Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/06/13/cats/
Last night I had a dream that I was visiting a hospital. It was a very nice hospital with velvet drapes and wood panelling and carpeting. I think I might have been visiting Uncle Bill, who was content in the place. It wasn’t a nursing home, but more of a place for people to feel good. There were lots of cats walking around the place. They were all remarkably friendly and wanted to be pet and each one had its own exotic look. I think at some point I also dreamed of a Danger Hiptop that vibrated and made a purring noise when one pet it.
I don’t often remember my dreams, but I’m glad I remembered this one because it was so groovy. And it featured cats, which Geoff would certainly approve of.
I also recall thinking to myself that since people are allergic to cats, there must be a whole seperate wing of the hospital devoid of cats.
I think I also recalled this quote from my fortunes file:
Someday, I would like to design a concept house which is heated entirely by live cats.
/lw
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/06/06/saying-goodbye/
The nice thing about the weekend was getting together with family I hadn’t seen in many years, and other people that Grandma knew, including the parish priest. The digital camera I have carried the past two and a half years, around the world, after six thousand captured images, I finally decided was dead, shortly before I’d heard of Grandma’s new situation.
She was to be buried in the cemetary next to Grandpa. So she had a proper funeral, at the church, in the chapel. Her body had been prepared and looked like a dressed up version of the lady I had visited just a few weeks before, who was reluctant to eat, and seemed keen on sleeping as much as possible, dreaming her way out of the end of the long life she had led. She was ready to go when I’d seen her last, and now she was gone.
She wore a blue dress with white dots in a pattern that gave a sense of motion to her chest: an eery, unintended illusion that she was breathing. After the family visited the body, I returned, alone. I touched her soft white hair, which I’ve always done, and kissed her forehead. She tasted like makeup, and was cold to my lips. Then I knew, despite the artistry to the contrary, that I was kissing the cold skull of a corpse. She was definately gone, and that reassured me.
There is a belief that the body is prepared for the afterlife, and that you might give it gifts to better prepare the person for their next life. I decided that if my camera and my grandmother had died about the same time, that the one went with the other. Perhaps Grandma could use a new hobby in the next life.
There is another belief that when you take a picture of someone, you capture a piece of their soul. Many people are uncomfortable at the thought that pieces of their soul might be floating around the planet, lost on photographic prints, so it is polite to ask before taking a picture of someone. I gave her a few pictures I had printed from my camera, mostly of myself. If I am to lose a few pieces of my soul, I’d just as soon they were buried six feet under the ground in Rapid River, in a box with the bones of my Grandmother.
I do not hold either of these beliefs, but I am willing to share in them. It makes me feel connected and that is what you want when you gather to lament the departure of a loved one.
We also shared stories. There once was a guy who was overly fond of complaining about things. He was a nuisance. He complained that his coffee was too cold, so Gertrude warmed it in the oven and brought it back to him. He grabbed the newly-heated coffee and burned his hand. He did not complain so much after that.
When she was last shuttled home from the hospital, the care-giver asked her if she knew her first name, to determine her lucidity. “They call me Trudy.”
After that, the care-giver addressed her as Trudy, which struck others as strange, because they had only ever known her as Gertrude and Mrs. Howard. They inquired and Grandma explained, “I just wanted to make the ambulance girl happy. The Lord knows my name.”
I stuck around with Dad and Gwen and Uncle Bill and the Conroys on Saturday morning, and we carried the coffin through a chilly breeze to a stand over the hole in which it would be lowered, to rest thereafter next to Grandpa. We shivered as the priest read a few passages from the Bible, and headed back to Grandma’s house, where Uncle Bill will continue to live. We all went our seperate ways South in the next couple of hours, when the sun came out and shone warmly on a summer Saturday, as it has so many times before.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/06/05/february-16-1913-to-may-27-2003/
A beautiful, smart Swedish girl who married a wily charmer in an age when people married for life. Studied to be a nurse, and when she returned to Michigan, she helped one after another of her family in succession through sickness and death.
During the unrest in Chicago in the 1960s, her friends tried to dissuade her from her daily commute on the Western Ave. bus through the South Side. Couldn’t stop her: white woman, black grief, she trusted her life to God and His Plan.
