's like 70% black screen; if I hadn't seen it on-line first, I would have thought the projector was broken.

What I Bought

Okay, so tomorrow, two weeks later, same difference. I bought a collection of Betty Boop cartoons, 23 of 'em. I'm a fan of old film, an even bigger fan of animation, and the 2-disc set only cost $5.99, so it was a great little prize for me.

The cartoons themselves run the gamut from very early Talkartoons, before Betty got her own series (the earliest is "Minnie the Moocher" from 1932, featuring Cab Calloway), all the way to the very end, when Betty had been toned down to avoid censorship ("Musical Mountaineers" from 1939 is the latest one). In between is a fascinating variety, from raunchy, broad ethnic humor and free-form, almost hallucinatory plots, to bland gags executed with mediocre animation.

Fleischer Studios had once been considered Disney's greatest rival. Watching this collection, you can see why people thought that, and also why they fell so short of what Disney accomplished. There are moments of brilliance here. Several cartoons feature the Fleischers' turntable 3D backgrounds, an amazing process that predated Disney's multiplane camera and that should have been exploited to better effect. In essence, they built a miniature set and mounted the animation cels in front of it, so that when a character walks, you can see elements of the background moving in perspective. It may not look so amazing now, when computer animated backgrounds can do so much more, but for the time, the illusion was incredible, and totally beyond anything anyone else was doing.

Another ahead-of-its-time moment comes in "The Old Man of the Mountain." This was another cartoon featuring Cab Calloway, and it seems as if Calloway's orchestra played the entire soundtrack, because the music has a swing totaly unlike any other 30's cartoon. It's really ahead of its time. If only the storyline were better, this culd have been one of the best of the series.

Unfortunately, flashes of brilliance don't make a studio great. Watching this collection, you can also tell just how haphazard and random the Fleischer's methods were, which is why they could never have held their own against Disney, even if Paramount hadn't pulled the plug and forced the brothers out.

Two other thing I just have to mention: I finally, after having read about it many years ago, got to see the moment when Louis Armstrong delivers the line, "You gave my wife a bottle of Coca-Cola so you could play on her vagola," and probably the raunchiest gag I've seen in a Betty Boop cartoon comes in "Chess Nuts," when a thrown vase breaks a couple of holes in the wall. Through one of the holes, you see two mice sleeping together in a bed. The crash of the vase wakes one of the mice, who sits up, looks around in terror, then runs from the bed throug the wall and into another "room" behind the second hole, where he climbs into bed with another mouse! What other studio could give you cheating husbands in an ostensibly "children's" cartoon? Only Fleischer, man, only Fleischer.

Grand Opening

It was an interesting weekend. They opened a new Best Buy on my route to work. I like Best Buy. They have good prices, a decent selection, and almost always some hidden gem on sale. So I dropped in to the new one to check out their Grand Opening sale.

It was a little creepy. The parking lot was nearly full, but when I went in, I found out that most of the people there were employees. There were something like a hundred salespeople milling around. It almost seemed like they outnumbered the customers. And they were constantly walking up to me, asking if I needed help, if I needed anything in particular, blah, blah, blah. I got hit on by at least seven of them as I wandered the store. When I went to check out with my purchase, I ran into this gauntlet of check-out people, like fifteen of them standing around with nothing to do. When they saw me, they all jumped up like puppies in a pet store, and I had to pick one. I chose the first one on the left, a cute teenage girl, paid for my stuff (she encouraged me to bring my credit card next time), and breathed a sigh of relief once I was clear and out the door.

So what did I buy? Tell you tomorrow.

Watched the Oscars Sunday night. I don't have much to add there except, what was the deal with Beyonce? Did they somehow save money by having her be the only female vocalist, or was this some weird concession they had to make to get Chris Rock to host or something?

Health Food

I'm sitting here on pins and needles waiting for a rejection from an anthology. Normally I wouldn't, except my friend Matt, who submitted to the same anthology, wrote me to tell of his rejection (sorry) and wished me better with my story. When I said I hadn't heard anything from them yet, he came back with something like, "That means it's under serious consideration." So suddenly I'm all anxious, and every day I don't hear from them is a torture it wouldn't have been if Matt hadn't opened his big mouth (or keyboard, I guess, since this was an email we're talking about). Thanks Matt.

