drewmckinney.net

It had been a great Friday night. Drinks at Dalva with the Lady and a friend. Good discussion, wonderful stories, bottles of cold beer. The rain was present but only mildly so, a light mist that collected on my glasses and gave everything a frosty look, like I was watching the world through an icy pint glass.

Drinks ended and our friend had to go home so the Lady and I went across the street for a little dinner. Veggie burgers and turkey sandwiches. Greasy french fries that could have been cooked for another ten minutes because they were limp and lifeless, looking more like dead flowers than crispy delectables. Despite the fries it was a good dinner. Talking to each other about writing and how fucked up the country is. For some reason the waitress brought over a gallon of Tobasco sauce and set it on the table.

The wait for the train was ten minutes, strange for a Friday night in the city. The ride was uneventful, just standing there for the two minute ride home trying to avoid getting touched by someone’s wet coat. I held onto the overhead bar and tried not to notice the musty smell of homelessness and patchouli. A quick one block walk and we were home, the warm air of the apartment a comforting change from the wetness of outdoors.

Coats were hung and umbrellas were stowed. I drank a glass of ice water and thought that maybe I’d had one beer too many, the cramped feeling in my stomach causing a wave of bile to rush upwards towards my throat. I chased it back down with some more water and sat down to get comfortable.

The Lady looked at me while she removed her earrings. “Well that was great! Did you have fun Sweetie?”

I looked at her and smiled. “Of course I did! Let’s do this more often.” I lifted up my shirt and scratched my belly. The shoes slipped off and I searched for the remote, invisible as always amongst the magazines and pile of books to read.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

I jumped up from the chair. “Jesus Christ! That’s fucking gunfire! It’s right the fuck outside!” I ran over to the window and pried open the mini blinds with a metallic thunk. I looked left and right but couldn’t see anything.

The Lady ran over to the window with me. “What’s going on? Was that gunfire?”

I pushed past her and ran for my shoes. “Yes! That was gunfire! What the fuck is going on? I’m going out there to see if anyone needs help.” I pulled on my coat and ran to the desk for my phone. “My battery is dead! Grab your phone, we need to call 911.”

We rushed down the stairs and out into the rain. The umbrellas were upstairs and we started getting soaked.

“The number is busy! Why won’t they answer? I’m going to call again. Damn it, it’s still busy!”

We crossed the street and two people were coming our way. “Don’t go down there, they’re still shooting.”

I asked her if anyone had called 911. She said she didn’t want to get involved and walked away as the sounds of screaming reached our ears.

“Help me! Somebody help me! Help!” There was all kinds of screaming and people were starting to head out into the street to see what was going on. I looked up the street and saw the first police car on the scene.

“Wait a second Honey, the cops have arrived. Let’s go back inside. It’s not safe out here. C’mon, let’s go.” I grabbed her arm but she wouldn’t move.

“The number is still busy! Fucking 911 won’t fucking answer!”

I started to pull her back across the street. “Please, come in. It’s not safe out. The cops have arrived, please, let’s go in.” As I watched the street I saw another three, then four, then five police cars show up. The woman was still screaming for help. “Please Honey, please come in.”

She followed reluctantly and we got back indoors, spooked at the last second by someone that was driving by in a suspiciously slow manner. We got back upstairs and looked out the window. The wailing of sirens started to fill the air as police cars from across the city were dispatched to the scene.

“Why do people have to shoot people? Why do they need guns? What the fuck is wrong with people?” They were all good questions but I didn’t have any answers.

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UPDATE (11/24/07): Heh-heh, [why digg is blocked dot com] is NOT my site. I’ve been getting a lot of nasty comments from people thinking that it is. I enjoy lively banter but I think I’ll probably just delete the rest of the comments for this post that are in moderation. Digg fans, harass the REAL owner of that site. As for this post, well, it was an experiment of mine, I’ll leave it at that. Anyway, the post is below if you still feel like reading it.
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Don’t get me wrong, I’m a digg user and will continue to use digg (I’m not very active though, I guess I’m more of a lurker…) and there are stories on the site that I would not have heard about otherwise. Still, I think there’s a lot to be desired and since I don’t know how to fix things I guess I’ll just bitch about them. So, my five reasons why I think digg sucks:

1. Despite being a “technology news website” it consistently features stories that are not technology-related in the least. Stories like, “OMG! Clay Aiken is GAY!!” or “Britney Spears to appear on Simpsons!!” are very common on the site.* GMAFB, what does any of that have to do with technology? It’s a little thing to bitch about but still, if I wanted that kind of crap I’d look up different sites that specialize in it. Just keep things to technology, that’s all I ask.