Three kids. The youngest of two boys is my father: a smart, awkward kid who rides his adult years through myriad successes and frustrations, though mostly the latter. Makes for interesting stories.
The middle child, and older brother, Bill, was her nurse these past years. He’s a crazy man who has lived a crazy life and he has no inhibitions about sharing his thoughts with us. He recounted a time when he called home, and Grandpa answered and said, “yeah, she’s here. We’re eatin’ pork and beans and fartin’ at each other.” She smiled at this memory, and was with us no more.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/06/05/1-shirt/
Today, before work, I started catching up with my checkbook. I cancelled my Discover Card, paid Dan some rent money, and back-ordered 401k statements. I had nearly $2,000 amassed in my account before I went and started writing checks with it. So it goes. I’m guessing my net worth is roughly -$6,000.
There’s a trendycoolretro thrift shop next door to the cafe, so before work I bought two shirts. One is lime green and has crazy patterns on it and cost me four or five dollars, and the other is black and groovy and cost $1 and has that thrift-store smell.
Yum!
But I really need some pants. I’m down to one operational pair.
After work, I dropped by Mike & Molly’s and had myself a Kenyan beer. It was tasty.
And now, discipline willing, I can transcibe more of the Thailand journal.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/06/03/prin-the-tailor-for-a-cat-you-know/
PRIN — the tailor for a cat you know — it is — fact which will become dearer than former if a cat has clothes on
Don’t you doubt? “Although I want to dress with dress extravagant with my cat, doesn’t a cat dislike having” clothes on?
It is impossible that continue for time long to be sure, and you continue dressing a cat. But about [ to which you dress a cat and take a commemorative photo on special days, such as a birthday of a cat, ] is OK.
You need to dress a cat. And you will say to a cat together with a family. “It has changed just for a moment”. [ “it being very dear” or ] You will pass pleasant one time.
2. If a family and a cat become fortunate, you will take a commemorative photo! Therefore, please photo your cat lovelily with much trouble.
3. If it finishes taking a photograph, you will make it remove clothes from a cat immediately. You will say then, without forgetting the language of gratitude to a cat. “– be flooded — a way — good — having done one’s best — ! — ”
http://www.petoffice.co.jp/catprin/english/
Priceless.
UPDATE: Times have changed, and PRIN has a new web site, and improved translations:
1. Dress her up. Cheer or yell, do whatever you like to enjoy the moment with your family.
2. After you are enough with your joy, take a photo! Take some poses and leave her some cute photos!
3. Remove her clothes and give her a hub, say “Thank you!”
I think this is good advice, especially the third point, even if you don’t have a cat.
Now, I’m all for nonsensical Engrish, or just plain weird, but PRIN doesn’t stop with selling cat clothes in Japan. Nooo, that would be to easy. Take a stroll, if you will, into:
CAT TOWN
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/05/26/hrmmm/
I have been contemplating the idea of setting up a “feedback forum” type of thing for the log … make it more bloggy. If you, the reader, have any feelings in this matter, or ideas of how you’d like to see such a thing implemented, drop an e-mail on me. I never get any sort of feedback any more. Boo hoo!
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/05/19/hostel-dwelling-swede-getting-laid-big-time/
Speaking of the Onion, “Hostel-Dwelling Swede Getting Laid Big-Time” is perhaps the most hilarious article I’ve read in a long time. There is an added bonus, for me, to have an appreciation of hostel-dwelling. But the Swedish accent is wonderful too!
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/05/19/recording-industry-outdone-by-pornographers/
Thanks to Todd for pointing out an article in the Chronicle, about how the porn industry is finding ways to profit from file swapping. A few delicious quotes:
“The lesson I suggest (the recording industry) learn from the porn industry is: How do you use free to promote paid?”
“The adult industry is leading the way in peer-to-peer and begining to monetize it instead of fighting customers,” Hunter said. “Any smart merchant can’t look at a mall filled with 200 million people and not look at the opportunities to set up a kiosk.”
