Via Daring Fireball

Roger Ebert on His Profile in Esquire:

Ebert:

I was a little surprised at the detail the article went into about the nature and extent of my wounds and the realities of my appearance, but what the hell. It was true. I didn’t need polite fictions.

Chris Jones’s profile captured what I’ve been thinking for the last year or so: that Ebert has become a far better writer now than he was before. And that’s saying something, because he’s always been a terrific writer.

I have to agree with John Gruber here. I read Roger Ebert’s blog post yesterday and went out and bought Esquire for the first time ever just to read the story on him. It was touching, enlightening, and it gives me an even deeper respect for Mr. Ebert. I’ve really been enjoying his writing for the last couple of years. I look forward to reading more from him and I will be greatly saddened the day he slips from this mortal coil.

Thank you Mr. President.

What is it with people that they think I must be responsible but they can shirk on their responsibilities? Take tonight. I commute between work and home on a bicycle. There is a part of the route I take that is a greenway which is bikes and pedestrians but no cars.¹ It is also park-like and right next to several housing areas. People tend to walk their dogs along there and as long as they pick up the poop I don’t care about that.

Tonight there were two people off the paved path with two dogs. As I got close the dogs darted out across my path. I braked and as I did the lady reached out and grabbed my shirt sleeve causing me to skid out. Today I was on my road bike because I went riding with Everett this morning. Not only does that mean I was clipped in but it also meant that I had a bit of gear in my bag on my back.²

I came to a safe stop without falling and immediately blurted out “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” at her. The guy across the path and the woman both start claiming that I was going to hit their dogs. I pipe up that had I hit a dog we would have had something but I was breaking and that by her grabbing my shirt I could have crashed badly. She said I have to yield the right of way. I yelled not for dogs, looked her in the eye, and told her if she touched me again I’d break both of her hands.

Now comes my favorite part, she pulled out her phone and said she was calling the cops. I pulled mine out and said I’d join her and we could see if assault was still a reason for people to spend the night in jail.³ She said “Fuck you!” and stormed off. I looked at the guy and he just walked off.

Is it just me? Do people get shit like this happening to them too? Why do I have to be responsible for people’s dogs actions but they don’t have to control their animals in a public space? Yes, the comment about breaking hands might have been a bit over the top, but when my blood gets boiling I can bubble over a bit.

Ugh, time for a drink.

1. There is a double wide paved path and a single wide dirt path on it↩
2. Clothes, shoes, Camelback, laptop, etc.↩
3. See, I hadn’t touched a person or a dog at all↩

Last night at about midnight I had not one, but three calls from the same guy dialing the wrong number. This of course is not new to me, every so often I’ll get a call on my cell phone that’s a person asking for the SFPD. I’m apparently one digit off from the warrants desk. This has generally led me to not answer numbers that don’t pop up in the caller ID or that I don’t recognize. So last night I happened to answer because of the late hour and the number seemed like it was recognizable. For all I knew it was a friend that got into an accident driving home and needed help. The guy was looking for the SFPD. He was adamant that he had the correct number but I assured him he didn’t. I understand people wanting to take care of warrants, but at midnight I doubt the offices are open. I only hope he’s not as belligerent to a police officer as he was to me, maybe that’s how he got the warrant in the first place.

From Scott Adams at The Dilbert Blog:

I was happy to hear that NYC didn’t allow Iranian President Ahmadinejad to place a wreath at the WTC site. And I was happy that Columbia University is rescinding the offer to let him speak. If you let a guy like that express his views, before long the entire world will want freedom of speech.

I like it.

I have a post brewing about a book I read on my trip to New Zealand and tomorrow coincides with the subject. The book is Eats, Shoots & Leaves and the day tomorrow, September 24, is National Punctuation Day. Possibly I’ll put a review of the book up soon.

(Via the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks.)

