Beth's Contradictory Brain

Very Scary

It's about 11 pm and as usual this week, I'm waiting for Nerdstar to get computer access so we can IM with our webcams. (Webcams - not just for porn!) Tonight I decided to fire up her iTunes on shuffle and take a listen. Which has resulted in songs by the Dixie Chicks, the Spice Girls, and now Wang Chung assaulting my ears. I can never express just how scary it is my girl has such bad taste in music!!

Well, it made me laugh

Wait for it....

Then again, I'll laugh at anything.

Pretty Fly for a White...

To say I'm white is an understatement, I glow in the dark! No really! I don't mind being so white, I generally just freckle and sunburn. More accurately, I get one or two decent sunburns a year and the rest of the year avoid them at all costs.

But, today was perfect, and I mean perfect, weather. So I had to go out for a nice little motorcycle ride. It was only for about an hour, but that was long enough to begin to renew my farmers tan. On long rides in the hot summer, I'm usually covered head to toe, helmet, long sleeved t-shirt, jeans, boots, and gloves. Even 50 proof sunscreen isn't enough to save me from the Texas summer sun. It's not too bad riding at 60 miles an hour on some winding two lane highway, but stopping at lights is like sitting in an oven.

This will be my third year riding and I still love it. It's nice to get the bike out and get the feel of it again. Days like today make it so very tempting to just keep riding, east or west, doesn't matter, until I hit the ocean. But I don't have the riding endurance to ride for four or five hours, much less a few days. Riding is a lot different than driving a car, it's a lot more draining. It takes a lot of concentration and energy. There's nothing like it though.

The 1st. annual nerdstar's snacks for the troops drive!

Greetings from Iraq! This is nerdstar and I'd like to say thanks to those who sent me birthday cards and they really made my birthday! Some friends of mine treated me to the local Arabic restaurant on base and donated snickers bar to me, which I enjoyed it in a flash!

I'd like to request a favor, we'd really appreciate it if all or some of you faithful readers of this blog can donate some snack foods, nothing fancy, like ramen, m&m's, snack cakes, etc. and send it to :

Spc.
HHC 3-2 SBCT
APO AE 09385

We'd really appreciate it!

Update:
I don't think you can send too much beef jerky, dried fruit mixes, oreos, or even canned speghetteos.
Beth

Another update: She's also mentioned pens, writing pads, stationary, books, magazines, powdered drink mixes - unsweetened kool aid little packs, nuts.

The poor get screwed

I'd hope it's obvious from reading this site that I'm pretty big on responsibility and capitalism. But once again my dealings with Bank of America have reminded me just how often the poor get screwed by businesses and such. It's a topic a friend of mine and I used to talk about all the time, because we were damn poor. I was out of college and working and living here in Austin, had a roommate and trying to make ends meet, yet I still ended up having to sell my plasma on a regular basis for gas and grocery money. This was when I didn't even have a car payment or much else. My friend at one point ended up living in her rented apartment for a couple of weeks without gas or electricity until she could get caught up on her bills.

Where business fuck over poor people is with stupid fees. Which brings me back to Bank of America. Obviously I haven't been working since November, which means I don't have any direct deposit going into my account. So without any notice, they started charging me a $6 a month service fee for the account. Yes, their free checking says it's with direct deposit accounts, I wonder why it took so many months for the charge to kick in. But my point is, why do they charge people without direct deposit - people without a higher class job - a service fee instead of people who have higher class jobs?

And it's like that all over the place.

That would suck

Once again I'm wandering around in blog neighborhoods that are new to me, and once again it's a really cool thing.

Can't not link this. You never know when it's going to hit you. I can't imagine what that must be like.

Really Good Stuff

Ahhh, peace and quiet. Sometimes it's really hard to go from being alone to having a lot of people around for more than an hour or two. My parents and Zachary came down yesterday. It was really fun having them here, and thankfully the weather was nice and we got to go to the park with the train again.

Anyway, I'm ready for some quiet time now that I'm mostly caught up on my blog reading. Here are some really great entries you should read:

Smitten is one of my newer discoveries. This post, "Torn" is really good writing about want and need, id and superego.

Someone's brain wasn't working properly and when CubicleGirl was talking with them about having to do business travel they said "well, it's not as if you're married." Uh, hello? What sucks is that idea is so subtle in straight people in regards to gay relationships. She puts it much better!

As always, Jeff has a great idea about "reality news." Putting the power of "big media" in the hands of ordinary citizens and having them go out and get answers to real questions they have. It's getting more and more to the point where it's not so daunting a task for one person to make a difference.

Not too bad

Thanks so much for all the happy birthday wishes! I got a call from Nerdstar at 4 am to start my day off right!! For whatever reason most of the people she's with don't have access to a phone, so she arranged to borrow the satellite phone from the Air Force guys again. It cracks me up to think of anyone listening in to our sappy little convo over the satellite!

I got to hang with Wendy and her girlfriend this morning for brunch and my parents are on their way down for the night with my nephew. I must be channeling Nerdstar because all I can think about today is how good dinner is going to be, and then even better, Mom's bringing a chocolate cake and I'm going to make homemade vanilla ice cream!

All in all not too bad a day!

