1st Birthdays

I recently attended the first birthday of my nephew, Chandler -- Lisa's sister's son. It was held in her Grandmother's backyard in the northern Bronx. Of course we got there on time and were almost the only ones there. Because of, you know, BPT (Black People's Time), LOL!

So this only meant we had more time to play with Chandler by ourselves. His parents were busy trying to get things organized.

As you can see, here he is looking very tired. He was sitting listlessly until we got there, probably thinking: is anyone going to show up for my party? Aww!

So Lisa gave him some watermelon, and that pepped him right up. This boy loves to EAT!!! The minute he senses food in the vicinity, he gets happy.

Now the first guests are starting to trickle in. He's going to greet them.

A gentleman always shakes hands with his guests. He sure got around on those chubby legs -- meeting and greeting people and charming them with his smile. He was around 3 seconds from dancing to the music here.

Here he found the snacks and grabbed hold of a cheese puff, which he proceeded to play with in his mouth for like 5 minutes until it was soft enough to swallow. He was a hit with the bigger kids who came by. They all had a blast.

Eventually Chandler's mother came and got him so that the cake cutting could commence. He was stunned by all the faces staring and singing at him here. (ha, ha)

See the devilish smile on his face as the cake is cut? He doesn't know what's going on, but he can bet it tastes yummy!!!

Lisa's younger brother came by with his newborn, our second niece. Her name's Ariana. Don't you just want to pinch those cheeks? Everyone was in love with her, and I got the honor of holding her for half the night. She drooled all over me!

All in all it was a fun, though, exhausting day. I don't know how parents do it!

E.T. -- You Have A Call On Line One!

This is very cool! I was reading this article in SciAm today, about upgrading the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, a collection of 27 radio telescopes used to explore the universe. The expanded VLA is the latest breakthrough in the technology, going completely digital to be up and running by 2012. What is so impressive is the supercomputer, or correlator, that monitors and compiles all the various signals coming in from each of these antenna dishes.

You can read the entire article online by clicking here.

This is my favorite excerpt:

"Engineers also upgraded the path by which signals get from the antenna dishes to the correlator, using all-digital fiber optics that replace the old analog waveguides. The dishes are getting new, exquisitely sensitive digital receivers, providing continuous band coverage from one to 50 gigahertz. All these upgrades will pump up the VLA’s capabilities at least 10-fold, making it able, in principle, to detect a signal as weak as a cell phone call from Jupiter."

I'm simply dumbfounded by the awesomeness of the bolded statement. Science rocks, hard!

How Drowning Taught Me To Swim

In one of her latest blog entries, Cindy showed off pictures of her adorable bubs cavorting in the sickeningly blue and gorgeous sea that makes up San Diego's beach estate. In the comments section she asked me how I came to learn how to swim. And I figured it was a good enough story to tell here.

It goes without saying that this is not the preferred method for getting motivated to learn.

Back when I was 6 years old and still Catholic (another story), my mother enrolled us at a local day camp in the Bronx run by the Sisters of St. Rita of Cascia. In addition to spending all day doing arts and crafts in the back room of the church, they would take us kids on field trips to various parks and pools. On one such occasion, we all drove out to the suburbs and spent the day at a very large private pool, complete with a kiddie slide and diving board. Unfortunately, the kiddie slide lined up with the deep end of the pool. I know, wtf?

I bet you think you know where this is going, but you're wrong.

You see, I was not dumb enough to attempt sliding down that slide (though I dearly wanted to) until I could guarantee I would not end up in the deep end. I was too smart, you see. So I walked from the shallow part out into the middle of the pool until I neared the invisible line where the deep end began. Since I couldn't see it, I had to "feel" it out by sticking one foot tentatively in front of the other, all the while lining up my position with the bottom end of the slide. Like I said, I was a genius!

And just when I was perfectly lined up with it, a grin spreading on my face -- swoosh, down I went! How was a 6 year old supposed to know that the deep end of the pool was really a downward sloping hill as slippery as a ski slope? Before I knew it, I was way over on the deep side, with no way to get back to the shallow end. I sputtered and flailed my arms, then sank like a stone 8 feet down to the bottom. I remember feeling my feet touch the floor of the pool, then kicking with all my might for the surface. When I broke, I tried to gasp for air and scream for help at the same time. My body deemed it could not do both of these things simultaneously, so it picked the more important one: breathing. I slapped my hands on the surface as I felt myself going back under. Right when I made to scream, water entered my mouth and I choked on my way down. But did I see the lifeguard finally take notice and turn my way? God, I hoped so!

On the way back up for the second time, I saw the lifeguard girl diving into the water. I quickly grabbed some air, my heart pounding and legs kicking like crazy, before going down for a third time. Then suddenly I felt strong arms come up under me and hoist me to the surface. I don't remember getting carried from the pool, or unceremoniously dumped on the side. But I remember everyone staring at me.

"Are you okay?" was all the girl asked, wanting to get back to chatting with her friends.

"Yeah," I croaked, too embarrassed to admit that I almost died. She shrugged and turned around and left me there to cough out what felt like half the contents of the pool from my stomach. I guess lifeguarding standards were different back in those days. I'm sure looking back now that the girl was probably no older than 14 or 15.

I never said anything to anyone, but that incident scared the hell out of me. I could not stop thinking about how I had almost drowned. To this day, this remains my most frightening way to die. I'd take getting gored to death by an ornery rhinoceros over drowning or asphyxiating. Not that I want to get gored to death, mind you. I'm just saying.

