Reddit smack-down

Horse, junk, smack, scag, H. Papaver somniferum (Opium Poppy) has been used for over 6000 years to get people loaded up and feeling good. The british fought a few wars over it, John Jacob Astor’s fur empire took a dive and he got into the smuggling it, eating an entire opium poppy flower is enough to get you good and zooted for a good long time (by contrast it takes a garbage bag of coca leaves and some nasty chemicals to make a miniscule amount of cocaine). The opium poppy contains almost 50 different alkaloids that have some pretty significant effects on the nervous system, but in 1897 Bayer Pharmaceutical figured out how to distill just the really crazy one as cure for the scourge of morphine addiction. Heroin was here to stay.

There are a few movies and books that describe that junkie lifestyle. It’s not all sleeping in alleys, begging for change, getting sick because you can’t get your fix. I’ve read that heroin itself isn’t even harmful. It’s the impurities, overdoses and generally filthy conditions of hard core addicts that gets them in the end. The general story goes something like this: you try it once, there’s this amazing, life-altering feeling of bliss and calmness. The warmth and good feelings can last for hours. You will probably fall asleep and wake up feeling incredible. But that’s just the first time. Your brain gets such a huge hit of dopamine that it pretty much stops making it on it’s own. Then you start to feel crappy because you don’t have any natural dopamine. You don’t necessarily feel the need for more heroin, but you don’t feel great, so you go get some more. After a while you stop feeling excellent when you get some in you and you’re just sort of doing it because that’s all you have left. Your whole life is structured around getting more heroin and doing it. And then 5 years later you’re broke or in jail or the hospital and life is terrible. Or something like that.

