Todd Stadler's blog

the cult of personal audi

Colin and I went to Pizza Schmizza for lunch the other day. He drove his Audi S4. I wouldn't normally mention his car, except that it's what this story is all about. See, before he had this car, Colin had a crappy old Toyota like mine (more crappy from being old than from being a Toyota). Which was fine. I guess cars have never meant much to me - I try to drive mine as little as possible. And as much as I've tagged my car with little signs that it belongs to me (bumper sticker, vinyl numbers on windows, large number of legless chirping dogs along windshield), I can't say I have that much invested in it.

So along comes Colin's new S4. My first thought was "Audi? What's so great about Audis?" Well, Colin proceeded to tell me over the next few months. He became a total car nut. He knew the differences between every type of car that Audi made, and started commenting more on cars we saw on the road - how powerful they were or weren't, and how lame their owners were or weren't for having done various things to their cars. It was all very entertaining, but in the way that the guy talking to himself in the bus station is entertaining - he's clearly in another world, seeing things you're not.

So I suppose it was no surprise when we pulled up to Schmizza that Colin noticed the S4 parked in front and wondered whose it was. Colin seems to know every S4 owner in Hillsboro, if not greater Portland. I mean, this is the guy who, when I walk into his office, is looking at audiworld.com half the time, looking at pictures of cars that people have posted, and chatting with local owners.

But I think I decided it was all too much when he saw some guy inside Schmizza and said hello to him, recognizing him as a fellow S4 owner. He told me that all the S4 owners meet from time to time and go out for rides, or maybe just meet for dinner. I told him that was weird, asking him if he realized that. He didn't.

I tried to express how weird it was to me that people were bonding over some commercial product that they had purchased. Sure, it was a particularly expensive and well-made product, but it was still something you buy, not a common personality trait or belief, or even really an activity. At least for me. I don't go driving for pleasure - I avoid that at all costs. I'd much rather ride shotgun on a road trip. Or take the train. Colin goes for rides out in the country on a regular basis. So maybe it is an activity for him.

But it's not like I get together with all the Kodak digital camera owners. Or the O'Reilly book fan club. Or whatever other fine products I own. But then, in America, perhaps the car really does define who you are, to some people. I don't know. I like Colin, but I still think he's weird.

"l" is for "lepim's", it's good enough for me

You know, if I didn't have music to make me feel better, I think I'd have to turn to LePim's a whole lot more. As it is, they're called in only when I'm sick or just having a rough week. But my, those are tasty cookies! And not entirely unhealthy, really. How the French made something tasty without slathering it in butter is beyond me. It'll be our little secret.

the future is just after you read this

Every once in a while, probably to the annoyance of those in my vicinity, I ponder this world we live in. Specifically, the futureness of it all.

It doesn't seem all that impressive to me on the surface, but then I try to think about what 10-year old me would think. And I'm not sure he'd be impressed, because I'm not sure he'd really understand it all. But I do, so I'm impressed, somehow.

I suppose we all could have guessed computers would have gotten more powerful and important. But to the point of being able to make feature-length films completely on them? Or who would have guessed that computers would shrink to the size of a book, and yet remain powerful?

CDs, MP3s, the Internet ... it's all so common now, and yet so amazing.

But then, maybe it's just the music I'm listening to - Amon Tobin makes for a good futuristic soundtrack for the present. It certainly makes working on a computer a lot more sexy than this Notepad window would imply.

glue fixes everything

I really wish I had some glue. Maybe I'll go buy some. Then I could just work on one of my many artistic projects all day and listen to good music.

I think I'd enjoy that. Or maybe I'm just in one of those moods I get in so often where I have these huge artistic upwellings that go nowhere because I lack a medium that I am fluent enough in to create off the top of my head. With the possible exception of drumming.

I want to run around taking pictures, or write a song, or make art, or webpages, but I can't do any of it well enough, or fast enough, or right now enough. So I'm frustrated.

