I heart Stumptown Confidential
A sincere word to everyone who is following the accidental series "The Address Nerd...". Thanks everybody. It's turning out to be a ton of fun. We all, I suppose, have those things we like to obsess on, and then, later, it turns out you were busy finding answers to all the questions that everybody had but didn't really know they wanted to ask. I have that feeling now
Mad stoopid props to Scholckstar and the inimitable Stumptown Confidential, who posted an entry about my blabbing about my hobbyhorse and, consequently, attracting more visitors to my site than anything else I've done. Thank you, Schlockstar, and thanks, visitors. Your humble attention has made my days
There's more Address Nerdery to come. It seems that once I've gone over a topic there's another one I find I want to go over, or something I've overlooked. I have, amongst other things, a couple of treasured maps of Portland that date from the 1920's-1930's. These are wonders to see. Also, I have a collection of Portland maps that extend from that time to the present day.
And when I'm done with that, I have a bunch of maps from other cities whose plans fascinate me. I have, collected from various sources, somewhere between 500 and 1000 maps (if not more...I just gave up counting after about 500) of cities across America and around the world.
Research continues into Vitamin "R"
The consumption of rum is, as I've touched on from time to time, one of the occasional adult pleasures we adults around House SunDial take. We've found a couple of new ones that are quite delightful.
They're big name brands, which is all the more surprising. We've been through the Cruzan Estate Dark (aged 2 years) and found it worthy for mixing and sipping neat. But the big surprises were from two stalwart, somewhat pedestrian names: Captain Morgan and Bacardi.
Captain Morgan has a dark, sweet rum out ther called "Tattoo". It tastes a little like blackstrap but has a hint of berry...blackberry perhaps...in. Okay for sipping neat, better if mixed (with my personal favorites: Diet Dr Pepper and a bit of Blue Curacao (the blue is for the beautiful deep color you get when you shine a light through)). Moreover, C.M. Tattoo goes better with diet Vanilla Pepsi than regular C.M. Spiced does.
The other is Bacardi Vanilé. Simply, Bacardi white rum with vanilla. Sounds a bit facile, what with the current Bacardi and Absolut trend toward flavoring thier signature spirit with every essence under the sun, but unexpectly good. This one mixes well, but I highly recommend this one neat.
As always, drink responsibly. That means, don't drive, and if you're on any alcohol abuse program, stay the hell away. I should have to add this?
Travels of The Wife[tm]
Late tonight...much later tonight...The Wife[tm] will return from her trip to the SCA's Known World Heraldic Symposium, which was held in Boulder-Longmont Colorado. I didn't go. I stayed home and worked - after all, you know how much a ticket to Denver costs?
But my lady is good enough that the SCAdians involved scraped together the money to bring her. Needless to say, I very proud.
The weekend has been long, what with not only going off the The Company Which Must Not Be Named but also coming home to house and just cats. We're all kind of rattling about. Part of us is not here, and we know it.
But in a comforting detail, she's called back as often as she could. She's seen SCA heraldic movers'n'shakers, drunk some really fine whisky and wine, and generally had a ground-burner of a time. Also this is surreal: she sounds no farther away, but she really is farther away.
She'll be back tonight. And we'll dine out...most likely Tik Tok...and go home and just be together. That's what it's all about.
By Samuel John Klein of Portland, Oregon - Graphic Designer without Portfolio, aspiring artist who dawdled too long.
24 July 2005
23 July 2005
[geography] The Address Nerd Recommends A Book To You
Dig, if you will, the picture to the right. This is a good book to have around if you enjoy Portland history, addresses, little-known facts, or just generally interesting books.Here's the info on it:
Title:Portland Names And Neighborhoods: Their Historic Origins
Author: Eugene E. Snyder
Softcover: ISBN 0-8323-0347, 256pp
Publisher: Binford & Mort, Portland, Or, 1979
I have a copy of the first edition of this book. Not that it'll garner me any extra money in the eBay department-this copy is mine, all mine, darn you, and you can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Snyder did an admirable and complete job. Turning to old city directories and historical records, and no doubt with a city map index (pre-1980) in hand, he found out a lot of interesting facts and made some damn good educated guesses. It's a good read, from one end to the other. For instance, did you know that the geometric lay of Ladd's Addition was inspired, at least in part, by the geometric layout of Washington DC? Or that the nucleus of todays city of Portland was actually three cities-Portland, East Portland, and Albina, which merged in 1891?
That's in there, as well as a thumbnail of how Portland coalesced and grew. It also explains the main "why" behind the development of our orderly street name and address layout.
In the early days of Portland development, the three original cities minded thier own names. Moreover, they didn't take any control over how developers named streets in thier new subdivisions. When the original cities combined, then, there was a multiplicity of duplicated street names in the new unified city (which for a short time was the largest city on the US West Coast).
A temporary solution evolved over time (which is complex in itself and deserves a separate entry of its own). After decades (literally) of sporadic debate as the city grew, a solution was finally settled upon...announced by The Oregonian in September 1931 and completely implemented (with no small help from the Depression-unemployed) by June 1933.
Snyder's style is conversational and friendly while still being informative. He's sort of a E. Kimbark McColl for the rest of us (no disrespect meant toward McColl, who's excellent (and I own three of his works). He's the author of a few other small books on Portland history, one, Early Portland: Stump-town Triumphant, I've perused and found worthy. I recommend all his books as an accessable entry-point to Portland history, and I do believe they are available at (where else) Powell's.
[tech] First Recorded Instance Of Windows Vista Humor
A fellow by with the fairly cool name of J. Marcus Xavier, who does the blog Very Small Doses, found my last post, pontificating on the Windows logo, and wanted to share this with me. I want to share it with you all...
Cleverly done, and perfectly reflective of the Windows user experience, at least at one time or another (I never did say about how we tried optimizing the system disk on The Wife[tm]'s old Wintel, which, for some odd reason, wound up clobbering the mouse drivers and resulted in the eventual reinstallation of the entire Windows OS, but...not now. Not now).
Read JMX's entry on the Next Big Wonder Outta Redmond here.
Cleverly done, and perfectly reflective of the Windows user experience, at least at one time or another (I never did say about how we tried optimizing the system disk on The Wife[tm]'s old Wintel, which, for some odd reason, wound up clobbering the mouse drivers and resulted in the eventual reinstallation of the entire Windows OS, but...not now. Not now).
Read JMX's entry on the Next Big Wonder Outta Redmond here.
22 July 2005
[logo_design] The View From Redmond
We have a new name for the next generation of MSWin...as well as a subtly different logo style.
The current version of the Windows logo is a refinement of a long time standard. The latter days of Windows version 3 saw the beginning of the abstraction of the logo from the real-world 4-paned casement window into a four-color block with a flag-like ripple. Win95 and 98 took the abstraction further with a pattern of black and colored blocks coalescing to form the logo, as views left to right; a tilt, a sky-with-clouds background and a lens flare on the upper left corner connoted dynamic energy and an excited flow into the future. The adoption of a clean, Helvetica-like font for the typography connoted precise engineering and design (putting whatever one's opinion of the actual product experience might be).
WinXP advanced the abstraction by removing the window fram altogether. The resulting flag retains the colors used so far for each of the panes and the tilted aspect, respecting the brand's past, the even-more-simplified representation speaks of sophistication through simplicity. The "Microsoft" corp name remains but its importance is diminished through hierarchy-Windows is what it's all about.
One of the most talked about product developments of late is the next generation Windows, fashionably and famously known by its developer codename of Longhorn (or, to its critics, Longwait, Long March, or just "Moo"). Earlier today the media showed reports of a Longhorn's new public face: it's marketing name and logo.
Windows Vista was announced on the Microsoft page with a view of a man and woman on a mountaintop looking into a wide vista composed of clouds and other mountaintops peeking through. The typography...which seems to be the same font used before...has been lightened for the main product name and even moreso for the product point-name, which I take as even more sophistication by simplification. The highlights on the flag have changed, from realistic ripples to a white flash in the middle which feathers out from the center. If the symbolism of that is unclear, at least it gets the attention on a subtle level, encouraging the user to keep thier eye out for Microsoft's Next Big Thing[tm]
20 July 2005
[geography] The Address Nerd on "Zero-Hundred" Addresses in the Portland Grid
NB: To the people who are coming here by way of some LJs and some Dreamwidth accounts, thanks for stopping by. I only thought this would be an obsession of my mind (and I AM obsessed by Portland geography – search "Address Nerd" for more if you care) but as it sometimes find the questions I ask myself frequently provide answers which answer other people's questions down the road at unpredictable times. I love the precision of a well-ordered street grid, but … Viva La Chaos!
A person, posting anonymously in my first posting in this ramble, asked the bollowing question:
The address landscape of Portland, it will be recalled, are defined by two things on the essential level: Burnside Street and the Willamette River. Now, Burnside Street is a nice, straight (well, except in the West Hills, but we can look past that for the sake of this particular conversation), obedient baseline.
The river is much less so. As soon as is passes north off Burnside, the Willamette swings wide and to the west, but all the streets continue in cardinal directions, requiring the establishment of a baseline avenue (N Williams Ave) which defines an area prefixed N.
South of the downtown area we have the sam situation, only less so. The Willamette runs close to N-S, but only just so-as you go south of the Marquam and Ross Island Bridges, the river actually tends to the east ever so slightly.
The catch is that the address grid is based on a bunch of straight lines that, ideally, are surveyed to run very close to N-S. Addresses on Streets west of the river decline toward zero as one goes toward the river, and achieve zero at Front Avenue (or, Naito Parkway).
Now, go to your maps. Find Naito Parkway downtown. It's right along the river there (to state the obvious and well-known), and runs in the same slanted direction as the other downtown streets to. Just south of the Hawthorne Bridge (coincidentally at the line of the old Lovejoy/Pettygrove Donation Land Claim on which the original city was founded), Naito Parkway doglegs and begins to run very close to cardinal N-S.
Extend this line south from the place where Naito merges into Barbur Boulevard to the County boundary, and you will find that this line will form the left side of a long sliver of territory with the Willamette River on the right. In this sliver of land are such notable areas as Riverplace, the new condo towers going up in the "South Waterfront" area, Johns Landing, Palatine Hill, and Riverdale. It was not split into its own district but kept with SW. One reaches zero at that line extended south from the end of Naito Parkway.
The solution to this dilemma was to start to increase addresses at 100 per standard block as one goes east, but add the number zero to the address in the most significant position. Why zero was chosen hasn't been recorded, at least as far as I'm aware or have been able to find, but it does nicely solve the problem and carries connotations of its own.
Perhaps the reason the zero was used was because the addresses were still southwest but lower than zero. Regardless, it preserves the identification of the area as SW and renders the definition of the area as a whole other direction (S, for instance) unnecessary.
The address Anonymous mentioned-0234 SW Bancroft St, which just so happens to be the address of the KXL radio studios-is perched on the hill overlooking Johns Landing, between SW Corbett Avenue and Kelly Avenue, three blocks west of where Naito Parkway would be. Naturally, the Avenues bear names-we already have numbered avenues in the southwest area.
Moving east from the zero address line, the avenues define the following blocks:
0100 - SW Water Ave (this is a hard street to find on a map)
0200 - SW Corbett Ave
0300 - SW Kelly Ave
0400- SW Hood Ave
0500 - SW Virginia Ave and SW Macadam Ave between Gibbs and Bancroft)
0600 - SW Moody Ave
0700 - SW Bond Ave
A valid address in the Johns Landing area along Pendleton between Hood and Virginia (very close to the traffic signal at the entrance to Willamette Park) would be 0423 SW Pendleton Street.
Avenues in the area carry through the north-south numbering trend and do not carry zeroes in front of thier house numbers. The address of the KEX studio (well, Clear Channel) is still 4949 SW Macadam Ave, not 04949.
There are Avenues in the Riverdale area that do not continue the names from the north but do continue the address pattern (the following is a guess on my part, based on reasoning from the map in the Thomas Guide):
0800 - SW Elysium Ave
0900 - SW Esquline Circus (yes, Circus. Neat, huh? Nice Roman influence.)
01000 - SW Frank Ave
01100 - SW Moapa Ave
01200 - SW Tryon Ave
01300 - SW Aventine Circus
01400 - SW Daphne Ave
01500 - SW Collima Ave
01600 - SW Hedlund Ave
01700 - SW Summerville Ave
After this the cardinal streets give out and the progression is more logical than physical. But I have heard of addresses on SW Military Road in the 02000-02300 range.
Altogether it's a nifty and innovative way of dealing with the necessities of ordering addresses along straight lines in a world where your divisions have the unmitigated gall of not following nice straight lines for you.
A person, posting anonymously in my first posting in this ramble, asked the bollowing question:
Ok - pop quizThis, my friends, is known as a Very Good Question. People in Johns Landing are very familiar with this.
if an address in Portland starts with a zero, what does it mean?
as in: 0234 SW Bancroft St.
Do you know why it starts with a zero?
The address landscape of Portland, it will be recalled, are defined by two things on the essential level: Burnside Street and the Willamette River. Now, Burnside Street is a nice, straight (well, except in the West Hills, but we can look past that for the sake of this particular conversation), obedient baseline.
The river is much less so. As soon as is passes north off Burnside, the Willamette swings wide and to the west, but all the streets continue in cardinal directions, requiring the establishment of a baseline avenue (N Williams Ave) which defines an area prefixed N.
South of the downtown area we have the sam situation, only less so. The Willamette runs close to N-S, but only just so-as you go south of the Marquam and Ross Island Bridges, the river actually tends to the east ever so slightly.
The catch is that the address grid is based on a bunch of straight lines that, ideally, are surveyed to run very close to N-S. Addresses on Streets west of the river decline toward zero as one goes toward the river, and achieve zero at Front Avenue (or, Naito Parkway).
Now, go to your maps. Find Naito Parkway downtown. It's right along the river there (to state the obvious and well-known), and runs in the same slanted direction as the other downtown streets to. Just south of the Hawthorne Bridge (coincidentally at the line of the old Lovejoy/Pettygrove Donation Land Claim on which the original city was founded), Naito Parkway doglegs and begins to run very close to cardinal N-S.
Extend this line south from the place where Naito merges into Barbur Boulevard to the County boundary, and you will find that this line will form the left side of a long sliver of territory with the Willamette River on the right. In this sliver of land are such notable areas as Riverplace, the new condo towers going up in the "South Waterfront" area, Johns Landing, Palatine Hill, and Riverdale. It was not split into its own district but kept with SW. One reaches zero at that line extended south from the end of Naito Parkway.
The solution to this dilemma was to start to increase addresses at 100 per standard block as one goes east, but add the number zero to the address in the most significant position. Why zero was chosen hasn't been recorded, at least as far as I'm aware or have been able to find, but it does nicely solve the problem and carries connotations of its own.
Perhaps the reason the zero was used was because the addresses were still southwest but lower than zero. Regardless, it preserves the identification of the area as SW and renders the definition of the area as a whole other direction (S, for instance) unnecessary.
The address Anonymous mentioned-0234 SW Bancroft St, which just so happens to be the address of the KXL radio studios-is perched on the hill overlooking Johns Landing, between SW Corbett Avenue and Kelly Avenue, three blocks west of where Naito Parkway would be. Naturally, the Avenues bear names-we already have numbered avenues in the southwest area.
Moving east from the zero address line, the avenues define the following blocks:
0100 - SW Water Ave (this is a hard street to find on a map)
0200 - SW Corbett Ave
0300 - SW Kelly Ave
0400- SW Hood Ave
0500 - SW Virginia Ave and SW Macadam Ave between Gibbs and Bancroft)
0600 - SW Moody Ave
0700 - SW Bond Ave
A valid address in the Johns Landing area along Pendleton between Hood and Virginia (very close to the traffic signal at the entrance to Willamette Park) would be 0423 SW Pendleton Street.
Avenues in the area carry through the north-south numbering trend and do not carry zeroes in front of thier house numbers. The address of the KEX studio (well, Clear Channel) is still 4949 SW Macadam Ave, not 04949.
There are Avenues in the Riverdale area that do not continue the names from the north but do continue the address pattern (the following is a guess on my part, based on reasoning from the map in the Thomas Guide):
0800 - SW Elysium Ave
0900 - SW Esquline Circus (yes, Circus. Neat, huh? Nice Roman influence.)
01000 - SW Frank Ave
01100 - SW Moapa Ave
01200 - SW Tryon Ave
01300 - SW Aventine Circus
01400 - SW Daphne Ave
01500 - SW Collima Ave
01600 - SW Hedlund Ave
01700 - SW Summerville Ave
After this the cardinal streets give out and the progression is more logical than physical. But I have heard of addresses on SW Military Road in the 02000-02300 range.
Altogether it's a nifty and innovative way of dealing with the necessities of ordering addresses along straight lines in a world where your divisions have the unmitigated gall of not following nice straight lines for you.
[cult_tv] And Scotty Too, Now...?
