Schizohedron — Multifaceted, yet smoooooth

Racist Scum Jesse Helms Dead

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:56:00 +0000

WE'VE BEEN GIVEN A TRUE Independence Day gift: One of the most vile remnants of America's racist history, former Senator Jesse Helms (R–NC), died early this morning. From a position of great influence over a nation whose diversity is its most fertile virtue, he instead blocked progress toward greater harmony for all, and stigmatized those who were different from him to advance his philosophy and retain power. This, if nothing else, is the definition of evil.

He joins atavistic white supremacists George Wallace and Strom Thurmond in nonexistence. Our advance into this still-new century takes us step by cleansing step away from a time when such men became civic leaders by demonizing women, homosexuals, and religious and racial minorities.

At least this race-baiting homophobe got to see an African-American man and a woman vie for the chance to lead this country. Each vote for Obama and Clinton was a nail in the coffin of men like Helms and the sick vision of the American dream he promulgated.

Nearly two and a half centuries after that auspicious day in Philadelphia, that vision is finally dying. Let Helms's corpse be flung upon it.

One-Year Anniversary at Work

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:51:00 +0000

IF YOU'D TOLD ME ONE year ago, when I started the current job, that in 6 months, I'd survive one round of layoffs, the departure of a key subject matter expert from the editorial staff, and the announcement — on my half-year mark no less — that my immediate boss was likewise giving notice, I'd probably say, "Well, I do work in publishing."

I would probably not be surprised to hear that, within the next few months, the final member of the editorial team I was joining would soon, herself, leave. To the news that such an evaporation of staff would give me chest pains, I would surely be horrified. But I suspect I would react with genuine incredulity were I to learn that day in July 2007 that this incident would be followed by the reconstitution of the editorial team several states away, along with a shift of leadership away from the managing editor who had spurred the staff exodus.

And I would count myself as a prophet if I somehow got the inkling, while digging through the usual first-day HR forms, that this wave of hiring in the remote office would presage a mass transfer of jobs from my office to that one, including the entire art staff.

That last bit took effect Wednesday. After two rounds of layoffs, and all my teammates bailing, the halls now echo. And the old managing editor (ME) is officially no longer working on the title. Despite the muttering and grousing of the old coworkers, she turned out to be very effective in a pinch, if occasionally reluctant to admit delays (which, with only two editors working on the title, were inevitable). She was also tremendously generous, thanking me and the artist each issue during our crisis period with some sort of substantial gift. The ME also proved to be the only person in the company who remembered my birthday. (Nobody else in the office did, even though I always bring something in for others' birthdays; I felt it to be in poor taste to trumpet my own upcoming date. The ME, by contrast, sent a gift card, which beats simple/junk carbs any day.)

I've no idea how I might have anticipated the surprises, challenges, and even the absurdities to come. What I have learned since then is not to lose track of what matters amid such crazy shit: health, family, friends, and the overall career, sight of which sometimes disappears behind smoke if all you're doing each day is stomping out fires. For now, the conflagration is dying down, and with any luck, I'll be able to recognize blue sky when I see it again.

30x40: Losing Thirty Pounds by Age Forty

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:10:00 +0000

I WILL TURN 40 in just under a year. For this birthday just past, to devote myself to one change that will have the most productive influence on the rest of my life, I have chosen fitness. The goal: to lose 30 pounds by my next birthday.

On my birthday last Friday, I weighed 228 pounds. This January 1, I weighed 231.5. Doesn't appear to be much difference, and I do admit some backsliding during the stressful late winter I endured, but my body composition has changed somewhat since then; a little more muscle and a smidge less fat. Don't get me wrong, I am quite obviously obese. I ought to weigh somewhere between 155 and 175 at my height. But I've been especially diligent since the beginning of May, and I've crossed a definite threshold as compared with past attempts to drop fat.

For one, lifting weights only three days out of eight in early–mid June while in Las Vegas didn't ding my progress at all. I got right back into my routine and took off the few pounds of fat I gained while there. Second, shortly before I departed for Vegas, I did three real pushups. In 39 years I have never been able to do even one. This revelation left me stunned for about three days and provided a tremendous endorsement of what I've been doing.

What have I been doing? Keeping most of my meals during the week healthful and of appropriate size and nutrition, and eating five or six of them through the day. Visiting the gym six times per week at minimum, seven ideally. Keeping careful records of my progress and pushing myself in some new way each time I visit. Avoiding the temptations of crappy calories at work (it's like Elaine's office in Seinfeld with the sugarfests). Restricting meals that dip into the standard American diet to the weekends or special occasions like my birthday.

I am not perfect, and I expect to fail, but I refuse to stop. I know that the forward progress is most important, no matter the temporary deceleration required to avoid obstacles. What I am introducing is a signpost, a checkpoint, to set a definite goal at which to aim. The short-term goals of eating better and visiting the gym are now solid habits to be tended carefully. I want to push them further toward a fixed, medium-term objective of major, permanent fat loss.

Losing 30 pounds by my 40th birthday, to weigh 198 pounds by June 27, 2009, will require a rate of loss of .57 pounds per week, or 2.5 pounds per month. This goal is well within the guidelines of 1–2 pounds per week mentioned as ideal (to maximize the impression of healthy habits and metabolic changes to keep the weight off) on Consumer.gov, the Mayo Clinic site, and WebMD. I've been tripped up in the past by eating crappy food between or after meals due to boredom, aimlessness, depressed mood, or laziness. If I can figure a proper caloric intake per day for weight loss, and direct the energies that lead me into situations where I eat crap more positively, I should be able to hit that rate of loss.

The end of the year will be the real kicker. Halloween through New Year's is a nightmare of free-floating sugar and holiday bingeing. But one thing I learned while in Las Vegas was that I've lost the ability to eat huge, single-sitting meals. I just can't do four plate-loads of food at the buffets anymore. Not that I didn't try; I just went into a lethargic funk after doing so. I've backed myself into a corner of better consumption, it seems. About goddamn time. So I should be able to manage the autumn sugar siege without destroying my progress or getting written out of the will because I brought a Tupperware full of broccoli and lettuce to Thanksgiving dinner. (Besides, a day full of football goes naturally with onion dip and cheddar cheese.)

So that's the goal. The best thing to do is to continue to post here about it, to hold myself accountable in "public," and to track my progress. If I can take one year, set strong yet flexible habits to keep me from heart disease, cancer, and diabetes for the rest of my life, and emerge feeling even better than I already do after just a couple of months at this quest, I'll have prepared myself well to enter middle age. It's time to build on the foundation I've been constructing for the past several weeks and give myself a birthday gift each day.

Season of the Itch

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:44:00 +0000

THE HALFWAY POINT OF THE YEAR finds me contemplative most times around. Not only do I have the second six months on the calendar to ponder, or the last six to scrutinize, but my birthday precedes this dividing line by four days.

This birthday saw me enter the final year of my thirties. Jack Benny time. It was more of a diffuse zone than a day this time around, because I saw so many people over the course of the days surrounding it. I was convinced that my friends Jen and Steve would be thoroughly sick of me by the end of the weekend, as I saw them for three dinner dates in four days, including one they kindly hosted. Also saw a few folks I don't get the chance to hang with as often on my actual birthday, including one guy now (but possibly not for long) in North Carolina. The mighty Felix and his wife, Julia, were present for the third day of my unprecedented social activity, on a weekend that saw their own six-month anniversary as a married couple.

One common thread among my friends was discontent with the current job. At least four people I saw over the weekend, and a fifth living outside the area, are either contemplating an employment shift or have just completed one. I could make that five and a half, in that I plan to update my resume in case my shop gets the yen for another round of job relocations or layoffs. With the business downturn entering a new month and the stock market officially in bear territory, one never knows how an employer will defend itself against losses. This made it all the more interesting that some of my friends seek a change. As a defense against a market that punishes narrow skill sets, two other friends of mine have completed higher degrees or additional certification in their field.

Most of my friends are in the latter half of their 30s. Could they all be in the same contemplative mode as I am? Looking forward a couple of years, pondering a property purchase, a wedding, children, and figuring, at least get a job change settled first for greater satisfaction, security, or interest in the work?

As for me, with the passage of this birthday milestone, I have a very specific plan for one aspect of my life over the next 12 months. Not employment. See next post.

I Wish This Were My Fault

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:01:00 +0000

SADLY, I CAN'T TAKE CREDIT for the recent news of casino stocks taking a tumble and Las Vegas suffering a slowdown. I barely played the table games where I could've done that sort of damage to the houses' bottom lines. Blame falls on the credit crunch and the rocket ride petroleum prices have taken, with a side order of the steep plunge in the Vegas real estate market:

A cut in the wages of sin (Economist)

Gambling stocks tumble on economic woes (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

This amid massive new construction in Vegas, and the recent or imminent unveiling of expansions at Foxwoods and the Borgata. The saw about gambling being recession proof appears false, though these surveys don't take into account the still-huge amount of online and Mob-run gambling that goes on each day.

