Let me tell you. I wasn’t really prepared for how awesome this would be. I hooked up one of the “spare” boxes that meander around here from time to time, threw Debian Etch on it, and did the tweaking to get it up on the set. I initially tried to play an h264 encoded copy of Heroes, but even simple playback was unpossible with my puny little 2.0 Ghz computer with the Geforce 6200 video card (seriously? What the fuck are you people using for HTPCs these days, brand new boxes?). Instead I found a Divx encode of Planet Earth and gave her a go.

Stunning. Just absolutely magnificent. I felt the shame of all those years trying to get TV-out working to an old set hot in my face, messing with overscan, tinkering with resolutions. All pathetic in the light of this most amazing picture. Those of you who are upset that we’re moving to digital TV and wondering what the big deal is? This is the big deal. You can see things. Like, leaves. It’s difficult to explain properly without having a set in front of you, but there is something about being able to see things in detail that allows you to become immersed in shit that you would otherwise not care about in the slightest. A friend who will remain nameless has admitted to watching a show about fishing because it was in HD. A FISHING SHOW. I have to tell you, I’d watch golf at this point, as long as I could watch the grass gently blowing around on the fairway and read the brand names on the balls. It’s compelling.

And another thing: I now have some inkling why Television got so popular in the first place. I got to experience the phenomenon of getting in on the ground floor with the Internet too, but I suspected that it was somehow different because it was (somewhat) interactive (and becoming much moreso now). And while that is true to one degree or another, the same sort of growing fascination and awe turns on the same brain switches with the new HDTV, and it’s about as interactive as taking a dump.

Also, I would totally rock some Hello Kitty tires on my bike.

Not sure why this tickles me so but it does.

So, I’ve been seeing a lot of situations lately where tasers are being used left and mother fucking right for no good god damned reason.

Law enforcement officers of the world, here is the question you need to ask yourself before you use that taser.

“Would I have shot him with my sidearm?”

If the answer is yes, the situation, before the common outfitting of the taser, was a situation that would have become a shooting, then go ahead. Blast that fucker. That’s the goal of the device, to reduce shootings, not to increase the number of projectile assaults an officer gets to participate in.

If the answer is no, then put the fucking thing away. Don’t taze an old man just because he doesn’t speak your language, don’t taze a college student for asking questions, don’t taze a college student for failing to show ID, don’t taze a motorist for asking you a question about the crime you’re accusing him of. If you are not prepared at this point to kill the person, then don’t shoot them, with anything.

The situation immediately following a tazing should flow like this.

Taze to the ground.
Draw firearm.
Be prepared to put a slug in the fucker if he moves from the place you tazed him to. Put a knee in his neck and arrest him.

It shouldn’t ever be a situation where you taze him to the ground, ask him to do something, taze him again for not listening, taze him again for making you taze him, taze him a third time for fun, taze him a fifth time for making you mess up your taze count. This isn’t the proper use of the device, this is you torturing someone who cannot understand anything you’re saying.

Don’t get me started on the “pepper spray dousings” you guys seem to think is a perfectly rational way to respond to a demonstration is.

Law Enforcement Agencies out there - you need to get a fucking handle on this quick, and start treating each taser discharge the same way you would treat an officer shooting someone with a gun. There needs to be accountability in any use of force.

When I moved up to Portland, the first thing that I did was start riding my bike again. I needed a compulsive activity to distract me from smoking, and also the late summer weather was nice enough to ride in and not want to kill myself, this was a novelty. I moved up here in September, rode for a while, braced myself for a nasty winter (which was, in fact, not that bad) filled with car commutes, and then took it up again in Spring.

That next year, I decided to hell with the car. I’d ride my bike every (work)day of the year. And I did. Lots of miles, 10 miles a day, 5 days a week, from March to November. And then the holidays came, and lo and behold I found myself back in a car for my commute.

Looking at next week (and the next) being oncall weeks for work, I decided I had better get some miles in if I’m going to have my gear sussed out for the real cold. I put on my best guess clothes this morning (42f according to weather report) and rode in.

