Jim’s Brain Online

Posted by Jim at October 31st, 2004

Okay. I seem to be turning into Ed. Not only have I posted 3 times in one day (usually it’s closer to 3 times a week), but 2 of the 3 posts make the Republican party look bad. Here’s the second one:

This American Life, a radio show that usually spends time talking about the oddities of living in the United States, spent a bit of time talking about election year cheating. It appears the Republicans are doing more of it this year.

If you’ve got evidence to the contrary, let me know. In the meantime, take a listen to the second piece in the show.

Posted by Jim at October 31st, 2004

Living in a swing state (even one that’s likely to go Kerry) means a lot of candidate visits and attention from political parties generally speaking. As anyone who’s read this blog this week will know, this also includes robocalls (recorded messages played at you over the phone).

I received an interesting one today.

It seemed to be a message encouraging people to vote for John Kerry because he supported gay marriage. Having let it go on my answering machine rather than pick it up, I ended up listening to it twice.

Listening to it the first time I thought it was a rather bad way to promote John Kerry in generally conservative West Michigan.

Listening to it the second time when I got my messages, I noticed a few things:

1. It wasn’t up to the usual level of inhuman perfection robocalls generally reach. You could hear the person phrase things slightly awkwardly and sometimes take a breath.
2. It never mentioned the name of the organization that paid for the call. Aren’t you supposed to do that?
3. It never mentioned Proposal 2. Proposal 2 attempts to amend Michigan’s constitution to disallow gay marriage and probably civil unions as well. Isn’t it just a bit odd that it wouldn’t?
4. The way things were phrased, the message constantly seemed to put the words “John Kerry” and “gay marriage” in the same sentence. As in “Vote John Kerry because he supports gay marriage. John Kerry will bring gay marriage to Michigan’s cities.”

It’s a very odd call because:
1. John Kerry actually doesn’t support gay marriage though he does support civil unions. He’s been quoted as saying that the states should decide. That’s more or less the same position Bush seems to have.
2. From what I’ve heard, gay advocacy groups have deliberately worked to avoid making proposal 2 a big issue. They want Kerry to win. Proposal 2 might bring people to the polls to vote for it. While they’re there, they’d likely vote for Bush too. At least that’s the reasoning I’ve heard.

As such, I’m wondering if it might be an indirect effort to “get out the Bush vote” by pushing the buttons of people strongly opposed to gay marriage, but not totally enthusiastic about Bush.

I’m on the lists of both the Republican and Democrats, so I’ve no idea where this might come from.

Anyone else recieve this call? If so, do you know if you’re signed up with a particular party? I’m really wishing I hadn’t deleted the call now.

UPDATE: The media is now aware of this calling campaign.

Posted by Jim at October 31st, 2004

Though I usually mention comics that need the publicity, I’ll make an exception in this case.

Megatokyo is probably one of the more successful comics online–assuming part of your definition of successful is “providing the author a decent living.” It would also fit into a definition of successful that includes “attracts hordes of rabid fans.”

I don’t think this is all a bad thing in that I like the comic even though I think some of the fans are just a bit too enthusiastic. You can read the forums for evidence of this if you like. I try to avoid them myself.

Behind the rabid fans, past the books and merchandise, there’s something that’s kind of cool. The actual comic.

Written by Fred Gallagher, a former architect, Megatokyo chronicles the experiences of Largo and Piro, two US citizens living in Japan. It’s worth mentioning that the Japan they live in is not a quasi-realistic Japan. This is Japan as imagined by Americans who like Japanese movies, comics and videogames.

It’s a Japan where you can rent Godzilla for the afternoon and rampage through the city, a Japan where the Megatokyo Cataclysm Division uses mecha to patrol the streets, and also a Japan where the complex relationships of shoujo (girl’s comics) come into play.

Where did this rather strange mixture come from? Basically from the beginning of the comic. Megatokyo began as the collaboration of Rodney Caston (Largo) and Fred Gallagher (Piro). Rodney imagined it as a gaming comic similar to Penny Arcade (which gave them some of their early publicity).