Like other aging sf geeks I noticed with sadness the passing of James Doohan. As I was aware he was in seriously declining health (remembering the videos of him being wheeled to and from his Walk-of-Fame Star's debut in a chair) it was not a surprise, but it is still regrettful.
I had a sort of a personal moment with Mr Doohan some years back. He showed up at one of those otherwise-dreadful "Creation" Star Trek Cons (Trek stars have always enthusiastically supported the fans who support them-I think that's one reason why Trek still remains mad wicked popular even with no show on the air or movie in development now) and he showed off his techno-slant. Doohan was always renowened as the most techologically-savvy of all the cast, and his words were fairly inspiring; while I don't remember what they were, the upshot is permananetly memorable-he thought nuclear power could be made safe and dependable, if only the bean-counters weren't running things. Good engineers freed to do good engineering, that was the thing.
I took two mimeo'd souvenirs we'd gotten at a dealers table-otherwise forgettable, a "Star Fleet Bartending Guide (yeah, right) and something else, and got in the signature line. I asked for them both to be signed, and he seemed a little annoyed (I still regret irritating him), but he signed them both.
Like I said, that's the way Trek stars are.
We still have them, tucked in my original-printing Star Fleet Technical Manual (a little careworn, but I saved my allowance to buy that book and I loved that thing!). I also have an early edition of the Star Trek Concordance... you know, the one with the dial built into the cover graphic that was a quick-locator to the contents. But I, as usual, digress.
I also recall Mr Doohan in a supporting role in the Knight Rider oeurve. Back about 1996 or 1997, I think it was, they capped the series off with a movie, Knight Rider 2000. It was about Michael Knight and KITT moving on in a world that didn't really need them until, of course, it did. For the interim, KITT's computer brain (and Cylon scanning eye) were housed in a '56 Chevy Bel-Air.
This left KITT a little impaired. He stunned a passerby who looked as though he was presenting a threat. That passerby turned out to be Doohan, playing himself.
"This is James Doohan", Knight enthused as he helped administer first aid to the stunned Doohan, who was repeating certain Scotty lines. "He played Scotty in the original series and all ten Star Trek movies!".
Indeed.
I had a sort of a personal moment with Mr Doohan some years back. He showed up at one of those otherwise-dreadful "Creation" Star Trek Cons (Trek stars have always enthusiastically supported the fans who support them-I think that's one reason why Trek still remains mad wicked popular even with no show on the air or movie in development now) and he showed off his techno-slant. Doohan was always renowened as the most techologically-savvy of all the cast, and his words were fairly inspiring; while I don't remember what they were, the upshot is permananetly memorable-he thought nuclear power could be made safe and dependable, if only the bean-counters weren't running things. Good engineers freed to do good engineering, that was the thing.
I took two mimeo'd souvenirs we'd gotten at a dealers table-otherwise forgettable, a "Star Fleet Bartending Guide (yeah, right) and something else, and got in the signature line. I asked for them both to be signed, and he seemed a little annoyed (I still regret irritating him), but he signed them both.
Like I said, that's the way Trek stars are.
We still have them, tucked in my original-printing Star Fleet Technical Manual (a little careworn, but I saved my allowance to buy that book and I loved that thing!). I also have an early edition of the Star Trek Concordance... you know, the one with the dial built into the cover graphic that was a quick-locator to the contents. But I, as usual, digress.
I also recall Mr Doohan in a supporting role in the Knight Rider oeurve. Back about 1996 or 1997, I think it was, they capped the series off with a movie, Knight Rider 2000. It was about Michael Knight and KITT moving on in a world that didn't really need them until, of course, it did. For the interim, KITT's computer brain (and Cylon scanning eye) were housed in a '56 Chevy Bel-Air.
This left KITT a little impaired. He stunned a passerby who looked as though he was presenting a threat. That passerby turned out to be Doohan, playing himself.
"This is James Doohan", Knight enthused as he helped administer first aid to the stunned Doohan, who was repeating certain Scotty lines. "He played Scotty in the original series and all ten Star Trek movies!".
Indeed.
18 July 2005
[cult_tv] The Passing Of Commander Straker and Colonel Foster of SHADO
(Editor's Note: The following is a combination of recently declassified publicly-released information passed to me by a correspondent who would prefer to remain anonymous. No information sensitive to any nation's or planetary security has been included. I extend my public appreciation to this confidential source)
I'd like to take a moment to salute the passing of two genuine heroes: Commander Ed Straker and Colonel David Foster of Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defense Organisation, or SHADO.
They passed away within a few days of each other: Col. Foster on 3 June 2005, after a battle with cancer (aged 63), and Cdr. Straker on 8 June 2005, due to an infection resulting from surgical complications (aged 72). I must apologize for the delay, as declassification of documents and records from SHADO is an ongoing process and much of the story of those troubled times during the late 1970's and early 1980's remain to be told.
The basics are known to just about everyone. Originally broadcast as a single-season-length's British television series, the docudrama UFO detailed the struggle of a group of dedicated men and women to defend all the nations of the earth from a stealth extraterrestrial invasion.
Little is still known about these ETs, and sightings of their ships are still regarded as the disturbed visions of an unstable few. Perhaps it is the gruesome apparent motivation of the ETs-who abducted Terrans in order to transplant human body parts into thier own-that compels people to continue to believe that this invasion was nothing more than a one-off mid-budget series by the artistic team (Gerry and Sylvia Anderson) who was responsible for such lights of children's series such as The Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterions.
Perhaps then it was the cover under which SHADO operated that guaranteed this disconnect. During SHADO's most intense period of operation, the organisation was camouflaged by its public face, an English film production outfit based in London called Harlington-Straker Studios, which was mainly involved in producing mid-quality, largely forgettable (and forgotten) dramas for the British television audience (there is no record of a HSS production ever being screened in America). Even in this day when people can be easily convinced to believe absurd things, what is seen on the small screen can be written off to fiction if found to be sufficiently disturbing-something portrayed as a film production in its own right, doubly-so.
Therefore, even though many details of SHADO's operation, the film set, the headquarters, and Moonbase are public record, there are still those who find necessary comfort in denying the concrete evidence. Looked at from another angle-the continuation of normal lives in the face of a bizarre and lethal invasion-the operation of SHADO can be seen to be a remarkable success.
The casting of this enterprise as a film production company did have a fortunate side-effect: the creation of a second career for these military men as popular actors. As actor Ed Bishop, Cdr. Straker (who was originally a USAF officer) forged a successful supporting-character career in the British market, where American accents (his actor's bio has him being born in New York and studying university in Boston Massachusettes) are in demand. Ironically, he played the lead voice in the Anderson production Captain Scarlet as well as a supporting role in the 1969 Anderson science-fiction drama Doppelgänger (released in America as Journey to the Far Side Of The Sun, starring Roy Thinnes) and, perhaps most famously as the Aries-1B lunar ship pilot, a non-speaking part, in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 epic 2001:A Space Odyssey. As actor Michael Billington, Col. Foster became a mainstay in British television and drama, most famously as Daniel Fogarty in The Onedin Line (1971-1974).
The creation of second lives for Straker and Foster gave them prosperity beyond the deactivation of SHADO, which happened sometime in the late 1980s after the ET threat had been abated. Foster (as Billington) wrote for and acted in television, and Straker (as Bishop) played supporting roles in TV and movies until 2001. His voice was still in high demand for radio. Both played supporting roles in James Bond films, with Billington a perennial contender for the part of 007.
In sacrificing thier careers, families, and in some cases, lives, in defending all the earth from the ET menace, Straker and Foster deserve our deepest gratitude and respectful memory. In living they showed us how to live, and in death they stand as examples to everyone who is interested in freedom from threat.
(Editor's Note: if you're wondering if I'm going to be nerding out on addresses in the near future, the answer is yes.)
I'd like to take a moment to salute the passing of two genuine heroes: Commander Ed Straker and Colonel David Foster of Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defense Organisation, or SHADO.
They passed away within a few days of each other: Col. Foster on 3 June 2005, after a battle with cancer (aged 63), and Cdr. Straker on 8 June 2005, due to an infection resulting from surgical complications (aged 72). I must apologize for the delay, as declassification of documents and records from SHADO is an ongoing process and much of the story of those troubled times during the late 1970's and early 1980's remain to be told.
The basics are known to just about everyone. Originally broadcast as a single-season-length's British television series, the docudrama UFO detailed the struggle of a group of dedicated men and women to defend all the nations of the earth from a stealth extraterrestrial invasion.
Little is still known about these ETs, and sightings of their ships are still regarded as the disturbed visions of an unstable few. Perhaps it is the gruesome apparent motivation of the ETs-who abducted Terrans in order to transplant human body parts into thier own-that compels people to continue to believe that this invasion was nothing more than a one-off mid-budget series by the artistic team (Gerry and Sylvia Anderson) who was responsible for such lights of children's series such as The Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterions.
Perhaps then it was the cover under which SHADO operated that guaranteed this disconnect. During SHADO's most intense period of operation, the organisation was camouflaged by its public face, an English film production outfit based in London called Harlington-Straker Studios, which was mainly involved in producing mid-quality, largely forgettable (and forgotten) dramas for the British television audience (there is no record of a HSS production ever being screened in America). Even in this day when people can be easily convinced to believe absurd things, what is seen on the small screen can be written off to fiction if found to be sufficiently disturbing-something portrayed as a film production in its own right, doubly-so.
Therefore, even though many details of SHADO's operation, the film set, the headquarters, and Moonbase are public record, there are still those who find necessary comfort in denying the concrete evidence. Looked at from another angle-the continuation of normal lives in the face of a bizarre and lethal invasion-the operation of SHADO can be seen to be a remarkable success.
The casting of this enterprise as a film production company did have a fortunate side-effect: the creation of a second career for these military men as popular actors. As actor Ed Bishop, Cdr. Straker (who was originally a USAF officer) forged a successful supporting-character career in the British market, where American accents (his actor's bio has him being born in New York and studying university in Boston Massachusettes) are in demand. Ironically, he played the lead voice in the Anderson production Captain Scarlet as well as a supporting role in the 1969 Anderson science-fiction drama Doppelgänger (released in America as Journey to the Far Side Of The Sun, starring Roy Thinnes) and, perhaps most famously as the Aries-1B lunar ship pilot, a non-speaking part, in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 epic 2001:A Space Odyssey. As actor Michael Billington, Col. Foster became a mainstay in British television and drama, most famously as Daniel Fogarty in The Onedin Line (1971-1974).
The creation of second lives for Straker and Foster gave them prosperity beyond the deactivation of SHADO, which happened sometime in the late 1980s after the ET threat had been abated. Foster (as Billington) wrote for and acted in television, and Straker (as Bishop) played supporting roles in TV and movies until 2001. His voice was still in high demand for radio. Both played supporting roles in James Bond films, with Billington a perennial contender for the part of 007.
In sacrificing thier careers, families, and in some cases, lives, in defending all the earth from the ET menace, Straker and Foster deserve our deepest gratitude and respectful memory. In living they showed us how to live, and in death they stand as examples to everyone who is interested in freedom from threat.
(Editor's Note: if you're wondering if I'm going to be nerding out on addresses in the near future, the answer is yes.)
17 July 2005
[sundial_life] In Praise of Gray Cats
There are two worlds. Before the loss of unsere Hauptkatze, the Keeeton world. Now, the post-Keeeton world
I know you're really not supposed to mourn a beloved pet this long. It's been-what, most of a year?-but me and The Wife[tm] occaisionally meditiate and get a little weepy-eyed about the things Keeeton would do, the poise and almost-unearthly wisdom and presence of a gray-and-white street kitty who lived with us for 18 years.
That, my friends, was a hell of a cat.
A few days back The Wife[tm] emailed me the following link. The kitty is just about the spitting image of Keeeton, though Keeeton broke more toward the Chartreuse breed while Bink is clearly closer to the Russian Blue.
But it's almost as though that gray-and-white kitty were back, looking at me.
Bink and Keeeton both share another attribute; Bink has also passed along, after a long, full, happy life with his people.
Clicky thee here and catch the fuzzy cute power of Bink.
I know you're really not supposed to mourn a beloved pet this long. It's been-what, most of a year?-but me and The Wife[tm] occaisionally meditiate and get a little weepy-eyed about the things Keeeton would do, the poise and almost-unearthly wisdom and presence of a gray-and-white street kitty who lived with us for 18 years.
That, my friends, was a hell of a cat.
A few days back The Wife[tm] emailed me the following link. The kitty is just about the spitting image of Keeeton, though Keeeton broke more toward the Chartreuse breed while Bink is clearly closer to the Russian Blue.
But it's almost as though that gray-and-white kitty were back, looking at me.
Bink and Keeeton both share another attribute; Bink has also passed along, after a long, full, happy life with his people.
Clicky thee here and catch the fuzzy cute power of Bink.
15 July 2005
[net_life] I have Gmail Invites
I currently have a stock on 50 Gmail invites. If you've ever wanted to have a free Gmail account, with over 2 Gigabytes of online email storage (which also works niftily for storing big files, and which has people working on hacks such as Linux filesystems running in thier Gmail account), it's easy to get one; just follow up to this message.
Gmail is still in beta as of this writing, and currently, the only way to get an account is to have someone invite you.
Gmail is still in beta as of this writing, and currently, the only way to get an account is to have someone invite you.
[pdx_life] Y Kant Diane Linn Read, or Is Our Commissioners Learning?
Question for the audience: If I pretend that Diane Linn not getting the new Blazers head coach's last name is really really important, can we all please move on from it?
I'm sorry, I can't do fake sincerity on this issue, because I really don't give a damn about it. But I promis I'll work hard to pretend.
I mean, won't someone think of the children?
I'm sorry, I can't do fake sincerity on this issue, because I really don't give a damn about it. But I promis I'll work hard to pretend.
I mean, won't someone think of the children?
13 July 2005
[geography] The Address Nerd On New Street Names and Addresses in Washington County, and That County in General
Hello, everyone...and welcome back.
Before I get underway this time, I'd like to tip my hat to two commenters. First, Schlockstar at Stumptown Confidential, a fun place that posts what he can find of Portland going back through time in pictures, ads, and postcards. I check over there occaisionally because whatever he finds is always good. Also, J.D. at foldedspace.org, thanks for the comment.
To be honest, this isn't really a series (tho it's turning out to be one) and I'm really writing these because it's kind of an obsession with me. Also, this is the sort of blab I've always wanted to see somebody write about this somewhat dreary topic, and I got tired of waiting for someone else to do it.
The only thing I can't add, alas, is insight and reasoning-or, in many cases, when the decision was made, what caused it, and why one system predominates over the others. Why this all is the way it is is the primary animating questions-addresses aren't natural but arbritrary, but once imposed and adopted they shape our perceptions just as much as any lake or river or hill. I don't limit it to saying I'm a Portlander, but usually a Southeast Portlander, and most of all I say that I like living in SE. It seems to have a different character than NE, N, NW, or SW...which has a different character than anywhere else!
All that said, on with the show. This time, we'll take a look at Washington County.
Washington County In General
It's that county on the West Side...that place we think of (in metaterms) when we think of Hillsboro, Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin, et. al.. It's home to several of Oregon's larger towns as well as some of the most prodigiously-growing (Sherwood, to state a case).
The greater Washington County address system, however, emanates from the intersection of Burnside Street and the Willamette-an extension of the greater Portland system. All county-gridded addresses in Washington Co. are either NW or SW, but the dividing line isn't obvious. No street has ever been laid out along it.
Remember the discussion on of the Public Lands Survey in the bit about eastside addresses? Well, here it rears its head once again. Take your handy-dandy map of Portland (what? you don't have a map? Well, MapQuest it...if you absolutely must...) and locate West Burnside Street in Portland. Follow it westward until you get to the Burnside/Barnes and NW Skyline Fork, up at the Calvary Memorial Cemetery. Look just a little to the left of that, and you'll see a 90-degree angle formed by the boundary of Multomah and Washington Counties.
This is the location of the lodestone of surveying in Oregon and Washington, a monument called the Willamette Stone. Many years ago, when the Public Survey for this region was proposed, they had to figure out some place to put the starting point. Usually notable landmarks were used to augur into a likely place. Based on info from a geography class I took this last year and an article I read a long time ago and cannot locate, this point was chosen so as to be due south of the mouth of the Willamette River, and far enough south so that the Base Line wouldn't recross of wind up in the middle of the Columbia River as both moved east.
They got it mostly correct, though the Stone's actual location is a little west of the mouth of the Willamette. It can be visited. There is a very tiny state park, Willamette Stone State Park, surrounding it. It's accessed from an easily-missed gravel turnout just up NW Skyline Blvd from where West Burnside Road splits and goes downhill to become SW Barnes Road, and a stone's throw from Saint Vincent's Hospital. It's a rather steep trail, which leads one to be amazed at the kind of travail it took to get out there when the roads weren't so good yet.
