The Larrison Family Vacation

Barb and I take weird vacations. For instance, McMinnville, Oregon. What's in McMinnville, you ask? Not much. But we went there anyway. I'm still not sure why. Above is a picture from our recent trip to Baltimore. Okay, technically we went there because I had job-related training. But Barb and Elizabeth joined us to make it a family vacation. And Grampa Grumps and Grandma Susy came down from Long Island to amp up the family-ness.

In the picture above the happy family is on its way to a delicious, 10,000 calorie meal at The Cheesecake Factory.

Who needs Hawaii?

The Blackest Show on TV

Queer to be here in Baltimore, especially after watching three years of The Wire on DVD in the last few months. I'm in the schmancy Inner Harbor area, so no corner crews, jackboys, etc. Plenty of black folks, though. Which got me thinking about the aspect of The Wire that, to me, is the most striking and, in many ways, the most significant.

But first, a bit about my trip. I'm here for two weeks of Introduction to Leadership. It's interesting, kind of, but now that I'm writing about it, I'm bored. Nine hours a day of ITL is enough.

So, back to The Wire.

It's just that it's so black. For those not in the know (I'm thinking of you, Mom!), The Wire is an HBO-produced drama about police and drug-dealers in Baltimore, Maryland. It's been praised for it's sharp writing, great acting, and for the way it keeps all the characters human, not demonizing the drug-dealers, not sanctifying the cops. It's a really good show, though not the pinnacle of TV greatness that I was led to believe by all the press it received after the fifth and final season had wrapped.

But it is maybe the blackest show on television.

Now, I'm not talking Cosby Show-black. That's the kind of show where they cast more or less everyone black because it's trying to be a "black show." The Wire isn't a black show, it's just that most of the characters are black because it's set in Baltimore and most Baltimoreans (Baltimorons?) are black. The mayor, police commissioner, the major (of the Western district, 3rd season), the lieutenant, the homicide detective, the special-unit lieutenant, and four of the six regular cops from the special unit -- they're all black. Oh yeah, and let's not forget Clay Davis, the state senator. He's black, too. As are, of course, all the drug dealers and fifty percent of the main character junkies (Bubs' friend Johnny* being, pretty obviously, a token white).

I love the "diversity" of this show because it's not diverse. It's not Star Trek, God bless it, with it's ridiculously-multicultural-Cold-War-era bridge crew. The Wire isn't saying black people are this or that. It's just saying that, guess what, black people are. They're bad guys, good guys, they're politicians, cops, businessmen, teamsters, longshoremen, priests, ne'erdowells, junkies, freaks, drug-dealers, whores, bartenders, cabdrivers... you get the idea.

If I may paraphrase Charlton Heston in Soylent Green, "They're people! Black folks are... people!"

*Aaron speculated that Johnny was played by "that kid from 'Kids'." I checked it out, and he was right. (Thanks, IMDb!) Johnny The Junkie is fucking Leo Fitzpatrick from Larry Clark's infamous 1995 movie about out of-control AIDS-infected adolescents in NYC. I reviewed that movie for the Eagle Newspapers of upstate New York when I was 25. Christ, I was so much wiser then. My intelligence and wisdom actually peaked when I was 19, and knew everything. It's been all downhill from there as I discovered in the most painful ways possible that I wasn't, in fact, the smartest person in the world.

Book baby, book baby!

Elizabeth is now officially confirmed as the fruit of my loins. For one thing, she has a huge head. For another thing, she loves books, as evidenced by this picture.

Also notable in this picture is that she's on her knees. E.R. has been crawling around commando-style for a while now, but hasn't yet mastered the hands-and-knees method. However, she is learning how to lever herself up onto her knees for such favorite activities as pulling every boardbook off the shelf.

She's a good baby.

This Sunday I fly to Baltimore for more VA training. This time it's "Introduction to Leadership," as I am now a manager (guess I did an okay job on my KSAs). I'll be there Sunday to Friday solo, then Barb and Baby E. will fly in. Hopefully Grandma Susy and Grandpa Grumps will come down from Long Island to visit and eat crabs.

As I write this, I can hear Barb reading Goodnight Moon to Elizabeth in the bedroom. We've read that book countless times. It's really an amazing piece of art, but I'll have to delve into the depths of that book later, when I'm sitting lonely in the Baltimore Inner Harbor Marriott with half of a sixpack still left to drink.

Clothes, Lazlo.

Rather than shop for clothes, I have decided to blog about shopping for clothes. Here's the problem: I hate shopping. Most people I know might be surprised to find out that I actually kind of like nice clothes, although I don't own any. I think I've got good (if conservative) taste, I know a little bit about the rules of men's fashion, and I like wearing nice clothes and looking good. I just hate shopping. Plus, I'm cheap.

This is not a good combination.

On December 7th I've got to go to Baltimore, MD (Bodymore, Murderland, for fans of The Wire) for "Introduction to Leadership" training. I am expected to dress as a middle-manager in the government should dress -- meaning shirt and tie during the day, with a jacket (or, heaven forfend, suit!) for the post-training banquet. My Pierre Cardin suit is from Goodwill, not properly tailored, and is still spattered with mud from Aaron and Wendy's wedding five years ago. No go. My blazer is also from Goodwill. It's a traditional blue wool blazer, and it fits nicely, but I hate the shoulder pads. God I hate shoulder pads. Do all dress jackets have shoulder pads? I'll wear the damn thing in a pinch, but not comfortably, because I feel like a pin-headed frankenstein in those shoulder pads.

Shopping online is tempting, because you can be tremendously lazy, and sit in your club chair "shopping" while consuming the better part of a bottle of Chardonnay. That's what I've done tonight, and it's taught me what I already know: my tastes are boring as hell (love that Gap!), I'm too casual to be dressy, and I'm cheap (fifty-nine fucking dollars for a shirt!). The problem is, ultimately you don't know what you're getting, whether it will fit, etc. Therefore, the mall beckons.

Ugh.