Branching Out

Because I'm still not working and I don't have to get up at any particular time, and because I really, really miss my Nerdstar, the past couple of nights I've endeavored to stay up and online as long as possible so I can catch her online and we can IM. (In fact, we got to use our webcams for the first time the other night and make silly faces at each other!)

This has given me anywhere from one to four hours of online time late at night. By this time of night I've read all my regular reads have had to say today.

So, I've been branching out. Yes, it's nice to read blogs of people who are like me in one way or another. But really, the best part of reading blogs is getting a "behind the curtains" look at people's lives I would never otherwise get.

To that end, I've been checking out the blogroll on Cynthia Rockwell's site. Lots of film related stuff. Check her and her blogroll out.

I know the feeling

Part of what was getting me down last night was also all this utter bullshit about the 9/11 blame game hearings. I haven't written about it because there are enough people doing it much better than I ever could. If you're not up to speed on these hearings, or are only getting your info from network or cable news, I can't recommend enough that you go read Instapundit and do lots and lots of scrolling.

On the one hand I see the beginnings of this decentralization revolution in almost every aspect of society, and on the other I see the same old shit as always. I'm not a patient person.

I try not to rant too much here, partly because I'm aware that several of my readers don't share my political leanings. That's why I'm always thankful for Michele who writes today:

But what good is it doing me to rant and rave every day? What purpose does it serve to sit down at the keyboard every morning and type away about terrorism and war when nearly everyone who reads this thing feels the same way I do? I have 43 articles in a folder waiting to be written about or cited. I have emails with links to other articles or blog posts. It's what I do. Write about all the bad things going on the world. I have to do that at Command Post as well. Even if it's on a different level over there, it still makes all too aware of everything that's going on around us.

Before I started a blog, I didn't know that much about world affairs. Now I feel like I know too much. And it all comes tumbling out every morning, sometimes in the afternoon and evening, and jesus christ people, aren't you getting tired of it? Aren't you tired of reading what I'm tired of writing?

I keep telling myself I'm just going to stop watching cable news. But I can't. Because our world is changing every day. Even just five years ago I couldn't have imagined this bizarre kind of world war that we're all in. Even trying to stay as informed as I do, it's hard to wrap my head around it all.

Taken Over

Nothing like having a bad mood hijack your brain. The next few days will definitely be better. Today is Nerdstar's birthday - thank you so much to those of you who sent her cards. She said she got a cuban cigar, some cookies, and her Airforce friends took her to dinner. Next year - we're going to have to find someway to do an all out bash for out birthdays!

Lonely Misfit

That pretty much sums up my state of existence tonight. Loneliness that aches has set in. It's made me pissy. I've been yelling at the pets all evening when all they seem to want is to be in actual contact with me.

I'm not sure what's worse, sitting home alone not really putting myself out there and the inevitable loneliness of that, or putting myself out there like I did while volunteering and being lonely in spite of it. I handed out at least fifteen, twenty blog cards and haven't gotten a single email or comment on this site from it. I had lots of decent lengthed conversations, yet it was always me starting them.

I was telling Wendy last night I don't know whether to take it all personally or not. Is it that I'm a complete social reject or is it that people don't generally see past the end of their nose, that people are settled into their own little worlds and aren't looking to branch out.

I don't know. And in some ways it doesn't matter, it's all the same end result, me home alone. I won't even get into the lack of comments on this site again, it's frustrating, but...

sigh

Bring on the revolution

Jeff has a post about Walmart undercutting Apple in the price of music downloads. Not much real news there. The interesting part is the quote about the quality of music maybe improving - or not - when the cost of making music also keeps getting cheaper so more people can do it, when you can produce quality singles and "put them out there" without having to produce a whole cd.

It's still just the beginnings of this decentralization revolution. When teenagers can inexpensively produce the same type of materials, whether music, blogs, or films, as the film and music industry leaders, and then inexpensively pass it around to their friends and then, thru the internet, God knows who else, totally bypassing the machine, it truly is revolutionary.

Technology and the internet are actually bringing into reality a level playing field that we've never seen before.

So Sad

This is from Nerdstar's email:

It has been a pretty sleepy day so far, overnight, this infantry solider killed himself because (this is heresay) he got dumped by his girlfriend. No one has
said anything about it yet, this is typical 3rd. brigade, just like how they dealed with the rape at Camp Udairi.

The weather here was so hot that I had to turn the AC on for a while. I heard that they are also going to inspect all of our rooms for contrabands like alcohol, etc. because... get this they've actually got someone to go through trash and found jack daniels bottles. I say bring it on, and please clean out my room while you are at it.

I can't imagine how hard it is for a family to have a soldier be killed while over, but man, suicide that would be even harder. I can't imagine the stress and pressure and other crap that soldiers go thru being deployed. The army has psychologists and chaplains and try to do what they can for the soldiers, but it's still so hard to be deployed and away from home. Then if things back home aren't going well, and from what I hear lots of soldiers get breakup and divorce notices while away, I can only imagine how devastating that can be.

In going back thru all my entries trying to put them in categories, I was reading last night how mad I was at Nerdstar when she was finally sent to Iraq. But I also knew very quickly that I had to put all that aside and do whatever it took to help her get thru this. Because no matter how bad I think I have it here at home, she has it so much worse.

