April « 2005 « Black Marks on Wood Pulp / by Corey Vilhauer

Catching up, frantically

April 30th, 2005

Here’s my predicament.

I’m currently working on four different projects right now: stories of my worst boss ever, a bad hotel stay (both to be submitted), the My Very Own Polysyllabic Spree for April, and an article for work about closing at the relay center. Because of this, I’ve been slacking on daily(ish) updates on the site.

This, though, has been my main focus. I really enjoy writing for whoever reads this, even if it’s just Kerrie and myself, because I find I actually enjoy writing just for writing’s sake. I’ve been studying the AP style, I’ve read books on grammar… I think I might even enjoy taking a grammar class for the sole purpose of improving my craft.

Still, there’s no deadline for the site, and there are deadlines on everything else I’m working on, aside from The Polysyllabic Spree, which is for the site, but I’d like to have it out by May 1st. So I’m trapped; I’m letting things build up and fearing that I’ll leave the site festering for a few weeks, at which time I’ll return and find it crying in the corner with all it’s regular viewers moving on to bigger and better blogs, like the Google Sightseeing blog.

Anyway, I’m sure that won’t happen. And since I’m just writing for writing’s sake right now, I’ll put an end to it. If desertion does happen, though, and you all flock to Google Sightseeing, tell them hello for me. And tell them that I love their site.

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Blogging, Meta, Writing

Independence!

April 29th, 2005

Bound to be Read, a great independent book store in St. Paul, is closing. The store, which carries a diverse amount of product – books, cooking supplies, games, music – was completely off of our radar until our last trip to the Cities, where we discovered a store that served as a breath of fresh air from the stuffy confines of Barnes and Noble.

However, now we can bid farewell to another independent bookstore. In a time of Wal-Mart and Barnes and Noble, people are just too indifferent to the lure of the independents, choosing the convenience of buying another copy of The Lonely Bones over the mystery of finding a similar title at a place like Bound to be Read. Independent bookstores, for the most part, hold a mystique and charm that can not be found at the “big box” stores and chains, and typically shopping at these stores helps support local business, or at least it helps support small business.

According to an article in the Star Tribune, the site of Bound to be Read will filled with an EQ-Life, which is apparently a division of Best Buy dealing with health and fitness. That could be the most depressing fact of all. The age old antiquity of books being replaced by a new fitness craze.

Independent bookstores are endangered. It seems to be a business model that will not succeed in our current television-saturated age. Who has time for books anymore? Why waste money on something that will be in theatres eventually anyway?

It’s frustrating to realize that, just as a point is being reached in my life where I’m ditching the television and spending less time on the internet in an effort to read more, everyone else is doing the opposite, throwing smaller bookstores to the side and frequenting Barnes and Noble, a store with a great variety of books but no charm, and Wal-Mart, a store with no variety of books but lots of copies of The Da Vinci code.

My solution? I will no longer buy a book at Barnes and Noble. I will frequent the smaller independent book stores. I will still browse the larger stores, but I will write the books down, run to Zandbroz, or some other little book shop, and buy it there. Or order it there. Or hop online and go to Powells.com, an independent bookstore on the web.

Seeing Bound to be Read go down like a burning library has forced me to realize that it’s not only important what I read, but where I get the books.

Comments: 3

Issues Considered: Annoyances, Books

The greatest game ever

April 28th, 2005

It is. Go check it out.

I’m serious. Fire Pro Wrestling D is a great game. Google it NOW!

Comments: 4

Issues Considered: Random

A dollar for your thoughts

April 28th, 2005

Well, it looks like we’re ready to hear another round of rock vs. paper.

Or in this case, silver vs. paper.

*rimshot!*

According to this CNN.com article, Congress, who apparently has nothing better to do, has voted to begin circulation of new dollar coins. The two previous incarnations, the Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea, were met with an air of indifference, forced to sit in bowling alley cash registers and collector’s tubes untouched.

I actually liked the idea of a dollar coin – an acceptance that led back to my short time in England, where they had not only £1 coins, but £2 coins as well. In fact, the £2 coin was a larger gold coin with a silver coin in the center – very classy. I enjoy having loose change jangling in my pocket, and Sacagawea dollars were heavy and meaty – they felt like an entire dollars worth of change.