It’s not something I’d ever want to be a part of, but I think I’m experiencing something similar. About 8 years ago I used to read a blog by someone about my age. He had this wild and crazy lifestyle and wrote pretty freely about it. He made a lot of gross jokes. It was cool. One day he mentioned that he had an exponentially higher than usual number of hits on his blog because someone had linked to it from another site. The site was called Digg.com. I thought I’d check it out. It was awesome. Instead of randomly surfing the internet for cool stuff, here was a single point of aggregation for interesting and funny articles. Instead of finding new and interesting sites to experience the internet with, I only went to Digg. Eventually, I noticed Digg was dominated by a handful of users who had so much power to promote certain stories that links on the site almost became a single person’s surfing history, and it wasn’t all that interesting anymore. The comments sections started to mention a new site, a better site. This new place was called Reddit. Reddit was crude, it was a single white page with plain text links. Nothing was organized. It was anarchy. It was incredible. It was dominated by younger people. The ranking algorithm was pure democracy. The articles linked were fascinating and relevant to me. There were interviews (AMA’s – Ask Me Anything) where Jerry Springer-esque life experiences were described by regular old people. I got to see memes and jokes way before anyone else. Whenever people forwarded me links, I had to pretend to think it was funny because I’d already seen it 2 days ago. I hid it from everyone. I didn’t want anyone to know I spent so much time lurking on a single web page populated with geeks and shut-ins. Around this time Facebook was really blowing up. Everyone was doing Facebook. I wasn’t really a Facebook guy. Everyone tried to get me to try Facebook. I had Reddit and I liked it. I didn’t need two addictions. Digg was still around, getting all sorts of big publicity, valued at over $200m. Then it all fell apart. There was a user rebellion, the format changed, there were fewer user submitted links and a lot more sponsored links. Everyone fled. Digg died. (it was sold this week for a bag of old baseballs and some coffee grounds that didn’t quite add up to $200m). All the Digg users (it seemed at the time) came over to Reddit. There was all sorts of hand wringing and worrying about this wave of new users, they didn’t know the etiquette, they didn’t know the rules. At first I didn’t notice the change. Maybe there were a few more trolls out there and there started to be a few more posts dedicated to cat pictures, but the quality was still pretty good and I was having a good time. Lately though, I’m starting to feel like a junkie. It’s just not as interesting as it once was. I’m going on there because I don’t know where else to go. It’s been so long since I had a really good random web surfing experience that I almost don’t know where to go anymore. I check in at work, in the bathroom, when E is sleeping, when I’m bored. It’s pathetic. M isn’t interested in anything I have to show her from that site because it’s devolved into in-jokes and screenshots making fun of facebook (woo meta…). That joke itself is a sort of bizarre synopsis of where my sense of humor has gone. Making fun of ‘meta’ jokes in a rant about website that analogizes drug use in a ‘meta’ sort of way, using ‘meta’.. what has happened to me? I am such a bad bad hipster. ANYWAY… I am making my public statement here that I am going to try and wean myself off of reddit. This is going to be really, really hard. My attention span is limited to how quickly imgur.com can load up a picture of someone coloring in a passed out friend’s face that was posted on reddit. If it takes more than 6 seconds, I’m done. Lost interest. Moving on. What else is there to see? Don’t think this is a real addiction? Last night I was up at 12:30, hiding under my pillow with my phone, looking at ‘rage comics’ (look it up) because I had just spent the previous 2.5 hours looking at all the links I hadn’t seen between Friday morning and midnight. Why wasn’t I sleeping? I wasn’t having fun. I felt ashamed. DARPA and Al Gore gave me this wonderful internet and I was screwing off with ‘cake day’ posts, ‘karma whores’ and pictures of giant anteaters’ front legs (did you know they sort of look like pandas? Neither did I - isn’t that awesome?) . Go ahead, look it up. If you think that’s the type of thing you need to learn more about, spend some time on Reddit. There aren’t too many alternatives. I know how ridiculous that sounds. On the entire internet, there isn’t anything else to see? Let’s see.. Sports? ESPN is pretty dominant and it’s not Football season, so I don’t really care. Celebrity gossip? If Reddit is herion and Facebook is cocaine, gossip sites are crystal meth – everyone makes fun of those guys and it ALWAYS ends badly. I’ve dabbled and come running back to Reddit screaming. Wikipedia – this is probably where I’m going to land. When I was young, I read the Golden Book encyclopedia in bed. I’d just pick a letter for the evening and read the book until I passed out. I’d learn everything about California, cattle, chromium, chrysanthemums, Colombia, cyanide and Czechoslovakia (hey it was written in the 70s). I felt smart, it was a useful thing to do. I’m looking forward to it.

Can you smell that smell?

Lots of summer vacations invariably mean fewer people at work. As a result, fewer people are commuting to work. As a result of that, I usually drop my T pass in July and August and take advantage of mostly breezy drive to/from Boston. This also means I can take E to school in the morning. Win/sort of win for everyone. So it was this week that Monday morning I drove E to school. Monday afternoon I got in my car, baking in the sun in the southie parking lots and noticed a distinct funk. That in and of itself is not unusual. I have old socks, golf shoes, and maybe even a wet umbrella somewhere in the back of the subie. I rolled down the windows and drove on home. Tuesday morning the funk was there but it was a different funk, more potent, juicier. Another few minutes with the windows open and the smell was mostly gone. When I got to the parking lot, I peeked in the windows to see if there really were old shoes and socks in the cargo area. No such luck. Mystery smell out of sight, out of mind. Tuesday afternoon was a different story. Definitely riper. Heavier, stickier. I dug around in the back seat – maybe an old milk cup of E’s was back there. Nothing. Wednesday morning, same deal. Some unpleasantness but the night’s cool seemed to keep things down somewhat. Wednesday afternoon was so bad, I could smell it before I got to the car. But how was this possible? No way a car could smell so bad that it could be detected from 5 feet away. This had to be a low tide and a dead whale out in the harbor, an ill wind blowing dumpster rot in my direction. The subie was not the culprit, it just couldn’t be. The inside kicked like a billy goat, a wet filthy billy goat smoking a dung cigar and wearing dirty diapers for shoes. It was eye watering. I got out of the car, opened all the doors, got on my hands and knees searching for roadkill in the wheel wells. Nothing. Another drive home with the windows mostly open. Thursday morning, I could once again smell the car before I got to it. I put E in his car seat and he started crying, which is not unusual, but the stank. Good god the stink. It was exponentially worse. The stink of a thousand squashed squirrels baking in the sun, the reek of a medieval sewer, the pungent tang of the hippie commune outhouse. I couldn’t take it.  Then something caught my eye. A plastic bag, like you get with groceries, winked at me from behind a storage tote I keep in the back of the car. Hmm. I don’t know what could be in that bag. Wait a minute, we went grocery shopping Sunday. We got ground turkey for tacos. The cashier asked if I wanted it in plastic. I said yes. I unloaded the car and put away the groceries. I do not recall seeing the ground turkey in the fridge these past 4 days. Oh no. I have had a pound of ground turkey festering in the back of the car, in the heat of summer, for 4 days. Has it leaked everywhere like an abandoned mafia execution? No it hasn’t. It was heat sealed in a nice Styrofoam box. There was no seepage. I considered taking a picture. The possibility of a projective reversal of cinnamon toast crunch was high. I thought better of it. I just grabbed it, ran for the dumpster and chucked it in. Problem solved. E stopped crying. Thursday afternoon the stink was gone. Good times. 

