Remembering the first day of the Somme

Ninety-three years ago today the British Army impaled itself upon the idea that if you only throw more men at entrenched machine gun emplacements, you’ll achieve a breakthrough in a war of stagnation.

The first day of the Battle of the Somme cost the Brits 58,000 casualties (almost 20,000 of them dead), but won no breakthrough. Neither did it break through the dense crania of the British generals. The new commander, Sir Douglas Haig, remained boneheaded to his death, which unfortunately came long after the Armistice in 1918.

(Generals typically were not in danger of injuries, unless they fell off their polo ponies or slipped on the floor of the officers’ mess.)

No, wave after wave of Tommies went over the top from 1 July to 18 November without enough land to grow a crop of wheat changing hands. The ground was churned to sludge by unbelievable numbers of artillery bombardments; farmers are still turning up unexploded shells as they tend their fields. In the end the butcher’s bill ran to 420,000 British, 200,000 French and 500,000 Germans dead, missing and; wounded.

So pause a moment and think of the day when the sun truly began to set on the British Empire, and consider the tens of thousands of men who’ve rested along the battle line for the past 93 years.

Another one bites the dust

Well, well, well—seems that, while justice is still a dream, the law still has some edge on her sword.

US District Court Judge Denny Chin sentenced Bernie Madoff to 150 years in prison for running the largest (so far) Ponzi scheme in US history. This is the full sentence demanded by the prosecution & 12.5 times what Madoff’s attorneys had suggested as a “reasonable” term.

Still not enough for the hundreds of victims of Madoff’s scheme, but I guess it’s a start. & because Madoff pleaded guilty there’s no way that death can vacate the verdict, as it did with Kenny Lay, of Enron fame. (I still want them to dig him up to make sure the bastard’s actually dead.)

Let’s hope the rest of the greed-a-rama set on Wall Street pays attention.

Summer wines

Although I’m suffering from withdrawal symptoms over Eric Felten throwing over his drinks column in the Wall Street Journal, that publication’s wine writers are taking up some of the slack.

This week they give recommendations on jug wines (not jugs, really, but 1.5 litre bottles), just in time for the holiday weekend.

I have to say that I’ve not got much hope of finding the selection here in Washington state; & certainly not at the prices quoted, since the state government jacks up prices for some unknown reason. (Unless it’s just the old revenue wheeze.)

But you may be able to find some. If so—salud!

Sign of the Times

‘Kay, there’s plenty of news to talk about, but this just stopped me cold. I saw that Farrah Fawcett lost her battle with cancer, so I went to her hometown paper to see what they had to say.

Imagine my, well, surprise at finding what the LA Times thinks is good (or even appropriate) context-generated advertising. (I’ve highlighted the relevant offenders in yellow.)

In case you’re unable to see in this rendering, I’ve cut out the offenders for separate viewing:

As if the text ads weren't bad enough, we also have:

What you can’t see here is the changes in the caskets that are displayed, so there is this constant neon-light-like flashing in your line of vision.

I understand there’s an algorithm that matches ads with content, but you’d think there’d be some adult supervision in the equation somewhere.

Evidently you’d be wrong.

Jabberwocky

One of the first books I unpacked in my recent move was my copy of The Annotated Alice, which comprises Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. So I reread them both.

I used to say of my previous employer that I’d fallen down the rabbit hole, but I admit that where I am now is definitely looking-glass world. Everything is distorted, nothing is as it seems, in order to get somewhere you must go in the opposite direction, and the shortest distance between two points is never a straight line.

In fact, there may not be a connection at all between the two points, so you’d better not set your heart on that.

I’m working on a product that’s been in “development” since March and the configuration of v1 still hasn’t been anointed.

That’s because we’re still taking guesses at who the target market is and what use they might get out of this.

(And, no—that’s not how you’re supposed to build new applications. But this only came up because management made a deal with a data source and then we had to dream up something to use the data on.)

