metal and plastic, glass and love

For me, this month has been full of dangerous, exciting choices, but none have anywhere near the consequence as the decision I face tomorrow:  WHAT PHONE DO I GET?

My biennial upgrade is coming in tomorrow, and it couldn't come at a better time:  two tremendous competitors have recently been released in the past few weeks, in the form of the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4, and there's no question in my mind that one of these two is the phone for me.

In this post, I'm going to explore what I like about each phone, and hope that I come to a decision by the end.  So strap yourselves in for:

SCOTTPHONE DECISION 2013!!!!

I'm so sorry about the lens flare.  I couldn't help myself.

Now, a few words before we begin.  I am a huge fan and advocate of Google's Android operating system; I am 100% attached to it and, therefore, unwilling to even consider an iPhone or Windows phone.  Even jailbroken iPhones are so limited in what they can do compared to Android that they hold no interest for a crazy-techy person like myself, and I don't really care for the software design, app ecosystem, or suite of associated services that Windows phones offer (that's not to say that Microsoft's services aren't excellent; they are, I just prefer Google's).

So why just these two phones?

There are a few requirements I have for a new phone.  It's gotta be Android.  It's gotta have the best screen available.  It's gotta be fast.  And it's gotta be available on Sprint.  Since I only get a new phone with an upgrade discount, cost is not an issue.

There a lot of other important and/or cool features that I would want to consider, but nearly all of those are covered when you limit your selections to the phones with the best screens.  And in this case, best screen means highest resolution, not most inches.

History and Brand Impressions

My first Android phone was the HTC EVO 4G, which I purchased in the summer of 2010.  It was amazing, and I loved it, but a great deal of my excitement was just having a smartphone; I'm sure I would have been similarly impressed with any Android phone at the time.  And while I greatly enjoyed using it, it turned out to be a lemon, needing regular repairs; the touchscreen never really worked properly, and I was without it for over a month at one point while Sprint tried to fix it.  Eventually they made good, but it was still a huge hassle.  I recognize that I just had terrible luck; although the EVO 4G was reported to have had several different issues with the screen, my issue in particular was one-in-a-million, so I didn't have very much ill will towards HTC despite the tremendous inconvenience.

That's why I was happy enough to purchase an HTC EVO 3D as my second phone, through Sprint's generous trade-in program.  All told, it has been a pretty good phone; it's now showing its age, and the 3D features were never more than a gimmick, but they didn't interfere with the phone at all.  The thing that has bothered me most about it is something that would never, ever affect the average user:  HTC never fully unlocked the phone's internal software, meaning I couldn't download and install whatever version of Android I liked.  That's one of my favorite things about using Android, and not having access to that has made me dislike the EVO 3D a lot more than it deserves.  It is, all in all, a spectacular and peppy phone that just never achieved its full potential.

So my history with HTC is checkered, but pretty good overall.  And the problems in design and security have, from all reports, been eliminated in the HTC One.  And, although I don't normally go in for such sentimental bunk, I do feel a warm and fuzzy sense of loyalty to HTC for making such cool phones for me to use, even if they haven't always worked exactly the way I wanted.

On the flipside, I've never owned a Samsung smartphone personally.  I have, however, owned a Samsung phone, the Upstage, that was the worst electronic device I have ever encountered in my entire life:

Oh, look.  It's the worst phone ever.

Just...just look at that thing.  Take a minute and realize that there are controls on both sides of it.  You can't use both sides at once, of course, so how would it know which side you wanted to use?  Answer:  it had no idea.  It was a constant battle to convince the phone that I didn't want to listen to music, or to convince the music player that I intended to make a call.  It just didn't work.  It was a living nightmare.

I understand that Samsung probably had all of the designers of the Upstage sacrificed on the altar of Cheukshin.  I understand that Android phones, with only one side that's meant to be used, are largely immune from most of the horrors that the Upstage inflicted on me.  I understand that a lot of people I know, including my wife, have a Samsung Galaxy smartphone and love them.  I've held and used my wife's Galaxy S3 a little bit, and I found it to be very enjoyable to use.  I know that Samsung has historically been a much better supporter of opening its products to have their software modified than HTC has.

But...some scars just never really heal.

Design

So let's talk about the hardware design of the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4.  I'm not so concerned about software design; as I said before, installing custom versions of software is something I love to do, so any of the default software design choices are probably going to get wiped out in short order.  What I'm left with is the hardware to consider.

Keep in mind, however, that I haven't actually held either of these, or even seen them in person.  I've read tons of reviews and looked at videos of them both in use, but I really won't be able to formulate my feelings until I know what it's like to touch them.

The Galaxy S4 has a good design, in that it stays out of your way and does its job, but nothing about its look excites me.  I do like the hardware button in the middle (sorry, Google and HTC; if I can't have zero physical buttons, then give me a real one, not just capacitative), but everything else is just par for the course. Reviews are describing Samsung as playing it safe with a design that works, but I like to live dangerously.

Something about the design of the HTC One just grabs me.  I feel like I'm looking at something new, special, and exciting.  This might just be a testament to the power of HTC's marketing team, but I really think that the phone is gorgeous.  Reviews have supported this idea, calling it essentially a joy to hold.  I want to hold things that are a joy to hold!  I don't really care too much about metal vs. plastic, but this might be a turning point for me.  Really, I'm not a very aesthetically-minded person in general; the fact that the physical appearance of this phone is even a factor bewilders me, but that's the way it is.

But...am I going to want a case for my phone?  Do I really need one?  If I get one, won't it just cover up the beautiful design?

Technical Specifications

These phones use the same processor and have the same amount of RAM, so performance-wise they should be identical.  However, some benchmarks have marked the Galaxy S4 out as having slightly higher performance when running games, somehow.  The Galaxy S4 also has about an hour more battery life, on average, but I'm never very far away from a charger, so I'm not too concerned about that.

