Stuff-mo-tron

Sun, 30 Nov 2008

I just got back from my Thanksgiving travels, and also from my novelistic adventures. I didn't do anywhere near as well this year as I have in past years -- I just barely squeaked by, inputting the 50,187th word this afternoon on the train. And it was a pathetic ending, with me basically giving up once I hit the 50k mark.

However, I did hit the 50k mark, so I'll call it a win, and see what lessons I can learn. First off, I get to post this:

Lesson number one: overloading the ol' schedule is a bad thing. The novel was competing with running a theatrical show, rehearsing another show, and Thanksgiving travel this month. Not to mention eating, sleeping, working 40+ hours a week, etc. That was officially Too Much.

Lesson number two: I'm not sure if there's a lesson number two, because I was otherwise pretty happy with how things went. If I'd heeded lesson number one, I would have been fine with this novel.

If you want to read this year's novelling attempt, you may do so here, temporarily:

I'll be updating the location soon, it's just not there yet, and (surprise!) I don't have time to deal with that right now.

Wed, 26 Nov 2008

I finally sat down and figured out the backdoor my favorite Brazilian skript kiddie was using to a) hack my site, and b) send thousands and thousands of spam messages as me.

Hi, skript kiddie! I've got your IP addresses now, and I can see into your botnet!

So, boo me for having old unsafe CGI scripts around (but no longer). Boo Brazilian fucktard for abusing my gentle, trusting nature. Yay for watching him flail hopelessly, trying to figure out why his 0wn3d account wasn't working any more.

Sun, 23 Nov 2008

I ended up taking over 600 pictures last night, and they're all posted now, right here. I think my overall favorite from the evening was this rockstar picture of Meaghan Darling [update: correct image now posted here]:

I'm working on a favorites gallery, and I'll post a link to that when I get it finished. 600 is a bit too many to traipse through... (Although I'll also say that my favorites list is only 90 long, and there are more than 90 good photos, so don't go assuming that my favorites match up with yours.)

This was from the Homecoming 2008 fundraising event that Annex Theatre hosted last night. I had a fantastic time, and I wanted to thank Annex for putting it together, and letting me relive my obnoxious-photographer highschool past.

Sat, 22 Nov 2008

I just plugged in my Dana, on which I'm (sluggishly) writing my latest Great American Novel, and discovered that my work for the day has been dissappeared. There are certain, distinct disadvantages to writing on a device which overwrites memory at every keystroke, has a "soft" power button, and is carried in a shoulder bag while actively bicycling. Feh.

Instead of my carefully crafted 1000-or-so words, I found a whole lot of "sasasasasasaasa." Not so useful. Novelling fail.

Wed, 19 Nov 2008

I just got back from watching the preview of Snow Queen (pdf) at the Bathhouse Theater on Greenlake.

I found myself looking at the tech, and the production, and how they did things. I also watched the show (except when the prop knife came on -- then my attention achieved laser-like focus after my experience making my own knife for Halloween), which was very good.

From what I gathered, they've been performing roughly this show for the last 6 months, with a larger cast, and in parks over the summer. This has resulted in a very tight show, with excellent acting, artful choreography and a beautiful production quality.

Although what I saw was a preview, and thus technically a rehearsal, they're definitely ready for opening night. I won't single out any actors, because they were uniformly very good (and, I have a friend in the cast; I'd hate to show undue favoritism). The audience was pretty sizeable for a Wednesday night preview, and hopefully indicative of their houses for the run.

I found myself particularly looking at the lights, after my experience designing lights for the Lovecraft show (which lights I felt were alternately good and lackluster). I'm also friends with the lighting designer, so I'll restrain myself to saying that I thought the design was very good, with an excellent use of color (particularly on the cyc behind the stage). He had a sort of abstract spot of light on the cyc at the top of the show, and after the show, I understood what it was for. He told me that it had actually been an accident, but it was a happy accident. Not a trick I would have thought of (but now I will...).