Unsurprisingly, launch date keeps being pushed out quarter by quarter.

I have to say that knowing things aren’t going to make any sense doesn’t make it particularly easier to navigate the landscape, but there it is. A slithy tove is a slithy tove, wherever you encounter it.

The writing on the wall

Oh, no—another American icon is biting the dust. Eastman Kodak is discontinuing Kodachrome.

Kodachrome is a wonderful slide film—if you were shooting anything with warm tones, from fall foliage to kids’ birthday parties, Kodachrome gave you an edge. (If you were going after blue-green landscapes, you went for Ektachrome, a lesson I learned the hard way. But at least I learned it early.)

I’ve shot hundreds of rolls of this luscious stuff. I went through at least 20 in a single two-week trip to the battlefields of France. Another 10-15 at Renaissance Pleasure Fayres over the years. I started shooting it on my old Nikon rangefinder—where I had to use an external light meter to set the shutter & aperture. (If you wonder where the title & URL for this blog originated, just think about it.) Those photos have held up well through the years, too.

I loved looking at the slides through the viewer or on a light table—just for the colors. It’s entirely different from viewing thumbnails on a monitor. There’s something big time about sorting slides on a light table that I miss. Over time, I’ve whittled down my collection to a mere handful, but the ones left are definitely old friends, & they haven’t faded in the least.

I’ll confess that I have played my own part in Kodachrome’s demise. About the time I moved to the UK & I realized processing slides was going to be a pain, I switched to color negative film. & to Fuji, because I liked the depth of colors better than the Kodak products.

(Also, Fuji 35mm canisters are great for pill bottles—unlike the black & grey Kodak ones, they’re translucent, so you can tell if you’ve got the ibuprofen or the Zyrtec in a particular container.)

Then when it became damned near impossible to find it in the ASA 100 speed film (giving you room to slow the shutter & get some motion effects), I started eying digital cameras. So while I used to schlep through Europe with three cameras (one for color, one for B&W & one for quick snaps), I now just have a digital point-&-shoot & a digital SLR. I joined the Dark Side.

During this last move, I hauled the plastic bag of film from one refrigerator crisper box to another. I suppose I should have some sort of Viking funeral for the stuff. (What I’ll do with the six or so film 35mm cameras, I don’t know. I haven’t reached the point where I can bear to part with any of them because of the partnership we’ve had ever since I was in high school.) Perhaps I should just make some sort of objets-trouvés art piece out of the boxes & rolls.

But it’s the end of an era, so join Paul & me in a chorus:

Time, gentlemen

Oh, my fur & whiskers—Eric Felten is hanging up his booze spurs.

Even though he thinks Laphroaig is fit for anything but cleaning out your crankcase, & that vodka is fit for nothing but cleaning out your crankcase, he’s always come up with interesting stuff about spirits & cocktails.

(I did have a Lemon Drop once; the folks at the booth next to ours at a high-tech trade show were offering “martinis” & cookies, & on my last day of booth duty I opted for the Lemon Drop. It was something Hercule Poirot would have enjoyed.)

Seems he’s moving on to American culture as a whole. Although I’d think you’d get a pretty good grasp on that from a bar stool.

He says he’ll still write the occasional drinks column, but it’s going to be a long, dry summer.

Swedish puzzles

I swear—moving hell just never ends.

I bought an IKEA six-drawer dresser a few weeks ago—I figured I might as well let the movers schlep it up to the third floor in flat packs and I’d put it together after I got in.

Well, that was the plan, anyhow.

I got the frame set up, finally. But when time came to assemble the drawers, I just lost the plot. And IKEA’s text-less “instructions” are about as much help as a chocolate teapot.

I’m just flummoxed. The bottom of the drawers doesn’t actually attach to anything. It slides into a groove at the front & back and that’s somehow supposed to keep it from sagging when you put all your socks in there. Then there are these white plastic screw-like things you’re supposed to somehow get into the sides and rear pieces. They’re screw-like, but there’s no slot or hatch on the head to insert a screwdriver.