Still, this news is good for me medium term. With Vegas enduring a post-9/11-style slowdown, the offers for cheap rooms should begin streaming in. I might be able to get back there a little sooner than I had anticipated. Maybe not to Wynn, although I did get a fairly restricted deal email from them (cheap room + restaurant credit, but said credit could only be used in one of the eateries) a week ago. Bellagio's already been sending mailers, according to a chat I had with premier poker reporter Dr. Pauly.

However long it takes, once things pick up in the economy, and the blood on the Street is swilled down by patient value investors, the itch to return to Sin City among America's gamble-mad masses will become irresistible, and the dollars will flow. In the best possible world, this brings a tide of awful poker dilettantes into town . . . where I will be waiting.

Six Hundred Dollars I Didn't Earn

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:57:00 +0000

I'M SOMEWHAT ASHAMED TO ADMIT that for the past week, after our hilariously wasteful government burned even more postage (which is more what we who've played a lot of Illuminati would call a "money transfer" from the Federal Reserve to the Post Office) in sending me a second notice that I was due some cash as part of the Bush junta's "Spend Your Way Rich" plan, I've nonetheless been racing home after work to see if the check has arrived.

Not that I had any specific plans for the check. I'm not in any long-term debt; I have no major, vital purchases cued up that this would expedite; the Vegas vacation was funded via (horrors!) not going to Vegas for a year and saving up the money in ING Direct; and I've been reducing my apartment of what the great fallen hero of the Republic, George Carlin, would call "my stuff" — with no plan to make things worse by reintroducing needless crap into these halls. Yet the prospect of cash I didn't earn still had me zooming directly home for a few days. So I feel little better than the folks who'd already decided at which bonus-dangling retail emporium they would cash their check.

Needless to say, certain uses came to mind:

Playing that TV all-in game: This is worth two buy-ins at the $1/$2 no-limit hold'em games at the Atlantic City and Foxwoods poker rooms. What better way to recover the donations I made to the Vegas poker economy than by extracting it from the East Coast one?

Advantages: It's fun to take money from morons.
Disadvantages: Sometimes the morons take money from you. Plus driving the requisite 130 miles to either destination is no longer as painless as it used to be. And getting this check from the Feds is, by definition, "taking money from morons."

Getting it all in $1 bills: No easier way to illustrate the fallacious nature of this governmental move than to see it, in all of its paper glory, as a giant stack of singles. Which I can then toss in the air like a man in an invisible cash-blowing cube.

Advantages: Put a $5 on the outside, roll it up with a rubber band, and I will look like a BEEEEEEEEG MAAAAAAN. Or a gas-station attendant.
Disadvantages: Will attract every stripper within 20 miles.

Euro-papering the walls: The hilariously colored currency from the European Union is applying its Italian-crafted heel squarely to the greenback's ass. Cash this, then swap it for euros, then wait as the country continues to mortgage itself to China via the Saudi money laundering machine.

Advantages: Throw 'em in the safe deposit box, cash 'em in for Benjamins sometime late in Obama's second term, buy 45 Priuses, drive them all around with my followers like an energy-conscious Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Disadvantages: The foreign-exchange market is juuuuuuuust a little more complex than this. The big move in EUR vs. USD already may have been made. Plus, Obama might actually improve our standing in the world, leaving me singing on a hillside with the children of every nation and a pocketful of gaily tinted Scottissue.

Index fund or T-bill: Go long. I'm talking out the chute and into the Giants' parking lot. I'm talking take a canoe halfway down the Meadowlands until you drift under the Pulaski Skyway. Pick an index mutual fund or ETF, or a long-term Treasury instrument, throw the cash in, and forget about it.

Advantages: Boring enough to work. Plus getting Uncle Sam to pay me more money on top of the dough he's already sent me is, as they say on the Internets, a "sick burn."
Disadvantages: Hard pressed to name any. Schizohedron McDuck will probably go this route.

PS. Does it strike anyone as more than coincidential that the $600 conforms to the maximum amount one usually can take out of an ATM in one shot?

Schizohedron's Delivery Service

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:35:00 +0000

THIS PAST SATURDAY, I WAS heading out to the gym, just ahead of a threatening mass of thunderheads bearing down on the area. I'd parked my car close to the front door of the apartment complex in anticipation of the coming deluge, but it hadn't struck just yet.

As I walked out of the complex, I was flagged by an elderly tenant, who asked me, "Where are you going?" In response, I pointed to my car, not 20 feet away. I continued walking to the vehicle, not knowing that this fleet-footed woman was following me. When I popped open the door, she asked — from right behind me, which nearly made me jump over the car from surprise — if I could drive her to church.

The church to which she referred lies within sight from my front door, about a five-minute walk. (Maybe a little longer for her, an octogenarian, but one with few mobility issues, it seems, if she could sneak up on me like that.) I guess she was nervous about getting caught in the imminent rain. To which I initially thought, Your cure is an umbrella. But what sort of Nazi would I be if I just left her there?

I clarified that we were talking about the same church — this becomes important — then began clearing out my front passenger seat. She began working the back door latch. I shooed her away to clear the considerably more cluttered back seat. Amid a storm of "Thank you"s and "God bless you"s, I drove out of my parking lot and began negotiating my way over to the church, where a decision would have to be made over where to drop her off.

My plan had been to deposit her on the curb from my passenger side and let her make it into the church from there, but seeing as she'd beelined for my back seat (why do only old ladies want to get into my back seat? Who am I, Max Bialystock?). From that point, I'd be dropping her into oncoming traffic. So instead of just letting her out onto the streetside curb, where she stood a good chance of becoming one of those stuffed animals you find on the front of garbage trucks, I asked which set of steps she preferred to climb.

Now by this time, I'd already picked up on the fact that she wasn't quite all there. I'd had this exchange with her:

Me: It's a shame we're losing the resident manager to National Guard duty. He's the only one we've had in nine years who got anything done.

Her: Are you the manager?

So I wanted to get her clear intent before I made the last bit of her journey needlessly complicated by dropping her at the wrong point.

I asked her if she wanted to be let out in the courtyard or around the side. The courtyard had three fewer steps leading in than the side entrance, but would let her get right onto church property without walking through part of the driveway. The side entrance had more steps, but also sported a ramp . . . but in turn would also force her to share part of her approach with traffic under the porte cochere.

I briefed her on the differences, and she asked to be let out into the courtyard, again showering me with quite unnecessary proxy thanks on the part of her deity. From there, she walked back into the driveway . . . toward the longer steps of the side entrance.

I have no idea how my golden years will arrive, whether as a gentle slowing of function, a dissolution of mental capacity so slow I don't even notice its disappearance, or as an abrupt break with soundness of mind or body that revokes any connection with my past. With few if any remaining chances to produce children, much less to presage grandchildren, I suppose I, too, will have to rely on my wits and others' altruism to negotiate the days' challenges when I arrive at the same stage of life as this ride-wranglin' churchgoer has. Let's keep our fingers crossed for both.

Las Vegas 2008: Flash-Forward to Present

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:12:00 +0000

I STILL NEED TO CHRONICLE my Vegas adventures, which the march of time has once again outstripped, but I figured I would drop a note here to all readers to let them know I've returned safe and sound, and that I had a fun trip, despite donating some money to the local poker economy.

Before departing for Sin City, I called a number of folks to bid them goodbye, though I haven't done the same to herald my return. I think I know why, and I have the recent and stunning death of legendary reporter, newscaster, and debate moderator Tim Russert to credit for the understanding. I believe I wanted to at least leave folks with a gentle parting and a kind word before heading off into the unknown, just in case this was the last opportunity.

I have firm belief in the safety of air travel (though landings irrationally scare me a little), but there are many hazards in any travel, and definitely in Las Vegas. Though I feel safe transporting cash at midnight on the well-populated and policed Strip or walking the floor of just about any casino, there are dangers aplenty: hiking in the desert, driving along an alternate route away from the casinos' cameras, walking to my car in a vast parking garage, taking an elevator with two strangers. There are simple expedients to evade all these dangers, but it never hurts to keep one's guard up, as Vegas hosts many opportunists who don't fear a return to jail if a quick crime can fund their next hit or stave off a pimp-beating. Much as I love the town, it, like all major cities, requires discretion on the part of the solo traveler to avoid harm.

