Not an Expert

What can I say, I am not an expert. I am not an expert writer (although if one claimed to be, would you believe him) and I am definitely not an expert economist. I thought back to my post from yesterday and I have to say, well I don't know what I am talking about and really it came out no better then a pundit babbling. What I need is research, although my post from a few days ago also shows that I don't do that (yeah, the story was a fake - big whoop, I said it probably was). So what am I to do. Perhaps it would be better if I strayed from topics that are best left to people who at least understand the theory. Well possibly not because then I'd really be out in the cold. No, I think what I need to do is have a bit more of an open discussion with myself about what I want on this blog and then actually write it. There are a few more things that I am looking forward to writing about but haven't gotten to yet. I also want to get back to short stories. I have to find out where I've been keeping mine because I want to work on one for an update (I found a nifty scientific article about the story's subject). Basically what I am saying is that I want to move away from the less then thought provoking randomness I have been providing and try and step back into a realm that I understand. That said I have nothing of that nature prepared, so instead here is a picture of Vladimir Putin - guess which one and win a special prize.

Economics

It is hard to avoid talking about the economy these days - it's the new weather. News networks can't stop talking about it even though they really don't know what is going on and everyone has a say regardless if they've thought it through or not, they usually haven't. I think the hardest thing for people to do is either admit they are wrong or admit that they don't know and the economy has put a lot of people on the spot. I don't think it is possible to have someone tell you how the economy works because it is to complex to define in such finite terms, mainly cause the economy doesn't work, it just is. I'm an avid fan of the Daily Show and recently watched John Stewart's interview with Jim Cramer. It was really interesting to watch but I have to say it was also really scary. It made me realize how little people really understand about the market. I knew I had very little idea of how it worked, but it never occurred to me that the experts also don't know that much either. It was also scary that while Cramer admitted that CNBC made mistakes it didn't really feel like it mattered. I've read articles about hedge fund managers that found data that indicated that the market was going to fail, but decided to keep the knowledge to themselves because knowing this information gave them an edge. Wow. Well at least we can predict some of this information. I've only taken basic economic classes, but I have also gleaned some information from a friend who was a econ major. I have to say that while these classes gave me some insight they opened far more questions. It also made me realize that there are some things that just can't be accounted for. One of the best examples is Apple's Ipod. When the Ipod took dominance Apple wasn't looking that good as a computer company. It wasn't doing bad, but it was in a seriously small niche market. So then why did it launch a music player, and why did that music player do so well? On many accounts I have seen better MP3 players at lower costs that have been destroyed by the Ipod. I suppose it partly has to do with the Ipod marketing itself as the premier MP3 player. In many ways it is a status symbol and people are attracted to that. Another example is that of people unwilling to pay for something too low. In some cases you just have to raise the price of something for people to want it. I know whenever a store give me a "free gift" I expect it to be crap that I never wanted in the first place and crap that nobody wanted ever and that is why they are giving it away. But how do you model that? How do you model a relatively unpredictable human pysche into the economy. Some people say you can, and it will be interesting what the future brings.

And I never really talked about anything I wanted to.

Cliche

I am far to lazy to hunt around for an accent to put up over that e so for the rest of this post it is cliche. The reason I am thinking about cliche's is not because I just saw a movie that tried so hard to avoid cliches it hurt, but because last week I read an article about cliches. The author ranked cliches on what he considered the worst and most unforgivable cliches. I was sad because some of the cliches that bug me the most weren't on the list, but that is probably because cliche to a point is very subjective. When I was in a creative writing class I read 4-5 stories in a week that contained the line "almond shaped eyes" (I believe most of those eyes were also green) and so now that bugs the crap out of me - but it wasn't on that list (it should have been). The guy did have some good points but that wasn't really what I wanted to talk about. Occasionally when reading articles I'll go down and read the comments as well (I say occasionally because sometimes that stuff is just too frustrating to read or is simply unintelligible). Well there was one comment that irked me and that was someone saying that they would love to see a piece of work that included all of the cliches. I remember in sophomore year of high school my creative writing class had a wall of cliches and that wall inspired a number of people to do the above. In my college classes I also heard a number of people express the want to write in pure cliche. It is kind of sad that writing in cliche on purpose has become cliche - it is also sad that some many people attempt it anyways. So why does this bug me? Well as a writing exercise it actually does have some merit, kind of a know your enemy kind of deal, but my gripe is many people don't really treat it as an exercise. Reading a work of pure cliche is frustrating and boring. It doesn't really feel like it has a point, usually because it doesn't. The reason I think so many people like this idea though is because it is so taboo to write in cliche in the first place it seems like a great deed of daring to completely disregard one of the rules of writing. Thank god people aren't as inspired to dismiss spelling and grammar the same way (although it does feel like they do sometimes). I can admit that I have more than once thought it would be a good idea to write a cliche poem, but I can tell you now it isn't. So as much as I'd like to end this post with a poem about cliches I just can't bring myself to do it.  

