Coerablog is under construction

(This is basically a cross-post with the Coerablog

If you stop by the Coerablog, you'll see that it has undergone a dramatic re-visualization.

There were two reasons for this:

1) I wanted to make it prettier. I always thought the old design was a bit of an eyesore, but it was unique, which was enough for me at the moment.

2) I wanted to make it more user-friendly and comprehensible. I've begun to understand more thoroughly that a number of people have gone to the Coerablog with the intention of browsing through the site, only to be fought back by confusing and inadequate organization and explanation.

Beside color/font changes, etc., there are two main improvements:

1) The top-nav will hopefully be a little more stimulating for the average browser. It's currently broken in IE, but it works beautifully in Firefox, and I hope to bring Microsoft into line shortly.

2) On the right-nav, there are now links near the top that explain the site, how it is laid out, and how all of the different stories relate to eachother. Note that at the moment none of these links go anywhere useful, but I hope to change that once I get the top-nav working.

I'm very interested in comments or suggestions about how to further improve the site!

Christmas Present

Since Amazon let me down (it wouldn't be available to March), Kim and I drove out to Fry's today and bought the sum of many contributions. As it turns out, the thing is huge! Much larger than I thought.

I did a quick impressionistic painting of Kim on it, just to test it out. It's posted on Deviant Art, so check to the right in the recent drawings.

I am published!**

**If by published you will accept that I mean I found a way to get my books printed at no real expense to me.

I've been thinking about self-publishing for a long time now, but I have been warned up and down about the dangers and costs of vanity- and print-on-demand-publishing. Most vanity presses cost a bundle (hundreds, if not thousands of dollars) to print your book, and then you either end up with a bunch of books to store in your garage and peddle to the neighbors, or you end up with a semi-professionally designed book that may be listed in amazon, but will never see the light of day in a bookstore.

But Lulu.com seems like a different breed. They say they're a technology company instead of a publisher. They don't charge anything up front, they don't review your work, they don't change spelling errors or layout problems or anything. They print exactly what you submit, and you control the price (though there is a floor, since they have to recoup the costs of printing). So I worked up a PDF of Cheating Life, made up a simple little cover for it with some stock photography, and ordered a galley copy to see how good of a job they did.





I'm very impressed! The quality is excellent. If I had put a bar-code on the back, thrown a few copy-left notices on it, and added a price, it looks like anything I might have seen at Barnes & Noble. I'm a little worried about the binding coming loose eventually, but that's a common problem even with large houses, and in this case seems to have more to do with sticking a 54-page booklet in a binding intended for a couple hundred pages.

I priced the book at $6.95 - that gives me about a dollar of royalty and covers the printing costs - it's also only about 30% more than it would cost to print the book out on an inkjet.

If you feel like ordering a copy, go here.
And of course you can always still read it online here.

Apes and bombs (but not Donkey Kong)

Last weekend Kim and I saw King Kong. It was great! It was long! It is not to be seen if bugs scare you or gross you out. It is not to be seen if you abhor excellent special effects, or oppose the idea of giant ape/pretty girl emotional bonds.

But it was a good movie. They did an excellent job with Kong, with his movements, with his carriage, with his fur, his facial expressions. The story was more or less the same as the original - there was no surprise ending - but I wasn't distracted by that. It wasn't like I was sitting there thinking He's gonna die - can't we just get this over with? Yup. I recommend seeing it in the theater. It's that kind of the movie. But like the Lord of the Rings movies, make sure you go to the bathroom ahead of time. There are no breaks.


Before that - the weekend before, I think - I saw Munich with Mom and Wood. I think that was a good movie, too, in that I think it was very effective at accomplishing what it set out to accomplish. It made me very depressed, or deepened and existing depression, but I don't think that was exactly the point. Hopefully. It was exceptionally effective at convincing me that violence begets violence - there is no point at which you can expect that chain to end.

It was so effective that it took me several hours to unwind myself philosophically. I had a hard time figuring out if that kind of despair is real - if there is a valid reason (within my philosophical framework) for the degree of morbid depression that comes from knowing that someone will always start violence, and there is no effective way of completely preventing it or retaliating against it in a conclusive, just way.

I sorted it out later that day, but the movie had me good. It is well acted. I think I like Eric Bana as an actor. Something about him playing both Hector and the Hulk, maybe - both extremely sympathetic characters for me. But you'd do fine to see it on DVD.

Sometimes I disappoint myself

Last night I had to stop to get gas. As I was pulling into the bay, I saw what appeared to be an old homeless guy moving between the pumps asking for money.

I hesitated to get out of my car. I had a ten in my pocket which I didn't want to give up because it was my lunch money. But that wasn't the big deal. I really just don't like talking to strange people in strange situations. It makes me uneasy. I feel like I don't know what might happen next - it's the same feeling I get around dangerous bugs or animals. I just don't know what they're going to do.

I figured if he came up to me, I'd tell him I only had the card, which was of course a lie.

I was relieved when it seemed like he was moving in the direction away from my pump.

But then while I was standing there, pumping my gas, I thought that I should give him my ten. Or maybe I'd keep my ten and offer to buy something inside the minimart. But I still was nervous about talking to him.

But I was ashamed of myself. I feel bad about not wanting to talk to him, or to give him money. I always feel awful after the fact when I had a chance to give alms and didn't, especially if I lie about it - the lie compounds the "sin" grievously.

As the tank filled, I started looking around to see if I could find him - maybe he was coming over, or maybe I could find him. But he was gone.

Sometimes I disappoint myself.