The Nerd's Eye View

Well it's the end of another year in the life of the man who would be king, or president, or perhaps just alderman. I'd like to take this moment to say thanks to the folks who kept me going and who helped me retain my sanity. I'm doing this early since I will in fact be going to the Sudan for the new year, only to return sometime in 2007. No blogging this time I'm afraid, as I have quite a bit to take care of there. Looking forward to seeing/hearing/remotely sensing you all in the new year.

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Folks, in my attempt to use my powers for good and not evil, I am helping out Danger Steve with his goal of raising $6800 for Leukemia and Lymphoma research. So if you're going to buy anything online, please go through Steve's Amazon Store. It's a Good Thing.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, James Brown has left the building - forever. Apparently his heart gave out just this morning. It's sort of unreal, and rather than run around it for 500 words, I think I'll just say goodbye to the Godfather of Soul, and thanks for all the funk.

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I almost put this under the travels category, though I didn't go any more than 2 miles away from my apartment. Christmas Eve is a magical time for all boys and girls, and none more than the ones who aren't headed home to spend the next few days making small talk and avoiding their families. My own previous experiences with Christmas are predictably non-standard, mostly consisting of Charlie Brown television specials and wondering why christian kids got all the fun holidays. There's, of course, also the version of Christmas that one sees in the movies, which is the other source of my Christmas savvy.

My first tableau of xmas-ness was when I set out from my house before dusk to the video store for movies. With everyone out of town I was preparing for a night to myself. Conventional wisdom says that the video store will be deserted except for the miserable clerk, one fat loser, and a smoking hot newcomer to the area who will strike up a quirky, yet engaging conversation. Instead it was full to the gills with people like myself who were opting out of the Christmas goose and Tiny Tim's annoying axioms for a copy of Beerfest and some gummi worms.

I was only able to see one of the movies I rented before getting called by one of my colleagues for my second holiday setpeice. Having found something to do I agreed to meet him at one of the local bars. It's one I'd never been in and it was actually quite pleasant. A DJ was spinning at the back of the room with March of the Penguins inexplicably projected on a screen behind him. The only problem was that one of his friends was taking it upon himself to "spit rhymes' (and I do use that term loosely) in the background. At first it wasn't so bad, but over time his lack of any sort of lyrical style began to get to me. The sparseness of the crowd, the spareness of the lyrics and I was ready to leave.

We made our way to the Mission where we wandered deserted streets to find an interesting spot - heck, just an open spot! - to sit down and have a few drinks. Sunday and Christmas Eve made that particular goal quite elusive and when we finally found a place we were surrounded by all the other folks who had opted out. My compatriots in non-Christmas cheer were depressing. I was sitting at a table with a drunk woman, dressed in an extremely tawdry (yet thankfully not Christmas themed) outfit, telling me how much she LOVED India. That was my cue to leave, which I did almost immediatley afterwards, stopping only to collect my buddies.

The bizarreness of the evening was compounded by the strangely Cockney cab driver who ended up driving us home. Ho ho home, Jeeves.

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I got this from Alex at nonphotoblue. It's enough to make you almost not mind Christmas.

link courtesy of Alex

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I finally made good on my reason for moving up to San Francisco tonight, and went to the symphony. My much bally-hooed love of "culture" finally got a chance to show itself, as I went to see a performance of Ravel's Bolero.

I rushed home from work, intent on making sure I enjoyed the event. Quick shower and a shave later, I was meeting Dr Germ, and we made our way to Davies Concert Hall. Having bought our tickets earlier, we didn't have any tedious mucking about in lines and instead made our way to our seats. The concert hall itself is sumptuous and absolutely stunning, with the orchestra level almost entirely made of wood. I'd go on but I really wanted to talk about the music more than anything else.

The Ravel was slated to go on last, but the best thing about going to the symphony is that you'll typically hear at least one peice of music that you've never heard before. Two of the three of the peices they played were new to me: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (Ralph Vaughan Williams), and a tune that shall remain nameless both for it's ghastliness as well as the fact that I can't remember it. The Vaughan Williams was great! I'd never really heard any of his work, and this was both soft and evocative. The strings dominated all the way through, and drew out emotion after emotion. It was surprising how it affected seemed to soften the air, and filter the light.

The peice that shall remain nameless was next and it was atrocious. Like many contemporary compositions it seemed to be schizophrenic, frenetic and a danger to itself and others. Derivative and at times seeming to be downright plagiaristic, if anything it seemed to be based on the score from an episode of the 1960's Star Trek. The whole thing was overwrought and it would not have surprised me to see William Shatner appear with a Starfleet uniform carefully torn to conceal his girdle.

The highlight was of course Bolero which is one of my favorite peices of music. It's a work I've never seen performed live, and I must say it's that much better live. The conductor had a very unusual style, conducting with just one hand most of the time ('look, Ma! One hand!'). Curled sideways at the hip, one arm stayed limp at his side. He looked like a spastic beatnik, grooving to some jazz. His movements seemed erratic, but seemed to be increasingly synchronized to the music. As the music reached a crescendo his second arm came up and I practically stood up myself!

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In an effort to expand my horizons I actually listened to Cpt Excitment and went to Fremont. I normally wouldn't be caught dead in Fremont, but the captain had found his old recurve and was itching to try it out again. The sport was archery, the time was after work, and the magic was all around as myself, Cpt Excitment, Cpt Patience and Fat'n'Happy strolled into an archery pro shop/range. The shop part seemed quite small, but the staff of one was extremely helpful in the way that members of small recreational sub-cultures tend to be (presumably in an effort to bring more people into the sport). We rented our time and went to the range, which was a long room with cardboard padding blocks at the far end where you could tape your target sheet. On either side of us were "the regulars" who could be distinguished by their banter, their disdain for neophytes like us, and their incredible complex and expensive-looking compound bows.

