Careering
Part of the cost of terminating the project I was working on was for the company to hire an outplacement firm to counsel all the redundant staff. I get a lovely little portfolio, essentially unlimited internet time, a copier and fax machine and printer - all the amenities. I'm not sure but I'd rather they spent the money by handing me more cash, but I'm not particularly hopeful they'd have done it, so I'll take what I can get. Outplacement is another of those terms that don't seem to quite fit with what they mean. In this case, I'm already "out" and looking for placement elsewhere, and the service provided is largely a do-it-yourself program. We make the best of these things. I can dress down all the time now, for example. It's not much, but at least I'm comfortable. And as for becoming a jackaroo, as has been suggested, well if some molly-coddle British royal can do it, so can I! Yippie-yi-yo.

Suit and Tie
If nothing else, I get to forego the corporate uniform for a while. Actually, it was kind of interesting to observe the cultural shift moving from the Soho-based publisher in NYC to the global behemoth in the Sydney suburbs, in that a suit was mandatory. Turns out that was the influence of the South African military-trained project director more than anything else, and when he was gone, the ties mostly went, too. Nevertheless, now that I'm spending time in Martin Place, kind of the heart of the CBD, I see that the standard is very broad indeed, if not quite so liberal as extended to Soho. Next up: a beer on the balcony.

Redundant
I've never quite understood the British usage of this word. To me, redundant means extra, superfluous, duplicative. When an employee is made redundant, however, it isn't because the company's hired someone else to do that job (ostensibly, although I'm sure it happens), but rather that the job itself is eliminated, usually along with a few others. Not by computers, mind you, which don't actually replace workers as displace them, similar to the effect computers have had on office paper production (which was to increase it dramatically). Similarly, "retrenched" - what does that mean? If there are meant to be connotations with trench warfare, wouldn't a worker be retrenched by moving them from one job to another, that is, moving them from one trench to another? It doesn't matter, I guess, so long as you get your redundancy payout. And I'm still out of a job. Well, at least I can still say I've never been fired, since technically I've been "let go." (As if they could have stopped me, given half a chance - never mind, I'm being bitter.) Well, there's some benefit in having survived the past four months since the first layoffs, in that most of them will have gotten jobs by now, so I don't face quite as much competition as I would have. Meanwhile, once I've got a few resumes out the door, this looks like a good time to preview the beach. Perhaps tomorrow while I'm out and about papering my resume around the CBD, I'll stop and get a cheap Eski (n.b. to non-Australian readers: think about the abbreviation, and it will come clear. Yes, Eskimo, so ice, and therefore cooler. It all makes sense, doesn't it?).

Swans on the Grass, Alas
For all the time I spent out by the Olympic Park when I first started working, I didn’t make much effort to walk around and see it. For the most part, the grounds are dominated by the (now) Telstra Stadium, a gigantic venue holding about 80,000. So Saturday night was a bit of a tourist venture as well as an opportunity to attend the Swans bid to go to the Grand Finals of Aussie Rules football. Only 71,000 were in attendance, but even at that it was quite a crowd, with quite a lot of red-and-white on display. (I have to give the Park designers some credit, as well as to the overall Aussie character, in that everyone proceeded in and out along the roadways and parking garages smoothly and efficiently.) The field of play is significantly larger than the Swans home field at the Sydney Cricket Grounds, but unlike American “gridiron,” the goal posts are set at the ends of the oval regardless of its size. This may have been a factor in the humiliating loss the Swans suffered at the hands of the Brisbane Lions. Sure, I enjoyed the game, and I don’t have the dilemma of being asked if I’d like to buy a ticket for the Grand Final (which would have been expensive as well as hard to resist), but it was too bad they didn’t win. The Lions, with the assistance of what appeared to be some pretty dodgy calls in the first quarter, handled the ball very well indeed, especially in the air, while Sydney never managed their air game well at all, except perhaps in the third quarter, where they overcame a significant deficit, only to lose it all again and more in the 4th. Their ground game, where AFL is at its least effective from what I can see, was spent mostly on the bottom of a tackle. I figure the week off they had put Sydney at an over-rested disadvantage, which combined with Brisbane’s squad of veteran players probably meant the outcome was never as much in doubt as I’d gone in thinking.

