Proper Etiquette For Laughers

I had a question last night about ethics and etiquette, what a person's supposed to do.

I was at the exercise place, on the treadmill, listening to my Ipod. Less than four feet away, probably three feet, is an exercise bike and a woman sat down to exercise. We're over in the corner alone. No one else on the treadmills, but there is another woman behind us on a machine, probably six feet back.

The woman sits to exercise on the bike and she's watching TV. She's watching something that is extremely funny because she's laughing loudly and persistently. Even though I've got the Ipod going and it's clear that I have earbuds, I can hear her quite well.

So I'm suddenly wondering if there's an ethics and etiquette issue, unforeseen or I would have taken a different treadmill. Do I look over and see what's so funny? Is it a case where I need to take the earbuds out to share in her happiness? Would it seem like I was encroaching in some way, since we're so close? Is it kinder to ignore her and pretend like I'm absorbed in my music.

To complicate things, my coats and possessions are on the floor in the space between us, a narrow space. When I get done (I started before her) I'm going to need to get in that narrow space and get my things, meaning my butt might be in her face, moderately so. I don't want to look like I'm invading her space, etc.

The laughter continues. I glanced over once, ready to smile if needed, but she was looking at the TV, just laughing. No eye contact. I'm very uncomfortable, but kept going. Finally I decided not to do the whole cool down routine but cut it off so I could get out of that corner.

Getting my coats and stuff, I muttered "Excuse me," and noticed that she was watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, an interview segment. She never seemed to notice my presence there, although she had to have.

Laughing, laughing, laughing. Hard to believe I could feel so consternated at someone else's happiness. But it made for a weird feeling, since there actually are numerous social issues going on.

Wasting Bandwidth

I hope I'm not wasting bandwidth here. I probably am. That sounds funny, to waste bandwidth. Are we supposed to be saving it for future generations? Or is your use of bandwidth more important than someone else's?

I haven't heard that phrase for quite a while. But I remember a few years ago it was like everyday, someone at a blog, message board, IRC, somewhere ... worrying themselves gray over the idea that someone somewhere might be "wasting bandwidth."

They were the Bandwidth Puritans, scared to death that someone might be having a good time with some illicit bandwidth, maybe driving it over state lines to get their jollies.

Today I was looking at some comments at Huffington Post and someone, who apparently disapproved of the entertainment-nature of a particular story (they get that at Huff Post a lot, for some reason, people complaining that certain stories aren't serious enough to post), fretted that it was wasting "storage space." Storage space? What do you care? Isn't memory cheap? Is this a person who holds his/her breath 20 seconds out of every minute so he/she doesn't waste air? It's funny.

So here I am, frolicking around with someone's else's bandwidth. La la la la. Using it up like the Prodigal Son, wasting it, flushing it down the pot!

Post Office Mailing It In

Hey, in this country aren't things supposed to get better, not worse? How in the world could we have managed to have six day mail delivery all this time but now we're expected to cut back to five to save money? Then what, four, three, two, one?

The post office doesn't want to do away with Saturday delivery, where the post office is only open till noon anyway. They want to do away with Tuesday. One full day. That stinks.

The way they've kept raising the rates, and now they want to cut service. It's ridiculous. Let's get some "can do" guys back in there who are able to take America forward, not backward.

They already have every other day for a holiday, like Columbus Day. The post office is run by pansies.

Day Old Pizza

I'm heating up a day old pizza. I should have eaten it last night, since pizza doesn't keep very long, in my experience. It gets like cardboard and starts to look like it's taking on an extra coat.

The oven's halfway heated and I put the pan in. So I'm typing fast, because it's downstairs and I don't know exactly how long it takes. I try to get it good and heated on the bottom, then turn the broiler on to singe the top a bit. That takes some of the refrigerator chill out of it, assuming the bottom up approach isn't a hundred percent.

They haven't come up with a way to make day old pizza as good as fresh. The closest thing, like I said, is to eat it the same day. So there might be a bit of planned obsolescence.

For other day old food I've come up with a system, which is to put it in a plastic container immediately, right off the stove. Then get it in the fridge soon and it keeps for a few days in pretty good shape. You can do that successfully especially with spaghetti, just keep the sauce and the pasta in separate containers. That's very important.

If you do, then heat it up, it's about as close to fresh as you'd ever want.

Goddess Seahorse Bacon

A seahorse swims by the relics of ancient goddess worship.

All bacon is presented as it was actually cooked in the microwave. Absolutely no cutting or rearranging.

Materials used for this work: Oscar Mayer Hearty Thick Cut bacon, three slices, plus seahorse and goddess found through Google images.

Jester Scorpion Bacon

Who needs to go outside and see shapes in the clouds when you can stay in and look at your breakfast? This was what popped up today on my plate, a weird shaped piece of bacon that somehow felt worthy of a picture. That's rare!

This was a premo brand, too, and it came out of the pack kind of messed and twisted around. It was Oscar Mayer Hearty Thick Cut bacon, the first time I've ever bought it. It's usually higher priced, like about a dollar a pack more, but it was on sale this week.

