Favorite Songs of 1995

Almost all of my favorite songs that I listened to in 1995 were played on 103.7-WRUF “Rock 104”. Like 1996, 1995 was a great year to listen to rock on the radio. But something else distracted me: I bought a copy of Soundgarden’s masterpiece Superunknown, which had actually come out in 1994. I got to like every track on it and listened to it many times. In fact, my top favorite song of 1995, My Wave, is the second track on Superunknown. Musically and lyrically, this songs still stands out as a personal favorite. Here now is the list of my favorites from 1995, as I lived through it:

More Human Than Human (White Zombie)
As I Lay Me Down (Sophie B. Hawkins)
Breakfast At Tiffany's (Deep Blue Something)
Bullet With Butterfly Wings (Smashing Pumpkins)
1979 (Smashing Pumpkins)
Fantasy (Mariah Carey)
Geek Stink Breath (Green Day)
Hand In My Pocket (Alanis Morisette)
For Those About To Rock (A.C.-D.C.)
I Kissed A Girl (Jill Sobule)
Immortality (Pearl Jam)
In The Meantime (Spacehog)
Lump (Presidents of the U.S.A.)
My Friends (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Natural One (Folk Implosion)
One Of Us (Joan Osborne)
Possum Kingdom (Toadies)
Runaway (Janet Jackson)
Tomorrow (Silverchair)
Wonder (Natalie Merchant)
Wonderwall (Oasis)
You Oughta Know (Alanis Morisette)
December (Collective Soul)
Where The River Flows (Collective Soul)
Gel (Collective Soul)
Rain King (Counting Crows)
A Murder Of One (Counting Crows)
The Best Of What's Still Around (Dave Matthews Band)
Satellite (Dave Matthews Band)
Ants Marching (Dave Matthews Band)
Can't Cry Anymore (Sheryl Crow)
Let Me Drown (Soundgarden)
My Wave (Soundgarden)
Mailman (Soundgarden)
Superunknown (Soundgarden)
Black Hole Sun (Soundgarden)
Spoonman (Soundgarden)
The Day I Tried To Live (Soundgarden)
Fresh Tendrils (Soundgarden)
Dignity (Bob Dylan)
Not For You (Pearl Jam)
Corduroy (Pearl Jam)

Pearl Jams’s ode to a teacher, Corduroy, resonated with me. The Red Hot Chili Peppers came out with a unusually sad, mellow piece titled My Friends. Oasis, whom many compared to the Beatles, but sounded to me like the Zombies, brought into the musical scene their cello-enriched Wonderwall. Dave Matthews and his Band hit the big time in 1995, producing several hits, my favorites among them being Satellite and Ants Marching. Collective Soul had one of my most-liked songs of theirs this year with their relentless Where the River Flows. Bob Dylan surprised me with his touching comeback song Dignity. Mariah Carey sampled the old tune Genius of Love (by the Tom Tom Club) and came out with what I feel is her best song ever, Fantasy. I suppose that the aforementioned Chili Peppers song My Friend wins the tearjerker of the year award, but Soundgarden’s The Day I Tried to Live was pretty emotional as well.

Sitting Outside Starbucks

As I write this, I am sitting outside of a Starbucks in north Gainesville, Florida. It's early afternoon and I will soon be driving off to work. Outside, this is one of the most beautiful days of the year. The temperature is in the sixties (very mild for Florida) and the air is pleasantly dry. The shopping center where I'm sitting is one of those meticulously landscaped ones that have assorted varieties of trees, bushes, and ferns all around. The Starbucks inside is pretty crowded, but for some reason I'm the only one out here enjoying this weather and scenery. There is also a soothing, light, cool breeze floating in and out around me here. And the decorators have hung pretty holiday red ribbons up on the numerous lampposts throughout the shopping center (called Magnolia Parke). By the way, I discovered in life that if a place's name has an "e" stuck on the ends of words that don't normally have it, that means you're in exquisite surroundings and need to follow the "pinkie out" rule. On the other hand, if you're in someplace whose name has been deliberately misspelled with "k"'s in it (like Kwik Chek or Krispy Kreme), then you're free to act like a coarse slob!

Although the temperature is very mild, the Floridians around here are mostly walking around with sweaters or jackets. One young man just passed by wearing a jacket with the hood up, covering his head! I wonder what the folks up north, buried in snow, would think about that!

The only problem I have about this place is that, about a hundred feet behind me, NW 39 Avenue runs by. And it is very, very busy, as well as being a truck route. So it sounds a bit as if I am sitting right off the Interstate highway! No problem: if the noise gets to be too much, I have my trusty earplugs in my shirt pocket, ready for action! Well, I think I'll sign off and say farewell for now. There's a Stephen King book (Skeleton Crew) that I would like to finish reading in the next two or three days. Until tomorrow...