more book talk

If you don't want to read about Game of Thrones, stop here. Go find something else to do.

Still here? excellent.

I'm here today to put A Song of Ice and Fire to rest. What is A Song of Ice and Fire? That's the official name of the 7 book series by George RR Martin that is more or less called 'Game of Thrones'. Why is the real name not used? Probably because A Song of Fire and Ice is kind of a silly name, but more likely because HBO made a popular show about the books and 'Game of Thrones' is the title they used.
I have not seen the show. Honestly, I was not initially interested in the show. Dungeons and Dragons never made any sense to me and it was a little nerdy, even for this nerd. Somewhere in between me deciding I wasn't interested and 6 weeks ago though, I was convinced to check it out. The TV show is wildly popular on the interwebs, so that at least spurred me to think about participating from a popular culture perspective. The books were highly recommended by a co-worker who shares many similar interests and beliefs, especially in the book department. (I should note that she - yes she - is a 40 something lesbian. I don't know what that says about me, but it does say something.). I downloaded one for the kindle and was immediately put off. 900+ pages. I figured I wasted $10. Can you return kindle books? I complained loudly to said co-worker. She swore I was wrong. So I procrastinated, read the other books I purchased until this was the only one left that I hadn't read. Ok. Fine. I'll try it.The first 200 pages were sloooow. Martin must have introduced 100 characters, cities, realms in those 200 pages. The names were odd, the descriptions were insanely detailed, it wasn't going anywhere. Yet, I kept reading. And reading and reading and the next thing I knew I was waiting until M went to sleep and then reading until midnight. And then the book was over. And nothing was resolved. I just spent 2 weeks devoting all my spare time to the Kingdom of Westeros and Martin just left me hanging. I should have expected this. I knew it was a planned series of 7 books. But seriously, what can someone write about for almost 8000 pages? It's still hard to explain, but I can now say I have read all 5 published books and I still have no idea where he's going with this. The last 6 weeks have been a blur. I have barely watched TV, haven't defeated the internet in weeks, don't remember any train rides, and I haven't slept more than 6 hours a night except for nights when I am so exhausted I can't even stay up longer than M and pass right out. It's been brutal.
M thinks I'm crazy. My parents and siblings don't want any part of it. My sister A has at least seen the show and is appropriately excited. Most of my co-workers are tired of me talking about it. Whatever. You're all missing out. They are flat out entertaining. I am a bit of a hypocrite here. I spurned the Hunger Games and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because they were too mainstream. Yes I fancied myself a book hipster. The worst kind. Then I read them and 20 million people aren't wrong. The same goes for these.
Are they full of magic and wizards and witches? no. There are no gnomes, elves, orcs, trolls or any of that Lord of the Rings garbage. There is an Imp/little person (that got a golden globe for Peter Dinklage - one of the best characters I have ever encountered in any book/movie). But he has no magic powers aside from his prodigious appetite for liquor and whores and his lethal mind. There are dragons, but they are more of a concept than an actuality. There is a lot of knights/armor/honor stuff going on. There are princesses and queens and lords. There are castles and moats. There's sex, lots and lots of dirty dirty sexytime. There's killing. Half of the reason Martin invented 500 characters is so he can have any chance of people surviving to the finale. Don't get too invested in any one character, no matter how pivotal they are to the story or how much time Martin devotes to them. Martin is utterly unsentimental about killing these people. Or is he? The vagueness about whether or not people actually die is one of my few complaints. But when they really do die, they die gloriously. I shouldn't say the books are completely magic-free. There is some future-seeing and mysticism and a bit of mythical creaturing going on, but it's tolerable. It's on the fringes.
What really gets me going is the plotting. The back stabbing, the conspiracies, the loathsome villains, the flat out creativity of it all is impressive. It's a little closer to historical fiction or a political thriller than actual fantasy. Don't think Disney or fairy tales, think 'The Killer Angels' and the cold war (or WWI/II?) set in the 15th century. I'm hooked. And now I'm a bit sad. Long books take a while to write. Martin is adamant about not dedicating his time to one project and his production time suffers for it. Some of these books have taken years to write. The most recent book took almost 6 years. Martin estimates the last two books will be 1500 pages each. I am not optimistic that they will be out any time soon. Good things come to those who wait? I fear I am going to forget about these characters and lands and backstory. I'm worried that when they do come out, I won't have time to devour them like I want to. Oh well. No regrets here.

