Alpha-Bits

Spontaneous opinions on randomly-selected topics generated by the alphabet:

Aerosmith

In 1987, I was impressed with the way Aerosmith managed to still be popular and play the exact same kind of music they played in the seventies. Well, it's seventeen years later, and they're STILL popular and STILL playing the exact same kind of music. I could be disdainful or I could be pleased. There are reasons for both. I'm pleased, though. It's good rock and roll.

Biscuits

One of my favorite breakfasts is this biscuit-thing Valerie makes with fresh strawberries. It's basically a firm biscuit split crosswise and covered in fresh, chopped strawberries, sweetened lightly with sugar. It's delicious.

Christmas Shopping

I think I found a great gift for just about all my friends this year. R and I might go in together. I really can't say much more than that, for obvious reasons, but it's really nice to maybe have most of my non-family Christmas shopping done before mid-August!

Democrats

The Village Idiots swing pretty far to the left and have buzzed quite a bit about the Democratic National Convention this week. I like seeing my friends excited and engaged about the elections. I hope the RNC generates at least as much interest. There's an interesting tendency lately for my friends to cut the President a little more slack, and although I'm more anti-Bush than I've ever been, I like to see this. It makes for better dialogue.

Elevators

One of my favorite things to do now is board an elevator and not turn around, so that I'm sorta facing everyone else as we ride up or down. This especially makes sense when I'm with someone and we're having conversation, but I guess I don't feel so strongly about it that I think we should try similar bodily orientation at the urinals.

Fire Hydrants

I don't know who thought of putting easily-accessible water on every urban and suburban block for the purpose of fighting fires, but it doesn't seem like an obvious idea, and yet it's an EXCELLENT idea that we all seem to take for granted. What's the hydrant situation in other countries? Did hydrants originate in America?

Google's Initial Public Offering

I think it's cool how Google is trying to make its initial stock offering available to just about anyone who wants a shot at owning a piece of what's really the ideological and practical center of the Web. It seems a contradiction, though, that Google refuses to split its stock, as individual shares of stock will start at just over a hundred bucks. I agree with Google that stock-splits are "gimmicky," and I agree that the value of the company is likely to remain high if fewer shares are out there (it seems a better way to keep supply and demand in the company's favor), but your average Schmoe isn't going to be able to get in on a hundred-plus-dollars-per-share offering. Berkshire-Hathaway trades at over eighty THOUSAND bucks per share, and that's great for the company, but Google seems to want it both ways, and I don't know if it can pull it off. Either way, I admire the attempt.

Horse Stories

I didn't read Seabiscuit (though I plan to, someday), but I did read almost all of Walter Farley's Black Stallion books when I was in intermediate school and several of Marguerite Henry's books when I was in elementary (I think I read Misty of Chincoteague ten times just in fourth grade). Horse novels are wonderful, and they just really make you love horses. How the heck do horses tolerate us, anyway? We seem completely unworthy of their devotion.

Indiana

Indiana is one of those states I never really thought much about. I don't like auto-racing, and I don't care for basketball very much, so it seems like the kind of state that I have little in common with. However, David Letterman is proudly from Indiana, and that makes me reconsider. With Letterman hailing from there and Peyton Manning, the best quarterback in the NFL, playing football there, it seems to be a pretty cool state.

Jacks

It seems to defy reason that girls are better at jacks than boys. If there were no feminine stigma, and boys could play jacks un-self-consciously, I'd put money down saying that the activity would be dominated by guys.

King Lear

If Lear were staged every year by a different group of actors and directors, I'd go see it every year. This is actually true of almost any Shakespearean play, but it's especially true of Lear. When I was in twelfth grade, I thought Hamlet was much, much better than Lear, but the more I studied them both, the more I realized that Lear is the superior work. I feel as if I could study it forever and still never really get it; yet, I don't think I'd tire of it, either. About ten years ago, there was a group here called The Shakespearience who performed Lear in a cafeteria at Kapiolani Community College. It was sparsely set and simply costumed, but the actors knew what they were doing, and the play made me realize that good writing and good acting are pretty much all one needs. The following summer, the group performed Macbeth, and it was just terrific. I wonder what it would take to get another group together in order to attempt something in a similar vein.

Lighthouses

There's this movement--I'm sure you've heard of it--aimed at preserving old lighthouses by selling them to people who turn them into beds-and-breakfasts or restaurants, or just regular homes. This is so poetic I can't stand it and I wish I was wealthy enough to have a go at it. I want to live in a lighthouse.