The Death Institute

Just a quick note here:

For those of you familiar with the "Death Institute" commercial I made back in the day, it looks like Justin and I are going to re-do it using professional equipment, at which point it will probably be posted to the web.

Several of my friends were in the first analog edit of this commercial, and the only weak point was MY acting. I may leave myself out altogether and be content with directing, giving my friends the spotlight they very much deserve.

I don't think I'll ever re-do my (surprisingly) well-remembered "How I Spent Spring Break '98" video, featuring "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves, but maybe I can digitize that some time and put it on YouTube...

"I'm Voting Republican."

Here is a great viral video about why you should vote Republican in November.

Ha!

In Defense of Colored Inks

Even before I could write, I was a huge fan of writing tools. When I was little I would play around with a broken typewriter we had in our basement. In second grade I coveted my cheap Bic mechanical pencils (I can still remember they were light yellow with brown tips – replaced later by black ones with colored clips, but I digress). As an adult I covet the Macintosh, which may be the ultimate writing and publishing machine. But I still love simple writing tools like pens and nice pads of paper, and no matter how electronic our society becomes, I imagine we will still utilize them because they are simply too easy and too transparent in their usage to replace. And I think about their use more than normal, perhaps as a consequence of working in a store that sells nice pens and paper, and reading authors like Neil Postman.

So it can be said that I have an appreciation of (if not outright expertise of) pens. I have a large collection of both expensive and cheap pens – ballpoints, rollerballs, fountain pens, gel pens and a few pencils. Lately I write the most with fountain pens and gel pens, and I enjoy them so much I may not hold on to many of the standard ball points. Gel pens are smooth and convenient, while fountain pens are smoother still and are worth their relatively high maintenance because of the user experience they offer, as well as their novelty.

But what color ink to use in those special pens?

I used to use black ink exclusively for most of my life. Cheap blue ballpoint pens, which are what we all encounter most, have always reminded me of the crappy pens that they had at the bank when I was growing up – the ones that were connected to the end of a chain. Those were awful pens that often served more use as a vector for transmittable disease than as a writing instrument. Black ink seemed dignified, at least, and wasn’t trying too hard to get noticed. Even if it came out of a crappy pen, black ink was at least business-like. In high school and college I didn’t use anything else except pencil.

Lately though, I think colored inks are relevant again in a professional atmosphere, not just for what you use to write on your “Hello Kitty” Post-it notes.

I say ‘again’ because back when fountain pens were in their golden age, in the 1930s-1950s, it was more common for people to use a variety of ink colors, especially for correspondence. Soldiers wrote their wives from the battle front in blue ink, and businessmen might use brown ink or blue-black ink, a color that is not really common now. Green ink was very common, and violet was certainly normal as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if Senator Joe McCarthy ironically used red ink once in a while. Certainly black ink was used a lot, especially in grade schools where it was bought by the bucket. But, it was far from odd to use some other color as your main ink, especially for your signature, which was and is supposed to be an extension of your personality.

In an age of ubiquitous laser printers, colored ink becomes newly relevant. When you have documents that are printed in black, it makes sense that hand writing should be done in another color. Your brain can immediately process where new information has been added, even before the information itself has been understood. That usually means blue ink, which is still very readable but stands out on a page. Even on color documents, black type will often be predominant, and handwriting in another color will stick out. If I notated in books (which I’ve hardly ever done because I feel I’m ruining the book), blue would be the ideal color there too. With gel and rollerball pens, the quality of the color doesn’t remind me of those chained bank pens from my childhood, either.

I use blue ink a lot now, but I tend to use green ink in my trusty Waterman Phileas fountain pen. It’s a nicely readable color, and looks very good on a canary legal pad, or in my day planner. I still have pens with black ink but I don’t use them much – most any official document can be filled out in blue.

This is not a defense of bright or fluorescent colors, however. Gel pens are available in neon colors that make your eyes bleed, and they are just not good for everyday writing. I always grimace when someone writes me a check with hot pink writing on it. It makes me feel like I’m shaking down a 10 year-old girl for everything she has in her pennysaver checking account.

