Man. Myth. Morland.

Ewart Cecil-Humely, the 7th Marquess of Dorset, opened his survival tin to discover his rations had dwindled to hardtack, salted pork, and taffy. A grim look clouded his face. Squandering the venison had been a mistake. Disgusted, he tossed the tin back in his satchel, and returned to reconnoitering the sandy mound ahead, barren save for patches of dune wildrye and a singular bracket fern.

The Marquess could still feel the edict burning in his vest pocket. "...have no choice therefore, but to hold the peerage of our right trusty and entirely beloved cousin in forfeit until such time as he should demonstrate his loyalties lay once more to queen and empire. Furthermore, as recompense for seditious usury, he shall accompany the Pitcairn expedition under the strict command of Commodore Ashwaithe. Should he prove..." It was all irrelevant now. This reprobation had set him on his course, but it would not return him home. The fruition of aristocratic machinations decades in the making now found him exiled on this cursed speck of terra firma partly to serve the political ambitions of a loose-knit cadre of dukes, fellow marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons, for no uncondemmed man would have sailed for Pitcairn, and partly by choice, for he quite literally leapt at the first opportunity to divest himself of his warden's squinty and supervisory glare once the northern hemisphere was but a memory. Ashwaithe, to his credit, was a shrewd judge of character and recognized that not all his crew were murderers, brigands, or even guilty of any crime at all. His conveniently lax policy as regarded head count upon returning from the myriad landings on the archipelagos atolls and meager isles across which they stumbled ensured that any man wishing to choose abandonment (and quite likely with it isolation, starvation, and insanity) over the floating prison known as the H.M.S. Doughty could do so. Cecil-Humely did not think twice of taking advantage of this tacit offer. His only regret was knowing he would never see his sweet Marchioness again. The Marquess had constructed a crude proxy out of abandoned hermit crab shells and reeds, but it was hardly a substitute for her womanly comforts, and could bear him no heirs.

If this island on which he now found himself had a name, Cecil-Humely was certain it would have been willfully forgotten by all ever to know it except by those fascinated by cruel curiosities of topography, for inhospitable would have been too kind a word to describe its terrain. Sheer bluffs of several score yards would have proved a ubiquitous obstacle, were there anything useful enough on top of or beyond them to warrant their scaling. The dearth of aquatic and terrestrial wildlife might have given even the most experienced fisherman and/or hunter pause - if there had been material enough from which to fashion a rod, or even a spear, suitable for the kill.

Down to his last morsels of nourishment after only a fortnight, he began to despair. Far too proud to contemplate regret at the choices which had led him to this point, he consoled himself with projections of guilt and vitriolic harangues directed at targets half a world away. To stave off madness, he had continued to explore the rapidly dwindling portions of his new rocky home. The littoral heights before him comprised the last of its terrain hitherto not surveyed.

The malnourished form that limped towards the frothy shore bore little resemblance to the regal man who had once, at his very own estate, hosted his sovereign and her magisterial entourage for a three-day gala affair deemed by none other than the queen herself as "effulgent". The pristine skin of an Anglo-Saxon dandy had made way for the leathery hide of a seafaring roustabout, shielded from the rays of that heavenly furnace by the soiled remnants of what surely had been a dapper outfit. That his clothes hung about his emaciated form at all served as a testament to their well-hewn creation.

Rounding the final dune, Cecil-Humely sighted a sizable rock outcropping ensconced amidst a cluster of palms nigh a furlong in the distance. Coconuts! The Marquess shed his grimace and quickened his gait almost to a gallop. In no time he had gathered several odd baker's dozen of the husked jewels. Surely this would augment his food supply to the extent that by the time he had exhausted his current reserves, a new crop would be ready for harvest. He was on his way to self-sustenance.

Several hours passed as Ewart contemplated his good fortune and devised a method to extract the milk from the center of the seeds without damaging their meaty shells. That merely weeks ago he would have eschewed these was a turn of fate not lost on the Marquess, and he reflected on the changes, both external and internal, that had rendered him so drastically different a man in such a short span of time. While deep in thought, his gaze drifted along the rocky patchwork that had first caught his eye, landing upon an opening decidedly unnatural in appearance. "Could it be," he speculated, "that I have happened upon a depot used to store the booty of some miscreant mariner, or perhaps a hoard of supplies left by a wayward expeditionary venture?" Caution long since departed, Cecil-Humely sauntered over to the almost perfectly circular opening, which he estimated to be around seven cubits in diameter.

Past the mouth lay a passageway stretching beyond the limits of the Marquess' vision, lit by some unknown mechanism. It struck him as odd that a tunnel of such length should maintain a constant level of luminance with the only discernable source of light coming from the entrance at which he now stood. Suddenly uneasy, he began to back away. There was no use now in jeopardizing his future. With his bounty of coconuts, he could likely survive long enough to greet the next vessel happening upon this god-forsaken rock, and chances were it would not be a ship of the realm. A few choice omissions of fact could ensure him safe passage to one of any number of colonies at which his political connections might ensure him a quiet, if unbecoming, means of living out the remainder of his days.

