We're not there yet.

Procrastination is: finding a reason to clean your ashtray at midnight when you still have pages to go.

I am well aware that this is not a good poem.

I've never been one for verse.
I can read the words
And feel its breath on my lips
But simple appreciation is my curse.
My pulpy anvil and inky hammer exist
Today for utility
To wright thoughts and ideas
And words unfit to be kissed.
No art will trail from these midnight lines.
No singularity, concise and tact
Will be birthed on this page.
Instead it might only rhyme.

Perhaps, I'll learn in time.

Is bibliographic a word?

It's probably what I'm most excited for concerning my impending move. My parents call it the Library. It's our upstairs living room and my father has been working building those shelves for most of my life while they've both been filling them for much longer. Dad put up the ladders last summer. The crown molding was just finished last week. It's really nice despite the ancient couch and vestigial OSU themed linoleum left over from when it used to be a kitchen for a duplex. There's an Art History section, language section, fiction as well as non-fiction sections, and the baseball section. Maybe I'll finally have time to catalog it all in MS Access.

There is another half of the wall on the left side of the picture that you can't see plus another half of the wall next to the doorway I was standing in. Pardon my clunky image stitching. Until someone realizes that people on PC's need good photo editing it'll have to do.

Sitting on a Bench Outside

My coffee had grown cool. The night was still and for the moment I felt like the only person left in the world. Across the street a little light blinked slowly in the window of a car. the little sedan is snoring I thought bemusedly to myself.

There was a silent snap as my previous cigarette burned itself out in the ashtray and a crack, sizzle, fshh.. as I lit the next and inhaled deeply.

It doesn't make any sense, I thought, my mind back to the matter at hand. I took another swig of coffee. it was cold enough to be enjoyable again. Was it the second night or the twenty-second? I couldn't tell anymore. The clock stopped saying the time long ago. the crickets still chirped but really i wasn't sure if I believed in them anymore.

Putting my feet back on the cold concrete, I stood up from my chair. I grabbed the box of Camels, my lighter, and my mug with the stars on it. I opened the door and silently stepped inside. Gracie hopped down from the window where she had been watching me and climbed the sofa next to the door.

"Mrow?" she said.

"Hi there." I replied and I snuffed my cigarette in the ashtray next to the lamp. I climbed the stairs to my room and quietly undressed and slipped under the down quilt. I reached over and set the alarm for 8... again. "It doesn't hurt to hope, right Gracie?" I asked. She sat silent and knowing. I knew, too, when I woke it would still be dark. Still be 3 A.M. There would be ten smokes in the box again and this page would still be blank.

From a page titled "8/25: First Class of Robert Pope"

There's a certain intricacy in the act of writing that you, the reader, simply cannon grasp. I am here at my desk, looking at a sheet of white real estate, undeveloped, waiting to be born between the rolls of rubber. There are only a few lines now and I cannon in good conscience speculate on what might be wrought by the slamming, literate anvil in the ones that follow, if they do at all.

Yes I am here, my mind as naked as yours, existing in blissful ignorance of what may be in the coming lines, or pages, or volumes. Of course this is my now and your now may, no, will be very different than mine. In time, your now will become my now and the combined our now will leave the ignorance of the not-yet stamped ink (if indeed it is still ink in our now) solely upon you. Unless your now is currently my now and you are reading over my shoulder. Are you there?

If I am indeed as alone as I believe, then my task is to be here, tap-tapping out a line that I can throw to you in hope you will hoist my anticipation to yourself. I am a time traveler and this typewriter is my time machine.

The news at 11

Everything has been imported. It was much easier than I expected. Read the stories below.

I'm utterly convinced...

that this is, in fact, the correct way to go.