It’s a (Too) Small World
If the Disneyification of NYC had continued just a little longer – and it might yet – the subways could have looked quite a bit different than the current model. An interesting example of psychological torture, or an attempt to pre-empt the graffiti taggers? (Thanks, Big White Guy.)

Eisenhower
There have been only a few career military men in the White House (right now occupied by a hot dogging National Guard AWOL), so the entry of Wesley Clark into the Democratic candidates line-up is an interesting development beyond the fact that it increases the field to an unwieldy 10 potentials. But what does it mean, and is he any good? From where I sit (on the other side of the planet, looking forward to a visit to the embassy next November – no, not really, just an absentee ballot), Dean’s looked like the man to beat. Clark’s hat in the ring seems to reduce Deans’ chances, potentially making better candidates out of Kerry and Edwards, hopefully making it all the move obvious what a bad choice that creep Lieberman would be. There’s also been a good deal of vibe about a Dean-Clark ticket, and I could see that, but only just as much as I can see any of the others doing the same thing. I wonder if a Clark-Dean ticket would be more than just alphabetical?

Correction
I really ought to look at this thing more often to see if it's working as expected. Here I saw this great new Blogger feature, a field to enter a title on each post, which was added to the "featureless" product following the elimination of the fee-based Blogger-Pro. No more formatting a headline to my posts, just type and go. Well, it turns out not to be so. I'm not sure what the point of this feature is, and I'm not using it. In fact, I've gone back over the week's posts and added back the headlines that were sitting in the title field, uselessly. I ought to move to a new 'blogging medium, but look what happened to Outside Counsel after he started threatening such a change.

Can’t Get Enough of Politics
The DNC is running a weblog, just in case you are so addicted to reading these things that you’ll even follow the content posted by a faceless political organization. The GOP apparently eschews such plebeian technological usages.

Blue Skies, 25? C
If there’s a rainy season here, I must have missed it. Meanwhile, back in NYC, they’re expecting 60 mph winds and lotsa rain. Looks like it missed M&P, at least the center, anyway.

Arr
Ahoy, ye lubbers, today be Talk Like a Pirate Day. Drink and the devil have done for the rest.

Genie: Well and Truly Out
Iraq wanted them, Iran’s working on it, Pakistan and India threaten each other with them, North Korea gleefully pursues the capability, and now Saudi Arabia is considering the option of building their own nuclear weapons program. Can I blame Bush for this, too?

Apply Patch, Buff with Turtle Wax™
A nice story of people helping an animal who ran afoul of technology, by using an ancillary technology: auto body shop mechanics repaired the damaged shell of a snapping turtle hit by a car. Kinda like that Star Trek episode: I’m a Doctor, not a bricklayer! or in this case, I’m a panel-beater, not a vet!

I’ve Looked at Clouds
And snow-capped mountains and volcanic craters and . . . all from 300 miles up. Spectacular photos from space.

Back for Your Legal Opinion Needs, et al.
Now that Outside Counsel’s back, if not complete with archives, I can look forward to some thoughtful content (I even enjoy the law-related posts) and useful links, like this one, to an archive of Wire’s “100 Records That Shook the World (When No One Was Listening)”, which includes all of three records I actually own, references to another dozen or so by artists I’ve heard of, and many more that appeal to my collecting urge, an aspect, I suppose, of having a 17% geek quotient.

Quiet, Kept to Itself
How does someone get killed by a tree? I wouldn’t have thought that it wasn’t possible to get out of the way of a tree falling over in the forest – you’d have to have heard it coming, unless they don’t make any sound! There goes that Zen koan. I wonder if this means I’m a butterfly?

