Inside the Troublebox

Social Networking Overload

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:39:16 GMT

I’ve been messing around with Twitter today. It seems interesting. 140 character limit, so no loquacious meandering. Nothing involving thought or organization. And it works from my cell phone, too, which is a plus.

I might try to mirror it to my LiveJournal, but for now, here’s a link to my Twitter page.

And here’s a local feed, which I’ve also linked from my LiveJournal profile.

Wet Dog

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:38:24 GMT

An evil garden hose got loose in our yard. Thankfully, Rebel was there to protect us.

Here’s my hand. The gauze is hiding a half-dozen nasty holes.

Nothing cuts through a hangover like an 8 a.m. suture in the middle of your palm. My middle finger is now the size of an overcooked sausage (and roughly the same color). Luckily, I mastered one-handed typing long ago.

Buttercups

Sat, 26 May 2007 01:23:43 GMT

Walking along the shore of Lake Sammamish.

Buttercups.

Close Your Eyes

Tue, 08 May 2007 02:05:59 GMT

Scary puppy’s watching you.

And she knows all your secrets.

First Crocus of 2007

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 01:29:54 GMT

It’s been a long winter.

Snow, Again

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:14:17 GMT

Oh, and we got 8 inches of snow last night, when the forecasts were predicting less than 1. What’s up with that?

I ain’t going nowhere today.

The Things that Ensorceled Me in 2006

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:59:13 GMT

I’ve been meaning to post a “Best of 2006” list, but I’ve been lazy. As far as LiveJournal goes, I’m at extreme low ebb. Posting is no longer a compulsion or obligation … it’s just there. And it can wait.

Maybe I’ll get my ass in gear in a month or two. Until then, you get these intermittent bursts of words.

Anyway, here are the things that kept me happy in 2006. I tried to limit my list to things released during the calendar year, but the line gets a little blurry; some were available in limited release before January first – in foreign markets, at festivals – but they didn’t really become accessible until later on. I’ve noted these with an asterisk. I still haven’t had a chance to see Pan’s Labrinth and any number of other likely contenders, so I might need to come back and revise this list once everything’s been seen and done.

Favorite Movies:
Children of Men
The Departed
The Prestige
An Inconvenient Truth
Brick (*)
The Devil Wears Prada
The Descent (*)
Little Miss Sunshine
Nochnoy Dozor (aka. Nightwatch) (*)
Ice Age: The Meltdown

Honorable Mentions (good films that should have been better):
Underworld: Evolution
The Fountain
A Scanner Darkly

Favorite Television:
“House, MD”
“Deadwood”
“Dexter”
“Veronica Mars”
“The Lost Room”
“Dr. Who”
“Life on Mars”

Favorite Books:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon
Alabaster by Caitlin R. Kiernan
Already Dead (*) by Charlie Huston
Soul Kitchen by Poppy Z. Brite
The Dead Letters by Tom Piccirilli

Birthday Wishes

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 04:15:38 GMT

Happy birthday, velocityb0y. You rock!

I’m glad you were born.

Pynchon by Flashlight

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 06:08:09 GMT

Well, that was absolutely ridiculous.

A windstorm swept through the Pacific Northwest last Thursday, the 14th, knocking out power to over 1.5 million homes. We just got our power back today, seven days later… We were among the last houses without power. Apparently, we aren’t very high up on Puget Sound Energy’s priority list.

We spent our nights camped out in the living room, huddled around the fireplace during the below-freezing hours. Thank god we’ve got a gas-powered water heater; we were able to retreat into a hot bath whenever the cold got too overwhelming. To pass the time, I watched videos on my PSP and read Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day by flashlight. For some reason, reading Pynchon by flashlight seems appropriate.

Altogether, it was a pretty frustrating experience. But, I must say, standing on our lawn in the middle of the night, with 1.5 million houses dark around us, the stars sure do shine.

Photo Post: Rebel and the Tree

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 02:13:30 GMT

I’ve finally moved up to DSLR.

For Christmas (early), velocityb0y bought me the new Canon Rebel XTi, something I’ve been lusting after for a while now. I’m absolutely astounded by the quality of this thing! It makes our old point-and-shoot camera look like complete and total crap; the colors are richer, the flash doesn’t wash things out, and the megapixel difference … well, it’s significant (10.1 MP, versus 3).

Courtesy of the XTi, here’s Rebel’s most recent glamour shot, complete with Christmas tree in the background. (I’m thinking of printing it up as a greeting card.)

The original image looks a lot better. I had to shrink this down from 3.5 meg.