It was not long before the passing weeks convinced him otherwise. Boredom alone was beginning to threaten his health, and the indignity of incognito exile in some foreign port ensured that the appeal of rescue steadily waned. Ewart made, with his usual temerity, the decision to investigate the passage, consequences be damned.

Half an hour into the artificial cave, an inspection of the path already traveled revealed his entrance to be but a pinprick of light in the distance though the immediate interior shone as brightly as before. Two hours later, the constant marching and uncertainty of his destination began to wear away the once intrepid deserter's resolve, and notions of retreat stood ready to coax him backwards. At just that moment however, he glimpsed - so faintly he could not at first be sure it was not a hallucination - a slight blue twinkle ahead. His pace increased. Twenty minutes later, the Marquess found himself in a large breadbox-shaped chamber with polished wooden floors. The room was spartan, bare except for two posts at the opposite ends, each topped by what appeared to be blank translucent placards with butterfly nets attached. The bottom ends of the nets had been torn open. He shuddered to think what creature might have broken free from confinement within, for the holes appeared quite large. A couple of doors faced him from the far side, but Ewart could make out no handle and they did not give to the touch. Exhausted and confused, he crumpled to the floor, happy at least to be shielded from the elements, and fell into a deep slumber.

After some inscrutable duration of time, Cecil-Humely slowly became cognizant of a dull pounding coming from somewhere close by. Groggy but not without suspicion, he cracked his eyes slightly. A lanky form occupied the space underneath the far poll. Opening his eyelids more fully, the form became more clear. The creature now book-ending the chamber stood well over six feet in height, with smooth blue skin and thin, spindly legs. It was clad only in a silvery-red uniform of sorts apparently designed to maximize economy of movement, for it covered only the torso and upper thighs. Teal piping ran around the edges. Upon this costume was emblazoned some sort of insignia, beneath which lay what seemed to be a foreign alphabet. Ewart watched as his counterpart paced around (it was bipedal!) using the ends of its floppy webbed limbs, best described as "hands", to propel an elastic orange sphere - a bit larger than a large grapefruit - down towards the floor. As the sphere repeatedly sprang back up, the creature met it with his "hands" and pushed the sphere back downwards, sometimes along the same trajectory as it had followed on the way up, and sometimes altering its path to redirect the sphere through his legs or towards the opposing hand.

Overcome by curiosity, Ewart sat up to gawk. Never before had he seen such a being, and should he live long enough to recount this tale to another human, he wished to gather as much information as it was in his power to collect with his senses.

Suddenly, the creature turned, and the two sentient occupants began to stare at one another. As if in answer to a question unasked, the alien figure charged down the length of the room directly towards the post nearest the Marquess, continuing to rhythmically bounce the sphere off the firm ground. When within three long strides of his apparent target, the brightly-clad character leapt from the floor, his momentum carrying him forward at an undiminished pace, covered his eyes with the end of his left appendage, and forcefully threw the sphere through the horizontally-mounted ring of the butterfly net. Landing solidly on both feet, the creature then turned to Cecil-Humely and, in enthusiastic English, uttered simply, "Word. Monster jam."

Perplexed did not begin to describe the Marquess' state of mind. Here, in possibly the most remote location known to humankind, he had stumbled upon a life form not of this world, and it could dunk.

"I know who you are, Marquess. It was I who brought you here." Ewart noticed that these words emerged from no orifice on the creature's head. He was hearing this being's speech directly in his mind.

"I see... who might you be then sir, and by what means did you arrange for my presence here? Might I also inquire as to your purpose in doing so?"

Again the words entered his brain: "I am Xyryzl, the Kepq'artian Highlight Reel. My people have, throughout the centuries, formed a network of operatives on your planet, infiltrating even the dual houses of British parliament. It was through the machinations of these agents that your effective exile was arranged."

"Captain Ashwaithe works for us. He ensured that you would find yourself here, with me. You are to be the liaison."

The Marquess had spent a lifetime in politics and, delirious though might have been, his skeptical instincts had not entirely deserted him. "Explain yourself, sir," he said in measured tones.

"Look: it's a just metaphor for generational change and decay. The specific cause isn't important."

"As I was saying, our race is dying, and we must impart to you the full body of Kepq'artian hoops culture. It is the way of our people, and it must not be lost. It shall live on through you, as you disseminate it to all mankind. I have brought you here to teach you the ways of our sport. You will learn the killer cross-over, the no-look pass, and the windmill jam. You will grow knowledgeable in the ways of the offense of the triangle and the defense of the zone." It leaned closer. "You will join the venerable fraternity of Phi Slamma Jamma."

Anticipating this uncertainty, Xyryzl continued his pitch. "At night we shall rest and enjoy the pleasures of Crystal and loose women."

The Marquess' reticence vanished. He had twin weak spots for booze and courtesans.