One of these days...

I'll leave this stuff to the professionals. I've been behind on blog reading, so I just ran across this entry by Hugh about how to do movie blogs, really great stuff.

I just wish I had the skills to get some sort of job doing just that - creating blogs for movies in production. I don't even know how to install MT. Maybe I should learn and hit the film festival circuit for the next few months and sell directors and producers on blogging. Sigh. I wish.

A Little Lighter

Honestly, I'm not serious ALL the time. I was channel surfing yesterday morning, usually a very dreary thing to do on Sundays, when I ran across Aaagh! It's the Mr. Hell Show! Damn is that stuff funny!! I can't tell you how many times I laughed out loud in the twenty minutes I was watching. Unfortunately it's not on DVD yet.

Then last night I caught South Park. It was brilliant and funny. Again, I was laughing out loud. Cartman and crew were ninjas and the show was done partly in anime style animation instead of the normal South Park style. Brilliant!

UPDATE:
Ok, I knew Hugh of Gaping Void was brilliant, but wow. Thankfully, he saw this entry and left a comment. I tried going to Toons To Go to order the promotional dvd for the Mr. Hell Show, but it appears they're out. I've got my dvr set to record all the episodes Showtime is running and will just have to save them to VHS for Nerdstar to see until they're all available on dvd.

Nobody Does It Better

Than Lileks when he's really on. Here's the best analogy for what the "anti-war" crowd is really saying:
Imagine if you woke from an operation and discovered that your tumor was gone. You’d think: I suppose that’s a good thing. But. You learned that the hospital might profit from the operation. You learned that the doctor who made the diagnosis had decided to ignore all the other doctors who believed the tumor could be discouraged if everyone protested the tumor in the strongest possible terms, and urged the tumor to relent. How would you feel? You’d be mad. You’d look up at the ceiling of your room and nurse your fury until you came to truly hate that butcher. And when he came by to see how you were doing, you’d have only one logical, sensible thing to say: YOU TOOK IT OUT FOR THE WRONG REASONS. PUT IT BACK!

So what were all these people against, exactly?

Freedom. More freedom now than before, and yes it comes with peril; it always does, at first. But freedom is either in retreat, or on the advance. These people marched to protest the premature bestowal of freedom by exterior forces. Better the Iraqi people live under the boot for 20 years, and rise up and get slaughtered and rise up again and slaughter those who killed their kin, then have Bush push the FF button and get it over with now. Better they suffer for the right reasons than live better for the wrong ones.

Read the rest, check out that lovely picture.

Because as I learned sitting in on the interactive panels a week ago, these ideas aren't just held by the more activist people out on the streets.

Reflections on SXSW

This post started as a comment I left for Jeff Jarvis, but I decided to try to flesh it out a little more here.

What I found in sitting in on panels from both the music festival and interactive conferernce, and listening to a couple of directors/producers of the movies I saw, was that although the music, film and interactive festivals overlap schedule wise, I didn't find that they did information wise. There were a couple of cross industry panels, but not enough. The film and music people would do well to get with the tech/blogging guys (yes it did seem to be 90% guys) and work out new strategies for using blogs as marketing/promotion/ideas whatever. And I can't imagine how much money tech/blogging guys could make hooking up with the film and music industry.

From both struggling musicians and film makers, a lot of what I heard was how the big machine/system has control over everything. So, it doesn't seem this power of the people in information is spreading as thoroughly or as fast as it sometimes seems to us bloggers. Imagine what buzz a film maker could produce if he blogged the process. We've seen it more with novel writers putting their stuff up for comment and editing.

I think there has to be a decentralization revolution coming.

Odds and Ends

It's 7:30 Sunday morning. I can't remember the last time I was up this early without having set the alarm. I was asleep by 9:30 last night and slept pretty well. I had a really long dream with Ani in it last night. I realized I didn't get across the emotional side of meeting her, because I felt silly. But other than being surreal, it was emotional. I walked away with my hands shaking. I didn't think I would. It's been a few years since her music had such an impact, but man, when it did was one of the most intense years of my life. I guess actually talking to her tapped into all that briefly.

Our Little Man is quite the hunter. I can tell it's spring because for the last four mornings I've had to dump his little prey out of their food bowl. One day it was a baby snake, yesterday a little gecko, today a baby bird. Not my favorite way to start the morning.

For those interested, my birthday is Saturday (same as Emily's). My parents and Zachary are coming down for some good bbq and we'll take Zach to the park again. It's so cute. I called home the other night and Mom said she was trying to put his pajamas on him the other night and he said "No, put shirt back on so we can go to B's." He loves coming down here because all we do is have fun! He'll be sad Nerdstar isn't here.

Well, it's time for a shower and breakfast. Today is the first ride of the spring with the Ladies On Wheels motorcycle riding group, I'm looking forward to being out riding today. It's going to be a little overcast, but warm enough.