Moving on from that digression, we go back to our map. Starting from that right-angle, draw a line, a straight one, directly west, from one side of the county to the other. And that's it. That's your NW-SW dividing line, and basis for all Washington County addresses-20 standard blocks to the mile, just like on the east side.
The major problem to the casual direction-finder is that the division is barely obvious at the best. One has to keep an eye on the addresses they're seeing to know if they've gone from NW to SW. A good eye on the street signs helps, of course.
Officially the street that divides NW from SW is West Stark Street. This is a name extension from SW Stark Street in Portland. Why not West Burnside? The reason for the decision may never have been recorded. Presumably it was based on the geographical novelty of the way Portland's downtown south of Burnside stays at an angle, colliding with the more cardinally-oriented north end, resulting in parallelogram and triangle blocks and the disappearance of Ankeny, Pine, Oak, and Stark Streets before you get to I-405, combined with the way Burnside Road itself falls well off the grid pattern before it crosses into Washington County and changes it's name to Barnes Road.
Disappointingly, West Stark Street only exists in a couple of places: the Thomas Guide shows Stark Street running from Miller Road to Leahy Road (north of St. Vincent's and Catlin Gabel School) and just a bit crossing Barnes Road west of Cedar Hills Blvd but just before you get to the Saltzman Rd/Cornell Rd cross (Barnes Road obediently changing its directional from SW to NW as it crosses). West of that there's no real obvious dividing line until you get to West Baseline Road (which starts near SW 158th and Walker Road as SW Baseline Road, straggles south of the Base Line for a few miles, then lines up as it enters Hillsboro on the east and leaves it on the west).
-------Update as of 13 July 2005, 0045--------
A trip to an SCA meeting in Hillsboro gave me a chance to look over some street names. I was incorrect about West Baseline Road being prefixed SW at any point: it is signed W Baseline Road from it's origin at SW 158th Ave all the way. The name does change to East Main Street, part of HIllsboro's system, but not until the new intersection at Brookwood Parkway. County house numbering applies until that intersection as well. I presume that the ongoing east-Hillsboro street name and address resynch will fix this, but that remains to be seen (the resynch scheme is mentioned further on in this post).
-------End Update Text---------
Murray Blvd goes from SW to NW about three blocks south of the Sunset Highway; the nearest cross is NW Todd Street. 158th Avenue changes from SW to NW coincidentally where it crosses Walker Road, which also swaps SW for NW), and NW 185th becomes SW 185th between Heritage Parkway and SW Salix Terrace, just north of where MAX crosses. There used to be another segment of West Stark off that part of 185th, but it seems to have been obliterated. It's not shown up on maps for a while.
It is usually helpful to have a map handy when making your way across mid-Washington county. I'd certainly suggest it.
Many of the cities of the County have elected, apparently, to forgo thier own internal addressing scheme in favor of the County metagrid. Central Beaverton has elected to retain historical names for it's numbered cross streets, which means the addresses along, for instance, SW Hall Blvd between SW 1st and SW 2nd Streets (the numbereds are streets, since they run e-w) is something like in the 4600s rather than the 100s, as one would otherwise expect). Presumably this is in order to facilitate 911 emergency dispatch amongst the County's many adjacent jurisdictions.
A few cities...Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Cornelius, and Sherwood...have opted to have thier own internal street naming and addressing. But there are changes afoot, in Hillsboro and Sherwood.
Changes afoot in Hillsboro and Sherwood
These two jurisdictions have gone thier own way, address-wise, for many years. Hillsboro is in the act of extending thier reach, whilst Sherwood, quite in opposite, joining the County metagrid.
In the case of Hillsboro, the county seat, great growth, both annexation and development, has taken place in the area between the County Fairgrounds and Cornelius Pass Road, and south from Cornell Road to Tualatin Valley Highway, in the last 10 or 15 years.
Hillsboro is laid out in a familiar four-quarter grid. 1st Avenue and Glencoe Road break it east and west, and Main Street (and West Baseline Road) break it north and south, resulting in the by now familiar NE/SE/NW/SW pattern. Annexation in the direction of Cornelius Pass Road (which historically was SW219th Avenue before the realignment at the Baseline Road intersection some time back) and Reedville has resulted in a patchwork of city-county land; new development in the incorporated areas have benn assigned City-based street names and addresses, resulting in a address quilt even crazier than the city-county one.
Street names really mix it up here. Along SW Drake Lane, there is a cross street of SE 54th Avenue but SW 239th just a few blocks down. The intersction of SW 239th Avenue and SW Frances Street is very close to the intersection of SE Golden Rd and SE 56th Ct... and SE Golden Rd crosses SW 239th.
To the end of solving this problem, Hillsboro is synchronizing this area with its own well established grid. The information is available at this web page. Included are some nifty PDFs of the first stage of the project, which concerns the area called Reedville, which is mostly around the intersection of what we today call SW Cornelius Pass Road and SW Tualatin Valley Highway.
Sherwood is going the other way. For years, the older parts of Sherwood-the old city center (Sherwood Old Town) and the areas south and east of the railroad-adhered to a familiar quadrant pattern, divided east-west by North and South Sherwood Blvd and Pine Street, and north-south by West Villa Rd, Railroad Street, and Oregon Street. All this with low-magnitude, 3 and 4 digit house numbers to match, surrounded by the County grid of five-digit house numbers.
As new development has occurred on the north and west sides of Sherwood, those new developments have been assigned street names and addresses conforming to the County grid. Along with growth has come the attendant confusion amongst address finders and government service providers.
As a result, Sherwood is now also in the midst of a staged plan to synchronize the new with the old, but they are discarding thier old system in favor of county-addressing throughout the city. Old two and three digit addresses are to be jettisoned in favor of five-digit county addresses, and presumbly all directionals will become SW. The Sherwood plan is detailed here, complete with a PDF that details the conversion areas and sequence. No idea of what each address with be just yet, though
Just so long as they don't change the name of my favorite Sherwood street: SE (soon to be SW) G&T Drive.
Yes, that's a real street name.
Before I get underway this time, I'd like to tip my hat to two commenters. First, Schlockstar at Stumptown Confidential, a fun place that posts what he can find of Portland going back through time in pictures, ads, and postcards. I check over there occaisionally because whatever he finds is always good. Also, J.D. at foldedspace.org, thanks for the comment.
To be honest, this isn't really a series (tho it's turning out to be one) and I'm really writing these because it's kind of an obsession with me. Also, this is the sort of blab I've always wanted to see somebody write about this somewhat dreary topic, and I got tired of waiting for someone else to do it.
The only thing I can't add, alas, is insight and reasoning-or, in many cases, when the decision was made, what caused it, and why one system predominates over the others. Why this all is the way it is is the primary animating questions-addresses aren't natural but arbritrary, but once imposed and adopted they shape our perceptions just as much as any lake or river or hill. I don't limit it to saying I'm a Portlander, but usually a Southeast Portlander, and most of all I say that I like living in SE. It seems to have a different character than NE, N, NW, or SW...which has a different character than anywhere else!
All that said, on with the show. This time, we'll take a look at Washington County.
Washington County In General
It's that county on the West Side...that place we think of (in metaterms) when we think of Hillsboro, Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin, et. al.. It's home to several of Oregon's larger towns as well as some of the most prodigiously-growing (Sherwood, to state a case).
The greater Washington County address system, however, emanates from the intersection of Burnside Street and the Willamette-an extension of the greater Portland system. All county-gridded addresses in Washington Co. are either NW or SW, but the dividing line isn't obvious. No street has ever been laid out along it.
Remember the discussion on of the Public Lands Survey in the bit about eastside addresses? Well, here it rears its head once again. Take your handy-dandy map of Portland (what? you don't have a map? Well, MapQuest it...if you absolutely must...) and locate West Burnside Street in Portland. Follow it westward until you get to the Burnside/Barnes and NW Skyline Fork, up at the Calvary Memorial Cemetery. Look just a little to the left of that, and you'll see a 90-degree angle formed by the boundary of Multomah and Washington Counties.
This is the location of the lodestone of surveying in Oregon and Washington, a monument called the Willamette Stone. Many years ago, when the Public Survey for this region was proposed, they had to figure out some place to put the starting point. Usually notable landmarks were used to augur into a likely place. Based on info from a geography class I took this last year and an article I read a long time ago and cannot locate, this point was chosen so as to be due south of the mouth of the Willamette River, and far enough south so that the Base Line wouldn't recross of wind up in the middle of the Columbia River as both moved east.
They got it mostly correct, though the Stone's actual location is a little west of the mouth of the Willamette. It can be visited. There is a very tiny state park, Willamette Stone State Park, surrounding it. It's accessed from an easily-missed gravel turnout just up NW Skyline Blvd from where West Burnside Road splits and goes downhill to become SW Barnes Road, and a stone's throw from Saint Vincent's Hospital. It's a rather steep trail, which leads one to be amazed at the kind of travail it took to get out there when the roads weren't so good yet.
Moving on from that digression, we go back to our map. Starting from that right-angle, draw a line, a straight one, directly west, from one side of the county to the other. And that's it. That's your NW-SW dividing line, and basis for all Washington County addresses-20 standard blocks to the mile, just like on the east side.
The major problem to the casual direction-finder is that the division is barely obvious at the best. One has to keep an eye on the addresses they're seeing to know if they've gone from NW to SW. A good eye on the street signs helps, of course.
Officially the street that divides NW from SW is West Stark Street. This is a name extension from SW Stark Street in Portland. Why not West Burnside? The reason for the decision may never have been recorded. Presumably it was based on the geographical novelty of the way Portland's downtown south of Burnside stays at an angle, colliding with the more cardinally-oriented north end, resulting in parallelogram and triangle blocks and the disappearance of Ankeny, Pine, Oak, and Stark Streets before you get to I-405, combined with the way Burnside Road itself falls well off the grid pattern before it crosses into Washington County and changes it's name to Barnes Road.
Disappointingly, West Stark Street only exists in a couple of places: the Thomas Guide shows Stark Street running from Miller Road to Leahy Road (north of St. Vincent's and Catlin Gabel School) and just a bit crossing Barnes Road west of Cedar Hills Blvd but just before you get to the Saltzman Rd/Cornell Rd cross (Barnes Road obediently changing its directional from SW to NW as it crosses). West of that there's no real obvious dividing line until you get to West Baseline Road (which starts near SW 158th and Walker Road as SW Baseline Road, straggles south of the Base Line for a few miles, then lines up as it enters Hillsboro on the east and leaves it on the west).
-------Update as of 13 July 2005, 0045--------
A trip to an SCA meeting in Hillsboro gave me a chance to look over some street names. I was incorrect about West Baseline Road being prefixed SW at any point: it is signed W Baseline Road from it's origin at SW 158th Ave all the way. The name does change to East Main Street, part of HIllsboro's system, but not until the new intersection at Brookwood Parkway. County house numbering applies until that intersection as well. I presume that the ongoing east-Hillsboro street name and address resynch will fix this, but that remains to be seen (the resynch scheme is mentioned further on in this post).
-------End Update Text---------
Murray Blvd goes from SW to NW about three blocks south of the Sunset Highway; the nearest cross is NW Todd Street. 158th Avenue changes from SW to NW coincidentally where it crosses Walker Road, which also swaps SW for NW), and NW 185th becomes SW 185th between Heritage Parkway and SW Salix Terrace, just north of where MAX crosses. There used to be another segment of West Stark off that part of 185th, but it seems to have been obliterated. It's not shown up on maps for a while.
It is usually helpful to have a map handy when making your way across mid-Washington county. I'd certainly suggest it.
Many of the cities of the County have elected, apparently, to forgo thier own internal addressing scheme in favor of the County metagrid. Central Beaverton has elected to retain historical names for it's numbered cross streets, which means the addresses along, for instance, SW Hall Blvd between SW 1st and SW 2nd Streets (the numbereds are streets, since they run e-w) is something like in the 4600s rather than the 100s, as one would otherwise expect). Presumably this is in order to facilitate 911 emergency dispatch amongst the County's many adjacent jurisdictions.
A few cities...Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Cornelius, and Sherwood...have opted to have thier own internal street naming and addressing. But there are changes afoot, in Hillsboro and Sherwood.
Changes afoot in Hillsboro and Sherwood
These two jurisdictions have gone thier own way, address-wise, for many years. Hillsboro is in the act of extending thier reach, whilst Sherwood, quite in opposite, joining the County metagrid.
In the case of Hillsboro, the county seat, great growth, both annexation and development, has taken place in the area between the County Fairgrounds and Cornelius Pass Road, and south from Cornell Road to Tualatin Valley Highway, in the last 10 or 15 years.
Hillsboro is laid out in a familiar four-quarter grid. 1st Avenue and Glencoe Road break it east and west, and Main Street (and West Baseline Road) break it north and south, resulting in the by now familiar NE/SE/NW/SW pattern. Annexation in the direction of Cornelius Pass Road (which historically was SW219th Avenue before the realignment at the Baseline Road intersection some time back) and Reedville has resulted in a patchwork of city-county land; new development in the incorporated areas have benn assigned City-based street names and addresses, resulting in a address quilt even crazier than the city-county one.
Street names really mix it up here. Along SW Drake Lane, there is a cross street of SE 54th Avenue but SW 239th just a few blocks down. The intersction of SW 239th Avenue and SW Frances Street is very close to the intersection of SE Golden Rd and SE 56th Ct... and SE Golden Rd crosses SW 239th.
To the end of solving this problem, Hillsboro is synchronizing this area with its own well established grid. The information is available at this web page. Included are some nifty PDFs of the first stage of the project, which concerns the area called Reedville, which is mostly around the intersection of what we today call SW Cornelius Pass Road and SW Tualatin Valley Highway.
Sherwood is going the other way. For years, the older parts of Sherwood-the old city center (Sherwood Old Town) and the areas south and east of the railroad-adhered to a familiar quadrant pattern, divided east-west by North and South Sherwood Blvd and Pine Street, and north-south by West Villa Rd, Railroad Street, and Oregon Street. All this with low-magnitude, 3 and 4 digit house numbers to match, surrounded by the County grid of five-digit house numbers.
As new development has occurred on the north and west sides of Sherwood, those new developments have been assigned street names and addresses conforming to the County grid. Along with growth has come the attendant confusion amongst address finders and government service providers.
As a result, Sherwood is now also in the midst of a staged plan to synchronize the new with the old, but they are discarding thier old system in favor of county-addressing throughout the city. Old two and three digit addresses are to be jettisoned in favor of five-digit county addresses, and presumbly all directionals will become SW. The Sherwood plan is detailed here, complete with a PDF that details the conversion areas and sequence. No idea of what each address with be just yet, though
Just so long as they don't change the name of my favorite Sherwood street: SE (soon to be SW) G&T Drive.
Yes, that's a real street name.
11 July 2005
[geography] The Address Nerd on Marion County, Oregon
A couple of Google hits on this chronicle have come up positive for "Marion County" and "Street name system". Marion County, Oregon is where I came into this world, so I spent a good deal of time looking at and wondering about addresses where I was growing up, so, while I don't have any reasons why things are the way they are there, I have many observations.
Here they are.
In Marion County (and adjoining Polk County on the west), all addresses radiate out from the center of Salem. Specfically this origin can be taken where State Street meets the Willamette River. The West Salem (and by extension, Polk County) area have addresses based on the way West Salem began, as a city in its own right, and whose logical origin is geographically quite close (literally, just across the river) from the east side origin.
So, for Polk-side addresses, the correspondence is not precise as you cross the river, but it is close enough that for the Salem westsider, addresses all decrease as you move toward the center of Salem as well.
Perhaps due to the way the city grew-somewhat governed by local geography, and without the huge development spurt that resulted in the gridiron-regular march of streets and avenues in eastern Portland. Salem streetscape has many different textures. The original city grids, downtown, are famous for 99-foot wide streets (necessitated, legend says, by the amount of space needed for a ox-team to execute a u-turn, reflecting Salem's history as a local break point for agricultural shipping).
Look at a good map of Salem, though, and it's the regularity and size of the blocks, in the center defined by the Willamette, Mission Street, 12th Street, and Union/Division Street, that jump out. They're big. They work out to around 500 feet square (compare with Portland's 200 foot square), and, with the street widths, the distance between street centerlines is very close to 1/10th of a mile.
Adjacent to the central core is a mantle of secondary development, which probably happened about the same time such areas as Laurelhurst and Ladd's Addition and the middle and outer eastside Portland areas were born. They reflect a desire to orient to cardinal points, perhaps for the convenience of surveying, and the relatively flat character of the adjacent area. The standard 10-per mile block pattern breaks down pretty quickly outside of the center, the blocks shrink, street spacing becomes uneven. Numbered streets, parallel to the river, don't start until you leave the central core, with 12th Street.
A third ring of development, dating from roughly the 1960s-70s to the present day, fill in the rest of the area out to the Urban Growth Boundary. These are the closest thing Salem has to suburbs, traditional tracts, split between the city of Salem, the city of Keizer, and still-unannexed county land.