Good bacon, maybe packed a little haphazardly!

Aeon Flux

One of the Blu-ray discs I bought, and the only one that was an actual movie, was Aeon Flux. This is a movie that I had never heard of, which is not surprising since I'm not a film buff at all. Since getting it, I learn that it is based on an MTV cartoon series from a few years ago. In addition, I learn that everyone else has heard of it and has an opinion on whether the movie had any business going where the cartoon went. It appears it was something of a beloved cartoon series and people have actual feelings about it.

Where do I get all this information? The various Amazon reviews that experts in that field write. Look up any movie and there's someone who knows it all.

As I said, though, Aeon Flux was a completely new title for me. But I needed a few discs, it was in the cheaper range, $14.95, had an appealing cover, looked like it might be visually compelling, and so forth. Then I came home and looked at the reviews and it was in the 2 to 3 star range, not getting rave reviews.

But this is where it helps not to be a film buff. I watched it with very fresh eyes. I haven't seen a thousand sci fi films, I have very little to compare it to. I never saw the MTV cartoon so I don't care how it measures up to it. I'm just happy to see it ... if I don't have to watch a lot of very gruesome violence and medically uncomfortable situations. There was some, but the violence wasn't really so terrible, just a lot of swift kicking and mowing down people with guns. Faceless and for the most part at a distance, so what do I care? As far as medical scenes, Aeon Flux removes some bullets with her fingers, so that was a little painful.

My verdict, I loved the movie. I thought it was a very nice experience. The pictures were crystal clear, the pacing was fast, the actors seemed like they were into it, the colors were nice, and for me everything was good. I even watched all the extras, the making of it, the wardrobe, the stunts, all that stuff. Very interesting.

I recommend it. 5 stars on my scale.

Yellowstone (Blu-ray Disc Review)

In getting a Blu-ray disc player, of course I needed a Blu-ray disc to watch. Most of the movies for sale, to me, either looked like pure crap or were too expensive. I'm finicky.

On the other hand, I'm not much for documentaries. Not that I don't like to learn, but they're not usually something worth watching more than once. That's a big problem for most video, in my opinion, unless it's something classic like The Three Stooges or five star movies.

But it didn't make much sense to buy the player and not have something to play on it. So I bought a few discs, including this one, Yellowstone, part of a Scenic National Parks series produced by Bellevue Entertainment and distributed by Questar.

It was filmed and mastered in High Def and is approximately 98 minutes. It is divided into two programs, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, with the latter being labeled a "Bonus Program."

There's quite a bit of scenery, wildlife, shots of geysers, and so forth. This is all stunning in appearance and quite nice. I liked to see it. The downside would be the documentary format. They're actually trying to teach you things about geology, the history of the places, etc., which means park rangers standing there explaining things. That's a big downside, because I do not want to see close ups of park rangers and geologists. They have one guy, apparently not filmed in high def, going on in between five to eight shots, and I just had to throw back my head in disgust, "Saints, preserve us!" Then we're going along nicely, watching the geysers, and suddenly, Park Ranger So and So is back for another teaching moment, which sucks.

The high def part on the park rangers has this benefit, you can clearly read their badges, so if you have any complaint about their boring information, it wouldn't be too hard to Google them and tell them about it. But they blurred out most license plate information, so if you have a complaint against a particular scene of a tourist van, you're on your own there. I have no real complaints against the park rangers. Their information is no doubt beneficial to most sixth graders. But for me, I'd like to see the scenery, hear the birds, watch the moose, thrill to the geysers without a lot of blah blah blather.

Great pictures, disappointing teaching crap. By the way, not everything is High Def. As I said, the one geologist guy. And other film they show along the way is not as clear as High Def. Historic footage, like Mt. St. Helens erupting, that's understandable, but non historic footage, just to make some geologist's point, that's not so understandable.

Give me scenery and wildlife and lots of it. None of this other stuff.

Ryuichi Sakamoto

I've been listening to a CD by an electronic, ambient, found-sound, whatever, kind of artist, Ryuichi Sakamoto, called Soundbytes.

This is someone I had never heard of before, but, as always, when looking him up on the internet, I discover that he's already quite well known. All these artists are well known if you check with the right circles. For me, never being in the right circles, you have to be pretty famous for me to know you, or, like Ryuichi, to have your CD in Goodwill and to have it look sufficiently appealing for me to buy it. Sometimes I'm in the mood for something different, sometimes I'm not. In this case, I was, and I liked the sounds of the titles, the artwork, etc., making me take a chance on it. I'm glad I did.

When I say "I've been listening" to it, I mean I heard a few tracks last night and I heard a few tracks this morning. It's actually something pretty good for my state of mind in the morning, which is to be contemplative yet willing to be iconoclastic. I like a good drone, really I do, or anything more typically contemplative. But I also like things that go stranger, more unpredictable directions, sometimes. Today was one of those days, where I'm willing to branch out and engage different thoughts.