"Very well. I will train with you, under the conditions that I receive a fly outfit like yours, and that my wrists be adorned with ice and bling."

The alien approximated a contented smile with his facial features. "It shall be so."

Just then, one of the doors Cecil-Humely had previously found to be locked opened with a loud swoosh, and a man wearing a tan jumpsuit entered.

"Come on, you guys, there's been a report of paranormal activity down at the old textile factory."

The pair grabbed their proton packs from the man, and together the three charged out through the door. If one listened closely before the door closed behind them, one could distinctly make out the sound of a high-five.

Let it not be said that members of British aristocracy, Kepq'artians or anonymous men in tan jumpsuits be afraid of no ghost.

John C. Dvorak is progressing along nicely on his way to earning the title of world's biggest curmudgeon.

Cigarettes in markets were made illegal due to their being a public health risk, and if mobile electronics become invasive and dangerous, perhaps their use should be regulated as well. The chief point I take away from this rant is that these problems are technology issues insofar as the tech industry should keep lawmakers and policy regulators informed of, and prepared for, evolving issues and uses (form a better lobby/think-tanks?). Otherwise Dvorak is merely ranting about legal statutes and human nature.

I have decided to grace whomever it should interest with pics from my vacation back home.

If I remade "A Perfect World", it would be about me and some friends hiting up MF until the break of dawn this new year's, not about a kidnapping.

I dread coming home, I drag my feet, I fret, I steel myself against an onslaught of indolence and boredom. But I get here and suddenly it's not boring, it's cathartic, time passes too quickly, I'm given a microscope to examine how insanely claustrophobic my petty little workliferoutine is back in the cold country and I fall in love with my family all over again. Shucks, free meals too.

New Year's resolution #4: collate less, staple more
#5: no more restaurants with the prefix "pan-" in their cuisine descriptions
#6: muck about in the thistle
#7: use flashcards if necessary

Don't think I can do it? One of my resolutions last year was to learn how to spell "necessary" without a spell-checker (seriously), and I effin' nailed that one.

I told our waitress last night that I'd resolved to listen only to Bruce Springsteen for the month of January. This was a segue from my provocative question: "The Boss: yea or nay?" She saw right through me and bought me a cider.

Dr. Lindeman, despite all the money my parents paid him, left an interstice between my lower-right bicuspid and a molar. I think I used to have two bicuspids there, like most humans, but one was removed to make way for all that dental remodeling and upgrading. It's sad that I can't remember, and sadder that I'm too tired to look up how many bicuspids people normally have, but I'm pretty sure it's eight.

Anyway I have this terrible asymmetrical secret in the form of the little gap in the lower-right. It's not really noticeable to the naked eye, but it's immeasurably annoying because chicken or sometimes, like tonight, well-cooked fish seem to have the perfect texture with which to wedge themselves in that little nook.

I read somewhere that we prefer more symmetrical mates and I'm just happy that my lopsidedness is internal, and I have this flawless face to broadcast my genetic suitability to the world.

Have you been to Madpony? I visited a while back, many months ago. I liked it, and I still do. Since then, I randomly see a link to Madpony about every two weeks. Yesterday, I was reading over Busblog and noticed that Mr. Pierce was a Madpony chum. Fine, I thought, the whole world is linking to Madpony, and I must return. So I went back to take a look.

Madpony gets almost 2,000 unique visitors a day. That's a huge, gigantic number for a personal blog. Hell, that's 10% of what Gawker gets and Gawker's a red-hot topical blog with repeated mentions in major national publications. It's the entire student body of an average-sized public high school. And 2,000 people drop by every single day just to see what's going on with these two sisters from Oklahoma. Why?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's because they're hot, and men are lecherous.

Don't get me wrong - It's funny, it's engaging, it's personal but not uncomfortably gushy. Kristen and Lauren are clearly in a blogging rhythm, and they haven't let their popularity go to their heads. I can't fault them for being successful, and they're not exploiting themselves. In fact, I can't really say anything bad about the Madpony girls at all. They genuinely seem like they're having a blast, and it reminds me of my own, distant and fading college / high-school years, but with a more eloquent and cohesive narrative. And more shoes.

I wouldn't even bring this up were it not tied to a fresh memory from last night.

I grew up in LA, but when I was living here I was never quite old enough to drink legally, and that stymied my bar-hopping ability considerably. Consequently, whenever I return and am looking for a taste of the night-life, I find myself at a bit of a loss. My main man Grant solved this quickly by taking me to a nice joint in West Hollywood. Several hours passed amidst conversation of olden days, and as people piled in, the joint started swinging. Across the aisle from us, three very fetching ladies sat down, began talking amongst each other, and looked to be having a fine time on their own.

Billiards troll alpha looked pretty much like I'd expected given what I'd observed from his behavior at the pool table. He'd mastered the sleazeball aesthetic, his appearance and demeanor perfectly harmonious. I've found that there's a nice, dependable, geographically-agnostic baseline for types like this, both in terms of form and function, with little deviation, so I was pleased to have my prejudicial suspicions confirmed.