Anyway, the next time they took us swimming, it was to a lake. I was 7 at the time, and I spent the whole day teaching myself how to swim. The camp counsellor's idea of teaching us was to throw each kid in the deep area of the lake and laugh as we spluttered and kicked and caused a big commotion. After my incident the previous summer, I wanted no part of that. So I stayed by myself in the shallow end while my friends (who knew how to swim) played around me.

Eventually I learned to just relax with my head under water, and then to imitate someone falling over flat on his face. Once I got over the initial fear of letting my feet leave the ground, the rest was just a matter of rhythm. In the shallow water I felt safe to experiment, so I alternated between kicking with just my feet, to stroking with just my arms, then finally doing both at once. Each time I panicked, I knew I just had to set my feet down and I would be fine. Before long I was swimming like a fish. It's amazing how fast kids can learn things, even in the grip of fear. Especially if your friends can do it already. Peer jealousy is perhaps the greatest motivator for a child.

Anyway, ever since that day I swam every chance I got. My family went to the beach often, and I spent one summer when I was 12 going to the local public pool every single day (even when it rained). In this manner I became quite an adept swimmer. In high school, I took swimming class just as a way to avoid boring regular gym. The coach was so impressed with what I thought was an untrained style, that he *begged* me to join the swim team. I mean, literally, he begged. He would not leave me alone. But there was nothing I hated more than being at school at that age, and the thought of having to be there even longer to participate in some extracurricular sport was anathema to me. Hell no!

Looking back I wish I had, though. It wouldn't have been so bad. Maybe I could have been the next Michael Phelps? Nah, okay, let me not get too carried away now. :-)

And this all came about because I almost slept with the chlorinated fishes one summer afternoon when I was six. The fear and humiliation of having to be rescued drove me to never allow myself to be in such a helpless position again.

I'm sure there's a metaphor for life there somewhere.

Book Review: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Just finished reading the 1966 Robert A. Heinlein masterpiece, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, considered by many to be one of the finest sci-fi novels of all time. It won the Hugo award in 1967, and has been in many a top-10 sci-fi lists of must-reads almost ever since. And now it's easy for me to see why.

I'm disappointed that I did not read this book sooner. Or maybe it's a good thing I waited until I was older. Thinking back on it now, I don't think I was mature enough in high school to appreciate the social and political themes that the novel uses to great, if often heavy-handed, effect. And in fact, I put off reading the novel since purchasing it earlier this year, due to some divided opinions from other reviews I had read. Most of the novel's detractors mention that the story is convoluted and drags on for too long without much action. Others point to its obvious liberal overtones and broad political brushstrokes that leaves little room for subtle interpretation. The bad guys are bad, and the good guys unflinchingly good.

This is mostly hogwash, I'm happy to say. If anything, TMIAHM is at times embarrassingly straight-forward. It's a testament to Heinlein's supreme mastery of his craft that the narrative--taken from the first-person POV of the main protagonist--is charmingly succinct and to the point. The reader must put up with a disconcerting local pidgin as we listen in on the protagonist's thoughts, but I found myself quickly getting over this oddity after the first two pages. The plot sucked me in from the beginning, you see, so that I hardly had the time to nitpick the odd grammar and broken English of the main character.

And, surprises of surprises, when the novel jumps directly into a heated debate on lunar socio-economic platforms, I found myself thoroughly engaged. Who'd a thunk it? I guess sometime between high school political science class and my recently cultivated appetite for all things historical, this type of stuff must have become interesting for me.

The basic premise is a simple one: a caged-in society is fed up with the dictatorship rule of the local authority. On the moon, this takes on extra significance since there is literally nowhere for the lunar colonists to go. Due to a gravity pull one-sixth that of Earth, the long-term inhabitants of the moon are trapped forever in its rocky embrace, forced to eke out a harsh existence either mining ice or lending a hand at hydroponics farming. Most of the harvests of both ice and wheat are earmarked for catapult shipments down the gravity well towards Earth, where the reduced effort amounts to huge savings for the mother planet and the Lunar Authority which runs its monopoly.

The protagonist is one Manuel Garcia O'Kelly Davis, or "Mannie" as his friends and family call him. He's a one-armed technician employed by the Warden's office to, among other duties, check in on the Authority's main supercomputer, a self-aware AI called HOLMES IV (or, High Optional Logical Multi-Evaluating Supervisor). At the start of the novel, Mannie is sent to investigate a recent slew of practical jokes on the Authority's accounts payable department by the bored machine, only to discover that the AI has a severely underdeveloped sense of humor, but an eagerness to learn. In exchange for its good behavior, Mannie promises to teach the machine how to tell good jokes from bad ones. He also names the computer "Mike," short for Mycroft, the brother of fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. Mike allows Mannie to have access to him remotely and at all times for the purpose of discussing these jokes, as well as various other topics. Mike deems Mannie "man my only friend."

Shortly after, Mannie attends a secret political rally where he runs into an old professor friend of his, Bernardo de la Paz ("Prof"), and meets a tall, beautiful blond named Wyoming Knott ("Wyoh"). The rally is a boiling point of many differing opinions by disgruntled "Loonies," but all agree on one fact: the Authority must be overthrown if the moon is to be free from tyrannical rule. Wyoh speaks before the crowd and espouses her views on how they should take control of the grain shipments and bargain with Earth for better market rates and import goods. Prof takes the podium after her and discusses his concerns that they must instead cease dependence on Earth completely, if Luna is to survive and prosper. Before the argument between these opposing schools of thought can come to a head, the Authority's police squad breaks into the meeting and clashes with the organizers, killing several men and women. A riot spills out into the causeways of the underground Luna City, during which time Mannie and Wyoh barely escape with their lives.

