I usually leave my soap sitting on the side of my bathtub, on the outside of the curtain. Not a good place if you have girl rats who can either jump up and get into the tub, or jump up enough to knock the soap down. Last week, I had heard a crash. Yeap. Soap on the floor with Oreo right there. She did it again later on. Today, I was trying to find Whiskers (my boy rat) when he was let loose. I looked under my bed. He was eating something blue-ish. I figured it was some paper, but managed to get him out of under the bed. I saw some paper, but not blue. Finally, I found him again. There was a small bar of soap right by him. One of the girls had picked up the soap and hid it under my bed. They're pack rats. Oy. I wonder what else of mine they've tried to hide from me.

I think this morning I woke up to Godsmack or some heavier rock group. It sounded like they were saying, "Come, motherf---, let's go!" I went online to figure out what song it was. That didn't really help too much. They had a few songs, but nothing sounded right. Ah, the joy of waking up at ridiculously early hours after getting little sleep to go hiking. It's a shame, though- I was having a Futurama dream. I was Fry. Part of Bender's body was cheating. I don't remember much else. I think it's time to go climb the Needle, the highest peak in the mountains just outside my city.

That's the name of a hot sauce I bought the other day from The Chile Pepper Institute. I put 3 drops on the first bite of a piece of pizza tonight. Oh my. It's quite spicy indeed. It should be, considering it's made from Bhut Jolokia, the hottest chile pepper in the world. It burned for a few seconds, as I ate the rest of the pizza. This is going to be fun stuff.

Today, I went hiking up through the Rabbit Ears Canyon with a friend. We were going to try getting up to the Rabbit Ears Plateau (or much less likely, the South Rabbit Ear- but we walked "close" to it, and noticed how steep it was... gave that idea up very quickly). The morning started with a few sprinkles, but we thought the clouds would pass. It stayed cloudy throughout our hike up (which was done in 2-2.5 hours), but not bad. Once we were on the pass separating the plateau from the actual Rabbit Ears, the wind came up and it began raining harder. I was feeling fine going up to the Plateau, but my friend didn't like the terrain (in combination with the growing wind). We started down. As we worked our way back into the canyon, the rain increased some more. It wasn't super hard, like a thunderstorm- but it was a nice, steady rain. It was enough that it was slippery on many of the rocks we had to go over (including several open rock faces, where there was no way around- just a big slab of rock). It was interesting to say the least. The rain felt nice, at least. We missed it once it was gone, especially after leaving the slippery area (it would have been a welcoming experience to have it rain again at that point).

Also, I appeared in the newspaper's online gallery yesterday- me going under the rainbow arch. My unicycle looks nice and tall in that photo. Really, I'm just super short.

I think I even have a picture of me doing just that. At the Southern New Mexico (glbtq*) pride** event, they had a rainbow archway. I happened to unicycle to the event, and unicycled through this archway many times. Several of which were photographed by someone for one of the local newspapers. There was also an individual who caught up with me during the pride parade who handed me his card; He wants me to contact him to possibly do a story about unicycling. It was a busy day.

( Buuuuuusy )

Now I'm home, and enjoying being inside with some air conditioning of some sort. If I wanted, I could go to another pride thing tonight- there's a dance (Ha! Like I'd dance). Tomorrow, there's also a pool party thingy- but that's way outside the city limits (~10 mile ride). I'm going hiking up to the Rabbit Ears instead.

*gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer, yadda yadda yadda- too many to name
** No affiliation with the Pride marching band at New Mexico State University

Edit: One other cool thing I noticed- there was a car with a geocaching sticker on the bumper. I left a short note saying "Aberwak was here" tucked underneath their wiper. I hope they liked me saying hi :-)

*sings* The hero of Canton, a man they called Jayne...

*a hem* Earlier this week, someone asked how I stopped (or got off) my unicycle. I was riding on it, and didn't have long to explain; I simply replied, "carefully." More correctly, I should have said that I fall off. It's usually planned (at least that's what I hope for), and I do it carefully- basically, as close to stopping pedaling as I can, and then stepping off (but, as it happens, stepping off a unicycle of that size means I have to sort of jump/fall/deal with the excess vertical nature of the beast).

I usually get asked how to get on it more, however. This is even tricker to do. Getting off the unicycle is actually very easy. Getting on, and getting it moving is more difficult. I can do it pretty well if I hold on to a wall or a pole. My goal is really be able to free mount it. I've been getting better at that. I can usually do it within a couple minutes (and a few attempts).

