From the Archives: Cyberpunk setting

Looks like I wrote this in December of 2005, almost twenty years ago. Near as I can remember, I was trying to set up a Cyberpunk themed RPG game and this was me taking an idea for the setting. I emailed it to a group of people as I was trying to get the game going.

I had been living in Atlanta around that time, thus why it's a central focus (plus, the main alternative was Orlando, which just doesn't have the cyberpunk possibilities as much.) Also interesting is my reference to a depression that Canada would experience in... 2027. I doubt we'll see that occur such that they sell off British Columbia & the Yukon.

I don't know, I find some charm in the dystopia I described, such as the idea that disease is solved and the government just does it. Yeah, right. Especially with the looming appointment of Robert Kennedy Jr. and everything that led to this.

I have no real memory of this write-up, so I can't really add any more context of insight on what I was thinking. I must have had a hook in mind given the mass transit plot I lay out in this. I am guessing I was also pulling from one of my favorite books as an adolescent, "Invitation to the Game" by Monica Hughes and other Cyberpunk genre I had been reading at the time.

Subject: "The Future is Bleak"

The year is 2106, the world has largely settled in terms of International negotiation and there has been relative stability for over sixty years. The key word obviously being 'relative.' NATO has dissolved, the UN has remained stable, and the world has welcomed dozens of countries to the 22nd century as technology became more widespread and easier for the third world nations to adopt.

The United States just recently elected its 62nd President and 83% of its citizens don't know his name or what he looks like. In fact they don't know that he is actually a she, Sheila Cunningham. The US after successfully, though slowly, extricating itself from the Middle East has returned to being an isolationist nation. It turned the world policing over to the UN, as well as supplying 5 million soldiers to the cause. Make of this what you will, but it at least is no longer directly attributable to the US.

The US now has 55 states, adding two states south of Texas as Mexico dissolved in 2056. We also added 3 states east of Alaska as Canada's government struggled through the depression of 2027. Georgia remains largely unchanged on the map. Atlanta has expanded to cover most of the Northwest of the state, the Mayor has been replaced by a City Council representing the fifteen districts. Atlanta reached its pinnacle in 2065 when it achieved the first automated metro city road system allowing automated vehicles to travel over the roads while allowing passengers the freedom to not concern themselves with driving. This also solved the ever growing traffic issues with the much more efficient and reliable automated vehicles. MARTA was taken offline and replaced by a system called simply "The Phoenix" which moved much faster and allowed it to expand to fill all fifteen districts while providing reasonable commute times.

The crash occurred in 2077, 12 years after the major changes to Atlanta, the automated transit system was hacked and caused massive pileups resulting in deaths of over 15,000 people. The Phoenix also shut down and its passengers were taken hostage by a mysterious hacker group known as "The Green Team." They wanted the systems shut down forever, they threatened to do this to every system like this ever set up. Their beliefs were that this sort of system opened the doors for the fall of civilization, a system built on faulty principles and faulty security. The fact that it took 12 years for the system to get hacked was lauded by many agencies, but the deaths were too much and the city agreed to the hacker groups terms. After shuttling people to safety, the roads were shut down and the Phoenix was shut down. This left Atlanta with a major problem, to support a city as widespread as it had become, they could no longer rely on public transportation or automated vehicles. As a result the city shattered and became segmented. With only government given access to manual vehicles, cars, trucks and armored vehicles, the city found itself unable to support itself regionally and an exodus followed as people left looking for work elsewhere.

The automated roads remain unmoving with vehicle carcasses lining it, the vehicles rusted and decaying with broken glass all around them. The Council which oversees the city has little interest in renewing the system as the economics to drive it are gone.

The US has moved continually west and inhabited the rural states to begin building the mega cities of the future. Oklahoma City has exploded as an economic power, quickly becoming the New York City of the 22nd century.

Disease has all but been destroyed. The US government provides treatment through its water supply such that almost everyone is innoculated to all but the most deadly viruses. STDs have been exterminated and the world is free to procreate as it sees fit, population controls are in place such that female babies are given a hormone which does not affect their growth any, but also which acts as a form of birth control until they are given the anti-hormone which restarts their reproductive system. After female activists cried about the unfairness of this, the US government found the equivalent hormone for men such that they shoot blanks until given the anti-treatment.

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Specific Technology Topics: Robotics exists but artificial intelligence is still elusive, the closest the world has come is the Google Intelligent Response Library – GIRL, a utility they provide which through extensive libraries of knowledge is able to simulate intelligence by use of its huge archive of knowledge. GIRL access is available through the net at a nominal fee.

Space travel exists, the government support for it began to die down after the successful Mars mission opened a remote testing facility in 2034. Commercial Space travel picked up as Virgin championed it. The call for remote construction forced the world governments to come to terms with ownership or at least rights to the moon and Mars. It was decided that the US would manage construction and land rights for both of them, but would not limit ownership to any country or person. The high costs involved limited people from initiating a new gold rush out there but Virgin seized the opportunity and bought up a large chunk of land on the Moon with plans for the ultimate resort. They began construction in 2097 after fifteen years of fundraising and drumming up interest. With plans for it to open in 2110, rumors abound about it.

Nanotechnology exists but is frowned upon as it was found to be unreliable and largely insecure. The amount of space required for secure encryption quickly proved taxing the nanotechnology which might provide secure encryption and security for the owner, or host rather. This is not to say that it cannot be used, since multiple players have inquired about it – but that it is not a regular thing to be found in everyday use. It is definitely accessible to players if they wish to include it in their character.

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Specific Societal Topics: Poverty runs rampant in Atlanta. With the crashed economy and the lack of steady income for the majority of citizens it is a city of short term deals and general living in squalid conditions. Wealth is a reason to be recognized, and a reason to wear a bulls-eye on your back.

Why I Love the Un-American Football

I originally wrote this eight years ago in 2014, I am finally migrating this over from my old blog as we are forty-eight hours away from the start of 2022 World Cup. Unfortunately, the videos I had originally embedded have been taken offline (they were hosted elsewhere.) Enjoy.

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I started this blog post literally months ago. And I've tried to write a similar post for the past two years only to abandon each of them. This one is the closest I've come to success, and I've soldiered on revising and editing and fact checking. With the World Cup happening, I believe now is the time for me to publish it.

It was at Georgia Tech in 2002 that I met David. We weren't good friends, or even close friends really, but we did hang out from time to time and during those times I discovered David was 'weird.' Now, being 'weird' at Georgia Tech is saying something. It was (and most likely still is) largely a geek college with a heavily skewed male to female ratio. I mean, to be fair, I was weird at Georgia Tech too. But David was 'weird' because he was, well, he was a die hard soccer fan. Die hard despite lacking access to downloaded recordings of games or infinite satellite channels for European broadcasts. He had just grown to love the sport with what he had been able to catch and follow online over a decade ago. He was always checking ESPN's soccer coverage website. Like I said, he was 'weird.'

Of the things I regret in college, I regret not spending more time with David and not getting to know soccer through his eyes. He was an American kid who had fallen in love with a sport which was firmly entrenched as the least popular professional sport in America. Rather than learning to love the game through David, I took another path.

My education in soccer first started as a kid when I played on a YMCA team. I wasn't good. My earliest experience was in an in-door soccer league in Kansas City. I have no real memories of it but I have heard a story which involves the mob of kids on the field chasing the ball and I eventually collapse on the ball and curl up over it, determined to defend the ball in the only way I know how. When viewed as an action by a four or five year old child, it's adorable. So focus on that angle.

Soccer required an athleticism that I lacked such that I was often put on defense where the coach's instruction was "stay near the corner of the box and keep the ball away from the goal." Not a rousing coaching strategy but then it was YMCA. Combine my less-than-stellar soccer skills with television actively pushing me towards other sports which I could actually watch: (American) football, basketball, and baseball. Soccer was left in the dust. I grew up seeing it as a sport that kids played and adults elsewhere (not America) played and thus not something I should worry about. I mean, I wasn't seeing a soccer player peddling a sugary drink.

And so it was all the way through college, despite a friend named David, until I returned to Orlando in 2005. During that time I reconnected with some childhood friends from church, a pair of Brazilian brothers named David and Daniel. They were members of my childhood church. David was two years my senior, and Daniel was four years my junior. I was in middle school for one year with David, and I can remember him playing soccer for my middle school's soccer team. I don't know I ever watched a game, but I remember him in the uniform and the team photo. I knew both of them much more from church youth group and choir.

It was with these brothers that I watched the 2006 World Cup in Germany. I contend that there is no greater event than gathering with a Brazilian family to watch World Cup soccer. It was a feast of food for every game and they were infinitely patient as they explained the rules of the game which I didn't understand. I will always be thankful for that first spark that relit my love of soccer.

As a brief aside: I think I returned the favor. My contribution was to take them to Sci-Fi City in Orlando where they bought their first RPG dice sets, before we went on to play many wonderful games of D&D with them and some other friends. The older of the two brothers, David, passed away a few years ago and while the group continued to play D&D without him it wasn't the same.

After the 2006 World Cup passed, my interest in soccer waned once again as the world around me turned away from soccer and back to those other popular American sports.

In 2009, tied to the fateful events which turned me down my current career path, I joined CoolStuffInc.com where my two bosses were both big soccer fans. When the 2010 World Cup rolled around we took our laptops down to the game store before it opened and watched the games on the television while we worked. And it was there my love of soccer was truly reignited. Again, I was swept up in the World Cup, and again I was educated by those who knew far more about the sport.

Again though, the World Cup left us, but this time the interest in the sport was buoyed. I began seeking it out by following some oversea teams. Though I was only casually interested, this time the barrier to entry was lower.

Television was changing. America was changing. The Internet was changing. And I had two new allies: one of my bosses and my fiancee. Katie, as it turns out, was a soccer fan as well so she was all too eager to share this love with me. As I grew to know more about soccer, as I began to find teams I liked, and as the world around me made soccer more accessible here in the states I began to find more and more to love for it.

Perhaps the most critical event of this timeline was just before Katie and I left Orlando. It was then that Orlando launched their NASL team (and now soon to be an MLS team featuring a famous player named Kaka) the Orlando City Soccer Club. Our first experience with them was at a friendly against Newcastle United. Katie and I were able to enjoy the excitement together and we were planning to buy season tickets for the next season were it not for the fateful opportunity that brought us to Seattle.

For those of you who don't know, Seattle is home to the Seattle Sounders, an MLS club since 2010 (NASL team since 1974). And we are the only city in America to consistently draw European-level crowds for their soccer matches (2013 averaged 44,000 fans per home game.) Katie and I, as I said, had discovered the joy of watching and attending a soccer match while in Orlando and so we knew we had to check out the Sounders. We attended, I believe, two or maybe three games and watched others on television before we decided to order season tickets for the 2013-2014 season.

As much as the Sounders matches with Katie deserve credit for feeding the flame, the Internet and the changing landscape of American television deserve a great deal of credit too. The Internet has become an American soccer fan's lifeline providing clips and full replays of games from leagues around the world, available with just a few clicks of a mouse. Watching them stream live or as recorded matches ripped from broadcasts. It is a common practice for me to acquire a match or two before a trip so I can watch them during a flight, I've found I prefer those matches to any other in-flight entertainment.