“It’s the sharing philosophy that the adult industry has had for a long time,” Hymes said. “It’s a fascinating industry, so rampantly and relentlessly capitalistic.”
I think it is interesting from a sociological point of view. The pornographers are ruthless capitalists always eager to innovate and find new ways to make a buck. I think they have to have this mentality because they’re taking a product that isn’t very difficult to produce, and marketing it in a culture that tends to frown on the marketing of said product. So they have to put all the more thought in to innovating ways to capture customers’ attention and make money.
The recording industry, on the other hand, knows they’ve got a sweet deal, that is socially acceptable, so instead of rampant opportunistic capitalism, they opt for consolidation into large, stable oligarchies. Innovation is a threat to an industry that is quite satisfied with the status quo, and is really freaked out about the implication that their entire industry may be made redundant by new technology.
Which may even be the case. If small-time pornographers can earn business by giving away teasers in order to attract sales, why shouldn’t the music industry devolve in to small-time content producers and promoters who give away some tunes in order to attract sales? Something interesting to watch, from a distance.
Meanwhile, Jon points out a New York Times Headline that sounds like something from The Onion.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/05/19/subversion-of-the-dominant-paradigm/
Milly just moved in with me and Dan to sublet for the summer, while Dan will be leaving next month to spend the summer in Tokyo. She and Seth, her boyfriend, are over, and everyone is playing with their laptops. ikea mentions on IRC that she’s going out for ice cream, and we think that’s a great idea. Dan has a pile of five-year-old coupons for 50 cents off of Blizzards at the Dairy Queen, a block a way, so we troop off to Dairy Queen to get our ice cream. This conversation took place on the way back:
Milly: This is fun!
Danny: This is cold!
Danny: And evil!
Danny: But at least we got to subvert the dominant paradigm.
Seth: Did you say “subvert the dominant paradigm?”
Danny: Yes, I did.
Seth: I have a tee-shirt that says that.
Danny: Hrmm, I wonder why I said that.
Seth: I’m wearing that shirt!
Danny: Yes, you are.
If it weren’t for the extreme geekiness of this evening, I’d never have bothered to relay this story. (As we left the house we were estimating the number of computers stored within, and I remarked that I felt like I was living in ACM. On our way, I shared an e-mail I received on my hiptop from my Japanese pen-pal about her recent adoption of Linux.)
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/05/17/one-of-my-favorite-words-is-diaspora/
> I know what you mean. As a Chinese American, I was
> brought up with 2 different cultures and it is quite
> confusing. […]
One of my favorite words is DIASPORA. It originally means “to scatter” but it has acquired the meaning of a culture that is built of multiple cultures, but doesn’t really fit in to any parent culture.
When adults who speak different languages are stuck together in a situation where they have no common language, they stumble along and try to build a language together. This rough language is called a PIDGIN, and works as far as helping these unfortunate people to communicate with each other on a basic level, but it is not a proper, well-formed natural human language. If these people stick together long enough and breed, their children hear this PIDGIN, and using their instincts for language acquisition they normalize the grammar rules and flesh the PIDGIN out into a proper human language, which is called a CREOLE.
For you, your culture might seem like a harsh pidgin, with rules from different places that clash with each other and don’t sound right. I’d like to think that your children will take that from you and grow that into a smoother creole culture that they feel comfortable with, and that might provide some comfort to you, in your own confusion.
If you get a chance, Wyclef Jean has a song in Haitian Creole called “Jaspora” which I take to mean “Diaspora” … Haitian Creole is a mix of French and the African languages that the slaves who were brought to Haiti spoke. Wyclef himself tells the story in his music of moving from Haiti, which is already a carnival of cultures, to New York, which is even more of a carnival, so if he starts singing about cultural DIASPORA you know he knows something about it.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/05/03/four-beers/
Vik got to town to collect some stuff from the apartment. Vik was Dan’s roommate, who has since returned to Cincinnati to look for work. He met me at the Green Street Cafe where I like to sit with my laptop, and relax in a nice space with free wireless ethernet access.
Since I now had money to spend, I figured I’d buy Vik a beer. We went a few doors down to Murphy’s, which had good $2 pints available. We were only going for a round, but one round turned into four. I think Vik ended up buying most of the beer.
