Wednesday, September 26, 2007

2:46 PM - one of my favorite topics

grammatical pet peeves

In Tony's English, the following words are nouns, not adjectives: legion, myriad. Similarly, the following word is an adjective but not a noun: motley.

Please adjust yourselves accordingly.

11:40 AM - clap, clap

this is incredibly touching

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

12:22 PM - synchronicity

three views on police

1. I recently got a fix-it ticket for not having a front license plate, so I had to find a special license plate bracket for my Saturn (since my car doesn't have the proper screw holes to just attach the plate directly). Then, in order to only pay $10 of the $100 fine, I had to track down a SF police officer to sign off on my ticket. After not running into an officer during my daily rounds, yesterday I headed down to the Valencia Street station in the Mission. After going in the main entrance and finding no "Information" desk or anything useful except a door to the "Police Only" parking lot, I decided to simply circle the building like a buzzard until I found an officer. The police officer I found was willing to sign off on my ticket, but there was an awkward block-long walk to my parking spot during which I lost my Mission Street Cred (hah!) and had to chit-chat with the officer. "I don't know why they don't have parking spots for you guys," he said. I debated replying that the police station didn't seem very customer-service oriented in general, but he continued, "It's probably because they are afraid of car bombs."

2. This made me wonder about the "anyone who is not a cop is a criminal" mentality, especially in the context of some of the activism and anti-war protests that Fenny described. But then I thought about Chris, who I knew in Vermont, who was an officer in the small New England town where he grew up. I always saw him in the context of his family, and he was always loving and warm towards his wife and children, and he was both responsible and fun to be around. Even more, though, he told a couple of stories where it was clear that he was being compassionate towards someone who he could have easily arrested or ticketed. For example, he once escorted someone home when they were driving home after the bar, and Chris made sure that he got there safely without all of the paperwork and consequences. He's the only police officer I've known this closely, but he's absolutely a living, breathing, compassionate and sensitive person.

3. This morning, I woke up and saw this video of a student being tasered at a Q & A session with John Kerry. Now. It's clear to me that the kid was probably full of self-delusions about the incisiveness of his investigative journalism, but that's really beyond the point. At a well-organized event, the moderator would have handled things gently and efficiently. Instead, the police resort immediately to physicality, which leads the student to inarticulately (but accurately) shout that his rights are being violated, and then he is dragged to the ground and eventually tasered. The video is a horrifying example of abuse of authority, and I really hope there are consequences. Still, it makes me wonder about the training that police receive, in so quickly treating this 21-year-old student and ineffective speaker as a violent criminal. Where was the moderator?

Friday, September 14, 2007

12:07 PM - fluorescent doctors make me cranky

not blogging wirelessly

I tried to write this entry from my Treo but after Blogger crashed my Treo twice in a row, I gave up.

My knee has been bothering me, although we have downgraded from a "sharp pain with every step" to "a dull, general ache and weakness standing up from a squat". I've been resting for two weeks, and apparently now the doctor wants to order an MRI. I have to confess, though: I am not very interested in surgery at this point. I remember what it was like to have surgery, to be nauseous from the pain medication and withering in my own bathtub as I tried feebly to clean my own blood from my skin... I remember how awful it was to not be able to raise my arm and you know what? I am not going through that again. So. Clearly I am not injured. Thinking happy thoughts. Yay!

I also -really- don't want to have surgery just a couple of months after starting my new job.

Moving on, I actually had dinner with some friends I met through playing World of Warcraft. I plugged in for a couple of months because it's good for checking out of the painful parts of reality, and it's cheap, and sometimes I crave it. But what is nice is that I may be able to make a couple of interesting local friends through the game, which would make it worthwhile to keep an active character available to play even when my knee heals and I get more into the activities that I want to get back into, especially involving dangling upside down in mid-air.

I had a couple of good blog posts that I never made: I went to a baseball game and being in the 2nd row behind home plate so that everyone could see my bewildered look on TV during every pitch. The players were much bigger than I imagined; either TV makes them look smaller or the steroids have made them bigger since I was collecting baseball cards in 6th grade. Other blogworthy news included some weird rant about video game design and probably a dissertation about being back in SF but still voluntarily isolating myself by doing things like watching 3 backlogged seasons of Battlestar Galactica.

Clearly my life is awesome.

In any case, I don't know if my ramblings have a point, but that is occasionally the purpose of blogs. Everyone think happy, supportive thoughts for my knee, okay? "Sore but nothing wrong, sore but nothing wrong."

Monday, September 10, 2007

1:31 AM - Yeah, I am up late. It was hard to think of those questions!

minutiae

It's been almost a month since I have updated. Lots is going on beneath the surface, but instead of talk about that, I'm just here to deliver something fun.


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