Additionally, the landscape of American television proper is changing. It is my belief that soccer in America was actively stymied by the proliferation of television and the rise of commercials. Soccer is not an easy sport to profit off of as a broadcast network. Where football, basketball, baseball, NASCAR, and any other sport has countless natural breaks where commercials can be run – soccer does not. And so for that reason networks, in search of profits during some previous decade, shunned soccer. Maybe this is unfair, or perhaps there is more at work than I am aware, but the logic makes perfect sense so I choose to believe it.

Now though, the world has changed. America is going through a soccer renaissance as MLS is on a growth spurt, and American networks are competing to broadcast more and more soccer. Those, combined with online access to games, and infinite clips on YouTube, makes soccer a very accessible sport for those getting into it.

So then why? Up to now I've walked you through my personal journey of how I fell in love with soccer, but I haven't done anything to capture the why. Before I do so, let me first step into a discussion about what I think a few of the reasons are for why soccer has struggled in the United States.

I think part of the reason that soccer struggles is because our modern media machine has not been built to allow soccer to succeed. Television broadcasting relies on advertising deals for commercials and product ads, where NFL, NBA, MLB and other televised sports have many opportunities for commercial breaks (some initiated specifically for that purpose rather than used opportunistically)—soccer doesn't allow for that. The game is two forty-five minute halves without stops. No chance for commercials, and thus not exactly the poster boy for profitability.

There is one thing which could force the broadcasters to eat this: public demand. And what brings public demand? National team success or the rise of a popular league. Neither of which has truly happened yet.

These issues are a chicken and an egg problem in today's world. It is imperative for any professional sport that it not only get exposure but also the revenue from the coverage. With that coverage comes not only revenue but also the growth of a culture around the sport: kids watching and loving the sport's stars. Lastly, this coverage is critical for also the reason of comparison against other sports. As a kid, why should I care about a sport I can't watch on TV when instead I can follow Jordan and the Bulls, or Deion Sanders and the Falcons or Cowboys, or… someone relevant from baseball (Greg Maddux) or hockey (Wayne Gretzky.)

So, aside from the popularity, with the rise of attention that Americans give it around every World Cup there is still a problem of "stickiness." It doesn't grab Americans who aren't indoctrinated in it. I contend one of the major reasons is the need for people to learn the sport beyond the base rules. Many people think soccer is slow, boring, or hard to follow.

The advantage other sports have that is that they are more "busy" than soccer. American Football is a multi-hour broadcast for less than an hour of active game play. Basketball's last two minutes of action can take twenty-plus minutes. Baseball is a series of pitches which result sometimes in bursts of action. These sports are short easily processed chunks which create punctuations of action that make us believe that, on the whole, they are faster and more action packed than soccer. The difference is that there are nice and easy digestible bites of these sports. Whether the plays of football, or the shot-clock limited fast-paced action of basketball, these are benefits of short attention span because it lets you know for sure when a play or series of actions is complete.

Soccer is more like a marathon. The clock starts and runs without stop for forty-five minutes. You can't stop and go to the bathroom without risking missing action unless a player is injured. And during this time, there's no promise of a score, much to many American fans' frustration. Games end 0-0 or maybe 1-0! Where's the blow out? Where's the double digit win?

Soccer's continuously long period of motion creates a barrier to entry.

Next comes the lack of clear direction of attention. I sort of spoke to this above, but the trap of soccer is that following the ball is only part of what you should be watching. Soccer's real beauty lies in the whole picture and not just what happens immediately around the ball. I'll use the Seattle Sounders' as an example, right now the Sounders have Nigerian Obafemi Martins and American Clint Dempsey as their star scorers with Clint leading the way. However to give either of them sole credit for their success thus far this season is a discredit to the other, and in fact the team as a whole.

Here's a goal from the Sounders 2013 season, it's Obafemi Martins who scores, but watch the passing that leads up to the goal:

[Video removed from host]

So in that play you see a pass from Brad Evans (I can't see clearly, but I think that's who it is) to Obafemi, who immediately dishes it out to Andy Rose who is streaking up the side. It's actually this run which is so crucial, without the run the three defenders around Obafemi would be focused solely on him, and thanks to the run they aren't, which allows Obafemi to make the turn and get into position for Andy's return pass before the score.

Now here's another clip for you to watch:

[Video removed from host]

What you see is Obafemi Martins streaking down the right side of the pitch, and doing so draws the Chivas defenders attention (as it should) we then see a pass to Mauro Rosales (now playing for Chivas funnily enough) who slips as he passes it on to Lamar Neagle who is left wide open because the defense has closed in on Obafemi and Mauro. Again, while the goal is exciting, it's the movement leading up to the goal which is important.

[Video removed from host]

Now for something a bit different, a defensive play that shows you the beauty of defense. A lightning quick foot move to stop an attack and then a tenacious defense.

[Video removed from host]

Another shot from the World Cup which shows an amazing pass. It's unlikely Guti, the player who makes the backwards pass, actually knew for sure a team mate was there but it shows the amazing team work where he felt confident a team mate would be in the area.

These aren't plays which will convert non-soccer fans, but they are examples of the need to be watching more than just the ball.

So, now that I've just shown you the importance of not watching the ball – I'm not going to lie. Goals are amazing exclamation points, better than touchdowns, home runs, or three point shots. I mean sure, some are better than goals, but the best goals will defeat the best touchdowns in my opinion.

Alright, let me show you some amazing goals:

[Videos removed from host]

I could keep going. The fact that I can make those above embeds with only a few minutes of work is exactly what is going right for soccer now. Technology is opening up the world of soccer in new and Internet-friendly ways. The World Cup aside, it's an exciting period.

MLS is growing quickly, they've announced their next four expansion teams in the next three years: Orlando (as mentioned above), NYC FC (a partnership between Manchester City and the New York Yankees), Miami (courtesy of David Beckham and LeBron James), and Atlanta (with the likes of Arthur Blank of the Atlanta Falcons). No other sports league in America is expanding like the MLS is right now.

In addition to these new teams, they announced a new landmark television deal with ESPN and FOX. This deal is exciting because the amount of money they're talking about is actually more than NBC is paying for the English Premier League.

That's exciting because it means that MLS is really starting to be taken serious by US broadcasters, and it also means that EPL is being broadcast in the US, and there is even more exciting news in that there is a deal for FOX to carry Bundesliga starting in 2015. My soccer excitement isn't only because of the World Cup (though that is obviously part of it) but also because the years ahead are very exciting for fans of the sport.

Some may think I've strayed away from why and back to how, and that is understandable, except I haven't. I'm still on why. I'm in love with the sport now because I have readily available access to it. Something which when I was in college wasn't true.

There is another major factor which I shouldn't overlook, though it is far from a conclusive one. Having a hometown team to cheer for is fantastic. Seattle's love for the Sounders certainly plays part in why I love soccer. I love going to the matches and experiencing the atmosphere of it all. More so than going to a live basketball, baseball or football game, the soccer match experience is fantastic in Seattle.

As I write this latest revision to the blog post the United States Men's team are on the verge of proceeding to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. The only time we have proceeded further was in 1930, when we placed third out of the eight teams that participated in the first ever World Cup. Interestingly, the first match we played during that tournament was a 3-0 win over Belgium.

Will we be able to overcome one of our most ancient of professional soccer foes? I suppose I'll find out tomorrow. But regardless of how it ends up, I know I'm going to love to continue to watch the rest of the tournament (though I'll love it more if I'm rooting for the good ole' red, white, and blue.)

IBELIEVEWEWILLWIN

My first conlang - Tierian

I happened to dig into an old email listserv from my time in high school. I had spent a number of hours working on this language for a fantastical world called 'Tier.' It's all been lost over the years unfortunately, however, I was delighted to find this email from Dec. 8th, 2000 when I was just seventeen years old and a junior in high school.

I would also go back and change the 'chinga' base to 'linga' once another member of the email list informed me of the Spanish meaning of that base word (a pure linguistic coincidence.)

My last note, the way it is written causes some odd bolding due to the nature of markdown (the way I write this blog in the backend), that is just something I'll have to deal with for now until I figure out how to overcome it.

What a blast from the past.

Okay, here it is. What I have so far of my first (let me re-emphasize that, FIRST) conlang. It is still in its infancy, but it's complete enough to where I am focusing on the lexicon and dealing with more minor grammar parts when they arise.

There are 27 letters in the alphabet as it is right now, with only one letter which is modified by an outside mark. Forgive me, I haven't learned the pronunciation setup, if someone wants to rewrite the alphabet sounds in the format which is used on the language, it would be appreciated greatly. The sounds are -- ah, a (long), ch, r, s, p, j, k, eh, t, n, ee, i (as in it), z, o (long), m, g, b, d, f, h, l, v, w, ur, sh, oo. The only letter which is modified is the t, which when an apostrophe is put over it becomes a "tl" sound. And another not is the 'n' and 't'. These 2 consonants when their sound is combined with another consonant, this is not the modified t, their letter is omitted. If a t comes before an s, you put double dots over the s. If after, a single dot. If the n comes before the s, put a carat(^) over the s, if after a tilde (~) over the s.

Thats the alphabet.

There are 7 tenses for a verb,
future present = will X = -zeek
future past = will have X = -zeep
Present = X = -dar
Incomplete = have X = -dir
Past = did X = -jig
Subjunctive = may/might X = -stur
Subjunctive Pass = May have/might have X = -star (pronounced. stare / stair)

I saw no need to make a new mood for Subjunctive.

Present Infinintive = to X = -mur
Incomplete Inf. = to have X = -mig

Imperative = X! = normal form of verb

To make a verb passive you tag -dray onto the end of the verb, after adding tense ending.

Example Conjugation:
Chinga = love
Fut. Pres. = chingazeek = will love
Fut. Past. = chingazeep = will have loved
Pres. = chingadar = do love
Incomplete = chingadir = have loved
Past COmp. = chingajig = did love
Subj. = chingastur = may/might love
Subj. Pass. = chingastar (hard a in star) = may/might have loved

Pres. Inf. = chingamur = to love
Incomp. Inf. = chingmig = to have loved

Imperative = chinga = love

Progressive is also a choice in translation, there is no forced way for it to be translated.

On to Nouns:

6 Cases,
Nominative = Subj. = -tah
Accusative = DO and PN = -ma (long a)
Dative = IO and Prep. Phrases = -mur
Genitive = possession = -toro (hard o's)
Vocative = naming a person = -vok (hard o)
Locative = naming a place = -nok (hard o)

I am debating how to hand prepositional phrases, right now I have them in Dative case with helper words. But that may change.

I am using the 3 number system, nullar, singular, and plural. Depending if the last letter of the root word is vowel or consonant you use the vowel or consonant ending for the number.

Nullar: -o / -wo
singular: -- / --
plural: -ur / -kur

Adj. must match noun they modify in case and number.

Pronouns:
Pers Pron:
I/me - pa (pron. pay)
you* - dar (pron. dare)
he/him - sho (hard o)
she/her - noob
it - keh
we - rish
they - nek

It is not unusual if you are not using a singular 'you' then put the number of you's (ie: 1,2,3) right after the you, matching case. Or if it is a group (ie: you men, you girls, you in the back) place immediately following the 'you'. This may get clumsy, will require tweaking I am sure.

