Phrase of the Moment:
¤ Phrase: "Your little hopes and dreams."
¤ Usage: "Poor fellow, his little hopes and dreams have all be smashed."
¤ Origin: Quipped by a whore, or pre-op transgender man, or a sociopath, or some other lowlife who was engaged in a vicious verbal battle with another lowlife guest on the Jerry Springer show
¤ Notes: While the Jerry Springer show is generally pretty lacking in opportunities for intellectual improvement, you do tend to hear some funny jokes, of the personal insult type.  This was one of the best.  One loser was arguing with another loser, and when one said something about how she'd loved her husband, whom the other lowlife had stolen away, lowlife #1 replied, "Bitch, I don't care about your little hopes and dreams!"

You'll find it applicable to almost every situation in life.  It's the "little" that really makes it work, since that just so perfectly and cruelly diminishes whatever claim to importance the other person might previously have had. -- February 20, 2004

riday has arrived, and with it the conclusion of another week.  A hot one, and one I didn't especially enjoy. However, as I related yesterday in somewhat rambling form, once I realized that my malaise and lethargy and boredom was mostly weather-related, it really did help.  I felt a bit bored on Thursday, but the hours until dark didn't drag as badly as they had the other days, and once it was dark and cool I felt fine almost immediately, letting myself relax since I knew why I'd been annoyed and tense the previous few days.

It sounds ridiculous, but people really do get seasonal affective disorder, and being depressed due to seasonal changes is a recognized form of mental illness.  Or at least a depressive disorder.

Symptoms Include:

• regularly occurring symptoms of depression (excessive eating and sleeping, weight gain) during the fall or winter months.
• full remission from depression occur in the spring and summer months.
• symptoms have occurred in the past two years, with no nonseasonal depression episodes.
• seasonal episodes substantially outnumber nonseasonal depression episodes.
• a craving for sugary and/or starchy foods.

This doesn't exactly sum me up, since I don't get the food cravings and my sleep tends to go way down, not up.  Of course the major difference is that I get it in when summer begins, not when winter and darkness bring gloom and depression to the land.

Creepy. I really am a vampire?

However, as Marsellus Wallace ordered, I am fighting through that shit.  I don't like the longer days, the constant sunshine, the hot air, or the noisy children outside.  But since I can't really do anything about it, I must adapt.  I don't get depressed, and I don't binge eat; I just feel bored and irritable and have no patience with anything and am in no mood to be productive.  What I should do is just zone out with a movie or a book or a game, and pass the hours that way, in semi-productive fashion. Then once it's dark and I can work and keep my head clear, I should do that without berating myself for wasting so many hours of the day.  A man's got to know his limitations, and if for whatever reason I sometimes can't stand to do anything productive on hot, sunny days, I just need to accept that, and make up for it by working extra hard at night.

Thinking back, with more objectivity and greater analytical skills than I've ever had before, I realize that I've felt this way for a long time, and it's probably at least somewhat related to my annual "going back to work" depression.  I'd get that in late May or early April, when my work at the San Diego stadium would start up full bore, with 12 or 14 baseball games a month, after I had previously been working like twice a month.

I didn't like the job, I didn't like the time it took, and the money was in no way sufficient to make up for that. Plus it was just one huge daily reminder of how my desired career (novelist) was hopelessly quagmired, due to my dicking around and lack of ambition and drive.

As for the weather, I can remember how annoyed I'd get the first few days of summer, or spring, or whenever there was a real heat wave after days or weeks or months of cooler and cloudier weather.  It wasn't so much the weather itself, since I'd get used to it and after it was hot and sunny for a week or so I'd adapt and go back to being able to work; though I wasn't real happy with the weather.  And I never worked as well as I did when it was cool and cloudy.

Odder, I can remember many times when I was awake all night, working furiously on the blog or the D2 site or whatever, and when dawn broke and the heat began, I'd keep working fine, so long as the blinds were drawn and I kept it dark and it wasn't that hot yet.  I do that now, since I'm usually at my most productive in the quiet, dark, still wee hours, and that often carries through into the morning, though I've never had my sleeping cycle so switched around or non-24 hour'ed while living with Malaya as I used to back in San Diego when I lived alone.  It wasn't at all uncommon for me then to be up for 24 or 30 hours in a stretch, often working very productively for 80 or 90% of that time. I'd then sleep for a totally random amount of time; 4 hours, 7 hours, 11 hours, and get up and go for another 20+ hours, still working very well. 

Eventually I'd get back to a more 24 hour-centric cycle, but that sort of thing is obviously only possible if you live alone, or have a very enlightened and supportive and self-contained partner.  Or roommates who have nothing to do with you so you can just hide out in your room all the time and do what you want.

Speaking of the stadium in San Diego and the old days, the first event ever held in the new San Diego stadium was last night, as the SDSU college baseball team played, and they drew 40,000 fans, near capacity.  Obviously, new stadium fever abounds in San Diego now, since the college team generally plays in their on-campus stadium to a crowd of about 200.  In fact, it was the largest crowd in history to watch a college baseball game, a trivia bit I was surprised by. And it was the largest by a mile:

The old record was 27,673, set when LSU and Tulane played in the Superdome in 2002.

