Baby Bourgeois Bananas Playlist, 4/30/06

1. The Beatitudes, Arvo Pärt
2. Vi›rar vel til loftárasa, Sigur Rós
3. We Are All Made Of Stars, Moby
4. The Good Man, Husky Rescue
5. No One is to Blame, Howard Jones
6. Service And Repair, Calexico
7. I'll Back You Up, Dave Matthews
8. Paris, Texas, Gotan Project

Halo: Deviant v. Pantz - Update

Frag Count:
Bourgeois - 41
Checky - 7

Grand totals:
BD - 57
CP - 8

Tee hee.

We are joining group rooms from here on out. How the numbers will rise.

Nobel Contender

Headline: Experts make flatulence-free bean

But how do they taste?

Freudian Playlet

Setting: Battery Park, New York, NY
Time: 1:00 p.m., Sunny, clear, breezy Spring day.

Characters:
Bourgeois Deviant – Socially conscious, progressive liberal. 30’s.
African-American Girl – Dark, slender, well dressed, pretty. Early 20’s

BD walking briskly DSL
AG meandering, lost USR

AAG: Excuse me, Sir?

BD: [Stopping, changing mental gears] Yes?

AAG: Can you tell me where McDonald’s is?

BD: [Immediately] Are you sure you want to do that?

[Pregnant w/ octuplets pause]

BD: Right. Uh… I don’t know where there is one nearby, but there is a Burger King two blocks down that street [Points USR]. Its the same thing.

AAG: [Hesitantly] Thank you. [Turns to exit SR]

BD: No worries.
[Beat. Processes. Shakes head and resumes walking briskly DSL. Lady Liberty is in the distance.]

© BDeviant 2006

Is It Just Me?

Is it just me or do these stats sound surreal and criminal?

Studies show Americans spend more time than ever commuting and for a growing number, getting to work takes more than an hour. In the most recent U.S. Census Bureau study, 2.8 million people have so-called extreme commutes, topping 90 minutes.[Reuters : DDA]

Moving away from work to get better schools for your kids is something I can sort of understand. But just moving out to the boonies because you want a fucking big house for the sake of having a fucking big house is oxymoronic. I work with a woman whose commute is nearly two hours each way (Effort, PA to NY, NY). Aside from the weekends, how can you enjoy where you live? How much time is wasted commuting? It boggles my mind.

I have a roughly 30 minute commute by NY subway and I think it is on the longish side. What in the hell are these people thinking?

Halo: Deviant v. Pantz

Frag Count:
Bourgeois - 16
Checky - 1

Stay tuned in for updates.

Magic "33"

Have a Rolling Rock! Bush's approval rating dips to 33%! A new low. How much more bullshit can the nation bear? My bet is mid 20s.

More Green Thought

I wouldn't call it "on a roll" exactly, but my ire has been sufficiently drawn out by the last post. Over at Raise the Hammer a great article about a tangent favorite subject of mine.

What cars offer in personal mobility, privacy and comfort is more than offset by the damage they have done to Canadian cities, quality of life, civic pride and human health both physically and socially. [Jason Leach]

The EXACT same can be said of the American way of life as well. This is not to say that it is the chief and sole problem with North America, and that to solve it, all wrongs would be righted. On the contrary, it is just the tip of the iceburg. Howerver, it is one problem that is truly possible to solve and, relatively speaking, would be fairly painless.

It should be noted that Jason Leach might very well be the first Christian I have whole heartedly agreed with about anything in a quite some time. Congratulations Pastor.

Alternative Energy Quest: Motivation

This post over at Treehugger just fuelled my wind power fire a bit more. According to Treehugger, the American news media have overlooked a quietly reported fact that the U.S. hit a new record for CO2 emissions in 2004. *ahem* That is two years ago and, given the way things are going, I don't hold much hope that we are going to drastically drop from that trend.

I see a new Hummer in my neighborhood nearly every day. All the more reason to do something.

Free @ Last!

Soon we will be free from the biased bonds of the American news media!

"BBC World Limited has tapped BBDO New York to help launch its iconic 24-hour international news channel in the U.S. market." [HuffPo]

Where My Head Is

This pretty much sums it up:

The Battle of Bugaboo vs. Micralite


When you have a child, you are supposed become wiser and more mature. Not true. You will be surprised by how superficial you can be. Perhaps a child enhances everything good and bad in you, like what MSG does to food. If you have recently had a baby, you would know what Bugaboo is. It is an $800 stroller that is all the rage even among parents who are not so rich. If you are a superficial parent like me, and if you live in New York City, you would notice them everywhere. There is always at least one Bugaboo within your sight. Naturally, I considered buying one myself, but I didn’t want to be just another superficial parent; I wanted to go further. I wanted to be super-superficial. So, I imported a stroller from England called Micralite.