And harm might not be from a hostile source; it could be an accident, or a health problem, that makes a given goodbye one's last. I've read that Russert was under observation for a heart condition, but the sudden infarction still surprised most folks. Death can hit at any time, not just those with cardiac enlargement and coronary artery disease. It's best to part with friends and family in kindness and at peace. It's cliché by this point to hear folks say they wish they could've taken back an argument, or broken a festering silence, before losing someone.

I suspect that, and not the offer to throw a couple of bucks on a table as a proxy bettor in Vegas, was why I called around to bid my near and dear adieu. But I'm back now, and — again with Russert in mind — I've resumed my usual practice at the gym. I have a few Vegas calories to burn off, but also some stories to relate. Watch this space.

Las Vegas 2008: Stormbringer

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:50:00 +0000

I THINK IT'S ANOTHER ONE of those coincidences that, on my first day in Las Vegas, a rainstorm swept through the Valley. Some might say it was part of a nationwide system of turbulent weather. I claim that it was Vegas crying tears of joy at my return.

Okay, enough of that arty-egotistical horseshit. Back to the saga.

The flight out of Newark loaded on time but left a half hour late due to the tail end of a thunder-system sweeping out of the area. The captain seemed hopeful that we'd still hit McCarran in the allotted time, which leads me to believe that travel times now bake in some delays. Sure enough, we touched down exactly one minute late. The journey itself was uneventful. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on DVD and the iPod occupied me for the bulk of it. I may joke about Vegas getting lachrymose, but I definitely grew misty as I watched the familiar skyline sweep past my window.

The weather at 10:00 a.m. Vegas time was comfortably warm and dry, aided by a brisk wind, which would only increase as time went on. Before I exited McCarran, I snapped these photos from the terminal, part of a terrazzo inlay map of the area, these depicting some of the beasties you might encounter with enough desert wandering or mescaline:

Normally I expect to find lizards lounging upside a piano in a casino bar.

"There's a big snake in the airport, Jock!"

I think you need a fireball spell for this sort of monster, though nothing says love like a prismatic spray.

I grabbed my one checked bag amid a gaggle of tourists from all over America. Aside from trips to NYC, I don't often hear such a sampling of accents in one place. At one poker table, you can have the South, Texas, New Jersey, Canada, and any number of foreign lilts represented, to say nothing of what the dealers will add to the linguistic brew.

I took the usual shuttle to the Wynn. I prefer the scenic route when I roll off the plane; I've made it this far to any given hotel, so a guided tour for a little less than what a cab might cost, with the chance to scan the ever-changing Vegas skyline while other passengers are ferried to their destinations along the Strip, is a choice time to relax. This bus was sparsely filled, but included a black-haired girl with extensive black tribal tattoos on one arm who spent the ride fighting a losing battle against tears while saying an extended goodbye to someone on the other side of a cell call.

I didn't have much time to reflect on her plight, because — in my first win of the day — my dropoff was first. Though I was arriving far earlier than the usual 3 p.m. check-in, I decided to at least register. The lobby and registration area reflected the Wynn aesthetic toward floral decoration and artistry on every surface; if I'd had to wait, I'd have done so in splendid surroundings. This is a shot of the promenade nearby the registration desk (I will take some higher-quality shots soon; this is the first real workout I've given the camera.)

A Wynn clerk acting as a traffic cop of sorts pleasantly guided me to a desk clerk, who checked me in and took my cell number so she could call me when the room was prepped. I was primed to do some wandering to stretch my legs anyway. I read somewhere that Steve Wynn strove to arrange the space to let guests' curiosity guide them through his resort's many nooks and details. With this I agree. I spent about 15 minutes at a relaxed pace, soaking in all the little flourishes his designers had salted about the house. These sorts of mosaics are everywhere:

The beauty of the grounds is matched by the friendly and helpful staff. I've read isolated accounts of snooty attitudes from concierges, front desk staff, and the like, but everyone I've spoken to has been warm and congenial. I felt pampered. I can only imagine those reporting attitudes like the ones I did not find must've brought them in with them. Yoda had a thing or two on that way of being. Me, I found myself smiling from the moment I alighted from the shuttle bus.

Twenty minutes into my amblings about the place, my phone rang: The room was ready for me. The same staffer who routed me to the desk earlier took me around the substantial line and checked me the rest of the way in himself, handing me a key packet for my desired high, Strip-view nonsmoking room.

This is part of what you see from the 54th floor:

Incredibly, by mid-afternoon, this sky would plunge into threatening grey, as a cloudburst swept the area and drove gusts up to 60 mph against the curtain-wall of the hotel. Again, I'd lucked out; this weather no doubt snarled air traffic around the area. I can only imagine the agony of being stuck orbiting Vegas, having come so far only to be put in a holding pattern while rain lashed the desert below. (But the desert was in desperate need of the moisture, so this serves the greater purpose.)

Before the rain blasted in, I watched its heralding winds bend the foliage around the pool while eating lunch inside at the Terrace Pointe Café. After airline and airport food since 6 that morning, the burger with bacon, bleu cheese, and fries was a welcome change. It also acted like a sleeping potion, as an hour later, as the storm broke over Las Vegas, I felt the day catching up to me. I spent the next couple of hours napping on and off. Aside from getting a little walking in across the street at the Fashion Center Mall, and grabbing a strawberry ice cream, I spent the rest of the evening with my head still in Eastern Standard Time. Television and a stunning view of the Strip and the Las Vegas suburbs rolling out to the mountains were my evening diversion for the final couple of hours of consciousness.

With any luck, the late doses of Futurama, South Park, and the reel of Monty Python highlights on the Wynn's TV lineup (a Spamalot tie-in) were enough to drag my mind into Pacific time. As for Vegas time, where sleep is a weakness and dawn an unwelcome reminder of our vampiric devotion to the turn of the card, I'm sure I'll get there soon enough.

Las Vegas 2008: The Gathering Storm

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:00:00 +0000

TWENTY-FOUR MONTHS OF EXILE end today. With nearly all of the travel hurdles behind me, and a timely takeoff the final gauntlet to run, my return to Glitter Gulch, Sin City, the Neon Havens — Las Vegas, Nevada — lies scant hours away.

Once I escaped work yesterday, it was a downhill run to this morning. Nearly all packing was complete. My poker bankroll had been retrieved from its salt-mine redoubt, borne to my lair by vermillion-robed acolytes, swinging censers to smoke out all evil spirits. They also brought my laundry. (I can't be bothered.)

I set two clocks to arouse me from what brief, nervous slumber I managed to capture in nets of nonsensical dreams. A final check of the Continental website showed not only that my flight was on time, but that the center seat of my aisle was still open — an incredible break. I got downstairs 10 minutes early, where the car to the airport was already waiting, slick with rain. Colin, the Jamaican driver, welcomed me aboard and made for the Parkway. We had a fine chat that made the scant 35 minutes to Newark pass even more quickly.

The first challenge met, I checked one of my bags curbside and steeled myself for the security colonic within. I haven't flown since the current strictures were imposed, and I've listened to 2 years of civil-liberties infringement and aggro TSA horseshit since then. I'd bagged, tagged, and flagged what little I had in my backpack, but the proof would be served at the checkpoint.

No worries were needed. I declared my > 3 oz. bottle of contact lens solution to the agent, who waved it through. All of my metal was in the backpack, the shoes and laptop were in bins, and neither I nor my bag dinged the X-ray gadgets. My record of evading a detailed search remained pristine. It took longer to get my shoes back on than it did to fly through the security bullshit.

The terminal here also has flights going to LA and Frisco, so it's fairly well populated. It's fun to try and spot those going to Vegas versus those other destinations. Tropical shirts and an absence of children is a good indicator. Your average planeload of Vegas visitors is a lot happier than those going to other places, with the possible exceptions of Hawaii and areas with Disney parks. By grim contrast, the return trip from Sin City is a tableau of downcast faces: laden with losses, aching from hangovers, or merely stricken on the day that marks the maximum stretch of time between the last trip to Vegas and the next.

That's been my last two years right there.

Sadly, Newark Airport lacks free Wi-Fi (unlike McCarran in Vegas), so posting this note will have to wait. I've got another hour before the scheduled takeoff, so I'm gonna snag a chunk of grease from the nearby noshery. Further pre-Vegas dispatches as they warrant.

Three Essential Las Vegas Guides

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Sat, 31 May 2008 14:43:00 +0000

FOR SOME LAS VEGAS TIPS you won't find in any printed tourbook, I offer you three guides that may boost your fun, ease your losses, and keep you out of jail. Excerpts of each guide are included:

1. Dr. Pauly, Bloggers Invading Las Vegas Tips (scroll down to Nov. 19 entry)

The fifth version of this road map for the the world's poker bloggers as they gather periodically to donk it up in Sin City. Compiled by top poker journalist and kickass world-wandering writer Dr. Pauly, aka Pauly McGuire, who is combining both talents to cover the 2008 World Series of Poker on Tao of Poker in high style. Even those tips that are more inside-baseball for hardcore online hold'em addicts are worth scanning to see how a previously far-flung group of strangers bonded a few years ago via this crazy game and the Internet to become a community. An occasionally very, very drunk community.