I've definitely gotten better at riding it, though. I can ride around quite some distance on it, and have even managed to do corners. It took me a while to be able to go roughly 90* (when the sidewalk turned, or I wanted to go in a different direction), but I can do it (mostly, kind of, most of the time).

A driver on a busy road, as I was riding up the bike path there, suggested (yelled out) that I get a skateboard. I have no idea why. This thing is much more fun :-)

I'm not actually updating on the progress of my vodka and sprite I'm drinking, but rather, I'm updating while consuming such a drink. I think this last one was a bit heavy on the vodka, as I was running out of sprite when I made it. Still delicious.

Today, I had what I'd consider my first "major" unicycle accident. Sure, I've fallen off before. Many times. Usually, I just land on my feet and my unicycle goes flying (especially if it's the 36"- that thing has a lot of momentum when moving). Today, however, I ended up with my chin meeting the cement of the sidewalk. Nothing on my face bled, only some minor scratches on my shins took place (yeah, quite an accident when I hit my chin on the cement to have my shins cut up). I guess I was too persistent in trying to free-mount. I've gotten the hang of riding the thing pretty well. Getting on it (free-mounting), I've been slow to practice, but have been getting better. Kind of.

I'm still unemployed. I've been slow to apply, mostly hoping to figure things out. At first, I was extremely motivated to spend my time doing productive-ish things, or at least things I wanted to do that could inspire me to doing other things. Such "things" include: writing (started a writing journal, but didn't get past more than a few days of it before I decided I had other things to do... which I didn't), reading (I did manage to get through "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency," only to realize that the ending was completely lost on me, possibly due to attention problems, and I had to resort to Wikipedia to figure out what happened), and unicycling. I've also wanted to do conlang stuff, but that hasn't happened. I'd love for it to, though. I really want to develop my own language, I'm just too lazy.

*sips more vodka and sprite* Still delicious-ish, even if heavy on the vodka. Oh, now it's gone. It was a small drink. I should find more to drink. Hmmmm.... That's as much of an update as I have for now.

Today, I wore a pink shirt.

There really isn't much of a story after that. I simply wore a pink t-shirt. The backstory behind that is that I've been a color traditionalist most of my life, under the assertion that pink is a "girly" color. Perhaps that's why, even as I try to get away from such thinking, I still don't like the color much. I only own one pink shirt, the one I'm wearing. I bought it when a sorority at the university was raising money for breast cancer awareness on campus. I wore it only a few times, and it's generally remained at the bottom of my shirt pile. I happened to pick it out today because it was the first brightly colored shirt I found (and figured that would be helpful when riding my bike).

I wore it out. It received no attention. There was nothing remarkable about wearing a pink t-shirt.

While I was out, today (at the "Raft the Rio" event- where people used trash/recycled objects to make rafts to float down the Rio Grande) there were people who recognized me (granted, I had no idea who they were). They asked me about various things- one person, about my rats; another, why I wasn't wearing my kilt.

Nevertheless, it was nice wearing the pink shirt- not that I enjoy the color (and not that there is anything wrong if a man did like it- I just prefer my oranges and greens). In that sense, it was a freeing experience- sort of like what this week has been. I haven't quite gotten around to looking for a new job yet. I know I need to start. I've been enjoying the time off. I think it's easy to get caught up in what someone "should" do that someone will forget to simply enjoy being.

Today, I wore a pink shirt.

I had just stopped at a stop sign to head home for lunch today. Shortly after I made my turn, another bicyclist came up from behind me. Instead of going to the stop sign, he cut through the parking lot of a small (vacated?) corner store. As he did, he told me, "By all means, obey the law."

We chatted for a bit. He liked my bike, but told me he hated the place I got it from because they were going to charge him quite a bit of money to fix up a bike that he ended up fixing by simply buying a new chain. He then commented that road bikes were faster than the hybrid bike I have- and proceeded to speed ahead. It was nice talking to another bicyclist.