They both have a 1080p screen, but the Galaxy S4's screen is slightly larger, meaning that there's better pixel density on the HTC One.  The Galaxy S4's visuals are also more highly saturated, meaning that the colors are more vivid (but less true to life).

The Galaxy S4 continues the trend of back-mounted, relatively crummy phone speakers; the HTC One, on the other hand, includes true front-mounted stereo speakers, for what is reportedly the best audio playback experience of any phone, ever.  As someone who likes to use his phone to play music while taking a shower, that's a very exciting prospect!  I can usually barely hear my phone with the water running, but apparently the HTC One's speakers are fantastically loud.

The most important points to me are the Galaxy S4's removable battery and microSD card slot.  The HTC One doesn't have those; that means that, with the HTC One, I can't carry around a spare battery, replace the battery if it goes bad, or increase my total amount of storage space.  But do I really need to do those things? Batteries are pretty reliable, and I'm so often near a charger.  If I really need that extra battery life, I can buy a portable charging pack for $20 (the cost of a spare battery).  And with excellent wifi and 4G everywhere, won't cloud storage be sufficient to provide me whatever files I need at the moment?

It's tough, because these devices offer two different solutions to a problem, when I don't even know if I have that problem yet.  How am I supposed to decide?  I can maximize my utility in this particular area with the Galaxy S4, but at what cost?

Other Stuff

There are a few other things worth mentioning.  First, there's the fact that the Galaxy S4's screen is reportedly especially sensitive; you can use it wearing gloves, and it has support for apps that let you hover over the screen, without touching it, to control it.  That's kind of cool, but it's unlikely to be widely adopted in general apps; that means I would probably not even being able to use it if I installed a custom version of Android.  As for using it with gloves, that's what capacitivate gloves and noses are for!

The Galaxy S4 comes with a few other features, like eye-tracking technology to scroll the screen, that the HTC One doesn't have.  But are these any more than a gimmick?  They also don't seem to work outside of Samsung's built-in software, and I saw how great gimmicks can be with the 3D on my EVO 3D that I left permanently turned off.

Conclusion

These are both amazing phones from great companies.  I won't really be able to decide until I've held them each in my hand.  And writing all this down, unfortunately, hasn't given me any clues as to what I should do!  I'm not good at dealing with two competing choices, as you can probably tell; a strong part of me wishes I could just have them both.  Unfortunately, that isn't always possible.

Thanks for listening to my rambling to myself.  As a reward, here is a poem by Pablo Neruda:

Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. 
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

mike is amazing

Guys...guys!  Faithful readers, set yourselves down and here a story of a man so incredible, he absolutely overrules my better judgment for what to write in my blog post today.  This is the tale of my friend Mike D, the greatest inspiration in our lives.  (This is the same Mike who introduced me to Adventure Time).

I wish I could remember when I first met Mike.  Intellectually, I realize that it must have been some time in law school, because I don't have any real concrete memories of interacting with him before that.  Still, I can't quite remember the exact moment of our meeting; I only recall that it was as if the sky suddenly opened, a heavenly fanfare played, a single white dove flew overhead, and all suffering and conflict over the earth was momentarily halted by the immensity and majesty of his presence.  An experience like that, well, it reverberates through your history, influencing all memories of what had happened before (and coloring the future forever with its gravitas).  What this boils down to is that, whenever I try to think of a time in my life before I know we must have met, somehow Mike makes himself an important figure in those earlier memories, too.  That's simply how amazing he is.

But it's not just the aura of a demigod, the winsome good looks, the hilarious repartee, or his keen insight into the struggles of the human condition that draw people to him.  It's also his infinite well of wisdom and basic human kindness.  Even if I didn't hang with rapt attention on every word he spoke simply because of his raw, irrepressible charisma, I'd still have no choice but to hear him hold forth on the important topics of the day.  Never was there a more ardent defender of the rights of the common man.  Never was there so zealous an advocate of the principles of social justice.  Never was there a man more dedicated to the pursuit of intellectual, emotional, and social excellence.

I am ashamed to say that I don't live in the same state as Mike anymore; the pull of destiny drew him to the center of the world, Washington, D.C., where his keen guidance could me more easily delivered to those who need it most.  As for me, I was left behind in the verdant woodlands of Pennsylvania; it is my home and I adore it, but without Mike nearby it feels like a deserted grassland, a place that time and hope have forgotten.

Is there a Mike in your life -- is there someone who you hold in such high regard that, even though thinking of him fills you to the brim with a burning, impassioned envy, you can't help but love and respect him?  Someone so wonderful, so perfect, that you feel embarrassed even to talk to him, because you know you'll never achieve that level of excellence?  With every word he graces you, your secret heart whispers:  how painful it must be for him, to speak to someone so lowly.  How good he is, to talk to me despite my faults.  And that just makes it all the worse.

Look, I'm not one given to hyperbole.  Mike is the real deal.  His excellence casts the flame of mankind in pathetic relief, but instead of lording it over us like a lesser man would, he steps aside and allows us a free reign.  He recognizes that, holding the light of destiny in his fingertips, he has no need to control we individual atoms who make up its fuel.  When I was younger, I imagined that the worst possible master would be an indifferent one.  Now that I understand how truly insignificant we are compared to Mike, I find that I was wrong -- the worst possible master would be any one but Mike, and we are so very, very blessed to be permitted to stand in his shadow.

where lie our faults, and where our future

I've been watching this documentary lately:

Learning about the space program is extremely emotional for me.  This series begins with the inception of the American space program, the Mercury missions, and just continues onward.  So far, I've only gotten through Apollo 11.  And I desperately want to keep watching, but I felt that the right thing to do was to take the time to write about what I'm feeling on here.  I need to capture these emotions while they're fresh.