Pers. Pronoun. Adj. =
my - ptoro
your = dtoro
his = shtoro
her = natoro (soft a, hard o. pro. nah-toro)
it's = ktoro
our = ritoro
their = neetoro

Demonstrative Pronouns
This - deeng
that - dong (hard o)
these - deengur
those - dongur (hard o)

Reflexive Pronouns
myself - panor (hard a)
yourself - durnor
hisself - shonor
etc...

Questions in a sentence - Using the Latin style, there is a key word which shows that a sentence is a question. If "sans" appears at the beginning of a sentence, then it is a question. "sans" is always the first word.

Numbering system: The people who speak the language have only 8 fingers, thus they use a base 8 numbering system. I will spare the lengthy number list and if requested will type it up later for you guys.

That is the end of the grammar which I have, there is much left to do, vocab, and tweaking this system. I am having a mental battle concerning salutations and farewells. We will see, I have many hours on the road ahead of me.

Please share any comments / questions / suggestions / constructive criticism. I am but an infant learning to walk, I am always looking for a hand to hold me. I am travelling for a few more days, I may not get back to you and your comments until new years.

Thanks all

Oh and if you are still reading, good job :)

Patrick

From Facebook: September 11th, 2015

I originally posted this to my Facebook seven years ago. Reposting here as my memorial for today. I'm also taking the opportunity to edit it some.

Another year, another time to remember an event that changed my life, my country, and my world. 9/11 was just a little over a month before I turned 18.

I'll never forget going into one of my classes, it was English,which was Mr. Halbeck's English class. The class was... sure, we were at this appoint aware of what was going on, but we were teenage kids and we didn't fully grasp the reality of it. It was on TV and we were upset but we weren't really upset, yet. This terrible thing was happening miles away, sure it was in America, but we were in Florida and it was happening in New York. People were talking and chatting and the news was on but most of us weren't in shock.

I saw Mr. Halbeck sitting at his desk with his head in his hands and a look of utter shock on his face, and I naively asked him, "Are you okay Mr. Halbeck?" He turned to me and said, "Are you?"

It was his two words which brought the weight of this event crashing down around me. It was the day the world changed for me and my generation.

Write plain text files

Related to my note about wanting to figure out my note taking in plain text.

When you store your writing in one company's unique format, then you need that program to access it. Then the economy takes a turn, they go out of business, and your work is trapped in an unusable format.

You will outlive these companies. Your writing should outlive you. Depending on companies is not an option.

Plain text is un-commercial. It removes you from the world of subscriptions and hype. There will always be plenty of free, non-commercial software in the public domain for reading and editing text files.

From the Archives: The Evil F-Word: Fine

It's easier to convince us that what we're feeling is happiness, simply because we can't tell the difference. If I'm not in active pain, then I must be happy, right? I must be fine, right?

I originally wrote this post 7 years ago, but it is more applicable today than ever before.

Last night I crawled through the Internet Archive's archive of my old blog, ronincyberpunk.com, and I grabbed about a dozen posts to import here, as you'll see there are now posts in the archive from the 2002-2007 era which is when I used that blog. I opted not to import them all for a few reasons:

1. It wasn't a complete archive anyways - I was getting random day snapshots from when the Internet Archive had snapped the moment of time.
2. My writing was largely banal - So much life logging or self-important writing as a young man who thought he knew everything

It was fun though to remember things I had forgotten, it was also gut wrenching to see the recurring theme as I struggled with college and repeatedly bemoaned it without ever really figuring it out.

I intend to do the same for other writings from various blogs or websites over the coming weeks, months, perhaps years. We'll see.

Also, as I did this, I have become aware of some bugs I need to fix, and features to add for Glowbug. So, after four months without touching the code, I'm coming back to work on it in the near future.

The Drama of the Champions League

This post was originally published on my soccer blog at FirstTou.ch, it is being preserved here as I shut that site down.

UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations, is the governing body that oversees soccer for all of Europe. In 1955 they introduced the European Cup, or properly it was known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup, and it welcomed the top team from each country's league to compete. Jump forward to 1992, the tournament is changed and rebranded to what it is today.

Participation in the Champions League is for top teams from across Europe, but not just one for each country, the distribution is based on the strength of the countries in FIFA's rankings. Twenty six teams were inserted directly into the group stage based on their finish in their home leagues. Fifty three others put into the tournament to earn one of the remaining 6 slots.

Three of this year's Champions League semifinal teams were among those immediately placed into the group stage: Barcelona, Liverpool, and Tottenham. Only one had to earn their way up. That was Ajax.

Ajax is one of the teams from Eredivisie, the top league of the Netherlands. They are a storied club in Europe and they have had success in the Champions League in the past, having won it four times, the most recent one being 24 years ago, 1995. Last season they finished second behind PSV Eindhoven. Due to this, Ajax were forced to enter this year's Champions League during the second qualifying round. There they defeated Sturm Graz, the Austrian football club, 5-1. Ajax then advanced to the third qualifying round where they defeated the Belgian club, Standard Liege, 5-2. In the Playoff round they faced Dynamo Kyiv of Ukraine, defeating them 3-1. They had to win three matches before Barça, Tottenham and Manchester City, the other semifinalists, even joined the tournament.

In the group stage, four teams in each group play each opponent twice. The best two overall records in the group advance to the knockout stage, the third place team gets inserted into the Europa cup, and the fourth place team goes home.

Tottenham and Barcelona were put into the same group. Barcelona dominated Tottenham in their matches, but Tottenham did well enough that both teams were able to advance out of their group over Milan's Internazionale and PSV Eindhoven.

Liverpool were in a group with the French powerhouse Paris Saint Germaine, Italy's Napoli and the Serbian team Red Star Belgrade. Liverpool and PSG advanced to knockouts.

Ajax were put into a group with the German juggernaut Bayern Munich, Portugal's Benfica, and the Greek AEK Athens. Ajax did very well, overall drawing with Bayern 3-3 across their two games, and having a winning record against the other two teams. Both Bayern and Ajax advanced to the knockouts

In the knockouts, the story of the quarterfinals was the elimination of the reigning champions, Real Madrid, at the hands of Ajax. It's been a tough year from Real Madrid, forcing them to bring back Zinedine Zidane as their coach after a struggling season in their domestic league. In the first leg, Real Madrid won 2-1 at home but the trip to the Netherlands was the stuff of nightmares for the Spanish club as Ajax dominated 4-1.

Ajax though did not find their road easier from there as they met Juventus. Going from Ronaldo's previous club to his current one. Unlike Real Madrid, Juventus has had a fairly good season. Perhaps not as dominant as they would have hoped, but still dominant. Surely Ajax had finally reached the end of their story in this year's Champions League...

And here I remind you they are named for Ajax the Great, the son of King Telamon, and a towering warrior hero in the Trojan war mythology.

Ajax's journey in the Champions league was again atop the headlines as they vanquished Ronaldo and Juventus this week while on the road in Italy, having held them to a 1-1 draw at home, and then they manage to win 2-1 in Torino. An upset in the truest sense of the word.

Not to be outdone though, perhaps in the most dramatic and exciting game in the tournament's history, was this week when Tottenham faced Manchester City. Manchester City are considered to be the best club in the world according to 538's global soccer club rankings.

I think it is fair to say: Tottenham was expected to lose this game.

One of their stars, Harry Kane, has been out injured. But even with him they would still be outgunned. And yet, saying that, Tottenham had managed a 1-0 victory at home last week thanks to Hugo Lloris, their keeper, stopping a penalty kick by Sergio Aguero, which would have tied it up.

So, traveling to Manchester City's stadium, they are up 1-0. In the first 20 minutes of their second game both team score 2 goals, bringing the aggregate to 3-2 Tottenham. In the 21st minute, Raheem Sterling scores a goal to put Manchester City even on aggregate, 3-3. But Manchester City need to score one more, because Tottenham has the advantage on away goals. It was the 59th minute when Sergio Aguero puts Manchester City ahead.

Now, I need you to understand, these games take place during midday for those of us on the west coast. I watched the majority of it during lunch but I had to stop as I had a post-lunch meeting. And so I had to follow it via social media.

In the 73rd minute, Fernando Llorente scores a contentious goal which takes VAR to verify, but that goal puts Tottenham back in the lead. Then in extra time Raheem Sterling scored a goal which would have sealed it for City, only to have it ruled offside in the build up. Brutal for City and its fans, but the game has become an instant classic of the tournament.

There are stories for each of these teams, I've touched on Ajax and Tottenham, who face off in the semifinals. Across from them Liverpool and Barcelona will meet.

Barcelona is the club of Messi, a player who inexplicably has people argue whether he's the best player currently playing the game or not. Liverpool are coached by Jurgen Klopp and have the Egyptian footballer Mohammed Sallah. Both Barcelona and Liverpool have won the Champions League five times. Liverpool having won it most recently in 2005, Barcelona in 2015. In this matchup, I favor Barcelona to win on the back of a solid defense and another godly performance from Leo Messi.

The only team among these final four not to have won the Champions League in their history is Tottenham. They face Ajax, and the question becomes can Ajax continue their run or can Tottenham push their way into the finals this year?

I cannot wait for the games in two weeks, this is the peak of club soccer drama out of Europe.

My 2019 MLS Predictions

This post was originally published on my soccer blog at FirstTou.ch, it is being preserved here as I shut that site down.

Trying to predict the future is a loser's game. - Ken Liu

You know the beauty of playing a loser's game? One that's rigged and no one expects you to get right? Like, predicting the end of an MLS season?

If I'm wrong, well, of course I was. But... if I end up being right, then I look like a genius. It's why TV talking heads love to make predictions. But, unlike them, I'm just a random fan not some professional analyst. So, I've got nothing to lose. Let's do it!

MLS Cup Winner

LAFC - They joined the league last year and ended up getting to 3rd in the West. Based on the start of this season, how Carlos Vela looks, I think they are going to win it all - even over my Seattle Sounders.

Supporter's Shield

Seattle Sounders FC - Look. I might just be swallowed up in the hope and excitement of an undefeated start to our season, but the Sounders look truly scary offensively and once the defense solidifies in the post Ozzie era, the team could set a new league record for points.

US Open Cup

DC United - Wayne Rooney and Luciano Acosta are something to behold this year and I have a feeling DC United will find themselves sitting atop the Lamar Hunt Open Cup.

Cascadia Cup

Seattle Sounders FC - I mean... look at the league standings. I might feel different next week after Seattle heads up to Vancouver, but for now, this seems obvious.

MVP

Carlos Vela - I have always been a Carlos Vela fan. His arrival in the MLS has been very exciting and what I have seen thus far this season he is the key to LAFC this season. If he continues to excel, so shall the team. But I worry if he fails, so will the team. And that has the makings of an MVP season.

Comeback Player

Jordan Morris - 3 goals already this season, looking fast and threatening on the wing. He had a disappointing sophomore slump and then a year long recovery from an injury which has ended countless careers. Let's see how the season ends, but I don't think this is a hard sell.

Golden Boot

Wayne Rooney - Rumors float of Acosta being highly wanted in Europe, if he leaves then DC United will lean on Rooney even more. The Manchester United legend has shown his class and his ability, I won't be shocked if he makes his mark this season.

Defender of the Year

Graham Zusi - This one is tough and honestly of all of these wild guesses, I feel least confident about this one. But Aaron Long won it last year. Chad has won it three times and if the Sounders are as dominant in awards as I think they will be this year, I think Chad might be overlooked again unless he is truly dominant.

