Debt Not Paid

Ok, so I finally got around to reading The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks, and now I'm so paranoid that I can't even leave the house without gloves and weapons and a bag over my head. Man, I gotta get off the grid. Steal a pickup truck and head out to the middle of the desert, or something.

No, no, no... I'm just kidding. I don't wear gloves and I don't own any weapons. I don't want you thinking this is some kind of right wing paramilitary blog or something. The bag over the head might be a good idea though. Anyways, if you haven't read The Traveler then the next few paragraphs aren't going to make any sense to you at all, but I don't feel like doing a synopsis so tough.

Anyways, I got to thinking about this whole grid thing, and the brethren and the harlequins and the mercs and the citizens and the drones and the travelers and the pathfinders and the splicers and all the rest of it, and it seems to me that some of the stuff in the book just might be true. I mean think about it. Think about some of the people you know or have read about. Could it be...

Bill Gates: Citizen

Steve Jobs: Traveler

Steve Ballmer: Splicer

Dick Cheney: Brethren (Definitely a Brethren - Probably Level 1)

George W. Bush: Citizen, possibly a Drone.

Howard Stern: Traveler (Travelers, remember, are people who disrupt the social order and cause drastic change)

Adam Curry: Hmmm, this one's tough. I'm tempted to say Traveler, but he's probably just a Pathfinder. You know, the one's who don't have the Traveler's powers but train them and get them on their way.

Hilary Hahn: Harlequin (Exotic, gifted, and deadly)

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Untrained Traveler - needs a pathfinder to unlock his powers.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin: Cold Travelers (they started out on the side of good, but have since gone over to the Brethren)

Tony Myers (That's me!): Drone, but with Traveler delusions.

Oh well. Like I said, if you haven't read the book then none of that will make any sense. And I'm not recommending the book either. When you get past all the paranoia it's really just standard page-turner fare. But is it really fiction?

On to other things. I've been neglecting my blog lately so let me just catch up on a few things. I know that millions count on me for the latest news from here at home and around the world so let's see what's happening.

In international news it looks like the Saddam Hussein trial is finally getting under way, and it's been pretty ugly. Witnesses testifying about torture and murder and human meat grinders and Saddam just sitting there with a "if I had an army I'd crush you" look on his face. No hint of remorse anywhere, just his own naked hunger for power. Quite a spectacle and a good lesson for the rest of us, I suppose. That is, if anyone is paying attention. I mean, are the youth of America watching this? I wonder. Are they able to tear themselves away from their XBox 360's and put aside make believe bloodshed and murder (entertaining as it might be) to look at the real thing? Does any of it even register? Probably not, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Take 2 Interactive comes out with their own Saddam Hussein game where players can take on the role of the evil despot, commiting their own acts of torture and genocide (in a free roaming and unrestricted environment, of course).

Look for it on store shelves.

Turning to the national news it looks like it's been a pretty good week for the Republicans. That is, what we used to call Republicans, not the bible-thumping prudes that have been so successfully passing themselves off as the Republican Party these past 5 or 6 years. The good news for Republicans, of course, was Howard Dean. Seems like everytime he opens his mouth another state or two flips over to the "red" side of the ledger. This time he made a remark sure to win the hearts and minds of Americans by saying that American could never win the war in Iraq. Way to go Howard. I'm sure the Dems will thank you for that remark the next time elections come around and the Republicans use it to tie a noose around Democratic necks. Sorry Howard, no matter how a person might feel about the war, no one likes a defeatist.

In other news out of Washington, it looks like Congress is getting ready to debate the extension of lower tax rates for savings and investment (also known as dividends and capital gains). On one side of the aisle you have the Republicans arguing in favor of the extension, and on the other side you have the Dems arguing to abolish it. The Republicans argue that the government should encourage savings and investment, not punish it, and the Dems, as usual, argue that only rich people care about saving and investing for the future.

(sigh)

What this really points out, of course, is the foolishness of the current administration and it's prediliction for spending money like a drunken sailor. If Dubya had managed to show a little fiscal restraint these past 5 years and not squander our surplus or send us hundreds of billions of dollars into the hole, then this whole thing could have been a slam dunk for the Republicans. Unfortunately, that didn't happen and now we have to sit and watch this spectacle of the Dems actually arguing, with a straight face I might add, that the prudent course of action is not to save and invest but rather to surrender our wages to the big federal spending machine, with the assurance that our government keepers will be careful stewards and our dollars will be carefully and wisely spent.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, pension plans are going bust and social security is starting to wobble and medical costs are going through the roof and why in the world would anyone want to save and invest for the future? Beats me. Far better to let the government handle my money while I use what remains to consume cheap foreign goods. Why save and invest when we could be shipping our dollars overseas anyways? Isn't that the American way?

Not really, so why is it that the Democratic party seems to think it's such a sin for me to save my money and invest it back in the economy? Is it one of those kneejerk liberal vs. conservative things? Is that what it is? I understand that we're deep in the hole and have got to get out of it somehow, but there has to be a way to do it without punishing the savers and investors.