The Snow Queen is a Hans Christian Andersen story, and Google will quickly tell you more about it. I was curious to see how they would stage it. My friend in the cast, Molly, asked if it met my expectations for a fairy tale, and as I said to her, "I had no expectations. I was pleased with what I saw."

The staging was actually very sparse, and I found myself delighted with how much they did with so little. I was particularly impressed by the costumes, which evoked Denmark without being too elaborate, as well as a variety of fantastic characters including talking crows, reindeer, night mares (not bad dreams, but rather the horses which carry dreams -- I think), a horde of snow gods, and of course the Snow Queen herself.

There were traces of dance throughout the production, and there seemed to be movement involved in almost every moment. It was clear to me that a good deal of thought had gone into the staging, probably ideas which evolved and were refined over the course of the summer run in the parks.

Overall, I was very pleased with the whole thing, and it was entirely a worthwhile expenditure of my time. You, dear reader, should go see it. It's playing at the Bathhouse Theater on Greenlake, but only for this weekend, opening Thursday and closing Sunday. Go! Go now!

At least one of my readers wasn't clear on one vital point from my last entry: M. is married. I wasn't leading up to anything romantic with the story. Sorry to let you down. It is pretty cool though, M. and I established a friendship very quickly. I'm glad I got over whatever weirdness I had set myself up for.

I will say that dating (speaking of romance), online or otherwise, has not proved to be a rewarding pursuit, so I shut down my Lovelab profile for a good long while. I did meet some cool people, and I'm still in the process of figuring out what those relationships may become, but being in the dating mindset was driving me crazy.

Sibyl has an excellent attitude about this: "Online dating made me unhappy, so I stopped. Now, I'm happy being single, and when the right guy comes along, it'll happen." For my own sanity, I'm following in her footsteps. Except, of course, waiting for the right girl. Details.

Sun, 16 Nov 2008

A long time ago, in a personal galaxy far, far away, there lived a boy, whom we shall call Ian. Now, this boy had recently experienced the end of his first long-term relationship, and got himself into theater to ~~meet hot chicks~~ have some social contact.

As it happened, he did meet a number of hot chicks, and was more or less paralyzed about actually speaking with them. One of them solved this problem by attaching herself to him, so the plan met with general success.

However, before this aforementioned attachment occured (and practically in spite of it) our young hero (the aforementioned Ian) finally worked up the nerve to ask another of these hot chicks out on a date. It went something like this:

IAN: [pre-dejected, trying to put on a brave face] Hey, I was wondering if you'd be interested in going to dinner at some point.

HOT CHICK: [trying not to smirk] Oh, I'm sorry, I can't. I don't have free time for like the next two months -- I'm working on two shows at once. It's madness. Sorry.

Anyway, our young hero took this as one might reasonably interpret it: the hot chick in question was saying, clothed in a scant tracery of code, "I wouldn't go out with you if you were the last human standing." Of course (reckoned the aforementioned Ian), she couldn't say this outright, since she and our hero might end up working together at some point (the theatrical environment being as tight-knit and winkingly incestuous as it is), and then things would be awkward.

Some time after this, our young hero (the aforementioned Ian) found himself in a relationship with another hot chick, so the matter became irrelevant.

Except, of course, that it didn't become irrelevant, for the Seattle theater scene is a small one, and hot chick the first (let's call her M. for pseudo-anonymous clarity) and our young hero came into contact every so often. Now, M. (our heroine, if you will, for the purposes of this yarn) went off and got married and had kids shortly after our briefly hilarious scene above, and was by all accounts living the good life, which has only the most tiny bearing on the story, but is important.

Now imagine, if you will, an analog clock face occulting the scene, and the hands spin faster and faster. Pages rip off one of those obnoxiously wasteful page-a-day calendars and fly away, faster and faster. About 8 years pass, and we are, as they say, in the present day (and in a personal galaxy considerably more like the one that exists as you read this).

Our young hero is no longer quite so young (at least 8 years less young, in fact), and comes into contact with this M., our heroine, again. He is standoffish, having figured for all these years that she considered him some kind of inoffensive but essentially uninteresting freak.

