days of naze

september 15, 2001
hard to ignore
Letters to Salon in response to a suggested strategy for responding to the attack contain the most intelligent dialogue on the subject I've seen so far.
new in the {fray}: missing pieces. stories from people who were in manhattan on the day of the attack.
"But I won’t be afraid. Not for them. Piss on ‘em. Sit me in that cramped, uncomfortable seat and bring me my peanuts and free Coke. I want to stuff my carry-on in the overhead and break someone else’s cheap tourist crap. I want to fly overhead in screaming metal and flip them all off. F[*]ck you, terror. Eat shit, fear. All you motherf[*]ckers can go to hell."
-from the September 14 edition of Lance's notorious project, MemoRandom. [Lance uses the real words. But my nephews read the site sometimes...] +10:24 PM

september 14, 2001
"For I can see that in the midst of death, life persists."
(A cool flash piece by Halcyon. Music courtesy of ...?! ;-) +5:57 PM

september 12, 2001
In a short piece for Screensavers, Derek summarizes the ways that the net community is actively dealing with the tragedy. It's amazing.
I was proud to see one of my web inspirations, Bill Shunn, behind a improvised I'm O.K. list that helped families across the world know that their loved one was o.k. in NYC. I also exchanged e-mails with Todd and Sara, both NYC residents who I like and admire. We are a community and the net makes us strong. +8:44 PM

september 11, 2001
What sort of hate could ever spawn such acts of outrageous cowardice? What can be the hope of people like this? How convoluted and evil must their rationale be in order to live with such acts? +2:10 PM

september 10, 2001
"Oregon wasn't as hard as we expected," Utah defensive back Yohance Scott said.
Newsflash for you, Yohance -- you lost by 14 and were shut out in the 2nd half. +2:10 PM

september 9, 2001
Twenty-six years ago I was a regular reader of the Justice League of America. On the first page of JLA #56 (the July 25, 2001 issue), Superman hovers over a singed Portland, Oregon home -- his first clue that the composition of the atmosphere is being tampered with. That's still enough to give a big kid like me a little thrill. +9:06 PM

september 4, 2001
ripples from
a walk in the garden
Wallowa peaks rise
Pacific tides ebb and flow
In the Iyo Stone
Suspended mid-air
In her invisible web
Waiting for supper
A wish floated by
As I stood on the Moon Bridge
Before I could think
+7:17 PM

september 2, 2001
Everybody Duck!
[O.k. I'll take a break from football posts after this. I promise.] The game was vintage Ducks. We win it 31-28 coming from behind in the last 4 minutes of the game on a 4th down possession. Real nailbiter stuff. But through it all I must say that it is very good to be a diehard Oregon football fan.
A few observations. Autzen continues to be sheer hell for the opponents thanks to committed fans like me and my brother and most of the 40,000 others. It was extremely loud during the Wisconsin snap count but just deafening on 3rd downs -- off the decibel chart late in the 4th quarter. I've heard one or two coaches say that this isn't cricket, but I find that hard to swallow when you're playing a game where huge hits and scrimmage line combat is part of the equation. Let me tell you -- it makes a difference in the game. Absolutely no question.
Wisconsin is a very good team. Their QB Sorgi was very accurate and their defense was solid. The Badger fans travel very well. Easily the best showing of any visiting team I've seen in Autzen. They were extremely loud especially considering their numbers. They had some good chants and some of them did this thing where long rows of fans pantomime like they rowing, which I found hilarious and a fun way to get people involved. They did taunt Joey Harrington (the Heisman hype really puts a big target on your back) but in the end Joey and the team shut them them up. Vengeance is ours.
(The Sports Illustrated curse continues -- Oregon State just got spanked by a solid Fresno State team 24-44. That could screw up our BCS score unless: a) The Beavs rebound and win a ton of games, and/or b) Wisconsin beats Fresno State next week.) +10:47 PM

I really hope Salon survives. I know some people are critical of the web magazine but I just don't know of any publication with more intelligent writers and more investigative guts. This piece about the head of the Ringling Bros Circus running a covert campaign to bring down a freelance journalist is chilling. +10:21 PM

september 1, 2001
I'm headed down to Eugene with Craig in a couple of hours. I've decided to take that extra step into obnoxious fan behavior and make a sign. For those of you not familiar with the practice, if you incorporate the broadcasting network's acronym into the message your odds of getting televised go up exponentially. My sign is about 2.5 by 3 feet and a light fluorescent yellow (they were out of white). I'm leaning towards
Autzen=
Badger
Catastrophe
but I'm not completely decided yet. See you on the telly. +10:12 AM

august 30, 2001
random thoughts
There is a fair amount of coverage of the San Diego Chargers in Portland newspapers because Coach Riley coached Oregon State before taking on the Chargers. (Erickson gets the credit for the meteoric rise of Beaver football but Riley is at least half the reason for the current success of the team.) I've been a casual Bills fan for a while so I was glad to see Flutie get the starting QB position. In an interview he described his sleeping habits which mirror mine exactly: "I just can't sleep until about midnight and I don't function that well before 9 a.m." Go Chargers.
I am an omnivore and have been known to dine at the occasional Carl's Jr. But their commercials are really starting to annoy me. They used to use the messiness of their burgers as a symbol of their quality and might. And that was kind of cute. But now they've got this thing where the ambient biting and chewing sounds are just disturbing. Should a hamburger ever crunch, snap and pop as you eat it? I think not.
Every once in a while, I'll pick up an Elmore Leonard book. I'm rarely disappointed. Reading Gold Coast now and digging it. +9:58 PM

august 28, 2001
quack attack
The karma wagon is starting roll my way. My brother, Craig, called today with the best news of the week: our friend, Mick, will be stuck at a wedding on Saturday which means that his ticket to the monster Oregon vs. Wisconsin (televised in the States on ABC, 5 pm PST) is mine for the taking! WOOHOO!!! Last year our receivers caught a mysterious case of butterfingers. That loss to Wisconsin (on ABC) cost us sole ownership of the PAC-10 title and a trip to the Rose Bowl.
Oregon currently holds the longest home winning streak in college football because Autzen Stadium is an enclosed bowl filled with extremely loyal and active fans. It gets very loud after a great play by the Ducks and during the opponent's snap count. When you're there and you are doing your part, you have an impact on the game. And that's pretty cool. Go Ducks! +10:17 PM

august 26, 2001
When you were younger and less enlightened, did you ever take a magnify glass and fry insects with it? Imagine you are an extremely large child with an extremely large magnifying glass. Imagine yourself in ant city. Go get 'em you sick-os. ;-) [link via that hong kong gangsta, the notorious bwg] +7:18 PM

august 24, 2001
As I was hauling mass quantities of yard debris today, a notion that has been rolling around in my head for a long while surfaced again. Land property is really an issue of space not mass. My yard generates plant matter from the plant, the nutrients in the soil, the water (mostly from the sky) and sunlight. A certain amount of that matter must be taken away or we would become engulfed in it. But when that matter is taken away, am I not losing land? My nutrients are getting hauled away to live somewhere else. Not that I'm alarmed by this but I just find it curious. If I didn't replenish it, wouldn't all my soil be gone in about a thousand years? Or is it just the nutrients that leave? And if that is the case, how can tiny quantities of nutrients, water and sunlight generate so much mass? +3:48 PM

christopher@naze.net

May you never be more active than when you are doing nothing.

-Cato

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

-Carl W. Buehner

blog & essay archive

naze.net