tangled

Experts and Heinlein

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:23:00 +0000

"Always listen to the experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."� - Robert Heinlein

Bailouts

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:25:00 +0000

http://jimmycotton.blogspot.com/2008/12/mastercard-commercial-you-will-never.html

Not Surprising

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:47:00 +0000

FCC *cancels* hearing on free internet

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10122586-94.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Us

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:08:00 +0000

I have always been a patriot. I have always loved my country.

I am an atheist and do not pray. I love, respect, and obey the constitution and and value the Bill of Rights, precisely because WE created them, rather than having them handed to us on bricks.

But for the first time in my life, I fly a flag in front of my house.

That's something important.

Pinup

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:23:00 +0000

Goodbye, Bettie Page

Insanity

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:47:00 +0000

I'm, sorry, and this is NOT racial. �But the Chinese government and government machinery is FUCKING INSANE:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/world/asia/09china.html?hp

Looking Backward

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 22:27:00 +0000

Somehow, I thought I'd be 20 (and innocent, which I was NOT then) forever. And that somehow life would just unfold. So, So many things I would do differnently, it amazes me.

Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:11:00 +0000

"spinspin69"

Some of us

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:44:00 +0000

Some are driven to an action; a passion, a hobby, an occupation, a real life.

Some are, in a way, lost. Lost in interest, or drive, or the movement involved in daily life, or the need to make a real living....but are lost, any way.

As I am.

Simpler Times

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:00:00 +0000

I remember pollywogs. I remember running half naked in the garden. I remember a goat, and a compost pile. I remember a treacherous downhill dirt driveway that often bruised knees when riding a tricycle. I remember beautiful afternoons outside, with my sisters, playing silly games.

I remember working in the shop. Lifting lead into the old Linotype, and magicaly watching as WORDS came out. I remember ink, and drawers full of type.

I remember learning science at a little table: the structure, and differences, between the Hydrogen and Helium atoms. I learned about electronics, some. I remember days on a dinghy out in the kelp.

I remember the fire that took it all away, July 26, 1977. I remember trying to save the house (and my sisters' stuffed animals) before fleeing. I remember eating at a McDonald's on Milpas when we all met.

And then everything changed. Everything.

Movie Tears

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:19:00 +0000

I cry during movies. Or during sappy parts of books.

How many normal, heterosexual men would admit to that? And whatever your response, why?

Women seem either overly weepy at everything, or able to control their tear ducts to a degree I can't fathom, leaving their (unnecessary) mascara unsmudged.

How odd.�

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 01:17:00 +0000

The west has always entranced me.

My travels through the the west, my time in the desert, my time climbing rocks and cliffs...alll have affected me. Listining to the Coyotes at night, or watching the sun rise on the eastern Sierra. Our pride as humans is overwelmhing and stunning.

Keeping watch: we all take our turn. But in the end, with any honesty, it is the wild open spaces of the American West that draw me. May these canyons, hillls, fields, washes, remain for all time in excellence and glory.

And blow up the Glen Canyon, for crissakes.

Old Friends

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 03:51:00 +0000

So, I got an email from an old friend today.

Did it dredge up memories -- both good and not so good -- yeah.

But it also reminded me of the value of friendship, no matter how many years separated.

You know wh0 you are.

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 01:02:00 +0000

I'm a sucker for sappy films.

I don't often watch them, but when I get sucked in, it's all over.

So: "The Holiday", 2006, Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black.

Nothing Here, Move Along. Immortality Ahead Through Door #1B.

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:32:00 +0000

Death�terrifies me. I mean�terrifies me.

As an atheist and agnostic (see other sources for definitions; they're worth differentiating), I believe, for lack of additional evidence, in this life and no other.

Frankly, I'm rather attached to this life. And My greatest, truest, most honest desire is this: to witness history. To see what we become, or do not become. To witness the future on grand time scales so large as to make me dizzy while sitting down.

Not only us: I want to watch rock worn away, uplifted, continents drift, the Sun and stars evolve, the galaxies waltz, the vast and minute, the great footwork of the great Astaire and Rogers of time's arrow.

And I know that I will witness no such thing any more than a grain of sand on a beach witnesses and comprehends the greatest of human achievements. Less, to be sure.

And yet I wish it. Beyond all else. �From whence do legends of immortals come? From these feverish dreams of time within control. From within our desire -- born of evolutionary intelligence -- to surpass evolution itself.

My cat knows nothing of time, really. Food, rest, play, pleasure, fear, comfort...and, I like to think, Love. But immortality? Is she to be envied? Some, who might be called wise, would say yes. But that Zen-vectored view isn't one I can share anymore. I seek more. I seek the impossible, the forever cat, endless catnip.

Material: Subect/Verb Agreement

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:29:00 +0000

I have some cameras. I have some tripods. I have all of the 'stuff'. There are lights, wires, filters, lenses.

I have amazing microphones and preamps. I have ridiculously capable audio software. I have dead cats (+ 5 for non-incorrect inferrence) and good sealed cans (no, I am not canning animals for winter).

I have five different keyboards, at least three good word processors, and almost 40 years worth of material.

{ commercial break }

I have nobody in front of my cameras. I have no voice reaching into my microphone, pleading and demanding audience with the world. I have no words striving for freedom, aside from these silly exercises in construction.�

Confusion: what target? Shoot to kill? To capture? To enhance, or represent? I feel befuddled and non-understood swahili in my own intent, no subject for whatever verb I might arrive at.

