bkdunn.com

Got my semi-annual bonus check yesterday, so bought my tickets to the Solomons today. Ended up cutting a day off the Fiji part of the trip in order to save $600 on airfare, but that’ll probably be okay (although it might mean I end up staying those two days somewhere closer to Nadi). Now all I gotta do is figure out how one manages to be a tourist in the Solomon Islands. Stay tuned (or not, whatever works for you).

bkd

(Looks friendly enough, right?)

With The Old Breed (at Peleliu and Okinawa) by Eugene B. Sledge. Brilliantly unaffected, crushing, wrenching, proud, true-ringing first-person account of a USMC mortarman involved in the 1st Marine Division’s last two (and bloodiest two) campaigns of WWII. I’ve now read enough war writing that it doesn’t take much for me to get teary-eyed about it. I think if I’d been there, I probably *wouldn’t* have been one of the guys cutting dead Japanese’ gold teeth out for souvenirs, but it’s probably hard to say 100% for sure without being there.

And I think the fascinating thing about war is sitting there safe in your bedroom wondering how you yourself would handle the sorts of hell that only war can present. I think boot camp would’ve set me up to be all right, but I probably would’ve gotten cocky and shot after a couple weeks on the line.

I’m about 2,000 words into my Guadalcanal novel now. I realize how trite it is to write a Guadalcanal novel, but some of my best (IMHbcO, o’ course) work happens when I go after trite subject matters. Mal sehen how long that streak lasts. So far I’m holding steady with the PoV char’s squad leader being an ex-Amish guy who’s trying all-too-hard to not be Amish any more. In another month or two I’ll be able to go back and read it and see if it comes off as humor or just another failed attempt at putting the f-word in a story.

Then I went onto Amazon tonight and bought $125 in additional Guadalcanal-related books. I need to figure out where I can get my hands on a Springfield 03A3. Not sporterized. And hopefully under $1K. Amazon doesn’t sell 03′s. Haven’t found my KA-BAR yet either. Man I suck.

L8,

bkd

Because sometimes even I want to fit in. Not really — I just want to inflict information about myself on an unsuspecting world. Either way:

Google Images, first one that comes up for each of these.

1. Age on my next birthday:

2. My favorite color:

3. My Middle Name:

(Boy that one’s sure obvious…)

4. Last Meal I Ate:

5. My Bad Habit:

(it’s not as bad as it looks — at least, not when *I* do it)

6. My favorite fruit or vegetable:

7. My favorite animal:

8. The town I live in:

9. The name of my last pet:

Right, so my last pet was named Syracuse Air Force ROTC.

10/11. I’m passing (10 = significant other’s name, 11 = my crush’s name).

12. My occupation:

I herd Asian businesspeople for a living.

13. My birth city:

And a nice shot of it, too.

14. My favorite song:

Today? I’ll go with…

Enjoy.

bkd

Seriously, half-mast? Here’s a list of causes of death from 2001. I posted this a year or so ago with the hope that somewhere out there someone in world might seize a sense of perspective (this was originally aimed at those who feel all the post-9/11 crap has been wise and worthwhile). So, let me try this again because I’m confident 2007′s numbers will turn out to be similar.

• 157,400 Americans died of lung cancer (that’s 431 PER DAY — half-mast 13.1x per day anyone?).
• 42,443 Americans died in motor vehicle accidents (116 PER DAY — and we haven’t yet banned railroad crossings?!).
• 40,600 Americans died of breast cancer (111/day = 3.4 NATIONWIDE FLAGS HALF-MAST per freakin’ day).
• 31,500 Americans died of prostate cancer (btw, ratio of money spent to research breast cancer cure to money spent for prostate cancer cure is 9:1).
• 31,000 Americans died from bad reactions to prescribed drugs (84/day — and pharmaceutical companies are still allowed to advertise?).
• 30,602 Americans committed suicide.
• 20,308 Ameicans were murdered (that’s 56 people PER DAY, most of whom don’t live in Blacksburg — where are their half-masted flags?).
• 19,250 Americans died from hypertension.
• 17,000 Americans died from the use of illicit drugs.
• 14,175 Americans died from the effects of AIDS/HIV (39 people. Every. Single. Day. Half? Mast?).
• 14,078 Americans died from poisoning.
• 7,600 Americans died from taking aspirin.
• 5,555 Americans suffocated to death.
• 3,300 Americans died of gallbladder cancer.
• 3,281 Americans died from drowning.
• 2,986 Americans died from terrorist attacks (note: this was 2001 — and compared to all the other people who died that year, this wasn’t a significant number either).

