LancesWorld.com Journal

It has surely been a long while since I last made an entry here. Nearly 6 months have elapsed since my last posting. Fear not, I have no intention to try and make up for that lost time by filling either of you, my two dear readers, in on everything that has transpired during that time. I could easily fill several tomes with all of that material.

I was listening to the radio today. I don't even know what the station was, but I heard a song that I really enjoyed. It turns our that the artist is some group called The Airborne Toxic Event. Apprently they are an indie rock band based in Los Feliz, which is a neighborhood in LA. I found this factoid intersting, as my good friends from Los Feliz had a band called Say Yes. I am pretty certain that they are no longer performing, though.

Today, I had to drive 15 miles to get from the Starbucks in Half Moon Bay to another Starbucks. I thought it was against corporate policy to have stores more than two blocks apart. I started my day in Los Gatos, which is near San Jose, where I had a meeting and lunch with my friend Todd. After that, I headed to Half Moon Bay because it was on the way to my evening destination. I knew that there was a Starbucks in Half Moon Bay, and I thought I would just pass the time on the internet from there. Sadly, the internet connection there was not working, so I headed to the next closest Starbucks to kill the time. The drive to Pacifica was gorgeous, though! Right along the California coast with clear, blue skies.

At Starbucks I discovered that iTunes recognizes which Starbucks location you are at and will actually show you the lineup of music that the store is playing. If you so choose, you can also purchase said music with the mere click of a mouse. I have to admit, the music that Starbucks plays isn't really my cup of tea (or coffee, for that matter), so I wasn't really that tempted to make a purchase. It's a cool feature, though.

Either of my readers may have previously visited my friend Ryan's website. He recently launched a new single serving site about single serving sites. With this, it seems that he has broken into the world of the viral web. In a recent entry on his own blog, Ryan notes that in a single day he received as many hits to his SSS as his blog receives in 3 months. When I spoke with him today, he updated me, saying that in 3 days, he received more hits on the SSS than his blog receives in an entire year.

I'm in need of someone skilled in the viral web. Know anyone?

Posted by Lance at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

According to a CNN.com report I saw this morning, officials at Tunbridge Wells council in southern England felt that the term "brainstorming" might offend people with epilepsy, a condition that involves periodic electrical storms inside the brain. As such, the Town Council decided that all representatives should use the term "thought showers" instead.

Really?

Apparently, the British Government decided to take a closer look at the words the government and its councils use from day to day. The result? A list of 100 banned words was released by the Local Government Association (LGA) in the UK.

I did a little digging and discovered that, while most major media are reporting that this list was released just this past Friday, it was actually first released on December 11, 2007: not just this past Friday. The list was released for "National Plain English Day," one of Britain's finer additions to the calendar, I'm convinced.

The word "brainstorm," by the way, is not on the list of banned words. In addition to providing the words, the LGA also included suggestions for alternative choices to these buzzwords. One of my favorites is their suggestion to replace "coterminosity" with "all singing from the same hymn sheet."

For those of you interested in seeing the entire list, I am making it available to you here.

Posted by Lance at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Walking down the street in San Francisco, it's hard to find a person who won't fly off the handle if you suggest that global warming is a "theory" or if you mention the war in Iraq. But talk about same-sex marriage, and they won't shut up about how wonderful it is. Something is desperately wrong in the State of California when the Supreme Court overturns legislation that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman as unconstitutional. Ridiculous.

Permit me to tell you something about the Constitution of the United States of America. It was written by Christians who respected Christian values, including marriage. Yes, the Constitution provides for a separation of Church and State, but this doesn't mean that the State has no obligation to uphold that which is objectively true. The Founding Fathers of this country didn't think it was necessary to include moral law in the Constitution because the moral law was much more common at the time the Constitution was written. Same-sex marriage wasn't even a consideration at the time, so of course they didn't write it into the Constitution. But if you had asked them whether the separation of Church and State really meant a complete elimination of morality when it comes to the law, they would have laughed at you.

Yesterday marked the first day that same-sex couples could wed in California. San Francisco City Hall stayed open late both yesterday and today to accommodate the crowds. Now as if that isn't bad enough, when I was watching the news this evening I was appalled when I learned that today preschool children were taken to City Hall to hand out flowers to the same-sex couples who were getting married. This is just another example of how liberal society is destroying America by poisoning our children. From a denial that unborn babies are human beings to encouraging objectively disordered lifestyles by presenting such lifestyles as "good" to impressionable children, liberal Americans are completely shredding the moral fabric that this nation was founded on.

Now, I don't entirely support the war in Iraq (a topic for some other time), and I do think that global warming is an issue that needs to be addressed, but I don't think that I go too far in saying that liberalism in American is destroying this country far faster than either the war or the climate.

Posted by Lance at 9:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You see a lot of interesting things on mass transit in San Francisco. With gas prices over $4.50 in the City ($4.80+ for my car), it has become too expensive for me to drive as much as I used to. As a result, I've been taking public transit with much greater frequency since April 1. In fact, since April, I've only driven to the East Bay twice.