One of the big incentives for us was that you don’t often find yourself relaxing in a bar with a number of attractive young women. We also got along in terms of interesting conversation too.
I spied a young lady wearing fishnets, with little pieces of candy taped to her body. We made eye contact and she explained that for a dollar I could have a piece of candy, and I got to remove it with my teeth. Was it for charity? Well, she’s getting married.
Now, I don’t quite understand why selling pieces of candy for a dollar is important for getting married. I guess it wasn’t the money so much as a bachelorette party sort of thing to do. At any rate, it seemed like a good deal to me, so I slipped a dollar in her palm and got my candy. Her friend captured the moment with a Canon digital camera, so I asked her to email the image to me. The candy was yummy too.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/05/02/sundance/
Another beautiful Spring morning. Well, it was overcast and chilly when I hustled off to work. The birds were all around, singing at each other. I got to Sam’s and there was a husky, Asian-looking waiter with glasses hustling sluggishly about. Since I was already running late, and Sam’s was running a little slower than usual, I was also a few minutes late to work. No great problem.
It was my colleague’s last day, and there was excellent music in the CD player, so even though business was slow, as usual, things were still pretty upbeat.
I was scheduled to work ’til 3, and around 2:30 I saw a guy walking around outside and I noticed that the lighting was brighter than it had been: the sun had come out. I ran out into the street and spun around with my arms out wide! Sun! How wonderful! How warm! I turned around and looked up at the sky and I understood why people like to believe in God; I nearly shook my first at the sky and yelled “way to go, Dude!”
Around that time one of our regulars came in for his iced tea. He would be at the movie theater in the next hour with the local science fiction club, for the opening of the new X-Men movie, where they would solicit the patrons for donations to the American Cancer Society. Another ray of sunshine.
As I waited for the next shift to come in, the CD started playing “Moondance” which is just a spectacular song. As I was already in a great mood I was put in mind of another time when I was in a great mood. It was an evening when I was driving Jessica home, and I found the same song on the radio. We were very close to the house, so I cranked the radio up loud, slowed the car, and just to make sure we got to hear the whole thing, I drove the long way around the block. When Jessica caught on that I had driven the long way around to time the song out, she approved vigorously, and we both grooved together in a shared moment before we got out, and I saw her to her car, in which she drove home.
Any every time I touch you
You just tremble inside
No matter how much you want me that,
You can’t hide!
Can’t I just have one more moondance with you,
my love?
One of the better memories.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/05/01/beautiful-spring/
I got enough in tips last night that I was able to afford a lavish breakfast of eggs, toast, bacon, and a large orange juice at Sam’s this morning, before working the morning shift. It was a slow day this morning, which is just as well since I’d only slept perhaps two hours between closing the place last night and opening it this morning.
The weather has turned warm, but not yet hot, with that edge of humidity that feels like the atmosphere is caressing you when you step outside. It is wonderful, wonderful weather. As I hustled along towards downtown this morning all the colors seemed especially vibrant, the whole world seemed completely beautiful. I saw a couple of rabbits posing like statues in someone’s shrubbery. Last night as I was walking home I’d seen a big ugly possum hustling its way in the opposite direction on the far side of University. They’re ugly critters but I thought it was beautiful in its purposefulness – wherever that creature was headed it was determined to get there.
I swear the Spring is so beautiful that I will do the irresponsible thing and blow some of my tax refund on a new digital camera when it arrives. I can feel boastful like this because I got paid today – the first full-time check since August! Man, it is has been a while, and it feels damned good. I took the check down to the bank and opened a checking account, which will come with a Visa check card, so I can go online in a few weeks and order my new toy if the world is still beautiful and requires photography.
For the moment, though, my funds aren’t available ’til Friday, so I borrowed another Food Stamp off Dan. We then went off to the Baskin Robbins which was giving out free ice cream this evening. Standing in line, I observed the young people around us, and it must have been the tacky “MUCK FICHIGAN” shirt that brought me around to the vibe that here I was surrounded by American youth of the Midwestern United States: specifically, Illinoisians. And I felt this sort of Universal identification with all the other crowds of youth around the world who get together on a Spring evening to await something good, like free ice cream.
