Thinking about starting this up again

It's almost been a year, but what better time to start writing on the old Cog-Jet than now?

A lot has happened since last I wrote here, in some ways I am a better person, but mostly I just have a better tan than last year at this time. I leave you with some frogtography.

Thanksgiving Pics

Jeremiah and I bouldering at Lake Tahoe. Pre-Windchill air temp: 22 degrees.






A karate kid moment. Still Lake Tahoe.





It is a mystery how Tahoe gets it to snow only on the trails.

Magic: The Geek Gathering

An article I wrote for The Oxy Weekly this week.

The Millennium Falcon, an AT-AT walker and a Mr. Potato Head called Darth Tater decorate my apartment. I live with a life-size cutout of Han Solo and Chewbacca, but I knew I would not be the biggest geek in the room last weekend at the Anaheim Convention Center. The upper levels of the geek hierarchy would be dealing damage to each other via (sorry to break it to you) imaginary minions of monsters and sword wielding, spell casting heroes on a quest against the gathering forces of darkness.

These hero types come together once a year at Gen Con, which fantastically stands for Geneva Convention, but refers to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin where they brought together the first group of gamers rather than the international treaty outlining acceptable treatment for prisoners of war.

An aspiring gamer, I made a pilgrimage to the temple of the gaming religion because of an internet add telling me to “Roll my own,” (they were referring to the dice) and my own desire to cultivate the part of me that reads the Star Wars Encyclopedia and plays Star Wars Monopoly on weekends. (I would like to make it clear that I subscribe to the definition of geek referring to someone’s singleminded accomplishment rather than the definition referring to performers biting the heads off of chickens.)

Although I encountered surprisingly few of the 20 sided di used in Dungeons and Dragons, I was more than satisfied with the dedication and over-the-top displays of enthusiasm those in attendance exhibited. Some sported medieval costumes, with thick leather armor covering intricately stitched tunics and the decorative hilt of what was probably a plastic or wooden sword attached proudly to their belt. Others showed off their exact replica storm trooper or Boba Fett costume with blaster and utility belt. Security guard Juanita Cooley told me that Gen Con is one of the few conventions she has worked where the games run 24 hours a day.

The crushing masses of 15 to 35-year- olds, mostly male, ruthlessly utilized both incisors and cuticles to position themselves closest to the bulletin boards displaying the next round match ups of the card game “Marvel Versus.” They were inspiring until I learned that these rushing hoards were competing for a $40,000 grand prize and there was a quarter million in total prize money for this single tournament. (According to two teenage card sharks, those eliminated from the 40k tourney are automatically shunted into a “small-time” tournament with a meager $10,000 cash prize for first place. A card and game shop owner from Tucson told me that there are about 12 players in the United States whose main source of income is prize money.) Many of these gamers come to GenCon for the prizes, turning “Marvel Versus” into a sort of skilled BINGO night for those nursing a comic book superhero fetish.

I encountered the true enthusiasts at the convention in the board game section, recruiting players for a mysterious strategy game called Diplomacy. Apparently I exemplified the two qualities they were looking for in that I was wandering around alone and had no plans for the rest of the day. I had never played the game before and figured those sitting at the table with me must also be beginners. After a 25 minute explanation of the rules, I was thoroughly bored but no closer to understanding game play. Edi Birsan captured it best in his completely inadequate but concise description: “It’s like Risk with no dice”
Basically, seven players represent seven different European countries with roughly equal military strength and form and break alliances with each other in an attempt to take over the continent. There are no individual turns, countries simply confer with each other and write down the orders to their armies, which can be changed once in the spring season of the game and once in the fall.

The game moves at speeds amazingly close to the real changing of the seasons, and I spent most of the hours fighting off hunger and trying to figure out a way to quit without ruining the game for the other six players. I need not have worried. As the game progressed, I learned that Birsan, my recruiter, was currently the number one ranked Diplomacy player in the country, and spent much of his time as a sort of international ambassador of the game in an effort to popularize it overseas. Others around the table were ranked in the top 100 and my early exit only bolstered their standings. A week after the convention I received my ranking- I am second to last, somehow beating out a competitor by one hundredth of a point in two categories. My inner geek has much room for improvement.