The story of our space program is just awe-inspiring.  The unmatched feats of science and engineering that made every outlandish element of it possible boggle my mind.  When I watch this series, which brilliantly weaves in more recent interviews with archive footage, technical footage, and home movies of the people involved, it's almost like I'm transported into that time.  (In fact, the Apollo missions especially are very Mad Men-esque, and it makes me hugely excited for when Apollo 11 happens in this or the next season.  Come to think of it, it would make an excellent ending for the show...)

The most uplifting part of it all is the stark realization that none of the people involved were sure it was going to work.  At any moment, it was entirely possible that any of the gigantic rockets used in these programs would explode, killing everyone involved.  Listening to interviews of engineers involved with the first few Mercury missions, which had the goal just of getting a person into space (and then orbit), you get the sense that they were actually a little surprised when the rockets didn't just explode on the launchpad.

I'm old enough now to realize that everybody goes through life without really having any idea what he or she is doing; that we all just sort of muddle through, and in our own eyes, we're just faking understanding well enough to get by.  Even though most of us are definitely competent in many areas, we never really feel that way; we never stop being the nervous kid we started as.  We never leave our first day at work behind us, and experience just lets us temporarily quiet that voice of insecurity and do our jobs anyway.

Still, knowing all that and taking it to heart, I was absolutely floored to feel the exact same sentiment in these interviews with NASA engineers.  Every single mission involved inventing dozens, if not hundreds, of new techniques to deal with all of the various obstacles traveling to space presented.  And it turned out that they were incredibly lucky, because, even though nearly every solution they came up with worked, they had no idea whether it would or not until it was actually tested in space.  They were actually flying by the seat of their pants.

The series shows footage from the command centers during all the missions, and the tension and excitement in the faces of the engineers there is just infectious.  Even knowing in advance which missions succeeded and which failed, I was deeply moved by the relief that washes through every person there whenever some astronauts return to Earth alive.

But the thing that drove me to write all this wasn't the Mercury missions.  It was the Apollo missions -- that most ambitious of any human undertaking.  The realization of an ancient, unthinkable dream.  An escape from destiny.  The sense that the limits we had imagined do not exist.

Apollo 8 was the first that essentially brought me to tears.  The mission of Apollo 8 was to fly to the moon, orbit it ten times, and return to the Earth.  The exciting and scary part of the mission was that it involved flying around to the far side of the moon, which would mean losing all contact with the Earth for half of each orbit.  During that communications blackout, if anything went wrong, the command center would have no way of knowing.  If the command module crashed on the far side of the moon, it would just be lost.  There was an incredible amount of tension when they first lost contact, although we now have the advantage of being able to view the recordings the astronauts were making while they were on the far side, showing that they were having a pretty good time despite being cut off from all contact with the rest of humanity.  When the astronauts came out from behind the moon, re-establishing contact at exactly the moment that had been planned, there were cheers in the command center.  But that's not what moved me so.

On its fourth trip around the moon, Apollo 8's orbit carried it in such a way that the crew was treated to the first human-witnessed Earthrise:

Everyone should know this photo already.  But to know the story behind it, to see it being experienced for the first time, to feel the excitement and wonder that the astronauts and command center engineers shared (and the whole world) -- well, it elevated the experience for me beyond a simple appreciation of beauty.  It brought me to a moment of catharsis as I understood the true power of the human spirit as one of freedom; a rejection of all bonds, be they man-made or natural.

It didn't matter that some people said this would be impossible.

It didn't matter that some people said this would be pointless.

All that mattered in the end was that a large enough group of people came together, understood what humanity was truly capable of, and fought against every obstacle to bring it to life.

It made my heart cry out to be a part of that -- not the space program, but all human endeavor that denies the artificial limits we might imagine to be built-in to the human condition.  Whatever I do in my life, I want it to be in the service of expanding what humanity is capable of.  I want to find those naysayers, those people who sneer and ask "why bother," and rub their closed-minded faces in it.

Today, I had an epiphany.  Thank you, NASA.

the living past

I stumbled across a veritable treasure-trove of Scott lore yesterday.  I now present to you may ancient blog from days of yore, my Xanga!

I stopped updating it in March of 2007, just as I left to study abroad for four months in Japan.  I decided, at that point, to move my blogging to my own website, Sliced Water, so that I would have greater control over its appearance, and also so I could better integrate it with the photos of my trip.  Xanga was great in some ways, and not so great in others (you'll notice, if you page through, that most of the photos haven't survived the years).

I didn't keep up with the blog in Japan very well; I was too busy eating amazing Japanese food.  I did take tons of pictures there, though, so I might start rerunning some of the classics on this blog.

If you do take the time to look through my Xanga, you'll see that in some ways I haven't changed a bit, but in others I am completely different.  Reading through it was a pretty shocking experience, because I can barely remember that time in my life.  It sort of comes back to me to read it, but it's been a while, and the novelty of my trip to Japan (and romance; I got engaged there, after all!), and subsequent complete misery of my senior year of college and three years of law school, served quite well to wipe out my memory of much of that time.

I'm saying that I'm on a voyage of rediscovery here, people.  That's a special thing.

Some of what I'm reading from past-me is hilarious, some is moving, and some is cringe-inducing, alternately for my immaturity, rudeness, or self-conscious intellectualism.  I won't apologize for the irrepressible arrogance, though; that's a work of comic genius.

I often worry that what we, as individuals, experience as "life" is merely a series of independent consciousness connected by strands of memory, each wrongly thinking that it's a direct continuation of the last one.  If all that carries forward when I go to sleep is my memory, and I'm fundamentally changed (albeit only a little) when I wake up by my experiences from they day before, then isn't going to sleep a form of death?