Keeper of the Year

Stefan Frei - Zack Steffen won it last year despite Frei deserving it in nearly every category of statistics for goalkeeping, sure he had a good season but... Frei was better. The league screwed up and Frei has reached the point where he just doesn't care about the award anymore. And that's bad news for the league because he is going to stand on his head this season purely for himself and for the team.

Coach of the Year

Alan Koch - Cincinnati have come out and competed better than I think anyone expected. At this point, so long as they finish upper middle table or better, I think Koch gets this.

Tweet of the Year

I think this goes to the one and only Clint Dempsey with his early entry to the competition:

Can the Sounders go 10-0?

This post was originally published on my soccer blog at FirstTou.ch, it is being preserved here as I shut that site down.

The Sounders are 3-0 and Schmetzer wants to go 10-0 to start the season, is it possible? Let's talk about it.

Pictured: 1998 LA Galaxy team photo. Featuring Cobi Jones and Greg Vanney to name a few.

In terms of MLS history, the record winning streak is 15 by the LA Galaxy in 1998. Now, you can't really take that as a comparable achievement to modern day MLS. Because in 1998 there were no draws in MLS. Every game ended in a win or a loss thanks to the shootout rules they used to employ. In "modern day" the record holder is... well this is awkward, the Seattle Sounders right now, with 8 consecutive wins since September 29, 2018.

Starting this season 10-0 would put us at 15 consecutive wins which would be an unheard of feat in the MLS (though, not elsewhere in the world.) It would be a record likely to stand for years to come. Can the Sounders invent doing it in the modern MLS era?

Cincinnati, Colorado and Chicago down. 3-0 so far this season. Let's look at the schedule coming up.

March 30 - At Vancouver

Historically the Sounders lead the series in Vancouver. The Whitecaps have only won when Seattle comes to town 3 times. The last time being back in 2017 when they won 2-1 (I was at that game, sadly.) Vancouver does not look good right now, they have to figure out their team. They, along with the Sounders, have next week off to try and right the ship. Can they be prepared for the Sounders offense? I don't think so. 4-0.

April 6 - Vs. Real Salt Lake

RSL just got thrashed 5-0 by DC United after having two players sent off. Mike Petke is at the helm of a struggling club and he has to figure out how to turn them around. Historically, Seattle does very well vs. RSL at home. They lead the series 8-2-3, though the last time RSL came to visit Saucedo gave them their win on a beautiful volley. This loss was in the midst of our dark period of last season when everyone, including Will Bruin, was out injured. Regardless, in current forms, I am confident that Seattle will win this. 5-0.

April 10 - At Colorado

A midweek game on the road. Colorado will be looking for revenge after they lost to us in Seattle. Winning on the road is hard in MLS so every away game is going to be tough, but I just don't see Tim Howard and the Colorado defense being able to withstand the Sounders offense again. And don't forget the confidence the team will be playing with if they have begun the season 5-0, they are going to be hungry for goals. I think this is a win, and puts us up to 6-0.

April 13 - Vs. Toronto FC

Third game in 8 days, with a jaunt to Colorado in the middle. The team is going to be tired. They are going to have to stand up to their arch rivals, the zombified corpse of the greatest MLS team ever. It's honestly the first game of the season I am truly concerned about. Toronto are undefeated in MLS games and Toronto loves beating Seattle, and Toronto won't have had a midweek game. So, we'll see, but this is where I think our streak comes to an end. 6-1.

April 21 - At LAFC

Thankfully the team has a week off to rest and recover, otherwise this game could be ugly. LAFC scare me. Carlos Vela scares me. Bob Bradley is one of the keenest tactical minds in US soccer, he scares me. I will be thrilled to leave this game with a draw. 6-1-1.

April 24 - Vs. San Jose

Almeyda is trying to fix a broken club but we are on short rest and depending how brutal the game in LAFC is we might rest starters and give San Jose a window of opportunity against us. That said, as long as two of our four attackers play, and the defense stays intact, I predict Seattle wins. 7-1-1.

April 28 - Vs. LAFC

As if facing them as part of a 3-game week wasn't enough, we get to face them twice in a week and they don't have a third game in the middle. This one could be rough, but I trust the home field advantage to carry us through. 8-1-1.

---

So, that's it. The schedule just doesn't play in our favor to make the 10-0 dream a real possibility. Should we try for it? Absolutely. If we try for 10-0 and fail, but doing so starts us even close to it, getting 25 of 30 points, that will be truly remarkable and put us on track to win the Supporter's Shield this season.

But who knows, maybe we can get to 10-0.

World Record for Win Streaks

As a brief digression, I went looking for club win streak records. I was curious how would our theoretical 15 game win streak compare to other leagues in the world?

Turns out the longest winning streak ever is held by the Czech team, AC Sparta Prague. From 1920-1923 they won 51 games in a row. 51 games in a row is an unbelievable feat and speaks to the era of imbalance in the Czech league. Not even Bayern Munich has managed that.

But, to be fair, Bayern did get 19 consecutive wins during a 53 game unbeaten streak, 46 wins and 7 draws, back in 2013-2014. Oh Bayern.

A sixteen game win streak for the Sounders would tie us with the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid and AS Monaco, who each managed an equal win streak. I would note that the Sounders doing it would be even more impressive given the comparative parity of the MLS to La Liga and Ligue 1.

As I said above, I think it is a lofty goal that is unlikely to happen for the Sounders. Could it happen? Absolutely. I can't wait to see.

Seattle Extinguish Fire 4-2

This post was originally published on my soccer blog at FirstTou.ch, it is being preserved here as I shut that site down.

This week Brian Schmetzer let out that he is eyeing a very high bar for the start of this season: Starting this season with a 10-0 run. It certainly would be something amazing if the Sounders managed to do it. And Saturday in Chicago was another step on that path, matching their best start ever from their first MLS season, 2009.

While the match ended with a 4-2 Sounders win, it could easily have ended 7-6. Lots of dangerous shots for both sides with both goalkeepers playing well. Ousted had a few notable saves and Frei had two which actually made me say 'wow.'

I could focus on the delightful goals the Sounders scored but I'll be honest. It was our defense which held my attention this game. Chicago had 25 shots during the game, 12 of them on target. The Sounders defense had a few poor moments and looked relatively porous. As surgical and threatening as the Sounders look on the ball offensively, and as easy as it is to feel we are impervious and unbeatable... watching this game makes me nervous for April when we travel to LAFC. How does this team do when faced with a powerfully offensive team? Can we hold them back? Can we out race them? I don't know.

That defensive nervousness was my core takeaway from the game. Seattle has an offensive package unlike anything we've ever had before. Scoring ten goals in the first three games is excellent. We have two players tied at 3 goals (Ruidiaz and Morris), competing for the golden boot in the league. I mean, the Sounders are very scary offensively. We can score from anywhere by any of our offensive players.

But other teams have to be looking at us and zeroing in on our defensive weakness; the chink in our armor. That is what would keep me up this week were I on the coaching staff for the Sounders. How do we strengthen our defenses?

I think every player on our defense had a few concerning plays against Chicago, but the one I noticed most was Svensson seemed a bit off. Even when we shifted to five in the back we didn't end up looking more defensively solid.

In the 72nd minute, Schmetzer pulled Lodeiro off and subbed on Panamanian center back, Roman Torres. This was a clear sign that we were settling in to defend our lead 3-1, as we shifted to a 5-3-2 or 5-4-1 structure. I don't hate the strategy, we have three of the best CBs in the league. But it is not as convincing a tactic as I would hope. We looked just as vulnerable and perhaps more confused when the transition took place. It was twelve minutes later when Fabian Herbers managed to get on the loose ball in the box and bring Chicago up trail 2-3. Suddenly we had to be scared Chicago might find the third goal.

And look, I'm not saying anything the team doesn't already know. Schmetzer himself in his postgame interview called out Frei's big performance because "they could have scored a few more." I trust in the coaching staff to look at the replay footage and figure out who messed up and how. And I expect the next two weeks will be a lot of defensive drills, and further tinkering with the five in the back.

Don't let all this defense focus make you feel bad about our win. We are 3-0 so far in the season. We have a goal differential of +7. We have scored with five different players so far this season. We are having a hell of a start to the season and the Sounders are showing everyone who we are.

The Good

• Rodriguez is a man on a mission. He has been tagged as a DP by the club and he wants to show us all what he is capable of when fully healthy.
• Lodeiro looked great and was all over the field. He had a fortuitous bounce from his penalty kick, but a goal is a goal.
• Morris continues to be goal dangerous, and he scored one which could be voted as goal of the week.
• Raul Ruidiaz didn't have a lot of time on the ball, but that's not a bad thing. He continues to keep defenders occupied and help maneuver formations to expose them. Combine that with his current goal scoring streak and he's doing great.
• Brad Smith looked strong offensively, pairing excellently with Rodriguez.
• Stefan Frei says the Keeper of the Year award doesn't matter to him, and that's a reasonable response to not getting it last year. But I contend that him not getting it last year has left him more determined to be undeniably great this season.

The Bad

• Our two CDMs, Gustav Svensson and Cristian Roldan didn't look like themselves, they seemed sluggish and off.
• Roman Torres didn't look great when he subbed on.
• Bastian Schweinsteiger didn't have a good game.
• Chicago Fire attendance was depressingly abysmal.

Anthony Bourdain (1956 - 2018)

The following post was from my previous blog on trickjarrett.com, I migrated it here on Dec. 21, 2023

It's wrong to call myself a fan of Anthony Bourdain. That overstates it. I read Kitchen Confidential and enjoyed it. When I watched one of his shows, I enjoyed it. But I didn't seek his content out, I didn't wait for news of new seasons or projects. But above all, I held jealousy of the career and life he had. It is a romantic way of life.

The vision of traveling the world to eat food and experience life around the world. I've been able to see many places around our world, and yet there remains a whole world that I haven't seen yet. What I've done is a step more than most people, and those places I have seen have confirmed this famous quote by Bourdain.

If I am an advocate for anything, it is to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food. It's a plus for everybody.

Bourdain summarized himself perfectly and succinctly in his Twitter bio: Enthusiast. And that is a great way to put what I wish my life was. I dream of being a professional Enthusiast as he was. Not because I think it is an easy and happy life. I knew his life wasn't, and today's reading by and about him reinforced it. Even when I travel for at most 30 days a year, I face loneliness on the road. Sure I might go out with friends or coworkers, but at the end I go back to the empty hotel room and am left with myself. Bourdain says he spent 250 days a year on the road. That had to be lonely.

Hearing the news about his death was tough for me this morning. Recognizing that a voice which spoke uniquely has been struck silent, and the resulting silence, would echo for many. Add to that for it to be due to suicide is to force us to recognize that under what he displayed sat the darkness which affects so many, and for someone like him to succumb to it... well, it's terrifying. He wasn't someone down on his luck, exhausted from the fight merely to exist. He was struggling, with demons, with loneliness, possibly with mental illness.

As death has a tendency to do, it puts the person front and center of social media. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit; all of them were heavily centered on the death of a voice. And I let myself be swept along, reading posts, watching videos, and participating in conversations. One notable post, which I unfortunately did not save, highlighted something that was an underappreciated feature of Bourdain's television work. He was one television show, if not the only show on right now, which focused heavily on convincing us we didn't need to be afraid of other people in the world. It's so common and so easy to be afraid of people in a foreign country if we've never been there or never seen what their lives are like. And Bourdain discovered, through the vehicle of food, that the world was big and amazing and he could show it to us one episode at a time.