Their bows bristled with extra bells and whistles; stabilizers that looked like miniature gatling guns mounted on the leading edge of the bow, side stabilizers as could be found on a tripod, and various range finding sights and assorted doo-hickeys. Altogether quite forbidding, and no doubt unrecognizable to an archer from the any time before the last 50 years. These were not for nought though, as the regulars seemed to have unerring aim, coupled with impressive power and speed. This was in stark contrast to us with our shaky arms and our ability to just barely hit the broad side of a barn.

Jokes about summer camp notwithstanding, archery is much more difficult than it looks. You gain a lot of respect for the archers of "olde" who made some sort of livelihood at it, and managed to remain unscathed (except of course for the Amazons who did it to themselves). I did not manage to remain unscathed, and indeed my left forearm is quite bruised right now from where the bowstring kept striking it, although much higher up than the guard that we borrowed covered. I was not a bad shot overall, but kept letting my concentration slip - hence the bruised forearms. Cpt Excitment of course was the best shot, and it helped that was the only one who could properly pull his 50lb bow. The rest of us looked like suitors for Penelope, and it's lucky that we didn't have to restring the bow because that could have taken all night. The regulars cleared out from around us, and retired to the shop to talk and avoid getting hurt by errant arrows. For a moment they seemed to be wiser than we thought, as we had a few misfires that had the arrow drop to the ground as the bow string struck an arm - very Wile E. Coyote. Still it got us as excited about the prospect of perhaps getting bows of our own and forming a band of Dour Men who would take from the rich and pretty much that's it. So if you hear about a group of four guys running around the Bay Area, sticking up BMW driving chumps, then you'll know.

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I am sitting here at work in my grey cubicle and on my iPod is the theme to "Rocky". It's not hard to imagine me sitting there, bouncing slightly in my chair in a distinctly un-ergonomic way, in what appears to be silence. Yet anyone hearing the tune would most likley be inclined to react as well - if not in the same way. It's one of the most recognizable tunes you're lkely to hear, and provokes a visceral response.

Now I count myself a cynic, but there is something about that song. In fact, not just that song, but a whole host of songs. It could be old age taking ahold of me and enfeebling my resolve. Still it's not altogether unpleasant, and I find myself getting nostalgic and misty when listening to it. But it's not just the Rocky theme, there are tons of songs, some of which are quite unexpected. Take John Williams' Superman theme, we heard it while watching Superman Returns several months ago and was caught by surprise. I wasn't even attached to the original movie that much, and yet there I was all weepy in a darkened theatre.

So what causes this reaction? There's the history aspect of course. Things from your "good old days" harken back to your childhood, which time has gilded. You remember it with more fondness than it deserves. So there's that aspect, but I think there's more to it than that. There's also something more basic and visceral, though. The pattern contained in music seems to overlap exactly over some pattern in the brain. The more universal the music, the more likely it is to overlap, and the more likely it is to match peoples' minds. Complex deep structures in the brain, corresponding to congruent structures in a piece of music - it can trigger a deep resonance, and as such an emotional response. This is amplified by backlog of emotions that the average male has. With nowhere else to release your emotions, it takes just this little trigger to let them loose.

Of course, it could just be that I am a big girl's blouse.

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It's been a banner week for NASA, who have finally crawled out from under their image as overpaid incompetents whose only knowledge of the sky is forever coupled to the word "pie". Following up the news of plans for a moon base, they have announced the presence of flowing water on Mars yesterday. While compelling, though, the evidence isn't completely indisputable, and in fact the gullies they are using as evidence could very well be some other frozen gases. Still, it's exciting stuff! Not so exciting that a good post can be written about it, but excting anyway.

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There is nothing more uncomfortable than standing around in the cold waiting for your car to warm up. Except, of course, for standing around waiting for the the car to warm up enough to defrost the ice on all your windows. Which is nothing compared to standing around wondering why your car won't start, so you can warm it up. Luckily a coworker was there with jumper cables.

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It's 2006 and despite all the promises, we're not taking flying cars anywhere, getting meals in pill-form, or using robots as labor-saving devices (unless you count the Roomba, that thing is amazing!). In fact all the predictions from the Jetsons seem to remain safely in the realm of fantasy.

aside: Interestingly the only thing the Jetson's seem to have predicted and gotten right is cumulative stress disorder (variously known as carpal tunnel syndrome, cumulative trauma disorder, etc). As a kid it was funny to see George Jetson's index finger red and throbbing from his seemingly cushy job pushing a single button at Spacely Sprockets. Coming home with aching wrists and seizing fingers is not so much fun, after a particularly hard week at the office - typing.

It seems that all that is about to change, and the next promise the futurists had made is on track to become a reality in the next two years. NASA has unveiled plans to establish a base on the moon. The base will be used to extend the human presence to the moon with a view to further colonization of that satellite (there goes the neighborhood), as well as to establish a staging area for further Mars exploration. The timeline seems reasonable enough, though I can only assume that it will be subject to the whims of congressional funding. Still this project seems more likely to inspire public support than other projects have been.

NASA's vision has of course been painstakingly rendered by a conceptual artist. Although it doesn't really stack up to some of the grand projections of the past, it nonetheless represents a significant step forward. Also it's totally neat, and I am not ashamed to say I did think for a bit about the sort of people they'd want to be up there. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go practice zero G maneuvering so I can make the cut.

NASA vision for

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