The south Salem area (usually just called "out South" when I was growing up) seems apart, in a way. The main route out from center city is Commercial Street, which goes through a gridiron neighborhood as it climbs the hill but as it gets to the top, Commercial Street breaks east, Liberty Road breaks west, and the regular pattern gives out entirely. Commercial and Liberty forms a wishbone-like backbone to growth whilst cross-streets (Browning, Madrona, Vista, Boone Road, and latterly, Kuebler Blvd) provide access to the in-between area.
Perhaps due to this dendritic and irregular spread from the center, Salem's address grid isn't regular and predictable, as Portland's is. Altogether, the Willamette, State Street, Commercial Street SE River Road North, and Liberty Road South divide Salem into five directional areas, from the top going clockwise:
North: between the Willamette and River Road N. Suffix N.
Northeast: East of River Road N and the River, north of State Street. Suffix NE.
Southeast: East of a line formed by the Willamette River, Commercial Street SE, Liberty Road South, and (if you go far enough out) Sydney Road S. Suffix SE.
Northwest: The area on the right bank of the Willamette, commonly referred to as West Salem. The river doglegs at downtown Salem forming a reverse-L, providing a southern limit as well as an eastern limit.
Commercial Street is SE while serving as the S-SE interface, and Liberty Road is S when in that role. River Road North is formed when Commercial and Liberty Streets NE merge at the north end of Salem but the North suffix begins (as one is going north) at a minor side street called Stark Street N, which is adjacent to where Broadway St NE ends at River Road-just north of the North Salem Fred Meyer.
State Street is traditionally the hard boundary line betwen north and south Salem, and has traditionally carried no prefix or suffix, though logically would be State Street E. On recent trips to Salem I've spotted "State Street NE" on signs on the north side of the street, with "State Street SE" on the south side. I don't know if that's definitive-but I'd just as soon they'd leave it the way it was.
There is, strictly speaking, no Southwest. There is an area, south of Highway 22 (which forms an effective baseline after the river turns south at Eola Bend) that would suffice as SW, but the directional system has never applied out that far (or west of 55th Avenue NW) so, though the address pattern continues, the directional suffixes no longer apply as you move west into Polk County.
The format of Salem street names-directionals as suffixes-have given Salem addresses a particular and distinctive flavor. Long ago, before I became a permanent Portlander, I did a bit of business in Portland and, the vendor, noting my address, guessed correctly that I lived in Salem. All directionals in Salem and Greater Salem are suffixes: Commercial Street NE, 19th Street SE, 21st Ave S, Chemawa Rd N, Wallace Rd NW. The only other town in the valley with the same trend is Albany, which has actually had a compass-quarter directional system for years but which has only had painfully gradual acceptance and public use.
After you leave the city, addresses come 10 standard blocks to the mile. That's why it seems to take so long to get anywhere out there; as you approach Silverton on Silverton Road NE, the addresses are only in the 12500 range. Compare that to Multnomah County, where one is already well into the 20000s by the time one gets out to Gresham, which is about as far from Portland as Silverton is from Salem.
There is a lot more country in Marion County than around these parts. That contributes to the feeling of the Long Drive from city to city.
Street names in the county area do follow a sort of pattern, though they are spread so far out it's not immediately apparent. From the State Street base, e-w streets conform to a very loose alphabetical pattern, going up from A north and south. NE Streets seem to be named after flora (with a few exceptions for local pioneer families) and nouns and proper names in the SE. Numbered avenues cross them, going n-s, in a pattern that is continued from the urban area, though numbereds in town are termed "streets". Though they are named differently, they are still an extension of the numbered sequence begun with 12th.
Here they are.
In Marion County (and adjoining Polk County on the west), all addresses radiate out from the center of Salem. Specfically this origin can be taken where State Street meets the Willamette River. The West Salem (and by extension, Polk County) area have addresses based on the way West Salem began, as a city in its own right, and whose logical origin is geographically quite close (literally, just across the river) from the east side origin.
So, for Polk-side addresses, the correspondence is not precise as you cross the river, but it is close enough that for the Salem westsider, addresses all decrease as you move toward the center of Salem as well.
Perhaps due to the way the city grew-somewhat governed by local geography, and without the huge development spurt that resulted in the gridiron-regular march of streets and avenues in eastern Portland. Salem streetscape has many different textures. The original city grids, downtown, are famous for 99-foot wide streets (necessitated, legend says, by the amount of space needed for a ox-team to execute a u-turn, reflecting Salem's history as a local break point for agricultural shipping).
Look at a good map of Salem, though, and it's the regularity and size of the blocks, in the center defined by the Willamette, Mission Street, 12th Street, and Union/Division Street, that jump out. They're big. They work out to around 500 feet square (compare with Portland's 200 foot square), and, with the street widths, the distance between street centerlines is very close to 1/10th of a mile.
Adjacent to the central core is a mantle of secondary development, which probably happened about the same time such areas as Laurelhurst and Ladd's Addition and the middle and outer eastside Portland areas were born. They reflect a desire to orient to cardinal points, perhaps for the convenience of surveying, and the relatively flat character of the adjacent area. The standard 10-per mile block pattern breaks down pretty quickly outside of the center, the blocks shrink, street spacing becomes uneven. Numbered streets, parallel to the river, don't start until you leave the central core, with 12th Street.
A third ring of development, dating from roughly the 1960s-70s to the present day, fill in the rest of the area out to the Urban Growth Boundary. These are the closest thing Salem has to suburbs, traditional tracts, split between the city of Salem, the city of Keizer, and still-unannexed county land.
The south Salem area (usually just called "out South" when I was growing up) seems apart, in a way. The main route out from center city is Commercial Street, which goes through a gridiron neighborhood as it climbs the hill but as it gets to the top, Commercial Street breaks east, Liberty Road breaks west, and the regular pattern gives out entirely. Commercial and Liberty forms a wishbone-like backbone to growth whilst cross-streets (Browning, Madrona, Vista, Boone Road, and latterly, Kuebler Blvd) provide access to the in-between area.
Perhaps due to this dendritic and irregular spread from the center, Salem's address grid isn't regular and predictable, as Portland's is. Altogether, the Willamette, State Street, Commercial Street SE River Road North, and Liberty Road South divide Salem into five directional areas, from the top going clockwise:
North: between the Willamette and River Road N. Suffix N.
Northeast: East of River Road N and the River, north of State Street. Suffix NE.
Southeast: East of a line formed by the Willamette River, Commercial Street SE, Liberty Road South, and (if you go far enough out) Sydney Road S. Suffix SE.
Northwest: The area on the right bank of the Willamette, commonly referred to as West Salem. The river doglegs at downtown Salem forming a reverse-L, providing a southern limit as well as an eastern limit.
Commercial Street is SE while serving as the S-SE interface, and Liberty Road is S when in that role. River Road North is formed when Commercial and Liberty Streets NE merge at the north end of Salem but the North suffix begins (as one is going north) at a minor side street called Stark Street N, which is adjacent to where Broadway St NE ends at River Road-just north of the North Salem Fred Meyer.
State Street is traditionally the hard boundary line betwen north and south Salem, and has traditionally carried no prefix or suffix, though logically would be State Street E. On recent trips to Salem I've spotted "State Street NE" on signs on the north side of the street, with "State Street SE" on the south side. I don't know if that's definitive-but I'd just as soon they'd leave it the way it was.
There is, strictly speaking, no Southwest. There is an area, south of Highway 22 (which forms an effective baseline after the river turns south at Eola Bend) that would suffice as SW, but the directional system has never applied out that far (or west of 55th Avenue NW) so, though the address pattern continues, the directional suffixes no longer apply as you move west into Polk County.
The format of Salem street names-directionals as suffixes-have given Salem addresses a particular and distinctive flavor. Long ago, before I became a permanent Portlander, I did a bit of business in Portland and, the vendor, noting my address, guessed correctly that I lived in Salem. All directionals in Salem and Greater Salem are suffixes: Commercial Street NE, 19th Street SE, 21st Ave S, Chemawa Rd N, Wallace Rd NW. The only other town in the valley with the same trend is Albany, which has actually had a compass-quarter directional system for years but which has only had painfully gradual acceptance and public use.
After you leave the city, addresses come 10 standard blocks to the mile. That's why it seems to take so long to get anywhere out there; as you approach Silverton on Silverton Road NE, the addresses are only in the 12500 range. Compare that to Multnomah County, where one is already well into the 20000s by the time one gets out to Gresham, which is about as far from Portland as Silverton is from Salem.
There is a lot more country in Marion County than around these parts. That contributes to the feeling of the Long Drive from city to city.
Street names in the county area do follow a sort of pattern, though they are spread so far out it's not immediately apparent. From the State Street base, e-w streets conform to a very loose alphabetical pattern, going up from A north and south. NE Streets seem to be named after flora (with a few exceptions for local pioneer families) and nouns and proper names in the SE. Numbered avenues cross them, going n-s, in a pattern that is continued from the urban area, though numbereds in town are termed "streets". Though they are named differently, they are still an extension of the numbered sequence begun with 12th.
10 July 2005
[geography] The Address Nerd on East Portland Named Streets
Of course (continuing the theme from the last) crossing our numbered Avenues in Portland are named Streets. Not only do they proceed in the orderly 20-standard-block-per-mile order than the Avenues do, the major traffic trunks mark off predictably at 500's.
Going north from Burnside (zero-hundred), we have: NE Glisan (500), NE Holladay (1000), NE Halsey (1500), then no real main e-w streets until N & NE Fremont (3500), N & NE Prescott (4500), N & NE Killingsworth (5500), N & NE Portland Blvd (6000), N & NE Ainsworth (6500), N & NE Lombard (7500). Going south from Burnside we have SE Stark (500), SE Hawthorne Blvd (1500), SE Division (2500), SE Powell (3500), SE Holgate Blvd (4500), SE Harold St (5500), SE Duke (6500), SE Bybee Blvd (7000), and SE Flavel St (7500).
Of these streets, SE Stark is somewhat priviledged. In the last entry, it will be remembered, I skeched a thumbnail of the Public Lands Survey, and mentioned the "baseline", from which all townships and ranges are measured. Stark Street falls on that baseline. Any e-w street that is parallel at 20 block intervals falls on a section line. Take a map of Portland, draw straight lines along those named streets and along numbered avenues ending in 2, and the pattern of section lines that undergird public surveying in the Portland area-and by extension, all of Oregon and Washington (the territory governed by the Willamette Meridian and Base Line) will appear.
By the way, ever wonder what SE Division Street divides? Sitting as it does as the 2500 block, 20 blocks and therefore one mile south of Stark, it is on a section line. Its historic name was Section Line Road. I also believe the outer reaches of what we today call SE Stark Street was called Base Line Road (there is a Base Line Road in Hood River County which, as being surveyed to follow the Willamette Base Line, lines exactly up with SE Stark Street in Multnomah County).
This lovely and neat ordering does not apply in the area west of Williams Avenue...what we call the Peninsula and what me and some of my waggish friends call The Thumb) where the grids tend to swivel and warp to align, at least somewhat, with the trend of the river) or anywhere on the west side outside of the order of downtown and Northwest Portland. You on you own out there.
Oh, and one more neat bit of trivia. NE Holman Street is the 6300 book-that is, 63 standard blocks north of the Burnside address baseline. The street that just so happens to be 63 standard blocks south of Burnside is SE Tolman Street.
Holman, 6300 north. Tolman, 6300 south.
I'm pretty sure it just worked out that way.
Going north from Burnside (zero-hundred), we have: NE Glisan (500), NE Holladay (1000), NE Halsey (1500), then no real main e-w streets until N & NE Fremont (3500), N & NE Prescott (4500), N & NE Killingsworth (5500), N & NE Portland Blvd (6000), N & NE Ainsworth (6500), N & NE Lombard (7500). Going south from Burnside we have SE Stark (500), SE Hawthorne Blvd (1500), SE Division (2500), SE Powell (3500), SE Holgate Blvd (4500), SE Harold St (5500), SE Duke (6500), SE Bybee Blvd (7000), and SE Flavel St (7500).
Of these streets, SE Stark is somewhat priviledged. In the last entry, it will be remembered, I skeched a thumbnail of the Public Lands Survey, and mentioned the "baseline", from which all townships and ranges are measured. Stark Street falls on that baseline. Any e-w street that is parallel at 20 block intervals falls on a section line. Take a map of Portland, draw straight lines along those named streets and along numbered avenues ending in 2, and the pattern of section lines that undergird public surveying in the Portland area-and by extension, all of Oregon and Washington (the territory governed by the Willamette Meridian and Base Line) will appear.
By the way, ever wonder what SE Division Street divides? Sitting as it does as the 2500 block, 20 blocks and therefore one mile south of Stark, it is on a section line. Its historic name was Section Line Road. I also believe the outer reaches of what we today call SE Stark Street was called Base Line Road (there is a Base Line Road in Hood River County which, as being surveyed to follow the Willamette Base Line, lines exactly up with SE Stark Street in Multnomah County).
This lovely and neat ordering does not apply in the area west of Williams Avenue...what we call the Peninsula and what me and some of my waggish friends call The Thumb) where the grids tend to swivel and warp to align, at least somewhat, with the trend of the river) or anywhere on the west side outside of the order of downtown and Northwest Portland. You on you own out there.
Oh, and one more neat bit of trivia. NE Holman Street is the 6300 book-that is, 63 standard blocks north of the Burnside address baseline. The street that just so happens to be 63 standard blocks south of Burnside is SE Tolman Street.
Holman, 6300 north. Tolman, 6300 south.
I'm pretty sure it just worked out that way.
[geography] The Address Nerd on East Portland Numbered Streets
Ever notice, how on the east side of the mighty Willamette, the main and collector numbered streets seem to mostly end in 2?
NE and SE 12th Ave. NE 42nd Ave. SE 52nd Ave. SE and NE 72nd Ave. 82nd Ave. 92nd Ave. 102nd Ave, which feeds into 112th Ave as you go south from Stark St. 122nd Ave. 142nd Ave. 162nd Ave. 182nd Ave. 202nd-not so much so, but there's a light on the part that's a/k/a Gresham's NW Birdsdale Ave and goes between Division and Stark. And there's also 242nd Ave, 272nd Ave and, going east from Gresham, 282nd, and, near Sandy, 362nd.
Going far out into Clackamas country, as the roads thin out so do the presence of numbered avenues, but those that are out there-many of them have 2's. There's a 422nd Ave, and of course, my personal favorite, 502nd Ave.
While I don't have my more arcane maps to hand, I'll bet that, if one looked at them, they'd find that these ending-in-2 avenues land on township lines-which are exactly one mile apart (from 82nd out, 102nd, 122nd, 142nd, 162nd, and 182nd are all one mile (20 standard blocks) apart).
Township lines require a bit of explanation and quite a digression.
Here we go.
When The Great White Father set about to populate the Great American West with colonists, these colonists cared very much about owning this land (this white person still does, what with property taxes being what they are). Land ownership requires records, and records require systems of location.
Thus we came eventually to what's called the Public Lands Survey. At its basis is the idea that you take an large enough (but not too big-then the curvature of the earth messes everything up) and draw perpendicular axes on it (the n-s one is called the meridian, the e-w one is called the baseline) and mark off big squares based on those lines.
These squares are six miles by six miles. This big square has a name too; we call it the township, not necessarily to be confused with the namesake legal and governmental entity found Back East. Each of these logcially divide into 36 1-mile squares, called sections.
Bingo. You now have a neato mosquito way of referencing great tracts of land that, in many cases, you probably haven't even seen yet, dotted here and there with villages of aboriginal people with brown skin who had the unmitigated gall to be there when you went and discovered the places.
Anyway. I told you that stuff to tell you this:
These township, range (the e-w lines are called township lines and the n-s are called range lines) and section lines make very handy boundary and road sites once they are known and cadastrally determined. Farmers used them to delineate ranch and farm lines...and to build roads upon. Thus the repetition of "2-avenues" as you go east; the regularity of the pattern attests to the underlying, ordering structure.
Typically, the 2-avenues are the ones that have been there, in eastern Multnomah county, the longest. The historical name of 122nd Avenue was Buckley Avenue (or Road). I don't know if the others had names,or what they were called when they did.
NE and SE 12th Ave. NE 42nd Ave. SE 52nd Ave. SE and NE 72nd Ave. 82nd Ave. 92nd Ave. 102nd Ave, which feeds into 112th Ave as you go south from Stark St. 122nd Ave. 142nd Ave. 162nd Ave. 182nd Ave. 202nd-not so much so, but there's a light on the part that's a/k/a Gresham's NW Birdsdale Ave and goes between Division and Stark. And there's also 242nd Ave, 272nd Ave and, going east from Gresham, 282nd, and, near Sandy, 362nd.