Sometimes It Pays

Sometimes it pays to do the right thing. All day yesterday I was so tired and burned out on all this volunteering stuff. I had a boring ass shift from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., then worked the movie theater from essentially 4:30 to 11:30. Then this morning I had a volunteer orientation for Habitat for Humanity from 9 to 11 and a boring ass last shift at the convention center from 1 to 6. I wasn't hungry enough for lunch so I decided to go ahead and head to the convention center about 11:30, thinking maybe I'd check out the trade show or something. I wander in, check out the big sign to see what's going on today and there it is...

Interview with Ani Difranco @ 1:30. OMFG!!!

I go check in with the crew chief for today and tell him that I'll do anything if he'll let me sit in on that interview. He laughs and says since I'm there early I can work until the interview starts and then go check it out.

Some lady with Newsweek did the interview, which was pretty forgettable. Ani didn't really say anything in this interview I hadn't heard her say before. But you know what, that doesn't really matter. You know why?

Because when she was done I got her to sign my volunteer badge, I got to show her my "Joyful Girl" tattoo, and tell her thanks for her music and the influence it's had on my life. I also got to tell her I liked her music better before her lyrics got so vague, back when it was more about kicking life's ass instead of about it kicking hers. (Not that I actually said the "back when" part of that sentence!)

Not a bad way to end a week and a half of taxing volunteer work!!

Exhausted

It's midnight Friday night and I'm damn tired. The weather is cool yet very, very humid. I had two volunteer shifts today and man am I about to be burned out. Two good things, I got to see five more movies between last night and tonight. I'll put up links and what I can remember about them tomorrow. The other good thing is I only have one more sucky shift tomorrow and I'm done. I'm overloaded on people and noise. This feast or famine being around people is pretty hard.

I've got some thoughts on the world and my invisibility in it I'll try to write about this weekend as well.

Mark Cuban Blog

Being from Dallas, naturally I'm a Mavs fan. I've been watching basketball since the Bulls were ruling the world. It's a beautiful, fun game to watch. I'm also a Mark Cuban fan. Don't keep up with him much, but like that he has the balls to speak his mind. I've also read a few articles about his business ideas.

Now he's starting a blog and I think it's fantastic. He writes really well and not just about sports, although it looks like the inside info on sports reporting is going to be like watching a soap opera, but on business as well. This entry talks about how he's going to make the media go thru his blog to get comments from him and the impact that's going to have not just on the reporters, but their bosses as well. Just another step in blogs affecting media - for the better.

Appeasment

I don't understand Europe thinking that playing nice with terrorists will keep them safe when that idea keeps being shown to be just plain wrong.

I mean, when did handing the school bully your lunch money ever keep him for beating you up and asking for more money?? The only way to stop the school bully is to beat the crap out of him and show him you're stronger (or have friends who are). Why the hell is this so hard to understand when it comes to dealing with terroristis?

Getting Involved

One of the more cool, fun things I heard about in the interactive panels over the weekend was Voter Virgin. It's a non-partisan sight dedicated to getting people to vote in November.

I'm not sure there has been a more important election. This time we know what the stakes are, and we know where the candidates stand. Apparently, you either believe there are terrorists out there who want us all dead and are the enemy, or you believe Bush is some evil dictator and must be thrown out of office if you can't have him killed. At least it certainly seems that way. I try to remember that the majority of people in this country simply go about living their lives as best they can.

And that's why voting is so damn important in November. Spain had 77% show up to vote, now yes, I'm not crazy about the outcome, but at least they voted.

Voting is the most simple way to be involved in our political process.

I'm also tempted as hell to get more involved. I keep racking my brain tyring to figure out how to start a true third party for the '08 election. Because that election is going to be wide open. I just don't know how. I've also contemplated running for mayor just to get started. I haven't seen that Austin takes it's mayoral race very seriously. But maybe that's because the office isn't very powerful.

Anyway. I'm sure I'll write more about those ideas later. For now, check out Voter Virgin.

Testing... 1 2 3

Hello? Tap Tap Tap... is this thing on?

If you're looking for my take on Bush's Brain, scroll down.

Today at SXSW marked the end of the interactive conference and the beginning of the music festival. The change was evident just by looking around at the hair and clothes of everyone walking by. Not to mention, band boys have way more skanky girls around than tech boys.

I am so very happy to not have to get up tomorrow morning. I don't have a volunteer shift until 8 pm. Tomorrow is a day of laundry and vacuuming and catching up on web surfing.

I'm really enjoying the work with SXSW. For such a huge undertaking (at least 1200 volunteers), it seems to be running really smoothly. The other volunteers all seem to be pretty nice. Tonight I got to work the registration desk and in two hours checked in people from Melbourne, Sydney, Tokyo, London, Glasgow, NYC, and Nashville. Way cool. It's fun to talk to all of them, even if briefly, about where they're from and to welcome them to my fun little city.

It's also nice to realize I don't hate humanity like I did while I was working my last job.

More Films

I'm becomming more and more impressed with the SXSW Film Festival. The number of films of all genres, the premiers, all of it.

Last night I saw Young Adam. I can't say I enjoyed it really, but I can say it was beautifully shot and very well written. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way to talk about the actual plot line without giving too much away. If you like slow but steady Scottish films, I'd say check it out if you get a chance.