Eighty-Twenty, Best-Angry

From time to time, I've come across a reference to the "80-20 rule". What is it? Simply that, as a gross generality, 80% of the work in a given situation is actually performed by about 20% of the people involved. The question is, how true is this statement?

I'll be the first to admit that I've been in situations where there was a lot of work to be done and there were also a lot of slackers who didn't want to work hard to accomplish it. Then I, along with a small number of fellow hard-workers, would get the job done. And it would make me angry, because those in charge would never seem to punish those who wouldn't contribute their fair share of the work. I've discovered that this injustice is much more prevalent in loose, informally-run work situations. I have also worked in a highly-structured work environment, where each worker was assigned specific tasks that they were individually held accountable for accomplishing. In these situations, the 80-20 rule fell apart, and there was more of an atmosphere of cooperation and mutual respect among the employees. So, you may have correctly guessed that I prefer to work in such a highly organized work setting.

Besides the 80-20 rule, there is another rule that I have noticed by myself, and hence I don't have any spiffy sort of name for it. I'll just call it the "best-angry" rule. You see, on the other extreme of the spectrum from the lazy employee is the diligent, perfectionist worker whose personal impulse in the workplace is to be absolutely the best worker of all there. If it just stopped there, then that would be O.K. with me. But all too often, such a worker will then turn around and angrily express contempt for other workers not living up to this worker's exceptionally high self-imposed standards. Which pretty much comprises almost everyone in the work force! I appreciate hard-working colleagues, but they sometimes need to practice a little professional detachment in regard to judging others.

The "80-20" and "best-angry" rules permeate all places that I have worked for any amount of time. But the less structured the job assignments are, the more pronounced their negative effects are as well. Those in managerial positions would be well-advised to recognize these two pitfalls and to take care that they don't take too strong of a hold in the workplace.

Monday Newsbreak: 12/3

--The media is portraying Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as having gone over the edge in pursuing political power as well as meddling in the affairs of other countries. Personally, I see that he has a messiah complex and views others in a straight-up-and-down way. If you agree with Mr. Chavez, then you are a "good" person, and if you disagree with him, you are "bad". Hugo Chavez, in his own mind, is so good for his country that he apparently intends to lead it for the remainder of his life! It's too bad that this individual has turned out to be such a megalomaniac, because I believe that some of the issues he embraces are important. It's crucial for political leaders to serve the interests of their countries' masses, not just the elite classes. But they don't have to be so full of themselves in the process, as Mr. Chavez is.

--There is a push in Florida, spearheaded by Governor Charlie Crist, to raise the Homestead Exemption for property taxes. The issue will be decided at a January 29 referendum. With skyrocketing real estate appraisals in Florida in recent years, I believe that it is imperative to bring the Homestead Exemption up to current times. Otherwise, many homeowners will lose their properties due to their inability to pay their ballooning property taxes. Local governments oppose increasing the Exemption, but it's been my experience, at least from watching my own city and county commissions on TV, that local officials tend to be arrogant know-it-alls who tend to regard those whom they are elected to serve as somewhat lesser persons. And they are addicted to their pet projects and the people's tax contributions that they want to fund them with.

--Quite often, before two good football teams clash on the field, some of the players will go to the press and put down their opponent, just to get something going between the two teams. But before the New York Jets were to play the Miami Dolphins yesterday, Jets defensive end David Bowens said (of the Dolphins), "Just because they're 0-11 doesn't mean they aren't a good team." OUCH, that hurts! Oh, by the way, the Jets crushed Miami, 40-13.

--While looking in my Gainesville Sun sports section for local sporting event results that weren't there, I came across the NHL hockey standings (that few people actually care about). I noticed that most of the teams had winning records, and even those trailing their divisions had pretty good win-loss ratios. Then I discovered that, while an overtime win counted in the "win" column, an overtime loss didn't actually count as a "loss" but was put into an third category called "OT". I suppose they did this ridiculous repackaging of the standings to try to generate more fan interest in mediocre teams after the disastrous "non-season" a couple of years ago (which enabled the Tampa Bay Lightning to be defending Stanley Cup Champions for two whole years)!

Andrew Meyer and Ron Paul

I was recently looking through this past Friday's edition of The Independent Florida Alligator when I ran across an opinion piece by Andrew "Don't Tase Me Bro" Meyer. Apparently, Mr. Meyer has decided to go ahead and use his First Amendment rights to express himself freely after all. Good for him, and good for the rest of us as well! But we'll see if our illustrious local prosecutors decide to get aggressive with Andrew should he ever express something not to their personal liking (such as saying that he wasn't sorry after all)!