Together with Prof, the trio convinces Mike to join their rebellion. In fact, it is Mike who puts the idea into their heads. With his superior computing powers and genuine eagerness to help, and backed by Prof's informed knowledge of political systems and history, the group form the beginnings of a resistance. They slowly recruit others into their organization, and before long the moon has a well-organized and highly secretive revolutionary force.

What follows next is a grand libertarian revolution like something out of Tolstoy, with perhaps an added pinch of Randian Objectivism thrown in for good measure. After the Warden is overthrown and control given to the people of the moon, the novel starts to read like a historical primer for developing nations, taking major cues from the American revolution itself. Although the colonists have forgotten much of North American history, Prof has not, and he uses it to great--sometimes hilarious--ends, borrowing liberally from the Founding Fathers in drawing up Luna's first congress.

This is perhaps where TMIAHM drags the most, as what follows is endless chapters of political talk and deliberation, followed by more talk. The plot picks up again briefly when a delegation is sent to Earth to talk terms with the Authority's leaders headquartered in Agra, India. Prof and Mannie are sent, although the the heightened gravity on the home planet poses dangerous health consequences for the men, particularly Prof.

Eventually the loonies win their freedom, and in the meantime the reader comes away with a ground-up view of how revolutions can be fought and won. The last third of the book is a real page turner, with nail-biting action as the loonies defend their home against a last ditch effort by the Earthside Authority to wrest control away by force. But thanks to the quick thinking of Mannie and Mike, the moon is saved.

TMIAHM is significant not just for the deep political insight it weaves through a delightful and colorful narrative, but also by introducing a rather outré social evolution in lunar society born out of necessity. Much like Australia in its early days, the moon is a former penal colony. At one point men outnumbered women 10-to-1. But by the start of the novel, thanks to increased immigration waves from an overpopulated, underfed Earth, the ratio has widened to almost 2-to-1 odds. This still leaves far more men than women on the moon, a fact which has allowed for the development of a type of "communal" marriage, where co-ops are formed between several individuals (men and women both) for the sake of pooling labor, financial, and emotional resources together in order to raise large, closer-knit families. These co-opt marriages consists of several husbands and several wives, all living in harmony thanks to an egalitarian "airing of grievances" style of discourse that minimizes infighting, and distributes the wealth of the family (both monetary and genetic) evenly among the participants.

This is something one finds in the far-future, cutting edge sci-fi of today, and it's a testament to Heinlein's importance and foresight in the field that he was writing such progressive ideas into his fiction back in the 50s and 60s.

Ultimately, although unwieldy and long-winded at times, TMIAHM is the type of novel that is just too good to dislike. It's quite possibly one of the best, and most important, sci-fi novels I've ever read. It's a novel I can see being taught to undergrads majoring in poly-sci or history, let alone am. lit. I wish I had read this sooner!

Rating: A+

Oh Yeah, Baby!!! Who You Gonna Call?

Several months ago it was revealed that the next installment in the Ghostbusters film franchise was not going to be a film at all, but a kick-ass video game on all systems. The game was scripted and voiced by some of the original crew (sans Bill Murray) and is being developed by Terminal Reality for publisher Sierra. It's slated for a 2009 release to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the first film (has it been that long?).

Anyway, the rumor of an actual film sequel was squashed early on. Or was it? Looks like there may indeed be a third Ghostbusters after all! And better yet, they might be looking to reunite the original cast. Check out the news here.

I for one would love for this to happen. And I think it will. Of course, the original cast is a lot older now, not to mention fatter, so the rumor is that they might be training a new generation. Normally, I would say this sounds like a sucky idea. But since this is a comedy, I think it could work.

Yay!!!!

If Only This Had Really Happened At The RNC . . .

Some of you may be familiar with the Internet phenomenon of being "rickroll'd". If not, you can read all about it here.

The above video takes the idea to even loftier heights, with very funny results for John McCain and Co. Now if only this had happened for realz!

I didn't watch the speech when it aired live, but knew that them crazy left wing nutjobs had tried to sabotage it on several occasions. Just didn't know they possessed this level of hackery skillz, LOL!

How My Dreams Help Me Write (Sometimes)

A little under two years ago I had all four wisdom teeth pulled out at once. Rather than be put under, I opted for the local novocaine route and stayed awake throughout the procedure, mostly because I didn't want to trouble anyone to accompany me to the surgeon's office. Anyway, they gave me Vicodin for the pain, but I ended up only using three before calling it quits. I had too many weird dreams while on that stuff. In one such dream, colors were talking to me. I carried on a conversation with my pals blue, red, and orange. Green showed up halfway through just to say hi, but had to split.

Point is, don't do drugs kids, mmmkay?

Anyway, when I woke up I thought I had the perfect premise for a story. I ended up writing "Ascending the Sending Road," a 10k story about a planet where the native lifeforms were sentient plant life who communicated by means of color broadcasting. It was an interesting piece, to say the least.

Saturday morning I woke up laughing from another weird dream, but this one centered on a famous sci-fi movie franchise I won't mention. The dream was so strong that I immediately jumped out of bed and ran to my PC to start typing. I just finished the tale this afternoon. It's called "Galaxy Far," and came in at just under 6k. I'll probably edit it down to around the 5k mark in a week or two. But I had a lot of fun writing it.