In his showing us the world we also got to witness the evolution of his voice. I love the below quote. I initially shared it on Facebook, coming from EveryDayShouldBeSaturday.com:

He started off as a Hunter S. Thompson-quoting dude who might have tried a little too hard to show you his cigarette, the scotch in his hand, and his punk rock roots, all maybe compensating a little too much for a childhood that included trips to France to eat at La Pyramide, and an education that took him to Vassar. He ended up somewhere else completely: As a truly conscientious traveler, as one of the only men to really publicly examine his role in encouraging terrible behavior in the restaurant industry, as someone who began to understand that the truths of his stories were at best partial and happily highlighted the fakery of storytelling while still trying to expand its possibilities. To believe in it, and in the end tell a story that was human, and at its best, humane.

This quote is in context of a scene that many people lauded, Bourdain dove into what the American food chain Waffle House was. He didn't try to bullshit about it, he didn't wax poetically. He talked about it from the start as being a place that beautifully served food that is good for hangovers and serving blue collar people at 3am. In the video we get to witness him experiencing a pecan waffle, lathered in butter, and maple syrup. It's no Michelin star restaurant, it's normal food. And it's delicious. He didn't try to make us forget that the food we, regular people, could get tasted good.

I truly loved when I discovered his twitter bio was the infinitely evocative and simple descriptor: Enthusiast. That encapsulates my vision of him so perfectly. Food, people, the world--He was an enthusiast. The enthusiast. An example of this enthusiasm is captured beautifully in this Twitter thread about a chance encounter with Bourdain at a food festival:

The whole thread is a delightful retelling of having got to meet him, showing him and his fascination in hearing her talk about her home country. He was enthusiastic to learn more about it. And when he did eventually attend, he was enthusiastic about it. It is a wonderful snapshot of what it could be like to meet him.

I spent a bit of the day swimming through these stories. His stories. Experiencing a life cut short, but one which uniquely gave us plentiful echoes to experience after he is gone. He began his journey by writing a book about his time in kitchens. It's his book, Kitchen Confidential, which holds a poignant quote that reaches full meaning today:

[When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered.

Bourdain's voice and personality, his zeal for life and the world, are gone from creating those new things for us. But there is a lot of him out there. His book, his Ecco press book imprint on which he published numerous books, his articles, his shows. He isn't gone. Not yet at least. Not until the last of us turns off Netflix and Parts Unknown.

Who would you want to write your life story?

I already wrote it. And though I don't really care about what people say about me when I'm gone, I guess Jerry Stahl would make an entertaining - if not necessarily flattering - story of the gruesome details.

Interview with the New York Times

Added 10 June 2018:

CNN and Anderson Cooper did a fantastic remembrance of Anthony.

On Seattle versus Portland

This post was originally published on my soccer blog at FirstTou.ch, it is being preserved here as I shut that site down.

Credit to Mike Donovan for his research, turning up two iconic news clippings. Reported in the Oregonian on Nov. 29, 1907 is the first mention he could find of Seattle and Portland facing off in soccer.

Here's the Seattle newspaper reporting on the same match, thanks to Frank MacDonald for sharing.

The second clipping Mike turned up this clipping which is the first match between the two rivals played in Multnomah Stadium (which is what we know today as Providence Park) from March 1929.

While those go much further back, it's 1975 which we regard as the modern era of the Seattle vs. Portland rivalry. It was won by Seattle thanks to a Jimmy Gabriel penalty. Here's the newspaper reporting on it as shared by Frank MacDonald on Twitter.

This rivalry truly is something special here in the US, but don't take my word for it. Here's Eli Mengem, host of Copa90's Derby Days series, sharing his thoughts and experience as he experiences Seattle at Portland a few years ago.

In preparation of today's match, the Sounders produced this video featuring the narration of ex-Sounder DeAndre Yedlin. It gives me goosebumps every time I watch it.

Let's Talk About the Sounders

This post was originally published on my soccer blog at FirstTou.ch, it is being preserved here as I shut that site down.

The Sounders have started this season off under the looming specter of injuries, a bit of bad luck and repeated poor decision making by players who should definitely know better. There are fans who are going to be mounting a #GarthOut or a #SchmetzerOut campaign. I'm not going to be doing that yet, and to explain why. Let's dive in on what's been going on this season thus far.

First off, it's important to note, with few exceptions - the Sounders are terrible in March.

As Frank says, who knows why this is. Out of a possible 84 points in March, the team has only taken 32 during their MLS history. Not good. In fact, this isn't even our first time starting the season 0-3, something we did as recently as 2016. A season which ended rather well for us, you might recall.

This season feels especially maddening as we went into the offseason having our asses handed to us in the painful MLS cup. And now, with mostly the same squad, we sit at the bottom of the west. How did we go from making the MLS Cup to struggling to finish a goal? We built our plan around this being a comeback season for Jordan Morris, who suffered a season ending injury right out of the gate. Our plans in disarray and our lack of depth up top suddenly highly problematic.

As we learned in our drubbing of a defeat in Toronto, we reached the MLS cup last season largely thanks to the comparative weakness of the western conference. And now we're faced with looking at a depleted, and aging, roster.

Garth spoke in vague terms of his plans recently. That they are looking for immediate reinforcements and looking to sign a new DP in the summer transfer window. This feels maddening to many fans because they ask "Why aren't we signing a DP now?" or "Why haven't we already signed the new DP?" And the answer is, because business. Garth is exceptional as a GM because he does a great job finding greater value in the signings we make. Signing a player isn't as simple as picking up a bottle of milk at the corner store. It requires much more than that.

This, of course, is of little consolation to Sounders fans facing our 0-3 start while we see the LA Galaxy finally deliver on the long rumored Zlatan signing. That, combined with his performance off the bench this weekend, has left many of us with intense DP jealousy. Fans should keep in mind that signing had been rumored for literally years. It wasn't something which just suddenly happened. It took the LA Galaxy, Man. United, and most of all Zlatan - deciding to make it happen together.

Soccer is a business mostly about the future, and less about the now. Signings are not temporary patches needed for one moment or one game - they are investments which have to continue to deliver for seasons to come while not upsetting the mixture already existing in the locker room. As much as we want Garth to open the wallet, that isn't how a successful team does things.

The good news is that even without a DP-caliber signing until Summer, the Sounders do have the pieces to make progress and turn around from this depressing start. Injuries heal, meaning we'll soon see Ozzie and Victor, return to the lineup. And it is best for all of us if the team takes the time in bringing these players back - it is emphatically incorrect game theory to rush these guys back as we struggle now as compared to if it was the end of the season. Now is the safest time for us to struggle while we let our squad heal and be 100% ready to come back.

So with the squad being what it is and changes waiting to be seen, the other major thing to discuss is the decision making.

Three Sounders matches. Three red cards. Three poor decisions by Tony Alfaro, Clint Dempsey, Kelvin Leerdam. Three losses. Two of these players are leaders of the team, experienced players who have zero excuses for the brash decision which led to their individual red card.

I'm always highly critical of when a Sounders player gets a stupid red card. It is among the worst things they can do in my eyes. And Schmetzer spoke to it last night after the game. I think Sounders at Heart slightly overstates it with the headline of "Brian Schmetzer issues violent conduct ultimatum" but Schmetz's meaning was clear: It's something that has to stop. The team motto he's perpetuated since taking the helm of the club, "Next man forward" loses something when they are forced to replace a team member due to poor decision making rather than injury.

The truth is you can't frame a solid argument against the refs and these red cards. There is a small case for Dempsey, but the reality is while players are playing the other team they are also responsible for existing in the box the referee draws. It's one of the reasons Ozzie is so good as a physical player, he finds the lines with the ref and stays on them in terms of his physicality.

It is infuriating to see rules unevenly applied across the league. Referees are individuals and not a perfect system, but we've seen our players tapped on the face without a red card issued, or seeing Lodeiro repeatedly tossed and tripped and sent sprawling as the most fouled player in the league last season - with only a few yellow cards to show for it. We can't blame the 0-3 start on the refs, but it is fair to say they haven't done us any favors along the way thus far.

So with all of this said, should fans be demanding change in leadership? Or simply clamoring for some sort of change?

Garth has acknowledged we need help. It is now a question to see what deal he and the office staff can deliver. They are looking for a DP caliber signing in the summer, and I think it is safe to say that if we have another DP signing fall through (as we did last season) that I, and many others, will be immensely frustrated and disappointed. But until that happens, I trust in Garth and his system.

I honestly don't have a major problem with how Schmetz has coached this season. I've agreed with almost all of his line ups and subs given the players available to him. If he can settle the squad and stop this rash of red cards then I believe the team will turn around.

Lastly is the players. Cristian Roldan spoke last night after the game taking ownership on the players for the loss that they just aren't delivering despite not feeling significantly outplayed. Lodeiro said “We need to train harder, we need to practice better. We’ve been in situations like this before, and we know what we need to actually do to get out of this. We’re going to do it.” Our squad has talent and should not be sitting at the bottom of the west, but here we are. The players at the end of the day have to score goals and no one else is able to make that happen.

The good news, I believe change is coming on all the axes relevant to this discussion. It might take time and it might be that we limp into July and the summer transfer window, but I believe we'll notch a win soon and then we will build on that as players begin returning to our roster.

Remember: It's always darkest before the dawn... or something similarly motivational as we sit at 0-3. Hang in there fans.

Elwood's First Night, in His Words

The following post was originally shared on Facebook, captured here for archival purposes. With small grammatical updates and fixes.

The story of Elwood's first night. As told by Elwood himself:

Moving is always traumatic, even for you humans. Now imagine that your life hasn't been that great, you ate only what you could scrounge and you had to fight for that. You were most likely hit. And you weren't given love.

That is a dark thing. A very dark place. Something which changes you.

Now, imagine that suddenly one day you are taken away from there. Given a bath. Prodded by someone strange. And only given some food. Granted, you're not fighting for it, but surely this won't last.

And then, you're in the hands of another person. A man. He holds you close and warms you in the cold air. It's nice there. It's easy to sleep.

After several hours dozing in laps of him and her, you're brought into this warm but bright place. It smells weird. Different. There's another dog here, hopefully she's friendly but in general she seems put offish.

They're saying words. It sounds nice. They sound nice. But I don't know yet. This is all strange.

The big one gives me food, small bits of meat. Turkey. That's nice.

After a while he picks me up and puts me in this crate. I begin to panic. It's confining and I'm by myself. I don't like this. I begin to cry and whine in hopes someone will come save me. And then, in my panic, I void my bowels. Oh it stinks. And I don't have anywhere to go. I cry louder.

The man returns, and lets me out. He's kind again even though the other person would have been mean. He wasn't.

I was put under warm water and rinsed, cleaned off and then dried of any filth. Then the crate was brought into the bedroom and I was set next to Mattie. And yet I was still alone. I heard noise but it was odd and didn't comfort me.

And then he returned, this time laying on the floor in front of me. I wasn't sure of this all, so I kept whining. But when I did he would reach his fingers through the grate and speak kind to me. Eventually I calmed and we all slept.

---

Our first night wasn't as smooth as it could be. Cleaning dog poop off a towel is not a great wee hour task. But it's what you sign up for with a puppy.