Do you know what the problem is? It's the tantalizing nature of days off. Since today's a vacation day, I feel I have to validate it by doing something great. If all I did today was read or sleep or eat, then why be on vacation, I ask myself.

That's why weeknights are so cool - I expect to get nothing much done, so when I do, it's a bonus of sorts. Expectations. What a bummer.

want some cheese with your whine?

You know what is tedious? Editing content. I'd love to be sitting here right now, designing my webpage to be easy to use and attractive.

But instead I'm reading old e-mails I wrote to myself in the hopes that they would someday be converted into journal entries like this. And I didn't do a superb job in writing those e-mails, either. Sometimes I left myself notes like "write about trip to Pancake House", hoping I'd fill in the blanks later. Now it's later, and I don't want to. I am my own taskmaster.

I just find that writing isn't something I can do ad nauseum. I eventually get tired of thinking of how my words should flow. This is probably evident in a few of my entries.

So why am I doing it? I don't know. Probably some misguided sense of who I am and what my place is on the internet. Maybe I want to be famous. Or maybe I just want a good website, but you have to have content before you can have good design. In spite of massive amounts of attempted evidence to the contrary.

Besides, this is my day off, and doing menial things doesn't seem appropriate. If I were at work, I'd be fine, but not on President's Day, the most holy day in all of democracy!

more cheap yuks

Maybe I was in a goofy mood, but driving home from church, I was listening to the radio and also found this amusing.

The Shane Company and its unique monotonous radio ads had this to say about its hassle-free no-commission sales environment: "... with our great selection and low pressure atmosphere, it's a fun place to shop".

Never mind that shopping for diamonds, much less at stodgy old Shane Company, doesn't conjure up words like "fun". But a "low pressure environment"? Do your ears pop?

Laughing at cancer

I know this sounds like the mild humor one typically finds in internet forwards or church bulletins, but it made me laugh. In his sermon today, the pastor was giving an illustration dealing with disease. He noted that "people in this one small town came down with cancers and other horrible things, including children." I can laugh because I'm single. And easily amused.

Let them eat pancakes

I ate at the Original Pancake House today with Colin and Gerry. I'd heard them talking about it for so long, I had to go. And oh my, was it good! As if it wasn't enough to serve the best pancakes ever along with tons of other wonderful food, they serve it in very large portions. There is so much to love here! And more of me to love after I ate there!

Afterwards, Colin asked if I understood why the pancakes instilled a religious fervor in him. I noted that I wouldn't skip church to eat there on Sunday mornings. He shot back that God said not to worship any other gods before him, but didn't say what one could do afterwards, at lunch. Ha.

If you have an Original Pancake House anywhere near you, you must go soon! I may not know what "93 score" or "pure 36% whipping cream" mean exactly, but my taste buds tell me they don't care.

The rich keep getting richer

I ordered a new computer the other day. But I won't be paying for most of it. Work is doing that for me, because they're stupid. Or generous. But big businesses aren't often generous, so I'll stick with my original statement. The only things I'm paying for are upgrades beyond what the original package offered. A better monitor, more RAM, that sort of thing.

Along those lines, I also ordered DSL for myself. Faster and faster. It'll be nice to have something approaching work speed at home, since on those few occasions when I do work from home, the ol' 56k modem proves incapable of gracefully handling VNC (virtual network computing - see exactly what you see on your screen at work, anywhere).

I also bought Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop today for half-price from the University of Oregon "bookstore" downtown. Scare quotes are warranted because I noticed on walking into said store that there were no books. I actually walked out and made sure I hadn't missed the bookstore next door or something. All they sold in this store were UO-themed clothing items, calendars, pens, toys, and such. And, hidden in the back of the store, the software I was looking for. Still, they thought I was a troublemaker because I was wearing my bright orange hooded sweatshirt, orange being the main color of OSU, UO's in-state rival. Right. Because I'm a big fan of the Beavers. Because university rivalry here in Oregon is so important to me.