Tonight I got to see two more flicks. First up was Love Me If You Dare, a fantastic French film. (Not that it felt particularly French.) It was shot in the most beautiful colors I think I've ever seen in a film. The first half is about a boy and girl as kids, the second half is them as adults, not that they're any more mature. It was funny, smart, well written, and suprising. I'd highly recommend it.

Following that, and for sleeping purposes I wish the order had been reversed, was the very somber Straight Into Darkness. It's about two American soldiers over in Europe in 1945 who have defected. They find what they think is an old abandoned mill only to find it's being inhabited by an older couple and many orphans. It wasn't an easy movie to watch. To go from a film so full of color, to one that is so stark was hard. There's no heavy handed message to the movie, which I think would have made it unbearable. It's just a sad, innovative and even in some ways subtle look at the affects of war on children. The best part of the evening was hearing the Writer/Director and producers talk briefly about their experience making the film and working with children from orphanage in Romania.

I Don't Get It

It's been a long day. I sat in on four different interactive panels and went to see one of the movies in the festival. My brain is full and tired.

After listening to the guys from MoveOn.org and Joe Trippi and such today, then to come home and read about the elections in Spain on Instapundit (lots and lots of links and info) and A Small Victory and Jeff Jarvis, I'm struck by how the very hip and technical and informed and activist crowds have all been talking about how to "take back our country" and "get rid of Bush." In two days of the gathering there has been NO conversation about using all of these new tools to do anything to stop or prevent future terrorism here in America, or anywhere else for that matter.

I try to understand that world view. But honestly, I don't get it.

I wish I could write more coherently about all of this. I think I'm too overloaded for that right now. I also have a volunteer shift from 9 am to 6 pm tomorrow. For now I'm off to a hot bath and warm bed.

Us and Them

Really nice guys those guys from MoveOn.Org. They seemed geniunely more interested in getting people involved and giving them a platform than partisan politics.

The feeling I get from all the speakers and questions and comments in these panels is that people on the left just don’t understand why they’re not more powerful, why their side seems to be losing so much. They talk about Republicans and Republican leadership and organization like it’s like the Wizard of Oz, this powerful disembodied voice that sends down edicts from on high. They seem to completely fail to realize that there are voters just like them, except with a different ideology, behind the current Republican “power.” They just don’t understand that they are the minority, and therefore have to become the majority to have political power.

Now, is it possible for them to become the majority. Sure. There really does seem to be the passion and ideas and drive. And there does seem to be a true grassroots movement. It's tempting to think that only certain people should be voting, smart enough, old enough, informed enough. I have to remind myself that's not true. If the results of elections affects us all, like we've learned it does, then the more people voting the better.

The election this November has the potential to be one of the more interesting in a long time. You’ve got two sides who are passionately convinced they’re right and the other side is wrong at best and terribly evil at worst. Whoever loses in November will be devastated, and I think, will say they didn’t see it coming.

Personally, I just wish and dream that all of this could result in a true third party. I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face. Why is it so impossible to have a party/candidate that is strong on national defense and foreign policy, for limited government, and socially liberal. I think the American population is increasingly like that, when do the political parties catch up??

Closed Ears

How annoying is it that people ask questions to hear themselves speak instead of to get information??

Greetings from Mosul

Hi everyone! I am experiencing some residual jet-lag and a case of the sinus headache, what welcome back gifts they are! Everyone has been saying hello to me, nothing here has changed too much, depends on where you look at.

There are, a lot more people here, from different divisions and countries, that'll likely make this place more interesting. That's not to say that I'll know enough of them to really get the big picture.

Some of the air force guys have left to go home, lucky for them, they don't usually get deployed for more than 4 months, 6 at the most. One of them, who's sort of dating my roomate, has donated his stash of ramen, which is great because I have yet to feel the urge to eat dining facility food.

Speaking of dining facility, all the contracted female cooks at our facility got shipped to another facility. Words has it that our commanding officer thought that the female cooks are just walking temptations for the male soldiers, so they got shipped out...interesting. We now have a all-Phillappino male staff at the dining facility.

I am trying to get the sleeping routine right again, this morning, around 5 am, I woke up to the sounds of Isalamic prayer broadcasted via loudspeaker (very common in this neck of the woods, as well as the rest of Iraq, where loudspeakers are available), and couldn't go back to sleep for a while. I had forgotten about that, I guess I'll just have to get used to it and then tune it out all over again, that and the noises of jets flying all over the place, I guess it's to scare off the insurgents, I heard that they don't like loud jets.

I ran into this friend of mine from our linguist group (possibly my only female freind in that group), and she told me how she just doesn't feel the same about her marriage anymore. I was a kind of surprised to hear that but not overtly, because this time is a time of change for a lot of people. I think I've also changed in the way that I know that the b.s. and the personality differences are predictable and I am accepting it. I know that doesn't sound much from stuff like straying from spouses or the like, but I was really, really angry when I first got here...I'll talk about that part later.

I've got to go and look busy now, will write more later!

Saturday

Today ended up being way cooler than I thought it would. It started with a good lunch and then moved to an Austin Film Studio tour. Several years ago when it was clear the airport would be moving from central Austin to farther out, Richard Linklater and other Austin Film Society people got with the city to see about using some of the hangers as film studios. And it actually happened. Anyway, check out their website, lots of great movie stuff going on here in Austin.