Don’t get me entirely wrong. What happened at Virginia Tech was an absolute tragedy — for the friends and families of those who were murdered (sincere condolences, AW). Made-for-TV or not, by any rational perspective, it was not a national horror. If we’re going to fly flags at half-mast every time 32 people die without deserving it, we’re going to need to build way more flag poles.

bkd

(PS: Stop Watching TV News.)

Yeah, so I’m only posting this frequently b/c the new blog is fun. I’ll cut back soon, promise. Anyway, inspired by other writers who give out their convention attendance plans, here’s my tour schedule this year. If anyone’s going to be in any of these areas when I am, give me a holler.

January 8-11: Consumer Electronics Show – Las Vegas, Nev.

January 15-16: LinkShare Summit – San Francisco, Calif.

January 31-February 2: Shop.org First Look – Orlando, Fla.

March 4-6: Email Marketing Summit – Miami, Fla.

April 17-20: Shop.org Marketing Workshop – Hollywood, Fla.

May 16-18: Vendor-Client Meetings – Ft. Worth (and Austin?), Tex.

June 18-20: LinkShare Symposium – New York, N.Y.

June 29-July 10: Research Expedition - Fiji and Solomon Islands

July 18-20: Shop.org Merchandising Conference – San Diego, Calif.

August 20-23: SES San Jose - San Jose, Calif.

September 17-19: Shop.org Annual Summit – Las Vegas, Nev.

September 21-23: BYU vs. Air Force – Provo, Utah (tentative)

November 1-4: WFC2007 – Saratoga Springs, N.Y. (tentative)

I’m guessing Q4 will fill out a little more. And I might fly out to NYC a couple days early, or leave a day late or something. But yeah. If you’re in the areas, lmk.

bkd

I was eight years old and we were waiting for a flight from Mexico City to LA. Whole family was there except my oldest brother who was at college. And there’s this guy there who I remember as being a Mexican dude who starts talking to me. And for some reason I’m trying to talk to him about baseball and explain to him that I’m from Seattle and that our home team is the Mariners and that they’re not very good. Except that, somehow to my mind, we usually beat the Yankees. And I’m trying to explain to him the concept of the New York Yankees without actually saying the name “New York Yankees”, instead circumlocuting into ideas such as “this one team that everyone thinks is the best” and talking about how it’s odd that our team that’s no good often beats this one other team.

What the heck could this (possibly) Mexican dude have thought about that? Was he practicing his English? Was he just trying to be friendly to some stupid (possibly) American eight-year-old? Was there any chance he had any idea what I was talking about?

Did it actually happen? Is there anything that exists in my memory from more than, say, five years ago that *actually happened*? What if there isn’t? What if time and existance started on April 14, 2002 and everything that happened before that, while I “remember” it happening, was instead just a fabrication? What proof do I even have?

It might have been the airport in Merida. Either way in a matter of hours I’d be throwing up on some guy’s pants while the plane sat languishing at the gate at LAX. There’s a lot of languishing at LAX even still. At least that part of the story checks out.

bkd

If you spend any time on it, you’ll see where. But you’ll especially see where if you click through on any of the entries. And you’ll especially especially see where if you click through on any of the entries that have comments. Oh well.

The new blogware is all in PHP, which I’ve never spent any time with prior to last weekend. And for some reason it includes nested nested nested subroutines everywhere. And that, then, is why some things don’t seem to look right. Obviously it’s not *my* fault.

Lousy PHP. This would never happen with Perl.

bkd

So my recent fascination with WWII has resulted in the site’s new appearance.
Hopefully it’s offending all the pacifists out there because, clearly, I love war
and consider it the answer to all of life’s problems. Especially alcoholism.

I’m also planning a trip to the Solomon Islands — no joke — so I can go to
Gauadalcanal and hike around in the jungle some. There’s some possibility
of having to learn to SCUBA dive in order to make the most of the trip,
althought that would require me to spend time in the water. That’s not my
natural element.

