Apple Memories

Dedicated to Steve Jobs

Special edition of Bloomberg BusinessWeek,
dedicated to Steve Jobs

_________________

When I heard the news that Steve Jobs died Oct. 5, like everyone else who loves him and Apple, I felt a sick sadness in my gut. 

I know what it feels like to say goodbye to someone dying of pancreatic cancer. A close friend and brilliant photographer, Jim Cummins, died of the disease. Toward the end he was very weak, but I had the opportunity to say goodbye and to tell him I loved him. There is a certain peace that came when I did. But when you admire someone from afar, it's not possible to express how much they mean to you. So when they die, people are left with an emptiness — grieving when one doesn't really feel they have the right—but grieving nonetheless.

Over the past two and half decades, much of my life has orbited around Steve Jobs, especially as more and more Apple products have interwoven into every waking moment of my existence. I go to bed with my iPhone on the night stand, and wake up to its alarm to check my email and calendar.

This blog post, dedicated to him, recounts a love affair that started in 1985 with the Mac 512K, and continues through a sampling of more than 2 dozen computers in my life over the course of the past two and a half decades, and all of which we still own.

The 512K

Okay…maybe "26-year love affair" is pushing it. The 512K sat untouched in its box for quite a while before my husband, David, opened it. As a hotshot copywriter in one of Seattle's most innovative agencies, he was among the first wave to acquire this cool new tool. But there was something comforting about his IBM electric typewriter, and it was such a hassle to learn this strange, new technology. As somewhat of a neo-Luddite, he entered the new era kicking and screaming, but like the rest of us, found himself embracing it.

My best friend, Paula, was working at a Seattle company called Aldus, which created PageMaker and Freehand and other applications for graphic designers. She encouraged me to start using a computer, but I was afraid. I'd had my graphic design business for 10 years, and used traditional tools like X-acto blades, T-squares, triangles, rapidograph pens and drafting instruments, and I didn't know if I could make the transition.

But in the late 1980s, I did, buying the first of two Mac IIci CPUs. The IIci was a bit spooky to seasoned Mac users because of the new "System 7" operating system. But since I cut my teeth on it, I didn't know anything else. Thus began my dedication to Apple.

The Mac IIci

The "Power PCs" of the mid-1990s were supposed to be the salvation of our beloved platform with the licensing of the Mac OS to "clones." Having achieved a 10 percent market share, most of us felt good to think we would never have to "do Windows." But the market share fell to 3 percent in 1995 when Steve Jobs closed the loophole that had allowed other manufacturers to produce them. We all wondered—what was going to happen?

PowerMac 7100

My cat, Hunter, jumping onto the set with the PowerMac 7300

The Microsoft/Apple alliance seemed to make strange bedfellows. Was the king of "the Evil Empire" (as my Microsoft friends referred to it) really going to save Apple? Steve Jobs said at the 1997 MacWorld Expo: 

The issue of Newsweek, explaining the
new alliance between Microsoft and Apple.

"If we want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple has to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us that's great, because we need all the help we can get, and if we screw up and we don't do a good job, it's not somebody else's fault, it's our fault. So I think that is a very important perspective. If we want Microsoft Office on the Mac, we better treat the company that puts it out with a little bit of gratitude; we like their software. So, the era of setting this up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft is over as far as I'm concerned. This is about getting Apple healthy, this is about Apple being able to make incredibly great contributions to the industry and to get healthy and prosper again."

The G3 "Wall Street" PowerBook was a spectacular machine. Mine featured a swappable bay for a modular CD, floppy and Zip disk drives, so every medium was accessible. I took it with me on flights to numerous press checks in Oregon and Nevada. I loved seeing Carrie Bradshaw using one in Sex and the City. It seemed to make a lot of cameo appearances, probably because people making films used Macs.

G3 Powerbook

During the Apple Renaissance, from the late 1990s to early 2000s, products including the iBook and iMac—favorites of my family—were introduced. 

Early model iBook

 iMac

During the era of the iBook and iMac, the PowerMac G4 emerged. This model proved to be among the most productive machines in the office, and remained in use for a long while. A few years ago when one of my kids was taking Spanish, someone gave us an old version of Rosetta Stone Spanish for Mac. All of our machines were too new to run it, so we unearthed one of the G4s, installed the software, and it worked perfectly.