Snow Day

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 01:49:13 GMT

We got 6 inches of snow on Monday night, leaving us pretty much housebound for all of yesterday.

Here’s a view from our front window.

And there’s supposed to be another 1-3 inches tonight.

Science Fiction/Fantasy Meme

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 23:56:13 GMT

velocityb0y did this meme, so I thought I’d join in.

Here are the fifty “most significant” science fiction/fantasy novels from 1953-2002, as decided by the Science Fiction Book Club. I’ve noted the ones I’ve read in bold, italicized the ones I started but never finished, ~~striked through~~ the ones I hated, and put an asterisk next to the ones I loved (with multiple asterisks denoting exponential heights of love).

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. ~~Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein~~
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin *
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson *****
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick *
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury *
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe *
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. (On my reading list.)
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison *
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany **********
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
23. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling *
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson *
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin *
31. Little, Big, John Crowley ***
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick ***
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut *
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson *
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein *
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

As you can see, I’ve missed a fair number of classics.

Underwater

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 23:50:45 GMT

On Saturday, velocityb0y, tkat and I took the boat out onto Lake Sammamish … one last outing, a general hurrah, before storing the boat for the winter. Mid-November in Issaquah is not ideal boating weather, but velocityb0y wanted to squeeze in that one last kite-tube ride, and we were willing to humor him, despite the high-40s temperature. When we got out to the lake, however, we found the public boat launch completely underwater. This month’s record rainfall has filled the lake to overflowing, and the docks and ramps are now about two feet beneath the surface. In order to get out on the lake, I had to back the boat in, park the truck, then wade out onto the dock. The frigid, late-November water came all the way up to my knees … and it was cold. Very cold. I could feel it in my marrow.

It was strange, seeing the launch completely submerged. It was a different place, suddenly changed. Like how a layer of snow transforms a familiar landscape into something different … a different world, just slightly askew.

Anyway, velocityb0y had fun out on his kite tube. tkat took some video and we might post a clip, if we ever get around to editing it.

Cautious Optimism

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 23:37:37 GMT

The elections have come and gone, and I’m pretty happy with the results.

I spent election night watching the news come in. I tend to get pretty worked up about this type of thing, so, in order to calm my nerves – and put myself in a happier, more confident place – I started drinking fairly early on. I was pretty drunk by the time they started announcing results. A word to the wise: Irish Whiskey makes CNN a lot more entertaining. Although, I must urge caution. With each shot, political mastermind James Carville got more and more evil-looking. And, I swear, by midnight, he’d turned into some type of demon hellspawn… That man just don’t look right.

So, now it’s the Democrats turn to screw things up for a while. Frankly, I’m not expecting too much; the Democrats have a well-earned reputation for bungling and failing whenever they should, logically, succeed. I’m just hoping they’ll be able to put a brake on some of Bush’s insanity. If that means we get nothing but gridlock for a couple years, that’s fine. Mission accomplished. No more blank checks and rubber stamps.

On the work front, I decided not to participate in National Novel Writing Month. I like the story I’m working on too much to try to rush through it. I’d rather take my time and get everything just right… That said, I’m going a bit too slow, here. I’m still right near the beginning, debating how I want to proceed. At this point, there are just so many options. I have to decide how I want to tell this story – the tone, the narrative voice. I need names for my characters, not to mention deep, multi-faceted personalities and backstories. And I need to come up with at least a dozen interesting set pieces.

I do, however, have a tentative title: Bad Glass.

Spokane, Washington

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 03:53:45 GMT

On Sunday, velocityb0y and I drove out to Spokane so I could do a little research. I’m planning a new story – a haunted city story – and I’m trying to find an appropriate mid-to-small-size burg to throw into apocalyptic, hellmouth-style chaos. Spokane seems like a good candidate; it’s about the right size, and its location and environment seem ideal. We drove 300 miles so I could wander around aimlessly, taking photos and trying to imagine the streets empty and haunted. Not exactly difficult. There were very few people out and about … nothing like Seattle.

I took a lot of photos with our little Olympus point-and-shoot camera. Most are crap – meant to serve as reminders, hammering down location and feel – but I found some interesting images hidden amongst all the blurry and boring snapshots.

Here are some views from Riverfront Park:

The clocktower, visible through autumn leaves.

velocityb0y, walking underground.

Sunset over Spokane River.