No one had ever played a college game in a big stadium, or a new stadium, or had the college world series in a real sized stadium?  News to me.

Eerily enough, I saw a news item about it on ESPN.com, and then went to the SignOnSanDiego.com site to get more of a local angle. And the main page of the site has a photo of a food vendor at the stadium, selling peanuts, with a bigger photo of him on the actual news article.  I'm a little creeped out by this. I would most likely have been there, working it, if I hadn't moved up here last August. I'm very glad I wasn't there though, since the majority of the article is about how the traffic wasn't as horrible as expected, while the trolleys were totally overloaded making people wait for hours to get home.  The hassle of an hour or more commute to the game every day was one of the major reasons I was eager to never work there, compared to the 10-15 drive I had to the old, centrally located stadium.  You can see idiocy galore in the article; the various public parking lots are a few blocks to a mile or two away, and yet city law prohibits pedicabs from riding to or from the stadium.  Why?  The one time in history a pedicab is actually the best available vehicle for a task... and it's not allowed.

Hate for the job and traffic and the trolley and other things aside, I'd still like to see a game there sometime this summer, if/when I visit the old home town, and I'll certainly try to find some employees I knew from back then, and get the scoop on what it's like to work at the new place, how the pay compares, if the bosses are still as stupid as ever, etc.  It's curiosity on my part, not any desire to go back to the old days.  God no.

One other note before I get to some news, and a potentially funny pet story down below. I am behind on email replies/quotes/blogging, mostly since I've had so much other stuff to talk about lately that I haven't gotten to it. I often get a good mail, and want to reply, but since my reply would be 95% identical to what I wrote about it on the site, I figure I should just wait and reply to them via the blog.  Thus killing the reply bird, and the site content bird, with the same stone.  To strain a metaphor.

The problem with this is that if I forget to reply to that mail on the blog, or other things come up and I don't get to the emails in the blog, then they tend to get no reply at all. And as my current BC mail volume is far too small for me to do like the old days (hell, like the current days) on the D2 site and just never even consider replying personally to more than like 1% of the mails I get, I don't like when I never get around to replying to people who send in good mails.

If I were smart I'd just reply to them when the mails came in, but copy their mails and my replies to my notes page, and then work those into the blogs, or just save them for the mailbag at the end of the month, and have that done in advance. A big "if."

¤ After I spent far more time yesterday discussing Spartan than I probably should have, I checked back today and saw that it was still a fresh review on RT, but only just. It's at clinging to a 61%, though that's based on just 38 reviews.  Check back Friday night when there are 100 and we'll see how the overall critical mass views the film.

Ebert, however, loved it and gave it 4 stars, his highest rating. His review is a good one to read if you want to know what the movie is like, rather than what it is about; a trick all critics should learn and that he has mastered.  To be honest, I have so little skill at that tactic that I don't usually even bother trying, and put "spoilers below" in big letters right at the start of my reviews/discussions. This may partially explain why Ebert has a Pulitzer Prize and I have a website.

The particular pleasure of "Spartan" is to watch the characters gradually define themselves and the plot gradually emerge like your face in a steamy mirror. You see the outlines, and then your nose, and then you see that somebody is standing behind you, and then you see it's you -- so who is the guy in the mirror? Work with me here. I'm trying to describe how the movie operates without revealing what it does.

We're off to see it this weekend, so I hope it's at least pretty good, or I'll be annoyed at having talked and rotten tomatoed myself into things.  And Malaya will demand retribution and want to pick the next movie.

¤ Weird news item about a woman in Salt Lake City who is being charged with the murder of one of her unborn twins.

Rowland was warned numerous times between Christmas and Jan. 9 that her unborn twins would likely die if she did not get immediate medical treatment, the documents allege. When she delivered them on Jan. 13, one survived and the other was stillborn.

Regina Davis, a nurse at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake, told police that during a visit there, Rowland was recommended two hospitals to go to for immediate care. Rowland allegedly said she would rather have both twins die before she went to either of the suggested hospitals.

The same day, a nurse at Salt Lake Regional Hospital saw Rowland, who allegedly told her she had left LDS Hospital because the doctor wanted to cut her "from breast bone to pubic bone," a procedure that would "ruin her life." The nurse also told investigators that Rowland allegedly said she would rather "lose one of her babies than be cut like that."

The doctor who performed an autopsy found that the fetus died two days before delivery and would have survived if Rowland had undergone a C-section when urged to do so. It was not immediately clear how far along Rowland was in her pregnancy.

And then you see the mug shot.

Granted, the woman just gave birth, and she had a rough pregnancy.  But Jesus Christ!

Honey, they could perform that Caesarian right down the middle of your face and it wouldn't hurt your looks.  In fact it might help them.