Billiards troll alpha sat himself down in the fourth seat of the booth occupied by the three fetching women. He did it so casually I thought for a second he must have known them. With half an eye still on the green coin-financed felt to track his game's progress, he proceeded to hit unrelentingly upon any and all occupants of the booth. When it was his turn to, um, stroke, he handed off to his partner, billiards troll beta, who would dutifully keep the seat warm and fend off any other would-be suitors. These fellows wanted nothing more than an evening of racking balls and balling racks [Editor: crass Mike, really crass]. Alas it was not to be. Given their first opportunity for escape, just as billiards trolls alpha and beta were unable to extricate themselves from some pressing pool-table discussion with their opponents, the three harried females quickly rose to depart. I made eye contact with the nearest.

"Was it that bad?" I slurred. She flashed a resigned half-smile and nodded solemnly.

Ashleigh is a faux friendster identity, or "fakester", I created with a friend as a social experiment. We plucked a picture of some attractive nubile anonymousness and whipped together a quick profile which fleshed her out. She was a sexy English ex-pat with a penchant for biking and baking cookies. Her occupation was "homewrecker". Within a few days, Ashleigh had more people in her social network than I did. She received multiple friend requests and unsolicited messages from such savory characters as "Pimpmaster Bling Bling". I've posted some of the better ones here. Every guy wanted to be Ashleigh's friend. Every one of them creeped me out. I felt, albeit through a fictitious digital avatar, what it must be like to be hit on incessantly, and I (surprise!) didn't like it.

Ashleigh's profile was fairly terse. There wasn't much from which to draw anything substantive about her as a person, but message after message kept coming making reference to her being English, biking, making cookies, or being a homewrecker. Mountains of pretext; she got hit on because she looked hot.

Friendster can be one giant singles bar sometimes, so I guess I can't wholly fault Pimpmaster et al for trying in that context. But it happens with blogs too. I remember having a conversation with one blogger/globe-trotter in particular where she mentioned that random strangers would email her responses to prolific entries about Angkor Wat or Peruvian street food and attach a postscript tantamount to "oh btw, you should post pictures of yourself."

Ten years ago, Jake Fogelnest started a show called Squirt TV on public access. It eventually got picked up by MTV, and I became a fan during all those lonely nights as an adolescent hermit in my bedroom, which was the only venue free from my legions of obsessive, thighmaster-wielding fans. Today, I stumbled upon his new website, and downloaded "THE REMAINING FOOTAGE OF ROBOT NINJA MEETS SENSITIVE TRUCK DRIVER." You should, too.

I give extra kudos for the "KKK took my baby away" Ramones parody during the ending credits.

Wow. There's nothing like spending 4 crooked hours jumping from blog to blog, soaking in others' vicarious partying. I know not a soul in these pictures over which I drool, in these booze-addled write-ups over which I obsess, but somehow, fun bores its way therefrom to my brain like a weevil. Usually, when I'm alone at night, weaving on my loom and listening to my metabolism slow down, contemplations about how comparatively boring my life is are not entertained for long, assuaged by conflated memories and pride. I think it's a survival instinct, those cascading delusions of coolness, some sort of self-perceptual fight or flight reaction. "I am above average, or at worst normal."

But I'll be damned if watching all these sexy youngsters out there on the town, incarnating debauchery doesn't give me pangs of envy.

1. dismount high horse
2. pepper speech with colloquialisms
3. overcompensate with party photos

My mom just informed me that the song to which some delicate little thing was ice skating on TV, a song entitled "I Hope You Dance", was a metaphor for life.

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat, but always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens

Promise me that you'll give fate a fighting chance

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance, I hope you dance

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Living might mean taking chances, but they're worth taking
Loving might be a mistake but it's worth making
Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out, reconsider
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance

My mother's hermeneutical foray into lyrical analysis: "It's saying don't just sit there with your life, get up and do something."

Gosh mom, you don't say. I never would have construed that from such enigmatic metaphors. And what an innovative sentiment, too. Carpe freakin' diem.

I wonder how Conan O'Brien feels about having a drummer who's far wealthier than him lead his show's band.

Finally, over a week and a half after porting my number from Verizon to Sprint, everything appears to be in its right place. I now have dominion over those precious ten digits once again. I know everyone out there has been dying to call me, so let the torrent be unleashed.

I believe that we have entered a kind of slow-motion cultural meltdown, owing largely to our living habits, though many ordinary Americans wouldn't agree. They may or may not be doing all right in the changing economy, but they have personal and psychological investments in going about business as usual. Many Americans have chosen to live in suburbia out of a historic antipathy for life in the city and particularly a fear of the underclass that has come to dwell there. They would sooner move to the dark side of the moon than consider city life.

