A rally with Barack Obama, Brick Breeden Fieldhouse, Bozeman, MT, May 19th

This piece represents a journalistic first for me: it’s the first article I’ve ever written in shorthand and then transcribed for public consumption. Next stop Hansard.

—

“I don’t belong to an organised political party; I’m a Democrat.”
- Tom Paxton

I guess you’d have to call it a Reich-roll: until a moment ago, if you typed ‘Obama’ int Wikipedia, it redirected you to the page for Adolf Hitler. Ha bloody ha. I can’t figure out if it was the work of a McCain supporter, a Clinton aficionado, or a canny Obama staffer, but the idea that someone would be redirected to the Hitler page and think “Oh my God! The black liberal really is just like the most racist, right-wing jerk the world has ever seen (well - not necessarily the worst, but if there were a premier league of genocidal arseholes, you’d expect him to challenge for at least a Champions League place)… no. They’d think “Another of our many enemies is sabotaging our champion” and redouble their efforts - I hope, at least.

In any case, we went to see Barack Obama speak at the Fieldhouse this evening. The speech was impressive; the organisation, not so much. I can understand giving out more tickets than the 7,000 places available in the main arena, kind of. However, I can’t understand the lack of a plan for what would happen if and when they all showed up. Yes, there was an overflow room in the gym - good enough, in a pinch - but you have to tell the throng that’s just been rudely shut out of the main event where the need to go, you need to tell them clearly, and you need to have the other venue expecting the crowd, rather than, say, closing the door. Also, is it really unreasonable to ask for a screen in the overflow room? I know you probably haven’t organised such a big event before, being red-state Democrats and all, but people, please.

Well, what did he say? He played up not being George Bush a lot, displaying his anti-war credentials, and pretty shrewdly differentiated between the war against Al-Qaeda and the war in Iraq. He made it clear that he would associate McCain with Bush at every opportunity. He was almost dismissively polite about Clinton, mentioning his respect and admiration for an ‘incredible public servant’, but focussed very quickly on party unity. The best joke was about “my cousin, Dick Cheney” and how he was so embarrassed when that came out.

He made a big thing about the environment (stressing the huntin’-n-shootin’ benefits of clean water and clear air), at one point promising to employ billions of people in the search for new forms of energy - a stretch, I think, even for the world’s most powerful man. He talked of healthcare, of the economy, tried to put things simply and relevantly, keeping things local, speaking like a preacher at times: making people enthusiastic by telling them about a future, an after-election, that he believes in, that he can make them believe in, but that looks a bit far-fetched for cynics like me.

He talked of tuition credits in exchange for volunteering or community service, but most of all about the power of ordinary people (people, in politicians’ speeches, are never people, but Americans, or even better: hard-working Americans. If you can mention family in there too, the sustained applause might give you time to fly out to another swing state for a photo-op and back to finish your speech). Where was I? Ah, Iowa. The power of ordinary hard-working-American-families to change things for the better. He wants to kick special interests out of Washington; I think that’s another big ask.

He’s a charismatic man, a man whose chief quality may be making people feel good about themselves, making people feel powerful, hopeful. He ended with his family history, and emphasised that he had live the American Dream - coming from relative poverty to become a teacher, a lawyer, a senator. He left unsaid that McCain and Clinton both come from relatively privileged backgrounds.

It’s difficult to dislike Obama, and almost anywhere else in the world he’d be a shoo-in. In the US, though, it’s tough to know whether the excitement he generates among young people and normally apathetic HWAFs will be enough to overcome the barriers of racism, conservatism and anti-intellectualism that prevail across the country. I like to hope he can.

United

The more eagle-eyed readers will spot that this is a reworking of Dear FedEx. There are actually a few more verses of this, but I thought just singing the true ones would be more effective than claiming to have flown via Timbuktu. There is an audio recording, but I need to clean it up and put it online. Soon.