Oh how cool - so in checking out their website to link to, I find out Hellboy is going to be premiered here tomorrow at midnight for SXSW. Woohoo!!

I headed over to the convention center for a couple of panels to kill time until the movie. The highlight there was meeting Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing.Net. Nice guy.

I wasn't really impressed with the "Small Media to the Rescue" panel. For one thing, the panel guys weren't really small media and to the extent it was supposed to be at all about blogging, they weren't bloggers either. Jim Moore, author of Bush's Brain - the book behind the film, was there, as was the publisher of Mother Jones and Dan Gilmore of the San Jose Murcury News. Maybe they're using small to mean alternative. They talked a little about ads and blogs as a revenue source, nothing new there. Dan Gilmore mentioned that having libel insurance is a good idea. Moore ranted about Drudge and is evidently a big believer in the vast right wing conspiracy. Which is laughable in the face of the liberal tone of the whole conference I've mentioned.

Finally, it was off to the world premier of Bush's Brain. The 1200 seat theater was packed and there's no telling how many people were turned away. All I can say it that I was totally unimpressed. My biggest impression is that it's all a bunch of sour grapes. Karl Rove has evidently been in politics for at least 30 years. So the authors and film makers were able to interview people from over the years who lost to Rove because of Rove's dirty tricks and unwavering desire to win. Hmmm. Just how hard would it be to get on tape the enemies of any person who has been in politics that long? Not very. When Molly Ivins is one of the interviewees in the film you lose major credibility in my book right off the bat.

The one part of the film that really pissed me off was they went out and found a Vietnam veteran who had adopted a boy who had enlisted in the Marines and was one of the first soldiers who died in Iraq last year. They interviewed his adopted parents and wife. There was no connection to Rove at all in this part of the film, just some statement that Republicans are elitist who don't care that soldiers die as a result of their eevvviillll policies. It was cheap and if Republicans used such material the liberals would be livid.

The audience loved the film. The producers said they don't have distribution for it yet, I'll be interested to see if they get it. About 1/3 of the movie is about Texas politics in the 80s, not very interesting really. They don't cover Florida in 2000 at all. They bring up Joe (?) Wilson and Valerie Plame, but we all know that's still unresolved. I just didn't hear anything in the film that was "ooooohhhh" worthy.

The best part of my day was standing in line before the film with a man named Mark. He's a New Yorker down for the interactive part of the festival. We talked a little about 9/11, his family, his job, stocks, movies, the future of the music industry and so on. Nothing beats a fantastic conversation with a stranger. Hi Mark - hope you have fun in Austin and have a safe trip back home!

Spanish Bloggers

Just another example of why blogs beat old media hands down every time. Tim Blair has a fantastic post from two Spanish bloggers. (found via Jeff Jarvis.)

Odd Man Out

So far my volunteer duties have been pretty uneventful. Last night all 1200 volunteers were in one huge room stuffing "promotional" bags for conference registrants. Thankfully I had a funny young woman standing next to me to make the two and a half hours go faster. There were long tables set up, people standing at the tables handing out the materials as all the other volunteers walked by with bags open. Can you believe no one thought to say "trick or treat"? I mean, you're carrying a bag and getting stuff, what else do you say?? I said it to a few people and they just laughed. Then I realized the power we had to start rumors, but we couldn't think of any good ones. It was also tempting to start that game where you start with a sentence and everyone whispers it to the next person and you see how much it changes by the end. I joked that if we started with a really mean sentence about Bush it might just end up convoluted enough to be a positive one.

That said, I swear I'm the only non-flaming liberal at the whole conference. The films, the interactive panel speakers, the volunteers - all really liberal. They're premiering Bush's Brain at the festival. The local radio station had the film makers on this morning talking with them. It was all about how eeevvvvillll Karl Rove is. Maybe he is, but I don't see a documentary about Terry McAullif (however you spell it) and his dirty tricks.

And why is that? Where are the conservative documentary makers?

No one I've talked with or listened to really seems to get that it could very easily be a subway train in any US city instead of in Spain that had close to 200 dead and over a 1000 injured. They just don't get that there are concrete reasons the bombs are going off "over there" instead of here.

Anyway. I might check out a movie tonight, maybe even watch Bush's Brain tomorrow, then the real fun is Sunday with all the interactive panels.

Back in Iraq

Hi again everyone! Nerdstar here and I just wanted to report that I am back in Iraq now, all jet-lagged but in one piece.

It was a series of long flights that took me back, but not long enough to keep me away from Iraq, sadly. I flew from Austin, to Atlanta, then Amsterdam and finally to Kuwait. I had a layover in Amsterdam for like 8 hours and despite some hesitation of my fellow travellers to go out and see historical downtown, I just went ahead and took the train down there. I must take Beth back there with me, the atmosphere there is so free and liberated, nothing is taboo over there, it seems. I took walks and took pictures of some of the buildings, got some postcards, and no, I did not get any hallucingenics, I mean, isn't this tour in Iraq hallucinating enough?

