100% and onward

I am over my contractually obligated minimum word count. Now... I don't know what happens now. Gotta talk to the Powers that Be.

Still, kinda happy milestone, right?

95

Got to 95% today.

Progress

Book's 90% in the bag.

Now of course that's pre-revision and everything, but I feel really, really good for it being 1 in the morning and being exhausted.

History is a convenient fiction

The most interesting thing about writing the book is that doing in-depth historical research often leads me to conclude that people who write history are lazy and inaccurate. It's turning me off non-fiction a little, honestly.

There's an amusing anecdote I wanted to include in the book. The problem is that it's claimed by many different people as being something they did, probably because it's a funny story.

There are things that did not happen and are reported as casual facts. Someone will toss off a column that claims that some incident happened and be largely right (a pitcher got ejected) but then make numerous errors on what specifically occurred.

Errors in fact can often be traced back. When I find a particularly interesting thread, I often go through three, four sources as I go back in time to find the original's an exaggeration or even a joke, turned into fact because it seems right and then gets repeated over and over. For a non-book related example, you can find out that a lot of the funny Rickey Henderson stories are jokes someone told once, or entirely made up.

Anyway, back to the book.

Application of technology to problems

On the common occurance of walking into an office or other shared restroom to be hit with nauseating stench:

How hard would it be to make bathroom fans variable speed and hook them up to an odor detector? Serious funk would cause the fans to crank up, while most of the time they could almost idle, or totter along at their regular there's-someone-in-here speed. What do I have to do to make this happen?

Classism in Security

The August 5 memo recommends reducing patdowns by giving screeners the discretion not to search those wearing tight-fitting clothes. It also suggests exempting several categories of passengers from screening, including federal judges, members of Congress, Cabinet members, state governors, high-ranking military officers and those with high-level security clearances.

From a CNN.com story, "Airline screening hassles may be cut"

This is an awful, awful idea. If anything, the powerful should be made to go through the most stringent screenings every time. The boarding passes of any member of Congress should print out with "XXXX" under that weird barcode thing.

The powerful already avoid too much of the pain inflicted on the public. Flying in super-polluting private jets, they don't wait around at gates, experience the bus-like commodity commercial flights have become, and often avoid the cattle-herding of the security lines.

As long as we feel that we need these kind of precautions, those in power who create and maintain the situation that demands it should experience the pain.

This isn't only about security, either. There's this national inability to sacrifice. Our President praises military service as a high calling, but doesn't so much as ask his fresh-out-of-college daughters to please consider serving in the armed forces, where they might end up as the gunner on a HUMVEE getting shot at. The members of Congress who supported the war don't have kids getting shot at. People at gas stations bitch about how high their gas prices are. Heck, here in Washington we've got an initiative to repeal a modest gas tax that will pay for massive transportation improvements, but those same people aren't going after the petrol companies that used the opportunity to push prices through the roof.

It's shameful. You think some PFC who finally gets rotated off wants to hear someone in their Escalade joke that "if we went into Iraq for oil, why is gas so goddamned expensive?" Fuck that. They probably want to know why you've got a "Support our troops" ribbon on that leviathan when every tankful's supporting the Iranians and the Saudis funding the people who were shooting at her last week. Where's the sacrifice?

Besides that, while I understand that a member of Congress is unlikely to blow up a plane, making artificial distinctions of who is and isn't a security risk based on their position in society is, in itself, the first step on a well-paved road to hell. If anything, it provides a temptation for the powerful to stop trying to make improvements, to treat the plebians who aren't in Congress but want a flight like they're on the wrong side of the Stanford prison experiment.

It should be this way for every possible law. Pass something giving the government broad wiretap powers? Give the public broad wiretap powers against government officials. They've got nothing to hide, right? Otherwise, why would they object? Discussing classified information? Why is that any more important than my right to privacy?

One of the only reasons the TSA watchlist has undergone any kind of reform is because members of Congress have found themselves trying to fight it when they got red-flagged. That's good. Good. Shared pain and sacrifice, even in petty crap like airport security, brings everyone together.

That anyone would even come up with this idea is horrible.

One less customer

Businesses are dumb. I used to buy almost all my DVDs from DeepdiscountDVD.com because they had great prices, shipped out fast, and I never had a problem. Then they started sending me offers.

I hate spam. But whatever, right, they launch some offer newsletter to their customers, that's bad because I didn't consent to receive marketing emails, but there are worse things. I unsubscribe.

Kept coming. They're garish things, awful to look at -- today's was bright yellow, and I now I'm using spam blockers against a company I did business with for years because they won't stop sending me these things.

I'm never buying from them again.

What amazes me though is that this had to go through at least a couple of people, none of whom thought it was a bad idea and stopped it.

- Let's start a newsletter (okay)
- We could try to sign people up on the site when they order (nah)
- We could even send a one-time announcement to people who've ordered with us before (nope)
- Let's sign up everyone who ever signed up with us, knowing that some portion of them are going to get really mad (hey, that's great, more signups = $$$)
- Let's make sure that there's no way for them to unsubscribe (yeah, why bother, these offer emails are great)
- Let's make them so horribly awful to look at people's retinas explode even if they only glance at it for a second while deleting it or sending it to their spam filter to learn (sure, people with no retinas buy lots of DVDs)

And then, presumably
- Why did all these frequent buyers stop shopping with us (huh)
- We should send out more email offers to make up for the drop in sales (yeah!)