United, United, I write to complain
You’ve led me to miss my connection again
Twenty-four hours of my life down the drain
And all you can do is treat me with disdain

United, United you’re driving me spare
I just spent the night at Chicago O’Hare
You dumped me in Madison, tearing my hair
And now you’re refusing to refund my fare.

United, United, the air’s turning blue
I’ve been calling all night and I still can’t get through
I’m stuck navigating your computer menu
Which tells me my call is important to you

United, United, you’re making me cry
All of your ads tell me ‘it’s time to fly’
But when I spoke to the ticket desk guy
He said ‘ten more hours ‘til you’re in the sky’.

United, United you’ve got to be jokin’
If you think this voucher will stop my ears smokin’
My trip took forever and the TV was broken
And you think I’ll be happy with a stinking gift token

United, United, you’re useless at best
You got me home tired and grumpy and stressed
I’d rate you zero or possibly less
You make me nostalgic to fly with North West.

If the kids fly United, they will find nothing provided

Scheduled journey
12.45pm (Fri, MDT): Leave Bozeman, MT
4.45pm (CT): Arrive Chicago, IL
6:00pm (CT): Leave Chicago, IL
8.15am (Sat, BST): Arrive London Heathrow

Actual
12.45pm (Fri, MDT): Drumming fingers in Bozeman, MT.
1.30pm (MDT): Learn flight has landed in Helena, MT. Told it’ll be 20 minutes or so before it’s here.
3.15pm (MDT): Incoming plane arrives at Bozeman, MT.
3.45pm (Fri, MDT): Leave Bozeman, MT.
4.30pm (CT): Begin interminable hold pattern over cities progressively closer to Chicago, IL.
7.00pm (CT): Diverted to Madison, WI for refuelling.
9.45pm (CT): Allowed off of plane in Madison, WI
10.00pm (CT): Told there is neither a crew nor a bus available to get us to O’Hare. Told by agent this is now a crew problem rather than a weather problem, and United’s responsibility.
11.00pm (CT): Rent car in Madison. Drive to Chicago, IL
2.00am (Sat, CT): Arrive at Chicago, IL. No information is available, three United staff to deal with dozens of tired, frustrated passengers. There would be hundreds but for the ones that have booked up all the hotels.
2.45am (CT): Reach United representative on phone. Told my connection will now be at 4.11pm. Flights at 6am and 9am are booked solid, and standby is not available.
2.55am (CT): Seriously consider destroying exit card just so United are given a hefty fine.
3.00am (CT): Buy t-mobile internet pass for day, use for a while.
4.00am (CT): Begin queuing for check-in.
5.15am (CT): Reach check-in
5.45am (CT): Clear security
6.00am (CT): Pizza for breakfast, first proper meal in 21 hours.
9.00am (CT): Give up on trying to sleep. Discover internet has very limited connectivity and keeps dropping.
10.30am (CT): Compile schedule of first 24 hours of trip. Still around 15 hours from reaching London.
11.00am (CT): Seriously contemplate putting on adjustable bouffant to see if it elicits any comment from United staff.
4.11pm (CT): ETD, Chicago, IL.
5.55am (Sun, BST): ETA, London.

It’d just be really nice for someone at United to say ‘God, that’s awful.’ They think that driving 150 miles just to reach a layover longer than the original flight is not just acceptable but something I should be grateful for (one agent said, ‘what if we’d booked you on the 9pm flight out?’). There are a hundred things they could have done to make things a bit easier - ask for a volunteer on an earlier flight to fly later, say ‘we’re very sorry’, offer use of the customer lounge, offer a pillow, a blanket, earplugs … There are a dozen ways they could have avoided the problem - it’s not as if they suddenly realised the crew was out of time, it’s not as if the arrival of hundreds of late passengers after dozens of delayed and cancelled flights should have been a surprise (and i certainly shouldn’t have been left to a handful of frazzled baggage claim employees to deal with), and it’s not as if trying to find extra capacity for stranded passengers, on different airlines if necessary, should be completely out of the question - or even the passengers’ responsibility to deal with.