These kinds of thoughts actually cause me a great deal of anxiety from time to time, pointless though that might be.  I can remember having some semblance of this fear from as early as first grade, the fear that I would change so much by the time I was a grown-up that I wouldn't really be me anymore, and thus, wouldn't be alive.  That first-grade me feared death, and so do I.  Ironically, that doesn't make me feel any better.

What does make me feel better is looking back at this Xanga blog, and finding that some of the ideas I expressed in it, even the ones I don't remember, still resonate with me greatly.  Past-me is effectively reaching across time and activating my emotions, but I don't mind that -- if he still has the power to do it, that means he truly is a part of me.  He's more than a collection of my memories, and these are more than just memories of emotions.  It reassures me that sleep is not death.

What sturdy vehicles our hearts must be, to carry such feelings to us from across the oceans of time, unchanged.

time's inexorable stride

What did you do today?  I designed the prototype cover for my book:

Thanks go out to Harry for Photoshop advice, and to Carol Guillaume
for taking the picture of the sky I used for the background.

This thing is really coming together.  I'm starting to get feedback from my first-line readers trickling in (in fact, I have a lunch meeting with one of them planned for next week to talk about it!), and I'm very excited about sitting down with it again and hammering out the second draft.  I've never done this before; otherwise, I'd probably be much less excited.

In other news, I got a floor lamp for my office at work.  This news will especially titillate the bargain-hunters among you; at first I looked in our office products supplier's catalog, but the cheapest lamp in there was $175!  I decided that I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I bought a lamp like that, even on Villanova's dime, so instead I went to Target and picked up this beauty for only $12:

Don't ask how I got these colors - just lucky, I guess.

I'm not a very good photographer, it seems, because that lamp is not turned on.  It doesn't even have a bulb in it yet.

The downside of spending $12 on a lamp at Target (for which I will have work reimburse me, never fear) is that, in the process of finding it, my wife managed to spend $300 on throw pillows and drapery sets, as she was seized by the sudden and unexpected need to redecorate our place.  You may see me post some updates to her project in the near future, as she works like a dervish when she's properly motivated (in this case, by the desire to make something look pretty).  It's OK, though; that just frees me up to spend time doing things to improve myself.

So let's have a Scott Self-Improvement Status Update!

WRITING POETRY:  ✓

WORKING ON BOOK:  ✓

PRACTICING AN INSTRUMENT (GUITAR):  ✓

BEING NICE TO WIFE:  ✓

BLOGGING:  ✓

WORKING OUT:  ✓

EATING RIGHT:  ✓

FEELING GOOD MENTALLY:   ✓

FEELING GOOD PHYSICALLY:  X

I got sick over the weekend.  Nothing too bad; a light fever or something, possibly food poisoning.  I got through the weekend anyway, but it was pretty uncomfortable.  A hearty "thank you" to all those who helped to distract me from my misery!  It turned out to be a fun weekend, after all.

To thank you for slogging through all this boring personal junk, an impromptu work of mine own:

I fear these--
The sundering beats of ancient wings,
     The shadow stretched across the ground,
         The cost of lost and spoiled things,
               That harsh and shreaking sound.

muses on muses

As I write more poetry, I'm developing a notebook of unfinished poems.  Many of them, I'm sure, will one day find a way into being full poems, once I can figure out what to do with them, but others -- well, others are just going to be cannibalized at best, torn line from line until all that was useful is gone and the rest is fit only to be discarded.

There are some people, I've found, to whom I want to do the same thing; I want to take out their few useful parts and use them to create something that's truly valuable, instead of letting them be wasted in a larger, inferior husk.  That's a pretty bleak image, I know, but what else can you do with something that's no good? Its greatest value, if left intact, is as a warning to others, and nobody wants to live as a warning.

There's a project I'm working on that's too much in its early stages to reveal that much here.  Suffice to say that it's the most ambitious thing I've ever undertaken, it's tremendously long-term, and I feel incredibly lucky to even have the opportunity to pursue it.  I'm sorry that I have to be so vague; it's the nature of the beast.  I just hope you understand that, when I say something without much context, or act a little mysterious, it's in relation to this project, and I'm sorry that I can't always help myself from mentioning it.  It's just got me really excited, so it's on my mind all the time.

In addition to writing, I've decided to start practicing the guitar seriously.  I am deeply in love with the idea of creating music, but its truly good execution has always been outside the possibilities permitted by the limited time and attention I've devoted to practicing.  I think, at this point in my life, I'm tired of merely imagining myself doing things.  The upshot is that you'll probably be getting updates on my progress in that, too, as well as my poetry!  Lucky, lucky you!

You know, I'm terrified of the concept of luck.  Any hint that I don't have control over my fate upsets me.  I know that I should be more laid-back about it, but fear of failure is a major consequence of ambition.  It's getting over that fear that sets you apart.  I'm going to fail many, many times.  And perhaps, in a few months, I'll have developed a little notebook of guitar songs that I'll never finish, in addition to my notebook of unfinished poems.  But for all of those little dissatisfactions, I'll have a few real accomplishments, and I think that'll be enough.

Oh, and before I forgot -- a huge shout-out to one of my closest friends Mike, the genius who got me interested in Adventure Time at the cost of his own blood, sweat, and tears.  Thanks, Mike!

lines in the umbra

No poetry today, folks.  Sorry.  But it is about poetry, obliquely.

I had been feeling a certain lack of something in my poetry...that may have been an ability to write poems on subjects other than myself and my own experiences.  In order to break free of that limitation, I knew that I would have to do something I am usually very wary of:

I WOULD HAVE TO EXPERIENCE THE ACTUAL WORLD.