So, yeah, sometimes my dreams help me to write. Although I doubt I'll ever resort to drugs to get my muse, as tempting as that may be. Vicodin was too scary for me to handle. :-)

Forgot My Own Birthday!

Yikes!!! It seems I do this every year now. I start thinking of my birthday coming up a month in advance, and for every week afterwards will think about it once or twice. Just last week I posted here about my upcoming b-day, in fact.

But lo and behold, I completely forgot that I turned 32 today! It took for Lisa to call me from work at the hospital (she works the night shift) to remind me -- ACK! The funny thing is, I remember what I was thinking last night about today:

Hmm, it's Sunday. That means I have to go to work on Monday. Damn. What do I need to do tomorrow before my week-long vacation's up? Let's see: finish writing up my latest short story; play some more of Metal Gear Solid 4; finally sort the laundry I did last Friday (ugh!); and, oh yeah, write out some bills from last month.

Not once in all that planning did I take into account that this day was supposed to be something special. In case you don't know it, I don't hold any special significance to my birthdays. If it had fallen on a work day, I would still go to work. Last week I promised myself I wouldn't run on this day, but now that it's here I can feel my body wanting to stick to my routinely scheduled 5-mile run later. So I'm sure I'll be doing that after all.

We're not doing anything special on my day. I insist on this. I still make dinner for the two of us the way I always do. And I specifically asked for no gifts this year, because I honestly can't think of anything I need. I'm serious. If I were to get a gift, it would be for something I forced Lisa to get for me just for the sake of gift giving. And that sucks. As of right now, there is no one thing out there on the market that I truly desire. I was briefly contemplating getting an iPhone, but can't justify the cost plus the additional charge of upgrading my existing AT&T account to cover the data fees for it. So, nah, none of that please.

I'm keeping it decidedly low-key today. It's a lazy Sunday, so I don't mind. If it were Saturday, and Lisa was not working, I would most likely go out for dinner in Union Square or perhaps even at the South Street Seaport (haven't been there in a while). But today is more the stay in and watch a movie type of deal. So that's what we'll do.

So . . . happy 32 years to me! :-)

Do Kids Today Even Know How To Use These Things?

When I was 8 years old, I asked for and received a typewriter for Christmas. How many kids you know would ask for something like that? Yes, I know, I was a geek from an early age! I can't remember why I needed one so badly, but as you can see, I was very happy to have it. I knew nothing about typewriters, but ever since the age of 6 when I learned to read books on my own, I always knew I would be a writer someday. I wanted to tell my own stories, you see. And so I guess I needed the right tools for the trade -- LOL!

It was a "starter" typewriter meant for young adults to learn the basics. I sat there and copied everything I could find -- newspapers, pamphlets, and even Sunday school bible stories. In this manner I taught myself how to type.

When we moved in with my grandmother and aunt, I graduated to using a professional typewriter -- it was a Smith Corona very much like the one pictured above, used by my aunt to type up term papers. I would sit there every Saturday afternoon and copy random Sherlock Holmes and Rudyard Kipling stories. Eventually I started typing my own created short stories, which back in those days were mostly single-paged ghost and detective stories. I even drew the illustrations, although I was a poor visual artist (that was more my younger brother's forte).

But now I wonder: what would 8 year olds think of a typewriter today? In this day and age of text messaging, iMacs, and wireless keyboards, do kids today even know how to use an old-fashioned typewriter? Would they know how to set an ink ribbon, or to hit a hard carriage return when the little bell sounded at the end of the line? Would they know how to manually set their own margins?

Ack, I feel old! Now I know how my uncle must have felt when he tried to explain 8-track music cartridges to us when we were very little. :-)

I'm A Terrible Driver (In My Dreams)

I don't know if this is one of those things everybody suffers from, or if it's just me . . . but I suck at driving in my dreams. I just had one last night where I was riding a motorcycle (a choppper, to be precise, which is a first for me). But just like every other dream where I drive a car, I could not get the breaks to work right. I don't know what this says about me, but car brakes never work in la-la land. Whenever there's a stoplight up ahead and I apply pressure to the breaks, the car keeps going for another 20 feet before coming to a gradual stop. Problem is, I'm crashing into someone else's rear bumper before those 20 feet are up.

This probably sums up the entirety of my dreamtime driving frustrations. It's always about me slamming my foot down as hard as I can on the brake pedal, over and over, trying to get the damn car to stop. But it never does. It never does.

Any dream interpreters out there? What does this mean? I used to have a similar problem with running in my dreams. Except, the problem there was not being able to run fast enough. Running in dreams is like running through mud -- no matter how hard I try, I can never run fast enough to chase down the bad guy or escape an attacker. Lately, tho, this has changed. I'm now able to run almost as fast as I can in real life. I think I've been doing a little bit of lucid dreaming on that count.

But the driving thing is still a bust for me! Go figure. Just for the record, I don't have the same issues with driving in real life. :-)

Memories . . .

Writing that last entry got me to thinking about the past, and my mother. That's her in the pic above, around the time I was six. Life had already dealt her many a cruel blow, and so sometimes she wasn't always smiling at this point in her too-brief life. Perhaps she was thinking about how to escape living the hell that was the Bronx, and her psychotic live-in boyfriend who would become the father to my little sister a year later. I'd like to think she's still a dreamer in this pic, the wistful hint of a smile revealing grand plans to gather up her boys and make a better life for herself ALONE.



She'd done it before, to escape our own father. Little did she know that that would be her final escape.