I walk the rest of the convention, sitting in on card games, watching would-be gladiators pound each other with foam-covered weapons in an event called Belegarth and take in a surprisingly Lyger-less fantasy art exhibit. The geek within me is feeling sufficiently stimulated when I am nearly trampled by a platoon of pretty girls in army fatigues jogging around the convention. They sound off and bring it on down at the request of their drill sergeant. I am compelled to follow these ladies, but looking around, the tractor beam drawing me in seems to have been deactivated for everyone else. They watch from a distance and avert their eyes to the ground as the girls come within range of possible interaction. I trek back to my car, defeated. There are some things I will not sacrifice to become a true geek.

Things to Look At

I wish I could remember how to make these hyperlinks, but I can't.

www.dahrjamailiraq.com

A compelling speaker, journalist, and all around bad-ass who has been living in Iraq for 8 months. He did this as an independent journalist, so without any kind of protection, troop convoy or anyone to look for him if he got into trouble.
I haven't checked out the site myself yet but he said he has some stories there and there will be something of his published in The Independent (UK) tomorrow about American war crimes.


Occidental Football made the front page of the LA Times sports section. I know pretty much everyone quoted so I am recommending it.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-oxy9nov09,0,2306210.story?coll=la-home-sports

The Promised Land

With the stress of midterms and the inherent time commitment of stepping on every leaf that I think may make a satisfying crunching sound as the seasons change, this blog has been neglected. I will attempt to remedy that now. With so many exciting things to write about, it is difficult to know where to begin.
Lets start in Utah, the promised land. I spent last weekend about an hour out of Salt Lake City in a budding metropolis called Logan. I’m not sure how, perhaps it was the roving groups of extremely vertical, the matching sweatshirts, the matching vans or the fact that we were getting over excited and taking pictures of each other in the snow, but the indigenous Logans were able to mark us as out-of-towners immediately. They would eye us suspiciously, as if there was something wrong with us for wanting to visit their town and once they had determined that most of us were not dangerous or liberal, (Logan may be the most conservative place in the world that’s not in Texas) they would approach with a “so where is Occidental, I’ve never heard of it?” (In truth, most of us are liberal but when outsiders hear us joking around with each other they figure we’re too stupid to have a political affiliation. For the most part this is not the case. Although one member of the team made the comment, “I’m not liberal or conservative, I just kick it,” we had a discussion today while we were stretching before practice about the special elections California just had that I wish I could have recorded and sent in to Ah-nuld. Basically we spent our 6 minute stretch naming things he could have done with the $250 million spent on an election that, at least from the rumors I hear, was completely pointless in that none of the measures passed.) We would then explain that Occidental is in California, right outside of downtown LA and they would scrunch up their face and ask why we’re in Logan. “We’re playing Utah State.” They would then ask us if we’re going to win, which we would have to reply, “Probably not, we’re a D-III school and they’re paying us a bunch of money to travel here and get tossed around.” But we didn’t get tossed, in fact, if their best player hadn’t hit a running prayer in my face with one-second left, we would have gone into halftime with a lead. As it was we were down one.
That’s pretty much everything of interest from the Utah trip. We made countless Mormon jokes and one of our players thought he left his ID in the hotel room and thought he was going to have to spend the night in the airport. He was finally allowed on the plane after furnishing a medical card as a form of ID.
I’ll be posting soon about a talk I just went to by Dahr Jamail, a journalist who recently spent 8 months in Iraq and shed some light on the invisible bias and near-impossibility of accurate information coming out of Iraq. (that’s not at all what his talk was about but that’s what I took from it)
If anyone’s curious how I am, I’m relatively healthy, well-fed and surviving a pre-thanksgiving rush of school work that I can only hope will not continue through December and finals. I’ve been writing more for the Oxy Weekly and was encouraged to apply for a contributing-editor position next semester which means that I’ll write something every week or a really big feature every couple weeks and not only get to choose my own stories but get paid for about 1/8th of the time I put into them.
So long from rainy (today) LA.