Thus, the first year or so of strips is a four panel, gag-a-day comic that regularly makes fun of John Romero (Doom co-creator), Everquest, and E3. The plot, such as it is, primarily exists to string jokes together.

By the second year, however, Fred’s interest in plot and character development begins to take over the comic strip. Sometime after that, Rodney and Fred decided that Fred could continue the strip alone.

Thus the comic is about what happens while Piro and Largo are stuck in Japan and the two parallel realities they seem to inhabit. Largo gets attacked by a maniac robot, rabid fans (hmmn…) of a voice actress, befriends a ninja, subdues a rampaging monster, and generally gets involved in video game related havoc. By contrast, Piro seems to be in the middle of a plot familiar in anime/manga: pathetic loser inexplicably involved in complicated relationships with various women.

There’s more emphasis on Piro’s life and problems, but enough of Largo’s for variety.

I’d love to try to explain the other characters in the comic, but there are far too many of them and their lives intersect with both Piro and Largo in ways that make my head spin. That being said, this Megatokyo wikipedia entry does a pretty decent job.

As for the art, it’s pretty standard manga/anime stuff. It doesn’t awe a person, but it doesn’t distract you from the story either. It fits. It works for this story. That’s all I really need to be happy.

In summary, I like the ever evolving plot, the complexity of the characters and the fact that the author doesn’t feel the need to make joke at the end of every comic. Of course, I generally like comics in which the writer wants to tell an on-going story. Megatokyo is one of them.

It is not, therefore, a comic you can immediately grasp just by starting with the current comic. You’re best off starting at the beginning and reading up to the present. After that, you’ll actually have to retain a general knowlege of what’s happened previously in order to understand what’s happening now.

That’s not a problem for me, though. If it’s not a problem for you, you might even like the comic.

Posted by Jim at October 30th, 2004

With no warning, Miller’s recently closed.

I don’t know why. All I know is that the city posted an announcement that there’s a lien on the the property. Next to it, there’s another announcement from a leasing company explaining that they’re renting the place out.

I don’t know what happened. They seemed to be doing okay. The family that owned it had operated a restaraunt for years so it’s not as if they didn’t know what they were doing. Aside from that, the business they took over had been around since the late 1800’s. It’s something of an institution.

I hope that whoever buys the business keeps it roughly the same. Also, I hope that they honor gift certificates from the previous version of Miller’s.

Kristen (my wife) lost one, recently found it in her glove compartment, and is very annoyed.

Posted by Jim at October 28th, 2004

As of today, I got two robocalls. One from the Republican party. One from the Democrats.

In the first, I learned that John Kerry has a secret, evil plan to destroy the auto industry. In the second, I learned that the Iraq War was a mistake and that John Kerry will personally hunt down all terrorists.

Well, maybe that’s not precisely what they said, but my rendition feels tonally (if not factually) correct.

So maybe all that the parties learned is that you should save your robocalls for the last week of the campaign rather than the last month. At any rate, it should be all over pretty soon.

If we’re lucky.

Posted by Jim at October 27th, 2004

During the last major election (two years ago), my answering machine recorded as many as 14 messages in a day in support of the candidates. Almost all of these sounded like pre-recorded messages.

I blame the outrageous number of calls on the fact that I know people who are seriously involved in both the Democratic and Republican parties. By involved, I mean either volunteer or work for the parties.

Worse, I agree with both on enough issues that they feel comfortable signing me up with the local party headquarters.

This meant that two years ago I got called so often I dreaded walking up to the machine after work and sorting out the calls that matter (very few) from the messages that basically accused a candidate of eating babies.

This year I’ve gotten barely any recorded messages. I’m not complaining about this. I’ve had a few election related calls but they mostly seem to have been from real live people. In some cases they ask for money for the campaign, in others they ask for my vote, but, basically they’ve been very polite.

I like to think that this is because the various campaigns have learned something, but I don’t know.

Posted by Jim at October 24th, 2004

Last night, Kristen and I attempted to go to sleep after watching a movie (Farenheit 9/11).