* * *

I did the self-built, pay-for-host blog back in high school and up into my freshman year. These were the last days before the great social networking revolution (hereto: GSNR) and it was a unique thing to have your own staked out claim on the web.
It was a good site. I had flash and iframes and my own graphics. The best part was that I coded it, not some program that just took my preferences and generated a page. I worked on that site for hours, coding into the night, making a frame sit just right, learning new work-arounds for browser non-standardization. Then as soon as the first version launched I began work on version 2.0, and again for 3. But I had fewer responsibilities then and that's just far too much work to do now. Working and trying to have a social life and have time for sleep kinda eat up most of my time. Any time I do get is spent writing.

* * *

I got a myspace back when I only knew two or three other people that had one. And even then, I only kinda knew them. Now, we live in a world where people used to give out their myspace url's instead of their digits. Shit's crazy.
At first the concept of a prefab space just for me was enticing. But over time it became stagnant so I left. Then people started figuring out how to splice code into the page and it got a interesting again. This was the GSNR big bang. I could wash the sterility off myspace and replace it with something a little more... different. And it was still kinda easy. And people started noticing.
Once I got the appearence set I started writing a blog. (This is where my initial interest in writing came from, methinks.)
The blog feature was a large portion of the user interface in the early versions of myspace and a user couldn't just ignore it. I didn't really know what to use for content so I just wrote what I knew. Me. It was simple and introspective. More of a journal or diary than anything else. But it was boring. People were interested in posting on the wall anyway. So I never really used it much.

* * *

Around this time I had an aquaintence at another nearby university and she mentioned something about Facebook. Check that, thefacebook.com. Old school facebook. What a great thing! It was perfect for staying in touch with old high school friends in college far away or back home. But you couldn't really do much with it. It actually became refreshing when myspace got out of hand and became nearly impossible to navigate without insane musical spasms and visually assaulting graphics coming out of your browser.
Then facebook got a big head. Everyone could come aboard and they could customize it, not much but in little ways. and then facebook got clunky. The blog funtionality became buried and hardly anyone used it. It was treated more like a directory with a comment box. But it's the social networking site. There are no others.

* * *

I had both a wordpress and a tumblr. They were true ready-made blogs that focused on content. It was exactly what I wanted, but you just can't see them. Hardly anyone's heard of wordpress anymore and even fewer know what tumblr is.
Blogger has been around forever and most interesting pre-fab blogs I read are blogspot sites. So this is my current direction. If I want to be an interesting writer and have a simple web presence it should be here.

* * *

So, I'm going to import the good stuff from the other places to here. Stay tuned.

Situational Awareness

I think I’ve figured it out. Baseball that is. It’s quite simply a game of situations.

The game is remarkably different than most other mainstream sports that exist. In football (American) you try to get the ball to the goal, the endzone at the other end of the field which the other team is defending, by whatever means you can. That is how you score points. In soccer, you try to get the ball to the goal, a net at the other end of the pitch which the other team is defending, by kicking it. That is how you score points. In basketball, you try to get the ball into the goal, a net in the air at the other end of the court which the other team is defending, by bouncing it and shooting the ball. That is how you score points. Hockey is the same, lacrosse, fooseball, hell, even tennis is close. They’re all variations on a theme: get the object into the goal that your opponent is defending.

Now I’m not saying these sports are boring. No! On the contrary, it’s insanely fun to watch two armies battle in the snow, pressing and charging down the field trying to get inside the kickers range to make that field goal that will put them two points up. There’s also the calm in basketball when LeBron is at half court, dribbling, seeming looking at nothing but watching the entire court, waiting for an opening to make an explosive play. It’s adrenaline pumping, physical, and incredibly dynamic direct competition.

Baseball doesn’t follow these rules. As a batter, you don’t advance the ball to a specific goal. The pitcher, the first defenseman in fact, is the one with control of the ball. The game isn’t nearly as dynamic overall as the goal sports. It can be, yes, but usually isn’t.

In baseball, a play is a reaction by the defense (fielding team) to what the offense (batting team) did. These plays either create opportunities for the offense or eliminate them. These situations are the backbone of the sport. The action essentially stops when the batter steps in and the pitcher looks for his sign. Everyone is waiting.