Meyer basically wrote his article to extol Republican candidate for President Ron Paul. Although a member of the GOP, Paul expresses liberal Democratic ideas on several issues. Still, he subscribes to a more Libertarian, laissez-faire creed when it comes to the economy. For Meyer, the most important issues that he supports Paul for is the candidate's adamant opposition to American military involvement in Iraq and in other parts of the world as well as his professed vehement support of the U.S Constitution, particularly in the application of its Bill of Rights. Paul's candidacy sounds eerily a bit like Democrat Howard Dean's four years ago in that he had built his campaign largely on the Internet.

Ron Paul sounds to me like a pretty decent fellow. And he may or may not make a pretty decent President. However, one person alone does not make up the entire Executive Branch, and whoever gets elected as President is bound to bring in members of his own party to fill in most of the important policy-making positions, especially in the Cabinet. And you can rest assured that, if Paul brings in his fellow Republicans, then his administration will contain many who oppose him on some of the important issues that would have gotten him elected.

Wouldn't it make more sense to support a candidate whose opinions largely resonate within his or her own political party? If someone like Barack Obama were elected as President, I am fairly confident that his administration would be mostly composed of those with whom he is philosophically in agreement regarding the proper function of government within society, as well as the best way for America to promote its interests across the world. A Paul Presidency, on the other hand, by the very "maverick" nature of the candidate, would be problematic: his own party would be deeply divided, and he would still have to deal with the Democrats as an opposition party. This, to me, would make for a dangerously weak Presidency. Why not just let one party stand for the conservative viewpoint, the other the liberal viewpoint, and let us voters decide which direction we want to go in? Although I don't agree with Andrew Meyer's promotion of Ron Paul, I do appreciate his comments and look forward to more in the future.

Busy December

Seeing that I'm going to be very busy at my job this month, I may not have the same opportunities to write daily entries for this blog that I've had up until now. But I'll give it my best shot, although the articles may sometimes be pretty short (like this one, for example). After Christmas, though, my writing should pick up a bit.

Graveyard Shift

A report has just come out by an agency affiliated with the World Health Organization that links working the late-night "graveyard" shift with certain types of cancer (breast and prostate). The relationship is not certain: although there is a correlation between the graveyard shift and cancer, there may be a third, as yet undiscovered factor causing the increased likelihood of cancer that may correlate somehow with working late nights/early mornings.

When I was much younger, I felt that it would be cool to be up and about when most of the world (around me) was asleep. I'm not exactly the kind of person disposed toward being around crowds, and being awake when there were fewer people around was appealing. Plus, being off during the daytime and evening would give me a great amount of flexibility with regard to attending events without this conflicting with my work schedule. But the opportunity for me to radically change my sleeping patterns on a regular basis didn't occur until I began to work at the post office, which employs a large percentage of its enormous work force in the wee hours of the morning handling, sorting, and preparing mail for the next day's delivery. With only a gap of a little less than a year in 1995-96, I spent from late-1987 to mid-2003 working the graveyard shift as a clerk at my local post office. I noticed no serious ill effects from this tenure, but there were some disturbing effects nevertheless. For one thing, I seemed to come down with colds and sinus infections much more often. I also experienced something I call "chronic sleepiness", and this did not bode well for either my driving or my family relationships. And it was hard for me to get used to sleeping in the day, when the general noise level, along with myriad opportunities for distractions, ran rampant. As a matter of fact, I would always sleep nights whenever I had a day off, my body somehow desperately trying to reestablish its "circadian" sleep rhythms. Finally, by 2003, I was having a great amount of difficulty getting all the way through my "work day", with me starting to fade around 4 AM. So I was able to change my schedule to one where I began my shift in mid-afternoon and got off at midnight. Much, much better! Looking back on it, I am amazed at how long I was able to go on working the graveyard shift as I did. But now, whenever I occasionally am required to work overtime until 2 AM, even that little amount of "graveyard" work takes a toll on me! Hopefully, no long-term health consequences will have arisen out of the many years that I plodded through on the graveyard shift.

Honesty Vs. Self-Censorship In Writing

I remember once seeing an episode of the series Newhart where the character played by Bob Newhart had just had his newly written novel published. And lo and behold! It seemed that each of the characters in it bore uncanny resemblances to Newhart’s family and friends. The whole hilarious episode centered around various people confronting him with his portrayal of them (and their angry objections).

I just recently purchased and have begun to read a book titled The Courage to Write (How Writers Transcend Fear) by Ralph Keyes, a writing teacher who has written several books on the subject. One of the points that Keyes makes in it is that honest writers will usually, without any intention of doing so, at one time or another offend someone they know with their writing. This may or may not be an overt, obvious sort of thing, but in truth, a writer’s chief (by far) source of any information (and that includes of characters) is from his or her own memory and experiences. Keyes related several examples of authors who had to deal with angry relatives and friends who identified themselves (in their opinions, unflatteringly) in published novels and stories. But Keyes stresses that an honest writer will not let this external pressure for self-censoring limit what is a sincere expression of what he or she really feels.