Dear United. You have brought me somebody else’s shredded slippers and expect a pat on the head. No love, Colin.

There are likely to be other United-related posts in the near future. Do feel free to share your airline horror-stories.

Set-list, April 8th

At the Hand and Flowers open mic in Queen St, Maidenhead:

- Song for the Shy
- You Should Never Skin Up On A Skinful
- Tangled Up in Bob
- No Underwear

Meet the New Bloke

No MP3. This is an old one that I occasionally line up when I don’t like the look of a friend’s new partner.

You introduce me to your latest lover
As if you have unearthed some kind of gem
You tell me he’s not like the others
But he looks pretty much identical to them

Meet the new bloke, he’s the same as the old bloke
Six foot four, the air’s too heavy to reach his brain
Meet the new bloke, he’s the same as the old bloke
Only the football shirt has changed.

You introduce me to your latest boyfriend
He’s tall and tanned and muscle-bound
You say you’ve known him since the weekend
Yet you still seem to think he’s fun to be around.

Meet the new bloke, he’s the same as the old bloke
Six foot four, the air’s too heavy to reach his brain
Meet the new bloke, he’s the same as the old bloke
Only the football shirt has changed.

You introduce me to your new fiancé
The man to whom you’ll give your independence
How he proposed to you, you won’t say
But I’m skeptical that he used a complete sentence.

Meet the new bloke, he’s the same as the old bloke
Six foot four, the air’s too heavy to reach his brain
Meet the new bloke, he’s the same as the old bloke
Only the football shirt has changed.

My favourite software

I missed yesterday (bad Kensson, no banana). The last couple of days have been manic, which is no excuse.

One of the questions that came up in an interview yesterday was ‘what’s the coolest piece of software you use?’ My immediate answer was Aquamacs (Mac), a text editor based on emacs (a Unix editor) but with a more intuitive interface added. But I got thinking, is it really the coolest?

I would be very hard-pressed to function an ocean away from TCB without Adium (Mac), for instance, and a day of temp work systematically replacing links to one website with links to another has given me a whole new respect for bash (Unix). The temp assessments I’ve done recently have involved a flash-based version of Word and Excel which was clearly coded up by a team of poorly-trained monkeys-on-typewriters, perhaps trying to develop software for that play they’d always wanted to write about a Danish prince. All of which makes OpenOffice (cross-platform) and NeoOffice (Mac) that little bit more estimable.

Likewise, Internet Explorer has been developed to the point where it took more than three hours of intermittent use today before it crashed, which is a vast improvement over the last version I used. FireFox (cross-platform), on the other hand, is astonishingly good, and a clear front-runner in the ‘does practically everything’ category.

I’m going to give a shout-out to CyberDuck, QuickSilver and RapidSVN (all Mac), which I’ve only recently started to use but have suddenly become indispensable. With that bombshell, my list of cool apps has become the same top ten Mac apps list that everyone posts, for which I apologise. But I’m still going to leave it there without linking to Stellarium or Skim or Ventrilo or VoodooPad Light or even MailPlane, the only thing on this list that you have to pay for.

Enjoying the Ride

Just noticed that one of my live staples doesn’t have its lyrics on the site. Ought to change that. No MP3.

Buddy, where’s the fire? You’re pedalling fit to bust
With your lycra gear and clip-on shoes, you leave me in your dust
But I’m not trying to catch you, I’m way too dignified
I’m just out in the sunshine, enjoying the ride.

Enjoying the ride, all of those thunderclouds gathering in the sky
Are going to take a detour and pass me right on by
But if it rains, I’ll get wet - then I’ll cycle until I’m dry
I’m just out in the sunshine, enjoying the ride.

I’ve been coming out lately with the raw end of the deal
So I keep my feet in motion and follow my front wheel
The wind in my face is drying all those tears I cried
I’m just out in the sunshine, enjoying the ride.

Enjoying the ride, up on the shoulder, a white line as my guide
My mind is clear and peaceful, my eyes are open wide
Anything life throws at me, I’ll take it in my stride
I’m just out in the sunshine, enjoying the ride.