The World Ends With Me

Back in July I wrote about the amazing complexity of the combat mechanics of my Nintendo DS game The World Ends With You. Pretty sure that blog entry was called Holy Effing Ess! The picture above shows the two screens of the DS that the player has to deal with. On the bottom is Neku, the main character -- the player's proxy (the slouchy kid with the red hair) -- whom you control with the stylus. Above Neku is character Shiki whom you control with the 4-way directional pad (see those arrows leading to the three different ESP-card symbols?).

It's an incredible achievement, this game, for a couple of reasons. One: the combat is so daunting as to appear impossible, but ends up being very possible even for a 38-year old geezer such as myself, after which it becomes superfun. To reiterate: the combat is really fun (not always the case in RPGs). You could play the game for the combat alone, and it would be worth the price of admission ($39.99, in case you're wondering).

But there's also a story to this game. TWEWY doesn't pretend to be "open ended" or "emergent" -- it's got a story to tell and it tells it; you're just along for the ride. But it's a good story. And it's not about High Elves and noble Paladins. It's about teenagers in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, dealing with survival, friendship, betrayal, fashion, and marketing -- all of which, with the possible exception of the former, are big deals to most teenagers in the moneyed world.

Barb hates videogames for no particular reason. The World Ends With You is the first game that made me really feel like she's missing out. It's a great work.

Plus, did I mention that it's fun as hell?

The One Billionth Blogger ...

...to say that I'm glad Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. I don't expect miracles from the guy. He's inheriting New Orleans post-Katrina. Bush has made a wreckage of the United States. I know some conservatives. I'm a recovering conservative myself. And I know that Bushloyal conservatives feel that he's being handed a raw deal by the media (note to self: blog entry on The Myth of the Liberal Media), but that history will look more kindly on G.W.Bush.

Ha! Ha!

It's a laughable idea, so I laugh. It's been said so many times that it no longer has any impact, but that doesn't make it less true: George W. Bush is stupid. He's not mentally-incompetent-stupid. I'm sure he could balance a checkbook. He can fly a fighter jet, for goodness sake. He's not a village idiot (bumper stickers notwithstanding). He's just a dumb guy. He's gullible. He's ignorant. He's narrow in scope. He's manipulable.

Most important: he's history. Fuck 'im. I'll leave his legacy to the historians, who will fill his chapter with debacle and devastation: Iraq, Gitmo, Patriot Act, Katrina, Credit Default Swaps, et al.

Still recovering from my conservative youth, I have to say that perhaps the worst thing that Bush has done is put us on the path to Socialism. Nationalized banks, government majority-owned insurance companies, and now General Motors coming to whinge at the federal hindtit? What the hell? My 18-year-old conservative self reminds me from the past: let the weak die. It's the natural order. If GM, Chrysler, or Ford aren't able to turn a profit making a product that almost every human on Earth wants, fuck 'em (if you'll excuse the continued thematic use of F-bombs). If I, as a taxpayer, am going to share in GM's loss, I better fuckingwell share in their profits.

Notice the anger?

As Trudeau asked recently in Doonesbury, what's the deal with nationalizing risk while continuing to privatize profit?

Movie Review: Speed Racer

The Wachowskis come back with a vengeance after the hideous, moneygrubbing disappointments that are The Matrix 2 and 3. I blame it on Joel Silver, their moneygrubbing producer, who convinced them that artistic bankruptcy was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Anyways, Bound is a great movie, The Matrix is a great movie, and guess what? Speed Racer is a great movie.

Speed Racer is a guy. That's his name. Speed Racer. He lives in a world kind of like ours, but much more colorful, where a popular sport is a type of auto racing wherein the cars are like gymnasts, springing about the track like living things. Somehow the laws of physics are different in this world, so as the 3000 pound cars are flung about, the necks of the drivers do not snap like so many toothpicks. Accept it. The movie is true to its fantasy in that it sets rules and lives by them. The cars are acrobatic, but they have limits, and their moves aren't invented on the fly for the convenience of the script.

You've never seen a movie like this. It is gorgeous. There are clear nods to videogames (e.g. Rex failed to hit the "quicksave") and anime, but the Wachowskis succeed in crafting their own style that's absolutely like nothing you've ever seen before. It's pop art, or I'm Roy Lichtenstein.

I've basically given up on action movies, but I was actually interested in the races in Speed Racer. They're exciting, despite the unreality. Somehow the movie creates a reality that has enough weight to keep you interested while being incredibly fluffy and neon.

Plus, there's fatkid- and chimpanzee-humor, which works, again, better than it should. I was amused by Chim-Chim in a way that I'm not normally by movie monkeys (cf. Cutthroat Island).

And: real actors! Susan Sarandon and Emile Hirsch and Matthew Fox are all fantastic. John Goodman is typical John Goodman, which isn't bad. Chim-chim should get a friggin' Oscar. There are ninjas.

Don't get me wrong. This movie is not for every one. Speed Racer is a strange movie made by strange filmmakers who are real artists taking something idiotic (or so I assume -- I've never seen the cartoon) and making of it something real, something beautiful, something that has a few strong things to say about art and family, and a lot to say about cinema.

Damn You, DFW!

Wednesday morning over cereal I was staring at my bookcase and thinking, "Can't wait for David Foster Wallace's next novel." The last one was Infinite Jest, the best novel of the 21st century that was published in the 20th century. I love that book unconditionally. It is mind-blowing. Reading it makes you smarter and better. But it's been a pretty long time since Infinite Jest (13 years now), and his other novel, The Broom of the System, is not so good. I've contented myself with his essays (awesome) and short stories (very good, occasionally extraordinary). His is a voice that makes an intense direct connection to me and people like me.

Or I should say, "His was a voice...," because David Foster Wallace killed himself yesterday. He was 46.

So Nerdy It's Painful

I'm something of a nerd myself: former D&D player (complete with subscription to Dragon magazine!); video game connoisseur; blogger. But this bumper sticker/t-shirt/dice-bag-embroidery, is so cringe-inducing I want to track down whoever foisted it on the world and smack them upside the head with my +2 baseball bat.

I saw it today on an otherwise normal-looking Honda Civic and had to wonder for the 100th time who would a) pay money for this nerdy, unfunny aphorism; and, b) adhere it to their car to proclaim their complete misunderstanding of the concept of humor.