I’m a little concerned that, eventually, people who know me and find out that I am writing this blog may suspect that I’m going to use it as an exposé on them in some way. In truth, I’ve been at it since early April and feel that nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve deliberately avoided tackling some very sensitive, difficult topics precisely and solely because I was concerned about the privacy and feelings of others. But since I don’t live in insulated isolation from others, my own experiences and feelings, some of which I would like to (and have a right to) write about inevitably touch upon certain people, and they will be mentioned as diplomatically and discretely as possible (or not mentioned at all). So, I am really going “above and beyond” in respecting others whom I know with this blog (unless, of course, they are public figures about whom I am writing). When I finally get down to writing fictional stories to submit for publication, though, I intend to follow Keyes’s advice and be a “courageous writer”. But as Keyes also stressed, each writer needs to come to sort of peace within himself about how to tackle this area. And, quite frankly, I don’t know exactly how my characters will reflect upon real-life people I know. But my instincts tell me that what will most likely occur is that I may take a bit from one person and mix it with traits from others (and from my own imagination) to create unique, special characters, quite unlike the comic “Newhart” scenario.

Foreign Languages on the Eights: 11/27

For the past eight weeks, I've been studying Vietnamese using Robert M. Quinn's Beginner's Vietnamese (Hippocrene Books, 1995). I have finished the first nine chapters of this thirty-lesson text. I need to pick up my pace, though. Most of the vocabulary I've encountered has been very familiar, but there are "new" words as well. Vietnamese is an analytic language, meaning that I don't have to spend time learning declensions and conjugations. Nor do I have to concern myself with word roots changing on me. Vietnamese expresses its grammatical functions through syntax, and Quinn provides plenty of syntactic practice with each lesson. My problem is that Vietnamese is a tonal language, and I'm still not too clear on how various words are pronounced according to their intonation. Also, their vowels are pronounced a little differently from English, and I need an audio model to demonstrate the differences. Also, I need to begin assembling a personal vocabulary list that references where I first learned each word. Of course, with Vietnamese, I learned many of the words in the period of 1979-1982, so I'm just going to "pretend" that I just learned them for the first time with the Quinn book.

Another facet of my foreign language study has been to listen daily to news broadcasts in my "designated" languages, either from Webcasts or from my television (with Spanish). In this area, I have been too lax. I need to set aside some more time for listening, as it does give me a good sense of how the various languages flow (not to mention training me to listening to them more quickly).

As I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I'm not exactly a whiz at computers, and I haven't been able to download a Vietnamese font to write it. Although Vietnamese uses a Romanized script (in spite of its many Chinese loan words), specially-modified nouns and numerous diacritics and tonal markers make it rather cumbersome to write out. And I wouldn't be doing it justice to attempt writing in it using the ordinary fonts that I employ in this blog. But it would be pretty cool, once I've downloaded a Vietnamese font and figured out the keyboard layout, to write a short composition in Vietnamese using my already-learned vocabulary. Maybe eight weeks from now...

Favorite Songs of 1996

1996 was, to me, the last truly great year for mainstream rock and roll. I could just tune my radio in to 103.7-WRUF “Rock 104” and leave it on all night long, without worrying about having to hear really atrocious music (which is, unfortunately, too often the case nowadays). Well, here’s my somewhat long list of favorites from 1996, as I lived through it:

Free As A Bird (Beatles)
Aeroplane (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Always Be My Baby (Mariah Carey)
Bulls On Parade (Rage Against the Machine)
Flood (Jars of Clay)
Humans Being (Van Halen)
I Got Id (Pearl Jam)
Ironic (Alanis Morisette)
Macarena (Los del Rio)
Novocaine For The Soul (Eels)
Only Happy When It Rains (Garbage)
Pepper (B. Surfers)
Ready To Go (Republica)
Standing Outside A Broke Phone Booth... (Primitive Radio Gods)
Stinkfist (Tool)
Stupid Girl (Garbage)
Tahitian Moon (Porno for Pyros)
Tonight, Tonight (Smashing Pumpkins)
What I Got (Sublime)
Where It's At (Beck)
Who Will Save Your Soul (Jewel)
You Learn (Alanis Morisette)
Zero (Smashing Pumpkins)
Burden In My Hand (Soundgarden)
Boot Camp (Soundgarden)
Undertow (REM)
E-Bow The Letter (REM)
Electrolyte (REM)
How The West Was Won (& Where It Got Us) (REM)
Angels Of The Silences (Counting Crows)
Every Day Is A Winding Road (Sheryl Crow)
So Much To Say (Dave Matthews Band)
Crash Into Me (Dave Matthews Band)
Too Much (Dave Matthews Band)
Tripping Billies (Dave Matthews Band)
Machinehead (Bush)
Greedy Fly (Bush)
The Chanuka Song (Adam Sandler)
I Stick Around (Foo Fighters)
Alone And Easy Target (Foo Fighters)
Exhausted (Foo Fighters)
Grind (Alice in Chains)
Again (Alice in Chains)
Big Bang Baby (Stone Temple Pilots)

