Stupid human tricks

I cook. A lot. I enjoy cooking. Mostly, I enjoy cooking for M, but increasingly I have come to enjoy cooking for its own sake. Incidentally, this post has nothing to do with cooking; I mention the activity only because there are days when even dedicated home cooks don’t wanna do it, and this day in question was such a day. M felt likewise, and we mulled over our choices of take-out food. We decided on pundit David Brooks’ lodestone of Real American Culture, Applebee’s. I planned to pay for the meal in cash; as both of us were tapped out, I decided to stop by our bank on the way and hit the ATM.

An uneventful drive ensued, and I pulled up alongside the ATM. I withdrew my wallet and removed the ATM card…and then performed a remarkable stunt. Suddenly and unaccountably clumsy with the card, I somehow flipped it into the air. The card followed a short arc, over and down, falling beside the parking brake in the car’s center console. By that, I mean the card landed on edge, directly on the gap between the brake lever and the surrounding frame, a space barely wider than the thickness of the card itself. The card threaded that space and vanished, disappearing into the depths of the console, beneath the console, like a quarter vanishing into the coin slot in a vending machine.

I gasped. I sat for a moment, literally slack-jawed. Then I swore like a particularly irate longshoreman faced with increased union dues. The gap through which the card disappeared was far too small for my fingers or any tool to which I had ready access, and the console seemed all of a piece - molded plastic - allowing no ingress.

And on top of that, my food was getting cold at Applebee’s.

I left the bank and drove to the restaurant, grumbling all the way. (This was after having surveyed the driveway beneath the car to make sure the card hadn’t simply fallen through and onto the ground, as might have happened had I been driving a Flintstone mobile.) I paid for the food - with a credit card. I drove home and entered the house where M awaited.

“Your husband did something stupid,” I told her.

M listened patiently to my rant, commiserating as appropriate. Then we ate. In the meantime, darkness fell, and with it the outside temperature. I decided to wait until the next morning to attack the car console.

I awoke that morning with visions of an expensive trip to the auto dealer. “Yeah, we can pull that console,” I imagined the mechanic telling me, “but we’re gonna need a special console puller from Canada. Gotta special order it. It’ll set you back about $2500.” I shuddered and got out of bed.

I was home from work that day with an annoying head cold, so I drove M to work. After returning home, I drank a cup of coffee, then went out to the car to survey the problem. The console looked as impregnable as it had the day before. No visible nuts or bolts to remove. At length, I decided that I might avoid costly service charges by cutting a hole through the bottom of the storage compartment and gaining access that way to the console’s innards.

I opened the compartment and removed the contents, the kind of detritus that accumulates in such a space - a couple of forgettable music cassettes, some loose change, some wadded tissues. Once these obstructions had been cleared away, I could see that the bottom of the compartment was made of a different material than the plastic of the overall console. It seemed to be lined with textured rubber or vinyl. Even more interestingly: the bottom of the compartment seemed removable! I pried with fingernails for a grip of the compartment floor and pulled it up and away, revealing a dark space with mysterious rods on the floor. These I paid little attention; instead, I reached inside the space and forward, groping until I felt a thin piece of plastic. The card! It took some twisting and turning to orient the card properly as I pulled it back toward me, but moments later I met with success. “Ha!” I exclaimed to no one at all.

And, uh, the end.

Note: It did not occur to me during this sad episode - though it did just now - that the car’s owner’s manual might have clued me in to the false floor in the storage compartment. Might have. I’ll have to check. My only defense for not doing the standard RTFM bit is that I was consumed with brain-paralyzing rage at the time.

Darcy Burner call to arms

Back in early July, I asked readers to lend some support to Seattle-area Congressional candidate Darcy Burner after she lost her home to a fire. She’s rebounded from that to actually take the lead in the race, but she’s facing fierce opposition from the local powers-that-be. I now yield the floor to the great and powerful Kos:

Freaked out at the possibility of Darcy Burner winning her seat, a whole host of unsavory characters have suddenly piled on:

Third party groups are dumping hundreds of thousands into the district.

Reichert’s media buyer has given the candidate an illegal $500,000 loan to saturate the airwaves with anti-Burner attack ads.

The Seattle Times gleefully ran a bullshit story about Darcy lying about her Harvard degree. The paper has now been forced to backpedal furiously. Now watch the paper ignore Reichert’s own lies about his college degree.

Washington Monthly alum Amy Sullivan wrote in Time how us dastardly bloggers were sinking Burner’s chances.

Republicans claim, and the local media parrots, charges that Burner is funded by out-of-state liberal wackos (that’s us), when Reichert gets even more of his money from out of state. And his doesn’t come from small-dollar donors, but corporate interests and lobbyists.