Sleeping on the floor with Elwood was good. I slept fine. I plan to sleep next to him again tonight.

The Proposal

I feel like a secret agent who has had his secret identity revealed. As if a weight has been lifted and I am able to finally reveal the Jason Bourne-style secrets to the top secret mission which I have been working on for the past several weeks. So, I apologize, if I’ve been distracted for the past week or so when we’ve interacted, I’ve been thinking about this a great deal. I had to make sure that this went off without a hitch, and I think I can say “Mission accomplished.”

Yesterday, I took Katie on a whirlwind surprise day going across Orlando to do new and exciting things; culminating in our surprise wedding proposal (complete with magic trick) and her saying YES!

It began over two months ago as I decided that I was indeed going to join my life with Katie’s, and so began the plan. Because, dear friends, if you know me, you know that I wouldn’t settle for anything less than awesome. Also, with this plan I knew secrecy was of the utmost importance. Katie has a sixth sense combined with eyes in the back of her head and a wicked ability to guess when and with what I’m going to surprise her. I tend to default to the unplanned "improvise it" strategy but if I have to plan something, I’ll overplan it.

My first plan was chock full of awesome, but was also riddled with holes where things could go wrong and ruin the whole affair. I’ll spare you all the details but let me just say that it required five other people, all musicians, to be involved with it. And after some consideration I rejected that idea and turned to another equally awesome but less risky possibility.

Three weeks ago I told her to block yesterday off her calendar. It was going to be a surprise day. This wasn't completely suspicious, we had a tendency to book days for just us where we'd go out and do things.

First step to awesomeness: do the unexpected. I kept her guessing by dropping false hints as we approached the day. Like I said, Katie is very skilled at guessing what I have planned, so I had to be extremely careful around her.

First we headed out to breakfast at Christo’s on Edgewater. A great little restaurant that came very highly recommended. We enjoyed a nice meal and then went off to Leu Gardens. Leu Gardens is a botanical garden here in Orlando, spread over 50 acres it has beautiful plants and lots of trees. Since Katie hadn’t gone before and I hadn’t been there in over a decade, we enjoyed it a great deal! Unfortunately, though, it was quite hot. We decided to cut the visit short and not to see the whole property but we enjoyed what we did see.

As we were leaving Leu Gardens deciding what to do next we discovered that the Enzian Theater had a matinee of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Katie and I love to visit the Enzian theater for a movie. They have a great theater and their food is excellent. We enjoyed the movie and after leaving we headed to the Orlando Science Center.

Now, normally, this wouldn’t excite most people but I had two aces in my sleeve. First, they had an exhibit about Mr. Potato Head, which Katie collects. Second was that Katie had not been to the Science Center since it moved to its new location which was probably fifteen years ago. Two recipes that nearly guarantee a win.

Unfortunately, the Science Center was a bit of a let down. It was without AC (which had apparently been that way for two months) and the Potato Head Exhibit was for very young kids. Which, in retrospect, we should have expected. Oops. But we enjoyed ourselves none-the-less. We played with the exhibits and then left. It was at the exhibit that I nearly had a heart attack. One of the attractions in the exhibit was something that was trying to teach children about hieroglypics using Mr. Potato Head style drawings. Katie went over to it and fiddled with it for a few moments before giving me a note which had three different drawings on it, one of which was a big diamond ring. Oh no! She was asking me when I was going to propose to her?? She knew!? But I decided to keep cool and so I played it off and we laughed and said something noncommital like, "Oh, we'll see."

From the science center we headed back home for a brief intermission. We walked Mattie, cleaned ourselves up after sweating in the heat, before then headed back out. We decided to grab an early-ish dinner at Bento which is a great sushi pan-asian restaurant on Orange ave.

As we left the car for dinner I grabbed my man-purse from the back, slinging it over my shoulder. Katie didn’t think anything of it, little did she know what it actually held. [insert evil laugh here]

After dinner I casually suggested that we go enjoy a walk around Lake Eola. So, we made our way down there and began walking around the lake. Chitchatting as we went and after going about half-way around we came to the Chinese pagoda. I suggested we go sit for a bit. Then, after sitting for a few minutes, I casually said, “So, I want to try this magic trick out on you…” Katie knew I have been working on my card tricks recently so she agreed and I pulled a deck of cards out of my bag (this may have been odd for other people, but I carry a deck of cards for just this reason. And NO I won’t promise to do magic next time I see you.)

I riffle the deck and ask her to pick a card, she pulls it out, looks at it, and then I have her slip it back into the deck. I could have sold it better but instead I just immediately said, “Alright, so now reach into my bag and there’s a zipped pocket in the back. Open it.” She expected me to have the card planted there, or something similar. But what she found was a ring box. I took it from her when she pulled it out, I opened it and asked her, “Will you marry me?”

Katie was in total shock. She couldn’t quite process it. Mission accomplished, I had completely blindsided her. “Yes. Of course!” I smiled and kissed her, then pulled back and said, “Now, for the sake of completeness…” Yes I actually said this. “There’s a piece of paper rolled up inside the ring in the box, pull it out and see what it says. “Q [poorly drawn heart]” – Her brain is fried it’s short-circuiting everywhere. She didn’t understand what it meant. “Your card, it was the Queen of Hearts.” I explained helpfully. And yes, that was her card.

Now she was completely blown away. Her world was rocked. She was astounded. It was my crowning achievement. My Muhammed Ali one-two punch for the world championship. My perfectly executed play as the clock wound down to hit the winning shot.

In truth, my biggest point of stress wasn’t whether she would say yes or not, it was whether I would screw up the magic trick in my nervousness. It wasn’t a complicated trick, but I still worried I’d screw it up.

We kissed, hugged, and called family. Lots of phone calls. Her family, many of whom were altogether which made it simpler. I called my dad, my siblings, my grandmom, and a few close friends. Then I tweeted the news and watched our phones blow up as we got well wishes and excited responses from our friends and family.

After about 30 minutes of phone calls and sitting we gathered up and made our way back to the car. Once there I didn’t let Katie sit down yet, I got in and turned it on, put on the iPod and cranked it to play Stevie Wonder’s ‘For Once in my Life‘ to which we danced there next to the car in the parking lot. We held each other, laughed, got teary eyed, and swayed with the music. The song is only two and a half minutes long, but it’s such a great song. Once it ended, we kissed and got in the car to head to SAK.

We went to SAK, told and retold this story, convinced people it wasn’t a prank (a side effect of comedy clubs, people are wary of practical jokes) and we hugged a lot of friends who were excited for us. We watched part of the show but by this time we were both beginning to wind down and feel the exhaustion setting in.

A few quick questions to answer:

1. No we do not have a date set. It will be sometime in 2010, but we have no idea on anything more specific than that.
2. Please don’t start asking us about kids. We took nearly three years to get to this step. We won’t be rushed, we’re going to do it on our own time.
3. No I won’t explain the magic trick to you.
4. Yes I am available for consulting on your proposal planning.

Yesterday was our long, awesome, amazing, magical, stressful, wonderful, unbelievable, dreamlike, everything-I-could-hope-for day.

Moving to new domain

The following post was from my original blog on ronincyberpunk.com, it is archived here for posterity purposes

Ronincyberpunk.com is an old home. It's for a person from high school. A face of me that has slowly changed and now is not nearly professional enough. So I'm moving to a slightly more professional domain name, TrickJarrett.com.

Sad news

The following post was from my original blog on ronincyberpunk.com, it is archived here for posterity purposes

Yesterday we took my mother off of life support and she left this world for the next. The support from friends and family has been astonishing, though as I told a friend, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I've been managing the blog we kept for mom while she underwent the transplant and I wrote the entry yesterday, here it is:

Day 248 ~ She is at Rest

Today is a very sad day. Patrick here, to deliver the saddest of news.

Mom's oxygen numbers plummeted over night. Dad received a call at 3:30am saying that we were needed at the hospital. Her condition had finally worsened such that no machine could bring her oxygen levels up again. Around 11am we had the most difficult discussion of my life.

Going into this mom and dad had made the decision to fight to the end but no further. They would try everything they could to get mom better, but they would not prolong it unnecessarily. And before intubating mom, they had a long discussion going over it all again and making sure that they, the nurses, and the legal requirements were all on the same page and in order.

At 11am we all unanimously agreed that the time had come. At approximately 1:30pm we took mom off of life support and she left this world to enter the next.

There will be a memorial service for mom on Sunday, March 18th at 4pm. It will be at our church, Presbyterian Church of the Lakes. There will not be a viewing or a burial. It was her wishes to be cremated, but her body's final resting place has not been decided yet. We know it's short notice for the memorial service, but with the majority of the family all ready in Orlando, dad is trying to be considerate of them.

We know people who can't be there may wish to send flowers or make donations. We decided to encourage the donation of flowers given that mom had to avoid them for the past eight months.

If you'd like to make a charitable donation, we recommend the MPD Foundation, which funds research into the family of diseases which mom had.

There will be future updates to the blog, we will discuss in more detail the last month and the time in the hospital. Dad wants to discuss what exactly happened, what errors were made and how they might be side-stepped by others who might follow a similar path.

Just recently I began counting hits to mom's blog, she's averaged over 400 hits a day in the days I've been tracking. And using that as a benchmark as to visits to her blog, she's had over 100,000 visits to her blog in the time since it began.

Our entire family wishes to thank you all for your support, well wishes, financial aid, and love.

Patronage in the Modern Age

The following post was from my original blog on ronincyberpunk.com, it is archived here for posterity purposes

Patronage by definition is the act of sponsoring someone, some group or some institution. Jason Kottke, in his move to go pro, has attempted to open the door to patronage for blogging once more. So I felt it would be interesting to look back over the history of patronage.

Patronage is an old practice, going back as long as there has been economy. The wealthy supporting the artistic or musically inclined, is not uncommon, and it is the tool for many stories. Without this act we wouldn't have the vast majority of amazing art which we have today.

But what happened? What changed that people no longer put the same support in for the individual? Why are artists, performers, musicians and the ilk no longer directly under patrons. The truth is that patronage isn't gone, it's face has just changed.

During the middle ages and renaissance and even colonial America, education was different. It was not government funded, it was not the long drawn out system it is now, and there were no liberal art degrees. During those times, education was predominantly an apprenticeship system, no matter the field - instead of going to a school for rote learning, it was hands on and single goal oriented. As such, people were trained in a specific area and they were set on their path for life. Today's schooling is aimed much more at making well rounded individuals. The higher you go in education, the more specialized you become. This is quite a switch from the apprentice style of learning.

One thing which has not changed is that people love beauty, it is universally loved, though what is considered beauty may change, everyone has their mark for it. Call it genetic predisposition, call it whatever you want, but it's true. And as such, the people with money, seek beauty. Whether in people or items. In today's world they can have it, plastic surgery, purchasing paintings, clothes, jewelry, cars, homes; everything is at their disposal through the magic of modern technology.

But back, before the industrial revolution, and even before the printing press, the story was quite different. Technology did not have the replication factor it has today. A masterpiece was one of a kind. It wasn't valuable due to a publisher's decision to limit production, it was valuable because it was the production it was the master's work. Sure you could have copies made, but those were hand made and susceptible to obvious mistakes or differences and they downplayed on the individuality of the original. And so to have a great artist on your staff, or in your service, was a great boon in the search for beauty. This spurned patronage to begin. And from this style also came the patronage of music, theatre and even technology.