Let's analyze this phrase. "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons" -- sound enough advice, I suppose. Dragons are massive, fire-breathing monsters. Their lairs are boneyards, strewn with the picked-clean remains of those who have meddled. Most people in a world with dragons would not need to be advised not to meddle, any more than you or I need to be told not to meddle in the affairs of grizzly bears, or chainsaw-wielding serial killers.

"For you are crunchy" -- are humans crunchy? I mean, we have bones and all... but crunchy? Would you describe a pig as crunchy? A hippo? I guess one could argue that dragons are big enough to eat humans whole, in which case we'd be crunchy in the same way that a game hen is.

"And taste good with ketchup" -- this is what seals the awful deal. A dragon with a bottle of Heinz 57 on top of its treasure pile? For God's sake, dragons are cool! Ancient, wise, fierce, gold-hoarding, nearly-unstoppable killing machines that breathe fire and fly! But a dragon crunching on a knight or hobbit after drenching it in tomato ketchup is stupid and uncool and the inclusion of that image makes this the worst bumper sticker in human history.

Every time I think about it, I want to switch sides and become a bully.

Soapbox

No, I'm not going to get up on a soapbox and rap at ya. I'm gonna talk about the 2008 Portland Adult Soapbox Derby, which happened today. This is the third I've attended, and for some reason the magic was missing. The first year I was knocked out of my socks and into a bubbling whirlpool of awesomeness -- how could I have lived in Portland so long and not been hip to this most cool event? People making incredible non-motorized cars and careening down Mt. Tabor, an inactive volcano, at top speed? Not only were the cars absolutely mindblowing (in both categories: Art and Science), the atmosphere was the epitome of southeast Portland greatness: cool families, scurvy hippies, blondes with dreadlocks, shirtless skaters, eight million bicylists of all stripes, the occasional square from the west side, and everyone clutching a sweating can of PBR and having a blast.

Last year I also had a good time but I was in the midst of a non-drinking period and that took a bit of the fun out of it -- but not much. Instead of pounding brewskis, I made a movie.

This year was the first that Barb could attend (as in past years she was working retail which means Saturdays) and, of course, Elizabeth Rose. It was fun, still, but not as magical as in the past. Maybe it was the weather: HOT. It's almost 6pm right now and it's 99 degrees out (90 inside). Plus, the baby was fussy and couldn't be calmed. We left after maybe an hour or so because she became inconsolable.

There's always next year.

Dearth of a Salesman

Ugh. I just got done writing my KSAs for a job application. If you don't speak bureaucratese, KSAs (which stands for Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities) are the essay part of a government job application. E.g., "Describe your experience applying Federal, state, and local laws, regulations, policies, guides, procedures and judicial determinations to the veterans benefits programs."

Sounds like fun, huh?

I hate applying for jobs. However, here I am doing it. I'm afraid to get complacent, so I'm applying for a job I'm not sure I want that might lead to a higher-paying job I'm really not sure I want. Rolling stone, moss, etc.

The thing about job applications is that I'm not a salesman. I hate selling. Just take a look at the sales figures on my movie, Zombie Christ. It's a fun little movie with a killer marketing hook and the people who've bought it have done so almost in spite of me. I don't advertise even in the many free ways the web offers. Or see my various novel manuscripts gathering dust in my basement. It's not necessarily that they can't be sold, it's that I won't sell them. I hate selling -- but I said that already, didn't I?

Hell, I don't even tell people about this blog. My two readers are my Mom and Danielle from New Mommy Rant, and I have no idea how Danielle stumbled upon Awlthat.

Point being, applying for a job is the process of selling yourself. Even though I know I'm a great product, I have no interest in or aptitude for selling the product that is Andrew Larrison.

It's amazing I've made it this far.

The Problem With Cleveland

Cleveland's awesome. I've been here almost two weeks and have another week and a half to go.Today I got out of downtown finally (thanks to Barb), trained over to Ohio City and ate dinner and drank heavily at the Great Lakes Brewery, and had a great time. There's a lot to do here. Sure, the weather sucks -- buried in snow in the winter, drained by heat & humidity in the summer -- but that's to be expected if you're east of the Mississippi.

Cleveland is hip, it's happening, it's got charm, it's got beauty, it's got gravitas, it's got a lot for the young and young-at-heart to do. But by Christ the crosswalks are awful. The goddamn crosswalk sign takes 5 to 7 minutes to change. I'll time it tomorrow for real and report back; but my best guess is 5 to 7 minutes. You're standing there getting old while buses and cars and scooters and fixies fly by. Then you wait some more.

The other day I walked past a dude standing by a crosswalk vending his homemade music CDs.

"Take a listen," he said, offering me a pair of earphones connected to a Discman.

"I've got to get back to work," I said, taking a meaningful glance at my watch.

"Man, this light's going to take forever." I couldn't argue with that, so I listened and ended up purchasing the CD for five dollars. (Barb has since listened to it, and said it's awful. I'm glad I didn't pay what he asked, which was ten bucks.)

Portland is very pedestrian-friendly. Cleveland is not. Otherwise the city wouldn't make the hapless citizenry stand on the curb for eternity in the godawful humidity or homicidal, lake-effect snow.

C'mon, Cleveland, get your shit together.

Holy Effing Ess!

I've finally gotten into The World Ends With You, the game that sold me on the DS. It's by Japanese powerhouse publisher Square Enix (of Final Fantasy fame). It uses the dual screens to unique advantage. It has a compelling, emotionally resonant storyline -- something unusual in games.

Now that I'm into it, all I can say is (earmuffs!) holy fucking shit! The game is good, but the combat is so insanely complex that I'd like to meet the 14-year-old Japanese Ritalin-popping idiot savant who must have designed it. Then I'd like to donkey punch him. (I think -- I'm not sure what a donkey punch is. If it's something pleasurable, I take it back.)

Consider that in combat you play two characters at once. One fights on the touch screen by means of specific motions of the stylus. The one on top fights in a sort of rhythm game where you guide an arrow through a three-prong maze towards a certain symbol. You try to match the symbol at the end of one of the prongs with the same symbol on a card at the top of that screen. Sound confusing? Try playing it and suffer the consequences.