My top favorite of the year was Alice in Chains’s beautifully angry, anguished song Again. Following close on its heals was Novocaine for the Soul by the Eels. Since then, this song has climbed up to be #5 on my all-time list. Right behind Novocaine was Stupid Girl by Garbage, a now-resurgent group fronted by vocalist Shirley Manson, who really knows how to belt out a tune. Stone Temple Pilots came out with Big Bang Baby, their rousing parody of 60’s music (the video is one of the funniest I’ve ever seen). REM plunged deeply into despair with E-Bow the Letter. And the tearjerker of the year award goes to Pearl Jam for their euphemistically-titled I Got Id.

Monday Newsbreak: 11/26

--It looks as if fires have broken out again in the coastal California area around Malibu, although the damage is nowhere as widespread as it was a few weeks ago in southern California. My area in northern Florida is also prone to fires from time to time. A few months ago, fires in southern Georgia caused almost unbreathable conditions in much of northern Florida. When the wind shifted, Atlanta had some serious emergencies with some people who couldn't breathe well. So it's not just the people who build their homes out in high-fire potential areas who are affected.

--Ten-year Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his party were convincingly turned out of office and replaced with Kevin Rudd and his Labor Party. Rudd has promised to withdraw the token Australian force in Iraq. But more importantly, he said that his administration would support ratification of the Kyoto agreement , designed to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and ameliorate the global warming crisis. Meanwhile, extreme right-wing corporate hack Sean Hannity is filling up his air time claiming that global warming isn't really happening, but if it is, it's caused by increased solar activity. Anything to avoid conceding a point to Al Gore!

--Tragedy struck downtown Gainesville during the very early Sunday morning hours in the form of a senseless, random murder. A Tallahassee man who, along with his brother, had visited Gainesville for the Saturday UF-FSU football game, was leaving a downtown parking garage when he was shot to death by someone in the garage. Video cameras caught the perpetrator as he was fleeing the garage, and the victim's brother witnessed the murder. So I ask, where was the security? You mean to tell me that they don't provide security for these parking garages, with all of the money that they rake in from them? I think that I'll just take my chances parking alongside curbs.

--The Florida Gators football team ended their regular season on a successful note by handling their cross-state rivals, the Florida State Seminoles, 45-12. It's a little sad for me to see both FSU and Miami having tough seasons, but maybe this is just a dip that will be corrected in the near future. I was happy to see the Tennessee Vols hold on to beat Kentucky in multiple overtimes, 52-50, to gain a shot at LSU for the SEC title. Since the Tigers blew a chance at a national championship with their loss to Arkansas this past week, I'm just going to stick with good ol' Coach Phillip Fulmer in his quest to lead Tennessee to steal the crown from the favorites!

Personal Narratives

Do you have your own life story? I do, and I imagine that most everyone does, at least those who have grown out of childhood. It takes form in a sort of narrative that we use to filter our ongoing experiences through. If something happens to me that affirms some aspect of my personal narrative, then I just add it to the "big story". And if something happens that runs counter to my "lessons-learned", then I tend to toss it aside as irrelevant. This is, of course an essentially dishonest process that I commit against myself. But it was not how I started out.

When I was a little child, I took everything in, noticing the kinds of things that, as an adult, I take very little interest in. For example, when I used to go to the local Kwik Chek grocery store with my parents, I got to know every decoration in the store, not to mention the colors of the walls as well as many other features that would carry little functional use as an adult. As I became older, I would choose to ignore those things that didn't contribute to the increasingly confined agenda of choices that I would be making in different situations. One of the upshots of this is that I have more vivid, complete memories of places from early childhood than I do of places I frequent nowadays. Living according to a personal narrative has caused me to ignore much of the reality around me that I unconsciously regard as irrelevant.

Another aspect of living according to a personal narrative is that it makes one less receptive to others' life narratives. As an adult, I've found that the idea of "getting to know somebody" essentially entails me just sitting back and letting them pour out their life's "story" to me, with very little room for me to actively participate in a meaningful dialogue. Even if I interject a comment pertaining to my "narrator's" story, they are more likely than not to object, no doubt holding that I have no business intruding on such a sacred thing as their great, personally unique story. Personally, I also, at times, feel an urge to "spill the beans" with another about my life's experiences and philosophy. But effectively mitigating against this is the simple fact that people in general aren't really interested in hearing about my precious (to me) narrative. It's all about them, don't you know!