My aunt and uncle had lived in their house for twenty some-odd years before moving about a month ago. They custom-built a McMansion out in Moorpark, on a desolate cul-de-sac which, as much as I hate to admit it, affords a spectacular view of the nearby mountains and valleys. On a clear day, one can see the Channel Islands. Moorpark actually has an approximation of what Kunstler calls Main St, though it’s hardly within walking distance of almost any of the town’s residences.

I visited it on Sunday. The house itself isn’t bad – it’s not gluttonous in size and thankfully stops short of being ostentatious. They have a very nice, spacious back yard, which bucks the sardine subdivision trend of offering a few square feet of grass to placate prospective homeowners’ qualms of claustrophobia. But hot damn it’s far away.

I can almost reconcile this. When one is wedded to a car in a suburb it seems sacrificial and unnecessary. Jumping in your horseless carriage to head down to the mall, simply to park it and walk around has always seemed a little counter-intuitive to me. Shouldn’t, as Kunstler argues, the stores just be placed more conveniently and evenly, so that one needs to drive or walk, but not both? But when my aunt and uncle decide to move out to a housing development in the middle of nowhere (a 15-minute drive from even the nearest supermarket) their dependency on the automobile becomes an utter necessity, like a pioneer farmer clutching his trusty Winchester rifle to his side. A grandiose simile, I know, but a certain threshold is exceeded: the car is a tool without which one cannot live, not a wishy-washy convenience item used to save (albeit significant) quantities of time. There does not exist the luxury of alternatives: the paltry population density out there can’t support any modicum of pubic transport. The American frontier is alive and kicking.

But as my nuclear family exited the newly-built “community” Sunday night, I spied a blight which I happen to find particularly offensive: gates. Out there, an hour’s drive at least from anywhere with appreciable crime, there is the perceived need for gates.

If the car is a Winchester slung over the shoulder of a cattle rancher, its myriad faults outweighed in certain fringe situations by its benefits, then these community gates are handguns in the nightstands of suburbia, redundant and superfluous, gleaming assassins of altruism.

Well you were the one who always taught them to look for a good deal! An album on CD costs $300,000 to make, but a movie on DVD cost $100 million. That's 33,233% more value per disk! You're the bargain hunter, which would you choose?

I just deftly sidestepped having to accompany my mother and brother on a shopping trip to the mall. The feeling is indescribable, marred only by some ephemeral guilt at taking advantage of an empty-nester’s generosity, which should pass… now.

My brother’s room is dark, almost shockingly so. What few windows he has face the side of a hill that shields them from all but the most indirect ambient sunlight, on top of which sit several non-deciduous plants conspiring to form a perennial light-repellant canopy. Despite having their job preempted by nature, I have never witnessed his shutters in an open state, a curious symbolic counterweight to my brother’s gregarious personality. It is here in this space outside of time, in a vacuum of any and all energy, that my brother sleeps until noon each day, which might be excusable if his internal clock were not already two hours ahead, stuck on Central Time. I am not certain whether this state of permanent midnight has been constructed to suit his sleeping whims, or whether his sleeping patterns reflect his having fallen victim to what I can only describe as the most soporific environment outside of an all-night post-Thanksgiving marathon of Barry Lyndon.

UPDATE: no sooner do I write this than the the lil' spaz goes and gets me Chipotle gift certificates for Navidad. Awwww.

Does Red Lobster really need to advertise? Don't they have a monopoly on crappy sit-down fried seafood? For that matter, should the government invoke the Sherman or Clayton acts to dismantle this reckless goliath? If this is not the reason why they were drafted, then I can think of none at all.

If you were in the movie Deep Blue Sea, building an undersea research facility to engineer super-intelligent sharks in which you’d have to spend weeks at a time, would you hire Michael Rapaport to keep you company? Just seeing him in Boston Public commercials puts him on my worst hypothetical coworker short list (along with Gallagher and Fran Drescher).

Prediction: this poker craze will mutate uncontrollably until all actors are required to play Texas hold ‘em to join the Screen Actors Guild.

What a flight for B-list celeb-spotting. Lionel Richie in first class and Slash in business. I looked around economy class for Phil Collins (from either Genesis or Def Leppard, no preference) but the 80’s-music triad was not to be.

I get really lonely around the holidays. That's right, under this facade of granite lives a human being with feelings. Usually they are feelings of acrophobia and lust, but in December loneliness joins them. It's not really due to some oppressive sentimentality, it's just logistical. Most everyone I know grows reticent to spending time outside in the frigid cold, is preoccupied with seasonal duties, and then leaves town. I spend hours upon hours traveling by myself, and wind up sitting in my parents' house reading alone. It's not that I don't cherish time with family - the holiday celebrations are highlights of the trip - but hanging around the house brings back those specifically vacant adolescent times remembered less than fondly. I do recall they involved an overabundance of moping.

The swimming pool s'cool, I can dig that, but playing Marco Polo by yourself is way too easy. So I go from twiddling my thumbs, shoved in pockets to keep warm, in New York to twiddling them, freely in the golden sunshine, in LA. I can almost feel the social atrophy which New Year's is supposed to reverse, but never quite does.

