Shocking
How is it that in 25+ years of doing this, no one ever wrote in and told me to watch Trailer Park Boys?
Canadian humor. Seriously underrated.
Anywhere Else Would Be An Improvement, Really
C has already had the shingles vaccine, but a few days ago, she noticed she had some kind of rash.
Yup. It's shingles.
It's small, at least, and not severe, thanks to the vaccine, but it's inconveniently located.
As Eeyore famously sang:
I found an anchor over there
Now it's on my derriere.
C is calling it "ass cooties."
The Greatest Job (that no longer exists)
I was talking to DQ Story Consultant John Harwood this afternoon. He's playing a game where you clean books and put them on the proper shelves (or something). He mentioned how satisfying it was, and I told him his perfect job would have been
a reference desk person at a library.
I still remember being in the Corpus Christi library (the downtown location, the big one) and talking to the person running the reference desk. I asked her a question, and she went off and did research, then came back with the answer. Then she was kind enough to tell me about her job and how much she enjoyed it.
Getting paid to research oddball queries all day long? Sign me up.
For both John and myself, it would have been one of the most satisfying jobs imaginable. A full day of learning every day at work.
That job is gone now, of course. People don't ever have to ask where information is anymore. Of course, there's a huge difference between information and knowledge. We seem to be drowning in the former and sorely lacking in the latter.
Life
Well, even though I started trying to pre-order the new Steam controller right at 1:00, I didn't get one. I kept putting it in my cart, verifying my address, and then when it came to payment it said it couldn't update the transaction.
It wasn't just me. Quite a few people were stuck in the same situation, and now it shows out of stock.
I don't complain about Steam very often, but seriously, this is so stupid.
PSA
The new Steam controller is available for pre-order at 1PM EST.
Three, Now Two
There were three athletic achievements I wanted to see before I die:
1. a sub-2:00 marathon.
2. a woman running a sub-4:00 mile.
3. a woman pole vaulting 18'0"
Now, there are only two remaining: Sabastian Sawe breaks two-hour barrier to make history in London Marathon. 1:59:30.
Incredibly, the runner who finished second ALSO broke two hours--in his first marathon. Incredible.
Technology had a role in this, as Sawe's Adidas shoes weighed 3.4 ounces. "As light as a baby kitten," an article mentioned, totally missing the point, as baby kittens are not suitable footwear for running.
If you want to understand how fast this was, go run a hundred meters in 17 seconds. That was his average pace for just under two hours.
The other two will take longer. The women's mile record is 4:06, and the women's pole vault record is 16'7". When the men broke through, they were both considered astounding athletic achievements at the time, and I hope I'm around long enough to see women do the same.
Where Are They Now? Stephanie Assham-Dubious Edition
Mike G. wrote in and asked why I hadn't used Stephanie Assham-Dubious as an example during the post I made about last names.
That brings back some memories.
Stephanie Assham was originally hired in 2003 as my administrative assistant. She married Leonard Dubious in 2004 and adopted a hyphenated last name. She rose through the ranks to Director of Corporate Communications, although, in truth, no one else had been hired in the previous fourteen years and it was entirely title inflation. Still, though, it looked good on a business card.
In 2017, the picture becomes murky. Stephanie went on an innocent trip to Guatemala and somehow wound up alerting the secret police. After being tailed for much of her visit, her passport was confiscated as she prepared to board a return flight home. After escaping captivity, she sent me a postcard saying she was traveling overland by burro to Belize.
There, the trail runs cold.
Was she mixed up in a criminal enterprise? Working as an intelligence agent? I never knew.
It's been nine years now, and I've often thought of her, mostly because her filing system was so cryptic I'm still looking for important documents almost a decade later.
If you're out there, Stephanie, send up a flare. Or a document explaining your filing system.
A Music Experiment
There are times when I listen to an album from the 60s-70s and wonder what it felt like to have it in your hands the day it released and hear it for the first time.
Sergeant Pepper. Or Dark Side of the Moon. Or Who's Next.
You wouldn't have heard or seen any early reviews. Going in totally blind.
Plus, particularly in the case of the Beatles, the progression over time was insane. And they were pumping out multiple albums a year for the first three years, then one a year after that. Incredible pace.
I decided to try an experiment, and hopefully Eli 24.8 will do it with me, because he has no concept of how quickly the Beatles developed musically.
Basically, I want to listen to the Beatles albums (and possibly the Rolling Stones and the Who on the same timeline) as they came out. So designate day one as March 22, 1963 (the day Please Please Me came out) and progress from there, one day at a time.
It will take seven years for the Beatles. Longer for the other two groups, obviously (plus the Stones started a year after the Beatles, the Who two years later).
I might compress the timeline a bit, but I actually really like the idea of the same amount of time elapsing as the original releases. And I'd stop at the end of 1973, after the Who put out Quadrophenia. The Beatles had broken up, the Who never released another great album, and the Rolling Stones had 1-2 hits on each album after that but no truly great albums.
Total time: ten years and nine month.