10. Never underestimate the importance of a $20 tip.
Do you wanna get shit done in Vegas? Tip the hell out of every person you see. I'm from New York City and we tip everyone. In a town like Vegas, most of the people working in the service industry are not paid extravagantly. They rely on tips to supplement their wages. You would be surprised how much attention you can get with a simple $20 tip. Heck that's like one big bet for some of you. . . .

Now if you think $20 gets you a long way... try tipping $40 or $100.

2. Rands in Repose, The Rands Vegas System

My friend Matt brought this to my attention, and I declare this guide a solid addition to any Vegas warrior's stash of holy texts. Rands is a software-engineering manager, insightful tech-culture essayist, coiner of the term Nerd Attention Deficit Disorder — or NADD — and author of Managing Humans, which collects many of his most useful posts for helping managers treat their charges like people and not soulless 1s and 0s.

We’re all still laughing about the time when Vegas tried to convince the world that it was a family town. You remember this? This was back during the Internet boom, money was free, and Vegas was pretty full of itself as it’d as it had every instant multi-millionaire with huge amounts of disposible cash stumbling around the casinos literally bleeding cash.

With this new wad of cash, Vegas was wondering, What’s next? Where was the growth? Who were the new Vegas customers? What about families? In Sin City? Sure, why the hell not? If they can sell cat food on the Internet, why not get families to think of Vegas as Disneyland? Rollercoasters, yeah, that’s the ticket.

What a complete crock of shit.

3. AllVegasPoker.com, Drinking for Profit—Poker for the Casual Vegas Player

Not everyone totes sheaves of $100s to Vegas for the big hold'em tourneys or to score bottle service one table away from Jay-Z's posse. Some prefer to turn the city's poker rooms into a free-floating — and free-drinking — home game, and let Sin City serve them . . . until they can barely stand. Follow AllVegasPoker.com message board poster Grange95's detailed description (and sly parody of a zillion poker strategy books) to get the most top-shelf tipple for the smallest donation to waitresses and tablemates.

Introduction: The recent poker boom has brought forth a veritable cornucopia of books, manuals, treatises, and websites devoted to improving poker playing skills. These publications have fed the swarms of poker locusts who inhabit most Vegas poker rooms, stripping every last chip from the assorted donkeys, fish, sloths, wombats, platypi, and conventioneers who find themselves attracted to the olfactory siren song of cigarette breath, four day old underwear, and pieces of sandwiches putrefying in the fat rolls of the guy in the five—and six—seat.

But what about the casual poker player, the intrepid soul whose sole purpose for playing poker is that it seems like a “cool” way to get hammered while losing less money than playing $25 blackjack next to a tattoo-covered LA trust fund baby and looking more manly than playing nickel slots next to a chain-smoking granny? Although the poker-drinker is a common denizen of the Vegas poker scene, his (and he is male more than 98.62% of the time) unique poker strategies have not been subjected to rigorous mathematical and game theory analysis. The current poker-drinker is forced to live by his wits, learning by trial and error and the occasional “secret tip” from a degenerate fraternity brother.

Deus ex Machina, Hold the "Deus"

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:48:00 +0000

I DON'T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME being, or a team of them; or in fate, karma, destiny, or (reluctantly not) the Force. I believe in science, evidence, statistics, and probability. But I am willing to accept coincidence. Thus it was today.

May has been an up-and-down month for me at work. After again successfully striving with a deadline during the first week of this month, I was exceptionally burnt out. I took a "sick day" the Friday of that wek after a strong feeling of being "done" at work. You can read about some other random discontentment in that post too. Despite some later optimism about my new coworkers, it was tough to feel motivated during the first two weeks of this production cycle.

This was risky, even with the extra hands on deck, because we were facing a couple of artificial obstacles on the schedule. We lost two days midmonth while bringing the new gang up to speed on their duties, and I naturally took Memorial Day off. We will face higher postage costs if we don't get the magazine out by this coming Monday. We'd beaten this deadline the past three issues, despite being told about it at the last minute the first time, and with only two editors versus the usual five. But I was finally getting very fatigued over this breakneck pace.

I've been training the new staff at the same time as I've been giving them work to do. They seem to be fast learners, but because we have no departmental guidebook or procedure manual, I have to tutor from scratch. So I've had to interrupt my workflow to assist with this at irregular intervals. Did I mention that I despise training, even though I'm good at it? Yes. So throw that in as another leech of my will.

I also got my review around the middle of the month, which was quite good (I should know, I wrote most of it). After a couple of days of not hearing about any raise, I took the loathsome step of asking HR. I would rather argue with a steroid abuser over a parking space than speak with our HR person. Apparently, the small adjustment I got out of the blue at the beginning of the year was my 2008 raise; I won't see any result of the good review I'd just gotten until 2009. (Considering this person sent the review forms out late this year, a New Year's bump is not likely.)

Taking my own advice to ask for anything that might be available, I asked if there were any chance that part of the raise could be applied earlier, perhaps in recognition of all of the hard work I had done in keeping the book moving — which apparently is something even the top guy knows about and appreciates. All she did was shrug and say maybe my outgoing managing editor could appeal to her boss; but she said the economy, company budget, blah blah, blah, made this unlikely. Pissed but restrained, I pointed out that, because they hadn't been paying three higher, veteran-level, New York City–area salaries since the beginning of the year for my departed coworkers, there ought to be a little left over for an advance in good faith. This didn't register with the person, so I bailed on the further waste of time this had become and returned to my desk.

(I did have a fallback position. I summarized this exchange for my outgoing manager, and said that, since any early raise seemed unlikely, perhaps they might consider a few more paid vacation days. This is a briar-patch strategy; given the choice of time or money, I will take time any day. She said she'd look into it. At worst, they know I look out for my own ass.)

With all of this going on, the issue is not going to hit prepress on the date my eternally optimistic former boss has been trumpeting. It's something I've had to fight against each issue we've had to do together — we get to a certain point and I start warning folks we're going to have to suck it up and eat the extra postage — but three times so far, we've managed to make it under the deadline anyway. So my Cassandra routine has failed to sport fangs thus far. This time, I suspect, will be different. Because with the three days we've lost in the schedule, with all the training, and the time I've pissed away trying to squeeze a few more benefits out of the system, very little finished copy has transited my desk.

And of course there's one more major obstacle coming next week: I bail for at 5:00 Tuesday night to get things in order at home — and make some ridiculous effort to sleep — before the Vegas trip the next morning.

Not that I haven't been trying to hit the mark. I rescheduled an eye doctor appointment this Friday to devote more time to finishing the issue (and let my bosses know I'd done this). I had intended to stay late last Tuesday, but — once again — the building's AC died, and I was forced to leave on time, at less than full strength in any rate with a pounding, heat-induced headache. I stayed until 9:00 last night, with a break for dinner . . . and I did send finished work to folks at that hour to let them know I'm breaking my ass outside normal work hours. (Always document any extra effort.) Heretical for me, given my resolution this January not to emulate my departed manager's habit of clocking in one or two hours each night, to the point where she needed an anxiolytic to get through it.

Far more heretical was my plan to come in this Saturday for a spell. Packing for Vegas is a reflex by this point and can be done at a sprint. With rain in the works this Saturday, I thought — even if I couldn't completely get the issue out — I could put in a strong final effort to shove it along as far as possible, and then leave folks with a list of what still needs to be done. Plus the artist called in sick this morning after coughing like an exploding munitions factory through most of yesterday, leaving his work in the overburdened hands of another designer. So shit's getting slowed down as it is. And my hints about not making the deadline were not registering.

And this is where my aforementioned faith in faithlessness might be shaky. Early in the afternoon, we got a note from our facilities manager. They're doing massive work on the building this weekend; we need to be out promptly at EOB on Friday, and there will be no admittance throughout the weekend, nor any access to our servers. So my plan to come in Saturday? Impossible.

Some might say God stopped the bullets. Others could claim a cosmic balance has compensated me for busting out a few extra hours last night. I will only go so far as to say, I appreciate the coincidence that this shutdown will keep me from working through Saturday. Any proximity on my part to the office will also be coincidence, and a transient one at that.

Violent Beauty

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:11:00 +0000

TWO SORTA RECENT VIDEO GAME ad campaigns juxtaposed tableaux of in-game combat with music of stunning emotion. If you'll permit a pair of YouTube links, these are worth sharing.