Shame reading

I recently read a statistic that attempted to explain the expanding popularity of e-readers: shame reading. People want to read crappy books but don't want to be seen in public with them. At first I thought this was ridiculous, but as with most of my initial impressions, it soon faded to irrelevance. Turns out I love reading crap on my phone. I don't even own a kindle. Well, M and I 'share' a 'family' kindle. Which pretty much means I don't have a kindle. But there is a kindle app for my phone and I don't need to to tote anything else with me in the morning. So the phone it is. I linked it to M's (sorry, I mean the 'family' kindle) and got all the books that were on it. Immediately I started in on something I was sort of embarrassed to be reading in the first place - The hunger games. Kid lit, ripped off, holywood junk, whatever, it was awesome. I ripped through it. I shredded the next two too. Best part about reading on the phone? I get to listen to music while I do it. No more listening to loud people on the train. I kept on reading books M downloaded that I didn't think I would normally read - Mindy Kaling, Tina Fey and Michael Ian Black all provided me comedy-memoir junk. By then I was hooked. I had to buy some more. I loaded up on the Stieg Larson books. These are not really so shameful, only that I was the last person on earth to read them and no one wants to be that guy. So they were soon in the 'done' pile. I had to get some more: teen lit, scandi-noir, crime-thriller, sci-fi, and now, the worst of them all fantasy novels. Yes, Game of Thrones in all it's 800 page swords and dragons glory is my current entertainment and I am seriously considering getting the next two. That will be nearly 2400 pages of cold castles and hot maidens. Giddy up. I will admit it, I am book snob. Born into and raised by book snobs. The childhood home is filled with great reading list material. I took great pride in being seen with 'serious' books. I looked down on the train-folk toting mommy-porn and dungeon/dragon tomes. Now I am one of them, but only in secret. Don't tell anyone.

(correction) there are 5 published and 7 total (planned) books in the series if which Game of Thrones is only the first.