Upon further reflection, I don't think I'm lonely so much as really, really bored. Maybe I'll take some really pretentious pictures with my digicam - out-of-focus sunsets over the ocean with heaps of lens flares. Or perhaps I'll start an emo band.

:: The O.C. is the Dallas of our day, as Dallas was The Tempest of its day

Sometimes, to alleviate drudgery, I'll include a little note when I send out phones to get re-flashed.

Dear QIS:

I can't get you guys out of my head. The crazy quick way you reflash phones has me head over heels. I know it's foolish to fall for a whole department instead of one person, but I've come to accept that it's the way I was made, so call me a fool.

I think Van Halen said it best:

How do I know when it's love
I can't tell you but it lasts forever
How does it feel when it's love
It's just something you feel together
Oh oh oh oh
Oh when it's love
Oh oh oh oh
You can feel it yeah
Oh oh oh oh
Nothing's missing
Yeah
Oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh
Nothing's missing

-Van Halen, "When It's Love"
off their 1988 album, OU812

I know we can't be together. Besides having never met, there are myriad laws which prevent my marrying all the members of QIS collectively. Who knows, maybe some of you are already betrothed to another. That's fine, I knew this wouldn't be easy.

Since you can't requite my love, can you do me one small favor? Enclosed are two phones we purchased from Verizon Wireless. We need them to be developer-enabled. Grant me this one request, my love.

Yours in the eternal bonds of passion,

Morland

After never having seen Yo La Tengo in person, I've now seen them twice in three days: this past Tuesday in concert and tonight, eating dinner a few tables away from me. Word.

Somewhat like an erstwhile quadriplegic discovering his arms now function, I can suddenly use my new phone to make outgoing calls, but still am unable to receive them. Baby steps... er, pull-ups.

Ok, my ire is somewhat soothed by our swiftly approaching (T minus 10 minutes and counting) field-trip to go see the final Lord of the Rings installment as well as the substantial service credit Sprint has chosen to dole out to me, but I'm still upset.

I've put together a brief introduction to XHTML MP, the emerging dominant standard for mobile device browser markup. It's targeted at those with some basic HTML familiarity, and is by no means advanced nor comprehensive. I was researching it at work and realized there's no concise middle-of-the-road introduction; everything is either way too vague or far too technical.

I've now been told that it will be an additional two days before my mobile service will be active. I'm dealing with a wildly spastic range of emotions, and when it settles I will write more on this topic. I hope my power-lunch schedule can recover.

The question "can you carve dragon teeth into the rim of a communal Krispy Kreme doughnut at your place of work with a plastic knife and still evade inquiries from fellow employees if caught" has ceased to be rhetorical, and is answered with a definitive "not unless it's your job".

:: The global unifying effects of customer resource management: spreading the hate

I am a man disconnected. Through the ostensible miracle of local number portability, I was to have my mobile number transferred from Verizon to Sprint so I could finally possess, with all my being, the snazzy new Treo 600, and so I could save some coin by piggy-backing on a family plan. This transference, carried out by some magick with which I am not acquainted, should have been finished last Thursday at 4:07PM (CST). It was not so. My world has been reduced to a giant echo chamber. My own voice is my only companion.

Also failing to provide assistance were Sprint representatives from: Illinois, Florida, California, and The Philippines. Indeed, half the global village is now on my blacklist (the remainder of this half was added previously, after the infamous Tegucigalpa Tea Party fiasco).

Then came James from Oklahoma, claiming to be "tier 2.5" support. He quickly found the problem, resolved it, and informed me that my service would be active in a mere... 48 hours. Excellent - only a 5-day window of undignified radio silence, assuming his claim to have remedied this error is accurate. It is an affront to technological progress.

:: Sprint PCS has absconded with eight hours of my time, my social life, and my already paltry dignity.

Which is ok, I guess, since I had aspirations of becoming a hermit anyway. But not one of those dignified hermits.

I'm suffering the wrath of local number portability, and can't be reached by phone for the moment. Should you attempt to call me, do not be alarmed if the recording of the nice lady informs you that my account it temporarily inaccessible. It is the automated message of the beast, and his appetite for flesh is unbounded.

Caffeine is cleared from the body through metabolism and excreted in the urine. Symptoms of overdose include insomnia, restlessness, tremor, delirium, tachycardia, and running of the mouth.

Caffeine really does a number on me. Each and every one of the above-mentioned phenomena seem about right (especially the part about excretion through the urine!). But I'll be damned if it doesn't make for a cool poster.

One would be temped to think, having written about the holiday party tonight and the upcoming lunch fiesta, I would have remembered the company gift-swap (using "Yankee" rules) was scheduled for today, and would have planned accordingly (i.e. purchased a gift). That would lead one down a primrose path of specious presumption. This is the second year in a row I've forgotten.