The truth is that, while I habitually tend to react to things based on a rather "chipped-shoulder" personal narrative, part of me wants to be fully liberated from this type of mental and emotional self-imprisonment. And to this extent, writing a blog like this is very therapeutic. For although I put a personal touch on my entries, I've tried, for the most part, to be outward-looking and positive in writing it. Sure, I have all kinds of personal issues that I could vent and rant about. But that would not be very interesting to my readers, and it would only serve to affirm habits of self-doubt and self-pity that I am determined to change.

Overtraining in Running

When I began to write this blog this past spring, I discovered that there were quite a few bloggers out there who were devoted to running and recording their experiences on their blogs. Almost all of them were competitive runners who put in rather strenuous training routines, some more than others. Their ages varied quite a bit, as well as what they wanted to ultimately get out of running. For the most part, though, I sensed a certain culture of competitiveness that pervaded the blogs. It was almost as if the blogs themselves helped them to work out even harder.

I did notice, though, that after a while, many of them came to suffer various injuries (mostly foot, ankle, leg, and knee) that effectively put them out of action for a while. During recovery, they'd often keep their blogs going (but sometimes they'd stop it) and remonstrate about had tough it was to be inactive while they recovered. Then they'd pretty much have to start all over with their training, which they'd, once again, go at with the same zeal as before.

Now I know, from personal experience, how alluring the idea of excelling in a competitive running race can be. And it can be a great incentive for training if I see, sometime in the not-to-distant future, a race that I'd like to enter and run in. But I have to draw the line somewhere and realize that running is for me and not the reverse. When I first resumed running this past spring, I overdid my training a bit and strained some ligaments in my right foot. After recuperating, I decided to take things much easier. Originally planning to run (eventually) every day, I've instead pretty much limited my workouts to two or three times per week. And yet I seem to be stronger and faster because of this! My philosophy is now to enjoy running and make it a more gradual, enduring part of my life.

Maybe I'll enter some of those running races in the future. But my emphasis will be not to overtrain for anything. Even should I decide to enter a race in the future, I'm determined to train just as I've become used to. I have much more meaningful (for myself) goals with running, and they don't necessarily translate into the "Runner's World" culture that so many others rabidly buy into. And, hopefully, by this I'll also be able to further avoid the avoidable kinds of injuries that others suffer because of their overtraining.

Otherland

One of the more overlooked science fiction series over the past few years is Tad Williams' remarkable four-volume work titled Otherland. While Williams is widely known as a fantasy writer, this work is pure science fiction. The first book in the series came out in 1996, well before The Matrix hit the big screen. I say this because there are several uncanny similarities between the two stories, although they ultimately differ vastly in terms of plot and message.

Otherland is set one hundred years in a future dominated by virtual technology. Instead of using screens, (Inter)net users simply "enter" areas that they want to explore. And in many areas, particularly in the gaming, tourist, and shopping zones, the experience closely imitates the feeling of being in a real, albeit sometimes bizarre other place. The problem, which leads to several mysteries and a Tolkienesque "quest", is that a number of children who were using the net have suddenly and inexplicably fallen into comas. When this tragedy touches upon the life of the main character, South African Renie Sulaweyo, she, along with her Bushman friend !Xabbu, embark on a harrowing journey of discovery and rescue. Along the way, other characters are introduced: a lost Englishman by the name of Paul Jonas, a precocious American boy named Orlando, and a mysterious but apparently benevolent old man called Mr. Sellars. And there are plenty of "bad guys" to go around, too.

The characters in Otherland are compelling and unforgettable. But in terms of creative imagery, I have yet to read anything that compares to the "worlds" that Williams reveals in this saga. I know just two things: making Otherland into a movie series like Lord of the Rings would probably be prohibitively expensive, just to stay true to the special effects. But I believe that this expense would be more than offset by the explosive and enduring popularity that Otherland would enjoy once people people at-large began to notice it.

Tad Williams has a very easy-to-follow writing style that doesn't interfere with the story. I've found that through this rather "plain" writing, Williams (as well as other writers like Stephen King and John Grisham) can create interesting and intricate worlds that the reader can feel emboldened and confident to enter. And once you enter Otherland, you won't long forget it!