Imagine his surprise when she seems friendly, and not remote at all, as he had expected. Interesting! This is not a romantic thing, merely cordial relations, which our hero had not hitherto expected to exist.

Our hero and heroine converse at a party, and words are said which confirm that cordial relations do in fact exist. This aforementioned Ian walks our heroine home (said assistance being graciously accepted, passing as they do through some of the less savory crowds available on Capitol Hill), as her abode is on his way home, and he is nothing if not chivalrous. They part on friendly terms, and our no-longer-so-young hero leaves the scene noticeably buoyed: M. had, in fact, had two shows she was working on, and was already engaged (albeit quietly and without ostentation) in a relationship at the time of the above hilarious scenic re-enactment. She was thus triply correct in her assessment that it was madness to consider adding any further complications to her life.

Our silly-headed hero, it turns out, had been constructing from the whole cloth of his fevered imagination this supposed indifference all this time, all these last 8 years. Imagine his relief!

Oh, I can no longer maintain the subterfuge! Yes, it is me we are discussing, I am the aforementioned Ian! I know, shocking, but I couldn't keep lying to you any more.

It was a moment of minor personal victory to realize that this aforementioned M. (who shall remain essentially nameless for reasons too numerous to recount here) was actually perfectly friendly, and was not in fact maintaining some kind of bizarre "I turned you down 8 years ago and now never want to speak to you again" grudge. And it was perfectly timed to buoy my spirits, right when they needed a bit of a lift.

In fact, part of our discussion at the party aforementioned was the retelling of our brief moment 8 years ago, which I had figured would have long passed from her memory (I'm not sure why my memory of it is so clear, for that matter). It was all very amusing, and means that my future visits to the aforementioned theater will lose the slight but noticeable tinge of tension I had imagined existed. I may even work on a show there again...

Fri, 14 Nov 2008

I saw a sign a few weeks ago that struck me (although I don't remember now what specifically it was advertising):

I've now had a chance to use the Planet Bike Blaze a few times (and I should clarify, this is the one-watt version, which is comparatively new). I have good and bad to report.

The good news is that this is one bright light -- bright enough to use as a primary. So the optics are designed "right" in that sense. The reason I say it's bright enough to use as a primary is that it's about as bright, in its central hotspot, as the light I'm currently using as my primary headlight, a NiteRider MiNewt.X2.

The downside is that the Blaze's beam pattern is still that you get wtih cheap optics. With a carefully crafted reflector, you can have a center spot with a tapering sidespill, which is how the MiNewt works. With it, I can see what's about to roll under my front tire, such as when traversing a tricky gravel path I use most days. With the Blaze, there's really no sidespill to speak of, so that although I can see what's in the center spot, the rest of the world is in darkness. This is a typical artifact of using a lens instead of a reflector.

The real problem I ran into is that the Planet Bike mount offers exactly zero capacity to rotate that I can find. If you can't find a piece of handlebar that aims dead ahead, your light is aimed off to the side. Particularly with a light as tightly focused as this one, that's a huge detriment. There are almost no perfectly-straight/flat bars out there, so this model is going to spend a lot of time illuminating the side of the road.

To PB's credit, the mount does seem to offer the option, albeit poorly thought out, of rotating 90°. However, it's just not capable of a 10° deflection like I want. I'd welcome corrections on this point, but I spent some time investigating it when I was working with my W-shaped bars, and was disappointed.

I solved the problem for myself by rearranging items on my handlebars, and regretfully giving up my front reflector -- I'll have to apply some SOLAS tape to make up for it (something I should do anyway).

I also had to tape up the handlebar to keep the light from rotating down. Sure enough, within 10 minutes on my first ride with the light, it was pointing at the ground. Although the mounting system offers the promise of pretty fine adjustability, it didn't quite deliver for me. It's possible I could have solved the problem with more futzing, but as I had to move it anyway, and the tape was handy, that was a good solution.

The other bit of updating is that my MiNewt has developed a new and obnoxious problem. It appears to have a broken wire in its connecting cable, so that unless the wire's held in a certain position, it comes on with 1/100th its normal output, and can't be turned off. If the wire is bent around to complete the normal circuit, it functions correctly. Interestingly, this has roughly coincided with the charging brick randomly not receiving power.