Going far out into Clackamas country, as the roads thin out so do the presence of numbered avenues, but those that are out there-many of them have 2's. There's a 422nd Ave, and of course, my personal favorite, 502nd Ave.
While I don't have my more arcane maps to hand, I'll bet that, if one looked at them, they'd find that these ending-in-2 avenues land on township lines-which are exactly one mile apart (from 82nd out, 102nd, 122nd, 142nd, 162nd, and 182nd are all one mile (20 standard blocks) apart).
Township lines require a bit of explanation and quite a digression.
Here we go.
When The Great White Father set about to populate the Great American West with colonists, these colonists cared very much about owning this land (this white person still does, what with property taxes being what they are). Land ownership requires records, and records require systems of location.
Thus we came eventually to what's called the Public Lands Survey. At its basis is the idea that you take an large enough (but not too big-then the curvature of the earth messes everything up) and draw perpendicular axes on it (the n-s one is called the meridian, the e-w one is called the baseline) and mark off big squares based on those lines.
These squares are six miles by six miles. This big square has a name too; we call it the township, not necessarily to be confused with the namesake legal and governmental entity found Back East. Each of these logcially divide into 36 1-mile squares, called sections.
Bingo. You now have a neato mosquito way of referencing great tracts of land that, in many cases, you probably haven't even seen yet, dotted here and there with villages of aboriginal people with brown skin who had the unmitigated gall to be there when you went and discovered the places.
Anyway. I told you that stuff to tell you this:
These township, range (the e-w lines are called township lines and the n-s are called range lines) and section lines make very handy boundary and road sites once they are known and cadastrally determined. Farmers used them to delineate ranch and farm lines...and to build roads upon. Thus the repetition of "2-avenues" as you go east; the regularity of the pattern attests to the underlying, ordering structure.
Typically, the 2-avenues are the ones that have been there, in eastern Multnomah county, the longest. The historical name of 122nd Avenue was Buckley Avenue (or Road). I don't know if the others had names,or what they were called when they did.
08 July 2005
[sundial_life] The War Of The Worlds
Short form: From the man who reminded the American public how to be so frightened by a movie that they will crap thier drawers comes the retelling of H.G. Wells' seminal science fiction story. This movie is freaking awesome!!!!!
Long form:
I'll admit it: I went to this movie wanting to like it, so I went with a self-lowered bar. I've been a fan of The War of the Worlds for years now. Not only do I have the 1953 Pal version on VHS but also DVD...which is good for the VHS as it would be nearly worn out by now.
Also, I've been a student of the various iterations of this story. I've read Wells' original novel, seen the '53 version many times, as menched, and adore its bastard sibling (Independence Day) despite its flaws. So, for me, the movie not only had to bring the special effects, it had to bring it on other levels: tension, suspense, fantastic situations, homage, symbolism, and story.
This movie arrives in spades on every level.
A few examples? Sure.
Oh, by the way, there are spoilers of a sort. Not giving away the ending...everyone by now should know how the story plays out. But there are situations that would probably have less impact if one knew they were coming, and I'm going to go a little long on a few. So, be warned.
Tension. The movie starts in the Newark shipyards with worker Ray Farrier (Tom Cruise), a happy-go-lucky but dissolute divorced father. Nothin' ain't no big deal for him, not even his bitter son and his 12-going-on-30 (at least by the way she talks) daughter. He's just late for meeting his ex and her husband dropping the kids by the house on thier way up to see Grandma and Grampa in Boston.
Once the audience is lulled into a complacency with dysfunctional Dad'n'Kids, the portents in the sky come (and, in a traditional submotif, news reports from around the world tantalizingly flicker on TV screens just long enough for us to know that something's up). EMP halts all the cars, and Ray goes to the scene to find out just what the hell was up with all that lightning.
Spielberg ratchets up the tension beginning then. At the site of the lightning strikes, things begin to fall apart, bit by bit by bit...the street splits open, the front of a nearby building shifts aside and falls down, the intersection heaves and collapses into a huge hole, and still nothing comes out...then something does...a great snakelike leg...then the head of the Tripod, going up, ever up, until it seems to be more than a hundred feet in the sky.
The angles are perfect. The Tripod is huge, menacing and unquestionably malevolent. It revs up and gets to work...the heat ray projectors, mounted on two tentacles, come out and begin firing. The camerawork is amazing. You aren't watching a scene of people running for thier very lives; due to the work of the master in building the tension for the war machine's appearance you feel as though you're running for your life along with the crowd, and as the ray bloodlessly vaporizes hapless soul after hapless soul, your heart is racing, your blood is pounding and you're thanking God that pictures of the Tripods weren't leaked out so that you could be properly surprised.
Whilst there are lulls occaisionally, there is little let up to the tension and the suspense. You don't know, while Ray and his kids are running for thier lives and trying to avoid desperate humans and murderous aliens, what's around the next corner.
But you should have known this going in. After all, this was the director that gave us Jaws, and reminded American moviegoers what it's like to be scared all over again.
Fantastic situations. The art and visualizations on this film are simply the stuff bad dreams are made of. Vast scenes of destruction and ruin, vivid realizations of things getting destroyed by all-but-unstoppable machines. The movies invites close and repeated viewing. At one point Ray comes out of a house in which he'd holed up for a few days and scans the horizon for a moment. The world has been redone in shades of red, with fires dotting the horizon. It is realistic, and scary.
Homage. The story has heritage and history. Knowing nods toward that heritage, while not required, are appreciated and give the story historical resonance...and are even better when done deftly. While the story was set in the present day, it takes lovingly from the path that Wells and Pal had tread before.
The war machines are Tripods, as in the original novel, and as well, they communicate in a terrifying, unearthly, booming noise. They've remembere to design the heat ray's projectors onto the ends of tentacles, just as the novel suggests-though the execution is perhaps a bit different than originally envisioned.
In beginning in Newark, the movie doffs its cap in the direction of Orson Welles, who's radio play that shook the country was set in northern New Jersey. There is a desperate ferry voyage where, at the landing, the chaos has a counterpoint in a Tony Bennett song playing over loudspeakers and there is a soft halo to all the lights, suggesting perhaps an earlier time, caught unawares by the ensuing chaos. The ill-starred ferry trip itself reminded me of the voyage of the HMS Thunder Child.
The soujourn trapped in the house with aliens all round, which was shared by Wells' narrator with an unhinged and cowardly cleric and by Dr Clayton Forrester with Sylvia Van Buren, is shared by Ray and his daughter with a refugee ambulance driver (Tim Robbins, who comes close to stealing these scenes) who goes first slowly, then quickly nuts. His character seems to combine Wells' cleric and a military man from the novel, and cribs a line about underground refuges in the city from him. And, in yet another homage to the novel, the man is given the name Ogilvy...a supporting character in the novel.
During the time they hide out in the basement of the house, an alien probe comes in and looks for them, a scene that is extremely reminiscent of the scene in Pal's '53 movie where Dr Forrester and Sylvia avoid a probe. And, when the return of the probe wakes up Ray's daughter, Ray grabs a hatchet and goes to work on it, just as Forrester did. He doesn't quite sever the thing, though.
Earlier on, Ray and his kids encounter a news van from a New York City television station. The female reporter, of whose crew is just as desperately fleeing the destruction and murder as everyone else, cribs a line from the '53 film's General Mann character: "Once the Tripods begin to move, no more news comes out of that area."
The battlefield scenes may use modern equipement, but the atmosphere of them was lifted right out of the '53 film's battle scenes.
I'm going on a bit and major digressions will soon ensue. Suffice it to say that one of the most important homages happen toward the end...the appearance of Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. It's expected but unexpected, and a welcome sight.
Symoblism. One of the most-cited aspects of War of the Worlds is the way it seems to bear signs of the greater worries of the day. Many Wells afectionados will cite a few. Pal's '53 film wears its post-WWII patriotism, it's faith in science and the military as The Good Guys, and a certain Cold War fear and loathing rather simply. In this version, the Tripods emerge from the ground, apparently buried there some time before, waiting for the operators to arrive. Some cite this as a commentary on our fears of terrorism, of enemies that may be in hiding amongst us.
The most plaintive and plain symbolism comes in the reaction of the son. Sullen and disinterested, passionate about nothing, and detached to a pose in the beginning, the attack on his homeland arouses such a fierce hatred of the invaders in him that he demands the opportunity to fight back, and keeps trying to join every band of military equipment that comes by. This reminds me, more than a little, of the impulse so many people had after the WTC disaster, to join the armed forces and help deliver the retaliation our attackers still so richly deserve.
Story. Save the casting of the narrator as a dissolute and bitter divorced father, the story keeps as close as it can to the general motifs of the Wells novel, and comes closer than the '53 film ever did.
The biggest difference would be the delivery of the aliens to our planet...it's never clear where they came from. It was apparently reasoned that a departure from Mars was out of the question, since our automated scouts have found nought but barrens there, and certainly nothing that may ever have contained higher life as we know it.
Indeed, while it was obvious that the aliens came to Earth to conquer, what drove them away from wherever it was they came from is not at all clear. We just see them here.
All in all, the arrival of the aliens was handled cleverly, and I find it doesn't detract from the sense of story.
I'll bring this ramble to a close by making the following pronouncment: as Wells' novel was important for it's time, as Welles' radio broadcast was its age's version, and as Pal's version fit it's times, this version is the version for our times.
H.G. Wells may or may not have realized it, but he provided us with a way to cast our times in allegory and surprise and suspense as appropriate for the epoch.
This movie is coming home to us as soon as it's out on DVD.
And, for once, it was nice to see a disaster film that didn't have FOX or SKY news reporters. That one was getting a bit old.
Long form:
I'll admit it: I went to this movie wanting to like it, so I went with a self-lowered bar. I've been a fan of The War of the Worlds for years now. Not only do I have the 1953 Pal version on VHS but also DVD...which is good for the VHS as it would be nearly worn out by now.
Also, I've been a student of the various iterations of this story. I've read Wells' original novel, seen the '53 version many times, as menched, and adore its bastard sibling (Independence Day) despite its flaws. So, for me, the movie not only had to bring the special effects, it had to bring it on other levels: tension, suspense, fantastic situations, homage, symbolism, and story.
This movie arrives in spades on every level.
A few examples? Sure.
Oh, by the way, there are spoilers of a sort. Not giving away the ending...everyone by now should know how the story plays out. But there are situations that would probably have less impact if one knew they were coming, and I'm going to go a little long on a few. So, be warned.
Tension. The movie starts in the Newark shipyards with worker Ray Farrier (Tom Cruise), a happy-go-lucky but dissolute divorced father. Nothin' ain't no big deal for him, not even his bitter son and his 12-going-on-30 (at least by the way she talks) daughter. He's just late for meeting his ex and her husband dropping the kids by the house on thier way up to see Grandma and Grampa in Boston.
Once the audience is lulled into a complacency with dysfunctional Dad'n'Kids, the portents in the sky come (and, in a traditional submotif, news reports from around the world tantalizingly flicker on TV screens just long enough for us to know that something's up). EMP halts all the cars, and Ray goes to the scene to find out just what the hell was up with all that lightning.
Spielberg ratchets up the tension beginning then. At the site of the lightning strikes, things begin to fall apart, bit by bit by bit...the street splits open, the front of a nearby building shifts aside and falls down, the intersection heaves and collapses into a huge hole, and still nothing comes out...then something does...a great snakelike leg...then the head of the Tripod, going up, ever up, until it seems to be more than a hundred feet in the sky.
The angles are perfect. The Tripod is huge, menacing and unquestionably malevolent. It revs up and gets to work...the heat ray projectors, mounted on two tentacles, come out and begin firing. The camerawork is amazing. You aren't watching a scene of people running for thier very lives; due to the work of the master in building the tension for the war machine's appearance you feel as though you're running for your life along with the crowd, and as the ray bloodlessly vaporizes hapless soul after hapless soul, your heart is racing, your blood is pounding and you're thanking God that pictures of the Tripods weren't leaked out so that you could be properly surprised.
Whilst there are lulls occaisionally, there is little let up to the tension and the suspense. You don't know, while Ray and his kids are running for thier lives and trying to avoid desperate humans and murderous aliens, what's around the next corner.
But you should have known this going in. After all, this was the director that gave us Jaws, and reminded American moviegoers what it's like to be scared all over again.
Fantastic situations. The art and visualizations on this film are simply the stuff bad dreams are made of. Vast scenes of destruction and ruin, vivid realizations of things getting destroyed by all-but-unstoppable machines. The movies invites close and repeated viewing. At one point Ray comes out of a house in which he'd holed up for a few days and scans the horizon for a moment. The world has been redone in shades of red, with fires dotting the horizon. It is realistic, and scary.
Homage. The story has heritage and history. Knowing nods toward that heritage, while not required, are appreciated and give the story historical resonance...and are even better when done deftly. While the story was set in the present day, it takes lovingly from the path that Wells and Pal had tread before.
The war machines are Tripods, as in the original novel, and as well, they communicate in a terrifying, unearthly, booming noise. They've remembere to design the heat ray's projectors onto the ends of tentacles, just as the novel suggests-though the execution is perhaps a bit different than originally envisioned.
In beginning in Newark, the movie doffs its cap in the direction of Orson Welles, who's radio play that shook the country was set in northern New Jersey. There is a desperate ferry voyage where, at the landing, the chaos has a counterpoint in a Tony Bennett song playing over loudspeakers and there is a soft halo to all the lights, suggesting perhaps an earlier time, caught unawares by the ensuing chaos. The ill-starred ferry trip itself reminded me of the voyage of the HMS Thunder Child.
The soujourn trapped in the house with aliens all round, which was shared by Wells' narrator with an unhinged and cowardly cleric and by Dr Clayton Forrester with Sylvia Van Buren, is shared by Ray and his daughter with a refugee ambulance driver (Tim Robbins, who comes close to stealing these scenes) who goes first slowly, then quickly nuts. His character seems to combine Wells' cleric and a military man from the novel, and cribs a line about underground refuges in the city from him. And, in yet another homage to the novel, the man is given the name Ogilvy...a supporting character in the novel.
During the time they hide out in the basement of the house, an alien probe comes in and looks for them, a scene that is extremely reminiscent of the scene in Pal's '53 movie where Dr Forrester and Sylvia avoid a probe. And, when the return of the probe wakes up Ray's daughter, Ray grabs a hatchet and goes to work on it, just as Forrester did. He doesn't quite sever the thing, though.
Earlier on, Ray and his kids encounter a news van from a New York City television station. The female reporter, of whose crew is just as desperately fleeing the destruction and murder as everyone else, cribs a line from the '53 film's General Mann character: "Once the Tripods begin to move, no more news comes out of that area."
The battlefield scenes may use modern equipement, but the atmosphere of them was lifted right out of the '53 film's battle scenes.
I'm going on a bit and major digressions will soon ensue. Suffice it to say that one of the most important homages happen toward the end...the appearance of Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. It's expected but unexpected, and a welcome sight.
Symoblism. One of the most-cited aspects of War of the Worlds is the way it seems to bear signs of the greater worries of the day. Many Wells afectionados will cite a few. Pal's '53 film wears its post-WWII patriotism, it's faith in science and the military as The Good Guys, and a certain Cold War fear and loathing rather simply. In this version, the Tripods emerge from the ground, apparently buried there some time before, waiting for the operators to arrive. Some cite this as a commentary on our fears of terrorism, of enemies that may be in hiding amongst us.
The most plaintive and plain symbolism comes in the reaction of the son. Sullen and disinterested, passionate about nothing, and detached to a pose in the beginning, the attack on his homeland arouses such a fierce hatred of the invaders in him that he demands the opportunity to fight back, and keeps trying to join every band of military equipment that comes by. This reminds me, more than a little, of the impulse so many people had after the WTC disaster, to join the armed forces and help deliver the retaliation our attackers still so richly deserve.
Story. Save the casting of the narrator as a dissolute and bitter divorced father, the story keeps as close as it can to the general motifs of the Wells novel, and comes closer than the '53 film ever did.
The biggest difference would be the delivery of the aliens to our planet...it's never clear where they came from. It was apparently reasoned that a departure from Mars was out of the question, since our automated scouts have found nought but barrens there, and certainly nothing that may ever have contained higher life as we know it.
Indeed, while it was obvious that the aliens came to Earth to conquer, what drove them away from wherever it was they came from is not at all clear. We just see them here.
All in all, the arrival of the aliens was handled cleverly, and I find it doesn't detract from the sense of story.
I'll bring this ramble to a close by making the following pronouncment: as Wells' novel was important for it's time, as Welles' radio broadcast was its age's version, and as Pal's version fit it's times, this version is the version for our times.
H.G. Wells may or may not have realized it, but he provided us with a way to cast our times in allegory and surprise and suspense as appropriate for the epoch.
This movie is coming home to us as soon as it's out on DVD.
And, for once, it was nice to see a disaster film that didn't have FOX or SKY news reporters. That one was getting a bit old.
03 July 2005
[politics] Best. Republican. Editorial. Evar.