2. Members can be elitist assholes. I rarely see anything that approaches a rational discussion in the comments, instead, you are treated to off-topic flame wars and personal attacks, most of which involve some sort of “I’m OLD SKOOL and I’m great” type of talk. I’ve seen new members of the community ask a reasonable question only to be told to “Go back to engadget where you belong because this is Digg where our mouths are even bigger than our dicks.”**

3. Webmasters are given no warning when their site is going to be “dugg.” I think it’s irresponsible of a so-called technology community to overwhelm a web server without having a system in place that would allow the webmaster to set up some mirrors or somehow prepare his site for when the traffic comes. The, for lack of a better term, digg-effect can be devastating to a site and the bandwidth bill can get into the thousands before the webmaster knows what’s going on. These “diggers” know exactly what they are doing yet they completely disregard their responsibility for bringing a site down.

4. Digg traffic does not equal advertising dollars. Many webmasters have advertising on their sites, like Google’s Adsense or Yahoo!’s YPN and mistakenly thing that getting dugg will equal money in their pockets. This is dead wrong. The people that use digg don’t click on ads, they’re the wrong crowd for contextual advertising, and the webmaster usually ends up paying for a ton of bandwidth and lowers his click-through rate, thereby causing himself to be smart-priced out of the higher-paying ads that might have been shown on his site.***

5. Apple is God and Microsoft is the Devil. I just don’t understand why everyone has to jump all over a guy just because he has Windows installed on his laptop. You want to know something jerks? Sometimes people in the world can’t afford the Apple-tax and they have to get something that’s in their price range. Yeah, everyone knows that Windows sucks, we don’t need to hear it every second.

Well, that’s my five so I guess I should stop. I’m sure there are other people out there with different reasons of why digg sucks, care to share yours?

* No, these aren’t real headlines (that I’m aware of.) I was exaggerating for effect.

** Not all members are elitist assholes. I’ve seen some very helpful comments and it would be unfair to the nice people to call them names. Also, I don’t think anyone actually made the remark that I did, once again I was exaggerating for effect. I can’t help it, I’m a writer.

*** There are probably exceptions to this, in fact, it was a guess on my part when I mentioned smart-pricing. Who knows, I’m sure there are some happy webmasters that have gotten dugg but I’ve read a lot of horror stories.

“Go back to bed, America, your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed America, your government is in control. Here, here’s American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up, go back to bed America, here is American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on the living in the land of freedom. Here you go America - you are free to do what well tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!”  — Bill Hicks

Scott Adams on “constitutional.” His site is always entertaining and thought-provoking. Completely unlike my site.

I like to spend my money on books, notebooks, toys, stickers, Hello Kitty stuff, Star Wars stuff, and music. What are your hobbies? Don’t tell me something like “drink” or “do drugs” or anything lame like that, I’m curious about what occupies people when they have some free time to themselves.

Last night in snowed in San Francisco for the first time in thirty years. Well, some dispute that and say that it snowed in 1997 but I have no idea. It doesn’t matter really, snow here is a rare thing. Here’s a snap I grabbed while in the car with my friend and my lady:

I just heard a bunch of shots off in the distance. A BUNCH of shots, like maybe 12-15. Not in my neighborhood but somewhere closer to Bernal Heights I think. It’s hard to tell where muffled gunfire comes from in the night but it’s disconcerting to say the least.

Total coincidence - The color of my new glasses (my eyes are dim I cannot see…nevermind, old childhood song) is called “Gunmetal.”

Well, I’m back home now. I was going to do some live coverage but there wasn’t anything interesting enough to warrant that.

I was a bit miffed that things didn’t start until 7 pm when it was advertised to start at 6. For the first hour I just sat there with a beer and spoke to a couple passersby.

Some guy from some web site was the first presenter and he didn’t even have a presentation. Instead, he asked questions from the audience on how to make his product better. Frankly, I was expecting something a bit more. The second guy was more entertaining but he didn’t have anything to say either. I left before the last presenter went.

I’m not sure what I expected but it was kind of a bust for me. There was a room full of people so odds are that someone got something out of the whole mess. Maybe it was just an excuse to gather a bunch of people and drink, I’m fine with that.

I just got here at Shine, where the event is. I’ve never been here before but it’s a nice enough place. Nice and dark. I figure that I’m in the right place because there’s a couple of laptops and some guys setting up the visuals. Cool. There’s also some bar glasses filled with Creative Commons buttons.

In 1978 when I was four years old the Star Wars Holiday Special aired on network television. I watched it then but the only thing that I ever remembered about it was Chewbacca’s kid walking on the railing when he wasn’t supposed to. Well, now that I’m thirty-one I figured that it was time to watch it again (via YouTube).