I suppose there must be someone out there, someone born in the nineties, who is really good at this game. I should probably look on YouTube for a video, and stare in awe at someone whose brain revs a helluva lot faster than mine.

It's things like this that make me realize that I'm ... not young anymore.

Experiments in Otaku or, I Think I'm Turning Japanese

So I bought a Nintendo DS. I used the Cleveland trip as justification, but frankly it's just an excuse to wallow in the failure of my Video Game Free 2008. And wallow I have been doing.
How did I decide on a Nintendo over the equally-or-even-more- appealing Sony PSP, you ask? I would love to indulge your curiousity by means of a lengthy explanation!

I have two friends who have a DS. They both are more than willing to lend me games (partially because they're generous people and good friends, partially because the DS -- unlike the PSP -- uses unscratchable cartridges rather than delicate, scratchable, and simply bizarre UMD discs). That means the gaming is cheaper on the DS (which is already $40 cheaper to buy just the device). Plus I felt that a PSP is simply a Playstation 2 shrunk down to handheld size. Wheras the DS is an entirely new system. For instance, the PSP has lots of cool games, but said games are simply ports of PS2 games that work a lot better and in fact are a lot cooler on the PS2. So basically, if you want to play PS2 games, get a PS2. Dude.

And the DS has, uh, Dual Screens. Ever hear of another video game player with two screens? Me neither. And it works. As with the Wii, Nintendo, those clever bastards, decided to just take a flyer on the hardware -- create something unexpectedly new and weird -- and leave it to the software engineers to catch up. And boy-howdy, have they caught up? I reckon they have.

Furthermore, I've been seduced a bit by the whole Japanese otaku thing, no thanks to the embarassingly named website DS Fanboy, which revels in otaku. Very greatly simplified, otaku is Japanese for geek. And were you to talk to a Japense person, they would tell you that otaku is a 100% disparaging word. They are disturbed when Americans such as myself willingly append the work otaku to their descriptions, as I'm doing in this post.

But we're Americans, baby! We make the rules. And you might recall, if you were alive circa 1906, that "geek" was a hideously disparaging term. No one would have willingly described themselves as a "geek" unless they couldn't get work as a madhouse attendant. Now we've got the Geek Squad, geek chic, Harry Knowles, etc. Being a geek is cool... kinda.

I was a bit fearful of purchasing the DS (although not really, because I could turn around and sell it at a minimum loss) because I've never really been into the 2-D gaming. I didn't get really interested in videogames until they got highly proficient at 3-D in 2001 (cf. Serious Sam). But what's cool about the DS is its, for lack of a better word, differentness. I've tried out three games so far and they're all unexpectedly good. Plus, it plays GBA games, of which there are a thousand that are good -- although all of those are old-school 2-D games of the type I might have played on my NES in 1989.

Enough on that. I'd rather be playing Puzzle Quest than writing about it. Let me just leave you with a glimpse at a tiny facet of the multi-faceted gemstone that is otaku:


See what I mean?

The Missing

I'm away from my baby for the first time since her birth: in Cleveland for three and a half weeks to train newly hired service reps for the VA. Cleveland's pretty cool, the extra money is nice, the work is fine -- the only thing missing is my family; especially this beautiful baby!

It's notable how much the missing can really hurt. I saw a fellow traveller here at the hotel step off the elevator carrying a pair of little baby girl shoes and a dart of missing struck my heart. I saw a news story about a local man who allegedly murdered his 2-month-old namesake son and felt a pang of such sorrow... that little baby deserved so much more.

I love my baby girl so much.

Thankfully, we can afford to have Barb and Elizabeth fly out in a week, and stay for the remainder of the trip. Can't wait.

The bachelor thing was fun for a day or two, but the novelty is already wearing off. Frankly, I'm a pretty lame bachelor. I hunker down in my hotel room listening to Built To Spill, drinking beer, and either reading (Lonesome Dove, which is awesome), internetting, or playing video games (see Experiments in Otaku or I Think I'm Turning Japanese, above). Tonight I spent a minute or two looking at the fireworks over Jacobs Field (I'll never call it Progressive Field!), then went back to my beer and my DS.

Baby is My Co-Pilot

Today Barb went to church thence to Robin Burrow's baby shower, leaving me and Elizabeth Rose to fend for ourselves. She's almost four months old, now, but it's been the rare occasion that we spend time with just each other. As if that weren't enough to make Daddy apprehensive, Portland's in the middle of a heat wave (The Surfer's exterior thermometer showed 108 degrees yesterday!) and there were a ton of chores crying to be done (dishes, laundry, unpacking from camping, putting together a couple of Zombie Christ orders, etc.).

We ended up having a great time together. I played with and read to E.R., carried her around a lot on my shoulder (her new carry position), fed her twice, and still managed to get most of the chores done. I came away from the experience feeling that we should make it a regular thing: Daddy-Baby Day. Not only is it great for us, it's a much-needed break for Mommy, who spends so much time with the baby (and will be spending even more, with my upcoming 26-day trip to Cleveland).

Book Review: Rendezvous with Rama

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Knowing only a little about the plot (humans have a brief chance to explore a huge alien spacecraft as it zooms through our solar system), I was disappointed a bit by RwR. The spacecraft is fundamentally pretty understandable. The human explorers within minutes of getting inside know the basics. It's the details that are mysterious. And Clarke does a good job of keeping them (the details) intriguing, alien, and, ultimately, inexplicable. But I was hoping for an encounter with something truly, mind-blowingly alien. No such luck. These aliens use plates, for instance, and wear belts. They like water and breathe more or less the same type of atmosphere we do. The book ends with the promise of a sequel (two, actually), and I have a feeling one exists. If it does, I'll read it.

Typically of classic SF, the characters are not in any way memorable, but they do the job of proving the reader with someone to identify with in a book that's really about scientific ideas.


View all my reviews.

History in the Making!

Today Barb put Elizabeth Rose in the Moby facing outward. It's a sign that she is officially a big baby.

In fact, her neck still isn't quite strong enough to make this position perfectly practical. While she was awake in the Moby, Barb sort of bracketed Elizabeth's head with her (Barb's) hands. Elizabeth is, perhaps, a little behind the curve in neck strength development. Regardless, she can hold her head up, just not for very long.