The Lego Light Box

I finally got my Lego Light box filled with lights. This has been an ambition of mine since I received the box for my 20th birthday. It now lights up, filling the living room with a friendly red glow of Lego Love. On the table is the updated Lego collection, along with an AT-ST walker and "Darth Tater." The box is three feet tall and three feet wide and has a dimming function for those romantic Lego builders out there.

Ten ways of Looking at an Oreo cookie, located mostly underneath the oven, on the floor

This is a poem I wrote after reading Wallace Stevens' Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. You can find that poem here

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/stevens-13ways.html

Ten ways of Looking at an Oreo cookie, located mostly underneath the oven, on the floor

I
Nearly visible
A tasty treat lies in wait

II
Sniffed out, if only
paws could reach

III
It is dark and hot here
Where is my friend the milk?

IV
Oops!
How long is 5 seconds?
Better not to try.
You would have enjoyed your time
Next to my sandwich

V
Oreo.
How long has it been here?
White stuff.
Is anyone looking?

VI
I have no
chocolate wafer
Goodness stuck in my teeth

VII
This is my kitchen
I say.
She is unimpressed.
Perhaps a perfect seperation
of wafer and frosting
will win her heart.


VIII
This
will feed my colony
for a month


IX
What did you put
in your mouth?
Dad says.

X
Fifty three
and a third
calories
I am counting
on them
To pick up.