Investing in CDs

I went CD shopping today. I was able to cross off lots of items on my list of "CDs I've been thinking of buying".

And may I say how much I like Everyday Music's policy of letting me listen to anything, new or used, before I buy it (or not)? Too often an album will have a few good tracks that I'm familiar with, with a bunch of other tracks I don't know about. Sometimes the other stuff is decent enough or even better than the familiar tracks. But other times, it's just junk, and I can't stand to own albums with only a few good songs. If I have to skip over some tracks, I'd rather not own the album. That's been my policy for some time now, to keep me from buying CDs frivolously. It's worked pretty well.

Unfortunately, it often precludes me from buying rap and R&B albums, which tend to have talking and skits and other nonsense scattered between the songs I like so much. That's why I didn't end up buying any Outkast or TLC, although Stankonia has some really good stuff on it. It's those other tracks I'm worried about.

But I did get two albums by the Roots, Destiny's Child's most recent album, and Whoa, Nelly! to tide over any hip-hop cravings I was having.

On the techno side, I bought Squarepusher's Big Loada, which is just what I want from techno right now. That album was promoted to me solely over a shared MP3 disk at work (now forcefully removed). Which goes to show that MP3's, even when they're shared, aren't always used for piracy as such. Not that this argument could possibly sway a record company executive, who is nonetheless happy that I bought the album.

In the "filling in the back category" vein, I bought Van Halen's 1984 and three albums by Rush - Hemispheres, Moving Pictures, and A Farewell To Kings. It's no coincidence that the Rush albums all contain songs featured on the live album Exit Stage Left, my only previous Rush album. Of course, I'm at least a decade too late for this, now well past my dorky geek phase. Or so I'd like to think.

Todd talks to himself, confuses same

Doubtless many of you are out there wondering what happened to my journalling of late. I find this odd, because to date I haven't published a single one of these entries on the Internet. I know as well as I do that this revamped Cockahoop website isn't going public any time soon.

No, I'm just keeping a journal now so that when I do finally get around to designing a new site, it will magically already have content in it. There's nothing worse than a new site going live and promising to have exciting content Real Soon Now. So I'm doing it the exact opposite. All the titillating details of my life are already typed up. I just don't have a way to enable the voyeurism of millions yet.

So then, I will merely ask myself, "Todd, why haven't you made any new entries on your webpage of late?"

Well, Todd, it turns out there's this girl in my life. She's wonderful, and she makes me so happy. Her name's Julia, and she's my girlfriend now.

As such, I am ceasing all work on this new version of Cockahoop. Heh heh. Kidding. Sort of.

None of this should make sense by the time this entry is actually visible on the internet.

Excuses, excuses, part II

Sigh.

Here are more reasons why there is not a full-fledged website in front of you right now:

Sleep. I started taking short continuing education courses in web-related areas recently. I also started working out recently. Somehow, adding things to my schedule and not removing them means I have less time. This often means less sleep. And your body needs sleep to create a fully functional website, scientists tell us.

Women. Nothing but trouble, to be sure. They make me use up whatever time is left me by my preordained tasks for writing them letters, calling them on the phone, and sometimes abstractly thinking about them. And all for what? A nice feeling? Happiness? Heck, if I'm happy, what in the world am I going to write about?!

Electrons. The recent power shortage has left me with a dearth of our little negatively-charged friends. Every extra electron left in our house, on our street, in our neighborhood, is going south to help the relief effort in California. I only hope it's enough. In the meantime, I've been trying to build an anti-website using positrons, but early attempts are fruitless. As fans of Physics Letters and Superfriends are all-too-aware, it's not enough to simply build a website using antimatter - everything about the site must be the complete opposite of what it was before. So where I had humor before, I would have to have complete sincerity now. Journal entries about being happy would have to express extreme sorrow. And, most annoyingly, I would have to write everything backwards in white text on a black background. It is this final point I resist, as it hinders the usability of the site.

So until these points are resolved, this is what you get. A big fat page of excuses. Ah well - that's all you deserve anyhow!