The G4 with Apple's craziest monitor

In 2003 the first aluminum-enclosed tower, the PowerMac G5 was introduced. As with all Apple computers, they were ideal for graphic designers. We eventually had two of them. One was actually a lemon and required rebooting 10 times a day. But it was the only Apple Computer in more than two decades that ever had problems. When we jettisoned it, it was liberating, like having a headache suddenly stop. The cinema display always worked perfectly, though!

The G5 with very cool Cinema Display

In 2007 a MacPro tower was added to the office, and is still used as a back-up computer. It is one of the best, most reliable computers I've ever used and it continues to deliver. Having two DVD drives in one machine is great.

MacPro 

I used to scoff at iMacs for professional use until we acquired the 27" iMac. We shopped for another tower, but when considering the separate cost of a large display and CPU, the iMac started looking very attractive. It has been a fantastic addition to the studio. With all of processing speed, tons of real-estate in hi-definition, versatility and minimal desk footprint, I'm now a believer in the all-in-one for pro use.

The 27" iMac

We've never owned stock in the company, but we've done our best to help Apple grow. My hope is Steve Jobs' legacy will continue into the next decade, with every new inspiration harkening back to its visionary cofounder.

_________________

Huge thanks to Seattle photographer, Doug Plummer who shot the photos for this blog post.

Information sourced throughout the web, including MacTracker, Apple and Wikipedia.

Light Housekeeping

I keep meaning to post something up here but one thing or another keeps getting in the way; working Saturday and late on the weekdays is part of it, family and kiddos is another, pure laziness a third. I should have something for Halloween, since that's always good for kiddo pictures, if nothing else.

The other issue is that I just don't have much worthwhile to say at the moment. I don't want to repeat and you don't want to hear anymore moaning about the irritating combination of incompetence and moral corruption (that is, not the taking of actual payoffs but, rather, the complete voluntary subordination of the "public good" to the greedy desires of the oligarchy) that seems to comprise the U.S. government circa 2011. I've hammered away on wars and foreign policy, had the usual utter lack of effect, and am frankly bored and tired of both the moron-grade imbecility of the former and the nuclear-red-ass-grade irritation of the latter.

I have some idle thoughts, but so do you and there is no reason to assume that mine are any more worthy of consideration than yours; it's that sort of thing that gives blogging the bad name for self-indulgence it has.

Here's one thing I would like some suggestions on.

I'm also coming to the end of the "Decisive Battles" arc. No so much because there are no more battles to write about - as long as there are humans there will be battles to write about - but because the remaining engagements are either already thoroughly discussed by better writers than I or because I'm just not interested in the affairs. I haven't touched on, say, Stalingrad, or Agincourt, or Gaugamela and that's because I really have nothing to add to the mountainous scholarship already expended on them, and as a result I have no interest in even trying.

But there are a few remaining days of battle I AM interested in. I thought I'd throw them up here and let you give me some ideas, either for engagements I haven't listed or some insights on the ones I have. So, in order by month:

October - two; Milvian Bridge, more for the religious politics involved than from the fairly straightforward combat involved (how the FUCK do you take position with your back to a major river AND compromise the crossing point to ensure maximum carnage if you lose? If I were one of your troops I'd have killed you twice, Maxentius...) and Tours.

November - two U.S.-native tribe engagements; "St. Clair's Defeat" in 1791 and Tippicanoe in 1811.

December - to be honest, I got nothing for December. Any suggestions?

January - the Fall of Granada, as a discussion of the Reconquista in general and its effect on the military politics of Spain and the Spanish colonies

February - Verdun; again, not so much for the battle itself, a boring and horrific meatgrinder, but for the combination of the transition of German strategy from maneuver to bloodletting by 1916 and the terrible long-term effects the slaughter had on French politics and military preparedness (and to some extent has to this day).

March - Adowa, and the foreshadowing of the post-colonial wars of "liberation", and the "non-battle" of the Rhineland, 1936 because it SHOULD have been a battle...and that is wasn't set Europe on course for WW2 - an object lesson that peace isn't always "better" than war.

April - I've done pretty much all the battles for April I'm interested in: Panipat, Shanhaiguan, Lexington/Concord, and Culloden.

May - Canton 1841 (as the end of the Qing and a harbinger of the internal disasters that kept China in a mess throughout the next 100 years). And possibly the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, agian not for the battle itself but as the culmination of two centuries of declining Byzantine and growing Ottoman power, setting the stage for the wars of religion in southeastern Europe that culminate in the Siege of Vienna in 1529.

