McCandless graduated from Emory in 1990 and traded in his life savings for a life wandering around the country on foot. He stopped along the way and made friends with all kinds of folks. It’s the classic On-the-Road story. That can’t be idiotic. Except eventually he decided to find truth by hiking on foot into the wilderness of Alaska with little more than a bag of rice, a rifle, and a book about edible plants. Ah, there’s the idiocy I’m talking about.

The story immediately made me think of Grizzly Man, the real life documentary about a guy with no special animal knowledge who decided it was his calling to commune with grizzly bears. It worked out for a little while. Actually it worked out for years. He captured his yearly adventures on video. And then he was torn to strips by a grizzly bear, and that too was captured on video. This is the truth that I expected McCandless to find in the wild.

What Sean Penn’s movie does though is present the McCandless’s story without taking sides. There’s a palpable struggle for the character against the confines of society, against the expectations of his family, against expectations. Where Grizzly Man was clearly some kind of insane, McCandless was lashing out against the constraints in his life. Sure, his way of dealing was idiotic. And he paid for it when he found out that the truth of the wilderness is kill or be killed. But the story is complex and the movie does a surprisingly great job of telling it.

He wrote post after post after post for months covering all things Costner. And in just about every one, he poked, prodded, and taunted Kevin Costner to take a simple picture. If this sounds insane, that’s because it is.

But somehow last week his plan worked. He got his picture of Costner.

I have no idea what this proves. But I’m sure that Evan Kessler is a very happy man.

Thanks, YouTube.

This morning mealtime moment has been brought to you by the Blankbaby Media Empire.

Hot pink.

POPE, I’m sorry. Can we be friends again?

One my biggest complaints with the place was a total lack of people accentuated by the massive interior of the bar. This place is huge inside, especially compared to other neighborhood bars down here. But it’s not empty anymore. The people are coming in droves and they are bringing their motor scooters. The extra space does keep things from feeling too crowded though and there’s always an open table if you’re bringing a group.

The jukebox is packed with indie albums and some throw-back discs — definitely one of the best available in the S-Illy if you’re into music.

The food situation is still appetizer heavy, so don’t go for dinner. But there’s plenty of grease to choose from after an all-afternoon/early-evening Yard’s bender. And that’s what counts… I think.

So, POPE, here’s my olive branch. I hope you accept my apology. It’s getting really awkward avoiding you around the Passyunk coffee houses.

I could blame poor dental insurance coverage, but really I have an irrational fear of dentists. It dates back to my childhood when I used to visit a fantastical dental wonderland of fun for children in Northeast Philly. That dentist has long since retired to Arizona last I heard from a grade-school classmate who started working for him after high school.

But I vividly remember this dentist telling a hygenist that his vacation condo had been destroyed by a hurricane and all of his property washed away. All the while he counted off multiple divets in my teeth for fillings with dollars signs flashing in his eyes. Thinking back on it now, I probably completely made this up in grade school as a bullshit story to tell other kids why I had so many cavities.

Anyway, I’m reaping the rewards of my paranoia now. My prize for returning to a proper regiment of oral hygeine: five cavities and one root canal. Two of the cavities will most likely require root canal at some point in the future. The root canal was actually the least painful procedure. It’s never good when drilling goes so deep the bit gets lodged in a tooth. Ouch.

Today on Rhapsody I saw the song has been remixed by Kanye West. The blurb listed the hook lyric:

This ain’t a scene, it’s a goddamn arms race!

What the hell does that mean?

But I did receive a lovely message from BestBuy support:

Based on the U.S. Postal Service tracking information, your order for the Nintendo Wii game will be returned back to our BestBuy.com Return
Center. Please allow 14-21 days.

14-21 days? In Internet time that’s about five decades. Of course, I tried to reiterate my complaint in a somewhat calm and rational tone. And then I got this gem:

I apologize we did not meet your expectations with the delivery of your
order. Best Buy strives to make each experience you have with us
positive and as fun as possible, and we are disappointed if we don?t
live up to that expectation. To provide you with the most thorough and
accurate response, I have forwarded your email to our Research Team to
rectify your issue. The Research Team will get back to you via email
within 5 to 10 business days.

Holy shit, only 5 to 10 business days this time? Wow, my experience with BestBuy online just became like totally positive and… really… really… fun. Way to go BestBuy online!

The book’s part of a series called Visual Blueprint targeted to technically inclined people looking to learn a new skill. It’s really for people who have put together a few web sites and want to learn how to make interactive gadgets for the Vista desktop. It covers all the basics you need to make a gadget with lots of helpful screen-shots.

It’s going to take up most of my time for the next few months, but I’m really happy to be working on it. I think it’s a great subject — gadgets of all types are really going to change the way people interact with their computer desktop and the web. It’s exciting to help people create their own gadgets.