Not sure how this slipped by me, but I just realized that last Friday marked two years since the first day at my current job. Tomorrow I'll attend my third holiday party, and next Thursday is the third group holiday lunch I've organized.

When I went to Comdex last year (photos here), I struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to me on the shuttle bus between the hotel and the convention center. Comdex has been around for a while (though its venerability may be in jeopardy - lately it's been going downhill, or so I am told) and whenever two or more conventioneers start chatting, the interlocutors will eventually reminisce about Comdexes of yore. Nobody waxes nostalgic over conventions better, except maybe for aged politicians getting one last chuckle over how they stuck it to those hippies back in '68 at Chicago. Boy, they don't make 'em like Dailey anymore, huh?

Our shuttle bus-driver's shortcut had landed us in the thick of Strip traffic, baking in the Las Vegas sun, and, our small talk exhausted, the man started down the obligatory path of wistfulness.

"Naw, don't get me wrong, it's still big, but nothing like two, three years ago. I remember we tried to book a hotel three months in advance, and every place in the city was sold out. And if you think this traffic is bad... How many've you been to so far?"

I debated with myself. Having been there for a few days at that point, I'd absorbed enough anecdotes and fond second-hand memories, whether through direct conversation or the involuntary eavesdropping that tends to accompany 80 dB speech, that I easily could have convinced a grand jury of my attending each and every one of the past 6 assemblages, complete with a hilarious (and instructive) recounting of the relative merits and faults of the all-you-can-eat buffets at each major hotel/casino in town. By comparison, duping the man next to me would have been a cake walk. It was early however, and the specter of standing in a booth all day was becoming more and more oppressive. I relented to my lethargy, and went with the path of least resistance: honesty.

"This is your first time here? God," came the reply, his eyes no longer focusing on me, "I remember my first time." He re-attenuated upon the young man before him and stuck out his hand "Congratulations."

With an almost nauseous jolt, the man beside me ceased to be just another drone trolling the temporary aisles for business and PR. A temporal mirror of potential sat before me, the ghost of Comdex future. The handshake I managed to reciprocate weekly seemed an initiation into a fraternity of the repetitive; a cult of the grand and unabashed acknowledgement, nay, resigned acceptance of cyclical impotence and the pursuit of treading water. This was Miracle-Gro to the qualm orchard in my mind (what?). The doubt trees, their fruit hanging heavy on the branches, were ready for the harvesting that would press their bounty into reservation cider (there is a special circle of hell set aside for metaphors this egregious, and I will see some of you there). More lucidly put, I felt old and headed in an unappealing direction, so I began to freak out.

It's been a little over a year since then, and my fears have been assuaged a little, mostly because I work with people who don't make it seem like their careers are as Sisyphean as my inner pessimist would have me believe. But now I'm beginning to have encountered all this thrice, and I keep thinking back to that weathered middle-manager on the bus. It doesn't help that my job-a-versary coincides with the holiday season, which exacerbates the contemplativeness tenfold.

One of the great things about having a push-style RSS news aggregator is that you can nicely keep on top on flash memes with little effort. When I walked into work today, I had no idea that camera-phones (er, more specifically, any and all recording devices) had been banned in movie theaters. Now, at the close of business, I've read about, or at least seen the headline for, at least a dozen articles, reports, and blog entries.

Anyway, the logic goes something like this:
Device brings new uses? Yes.
Device has both good and bad uses? Yes.
Good uses outweigh bad uses, but bad uses might be criminal in nature? Yes.
Device should be banned from any situation in which criminal acts are possible. Q.E.D.

By that reasoning I can think of a multitude of objects that should be illegalized in many contexts. Or perhaps, if we follow the handgun paradigm, phone manufacturers should be liable when the MPAA decides someone with a camera-phone has eaten into their profits.

Anyway: I just got a shiny new Treo 600. They can take it from me whenever they want - out of my cold, dead, hands.

I booked a flight to LA today, for "the holidays". Whenever I know I'm going to fly home anytime soon, I always start harboring far-fetched fantasies about befriending the people next to me.

I know I'm not alone in this respect. When you spend several hours sitting next to someone, especially en route to a mutual destination, your mind inevitably wanders to the details of the strangers' life. It's not unlike being held hostage together, bound and gagged, in a little cave without anything else to focus on - except with peanuts and orange juice. Decorum dictates that one should not say anything unless absolutely necessary, but that doesn't keep me from fantasizing about some iconoclastic row-mate throwing the rules out the (pressurized) window and reaching for a little human contact. Especially with these trips home: they're five and a half hours long. That's just enough time for something to develop.

There's really no limitations on these scenarios - it doesn't have to be some supermodel or famous Nobel laureate, just someone engaging in a little mutual information flow between iterant souls at forty thousand feet above sea level. Perhaps it's some oil-baron billionare willing to invest in one of my hairbrained schemes ("Sir, I know you're a busy man, but get this: people throw around the metaphor 'building a bridge to our future' all the time, but I've got the technology to make it literally work!"), a cute college co-ed who thinks she's the next messiah and forces me to prove my devotion to her by eating coral until I can't distinguish the porous fragments in my mouth from the shards of tooth enamel they've chipped off, or even just a washed-up ex-con with a score to settle.

