Category: People

June 1, 2004 /

I have a new cell phone. I’m not really happy about this.

On the one hand, my family and I have had a chronic problem with going over our minutes, partly because we were all sharing the same plan and Ian and I used a lot more than Mom and Caitlan. We only had 800 minutes between the four of us, which didn’t work out that well. So it’s nice that Ian and I have our own plan, so Ian can ruin my credit instead of Mom’s. Also we have twice as many minutes to use, and now that I have Cingular unlimited wireless-to-wireless, I should be using significantly fewer minutes anyway.

On the other hand:

  • I have to transfer all my contacts from Layla. Manually.
  • This new phone is not Layla; it seems flimsier and less shiny, and definitely can’t be used as a flashlight.
  • One nice thing is that it doesn’t have a broken extendable antenna. Then again, it doesn’t have an extendable antenna at all, so when I have bad reception there’s not a lot I can do.
  • Oh, and the new phone is not red.
  • Plus its keypad buttons are that annoying two-in-one rocker style, which makes it more difficult to use without looking.
  • And there aren’t as many of them, which means reduced functionality.
  • But I can google from my pocket! Which is something I’ve always wanted to do.
  • But that’s going to end up costing me a lot of money, at a cent per kilobyte.

I don’t know, maybe I’ll learn to like it. I did with Layla. I still have Layla, in fact, although she doesn’t connect to anything anymore. I’ll probably take her battery out once I’ve got all my contacts and stuff transferred, to use as a backup, since it’s the same kind as the new one.

In many ways I still hate having a cell phone, but I’d grudgingly accepted Layla. This newcomer is not so easy to handle. I feel like a friend has moved away, and a smaller, more annoying person has taken her place.

The new phone does J2ME apps, though. I better get cracking if I’m going to port rfk.

May 30, 2004 /

(This entry is posted as dated in my pocket notebook.)

I’ve passed the Waddy Peytona exit probably a hundred times. For the first time in my life, I’m actually in Waddy, at a somewhat sleazy Citgo truck stop, in a back room with no windows. Ian is asleep on one end of the beaten couch; I’m writing at the other. By all accounts, we’re within a few miles of a tornado.

There’s a scattered copy of The Trucker, a half-sheet format free newspaper, on the floor. It appears to be largely concerned with rising diesel prices. Maria called two minutes ago to say that the heart of the storm should be where we are in about three minutes. The rain just slacked off a bit; it sounds like there’s hail mixed with it now. There’s a thick skylight over our heads, which makes me nervous, but it beats the big window-walls out front.

There’s a large TV back here, which is turned off, and a smaller cycling-ads set which is on. It’s connected to some kind of truck load monitor with four large buttons. Every ten minutes or so it shows “local weather,” by which it means the highs, lows and actual temperatures in five parts of Kentucky. Amusingly, it shows nothing related to storm or tornado status.

Maria just called again. Apparently the funnel clouds have dissipated just before reaching Waddy. It should be safe to drive in ten minutes or so.

May 23, 2004 /

Unless I’m mistaken, Lisa and Flora and some other neat people graduated today. Congratulations, Lisa and Flora and other neat people!

Jon and Amanda are married!

May 23, 2004 /

Last night I went to my first-ever rehearsal dinner–pancakes at Cracker Barrel, followed by a leisurely visit and then a hesitant drive to the chapel out in the middle of Shelby County. It was hard to find, but deservedly so: it’s a gorgeous spot, and somehow entirely cicada-free.

I got to host Jon’s bachelor party, which consisted of coming back here with Ken, Chris and me and watching A Mighty Wind and laughing a lot. We throw some pretty wild parties.

This morning Ken kindly picked up Maria and me and drove us back to the aforementioned chapel, where we took pictures (one of Jon’s WWE-style entrance, one of Amanda’s, and then some less important ones) and waited.

Eventually there was a wedding. The bride wore flip-flops, and the reverend’s microphone kept fuzzing out. It was sunny, and outside, and butterflies kept zooming through the service. Amanda and Jon were very beautiful, and I’m so proud and happy that for this little while, I don’t even miss them.

May 20, 2004 /

Spring of my junior year of college, I played Hastings in our school production of Richard III, a fun role in which I got to chew scenery, wear an enormous bathrobe and get my head cut off. The guy who was supposed to take the mold of my real head for that last one bungled it pretty badly; he bought this fancy molding compound, let it harden before applying it, and ended up having to mold my head with really cheap plaster.

Regardless, it was my severed head, and I really wanted it after the play was over. The drama department denied me this, of course–they already had a longstanding tradition of crushing my dreams by then.

When we went to see Lisa’s show last Friday, I got to see Flora, who showed me his senior-presentation scrapbook. It was really nice work, and he was kind enough to give me a piece of it, something I will now treasure as if it were the real thing:

David and Brendan with Brendan's head.

Yeah, I told you it was a pretty bad mold. There’s a reason they kept it in a bag most of the time.

May 17, 2004 /

Ken, Maria and I rolled down to l’Centre on Saturday to coo over Lisa’s senior show, which was all very massive color-gradient glass pieces, and awesome. I can’t really describe them to you–she has a couple pics up, but seeing them in three dimensions and with more light was much better.

The next day, Maria and I argued over whether or not I am indie–something for which I vaguely hope, but never considered myself cool enough to achieve. She pointed out that in addition to my mild but distinguished collection of obscure t-shirts, I do know two glassblowers, and that’s some solid cred there. I should have known that in the indie world, friends are primarily status symbols and tools to an end. (And for the record, Maria used to date a rock star, so I’m pretty much never going to be indier than she is.)

May 9, 2004 /

Maria and I were discussing the increasingly esoteric and convoluted nature of spam, just now, including the fact that much of bulk email no longer serves a discernible purpose. I frequently receive spam from nonsense names, advertising nothing, free of hyperlinks or parsible sentences.

I pointed out that one reason it’s gotten so complicated is the constant, high-speed arms race between spammer and anti-spam software vendor; as new regular expressions are devised and new efforts made to beat them, whole fields of technique can be created and discarded in a week. And then Maria said something that chilled me to my very bones.

“What if,” she said, “the vendors are putting spam out there just to keep selling their software?”

I’m terrified, now, that she might be right.

Anyway, read Spam As Folk Art.

Stop Putting Shit in the Coffee

May 9, 2004 /

It’s a grand and venerable tradition, the exclamation of “That Would Be a Great Name for a Band.” It dates back nearly to middle school, when I was getting really into Dave Barry, learning–along with the rest of my generation–to listen for the perfect combination of nonsense with which to someday label our cathartic college noise.

But, as I’ve got four very good band names and don’t anticipate the need for any more, I have to concede that Stephen’s friend Nivolas has an excellent point. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to move on… to ridiculous names for horses.