While the NRCC is pulling back from most of its targeted races, this is one of the very few in which they remain fully engaged.

Yet throughout it all, Darcy has taken a small lead in the race.

Look, here’s the deal: The local media and the local political establishment see themselves as kingmakers. They get to decide who sinks or swims in their areas of influence. Then along comes Darcy Burner, thinking she can crash the gates and get elected for office in the district, and the local elites are pissed. So they conspire with Reichert, a supposed local hero, to dish all sorts of crap about Darcy and bury Reichert’s dirt.

We’re winning this race, but they’re throwing EVERYTHING plus the kitchen sink at Darcy. If we want to win this thing, we’ve got to get her back and push back. We’ve got to leave everything on the road.

Right now Darcy is about $350,000 behind Reichert. I’m not going to pretend that we can raise that kind of money quickly, but can we cover $50,000 of that? Can we help Burner fight against the smears from the state and national GOP?

I’ve given Darcy $1,000 already. I’ll match the next $1,300 pledged to Darcy in the comment threads and max myself out. My wife will kill me, but like I said, we’ve got to leave everything on the road. Join me, and let’s fight the local media elites, the local Republicans, the national Republicans, the vicious third-party groups that have their sights set on taking Darcy down.

Give to Darcy so she can fight back. And if you live anywhere near her district (and I know that’s a lot of you), please volunteer.

We’re starting this fundraiser with Darcy at $200,000 on our O2B page. Let’s get her to $250,000.

Update: We’re at almost $10,000 in 30 minutes. Nice!

Little donations count, too! If you can throw some support her way, it could really help her maintain the lead between now and Election Day.

The wonders of the innertubes

Hulu: You can watch the season premiere of 30 Rock a week early. Online. Right now.

“Hit A Jew Day”

First they came for the tall people, and then they came for the Jews. Today’s give-you-pause headline, courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Parkway West Middle students to be punished for ‘Hit A Jew Day.’”

Four or five Parkway West Middle School students will be disciplined after administrators found out this week that they designated a “Hit A Jew Day” at the 850-student school.

Principal Linda Lelonek learned Monday evening that her sixth-graders had started an unofficial “spirit week” last week.

The students started with “Hug A Friend Day,” moved to “High Five Day,” “Hit A Tall Person Day,” and then, finally, this Monday, to “Hit A Jew Day,” representatives of the Parkway School District said.

The students generally were not being violent, Lelonek said, but instead “tapping” their peers.

“It was almost like a tag thing,” Lelonek said. “But then it changed.”

She now knows of three or four students who were slapped; none told school officials about being hit. “They said, ‘We were just playing,’” she said.

Sure, sure. It always starts out as “just playing.” First it’s taps, then it’s slaps. Next thing you know, it’s Kristallnacht.

Props to the principal at Parkway West Middle School for the timely intervention. Looking forward to hearing about that extra-special Holocaust lesson coming later this year.

“Why Barack Obama is Winning”

Time: Joe Klein on why Obama is winning: It’s the maturity, stupid.

Waveflux of the future = spendy!

Weblogs are like avaricious nestlings: always hungry, mouths perpetually open, always wanting more. More entries, more traffic, more subscribers. And features - my God, the features. Increased functionality for comments, snazzy drop down menus, video, audio, Flash, better design, better performance, better everything. We want our little weblogs to be happy, and so we forage and return to the nest and regurgitate plugins and images and themes and hastily edited stylesheets into their gaping yaws. And still they want more. What’s a blogmaster to do?

It doesn’t help matters when you, said blogmaster, lust after superior designs seen elsewhere. I look at sites like Unstoppable Robot Ninja, Airbag Industries, Daring Fireball, The Morning News, and A List Apart - to note but a few examples - and sigh with with a combination of admiration and baffled resentment which I think is often referred to as envy. It’s not that these are all designs of a kind, as they vary considerably. It’s not (just) that they qualify as pretty. Rather, I envy these designs for the way they ineffably signify the individual identity of the blogmaster. When I think of John Gruber, say, I think immediately of the form and content of Daring Fireball, and vice versa. The website feels, to me, an extension of the person - which, of course, it is.

I’ve said all this before, of course, as I tend to repeat myself. Now, as then, the authenticity of the blog author’s voice made manifest in these designs is best expressed by this quote from Roger Zelazny’s scifi (or is that spec lit?) classic, Lord of Light:

Being a god is being able to recognize within one’s self these things that are important, and then to strike the single note that brings them into alignment with everything else that exists. Then, beyond morals or logic or esthetics, one is wind or fire, the sea, the mountains, rain, the sun or the stars, the flight of an arrow, the end of a day, the clasp of love. One rules through one’s ruling passions. Those who look upon gods then say, without even knowing their names, ‘He is Fire. She is Dance. He is Destruction. She is Love.’

