Hate Life, Will Travel

I don’t remember how old I was the first time I went into Powell’s in Portland, but I remember being entirely awed and spending hours there, winding up buying hundreds of dollars of books. The place inspired awe. Each new room was a fun discovery, and I’d wander into sections randomly and start picking up interesting books I suddenly had to buy.

I made it down to the downtown one this morning, before heading back to Seattle, and I had the same disappointment I’ve had the last few years, and it’s compounded by my memories, and the love I still feel when I show up.

Their selection’s amazing. I’ve been looking for the books of a particular science fiction author, with no success (he’s British, and it’s a tough find). Powell’s had a whole shelf. But they were almost all new, and the used ones were priced almost as high as the new ones. And so it went for all the others: books I’d wanted to check out popped up, but at a premium price. I don’t know if I’m just not remembering this wrong, but I remember part of the old joy of discovery being finding bargains, and I haven’t found that there in years.

If money was no object – and here, being out of work since July is a huge deal – that wouldn’t be an issue. But there are a couple of things I’ve noticed in my last few visits.
- no place to sit. If you see a book you want to leaf through, you pretty much have to sit down on the floor or hike
- filing’s poor. They’re not well-alphabetized, so looking through the “D”s in one section I went through DA-DE, broken by a hardback, and then it skipped back. Sections with multiple sub-sections seem to have problems with books being in the wrong sub-section.
- the pricing. I’m spoiled by used bookstores up here, I guess, but I wanted to buy an old pb originally published at 2.95, with no particular collectible qualities. At the Half Price Books up the street, that’s 1.48 (half cover price, even if it’s old). At my local paperback exchange, it might be a buck to two bucks. Powell’s had it marked up to 3.95. In all my searching, I never found a used book at a good price.

It was strange, to experience the same thrill of finding a set of books for authors I usually check for only out of habit, and none of the “I get to try a new author for only seventy-five cents!”

I don’t know how much of it is the economics of bookselling, or why the inventory’s priced as it is, or why their book mix runs so heavily new.

But after many years of finding less and less, this was the first time since I first went to Powell’s and didn’t buy one book. That makes me sad.

I went out with my friend Joel today, and we decided to head up the Burke-Gilman from Redmond for a lazy mid-week ride. It was a little cloudy and chilly, but I was shocked at how few people there were – the trail was almost entirely empty. I’ve been on that trail at all hours of day and night, and I’ve almost never seen so few people.

Heading north, we had a nice tailwind as we rode into a long stretch of beautifully redone trail. I’ve been sick for a couple of weeks and only got out on a ride this weekend, so I thought “let’s run this out a little” and took off as fast as I could: maximum effort, spin the pedals as quickly as possible, shift up, maintaining the effort, until finally my legs stopped working.

My top speed came in at 32.6 miles an hour. It felt so great.

Now the return trip into the wind… that was trouble.

Yesterday, I went out for the first extended period in weeks to see the M’s game – I bought my dad nice tickets for his birthday, and while I’m still not feeling great, I wasn’t going to miss it. We went to Elysian, so my dad had great food and delicious beer and I watched, then we saw the debacle of that game, which was amusing. The whole time I’m a little uncomfortable because they’ve got me on drugs that make me a little dizzy, which is a strange sensation. Tough day.

Anyway, I get home starving, thirsty, and tired, and find that one of the connections under the sink’s given up the ghost and is spraying water everywhere, and I end up replacing two connections, the sink’s P-trap, and the whole faucet assembly. I didn’t get to bed until one.

This is to the point where I start laughing when this stuff happens.

There’s no logical reason why internet radio should be killed. The Copyright Royalty Board is forcing net radio to pay a royalty rate for music which is quite frankly insane. As the NPR story pointed out

The new royalty rate is based on a per-song, per-user fee.

A Webcaster determines how many listeners are logged on each hour. Then, they multiply that number by the number of songs streamed in the hour, and multiply that by the royalty rate.

Right now, the rate is only 8/100 of a cent per user per performance.

But a small Webcaster, who may put out a one-hour show that includes 15 songs and gets an average of 300 listeners a week, would have to pay more than $1,800 a year in royalties.

Compared to the rates given to other broadcast mediums, it makes no sense. It’s nearly hysterical. Which reminds me of crack.

Essentially, a gram of crack cocaine is punished 100x what powdered cocaine is, and crack can bring down federal sentencing minimums and all kinds of bad juju. Why? There’s no reasonable explanation for why anyone would want to set up a system that unbalanced. There are bad reasons for the disparity, particularly racism or the hysteria around the drug, certainly, but from the standpoint of deterring crime, preventing societal ills, or making users more reluctant to try it, having crack cocaine punished so heavily doesn’t make sense.

And that’s where we are with internet radio. The MPAA and RIAA have been fighting every internet channel for years now, suing their customers and innocents in their pursuit of the file sharers. They’ve argued they should be allowed to hack people’s computers, engage in “pretexting” and use the DMCA as a weapon to force takedown of infringing and non-infringing content alike. They’ve responded to the perceived lawless threat with a mix of vigilantism, extortion, and vilification, and this unfair royalty structure, the death of internet radio, is the fruit of that war.

They have made file sharers into drug gangs, sharing music with a friend into giving a grade school student the first hit for free. This can’t only be a fight about this decision — we have to understand that until we can have rational conversations about copyright, and the real benefits and dangers of digital distribution, that preserving internet radio still means we’ll be fighting racketeering charges with mandatory prison sentences for sharing an album over a P2P service.

No single incident matters until we’re winning the larger debate.

Another prescription, another set of co-pays.