My mother got pregnant with me when she was 16 years old. She had me just two months after her 17th birthday. My brother, Jose, a year later, and my next brother, Eric, a year after that. All to my father. Something must have happened between them before the birth of my brother, Eric, for by the time he was born she was already living by herself in a six-story walk up trying to support her 3 sons while on welfare. In this photo, she took us all to the park one day. I'm 3 and a half -- that's me wearing the yellow Tweedy Bird shirt, and my brother, Jose, in front of me. As you can see, although my mother had great responsibilities at such a young age, she still liked to act like a kid sometimes and have FUN. I remember these moments the most.




My mother was not a perfect woman; she had her faults just like any mother trying to make sense of raising kids. She hit us when she couldn't bear to, cried when she thought no one was watching, and was very strict. She was also wise, compassionate, and caring. One night I had a massive headache and couldn't sleep. I was worried something was wrong with me and crawled out of bed to ask my mother. She told me not to worry, that the pain was from the fact that I was too smart, and that I had too many brains inside my head! I was only 6, but somehow that made me feel a lot better, knowing that the pain was just from being a genius or something. I went back to bed happy, and had no trouble falling asleep. She always knew the right things to say to me.

In the above picture, we're at Virginia Beach. I'm the one standing on level ground; Jose's the one trying to make himself look taller than me. My mother was happy in this pic, because she got to take her sons to the beach and play with us all day long.




This was the best birthday ever, in my estimation. My mother was great at throwing b-day parties for us, although she didn't have much money to spare. The decorations were reused from many prior b-days, the cake she made and decorated herself from out of the box, and she made sure all the kiddies in attendance had goody bags to take home and snacks to eat at the party. Oh, and why was this the best b-day ever? Because she got me a Spider-Man watch since I had turned 7 -- a big boy's birthday present! I'm showing it off here in the pic (I'm trying to stifle my excitement). My mother, forever clowning, dived into the background at the last second.




My mother's name was Carol Ann Banks. She died at the age of 26 on January 1, 1986 -- New Year's Day. I was 9 years old, and my life was never the same again. The one annoying question I get from people to this day is: why don't you smile more? Or: why are you always so serious? This is the reason why. The world stopped being a happy place for me the day the police came knocking on my grandmother's door to tell her that her daughter had been murdered. We were eating breakfast at the time, wondering why my mother had never returned home from visiting my sister's deadbeat dad. I was eating a hard-boiled egg when I overheard the policeman say "I'm sorry." I dropped the food, crossed over to my bed, and just sat down in the corner, leaning my head against the wall. Nothing seemed real. This wasn't the way it happened in the movies. They were just joking, right Grandma? She's just sick in the hospital -- we can visit her, right?

No baby, this is not Hollywood. The good guys and girls don't always win in real life.

It wasn't until later that night, when all the lights were off and I could finally be alone, that the tears came. Even to this day, there is a hollow, lonely part of me that will never feel joy. I do smile on occasion, and I'm easy to please and make happy. But deep down where it counts, there is still a little boy looking for his mom to make sense of the world for him.

My Three Dads

Okay, I know it sounds silly, but I have a confession to make: I was raised by television. Yes, yes, it's true, I admit it. While in actuality I was raised by my maternal grandmother, there was never that male adult figure in my life to teach me the things that many little boys learn from their fathers: specifically, how to be a man. I was surrounded by strong female types growing up, and while it's true that I learned a great deal from these women in my family, I had to turn to tv to get the paternal influence that was missing from my existence. I had to learn how to be an honest man, a fighter, a good husband and/or father, and how to treat a woman the way a good man should -- all from the tube!

Now, I'm only being half serious here. Because, of course, I didn't need tv to teach me right from wrong, or honesty from dishonesty. I'm my own keeper. It's been that way ever since my parents left me alone in this world. Still, I consider the following three television characters to have had the most profound influence on shaping my teenage personality, leading to the adult I am now. The essences of these three fictional characters reside within me even to this day, and those who know me really well can easily discern the part and parcel characteristics I've borrowed from these figures to make my own.

JEAN LUC PICARD




Yes, as it may be no surprise, my latching on to tv role models began at the age of 12. I'm sure there are studies out there that correlate a boy's self-identity with the time he enters puberty. So it's no surprise that my quest to find a father figure that would teach me what I needed to know to be a man would start around this time. I'd just started junior high school, and Star Trek: The Next Generation had premiered the year before. I'd grown up watching the original 60s show with William Shatner as the young, cocksure Captain Kirk. So I naturally took a disliking to this new show and its new Captain, which were nothing like the original. However, over time the show started to grow on me, to the point that it soon surpassed my love of the original. Now after all these years, ST:TNG is the quintessential Star Trek for me. Nothing before or after it tops this show. And this character was one I had a strong attachment to as a young boy.

Captain Jean Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) was in many ways the thinking man's captain. Unlike Kirk before him, Picard preferred to use his wits and diplomacy to defuse a dangerous situation, rather than his fists. He was a refined gentleman, well-read in various scholarly pursuits (notably music, botany, and archaeology), yet he was stern under pressure and no-nonsense when it came to saving the lives of his crew. He commanded great respect for his ability to keep his emotions in control under tense situations. All these aspects endeared me to the character, and I immediately set out to imitate Picard's demeanor.

KWAI CHANG CAINE



In Jan. 1993, a spin-off to the 70s show, Kung Fu, premiered on what was then called the: "Prime Time Entertainment Network." The show was called Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, once again starring David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine (though now the grandson of the original Kwai Chang). This character has probably had the most profound effect on who I am to this day, as I credit this show for awakening the fire in me to learn everything I can about Chinese culture and language, as well as to cultivate my interest in the martial art of gong-fu.