I found a sleeping child

Don't know if this is comfortable or not

What's been going on

Any free time I get to post things online, they are usually videos of the boy. Thus the spartan blogs. Oh well.
What have I been up to?
1. reading pop culture novels. Hunger Games, Girl w/dragon tattoo, Comedian memoirs... Next on the list is game of thrones. I've enjoyed this so much more since I got the kindle app for the phone. Less and less sports podcasting that usually put me to sleep anyway.
1a. Dreaming of writing pop culture novel and quitting work. I don't think I could come up with hunger games and no one wants to read my biography, but the Girl with/who books were at best entertaining and at worst shams. Maybe something was lost in translation? Maybe I am delusional that I could come up with something better.
2. not cooking. Weekends are tight. Not a lot of time to simmering and roasting. Beef jerky is an exception. Minimal effort, maximum lunch enjoyment.
3. words with friends. Tried it once before two years ago, didn't see the point. M got it and we did battle. I also challenge my brother. It's entertaining. (I know, I know, this is not supposed to be an Iphone commercial)
4. Getting new clothes and stuff. M has, in her kindest way, informed me that some of my pants options are a bit past their expiration date. We made an unscheduled trip to get some new pants where I actually got sized up by an real life person and I now own three pairs of extremely well fitting pantalons. Only took 35 years. Now I'm on their mailing list and just need to start making lots more money. I also got some new shirts. Technically that's not true. I still haven't received them. They get mailed from some far off place and they use the pony express or a coal fired steamer or something. The first set was mis-sized. Now I await the next version. Soon I will divest myself of several tent-like offerings taking up space and gathering dust. I also got some new watch gear. I had a few soldiers who had experienced war wounds and could not be worn. Now they are back in the lineup.
5. Being a dad. This is probably the best of them all. E has caused a lot of chaos in general, but I am very, very happy he's here. He's happy to see us all the time (almost), he's claps when we clap, he sort of walks, he laughs and plays. Really becoming a nice little kid. I am sure there will be battles to come, but since I've been uploading so many movies recently, at least I will have proof that I was once the boss.

Faster and Furiouser

It’s time to recognize why movies are still awesome and it starts with Fast 5, the latest installment of the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise, thus completing the pentagram of cars, crime and incredible awesomeness (or is it complete? More on  that later…)

If you are unfamiliar with the Fast and Furious franchise, I suggest IMDB or Wikipedia or something. Suffice it to say, it’s heavily geared towards adolescent males (or maybe females too, who knows?) with megadoses of exotic cars, exotic women, cash and over the top illegal activity (racing, robbing jailbreaking, etc…). Pretty much what anyone with a little too much testosterone, a driver’s license and not enough free money thinks about all the time. I’d say it’s pretty standard stuff, except it’s not. These films feature one of the great enigmas of acting – Vin Diesel – a supposedly (really) short, overly muscled guy with a speech impediment that is somehow a master criminal, stand-up guy and toughest man alive. He’s sort of impeding on Sly Stallone territory with the short/thick/slurry act, but the Italian Stallion is pushing 60+ and the HGH dosing isn’t making him look any younger (although The Expendable was pretty awesome in it’s own right –the sequel is eagerly anticipated here). So we have Vin Diesel. Then we have his sister, Jordanna Brewster, who I cannot remember being in any other movies of note (nope just checked IMDB, I have seen nothing outside of the F&F franchise), and Paul Walker (another one franchise actor). They team up with a pack of oddballs they’ve met in the 4 previous editions to take down legendary movie bad-guy Joaquim de Almeida (go ahead and look him up, he’s always the drug lord and he’s great). The criminal team is also strangely made up of actors who only seem to appear in either the F&F franchise or something horrible (Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang) but the best and most entertaining of the henchmen are two Puerto Rican reggaeton superstars – Tego Calderon and Don Omar, neither of whom appears to ever speak English or Spanish particularly well. Tego Calderon seems to be doing his best impression of an inebriated Manny Ramirez and it’s consistently the funniest thing in the film (yes I said film, not movie). And to top is all of is Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, a formed U of Miami defensive lineman and WWE superstar who does a reasonable job in action movies these days. Among the gems he’s spouted as a pro wrestler: “See, the Rock realizes, there is something deep down inside you that eats you alive, something that makes you wake up in a cold sweat, makes you have nightmares. And it’s the fact that as good as you are, The Rock is, simply, better”. Annnnyway, that’s what we know heading into the movie. Someway, somehow all these people are going to mix it up and have a good ol’ time.