In general, the incidents that I witness on Muni are either humorous or inane. That is until today. I needed to get home in the middle of the day so the plumber could come make some emergency repairs (entry about that sage to come in a few days) so I was on the 38 Limited headed from Downtown to the beach. While driving through the Tenderloin, a guy boarded the bus carrying a boom box (let's call him "boom box man"). This is not terribly infrequent, although it is almost always a nuisance when such people sit in the back blasting their music for the entire bus to hear. This gentleman was no exception.

For the next 2 or 3 miles, perhaps, passengers on the bus were treated to a series of musical selections that apparently met with boom box man's approval. As we were stopped at a red light on Geary at 3rd Avenue, boom box man stood up and walked to the door - he was going to get off at the 6th Avenue stop. Now, as he moved up from the last row of the bus to the rear door, the music became louder for people farther ahead. This did not go unnoticed by a guy sitting three rows in front of me - let's call this one "angry man" - who turned around and said to boom box man, "thanks for sharing that with us, a**ho*e!"

Boom box man, now standing behind me and just to the right, wasted no time in responding angrily, "you're welcome, fu**er!" Tempers were high between both of them and a yelling match ensued, with me sitting directly in between the two of them. I was just praying that things wouldn't escalate until boom box man said, "I'm getting off at the next stop if you want to get off and settle this."

Oh no. Little did I know, though, that getting off to settle it would have been better than what happened next. All of a sudden, boom box man charged forward and leaped on angry man and the fists started flying. Angry man shot up out of his seat and it was a true battle royale. Angry man and boom box man were throwing each other into poles and on top of other passengers; it was a disaster in the making. Thankfully the bus driver saw and heard what was happening and he immediately opened all of the doors on the bus. I tell you, I have never seen a bus empty as quickly as this one did. Within 5 seconds, every person, including me, was off that bus except those immediately involved in the tussle.

I have to admit that I was a little frightened by the whole situation. I mean, I barely avoided direct involvement just by virtue of the fact that I was in the seat I was. One or two seats farther forward and I would have been in the thick of it.

Once I had taken about 5 to 10 seconds to compose myself, I decided that this type of behavior could not go unchecked, so I called 911 from my cell phone and reported the incident to the police. While I was on the phone with the dispatcher, boom box man got off the bus and started walking around a little. After 10 to 15 seconds, he walked directly over to me, got right up in my face and said, "you like calling the police, huh? Do you want me to take your phone? Huh?" I said nothing to him and he turned and walked away. I was, naturally, a little shaken by that encounter, but I continued my report to the dispatcher, adding that I had just been threatened by boom box man.

Just moments later, the police arrived, but they arrived at the wrong bus! They went to a bus across the street. I was attempting to wave them over, but they boarded the bus across the street before realizing that the issue was not there. By the time they got over to where I was, boom box man was gone and the officer that intended to pursue him drove the complete opposite direction from that which I had told the dispatcher he was walking. Seeing that my presence there was no longer useful, I decided to get on the next bus and continue home. Just before the bus arrived, though, I saw another guy get off the bus. I'm not 100% sure if it was angry man or not, but he had clearly been involved in the fight. He appeared to be bleeding quite a lot from the head (over his left eye, in particular, I think) and the moment he stepped off the bus he collapsed in the street. I'm not sure what happened to him after that - he had an officer with him and my bus pulled up. As I was boarding the new bus, I told the driver of the incident bus that boom box man had walked north on 3rd Avenue in case he wanted to relay that to the police.

I'll admit - I really hope that I don't have to witness another Muni event like this!

Posted by Lance at 6:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For some reason I was feeling in a very poetic mood today, and I stumbled upon what I personally think is a pretty amazing - if completely bizarre - poem. It was written by James Joyce and comprises the opening of Chapter 11 of Ulysses.

I think that this poem work particularly well if you read it aloud while playing some soothing music. After all, this poem is meant to setup a series of themes in a musical style. As my friend Cliff says of this poem, "Joyce applies the intricate techniques of musical composition to literature."

Continue reading "Poetry" »

Posted by Lance at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For at least the past 10 years I have been trying to remember the name of a movie that I remember loving as a child. About all I could remember about it was that it involved some character that walks to a castle and finds a tree, some type of glass key and a glass dome of some sort. Who was the character? I didn't know. Where was the castle? No idea. What was the tree? Your guess... Who had the key? Yo' mama. Was the glass dome over the key or the tree? Oooh, good question!

So for the past 10 years I have been trying to remember what the movie was. I could play parts of the movie back in my mind over and over again, and I was constantly amazed at how amazing the film was. But I couldn't remember how much of what I imagined was real and how much I was making up. I've asked several people over the years if they remember what the movie was, but the closest I got was when someone suggested that it might have been "The Dark Crystal." Considering that I had some vague recollection of a glass key, I thought that perhaps I was remembering a crystal as a key. I was reminded earlier this week about my long-time search when I noticed that "The Dark Crystal" was playing at a local cult movie theater.