June - Chalons 451 (again, more as the exclamation point at the turning of the tide of Hunnic invasion of the West AND the decline of the Western Roman Empire) and the Philippine Sea (the "Marianas Turkey Shoot" - again, not so much as a battle but as the symbol of the barrenness of the Japanese war plan and the beginning of the end for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere).

July - the Armada, 1588, and Königgrätz 1866

August - the only thing I can think of for this month is Stalingrad, and I just don't really have anything to say that hasn't been said. Any ideas?

September - Sedan, 1870.

And that's it.

So...any ideas, or suggestions?

Gotta go - have a good book that's calling to me.

Last Summer Days

Gorgeous Indian-summer day in Portland; I had work up in the far northeast of Vancouver, Washington, monitoring infiltration tests though the lazy, sunny afternoon. Cool enough for crispness - the meadowgrass was white with frost when I arrived in the predawn - but warming to pleasantly shirtsleeve temperatures by afternoon. A light wind from the south bringing on it the dry tartness of fallen leaves, the sultry scent of woodsmoke, and the high, clear iciness of the late October sky.

It gave me time to sit on my tailgate, book neglected at my side, and just enjoy the beauty of the last of summer and the brief, bright autumn we pass through so quickly before the gray rains of winter begin.

XXXIX

When summer's end is nighing
  And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
  And all the feats I vowed
  When I was young and proud.

The weathercock at sunset
  Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
  That looked to Wales away
  And saw the last of day.

From hill and cloud and heaven
  The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
  And hushed the countryside,
  But I had youth and pride.

And I with earth and nightfall
  In converse high would stand,
Late, till the west was ashen
  And darkness hard at hand,
  And the eye lost the land.

The year might age, and cloudy
  The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
  Breathed from beyond the snows,
  And I had hope of those.

They came and were and are not
  And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
  That ever can ensue
  Must now be worse and few.

So here's an end of roaming
  On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
  For summer's parting sighs,
  And then the heart replies.

~A.E. Housman (Last Poems)

GFT's Greatest Hits: Occupy Wall Street, 2008

The discussions we've been having over at MilPub about Occupy Wall Street got me thinking "Hmmm...didn't I write something about that..?" and eventually I went rummaging around in the back of the packrat portion of my mind and, sure enough, here it is from August, 2008.

"The Public Be Damned"

Every so often I run across something that reminds me so forcibly, so violently, of the present desuetude of our republic that I lose my wind just for a moment.

Here's Glenn Greenwald describing the scene at the current Democratic National Convention, where the telecom giant AT&T throws an intimate little shindig for the very people - imagine that - who helped them evade lawsuits for their lickspittle subservience to the criminals in the Bush White House and the NSA who believe that the laws of the land are, in the immortal words of Leona Helmsley, "for the little people".

I challenge you to read it and not throw up a little in the back of your mouth. It's sickening. It's the real face of "American politics".

It's not like this is something new in American politics. The rich are always with us, and the only difference between the New Gilded Age and the Old was that back then, a man like Mark Hanna could openly say; "Come on, you've been in politics long enough to know that no man in public life owes the public anything."

Today we have to pretend to "care" about the Great Unwashed, but the reality of America is that unless we're in the top 1% of all American incomes many of us have much of the freedom of a polled Hereford being prodded up the chute towards that dark building where we await our political and economic fate. Are we better off than some Ukrainian peasant or Zimbabwean prole? Sure. Will that mean much when our job is offshored, or we get sick and run through our insurance, or the highway to our parents' falls apart and we have to drive a 40-mile detour to visit?

No.

Here's Andrew Bacevich talking some hard, cold sense that most of us will close our ears to:

"The military-industrial complex will inhibit efforts to curb the Pentagon's penchant for waste. Detroit and Big Oil will conspire to prolong the age of gas guzzling. And the Israel lobby will oppose attempts to chart a new course in the Middle East. The next commander in chief will inherit an intractable troop shortage. The United States today finds itself with too much war and too few warriors. That alone will constrain a president conducting two ongoing conflicts. A looming crisis of debt and dependency will similarly tie the president's hands. Bluntly, the United States has for too long lived beyond its means. With Americans importing more than 60% of the oil they consume, the negative trade balance now about $800 billion annually, the federal deficit at record levels and the national debt approaching $10 trillion, the United States faces an urgent requirement to curb its profligate tendencies. Spending less (and saving more) implies settling for less. Yet among the campaign themes promoted by McCain and Obama alike, calls for national belt-tightening are muted.