The one with other people in it, especially people I don't know already.  To achieve that goal, I hit on a straightforward plan:  start going for daily walks in a crowded area, people-watching.

Luckily for me, I work at a university, so there are always crowds (for certain sparser definitions of crowd).  So, today at lunchtime, I hit the bricks, glancing peripherally at everybody I passed, searching for some mote of inspiration.

It was a complete bust (or so I thought).  I saw some interesting people, and overheard some interesting things, but I had trouble giving them my attention; you see, they were competing with the fantastically amazing stuff going on in my own head!  Of course, in retrospect, my head doesn't come up with nearly such fantastic things when it hasn't gone for a walk recently, so there's that positive to dwell on.

I can't even touch on the wonder and majesty of what I saw.  As I walked, admiring the architecture and natural beauty of campus (there weren't that many people to look at, since it was raining), I was shocked to see a glowing line extending ahead of me, marking out my walking path.  Looking ahead down that line, I realized it represented not feet, but years; I turned and saw similar lines, fainter, on walking paths I might have chosen.  I understood then that I was looking at more than just a bunch of walking paths; I was looking at paths of future possibility.  These were the manifold paths of my destiny.

I was a little discomfited by the sight, because so many of them were just going in circles in the same place.  I could tell that these meant, if I so chose, I could become a fixture at Villanova; I could ingrain myself into this place so fully that I would never leave, nor would I even want to.  There's nothing inherently wrong with those paths, either; there is honor there, and respect, and comfort, and happiness.  But precious little excitement.

So I shook my head and continued along, taking a few dark turns and winding up next to the train tracks.  There is no attempt to beautify that part of campus, merely rows of parked cars sidled up against some enormous, jealously immobile machines of unknown purpose that belch out steam and noise all day and night.  Dirt, gravel, and metal worked together to help me forget what I had seen in the prettier parts of campus.  I soon grew bored with the view, and looked up into the sky, and stopped in my tracks.

There were more paths, tracing blazing arcs across the grey sky, majestic lines in the umbra that unveiled the greatest of my potential futures.  The mightiest of these revealed that, if I want, if I choose, I have it in me to become the unquestioned King of the World, to rule over all of it.  But it also showed me the cost of this cup of glory:  any world which called me its King would surely be a miserable place, and I would be miserable ruling it.  I'm not sure if my rule would make the world awful, or if the world would have to be awful before I could rule it; all I know is that I do not desire that future.

I tore my eyes away from those lines in the sky, afraid of what other temptations might await me there.  I quickened my pace, head down, and noticed a thin, pale line curving away along the ground.  I looked along it, and saw the life it could carry me to -- a difficult life, a hungry life, but a life so sweet and joyous that I could never have imagined it before today.

I knew that weak and winding path would have to be followed very closely; it would be so easy to lose sight of it.  I knew that it would lead me far away from most of what I've known before.  But I also knew that it would lead me to a greater happiness than I could ever know from being comfortable.

That path is faint, it is strange, and it is very, very long.  But nothing worth having comes easy, and I no longer feel the need to look for other roads to travel.

wednesday poetry infusion and media update

For your pleasure, a poem I just wrote:  Whoah!

Finished reading it?  It's a true story about the time I broke my arm skiing!  The full story (including the circumstances leading up to, and following, the actual event) is pretty hilarious, and eventually I may tell it in this space; it's a great story, I promise!

But if life has taught me anything, it's that I could be better at recommending stories to others.  When I get in the obsessive state I mentioned yesterday about a story, I usually try to share it with everybody I know.  I commonly receive responses ranging from mild disinterest to out-and-out irritation, and it's only rarely that somebody actually follows up on something I recommend.  My wife has told me that I simply come on too strong, turning people off with the forcefulness of my recommendations.  Maybe that's the case!  Still, I can't help myself; anything that brings out the passion in me brings out a lot of passion.

The upshot of this is that I'm going to use this space to inflict on you whatever form of media is obsessing me at the moment.  It's nice, because conceivably I can get the satisfaction of knowing I've shared my obsession without the uncomfortable expectations that go along with contacting somebody directly, telling her what she should read/watch/play, and then asking her every day if she's followed up on it.

Ahem.

So, here's what's got me in a tizzy currently:

Before I started actively watching Adventure Time, I did catch a few episodes here and there on TV.  In that context, it made absolutely no sense; it was so ridiculous that I barely paid attention to it, and figured it was simply intended for people on drugs to trip out and have a good time.  Harmless, but not for me, I thought.

I was so very, very wrong.  And no, I'm not on drugs now.

One of my friends kept bugging me to watch the show -- he simply wouldn't take no for an answer, even though I told him I wasn't that interested.  Finally, just to get him off my back, I sat down and watched from the beginning.

The first episode was cute, wacky, and pretty funny.

The second episode was seriously crazy, but not in a psychedelic way, more like a ridiculously nerdy and hilarious way.

The third episode captured my heart, and I knew that I wanted to watch more.

And since then, I've only fallen more in love with the show.  The animation itself is good enough, but visually it really shines in the character and environmental designs; the people (and animals, and animate pastries) are drawn simply, but they're still wonderfully expressive, and the little touches scattered throughout the backgrounds of every scene make watching it a delight (who throws an entire plate of spaghetti in his hamper, anyway?)

There's also great dialog, incredible voice work, and some of the catchiest songs I've ever had the pleasure of hearing.

The plots of each 10-minute episode are good, but they mainly serve as showcases for the fantastic job the show's creators do in fleshing out the characters and the world, and making you care about them.

I'm in the middle of season 3, and it's so good that I basically spend all day looking forward to sitting down and taking in more of this show.