Have to share this tidbit: at the station, we run this show called Home Delivery. It's not very good. In fact, it's due to be cancelled. But in one episode I ran last week, they had the story of a woman with a 2-year-old who weighs something like 90 pounds. At one point, they bring in a dietician who asks if the woman has any healthy food in the house. Her reply? "Oh yeah, we've got applesauce, stuff like that. Jello."

I've completed two weeks of my workout program. 11 weeks to go. I haven't been eating according to the diet plan, despite my best intentions going in, but I'm getting stronger, and I really like the variety and quality of the workouts. If you're already in good shape, and looking to bust through plateaus with a program that hits all areas of your body, P90X is a good program to try.

Hot

Well, I've finished the first week of my workout program. 12 weeks to go. And since I've had almost total focus on that lately, blogging has come in a distant second (or third or fourth). Not that I haven't had anything to write about. I saw The Aviator and thought I'd write about that, but didn't get around to it. I went to a meeting of my writers group and thought I'd write about it, but didn't get around to it. Next meeting, definitely.

Yesterday, the temperature got up to 70 F; I drove around town with the top down and got horrible tangles in my hair. TOday, it seemed even hotter; I kept the top up, but actually turned the air conditioner on for a while. In February. Global warming rules!

Highlights

So I'm watching Ambush Makeover, and the Style Agent is talking to a woman about her hair. The woman was sunbathing, and Style Agent Gigi says, "It looks like you had a lot of sun exposure, because these look like sun highlights, rather than real highlights."

Because of course, having your hair lightened by the sun is "fake," while having your hair chemically treated to look like it was lightened by the sun is "real."

I used to have the same reaction when I was selling watches and jewelry. People were constantly looking at gold chains and asking "Are these real?" God, I so wanted to say, just once, "No, they're holograms."

Yoga Sucks

I mentioned yesterday that I'd be starting a new workout program. Well, even though I haven't officially started, I decided to try the Yoga DVD simply becuase I wanted to ease into things, and it looked like the most complicated workout (at 90 minutes, it's by far the longest). So I'm doing these tough, tough poses, and in one, I'm supposed to bend over my bent leg, reach one arm behind my back and reach the other under my leg and clasp hands. As I'm reaching, sliding my fingers around to try to find the other hand, I feel this blazing pain in my shoulder and decide I'll try that one another day I was able to make a decent attempt at most of the poses. Five or six of them I didn't even come close.

I know, I don't post here nearly often enough. I ordered these P90X DVD's, a series of 12 advanced workouts, in hopes of getting in better shape. They're maybe a little more advanced than I expected. I'm planning to start on Friday (it's a scheduling thing), but last Friday, I tried to do a preparatory workout, and I'm still really sore.

Took my before pictures this morning. Urgh. Mirrors lie.

I have more to write, but I have to fix The Girl's lunch, and my own, before I take her off to Pre-K.

Feverish Creativity

Monday night, I went out with two writer friends, M.T. Reiten and Richard Cox. As we talked about our current projects, I mentioned that I'd been writing quite a few short stories lately, but that after I finished the current story I was working on, I would probably go back to working on my novel exclusively. So here it is Friday already, and what have I done since? Hint: I didn't finish the current short story, and I didn't work on the novel.

No, instead, I got inspired yesterday with a new short story idea, a kind of sequel to a story I have already almost sold (I submitted it to an Australian anthology, who rejected it, but asked to hold onto it for a follow-on work they're planning). I got the idea at work, brainstormed it for a few hours, went home and wrote it in an almost solid block from 3 to 7 p.m. When I finished, I had a story that I was really excited about and a headache. I read the story a couple of times, and I still liked it. My wife read it after I went to bed; when I got up this morning, I found the manuscript with a note that said, "Excellent" (unlike the last story I wrote, which left her kind of confused).

The weird thing is, some stories it takes a while to write. Days. Weeks. But these two stories featuring the same character were both written in basically a single day, in one fevered burst of work. And they seem to be some of my best work. Does this mean anything for my ambitions about novel writing? Because no way am I ever going to write a novel in a day.