Blog of Billy

Bluetooth works quite well under Linux. Turns out it was working the whole time, just not in the directory with my phone's MP3s on it. KAnyRemote does NOT, however, work on my Samsung A900. The phone does not have the correct AT codes built in to interface with the keyboard and display. Oh, well. I've needed to write a J2ME midlet for a while anyway.

Probably the most exciting development from the last week is that Intrigue no longer acts like a stroke patient. After a mild amount of haggling, considering the industry, I got the entirety of my rack and pinion replaced, along with the tie bars and two new tires, all for less than 3 months of payments on the Honda I bought in sadder times. I now remember how much I love this car, and how I really don't need anything new for another...100k miles or so.

School started Monday, and of my three classes, the hardest will likely be the music one. For reasons already harped upon, I have no idea what it looks like, as the syllabus requests, to "describe how the music makes [me] feel." Luckily, my engineering classes have no such requirement. That will certainly make my music-feelings journal smell a bit earthier.

Dillard's is back on my good side. After interacting with the most awkward over-30 salesman I've ever come across, I swapped out the "airy" shirt for one with a bit more substance, and French cuffs. I'm already looking forward to the next time I'll have reason for cufflinks and tie.

I've been trying to decide whether I want to debate at all in the coming year. I think I've simmered down and accepted that I'll game for at least another little while. What keeps me tied to the activity, despite lack of time that I actually have to contribute to it, is ultimately the comaraderie and intellectual stimulation. That and sometimes Jackie's crazy disads really come true. Crazy though he is, he has a knack for getting me and others enthusiastic about the activity.

Inspirations have I none
Just to touch the flaming dove
All I have is my love of love
and love is not loving

Alright. I'm better now. %)

Four quick updates to things I don't like about my phone

• When sending a text message there is NO POSSIBLE WAY to
  include a semicolon, outside of the pre-done winky face. How will I ever flirt again?
• The T9word thing doesn't have an immediately obvious way to add
  words to its dictionary.
• When I try to send a text to multiple recipients, the phone will mysteriously add random people from my recent outbox. I can delete them and get the list I want, but it's really odd.
• Bluetooth is finicky, at least under linux.

Jessica Marlin's wedding was on Saturday, and as beautiful as any I've seen, though the crowd was a bit more...sophisticated than I was expecting. I'm sure her family was pleased to see as many as came. It was especially good to see Fike, and little Carrie Spielman I haven't seen in years is way hot now. Not that she wasn't before, but wow. I'm looking forward now to another debate reunion thing, where I can hear crazy stories about crazy times. Probably not as crazy as Phil Donahue hugging Snuffleupagus, but then again, what can be?

Shortly (read: hours) before the wedding, because I'm just that kind of lazy person, I went to Dillards to pick up a nice shirt and tie that I could wear out. The tie that got picked out for me is actually a rather nice one, and the shirt that went with it was also lovely. Both, though are significantly more expensive than the clothes I generally buy at the grocery store late at night. Significant like a two-digit percentage of the weekly Denise budget. Given that, I expected them to be of slightly higher quality than the union-bashing brands of Honduras manufacture. Oh, but my faith was misplaced. I put the shirt on after wrestling with the bizarre pins and plastic things and ironing out the square wrinkles, only to find out that there was a rather lovely hole just above my right nipple. Suffice it to say I had just enough time to engineer a solution involving scotch tape and not caring before I had to be out the door, obvious little scratch and all. So now, the shirt is in its little bag with receipt and separate proof-of-purchase sticker and waiting to be exchanged for a shirt that is a bit more consistently woven. The tie even succumbed to two little dangling threads that had to be clipped. What is the world of high fashion coming to?

It's fine. I think I wanted French cuffs anyway.

You remind me of home.
The heater's warm but fills the room
with a potpourri of dust and gas fumes.