But the facing-forward-in-the-Moby worked. Elizabeth enjoyed looking at the world (rather than Mommy or Daddy's collarbone), and after 15 minutes conked out.

Which, as you can see, was pretty damn cute.

The Cookie Incident

I'm fascinated by the ongoing saga of The Cookie Incident. This event involves my mom, Sharon, and her (formerly?) good friend Michael. It's an incident that is very much indicative of the difficulties humans have communicating.

For the full scoop on The Cookie Incident, please read Mom's blog. It's very interesting stuff.

Here's my take on what happened:

On April 24 of this year Mom was invited to her friend's apartment. He had some seemingly bogus excuse about wanting to borrow a stool. Upon reflection, Mom thought it was exceedingly odd that Michael would ask to borrow this stool -- he has plenty of chairs. She went up there, gave him the stool in question, and he offered her a cookie. Now what happened next is subject to interpretation, but I'll present it as I remember Mom reporting it the following morning. That report, if I recall correctly, stated that Michael offered her one of his homemade cookies. She wasn't eager to take him up on the offer. (Michael is a baker of dubious quality; I was once stuck with a piece of his rum cake, or fruit cake, or mincemeat, or something, and it was pretty godawful.) But Mom is as gracious a guest as she is a host, so she said yes. Michael explained something about it containing "seeds" from "Betty," but Mom didn't make the connection that Betty was Michael's pot connection ("dealer" seems too professional a term).

She ate some of the cookie, then got up to go. Michael made a point to remind her to "take your cookie." A while after Mom got home she realized she was stoned. Except it didn't feel like being stoned from smoking grass (something she's done a bit of in her time, though she's no stoner). She called Michael and said she was feeling really funny and he responded, "That's the idea."

Mom had a terrible night, tripping out on whatever was in the cookie. She still feels a detrimental effect from the incident, and her relationship with Michael has basically crumbled -- which is too bad considering he's one of the best people in her building.

Unless, that is, he maliciously dosed her.

But I don't think he did.

One of the problems here is that Betty is involved, and Betty is generally acknowledged to be a bad person. Betty's involvement -- she provided the weed that went in the cookie that caused Mom's bad trip -- casts a sinister light on the whole Incident. But I think Betty's a red herring. I think that Michael's mention of "seeds" (? -- every stoner knows seeds don't get you high, no matter whether you smoke them or eat them) and "Betty" (=pot supplier) proves that he wasn't trying to hide the marijuana content of his cookies. He may not have been communicating clearly, but he showed obvious intent to let Mom know there was marijuana in the cookies.

We should also remember that Mom doesn't hear too well.

Next, Michael acknowledged that feeling funny "was the idea." Were he purposefully gaslighting Mom, or otherwise trying to unbalance her, he would not have said that getting high was the idea behind eating the cookie. He would have feigned ignorance. "You're feeling funny, Sherry? That's odd, I wonder why?" He knows that Mom has had incidents of psychological distress in the past. If he'd been malicious, wouldn't he have professed utter ignorance of the cause of her freak-out?

I think so.

Mom seems to now be interpreting Michael's chilliness toward her as proof, or at least evidence, of his having conspired to bring her low. My take: he's freaked out by how freaked out she got.

I don't think there's a position of fault here. Mom got dosed, and it was a terrible experience. Michael miscommunicated in a way that caused his friend to freak out on him, and now he's gunshy. Given the fact that Michael is an ex-homeless guy who is used to living solo and has been burned by society more than once, I am not at all surprised that instead of offering a defense of his actions he has simply withdrawn into his shell.

But the fascinating thing about The Cookie Incident is that no one involved will likely ever know the full story. Once emotions rise to the levels that they have here, clear, reasonable communication becomes next to impossible.

It's a wonder human civilization has made it as far as it has.

They Grow Up So Fast!

Supercliche, I know. But nine weeks into her life, Elizabeth Rose has decided that lying on her back is preferable to being held. Barb and I made a real effort to keep her close to us, either in arms or in the Moby, after she was born. At first, what soothed the baby girl was being held and walked. Then she graduated to being bounced on the physioball (see photo). Now, finally, she is a big girl and wants to lie on her back, wave her tiny limbs around, squeak and squawk, and generally be independent.

Just when I thought I was out ... they pull me back in!

I decided last year to give up video games for 2008. There were a couple of reasons for this: 1) I had played most of the games I wanted to for my original Xbox; 2) As stated below, time is short -- plus, I was attempting to clear space in my schedule for writing fiction, with an eye toward finishing the final draft of The Brooklyn House, the best book I've written; 3) I lusted after an Xbox 360 and the numerous incredible games available for it, but wouldn't spring the $350.00 for a toy; 4) I was and am a little ashamed of the fact that I like this quintessentially adolescent pastime so much -- as a 38 year old man, shouldn't I really be interested in collecting wine or studying the stock market?

Until a week or so ago, the quitting was going swimmingly. I didn't miss video games at all. I even wondered a couple of times if I would ever climb back up into the saddle of that hobby-horse. Then it occurred to me how cool it would be to have a mobile internet device. Although I'd love an iPhone, I decided to research cheaper alternatives. That led me to the Sony PSP, pictured above, and its rival in the marketplace, the Nintendo DS Lite. Both wi-fi capable machines that can slip into your jacket pocket -- and both video game platforms.

Innocently, I decided to do a little research on these intriguing machines, to see which had the better browsing experience. That done, I thought: "Well, if I end up getting one of these, I might as well know which has the better games -- just in case I ever feel like doing a bit of gaming." And before you could say "Miyamoto," my video game interest, which had burned down to a lukewarm bed of coals beneath a downy layer of ash, was a raging conflagration.

Last night I talked with brother Scott, who has two PSPs in the family, and he mentioned that one of his sons (he wasn't sure which) had lost interest in the PSP and might be interested in selling it for $50 or $75.

I said, casually, "Well, sure. Let me know."

These Are the Armies of the Night?