Light Rail Coyote and More

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:20:00 +0000

Volume at 11 (+1 points if you get the reference), post-grunge girl-punk rock on the AKG's (another +1 for that reference).

Tied directly to my living, changing mirror-image doppleganger reflection of 9/11 because of a particular song. Not a mother, meself. But horrific imagery, beautiful tragedy blended on high in a Cuisinart with memories of that morning (walking to Calculus III class, talking to M on the phone: "They're gone." "What do you mean?" "The whole things. Gone.")

"Why can't I get along with you?" (2 points for double reference).

Modern Day Commies

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:21:00 +0000

OK, so politically, I'm not a fan of coomunism. Or any of its bastard children. But this is an interesting link, and on a much, much smaller scale that traditional view of communism: Brithdir Mawr Community

Rain

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:20:00 +0000

Rain in Colorado east of the Rockies is always something remarkable. This is due to what is called a "rain shadow" - the mountains to the west, facing the prevailing wind, the jet stream. The clouds drop their rain and snow as the wind pushes them higher in altitude, and as they lower on the lee side of the mountains and face the endess, flat plains of the American heartland, they stop giving up moisture, most of the year. This is why there is desert to the east of the Sierra Nevada, and is why the Colorado, Wyoming and Montana flatlands are drier than one might expect. It's also why, when it DOES rain here on the front range, we sometimes become entranced by water falling from the sky, manna, sitting on the front steps, simply listening to the drops falling.

Barack

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:34:00 +0000

From an email I sent earlier: I'm so enthusiastic about Barack Obama's candidacy that I've started to habitually check myself, asking myself if I'm becoming overzealous, or am being 'taken in' by appealing rhetoric. Just to be safe, you know? But the conclusion I keep arriving at is that this really is the turning point it appears to be; that he really is what he looks like. I'm a cynic at heart. Deep down. For me to feel as strong as this about a f***ing politician, of all things, is seemingly unlikely...and yet, he has captured my attention in a way that I can scarcely explain. As I read somewhere recently, I think I might have an inkling of what conservatives felt when Reagan came along. Suddenly, a person comes out of nowhere, embodying my ideals and my ideas, and does so with integrity, focus, honesty and energy. If I were a religious man, I would thank God for Barack Obama. As it is, I'll just thank Barack. And vote.

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:55:00 +0000

Walking in to a Border's bookstore the other day to purchase an electronics magazine, I found myself needing a restroom. I proceeded to the upstairs facilities, and while in the stall found two books that had clearly been taken from store shelves and left in the restroom. Curious, I glanced at the titles, and thumbed quickly through one of them.

As I left the store, I approached the young woman at the service desk and informed her that she might want to ask a male employee to fetch the books in question from the restroom. As I walked away, I said "Whoever left them there, the titles chosen were...amusing."

The titles in question? How to Get Hot Women Into Bed: Ultimate Seduction Techniques for Real Guys and
Boink: College Sex by the People Having It (this is the one with the dirty pictures in it) The amused look on the young woman's face was priceless.

Beginnings....?

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:14:00 +0000

It's been a long time since I looked at the contents of this blog, much less posted to it or published it.

My personal site remains chrismaytag,net, but I've chosen to resume using my now more-than-a-decade-old domain 'tangled.org' to publish things to

For now, all of the old entries are here. I don't know yet about the comments, which is a shame, because much of my favorite stuff that happened in the old blog took place in the comments. I had regular readers who were actively commenting on my posts, and with whom I had great conversations, both through comments and email.

I'll see what I can do about making sure that old comments are restored...or I will remove all posts prior to this one and treat this as a new blog entirely, as its purpose, my life, and my reason for writing again have all changed since the blog's inception.

Suffice to say that entries will be sporadic, and that I have no specific agenda in resuming my writing other than to have a place to write.

For my photographs, please visit Flickr , and keep in mind that I recently lost several gigabytes of my best photographic work due to a rare, rather dramatic and seemingly permanent RAID 0+1 array failure. What's on Flickr is what's left, and it's not my best work.

I am also moving from windows to all Macs - laptops and desktop, everything. I'm tired of Windows.

We'll see what happens here. It may fizzle again...which would be fine. But in the early days of blogging, when tangled.org had its greatest readership, there were thousands of individual readers per day, which, at the time, was pretty impressive for a non tecno-illuminati blog.

But for now, it makes sense to make things easy for me to have a place to write.

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 23:20:00 +0000

I can contain nothing Tears burst forth Like the dying breath Of a dying man rescued Left helpless By a single falling leaf I cry out Laughing.

{red|green|blue} Mars

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Sun, 30 May 2004 04:16:00 +0000

SF novelist Cory Doctorow has posted what he calls a "Red Mars: a very belated appreciation". He says "Because now I've finally read Red Mars, and I am agog at what may be the finest sf novel I've ever read...Robinson doesn't just shine here: he glows."

I agree, Cory, and welcome to the fold.

Robinson's trilogy is that peculiar and particular variety of SF: fun for the lasers-and-rockets hounds, while still being rewarding - deeply and richly rewarding - for social theorists, political thinkers, even revolutionaries.

It's good to see a writer for whom I have a great deal of respect appreciated and honored by another writer for whom I have a great deal of respect.

Magnetic Poetry (From My Fridge)

noreply@blogger.com (chris) — Sat, 22 May 2004 23:13:00 +0000

The tiny ogre was repulsive,
But tasted like a peach

and

Awful meaty bones
a sad vision of
bloody pink