It's a tie!

COWPIE #5 has officially ended, the votes are in, and folks, we have a tie!

This means a verdict will effectively never be rendered about whether it is better to:

a) cram as many random elements into a chunk of writing with no regard for how they will resolve (a la Joe), or

b) come up with a cool (albeit nerdy) idea and a direction for the book, and properly pique readers' interest in getting to the ending you already envision (Kathryn-style).

To each their own! Well done, Kathryn. Until next time...

COWPIE #5! Book hook

Howdy folks! Welcome to another quality installation of the COWPIE phenomenon! menon. mahna. Anyhooz, you remember the drill. Read this entry, and the one over here, and post a comment to vote for your favorite! Or post an entry in a comment to join in the fun! Voting closes Sunday night (otherwise this would go on forever - gotta count all these manually, you know).

Here's the prompt for this go-round:
Write the first few sentences (120 words or less) of a book. Could be any type of book. Most gripping entry wins.

So that's what I did. Microsoft Word will back me up: I've got 120 words - precisely - of the most hand-wringing, seat-edge-inhabiting, mind-gripping prose this side of the Brazos. Ready to blow your Chacos off. But prepare yourself: it's going to be a veritable roller-coaster of emotion. No sooner will you have devoured 120 juicy, delicious, well-seasoned, not-too-overdone, with a hint of cumin, savory words, than you will suddenly and inescapably be overcome with disappointment that what comes next will, in fact, never come next. It will literally be said, for years to come, "that's all he wrote."

But cheer up. In the meantime, you've got a COWPIE to devour! Enjoy every last fresh, steaming word. Without further a-doo...

(Actually, go ahead and take a minute to let that last string of jokes wear off before moving on. Okay, ready? You sure? Proceed.)

Chapter 1

11:55. It’s nearly time, Maurice. Oh well. Nothing more you can do now. Even if there were still time for agonizing, that wouldn’t make them understand. Friends. Bah. Each and every one of them false. Each and every one of them, regrettably, about to lose everything.

11:57. Fools. You warned them, Maurice. Weird science, they said. Fuzzy math. Bad religion. Petty politics. They wouldn’t listen to reason or pleading.

11:58. You can do this. You must do this – it’s the only way.

11:59. Was that a slight breeze outside? Is it possible? Down here? Can’t be –
but that means –

12:00. Time.

Maurice unzipped and stepped outside his tent. Taking one last look around, he ran like he’d never run before.

Regarding telephones

First, a grievance:

It's difficult for me to conceive of areas of our country from where you can still get a busy signal when making a telephone call. I suppose it's the sheer age of call waiting and voicemail technologies that make this particularly astonishing to me. I'd love to see some kind of nerdy statistic to support my bafflement, like "a decade of our time is equivalent to two centuries of ancient time" in terms of the development and adoption of new technologies.

I don't know why it drives me so batty to get a busy signal when I call a person or a business, but it does.

Next, the irony:

I can't receive text messages on my cell phone. A number of people have pointed out to me that "everyone gets text messages", so I wonder if this handicap, combined with the increasing representation of gray on my facial and cranial hair, ages me prematurely. (I think I'd actually be okay with this if it hastened retirement or discounts on food or coffee, but I doubt it will.)

Times like this make me reluctantly appreciative of God's sense of humor. Not to mention his amazing sense of economy at providing these kinds of dramatic entertainment at my expense. Blessed are the poor - for they will find they are rich enough to be made fun of.

One man's trash...

(from the draft pile...)

I recently sold this beauty to an older couple from Hearne:

Somehow, even though my life isn't ultimately defined materially, it still seems that the cars I drive have a kind of influence on the way I perceive my identity. Or at least, the way I perceive the way I'm perceived.

Take the Escort, for example. In a kind of "Blessed are the poor" meets "I'm so awesome because my experiences of early-life-stage middle-class poverty-approximation totally outdo yours" way (you know, the conversations where people try to one-up each other on what their parents made them drive as starter cars, and the like), I'd really grown into an appreciation of the kinds of reactions I would get as I started up that car close to a group of friends, and puttered away, carried along by an engine that was tens of thousands of miles past due for a tune-up. (Seriously, this was the car that could always be heard coming from at least a couple of blocks away, with its mighty 1.8 liter V4.) As an added bonus, I would make sure they got a good view of the back bumper as I drove off - or at least, the half of it that still remained. (Sorry, no pic here - the one above was my "best foot forward" teaser for the Craigslist posting.)

But it was as much fun to drive as it was for others to experience me driving. Consider all the "personality" that the new owners had to find compatible with theirs in order to want to make it their own:

-Windows didn't roll down. (This is because, after a while, the kind that you crank yourself start wearing down on the inside, and once it starts taking a strong man to roll and unroll them, the parts just aren't made for that kind of brute strength.)