Lab Fees
Because I did my degrees in Literature, I was pretty much more than happy to buy my text books and keep them forever, and the cost never exceeded list price anyway. But most actual text books, the kind you buy for Economics 101 or Biology of the Cell or whatever, are very high priced items indeed, and apparently that cost is rising year by year. I’ve had some experience in this, and I didn’t keep any of those books, not surprisingly, since they go through frequent revisions, at least one purpose of which appears to be to ensure a revenue stream to the publisher, who would otherwise see very little return on the investment, largely because these are not books that have a market outside the university system, often only even the university at which the professor who wrote the thing is working. It always seemed a little suspect when the course text was written by the course professor (or worse, his personal friend), but I realize that’s probably an extreme reaction. It does seem to me, however, that since the professor is teaching from what he or she has learned from primary sources, one of the things I’m supposed to learn is how to understand those sources myself, so to use a text that essentially summarizes the source material in parallel to the instruction provided during class hours – well, I wonder if I come away with everything I should. It’s very expensive to run a college, and expensive to attend even a mediocre one, so I have to wonder if there isn’t some way universities could manage their budgets and material requirements in such a way as to improve affordability? Perhaps ensuring that professors have scanning equipment and a CD-burner so as to create course-packs of supplementary material (riding under the copyright threshold)? Working out a deal with major publishers to create a university-use-only imprint of required texts? A little innovation might go a long way. (No word from Smith, where an Ivy-leaguer of my acquaintance has just started, but I’ll bet books are pricey. Perhaps she’s making good use of her parents’ extensive and varied library?)

Fallen Idol Infrastructure
When the US won the women’s soccer World Cup for the first time in 1991, the country went absolutely soccer-mad. Now the WUSA has folded, and no one knows if it can be revived. Soccer has never been much of a sport in America, but this is a real shame. It’s not entirely unexpected – not even Pele could save men’s soccer in the U.S., so what hope did Mia Hamm have? Still, it’s surprising, if only because of all those kids I’ve seen playing the game year after year. More than any other, soccer is a global sport, and in these days of multinational corporations, it is reasonable to expect the kind of funding necessary to maintain a national league. I guess there are only so many stadiums, so much television air time, so many fans, and none of them enough in the end.

Summer's Over
At least in NYC, so the Flash Mob phenomenon has been officially laid to rest. Sure, there will still be mobs, although maybe only the less-than-good-natured ones seen at WTO meetings, but “Bill’s” mobs are over. I suppose I knew that once they were co-opted as a political joke in Doonesbury. The second Sydney mob sounds like it was just as fun as the first one, and now that we’re heading into summer, I wonder if there will be more? There doesn’t seem to have been much from Europe lately, so maybe the mobilization power of cell phone-internet combination has been sufficiently demonstrated.

The Sunburnt Country
Melbourne is looking to enact permanent water restrictions, and I don’t imagine Sydney will be very far behind. Even though the El Niño system has dissipated for now, the effect won’t be truly felt for another year or more, after which we’ll be building towards the next one. Drought, it appears, is to be a constant. I’d venture to suggest, however, that drought can be managed in Australia, although it will take a significant and fairly long-term effort towards behavioral changes from city residents refraining from hosing the pavement, to suburbanites foregoing non-native lawns and shrubs, to farmers relinquishing the use of European traditional agricultural practices. I’d like to see apartment blocks, including mine, install a rainwater tank to support their fire suppression systems, for one example, but perhaps that’s the zealotry of the converted.

Hugo Redux?
Back in ’89, hurricane Hugo hit the Carolinas, and messed up a swath of coastline for some miles inland from Charleston, South Carolina all the way up into Brunswick County on into Charlotte, North Carolina. In the next three days, Isabel may do the same. Warnings to stock up on flashlights and batteries and bottled water are being issued along the Eastern Seaboard as far north as NYC and New England. Even Canada’s getting nervous, and no wonder, as the storm has hit category 5 a couple of times already, before easing off a little. It’s just as well I’m in Sydney, I suppose, since I didn’t much care for what little hurricane blow-by I got myself over the years. Mom and Dad are enjoined to supply email to good effect over the coming days, situated in the crosshairs as they are.

Does QUIRO™ Dream of Electric Sheep?
O.k., it’s just a robot. When will it be a replicant, and run for office.

90
Way out in the west yesterday, for M.’s grandmother’s 90th birthday party. The cousin hosting lives in a nice cliff-side home overlooking some national parkland, in the foothills of the Blue Mountains. No sign of wildlife, for all the rumors of the black panther haunting the neighborhood. (Well, he’s been there for 30 years, so he probably doesn’t get around much anymore.) In any event, it was a nice time with all the family around, although it’s a mighty long trek there and back. G. got lots of nice pressies and quite enjoyed the event.