One thing you'll discover about the history of education is that the age of entering the work force was fairly young for a long time, even into the beginning of the industrial revolution. It is a fairly recent jump for the increase of the age to begin working full time. Doctors now have almost ten years in school and a handful more in hospitals before we consider them safe to enter the public practice on their own. Architects must go through their schooling and then enter an apprenticeship period before becoming a licensed architect. Where the college educated workers enter the work force around 23, other workers usually enter in their mid to late teens, which is still years later than when children barely seven or eight would enter the work force as apprentices to someone. Sure you could argue we enter the workforce earlier with our afternoon jobs or summer jobs, but I'm referring to full time, sunrise to sunset jobs.

With this shift in education and change in the availability of art, so changed the style of patronage. No longer is patronage focused on the individual, but instead it is focused on the institution. The famous Andrew Carnegie is a perfect example, he was of the firm belief that instead of donating his wealth to individuals or to the poor, he would donate it to educational institutes and in doing so would help raise the overall level of society by enhancing the educational facilities. I don't know for sure if the change was society following his lead, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was a big factor.

So where does that leave us? I started this by talking about Jason Kottke and his blogging. He's attempting to do what other bloggers have failed to do, and that is make a living off of the 'micropatrons' of the blogosphere. Right. Back on track.

So if I say Public Broadcasting, people immediately think of America's PBS, which is probably immediately followed by the memories of Red Skelton telethons or maybe Sarah Brightman singing songs from Phantom of the Opera, which PBS always seems to be running for their fund raising. Why is that? Why can't they run one marathon a year and then stop bothering us for money? The answer is quite simple, because we're their patrons.

When an artist had a patron, he usually lived with the family, perhaps in a guest house or something along those lines, but he could either live on a stipend or perhaps have access to his patron's line of credit. Either way, as long as he didn't go hog wild on spending, he didn't necessarily have to bother his Patron for more money except when the stipend was due.

PBS, and those who rely on the public patrons, have to run these telethons or pledge week's because they need the money and they won't get it if they don't ask. It may be annoying to us, but it works.

The game has changed though. It's now possible, via the magic of technology, to schedule payments or donations on a regular basis. I'm amazed this hasn't become a bigger thing in the world of patronage. Over the summer, when I'm earning income again, I'll be setting up a monthly donation to Jason Kottke because I value his ability to write and share what is on the Internet.

In an earlier version of the entry I wrote this: Musical patronage would only work for the lesser popular areas. The music industry has become such a widespread full blown massive money maker that it has no need for patronage anymore.

But that isn't true. There are a number of composers and musicians who don't make it. What we see on CD labels are *cough* cream of the crop and the luckiest of the lucky. Music would still benefit from patrons if they sought out musicians and composers and provided them with an income to allow them to create the aural beauty.

Patronage is not completely dead, it's simply completely different than what it used to be. Instead of seeking one person to sponsor your organization, organizations are seeking multiple donors to support them. Fund raisers and pledge drives are commonplace, but it seems like everyone is clamoring about how, if they want to drum up donations, they have to offer compensation for donations. And that drives me up the wall. Society has engraved something so deeply into our minds that we react reflexively whenever someone asks for what appears to be a free handout.

I'm not talking about beggars on the street, those people are asking for true free handouts. For the most part, they aren't supplying anything in any form to society. What overrides that notion is that they are humans and our care for the fellow human being we are pushed to give them fifty cents or a dollar and help them survive. I'm not saying we shouldn't help them out, but I want to separate them from my current topic for the time being.

What I am talking about is PBS, or NPR radio, or schools, or Jason Kottke the blogger. Don't they provide for us already? PBS provides an outlet for entertainment. NPR provides us Beethoven and Bach during rush hour. The schools already educate and provide for those in attendance. Jason Kottke has a way of blogging which enthralls the readers and keeps us reading daily. Why should they provide us with incentive, beyond what they already do, to donate? My answer is that they shouldn't have to. They're spending money, which they need - thus the pledge drive, to bring in more donations.

It isn't that they need to provide further incentive, but it is that we as the donor need instant gratification and a feeling that our money wasn't wasted. Even if we know we'll be watching PBS with the kids, or listening to NPR the very next day, or even sending a kid off to our alma mater in the coming years, or maybe we'll be opening the browser and going to read Jason's site later. It still isn't enough for many of us.

A sort of Pandora's box was opened when telethons began offering a vhs cassette or any number of other rewards for donating and now it can't be closed. It is literally impossible to avoid negative comments if someone asks for donations and does not offer anything in return and that's a sad thing.

Now there is one caveat to what I've said about giving items in return for donations. It's something having to do with persuasion and the deeply embedded social rule of trading. The Hare Krishna's are a religious group, and for a long time they've been out on the streets and outside stores, requesting donations so that they can continue their work. But they found something out, something which is now a staple example in psychology courses across America. They discovered that by giving people a small flower, a daisy for example, before they requested a donation, netted them a staggering increase in people who stopped and dug for a dollar or more. This again shows the mental tattoo that where able, we should always trade. And that they gave us a flower, so the least we can do is give them a dollar.

I wanted to point this out as a counter point to giving gifts in return for donations. This is a persuasion technique designed to bring in donations.

So we've seen where patronage was, where it is, so there is only one place yet to go, where it will be.

But then we have to ask ourselves, how can full blown individual patronage work in the modern day? There are several concerns which will need to be addressed by some who may get involved perhaps for profit. Who owns the work which is produced while under patronage? Is it the artist / writer / musician or the patron? What are the requirements for fulfilling the duty of patronage? But this seems to me to defeat the purpose of patronage, all these questions can be avoided by simply giving someone money and then leaving them be.

I think we'll see a minority of patrons arise in the coming months, or perhaps years. Blogging is still very young and people are still of the belief that it might just be a long lasting fad and that people might stop writing. I think we'll eventually find some people who come forward and step up as patrons. These people may not be Marc Cuban, in fact they may not really be all that wealthy, they'll just be well off enough to donate to perhaps one other person.

If someone were ask me directly where I think patronage is going, I'd be hard pressed to make firm predictions, I'm no Nostradamus I'm just a normal guy.

Thinking over this all, I think there is one more thing I need to address about the future of patronage. And that is, having a single person who you know you can go to and ask for money, is kind of an odd feeling. You have one person, as opposed to the hundred which Jason has, who has made you an investment and while they may not expect any return on the investment - it becomes a motivating factor. And it's an odd sensation to realize this. It's difficult to call someone up and ask for more money knowing that they're providing it for you so you can do your thing. It goes against our grain once we are out of the parents' house and "on our own."

For patronage to make a full blown return, those involved are going to find it takes some adjusting.

An Open Letter to Comcast

The following post was from my original blog on ronincyberpunk.com, it is archived here for posterity purposes

The below letter contains many expletives and may cause nausea and vomiting for those with weak stomachs. And this isn't normally the way I write, please do not judge me by this letter. It was written out of anger and frustration. But I mean everything in it.

Dear Comcast,

How are you? I hope this letter finds you well, because when I am finished with you you will be bleeding from every orifice in your body. We are now in our eighth month of a relationship, having started off beautifully when I first signed up for your television and cable internet combo. And now... and now we are in our third month of 'rockiness.'

Let me refresh your memory.

It was November of 2004, only a stones throw in the past, when I suddenly was informed that apparently someone in my house was ordering Video-on-demand, it was around $50 worth and as we had not put a protection code on the box, I accepted it as a possibility that no roommate would step forward and take credit for it. So we paid it with minor upset, mostly talking to support finding out if it is possible that there is a mistake. That maybe we hadn't actually ordered this, but when we were assured that it could not be a mistake and that it was someone in our house, we let it be and found out how to protect it.

Or so we thought.

On that first period of rough road, I had been told about setting a number or password to prevent anyone unauthorized from calling and ordering anything.

Or so I thought.

It seems you failed to make it clear that this phone number would not thwart any attempts to order on the cable box.

Now I am sure your corporate entity believes I am just a member of a house of college guys hellbent on ordering bad porn for over priced amounts and then skipping out on the bill. Since we all know college students, much less engineering students who are well acquainted with the Internet, would actually order porn off the tv. Absolutely.

And so the month changed and we entered December. Our house emptied and we all went to our respective homes to be with family and enjoy the break between semesters. While the house was locked and we were all snuggled at homes, as far reaching as Kenya (that's in Africa in case you didn't know), we apparently had a thief break into our house and order more porn!

Oh no!

No electronics were snatched, no valuables gone missing, but I'll be damned if this thief didn't order us a bill of over $150 in late night porn.

And yes, one of your employees actually suggested that as a possibility.

Fucking morons.

And it was at this point I was informed that the phone code was not all encompassing, instead I needed to also set a code on the box. Which I did, while I was still the only one home, so no one in this house knows the code except me. No one. Are you with me so far?

So after five calls to your various off shore offices I finally got ahold of a woman who saw a glimmer that maybe I was serious and this was faulty, so after having been assured multiple times that there was no way that this could be a mistake, she forwarded our problem to the technical services department and promised I would hear from them within a week.

I let ten days pass and then I called back, to talk to a barely english speaking employee who told me that my account would be credited for all invalid orders. Apparently it wasn't a thief in the house, apparently it was my cable box ordering porn on its own.

And at this moment my heart swelled, angels sung, and I hoped that our rough times were over and we could enter a period of happiness and tranquility. And yet... it was not to be so.

Here we are today, January 26th, I've received the latest bill in my mail and upon opening it I am rather dismayed at what I see. Sure enough you did keep your word and credit me for last months 'troubles' but what do my despairing eyes behold?

$112.90 in Video on Demand porn orders.

I sit down at my desk, anger rising in me like bile preparing to be spit into the toilet before I flush the turd that is Comcast down the toilet.

I dial the local offices and after several minutes I get a hold of a "service agent" or whatever your catchy title for them is. It doesn't really matter, I've got a new name for them, "Masons." Why? Because you have them trained to the T to brickwall any upset customer.

"I'm sorry sir I'll take this information and forward it to our technical services department."

So let me lay it all out for you Comcast. Unless you get your fucking act together I'm going big with this, I'm going to find anyone else having this problem and I'm going to build a coalition. I'll call news channels, I'll write to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. This is bullshit, and I'm done with it. And unless you call me back in two days with a solution and promises that it will never happen again, on top of paying the outstanding bill, you've lost this customer, and whoever else I can convince to turn away.

You think just because you have a monopoly on local cable tv you can pull this kind of shit?

Fuck you.

Sincerely,

Ronincyberpunk

TheFaceBook.com

The following post was from my original blog on ronincyberpunk.com, it is archived here for posterity purposes

A couple of days ago a roommate asked if I had been to thefacebook.com and I sort of shrugged and shook my head. I was of course deep in study mode at the time. When I did eventually find my way there I realized I had been there before but then, when I had first visited, they weren't set up to accept GT students.

On this go around they were all set to accept GT students and let me tell you - this is a party like no other social networking site I've been too.

Thefacebook is a social networking tool aimed at college students, faculty and alumni. It includes tools to find fellow students at your school, or as I've been using it predominately for - finding high school friends.

It's only been 2 and a half years since I walked across the stage with all my friends. Wait. Holy crap. 2 and a half years!? That can't be right. Dude. 2 and a half years. No wonder we all look different.