So... good job, DeepDiscountDVD. I will go find a better place to feed my crazy movie habit.

Ebert the brutal

Rob Schneider responded to a passing lament by writer Patrick Goldstein (who said it was sad studios had passed on the chance to finance many of last year's best picture nominees while they spent money freely on movies like a Duece Bigalow sequel) by placing huge ads attacking Goldstein, saying he had not won any awards for his writing (which turns out, as Ebert notes, to not be true).

[...]

But Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" while passing on the opportunity to participate in "Million Dollar Baby," "Ray," "The Aviator," "Sideways" and "Finding Neverland." As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.

Plague of the yippy

I believe that a shadowy worldwide organization exists to ensure that no matter where I live or even visit for a while) there will be a small, yippy dog nearby to make sure I don't get any peace. I could set up shop in a cave in the remotest Urals, pack in supplies for a couple years, seal the entrance, and they'd breed a burrowing corgi that could track my scent through a mile of rock.

What possible reason do owners have for owning these dogs, and keeping them around when they're so clearly unhappy? "Oh, Popper's only barking for the third straight day because he loves you, Billy. Now let me put these earplugs back in."

I'm not being snide

I'm being petty.

So over at USSM, we've decided to turn the other cheek mostly and let poor coverage of the local team go unchecked. Many readers thought attacking coverage was beneath us and made us look like resentful, petty jerks more interested in scoring points and acting superior. I had hoped that by being sharply critical of the disappointing coverage we'd be able to get some improvments made. That wasn't happening, so I ceded the argument.

From today's Mariner mailbag, on MLB.com, by Jim Street:

I am curious about the exact rules of the DH. Is it required that AL teams use one, or can they have the pitcher hit if they wanted? I don't see why they would want to, just curious. Also, if the DH is used, does it have to be for the pitcher, or could the DH for a position player and let the pitcher hit? -- Travis J., Hillsboro, Ore.

The designated hitter rule, adopted by the AL in 1974, allows the manager to put a hitter in the lineup in place of the pitcher. Although nothing would prevent the manager from using the DH for a position player and letting the pitcher hit, that would mean the defense would have only eight players on the field, which would not be a good idea.

In order:
The designated hitter rule, adopted by the AL in 1974,

Yes.

allows the manager to put a hitter in the lineup in place of the pitcher.

Yes

Although nothing would prevent the manager from using the DH for a position player and letting the pitcher hit,

What? No. This is in the rules: 6.10 (b).

(b) The Rule provides as follows: A hitter may be designated to bat for the starting pitcher and all subsequent pitchers in any game without otherwise affecting the status of the pitcher(s) in the game. A Designated Hitter for the pitcher must be selected prior to the game and must be included in the lineup cards presented to the Umpire in Chief.

Has to be the pitcher. Has to be.

that would mean the defense would have only eight players on the field, which would not be a good idea.

Now this totally goes off the rails. Even in leagues where you can have a DH for the shortstop (I know some prep leagues do this, for instance) you still have nine fielders. The shortstop doesn't bat, just like a pitcher doesn't bat. Why would DHing for a fielder mean you only got eight players? Does he take a fielder's slot but not field? Would the DH bat twice in a nine-man lineup, or would the lineup drop to eight?

What's disappointing about this is that I know Street must know this. He can't not know it. He's been writing about baseball forever. He was the Bay Area president of the BaseBall Writer's Association of America (BBWAA) in 1980. I've been reading his bylines on stuff in the Sporting News and Baseball Weekly since I could read them. Unless there's another Jim Street. I don't understand how this gets up, and I don't understand what he was trying to say in the last bit at all.

Maybe there's another Jim Street, and all this time I've just thought it was one writer with a long and productive career.

woo hoo

Book's 75% in the bag. Hot cha cha.

Bleep

Why is the electronically added sound of a bleep so much louder than the rest of the soundtrack? My wife watches a lot of random trash on TV for no reason while she's doing other stuff, and even when I can't hear anything else, the sound of bleeping bleepedy bleeps cuts through the house like a sharp knife.

It makes the program more jarring, which likely the intention. It doesn't make it any edgier, though, and no one watches a program because it has a lot of bleeped-out swearing. All it does is jangle my nerves down the hall as I try and get something productive done.

I don't speak French

and normally, find dream conversations dumb. But last night after I was up way too late tinkering with the U.S.S. Mariner, I had a long and involved dream about the site being entirely in French. I took high school French and remember little, but on waking, I looked up what little fragments I remember from the dream and it looks like I managed to dream in correct French.

I have no idea what that means, but the possibility that there's a hidden ocean of languages in my head disturbs and intrigues me. Could I go to Germany, hit my head with a mallet, and suddenly go back to being barely conversationally fluent, which was the height of my fluency gained from a year of brutal college German courses?