The House of Reps voted this new coin into the mint with a 422 to 6 margin, and production is supposed to start in 2007, and will be much like the state quarters – except each dollar coin will be released with a different president on it. Four a year, until finished.

An interesting bit in the article talks about how the US Mint and Treasury actually makes money on each hoarded state quarter. To quote:

After the 50 State series launched in the late 1990s, the government discovered that an astonishing number of people were collecting each new quarter as it rolled out of the U.S. Mint, taking the pieces out of circulation.

It costs the Mint less than five cents for each 25-cent piece it produces. So in a process called seignorage, the government makes money whenever someone “buys” a coin then chooses not to spend it.

The Treasury estimates that it has earned about $5 billion in seignorage profits from the quarters so far.

That’s a lot of money being made on silly quarter designs.

Though I really shouldn’t say anything. I’ve got all of them so far. *sigh*

Comments: 1

Issues Considered: Random

It’s worth a try

April 26th, 2005

Writing can be more difficult than it seems, at times. This is always surprising to me, especially if the subject is something that I’ve already experienced before – non-fiction instead of fiction. I already know the ending, the beginning, the order of events and the main points I want to expound upon. I’m pretty sure, usually, that I know where the piece is going to go. The difficult thing is making your experience seem like something that the average reader is going to give a damn about. You can tell the story as well as you can, but unless you make it interesting, who’s going to care?

Kerrie pointed something out in the newspaper this past Sunday that brews these thoughts inside my head again. Apparently, there’s a series of books on vacation mishaps, called I Should Have Stayed Home, published by RDR Books. Currently they are looking for stories to include in their I Should Have Stayed Home: Food and I Should Have Stayed Home: Hotels collections. My wife, who is forever coaxing me to actually do something with this writing hobby, suggested I should send something in. I, who am forever pushing myself away from anything that would gain myself any notoriety, figured that I should actually give this a chance. Kerrie would like to see me succeed in something that I enjoy. I guess I would too.

According to the Argus Leader, “The story must be true, should be between 500 and 2000 words, and should describe an awful experience about a hotel stay of rood consumed on the road – although it’s fine to have a humorous perspective on your ordeal.” The winner’s story will be published in the corresponding collection, a series that has held the words of Paul Theroux and Rick Steeves, and will recieve either a $150 hotel stay or $100 in restaraunt gift certificates. Seems like a pretty cheap way to get a great story, Kerrie thought.

“Sounds easy!” I said to myself.

Then I started to write.

And I stopped.

And I started again.

Yup — Stopped again.

I chose the Hotel Radnor in London, and while it wasn’t a horrible hotel, it was a weird, poorly run, cramped and slightly run down hotel. The problem, though, is that I don’t remember much about it. It’s been six years since I stayed there, and all I really have to go on is our memory and one picture. I can’t seem to find it anywhere on the internet (there is a Hyde Park-Radnor Hotel, but while it’s in the same area, it certainly is not the same hotel) and I’m guessing that it’s probably no longer a hotel.

Without these few details, I’m afraid that my story may not be “true.” I’ve already conceded that there will be some major embellishments, but I’m struggling with some of the details. I’d like it to be as truthful as possible, but my mental image may not coincide with the actual hotel.

Additionally, this has to be well written. That takes time – a far cry from the stuff I jam out onto this page daily. This is a new experience for me. I have never written anything that could possibly be released to the purchasing public, so I want it to be perfect. I want it to be good.

Still, I have until June 15th to email my submission. I have written part of the opening, which I present to you now:

We stepped into the front foyer of a building much like every other building on the block. Telling this hotel apart from any other random establishment on the street was difficult; every building was white, crumbling slightly from generations of English history, with identical steps and railings, each front door similar enough to create panic after a drunken night on the town. Inside we encountered a hallway, narrow and cramped, lined on the left by a series of closed wooden doors, each leading to what we assumed was a hotel room, and on the right by a dining room door and an opening not unlike those seen in theatre lobbies. The floor was old, giving way under our bodies just enough to emit a low squeak, thus insuring that we could not leave undetected, if the opportunity ever arose, without first paying our bill. I immediately felt a little claustrophobic and searched around for escape routes while Kerrie spoke with the gentleman behind the desk.