Seriously, if this mug shot were attached to a news item about Eddie Murphy being caught with another transsexual prostitute, would you doubt the photo was accurate for a moment? That's like a man in a wig. An ugly man.  Downright fugly. We're talking Jerry Springer audience ugly.

¤ On the lighter side, it turns out that Canadian pig farmer/serial killer might have been doing more with the human remains than having sex with them, feeding them to his pigs, and burying them in shallow graves. 

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Human remains may have been in meat processed for human consumption at a pig farm that has been the site of an extensive investigation into Canada's worst serial killing case, British Columbia's provincial health officer said Wednesday.

"What I know from the RCMP is we can't rule out the possibility of cross-contamination," Dr. Perry Kendall said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

When asked if cross-contamination meant human remains found their way into meat processed at the farm, Kendall said: "It's very disturbing to think about, but (there is) the possibility of some cross-contamination. But the degree of it or when or how much we really don't know."

There's no way this can help the already staggering Canadian bacon pizza topping market. 

The game is that he wants to be in the bedroom, and he's not shy about announcing his intentions.  However, since Dusty in your bed is like sleeping with a 15 pound furry bowling ball, one that evidences a curious attraction to your ankles and the back of your knees, since Malaya wants the door shut for darkness and silence while I'm banging around out here, and since Dusty locked in the bedroom would lead to Dusty scratching at the door after a few hours to come out and pee/eat... he doesn't get to be in the bedroom.  He gets to sit unhappily on the purple chair or the couch, sleeping most of the time, pining for Malaya's luxurious ankles the rest of the time.

If all he did was pine no one would care.  He could sleep outside the bedroom door all night for all I care.  The problem is that he doesn't want to sleep there, he wants to pace there while yowling, since he's learned that pacing and yowling at doors is a good way to get them opened for him.  The cats have us well trained.

Over the past few months, while I've been up most of the night most of the time, and Malaya's been working and needing to get up early on weekdays, I've slowly and steadily trained Dusty, with chasing and finger pointing and the occasional tossing onto the couch with subsequent face gripping, that he's not supposed to walk down the hallway to the bedroom door, and he's definitely supposed to yowl at it once he's down there.   He's learned, and he now ventures down there only once or twice a night, (from midnight 'til 6 or 7am, generally) and when he does and I turn around in my office chair (my back is to the hallway so I can't keep an eye on him) and hiss his name, he'll generally come trotting back down the hallway to the living room, softly yarbling and harfing.  He sometimes comes within reach and I'll pet him and pat him and sometimes briefcase him up to my lap and let him sit there for a while.  This greatly complicates my typing, but we must all make certain feline-related sacrifices to maintain a happy household.

Other times I'll catch him down there, usually when he makes some suspect noise, and then I yank off my headphones and charge down the hallway, quietly.  He has learned to run, and he dodges through the kitchen and cuts into the living room, usually ducking behind the couch where I can't easily reach him.  I don't bother trying to catch him, it's enough to chase him back in here.  Only on nights when he's being naughty and forcing me to get up repeatedly do I bother to lean over the couch and seize him.  And then I yank him up and shove him into the corner of the couch and grab his face some, which he doesn't like at all.  One of those is sufficient to keep him from straying for a few hours.

His new trick, learned by experimentation, is to pad silently down to the bedroom door.  He'll sit there for a bit, eyeing my back, and when he's pretty sure I don't know he's there, he starts punching at the door.  Literally, he sits up, extends one paw, and pokes at the door, just below the handle, rattling it slightly in the frame.  The bedroom and bathroom doors don't close all the way unless you get them closed, and then give them an extra little shove, at which point they'll click shut. Otherwise they look closed, but can be pushed open without turning the knobs.  Dusty, of course, has learned this.

His door pushing is quieter than his yowling, and since I'm usually sitting here with the headphones on and music playing (music that sometimes overlaps one or even two of the listed "CDs in rotation" from the side bar that I never remember to update and am going to delete soon since I never update it and no one cares) I don't hear it at first.  I don't think it's loud enough for Malaya to hear it and wake up, but I'm sure it would be, if I let him keep it up for long.

The other annoying bonus is that Malaya's alarm is set for 7am, on the days she's got to get up and go.  Dusty's internal clock has acclimated to this over the past month or two, and I can now count on him to be up and whining at the door within five minutes of 7am, whether Malaya is up and making noise inside the bedroom or not.  I almost feel bad chasing him away from the door on those days, since after all, he's got reason to expect the door to open and the beloved to come out.

For all that we joke about how dumb Dusty is, it's certainly annoying when he's smart.  I'd hate to have a pet monkey; the little fucker would just get into everything, and there'd be no end to its ingenuity.

Just to give the poor kitty some love, here's a shot of Dusty at his happiest; cutting off the circulation to someone's legs. This shot was taken by Malaya a week ago, when Dusty was in his usual "any lap will do" pose, on top of me. He snores when he's really sleeping soundly, which is pretty often.  Click the shot to see it larger, and view the horrors of the bottom of my calloused soles.

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