Gears of War, featuring the Michael Andres/Gary Jules cover of Tears for Fears's "Mad World"

Halo 3, featuring Chopin's "Raindrop" Prelude in D flat major (direct link if the video's a bit jerky):

Perhaps I'm an old softie, or a sucker either for sad piano music or Tears for Fears, but both of these choke me up a little.

The Mouth on Me!

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Sun, 25 May 2008 16:39:00 +0000

I'M APPARENTLY BECOMING A CARD in my old age. The key to humor? Know your audience. Witness this exchange last night at the local supermarket.

I was using the self-checkout station, which in this store abuts the customer service desk. The 20-something female desk clerk watched me scan and bag my two items, the second of which evoked an error message when I bagged it — the weight and the item's UPC didn't match.

I rebagged it, only to get the same message. The clerk said, "Sometimes it needs to adjust itself."

After 20 seconds of waiting, I smirked and said in a Paulie Walnuts tone, "I gotta adjust myself sometimes, too, but I don't take this long!" To which she laughed loudly.

I won't be opening for Carlin anytime soon, but it's nice to get a 100% positive audience response now and again.

"God Will Be Cut"

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Sat, 24 May 2008 23:06:00 +0000

I PICKED A HELLUVA MOVIE to watch just earlier during my post-workout "cooldown" of 10 minutes on an elliptical machine: Kill Bill Volume 1. Even though the guide said it was on Telemundo, I flicked it on for the duration. The language barrier proved meaningless; I entered as the Crazy 88 were zooming through that Tokyo tunnel as Beatrix Kiddo streaked behind in her yellow Bruce Lee suit, followed closely by the epic entry of O-Ren and her crew to "Battle Without Honor or Humanity." Yeah, my pulse wasn't dropping out of triple digits any time soon.

I was hoping Telemundo might be as loco in its attitude toward violence as it is toward boisterous, Benny Hill–style T&A. No such luck; when the luscious Julie Dreyfus got a shoulder-height manicure, the chambara gore-gasm was trimmed as neatly as her arm. Likewise the near-bloodless snuffs of the 88s who tried the Bride's Hanzō sword in battle. I ended my cooldown before the Gauntlet-style slayfest of the remaining 88s, which probably was also pruned way back.

Which reminded me of the approach I thought Tarantino ought to take when releasing the DVD. A good stretch of the House of Blue Leaves fight is presented in black and white, partly as chambara homage, partly to toe the rating back out of NC-17 territory. Now in Japan, you can get a version of the DVD with this battle in full color throughout. I thought Region One viewers ought to have a menu option that, in homage to Steve Buscemi's brief role as waiter "Buddy Holly" in Pulp Fiction, would offer two choices: "Burnt to a Crisp" (with the Blue Leaves sequence's original black and white) or "Bloody as Hell" (in glorious arterial color).

Considering Tarantino is taking his sweet-ass time in crafting the combined Parts 1 and 2 version, it might not be too late to get this suggestion to him. Someone contact his people. He can have this idea for free.

Clouds Parting Over Work Future?

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:42:00 +0000

I'VE RECEIVED SOME HOPEFUL SIGNS regarding the remote office that will house the new staff on my publication. I've had extensive recent contact with the entire new staff, and they all seem very excited to get rolling on the magazine. They flew out to get some basic training from me and my outgoing managing editor on running the book, which we delivered in small yet informative bites; this meal appears to have satisfied their appetite for details.

I'd originally had trepidations about their two-day visit. As you may have gathered from my recent Bullet Points! post several days ago, I've not been in the best of moods lately. Part of it was related to anxiety over whether I'd be get along with the new Central City crew and not feel lonely at the office without the traditional group of coworkers with whom to chat. Fortunately, the incoming editor-in-chief is very gung-ho over the potential for the book, and I've already exchanged work with my new direct boss. In fact, I've tutored him on two of my regular columns, which at least demonstrated at an early stage for him that I am dedicated to keeping the book rolling. From what I gathered, he was way hep to getting such a detailed guide (though a bit Dickensian in length).

So I don't feel as "done" as I thought I was earlier in the month. Everyone seemed very happy with the introduction I helped to prepare for them, and my outgoing managing editor wrote a great review for me (which may or may not founder on the rocks of fiscal attenuation when we talk wampum). For now, it seems like I'll have a home there and the chance to pick up skills and contacts for what else I would want to do.

Still really not sure what that might be.

If You're Indian or Italian, Don't Read This!

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:07:00 +0000

REGARDLESS OF YOUR NATIONALITY, welcome to this description of my first culinary mashup. I'd never had risotto before, but I dig the concept. I also dig curry. I decided to introduce them to each other. Oh, the heresy!

To backtrack, while eating the Whole Foods Indian hot-tray food this past Saturday, I reflected on the ingredients. There's a fair number of good veggies in various curries. Indian cuisine was my gateway to sampling cauliflower, for instance. I suspected there was a way to prepare Indian-style vegetables on the home front, if I had the right recipe.

I've also nursed a recurring fascination with risotto. I don't know how many of the local Italian restaurants offer it, so I suspected I'd have to make my own. It seemed labor intensive, but after reading about the basics of risotto in How to Cook Everything, I revised that impression.

Sunday dinner left me with a spare, whole Costco roast chicken. Lots of free meat. I'd also bought broccoli and cauliflower, in the hopes of digging up some way, on the Net, of making a veggie curry from them to serve over rice.

Then I thought, why not satisfy two urges in one pot?

Trader Joe's sells arborio rice and vegetable stock. (I often find chicken stock overwhelming, especially when reduced, as it would be in this recipe.) I grabbed both. I already had spices and some of the other elements of risotto. So I figured I'd give it a whirl, with a trip to the local pizzeria as backup in case I conjured a funky ruin.

The risotto recipes in Bittman called for butter as the primary fat, as do most Indian dishes, but I had also seen olive oil used in some online risotto recipes. So I started with 3 tablespoons of oil, which I heated over a medium flame along with 2 teaspoons of Penzey's Hot Curry Powder, to bloom the spices.

Once it began foaming, I added ¾ cup of arborio rice, or half the amount in one of the Bittman recipes. I'd also begun heating about half the recommended amount of stock, 2½ cups, in a saucepan. I stirred the rice until it was evenly coated with spicy oil, then let it heat until it steamed slightly.

At that point, I added my first ladle of stock. A plume of curried steam greeted me. The rice immediately began absorbing the stock, which led me to turn the heat down a touch. I added a couple of shakes of Penzey's Hot Chili Powder, a few grinds of pepper, and a bit of salt, then set the microwave timer for 10 minutes. I added more stock bit by bit, and then stirred the rice every so often until it began to "tighten up." Once it seemed a little more dry than wet, I added more stock. Very scientific.

At the 10-minute mark, I added 3 oz. of finely cubed chicken and a double-handful each of broccoli and cauliflower chopped small. An extra amount of stock allowed them to begin blanching. The rice at this point still had a crunchy core. I set the microwave for another 10 minutes, then continued to add stock and stir as before.

I eventually used the entire box of stock, as by 15 minutes, I was running low of the heated stuff in the saucepan, and there was about a half-cup or so left in the box, a small amount I couldn't imagine using over the rest of the week. The trick now was to get the rice to the proper level of doneness while cooking off, or inducing the absorption of, the remaining stock.

I managed to bring it home well at the 20-minute mark: not too loose, still easily stirred, but with tender rice all the way through. The veggies were cooked but not mushy, and the chicken was beginning to shred nicely. I didn't add any more olive oil at the end; some recipes call for a last dab of butter to finish, but I decided not to up the calories any further (this essentially is a starch-based meal, which I usually try to avoid for weeknight dinners). I filled a plate and sampled it.

This would've made a great cold-weather meal, as its physical and spice-based heat would've beaten a heating blanket soundly for warmth. I feel I succeeded in crafting a basic curry risotto.

And a helluva lot of it too: Even after two servings, I still had half a pan full of it. I'd heard that storing risotto and resurrecting it the next day was sometimes dodgy, but I just covered the pan and placed the whole thing, once cooled a bit, into the fridge. With any luck, there's still enough moisture in it to warm and loosen the mix tomorrow over the stove.

Considering this was a cobbled-together, unorthodox take on risotto, I feel qualified to follow a more traditional recipe for it, assuming this stuff is indeed good tomorrow. Leftovers are always nice. It also let me sample Trader Joe's vegetable stock, which might be a good base for a chicken curry or basmati-rice/veggie recipe. So my first experiment in cultural mix-and-match was a success.

I sense spicy doings ahead, and I haven't even gotten to Vegas yet.