Eenie, Meenie . . .
7 pages of candidates on the California recall ballot. Aside from the unqualified actors running, other celebrities include Larry Flynt, the pornographer and First Amendment activist, and Angelyne, the self-promoting billboard pin-up. I still favor Georgy Russell, but only because no one I personally know is running.

Totem
Every culture develops a concept of totemic animals, often hierarchical (hence the totem poles of the Pacific Northwest). This is not something that has passed away or been superseded by some more “enlightened” point of view vis a vis man’s relationship to the rest of the natural world: Russia’s relationship with bears, America’s with the bald eagle, and so forth, are the direct descendents of this ancient tradition. Here in Australia, Aboriginal tribal structure is based on “dreamings,” which have a direct relationship to the animals of this place, and the relationship between the creation beings of the Dreamtime as represented by those animals. Thus a tribe might be the “kangaroo dreaming” or “goanna dreaming” clan, bearing their own relationship to the animals and places. Individuals will also have their own personal totem animal, as North American’s are familiar with from the culture of Native Americans. It’s all very hard to describe, but where all this is leading is that although as a person of European ancestral origin I should probably have to accept “rabbit dreaming” or “cane toad dreaming” if such an option were actually open to me, I would prefer “platypus dreaming.” I’ve always loved these animals, and after watching a documentary on them, feel all the more compelled now that I’m here to see one in the wild. It’s my latest Australian mission.

’Til Death Do Them Part
You have to admire the kind of commitment exhibited by Sally Baron: even in death, she seeks the removal of Bush II. This is the kind of final request I think deserves to be honored. Rest in Peace, Sally Baron: Defeat Bush in ‘04.

Food Products
There are many comestibles that are not food, but we eat them anyway and even express a preference for them over other actual food. Cheez Doodles™, Twinkies™, Pringles™, etc. are not food; that’s why they have a trademark. Real food, however, has also been subjected to the forces of marketing, and that’s why Red Delicious apples don’t taste the way they did once and why tomatoes are but pale imitations of what once they were. Some will have you believe that it is the force of consumer demand that has brought us to this sorry pass, but don’t you believe it. If the tomatoes on your sandwich are pale and mealy, it’s because it’s easier for corporate growers to produce such lacklustre produce. That’s why in better restaurants now you’ll see “heirloom” tomatoes on the menu (which I’m here to tell you are fantastic – I’ve got to get some seeds). Pass the ketchup.

Reckoning
Two years ago I stood on a roof in Soho and watched the World Trade Center towers burn about a mile and half south. Within minutes of seeing the explosion of the second plane strike I was heading uptown on foot towards 34th Street and Madison Avenue, where my wife was working at the time, in the now ominous shadow of the Empire State Building. While there was no lack of news from overheard cell phone conversations and a balancing satisfaction in seeing the fighter jets mobilized overhead, only my purpose – get M. and get home – gave me any reason not to be afraid.

But call it the Tel Aviv Syndrome if you want to put a name to it: I am not afraid, as it turns out. Like the citizens of that city under siege, I acknowledge that there are no geographical limits on terrorism and I live with it, calmly. Is that resignation or complacency?

I grew up in the shadow of the H bomb deluge promised by the Cold War, with airline hijackings taking place regularly, and the Munich Olympics massacre, but I wasn’t afraid. I saw the Berlin Wall come down and briefly thought politically motivated mass death might become a thing of the past, but lived for a year one to two levels down from imminent attack, and yet John Ashcroft’s color-coded alerts did not instill fear in me, neither did I tremble when Tom Ridge came on television for a press conference, despite his apparent incapacity to perform the radical restructuring of law enforcement and intelligence gathering with which he is charged.

I did then and still do experience a sinking feeling whenever George Bush speaks, especially when he issues childish taunts and dares or otherwise indulges his authoritarian bloodlust, or when that grinning death’s head, Condoleeza Rice, is treated as an expert on anything current in the world. There is a different root to these reactions, however, than they would have me acknowledge.