We start off with Paul Walker and Jordanna Brewster, on the run, somewhere in Brazil, because they just can’t seem to not commit crimes no matter where they go. It’s not a sociopathic sort of crime spree, more like the kind where they were forced outside the law by unfair rules and this is the only way to live. So they’re there, broke, seeking refuge. A former associate who’s set himself up as a sort of crime boss locally gives them shelter and food and talks about a new crime he’s planning that requires a particular set of driving skills that only these two seem to possess. How fortunate. Since they are broke and hungry, they are sort of forced to commit this crime (see, they’re not BAD guys, just good people who do bad things). They decide to do the job. Vin Diesel miraculously shows up at this point, despite the fact that he’s the most wanted man outside of the middle east. Even better, he’s driving a somewhat rare 1972 Dodge Charger that has been all tuned up and ready for war. Our heroes are also driving a vintage 1972 Nissan Skyline GT-R that’s also ready to go. Now keep in mind they are deep in the pits of South America. Driving conspicuous old automobiles without money or a classic car parts junkyard anywhere to be seen. How have neither of these guys been caught yet? Who cares!

They do the job, Vin Diesel changes the plan, bad government type guys get killed (not by our heroes though) and now The Rock is on the case, working for the US Marshals. He shows up wearing a t-shirt designed for an infant and sweating profusely. For some reason The Rock is the only guy who sweats at any point in the movie, despite it being set in Brazil, and he is constantly DRENCHED. Even after a cartoonish brawl with Vin where they crash through so many wall you wonder how the building is still standing, he’s the only one sweating. At some point after the Rock gets involved and the evil Drug Lord decide to go after Vin and the gang, the gang decides to do one last job, to even the score and make their final getaway. Cue the criminal mastermind role for Mr. Diesel. We never get to see the entire plan, because that’s half the fun, seeing what they cooked up. Sooner or later though, the Rock catches up to the gang and takes them in. Or so it seems. Evil drug lord wants them worse and some more government guys die. Despite how much time and effort the gang put into staying away from the Rock, they somehow decide to help him out in his great moment of need and in a nod to the bro code of backing people when they hook you up, The Rock inexplicably decides to join the gang. Incidentally, Paul Walker used to be an FBI guy, but Vin Diesel’s particular brand of criminality is unusually persuasive and now he has 2 Feds working for him. There’s a very well done and particularly spectacular robbery/chase scene where half of Rio De Janeiro gets destroyed. (River of January.. why aren’t any US cities named like that? South America has the best city names). During the climactic chase scene, we learn that the team all of a sudden has thousands of dollars worth of electronic equipment at their disposal and of course they all know how to use it perfectly. This is a bunch who was so broke they couldn’t eat a few weeks back and now they’re better equipped than the CIA. Delightful. The chase ends, everybody’s happy. The Rock even decides to give the gang a head start for helping him out? (I thought he was helping them?) A Rio cop lady falls for Vin D, and cue the montage of how it all turns out for everyone.

Does this all sound ridiculous? Of course it does. And I could watch 6 more hours of this, easily. It’s so much more entertaining than what would happen in ‘real life’. Sure the franchise is mocked by ‘serious’ critics, but it knows where its lane is and stays there. Show some girls, cars, cash, maybe a somber scene where the guys reflect on what they’ve done and swear allegiances, and start counting the cash at the box office.

Best part is, they’re making another one. Usually at the end of these, there’s a little scene that teases what the next one is about. Can’t wait.