-A/C didn't work on the top setting. (And the second highest-setting certainly wasn't cutting it in Texas summer heat.)

-Engine idled rough. More precisely, it shudder-heaved. (Best to slip it into neutral at stop signs and stop lights.)

-Transmission fluid and oil leaked. (No biggie - just add a little more every other day.)

-Visors weren't really movable anymore. (Sunglasses a must.)

The poor dear had begun to show her age, too. Peeling paint, rusting metal. A handful of dents and dings (other than the bumper, all of these were inherited from the previous owner, a.k.a. "Sistah".) But, having been built Ford tough, this was hardly cause to raise an eyebrow.

Ah, the memories. It wasn't my first car, or even my second, but it certainly was one of the most memorable. And who can put a price tag on such experiences? Actually, in this case, that would be about $450. So we'll hope for the best, but if it goes kaput, then at least the old couple aren't out too much money. May it treat its new owners well and not become rural yard art.

So, goodbye, my weird friend. It's been interesting. I say that because it sounds better than frustrating. But now I've got stories to tell, and that's something that money truly can't buy.

It dances, I geek out!

(This post brought to you by the "up" thumb.)

This is not news, really, though it was to me. If you haven't heard of the Sony Rolly, check out a demo of it here.

I don't know exactly why, but this strikes me as one of the best possible uses of technology. Sure, it might seem like some kind of technology with medical application would easily be more important, and I would agree to a degree since I am a contact lens wearer, but a lot of those technologies are aimed less at enabling disabilities and more at prolonging the inevitable. Whatever, right? That could just be a dumb opinion of mine that will change "when it happens to me", but bodies weren't meant to last forever, and we can't make them that way.

Rant over, geek start. This little dancing robot is so cool. (I've got robots on the brain lately since a friend of mine did this cool little project.) I think that's because it reminds me of the genius and purpose of art - and what it is and isn't. A conference on the arts I attended last year stressed that art shouldn't have utility; instead, it is what it is. It will resist attempts to use it for what it's not created to be. It's useless, but in a good way. It's there to be enjoyed and appreciated. (At least, that's what I took from the conference, whether I'm butchering the concepts or not.)

Rolly plays music and dances. So I guess it's useful in terms of having something around the house that plays music. But I don't think you can use it to make a call, or take a picture, or manage your calendar. You just enjoy it, and that's the beauty.

I don't care if you buy one or not. But if you do, I'll probably invite myself over and sit and watch it for hours. And drink your beer, if you have any.

Rise of the Machines

No, I haven't seen the new Terminator movie. (Not the same title, anyways.) That's not what this is about.

Check out this little nugget of ridiculosity. Virginians are not allowed to smile when getting their picture taken at the DMV. New computer software aimed at improving prevention of fraud and identity theft by comparing mugshots over time won't allow it.

It's not the first time we've made machines and forced ourselves to accommodate to them. I sit at a desk all day with a comfy chair and wrist pad and perfectly adjusted monitors so that I can stay sitting longer and be more productive. (Don't get me wrong, I like my job.)

But this one is harder for me to stomach, somehow. Just wait. Next they'll (it's kind of fun to lump all the nasty people in power into one steaming pile and suggest that all of them are out to keep us down and make our lives miserable) be banning people from driving whose knees bend the other way. Sound far-fetched? The dark future is coming, my friend.

Renaissance of the Nerds

Ever since this went down a few weeks ago, it seems as though Kathryn and I have been going through something of a nerd-renaissance.  (And yes, I was able to spell that last word without looking it up.)

I'll be brevious.  Recently Kathryn and I were driving and a bird flew across the front of our car.  It stayed in view after that, and pulled a sort of horizontal 180 degree flip, followed by a wicked upswing that was all the more impressive given the short amount of time it all happened in.

Here's the conversation that ensued:

Me: Did you see that bird?

Kathryn: Yeah, that was cool.  It did like a feinting wonky.

Me: You mean a Wronski Feint?   (Kudos to the Muggles who didn't let me down by giving me something to hyperlink to.)

Kathryn: [laughs]

In the conversation that followed, Kathryn admitted to sometimes intentionally botching up Lord of the Rings character names so that I could get them right and correct her.  Sorry Chica, but after blowing me out of the water a few weeks ago in our house Nerd-Off, nobody's buying it!  Plus, I think if we were trying to make Jesus cry by taking something he said and making a general 'principle' out of it, we could take the time when he said he'd be ashamed of us if we were ashamed of him and apply it generally to identity issues, such as being true to ourselves (which is essentially the same as being true to whatever personality or trend we follow anyways) - in which case, not being true to one's own innate nerdness is, by some form of logic, tantamount to messianic desertion.

Nerd out.