Last Wednesday Barb, Elizabeth, and I took a stroll through the ole neighborhood. After hitting Mocha Monkey and Creston Park we decided to walk down one of the many alleys that run behind the backs of the houses, dividing the blocks. Southeast Portland alleys are awesome, and deserve a book or documentary, or at least a blog post, all their own. The ones closest to our house are often like country roads -- two dirt wheelruts overhung with tree branches.

Anyhow, we came across this graffito, which annoyed me. I snapped the picture with the intention of really laying into the kids (clearly kids -- or even just kid -- don't you think?) who painted this pathetic tag. There's no art to it. The name is a lame cliche. It's hidden in an alley. Oh yeah, I was going to use this blog to rip those so-called 'Rebels' a new one.

I started to rant about these thoughts to Barb and she said she found it (the tag, not the rant) endearing. "It's like something I would have done when I was a kid," she added. Something stupid but harmless, rebellious yet not really. Of course she was right. Kids do this kind of stuff and as long as it remains fairly harmless (e.g. tagging a garage door that opens into an alley) rather than horrifying (e.g. setting fire to an orphanage) we should accept it for what it is: an outward manifestation of the painful growth of adolescence.

Gift Theme

The other night at dinner I told the story about Barb and the picture of the Asian gentleman with the enormous cat (see Barb is Funny, below). Today I get a link to this picture from buddy Snark, with an email saying "I know you love this stuff." Frankly, I do love it. I desperately want an enormous cat. But now I'm fearful that this will become my gift theme.

You know what I'm talking about. Certain people get stuck being identified with a certain totem, and whenever it's time to buy that person a gift, one can always just default to that theme. With Wendy, for instance, it's frogs. Supposedly you can't go wrong getting Wendy a pair of frog socks, or a frog towel, or a frog calendar for her birthday. A friend of my father's, Dave Mann, his theme was Snoopy. Can't think of something he'd really like? Get Mr. Mann a Snoopy coffee mug.

I think gift themes are a lazy way to make easier the difficult task of gifting someone with something meaningful. And to any friends or family who are reading, I do not want to be the person with the enormous-cat gift theme.

Venturing Outside the Neighborhood

A while back I wrote about the fact that despite the enormous size of the internet -- hell, enormous is a ridiculous understatement -- my internet neighborhood was pretty small. I'm a daily internet checker, and make the rounds of CHUD, Cool Tools, BikePortland, my email box, a few comics on Yahoo! news, Tom the Dancing Bug and the New York Times. Last year, when I was still playing videogames, I would've added ActionTrip and Gamespot to that list. Still pretty short.

Recently Cool Tools recommended StumbleUpon to me. If you don't already know, StumbleUpon is a site where you register, pick some interests from a list, then hit the Stumble! button that's been put onto your browser's toolbar. Stumbling lands you on a website that StumbleUpon thinks you'll find interesting based on the interests you picked.

It's fantastic. And a little frightening. Because StumbleUpon is basically a remote control for a TV with infinite channels. You can spend the rest of your life just stabbing that Stumble! button like a boobtube zombie at 3am when you want to go to bed but feel compelled to see if something good's on the next channel... and the next... and the next... . SU also asks you to give a thumbs up or thumbs down vote to each site it sends you to, by which input it refines its knowledge of your preferences.

Want a free online rhyming dictionary? It's out there. Or how about Greenpeace's animated diagram of "The Pacific Trash Vortex". Yep. Did you know there's a website where you upload a random file (music, picture, video, text) and it downloads to you a random file? Now you do.

Since Stumbling around the superfrigginhuge internet, I've bookmarked all sorts of interesting sites. I've laughed quite a few times at funny pictures, videos, or writings. I've even emailed friends links of things I thought they'd enjoy, like this. But it hasn't expanded my neighborhood at all. I haven't revisited any of the sites SU sent me to. I now know that they exist, and maybe someday I'll go back, but I'm pretty comfy in my little neighborhood.

And time is short.

Barb is Funny

I stumbled upon this picture, loved it, and set it as wallpaper on the laptop. The next day Barb sees it and says to me in the most casual tone of voice, "Who's that guy?" Not, "Holy shit, that's one gigantic cat!", but "Who's that guy?"

Holy shit, that's one gigantic cat!

The Virtue of Imperfection

The first time I traveled to Barb's parents' house in Rocky Point, NY, I was stunned and seduced by the apparent perfection of the neighborhood in which they lived. It wasn't a rich neighborhood, just solidly middle class, but everything was perfect. The driveways were all stainless black, sealed every two years. The cars were clean and beautifully maintained, even if not new. The lawns were green, uniform, and mowed. It seemed so much less decrepit than salt-bitten Syracuse, or, God forbid, Binghamton, both exemplars of Rust Belt decay.

The same perfection that wowed me Barb saw as the epitome of the sort of decadent suburban conformity that drives kids (like Barb) to rebel and flee to college or the decaying cities that are so much richer in culture.

Now that I own a house that is somewhat decrepit (it was built in 1925), I struggle with my desire for a perfection that I cannot achieve. I shouldn't even try.

A couple of months ago we got our wood floors refinished. They were in terrible shape, and I knew that there was no way to perfect them -- too many patched areas, scars, and stains. When they were done, I was satisfied that we had made a big improvement in the aesthetics and preservation of our old house. As soon as the contractor told us we could, we started to move back in. The first big piece of furniture to go into the living room was the couch, which has a hide-a-bed and therefore weighs about the same as a Harley-Davidson Fatboy. Barb was eight months pregnant. We couldn't carry it to its place, so we put it on its steel casters and rolled it across the floor. Sure enough each caster cut a furrow in our floor's new finish.

I wanted to curse and rend my clothes and tear my hair out. I didn't because I knew that in a week I wouldn't care so much and two months down the road I wouldn't care at all. I was wrong; a couple of months later I'm not indifferent to the furrows in our floor -- I like them. Like a scar on your flesh, or laugh lines in your face, imperfections tell stories and establish landmarks to guide your memory on its journey into the past. Because of the flaw in our floor I will live with an everpresent reminder of a particular week in our life, one of the last weeks before Barb and I became parents.