Yeah, went back to the doc. If you’re keeping score at home, I’ve essentially been running a temperature and in poor health since the day after Opening Day. I haven’t had good food in weeks. This is awesome.

Book came out. Huge accomplishment, product of years of work.
Great reviews, including the New York Times, where it got a bad/baffling review.
Ran up ~2k in car bills in four days as my beloved Volvo went through a bad patch.
Horribly sick for weeks, including an ER trip.

And now, accepted to Clarion West. Which is awesome – “Yay, we think you’re super-great, we have picked you out of all the great applicants to come hang out with assorted cool folks for six weeks and graduate an elite science fiction writer.”

But I can’t go. I feel like the world’s taking free kicks at me.

Clarion runs six weeks, mid-June through July. I want to go, because it’s super-awesome, but I essentially can’t go: I have no money. I was about to take a job, but now, if I go, I almost certainly can’t take a job, work for two months, and then be gone for six weeks.

If Clarion started next week, I’d tough it out. But it doesn’t — it’s months out. With no money, I can’t survive for months. But I can’t get a job and work for months and then go. And so on. I’m screwed. I figured I wouldn’t get in – the odds are so long, it’s so competitive – and now, I don’t even know what to do.

Thanks, universe! Hee hee hee hee.

Got really sick. Lost a lot of weight.
Gave a speech, ended up in the Bremerton ER having fluids put in me. Had to cancel my first book thing.
Recovery, recovery.

Therefore, I offer this guide to sports drinks. Generally, I water these down a little for on-bike use, as the in-a-bottle versions are a little too sweet (compare Gatorade from concentrate prepared according to directions to the store-bought), but for sitting-around-rehydrating, they’re just flat soda without the caffeine.

Gatorade
Lemon-lime: the classic, the one I drink when on bike rides. Turns a little gross when it’s all you’re drinking.
Lemon-lime+berry: that solves it. Delicious.
Orange: ick
Fruit Punch: I never liked fruit punch for the weird aftertaste, but alternating with lemon-lime, it’s quite nice.
Cool-blue: yech
Berry: this is like what “blue” fruit-flavored gum tastes like, but worse.
Ice Punch: okay

Then Powerade was on sale, and I’m unemployed and cheap, so I bought a ton of those.

Powerade
Lemon-Lime: this is a little more lime than Gatorade’s flavor. Nice.
Orange Burst: slightly grosser than Gatorade’s gross orange
Fruit Punch: the same as Gatorade
Black Cherry Lime: mmm
Mountain Blast: another “blue” fruit one, but a lot less flavor. Not bad.
Jagged Ice: I didn’t think I’d like a purple one, but this was okay.
Grape: tastes like a grape-flavored gum, or “purple” on the artificial candy-flavoring chart. Ugh.
Arctic Shatter: I don’t even know what to say about this one. It’s white and tastes a little like a genetically cross-bred fruit’s ass.
Green Squall: super-bright green, kinda good
Strawberry Melon: like two liquified Jolly Ranchers. A little much.

Hey, Metro transit Trip Planner, I need to get to Pier 52 early in the morning. What do you suggest?

Itinerary #1

Walk NE from EASTGATE P-R to

Depart Eastgate P&R AcRd & BAY 2 At 11:10 PM On Route MT 245 Kirkland
Arrive 156th Ave NE & NE 8th St At 11:19 PM

Transfer to

Depart NE 8th St & 156th Ave NE At 11:32 PM On Route MT 253 Bellevue Transit Center
Arrive Bellevue TC AcRd & 108 AV NE BTC 2 At 11:44 PM

Transfer to

Depart NE 6th St & 108 AV NE BTC 11 At 11:50 PM On Route ST 550 Seattle Express
Arrive I-90 Expr Ramp & Rainier Av Fwy Stati At 12:08 AM

Transfer to

Depart Rainier Ave S & I-90 At 12:47 AM On Route MT 7 Downtown Seattle
Continues as MT 49
Arrive NE 45th St & Brooklyn Ave NE At 01:30 AM

Walk 0.1 mile NE to

Depart University Way NE & NE 45th St At 02:33 AM On Route MT 83 Maple Leaf via University District
Continues as MT 7
Arrive 3rd Ave & Marion St At 03:32 AM

Walk 0.2 mile SW to PIER 52

So go Eastgate Park and Ride to the Bellevue Transit Center, BTC across I-90 to the I-90 & Rainier stop, wait 40m, then take a bus to the University District, then wait an hour and take a bus downtown. At which point, I guess I’m expected to wait at Pier 52 for three, four hours.

I understand the limitations of technology, obviously, but this reminds me of the time I was testing an air system at Expedia looking for Seattle-Vancouver BC routes and one of the results came back:
Fly from Seattle-Portland
Fly from Portland-Vancouver BC
(wait 2 hours)
Fly from Vancouver BC to Victoria (helicopter)
Fly from Victoria to Vancouver (helicopter)

Total travel time was ~11 hours, I think.

To get at a drain issue, I pulled the sink trap and found a nasty hair clog, which I pulled out. I then re-assembled the trap to find — joy of joys — that now, the trap-to-train connection dripped. Why would it leak now when it hadn’t leaked before? I have no clue. Probably the clog meant there was less water in the system, so there’s a pressure difference, or whatever. But this is why I hate plumbing work. I can patch a chunk of the cold water supply, and then tightening it perfectly so it doesn’t drip is an art I’ve never mastered, which means it’s actually a lot of experimentation, and then I can fix something else and now it drips again. Wheee!

You most likely want to be over on the Cheaters Guide blog