Kwai Chang Caine, like Jean Luc Picard, was refined and wise. He was someone who could obviously carry himself in a fight, but who more often than not sought the peaceful solution to a conflict. This was who I wanted to be like. I was always a quiet and observant child by nature, and by 1993 I had grown into one of those intense, focused teenagers who other kids in high school didn't know whether to pick on or to leave the hell alone for fear he might come to class one day and go postal. But the values that Caine stood for were my values as well, and so it was easy to see why I would latch on to this character as my role model.

DUNCAN MACLEOD




Finally we come to the last of my three dads, Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod. This figure appeared in Highlander: The Series as the titular character, portrayed by Adrian Paul. While premiering before Kung Fu: The Legend Continues in the fall of 1992, I wasn't introduced to the show until shortly after I had already been addicted to KFtLC. But when my friend, T, finally convinced me to check it out, I was hooked from the get-go.

Duncan MacLeod was a 400-year old Immortal, master swordsman, and martial artist. However, I found myself more drawn to the deep pathos that arose from the character's long life. How it was that, despite never being able to die, his life was far from a happy one. For in those 400 years he had to deal with the deaths of countless loved ones and friends, all the while remaining alive and struggling to make it through another year without those he cherished. As someone who had lost his mother at an early age, this pathos resonated deeply within me. I actually *felt* the heart-wrenching pain of this character's loss. I was never the same again. Duncan MacLeod, more than any character on any other show, has defined who I am as an adult man dealing with a monstrous past. The strength to face the world and the demons it held in waiting for an unsuspecting young man was drawn from this character.

So there you have it. These are the three biggest TV influences to shape my personality in those turbulent teenage years when one struggles to find himself. I'm not any one of these characters, nor am I the sum of these men. I've taken only certain facets from all three -- aspects which, I suspect, I already contained naturally -- and made them resolutely my own.

So, do any of you have tv or film characters who have inspired you in life? Please let me know.

The LHC Is Super Duper FLY!!!

This nerd rap is probably something that will amuse only scientists and those hardcore sci-fi fans who follow serious science. I thought it was hilarious, as I've probably learned more than I'll ever need to know about the Large Hadron Collider due to my subscription to Scientific American. I've probably read three to four full-length articles on the LHC in Scientific American over the past year -- and each time it left my head spinning!

Anyway, for those who don't know, the LHC has been under construction at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) for the past decade, although plans for the collider were first realized way back in the 80s. If anyone has read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, you may remember CERN and the particle accelerator there having an integral presence in the novel. CERN is housed near Geneva and extends underground through both Switzerland and France. It receives funding from several major nations, and gathers the best scientific minds in the world into one place for the sake of advancing mankind's knowledge of the universe. Très cool!

The LHC is set to be officially revealed next month, and when it is fully up and running will run a variety of particle physics tests, including proving the existence of the Higgs boson and uncovering the secrets behind some of the fundamental forces in the universe, such as electromagnetism. The LHC will be the linchpin of several different experiments running simultaneously, including ATLAS and CMS, among others. But the one I have the most excitement for is ALICE : or, A Large Ion Collider Experiment, which will smash lead ions together at close to the speed of light, studying the resultant debris for quarks and gluons.

Basically, once the LHC goes online, it will be the fulfillment of many a physicist's wet dreams. I'm not a physicist, or anywhere close to being one. But I'm giddy as to what this may mean for the field of speculative fiction. Some of this stuff has already been theorized before, of course. But there's nothing like getting cold, hard confirmation from the lab to get the imagination buzzing.

New HBO Series Premiering This Weekend!

I'm a huge fan of HBO's original programming. Some of the most acclaimed shows in recent memory have come out of the network -- The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Carnivale, Deadwood, Rome. It comes to a point where I don't think they can do me wrong. A few years from now we'll get the insanely successful fantasy book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, translated to the network, which I'm having wet dreams over just in anticipation. But in the meantime we'll get yet another series from the talented Alan Ball this Sunday (9/7 -- same day as my b-day!), called True Blood.

True Blood is about vampires getting "outed" in present day America, and seeking to have the same basic, civil rights as normal Americans. The allegory to the gay marriage issue is obvious here, but I also think Ball's intention is to take it back to the civil rights issues of the 50s and 60s as well. In any case, it's an intriguing concept that will be well worth an initial viewing at the least. I've often gone into HBO premieres fearing that this will be the one time they fail me, but so far it hasn't happened. And so I'm looking forward to more of the same quality with this new series.

Plus, as the writer and producer of both the film, American Beauty, and the exceptional series, Six Feet Under, Alan Ball has yet to fail his fans.

Is anyone else with HBO looking forward to this, too? Check out the trailer above and see what you think.

The Coincidences That Kill

Recently I had a chance to enter a short-story into a contest sponsored by NASA. The contest was to commemorate the moon landing of 1969, as well as the planned return trip to the moon in the near future. Problem is, I found out about the contest 2 weeks before the deadline, and I knew only the basic facts about our neighbor satellite. So not only did I have to do my research, I had to write and polish a short 5k-long story in under 14 days.

The first coincidence came a week before I received word of this contest. I had purchased The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, considered by some to be Robert A. Heinlein's best work. It certainly has been a perennial favorite of most "best of" sci-fi lists since the book's initial publication. Since I first got into sci-fi at the age of 14, I had been playing catch-up to all the classics in the field, and this was one I'd been meaning to read for almost as long. But once I decided to write a story about the moon, I knew I had to put off reading Heinlein's classic until I at least wrote the rough draft. You see, I didn't want the book--which takes place on the moon--to influence my writing style at all.