PhD in Googling

I forget where I heard it, but at one of the esteemed Universities I attended someone told me that students might as well be asked to just get a degree in Googling. The idea comes from the fact that a lot of students now can write a paper on just about anything with only a few hours of research on the internet - even if they don't know a damned thing about it. The degree part I assume comes from the fact that the well tuned student has to be able to be able to operate the fact from the fiction. They have to go to those online lists and understand that just cause it says that goldfish only have a memory of 4 seconds doesn't make it true (and from what I understand, it isn't). So how does one gain this skill, well first they have to ask questions. Lots of questions because you can't take anything a face value, especially the gender of the person you are chatting with. But the best bet is to find a reliable site that you can trust all of your information from, say like Wikipedia. Apparently not. About a week ago I stumbled upon this article, in which a woman believing that Beethoven had an older brother wrote an entire novel about the guy. She had read an article on Beethoven on Wikipedia and that summed up all of her research for the two years (yeah, that's right) she spent writing the novel.
Now there are a few things that bother me about this article. First it is misleading about Wikipedia. I love Wikipedia but you can't trust everything on it because there are some malicious people out there that think this kind of stuff is funny (mainly cause it is). But the other thing is that Wikipedia has about the same error rate as a regular encyclopedia - not to say that it doesn't have some major errors. I think I even recall having a friend who had a teacher assign the project of editing a wiki page regardless of whether or not that were going to improve it or not (language fails me in this sentence - and here again). But my biggest gripe is that it was considered okay for this writer to do no research at all. Even if it is a fictional account of Beethoven's older brother's life you still have to have some basic knowledge about him and she clearly didn't. And finally, since she did write a novel about this what the hell is the problem. It was fiction from the get go what does it matter if he actually had an older brother or not. It certainly wasn't going to be historically accurate so I don't see a problem.
Anyways, if there was a program in Googling I think I might try and enroll because I certainly know I could use some work. (Please note Google was not used in this article at all and it is entirely possible that the above stated work is fact itself fiction - let's hope so)

Party Politics

While cruising the internet I ran into a story about possible voter fraud in '04. I say possible, but the article says definite (check it out here). I'll hold my judgement for now, but it did get me thinking, not about what could have been, but rather the fact that regardless of what is going in people tend to stick to their party. It is maddening for me when I see people completely disregard what their party is doing because they refuse to say or think anything bad about them. I tend to vote democrat, but that doesn't mean I'll do it every time. I have seen the democrats make some fairly stupid decisions (not pointing fingers but choosing John Kerry to represent in an election where nearly anyone could have beaten Bush Jr.). It is bizarre how people can just pass over relevant facts because it is convenient. I guess it is partly because our society has decided that you can't be partially right, it's either you're with me or you're against me. Nothing illustrates that better than Rush Limbaugh saying that he wants Obama to fail (seriously?), but I don't want to talk about that - Margaret and Helen did a much better job then I ever will. Anyways, here is the poem it inspired - it either has poop in it cause I think this entire matter is shit, or just because I like poop jokes.

Party Lines

I have to go to the bathroom

it is embarrassing

but everybody poops (right?).

But there are these stupid lines

and I have to follow the rules.

I have to wait.

Have to follow what someone else tells me.

My opinion doesn't matter here

not even when I get into that little booth

and have to make a decision

because I already know what I am going to do

there really wasn't ever a choice.

Copyright 2009 William Curb

Even Less Information

I'm going to continue on the topic of things that annoy me, but today I am not going to discuss my online woes, rather I am going to imitate them to see if it makes me feel better. My source of discontent today is that when I am poking around the internet I often find lists for no apparent reason other than someone wants to have a list (although some lists of things are fascinating - cracked.com does a good job at lists) and the other is just random sets of images. So today I am going to tell a story with some of the images that I have collected in my wanderings of the internet. So here is my story in no particular order.