I love it.  I love it.  It is far and away among the best shows I've ever seen.  More than anything else, it believes in itself.  These are real, living characters, and they're presented so deftly that I've found myself on the verge of tears (of both sadness and joy!) numerous times while going through the show.

You should watch it; its creators have earned that.  Season 1 is available on Netflix Instant right now.  Get to it!

constants and variables

It seems that every few years, some tangled shards of inescapable destiny cohere well enough to force me back onto a certain path.  Not a path I've abandoned, but one I've neglected.  And so, with little fanfare, I present to you a relic of my past, resurrected for the modern age:  Sliced Board.

In high school, I ran a website, Sliced Water, that included a message board in which I encouraged all of my acquaintances to participate, sometimes extremely aggressively.  It was copied in format from the inestimable Funky Board formerly located at http://funkyorange.com, but its actual daily function was warped severely by my disproportionate influence and control over it.

I will tell you a poorly kept secret about myself:  I have a partially obsessive personality.  When I find something that excites me, I pursue it doggedly, fixedly, implacably until I have completely worn out my interest in it and something more exciting comes along.  That whole process, depending on the obsession, can range in period from two weeks to two years.  I don't forever abandon things once I've "gotten over" them, but my passion for them definitely cools from all-consuming to merely warm and fuzzy.

So it was with the original Sliced Board; I was a tremendously social creature by that time in high school (this would have been my sophomore into my junior year), and I jumped at the chance to socialize with all my school friends in an off-the-wall, hugely self-important on-line setting.

I was beyond happy to communicate that way, and I soon overran discussion on the board, sitting and watching constantly for people to post so that I could respond to them instantly (on any subject, regardless of my understanding of it or my place in the conversation).  I was addicted, stricken with the need to make myself heard without regard for context or consequence.  It was common in conversation threads, dozens of pages long, to see my name at the top of every other post.

I was a tremendous windbag, but that wasn't the worst of it.  The foul hubris that brought me down wasn't my profligacy, but my tyranny.  I wielded the powers of the forum administrator indiscriminately, sometimes going as far as to edit other people's posts in secret to turn innocent questions into cruel jokes.  But most of the time, I just acted the bully, threatening to ban or otherwise limit peoples' ability to use the forum and arbitrarily imposing my own bizarre censorship rules (for a few weeks, I randomly censored a different word every day, just to mess with people).

I shouldn't have been surprised when, in the end, people simply lost interest in being harassed by a ultra-histrionic fascist.  So Sliced Board went away.  I tried my hardest to get people to come back, but I never really grasped that I had been at fault, and we saw each other every day, anyway!  I finally grew tired of maintaining a ghost town and shut it down for good.

Why's it back, then?  Well, it was requested, for one, and it took me less than an hour to put it together (thank goodness for free, premade forum software).  Due to the prevalence of spam bots, you will need to wait for me to confirm your account if you decide to make one, but I promise that will be the last approval from me you will ever need to participate in the board.

I look back on the way I was then, and the thing that jumps out at me most is how happy I was.  For years, I believed that running Sliced Board had been the happiest time in my life.

I've been suspicious of my own happiness ever since.

some light fillings; I've never even seen that movie

Well, it's what you've all been waiting for:  a full poem!

A Royal Appointment

Take a fence of jagged diamond pillows,

Closing in a pink and squirming piggy.

Piggies get their feed, and feed begets a sty—

Well, that’s how I wound up in all this mess.

Take a shepherd’s crook and shrink it small,

File down the point and turn the whole thing over

To a person who shouts “SAW!” when you least expect

To no-one in particular (and yet the saw comes).

Take me, well-intentioned, dutiful, give me rules,

Simple rules that are easily followed;

When I obey and still suffer, nod sagely—these things happen—

And cut, and drill, and break, and rebuild.

Take this little stranger in my mouth,

I have no royal blood, I’m American!

And yet, I wear a crown, a royal reminder

That I don’t make the rules, but pay the price all the same.

Yes, I did have a dentist appointment today, as a matter of fact.  Despite my admirably solid dental hygiene (of late), I'm afraid I needed to have a crown put in (the horror!).  Two weeks ago, I took a short walk; on reaching home and sitting down on the couch, I realized my mouth felt strange.  One of my teeth had somehow lost a large chunk of itself, although I couldn't recall feeling it go away.  A visual inspection confirmed that there was a large hole in the back of one of my bicuspids, which astonished me.

I immediately made a dentist appointment, and they informed me the whole thing had rotted out due to decay.  The whole tooth!  I was spared only a few shreds and, thankfully, the nerve, so no root canal was necessary.  When I told people I needed a crown, they all grimaced and expressed sympathy -- although, really, it was no more painful or onerous than having a cavity filled.  Mainly I'm thankful that the folks at Reardon Dental are so efficient and professional, and that my nerve had the moxie to survive.

The crown is a great fit, too, which is good.  I've chipped a tooth once before, from very foolishly biting down on a piece of metal that just needed oiling, and it was an especially traumatic experience.  From time to time, I look at that tooth (one of my top canines) and feel terrible remorse.  These teeth have been with me almost from the beginning; they have served me very well, and deserve to be taken care of.  When one takes a hit, be it cavity or otherwise, I feel like I've let a soldier down.

More than that, though, is the sense of a permanent, immediate change to my body that terrifies me.  I understand that human bodies change over time, but things like dismemberment, tattoos, and even piercings induce a visceral reaction, disturbing me immensely.  Things that I recognize as innately temporary, like breaks (even if it means that full function never returns) or cuts (even those that leave large scars) don't bother me in nearly the same way, because the body can usually correct something about it.  Then again, ritual scarification freaks me out, too; and I think, technically, all piercings are a form of that.

Ear piercings don't bother me so much, just because they're ubiquitous.  It's hard to stay sensitive to something like that.