It's all over the 'net and the blog o'sphere, but I'm going to steal my 'rubbing with greatness' moment by linking to James Chaney's opinion piece in the Eugene Register-Guard here.
It says so many right (as opposed to Right) things that it quite honestly moved me nearly to tears.
It's as coherent as a laser beam and cuts straight to the bone. And all the things detailed in the piece are the truth-not the Truth as branded and sold by the GOP.
Welcome to the reality-based world, Mr. Chaney. Good to have you here. Although, we're going to have to agree to disagree on GHWB; but intelligent people can do that.
It says so many right (as opposed to Right) things that it quite honestly moved me nearly to tears.
It's as coherent as a laser beam and cuts straight to the bone. And all the things detailed in the piece are the truth-not the Truth as branded and sold by the GOP.
Welcome to the reality-based world, Mr. Chaney. Good to have you here. Although, we're going to have to agree to disagree on GHWB; but intelligent people can do that.
[geography] The Address Nerd On High-Numbered Streets
I adore high-numbered streets. Actually, I love all numbered streets and am particularly amused when the numberes get sufficiently big.
In the past I've mentioned the Portland grid's highest number: S.E. 502nd Avenue, in the outer precincts, past Sandy, not quite to Welches. Recently we went out there to get photos of the sign, and were dismayed to find the sign was not up any longer-though the addresses on the mailboxes still reflected the street's amazing name and the Cole Cross-reference directory for Portland still features it as a name.
And I've mentioned that, in the Greater Salem area, there exists at 170th Ave, S.E.
There are even numbered avenues in the low 700s in northeastern King County in Washington-along US Highway 2. The joke here is that to get to this part of King County from Seattle you hve to go north to Snohomish County, then east from Everett...you can't get there from here unless you go over there first.
The search in Google for "highest numbered street"
returns a page with six or seven hits, including on of my own articles on this subject. The one at the top, titled "Lucas County-Page 1" has a word on an area of Toledo, Ohio, called "Point Place".
Geographically, this is in the northeastern part of the city, between the mouth of the Maumee River and the Ohio-Michigan state line. It's interesting because it's completely made of crossing numbered streets-no avenues. The potential conflicts are obviated by two different ranges for the E-W streets vice the N-S streets (I don't have a map at hand, but it's something like 130-160 one way and 270-340 the other). This photo (links to the site) details the intersection of 145th Street and 326th Street, which the author guesses as the highest-numbered street in the US (but we know better).
The other unique part of the street numbering scheme is that aside from an obvious increase in the street numbers in the SW-NE direction, there is no apparent origin, nor does the numbering scheme obviously tie into either the Toledo city street naming system nor any apparent system extant in Lucas County. I expect that it's probably a way of naming streets locally to differentiate the district from other areas. But the question as to why the number ranges were chosen such may be one that never gets an answer.
It's a nice site to visit; the author loves street blades as much as I do. Warning dialup users: the pix are big and will take a while to download. But if you love street signs, it's worth the look.
The entire site links here.
In the past I've mentioned the Portland grid's highest number: S.E. 502nd Avenue, in the outer precincts, past Sandy, not quite to Welches. Recently we went out there to get photos of the sign, and were dismayed to find the sign was not up any longer-though the addresses on the mailboxes still reflected the street's amazing name and the Cole Cross-reference directory for Portland still features it as a name.
And I've mentioned that, in the Greater Salem area, there exists at 170th Ave, S.E.
There are even numbered avenues in the low 700s in northeastern King County in Washington-along US Highway 2. The joke here is that to get to this part of King County from Seattle you hve to go north to Snohomish County, then east from Everett...you can't get there from here unless you go over there first.
The search in Google for "highest numbered street"
returns a page with six or seven hits, including on of my own articles on this subject. The one at the top, titled "Lucas County-Page 1" has a word on an area of Toledo, Ohio, called "Point Place".
Geographically, this is in the northeastern part of the city, between the mouth of the Maumee River and the Ohio-Michigan state line. It's interesting because it's completely made of crossing numbered streets-no avenues. The potential conflicts are obviated by two different ranges for the E-W streets vice the N-S streets (I don't have a map at hand, but it's something like 130-160 one way and 270-340 the other). This photo (links to the site) details the intersection of 145th Street and 326th Street, which the author guesses as the highest-numbered street in the US (but we know better).
The other unique part of the street numbering scheme is that aside from an obvious increase in the street numbers in the SW-NE direction, there is no apparent origin, nor does the numbering scheme obviously tie into either the Toledo city street naming system nor any apparent system extant in Lucas County. I expect that it's probably a way of naming streets locally to differentiate the district from other areas. But the question as to why the number ranges were chosen such may be one that never gets an answer.
It's a nice site to visit; the author loves street blades as much as I do. Warning dialup users: the pix are big and will take a while to download. But if you love street signs, it's worth the look.
The entire site links here.
01 July 2005
[pdx_life] Area Taxi Rates Set To Increase
It isn't just TriMet fares that are going up.
On Wed, 22 June 2005, the city's For-Hire Transportation Board of Review approved an increase in the per-mile fare in a taxi permitted through a Portland-based cab company to a new rate of $2.10/mile, or 21 cents per 1/10 of a mile-about a standard city block and a half. The new rates are set to take effect 27 July 2005, according to this report at KGW.com (which also discusses the upcoming TriMet rate increases).
The flag drop-the price that appears when the meter is turned on-is set to remain at $2.00, and it appears that the extra charge-the price for extra passengers over 1-will stay at $1.00/extra passenger.
Despite the expense of taxi rides in Portland, the price rise has been quite slow. Through most of the 1990's, the flag drop in a Portland cab was $1.80, with a per-mile charge of $1.50. In 2001, these were raised, respectively, to $2.00 and $1.80. More recently, the per-mile charge was raised to $1.90, in response to the precipitously-rising fuel prices. Extra charges have remained flat.
Personally, I know a few cab drivers: it's a tough go out there these days. The increase in mileage rates may or may not help, depending on the economy and whether or not the cab companies raise lease and other contract rates to the drivers.
The new rates are city ordinance, and apply to the taxi companies that operate in and are based in the city of Portland: Broadway Cab, Radio Cab, New Rose City Cab, Portland Cab, and Green Cab.
On Wed, 22 June 2005, the city's For-Hire Transportation Board of Review approved an increase in the per-mile fare in a taxi permitted through a Portland-based cab company to a new rate of $2.10/mile, or 21 cents per 1/10 of a mile-about a standard city block and a half. The new rates are set to take effect 27 July 2005, according to this report at KGW.com (which also discusses the upcoming TriMet rate increases).
The flag drop-the price that appears when the meter is turned on-is set to remain at $2.00, and it appears that the extra charge-the price for extra passengers over 1-will stay at $1.00/extra passenger.
Despite the expense of taxi rides in Portland, the price rise has been quite slow. Through most of the 1990's, the flag drop in a Portland cab was $1.80, with a per-mile charge of $1.50. In 2001, these were raised, respectively, to $2.00 and $1.80. More recently, the per-mile charge was raised to $1.90, in response to the precipitously-rising fuel prices. Extra charges have remained flat.
Personally, I know a few cab drivers: it's a tough go out there these days. The increase in mileage rates may or may not help, depending on the economy and whether or not the cab companies raise lease and other contract rates to the drivers.
The new rates are city ordinance, and apply to the taxi companies that operate in and are based in the city of Portland: Broadway Cab, Radio Cab, New Rose City Cab, Portland Cab, and Green Cab.
30 June 2005
[sundial_life] Things You Don't Expect To Find In Another City
In Victoria BC, there's a Banfield Park in the 600-700 block of Craigflower Road in West Victoria.
It's quite cute. Nezt to the Victoria West Community Y.
It's quite cute. Nezt to the Victoria West Community Y.
[net_life] PharmOn babble line Sh pluralism op
This is a screenshot of a spam just recieved by my gmail.com. Click on it to read it upclose. Isn't it amazing?
Corrupt opera cloaks, anyone?
So desparate are they to get thier trash into my inbox that they make it hilarious. I'm not sure if I want "total pillion confdentiality", and I know everyone wants you to get religion these days, but I"m just not sure how I'm gonna pull off "SHIPP devout ING".
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure what's "dodgery in 130 countries" isn't just thier customers.
27 June 2005
[sundial_life] An Heraldic Expedition To The North Country
We are in recovery mode here, at the Station.
Since Friday we have either been in transit or active in an event staged by the Society for Creative Anachronism.
This is a significant part of my life. Or is turning out to be. I'm taking up a few loose ends.
Saturday, 25 June 2005, was the date of the An Tir Kingdom Heraldic Symposium (I'll explain the kingdom part later). In the SCA, "Heraldry" encompasses word (the calling "hear ye, hear ye", announcing at courts and events sort of thing), deed (research and documentation of the theory and practice of how medieval people named themselves) and art (the creation of coats of arms). And, over the past several years, I have been priviledged to have a front row seat at times for some of the most brilliant, contentious, honest, and vibrant heraldic research a bunch of cool kids can do.
The location was Victoria, BC...known in the Society as the Barony of Seagirt. The site was the University of Victoria (UVic), a site for a previous Symposium. And making the trip was myself (Societally Known As Sebastian zem Sterne, The Wife[tm] as the Lady Teceangl Bach, once "Lion's Blood" Herald, the Lady Meadbha ingen Mhilloar Bhrain (we just say "Mave"...it's Gael, and I probably massacred the name spelling), and long time heraldic partisan, personal mentor, and all around boot-to-the-head Ciaran Cluana Ferta, all in one car.
Our course was north to Olympia, up US 101 to Port Angeles, across the Juan de Fuca on the M.V. Coho, and into Vic at the downtown berth, within sight of the Parliament buildings. Since I had been up all night before at TCWMNBN it was a tough trip up, though beautiful. I came nearer to carsickness than ever before, and waited at the ferry dock for about 1h 30m, then got on the ferry just to nearly get seasick.
In these days of fear and loathing at border crossings, I must say that the officials at both sides were straight up good people. The Canadian authorities made us all fill in customs cards going north-which were duly examined at the Vic POE-and the US authorities coming back were models of humanity and efficiency, though the DHS patches on the shoulders still is something that makes you go hmmmm....
And strangely too, even though we keep hearing that the USA is starting to become a nation with some sort of security fetish, they didn't make us fill in one form or card. They examined our documents, judged us sincere, and passed us.
One thing you should know if you are going to Canada, is that you should make sure your ID is current and in order before you go. That, of course, has never been untrue, but since the passage of the US, A PATRIOT Act, you must have a copy of your birth certificate to cross back into the land(free) and home(brave). There is word that, within the next two years, we will need Passports to cross back into our home country. That is a sad thing, because it will end over 100 years of free and unimpeded passage between the USA and Canada, but the way things are going, a passport is probably going to be a good document to have, and as ID, it's ironclad, legally, so you're probably better off with one.
For me, this KHS was an opportunity to learn but more an opportunity to reconnect. There are really nice people in the SCA, people who encouraged me with heraldic art and was thus indirectly inspirational for me going back to school to become a trained designer. They still encourage me; they are still some of my biggest cheerleaders. We are all artistic types, whether or not we create "art", and so we are all contentious, ready to argue, but at the end of it all, they'll make your way easy for you if they can.
In Victoria we stayed with a very wonderful Lady, the Baronial Harold, Meg Gwyneth, who billeted us for two days, allowed for our needs, and her and her SO even bought us some steaks for the evening barbeque.
But the hide-a-bed...murder! But you take the hospitality you're offered and you resolve to return it some other time, if you can.
I must still be tired. I'm rambling and I know it. Went over 1,500 miles through two countries in the last couple of days, but there are things I want to say, and I'm kind of losing it. So I'll close with the following:
At the Black Lion (Kingdom Principal Herald) meeting on Sunday, just before the returning, we all introduced ourselves to the room so we all knew who was who. When it was my turn, some little insane person in my head said:
"My name is Siiimon...and I do drawrings..."
The crowd was won over. Who says heralds are a tough room?
Since Friday we have either been in transit or active in an event staged by the Society for Creative Anachronism.
This is a significant part of my life. Or is turning out to be. I'm taking up a few loose ends.
Saturday, 25 June 2005, was the date of the An Tir Kingdom Heraldic Symposium (I'll explain the kingdom part later). In the SCA, "Heraldry" encompasses word (the calling "hear ye, hear ye", announcing at courts and events sort of thing), deed (research and documentation of the theory and practice of how medieval people named themselves) and art (the creation of coats of arms). And, over the past several years, I have been priviledged to have a front row seat at times for some of the most brilliant, contentious, honest, and vibrant heraldic research a bunch of cool kids can do.
The location was Victoria, BC...known in the Society as the Barony of Seagirt. The site was the University of Victoria (UVic), a site for a previous Symposium. And making the trip was myself (Societally Known As Sebastian zem Sterne, The Wife[tm] as the Lady Teceangl Bach, once "Lion's Blood" Herald, the Lady Meadbha ingen Mhilloar Bhrain (we just say "Mave"...it's Gael, and I probably massacred the name spelling), and long time heraldic partisan, personal mentor, and all around boot-to-the-head Ciaran Cluana Ferta, all in one car.
Our course was north to Olympia, up US 101 to Port Angeles, across the Juan de Fuca on the M.V. Coho, and into Vic at the downtown berth, within sight of the Parliament buildings. Since I had been up all night before at TCWMNBN it was a tough trip up, though beautiful. I came nearer to carsickness than ever before, and waited at the ferry dock for about 1h 30m, then got on the ferry just to nearly get seasick.
In these days of fear and loathing at border crossings, I must say that the officials at both sides were straight up good people. The Canadian authorities made us all fill in customs cards going north-which were duly examined at the Vic POE-and the US authorities coming back were models of humanity and efficiency, though the DHS patches on the shoulders still is something that makes you go hmmmm....
And strangely too, even though we keep hearing that the USA is starting to become a nation with some sort of security fetish, they didn't make us fill in one form or card. They examined our documents, judged us sincere, and passed us.
One thing you should know if you are going to Canada, is that you should make sure your ID is current and in order before you go. That, of course, has never been untrue, but since the passage of the US, A PATRIOT Act, you must have a copy of your birth certificate to cross back into the land(free) and home(brave). There is word that, within the next two years, we will need Passports to cross back into our home country. That is a sad thing, because it will end over 100 years of free and unimpeded passage between the USA and Canada, but the way things are going, a passport is probably going to be a good document to have, and as ID, it's ironclad, legally, so you're probably better off with one.
For me, this KHS was an opportunity to learn but more an opportunity to reconnect. There are really nice people in the SCA, people who encouraged me with heraldic art and was thus indirectly inspirational for me going back to school to become a trained designer. They still encourage me; they are still some of my biggest cheerleaders. We are all artistic types, whether or not we create "art", and so we are all contentious, ready to argue, but at the end of it all, they'll make your way easy for you if they can.
In Victoria we stayed with a very wonderful Lady, the Baronial Harold, Meg Gwyneth, who billeted us for two days, allowed for our needs, and her and her SO even bought us some steaks for the evening barbeque.
But the hide-a-bed...murder! But you take the hospitality you're offered and you resolve to return it some other time, if you can.
I must still be tired. I'm rambling and I know it. Went over 1,500 miles through two countries in the last couple of days, but there are things I want to say, and I'm kind of losing it. So I'll close with the following:
At the Black Lion (Kingdom Principal Herald) meeting on Sunday, just before the returning, we all introduced ourselves to the room so we all knew who was who. When it was my turn, some little insane person in my head said:
"My name is Siiimon...and I do drawrings..."
The crowd was won over. Who says heralds are a tough room?
21 June 2005
[geography] The Address Nerd Ruminates
I love addresses. Yes, I mean postal addresses.
When I was a kid, I lived on a rural route. Old fashioned Route and Box (you know, like Route 1 Box 118).
I terribly envied kid in town not because they lived in town but because they had real live addresses, house number and street. 525 South 2nd. 615 Oak Street.
The ones I really envied lived in bigger towns with sophisticated addresses. You know, the ones like we seem to have all over the place these days, with compass directions-NE, SE, NW, SW. Those sounded good.
When I finally left the small town to move into Salem, we managed to say south of the State Street baseline. Salem's addresses carry the directional as a suffix (19th St SE, Market St NE) and due to the way Salem grew and the way the river runs, there is offically no SW. This was a disappointment, as SW is my very favorite directional.
Not officially, anyway. The Salem address grid extends throughout Marion and Polk counties from a notional origin point which is essentially where State Street and the Willamette River intersect. The NE, N, S, and SE suffixes effect throughout Marion County, but the NW directional, on the Polk county side, seems to give up approximtely at the Independence junction-where State Hwys 51 and 22 come together. The last so-suffixed road seems to be Oak Grove Road NW, which is just west of the highest-numbered street I can find on that side of the River...55th Ave NW.