Will we listen? Will we act? No.

Because, in the end, short of violent revolution, with the monetary grip on the levers of power, what CAN we do?

And because, in the end, we'd rather pretend that the future holds "freedom" and green pastures and sunny skies and try not to hear the cries of the other steers and the whisper of the killing knife.

And here's the interesting thing; we had a lively little exchange in the comments section, where, among other things, I wrote this: "...our economy is deeply unsound and shortsighted, our public uninformed, venal and stupid and our "leaders" corrupted and dysfunctional and then somehow insists that our nation will slip under this scylla of disaster.

I have no doubt that there will be a thing called the "United States". I'm not so sure we will like it, or possibly even recognize it. More and more I am convinced that the grand bargain forced on the Wealthy by FDR - that they would restrain their rapaciousness in return for labor peace and domestic tranquility- has broken. The rich will soon force the middle class into genteel poverty or economic servitude. The poor (flayed by immigration, crushed by hopelessness) will become little but serfs, in fact if not in name.

In short, we are returning to the U.S. in the 1880s and 1890s.

Fabius denies this, but his arguments boil down to, in essence, "America is stronger than that."

Bullshit.

We've been there before and there's no reason we won't return."

Now...not to toot my own horn - though this blog IS my little horn and I'm gonna toot it - but with the U.S. of 2011 looking ever more like the U.S. of 1929...and the GOP bound and determined to return it to the U.S. of 1899...should the New York Times not be hammering on my door asking me to write for them, or what?

Fuck, but sometimes I'm just that GOOD.

And ask me what that's worth and I'll cadge a buck off you for a cup of coffee. I'm just as much part of the 99% as the rest of y'all.

Update 10/23: I was listening to the kiddos play LEGOS and eat seaweed for breakfast (the Little Girl, anyway - anyone else have a child that likes dried nori for breakfast?) and blogreading when I came across this, from David Atkins at Hullabaloo, which is so good that I have to quote it at length. To wit:

Simply put, in the 1970s America was hit with an inflation crisis that quickly became a stagflation crisis. There were also oil shocks involved. Simulataneously, the world was becoming increasingly globalized, which made it more difficult for American corporations to compete using American labor. Finally, as Hacker and Pierson have persuasively argued, big business banded together to begin more aggressive and cohesive lobbying efforts. These four trends were devastating politically for the middle class.

American public policy on both sides of the aisle reoriented itself away from a focus on wages and toward a focus on assets. Specifically, the idea was that wage growth was dangerous because it led to core inflation in a way that asset growth did not. American foreign policy became obsessed even more than it had been with maintaining access to oil, both to prevent future oil shocks and to prevent inflationary oil spirals. Wage growth was also dangerous because it would drive increasing numbers of American corporations to employ cheaper overseas labor.

But that left the question of how to sustain a middle class and functional economy while slashing wages. The answer was to make more Americans "true Capitalists" in Reagan's terms. Pensions were converted to 401K plans, thus investing about half of Americans into the stock market and creating a national obsession with the health of market indices. Regular Americans were given credit cards, allowing them to take on the sorts of debt that had previously only been available to businesses. Most crucially, American policymakers did everything possible to incentivize homeownership, from programs designed to help people afford homes to major tax breaks for homeownership and much besides.

Low prices on foreign-made goods were also a policy priority. This had a dual benefit for policymakers: lower prices offset stagnant wages, while keeping core inflation low. Free trade deals were also a major centerpiece of public policy in this context. Few politicians actually believed that these deals would help increase wages and jobs in America. But what they were designed to do is keep low-cost goods coming into America, while increasing the stock value of American companies exporting goods overseas, thus raising asset values.

Low interest rates were also important. Renters and savers suffer in a low-interest rate environment, but borrowers and asset owners do very well. Tax cuts, of course, are also helpful in offsetting the impact of wage stagnation.