You could say that operating on caffeine in lieu of sleep makes me more corny. I wouldn’t disagree.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/04/26/considering-balance/
The skinny blond bearded guy on the bike with the hat like my old one smiled at me as I crossed the street in the rain, next to DCL. It was Jon, of all people, who lived in Allen Hall. We had a mutual friend to talk about, which we did at the Red Herring, where he treated me to some vegetarian lunch, since he’s recently collected on some loans, and I can’t refuse a free lunch just now.
He’s one of the many friends I still have in town who have never left. His excuse is that his girlfriend had to stay for school, and he was offered a good deal to work off a Master’s degree he’d never considered earning, so it worked out. Of course, he’s recently broken up with the girl, but he’s nearly got a Master’s degree to show for it, and a job after graduation for a year, and especially in this economy, that’s not at all shabby.
There’s been quite a few folks who seem a little surprised to hear of me working in a coffee shop – is the job market so bad? Are you looking for computer work? My answer tends to come out along the lines that sitting in a chair behind a computer all day for work is not the most desirable condition for me, because my hobbies tend to involve sitting down, with a computer, a book, a newspaper, or a movie. I’m something of a loner in my natural state, so any service job where I get to riff off people all day, is a healthy counterpoint to my naturally quiet state when I get home, and being on my feet is also a good physical balance to my sedentary proclivities.
On the other hand, you can’t beat the money in technology, and I figure I’m going to spend at least some time on it as a hobby, some consulting, and the occasional full-time job. (After the tech bubble, it is hard to assume that any tech work is anything but a conditional situation: even the University has support staff positions they’ll have to cut, atop their current hiring freeze.) I tend to see myself jumping head-first into the rat race once I have a family coming along, at which point I should be grateful to sit in a chair behind a computer and deal with someone else’s problems, and balance that with plenty of human interaction and physical activity back at the casa.
Ideally, for my single life, I think I’d like a half-time tech job, rounded out with service work or volunteer activities, as a perfect balance between cognition and daily interaction, with good money to boot. Nice work when you can get it, but it is a rarity indeed. I’d like to think that this model would work well for tech companies, because really, there’s only so many hours in a week in which most of us can apply our brains to a particular problem, so if you can get two folks to tag-team on a particular problem for the price of one …
But that’s not an experiment that I’m in any position to conduct, right now.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2003/04/26/easter-2003/
Easter was good. Grandma hasn’t been following the web log, and none of us bothered to tell her that I was in Illinois, and she was sitting on the porch when I walked up, completely surprised, invoking the names of a few deities in a long hug. It felt darn good and I’m soo glad the ol’ lady doesn’t ask too many questions, because the whole element of surprise thing came off so fantastically.
Janice is doing fantastic. Sue is in a database course, and she popped out some notes for me that were written in formal logic. At first, I couldn’t decipher them, but after staring for a few minutes my brain went back to the appropriate Computer Science course and I found myself translating “Well, I think that’s ‘Universe’ … or ‘subset,’ so that says ‘not,’ and that’s ‘or,’ and ‘and,’ I think, so, we’re negating that for every element …” I was able to read the statement, though it made no sense to me. Once I was able to remember the symbols for Sue though, she had some handy notes for puzzling out her notes.
Everybody just seems better. Maybe it is the Spring weather. I think maybe these are also just more sober times and maybe the People are putting more effort into their Selves. Or maybe I’m just projecting. At any rate, it was great to munch on ham, and eggs, and desserts, and jelly beans and other candies, and to do it at home. Especially since I’ve been moving fairly constantly since I started my traveling last September.
Uncle John took my baht to exchange on his own time. He gave me a little over twice the value, an even $100, with the understanding that he knows what it is like to not have money. At ten dollars a day ’til pay day, $100 is just what I had budgeted in my mind. On the one hand, that’s a little high, but then on the other hand, I’ve started gearing up on some deferred maintenance items, like a toenail clippers, and a haircut, because there is money in the pipeline, at long last. (Not to mention the tax refund …)
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