Micralite is actually not as expensive as Bugaboo, but you are not supposed to know that. What matters is perception. It looks cooler than Bugaboo especially since most people in the US have never seen it before. If you own a Bugaboo, you’ve done a thorough research of what else is available. After all, you would feel stupid for paying $800 if there were something else just as good or better for less. You know the brand, model name, and price of every stroller on the market. So, if you come across a stroller that looks cool and if you don’t know what it is, you feel threatened. You need to find out what it is and how much it is. That’s what happens when you drive your Micralite. The Bugaboo people stare at it, do a double take, or turn around as if they are checking out a girl’s ass. As my friend described, Micralite is equivalent to Aston Martin, if Bugaboo is Porsche.

In terms of the quality of hardware and craftsmanship, both are equally impressive. I have to admit that, in terms of versatility, Bugaboo is better. You can configure it in a variety of ways depending on the age of your baby and the situation you are in. However, Micralite allows you to fold it quickly and efficiently, making it easy for you to carry it up and down the stairs, which is a handy feature in the city. Many Bugaboo owners end up buying another lighter stroller, especially if they live in a walk-up apartment building.

My interest in stroller started when my wife described what happened at the class she was taking for new mothers. One day, one mother who only had a universal car-seat carrier asked the class for a recommendation on a stroller. The teacher asked who in the class were happy with their strollers, and all the Bugaboo mothers raised their hands proudly, and no one else had the balls to raise theirs.

When I heard this story, I became determined to outdo them. There must be another stroller somewhere that would make them look like suckers, but my search was not fruitful. Nothing else looked as good as Bugaboo. There is in fact another stroller even more expensive than Bugaboo. It’s called Stokke Xplory. However, the design of it is too strange and ostentatious that it looks silly. It’s sort of like Segway. No wonder all the superficial parents resorted to buying Bugaboos.

Intentionally or unintentionally, Bugaboo played into the psychology of new parents perfectly. New parents are unavoidably self-conscious. They want to feel that they are doing the best possible job for their babies. If some product is clearly better than others, it strikes a chord with new parents in three ways. 1. It fulfills their desire to do the best for their baby. 2. It gives them a legitimate reason to be materialistic. 3. It allows them to show off their social status without feeling guilty. The pretense is that they are doing it for the baby.

Sadly, it was looking like I wasn’t going to enjoy any of those wonderfully superficial feelings. I hated the idea of buying a Bugaboo after spending so much time thinking about defeating the Bugaboo owners. My wife and I eventually gave up and decided to buy an ordinary Maclaren. I felt defeated. Then the miracle happened. Some superficial god must have been listening to me. Just as my wife arrived at Buy Buy Baby to buy a Maclaren, a British couple strolled into the store with a shinning silver stroller with big rear wheels and streamlined design that reminded one of Formular 1 cars. I wasn’t there at the time, but my wife and her friend gravitated toward it, and asked them what kind of stroller it was. They told her that it was a British stroller called Micralite, and that they are not available here, but are very common in England. She immediately called me and told me what she had witnessed. We decided to hold off on buying a Maclaren, and did further research into Micralite.

It was perfect. We live in a walk-up building, so Bugaboo would have been too much to deal with. With the way Micralite folds, we would be able to easily carry it up and down the stairs. But, that was just an explanation I gave myself to legitimize the purchase of it; in the end it was all about the looks. It looks cool. The elegant intersecting lines that it creates as it unfolds, and its origami-like geometry of the bright red fabric, are aesthetically superior to Bugaboo. It was sure to threaten Bugaboo owners.

Even though shipping from England was expensive, it still was cheaper than Bugaboo in the end. When it arrived, my wife and I felt as though it was Christmas. I was so satisfied with how it looked that I didn’t care what disadvantages it had. In fact, as soon as someone used the word “but”, I turned my brain off so it sounded like a garble. It is very much equivalent to how Bugaboo owners carry the big, awkward thing up and down the stairs with a smile on their faces. When you go through a lot of trouble getting something, you can’t look at it objectively. Your desire to believe its superiority overrides everything else.

I feel I achieved a higher level of superficiality than anyone else has with a stroller. When I push it on the street, it almost doesn’t matter if there is a baby in it or not. In fact, my baby doesn’t give a crap about what she is sitting in. It’s all about me and the stroller, and about the rush I feel when I walk by Bugaboo owners. I act nonchalantly, like I didn’t even notice them, and say silently in my head, “Suckers!” Now, I wonder what comes next in my parenthood.