Looking Earlier Musically During 1990-1996

Up until late 1990, I pretty much depended on what I heard off the radio to determine my favorite songs. Then, Led Zeppelin issued the first of their famous box sets. My local station 103.7-WRUF "Rock 104" played the entire box set from beginning to end. And I discovered what an incredibly versatile, creative band Led Zeppelin was! I heard tunes like Friends, Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp, and The Battle of Evermore for the first time, along with many others. Over the next couple of years, all of my top favorite songs at the time were actually old Zep tunes like Ramble On, Misty Mountain Hop, Dazed and Confused, No Quarter, and In the Evening. But my favorite of all was my long-standing all-time top favorite song When the Levee Breaks.

Having discovered the depth in quality of Led Zeppelin's works, I decided to seek out past albums from other groups I liked such as the Moody Blues, the Police, Pink Floyd, Rush, Yes, U2, the Who, and REM. From 1991-1996, I bought many albums, and songs from them dominated my free listening time.

Why am I saying this at this time? I've arrived (going backwards one year at a time) at the year 1996 with my weekly "favorite songs of the year" reviews. Except for the most exceptional "older" songs that I liked during any particular year (from old album purchases), instead I'm going to concentrate on songs that were currently popular which I heard off the radio. So, for example, I won't include, during the span from 1991-96, any of the myriad wonderful Moody Blues songs that I became enamored with (but I may sometime in the future write about this great band).

Next week resumes my weekly review of my favorite songs from the past, going back one year at a time (picking back up at 1996).

P.S. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Piano On the Eights: 11/21

For the past eight weeks, I've continued to plod along with my piano lessons. I get the feeling that I don't practice as much as I should, but I am making progress nonetheless. My main difficulty at this point seems to be adjusting to shifts in fingering in some pieces, sometimes from measure to measure. When this occurs, I often find myself slowing my playing down way too much. But my teacher continues to give me progressively more challenging pieces to practice playing. My special personal project is going to be learning how to play some Christmas songs for my family at home during the holiday season. I'm still looking for that "quantum breakthrough" with my piano playing skills, but it won't come anytime soon unless I put in the time and effort to make it happen!

Here are the pieces that I've been working on from my songbooks. You'll probably recognize some of the titles, while a few of them are pretty generic in nature:

Sunflower Boogie, Chinese Water Lilies, Rain Dance, Little Gray Owl, Little Rock, Careless Love, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Goin' Home, G Major Scale Etude, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Minuet and Trio, Limerick Tune, Anyone for Tic-Tac-Toe?, Camptown Races, For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!, The Gift to Be Simple, Roller Coaster Rhythm, Famous People, Deck the Halls, Climb Ev'ry Mountain, Edelweiss.

Star-Gazing Season Arrives

To me, the most interesting and enjoyable time of the year for star-gazing is arriving. Late fall to early spring is a great time for sitting outside in the evening, as far or shielded as possible from streetlights, and refamiliarizing myself with the spectacular patterns of the winter evening sky. The air where I live in Florida is usually dryer this time of the year, and this makes the stars much more brighter and beautiful than during the more humid mid-spring to early-fall period. Also, by this time, I don't have to contend with annoying mosquitoes sucking me dry of blood if I'm outside for more than a few minutes at a time. But most of all, this time of year brings out my favorite constellations (and old memories, going back to childhood, of staying up to see them).

More than anything, it's the night sky itself that draws me to it. The Pleiades, a.k.a. "the smudge", is the introduction to this great section of the sky as it rises due east in the early evening. In the northeast, I can see Capella, one of the brightest stars in the sky, while the Zodiac constellations of Taurus (with the first-magnitude star Aldebaran) and Gemini (with the stars Castor and Pollux) flank on each side the showcase constellation of the season: Orion. Orion is distinguished by the three bright second-magnitude stars in a close line lying within its center: the Belt. The northeast corner of Orion contains the famous star Betelgeuse, while the southwest corner contains the star Rigel (referred to in one of the old Star Trek episodes). If I point the Belt toward the northwest, the line I draw comes close to Aldebaran. If I go in the opposite direction, I end up near the brightest star (by far) in the night sky: Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major. Going north from Sirius leads me to Procyon, the brightest star in Canis Minor. At just about the time that Orion lies on the meridian, if I don't have anything blocking my view, I can look just above the southern horizon and see Canopus, the brightest (and northernmost) star in the constellation Carina. It is also right behind Sirius in being the second brightest star in the night sky. Canopus has been my "favorite" star for many years because seeing it during the evening hours usually means that the air is pleasantly cold and dry (so why do I live in Florida, I ask myself). Aside from the stars, there are usually a couple of planets hanging around to view (Mars is currently visible in Gemini). And although the moon's brilliance (when it is out) diminishes the view of the stars, its presence always provokes my imagination.

There's nothing quite like going out on a cold, still, winter night with the stars putting on their show and a cup of hot chocolate in my hand. To me, it's a rite of the passage of seasons, and I get a feeling of nostalgia reminiscent of some of Ray Bradbury's writings (especially his Dandelion Wine). You don't have to be a whiz in astronomy to pick up a cheap star-gazing guide, find the brightest stars, and enjoy this fun leisure activity as I do!