Soon after we got into bed the following things happened almost simultaneously:

1. Rebecca (2) started crying and coughing and would not be comforted. When we stopped trying to pick her up, she relaxed and calmed down.
2. Abby (3) rolled off her bed, only calming down after I walked into her room and talked to her a little. I had barely walked out of her room and gotten back into bed when…
3. Several teenagers who I assume had been attending some sort of party started arguing loudly in our yard. I heard the words “TWENTY DOLLARS” mentioned a lot. Eventually they stopped arguing and walked off to their cars (one of which was parked in front of our house), but while they were shouting…
4. Rebecca started crying again. This time we left her alone.

Posted by Jim at October 19th, 2004

Two weekends ago Kristen ran the Chicago marathon for the second time. The first time was around five years ago.

Last time we drove down to Chicago and stayed at the condo of one of Kristen’s former co-workers. He and his wife have since adopted a child and moved to Texas. This time we dropped off our kids at my parents’ house and drove to Kristen’s aunt and uncle’s condominium.

Pre-Race:
The day before the race we took the train down to McCormick Place to pick up her packet of things for the race. McCormick Place is a large, black building near Soldier Field. It includes some enormous rooms that are probably used for conventions most of the time.

Walking into McCormick Place that morning was an experience. People from all over the United States and the world filled the room, checking out booths and picking up their packets. I heard german, french and spanish at the very least and probably couldn’t identify other langauges.

What’s in a packet? The runner’s number (to be pinned to their shirt), a race shirt, marathon related information, and an id chip that attaches to the runner’s shoe.

What’s in the booths? The booths basically fell into three categories:
1. Sports stuff: Many sporting goods stores had representatives attempting to sell runners yet more shoes/shirts/bras/shorts etc…
2. More marathons: Pamphlets and film advertising marathons across the US and around the world, ranging from St. Louis, Missouri to Paris, France.
3. Health and Sports Medicine: Various healthy drinks/foods, massage, chiropractors. Basically, if you run a lot you will probably hurt yourself, so a booth might be a good investment for a chiropractor.

Five years ago Samuel Adams was sponsoring the race and so they were handing out free beer. This year we just got free wine from a winery I’ve never heard of. The wine was okay.

After picking up Kristen’s packet we went out for lunch. Going to a restaurant without children is a strange thing. Rather than spending the entire time restraining children, you have only the food and each other to occupy your attention.

Kristen and I looked at each other, commented on the strangeness of not having to prevent Rebecca from emptying the pepper and salt shakers, and asked, “Do we talk now?”

Drunkness and Disorderly Conduct
We took the train back to Kristen’s relatives’ condo. This is a good thing. I like public transportation. Grand Rapids needs more of it, but Chicago’s is pretty good. Unfortunately, if you’re looking to find idiots, using public transportation greatly increases your chances.

Soon after we got on the train, I realized that there was something odd about the guys near the front of our car. They were inordinately loud and one of them seemed unhappy about something.

It turned out that he was unhappy about losing his bag. He put it down on the seat, walked away and came back to find it gone. He loudly suggested that the conductor had taken it, referring to the conductor in the most offensive terms available for black and gay. Oddly, the conductor (when he appeared) turned out to be both white and (so far as I could tell) straight.

The conductor told him that the bag wasn’t in the car. The man looked for it anyway.

He appeared to have two goals, first to find the bag, second to alienate anyone who might have the slightest sympathy for him. He did better at the second than the first. Much better. Beginning with his comments about the conductor, he was told that his language was inappropriate by a man traveling with a child. After apologising very loudly, he asked that same man (who was carrying a guitar) to sing. The man said no.

After that the drunk moved to the back of the car to search. Somewhere in the course of his search one of the kids in the back of the car started crying. In keeping with his policy of unintentionally making things worse, he asked the kid two questions. First, “What’cha whinin’ about, kid?” Secondly, “What’s wrong, do you need a friend?”

Strangely, neither of these expressions of concern stopped the crying.