Houses and stocks, then, are assets that rise independently of wages. Low-cost overseas goods and the easy availability of loans and credit provide offsets to low wages. Low interest rates and tax cuts help as well keep assets afloat as well. The bipartisan idea from a public policy standpoint was not simply to enrich the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. The idea was to make the American middle class dependent on assets rather than wages. I was at a conference many years back, the purpose of which was to bring corporate bigwigs together in defense of free trade against what they feared might be a protectionist backlash. One executive told me point blank that if only enough Americans were invested in the stock market, they wouldn't gripe about Halliburton and other similar companies because they would say, "Hey, I own part of that company!" When I objected that that only half of Americans were invested in the market at all, and of that figure far fewer had significant assets invested, he retorted that more Americans were invested in the market than I thought, and that policy needed to be designed to push more Americans to invest.

I've often looked at our public policy and tried to figure out "What sane polity would enact policies seemingly designed to return itself to what may have been the least-stable political conditions (the openly-oligarchic period between about 1870-1930) since before the Civil War?" And here's the answer. And Atkins has a simple and exceptionally sane solution:

"The recklessness and stupidity of this sort of approach to public policy should have been proven by the 2008 financial crisis that saw the rapid destruction of asset values in stocks, bonds, and housing. Predicating economic health on asset growth is a pipe dream: most people will never have enough assets to make it work, and asset growth is far too unstable to serve as the basis for a functional economy.

Whether they can articulate it or not, what has most progressives most incensed about the Obama Administration's domestic policy is that it has ultimately hewed to the same asset-based economic model. When the Administration could be progressive on cutting costs or ensuring equality without negatively impacting assets, it did so. That's what the ACA, the Ledbetter Act, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell and numerous other left-leaning Administration moves were designed to do. But the Administration has been very reticent to take any actions that would negatively impact the value of assets.

America will only return to real economic health when the asset-crazed insanity of the last 30 years is brought to heel, and America returns to a public policy that is far more interested in wage growth and economic stability than it is in asset inflation. Until then, we can expect continued political and economic shocks from an angry electorate and an economy that has run off the rails due to 30 years of deeply misguided anti-inflation, pro-asset-growth ideology."

But sane or not, my skepticism remains. The wealthy have their hands around the neck of the government; they will not be pried loose. And they are no more prescient that their counterparts were in St. Petersburg in 1917 or Paris in 1789. They will destroy the village in order to save their privileges. And the extraordinary coalition that pulled our nation away from the totalitarian abyss that awaited it in 1932 - Soviet communism on the one hand, Italian (and, later, German) fascism on the other - shows no signs of being there to ride to the rescue.

In other words?

WASF.

Cat-faced Eagle

Jim Fallows posted this, with the comment

"...owls are cats that happen to have wings. And thanks to various Chinese friends for the reminder that the Chinese word for owl, maotouying, is written 猫头鹰. Which character-by-character is "cat head eagle," or more vividly "cat-faced eagle." Long before slo-mo they got the point.

And that it's a good thing they are not much bigger than their real size."

Ummm. Yep. That'd make the whole "you humans REALLY need to get up earlier and put the fucking cat food in the fucking bowl" issue a lot more fraught.

Anyway, it's a cool video.

Here, There, and Marshmallow Mateys

I suspect I don't have much worthwhile on my mind tonight.

Largely because I've started with a new outfit (my old boss sold our little engineering firm to a much larger company based in Seattle) and I'm having to continue to do my job whilst adapting to the Corporate Engineering Way of Doing Things. Doesn't leave much time for more than work, family, and sleep.

So the glamorous fever of blogging is not on me.But I did have a couple of random things that I wanted to talk about. So.

Remember back in September when I whined about my hip packing it in? Well, in the big picture of physical health suckitude, I have it pretty damn sweet. There are other people who have it much, much worse.

"Fibromyalgia" sounds like Satan's Getaway Weekend.

I'm often amazed how MANY people I know, or have met, or see, who are really, seriously emotionally or physically fucked up. I think one of the aspects of modern urban life that is at the same time wonderful and terrible is the change that it has brought to people with awful chronic emotional problems or physical pain.For most of human history these people would have had relatively brief, thoroughly miserable lives. Unable to fend for themselves they would have been at the mercy of overwhelmed families, unscrupulous "caretakers", callous landlords, employers, and neighbors. If lucky they might have been able to exist as almost helpless wards of their families, or the state, or charity cases in crowded religious shelters, or taken to the road to beg or steal.