By Dyske Suematsu | May-2-05 8:38A

Printed from: http://www.dyske.com
©2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Dyske Suematsu, All Rights Reserved.

I do hate the attitude of those Bugaboo parents. Gonna have to stick it to them.

Alternative Energy Quest: First Steps

Part of the joy of my quest is that I can do it whilst working for the evil empire. Effectively, they are, without their knowing, paying me to undo some of the wrongs for which they are partially culpable. Again, all removed and sort of devious on my part, but everyone needs a hobby to keep themselves occupied when the Man isn't giving him busy work.

I have looked at this project of getting my Co-Op a wind turbine/energy in a couple of different ways. Firstly, I went for the State and City angle. As it turns out, New York State offers some considerable subsidies for alternative energies. You can find that stuff here. Subsidies and incentives can be found, in abstract, here.

Again, with only some skimming, it appears that there might be up to, at least a 50% subsidy/incentive for turbines that generate 10kW - 80kW (kW stands for Kilowatt)for Residences, Businesses, Institutional and Government. That seems like a pretty substantial incentive given that the technology appears to be fairly expensive. Some turbines are capable of harvesting much more energy and thus greater subsidies are offered. But given that this falls under the "Residence" category and size will be somewhat limited, I won't detail on this any further, for now.

Loans with a favorable interest rate are also available. Check that out http://www.nyserda.org/loanfund/default.asp.

As with anything involving government, New York State offers this deal in a certain way and only through certain contractors. The consumer (me and the other building's residents) will not actually see the money for the subsidy at all. It is paid directly to the installer. A list of eligible installers is found on the Wind Power New York site here. It should be noted that all of the authorized installers are able to install any qualified wind turbine harvesting 10kW or less. This fact along with all else that I have read show that turbines that would fit the space that my building has are of the 10kW variety.

My building contains 18 units of varying sizes. Again, without knowing hard fact specifics, a safe guess would be that the building is somewhere in the area of 20,000 square feet. It has four floors plus a basement. I have put a call into the property management company to get the exact specs. I hope to also find out the dollar amount of the monthly or quarterly electric bill and/or kWs consumed in whatever segments they count in.

The turbines available on the market are many. It is a safe assumption that not everyone of them are going to be available, but getting the best one for the space and dollar, etc... is paramount. Besides efficiency and durability, it is important for selling the idea. Again, living in a Co-Op means that things are sort of run by committee. The good intensions and economic benefits may not be enough to sell the idea. It may have to have some aesthetic appeal serving as a candy coating for the overall package.

There is a list of small wind turbine equipment providers here. A larger list can be found by doing a specific search at the American Wind Energy Association.

That’s enough for now. More as it happens.

-B.D.

UPDATE: I just spoke with a fellow named Roy @ NYSERDA in Albany and he informed me that neither the State nor the City place any restrictions on the type of equipment used. It is completely dependant on the installer. Good to know.

Alternative Energy Quest: Prologue

Everyone needs a hobby. I have several. However as much fun as they are, none are terribly productive. In efforts to become more productive, I have decided to shift from being an advocate for green causes and alternative energies an activist and/or practitioner of aforementioned things. It can be said that change starts with you and starts at home. So be it.

Living in a Co-Op in Brooklyn is not like living in a typical apartment building. In brief, you don’t own your home, you own shares of a corporation that is the building in which you reside. So, if it is a business in which you hold shares, it is in your interest to improve the value of those shares. Being that the soul of the business is the place we call home; improving the place is of the first order. In wishing to do this, I have decided to make it my hobby to attempt to get my Co-Op to switch over to some form of alternative energy.

Now, alternative energy has some fairly broad opportunities available, generally. For my part, residing on the top floor and being one of five owners of roof deck space, and knowing the weather of the immediate area, wind power seems to be the best first attempt to make. For you, the readers, I am going to detail my efforts and learning experience on this outlet. It will be mutually serving in that I will have a place to catalogue my steps and you will be able to see the efforts of someone who knows relatively nothing about the fields involved get an education and learn on the fly how a Joe-average-consumer does this type of thing.

I have no timetable as yet. This could be my first great mistake. But, for the time being, it will just be the way of things. If this is really of interest to you, check back about once a week as that would be my guess as to how often this topic might be updated.

Fingers crossed!

-B.D.