Fortunately, NiteRider is good about their support, so I've got an RMA number from them, and will be sending the whole kit and kaboodle in to them for repair. Good thing I've got a good back-up light!

Wed, 12 Nov 2008

I just picked up a new backup bike light. I'm always on the lookout for new, better lights, and this one looked like it'd be a good step up:

It's a Planet Bike Blaze 1w, and it does something I've wanted for a long time: it takes the Superflash concept (bright and not-as-bright flashes, with a characteristic pattern that's very noticeable), and does it in white light, for a front-light.

Unfortunately, it suffers from two bits of inanity that I simply no longer understand from manufacturers, particularly manufacturers I expect to be as savvy as Planet Bike.

The first defect is plainly obvious when you look at it. It's tremendously front-heavy (it's a heavy light anyway, and most of that weight sits forward of the center-point of that bar clamp). I know that even using gaff tape on my handlebar, and clamping the hell out of this light, it's going to slowly swivel down until it's pointing its excellent flash pattern at my front tire. Well, it doesn't do me any good if no one can see it.

This raises the second point. The beam pattern is just terrible, for a "be noticed" light: it's got a massively bright central spot that's fairly narrow, and almost no side-spill. Now, this is a good thing when it's a light I'm using so I can see. I want to see what's in front of me, and it's usually not so important to pick up peripheral vision. I even know why they designed it that way: the optics are easily and cheaply available.

However, this light is not strong enough to be a "to see with" light. It simply isn't bright enough to be a primary light, except on the very darkest streets. (Note: I may reverse myself on this particular point, as I haven't actually ridden with it yet.) So its tight focus and mode order don't make sense (it switches on to low, then high, then flash, then off).

What I want in a "be seen" light is a 90-150° beam. I want this thing to broadcast light all over the place, ideally in a flat arc that I can aim at cars, perhaps 20° in height, and at least 90° wide. It doesn't need to be tightly focused, it needs to be visible to as many targets as possible.

All that said, I still paid my money for it, and I think it'll be an improvement over my current backup light, a CatEye something-or-other 410. The CatEye is even worse than the PB I already have (which uses the same clamping system as this one) for rotating forward around the bar, and the CatEye has a comparatively very weak beam. It also runs for twice as long on less battery, but I'll change batteries more often if it means I get more light and a still-reasonable runtime (PB claims 20 hours max out of this light, which I assume is on the flash mode).

For what it's worth, I've been happily using my NiteRider MiNewt as my primary "to see with" light for more than a year now, and love it. If it goes away for any reason, I'll replace it with the same thing, most likely. It has an excellent beam pattern, runs most of a week before I have to charge it, and it's very bright, particularly for its size.

So, super-secret note to Planet Bike engineers: quit it! Wide beam! And give me a light that actually balances reasonably on the handlebar, just move the whole thing back on the mount. It can't be that hard.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008

So, about a month ago, I installed a fancy schmancy new saddle on my bike. A leather Brooks saddle, in fact. I almost immediately took it off, because I couldn't find an angle that felt good. It was either pressing too much in that sensitive spot, or slid me forward, or pressed to much in the other spot, etc.

Several weeks later, I noticed that, all of a sudden, my legs seemed to be chafing. Now, I'd been biking for over two years solid at this point, there was no reason for this to happen. Not all of a sudden.

Not even bothering to find two and two to put together, I started changing things. I figured, hey, (and this is the point where you may want to turn off the monitor -- this discussion necessarily involves bits of my anatomy and articles of clothing I wouldn't normally talk about) I'm wearing cotton briefs which have a seam that runs right where I'm getting chafed: the joint where my legs join up with my pelvis, where the seat hits. Cotton == sponge. Maybe that's a bad thing!

So I switched to boxers, which I had given up on a year and a half earlier as being entirely too uncontrolled. There is little so uncomfortable as having a testicle repeatedly crushed between leg and seat as you pedal. Trying to remedy this situation is also at least as embarrassing as describing it. The problem still existed, and furthermore, all the fabric seemed to get bunched up right where I was chafing -- before I'd had a small wodge of cotton there; now I had a huge mass. Boxers: FAIL.