I’m not in America – I moved to Australia about a month after the first anniversary of the WTC atrocities (coincidentally flying just the day after another radical Islamic terror group struck in Bali) – and some might suggest this is a factor in my calm. Perhaps it is, even though Australia is a partner to the U.S. in the Iraq adventure, and its conduct there and previously in East Timor has brought it the attention of Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah. John Howard and his Defense Minister, Robert Hill, tell me that Australia is a target, that a terrorist attack is certain – “a question of when, not if,” using the same phrase as is heard every day in America – but I don’t believe them, not the way they would like.

I don’t believe Bush, Howard, Ashcroft . . . any of them. I don’t believe the tapes from Al Qaeda. They seek to inspire fear, but they only inspire derision and disgust.

I know that there are those who would harm me, and I know that I am weak. I’m still not afraid. Once the world was a much bigger place and the threats against me smaller, because they lived in my neighborhood, but the world is smaller now and the threats more numerous and just as immediate. Still, I know that when I hear of new security alerts that there are more intentions at work than appear on the surface and that actually I’m quite safe – just as safe as I was before the 11th of September, 2001.

Bush and his ilk want me to be afraid so I will allow them to keep their power and privilege; they have no true concern for me. Osama bin Laden and the like-minded disciples of hate want me to be afraid so that I will cede my soul into their hands. But I know now and have always understood that the contempt and the hatred such people have for all who are not them are the greater threat to me and the rest of the world than the death and degradation they pursue. The suffering of others is as often an end as a means to these people, as it has been over the ages. When the Roman legions salted the earth of razed Carthage their action was no different than that of three dozen murderers flying their stolen planes into buildings, neither was it different from the pursuit of “tactical” nuclear weapons or stockpiling anthrax.

The examples of wealth and power begetting hate and destruction are rife through history. With each new episode we say, that was the past, the future will be different. But the past continues to rise up before us and assert its own power, one which is exerted over everyone who refuses to learn its lessons.

We cannot beat the past into submission, but we can draw those who would remain mired there into the future with us if we try hard enough. If they won’t come, let them will pass into history as others have before them by their own failure, their failure to embrace the world beyond some petty power base or short term gain. If we are truly now more aware of the world outside, we can use that to our advantage and move forward into the future with the boldness the situation requires. We can spend billions to reconstruct what we have destroyed or we can elect not to destroy in the first place and spend our dollars raising the low up, building lives instead of taking them. Two years ago I was in the midst of improving my life, and today I still am.

(See also: TNL.net's "Who were you" project.)

Cheesy Robots
I’m taking an early mark every day next week so I can be sure to get home in time for Dr. Who on the ABC. They’re starting from the very beginning, with Dr. Who battling the evil Daleks, the most inane alien robots ever devised. But evil.

www.Satan.com
The devil has a website, where you can get a quote on the value of your soul. I came in at a disappointing AUD $38,495 ($59,115 US). If I didn’t rent videos at Blockbuster, I’m sure I might have done better. Thank God I don't drive an SUV.

Buena Vista
Can we please get past the issue of whether Cuba is communist or not? Every time it seems like the U.S. is going to make an effort, something messes it up. The embargo has been in place for 40 years and that’s probably 39 years more than was necessary. Certainly the fall of the Soviet Union should have allowed us to develop an entente cordiale with Fidel, not to his benefit necessarily, but certainly to the benefit of Cubans overall.

In Space, Nobody Can Hear You Moan
Yes, I stole that, but I’m keeping it, because it seems appropriate to the story about sound waves from a black hole. I don’t really get this, because I thought that black holes are supposed to be so dense that not even light can escape their gravitational pull – so how does sound? (Can it be the giant sucking sound Ross Perot promised us?) And if the sound is making the interstellar gasses out there warmer, should I pump up the bass on my stereo in winter instead of ratcheting up the thermostat? I should give up on physics now while I still can.

”. . . And Anything Else”
Why is the Patriot Act bad and why does any extension seem so wrong? Well, Slate has been running a series on the contents of the existing Act and what effect they have. A particular aspect of the law’s language that scares me is the use of the phrase “and anything else” in delineating what law enforcement may seize or search (all on a pretextual claim before a secret court). Shouldn’t laws be a little more specific than this?