The combination of things like disability insurance, government "safety-net" programs, better-educated families, and modern medical care can make the lives of these poor people something less than a living hell. But nothing can make that sort of pain bearable. I still can't figure out if that's a good thing...or a great evil.

Good, on the whole, I suspect. But, still...what a shitty deal.

Oddly, while at some remove I understand the wild desire many of these poor bastards have to just have it over, there's still a big part of me that has a deep respect for the ones that keep on going.

I mean, in a case like that there's no real "hope". Sure, there's always the odd miracle, or the freakish medical breakthrough. But for most of the people with stuff like chronic pain or severe depression, they're gonna fight that all the way to the Big Sleep. When you wake up every day in pain you've been dealt a shitty hand. Period.And if you don't choose to suck the shotgun there's no real alternative except to play it, and before you lay down the first card you already know you're going to lose.

But, least to me, there is something in HOW you play out that shitty hand. It may not matter in the Big Picture. But I'd like to know, when I get the cancer that kills me and finally get laid out for my dirt nap, that I fought like a sunuvabitch over every. damn. card.

Even knowing all I was holding was a pair of deuces. I'd like my kids to think of me as someone who never gave up. Never gave in. Toughed it out.

I'd like to think of them coming to put a shot of Talisker and a rose on my headstone, look down, and say; "You done good, numbnuts. Take a break in place. Sorry you went so hard, but we miss you."

Stopped into a late-night gas station on the way back to the shop the other night. It was dark night, well towards midnight. All I wanted was to pick up the tools I needed for the next day and get on home. So I skimmed the nozzle jockey two twenties and went inside looking for something wet.

There's a sameness to those places; racks of cheap, nasty processed food under the hard florescent lights, coolers full of brand colas and beer. A bored man or woman behind the counter. The smell of linoleum and sharp cleaning fluids. I didn't think I could ever be surprised in one of them unless the Virgin of Guadalupe chose to manifest herself to me in the Greeley Avenue Kwik-Mart.

But I have to say that the shave-headed little man managed to surprise me with his choice of late night pick-me-up; "Ma's Mango" flavored Joose, which turns out to be a jacked-up sort of brewed thing whose only virtue appears that, at 12% alcohol by volume, it will get you drunk quickly.This character had two monstrous cans of this awful juice joose and a pack of Menthol Kools, which seemed like a peculiar way to celebrate a random Tuesday night in Oregon City, but, hell, nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus.

-- --

Found out today that my daughter has been turning in her kindergarten "homework" - did you know that kindergarten now comes with "homework? - dutifully every Friday like a good little student.

Only one problem; she never completes any of it.In fact, she never works on it at all.

Just turns in the blank sheet.

I'm not sure if this qualifies as some extreme form of passively naive obedience to authority or some sort of incredibly devious, extremely complex and subtly subversive anti-authoritarian defiance.

-- --

Stopped off at our local wholesale-retail grocery tonight. Do you know what I'm talking about? Our version is called "WinCo". We also have "CostCo", the national chain, and used to have something called "Cub Foods" which worked on the same principle; buy in huge job lots and sell cheap. This includes a lot of generic brands like the "Marshmallow Mateys"

, Malt-o-meal's knockoff of Lucky Charms with parrots and treasure and swords (at least, that's what the styrofoam-textured sugar lumps advertised as marshmallows are supposed to look like. The only time I ever really scrutinized them I found one that looked a bit like a bell pepper and...well, actually, if you're interested (and God knows why you should be) you can try here, where Rita, the genius behind "Fighting off Frumpy" goes waaaaay further into the whole "Marshmallow Matey" thing that I ever wanted to) in place of the bigger brand's hokey-Irish-leprechaun theme.

Anyway, this isn't really about "Marshmallow Mateys". It's about people-watching at the WinCo.

Because WinCo is, well...downmarket. It's not where you get your groceries if you can afford to get better groceries. So many of the people you meet there are in the subspecies of homo sapiens Americanus vulgaris, the common, or garden, variety of American.

And everything you've read in those dire magazine articles about "American society" you can see right there.

It's the heavy woman with the four kids who is clearly barely maintaining control of the mob; a tired and frightened lion-tamer with a cageful of energetic carnivores who are momentarily cowed only by her size. But you can see in their eyes, and in the slump of her shoulders, that the day is coming and that day, soon, when she will not have whip or chair big enough to defend herself.