The first ten minutes of this movie are awful and I nearly gave up right then. The reason? Have you ever tried to listen to a room full of Wookies have a conversation? It’s not pleasant. It goes something like this:

Chewie’s Wife (Mala): rrrraaaagh rrrrraaagrrrarrrrarr
Chewie’s Dad (Itchy): rgggggarrrraaaaargg rrarraarg
Chewie’s Son (Lumpy): rrrga rrrrhhhaaarrrrrrr ggrgrr

For ten fucking minutes, I kid you not. By the way, those are their real names, I’m not clever enough to make them up.

We learn that Chewie’s wife wears an apron and his dad is a grouch with a cane. His son is most likely gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that) because I’ve never seen another Wookie prance around like that. He does some ballet on the porch railing (ah, my memory is sort-of correct) and then prances around some more. He whines a lot as well.

So, what’s the hubbub? Well, it seems that it’s Lifeday again and Chewie needs to get home to celebrate it with his family. The trouble is that Chewie is far from home with Han and the Empire is running around trying to round up the usual suspects.

Chewie’s dad is more interesting than all that though. For Lifeday he receives some, I dunno, virtual porn setup, seriously, from the kindly old man who runs the store. It’s similar to VR goggles, except they use some sort of coffee can instead of goggles. When Itchy’s head goes inside the coffee can there’s a woman that appears in his mind and she tells him how he’s adorable and that he should just relax and enjoy the pleasure. We don’t quite see his stiffy but we know it’s there by the way he squirms around in the chair.

After a while some stormtroopers break in and demand some identification. The kindly old storekeeper is over helping the Wookies celebrate Lifeday so he gives one of the Imperial Soldiers a virtual boombox that contains Jefferson Starship (or is it Jefferson Airplane? I’m not sure but it’s definitely one those groups because they said so in the opening credits). Anyway, yay, another lousy musical number.

About halfway during the movie it becomes animated without any warning. 3PO (Threepio?) and R-2 are very gay during this segment (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and Leia looks like a muppet from Korea. Luke gets involved in a love triangle with the robots and you can clearly hear the jealousy in 3PO’s voice when Luke asks about the well-being of R-2. Boba Fett appears and saves Luke’s life from a swamp monster. Boba calls him “friend” a lot and sounds a lot like a tough-guy from New York. He and Chewie go off to find some special serum for Luke who has gotten a mysterious sleeping virus from the “talisman.” Boba contacts Vader and tells him everything is going according to plan.

Then we’re back into the real world and Chewie’s gay kid is watching this cartoon. Then the movie goes back to animation again. Weird. When the movie comes back to the real world again the stormtroopers are still wrecking the place and one of the guards tears a stuffed animal apart. There’s lots of tough-guys in this movie.

It turns out that the kindly old man gave the kid a radio transmitter for Lifeday so the kid watches an instructional video on how to put the thing together. The guy giving the lecture in the video is some sort of android that has trouble with his power supply. This makes the android slow down and speed up at inopportune times. It’s kind of comical for about thirty seconds. Unfortunately, the scene goes on and on for about ten minutes.

Suddenly we’re on Tatooine, watching a propaganda tape that is “required viewing” for all Imperial, er, members I guess. The Mos Eisley Cantina is kickin’ and Figrin Da’n and the Modal Nodes (yes, I’m that much of a geek that I know the name of a fictious band in a fictitious universe) are still playing that insipid song - doot doot doot doot doodley-doo doodley-doo. C’mon, you know the tune. Pretty much all of the monsters that were in the Cantina in A New Hope are here. There’s a new monster though, the bar tender. Her name is Beatrice Arthur, aka Bea Arthur, Maude, the manly-women from Golden Girls. She brusquely orders people to drink up and she snubs some dude that’s into her. The guy ends up pouring the drink in his head. Not on his head or in his mouth, in his head. Things like that should be illegal but it IS Mos Eisley we’re in. He chases her around the bar and she calls him “terribly attractive,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. She busts out into song when the Empire orders everyone to return to their homes. I learned that if there is a room full of drunken aliens the best way to get them to leave is to sing to them in a slightly husky voice.

Han and Chewie suddenly show up at the house and Han throws the left-behind stormtrooper over the railing and then hands the kid over to Chewie. Yeah, that Han is a scoundrel, got to be careful of him.

It all ends with a bunch of Wookies in robes walking into a glob of light in outer space and they don’t even need to wear masks or anything.

Well, it doesn’t really end there. No, we have to hear Carrie Fisher sing us a song about peace. It made me want to shoot my face off, but you can’t please everyone. After her song we see a montage of a New Hope and then it ends.

My conclusion? Bad, but laughably so. The whole thing is just a big embarrassment to the franchise, even more so than Phantom Menace, but little kids will like it. I wouldn’t watch it again unless I was paid to but I’m glad that I got a chance to re-connect with a memory that I’ve had for a very long time.