Americana
I realized over the weekend that although I have a copy, I’ve never read J. P. Marquand’s novel H. M. Pulham, Esq., and since I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the conduct of living, Marquand is probably among the foremost authors to read for an understanding of how this has and has not evolved. Pulham, which I’m about halfway through, is a portrait of a particular class in a peculiar era on its surface, but because it documents a life and a society on the cusp of change and having already seen enough of change. It also exerts a degree of insight that remains useful now. Although the late ‘thirties are certainly Modern, the Postmodern world is underway, so watching Henry Pulham pass away, so to speak, you are not left wondering how his contemporaries manage to stay afloat, but if their awareness does not destroy them all the more thoroughly than H. M.’s dawning understanding will spoil him for the coming age, since they, too, are lost, despite their efforts. Looking back over my own lifetime, what little there is so far, I see the changes that have gone on around me and that have happened to me, and I wonder if every generation is the Lost Generation.

The Public and Public Transportation
Commuter services always cry poor, because they have to spend the money they receive on keeping up and improving services instead of keeping it themselves. Yes, there is a government subsidy, and yes, it is an investment in mass transit over private vehicles. But the arguments presented to change the fare structure don’t really make sense. Persons with a low income buy single, full-fare tickets, and middle to high income persons buy weekly or even quarterly periodic tickets, which are discounted. Why is this so? Because middle and high income persons can afford to shell out a larger sum of money at one time than poor people can. A poor person who puts down $30 a week has the perceived disadvantage of not having some part of that sum to spend on daily necessities, while the higher wage earners can make it part of their budget. It is much more difficult for someone earning a marginal wage to even have a budget, let alone live by it. So how do you make fares fair? Do you remove the incentive for the middle class to use public transportation by raising periodic fare rates? That doesn’t actually help anyone, does it? You’re not going to discount the single fare ticket, are you? Instead, everyone pays the full rate and the subsidy goes away and nobody who can afford it takes the train anymore because it just got cheaper to use your own car and to hell with everybody else. Traffic gets worse, pollution increases, the rail system crumbles (more), and before long it’s L.A. and it will be decades before you can fix it. The way to fix the system is to invest in it: upgrade the tracks and trains and build more lines with more connections; clean up the graffiti while you’re at it. This can be done with the subsidy still in place. The CityRail executives will just have to defer getting richer.

Press on Press
Andrew Denton had Helen Thomas on his show last night. Enough Rope is probably the best interview show on television in Australia, not just because Denton is a capable interviewer (he does ask the fluff, promotion-related questions, but also poses tougher, more insightful queries), but also because he gets more interesting guests than the shows on the commercial stations. Helen Thomas is the longest serving member of the White House Press Corp, and she doesn’t shy away from asking tough questions of every President since Kennedy. As a result, Bush II and his minions don’t call on her and make sure she’s stuck up the back of the conference room for the briefings they hold (fewer than any other administration). This is disrespectful and childish, but what else can you expect? They are afraid they will be caught in their lies. Too late, of course. I hope Ms. Thomas will get another, different administration to ask pointed questions of in 2005.

First, Fill the Bathtub with Water
Then make sure you’re stocked up on canned goods. That way, when the big one hits, you’ll be prepared. This Flash™ animation tool lets you learn a little about building in an earthquake zone by setting up the construction parameters for your office block and then setting off a tremor. Stack ‘em up and watch ‘em fall.

”Man, Average is Dumb”
I only ever saw a couple of American Splendor comics, but they stuck with me in a way even the X-Men never have, so when M. said she really, really wanted to see the movie, I was more than happy to go. I’m very glad I did. Although it is a sort of anti-Dogma movie, in that it uses fictional techniques to tell a true story, it is also as unpretentious as the comics and their author. Harvey Pekar’s masterwork deserves the attention it garners as a result of this movie’s success, so get right out and ensure it is successful. They may be slobs, but they care about life, man.