It's totally unreasonable. I'm apt to be a wretched conversationalist, even with people I know well, and keeping my mouth shut doesn't make me look any prettier.

But maybe those boundaries aren't meant to be traversed, like with familiar strangers. Unlike familiar strangers though, who repeatedly share public space with us, we only see these travel companions once, but for such a duration and in such close quarters that we achieve a comparable level of exposure ("single-instance extended time-frame proximal strangers"?). We witness a great deal of their mannerisms, behavior, and, provided they read anything or listen to some music, even their interests. Maybe it would be a transgression against social governing dynamics by attempting anything more intimate, like interlocution.

Someone should start a meta-list of the top lists of top things from 2003. Maybe I'll do that. Send me suggestions (michaelorland ATSYMBOL yahoo PERIOD com) or add them yourself to this nice little ad hoc wiki page. Finalists will be announced Jan 1 (or thereabouts, depending on certain variables [smugly makes drinky-drinky gesture with hand]).

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed snow falling in spurts from the fire-escape attached to the building across the alley (digression: I'm not sure that it's technically an alley. It's the space between the rear of my building and the rear of the building on the opposite side of the block. No cars or pedestrians can use it for travel, but "alley" sounds nicer that "the empty space stipulated by zoning laws which nevertheless is meager enough to provide strangers with a clear view of my every action, in return for occasionally allowing me to glimpse them nude".) and thought for a second that the half-foot of powder we received over the weekend might be melting. The back of the building across the voyeuristic chasm faces south, and occasionally the upper floors receive enough sustained sunlight to make this happen. My hopes were dashed as I saw it was a scampering squirrel brushing the falling snow off the rusty metal in the wake of descent. If its sole initial purpose was to reach the bottom, then surely the frightened pigeons frenetically flapping out of the way served as an unexpected treat. If its goal was mischief alone, then what a resounding success.

Da' diminutive mammal, which I quickly named Hoppy the Amorous Squirrel (the jingle goes something like "(S)he loves you, (s)he loves me, but not platonically, like the Care Bears or Casper - it's more of a courtship with the very direct purpose of breeding, which is natural for any creature well past its sexual peak and faced with the dire prospect of failing to pass on its genes and propagate this endless, and ultimately meaningless, cycle of transient existence, just look at the success of internet dating for corroboration of this biologically hard-coded longing" and is sung to the tune of "Lady in Red" by Chris de Burgh, whose catchy hook and sophisticated orchestration will deliver the bittersweet poignancy of the jingle perfectly, and whose daughter was recently crowned Miss World), followed a route impossible for humans, but surprisingly efficient for any agile animal about the size of a squirrel or even, say, a chipmunk. It looked positively delighted as it leaped from step to handrail, window-ledge to chain-link.

The squirrels don't saunter down our fire-escape. Some say it's because we don't have one; I like to think they relish the symbolism.

I was instantly taken back to a book I'd read as a child, which described the joy of one particular wittle fuzzy critter as he cultivated escape tactics inside an upright piano, appropriating the inner workings of the device for his own personal gymnasium... something like found art, but more like found playground. I remember wanting our hamster to do the same, so I could open up the top and see her somersaulting over the hammers and using the strings like the world's largest set of parallel bars. Alas, she seemed more prone to hoarding food pellets in the corner of her cage. Damn pragmatic rodents. Way to puncture my children's book fantasy. Next I'll learn that Clifford the Big Red Dog had rabies, or that the Narnia chronicles were one huge Christian allegory.

But today I was satisfied with leaning on the arm-rest of my couch watching Hoppy the Amorous Squirrel, trying to ignore the fact that I'm developing a $60 a week karaoke habit.

If you hadn't made an effort to stay informed about the FCC's decision back in June regarding media consolidation, would you still have been kept up to date? Unlikely.

The male half of the Albanian couple who clean our office says hello to me and, though I know he will not understand, I respond and ask how he is doing. This makes me a good person.

Sorry for not posting much this week, but I've been devoting all my blogging time to setting up a moblog, which is now accessible via the link on the sidebar.

One thing I've noticed about Mondays - something which perplexes me - is the lack of free time during the day. Aside from observing this in my own schedule, and those around me, I can see the quantifiable sluggishness of bloggers in my RSS aggregator, notice fewer hits to this site, and encounter a comparative wasteland of personal email.

Now I could understand this if work was piling up over the weekend, say from some mechanical work generator, a big, steely automaton with dollar-signs for eyes and capital in its belly, vomiting man-hours onto a Twister board of resource allocation (Left foot, Omega project! Legal division, defamation of character counter-suit!). But that's not the case. Wherefore then the constant toil? Are people compensating for the relaxation inertia they've built up over the weekend?