How much of this is true is irrelevant, I guess. This is my first shot at being published, so I’m going to take it seriously.

Wish me luck.

Let it go

April 25th, 2005

I have this knack, this perfectly timed response to any minor road block, of getting upset at nothing. I’m not proud of it. But it is part of me. I’ll turn something minor into something life-changing. No one could ever be happy with the results.

I get very frustrated, very easily, similar to someone who says they’ve “got a short fuse,” though it’s not in the usual “blow up at others” way. Instead it’s more of an “I can’t believe this isn’t going right” way. It’s something I probably should work on, but I think through my life I’ve worked through enough insecurities and periods of low self-confidence that I’ll be all right letting this one fester for a while.

Yesterday was another one of those times when I nearly let an almost perfect day be ruined by some minor mishap, this one being our yellow lawn. As I wrote before, I actually care about what our lawn looks like. I’ll admit that it’s superficial, in a way; we live in a great neighborhood, and I don’t want to be seen as the guy with the dead lawn and the car on blocks in the back yard. Therefore, I have a tendency to get uptight with the state of our lawn, especially the front yard.

We have some seriously deep thatch — a layer of dead grass from years past that is helpful in small quantities, but suffocating in large amounts — and I needed to get rid of it. Our neighbors throughout the block have bright green golf-course-like lawns. Ours, however, looks more like the exhibit of natural grassland at the nature museum. All we needed was a few coyotes and some prairie dog hills. The sight of this threw some weird anxiety into my system, and I decided that we needed to have something done. Now.

I called to see how much it would cost to have someone come and power-rake our lawn. It was a lot. I got anxious about what we could do. I called to see how much it would cost to rent a power-rake so we could just do it ourselves. It was much less, though now I started to get anxious about getting a truck. Then I was anxious about getting it back on time.

Kerrie told me I was stressing myself out too much. She was right, of course. And this was just the lawn – it happens when I cook, it happens when I’m trying to get something to work on the computer – it happens often.

I’m not a stressed person. I’m not in fear of developing ulcers, or having some weird anxiety attack, but every once in a while, I take something way too seriously. It’s an unfortunate side effect of being a perfectionist. I’ve got to have everything in order before I can start, and if something goes perpendicular to my plans, I just stand and stammer like a broken Speak and Spell. I’m not hoarding napkins or putting tin foil on the roof – I just seem to over exaggerate my miniscule problems, to the chagrin of Kerrie and anyone else working with me.

In the end, we got the lawn raked up, and we have plans to put fertilizer on it today. Our lawn will be fine. In fact, it always would have been fine. You can’t tell how it looks from the sidewalk, so I’m pretty sure our neighbors wouldn’t have been too concerned about any declining property values.

Still, it was a lesson to me in letting things go. That lawn would have righted itself. And when we finished de-thatching the lawn, I actually stood back and admired it. In all it’s thin and yellow glory.

Let it go, Corey. Just let it go.

Comments: 3

Issues Considered: On..., Outdoors, Vilhauer

2005 NBA Playoffs preview

April 22nd, 2005

This is when the real NBA season starts – playoff time. And, to the dismay of many readers, it’s time for my (first) annual NBA Playoff preview.

I promise that when the season is over, the page will be sports free… for the most part… at least until September. Don’t worry though; I’ll make this quick.

Eastern Conference:

(1) Miami Heat vs. (8) New Jersey Nets

Shaq is predicted to be out for a few games, and in most cases that would swing the momentum over to the opponents. However, this Heat team has been very competitive without their MVP candidate and their opponent happens to be the New Jersey Nets. Vince Carter is foaming at the mouth to be back in the playoffs, and Richard Jefferson should be back to help out, but I think the Nets may have spent all that they had just getting to the playoffs. And even if Shaq is out for the first few, he’s still going to be in the last few, if it even comes down to that.

Prediction: Miami in five

(2) Detroit Pistons vs. (7) Philadelphia 76ers

Detroit nearly took a gazillion game win streak into the playoffs, but dropped their season finale. Philly nearly took a dive, and without Iverson’s dramatic push would have probably sat this post season out. It’s not a huge surprise what my pick here is. Webber has floundered next to AI, and the Pistons have won 39 games since January 1st (tops in the league) and have gone 16-2 in the past two Aprils. The defending champs could very well be in the same position as last year – NBA Finals underdog.