I posted one of my thoughtful pose pictures on thefacebook and I've received a handful of comments on it. The comments range from saying that I look dashing to "I didn't recognize you." The latter being completely understandable as I don't know how easily I would recognize me either. Maybe I'll dig up a high school photo and a now photo and do a comparison...

Anyways, thefacebook is very cool and has potential to keep me coming back (orkut lost me after a few weeks).

You all will be seeing a few projects come rolling out of RCP Studios in the coming weeks. We'll see how things go over the winter as to the timing of it all. But I'll just say that the Internet will never be the same ;)

And so the game changes

The following post was from my original blog on ronincyberpunk.com, it is archived here for posterity purposes

In the 1800s there were not really any such thing as novels as we knew them today. Well there were but they were not the money business that they are today. Instead many authors chose to write for newspapers.

One of these authors was Alexander Dumas, the author of The Count of Monte Cristo or The Three Musketeers. He wrote dutifully for newspapers in serial novels, the soap operas of the day. If you go back and read the editions of his work that are the least diluted by editing you will note that almost every chapter ends with a cliffhanger.

Dumas worked hard to keep readers wanting more, to bring them back to the newspapers to get more of his tantalizing stories. And it worked. It worked so well that in fact there are stories of people waiting in crowds on the docks for the latest shipment of his serial chapters in the newspaper to arrive.

For over two years now Ronincyberpunk.com has lived as my personal journal and publisher online, carrying my life stories to you my readers. While my audience is not nearly as large as Dumas', nor is my writing abilities nearly parallel to his, I do hope I've shared some tales of my life with you all.

As of this posting, I am taking the longest sabbatical I've ever taken from blogging, and this one is for real. I've blogged for my whole college career, sharing with you all my triumphs and failures. And as of last semester, I've reached an all time low in school. My GPA took a major hit such that I cannot continue anywhere near the road I am currently on.

I failed two classes and received a barely passing D in another. None of which I am proud of and all of which I could and truly should have done much better in.

This summer it all changes.

Were my life a reality TV show, I would have just told all the contestants that this is no longer a game of surviving - it is a game of thriving. Except I would have used a thesaurus and located the most fantastic buzzwords to use instead, making it more marketable. Obviously.

I've gone two years enjoying my college life. As I rightly should. But for most of those two years, the enjoyment still permitted me to make decent grades. Now the enjoyment has taken me to unacceptable grades, and the game has to change.

Both myself and my parents are questioning if I should be here. Not whether I want to be here, because I truly do. I love going to Georgia Tech. But whether I belong here - because thus far I have yet to show myself to be anything more than a tag along in a game with the big kids.

So where is this all going to change? How can taking a blog down have an effect on my life? What exactly am I going to go for in this change?

As I said, the game isn't to survive, it is to thrive. I am going to make straight A's this summer. Which is wholly doable. I am only taking twelve hours. Six of which are independent study. The other six are two classes, each I have had a taste of before – one I failed last semester, and the other one I dropped. And this summer I conquer them like the fat kid in the kiddy pool, they're mine.

I have to learn discipline, every time I've announced a sabbatical from the blog – I've never held to it. I've always come back early. Which is a testament to what I feel this blog does for my life. It is my journal, my keystone to sanity perhaps. But it is also distraction. And so, for now it is going to be pushed aside. I'll be turning off comments and actually removing Moveable type from the server to make it even more difficult for me to cheat the system. I will of course backup the site and the templates, but I must make it difficult for me to break this sabbatical.

No, I am not leaving blogging. I promise that. I know in my heart I will make a return – but not for several months. Currently, I'm setting my vacation at six months. Six months to build up stories and six months to change my life. So, I will return to blogging on November 12th, 2004.

This change is not only in my organization of time, it is a makeover. To use one of today's buzzwords – it is an extreme makeover. I'm not going to shave my head or enter into the Church of Scientology, but I am going to change myself.

I'm going to change the way I think about time. I'm going to change the way I think about school. I'm going to change the way I look at my world.

A few weeks back I wrote down on a pad just what I classified as "wrong' with me. These are my opinions, and my feelings toward myself. I appreciate people who disagree with me, but this list is MY list. It's how I feel and is how I want to change. The list is not something I will post here for you to read and critique, instead I'll leave it up to you what you think I will be changing, and when I return in six months – you will find out then. And only then.

Other than scant basics I won't even be telling my roommates what I'm changing. This is something I'm doing for myself, by myself. My parents, as I've asked them, are playing minor roles in this story – but only because I asked them too. They respect my having left the house and my being out on my own – and thus far I have too, but this change is going to require discipline I don't really have yet. And so, until I develop them on my own, I am going to rely on my parents for their help.

So where does this leave you, my beloved readers. It leaves you in a tough position, like a fan of a movie waiting impatiently for the sequel – I am going to make you wait six months before you see this front page push this long article downwards. I am going to make you wait six months before I return to ronincyberpunk.com.

I am not, however, going to make you wait six months before I will talk to you. I will be checking my email, dutifully as always, And I will be more than happy to keep in touch with any of you.

I will hardly be on AIM, I only log on for special occasions and even then I am not on for very long.

I won't be on IRC except for rare rare occasions; it is another tool that magically sucks time out of my clocks.

I will have my cell phone, so if you call me I will most likely answer.

I will also be on the radio on Monday mornings, from 6 to 9 on WREK 91.1fm or you can tune into the webcast at wrek.org.

I will see you in six months. And hopefully some of you will meet me on the docks. November 12th.

This Summer

The following post was from my original blog on ronincyberpunk.com, it is archived here for posterity purposes

So do you know where I'll be this summer? I'll be here in Atlanta working in the Computer Engineering building in the Digital media lab. Oh sure that doesn't sound exciting but wait there's more.

I'll be coding in Java. Oh no, that's not the exciting part.

I'll be working on a project which involves intelligent systems interacting with users while they brainstorm on whiteboards which the computer monitors and interprets their writings and then searches databases for references and information related to what they're writing.

That's the exciting part. This is exactly the thing I've wanted to get involved with ever since my interest in Computer forensics has lessened. Not quite sure what I mean? Well imagine working for a company and your team begins brainstorming how to build an engine so you all begin drawing on the board, writing pieces you'll need and as you do the walls around you fill with pertinent information about your design thus far.

Or if you want to look further into the future, think Minority Report and think of this as a step in that direction.

I'm so stoked.

So let's talk about frustration

The following post was from my original blog on ronincyberpunk.com, it is archived here for posterity purposes

Two days ago I decided I needed to upgrade my video card. I found a good deal and I got myself a geforce 4 video card. Not the hottest thing out there, but it was perhaps the hottest deal out there. So I was happy, waiting for the package to arrive.

Thanks to FedEx loving GT and Buy.com shipping the next day, I got it today. Picked it up in the Student Center after waiting for 20 minutes in line. I took my box and went upstairs to find the table of chess players.

Chess. My bane. My vice. Like a comet hurtling through space, I was so excited to have the video card I wanted to get back to my room and put it in and play, but like a large mass in Space it drew me in and held me.

It was bughouse time. Bughouse is perhaps the most addictive chess variant there is. You play it in teams of two and each of you plays opposing colors. So I was black and my partner was white. My partner is one of the best chess players on campus. He's near Master level and just fantastic at the game.

I had all intentions of playing like 2 games but we just kept winning, we won like 7 times before I finally announced that this was my last game. And of course, with that announcement, I lost.

So I broke free of the gravity and headed on home with box in hand.

Coming into my room I set about installing my card, uninstalling the old card I turned off the system and put in my new one. Turning it on it seemed to be looking hopeful, looking good. After some wrestling I got the card configured.

But wait, all is not well inside this little microcosm of the digital universe. Apparently the new card conflicts with my network card... and for some reason the audio card is having trouble.

So with several hours and many words which I wouldn't say in front of my neices and nephews (who I am going to see tomorrow), I finally concede a temporary defeat and retreat. I put in my old card and reconfigure my settings to return to the old setup.

So here I am, frustrated.

But enough of that, this week has put enough frustration and stress into my life. This weekend is going to be an interesting relaxation weekend. Tomorrow is my eldest neice's sweet 16 birthday party. And my sister is going absolutely bonkers with the stress of it all.

We all know how it was being 16, the undeniable urge to resist our parents. And it seems my neice is taking a more direct path to resist. So my sister is frazzled and she talked to me for 15 minutes. In short I'll be a "chaperone" for 20-30 young women. Yeah, my life's rough.

So then Sunday is the big day, Pats vs Cats. I think I'm going to go for the Pats. I just hope it's a good game.

Next week is going to keep me busy, Monday is a business meeting for the SCA@GT and it's going to be busy with lots and lots of stuff to go over. Past that I have two tests and a job fair on Wednesday. Hopefully the job fair will open some doors for me, perhaps the FBI (crosses his fingers.)

And that's where I am, was and will be for the next week, how about you?

Hearing his words

The following post was from my original blog on ronincyberpunk.com, it is archived here for posterity purposes

Alright folks, next chapter of the story. If you want to read the past entries go visit the archive for "The Immortal"

Captain Davis sat in his chair, shining his sword, the sway of the vessel causing the soft sound of metal sliding over metal. The boards of the ship creaked under the stress as the steersman brought her about for the next leg of the tacking. His expression was cold, his face emotionless. He took this sword and held it into the light, watching the light shine he nodded his satisfaction and slid it into his scabbard. Rising he walked to the door of his quarters, his boots clicking with each step. He stood for a moment longer, his hands clasped behind his back, pausing to clear his mind.

The doors to his quarters opened as he emerged, he let them fall closed behind him and he looked over the port side to spy the much larger ship, the Union Jack easily visible flying from their mast. Katja and Ian stood fidgeting, waiting for him to either say something or give some sign of his thoughts. He merely nodded to them, and they both took only a moment to realize he either had guessed as much or was accepting it that quickly.

Cicero strode his deck, nodding to his crew to acknowledge their efforts, he approached the bow and turned to look back over the ship. Clearing his throat and suddenly the deck fell silent, before every battle he gave words – words of wisdom, advice, of calm.

"Today, we face a new opponent. One you all have undoubtedly noticed was lacking on our list of prey, one which will promise us a new level which we must attain. Thus far we have but given them our ship's name and my name to call us by, after what this will bring, they will know each of your names. They will know your stories, and for those of you they don't – they'll make them. Regardless of how long you stay aboard my ship, our ship, you will leave with a name to be recognized." He paused, taking two steps to the stern, his hands still clasped behind his back. "Today, we will take that ship. And will take that flag. And we will put it below our decks, adding it to our collection of such items. The Queen knows us only through the victories we hold over others, today – she will know us personally. Whatever we claim today is yours. I will have no share in it, this victory will be my share."

And with that he fell quiet, calmly striding to the stern of the boat – and for a moment the only sounds were the clicking of his heels on the deck as well as the straining of the ship's very hull. That relative quiet was shattered by the uproarious cheers of his sailors.

"Captain, do you hear that?" Lieutenant Adams inquired. Both the Lieutenant and Captain Williamson turned to look across the water to watch the ship with it's red flag.

"Do we know it's name yet?"

"No Captain, the sun at her back puts it in the shadows."

"Fine, then continue preparations, anyone cocky enough to fly their red flag thus openly deserves to feel our bite."