Probably my biggest fear, one that I really hate talking about, is that I am entirely too far into my story, the plot is set, and I will die without fulfilling some measure of my potential, disappointing those who put faith in me: that I would leave the world no great lineage that followed, no great invention that benefited, and no great example that elevated. It's on days and especially nights where I am concerned about what I am doing as a person and as the person that I want to be when the prospect of even growing another day older terrifies me in ways that turn my stomach and make me resent the happy couple next to the piano and the old man next to them who sings Frank Sinatra songs. I really don't want to become someone that leads a meaningless life in the Capra-esque sense that if I were never to have been, the world would be functionally the same. I know that I have had some kind of impact in each of the conversations I have ever had, and I take great joy in that. That joy, paradoxically, does not quell this fear, but just reminds me that I fear at all. The ultimate concern is that I am measuring myself against a yardstick borne of my imagination, and one against which I will always be measured wanting.

The crazy part comes in that I am simultaneously afraid that I will have some great impact that will turn out to be negative. I certainly don't want to become an unwitting Ghengis Khan, or even Robert Oppenheimer. On days like that, I take great comfort in the notion that I will have an impact in the world that will die out like ripples instead of a tsunami. It may be a coping mechanism, but it feels like a real enough emotion to where I have had conversation at length about it with the likes of Mike and Novelist Dave. Tonight I realized that the heretofore quite adequate comfort that a life of mediocrity would give me is insufficient to overcome the fear of aging. It's almost as though mediocrity is a choice, and I demand my options be open. Stupid linear time.

The problem with turning one's life around is that it denies that one was capable of perfection. How can I have a Christ complex if I've already sinned? This is probably the primary reason why I go reluctantly into change, half-heartedly into games, aggressively into groups of my peers, and as a child before the seats of power, no matter how merciful or mild.

Oh, and I'm mad at Dillard's too, but that's transient.

Whatever. I'll calm down tomorrow.

It was a very good year
for city girls
who lived up the stair
with all that perfumed hair
and it came undone
when I was twenty-one.

Gotta look smart. Gotta keep posting. Too many weekends to report on, so everything is going to look thin.

Likely the most important, though actually the oldest, news is that the prodigal son has returned. Pvt. Matthew Steenson is not dead, nor even an expatriate. Instead, he is fixing Jeeps for the Man. Much celebration, joyousness, and even a nip of the finest on his return. Talk about a fatted calf.

Also good times at Andrea Morgan's dinner party. Feminist conversation with strangers can be both fun and engaging. I ended up spending that entire weekend in Norman town. Scary for my gas bill, but good times otherwise.

Live-action Transformers movie. Is this another sign of the glorious end-times? Since the original voices of Optimus and Megatron are involved, it just may be. The trailer makes me wonder though...there are no clouds on Mars.

Sprint has removed my spending limit after 5 years of late payments and occasional shut-offs, citing my "loyalty and good payment history." This either bodes very well for my credit rating, or very poorly for the naivety of corporate America. I'm going with the latter.

Random other thing I don't like about my new cell phone: if I set an alarm and then power cycle the phone, it forgets the alarm. You'd think that of the 50 MB or so that I have for music that survives reboots with no problem, they could spare 100 bytes or so to hold on to my wake-up call.

Al McAffrey won. Good for him, and good for Oklahoma.

Happy Birthy to Neisy. Her party was really fun, just the right size, and included the circle-couch thing at the Mont that I've never gotten to sit at before. I really hope that I didn't cause too much drama at the party, but I honestly don't remember the last hour or so of it. I do, however, remember having the better birthday present of the two of us that were competing, wittingly or not.

Other birthday greetings to Tomo. I know that Doug does not remember hanging out at my apartment, or eating cake with red icing, but I do.

Look, dude, you're rationalistic. You have a view of logic and truth that would look better on an eighteenth-century Deist. It only figures that you'd have a romantic side to match.

On November 21st, I will board Northwest flight 50 for a direct flight from Detroit, Michigan to Paris, France. I return that next Monday, spending a layover of about 2 hours in Amsterdam. I am pumped! I'll miss turkey and Grandma's assorted desserts though. Hopefully there will be leftovers and the kitty cat and I can have a later Thanksgetting between ourselves.

Now to get a passport.