That actually worked out pretty well for me. Also that is one of my favorite pictures of George Takei because he truly is fabulous. If you haven't seen his gay advocacy PSA take a look here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AScqvJb9UsQ

I actually really love all of the pictures in this set. And I could go on about all of them. But for now, lets these pictures tell you a story. I'm sure it will be bizarre.

Easily Distracted

So I've been thinking about my last post and I just want to write this down (or type - does this still count as writing or should we come up with something else). I think I need to re-evaluate my life and where I am going, but more over how I am getting there. Right now I am unemployed and working on my house. There is nothing wrong with this, but I am not going at a pace that is really acceptable. I do a few things every day and I have said I don't want to push myself to much and burn out. So why are things a problem. Well it is the organization that is bothering me. Right now I have no sense of time since my day just sort of unfolds in front of me as I do things (or don't). As such I cannot hope to progress in any of my tasks. So I am going to set forth to organize my life into something that I have a little more control over. And that's all I have to say about that.

Magic

I am writing on this side of the page simply because when I was clicking into the window I hit the button that aligns the page to this side. I decided to leave it because it looks somewhat interesting. I'll return to a more normal style in my next post. On to the topic of the day, which is magic. I just watched a movie about magicians and I have to say I've always found magic to be fascinating. I have tried a few time to learn some tricks but I'm not terribly skilled at it, I think at some point I'd like to try again since it is actually a very interesting form of entertainment. Perhaps in my next attempt I'll give it more of a shot that I have in the past. The problem is that I have never seriously given it enough practice to actually be good at it, and from what I understand about slight of hand is that is very difficult to master or even be good at. There are a number of things that I need to give more time to, like learning how to bicycle. I know it is a strange thing not to have learned but it was something that never came naturally to me and my parents never pushed me to really learn it (not that it is their fault as I didn't try at it very hard either). It seems to me that for whatever reason my personality likes to put barriers up to prevent me from learning. It isn't that I don't like learning, because I certainly do, it is just that I feel like I make things much harder on myself than they need to be. I remember when I was first learning to read I decided that I was never going to be able to read, which makes reading much harder. In fact it wasn't until the 4th grade that I actually figured out that I knew how to read and that I was just being stubborn (at least that is how I remember it - and I have some pretty convincing memories). Right now I am having issue with working on my frisbee skillz (with a Z) because I have trouble listening to suggestions from other people. I know they are right and in retrospect I do appreciate their comments, but I have trouble listening to them in the moment. I think what I need to work on is stepping back and examining why this is, because I think I would be able to accomplish some much more if I didn't have this fault.

I'll get to work on this.

Schrodinger's Band

For a long time I thought that if I was to ever create a band I would use the blog's name and go with Naked Pictures of Buddha. It is a name my brother came up with, but I just love the ring of it. However, I believe I have a new name for band and that is Schrodinger's Band, which is actually somewhat brother inspired again. I learned about Schrodinger's cat from my brother and have always found it interesting. The idea is that if you put a cat in a box you cannot know if the cat is alive or dead without checking on it. It sounds kind of strange especially since I am over simplifying things here but the idea is that this creates a paradox because at the same time the cat is both alive and dead in the eyes of science. Science really likes it binaries and have something come up as both a one and a zero really causes problems. Problems that make the universe unravel.
Anyways back to the name. While my brother gave me the insight into Schrodinger the name actually literally came to me out of no where and was stuck in my head this morning. I don't know if I had Schrodingeresk dreams, but something made my mind go "Schrodinger's band, hey that is kind of catchy in a weird sciencey way - let's see where that takes us" and thus Schrodinger's band was born. We'll see where this takes us.


Edit: I also thought I'd add in the fact that the little image I have on the side as my avatar is actually supposed to be Schrodinger. It was part of a comic that read, "Schrodinger may or may not have killed your cat". I thought it was amusing and liked the mad scientist look it had.
Also I may attempt a Schrodinger's Band poem. The last line that really stuck in my head that I decided to make a poem out of was Drunk Rhinoceros and think that turned out to be one of my better poems. So look forward to a Schrodinger's Band poem, it may or may not be good.

Pumped!