And now you know I’m a Huge Nerd. Perhaps more than ever.

It's Euro 2008!

Euro 2008, a sort of regional version of the World Cup soccer tournament is going on right now in Austria/Switzerland. Like the World Cup, it's held every four years for the qualifying European national teams. I really get excited by it, and Germany is favored to win the tournament, even over reigning world champions Italy.

Germany won their first game against Poland on Sunday 2-0.

Greece won this tournament last time, so really anything can happen. Greece came out of nowhere and is not considered to be a soccer nation of any reckoning, so it was definitely a big deal. Czech Republic and Croatia tend to play pretty well at the tournament level, as do France and Italy, who were in the last World Cup final. England did not even qualify - England has good club teams but they always seem to fizzle as a national team.

It's fun for me to watch this also because ESPN is suddenly populated with a bunch of commentators speaking in Irish and English accents. Soccer commentary by Americans is just terrible - they're all like John Madden pointing out the obvious: "Well that was a terrible collision between those two players - Soccer can be pretty rough!" Er, yeah, thanks. The foreigners are going to give you those great tidbits - they'll recall some game in the 1970's that influenced the creation of the regulation that was just enforced on the field. For example. Ahem.

It really makes me wish I'd have learned Spanish; I'm guessing they probably know what they're talking about too.

[photo from ESPN.com]

"I have two blogs, but don't get too excited. Ladies."

Hey folks, there's a new 'fake' article on my other blog.

I've already been told it isn't funny at all.

Peace out y'all.

Frontline: Sick Around the World

Sometimes, when a documentary film is good enough, you feel as if you’ve accomplished something just by watching it. It’s not because the documentary was laborious to watch, but because it clinches a problem in its fist and squeezes out the solution all in one program.

That happened for me this time.

“Sick Around the World” is a continuously fascinating, revealing and concise look at the way health care works in other industrialized countries, and how we could implement parts of those systems here in the US.

I don’t think I’ll spoil it for you if I mention that a successful health care system can not be trusted to the free market alone. And, T.R. Reid, the reporter in this documentary, says there are three fundamental things we can take away from other health care systems:

1. By law, insurance companies should not be allowed to decline coverage, and can’t be allowed to make a profit on basic care.
2. Everyone must be mandated to buy insurance, and those that are too poor to pay for insurance are paid for by the government.
3. Doctors and hospitals have to accept one standard set of prices for procedures nationwide.

Do yourself a favor; get a first-rate education in health care policy in less than an hour by watching the program online, and if you have the gumption, dive into some of the interview material as well. Believe me, I think about this every time I have to deal with my job’s poor excuse for insurance.

Supreme Court, Inc.

Quite a while back I read a frustrating article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine about the US Supreme Court, which you can read here. In short, it describes how the US Chamber of Commerce has a ridiculous amount of clout and influence when appointing and electing judges, especially high courts like the federal district courts and state supreme courts. Want a pertinent example? The recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election saw Judge Louis Butler lose to Michael Gableman, which is the first time an incumbent has lost in 40 years. The US Chamber of Commerce conducts essentially the same campaign for “their” candidate no matter where the candidate is running, including here in Wisconsin, and so far it’s been pretty successful. The NYTSM article came out before the election, but it’s proven to be accurate.

Oh, um, why is this bad? I forgot to mention that: Corporations are seeking to overturn consumer protections that first started being put in place in the 60’s. Judges with pro-corporate viewpoints are being installed to help ensure those laws are overturned or their enforcement weakened. For example, if the federal government approves of a car’s safety before it goes on the market, the car company could be absolved from dealing with any defects that come up later, and could not be sued (or else have very low caps on lawsuits). This situation is now true with medical devices, according to the article, and other rulings may change the very nature of safety in America as we know it. There are other implications as well, but I’ll let you read about it from the source.