Schizohedron Bullet Points! for 5/3/08

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:33:00 +0000

SOME SCATTERED SAMPLINGS FROM RECENT days, by way of a catch-up:

• Fitness is progressing well. I have been hitting the gym an average of six days out of seven for a few weeks now. Having gotten this habit in tune, I still need to improve my dinner habits, but further results will pay off such diligence. Besides, I'm nearing a week of free-range grazing; I have about one month before the Vegas trip, where experience tells me I will gorge lustily. I want to go there in good shape, so if I slack off on exercise there, I won't have much catching up to do upon my return. Wynn Las Vegas is rumored to have a grand spa and gym, but . . . well, it is Wynn Las Vegas. Temptation comes with the territory.

• I had weird dreams or nightmares all week. Ordinarily I'd record them upon awakening and share them here. Not this time; they're best forgotten. The nightmares disrupted my sleep patterns. The non-nightmare dreams featured an unusually large number of people I know and one I don't: Vice President Dick Cheney. I don't have enough to deal with that I gotta be haunted by that fuck in my one legit, unassailable refuge?

• I feel like I'm done at work. The artist is not going to follow his job to Central City. When he leaves, I will be alone out of the fine crew I met upon starting there. My few interactions with my new Central City coworkers (can you call them "coworkers" if they're not in the same office?) have been positive, and I'm told my aid will be crucial in managing the transition and division of labor among that bunch. But while writing a guide to how I hunt for and write up stories for two of my columns, even though this was going to help me lighten my workload and plan ahead on the tasks I retain, I felt like I was giving away some of my reasons for being there. And in the back of my head I still imagine they'll keep me as long as it takes for the Central City group to be working, then hire my replacement out there. My best hope is to revise my resume, take what I can by way of connections, skills, and money, and brace for the next eventuality. At minimum, working with an entirely remote workgroup may be good training for freelancing, into which I've been looking lately (with aid and encouragement from the excellent Amy. How an inexperienced freelance editor and writer like myself would find work in what all rational observers are calling a recession, though, is a non-rhetorical question. And that's not even addressing the healthcare question.

• To my surprise, being single has been upsetting me these past several weeks, for the first time in years. The ratio of days when I don't care about living solo, to those when I do, has dropped from 75:1 to about 3:1. These are not odds that this gambler enjoys seeing rise on this Kentucky Derby Day.

Penny for Some Thoughts at the Five and Dime

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:23:00 +0000

A HALF-DECAYED IRONING BOARD cover compelled me to walk to my local five-and-dime for a replacement. Coupons in our town savings mailer sweetened the deal: 15% off, which, combined with a stroll to the store instead of a drive, helped me stack monetary and gas savings. Keeping the spending local, rather than pouring it into a big-box store whose profits are counted out of state, also had appeal. This trip was dipped in win.

I combined this run with a drop-off of books at the library and a stop at the dry cleaners — another key coupon-use center — with some work shirts. Once at the five-and-dime, I wandered the ware-crammed aisles for a spell, eventually triangulating on the housewares via the kitchen goods. A display of various board covers awaited, as did someone who recognized me.

A woman in her fifties said, "I know you." I couldn't place her — a friend of my mother's? Local restaurant owner? Someone from a doctor's office? — so I let her continue. "We used to work together. I left [the company] in December."

I still didn't recognize her, not having memorized all the office names and faces by that point, but her citation of last-year's layoffs was recognition enough. She said she'd heard about the company's most recent play — the move of jobs to Central City — and added a depressing detail I hadn't heard: Those who did move out there would have their salaries cut to match the local market.

From my perusal of the Central City real estate guides placed in the lunchroom for those considering relocation, I had noticed a striking difference in rent and home prices. I'd suspected the new additions to my magazine staff would be paid less than the local veterans who'd left. The rents (about 50–70% what I'm paying here for the same digs; my full NJ rent would get a whole townhouse) and home prices (the bubble-inflated price of my parents' average suburban home on a quarter-acre would get a multiacre estate, an empty plot to McMansionize, or a palatial condo) listed in the guides confirmed this hunch. But somehow I didn't imagine they also would slash current salaries.

Back to my former coworker. I told her that few seemed up for the move, and that the head of one afflicted department estimated a zero-percent acceptance rate. In this light, I said, this effectively was another round of layoffs. She agreed and urged me to grab all I could. I mentioned I'd been through a layoff myself, so my current level of trust in any employer to provide long-term job security was nil, so I had been doing just that since my start. I also let her know how my new coworkers on the book all were hired in Central City, which made my retention mystifying and tenuous. She smiled and reiterated her "grab all I could" advice, adding that eventually we'd be able to lodge the remaining Tri-State Area employees in someone's house. Considering this is probably how we started up, I said, at least it would be a return to our roots. She laughed, and we parted ways.

That evening, I spent several hours reading about financial management and freelancing.

Overdue Returns

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:13:00 +0000

FOR THE PAST TWO MONTHS or so, I've been culling my library. It's now obvious that books are missing from the shelves. If you were wise enough to have taken a picture of my living room during one of my Xmas parties here, holding that photo up with my current shelves in the background would display notable gaps.

This has not been easy. I was raised with a reverence for bound words. I've long had full shelves, plus a couple of boxes of additional books — roleplaying tomes, mostly — in the closet. Parting with them seemed heretical.

I've since understood the emotional attachment that old possessions can conceal, the ties to a safer past they can represent for some. Taken to an extreme of which I would accuse nobody I know, it results in hoarding. In my case, it belies a sad nostalgia. And I have come to hate that prison of a word.

Merciless winnowing was in order.

The first couple of loads went easily. I've brought three grocery bags to the library so far. I actually believe some of the books came to me from their monthly fundraising sales. I think I bought them — I'm thinking of four or so S. J. Perelman collections — out of a sense that I was rescuing the wit inside from final disappearance. I now know it is not my duty to rescue them at the cost of convenience, storage space, or sentimental ties to a New York society now long gone. I'm done with them; let someone else enjoy them. Their past is not my past. I've got enough trouble with that past already.

Poker books from earlier in my studies were also added to the mix. If I've internalized the wisdom, I don't need the shells from whence it sprung. Not that I've become some sort of hold'em demigod, but if I am playing better in any way as a result of having read them, they're sort of alive through my improved play. Which sounds like the justification those soccer-team plane-crash cannibals made for wolfing their dead chums in Alive. At no-limit hold'em, there's little distinction. Eat or be eaten.

But I digress. I made a rule earlier this year that if I were to buy new books, old books would have to go on a one-for-one exchange. I recently took the opportunity to upgrade my Las Vegas Fodor's Guide. My copy of James Ellroy's towering and ugly masterpiece American Tabloid seems to be out on permanent loan, and I fetishize that book; thus I also ordered that. Those were straight replacements (my 2006 Vegas Fodor's is now in the care of a recent convert to the Neon Havens). Were anything else to come in the door, however, something else would need to exit.

Inspired by a post on Get Rich Slowly about the acid-drip that renting a storage space can represent to one's savings, I felt energized to resume my book winnowing. This morning, my local library will become the lucky recipients of the following volumes:

Red Storm Rising and The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy: Millions of these two titles are in print, and shall be for years. No need to duplicate the work of the public library system by retaining two of them here. I do have fond memories of Red Storm though. During my boring college summer job, I used to sneak the paving-stone-sized Red Storm paperback into the john for 20-minute reading breaks. Not as brazen as my mother's habit of taking naps in the ladies' room on days following benders with officemates, but damn close.

The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Fiction: This one, a college textbook, has survived several purges. It was the sole text used in an American fiction class I took as part of the English major program. A second course I took that same semester — for which I had to read and comprehend a Great Novel like The Sound and the Fury or A Farewell to Arms each week — had the same professor. And he was terrifying. Think about one click less scary than Elaine Benes's dad as portrayed by Lawrence Tierney in Seinfeld. He wasn't hostile or lacking in academic rigor, just terse and uncompromising, and he detested lack of class participation. (As someone who is terrified of public speaking, but even more upset by having nobody else in a class or meeting answering an instructor's question, I thus had four phobia-laden classes per week.) People eventually forced themselves to answer his questions, but almost always with an unconscious inquisitive lilt at the end, as though asking the prof if they had finally satisfied his burning quest for an answer that demonstrated that the class was actually thinking deeply about the literature. In retrospect, it was effective. In person, it was enervating.

