Garbage fairies?

There is a running joke in our household about the "laundry fairies". You know, the ones who go around washing and folding the laundry when you're not looking? Close cousins to the "kitchen fairies". Yeah, those. Well, they seem to be on strike in our household. I thought we were paying nice union scale wages, but apparently they disagree. Either that or they don't like the nonfat milk we put out with the cookies and want whole instead.

Regardless, apparently there are now garbage fairies, too. Who'd'a thunk it? I got into work this morning, sat down at my desk and started hacking away. At some point mid-morning I looked down and noticed something new not two inches from my left foot - a little black garbage can. See, my office was a bit ... bare ... when I first moved in. There was a desk. And nothing else. No chair, no garbage can, nothing. So the chair thing needed to be fixed immediately, since it's rather hard to reach the keyboard drawer standing up, but the lack of a garbage can wasn't a great inconvenience. I never thought to pick one up except when sitting at my desk, so I'd been sans wastebasket for some time.

I am convinced the garbage fairies, offended that I might be avoiding them, snuck into my office this morning and placed a handy little wastebasket next to my foot where I couldn't help but notice their helpful hint.

Wheels and feet

Hey all you runners and cyclists out there:

Please try to be considerate of those of us who also use the sidewalks and streets. If you're on wheels, get off the sidewalk. There is a perfectly good street right there meant for vehicles - including bicycles. If you're on foot (and this includes you runners), get on the sidewalk and out of traffic - that's what the sidewalk is for.

The only thing worse than trying not to flatten some speed bump in training jogger in the middle of the street is diving out of the way of some homicidal cyclist screaming down the sidewalk.

I'm not a runner, so I don't get the "never mind there's a perfectly good sidewalk 10' away, I'd rather run right down the middle of the street" thing. I walk a lot of places, though, and have been quite pleased with the quality and quantity of Portland's sidewalks. You runners should try them out sometime.

As a bike commuter, however, it really gets on my nerves that inconsiderate cyclists give the rest of us a bad name. If you're not walking your bike, get off the sidewalk. Portland is a very bike-friendly city with lots of bike lanes on its streets - use them!

As a (rare as possible) driver, I don't mind going around bikes in the street. After all, they're legal vehicles, too. But I really get annoyed at joggers who run down the middle of the street and 1) refuse to get out of the way of bikes and cars and 2) get annoyed that anyone else would dare use their street. See that sidewalk? Yeah, that one. Use it.

Is this just a Portland thing? Or is it everywhere?

Sign on a lunch cart

Closed today. Too damn hot. Gone surfing.

Damn, I wish I could get away with that!

Funny web site

This has to be one of the funniest Flash-based web sites I've ever seen:

http://www.blacksheep-themovie.com/BlackSheep.aspx

It's enough to make me want to go see the movie when it opens at the Hollywood Theater later this month.

"This is War"

A's father and A and I went to go see "This is War" at the Hollywood Theatre this evening.

Wow.

"This is War" is a remarkable non-political documentary about the experiences of an Oregon National Guard unit in their own words using their own video. With the near-ubiquity of digital video recording devices and Internet connectivity, this is the first war where those of us back home can see what the soldiers are seeing in near-realtime. This film captures the essence of what it is to be an infantry soldier in Iraq: hot, dusty, boring, terrifying, bloody.

The film relies primarily on the words of the soldiers themselves. Both on video they shot themselves while in Iraq, as well as in interviews after they returned home. The images are shockingly violent, the language unsurprisingly profane, and the message ambiguous. It's absolutely not something I'd want to show to young children. On the other hand, it's exactly the sort of thing the teens and adults of this country need to see.

The film doesn't try to tell the audience what to think, rather it attempts to portray the soldiers' experience as vividly and accurately as possible. While I think it succeeds for the most part, I think the violence was somewhat toned down for the film to make it more palatable for a wider, largely-sheltered American audience. I walked out of the theater after the film certain the segments on Fallujah did not include all the footage it could have. On the other hand, had they included more graphic violence, the filmmakers would have risked alienating their potential audience and negating the film's purpose.

All in all, I think the film was excellently-done. Absolutely worth seeing. Bravo to the filmmakers for producing a gripping and respectful portrayal of these soldiers' experiences.

Compassionate care

Needless to say, we've been seeing a lot of our vet Dr. Jeffrey Judkins over the past six months while M fought her illness. He endured angst-ridden pages from us at all hours of the night, phone consultations on the weekends, endless different medications - we counted more than 30 bottles of both Western pharmacutecals and Eastern herbs and homeopathic remedies - while trying to help our beloved feline family member recover. I've always been impressed with his (and his wonderful staff's) professional ability and his compassion, but he did something today that we never would have expected: he sent us flowers.

I am astounded. Sometimes the smallest unexpected gesture can have an impact far beyond expectations. Something so simple, yet profound in its indication of how much Dr. Judkins cares about the people he sees (both two and four-footed people). When was the last time your doctor sent you anything but a bill?

Dr. Judkins and everyone at the Hawthorne Veterinary Clinic, from M and A and I thank you for your exemplary care and compassion.

For all the rest of you out there in the Portland area with four-footed family members, I can't recommend the folks at Hawthorne Veterinary Clinic enough for their holistic and expert care. They're the best.

M has left the building

1995-2007

Her Highness will no longer be holding court at CarbFest. No more Secret Sam Messages.

After eleven wonderful years as part of our family, she has moved on. She spent the day yesterday purring and napping on her perch in a sunny window. Early this morning it was clear that it was time. She told us so. After a six-month battle with what we think was a liver tumor, she died at home in A's lap at 5:00 this morning.

Thank you for gracing us with your presence. I hope we proved worthy.

Insurgency

I'm not sure what to think of this: Insurgency. Some clearly very talented game designers have taken the game engine that runs the very popular game Half-Life 2 and created an incredibly realistic-looking first-person simulation of the current war in Iraq.

I've played and enjoyed several first-person shooter games over the years, but they've always been clearly fictional (usually sci-fi, historical fiction, or fantasy) where it is easy to draw the line between virtual and real, between fiction and fact. I am uncomfortable with turning the very real carnage in Iraq into a game. It demeans and belittles the ongoing tragedy there. Blurring the lines between games and reality is a slippery slope - it makes it too easy to look at the images and stories coming out of the Middle East and not feel anything.

On the other hand, the trailer starts out silent with an interesting quote in stark white on a black background:

When liberty comes with hands dabbled in blood, it is hard to shake hands with her.
-Oscar Wilde

The images that follow in the trailer show just how brutal and graphic modern 3-D rendering engines can be with chillingly-realistic blood spatter and physics juxtaposed with text like:

300,000 American troops ... not greeted as liberators ... but as invaders

As if the designers are expressing some sort of anti-war message.

Watching the trailer, I couldn't tell if the text commentary was just hype in a crass attempt to stir up controversy over the game and thereby garnering more attention (and therefore more downloads), or whether the game itself really is intended as something to expose the American public to the brutality of the war.

The technophile in me says it's a creative use of technology to accomplish the latter.

The cynic in me says the former.

Tempting ...

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Cancer cancer everywhere

Apparently the old adage about good things coming in threes also has its counterpoint.

I found out on Friday that my aunt has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She's my mother's youngest sister. The fact that she's been diagnosed with the very thing my mother died of is more than a little unsettling.

Our dear friends Kaphine and RealSuperGirl sent out word that they were coming back to this coast unexpectedly to see Kaphine's father, who is currently dying of cancer and has taken a turn for the worse.

TeacherRefPoet posted about a student of his who recently lost her battle with leukemia.