After that the conductor came back and the drunk got into a (one-sided) shouting match that ended only after the conductor got him out of the car. They continued talking in the space between the cars.

In the end it turned out that the conductor had grabbed the bag, found several containers of alchohol within and had another conductor empty them.

The owner complained about this to his friend for the rest of the ride and threatened to sue, but obviously that’s not going to happen.

The passengers clapped after the drunk (and friend) left the car. Oddly enough, there’s a little more to that story. As the train moved away, the guy ahead of me looked up from his copy of “Rolling Stone” and said, “That was close.” The drunken man had almost stumbled off the platform and into the train.

The Race
On Sunday we woke up at 4:45am and took the train down to the race. The special train for marathon runners was almost full already. Bearing in mind that they expected some 30,000 to 40,000 runners and probably 1 million spectators, this was understandable.

Arriving around 6:30am in downtown Chicago, Kristen and I found the point where she would start. People with similar paces start together. Kristen was aiming for 11 minute miles and started fairly far back in the pack.

I waited around until nearly 8:00am and decided to go down to the actual starting point so I could take a picture of her crossing it. I missed her. This would start a pattern that continued for the rest of the day.

Due to the way the race route doubled back, I had 5 chances to take pictures of her. I missed her all but one time. Mind you, she saw me every time. My only excuse is that a camera’s view of the world is much narrower than a person’s and when literally thousands of people are running past you, your chances of missing the one person you care about in the crowd are high.

The highlight of the race for Kristen was probably improving her time by roughly 20 minutes.

What was the highlight of the race for me? I’m not sure. Here’s how my time during the race was spent:

–Walking from one point where I might take a picture of Kristen, missing her and walking to the next.
–Waiting in line at a Starbucks just off the race route for some 20 minutes.
–Watching people while waiting for/having missed Kristen. People were dressed as Elvis, a Canadian Mountie, a Mariachi, a cow, and a number of other things I can’t remember right now. Any of these people have a higher tolerance for looking silly than I do.
–Eating lunch at a restaurant in Greektown.

Knowing that I can’t even find Kristen while she’s passing me in the street, you might be wondering how I found her at the end of the race. It’s not as if I managed to see her crossing the finish line.

As it turns out, the people running the marathon anticipated this problem. They set aside an area for each letter in the alphabet. All I had to do was find “Z” and I found Kristen. Naturally, it took me ten minutes to notice the letters and figure out what they were for.

The letters tended to blend into the tents, masses of runners in mylar wraps, and crowds of supporters.

We left after that. Well, sort of. We had to wait two hours in the train station because trains apparently don’t run to the suburbs on Sunday afternoon. Aside from that, things went well. We drove back to Holland, picked up our children from my parents’ house, and went home.

Kristen thinks she might run another marathon someday. I’ve got to admit that I’m tempted to do it myself, but, not soon. Graduate school makes those sort of projects impossible at the moment.

Still, it might be fun.

Posted by Jim at October 15th, 2004

Occasionally I feel like I’m totally incompetent as a programmer. This is particularly true when I look over old stuff I’ve written and think about all the ways it could be improved.

Here’s a blog devoted to unearthing truely wretched code and revealing it to the world. After reading it for a bit, you’ll feel brilliant by comparison. If you’re a programmer, you may also laugh so hard you fall off your chair.

If you’re not a programmer, of course, you won’t find it even remotely funny.

Posted by Jim at October 15th, 2004

I’m currently taking a class in bioinformatics. It’s that overly large and vaguely defined area in which people study how to use computers to understand (for example) the human genome, human reaction to certain drugs, and the effectiveness of techniques in combating disease.

Here’s something that amuses me: In engineering (computer or otherwise), you sometimes use triple redundancy to make sure things will work despite unexpected failure. For example, you might design 3 circuits that calculate the same thing. If 2 of the 3 come to the same conclusion, you go with that conclusion even if the 3rd is totally different.

Much to my amusement, amino acids are coded in groups of three nucleic acids as well. The first 2 matter, the third is just there. It’s not exactly the same as triple redundancy, but it is similar and kind of cool.