Next up were boxer briefs. I looked on Amazon (user reviews are surprisingly handy in this situation), and found some inexpensive but (and this is important) cotton boxer briefs. The best of both worlds, right? The anti-flopping properties of briefs, but without the triple-folded seams right where I was chafing! BZZT! Same problem as boxers, except with less testicle-crushing. So, a step in the right direction, but as painful as ever.

And by this point, the pain had become excruciating. Not just "Huh, I seem to be chafing a little," but "Holy mother of god, maybe I'll call a taxi!" I had one hope left.

I'd read about non-cotton alternatives, and at this point, I was ready to try anything. Anything. So I ran out and got a pair of Under Armour Boxerjocks. Stupid name, good product. Basically, they're boxer briefs intended to be worn tight, and made of the moisture-wicking polyester blend that UA uses so effectively, and which I've long appreciated in a shirt I wear under my racing leathers.

I thought, Ah, heaven, these are perfect! I rode to work that day, and it seemed better at first, but then, dammit! They bunched up right where I was chafing, and it hurt like hell. By this point, even walking had started to hurt.

So, I gave up. I also wised up, and went to the doctor, having finally realized that this was so abnormal, it must be an infection of some kind. He confirmed, yes, standard-issue jock itch (a fungal infection), apply this cream twice a day, etc. This elicited a huge sigh of relief from me -- it was just an infection! Problem solved.

I rode the motorcycle for a couple of weeks, feeling both like I was giving up on my ideals, and like I was getting away with something -- after all, I had a valid medical reason I couldn't ride a bicycle. It was fun to get back on the Ninja and shuttle around without any exertion. There's nothing like riding a bicycle to give one an appreciation of what goes into acceleration and going up hills and things.

Today was my first day back on the bicycle. The cream seems to have worked, and I figured I was ready. Wicking underoos: check. Infection under control: check. Rock on!

Imagine my disappointment, tonight, as I was riding home, and recognized the now-familiar burning sensation. ARGH! Did my body get its one taste of that damned leather saddle, and is now spoiled!? It was nice how narrow the nose of that thing was, but surely one day of riding on it couldn't have...

At approximately this point in my reasoning, as I rode along, I gave myself a virtual dopeslap. I pulled over to the side of the road, leaned the bike up against a fence, and pulled out my little toolkit. I adjusted one bolt in, and one bolt out, lowering the nose of the saddle about 5°. The rest of the ride back home was, well, not exactly burning-free, but was clearly no longer generating that awful burning feeling.

Hey, cause? Meet effect. Effect, cause. You guys should get together more often. IN MY BRAIN.

Sun, 09 Nov 2008

I've found myself enjoying the creation of fictional Facebook status messages, and this one occurred to me tonight, but is too long to fit in the allotted space. Suck it, Facebook, I'm putting it up here:

We biked down city streets, you and I, up hills and past cafes with smiling crowds. Into the park we rode, and up the green hill, tumbling off at the top, to lie in the prickly softness of the grass, giggling, and lost in each other's eyes.

Wed, 05 Nov 2008

If you'd like to follow along on my novelling adventures this year, you can check my progress here:

For extra-special challenging crazy, this year, I'm also involved in at least one play (and possibly two, just for extra crazy-points), and building props for a third. And, you know, writing a 50k or more word novel. Free time? I'm sorry, I can't recall what that's like any more. Oh, and there was a historic, mind-altering election yesterday. That wasn't distracting at all.

Mon, 03 Nov 2008

They're still processing as I write this, but I will momentarily have the entire, ridiculously large gallery of Alaska photos available.

Note that if you're seriously on the ball with updates to this journal, the gallery might not be ready yet. There are a lot of pictures, around 1300. Also, for this reason, I didn't upload the 10 MP version of each picture, opting instead for a 1200x800 "high res" version. If you see one you just gotta blow up to poster-size, drop me a line.

Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.