I've discovered that going to the gym only once a week works out much better for me than even going twice a week, because when I go I am actually really excited to work out and I can give more energy during my workout. I still have all my other physical activity during the week but actual gym workouts seem to be best once a week, I'm not sure why but I guess that is just where I am mentally. I've been going to the gym now for over 3 years (maybe 4 - I'm not sure) and I've gone from 7 days a week to where I am at now (and also zero days a week when I was lazy). Since I've started writing poetry regularly I've been thinking about writing a gym poem, but I have not been success as of yet. I think it is partially because very little of my poetry is really serious and the stuff that is still fairly light or is inspired. Perhaps I could write a funny poem about the gym (actually it would be pretty easy considering the amount of crazy that goes along with the gym) but it hasn't felt right yet. The serious poems about the gym though have been ever worse - they just don't work for me. And there is lies one of my biggest problems in writing poetry is that I can't take it seriously. It isn't that I don't think poetry can deal with serious issues (because it clearly can) but that I just don't feel I have the wordcraft to put together a poem that is to be taken seriously. So I am issuing myself a challenge to write more serious poetry. As they say practice makes pretty good and perfect practice makes perfect. I think I am okay with just pretty good, but we'll see where this goes.

On The Subject of Things That Annoy Me

In my last post I discussed one of my pet peeves, and I decided that I could stay on that tangent, mainly because it is easy to write about things that make you miserable. Also I had the 100 post controversy and discovered it is because I have a number of posts in my draft section. Most of these are posts that I either wasn't able to finish or just ran out of steam during, so at some point they'll probably end up here.

As for today I wish to talk about writing in accents. Now I understand the need to have the character's voice match where they are from, but many authors over do it and it drives me mad. In fact I literally threw the last book I was reading across the room because the accents where driving me so batty. If it gets to a point where I have to reread a sentence 2-3 times because I couldn't understand what was trying to be said it just isn't worth it. My last book was really interesting, but it was literally too frustrating to read and so I stopped and have no intention of picking that book up again.

One of my first creative writing teachers also had this pet peeve. I'm not sure if I got it from him, but I agree that there are ways around putting in incredibly thick accents. One way that often works really well is syntax. When people talk they have a cadence to how they speak and that often gives a better feel of the accent then 12 apostrophes ever will. I can see putting in a few apostrophes ever once in a while for emphasis but when ever word is abbreviated it gets maddening. However, I have to agree simply adding the clause "she said in an Irish accent", does not cut it. That doesn't help the reader and just looks lazy. I can also see putting in the heavy accent if the other characters in the book cannot understand accent as well - but that has limited application since you still want your reader to understand.

And that is all I have to say about that.

Headline titles, a mess, Newspapers

I have taken to reading the newspaper on my phone, which I guess makes it not a paper at all - but I don't want to get into that right now. I've taken to reading the USA Today, not because it is a superior publication, but rather I can get it for free on my phone and I think it is important to be up to date on current events (not the reading a single news publication does that, but it is a start). My biggest beef with newspapers (besides them being wrapped around it - they don't do that anymore do they?) is the way headlines are formed. I've never understood why the headline can't be a clear and complete phrase. Instead the headlines are often written as if a drunk Yoda was the writer, with the subject being the very last word and the rest of the line make little to no sense. Now not all headlines are like this, but I've found that quite a few are and I am curious how the editors allow this to happen. I mean certainly as an editor you'd read the headline and then decide you need to fire your writers because they've been drinking and writing and that certainly is dangerous. I doubt that I'll ever hear of a reason that I find acceptable for why the headlines are written the way they are - for I don't think there is an acceptable reason (and by acceptable I mean it makes complete logical sense that they write a bumbled sentence rather then trying something different that is more succinct).

I'd also like to point out that this is marked as my 100th post. I'd say that is a momentous occasion, however, having been working on this blog going on somewhere between one and two years, that isn't a terribly good track record. None the less, Yay me!

(and now a completely improv'ed poem - it is the 100th post after all)

Newspaper Poem

Going under
is what they say
newspapers are doing.
It is the internet
they blame.
Not billions of TV's
and their talking heads
who spew
"the news"
24/7


Copyright 2009


Edit: So I just looked at my numbers, and it says I have a hundred posts, yet when I count I don't see that many. I got 43 (for 07) 40 (for 08) and 2 (for 09)... perhaps I'm adding wrong, but that just doesn't seem right. I think I'll just say I'm at 100 when I get 15 more posts in.