The Swaddle, and Implications Thereof

Elizabeth likes to be swaddled; that is, wrapped tightly in a blanket so her limbs are prevented from flailing uncontrollably, as the limbs of newborns are wont to do. A swaddled baby is reminded of the tight confines of the womb in the last few weeks before birth. She is comforted by the restrictions on her movements. Lately, Elizabeth has been more difficult to swaddle. She's bigger than she was at two days old, when the picture above was taken. More importantly, she's stronger and she fights the swaddle more. Thing is, although she fights the swaddle, she is only disturbed if she can bust out of the swaddling blanket. Wrap her tight, let her struggle to get out, and she will quickly abandon her efforts and go to sleep a happy, peaceful baby. But should she overcome the restrictions and get an arm or two free, she starts fussing and crying.

I was thinking the other night that this may have implications for the future. Just as with swaddling, she is going to fight against whatever restrictions Barb and I lay down -- but she'll only be truly disturbed if it turns out that our restrictions are so weak that she can overcome them.

It's the nature of kids to struggle against order, but that doesn't mean they don't need it.

A Magic Box of Terror and Wonder

My friend Gabriel is a computer repair guy, self-employed, who last time I checked charged $75.00 per hour. He once told me that something like half his house calls were for problems no more complex than showing the owner the power button.

I'm typing this on a Gateway laptop that Barb and I bought from a tenant in Mom's building who purchased it new in June of last year and was never able to activate Windows Vista and could therefore never even get to the desktop of his $650 machine. Poor guy – an octogenarian, but I don't think it would have made much of a difference if he'd been thirty years younger – got so frustrated that he sold the virtually unused machine to us for $200. I discovered that Vista needed to go online to assure its corporate overlords that it was genuine, and because Ed (the old guy) didn't have internet at home, it locked him down. Indeed, when I booted it up for the first time it displayed a message: “This copy of Windows is pirated.” But it wasn't.

I ended up calling MS and getting Vista activated, but it was neither intuitive nor effortless. I offered the machine back to Ed, but he wanted nothing to do with it. He took our two hundred bucks and went to Vegas. I respect his priorities.

I have often complained, “I never wanted to be a PC hobbyist!” I never did. But I wanted to own a PC, and it seems like the one follows the other. I don't understand how so many people own and use PCs when they have no idea how to solve their myriad problems. I imagine they must just yield to frustration, which I suppose may be a good lesson in Zen or something. Mom's friend Michael bought a new PC a year or so ago and impressed me with his ability to set up its DVR capabilities, to burn DVDs, etc. Then one day when he booted up he got a dialog box containing an error message of some kind. It didn't seem to cause any trouble, but it was annoying. He couldn't figure out how to get rid of it. I suggested googling the text in the box and seeing what resulted. He did (so did I), but no easy answers were to be found. As far as I know that same error message continues to annoy him to this day. As minor problems like that pile up, as his registry gets fouled, he's going to need to do a clean install. Then what? Either take the plunge himself, as I did one terrifying day years ago, or pay somebody hundreds of dollars to do it for you and continue to regard your computer as if it were the Ark of the Covenant – a magic box of terror and wonder.

Clearly, PCs aren't refrigerators. Our loyal Whirlpool has been chugging away, doing it's job, for three years without requiring any attention whatsoever. And it was used when we got it and is probably ten years old or more. I expect that kind of ease of ownership from my major appliances – stove, washer, dryer, microwave.

Perhaps cars offer a model of ownership that is more comparable for PCs. Cars need regular, expensive maintenance – brakes, belts, tires, etc. Buyers of new computers should budget for the $300 worth of yearly Geek Squad bills if they're not willing to sink dozens or hundreds of hours of their lives into learning about these irritating but seductively empowering devices.

Or just make friends with someone who has done so, which, come to think of it, is probably how a lot of PCs are maintained. Which is why last time I saw Gabriel he was wearing a t-shirt that read: No, I will not fix your computer.

Neologisms a la Mark

When Mark was here in Portland last year I exposed him to Aaron's and my Band Name Project. Over the course of a few years Aaron and I had come up with 700 band names. Mark started generating band names and then couldn't stop. One night of sleeplessness led to hundreds of names -- from great to not great. I'll try to dig up some examples, as I still have his notes somewhere.

Recently he got a forwarded email (not from me!) about a new word contest and his dynamo started spinning so fast it was throwing sparks and issuing smoke. With the following results (and more to come, no doubt):

1) Conflatulations (conflats, for short): saying
"nice one" or "good one" after someone breaks
wind.
2) Cereabral: having fruit loops for brains.
3) Constheorasy : a conspiracy theory.
4) Somerfaulting : making mistakes over and over agin.
5) Nutrilicious: both nutricious and delicious.
6) Sinistair: dangerous stairs.
7) Superfiscal: a minor money mistake.
8) Superspicious: suspicious for no real reason.
9) Regurgitaste: tasting like vomit. The taste of vomit.
The taste when you throw up a little in your mouth
while belching.
10) Terrorfied: scared of terror.
11) Hearesay: unsubstantiated testimony contrary to
church doctrine.
12) Hip-Slop: the fashion of Hip-Hop.
13) Vomic: a comic or comedian so bad they make you
nauseous.
14) Diaryhea: uncontrollable or non-stop journal
writing.
15) Dignifried: wasted (as on drugs or alcohol) and proud
of it.
16) Pursepiration: the immediate uncontrollable panic
reaction of one who thinks they have lost their purse
or wallet.
17) Asstorrhoid: a very large hemorrhoid.
18) Peniscuos: men who are unable to "keep it in their
pants".
19) Bladderuption: when you just CAN'T hold it any more.
20) Legalify: not quite the same as legalize.Claiming or
acting as if something illegal is legal. EXAMPLE:The
President can legalify anything using truthiness.

The Moby

In the picture of Baby Elizabeth below she's snuggled into a Moby wrap. It's a 15 foot long piece of fabric that can be wrapped around baby and parent in a variety of ways. We received it from Aaron and Wendy and it's fantastic. I urge all parents to use the Moby or some other method of holding baby close to the body, rather than dangling at the end of Dad's arm in the plastic bucket of a car seat. Baby wants to be close to her parents. That's a fact, Jack.