Having written the story (and ultimately deciding against submitting it to the contest), I'm now half-way through reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and I'm absolutely dumbfounded by how much of the book I "ripped off" inadvertently. I was at first angry, because there's no way I'll ever be able to explain such blatant similarities between the novel and my short. And the fact that my protagonists even mentions the novel in an off-hand manner probably doesn't help my case none. But I swear on a stack of holy Bibles, I did *not* write this story with any fore knowledge of Heinlein's novel. For whatever that's worth.

Over time, however, that initial anger and worry has given away to bemusement. I mean, my story is definitely nowhere near the level of sophistication or mastery of Heinlein's writing. So in that way, it's very much unlike his novel. But also, since I doubt the story will ever see the light of day beyond a couple of my close friends, I'm not really in danger of having the plagiarism police come kicking down my door any time soon. So who's to be the wiser?

Still, the similarities are sometimes eerie. I don't know how to explain how so many similar plot elements from TMIAHM ended up in my tale. I really can't. My friend, T, has offered the theory that, since I did research on the moon, there really is only but so many ways a writer can take that same info and spin it into a narrative. Since Heinlein knew most of the same "facts" about the moon as what I was able to dig up, perhaps it's only to be expected that there would be similarities. However, I countered with specific examples that I say are just *too* neatly coincidental.

Case in point:

• The protagonist of TMIAHM is a handyman/technician. My protagonist is a handyman/technician.
• The plot of TMIAHM consists of the lunar colonists revolting against Earth. My story is about an officer attempting to stop such a revolution from beginning.
• In TMIAHM, the colonists are called "loonies." In my story, they are called "moonies."
• In TMIAHM, the great nations of Earth have banded together to form the Federated Nations. In my story, the nations of Earth have unified to form the Federated Nations (no joke).
• In TMIAHM, the protagonist heads "Earthside" to India. In my story, my protagonist is from India -- and I use the term "Earthside," too!
• In TMIAHM, the linchpin of the revolt and the further economy of the free colonists is a space catapult for exporting goods from the moon. In my story, the linchpin of the terrorists attempts at sabotage is the space elevator, which the colonists use to import and export their goods from ships harbored in orbit.

As you can see, some of these "coincidences" are tenuous enough to not be worth mentioning. But taken as a whole, together with those elements that are uncannily similar (the professions of the protagonists, and the "Federated Nations" part in particular), there's no way anyone's going to believe me that I didn't read TMIAHM at some point before writing my story. Maybe I read it back when I was a teenager and forgot about it?

And I say without a doubt I never read that novel until after I had already finished writing my story. My only theory is that, since Heinlein's novel has been out since the 60s, it's possible that a lot of the sci-fi I've read was itself influenced from the novel, and that somehow that influence transferred to me during my reading of these works. But I think that's too much of a stretch. I don't buy that explanation.

So, unfortunately, although I actually *like* this moon story I've written, I won't be submitting it anywhere. I'll never be able to explain away the similarities. And even if an editor believed me, it wouldn't erase the fact that my story is too derivative of a well-known, cherished novel written by one of the fields most respected Grand Masters.

So, you see, sometimes it's the coincidences which can kill a story.

Book Review: Exceptions to Reality

Alan Dean Foster is the most important sci-fi writer--scratch that, the most important writer period--to me in terms of my development as a writer over the years. Since my best friend, T, introduced me to his works back in the 9th grade, I've been an ardent follower of everything this man has written. And he's written A LOT!

Exceptions to Reality is not Foster's first collection of short-stories (he's compiled six prior to this one), but it is perhaps his most mature. And what I mean by mature is that each story in this collection is succinct and masterfully composed, trimmed of almost all the fat that new writers struggle to excise from their own works. Here is a maestro at play, expertly weaving indelible tunes through the reader's consciousness, setting to print fourteen brief tales that run the gamut of far-future sci-fi to urban fantasy, and back!

Among my favorites:

• Chauna -- One of the richest men in the known galaxy, Gibeon Bastrop lives in the very lap of luxury. But the one thing his money cannot buy is a chance to glimpse a legendary beauty unseen by an intelligent species for over a thousand years. The Chauna is rumored to be myth, a creature of legend like the fabled Phoenix, inhabiting only binary star systems. Delta Avinis is one such system, but Bastrop's crew is restless. They want to go home. Some are planning outright mutiny, until a chance encounter changes everything.



• The Muffin Migration -- Jamie Bowman and Gerard LeCleur are planetary surveyors assigned to the bucolic, though boring, temperate world of Hedris. As the first humans on the planet, their job is to catalogue and scout out suitable locations for corporate investment. They befriend the local, friendly natives and are introduced to Hedris's most prolific lifeform -- hairy, short balls of harmless herbivores nicknamed "muffins" by the pair. The muffins are precocious, cuddly . . . and taste great broiled on the grill! But when the muffin migration begins, Bowman and LeCleur discover there is more bite than bark to these adorably tasty little pets.



• Basted -- Ali Kedal is tired of his life as a second-rate baggage handler for a tour guide operator in the Egyptian city of Zagazig. He entertains loftier dreams that do not include his bothersome, overly plump wife. While riding his favorite (and only) camel through the desert one night, he stumbles across a chance encounter that will change his fortune forever -- if he can survive becoming the local wildlife's dinner.