It's the couple with the tats and the Orange County Chopper gear that are buying a case of Smirnoff Ice and two frozen dinners.It's...it's mostly just the way we look. Was there really once a time when people in the U.S. wouldn't go out in public without a tie? Or a clean shirt and a dress? Christ, we look terrible, and I include myself in that. We clomp around in saggy pants and tatty shirts, in pajama bottoms and nasty flip-flops. And don't even get me started on the condition of people's feet; damn, guys, if you're gonna go out in public in flips at least cut your nasty nails. Euugh.

Every time I think I'm living in some sort of rarified liberal bastion of effete Portlandness I go shop at WinCo. Cures me every time.

-- --

Speaking of fat, I'm losing some. Yesterday morning I weighed in at 208.4, down from over 235 about a year ago and 225 earlier this summer. I'm still working, though, since I'm hoping to get down to 200 or below.

The frustrating part is that it's not to look better or to troll for chicks (the one I'm trolling for is lying on the couch right now reading some sort of odd sci-fi novel about a woman who talks telepathically to cats, although what the cats would say other than "feed me some of THAT shit" and "lie down so I can sleep on your belly 'cause it's warm and soft" I haven't the vaguest idea) but because my orthopod warned me it was that or off to the hospital to have my entire hip pulled over and replaced with a titanium-and-plastic monstrosity.

The REALLY frustrating part is realizing that almost everything that tastes good is horrifically fattening, while everything that doesn't, isn't. It's not just the losing the weight, it's realizing that keeping it off means never being able to just drop into Saint Cupcake to see what's good on the special shelf.It's having that Moonstruck chocolate bar once a month instead of once a week. It's...well, it's changing the way I have eaten for thirty years. And that kinda sucks.

But then, so does a hip replacement.

-- --

Speaking of things that change - did I mention that the Peep is off "Star Wars"?

Yep. SO over that. And whilst I can't grieve that I don't get to hear George Lucas' awful dialogue every Saturday or three, I find that part of me misses the littler kid who was all about blasters and lightsabers and spaceships.Now? It's all about soldiers. He's all wrapped up in Army games and videos, likes his soldiers (and in a weird reversal, what's left of his SW fandom is about the clone troopers because they're soldiers) and battles and all things war.

I find myself reminding him that real war is not like movies or TV, and that real soldiers don't get up and run away after getting killed like in games.

And I don't think he hears a word.

-- --

And that's all I got. But I have a couple of nice images culled from around the Web - largely, I must say, from the creative folks at "deviantart". If you like, go, check them out - many of the artists there sell their work, and I'm sure they'd appreciate the visit.

So, in no particular order and for no particular reason, here they are.("Biker in Winter" by "rockmylife")(This is the Templo Mayor at Chichen Iza, a photograph taken by my talented and lovely friend, Britt)(simply called "Desert Rain")

A couple of images from this passed Timbers footy season at the old Shed:and a pensive Coach Spencer in the rain:

(Another wonderful image from Britt, this one of the city of Lisbon from the old fortress walls)

Talking about the Peep's journey away from "Star Wars" made me think of this one:

Here's a couple of images of legs and feet that intrigued me.

This one is called, simply, "The Kiss" -(by "jezustin")("Little Miss Homewrecker" by "tjosphoto")Another sexy image, this one by "The Goddess Willendorf" - I think what I love about this one is that she's obviously a big girl, to the point where she would probably be considered "unappealing" in a sexy outfit. But here she is, and every bit the seductress - proving, again, that the most erogenous zone is inside your head...)(This one I've shown before - it's Thomas Voeckler on the podium at this year's Tour, along with one of the "podium girls". I just love the contrasting shoes and contrasting lives...)(And I'll leave you with "Autumn Green" by my own Little Miss!)

Looks like I had a bit of the bloggage in me after all! A candle to Saint Kilda, then, and thanks for stopping by.

Please, sir, I want some more.

The other day the kids were a complete, utter pain in the fucking ass for the better part of the morning. By noon Mojo had just about had it as they were loading up the car to go home from downtown.At which point Missy decided she had had just about enough, too.Missy: "I wish I was an ORPHAN so you couldn't tell me what to do!"
Mojo: "Fine. You can stay here, then. Somebody should come along in a while and maybe they'll take you home with them." (Missy's eyes go wide) "So, Peep, do YOU want to be an orphan, too?"
Peep: Naw. The food sucks."For once, I was wise enough to say absolutely nothing.