For the class in which we used the Norton, we had the choice for a final project of analyzing one of the short stories we hadn't covered in class, or writing a new one. I chose the latter, and submitted what I, with my current set of eyes, now recognize as a terrible pastiche of cyberpunk clichés. I also now realize they were only really clichés to someone who, as I had been in 1990, hadn't been steeping themselves in William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Walter Jon Williams, and Richard Kadrey at every chance. I anticipated a withering last-page summation of its crappiness from this strict arbiter of great American literature. I was instead stunned to receive an A–. Two years later, I entered the story into a contest run by the college literary magazine. It took third, won me a C-note, and was published in the magazine. Not bad for a story whose best line was, "His scream abruptly cut off as my fingers met in his forebrain."

Writer's Digest Handbook of Short Story Writing: I took the opportunity a month ago to read through this, to determine whether it held anything of continuing worth. It does not; in fact, it's shockingly dated, and was so in the late 80s, when I received it as a gift. You wouldn't think writing tips could go out of date, but the book is tied closely to the markets contemporary to the publication of its individual articles. (Likewise with a guide to writing science fiction short stories that went in an earlier purge.) There is no advice in here that I cannot also find from working writers' blogs, more current writers' guides or marketplace reports, or — frankly — by taking the advice of an oaf I know who told me, about 12 years ago, that I ought to spend 3 hours a day writing. It was his one non-oafish piece of wisdom, and shames me in my failure to follow it.

(Yes, I owned this book before I wrote that horrible cyberpunk story in college. No, I didn't call upon its advice. Writer's Digest is blameless for that horrid line you read a couple of grafs up.)

White Jazz, James Ellroy: This will surprise some folks I know. But it's simply not as good as its predecessor, L.A. Confidential (which is an order of magnitude more complex than the also-excellent movie it inspired), or Ellroy's next novel, the aforementioned American Tabloid. (Jazz does introduce a prototype of Pete Bondurant, one of Tabloid's three stars, which gives me one of those shared-universe kicks, like seeing the skull of an Alien warrior-bug among the Predator's trophies in Predator 2.) For me, the tighter, more telegraphic prose style he adopted after L.A. doesn't function as well in the first-person narrative he uses in Jazz. Third-person limited seems to work best with that style, as does his use of three rotating protagonists, each of whom illuminates traits of the other two through his observations and interactions. With only one narrator, White Jazz feels more like a transcript; with three, Ellroy's books become brutal, seductively shadowed sculptures.

Shock Value, John Waters: The year was 1999. I'd just quit my first real job, and I was attending a horror convention with one of my now-former coworkers, on whom I had a wicked, unspoken crush. We shared a love for the science fiction show Babylon 5, and several of its stars were set to appear at the con. Also on the guest list, along with the usual assortment of nostalgia-pimps and fraying fright-flick and geek-TV retreads, was sleazemeister John Waters. I spent most of the con waffling over how to tell my coworker — who was, if it can be believed, even more naïve about romance than I was — that I dug her as more than just a friend. As I'd driven her to the con, however, I didn't want to spook her and make her even more skittish. So instead I followed her through the exhibition halls, spending way too much money on signed photos of various B5 stars. We bought copies of Waters's book and queued up for his signature. I told the surprisingly normal-looking but stylish Waters my name, shook his hand after he signed the book, and told him I loved his work in The Simpsons, for which he graciously thanked me. If I could've mustered the balls to have been as honest and direct with my coworker about how I liked her as Waters was about his life, aesthetics, and films in this book, I could've spared myself a summer's worth of nervous frustration and second-guessing . . . and the eventual humiliation of being flatly told, when I finally spilled my guts to her, that (and I quote) "you know, I don't date," only to watch her begin dating a longtime friend of mine, her eventual husband, that fall.

Not Sure How Many More Bullets I Can Dodge

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:50:00 +0000

IF THINGS CONTINUE AT WORK the way they've been going since the turn of the year, I'll be the only person in the office. Or at least this one.

Around 2:00 today, two messages went out to the staff. If you received the first one, you were called to a meeting at 2:30; I and the others who got the second one had to meet in the same place as the first group at three.

From past experience, you wanted to be in the second group. Last time they did this, the two meetings were launched so that the first bunch would be told of their layoff, and be packed and out the door, while the second bunch was being informed of their former coworkers' collective fate. Still, the cryptically brief note bore no information on why we would be meeting, so we were left to wonder.

I happened to pass the conference room while the first group was in session. No read on the faces; not excited, but not overly glum. Maybe the full story hadn't yet unfolded.

But I got a taste of what might be the topic of discussion when I hit the kitchen. I noticed five stacks of apartment- and home-finding guides on the sideboard, of the type usually found near the entrance of our local supermarkets. I passed without scrutinizing them at first as I got a can of Diet Coke from the fridge. On the return pass, I decided to look at one, to see how rents were doing in northern New Jersey during the collapse of the homebuying market.

Only this wasn't a New Jersey apartment guide. It was a Central City apartment guide.

All five of the guides were for Central City homes or apartments.

My guess: Some or all of us were going to be told our jobs were moving to Central City.

Although past experience told me that the second group to meet with the bigwigs was the one who was going to be OK — or at least better off by comparison — I knew that they had finally hired the last staffer the needed for my publication, out in Central City, the previous week. We were now at full strength again . . . and in far less time than I thought they'd need. And I could see no reason why they would persist in paying a New Jersey salary for a nonmanagement person when they could just as easily make a push to have me move, possibly knowing — from my earlier inquiry about COBRA — that I had displayed no particular fear over joblessness. By this method, they could "dismiss" me by offering me a go-away check, assuming I'd choose that and joblessness over moving.

Which is correct. My family and friends are here. Even if I didn't have either group, I can't easily conceive of an amount that would induce me to pull up my roots. Not before retirement age.

My hunch proved right. As I headed back to my desk, the first meeting broke up. I followed a couple of stunned-looking folks to a growing cluster of coworkers, who confirmed that production of several publications was to be consolidated in the Central City office, and the staffs could either move or take severance.

Long story short, my job is staying here, much to my surprise. The second group was indeed made up of folks slated to remain here.

I got assurances from two authorities (both parties to the note I sent around after my return from the hospital) that my presence in the office was very much desired and appreciated. I told one of these parties it was good to hear that, considering my review was on her desk.

I can only imagine how many folks will go along with this. This is a de facto layoff. The company had to know the majority of the people would say no. We're not an office of friendless orphans waiting for the next Pony Express recruiting drive.

So over the coming two months, a couple dozen folks will have the twin joys of helping to purge their cubes and departmental records of unneeded paper, back issues, and other impedimentia ahead of the planned subdivision of the office, and then themselves be purged.

I feel . . . lucky?

Three "FUCK!"s A Gallon

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:03:00 +0000

HOW SAD IS IT THAT all of my recent financial windfalls get grouped, in my mental budget, in the "use this to pay for gasoline" category?

In appreciation of the work that we did getting the last published issue of the magazine out under heavy fire, my managing editor gave me and the artist a $50 money card. In principle, I could use it in Las Vegas, spend it on some decent vacation clothing, dedicate it toward a digital camera — anything.

In practice, my first thought was, "I can actually fill up my car's gas tank!" rather than taking $20 sips each week to spread the Pain across multiple visits.

Same thing today, when I lugged a milk bottle full of small change (the quarters are reserved for laundry) to the bank. The $56.25 this yielded? Sure, I could drop it in my emergency fund. I could consider it found money and go nuts at a fairly decent restaurant. I could add it to my poker bankroll ahead of the hold'em binge in Sin City. Or just split it down the middle for Mother's and Father's Day gifts come those two holidays.

Nope. The trek to the bank took me past my local "cheap" gas station. There, I will have the pleasure, at my next fill, of being keistered for $3.24 for each gallon I buy, which will top out at about six gallons for the usual double-sawbuck sip. I can only imagine the $56 will go into my tank in part or full. (The quarter I'm still saving for the damn wash.)

I feel like fuckin' Mad Max crossing post–nuclear holocaust Australia, searching wrecked vehicles along the dusty Outback highways for traces of the precious juice. Only this isn't a sunbeaten dead continent I'm inhabiting; this is the last remaining superpower . . . granted, a superpower with track marks up and down its arms from skin-popping Chinese money and Wah'habist oil, but still, more or less the scuffed hulk of what we used to consider the primus inter pares of the First World.

If I'd have known, pre-$3/gallon, that gas would continue to spike, I'd have bought a clutch of gas cans, filled them while gas was "cheap," then lined them up in my parents' garage. If airlines and delivery services can hedge against commodity speculators dry-humping the cost oil, so can I. Ideally, I'd make like an Eighties-style apocalypse cult and build my own massive underground tanks, but I think you need a few thousand follower-zombies to help fund such an endeavor. I'm lucky if I can get dogs to come near me. And they don't carry cash.