The Beauty, Pt. II

Renaissance Baby
Originally uploaded by andrew_larrison

Here is Elizabeth Rose Larrison at ten days old.

I have long thought that the driving force behind the rise of civilization was the desire by parents to keep their children alive, and now that I have my own, my belief is reinforced. There is an awe-inspiring wellspring of love that a baby reveals in its parent. It's unlike anything I've ever felt, and although it's been the subject of countless works of art, it's not understandable until you feel it yourself.

It's scary how vulnerable love makes you. But I think it makes you powerful, too.

The Beauty, Pt. I

Riding around southeast Portland on an early spring night on a bike of your own build with a sixpack of Lagunitas IPA in your bag is an experience peerless.

Photography is Dead

Okay, it's not really. But for a while I thought it might be. Why? Digital photography, of course! Digital cameras make everyone a great photographer, right? I thought so, until I got a Flickr account (yes, my cyberlife expands [perhaps to make up for a contracting analog life??]). I went to upload my heartbreaking works of staggering photographic genius only to find that out of the 500+ photos I've taken since acquiring the beloved Canon PowerShot SD800, only five (5!) were upload-worthy. And looking at the photos on Flickr or at my acquaintance Pete Springer's website, I realize that -- as always -- it's not the equipment that makes the photo.

Although it helps.

Nursery

During the earlier months of our pregnancy people would ask us, "Have you done the nursery yet?" and Barb and I would scoff. "We're not 'doing' any goddamn nursery," I'd say. "The baby can sleep in our room." Or maybe, "We'll roll the crib into the office, but that's it. No painting, no decorating. It's a baby! What does it care if there's a mural of dancing clowns on the wall??"

Looking back, it seems so naive. After a trip to IKEA (I got a love/hate thing going with that company that may take years and thousands of dollars to resolve) we now have a nursery: cute area rug featuring a dragon, red dresser full of nappies and clothes, Klimt print; and of course the crib and rocker we already had. All in all, it looks like a nursery (albeit the nursery of the coolest newborn in SE Portland).

Can't wait to find out what belief is next to crumble before the inexorable power of the babychild.

Vanessa From Queens

Brother Mark informed me of an article in the Wall Street Journal (http://tinyurl.com/39ncry) about undersea cables getting cut. It was illustrated with an image of a shark with laser beams shooting out of it. Could there be any more sure sign that Rupert Murdoch, the Australian tabloid publisher, now owns one of America's most respected newspapers?

Next thing you know the WSJ will be featuring busty Page Three girls, perhaps depicted in a nice sober engraving.

Walking With Special Effects!

Dave got us comps to "Walking With Dinosaurs!" a BBC edutainment product that consists of a lot of very expensive, very cool life-size dinosaur animatronic puppets walking around the stage while a human character does a very frothy gloss on their lives, habits, etc. It was probably great for the ten-year-olds in the audience (of which there were many), but childless adults should avoid this show. Yes, the puppets are cool. They look great, they move with a ponderous strength that may or may not be realistic -- but they don't do much except move with ponderous strength. They move forward. They move backward. They move their necks to and fro. They roar.

Snore.

The human (Beazley? Bosley?) spoke with authority about all sorts of things I know we don't know about dinosaurs, which was kind of annoying for a supposedly educational show. Oh, but that's right -- it wasn't education, it was edutainment. I guess it's okay, then.It struck me that theater is now doing exactly what Hollywood movies have too often been doing since at least the '70s -- focusing on special effects to the exclusion of all other elements, such as story, conflict, drama, character, emotion. Blame it on Julie Taymor or Les Mis, or better yet don't blame it on anything at all. It's an attempt to keep and maybe even grow an audience for a medium that is losing audience. Good on them. But here's a clue -- combine the super-expensive, super-cool puppets with a plot, character, emotion and you might achieve something higher than edutainment. Whatever the hell that is.

Review: Things Change

I used to think it was cool to say, "David Mamet is one of my favorite filmmakers."

Best known as a playwright, Mamet is sorely underappreciated as the director of such awesomeness as Spartan, State and Main, The Winslow Boy, and House of Games. But maybe moviegoers got off to a rocky start with this boring twaddle, Mamet's first movie. Things Change is so dull and disappointing it makes me use grandpaw terms like "boring twaddle."

Don Ameche is, admittedly, kinda charming as an Italian shoeshine guy who gets chosen to take the fall for a murdering mobster whom he resembles (the mobster really resembles James Joyce, but that's neither here nor there). Joe Mantegna (never a favorite, despite House of Games), is the eff-up low level goombah charged with keeping track of Don over the weekend before he "confesses". Joe gets all Last Detail and decides to take the 'shine to Tahoe for a last weekend of fun (i.e. boring hookers and boring gambling). Lack of hilarity ensues. Avoid Things Change so you don't get gun-shy about Mamet, who is definitely great.

Blogcheating

As I get deeper into this cyberlife, I'm finding myself torn between online communities. Example: I wrote a review tonight of David Mamet's execrable Things Change on NetFlix, mainly because some new friends had joined my NetFlix community (shout out to Alder and Anson!) and I wanted my presence to be known. But then I thought: "I should post this review on my blog!" But it was too late. I had submitted it to NetFlix, which may not post it for two business days. Apparently, someone actually reads the things. The point being, is it somehow cheating if I copy my review from NetFlix and post it here as new content (which is precisely what I did with the Rescue Dawn review, below)?

Drunken Photography

I took my newish digital camera to Dave and Snark's New Year's Eve Ham Feed, got drunk, and took a lot of pictures. Beside the usual snaps of folks partying I took art pictures and insisted on showing them on the 2.5" LCD to anyone who would look. "Look at that, that's a beautiful picture," I'd say, proudly showing off the macro shot of the chrome plated towel rack I'd just taken in the bathroom. Reactions were polite at best. Turns out that at least a couple were beautiful (not the towel rack, though). But in sober retrospect I can see that it might be obnoxious to have some drunken artist insist on you looking at his obscure photos on a tiny display just seconds after he snapped them.

I am in love with digital photography because it gives me what I could never afford in 35mm: unlimited film.