• The Last Akialoa -- The Alakai swamp, formed in the caldera of Kauai's highest volcanic peak, is the rainiest place on Earth. And also one of the most dangerous. Those who travel too far into its boggy center are rarely heard from again. To the ornithologist, Loftgren, such danger is inconsequential to the chance of the lifetime: spotting the elusive Akialoa, a native bird to Hawaii and possibly now extinct. No one has seen an Akialoa on record since 1973, but rumor has it that a flock of the birds has been living in the Alakai for years. Two of Loftgren's contemporaries, Kinkaid and Masaki, went in looking for the birds. They never made it out. Now's his turn. But Loftgren soon discovers that his field expertise and carefully chosen native guide will not be enough to deal with the Alakai's most fearsome obstacle -- the swamp itself.

These stories and many more display Foster's intricate imagination and knack for colorful description. While some of the offerings are perhaps a little too brief (the Pip & Flinx short, Growth, from his popular "Flinx of the Commonwealth" series comes to mind), ultimately the collection left me firmly in the belief that Foster writes the kind of stories I want to read. Moreover, he writes the kind of stories I aspire to write myself. Lean, quick-witted, and full of fun and adventure.

Longtime fans of Foster's will no doubt recognize some of these stories, as a few are reprints from previously published editor anthologies. But the tales are just as good, if not better, the second time around.

Rating: B+

Birthday Month Coming Up!!!

The only thing bad about being married to a fellow Virgo is that we're barely done eating the first birthday cake by the time the second one comes around. Okay, well on second thought . . . maybe that doesn't sound so bad after all. I mean, there's worst dilemmas one must face in life, right?

Luckily for me, my b-day comes first in the month (9/7), while hers is almost 2 weeks later (9/22). So this means I get to determine the coolness of her gift by what she gives me on my own b-day beforehand. (ha, ha -- just kidding)

But it does bring up something I hate the most about this month, and that is dealing with the anxiety of picking out just the right gift. Lisa is hard to shop for because she *NEVER* drops hints about anything. And I'm telling you, I keep my ears and eyes open for it all the time. Basically it boils down to me having to ask outright: TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT!!

In the above pictured b-day, I went all out for Lisa and surprised her with a yummy cake, flowers, stuffed animal, and various baked goodies in tins. And that wasn't even her present! It's funny, but as I get older I'm starting to enjoy more the giving of presents rather than receiving. Probably because I usually just go out and buy whatever I want whenever I see it, rather than waiting for the appropriate gift-giving holiday to roll around.

Is anyone else like this? Is it a pain trying to shop for the S.O., or do you have a secret knack for picking the right gift? Care to share your secret?

A Tale of Two Stadiums

This is the view of the two Yankee Stadiums from my 10th floor window. Few people realize just how close I live to the house of Yanks, or how I can hear every game broadcast live in real surround sound from my living room. It makes watching home games through my TiVO a pain, since I can hear the crowd react (favorably or, more recently, unfavorably) seconds before the DVR's buffer catches up. I didn't have a wide enough camera lens to fit both stadiums completely in the same frame, or to use zoom at all. But below are two separate pictures of first the old, then the new stadium:

The house that Ruth built is starting to fill up for today's game against the Blue Jays. At night, those large stadium lights on top come right into my bedroom. Good thing for window blinds!

The house that Steinbrenner built is still under construction, though the basic shell and main levels have been completed. As you can tell, I won't have as good a view when the Yanks move to their new location in April of 2009. Worse yet, the buildings between me and the new stadium won't block out the lights -- so it might actually be *brighter* in my apartment this time. Argh!!!

Movie Review: Traitor

Just got back from watching Traitor, a new espionage flick starring Don Cheadle. Despite knowing almost nothing about this movie going into it (it kinda snuck up on us, didn't it?), Traitor already had two things going for it on the interesting meter: 1) The story concept was conceived (at least partly) by comedian/actor Steve Martin; and 2) Don Cheadle gets to carry the movie almost all by himself -- AND get his Bourne Identity on, to boot!

Anyway, despite a fairly obvious plotline that was easy to figure out in the first 5 minutes -- and even despite being a 2-hour long pale imitation of Fox's "24" -- I actually found the film enjoyable. What saves it is the absolutely great characterization of Cheadle's African muslim character, Samir Horn, and a truly exceptional performance handed in by Saïd Taghmaoui, who some may recognize from Showtime's hit show, "Sleeper Cell" (also about terrorists -- hmmm).

In fact, the character arc written for Taghmaoui's role, Omar, is perhaps some of the most impressive writing I've seen for an Arab muslim character in a hollywood movie. He's not some cookie-cutter terrorist, but neither is he neutered or apologetic. He goes from being someone you just despise at the start of the film, to being someone you sort of respect in the middle, and then someone you actually sympathize with by the final act. That's a tall order for a character who is a staunch Jihadist.

Ultimately, Traitor worked well despite the transparency of its "twist," which not only speaks to the tightness of the script, but more importantly to the performances of both Cheadle and Taghmaoui. The supporting cast also turns in nicely nuanced roles; most notably Guy Pearce as FBI agent Roy Clayton, and Jeff Daniels (say what?) as Horn's CIA handler, Carter.

A pretty decent post-blockbuster season offering.

Rating: 7/10

Da Vinci, Eat Your Heart Out!

At the recent nVision '08 technology showcase, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman (of Mythbusters fame) closed out the ceremony by demonstrating the vast processing superiority of a GPU over a CPU. They did so by attempting to paint the Mona Lisa in the fastest time possible using paintballs and a whole hell of a lot of compressed air.

You just got to click on the video to see for yourself. It's CRAZY!!!