I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to write this story for National Novel Writing Month (thus imposing a 30-day deadline on myself). On the one hand, 2,000+ words a day is pretty insane. I’m sure, at that rate, at least half of those words would be utter crap. On the other hand, a deadline like that might help my motivation, might get me working when I’d otherwise feel like surfing the web. And it would be pretty cool to finish a novel in a month.

American Politics: Losing the World’s Respect

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:55:27 GMT

"If you make a little mistake with one of your 'hos,' you'll want to dispose of that problem tout suite, no questions asked." "That's too cold. I don't snuff my own seed." "Maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican."

This election cycle has jumped the tracks, knocked a school bus off a cliff, and crashed into a crowded shopping mall. It’s out of control. And it keeps getting weirder and weirder and weirder.

For God’s sake, the Republicans are courting pro-life PIMPS! They’re trying to suppress Hispanic voter turnout with menacing letters! And they just won’t stop threatening to rape and murder people!

What the hell is going on? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills, here!

A Bad Way to Die

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 22:00:45 GMT

On Thursday, somebody was lit on fire about a mile away from our house. Going by witness reports, it was a pretty gruesome murder.

"I looked out the window and saw a pretty good fire going across the street. Going pretty high," a witness said. The site alone was tough to watch, but (…) what he heard was even worse. "Just low moaning quite a bit and then one sharp scream and it all stopped."

So far, the police haven’t arrested any suspects.

Considering we’re out in yuppie-ville, here, I’m a bit surprised. Issaquah’s not exactly a hot-bed of crime. We’re talking mostly upper-class families and old people.

Makes me wonder what the hell happened.

Bring Me Drugs and Orange Juice

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 23:06:45 GMT

I’m coming down with a cold. I’m at that head-spinning, brain-addled, scratchy-throat stage… No doubt, I’ll descend into full-blown misery by daybreak tomorrow.

Hopefully this cold passes fast. I’d hate for it to be a repeat of last year’s multi-month monstrosity.

In unrelated news, Cormac McCarthy’s latest novel, The Road, is quite good. It’s a wonderfully bleak, post-apocalyptic downer. It makes me want to start stockpiling food and weaponry … or, if not that, cyanide capsules.

I also enjoyed Martin Scorsese’s The Departed.

Paging Dr. House

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 21:13:51 GMT

I’ve had a strange, nerve-wracking couple of weeks, involving medical tests, paranoia, and a confrontation with mortality.

It all started with a standard, routine blood test. When the numbers on my liver panel came back skewed, my doctor ordered an abdominal ultrasound. I tried to get him to tell me what the skewed numbers might mean, but he stayed pretty tight-lipped, just saying it might indicate something wrong with my liver (which I could have figured out on my own). When I went in for my ultrasound, the attending specialist spent a long time gathering images … all quiet, and not at all informative. Towards the end, she left the room to “consult” with another doctor. When she came back, I asked if she’d seen anything unusual. Her response: “Well, we’re not going to admit you right now.” And that’s all she’d say. For additional information, I’d have to wait for my doctor to study the images.

At this point, I started to get a bit freaked out, wondering what the hell was going on. I studied the Wikipedia page on liver disease, while episodes of House flashed through my brain. Could it be cirrhosis? Hemochromatosis? Wilson’s disease? Cancer? When my doctor finally contacted me, two days later, he let me know that they’d found an “indistinct” area in my ultrasound, and I’d need to come in for a CT scan. When I tried to get him to tell me what an “indistinct” area might mean, he didn’t want to say anything, suggesting that it might be a cyst, or it might be something else. When I asked about cancer, he said we’d just have to wait and see.

Not exactly comforting.

Two days after my CT scan – two rather tense, anxious days – one of my doctor’s assistants called to let me know everything was fine. The CT scan revealed no major problems with my liver, and no impaired function. They still haven’t told me what went wrong with all those other tests – why my liver panel was skewed or what they’d seen on the ultrasound – but, apparently, it’s nothing to worry about.

Happy news, for sure, but I’m still not completely comfortable with the situation… Anomalous test results with no explanation? It makes me think they have no idea what’s going on.

I’ve got another blood test in a couple weeks, to re-check my liver numbers. Until then, I guess I’m healthy… Which is good. I’ve grown quite attached to my liver.