Burp
Are women picking on men too much? Or has the media power base shifted, giving women the forum to speak out against the bad habits and attitudes of men? Well, if men are being abused on t.v., they’re not happy about it, and starting to speak up. Darn ol’ girls. They’ll stop once Arnie’s governor of California, won’t they? I know it’s not a universal truth, but I actually find Australian society to be quite egalitarian in the attitudes of men and women. Here, everybody’s football-mad.

Fortress of Solitude
Or Bat-cave, anyway. This lovely home comes complete with bomb shelter, suitable for riding out a devastating nuclear attack, plotting your next bid for global domination, or conducting your secret identity crime-fighting activities, and at under $295K, it's priced well below other well-known headquarters.

Urban Awareness
Sydney needs the Big Urban Game. In fact, if Minneapolis can do it, I think it’s worthwhile in every major city. (Can we use Monopoly™ tokens instead of the generic game pieces? I bags the Scottie.)

Everybody’s 007
Put on your wingsuit (with lightning jacket of course), jump in the car, and head out to sea. It’s no flying car, but it doubles as a boat, and that’s pretty good. What superhero gear do we want next?

Now I Get It
Ikea naming conventions have structure. This is the next biggest meme on the web. We all [have] shop[ped] at Ikea and giggled over the Billy bookcases. Now that we know that “billy” is an occupation, what does someone do who has that job? Does it have anything to do with books? If you ask someone for a particular lighting fixture, will you be accused of “swearing like a sailor”? (From Margaret Marks’ Transblawg, a specialist ‘blog within both the language ‘blog and law ‘blog specialities – talk about niche – by way of Boing Boing.)

George Washington Bush
Maybe he wasn’t paying attention in school, or maybe in this more cynical age, the lessons we were taught have no real meaning anymore, or maybe this son of privilege just doesn’t care, and the American people are too weak, too entrenched in bureaucracy, too vast and disorganized to do anything about it, but unlike in the story of our first President, George Bush is a liar and it’s a long way ‘til November 2004. Maybe some nice ads highlighting the results would help.

(Yes, the LA Times link requires registration, but so what? Don’t you keep an email address just for spam? Works for me.)

Hostess Fruit Pies of Crime
Aren’t comic books just the most fabulous advertising medium in print? Who doesn’t remember the miniature spy cameras and x-ray specs and Charles Atlas body-building offers? And when you read about a bank robbery, don’t you always think, if only the police had had some Twinkies or chocolatey frosted cup cakes. Seanbaby remembers, and now you can, too. (Note to Patty Hearst: if you’re ever kidnapped by a bunch of fake revolutionaries again, evidently they’ll surrender for fruit pies.)

Goofus and Gallant
Just in case you still have trouble with ethical dilemmas, this lovely teaching tool, originally published in the inestimable Highlights children’s magazine, is now available on-line in a Choose Your Own Adventure format. Each choice leads you through to the next stage of the story and another choice. What would I do? I know what I’d like to do: beat up Gallant for making me look bad!

Stand and Deliver
With all the hype on either side over internet song-swapping and copyright, the RIAA’s recent actions to locate and prosecute pirates has now produced a counter-suite. nyfashiongirl is suing over violation of privacy by the RIAA. I have my doubts that she’ll prevail in court, but I imagine that the judge’s opinion will have to be fairly carefully drawn in order to balance the rights at issue. If the RIAA is immune from privacy restrictions, as they claim, does that mean they can use that immunity to spam internet users? Or do they only have immunity insofar as they are operating in the capacity of a private investigator? If Outside Counsel [no link] were running, I’d look for an opinion there.

Crazy Hep Cats
Dr. Geoffrey Wills of Manchester has published research that appears to show that jazz musicians are more susceptible to mental illness than other “creative types,” but based on the statistical use of Bud Powell’s life, I wonder if he took into account police beatings and head injuries?