In case anyone's curious, the highest numbered street on the east side of the Salem grid is in deep-eastside Marion County, some distance east of Stayton. 170th Ave SE. Going east from Salem's eastern boundary, addresses go 10 100-house number blocks to the mile...82nd Ave NE outside of Salem is about 10 miles out from the River, whilst in Portland, NE 82nd Ave is just over four miles east of the River.
Since the universal advent of 911 emergency systems, Rural Route addressing has slowly gone away. I doubt it exists anywhere anymore, at least anywhere of which I'm aware. Emergency services need to find locations quickly, and that just doesn't happen with Rural Routes. There are many ways to do it too. A future rumination on the subject will go on and on drearily about how many ways there are. Not just now tho'.
What got me going about this was thinking about Spokane. I've had a certain fascination with Spokane ever since I was a neat thing and heard they were having a World's Fair in 1974 there (Expo '74, which has left its mark on downtown Spokane in the form of a tram over the Falls and, from what I've been told, a lovely downtown park). I noticed, a long time back, that they had a different take on where the directional goes-as a suffix before the entire address, something I've not seen before and not since.
Now, the Spokane grid is a simple one, cleft in four quarters by the east-west Sprague Avenue and the north-south, aptly named Division Street. Streets and Avenues are either simply N or S or E or W depending. But, as in another town, where a notional address of 3550 on the E half of Sprague Avenue would be written:
3550 E Sprague Ave
In Spokane this would have been written
E 3550 Sprague Ave.
I thought that was so cool.
Alas, that era seems to be over. Some old-timers may still do things in that way, but most publications now use the former, "ordinary" format. Nowadays, everything interesting seems to be being conformed into sameness.
Address Nerd, out for now.
When I was a kid, I lived on a rural route. Old fashioned Route and Box (you know, like Route 1 Box 118).
I terribly envied kid in town not because they lived in town but because they had real live addresses, house number and street. 525 South 2nd. 615 Oak Street.
The ones I really envied lived in bigger towns with sophisticated addresses. You know, the ones like we seem to have all over the place these days, with compass directions-NE, SE, NW, SW. Those sounded good.
When I finally left the small town to move into Salem, we managed to say south of the State Street baseline. Salem's addresses carry the directional as a suffix (19th St SE, Market St NE) and due to the way Salem grew and the way the river runs, there is offically no SW. This was a disappointment, as SW is my very favorite directional.
Not officially, anyway. The Salem address grid extends throughout Marion and Polk counties from a notional origin point which is essentially where State Street and the Willamette River intersect. The NE, N, S, and SE suffixes effect throughout Marion County, but the NW directional, on the Polk county side, seems to give up approximtely at the Independence junction-where State Hwys 51 and 22 come together. The last so-suffixed road seems to be Oak Grove Road NW, which is just west of the highest-numbered street I can find on that side of the River...55th Ave NW.
In case anyone's curious, the highest numbered street on the east side of the Salem grid is in deep-eastside Marion County, some distance east of Stayton. 170th Ave SE. Going east from Salem's eastern boundary, addresses go 10 100-house number blocks to the mile...82nd Ave NE outside of Salem is about 10 miles out from the River, whilst in Portland, NE 82nd Ave is just over four miles east of the River.
Since the universal advent of 911 emergency systems, Rural Route addressing has slowly gone away. I doubt it exists anywhere anymore, at least anywhere of which I'm aware. Emergency services need to find locations quickly, and that just doesn't happen with Rural Routes. There are many ways to do it too. A future rumination on the subject will go on and on drearily about how many ways there are. Not just now tho'.
What got me going about this was thinking about Spokane. I've had a certain fascination with Spokane ever since I was a neat thing and heard they were having a World's Fair in 1974 there (Expo '74, which has left its mark on downtown Spokane in the form of a tram over the Falls and, from what I've been told, a lovely downtown park). I noticed, a long time back, that they had a different take on where the directional goes-as a suffix before the entire address, something I've not seen before and not since.
Now, the Spokane grid is a simple one, cleft in four quarters by the east-west Sprague Avenue and the north-south, aptly named Division Street. Streets and Avenues are either simply N or S or E or W depending. But, as in another town, where a notional address of 3550 on the E half of Sprague Avenue would be written:
3550 E Sprague Ave
In Spokane this would have been written
E 3550 Sprague Ave.
I thought that was so cool.
Alas, that era seems to be over. Some old-timers may still do things in that way, but most publications now use the former, "ordinary" format. Nowadays, everything interesting seems to be being conformed into sameness.
Address Nerd, out for now.
[design] Badia: Must-Have XTensions for QuarkXPress Users
In this review on QuarkVSInDesign.com, I go on at length about some products of a publisher called Badia Software. I am really quite impressed with thier quality.
They have freebies there. The concept of a "loss-leader" is nothing new to marketing, and freebies are the ultimate. The free sofware available there, though, is so good I feel like I should be paying something for it.
Badia is one of the software developers who craft what is known, in the QuarkXPress argot, XTensions. If you're an InDesigner, you'd say plug-ins. These are applets which do not stand along, but add functionality to a host application. QuarkXPress comes with several XTensions standard, and many third-party developers make quite a good living producing XPress-compatible XTensions. All that's needed to do, usually, is dragon-drop the XTension into the XTensions folder, and they appear the next time XPress is fired up.
Enough digression, though. What I'm truly impressed with is the Badia freebies. They have four, and I've installed two. The ones I have on board right now, Vistas and ReplaceInPlace, appeal by giving XPress functions that come standard on InDesign.
Yes. There's that feature-parity thing again. Anyway.
Vistas is a graphical navigation palette. Very simple and elegant: a previous-view button, a slider for zoom, and a dropdown for instantly jumping to any spread in the document. The slider-zoom has an extremely lively live-effect, and the XTension as a whole works flawlessly, and is intiuitive to boot; I figured out how to use it in mere minutes with no reference to any readmes or manual documents. Even the non-obvious features-clicking on the thumbnail to recenter and dragging of a box on the thumbnail to zoom-gave themselves up after a very short search.
ReplaceInPlace brings another something InDesign does naturally to XPress. After doing another edition of the Columbia Overlook, it was once again made plain just how nifty a thing replacing-in-place...importing a new graphic to a graphic frame whilst preserving attributes such as scaling and position...is. Not having to resize and move a graphic within its frame is a good burden to have removed.
XPress doesn't do it, at least, not until one installs the ReplaceInPlace XTension. It adds a new tab to the Get Picture dialog (titled ReplaceInPlace) with a checkbox allowing the user to specify preservation of content attributes. XPress layout artists should love this.
As far as I'm concerned, these are two XTensions that I don't plan on doing without, provided that Quark doesn't come out with this functionality in V7.
There are also super for-price XTensions that answer a lot of needs. I highly recommend checking out the FullMeasure XTension, which brings a supercharged Measurements palette to XPress that allows you to access nearly every XPress command from the Measurements palette. If it's crafted as tightly as the freebies are, XPress users really owe it to themselves to check them out.
Badia Software's website is http://www.badiaxt.com
They have freebies there. The concept of a "loss-leader" is nothing new to marketing, and freebies are the ultimate. The free sofware available there, though, is so good I feel like I should be paying something for it.
Badia is one of the software developers who craft what is known, in the QuarkXPress argot, XTensions. If you're an InDesigner, you'd say plug-ins. These are applets which do not stand along, but add functionality to a host application. QuarkXPress comes with several XTensions standard, and many third-party developers make quite a good living producing XPress-compatible XTensions. All that's needed to do, usually, is dragon-drop the XTension into the XTensions folder, and they appear the next time XPress is fired up.
Enough digression, though. What I'm truly impressed with is the Badia freebies. They have four, and I've installed two. The ones I have on board right now, Vistas and ReplaceInPlace, appeal by giving XPress functions that come standard on InDesign.
Yes. There's that feature-parity thing again. Anyway.
Vistas is a graphical navigation palette. Very simple and elegant: a previous-view button, a slider for zoom, and a dropdown for instantly jumping to any spread in the document. The slider-zoom has an extremely lively live-effect, and the XTension as a whole works flawlessly, and is intiuitive to boot; I figured out how to use it in mere minutes with no reference to any readmes or manual documents. Even the non-obvious features-clicking on the thumbnail to recenter and dragging of a box on the thumbnail to zoom-gave themselves up after a very short search.
ReplaceInPlace brings another something InDesign does naturally to XPress. After doing another edition of the Columbia Overlook, it was once again made plain just how nifty a thing replacing-in-place...importing a new graphic to a graphic frame whilst preserving attributes such as scaling and position...is. Not having to resize and move a graphic within its frame is a good burden to have removed.
XPress doesn't do it, at least, not until one installs the ReplaceInPlace XTension. It adds a new tab to the Get Picture dialog (titled ReplaceInPlace) with a checkbox allowing the user to specify preservation of content attributes. XPress layout artists should love this.
As far as I'm concerned, these are two XTensions that I don't plan on doing without, provided that Quark doesn't come out with this functionality in V7.
There are also super for-price XTensions that answer a lot of needs. I highly recommend checking out the FullMeasure XTension, which brings a supercharged Measurements palette to XPress that allows you to access nearly every XPress command from the Measurements palette. If it's crafted as tightly as the freebies are, XPress users really owe it to themselves to check them out.
Badia Software's website is http://www.badiaxt.com
14 June 2005
[design] Aulakh Out As Quark Supremo
Kamar Aulakh, CEO of graphics software giant Quark, Incorporated, has abruptly left the Denver-based company, according to industry sources. Reasons for his leaving are not being given at this time.
Aulakh succeeded CEO Fred Ebrahimi in 2003 (who remains with Quark as chairman of the board of directors), being promoted from vice-president of research and development. In replacing Ebrahimi, a leader who developed a reputation of disdain toward his customers, particularly toward Macintosh users-a style which seemed to set the corporate tone for Quark-Aulakh promised a new era of customer-centered corporate behavior.
Conventional wisdom seems to hold that the changes Aulakh instituted have been in the main positive and have moved Quark in the direction it needs to be moving. Such changes as unlimited free email tech support (formerly just one free support request) and free upgrades from XPress 6 to XPress 6.5 have turned many heads. Quark still suffers from a tendency to send a mixed message, though, as the now-infamous Postcards from the Edge will attest.
In the interim, Linda Chase, senior VP of commerce product development, will serve as CEO, while Quark contracts with an outside company to find Aulakh's replacement.
Implications for the near-term future of Quark and its flagship product, XPress, remain unclear, though the rumored rollout of the next version of XPress, Version 7, seems to still be on track, though the date is still a matter of conjecture.
Relevant links:
Aulakh succeeded CEO Fred Ebrahimi in 2003 (who remains with Quark as chairman of the board of directors), being promoted from vice-president of research and development. In replacing Ebrahimi, a leader who developed a reputation of disdain toward his customers, particularly toward Macintosh users-a style which seemed to set the corporate tone for Quark-Aulakh promised a new era of customer-centered corporate behavior.
Conventional wisdom seems to hold that the changes Aulakh instituted have been in the main positive and have moved Quark in the direction it needs to be moving. Such changes as unlimited free email tech support (formerly just one free support request) and free upgrades from XPress 6 to XPress 6.5 have turned many heads. Quark still suffers from a tendency to send a mixed message, though, as the now-infamous Postcards from the Edge will attest.
In the interim, Linda Chase, senior VP of commerce product development, will serve as CEO, while Quark contracts with an outside company to find Aulakh's replacement.
Implications for the near-term future of Quark and its flagship product, XPress, remain unclear, though the rumored rollout of the next version of XPress, Version 7, seems to still be on track, though the date is still a matter of conjecture.
Relevant links:
[design] QvID-I Get Letters
Returning to posting after being busier than...well, someone who's been extremely busy.
Writing for QuarkVSInDesign.com, I meet some of the nicest people sometimes, and some with a keen sense of humor.
In response to a how-to article on approaching the concept of what XPress calls "Text Runaround" and InDesign calls "Text Wrap", a correspondent offered this feedback:
I don't know anyone else who gets such cool responses. Now I get to notch marriage counselor and maybe even spiritual guide on the resume.
Seriously, though, this is one of the plusses of doing stuff like this. You get to help others in your trade and you make thier life just a little easier.
For what it's worth, this is one of the big issues in crossing over from one app to the other. Even though I'm proficient in both QuarkXPress and InDesign, it gets me too and I have to go for the help file. When you put aside what the best and most unique features of each aggregator is, though, they largely do the same things. They have different terms and different ways of access (InDesign, for instance, puts a lot of this functionality in free-floating "palettes" whilst XPress tends to use dialog boxes), but in the main, the same thing.
One of the biggest opportunities for service to layout artists who want to make the switch, then, is going to be things that guide from one to the other.
Also, for what it's worth, I have more how-to's in the planning stages.
The how-to that contained the above comment, by the way, is here.
Writing for QuarkVSInDesign.com, I meet some of the nicest people sometimes, and some with a keen sense of humor.
In response to a how-to article on approaching the concept of what XPress calls "Text Runaround" and InDesign calls "Text Wrap", a correspondent offered this feedback:
You’ve saved our marrage and quite possibly… my wifes eternal soul! The wife is a dyed in the wool Quark user being forced to design in InDesign for one of her clients. We both work from home, and she began cursing like a sailor. Something about changing terminology between products and Adobe is full of $#!+. Well… I quickly and easily Googled the offending functions to find your site. Hats off to you for offering such a valuable service!
I don't know anyone else who gets such cool responses. Now I get to notch marriage counselor and maybe even spiritual guide on the resume.
Seriously, though, this is one of the plusses of doing stuff like this. You get to help others in your trade and you make thier life just a little easier.
For what it's worth, this is one of the big issues in crossing over from one app to the other. Even though I'm proficient in both QuarkXPress and InDesign, it gets me too and I have to go for the help file. When you put aside what the best and most unique features of each aggregator is, though, they largely do the same things. They have different terms and different ways of access (InDesign, for instance, puts a lot of this functionality in free-floating "palettes" whilst XPress tends to use dialog boxes), but in the main, the same thing.
One of the biggest opportunities for service to layout artists who want to make the switch, then, is going to be things that guide from one to the other.
Also, for what it's worth, I have more how-to's in the planning stages.
The how-to that contained the above comment, by the way, is here.
30 May 2005
[design] Announcing My Online Portfolio
Sure, I've opined from time to time on design, and rambled occaisionally about my schooling experience. But I finally got off the mark and posted some of my best work for anyone who wants to see it, potential employers, or just anyone who likes designers:
http://www.rdrop.com/users/eagle/portfolio.html
The posters and documents are PDF downloads, and the illustrations are JPGs.
Best viewed with a computer.
http://www.rdrop.com/users/eagle/portfolio.html
The posters and documents are PDF downloads, and the illustrations are JPGs.
Best viewed with a computer.
29 May 2005
[pcc_life] Tales from the Breach:Bringing This Thing In For A Landing
It's just been a crush around here, is what it is.
From the moment I get up to the moment, usually too long from then, that I finally close my eyes for (usually not enough) sleep, I'm doing something because I have to. I really shouldn't be taking the time to do this, but my inner voice cries out a little bit.
I'm set to graduate, after three years of part-full-time and part-part-time schooling, from the Graphic Design program at PCC Sylvania. If things go accoding to program, my final cum-GPA should be somewhere between 3.74 and 3.80. I haven't had enough of a chance to actually scout for work; the job I must maintain to keep The Wife[tm] in diabetes-control medications has remained a requirement, not, regretfully, an option.
My sadder moments come when I think about how much better my work could of been if I'd have been given the chance to go on real part time at the Job Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken; I was always, always, always, having to thread the needle. Hell, I could have been in that better job now.
The one thing that really makes me mad is when people leave obstacles in my path, when those people could have done something to remove that obstacle, making life better for me and (by natural extension) them, but the do nothing. Instead of forging ahead to where I should be going I'm constantly divising coping strategeries by myself, when I should have had help.
That is a personal statement. It addresses the obvious and the not-so-obvious and some issues too personal to actually come out and discuss.
But, for better or worse, and despite all odds, I'm graduating. My personal re-invention is ongoing, and I haven't been totally bereft of new opportunity; Pariah still welcomes my postings at QuarkVSIndesign.com, and the technical editing of his book is proceeding and most of the way there (you know how they say when the student is ready, the master appears? Draw your own conclusion here. I know I'm telegraphing mine). I expect the paycheck on that one to finance more memory for the Mac and an upgrade to Adobe Creative Suite 2...but if some nice soul has a good thought for me, it is still on my Amazon Wish List.
Between now and 10 June, I have to:
And, the Men's Wearhouse has seen our custom. Got actual grown-up clothes, at actual grown-up prices.
Out for now.
From the moment I get up to the moment, usually too long from then, that I finally close my eyes for (usually not enough) sleep, I'm doing something because I have to. I really shouldn't be taking the time to do this, but my inner voice cries out a little bit.