Hitting the Track (Gently at First)

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:15:00 +0000

WITH THE FLOWERING OF SPRING, in both foliage and temperature, I can resume taking walks in place of gym-bound cardiovascular exercise. This Saturday, I had a nice chunk of early-afternoon time blocked out for just such an outing. I thought about mounting the hill near my house, but my knees were giving me a little grief. I have no history of knee pain, so this was mildly alarming. Not wanting to aggravate whatever was up there, I chose a flat course nearby.

There is a school down the street from my apartment with a full athletic field, complete with a track around the gridiron. I'd spied folks jogging around it while driving by, but I'd never given it a tryout as a walking course. So under clouds reluctantly parting to admit the sun, I strolled to that side of town and surveyed the course.

The football field and track were populated only by a solo runner and a gaggle of Canadian geese cropping the turf. I was surprised to see the track was fine gravel over earth, not paved. (I recall my high school having a paved track.) Reasoning that this would be a bit more like walking on sand, from an increased muscle-effort standpoint, I picked the bleachers as a starting point, cued up an archive of the mighty Rex of WFMU's Fool's Paradise program, and got to walking.

I decided, as I rounded the first curve, to add a short jog to the circuit: for the length of the bleachers, I'd pick up the pace. I figured this wouldn't kill me (or at least if it did, I'd croak doing something positive for myself). My knees were a bit creaky as I approached this first test, but I nonetheless jogged alongside the bleachers, perhaps a 30-second stretch tops, and entered my second lap without collapsing. Other than the crap in my pockets bouncing up and down with the rest of me as I jogged, no problem the first time through.

By the third "sprint," my knees no longer hurt. I guess they just needed a decent warmup that my slower walk to the actual field didn't provide. Encouraging news. I'm not unaware of the toll obesity inflicts on knees, and my mother is down to bone-on-bone in hers. I've got to do what I need to do now, before I lose full joint utility.

Although the big hill has the advantage of working my quads most brutally, the field now revealed the blessing of being quiet. Passing traffic seemed distant, even without the earbuds feeding me schlock rock from the deepest, darkest 50s and 60s. Cars on the hill, by contrast, always sound close enough that they seem to be right on your tail.

By about the fifth lap, the sun had warmed the field enough to release waves of fresh-grass scent, which took me back to grade-school soccer practices. I recalled doing 440s then around the field and hating them. I evaded the easy trap of wishing I'd done more to be athletically inclined back then, and concentrated on improving myself now, the only place I can ever be and the sole locale where I can do myself some good. I noticed sweat beading on my brow and running down my neck, both good signs that I was doing real work. Another soccer-practice memory snapped to: The coach who complained to her kid that if she wasn't sweating, she wasn't working hard enough.

The jogs weren't killing me, but by the eighth round, I was feeling a slightly painful stretching in the tendons of my soles. I began to wonder how many total laps I'd notch. Ten seemed a nice round number, but this being my first venture into limited jogging and fast walking on a semisoft surface, I eventually topped out at nine. Rather than stopping dead, I stretched to cool down for a few minutes, feeling comfortably loose ahead of the lower-half strength workout I had planned at the gym later that afternoon. Oddly, the walk home felt like I was climbing a hill — whether this was true, or just a side effect of the unfamiliar exercise, it still took extra, and gratifying, effort to accomplish.

Neon Glow on the Western Horizon

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:49:00 +0000

MY GRINDING EXILE FROM LAS VEGAS will end this coming June. After a delay from a return visit that began as a voluntary money-generating 2007 pause, which became mandatory in November 2006 when I got word that I'd be laid off in four months' time, my reentry into Sin City has, at last, been plotted.

One bit of good news facilitating the trip is that we've had success in making the first new hire in the Central City office. By the end of this month, I'll have a new editor-in-chief, as long as the person doesn't freak and back out. Though there will be an extended transition period between my current and future managing editors (MEs), and also some effort to bring this April hire (who will be my immediate boss) up to speed, having any help with production and editing will be most welcome.

To digress, the April issue went to press a week ago, three days sooner than the March one — and with the same staff. We had to cut a couple of articles for space purposes, which saved me writing time . . . which I ended up needed after 5:00 that day, when I cranked out two short columns in 40 minutes to complete the issue and get it out the door. I had a ton of well-timed help from the ME — with whom, I realize, I can actually work well in a fast-moving situation, far more easily than my former coworkers could — and our artist, who bounced everything we gave him out to prepress as soon as it hit his desk. By closing the issue Wednesday night, we dodged a huge markup on postage fees, which we'd only found out about that previous Monday. For avoiding this overcharge, the ME graciously gave the artist and me giftcards this week to thank us for our diligence. (She was particularly stunned I was able to pump out those two stories in such short notice. I hope the amazement carries forward onto my review!)

I think the measures I took after the chest pains a month and change ago to get the April issue launched earlier, and all parties concerned on board with what needed to be done in light of the short staff, were key to shaving three days off the schedule. We may be able to keep that momentum for the May issue; the content we bumped from April to May gave me a head start, and I've turned over a number of items to the artist thus far this week. I felt comfortable enough to book a personal day for next Thursday to put in some volunteer work down at WFMU.

But most important, I feel like I will have the freedom to return to my usual summer habit of spending a long week in Las Vegas.

I was shocked, when I booked the flight a few weeks ago, at how cheap it was. This was around when crude oil spurted past $100/barrel. I had expected Continental to have tacked on a fuel surcharge of anywhere from $20 to $50. Not so; with the fees and terror tax tacked on, $260 round trip from Newark. That's cheaper than a few years back. I guess the fuel-arbitrage desk at Continental HQ is earning its keep.

Besides, I had a better use for the leftover money:

Wynn Las Vegas by ping ping. Some rights reserved.

That's right. I've had enough of waiting for $39/$69 mail offers from the Golden Nugget or staying at the oddly smelling Plaza in Downtown to save a few extra bux for a rental car. I took 2007 off for a reason: to save bread for a full hotel experience. I can think of few better places to do so than Steve Wynn's mad chocolate Death Star in the desert.

Las Vegas - Wynn by CokeeOrg. Some rights reserved.

I've stayed in very nice chain hotels — the Doubletree properties in Philadelphia and Chicago, and a particularly attractive Hyatt in Morristown, NJ, for a wedding — and the rooms I had at the Golden Nugget and the Flamingo in Vegas were quite serviceable. But I am seeking an enveloping escape. I've walked through Wynn a number of times in past visits, and if the rooms are anything like the casino and other public areas, I should be all set.

I also wouldn't mind picking up a few of these from the Wynn Poker Room —
— or perhaps their red-hued $5 cousins. I'll see what I can do. I didn't tie myself down to the 6 hours the poker room would've wanted to get a discounted room, as the competition there is supposed to be tough. I want the freedom to rove around to other poker rooms and not be forced to grind it out at Wynn, which altogether makes the game more like a job. And that is precisely the one word I don't want to use while out in Vegas.

So I will spend the next two months or so in a mounting frenzy, with the liberating plane flight drawing closer with agonizing slothfulness, with the glowing reward of Las Vegas awaiting me seemingly just out of reach. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to it.

Golden Clouds by sbisson. Some rights reserved.

ATTN Mozilla: We need Adblock IRL

noreply@blogger.com (Schizohedron) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:57:00 +0000

DESPITE THE AIR OF LUDDISM I may have expressed in my last post, I do actually use the Web. I browse in Firefox near-exclusively. At work I sometimes view Web pages on which I'm working in other browsers to make sure they function across platforms, and there are still a few atavistic islands of Firefox incompatibility in the Netiverse that force me into Safari. The Firefox feature that made me an instant convert is the Adblock plug-in. No words can express the liberation that simple clump of code has represented in my Web access. Coworkers have gasped when I've shown them the difference between blocked and unblocked commercial and informational sites. Net ads damage my Slack—that ability, according to SubGenius guru "Bob" Dobbs, not merely to not give a shit, but to give a shit freely.

I find myself wishing for a version for real life to remove annoyances. I might need a version of the reveal-o-sunglasses Rowdy Roddy Piper was given in the documentary They Live, which exposed to him the alien invaders among us and their insidious propaganda. Or I might go the cyberpunk route and get custom optics. Better yet — like adding Flashblock to Firefox along with Adblock to screen out memory-wasting animations and sounds — a full rig would eliminate useless sounds as well.

Imagine being able to look at a cellphone user and have both him and his useless chatter disappear, not only then but every time you run into him on the train. Contemplate how awesome not hearing your cube-neighbor choke like a tubercular chain-smoker every three minutes would be. Ex-boyfriend still haunting your old favorite bookstore, coffeeshop, or bar after you've given him the boot? Gone.

Given the enduring legal hassles of homicide, and the leaden pace of the bird flu's advance, we ought to fund a cyberimplant wing of Mozilla pronto and get this gear on the street where it's needed.