Monday Newsbreak: 11/19

--All-time home run record-setter Barry Bonds was finally indicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with allegations that he took illegal performance-enhancing drugs during his baseball career. Since steroid use had been going on long before Bonds allegedly began using them himself, why didn't Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig go after alleged steroid abusers like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa during their big home run seasons in 1998-1999? Although Selig obviously had heard talk that they had been taking steroids, he instead used the home run chase after Roger Maris's 1961 season record as a promotional gimmick to excite interest in Major League Baseball, elevating McGwire and Sosa to the status of heroes. Up until this time, Bonds had been having one great season after another. After seeing how McGwire and Sosa were lifted up by Selig and the press to a higher lever, he decided to do whatever it took to achieve their greatness. Some believe that involved taking steroids. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. But I don't like (as I've written before on an earlier entry) the perjury charge, which I see as a cheap "cop-out" way to prosecute people when there isn't enough evidence to pursue a legitimate charge more directly related to alleged criminal activity.

--The United Nations delivered a report gravely warning of the devastating consequences of global warming. The current effects go well beyond any that cyclic fluctuations could account for. With just a slight further raise in the average worldwide temperature (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), as many as thirty per cent of all plant and animal species on Earth face possible extinction, according to the report. The question that serious scientists are now asking is not whether global warming is real: it is whether or not the effects of global warming are reversible, and even whether the warming itself can be slowed and stopped to any appreciable degree.

--Cyclone Sidr on Saturday struck the impoverished nation of Bangladesh, causing (at latest count) 2,300 deaths there. The number is expected to go much higher, but it would have been much worse had the government not forced more than a million people living on the coast to evacuate to state-run storm shelters. Otherwise, we may have seen a repeat of the 1970 calamity, when a cyclone striking the same general area caused around 100,000 deaths.

--The University of Florida basketball season has begun, with them winning their first four games so far. Coach Billy Donovan seems to have put a very good, unselfish team together after the starters from last year's National Champion squad graduated or joined the NBA early. Still, it won't be until they hit the tough Southeastern Conference league schedule in January that we'll find out for sure how good this year's edition of Gator men's hoops is.

Weight Loss & Maintenance On the Eights: 11/18

This past eight weeks of personal weight management has seen a bit of stagnation, largely caused by not monitoring my eating enough and consuming too many sweets. However, I did not gain any significant weight, which is something. Nevertheless, I need to get my weight down to a level that I feel more comfortable running with. And that involves me losing 10-15 more pounds. Cutting back on the empty carbs (sweets), sticking to single portions during meals, and curtailing incessant snacking are the ways for me to achieve this. I am also what you might call a "stressed eater": I tend to eat a lot more during periods of anxiety and exhaustion. Cutting back on the levels of unnecessary stress (some stress is important to have) and closing my eyes when tired (instead of opening my mouth and putting food into it) will also help. Here are my weekly weighings:

DATE LBS.
9/29 177.0
10/6 178.2
10/13 (missed)
10/20 179.6
10/27 179.4
11/03 179.6
11/10 176.2
11/17 178.8

Using Examples From Shows

As I have already mentioned in a far earlier entry, I tend to think in analogies. When considering a certain situation that I am confronted with, my mind seems to naturally go back through all of the TV shows and movies I've seen (as well as stories I've read) to come up with scenarios mirroring, in some significant way, my current experience. And some of these sources are generally well-known enough to the point that I can confidently use them as examples when I am either discussing things with others or writing about them on this blog. Of course, in conversation, I can ask whether the other person has seen the episode or movie (or read the story) that I am using as an analogy. If he or she says no, then there's no point in me going any further on with it. But with this blog, I'm just going to have to presume that my reading "audience" knows about the shows I'm referring to. To increase that probability, I try to use more popular examples such as blockbuster movies (like Matrix, Godfather, A Beautiful Mind, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, etc.) or episodes from popular TV series (like All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, SpongeBob SquarePants, Star Trek, etc.) Every now and then, though, I'll use an example from a show that I don't believe many have seen (I used an episode from the 1960s Prisoner series a few days ago). When that happens, I try to give a little more background information about the show.

They say "Art imitates life", or is it the other way around? But using analogies, although they are usually flawed to some degree, can help listeners and readers to more fully understand the point that I'm trying to make. Or to at least get a hint as to what I'm talking about!

One danger in using examples from shows as illustrations is in possibly giving away a show's outcome to those who haven't yet seen it (and might want to). So, with this in mind, if my example seems to "give away" something in that show, then I'll preface my blog with a "plot spoiler" warning.