Best Guess Clothing

• Thin balaclava
• Underarmor wicking base layer
• Poly t-shirt
• Poly tights
• “bike shorts” (light linen shorts I use during summer rides)
• Burley Rock Point jacket
• Helmet
• Gore Windstopper gloves

This was FOLLY.
My gloves, helmet, jacket, all worked out fine. The balaclava was a MISTAAKE, I ended up sweaty and feeling like I was struggling for breath. The tights/shorts combo worked out OK, I wouldn’t have wanted more warmth, but I would have wanted the shorts to go down past the knee. I should have just worn the base layer and stuffed the shirt in a bag. If I was going for a longer ride, I should have done the reverse, because that jacket keeps my body heat near my arms pretty well.

Lesson learned, less clothing when it’s 40. I should have known when my head felt toasty warm at the beginning of the ride that I’d regret it.

So, I finally ended up getting an HDTV. My folks indicated early on that they were going to be giving me cash “to be applied to a TV” for Christmas, and that freed up some budgetary concerns, and allowed me to take part in the great American tradition of going woefully into debt between Thanksgiving and New Years. I am now $700 into my future pay, but with the benefit of having a TV that is so big that pornography seems _extra_ pornographic on it. Even with just my regular, sad, normal Xbox (composite) video feed, things look very nice indeed (aside from having to fiddle with the fill-width-versus-center button from time to time depending on what I’m doing in XBMC). The lower quality rips I have are decidedly lower quality looking on the LCD than they were on the powerfully cheap Symphonic 27-but-probably-more-like-25-inch that I was using before, but also they’re being blown up nearly twice the size so whatever. DVDs look passable, and I have gone into additional debt with the goal of improving this video situation (Dear eBay: Send one Xbox High Definition AV Pack pleaseandthankyou). So, Westinghouse 42-inch 1080p LCD set, you are awesome.

A couple notes, I did have to go in and turn on the Interlace Filtering. Otherwise occasionally there would be a rainbow band, single pixel high, at the top of the screen. Not sure what that was about, other than I guess it was probably a function of the crappy compsite video. Hopefully the AV pack thing fixes that shit. I also find myself woefully low on High Definition content to put on there. I believe there are some “Discovery Planet Earth” torrentia in my future (despite their hugeness).

I also made chili this weekend, in the spirit of conspicuous consumption and in keeping with the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas lardgorge tradition of the Walker family. It came out OK, but just OK. I forgot to add onions until way too late in the game, and there is still something fundamentally missing from my spice mix. I think the chili powder I ended up using was weak and sad. Next time, I’ll make my own from dried chiles. Also I used about 1/3 pork to 2/3 beef. The pork was VERY lean and I think that contributed to a poor mouthfeel. Next time I will either find fattier pork or supplement with bacon ends and pieces. Not as good as Carrol Shelby’s spice pack, and that’s pretty weak.

And on to cycling, of which I have done very fucking little. It got cold, I got sick, and now I have grown lazy, waking up at 6:15, checking my email, showering, and driving in to work as the rule rather than the exception. I need to fix this, but man has it been bitch cold out there. I have my sheer-ish balaclava and my warm gloves found, so now I just need to man up and get on the bike in the morning. It’s no longer in that awkward 50 degree area where I’d sweat through my clothes under my jacket, either. 30 degree mornings all the way around, dry and clear, which is pretty good weather for riding. I need to find some sort of clear eye-things. I can wear my cool-cat sunglasses I got in my post-op kit, but wearing dark glasses at 6am is retarded, and I’d like some wind protection. I guess if I really wanted to ride in I’d set my alarm back to normal time and pack my bags the night before, so I am going to try to do that tonight and ride in Tuesday/Thursday this week.

Also I had a coffee date on Saturday which was quite nice. I am trying to work up the stones to ask for a second less coffeeish meeting, but haven’t thought of a place to go. Maybe Kenny and Zukes.