Archive for February, 2005

2005.02.27

Politics As Gladiatorial Sport

Politicians are gladiators, attacking each other with padded instruments. The crowd urges on their favorite “warrior” on to victory pretending the weapons deal real damage to the opponents. Meanwhile they enjoy the overpriced bread and red colored water passing as wine. No one stops to wonder who is really putting on the show…

2005.02.27

Oreo Cookie Song

Ah, the memories. Eating Oreos as a kid, twisting them apart to get the cream first, then eating the cookie parts in one mouthful. This apparently make me a criminal. There are many lyrics to the song on the web, some of them not so nice, but the one Mookee always sang while I thumped out the bass line went something like this:

Oh with some ice cream and an Oreo cookie
They forever go together it’s a chocolate combination
Something something something something something something or other
Something something something something
O R E O.

Kudos to anyone who can get the lyrics right!

2005.02.26

Nerad Ahab Nerd

Wouldn’t it be cool if luck were a quantifiable, tangible thing we could use like money? Too bad it’s not, a shame really. Instead I’m “unsatisfied” (the czech meaning of my family name), feeling like I’m pursuing my White Whale (the kind of success I want in my life) and trapped where I am (a computer nerd, with most people assuming all I am is another techno-geek).

When I was a kid I wanted to be a fighter pilot more than anything else. Bad eyes fixed my wagon and since then I’ve never thought about what I wanted to be in life. “Myself,” I would tell people, but I’m not sure what that is. I spent time in Prague trying to sort that out. Somehow I was lured away for reasons I can’t even explain just when I was probably close to an answer.

Answers come in time. It seems like most I knew up till the end of college picked a path and stuck to it. Most of the people I know now don’t. They are their own Nerad Ahab Nerds and maybe my White Whale is finding a solution for all of us.

2005.02.26

Metamorphosis

Many things in my life are changing, both directly and indirectly. If last year was the year of stagnation (which is very much how I see it now) then this year is already turning into a potential catalyst of change. I’m hoping I can direct some of these changes and at least have some sort of general plan. I’m not sure I’ll complete a lot of it, especially the deadlines for getting politically active, but the attempt is being made.

They say change is hard. For me, adapting to change around me has always been easy. I guess moving around as often as we did growing up accounts for much of my zen attitude towards external change. However, changing myself has always been a challenge that I’ve rarely felt I’ve lived up to.

I’ve always said the first step is the hardest and everything after that is easy. I hope so cause I feel like I’m about to take my first baby steps off into the unknown.

2005.02.24

Lethargy Strikes Back

Perhaps some of you have noticed (then again, probably not) that the sites I’ve been running haven’t been updated much. Here and on the UNBLUG it’s probably not that noticeable if only because they aren’t updated daily anyways. But OOKEE.com has been suffering. It has been suffering my lethargy and, dare I say, apathy.

I haven’t been feeling horribly motivated lately. It would help a lot if in my daily web perusal I saw things that interested me, but I haven’t. I haven’t even had ideas for the Top Five or Q! sections.

So here’s my request: If you see something cool for OOKEE.com drop my a line (email, in the comments or on OOKEE.com’s submission page). I would greatly appreciate it. If you’re Odd, NHK or Skooz, feel free to simply post away. Meanwhile I’ll work my way out of this short term burnout soon (I already feel it peeling away) and be back to normal in no time. Thanks!

2005.02.21

K Names

I love to name my pets with names starting with the letter “K”. Why? No idea. I just do.

Killian was my ferret. I picked him up when I was in college. He was an albino and the runt of the litter, as they say. When I was looking around he was there with his siblings. I liked him then. Several days later when I’d made up my mind his siblings were gone and he was alone and I was very glad. Him being an albino, he had red eyes. Me being new to alcohol I’d only tried Killian’s Red. My ferret was named Killian.

A few years ago Mookee convinced me to get a cat when he got (one of many of) his. I did get one, from the SFSPCA. For a very long time he didn’t have a name. “When are you going to name him?” folks would ask. “Whenever a name comes to me.” I thought about it for a long time, with names and variations percolating in my brain. Many weeks later it came to me. My cat is now named Kitwik.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have another pet again. I don’t know if I would name that little animal with a name starting with the letter K. I will be willing to wager $2 that if I got another pet sometime down the line then I would name him or her with a name. That name will start with the letter K.

2005.02.20

Junk Collector

I have the genetic code of a collector. Not the sort that collects something specific like stamps or baseball cards (though I’ve been there, done that) but of someone who sees something interesting and says to himself, “I don’t know what I’ll do with it, but I’ll keep it.” I am a junk collector. Some of the things fall into categories nicely, like the skull related things friends give me, or the books and DVDs. Yet most of what is in my room (including the closet) falls firmly in the category: stuff.

Some random things I have around my room.

