Blackmoor Vituperative

I am going to post a photo of a coffee mug every day in August, and talk a little bit about where we got it and why I like it.

In 2006, I worked at Circuit City for six months. It was my first job in Richmond, and the beginning of our new life up here. Sadly, I immediately saw that the handwriting was on the wall. The company was woefully mismanaged: it was clear that the people making decisions in upper management had no awareness of what anyone working in the company actually did. I was hired during one of the brief upticks in what was obviously a years-long death spiral. Circuit City became the first of a series of companies on my resume which are no longer in business.

I did get this swell Oktoberfest mug, though.

Jon Stewart asks, “When did Ron Paul become the thirteenth floor of a hotel?” The answer is simple: he isn’t part of the play. In the theatre of the absurd that is American politics, every actor has his part. As long as they say the right lines, stand on their mark, and respond on cue, the show goes on, and they get their moment in the spotlight.

For people who haven’t been invited to perform — or worse, who demand to write their own lines — there is no star on the door, no spotlight, and no media coverage.

The thing about the sneetches is that they know they are all the same. The trick is to make us (and by “us”, I mean you) think they are different, and that the conflict on stage has any meaning other than something to distract us and keep us in our seats. While the simpletons in the audience cheer for the star-bellies or revile the plain-bellies, the ticket counter stays open, and the sneetches are all happy.

I’m not sure people are aware of these numbers. Global warming? Maybe I’ll see it; maybe not. Running out of oil? Running out of helium? Unless I die much sooner than I intend, these things will happen in my lifetime. You think maybe we should be doing something about that?

I am going to post a photo of a coffee mug every day in August, and talk a little bit about where we got it and why I like it.

In 2002, Susan and I went to Las Vegas for the “5th Dr. Laura 50th birthday party”. It was Susan’s idea. I have no tolerance for Dr. Laura. I think she’s a judgmental harridan. Susan finds her entertaining. We are different people, and it’s okay for us to like different things.

Anyway, the Dr. Laura thing was just one night, We spent the rest of the week walking up and down the strip (the new part, where the Paris Las Vegas hotel is, which is the hotel where we spent half of the week), getting free stuff from casinos, and seeing some shows. The shows I particularly remember liking were Showgirls Of Magic and Skin Tight. We also got a kick out of the fountains at the Ballagio, and the all of the interior decorations of the various casinos.

While in Las Vegas, we took a day trip out to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. That’s where we got this mug.

Unlike Niagra Falls, the Grand Canyon was every bit as huge as I’d imagined it. If you ever get a chance to go see it, you really should. It’s just astonishing. I was also astonished at the ravens. They are huge, and apparently they are one of the most common animals at the Grand Canyon. I did not know this.

We were not at the canyon long enough to go down to the bottom. It’s 7,000 feet from the edge where we were to the bottom, and we were only there three hours. Maybe some day we will return, and trek down to the bottom.

On the way back to Las Vegas, the bus crossed the Hoover Dam, which was also quite amazing. The dam itself is still open to visitors, but you can’t drive across it anymore. So if you have never done that, too bad — you can’t.

I am going to post a photo of a coffee mug every day in August, and talk a little bit about where we got it and why I like it.

We spent the night in Virginia Beach because we were going to our niece’s “graduation” that evening. While at a gift shop, we saw some pirate shirts. Susan bought a really cool pirate shirt in Savannah, GA years before, but it was in storage. We found the exact same pirate shirt, and some similar pirate shirts, so we each got a new pirate shirt. Then we purchased a couple of pirate mugs, because we did not have any, and we thought that would be a cool thing to have. This is one of those mugs.

The girl at the counter said, “Y’all must really like pirates,” which still makes us chuckle.

I also got a half-pound of fudge, which I am pretty sure I ate all of before be made it back home.

I am going to post a photo of a coffee mug every day in August, and talk a little bit about where we got it and why I like it.

This is another mug from Disneyland in 2009, the 40th anniversary of the Haunted Mansion.

I love this mug. It’s black with white non-water-soluble paint, so it’s dishwasher safe, and the design is Edward Gorey-esque. It’s also large enough to dunk a large cookie in, which is important.

When Susan gets old, she wants to move to Florida and get a job working at Disneyworld, so she could go to the Haunted Mansion any time she likes. Doing what, I don’t know. Perhaps seating people in the rides, or working at the gift shop.

I am going to post a photo of a coffee mug every day in August, and talk a little bit about where we got it and why I like it.

From 2007 until 2009, I played World Of Warcraft (although I was pretty inactive for the last year of that span). I met some interesting people through WOW. Some of them, sadly, I no longer talk to. Of the handful I still am able to keep in touch with, one or two make an effort to meet up at the Maryland Renaissance Festival in September.

The first year I went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival was in 2008, and that’s when I got this mug. It’s not technically a coffee mug, but it’s one of only two steins I own, and it has sentimental value in addition to being really pretty. It’s numbered 159/300, but really, that should be 159/299, because the first one I bought had a crack in it, and I swapped it for this one. So there are, at most, 298 more of these out there.

I hope the weather is better this year. So far, it has rained every year I have gone. A wool cloak gets really heavy when it’s wet.

Nikita Lolita Chiquita Banana Maria Conchita Alonso Blackmoor
“La Femme Nikita”
1995-10-01 — 2011-08-17

Black Cat

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

— Rainer Maria Rilke
(translated by Stephen Mitchell)

I am going to post a photo of a coffee mug every day in August, and talk a little bit about where we got it and why I like it.

In the early to mid 1990s, when Military Circle Mall was more well known for the muggings in the parking lot than the upscale shopping (it’s called “The Gallery at Military Circle” now: ooh, aah), Susan and I would go there from time to time to see movies. What can I say: we are fearless. It was on one such occasion that we were roaming the mall, killing some time before the movie started.

We stopped at a dollar store (not “the” Dollar Store — Military Circle was circling the drain at that point, and all it had was a store run by an Indian or Pakistani family that sold pretty much the same things as the Dollar Store) to get some snacks to take into the movie theatre (yes, we do that). Susan saw this mug, and she immediately fell in love with it. It says, “Don’t piss me off! I’m running out of places to hide the bodies.” It’s one of a handful of mugs that we consider “hers”.

I have been saying for years that passwords, as a concept, need to go away. As implemented, passwords don’t work, and the ludicrous “complexity” requirements imposed my many companies are little more than a guarantee that the user will write their password down, which is one of the easiest ways for a system to be compromised.

Here’s a cartoon from xkcd that illustrates why ridiculous password policies don’t even make sense from a security perspective.

The gist of it is this: long passwords (passphrases, actually) are more secure than short ones.