To There And Back Or Not
Eli 24.8 went to Cameroon for two weeks to see his best friend.
This made me nervous, because some quick research indicated that Cameroon was one of the less safe African countries to visit. Significantly less safe, according to some data sources.
The two weeks went well enough (although we haven't talked in-depth about the trip yet), but when it came time to leave on Saturday, he didn't.
People were waiting for their flight on Saturday and it was announced that the flight was cancelled. No reason given. Their passports weren't stamped upon exiting the airport and boarding a bus to a local hotel, so technically, they were now in the country illegally.
You do not want to be in Cameroon illegally, according to Eli. The police are problematic.
The airport kept his bags as well (his bag plus one he was bring back for his friend). So he's in Cameroon illegally (technically), with no money (he spent it before going to the airport, because he was leaving), and none of his stuff. He was trapped in the hotel.
Worse, even though they had scheduled a flight for the passengers on Sunday, he said if he didn't get out on Sunday it might take up to a week. Traveling from Africa is often erratic under the best of circumstances, and jet fuel shortages (thanks, idiotic war) will always hit Africa worse than anywhere else.
The new academic term starts today, and he's teaching a class. Not teaching for the first week would be a disaster.
I almost never see him nervous, but he definitely was when we talked on the phone on Saturday. It was the perfect storm to turn into something very bad.
Fortunately, though, it didn't. The bus came on schedule Sunday morning, the flight left on time, and he said when the wheels went up he felt a huge sense of relief. He was unexpectedly in Istanbul overnight because of the flight changes, so he actually broke down and spent money on the airport hotel (which was terrific) instead of being bussed two hours to the hotel provided by the airline.
He landed in London a few hours ago and should be back home now. It's entirely possible he did an Indiana Jones and went straight to his class because he's teaching this term.
"I may have had enough of traveling in Africa for a while," he said, and I believe him.
Friday Links!
Leading off, a story from 2020 that's still absolutely incredible: The Wildest Insurance Fraud Scheme Texas Has Ever Seen.
This is worth following, and it's intense: A Dispatch From the Most Brutal Fight in Texas: The Camp Mystic Hearings.
A terrific read: The Wayfinders: The Marshall Islands’ first national soccer team discovers what “home” can mean—on a field in Arkansas.
This seems like totally normally criming and not doomed to fail or anything: 3 Southern California residents sentenced in bear suit insurance fraud scheme.
From DQ Artist Fredrik S., and it's tremendous: The Hit Erotica Writers Outwitting Nigeria’s Religious Censors. Also, this is an absolutely fantastic read: Who Killed the Florida Orange?
From Wally, and it's wild: These Salmon Got High on Cocaine. That Wasn’t the Craziest Part.. This is also wild (and, by the way, "no"): Can an AI Performance Win an Oscar? Val Kilmer’s Digital Resurrection Is Forcing Hollywood to Create New Awards Rules. This is certainly possible, in much the same way that social media has shaped it as well: AI learns language from skewed sources. That could change how we humans speak – and think. Be warned, this is very, very long (and quite good): I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America. Insane: By the Power of Grayskull: The Masters of the Universe Popcorn Bucket Is a Castle and the Sword of Power Is a Drink Container.
Masters of Albion: A Peter Molyneux Joint
Masters of Albion launched into Early Access yesterday, with a highly suspicious flood of positive reviews (from people with a handful of Steam reviews who also had private profiles), including one calling the game a "masterpiece" after it had been launched for less than an hour.
Hmm.
Now the inevitable, real reviews are coming in, and they're not good. For a game whose only "strategic innovation" appears to be enlarging the cursor to the size of a giant hand, it's not surprising. And the predictable course of this game will not be surprising, either: a few early updates never addressing the issues with the initial release, "big things coming soon" hyped on the regular, all followed by its untimely demise.
Here, I'll save Peter the time and just write his farewell message:
Dear Citizens of Albion,
It was with a heavy heart that I announce the end of our humble kingdom. In spite of our tireless efforts, we were unable to attract enough interest to fund further development. Our culture no longer finds value in wonder and fascination.
In spite of development ending, I am amazed at the number of unforgettable moments created by you, the citizens of the kingdom. I only hope this experience has enriched your life as much as hit has mine. I raise my golden cup to all of you. Hail, hearty citizens!
Yeah, close enough. It's a wrap.
Last Names
I never thought about last names, really.
Earlier this week, though, I saw something somewhere (sorry, I don't remember) about how the number of last names was shrinking over time. Some have even disappeared.
Technically, I should say "surname," because in some countries, the family name is first.
It's obvious when you think about it, even though I never had. Two people, each with distinct surnames, marry. In most countries, the wife takes the husband's surname.
Repeat millions and millions (billions?) of times.
Now, surnames that seem very common (like Hall and Bell) have declined substantially in this century. Eventually, they may disappear.
Hyphenated names can mitigate this, to a degree, but if two people with hyphenated names marry, it's tough to keep all four. Conifer-Leiderhosen-Periwinkle-Henley doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