I’ve visited New Zealand — Aotearoa — twice now. Both trips were a fantastic time and I really enjoyed seeing the country, meeting the people, and enjoying the culture. Often it’s interesting to see how other countries approach issues that arise in your home land.¹

When first I visited New Zealand they had already done away with the one cent coin. In the intervening two years they abandoned the five cent piece. The smallest denomination they have is ten cents and they use Swedish rounding to compensate for values not on the ten cent mark. In the USA the elimination of the one cent coin, which now costs more than one cent to make, has been opposed by the zinc industry and it is just plain ridiculous that companies can fight something that makes sense for our country. Also in New Zealand and Switzerland² the lowest paper denomination is the five dollars/francs and anything below five units is in coin.³

What is this all leading up to? It was hard to pin down for a while, but I’ve become unsatisfied with the state of the nation I call home. For the longest time I never thought about moving out of the USA. I look at how our society in the USA is falling down and I don’t like it. I was always told to try and change the system from within, but when you have a corrupt administration blatantly ignoring the populace what are you supposed to do? Sure, the last election had some hope, but then the ugly bi-partisain nature of our political system reared its head again and showed how it will continue to fail us. There’s always revolution to be sure, but we’re not anywhere near that state.⁴

The Constitution still works, and I have faith that the legal system will work through all the issues, even if it takes a long time to happen. In spite of that I have a feeling of dread that most people don’t really care though. They’re willing to be lead about by the nose, snapping up the cheapest products and latest gadgets they can and giving fuck-all about the world until it impinges on them, and by then it’s very hard to make changes, but they can be made.⁵

New Zealand is the one country I could consider immigrating to. The country was clean, the people friendly, and the government seemed responsible from the discussions with Kiwis that we had. People didn’t seem concerned about showing off if they were wealthy but more about if they were living a good life.⁶

I know that while on vacation a place can seem magical and it’s hard to see the tarnish. I can assure anyone that more research would occur on my part before I jumped in. This kind of decision is not one to make lightly and I’m not going to pack up and move as soon as I can. I’ll wait and see what happens with this next election at the least. I should give our representative process a chance to work, but I do despise the fact that there are only two sides that seem well versed in shouting, disagreeing and railroading just because of perceived opposites with labels.⁷

For sure the decision is made harder because my entire family is in the USA. I’m also still single, which could be a good thing or a bad thing were I to move. Moving 6,729 miles (10,830 km) from all of my friends and family is not something to take lightly. I’ll be thinking this over but one never knows, I might revisit this subject in a month or a year and come to the conclusion that I’d be insane to move. Only time will tell if this bug will stay.

1. Notice, that’s “home land” like where you live, not the fascist “Homeland” like the USA’s security theater department.↩
2. Places I have traveled and payed a little bit of attention.↩
3. With the Swiss having a five franc coin as well↩
4. At least, the levels of oppression that would make me revolt aren’t apparent.↩
5. I too like gadgets but I’m not going to go for consumer gratification over being a citizen.↩
6. We only saw one Hummer the entire time we were there and trucks we did see usually looked like work vehicles and showed it, not showpieces.↩
7. I don’t identify with any political party because I think they’re all flawed. I vote for the candidate that best meets my ideals be they from the Republican party, the Democrat party or the Baby-Mulchers party↩

Coudal Partners is a site that is “an ongoing experiment in web publishing, design and commerce.” I’ll take it. They have great stuff out and point to great little bits to kill time during typing breaks. One of their projects is Swap Meat. I won’t explain it, just go check it out.

Another one is the Fleet Identity Symbol System. Today I got a bunch of the stickers from Michele at Coudal. I haven’t yet put one on my car and I’m trying to figure out how to put one on my commuter bike, but I did put one up on my office window. Fun times, fun times.

What happens when you want a new house but the local heritage council wants to protect the old run down look…you put a 1:1 scale picture of the old house on outside of the new one.  It’s very clever, but entirely silly that it had to be done.