The Zach Braff String-Along

Crowded into corners, curled around strangers’ feet, more than 50 people found whatever space they could in a classroom barely big enough for its 25 desks. Space was further minimized by copious amounts of string running from wall to wall. “This is a full on fire hazard,” observed Junior Leah Concannon, one of the contributors to the event. Lured by a posting in the Oxy digest announcing a talk by Zach Braff, star of the film “Garden State” and the TV show “Scrubs,” Oxy students filled Weingart 210 past capacity amid an onerous spider web of twine and yarn crisscrossing through the room.
Many students took the posting’s urging to “show up early, as seats may fill up quickly” to heart, taking seats at noon for the 1:30 talk. At 12:30 a group of students claiming to be from AV began setting up the room. Bringing up a microphone, a video projector, and rearranging desks, the students finished their set-up by running string and twine through the room, taping it to walls, desks and chairs. From 12:30 to 1:30 students eager to hear Braff kept filing in, making their way through the string to find places to sit among the compressed bodies.
Few realized that they were a part of something other than an audience for a guest celebrity, as the group claiming to be from AV told them the string was part of Braff’s presentation. Emily Cunningham (sophomore) was excited by the idea of the speech, but was mystified by the choice of room and the string. “I’m confused, because I think if a movie star comes they would pick a bigger room than a tiny corner here. I don’t know why they put the string up either. People are getting claustrophobic,” she said.
Grayson DeJesus (sophomore), on the other hand, had high hopes for Braff’s talk upon seeing the string.
“I think it’s some kind of like, artistic presentation. It seems like he’s going to do some kind of presentation involving the string,” he said. Dejesus was correct on one account. The event was an artistic presentation. However, Braff himself was not a part of it.
Oxy students unknowingly crammed into Weingart 210 for an assignment for Professor Tom Folland’s Contemporary Art class. Two separate groups were assigned to stage a “happening” in the spirit of the 1950’s beat poets and other artists they were studying.
“I asked them to re-create a beat poem from the 1950’s or a happening. (Happenings) were an assault upon good taste and an assault upon convention so they were trying to capture the flavor of that,” Folland explained.
In the end, two groups from the class unwittingly merged their happenings together. Concannon explained that her group saw the posting in the Digest about the Zach Braff appearance but did not realize it was the work of another group in the class. For their project, Concannon’s group decided they would show up and hang twine all over the room. Meanwhile, the Braff group was unaware that the other group was going to stage such a project and were as confused as everyone else in the audience.
Unknown to Professor Folland, the Braff group, Lucilla Haskovec, Jake McGuffin, and Max Podemski (seniors), Paige Johnson (junior) and Zachary Kaplan (sophomore) have been an art group staging happenings since they met at a performance workshop in Rotterdam, formally becoming “The Sound and Water Collective” in 2004.
According to The Sound and Water Collective, originally Braff was going to show up.
Haskovec explained, “Zach Braff is actually Max’s cousin, and he will be coming in a month, probably. He just canceled on us last minute… but a happening is all about spontaneity and chance, so in reality it was successful because we didn’t even know that he would cancel in the last minute.”
Calls and emails by the Weekly to Braff’s talent manager proved unsuccessful in verifying these claims.
Considering this their most successful happinging in the Los Angeles area, the group is proud of the ripple their happening caused in the pond of Occidental College. Kaplan said, “The happening is still going on. People today are still talking about it and thus, it’s still working in the collective unconscious right now.”
Johnson added, “It’s about changing your expectations and then learning to adapt to what the world presents you with. It’s not just a reversion to innocence but it’s also a lesson in life.”
Despite the artistic value of the happening, some students were upset and felt they had been misled.
“They broke my heart and destroyed my day,” said Jackie Herrlin (first year).
“I was just kind of irritated,” said Gerry Maravilla (first year). “I’m not a huge fan, but I still took time out of my day.”
In response to the fact that some people were upset about the happening, Kaplan said, “I think the people came to hear a speaker, but what they didn’t know before they got there was that they would see the limit of their artistic mind and how they understand the world around them.”
Podemski continued, “I expect that Zach Braff (not showing up) is going to be (the focus), but that’s really not what we were going for. That was a device in the expansion of the conscious. I think anger is a stage in that… some will come to a greater understanding.”
Through a lack of communication, the event became an instance of chance and circumstance that played directly in to the spirit of the art style. Although the event was not what anyone originally envisioned, The Sound and Water Collective are proud of the art that emerged from the happening.
Kaplan said, “The entire campus becomes like a canvas. I think it was very much like Occidental College became like a live painting.”

CHEESE!

Five years of production work culminates in a fantastic adventure when Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, opens October Seventh. The first full-length feature to star Creator Nick Park’s beloved characters, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit delivers legitimate fun and laughs for everyone without straying from the clean, tongue-in-cheek style that made the original Wallace and Gromit short films a standard in claymation excellence.

Were-Rabbit is decidedly old school, foregoing any and all pop-culture references and sticking to the dry, character driven humor of Gromit the dog’s loyal supervision of his owner, Wallace. In this adventure, Wallace and Gromit are running the pest control company “Anti-Pesto,” specializing in humane pest-removal and protecting their neighbors’ prize vegetables for the annual Giant Vegetable Competition. They run into trouble when trapped rabbits overrun their house and they turn to one of Wallace’s untested inventions to solve their problem. Suddenly, a vegetable eating pest, the Were-Rabbit, begins ravaging the neighborhood’s gardens at night, which could end the 500 year run of the vegetable competition.
While the plot sounds more like Veggie-Tales than Tales from the Crypt, the humor hits with all audiences and the duo’s inventions are as clever as ever. Gromit’s eyebrows, the sole means of expression for this K-9 character, convey more feeling in the each scene than most animated characters manage in a full movie.

Not as quick or sharp as a Shrek or Toy Story, Wallace and Gromit is timeless, riding characters that demand to be loved and relying on self-contained, universal humor and a generous helping of cute rabbits to keep the audience engaged. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit may not be as continuously laugh-out-loud funny as other animated classics, but will appeal to anyone in the theater and is a more complete movie experience than any recent animated competition.