Hey, I've got an idea. Since it was Dubya who created this mess, why don't we bill him for some of the costs. His family has money. They ought to be able to pony up a billion or two. And as for the rest, well I still stand behind my idea that we ought to have a lobbyist tax. You know, for every dollar that goes into a Congressman's pocket we should take another 50 cents and put that into reducing the deficit. Geez, with all the money that goes back and forth around the Capitol our 50 cents on the dollar ought to balance the budget and give us plenty of room to spare. Geez, just think of all the Alaskan bridges we could build with that kind of dough.

Well, that's the way I see it anyways, and that's the news for a Wednesday night, and that's all for my blog. Thanks for tuning in and for all of you Travelers out there - see ya' in the second realm.

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On

Now don't get me wrong. I think new technology is swell - I really do. But every now and then something comes along that you just know is never gonna work. Tonight's tech mistake is something called Pandora, and you can find it at www.pandora.com.

What is it you ask? Well, here's the idea. What if you could tell your computer the name of a song or an artist you like and the computer could come back with other song's it thinks you will also like but may not have heard before. Would that be useful? Not really, but that was the idea the Music Genome Project came up with, and Pandora is the name they gave to their little brainchild. What Pandora does is scrutinize a song or artist you like and then it assembles, through some kind of genius analysis, a customized radio station that contains other songs that it believes you will like as well.

Ok, that was a terrible explanation. Let me just tell you about my experience with Pandora.

The first thing Pandora asked me to do was create a new station by entering a song or an artist I liked. Of course I immediately typed in Hilary Hahn (my favorite musical superstar) and hit enter. This started little dots flashing across the screen while Pandora analyzed my input and then, after giving it some considerable thought, it somewhat confusedly came back to me with this.

"Did you mean Hilary Duff?"

Well no, Pandora, I didn't mean Hilary Duff, although I could see how a sophisticated analytical engine could make such a mistake. I myself get them confused all the time. Hilary Hahn, the concert violinist and Hilary Duff, the teen beat sensation - they're artistic styles are so musically close. Oh well, I shrugged, maybe Pandora was just having a bad day.

It seemed to me the best thing to do was just to start all over again. This time instead of entering an instrumentalist like Hilary Hahn I thought I'd try and internationally renowned soprano like Renee Fleming. Surely, Pandora would have no problem matching her. So I typed in Renee Fleming, hit enter, watched the little dots go back and forth, and got yet another quizzical response.

"Did you mean Tommy Fleming?"

Tommy Fleming? Are you kidding me? I put in the name of a superstar soprano and you come back with an Irish folksinger I've never even heard of. Sheesh...you call that a match? Ok, ok, I won't get upset. Obviously, Pandora is geared towards teen idols and pop stars so I'll try one of those instead. Only problem is I don't really know any pop stars. Not current ones anyways.

I know, I'll try Lori McKenna. She's not really a pop star but she is a great singer-songwriter that I really like, and she was on Oprah last month. If she was good enough for Oprah then she ought to be good enough for Pandora, right? Once again, I typed in Lori McKenna, hit enter, blinking lights, and...presto! This time I got a match. And lo and behold, it's -

Lori McKenna.

Wait a minute. I type in Lori McKenna's name and, after much scrutiny and analysis, Pandora has determined that since I like Lori McKenna so much I might also like to hear other songs by the same person. This program is brilliant. It never would have ocurred to me that if I like one song by an artist that I might also like another one of her songs too. You can't buy that kind of insight. I tell ya', sometimes I just have to gape and wonder and ask what did we poor humans ever do before this new fangled hi-tech stuff came along? Just listened to first track on a CD, I guess, and then sat there too dumb to go on to track 2 . Not anymore. Not now that we have Pandora. It's a new age, my friend.

Oh ok, I thought, maybe I wasn't being fair. After all, Lori McKenna isn't exactly a household name and there probably aren't a lot of artists out there like her anyways, so maybe I should skip the sarcasm and try inputting a song instead. A top forty hit would be good. Something from the days of my youth that Pandora would be able to analyze and match in it's extensive database. I racked my brain and then I remembered an old 70's favorite of mine by The Eagles called "One of These Nights." Ah, how that song brings back the memories. The carefree days and the hot summer nights, the beach parties and the sand in your sleeping bag, the lithe bodies of winsome girls and the parking spots where we would stop and gaze out over the twinkling lights of the city. Yeah, those were the days and it all seems so long ago. "One of These Nights" would be a good one to try.

And so I typed it in, hit enter, got past the blinking lights and this time Pandora finally starts to do it's thing. And the first match is -

"Interesting Drug" by Morrisey.

Huh? I'm thinking of winsome girls and late summer nights and Pandora comes up with a drug song? Fortunately Pandora has a feature that tells you why it thought I might like this particular song, so I clicked it and here's what it said.

"It features basic rock song structure, subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rhythmic syncopation, mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation, and major key tonality."

Is that why I like that old Eagles song? Because of it's sycopated rhythms and major key tonality? Does this mean that I can't like anything legato or in a minor key? Oh brother. Sorry, Pandora, you just don't get it. Music is in the heart and the soul. It's not like chemistry where you can break it down into molecules and atoms and formulate new compounds. To say I like that Picasso over there doesn't mean I will similarly like a lesser painting just because it has 3 eyeballs and a foot sticking out it's ear. Music is ideas and emotions and memories and a thousand other things that speak to our humanity, not our science. Sure, technology is swell, but it has it's limits.

And I'm not playing with Pandora anymore. Geez, it's so depressing. Not even my computer understands me.