Shortly after I had gotten engaged, I remarked offhand to my then-father-in-law-to-be about my feelings regarding tattoos, particularly how they seemed intimidatingly permanent.  He gave me a wry look, nodded at my then-fianceé, and answered that I was about to make a very permanent decision, myself.

Well, that blew my mind, and I had no idea how to answer it at the time (spoiler alert:  I got married anyway).  But I realized later that, while both a marriage and a tattoo are forever (barring painful surgery and heavy application of either lasers or lawyers), your tattoo will never change; your spouse will, as you grow and learn about life alongside each other.

The cliché complaint of the unhappy spouse is "you're not the person I married."  And that's true, inevitably, but it's also true that the complainer isn't the person his spouse married, either.  Our experiences mold us; we are never the people we were yesterday.

So we change, and the people we love change -- it's our choice, though often a difficult one, whether to grow together or apart.  But as you grow together, mingling your roots and curling around each other in an infinite embrace, I am reminded of an old adage from Asia, alternately attributed to Aesop, Genghis Khan, and others:

A certain Father had a family of Sons, who were forever quarreling among themselves. No words he could say did the least good, so he cast about in his mind for some very striking example that should make them see that discord would lead them to misfortune. 

One day when the quarreling had been much more violent than usual and each of the Sons was moping in a surly manner, he asked one of them to bring him a bundle of sticks. Then handing the bundle to each of his Sons in turn he told them to try to break it. But although each one tried his best, none was able to do so. 

The Father then untied the bundle and gave the sticks to his Sons to break one by one. This they did very easily. 

"My Sons," said the Father, "do you not see how certain it is that if you agree with each other and help each other, it will be impossible for your enemies to injure you? But if you are divided among yourselves, you will be no stronger than a single stick in that bundle."  Source

The circumstances are different, but the meaning is the same:  it is our established relationships that give us the strength to weather the storms of life.  Whether you're a tooth, or a tree, or a person, you're no stronger than your roots -- but you have a choice of where, and with who, you put them down.

various creative media; this would be so much easier if I had the powers of a deity

One day in and going strong!  Now that I've shared with you some of my poetry, I want to use today to talk about some of the other creative projects I've been working on.

First, you may have heard me mention elsewhere that I wrote a book in November.  This was part of the National Novel Writing Month competition; this was the first year I decided to participate, and I won!  (Before you get too excited, hundreds of thousands of people participate, and "winning" just means you managed to write at least 50,000 words [about 200 pages in paperback] of a novel within the month of November.  There are a lot of winners.)  My novel is the story of a WWII tank crewman who, through some bizarre twist of fate, magic, or science, somehow finds that his mind has been transplanted into the very tank he once crewed.  It's the tale of his journey through occupied France in the aftermath of the D-Day invasion in the company of a sassy French psychic as they try to stay ahead of the Nazis and discover what has brought about his bizarre condition!

It's called Losing Track, and it's just the first part of a multi-book series.  I'm working on editing it right now; I think it's going to need a couple more drafts before it's anywhere near ready to be published.  Once we reach that point, I expect I'll self-publish using a site like CreateSpace.  Naturally, I'll post a link to where you'll be able to order it here!

NaNoWriMo, as it's called, is pretty grueling; I found myself with little time to do anything but write in that month.  When I started out, I assumed I would need to write through my lunches at work in order to have a chance at making the deadline.  I was very lucky that a few of my nearby friends were participating as well, so we had a few super-productive writing parties.  In the end, my lunches were unharmed.  The great news is that I loved it -- right after finishing I was feeling pretty burned out, and promised myself I wouldn't do it next year, but looking ahead I can't see how I could deny myself that pleasure.

You see, I decided that for my first NaNoWriMo, I wanted to go in whole hog -- an ENTIRE NOVEL in one month -- and didn't let myself do any outlining or other preparation in advance (which is pretty common for participants to do).  The most I would let myself do before it started was think about what premise I'd like to write about.  And while it turned out pretty well (I think), I know that I can write much more efficiently, and write a much better story, if I give myself the chance to think about what's going to happen next before I actually sit down to write it.

In fact, I had a book all outlined and ready to work on when November arrived, but my decision forced me to set that aside.  That book was titled Gravity Hack (if you google that name, you will find a youtube video of a dubstep song sharing its title that was uploaded in October, but I promise I thought of the name years before [also, I do not listen to dubstep]).  GH would have been an epic sci-fi story about humans exiled from earth, mind-machine interfaces, two kinds of psychic powers, an alien invasion, a superintelligent nanovirus that passes itself off as God, and love.  Which isn't to say that I'm not still going to write it; I'm just no longer sure that a book is the proper way to do it.

When I first conceived of GH, I realized that a lot of the scenes would be very, well, cinematic, but I don't have the budget to make it into a movie in a way that would suit my vision (I could write a movie script and try to sell it to Hollywood, but then I'd lose creative control over it.  I could also try to crowd-fund it, but that'd be an uphill battle given my complete lack of movie-making experience; plus, on the off chance it were successful, it'd mean I'd have to work on it full-time, and I don't want to quit my job.

There is a computer program, one I've toyed around with in the past, called RPG Maker; it's designed to let you quickly and easily put together a computer game in the style of games like Final Fantasy in the old days.  Here's a screenshot of one of the early scenes:

It's a pretty spiffy little program; all of the characters on the screen above were created using a character generator.  I was just gluing pieces together, but technically they're original creations.  And while this program is designed for making games, it's versatile enough that you can use it for whatever you want.  I don't think I really want to put a strong game element into this, as I feel like it would get in the way of the narrative and, more significantly, it might present a strong obstacle to people who don't play games from experiencing my work.  To that end, I might create two versions; one for gamers, and one for people who just want to experience the story at their own pace.  The great thing is that this tool is cheap and extremely easy to learn and use; within the first hour of using it, I was able to create a pretty atmospheric area with a lot of funny things to see and do.