I miss Beth and the pets so much already, but even though there are still 8 more months that I'll have in Iraq, at least I can began to see the end of it. I am going to, once again, be a very grateful person when I get back stateside! I hope that, if there's one thing that I wanted for my birthday, is that we'll all come back safe and sound, because if we don't, then how are we able to tell our superiors to piss off when it's time to reenlist? (Not to put down anyone else who just loves the military lifestyle and wanted more of it!)

I will began, when I get back to my camp, to write more about the stuff that goes on there so you guys and gals can began to get a sense of things. I know that there are already many other blogs by the soldiers, but stick around and perhaps you'll find something different in this one!

Take good care, everyone!

Terror in Spain

Every day when I get up, I still check CNBC for how the stock market is doing, then hit the cable news channels to see what's going on. There's always still a slight sense of dread knowing I could hear about attacks where my Nerdstar is, or even attacks here in the States.

So hearing about the ten bombs that went off in Spain just makes me sad. After 9/11 I'm no longer disconnected from victims of events like this just because they live so far away. Seeing the wholes left in those trains from the blasts makes my breath catch in my throat. And I know that it's not impossible for such things to happen in any city in America.

For updates about Spain try the Command Post.

FYI

Nerdstar's birthday is March 25, if you want to send a card or something, email me and I'll give you her address over there.

She made it safely back to Kuwait yesterday. I got a call from her both yesterday and today. She might be in Kuwait until next week, she can't seem to get a ride/flight back to the camp in Mosul. That's fine with both of us, it's much safer in Kuwait. There's also better food in Kuwait, she had Subway today. The only down side is she's back to sleeping on a cot in a tent.

I miss her a lot, and even though there's a lot of time until she gets to come home, it at least feels like we're on the downhill side of it all.

Crazy people

Last weekend in an effort to save some time, Nerdstar and I stopped by the ghetto Walmart to pick up a few things instead of driving across town to the nicer one. Never again.

We were close to finished with our shopping when we parked our cart at the end of the isle while looking at some stuff. We were gone maybe two or three minutes. When we went to find our cart it was gone. Nowhere to be found. WTF?? I was very tempted to camp out at the front of the store and find whoever had taken it and ask them just how rude/stupid they were. Instead we had to start over with our shopping.

Iraq

Naturally, Nerdstar and I spent considerable time talking about not just her own situation over in Iraq, but the bigger picture as well. Now, Nerdstar is not a big picture person like I am. Give her a good meal, People magazine, snuggles, and our pets and she's content. Me, I'm partial to yelling at the news on tv.

I think it's stunning and fantastic that the Iraqi's have a new constitution today, even if it's an interim one. But, like Vodka Pundit, I am more than aware that it's now up to the Iraqi people on what they're going to do, to allow to be done, with their new freedom. As I wrote back when SH was first removed from power, I can not begin to imagine going from living under constant fear and oppression to having, at least on one level, real freedom. Nerdstar isn't really sure what the locals are going to do now or next. She's going to try to really keep her ears open for the feel of things over there once she gets back and write about it for us.

The hardest thing for her is still feeling like she has no real job or purpose over there, and says there are lots of soldiers in the same boat. When every little aspect of every job in the military is so specific - and in the past for good reason - it's very hard to go from a fighting army to a rebuilding one. Yet for all kinds of reasons, practical as well as political, the president can't very well start sending troops home just yet.

July is going to be the test of the past year and a half. Either the Iraqi's are going to figure out very quickly how to run a civil society or it's all going to go to hell. Nerdstar's afraid there is just too much bad blood between the different factions for them to let bygones be bygones. So, we have to keep our strong show of force over there until it all plays out. The most interesting option is that the new Iraqi government could very well tell us to get all our troops out of there asap. I can see where that would be very tempting for them. Hell, I would be thrilled to have Nerdstar home as soon as possible. I think she's going to be in a hell of a lot more danger come June/July.

Back to Lonely

Damn this sucks. I'm home from taking Nerdstar to the airport and running a couple of errands. I've never been so sad walking out of an airport. Now it's back to an empty house and an empty bed.

The two weeks were really great, fortunately time didn't feel like it was flying by. I'm pretty sure she set a record for money spent on two weeks leave!! One of our last stops this morning was mailing out a 23 pound care package of all the things she couldn't stuff or cram into her duffle bag or backpack.

I started getting sad Friday when we got back to Austin, knowing the time was limited and the upcoming time apart is going to be so long. She's so sweet though. Last night at dinner there was a pause in the conversation and I looked at her and thought if anything happens to her over there, this is one of the last memories I'll have with her, and I started to tear up. So she started acting all goofy and making me laugh. She did the same thing as we were saying our goodbyes at the airport.

Today is more putzing around the house, cutting the grass in our tiny backyard, catching up on tv shows I've recorded over the weekend, taking out tons of trash. Thursday starts the SXSW madness. And the weather is just about perfect for a motorcycle ride or two in the next few days. Back to filling up time.

Like I've said before, two things would make this all so much more bearable. A absolute guarantee she'll come home safe and sound, and an absolute return by no later than date. But neither life nor the military work like that.