Prediction: Detroit in four

(3) Boston Celtics vs. (6) Indiana Pacers

Everyone has the Pacers as the sexy pick to make it to the next round, especially with Boston’s obligatory seeding due to winning a weak division. I, as the local Indiana apologist, would be crazy not to go along with the mass media, so I’ll just comment that every deciding game could be Reggie Miller’s last, and that alone will fire up the rest of the team to play their heart out. Boston has been pretty good since reacquiring Antoine Walker, and their lineup of Walker, Gary Payton, Ricky Davis, and Paul Pierce, while being what could be the most ego-driven team in the league, is still very scary, especially to a team that has had more bad luck than any team this year. But really, whom am I kidding? And remember, if both Indiana and Detroit win their series, they’ll meet in the next round. Awesome.

Prediction: Indiana in six

(4) Chicago Bulls vs. (5) Washington Wizards

Oh boy! Chicago is without their Dukie (Deng) and their top scorer (Curry), and Washington is without a playoff series win in 24 years (1982 was the last one.) Marc Stein has the Wizards as the 16th best team in the playoffs, and they are facing the team with the best opponent field goal percentage in the league (teams playing against the Bulls shot just 42% all year,) which means that the Wizards need to play their best games every game in order to make it out of here alive. I’m pretty sure they won’t.

Prediction: Chicago in five

Western Conference:

(1) Phoenix Suns vs. (8) Memphis Grizzlies

The Grizzlies had trouble closing out their playoff spot; letting the 9th place Timberwolves stay in the game for much longer than expected. At the same time, though, the Grizzlies play a type of team game that maintains a tempo and substitutes often, thus defeating the advantage of a fast running team. Still, the Suns led the league in points scored and three point shooting, and while their defense a little more porous than one would like, I can’t believe that my MVP choice Steve Nash would let this team go out so quickly in the playoffs. Anyway, the Suns are too fun to watch.

Prediction: Phoenix in five

(2) San Antonio Spurs vs. (7) Denver Nuggets

With Tim Duncan down and out, and admittedly only 75-80 percent even now, the Spurs just aren’t the same team – in fact, they’ve limped into the playoffs after hoping for home court throughout. Sure, Ginobli and Parker are first class stars, but they became first class stars by playing with Duncan under the basket. On the opposite end of the spectrum, this Nuggets team is winning at a blistering pace. With new coach George Karl at the helm, Denver seems to have come together as a team (imagine that!) and look ready to upset someone. It won’t come easy, especially since the Spurs are a wildly talented playoff team, but I’ve got to go against the grain here somewhere, and Karl is looking to erase any memories of his own Sonics’ upset back in the Jordan era.

Prediction: Denver in seven

(3) Seattle Supersonics vs. (6) Sacramento Kings

Seattle, who started the season by blasting everyone’s expectations to shreds, has leveled in the past months. They’re not healthy, and they’ve got no defense, and so it’s easy to pick an upset. Still, they did win 52 games this year, and the Sacramento team they are facing is not the same team that took the Wolves to seven games last year, and the Lakers to seven games in years past. As Mark Stein (yes, him again) mentioned, this Sacramento team could enter the playoffs without Chris Webber, Peja Stojakovic, Brad Miller, Vlade Divac, Bobby Jackson, and Doug Christie – either because of injury or banishment. That’s a lot of pieces to lose or have missing in a playoff game. Sacto’s got no chance.

Prediction: Seattle in four

(4) Dallas Mavericks vs. (5) Houston Rockets

This could be the most exciting first round match up, as both teams are steaming hot rolling into the playoffs. The Mavs are way better than anyone expected after losing Nash to the Suns, and the Rockets’ top duo has finally gelled enough to become a true force – Ming and McGrady could be most intriguing tandem in the league. This is a series that could come down to home court advantage, a luxury that Dallas currently holds, and coaching, in which the advantage goes to Jeff Van Horn and the Rockets. In a perfect world I’d watch every game of this series. Of course, in a perfect world, we’d be getting ready for an Indiana/Phoenix NBA Finals.

Prediction: Dallas in seven

Comments: 2

Issues Considered: Basketball, Indiana Pacers, Sports