Blah, Blah, and then He Said . . .
Thousands of unremarkable people are posting their diaries on-line or does the Globe & Mail not understand ‘blogging? Yes, like the early days, the internet is full of “home pages” (remember those?) posing as weblogs, but there are also – even more – weblogs that serve a much different purpose. I’d say my ‘blog is better than a gossip column, but not by much, as it serves mainly for me to communicate my interests and opinions to a very limited audience, but who is the audience for Abbie the Cat or Tailors Today? If mainstream media embraces weblogging, either by setting up columnists with ‘blogs or hiring ‘bloggers as columnists (Instapundit is the prime example, but see also Andrew Sullivan), then surely there is more to the growth of the format than high schooler dishing. The level of specialization – whether topically as in “lawblogs” or “warblogs” – or regionally, as seen in the number of NYC-specific or ex-pat run ‘blogging communities, also show there is more to ‘blogs than gossip. I’d venture to suggest that quite a lot of information is being gathered and made accessible in ‘blogs that would otherwise be lost in the depths of the internet maze and that quite a lot of extraordinarily good and entertaining writing can be found on such “diaries” – more even than some columnists in the Globe & Mail are providing, if I can be allowed the odd catty remark.

Mob Mentality
Flashmobs, which have been discussed here previously, are essentially an internet phenomenon, making extensive use of mobile phones as an ancillary organizational tool. But the internet has a strange effect on the persons using it, in that the more time you spend there the more computer-technologically informed you become until EVERYONE’S A GEEK. It’s true. Witness the birth of flashblogging. In this activity, participants are organized to assail a single post’s comments. Like chatrooms, the internet takes social interaction and makes it antisocial. (Via Anil Dash.)

Note: Sydney had its first flashmob not long ago, and it sounded like fun. Sorry I missed it, but at least there’s a website where you can get information.

Support Literature
Original screenplays are important, but if Hollywood is going to adapt stories, can we have more books in the mix and fewer comic books? Not that I mind: Spiderman was terrific, and I’d enjoy a nice Batman vs. Superman match-up. But as much as I can do without a live-action Cat in the Hat, making movies from books supports an art form I really love, and publishers don’t seem very open to non-genre fiction these days.

First Rule of ‘blogging
I read Abbie the Cat Has a Posse because it’s funny, but I’m reading Tailors Today because it’s mental.

Schooldays Fun
Aw, remember cutting up a sheet of paper and making snowflakes? Neither do I. But if you want, there’s a Flash™ animation page where you can make a paper snowflake. (Via Idle Type.)

Sim City for Cheapskates
Enjoy Sim City™? Too cheap to buy a copy of your own? City Creator at your service. Have fun. (Also via Idle Type.)

New York, London, Sydney
At least the blackouts are getting smaller, but it isn’t ever summer here yet. Does anyone suspect a pattern? Nah, too easy.

Corporate Scalping
There has been graffiti advertising, where companies have mysterious and no-so-mysterious spray painting stencilled though a city or neighborhood, and now the corporations have taken to their bosom another marginally criminal subculture practice: scalping the tickets they sell. Ticketmaster is putting their tickets up to bid in an on-line auction format that will set the highest price for seats at concerts and sporting events at whatever the market will bear. The $2.50 to $13.80 service charge per ticket (depending on the processing option selected) wasn’t enough, and it no doubt galled the company to see hawkers outside the stadiums muttering, “got tickets? got tickets?” and reaping the kind of profit rapacious capitalists can only dream of – until now. I suggest going to see your favorite team or band now, because you’re not going to be able to afford it soon. Because the venues will share the proceeds on a pre-arranged percentage basis, direct sales are going to disappear, too, and only the Hollywood stars and corporate elite will attend a ball game at Yankee Stadium or a concert by any band signed to a major label.

Who’ll Go a-Waltzing with Me?
The entire stadium during any Rugby World Cup match featuring the Australian team, of course. Despite reports that the song had been banned, in fact you can sing “Waltzing Matilda” at the game. You just can’t have two national anthems played. Seems fair to me, so don’t let your billy boil over.

Sprung
Blue skies, mid-twenties temperatures . . . except for the fact that the birds have never stopped signing and the flowers have been continuously blooming, I’d be sure it’s spring. I am assured, however, that because Australia measures its seasons differently from the rest of the world, equinox or no, it is indeed glorious springtime. Meteorological prognostications are that with the termination of El Niño, we shouldn’t experience the same conditions as had been prevalent over the last 18 months.