The liner notes compare Ryuichi to Brian Eno and Kraftwerk, two that I'm familiar with, but I'm rarely concentrated on any one individual or act so that I'm an expert or afficiando. I'm always more general than that. I've had an album or two or three by each of them.

But, whatever, I've heard once now the first eight tracks. They have an interesting, quirky electronic sound, a found sound kind of feel, yet with a lot of thought behind each one. In a way, they sound like something you'd imagine, then simply do, and let the feel along the way determine where it's going to go.

I looked up this album and believe they gave it only 3 stars at All Music. For whatever reason. But it's not really an album (as one work) but a compilation of tracks off several albums. So it's, to me, a good sense of Ryuichi's solo work from those albums, and whether it's 3 stars or 1, that doesn't make any difference. If you want to sample several things at once, this is a good CD, just going by the first eight songs.

One of the songs, I think it's "Variety Show" has a voice synthesizer in it that sounds precisely like one I downloaded between 1996-1998. The one I had then was downloaded from a source in Hawaii, and worked like this, you typed in your words, not according to actual spelling but according to the way it was likely to be produced, then a monotone guy spoke it. I have a soundfile of an example of this somewhere. But Ryuichi has a longer series of words, like paragraphs, typed in and coordinated it with music.

Guantanamo

It was great to see President Obama signing the order to close down our famous prison camp at Cuba, even though it will take up to a year.

Already the Republicans are bellyaching about how unsafe that will make us. As though these prisoners, unlike other prisoners, will be prone to prowling our peaceful neighborhood, exacting their revenge on us, as well as other crimes on top of that. Why they think this? Because they're Republicans, they're stupid.

I am sick to death of the Republicans in Congress and their obstructionism. Already we're hearing of anonymous holds on appointees, all kinds of backstage skullduggery on the part of these cretins. How come the Democrats weren't holding back Bush's appointees? Or did I not hear about it? They're in the minority, the R's, and yet no matter how far down they are, they're still right there, baldfaced, obstructing and carrying on like they're lords of the manor.

As for Norm Coleman and obstructing Al Franken from taking his seat, this is ridiculous. I want someone to step in there and put an end to it and say, the election is over, the votes are counted, you lost, step aside. We need a judge to end this mess. We've come a long way from the time Coleman said he would step back if he found that he had fewer votes. But of course that was when he thought he had won. Now that it's obvious he lost, no amount of obstruction is too much!

Republicans. Bah.

American Idol -- Louisville

Last night they had American Idol at San Francisco. I watched it on tape because I had something else to do at the time. I was a little preoccupied due to personal issues at the time, so it seemed like the show was interminable, even skipping commercials. They had the usual range of worthless dogs howling all the way up to potential superstars.

Tonight I was feeling quite a bit better, so I sat and watched the Louisville auditions and enjoyed myself. Again, some real crazies out there, thinking they can sing. (I know how that goes though, because I used to be between the ages of 18 and 25, and you think you're the center of the world and can do no wrong. Don't worry, you age and then realize you yourself are one of those worthless dogs howling.)

One guy was a math whiz or something, called a super nerd. They promoed him as drinking out of Paula's glass as a shocking thing. But in the context we clearly heard her tell him to get a drink. Whether that meant her glass, probably not, but she could have pulled it back and said, I don't mean my glass. She didn't. He went for it. Big deal. His singing was bad.

They had a hardluck story at the end. And she of course turned out to be really good and made it through. That was touching, aww. The young guy who came in whooping it up and shouting. He was a total moron, because he actually had talent and sounded great. And he would have likely made it through if he would have piped it down a bit and sang a song in the normal way. Or maybe he'd rather not make it and still be able to say he did his own thing.

Some of the ones, like the enormous guy, were just there for comedic effect and had no chance. But you have to know, don't you? No, you don't know. See what I said above about being between 18 and 25, thereabouts. You really do not know.

John Roberts

How in the world could John Roberts screw up the oath of office?

It was terrible that he had to get the words all twisted around and mess up the niceness of President Obama's swearing in.

Practice makes perfect. Next time he needs to read 35 words, perhaps he will review his notes in advance. What a dip.

Bush's Last Night In The White House

Clean out your drawers. Have someone at the door to make sure he doesn't steal any towels.

It's my sincere hope that he's not in the war room about to invade China or some other country.

I heard that he was going to have a quiet dinner in the White House with his wife, daughters, and parents.

It might be worth going to bed extra early tonight just so his term will speed by that much quicker.

We might not have Bush to kick around much longer (thank God), but we'll never forget how much of a miserable failure he was.

It's Really Happening

I only caught moments of all the coverage taking place in Washington, D.C. But what I saw tells me that it's really happening.

Bush came in on Helicopter 1 from Camp David, returning to the White House. I hope he went straight to his room and packed his stuff.

Obama has had his magnificent train ride and is at the Blair House. They've got people everywhere, tomorrow is MLK Day, that'll be big. Security is everywhere. The stands are up. The speech is ready.

There's a countdown on the number of hours we still have left to suffer Bush. I don't know what the total is. But around 1 p.m. I heard them say less than 50.