For example: It’s the top of the sixth with the leadoff man at the dish (no one on, no one out, and no score). The game is still an open book at this point. That batter then hits a bloop double to short right-center. The situation for the next batter is a man on second, no outs. He should try to advance the runner, not necessarily hit a home run. In fact, a sac fly would be good, putting the running in scoring position. But he goes down on strikes and so does the next but the runner steals a base. Suddenly, there are two outs an a man in danger of being stranded on third and the team failing to capitalize on that opportunity. but the clean up batter is tapping the caked dirt from his cleats. This is the situation he was placed in the line up for. He’s the power hitter, the man you turn to when you need a good hit or a home run. After he’s done, for better or for worse, the situation begins new.

What's in a Name?

Steampunk? Hardly. It’s true, the cogs and gears are a wonder of clockwork and they sure are pretty with copper, bronze, and a green petina, but it’s just not my style. I was born just long enough ago to have had personal computers around for nearly all of my life and I firmly assert myself as a product of the 90’s. So, the victorian age seems… well, just a little too old fashioned for me.

I tried to figure what a slightly modern version of steampunk would be. A time when a gleaming steel B-17 ruled the skys and every soldier carried a raygun as their weapon of choice. This is when people feared Nazis on the moon with death rays and the closest you got to an SUV was a Willys Jeep, a time when your computer was made of bakelite and used nixie tubes and no one’s ever heard of an integrated circuit or microchip. A robot down at the corner gas station with vacuum tubes clowing in his chest was the mechanic for your oil burning car. In design, form just began to lead function and “streamlined” was the buzz-word. You said ZAP! instead of pew!pew! It would be a glorious age of polished steel and great discoveries in physics under the Hoover administration.

What I think it boils down to is nostalgic fondness for the aesthetic styling of grossly obsolete, 65 year-old technology blended with fantastic functionality. But what do you call this anachronism? Do you go with a new _____punk name like electronpunk, or analogpunk? Or do you simply call it “Modern Steampunk”? An anachronistic anachronism in and of itself.

Vintage

What can I say about this desk? It’s simply fantastic. The drawers shut without binding, and the roll beautifully. There is a quality of craftsmanship here that can’t be had for such a value in today’s market. A desk that is 40 years old and purchased for $57 shouldn’t be as amazing as this.

There is something to be said for the entire concept of vintage. Objects that can survive 25, 40, even 50 years are usually built with quality. Chances are, if it’s still around now, it’ll probably be around for a while longer. Look at older cars. Cars built from, say, 1945-1970ish are solid pieces of American industrialization. They were considered machines that were designed to be durable (crumple zone what?). This is how a “barn find” is possible. If you took one of today’s cars and stuck it in a barn to sit for 30 or 40 years you wouldn’t have much of a car left to restore. Vintage guitars and drums are sought after by musicians for their tone quality and construction. Vintage office furniture should be added to this list of “better when it’s old”. This desk was designed for work. It’s designed to stand up to work. And it’s no-frills design is a paradigm of utilitarian understatement.

What makes something better when it’s old? Yes, in some cases it’s the so-called “street cred” that you get when playing a rare instrument, or driving a collector car, or wearing an awesome vintage t-shirt. But I posit that in most cases, old things are better. My previous desk was a contemporary pressboard design. No, I didn’t pay for it but when I got it it was in good condition. Three years of off-campus college housing and the 3 moves that it endured took it’s toll. It all but fell apart under it’s own weight and I removed it from my room a few days ago. In pieces. My former roommate had a contemporary design desk bought at a office supply chain for a moderate price. Within two years it was coming apart at the seams. I noticed the problem before his purchase when I took a look at the floor model on display. The display was shakey and the joints were loose. If a product can’t stand up to moderate examination then how will it hold up under heavy use? It’s supposed to be a work surface not a monitor holder. But my Steelcase spent 10 years in a garage and cleaned up just fine.

My new desk.

This is one of the coolest things that I have ever owned.

* * *

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