A rubber fish from the tip jar at the Front Room in college.
A zippo lighter from a Bosnian refugee.
An ancient 5MB hard drive.
Lumps of coal I got as a joke some Christmas.
Dozens of books on topics that don’t even interest me.
Old Drum Tobacco cans with wine corks in them.
A four-track tape recorder, untouched in seven years.
A ten year old ADB keyboard that I liked the clackity clacks on.
Old, busted phone and message machine.
A couple candles I picked up in a garage sale in 1986.
Figurines like a standing ferret or some gold dude playing a flute.
Costumes from something like six years ago.
Boots, long since worn out, useless and replaced.
A collapsable recurve bow from a Summer Camp on Che Ju Do.

It’s not that I need these things. Not at all. Some of them have worth -financial even- but most are supremely worthless. Yet I keep them. I have stuff from when I was a wee lad and I don’t even know what it is anymore, like rocks I thought looked cool. For many years I had class notes from 7th, 8th and 9th grades… entire notebooks of these things. Why? I used to have a collection of Jolt paraphernalia until my Mom discovered it while I was in Prague. She chucked it. In fact she probably chucked a lot more but I don’t know because they weren’t important. It was just junk, and I had it and I kept it.

I could go on about why I do this. A likely excuse would be because we moved all the time while growing up. I doubt it this is true, though. I look at many members of my family and I know where I get this tendency. It is passed down from father to son for who knows how many generations back. Actually, I know a few women in the clan that have the same issues. This only further supports my theory.

I am a junk collector. I have been and always will be.

2005.02.19

Incompetent People

Many years ago and, who knows, maybe still to this day my brother always railed against incompetence. I don’t remember him calling anyone stupid, or an idiot, just incompetent. Somehow coming from him it was just as effective and yet avoided the rudeness that is so easy to dismiss. Calling someone incompetent, especially if they are the least bit intelligent, is far more insulting.

We are all incompetent at some things, but the key is to at least admit it. For the things we are supposed to be good at, though, we’d best be able to prove we aren’t incompetent or we don’t deserve to be doing whatever it is we do. If you are an elevator inspector I really don’t care if you pretend to play chess well but don’t, but if you inspect an elevator that then breaks, falls and hurts or kills someone you are incompetent. Worse, in that case: negligent.

I think I’ll revive my brother’s saying. I’ve thought it many times but I’ve not actually spoken it. It will be a nice counterpoint to Mookee’s obsessive usage of telling people they are idiots.

2005.02.17

Happy Holidays or What?

…that robot in their brains calling out to the other robot’s ears…I guess I’m thinking about this because it was just Valentine’s Day, but why is it we have such a penchant for wishing people a “happy” holiday?

Happy Valentine’s, Happy Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Holidays around about Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza, Happy New Year, and Happy Bloody Birthday, you old fart. Do we wish people a happy time because we think they won’t without words of encouragement? Could it be that we secretly hope they won’t be happy at all and it’s a subtle sarcasm? Could it be such a habit that we don’t even know what we are saying anymore?

I wouldn’t wish anyone to be unhappy (well, maybe a few special individuals), but their day is going to be what it’s going to be and all the well wishing in the world isn’t going to change that. I think most of us know this so I will discount this notion and put it in the bargain bin. Looking at that list of holidays, though, I can see many of them are filled with expectations. Expectations of love or romance, or getting along with your family, or what gifts you’re giving/getting, or what to expect for the rest of the year.

These expectations build up and they can only let us down, at least most of the time. The only exception seems to be Halloween where we’re so relieved to not have any expectations we party like maniacs. After many years, though, we expect the party to continue unabated and suddenly -whoops!- we have another expectation.

I don’t think most people even think about the words they are saying. They say them out of habit, that robot in their brains calling out to the other robot’s ears as they say goodbye for these holidays… And this, I believe, is the key to why we use the prefix “happy-” even if repetitively and unthinkingly. These holidays are time off from the usual drudgery of school and work. Even if the prospect of facing our family can fill us with dread, or we haven’t figured out our costumes, or we haven’t made reservations at the fancy restaurant our significant other expects us to take them to… at least we aren’t at work, or at school!

It is such a relief to escape from the daily routine that sometimes we are, indeed, happy.

2005.02.15

Great Musical Influences

Everyone has a few seminal influences in their choices of music. These are often first albums in a person’s life and are favorites forever. In my case it was a record I sort of stole from my Dad. It was Snoopy and his friends, The Royal Guardsmen.

I picked up this CD a few days ago. What a nostalgic journey to my childhood. The CD contains two albums in one, actually, but the second one is the important part. It tells the story of Snoopy fighting the Red Baron in the skies over Europe in WWI in three songs, with three introductions. The introductions have all sorts of accents; various British and French accents mostly. Listening to it, I realized that this is probably where I learned how to speak with any accent at all, and probably why I can mimic most any accent with some ease.

And the music… Music can always take you back to a time long forgotten. I remember listening to Snoopy’s adventures with Chris on our old sky blue box record player. Over and over. The tunes and the story they told were like nothing I’d heard or heard since. The great thing is I can still listen to the music over and over again. Maybe I can even get a replacement for the LP I lost of my Dad’s so many years ago. I think he’d like that.