I’m thinking about getting a Springfield ’03. It’s kind of a pain trying to buy guns in California, most especially when the gun you’re trying to buy isn’t in California. But it sort of looks like the 03s are hard to come by (and that you therefore have to buy it online from someone outside the state and have it shipped to a CA dealer). And I doubt I’d shoot it more than once or twice in my lifetime. But still. For research.

I’ve also bought a lot of books and read the first 50 pages of each of them.
The only one I finished was the one that was 50 pages long. They’ve all been
sort of good, though. I imagine they’re even better when you finish them, but
not with my info-ADD in play. I paid $65 for one of them, about the 1st Marine
Division in WWII. FWIW, it’s the most telling of all the stuff I’ve bought.

Yeah, I guess that’s not worth all that much. I mean, much beyond the $65.

BKD

Sorry for the lame, predictable commentary, but in case anyone wants to see where I live and you’re not going to later on ask for these ten minutes of your life back, you can check out my new place.

BKD

Not that it matters, but…

If only life were as anxious to make good for past mistakes as is the Motion Picture Academy. I’m sure Martin Scorcese’s a fine person, but there were seriously much better movies available to choose from this year.

The Departed, if you haven’t seen it, is mostly just an excuse to show off Boston accents and stage a bunch of fist fights. Or, to be scientific about it, here are all the major problems with the movie:

1. Aimless Plotting. The movie never seems like it sure about where it’s going and wanders aimlessly. The ending (careful, spoiler) feels arbitrary and unearned. It was like, Leo was going to win, but when they get to the ground floor, there’s suddenly this other guy who I’d assumed was just an extra for the entire film who, instead, causes the story to do a 180 just a few minutes before the finish line. Ugh.

2. Stagnant Characters. The characters do not change in this movie. No one learns anything. No one transcends themselves. Everyone is the exact same person at the end of the movie as they were at the beginning. There were times when Leo almost got interesting, struggling to keep his head above water as a “good person” leading a “bad life” for the “right reasons”. But rather than plumb those depths, each time Leo seemed to be struggling, he somehow got together with Matt’s girlfriend (um, contrived?) and after that everything seemed a-okay. I suppose maybe the oxycontin helped, but oxycontin as a plot device? Ugh.

3. Dumb Casting. Mark Wahlberg is an A-list actor. Mark Wahlberg’s character gets dismissed from the movie with a half hour left in it. Guess who, then, comes back to finish the movie off? Right.

4. Conspicuous Words. I don’t know why anyone, in 2007, still thinks that the f-word carries any weight. Certainly Scorcese must, since he had his characters use it probably 100 times during the course of the film. Listen, *any* word (articles and prepositions aside) that gets used more than a few times over the course of a movie starts becoming conspicuous. If you use the f-word as many times as it gets used in this one, all you’re really saying is that the writers aren’t very good at coming up with ways to express characters’ personalities through dialogue. Try again. Oh wait, too late.

5. Plot Holes. Aside from the story being muddy and often aimless, the story relies on plot holes to get through to its end. Matt Damon can, on his own authority, just erase Leo? I mean, that would work if this were MI:4 or something, but this is a pretentious Oscar-bait movie. Please.

6. Torpid Pacing. When you cram a 90-minute movie into a 150-minute running time, the pacing is going to be off. Nothing significant happens in this movie — at least, nothing significant enough to warrant 2.5 hours. The story refuses to build on itself and instead just hops from event to event without, well, direction.

7. No Stakes, No Sympathy. There’s no reason to care about any of the characters in this movie. They’re mostly unsympathetic (although I felt for Leo by the middle of the show), especially Matt Damon, who was about as boring a villain as I can easily recollect. The story, for the most part, just doesn’t matter.

Beyond the above, IMHO a “best picture” should also be a necessary movie. There was nothing necessary about this one. The plot was purely external and certainly didn’t do anything that hadn’t been done before. The movie’s only intent was entertainment — violent, bloody, senseless entertainment.

Flags of Our Fathers had a couple issues, but was significantly better than this (and altogether more necessary). United 93 was essentially flawless, entirely unblinking, and fascinatingly innovative in its approach. It hurts a little that it lost out to a movie that garnered its awards based on the Academy feeling that it was Scorcese’s turn.

Not that it matters.

Bkd