Yes, poetic crap, as one of Zelazy’s characters says a little later, but to me it captures the heart of superior blog design: every pixel contributing to one overriding effect. The same is often said of the importance of each word in an excelling piece of short fiction.

I ran across a fairly iconic blog entry and lengthy associated string of comments belonging to designer Chris Pearson. The topic, from 2006: “How Much Should a Web Design Cost?” See if the cognitive path he lays out doesn’t sound familiar.

People like surprises. Unfortunately, when those surprises include a hefty price tag, people hate them.

Here’s why professional web designs are the curveballs of the site construction process. Well, hey, let’s look at the process first:

1. Buy a domain name: $10
2. Buy a hosting package: $60/yr. with two years prepaid - $120
3. You set everything up, and then you realize you need a design because your site currently looks like 50,000 others out there. Whoops.

The problem here is that when setting up a new site, newbies often think, “$10 for a domain? Awesome, let’s get started!”

Next, they get hit with the reality of hosting fees, and while they’re a little bummed about having to pre-pay for two years in order to lock in that great price of $5.50/mo., they go ahead and kick down $100-$200 to set up their hosting.

Their tab is already up around $200, and now they’re beginning to wonder if this web stuff is all it’s cracked up to be.

Unfortunately, they get hit with a wicked case of design lust while browsing and getting acquainted with the blogosphere, and now they really want a hot design. “Shouldn’t cost too much, right? After all, look at all those cool designs out there!”

And then BAM! They get slapped with the reality that a wicked design is going to cost them $1500+, and they totally reject the idea, especially since the hosting fees were already a tough pill to swallow.

Talk about your curveballs. [...]

Professional blog designs are a luxury item. Look at it like this: plenty of businesses buy 60″ HD TV’s for their stores and displays, but only individual consumers who have money and really want a big, bad TV would ever actually kick down and buy one.

Sounds terribly familiar to me. To my credit, I came to this conclusion on my own and earlier, but it’s always nice to have confirmation. It should be noted that (one) Pearson likely low-balled himself at a $1500 floor on blog design charges, and (two) as that entry was written back in 2006, that entry-level estimate has probably been raised.

In any event, what I’d be looking for would involve a few more features than the entry level described by Pearson.

So: For a weblog with the aesthetic tailoring and state ‘o art features that I envision for Waveflux, I have pretty well resigned myself to the necessity of shelling out thousands of dollars…someday. That day is not today, and it won’t be tomorrow. Between now and then, I’ll push design out of my mind and devote myself to the non-flashy, unglamorous aspects of blogging - that is, actual content. But you, gentle reader, may expect to someday see annoying thermometer graphics in the sidebar - evidence of odious fundraising - and will read entries that amount to naked appeals for cash, all for the sake of a purer Waveflux experience. I imagine you can hardly wait!

AP scrambles to find a poll that likes McCain

AP: The Associated Press digs up a rare poll that calls the presidential race “all even.” Also swallowed whole by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Apple TV. Zuh?

Subtraction: Despite Khoi Vinh’s best efforts, I still don’t understand Apple TV.

Nixon’s the one

My big concern about the 2008 Republican gubernatorial stakes in Missouri was that Sarah Steelman would win the nomination. When the state treasurer lost the bitterly contested primary to US Rep. Kenny Hulshof, I sighed in relief. “Jay Nixon’s got it,” I said.

From the outset, Steelman was a candidate who should have appealed to the GOP base in Missouri. Anti-tax, anti-choice, anti-gay marriage, anti-immigration. Pro-mandatory Pledge of Allegiance recitation in schools. The official Republican apparatus favored Hulshof and tried to pressure Steelman out of the race. This helped underscore Steelman’s stance as a outsider unafraid to take on her own party. She blasted the congressman as one of those, you know, Washington types, while touting her own “Rolla values.” In the end, she lost to Hulshof by fewer than 18,000 votes.

Incidentally, it took Steelman a good five weeks to get around to endorsing Hulshof as the GOP nominee - and rather half-heartedly at that.

What are the odds that the Missouri GOP would like a do-over on that race? Hulshof has consistently trailed Attorney General Nixon in polls, and the chances of a major shift are all but nonexistent:

Democrat Jay Nixon, the state attorney general, enjoys a comfortable lead in a handful of major polls with anywhere from 52 to 56 percent of the vote. Hulshof trails badly, anywhere from 34 to 39 percent. Hulshof also trails in money. At the start of this month, Nixon had $3.2 million dollars to spend. Hulshof had $1.2 million. Nixon has out raised Hulshof almost two-to-one.