So, I didn't watch Dark Crystal in the theater, but I did watch a trailer for it on my Apple TV. Nope, that wasn't the movie.

I decided that 10 years was too long not to know what the movie was, so I started a Google search. My search term was: movie glass key tree. The first 10 results didn't really yield anything, but then I stumbled upon a result with the title, "I can't find the title of a movie I saw as a kid in the 80s." YES! This sounds like it could have what I want. Here was the text of the post:

I'm pretty sure it's live action, but cartoon is possible. It is fantasy, and involved a group of kids (maybe brother/sister) that encountered a palace of some kind, which I believe sat atop a stone peninsula (there is a scene where the kids are travelling along the side of a cliff toward the palace). I believe a witch or evil sorceress lived there. The palace housed a large glass dome, under which a tree bore 'eternal youth' fruit (apples or peaches, I think). The dome protects/preserves the tree and is locked with a big golden key. The climax of the film is when the kids get the key, and somehow break the glass. I don't recall if you see the witch age rapidly, but it's possible. The kids may or may not have been accompanied by friendly monsters (though I think this may be a mixed memory from 'my favorite monster'). Any thoughts, comments and details are *greatly* appreciated.

Alright, so this sounds almost identical to what I remembered, save a few details, such as the brother/sister pair. I was very excited at this point, sure that I was going to discover the name of the 1980s gem. Well, I got the name, alright. The film was called "The Hugga Bunch," and it featured both live action and puppets. The puppets were apparently toys that were popular in the 80s called Huggables, or some such thing. Now these characters live in a land of fantasy where all they do is hug each other and live happily ever after. (Note: I have absolutely zero recollection of these characters in the movie - but there they are.)

I discovered that someone had posted the movie (which seems to be only about 45 minutes long) on YouTube, so I decided to watch it. At first I was convinced that it was a completely different movie. Here was this little girl sad that her grandma was going to be moving away and talking to her dolls and they were talking back. That's not at all what a I remembered. Then all of a sudden this girl goes through her bedroom mirror and ends up in the land of the hugging dolls! What is that all about? This isn't the movie I remember.

I skipped ahead and discovered that this was, in fact, the movie I had seen as a child. There was the castle, there was the evil queen, there was the tree under a glass dome and there was that key - that key that had haunted my mind for so many year, the key that unlocked the dome and allowed access to the tree. And best of all, there was the scene where the girl is walking on a sideways sidewalk and she says, "it sure does make your tummy feel curious." I almost cried when I heard that line. As a child this was one of my favorite things to say. I was constantly talking about how my tummy felt curious - and it was all thanks to this movie.

But, somehow, re-discovering the film was in no way satisfying. In fact, it was depressing. I had such fond memories of this movie from my childhood. I had such a glamorous memory of it, but it turned out to be a silly, simple, ridiculous film with characters that were wholly unbelievable. I partly want to convince myself that I still haven't found the movie - that this was just some cheap imitation of the real thing - but I know deep down that this isn't true. I have found that movie that I had loved as a child. It was a film that clearly made an impression on me, enough of an impression that I have been trying for at least the past 10 years to remember what it was. And yet, to see it again has almost caused that little bit of my childhood to die inside me. While I remembered enough of the film to find it via Google, it is still nothing at all like I remember it. One thing is for sure, though - this movie just isn't what it used to be.

Posted by Lance at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a blunder that is sure to delight the logical Republicans, the electronic voting vendor Diebold accidentally revealed the outcome of the 2008 Presidential Election. ONN has more on the story:

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

I can live with this illusion.

Posted by Lance at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Those of you who frequent my blog directly (i.e., not via a feed reader) will have noticed that the sections telling you what I'm reading, what I've watched on DVD and what movies I've seen in the theater are missing. This is because sometime over the past three weeks my installation of MediaManager broke. Rather than spend time trying to fix it, I have simply removed that information from the site. The fact that only 1 person out of the world's 6 billion have probably even noticed this change convinces me that my decision to save time and energy was the right one.

Posted by Lance at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So you're out in the park on a sunny day when, all of a sudden and with no expectation, the sky fills with clouds and a storm erupts. Thunder and lightning are all around you, and the rain is relentless. You see an oak grove and you run for cover. Bad idea! Apparently your friendly oak tree is sixteen times more likely to be hit by lightning than that beech tree twenty feet away. The reason for this is that the oak tree has a vertical root system which brings it closer to groundwater than a beech tree, which has a very expansive, horizontal root system.

By the way, if you're a man, you are 4 times more likely to be struck by lightning than your female companions. So, with some simple math, we can calculate that if you're a man under an oak tree you're 64 times more likely to get hit by lightning than a woman under a beech tree. Good to know.

Posted by Lance at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Think you can pay attention when a lot of things are going on around you? How aware are you, really? Here's a video test that you can take online to see how aware you actually are. Make sure that you do this when you have about 60 seconds (one mintue) of undisturbed time, be certain that your computer speakers are turned on and pay very close attention. Post your YES or NO answer as a comment.

Posted by Lance at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)