The only problem I have is that, while the built-in graphics look really good, and you're entirely permitted to use them in commercial products you want to sell (although the graphics in the shot above are mainly from a futuristic graphics pack that costs a little extra), it seems a little tacky to make a commercial product using prepackaged graphics.  Therefore, my plan is that when I finish the main plot of the game/interactive movie and I feel it's close enough to production quality, I'll hire an artist to draw custom graphics through the entire game, giving it is own unique art style and hopefully setting me apart from the rabble.

The best part about all of this is that some of the same friends who were by my side through NaNoWriMo have been drawn into this little idea too, so we're competing against each other to see what kind of cool things we can create.  That kind of friendly rivalry, I think, is going to bring out the best in me, so I'm really excited to see where this is going to go!  I just found out about this:  World Game Development Month!  Who's in?!

Hmm, I just realized I'll probably have to hire somebody to make music for the game, too.  It's crazy that sometimes I find myself wishing I didn't have such a good job; it would make it a lot easier to pursue my dreams!  Well, maybe when I finish paying off $150,000 in student loans, it'll be time to focus on passions.  For now, I'm lucky to work at a job that I like, with people I like, and still have time to follow those dreams on the side.  Thanks for following along!

turmeric, the golden spice, auspices; or, the poet as master of his own identity

I love to talk.  I'm delighted by the mere combination of words, sounds, and pauses into subtler (and less subtle) meanings.  I'm fascinated by the processes involved with communication generally; naturally, those extend to a (strictly amateur) love of linguistics, etymology, translation, languages.  It's no surprise, then, that I also greatly enjoy writing, writing anything, from poetry to prose, fiction to non-fiction, text messages and e-mails.  The act of expressing myself verbally is something I always manage to take joy in, and I'm grateful that I am this way!  Talking, reading, and writing are some of the cheapest hobbies you could possibly have, so I'm very lucky that they're also my favorites.

With that in mind, it consistently surprises me how truly terrible I am at keeping up a regular internet writing outlet, like a blog or twitter account.  I enjoy writing for the internet just as much as I enjoy writing everywhere else!  Part of the problem, I suspect, is the untargeted nature, the potential breadth of my audience; unlike an e-mail, I can't tailor what I write to just one individual.  And I can't write for myself, as I might write poetry or a story -- if I were to do that in a blog format, I might as well be writing a diary.

Still, I was inspired by reading through a friend's blog today, so I'm going to make an effort to return to the blog-eat-blog world.  I'm not sure what I might post on here specifically.  It could be random thoughts about the day, description of tasty food I've eaten, my feelings on a movie I saw, some poetry I wrote -- you know, a blog!  But you might be seeing a lot of poetry, as I've been taking a poetry class and I'm starting to appreciate just how working at something can bring about improvement.

It's odd to say it, but I don't have much experience working to improve a specific skill.  I am lucky that there are many things I'm naturally pretty good at or can pick up extremely quickly; as for many other skills that I've accrued, I've developed them oftentimes without even realizing it, just by repeating some activity until its yarikata was hammered into my skull.  And while I'm no master of any of these (which are mostly practical or technical skills), I'm good enough -- with minimal effort -- to be satisfied.

But there are many worlds upon worlds of skills that I have little natural talent in, but covet immensely.  Most of these are musical or artistic in nature -- things that require practice and dedication rather than pure study and learning, or mere repetition.  I truly struggle to muster up that focus to work at something consistently over an extended period of time; when something doesn't just click for me right away, it's easy to get discouraged.

Sorry if I'm being vague -- it's just that I've gone through the same process of

initial spark of interest -> frenzied gathering of practice materials -> week or two of distracted attempts at producing something halfway worthy -> spark of interest in something else

that it seems strange to single out any one endeavor.  And that cycle on its own wouldn't be that hard to overcome if it weren't for the lingering feeling that I'm supposed to be able to get it more easily, that I'm special and I don't need to practice like most everyone else does.

Which is why the reasonable part of me is so gratified at seeing how my poetry has improved after working at it for 12 weeks.  When I started this poetry class, I looked through the word document I keep storing the 30-or-so poems I've written in my life that I thought might be worth putting in a full book of poetry someday.  When I reread those poems those few months ago, I thought they were fantastic.  For some of them, I was frankly amazed that I had even been able to write so well.

I went back through those poems again last week, and I was completely unimpressed.  The poems themselves didn't get any better or worse, of course; it was my standards for poetry that changed, and those much for the better.  And in such a short time!  It just so happened that time had included the only formal education I had ever received in how to write poetry, and what a difference it made.

The title of this blog comes from a poem I wrote recently.  I won't share the whole poem yet (it's surely not done), but this is the line:

I knew the ache, I’d been a tree in wind,
Twisted cruelly with indecision

We all understand the pain and the sense of bending (perhaps breaking) that accompanies a tree in wind.  But before that poem, I wrote another that focused on the word "twist."  The first stanza:

Turn it over in your hands,
Twist to breaking, understand
That what you hold is something new,
Something shapeless and unplanned;
Made that way by your own hand.

In that poem, I used the concept of twisting as a metaphor for destruction/creation.  As trees twist in wind, so we twist in the gales that life sends at us.  The difference between us and the trees is that we have the choice of how to twist; we can control, somewhat, whether to twist in a way that will bend or break us.  And, much more importantly, we have a say in how we will grow once we've been twisted into that strange new shape.

We all of us, we trees and people, must grow.  I'm finding that, as my power to twist words into shapes develops, so too does my sense of control over my own life, and my relationship to the experiences that make up who I am.  What could be sweeter than that?