American Political Mathematics

Republican:
Blatantly lying about WMD and taking the country to war for no legitimate reason + Lying about knowledge about levees breaking in New Orleans + Leaking intelligence for political gain + Authorizing the NSA to wiretapping United States citizens + Fraternizing with corrupt politicians = A lack of support to even censure the President.

Democrat:
President lies about being fellated by a fat woman, other than his wife + Being sort of shady about realestate dealings prior to his presidency = Impeachment

American Democracy is grand indeed.

Getting My LOTR Geek On

This could qualify as a guilty pleasure...

My Hobbit name: Bulbo Sandybanks of Frogmorton

My Elven name: Elrond Telemnar

I am partial to being a hobbit, I think.

Click on "Hobbit name" or "Elven name" to get your own!

Guilty Pleasure Near Miss

Footballers Wives.

Have you seen it? First, you should know that I can't in any honesty say that it is any good. This is why it is entertaining, perhaps. Like, it is so bad that it is nearly good. The reasons I have watched an episode of it are several. Firstly, it is advertising on subway billboards around New York. The images have a decidedly BBC sheen to them and are well composed. So, they get aesthetic points.

The second reason I actually took the time to watch this delicious trip is that a friend asked me if I have seen it and that I even knew of it was a surprise to him. The gauntlet had been issued. I had to at least have a glance at it.

DVR is a handy thing. You can get through a program in nearly half the time its original airing took. This was the mode in which I experienced Footballers Wives. Thank goodness. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I lost 40 minutes of my life that I will never get back, but if I had seen it in the full one hour version, I would certainly feel as though I had lost some time.

Footballers Wives closest American counterpart is Desperate Housewives (w/ a little dash of Passions, perhaps). Again, this comparison is made with only having seen bits of each. Basically, this is to say that FW is incredibly soapy. There was a time when I liked soap operas a fair bit. Call this a former guilty pleasure. Alas/alack, no more. The most enjoyable thing for me watching FW was the awfulness of it, yet all the while, the actors are selling absolutely terrible lines with aplomb. The chief differences lay in the out-ness of discussing homosexuality (like, you see men buggering one another in a scene, briefly. No actual naughty bits are shown, thankfully.), the general bluntness of sex in general (Like no subtext at all). In those respects, it was refreshing to watch, if only for a visceral moment or two.

As to whether this production of the BBC raises or lowers the bar, I cannot say. At the very least, it looks good and gets dirtier than we Yanks are currently putting forth on network television. It made me consider, again, the puritan nature of our country. Don't worry, I won't start.

So, in the days ahead, keep an eye out for a new real guilty pleasure courtesy of Go Dann! Go!

Open Call For Guilty Pleasures

For some stupid reason, I thought this would catch on and I would be innundated with confessional submissions of guilty pleasures. Apparently not. However, I am still welcoming them with open arms, ready for comment. Martha Who? and The Wolf (a.k.a. Eschaton) ponied up in grand fashion. I would adore it if the wee but loyal readership of this here blog would throw this blog a bone. (Yes, I am looking @ you Checkypantz, Yo Ambro!, those in FDH, DCeiver & Wife of DCeiver, Le Porq)

Just a reminder, here's how it works:

So, share your guilty pleasures with me. Won't you? Seriously. It can be anything. Like, if you enjoy our President intellectually or really get a kick out of sniffing gasoline at the filling station. Email it to me or list it here as comment and spread the joy. I will give it its own unique entry and bat around some commentary-esqe babble. No scorn, just understanding, awareness and fun.

So, help a Deviant out why don't ya?

Baby Bourgeois Bananas Playlist, 4/2/06

1. The Boy With The Mended Heart, Four Day Hombre
2. Three Years, Four Day Hombre
3. Fur Alina, Arvo Part
4. Body and Soul, Coleman Hawkins
5. El Tango, Astor Piazzolla
6. People in the City, Air
7. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Benny Goodman

People Along The Border, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Separate But Equal, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Self Portrait in the Void, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Beautiful But Void, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Field Trip, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Light & Shadow, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Warm Encampment, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Waiting, DC

© BDeviant 2006

The News, DC

© BDeviant 2006

D, DC

© BDeviant 2006
I should mention that this image was taken and appears with no alteration. It was just the letter "D" laying there on the sidewalk along Rhode Island Ave., NW, near Connecticut Ave.

Blues, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Pipe Metro, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Shepherd 3, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Shepherd 2, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Shepherd 1, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Ticket Taker, Silver Spring

© BDeviant 2006

Grip, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Focus, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Light in the Tunnel, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Public Transit in the Nation's Capital, DC

© BDeviant 2006

Life is Tenacious, Washington DC

© BDeviant 2006