New song (WIP): I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways

Inspired by a New Yorker cartoon. It might get an MP3 when it’s finished.

I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways
I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways
I don’t care what anyone says
I’m going to head for happy days
And I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways.

I’m going to serve my very last subpoena
I’m going to serve my very last subpoena
Could be for a felony
Or for a misdemeanour
I’m going to serve my very last subpoena
I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways
I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways
I don’t care what anyone says
I’m going to head for happy days
And I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways.

I’m going to hear that gavel bang one last time
I’m going to hear that gavel bang one last time
Then I’m turning on a dime
And heading for a life of crime
I’m going to hear that gavel bang one last time
I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways
I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways
I don’t care what anyone says
I’m going to head for happy days
And I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways.

I’m going to raise my very last objection
I’m going to raise my very last objection
And instead of going back to work
I’ll take the opposite direction
I’m going to hear that gavel bang one last time

I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways
I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways
I don’t care what anyone says
I’m going to head for happy days
And I’m going to quit my low-down lawyering ways.

Running

I thought I was being so clever. My habitual running method is to pick an album I’ve not heard in a while, or at all - Harvest kept me company the other day, Live 1975 today - and basically alternate between running and walking, switching at the track break. It’s enough to keep me moving, but gives me enough time to rest and stretch in between the running songs.

Anyway, I ran a double stretch first - Tonight I’ll be Staying Here With You and It Ain’t Me, Babe, followed by walking to A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (To The Tune Of Highway 61 Revisited). The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll is an ok one to run to, and I was hugely relieved that I’d chosen to run the first two tracks. When I stopped, Bob said “This is Scarlett Rivera” - and I knew that that signalled Romance In Durango and that I’d be walking one of the longer songs. Followed, with any luck, by a short one.

Alas, the hoped-for short one was Isis, short only in its title.

Just out of interest, I went to wikipedia to ask how long the tracks actually were. Surprisingly, at 5:11, Isis is the second-shortest (Tonight… is a shade under four minutes) of the first six tracks, so the damage was purely psychological - doubly so since I came home feeling virtuous at having run for such an extended spell. Next time I’ll take something poppier, by which I mean, having shorter tracks.

A sort of request…

Every so often (well, ok, daily) I check my wordpress stats to see how many people have found a link pointing at my ramblings, or have unwittingly found it using a search engine. Indeed, much of the entertainment I get out of this site derives from the search terms used.

One used yesterday was “program to see if a triangle is equilateral”. Obviously I’ve never answered that question here, an omission I should put right immediately.

There are several ways to tell if a triangle is equilateral: the two most obvious ones are to check that all of the sides have the same length, or to check that all of the angles are 60º; you can also check that two sides are the same length and that the angle between them is 60º.

The easiest one to implement is the same-length check. Let’s say you have three points - we need to see if the distance between each pair of points is the same. That distance is sqrt(x^2 + y^2 + z^2). Because we’re only checking for equality, we don’t even need to take the square root. Our python code is something like:

class Point:
# Class to keep the points tidy
def __init__(self, x,y,z):
  self.x = x
  self.y = y
  self.z = z

def distanceSquared(P, Q):
  dx2 = (P.x - Q.x) ** 2
  dy2 = (P.y - Q.y) ** 2
  dz2 = (P.z - Q.z) ** 2
  return dx2 + dy2 + dz2

def isEquilateral(A, B, C):
  ab2 = distanceSquared(A, B)
  ac2 = distanceSquared(B, C)
  bc2 = distanceSquared(A, C)
  if ab2 != ac2 or ab2 != bc2:
    return 0
  else:
    return 1

A = Point(0.,0.,0.)
B = Point(1.,1.,0.)
C = Point(0.,1.,1.)
D = Point(1.,0.,0.)
print isEqulilateral( A, B, C)
# should return 1
print isEquilateral ( A, B, D)
# should return 0