Still Summer, Mostly

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 22:45:20 GMT

On Saturday, velocityb0y and I took tkat out on the boat. We had a great deal of fun dragging each other around the lake on various toys, finally getting really and truly airborne on velocityb0y’s flying inner-tubes of death. It seems a 5-mph headwind is the difference between skimming on the surface of the water and soaring up into the air. Now that we know this, I think we’ll be sticking to the windier, north end of the lake.

tkat and I also tried a bit of wakeboarding (I still haven’t been able to get velocityb0y out on the board, so I appreciated the company). I was afraid the progress I’d made last week might have completely melted away, and I’d once again have trouble getting up out of the water. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. My wakeboarding skillz are definitely improving.… I got up each and every time I tried, and spent most of my runs working on posture and positioning, switching back and forth between a standard and goofy-foot stance. I also managed to cross the wake without falling, although I did topple over backwards not too long after.

What I really need is a week or two of twice-daily practice… Sigh. Perhaps next summer… Hopefully, I won’t be too old by then. As it is, my back’s pretty damn sore.

On Sunday, velocityb0y and I went to see Little Miss Sunshine. I thought it was a great flick. It’s an odd, well-written, heart-touching dark comedy/drama.

The Edge of Autumn

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:50:06 GMT

The weather’s definitely beginning to change up here in the Seattle area. After such a nice summer, I guess I can’t really grouse about the sudden chill and the sheets of rain pouring down outside my window. Still, it would be nice to have another couple weeks of sunshine … a little more time out on the boat, a couple more days in t-shirts and shorts.

Last week was pretty freakin’ lame (involving a whole bunch of stuff I’d rather not recount here), but the weekend more than made up for it. On Saturday, velocityb0y’s boss held a wine tasting party for her employees and their significant others. Very early on it changed from a wine “tasting” to a wine “drinking,” and I got pretty hammered. I get the feeling I might be a loud, obnoxious drunk; luckily, by the time I get to that stage, I don’t really care. I did learn one important thing: even after 14 glasses of wine, I can still play a mean game of poker (and I might have won, too, if velocityb0y hadn’t needed to get home).

On Sunday, after recovering from all that alcohol, velocityb0y and I went out on the boat. He played around on his flying inner-tube of death, while I gave wakeboarding a shot. Considering I’ve never tried boarding before, I think I did extremely well. I got up on the board on my fourth or fifth try, and I managed to get a couple respectable runs in (respectable for an inexperienced newbie, that is). I was just starting to get things under control – steering, cutting across the wake, not looking like a total spazz – when the cold forced me in. Hopefully, I’ll be able to squeeze in a couple more practice sessions before the lake freezes over.

Addendum: Feel free to congratulate velocityb0y and me on our NINE YEARS together. We started dating way back on 9/12/97.

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Fri, 15 Sep 2006 02:35:49 GMT

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Mr. Rotmeyer Makes his Entrance

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 04:14:29 GMT

I haven’t felt much like writing lately. Maybe it’s writer’s fatigue, or maybe my brain’s broken. Or perhaps I’m just lazy. Whatever the reason, my blog posts have become very sporadic. Maybe I’ll get a second wind sometime soon … start a daily, serialized novel – The Many Unfortunate Odors of Thomas P. Rotmeyer.

velocityb0y and I have been trying to get out on the boat as much as possible; I, personally, want to teach myself how to wakeboard, while he wants to play with his crazy, flying inner-tubes. Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten too many chances yet… And now it looks like we’ll be sidelined for yet another week. See, yesterday, we managed to bung up the prop at the public launch. It’s a fairly minor repair – we’re getting a new prop and repairing the old one as a spare – but it’ll be in the shop until Friday. velocityb0y’s frustration and disappointment is becoming palpable. There are only a handful of truly good boating days left in the season, and he doesn’t want to wait until next year to master his extremely dangerous toys.

I keep telling him we could go out onto the lake well into October… Too bad he’s such a pussy about cold water.

Bald Cats Look like Marshmallows

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 02:45:40 GMT

I took Smokey to get a haircut today. Her long fur was getting matted and gross, and no matter how much we brushed, we couldn’t get it all straightened out … nothing but mad lumps and tangles, like dried molasses in a shag carpet.

Here are some before and after shots.

Nothing but a big poof of fur.

The indignity of it all.

I think she hates me now.

Lesson Learned

Sun, 03 Sep 2006 21:41:47 GMT

So, we cracked open my computer and found the fan and heat sink packed full of dust. There was just … all this gray gunk crammed in there, halting airflow and causing the processor to overheat. We cleaned out all the dust and – lo and behold – my computer is back to normal. No more random shutdowns. No more crazy, schizophrenic technology. Unfortunately, we’d already begun the re-install process before we thought to actually look at the machine, so I still had to spend a full day re-loading programs and tweaking the box back into shape.

The lesson? Dust your processor on a regular basis.