I'm set to graduate, after three years of part-full-time and part-part-time schooling, from the Graphic Design program at PCC Sylvania. If things go accoding to program, my final cum-GPA should be somewhere between 3.74 and 3.80. I haven't had enough of a chance to actually scout for work; the job I must maintain to keep The Wife[tm] in diabetes-control medications has remained a requirement, not, regretfully, an option.
My sadder moments come when I think about how much better my work could of been if I'd have been given the chance to go on real part time at the Job Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken; I was always, always, always, having to thread the needle. Hell, I could have been in that better job now.
The one thing that really makes me mad is when people leave obstacles in my path, when those people could have done something to remove that obstacle, making life better for me and (by natural extension) them, but the do nothing. Instead of forging ahead to where I should be going I'm constantly divising coping strategeries by myself, when I should have had help.
That is a personal statement. It addresses the obvious and the not-so-obvious and some issues too personal to actually come out and discuss.
But, for better or worse, and despite all odds, I'm graduating. My personal re-invention is ongoing, and I haven't been totally bereft of new opportunity; Pariah still welcomes my postings at QuarkVSIndesign.com, and the technical editing of his book is proceeding and most of the way there (you know how they say when the student is ready, the master appears? Draw your own conclusion here. I know I'm telegraphing mine). I expect the paycheck on that one to finance more memory for the Mac and an upgrade to Adobe Creative Suite 2...but if some nice soul has a good thought for me, it is still on my Amazon Wish List.
Between now and 10 June, I have to:
- Come up with a wine label...this last project probably due this Wednesday
- Take a final quiz in the "Preparing Files for Print" class. Open book. Not sweating this one.
- Getting ready for the AIGA Student Portfolio show
And, the Men's Wearhouse has seen our custom. Got actual grown-up clothes, at actual grown-up prices.
Out for now.
05 May 2005
[us_politics] Your Papers, Please
Strangely absent from the news today is the passage of a certain bill in Congress, HR 1268, Roll Call 161 of the 1st session of the 109th Congress. The title of this is "An act making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other purposes."
There is an amendment that will establish the first National ID Card system. Not in concept, but in fact.
Bluemnauer voted against it. All our other reps voted for it, because, hey, who wants to be seen as being against Tsunami Relief. My congressman is the only one with courage.
Shortly after 9/11, the White House stated was in no way interested in a National ID system, deeming it a dead issue. But now it looks as though the President will sign this. So to speak, he was against it, until he was for it. When John Kerry did this, it was a flip-flop. Of course, putting hanging unpopular amendments on good looking bills is okay now, I guess, as long as a Republican president is doing it.
If you're curious as to why you should be worried, read this ACLU press release, even if you don't think National ID is a bad idea or even if you disargree with the ACLU (who, by the way, was just cool to have along if you were Jerry Falwell protesting religious discrimination).
There is an amendment that will establish the first National ID Card system. Not in concept, but in fact.
Bluemnauer voted against it. All our other reps voted for it, because, hey, who wants to be seen as being against Tsunami Relief. My congressman is the only one with courage.
Shortly after 9/11, the White House stated was in no way interested in a National ID system, deeming it a dead issue. But now it looks as though the President will sign this. So to speak, he was against it, until he was for it. When John Kerry did this, it was a flip-flop. Of course, putting hanging unpopular amendments on good looking bills is okay now, I guess, as long as a Republican president is doing it.
If you're curious as to why you should be worried, read this ACLU press release, even if you don't think National ID is a bad idea or even if you disargree with the ACLU (who, by the way, was just cool to have along if you were Jerry Falwell protesting religious discrimination).
[net_life] The BlogPatrol Report
I use Blogpatrol to count hits on this site (I do crave fame in a minor way, and I have a bit of brain damage that compels me to see how popular I am). BlogPatrol is nifty in that it tells you where people come from and infres how they found you, but doesn't reveal anything about you like your name, address, etc...stuff you don't want me to know.
For a long time now, BP has been delivering to me a sort of restrained comic relief in the form of search terms and referring pages. Sometimes browsers refer from the "next blog" button on the Blogger search bar, rendering referrals from sites whose juxtaposition with mine is bizarre in the least and dadaist at the most.
Without further ado, then, here's the goodies I found the last time I checked in with Blogger:
The last 20 referrers amounted to a lot of Google searches and "Self-referring/Bookmarker", which I must be honest I don't really know what means, although I did get a hit referred from a Comcast search about the defunct BCTI. So, I'll move on to search terms. Always a world of fun here.
Got It On My Mind, Like A Song On The Radio
The top keyword hits had people looking for information on Thom Hartmann, our new KPOJ morning talk jock. I also got a few hits from people looking up Heidi Tauber. Good on you Heidi, you got fans. Other media-related hits included terms for "Bob Miller KPAM" and "Rusty Nails KPTV"-Rusty Nails was a popular kiddie clown on the old Channel 12 during the halcyon days. Also got a couple of hits looking for the former KPAM talk jock "Dream" Weaver (who I still miss...curse you KPAM).
Know The Code
One hit for Si bili, se ergo. I love that.
Vastly Underrated
One for '"Dave Mayes" cribbage'. If you have a Palm and want a few well-crafted, free games, go there and get them. They're wicked fun and more of a match than most computer games. Find the link for Dave Mayes on my sidebar.
A Habit Of Highly Effective People
Two keyworders went after the Uncalendar. I can't recommend it highly enough. If you need to be organized but just can't do it, having a tool you like and is fun to use make it more possible. It hasn't solved all my problems, but it's helped me start to instill good habits...and I need all the help I can get. Go to People Systems to find out more about it...and check out the "Note Takers Delight" while you're at it.
Well, You Should Keep Your Leather Cleaner, Then
One search: "keflex for strap infection". Now, that's what I call the wonder drug that works wonders!"
Your All Purpose Criminal Element
I have four or five keyword hits from people looking to crack QuarkXPress V6 and up, three in the last week. I guess that's to be expected; I've mentioned it in the narrative more than once, and it's hard cheese to swallow to ask someone to fork over $1,000 to use what the ininitiated think is probably just a glorified Microsoft Publisher (it's much better than that, trust me). On the other hand, there are a lot of budding designers who need the tool but probably just can't afford it.
Strangely, I receive no keyword hits looking for InDesign cracks. Make of this what you will.
In any event, you can just move along. When it comes to crack access, there's nothing to see here.
Air O-Zone
Someone else is looking for detalis of the plane in the O-Zone video for Dragostea Din Teï. As am I still; I'd like to produce a drawing of it, when I have a bit more free time, and I'd like to know what sort of plane it was that it was based on. If I ever find out, I'll post.
The Big Winner This Time Round
A Google search, which pretty much speaks for itself:
"emma watson's favourite things and what she likes to do and what she doesn't like to do and what her hopes and dreams are websites"
Well, that's all for this time. Tempus fugit, so-little-to-do-so-much-time-to do-it-in, and all that. Out.
For a long time now, BP has been delivering to me a sort of restrained comic relief in the form of search terms and referring pages. Sometimes browsers refer from the "next blog" button on the Blogger search bar, rendering referrals from sites whose juxtaposition with mine is bizarre in the least and dadaist at the most.
Without further ado, then, here's the goodies I found the last time I checked in with Blogger:
The last 20 referrers amounted to a lot of Google searches and "Self-referring/Bookmarker", which I must be honest I don't really know what means, although I did get a hit referred from a Comcast search about the defunct BCTI. So, I'll move on to search terms. Always a world of fun here.
Got It On My Mind, Like A Song On The Radio
The top keyword hits had people looking for information on Thom Hartmann, our new KPOJ morning talk jock. I also got a few hits from people looking up Heidi Tauber. Good on you Heidi, you got fans. Other media-related hits included terms for "Bob Miller KPAM" and "Rusty Nails KPTV"-Rusty Nails was a popular kiddie clown on the old Channel 12 during the halcyon days. Also got a couple of hits looking for the former KPAM talk jock "Dream" Weaver (who I still miss...curse you KPAM).
Know The Code
One hit for Si bili, se ergo. I love that.
Vastly Underrated
One for '"Dave Mayes" cribbage'. If you have a Palm and want a few well-crafted, free games, go there and get them. They're wicked fun and more of a match than most computer games. Find the link for Dave Mayes on my sidebar.
A Habit Of Highly Effective People
Two keyworders went after the Uncalendar. I can't recommend it highly enough. If you need to be organized but just can't do it, having a tool you like and is fun to use make it more possible. It hasn't solved all my problems, but it's helped me start to instill good habits...and I need all the help I can get. Go to People Systems to find out more about it...and check out the "Note Takers Delight" while you're at it.
Well, You Should Keep Your Leather Cleaner, Then
One search: "keflex for strap infection". Now, that's what I call the wonder drug that works wonders!"
Your All Purpose Criminal Element
I have four or five keyword hits from people looking to crack QuarkXPress V6 and up, three in the last week. I guess that's to be expected; I've mentioned it in the narrative more than once, and it's hard cheese to swallow to ask someone to fork over $1,000 to use what the ininitiated think is probably just a glorified Microsoft Publisher (it's much better than that, trust me). On the other hand, there are a lot of budding designers who need the tool but probably just can't afford it.
Strangely, I receive no keyword hits looking for InDesign cracks. Make of this what you will.
In any event, you can just move along. When it comes to crack access, there's nothing to see here.
Air O-Zone
Someone else is looking for detalis of the plane in the O-Zone video for Dragostea Din Teï. As am I still; I'd like to produce a drawing of it, when I have a bit more free time, and I'd like to know what sort of plane it was that it was based on. If I ever find out, I'll post.
The Big Winner This Time Round
A Google search, which pretty much speaks for itself:
"emma watson's favourite things and what she likes to do and what she doesn't like to do and what her hopes and dreams are websites"
Well, that's all for this time. Tempus fugit, so-little-to-do-so-much-time-to do-it-in, and all that. Out.
02 May 2005
[design] Calling All Designers! Super Cool Prizes!!!
Okay, you people who are designers (and you know who you are), or those who are just familiar with Quark and InDesign...
A local designer of note, Pariah S. Burke, has organized a little contest, see. Much good prizes! Want a chance to win a copy of Adobe InDesign CS2 with an expert support contract? And even more cool prizes?
A couple months back, Quark tried to bring errant, laggart users back on the rez, by publicizing the V6.5 upgrade complete with the ALAP XTension called ShadowCaster, giving transparency and high-quality drop shadows. To promote, they sent out a deck of six cards we like to call Quark's Postcards from The Edge.
Follow the link and read about them. They created quite a stir.
Well, we at QuarkVSInDesign.com thought that the message was a little too edgy and a little too negative. So Pariah hit upon the idea to give our fellow designer-types the chance to show what they were made of and craft pro-InDesign and pro-Quark (hey, a lot of us swing both ways) promos.
After you've read about the postcards (and perused the comments), go here and look at them prizes and peep this contest. I tell you, you people are the lucky ones...you get to enter. I just get to stand by and watch everyone snap up all the schwag.
I mean, QuarkXPress 6.5 to the first place Quark winner...how could you not?
Start brainstorming, you people. But do it quick...the deadline is approaching.
This is good stuff. Don't miss out!!!
Listen Up!!!!
A local designer of note, Pariah S. Burke, has organized a little contest, see. Much good prizes! Want a chance to win a copy of Adobe InDesign CS2 with an expert support contract? And even more cool prizes?
A couple months back, Quark tried to bring errant, laggart users back on the rez, by publicizing the V6.5 upgrade complete with the ALAP XTension called ShadowCaster, giving transparency and high-quality drop shadows. To promote, they sent out a deck of six cards we like to call Quark's Postcards from The Edge.
Follow the link and read about them. They created quite a stir.
Well, we at QuarkVSInDesign.com thought that the message was a little too edgy and a little too negative. So Pariah hit upon the idea to give our fellow designer-types the chance to show what they were made of and craft pro-InDesign and pro-Quark (hey, a lot of us swing both ways) promos.
After you've read about the postcards (and perused the comments), go here and look at them prizes and peep this contest. I tell you, you people are the lucky ones...you get to enter. I just get to stand by and watch everyone snap up all the schwag.
I mean, QuarkXPress 6.5 to the first place Quark winner...how could you not?
Start brainstorming, you people. But do it quick...the deadline is approaching.
This is good stuff. Don't miss out!!!
29 April 2005
[everything] Busy ^ 3
Turned in packaging project one...got an eye on upgrading to CS2, have to budget...need real live interview appearance apparel before Real Soon...dicing out packaging project two...putting portfolio together...Registering for AIGA Student Portfolio Show...getting sleep in there somehow...class on Friday...stilllooking at a 10-hour shift at the wage-producer...
...thud.
...thud.
26 April 2005
[us_politics] You See, We Told You, MSFT Is Evil
I mean, just look at who billg has on retainer. And recently it broke that MSFT has pulled a legislative fast one, on the down-low of course.
Links above from, respectively, AMERICAblog and TheStranger.com.
Props to Atrios, who remarked:
At least as far as we can know.
Links above from, respectively, AMERICAblog and TheStranger.com.
Props to Atrios, who remarked:
Maybe I'll switch to Mac after all...Maybe you should, A. Macintosh: It just works, and none of your money will go to Ralph Reed.
At least as far as we can know.
[net_life] Gmail Marches On
Gmail has been dishonest in their recent advertising, I fear.
Recently it was announced that regular Gmailers were having thier online space doubled. It started as 1000MB (which was inaccurately promoted as 1GB-that's 1024MB, people, ask any real geek). In what was a very fun way of rolling it out, Google increased member's storage day by day, with a live update on the Gmail login page. Before long I was at 2000MB.
Then I was at 2048MB, an actual 2 Gig.
But it hasn't stopped. I'm now at 2,133MB. And it still seems to be going up.
Another thing I don't seem to be running out of are Gmail invites. I tried giving them away to friends, but after I give away a few, Google tops me back up.
I have 50 invites to give out. Anyone who wants one, just follow this posting. If things change, I'll repost on this subject.
PS:There are concerns about privacy and Gmail. Google has responded to them with this prospectus. I have so far used Gmail with no problems.
PPS: Yes, I was one of those who knew that the 21st Century began in 2001 and not 2000, but I held my opinion on that. I didn't want to harsh anyone's vibe.
Recently it was announced that regular Gmailers were having thier online space doubled. It started as 1000MB (which was inaccurately promoted as 1GB-that's 1024MB, people, ask any real geek). In what was a very fun way of rolling it out, Google increased member's storage day by day, with a live update on the Gmail login page. Before long I was at 2000MB.
Then I was at 2048MB, an actual 2 Gig.
But it hasn't stopped. I'm now at 2,133MB. And it still seems to be going up.
Another thing I don't seem to be running out of are Gmail invites. I tried giving them away to friends, but after I give away a few, Google tops me back up.
I have 50 invites to give out. Anyone who wants one, just follow this posting. If things change, I'll repost on this subject.
PS:There are concerns about privacy and Gmail. Google has responded to them with this prospectus. I have so far used Gmail with no problems.
PPS: Yes, I was one of those who knew that the 21st Century began in 2001 and not 2000, but I held my opinion on that. I didn't want to harsh anyone's vibe.
23 April 2005
[pdx_airwaves] KPOJ, Of Late
The recent changes at KPOJ have brought a hint of personality to the station that I think it was lacking, and needed badly.
First-Thom Hartmann. After listening to him for a week, I've got to say, I'm glad he's here. Smart, hip, and quietly humorous (sure, he's not Marc Maron...but who is? Is Marc Maron even Marc Maron? Anyway.) It's good to hear Heidi Tauber and Paul Pimentel, and the local approach really leaves a mark with me. Had good guests on all week to welcome him, from the Governor to local lights, and he's got one of the greatest radio voices I've ever heard.
I'll look forward to seeing where this one goes.
Also, KPOJ has opened up to the Satellite Sisters on Saturday morning,in place of where Randi Rhodes used to be recycled. This is a good addition because it's good to take an occasional break from politically charged talk all the time (these days it can get might depressing, and where you stand on that one depends on where you sit). And there is a local connection-one of the Sisters is based here in Portland.
First-Thom Hartmann. After listening to him for a week, I've got to say, I'm glad he's here. Smart, hip, and quietly humorous (sure, he's not Marc Maron...but who is? Is Marc Maron even Marc Maron? Anyway.) It's good to hear Heidi Tauber and Paul Pimentel, and the local approach really leaves a mark with me. Had good guests on all week to welcome him, from the Governor to local lights, and he's got one of the greatest radio voices I've ever heard.
I'll look forward to seeing where this one goes.
Also, KPOJ has opened up to the Satellite Sisters on Saturday morning,in place of where Randi Rhodes used to be recycled. This is a good addition because it's good to take an occasional break from politically charged talk all the time (these days it can get might depressing, and where you stand on that one depends on where you sit). And there is a local connection-one of the Sisters is based here in Portland.
19 April 2005
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