And the text-less instructions only tell you you’ll need Phillips and slot screwdrivers and a hammer for the whole project. The particular picture just shows the screw-like things going magically into the holes.

I guess I’m going to have to make a run down to IKEA to see this thing on the hoof and try to extrapolate how I make it happen.

Meanwhile I have a bedroom full of IKEA pieces.

Deep joy.

Dem bones

If you’re looking for a return on your investment you might consider buying stocks in manufacturers of ibuprofen. I’ve been popping it like Pez ever since I moved into this three-story house from the single-story Rambler.

My right knee makes a crunching sound, like stepping on a bag of bran, whenever I go up stairs, which I do rather a lot—moving things from one floor to another. I saw some young woman out running today, with support bandages wrapped around her knees and I thought, “Hey, I want some of those!”

I’m hoping this is temporary—that it’ll wear off as I get used to being in multiple floors. When I moved to the UK and started driving a car with the floor shift on the left, my left shoulder got sore for a while with the unexpected workout. And when I returned here I had the same thing happen with my right shoulder until I got used to shifting with that arm. So I hope this is a similar situation.

But just in case, you should keep that ibuprofen shares thing in mind.

She's baaaack

Since one of my three readers has commented on the lack of posts, let me just say that I’ve been in hell. While I’m not entirely sure I’m out, at least I’m now at least crawling up the circles.

You see, I’ve been moving house. And for more than two weeks la Bas Bleu is just beat.

You may recall my last attempt to become a landholder in the Emerald City. It did not end well.

So every step of the way on this round I waited for various shoes to drop. And drop they did. The loan processor turned out to be working on her first actual, you know, loan to be processed with me. So I didn’t make the closing/signing date and had to sign papers the next day and then pick up the keys the next day.

There was a deal where the builder gave you money to put towards things like appliances and window treatments. I had to submit invoices for the items in question and the escrow company managed to overpay the appliance people.

Sears, the appliance people, could not manage to deliver the right refrigerator. I gave them three tries before finally going to a local store. The last straw was getting a call at 0700 last Saturday from someone in the delivery department to tell me, “Your refrigerator has a dent in it. Do you still want it?”

I’ve been in this place since 5 June.

(But what I loved was, after calling the store and trying to get it sorted, I finally got a call from someone named Charles in the “Customer Solutions” department. His solution? “You could go to the store and pick out something different, or you can wait until July 22 for us to deliver one.” Not my idea of a solution.)

I finally got my refrigerator Thursday. Now I’m trying to get the double charges for the appliances back from Sears. Any bets on how smoothly this process will go?

The only thing that went according to plan was the actual move. They showed up on time, loaded the trucks, unloaded and set stuff up here and were gone by 1400.

So I’ve been unpacking cartons for the past couple of weeks. Some of my things (including well over half my books) I haven’t seen for more than a year. I am finding damage done by the “professional” packer back in Virginia to my books, which I’ll bring to the attention of the adjustor. I couldn’t believe how many ways there are to ruin a book. Thank God I packed 40 cartons of them myself.

Now, of course, I have the fight with Seattle City Light, which despite its name is supposed to provide electricity, water, sewer and trash collection. I can’t tell you how many twilight zone conversations I’ve had with their representatives trying to get them to just set up a bloody account for me. The one this morning couldn’t tell me anything about the trash or when I might expect to receive bins (since nobody out here will pick up anything that’s not in an official bin). And when I asked her what I was supposed to be doing with my trash in the meantime, there was silence and then, “well, hold on to it.”

Next thing you know I’ll be hauled in for attracting rats and being a plague carrier.

Well, whatever. I’m in my brand new house. My cat will eventually come out from under the bed where she's been ever since the movers left. Whether or not I’m paying for water, I’m getting it. And the fridge has two bottles of bubbly in it.

My usual posts should resume shortly.