THoughts at the end of my leave

Hi, it's nerdstar again, and I am near the end of my leave. I wish that it was for a longer time, or better yet, the end of this deployment. Just came back from visiting my family, and there wasn't enough time spent with both Beth and them. I don't know how exactly to reconcile the problems between me, my family, and her, I'll have the remaining time in Iraq to think about it, how do you even began to campaign for people to accept each other?
I am going to miss everyone a lot, especially Beth and the kids. (I've been petting them as much as I could.) I am going to keep on trying to stay safe, wake up my mind and body a little more, and wait for the time that I can finally go back home for good again!
I will be updating what's going on via this blog, hope y'all come and visit again soon!

SXSW

I've mentioned that I'm going to do a ton of volunteer hours for SXSW starting the 11th of March. What I get in return for those hours in an all access pass to both the Interactive Conference and the Film Festival. Any time I'm not working I'm free to sit in on any of the events or films. To see just how cool that is, check out the Sunday lineup for the Interactive Panels - Virginia Postrel, Joe Tripi, Zack Exley of MoveOn.Org. Others who will be here during the week are Corty Doctorow and Joi Ito, I'm not sure when they're speaking. I'll definitely be sitting in on all of Sunday's events and blogging as long as my laptop battery allows and then taking notes by hand for the rest.

So, if any of you are coming to my dear little city for SXSW or know someone who is, and needs a place to crash or a restaurant suggestion or driving directions - let me know!

Snooping

I'm alive and mostly well and still in Houston. I don't like Houston under the best of circumstances, adding torrential rains and less than ideal circumstances and I really don't like Houston. Tomorrow we head back to Austin - yippee!!

Jules bravely writes about her mother reading her diary when she was young.

I was older than I should have been when I finally realized with no uncertainty my mom had read letters I'd kept, I didn't keep a diary. My first clue should have been when I came home from sneeking time with an older boy my parents didn't want me seeing. Our school had some special after school football game I told my parents I was going to and went to his house instead. My mother was waiting at the door for me when I came walking up. I should have clued in that the only way she could have had any idea what I was up to was by snooping thru my room.

But the real clue came my senior year when I was dating my first girlfriend. She called me one afternoon all freaked out. Someone had written her parents a letter telling them all about us. After seeing the anonymous letter, I realized it had been typed by the same typewriter my mom and I had used to type my term paper (this was way before computers). I was devasted. Not only had my mother read our letters, she had taken it beyond horrible and written Jenn's parents. Needless to say there were always hard feelings on Jenn's part towards my parents, but I was still young and it was too hard to fully register just what had transpired.

I never confronted my mom about any of it. I have more fear of mom than I have fear of God.

Now, the bad thing on my part is, I know I'm just like her in being a snoop. I've read Nerdstar's journals, sometimes after she knew, sometimes before. I've logged into her email and read them on occasion. She knows this, too. I might be a snoop, but I'm not a secretive one. (If that even makes sense.) I am trying to not do those things anymore. For me it's done out of a fear of being totally in the dark about her and what's in her heart and mind.

I know that when the time comes I'm going to have to be very clear with my kids that I'll try my best to respect their privacy, but really, they should keep it under lock and key.

The other scary thing is, last weekend while I was home my brother finally got his computer up and running and now has internet access. I'm not sure I'm happy about this. I still think it'll be a while before my parents start using email, much less the internet. But you just never know how curious a brother can be, and it's not like this site is at all hidden and hard to find.

I sometimes think how sad it is I can't/don't share this site with my family. It's a big part of my life. In some ways absolute strangers know more about me than my family does. Would it be the end of the world if they read it? No. But I'd much rather they didn't.

In some ways it's all about knowing someone and being known. Who we share what with. How sad that it's so often our families we feel we have to protect ourselves from.

Coincidence?

Nerdstar leaves me to go visit her family and the first day after not snuggling I get sick. Coincidence? I think not.

This does not bode well for next week, or the next eight months for that matter.

Break from the Whirlwind

We got up this morning intending to head back to Austin fairly early, but poor Zachary was throwing up and couldn't go to school, so we stayed with him until my Mom came home at noon. It was nice to spend a little more time with him!

The weather today was just perfect. It feels good to have February over. With the beginning of each new month it just feels like that much closer to me having Nerdstar home for good.

We've had to do some compromising on her spending time with her family. She rented a car this afternoon and went ahead and drove to Houston with Ramen. Her sister flies into Houston late tomorrow night. We knew things would be crazy there until Wednesday, so I'm going to drive to Houston Wednesday afternoon and stay in a hotel. She'll spend the afternoons and evenings with her family and then come snuggle with me overnight. We're going to come back to Austin Friday night, probably late, and then she doesn't fly out of Austin until Monday morning.

Yes, it's all crazy. And I've made her swear up and down that once she's home from Iraq she's going to make her family treat me better. It's just too big a battle to try to wage in this short time that she's home on leave.

We've spent many hours this last week talking about all of it. It's so hard to understand, much less explain, about her family and their attitude towards our relationship. In the past year it went from grudingly accepting to hoping that if they don't have to see me it won't exist. It's partly cultural, maybe partly religious, partly who knows what.

Nerdstar would be perfectly happy to not talk to anyone in her family but her grandparents and sister, but with a family that's all into each other's lives that's just not going to happen.