Ouch. A big problem for Hulshof is that he can be charitably described as nondescript. Basically, he’s this year’s Jim Talent: a reliable follower of the GOP party line - having voted with his colleagues 92.6% of the time in the previous Congress - but generally indistinguishable from the herd. If Hulshof was a color, it would be elephant gray. That serves him ill in a time when the national Republican brand has taken a severe beating. Couple that with wide concerns over the economic downturn, both nationally and here in Missouri - a topic on which Nixon has repeatedly labeled Hulshof as out of touch - and Hulshof finds himself at a decided disadvantage.

While it’s hard to say definitively that Steelman would have fared better as the Republican nominee, it’s tempting to imagine a pairing of Steelman and GOP veep nominee Sarah Palin in joint appearances in the heart of the Show Me State. “Sarah and Sarah” with families in tow, a current governor and a gubernatorial candidate, smiling and bolstering each other as feisty outsiders while throwing red meat to appreciative crowds. It’s too easy to visualize, isn’t it? Even apart from that, however, Steelman would likely have been viewed by conservatives as a fresh face, untainted by all that Washington stuff, with a greater claim on some levels to being an agent of change than Hulshof could ever manage.

It’s rather likely that Missouri Republicans missed a bet here. Too bad for them, eh? In the meantime, I am glad to see that my chosen candidate, Jay Nixon, seems headed for the governor’s manse in Columbia.

A ballot in the head

Earlier this month, I exhorted the legion of Waveflux readers to vote early because it would piss off antidemocratic patrician George Will. That’s far from the sole reason or even the best reason to get your vote in ahead of Election Day - you’re stuffed to the gills with “information” about your candidates by now and are perfectly capable of making reasoned decisions, despite the bleatings of pundits; the “front-loading” of political arguments, supposedly forced by early voting, is arguably a public good; the ability to vote on your own schedule rather than being limited to a prescribed 1/365th of the calendar is an affirmation of your own power as a voter, and is convenient besides - but given Will’s arrogant stance on the matter, the satisfaction of giving him a civic-minded middle finger is reason enough.

So today, I suited action to the word. I finally got around to requesting absentee ballots for my household - seeing as we will likely be much, much, much too busy and quite possibly far, far, far too distant from the polls on the big day in November. Following the instructions provided by Go Vote Absentee, I downloaded the forms for registered voters in the city of St. Louis. M and I each filled out our requests, and I faxed them last Wednesday to the office of the St. Louis City Clerk.

The envelopes containing the ballots arrived yesterday.

Below, your basic civic-duty action kit: one absentee ballot, one set of not-entirely-opaque instructions, one postage-paid return envelope which also served as an affidavit. The only inconvenience was that the envelope/affidavit had to be signed in the presence of a notary public and signed and stamped by that official.

I was instructed to make my selections by darkening the ovals (completely!) next to my choices with a number 2 pencil or a black or blue (not red!) pen. As absentee voters may have trouble getting a replacement ballot in case of incorrect marking or the like, it’s necessary to be rather careful in filling out the form. Being a bit of a worry wort about such things, I made a practice copy of the ballot and filled that out first. When I was certain of my mad ballot-marking skills, I filled out the actual form.

I am a believer in the secret ballot, thanks. Still, I’ll mention here that I was pleased to vote once more for my hard-working state rep, Rachel Storch (whom I actually met once; I should tell that story some time). I was equally pleased to vote against the little-remarked, thinly-veiled, anti-immigrant, bring-out-the-bigot state constitutional amendment to make English “the language of all governmental meetings at which any public business is discussed, decided, or public policy is formulated.” That’s including “conference calls, video conferences, Internet chat, or message board,” by the way.

This piece of xenophobic pandering was brought to you by state Rep. Brian Nieves of Washington. A Republican, shockingly enough. Whoever runs against Nieves in his next contest gets some money from me. In the meantime, my no vote on his amendment will have to suffice.

Oh, yeah: There was some politician from Chicago somewhere on the ballot, too. I may talk about him later.

Once the ballot was completed, all that remained was to cool my heels for a few minutes in lobby before getting my ballot duly stamped by a calmly professional and rather attractive notary. Then off to the ballot box - in this case, the nearest mailbox. As I deposited the envelope, I could hear the patriotic swells of “Stars and Strips Forever.” But maybe that was just my imagination. At any rate, the tune accompanied me all the way back to the office.

And that’s that. I didn’t get a “I Voted” sticker, but I can live with that, I think. Hope you can live with it too, George.

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