Lessons of the evening

At least I learned some important lessons tonight, if not about the deleterious effects of capitalism.

For one, the only way to win at bowling is not to play. Wait, no, that's tic-tac-toe. The only way to win at bowling is to ooze pure style. You simply can't knock down enough pins to earn your way into cooldom. But if, say, you're an accomplished "speed bowler" - sending the ball down the lane before the pin apparatus is completely up in order to complete your ten frames in record time - welll, you just might make some ladies swoon.

Secondly, there is a fine art to karaoke, but it has nothing to do with singing. It's all about picking the right song for the occasion. You have to know the crowd, and you have to go after the right person. Will this crowd like Bon Jovi? Duran Duran? Or will they accept nothing less than Don McLean, the philistines?

It might not matter if you sing after a guy who is clearly some type of professional karaoke artist. Yes, I believe such an occupation exists. While I'm not clear on the details, I think they get paid to distract you momentarily from the fact that you have chosen for your night's entertainment to listen to people mangle songs you used to like.

I, for one, chose to mangle what is quite possibly my favorite song, Ben Folds Five's "Army". Let me tell you, just because you like a song doesn't make it a good karaoke tune, no matter how much the karaoke DJ likes it as well. Not only is it hard to bop about as is my wont with this tune, but, well, I felt so ... white.

Ah well, live and learn. Or don't. It's no skin off my back.

Helping out the economy

I went shopping today. Again. I'm beginning to worry about rampant capitalism on my part. Buy, buy, buy. I rationalize it by noting that I haven't actually bought new clothes in quite some time. Much of my wardrobe was purchased in my early years at college, when for some odd reason, I had an insatiable thirst for plaid.

It seems so silly now. I mean, now that I've realized that bright solid colors are so much cooler than plaids. I don't know what I was thinking back then. Bright solids just make so much more sense.

So I now have more red tops, and yellow tops. Oh my, and orange tops, too. And how. Perhaps it was a reaction to today's dismal weather.

Why, I even bought a new Swatch today. It's a slap bracelet (remember those?) with a watch on it. And the yellow is so hypnotizing! That's probably why it matches my other watch.

Still, it's all so much. I'm not going to even talk about my new shoes.

Excuses, excuses

Honest, I'm working on it. Have some nice ideas flowing through my head. I've been writing content more-or-less offline for a bit now, journal entries and the like. In theory, I could go live with the very different new site any day now. Here's why I haven't thus far:

Usability. I started thinking about this concept, even bought some books, and I'll be darned if a) it isn't very exciting, b) it isn't taking up a whole lot of time trying to make my site something other than a journal with stupid graphics.

Ambition. I have this problem where I keep wanting to go further, higher, better. I could put stuff online now and add functionality, content, whatever, as I find time, but that irks me so. You come by, you see this lame half-implemented page, you leave. As it is now, things are much better. You come by, see a complete lack of implementation and a sorry placeholder page, you leave. Less effort for me in the long run.

Knowledge. I want to do things I don't know how to right now. I could not do them, but that would make things painful for me. I could also just use Blogger to solve most of my problems, but I want to learn to solve them myself. Other people use technology to make their lives easier. Me, I use it to give myself a headache.

Who cares. As far as I know, nobody out there is really reading this page. It's an exercise in design, writing, and futility. Feel free to let me know if you're impatiently awaiting the new design, but I won't bother clearing out my mail directory to make sure I have enough room for the influx of letters.

Love,
Todd

P.S. If you're really hard up for entertainment, why not take a gander at my supremely old web page from 1996 (or so) when I was at Rice University. Full of all the crapulence you'd expect from a personal webpage at that time, and all the pretentiousness you'd expect from me...well, pretty much any time. It has been lovingly FTP'ed over from my machine, where it was lovingly stored on my hard drive without a single character being modified from its days on a Rice Unix server. That means lots of things don't work. Images, links, content, design, you know. I'll fix all of that someday. Right after I get this new version going (wink).