Journal Entries
Two Important Thresholds
Posted May 8, 2003
1. On Sunday May 4th, I mowed my lawn. Feels like I've stepped more firmly into adulthood, but it's probably just middle class. This feeling will not be diminished by the fact that my stepdad gave me the mower for free, or the fact that it's a muffler-less beast with a plastic bag securing the cracked oil cap.
I used to think "lawn care" was a decadent, bourgeois thing that I would never pay for or engage in if I could help it. But if I let the grass grow over 12 inches, the city will mow it for me and send me an exorbitant bill, so they've forced my hand. If I could get away with it, I would certainly allow my lawn to flourish au naturel. Until then, the best we can do is leave all the dandelions in the cracks of our sidewalks and curbs. My wife loves them and can't understand why people try to get rid of dandelions.
2. May 7th I discovered that if I bend my head way down as far as possible, then some of the longer hairs in my beard almost reach my navel. 
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: May 8, 2003
BBC is an "800lb gorilla" according to its director general
Posted Apr 26, 2003
from
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=400113
"Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, attacked Fox News and CNN for what he described as "gung-ho" coverage.
In contrast, the BBC was an "800lb gorilla" that was capable of holding off the Government's attempts to interfere in editorial decisions, he said."
Discuss this Journal entry [9]
Latest reply: Apr 26, 2003
protest/hiatus
Posted Mar 20, 2003
I'm staying away from h2g2 for a few days. It's partially as a protest against the Iraq policy, but partially in order to obey the policy. I can't think of any topics apart from the war that I would want to discuss much any time soon, so anything I'd want to say on h2g2 would get forcibly resettled to the strategic hamlet of "Great Debate" forum.
There's no reason to use a message board like "Great Debate" that closes for half the day, when we can have open discussions in a million other places. Is it closed on weekends too? There's no reason to remain loyal to such an ineffective message board. I understand the BBC's explanation for this policy, but it seems based on unreasonable premises, as if a public message board should be considered "published" by BBC, something the BBC needs to take so much extra responsibility for.
Even if the British public were that unreasonable, the BBC should defend reasonable policies about how a public message board should work, not enforce unreasonable ones just for fear that some ignorant members of the public will complain.
I have no illusions about the impact of one person boycotting h2g2 for a few days. But even if I wanted to come here and discuss anything, the topic on my mind is war. If this website doesn't supply an effective forum for open discussions, what's left to keep me here? Should I try to talk about marmite when I'm not in the mood, just out of loyalty to good old h2g2? No. I'll come back in a few days when I might be in the mood for lite topics again.
Later,
Deidzoeb
PS - If you don't like this policy on Iraq, please read through the Petition for Greater Freedom on h2g2 A544943 and consider signing it.
Discuss this Journal entry [2]
Latest reply: Mar 20, 2003
We can be friends without making a list for it
Posted Jan 15, 2003
I experimented with the Friends List on my personal space today. Added Bossel. Realized that if I listed anyone there, then I would have to scramble around and find everyone I've talked with on h2g2 to prevent bad feelings if they find their names missing from my list, and I've decided it's absurd to maintain a list. I deleted Bossel, not because I don't want to be friends but because I'm abstaining from the Friends List.
Here's a line of lovey-dovey smooches to console Bossel:
Anyone else, if you're wondering whether I would classify you as my friend, you'll have to use the old fashioned methods of analyzing the way I interact with you, or ask how I feel. (Keep your clothes on; I'm married.)
Mrs. Subcom says I have to go now. Bye.
Discuss this Journal entry [6]
Latest reply: Jan 15, 2003
Came home a week early
Posted Jan 6, 2003
Hello again. We came back early. Mrs. Subcom was "home-sick" in a weird way. In spite of the fact that she still wants to move back to Houston some day, she got sick of visiting Houston, mainly because we were staying with relatives instead of paying for motel rooms. She wanted to return to the sanctuary of our house back up north, where she can sit at the computer surfing in a housecoat all day, farting or swearing or eating microwave dinners whenever she wants. The kind of total relaxation that you can't achieve even when staying with your closest friends or relatives.
We visited my cousin's family in Elkton, Kentucky, Mrs. Subcom's dad in Meridian, Mississippi, a slew of Mrs. Subcom's siblings and neices around Houston, another of my cousins in Houston, drove around Galveston a little bit, and finally zipped back up to Michigan within a few days when Mrs. Subcom said she wanted to go back home. It wasn't exactly being "homesick," just wanting to relieve the low-level stress of 24 hour "visiting" when you stay at relatives' houses.
In order to make the trip even shorter, I drove the last stretch from Meridian, Mississippi to our place in Michigan all in one day, 879 miles in about 15 hours. Even counting the stops for gas and food and trying to get the kitten to eat and use the litter (more on her in a moment), we averaged 58.6 miles per hour. I thought that was pretty impressive, but my mother the truck driver said we must have been going fairly slowly, since she averages 50-something miles per hour in the truck, and there are lower speed limits for trucks than for regular cars. Still, I drove further and more hours than a professional trucker is legally allowed to drive in a day. (Which only means they have to fiddle with their log-books after the fact to make it look legal.)
KITTEN! We already had a cat named Lucky. I didn't want to get any more cats while we lived in the apartment, because it seems like cramped quarters, and we don't let her outside except on a leash. So when we moved into the house, we talked about getting a new kitten. We didn't want to do it before going on vacation, because we didn't want to burden my mother and step-father with more animals while we were gone. They have 5 cats, a german shepherd, two horses, a cockatiel and a parrot. This would amount to 12 animals if we asked them to babysit 2 cats for us.
Melinda's grandmother in Mississippi usually has a brood of cats and kittens that she feeds, so we thought we might be able to get one of those on our way back north to Michigan. She didn't have any small ones, but Mrs. Subcom's dad's fiance had a kitten she was trying to get rid of. (In case you're related to him and you haven't heard the news elsewhere: yes, Mrs. Subcom's dad is engaged to a nice lady named Mary Jane. Weird. Wife and I are both going to have step-parents.)
So we picked out a calico kitten, female, two months old. Mostly black or dark brown with small random patches of orange and tan. There's a subdued tiger-striping in the orange spots, but you can barely see it. And she has a little orange blotch on her forehead that Mrs. Subcom uses as a kissing target.
We brainstormed names for her, turning most of them into middle names, because we liked them too much to throw them away. Her name is "Lozie Ocarina Okra-tina Patches" Deidzoeb-Smith. (Not really Deidzoeb, of course.) We wanted to emphasize her Mississippi heritage, so that's the reason for "Okra." "Patches" was the name that her foster mother Mary Jane had given her. And "Lozie" was the first name of Mrs. Subcom's maternal grandmother, supposedly descended from Gen. Robert E. Lee, but aren't we all? Pronounced "LOW-zee."
Lucky and Lozie are still hissing and clawing each other occasionally, but they managed to sleep within a few feet of each other recently, so they're adjusting. Lozie pokes into everything, climbs on everything, knocks over everything she can manage to knock over, almost to the point that I regret getting her, but not quite. We haven't made the house kitten-proof, but she's doing the job for us by knocking over everything that isn't kitten-proof.
And I think I've put the pirate novel in a reasonable order, polished it a little. I got the Writer's Market 2002 from the library and I'm looking for places to submit it. If no one talks me out of it, this is really about to happen.
Later,
Deidzoeb
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Jan 6, 2003
Deidzoeb
Researcher U96220
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."