Then we approached a traffic light. It was red. He ran right through it, even though there was a decent amount of traffic going trough the intersection (there was a small break in the traffic- but it wasn't much). I was surprised he went through. I waited until the light turned green. I've only run a few red lights on my bike, usually because there's no traffic and the light would not change for me. I try to avoid light running as much as I can, mostly because I'm a big chicken when going up against fast moving cars. When I did drive, there once when I was crossing a street (I had a green), and a bicyclist just darted across (running a red they had). This was also at night, so I barely saw them. While you can probably get across (as the guy did today), I wouldn't want to put that to a chance just to save a minute or two (okay, so sometimes if the light doesn't trigger, it can take longer).

By all means, I think I will obey the law... most of the time.

What would you do if you walked into a store and a clerk told you that you had to leave your bags up front? This just happened to me at Hastings. I walked into the store with two panniers (bags to attach to my bike rack) and my backpack. I had initially gone along with what the clerk had asked- I handed her my bags and proceeded to look around. I wasn't happy, though. I felt uncomfortable about it. Within a minute, I walked back up to get my stuff.

(paraphrased greatly because of a bad memory)
Her: You can finish looking around.
Me: I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable leaving my stuff up here.
Her: That's our policy.
Me: I was just in Best Buy and Wal-Mart, and had no trouble there. I understand why you have the policy, but it just seems ridiculous. I'll just have to shop elsewhere.
Her: I'm sorry you feel that way.

I wonder what would happen if I was a women with a purse, or a parent with an infant (with food, diapers, and whatever else is in a baby bag).

Despite that little incident, I had a really good morning. It started with a bike ride to "A" Mountain (didn't go around it on the bike trails there- just biked to the shelter). It was actually pretty fun. It started off tough, just because of the initial elevation gain on my way there. I almost thought I was crazy for attempting it. Once I got passed that, it wasn't too bad- elevation gain wasn't that steep. Coming down was where the real fun was, especially with the added breeze. I felt great.

After that, I got to bike on a very smooth, well-oiled, new road. My city just extended one of the roads a couple blocks. They even remembered to put in bike lanes. While they were at it, they also put in bike lanes on the existing part of this road all the way to the mall. It's especially nice because now there is no parking along the side of the street, so it can actually be used by bicyclists (if people comply and don't park there... like someone had today). Oh, how great that felt to be on that nicely oiled road.

While I was at Wal-mart, I saw a super great deal: X-Files 2-season bundle for $19.99. TWO seasons. Sadly, they only had a 1&2 combo. It's still a great deal for those any x-philes out there.

Besides learning how to get around on an "alternative" mode of transportation, I'm also learning how to ignore people. This is especially true while riding my Big One. Tonight, as I was riding it, I heard a few groups of people talking about me. A few people talked TO me- I heard a few cheers. One of them, someone had said how it's the coolest/most badass thing they've seen (something like that)- then they wanted to see me ride it. I had just had an unplanned dismount (UPD). They were across the street and yelling this at me. I just walked on. "I want to see you ride it!" [pause, while I walk off, tiredly] "Or not. Whatever." I did make an attempt, after getting some water, to ride it over in that direction. I had another UPD before I got there and moved on with my practicing. I can now basically ride the thing (kind of). The problem really lies with getting on, and getting it moving. I'm slowly making progress, though.

I think I might actually be "un-progressing" on my small unicycle. The other day, I brought it out to show a couple of neighbors (who also wanted to try it). I got on it- it felt incredibly weird. So small! It seemed like I had forgotten how to balance on it, and even hard a hard time with that. It should be pretty easy. I had gotten pretty good at actually getting on it and riding it around. Eh. I should keep practicing that one, as well.

On a non-unicycling note: I have to decide what to do about my rats. I have the two girls in one cage, and Whiskers in the other. I alternate cages, because one of them is super small. It is kind of a pain having two separate rat communities, since I have to take what time I have available to take them out of cage and divide it in half. It's also bad because Whiskers is alone right now and needs a friend. This means I can either take one community to the vet to be fixed (Whiskers neutered, or the girls spayed- preferably the latter) or get Whiskers another male companion. The only problem with this is that it seems like none of the vets here have spaying experience in rats. That scares me to put them through an operation that a vet isn't necessarily qualified to perform. If I got Whiskers a new friend, I'd have to get a second big cage to give all the rats plenty of room. I'm leaning heavily towards the latter. I really should act soon. Poor Whiskers.

I cut down the seat post quite a bit. In fact, I basically cut it to the very minimal. It works, though! Getting on the thing is going to be a freaking nightmare. Riding it will be fun. So far, I've ridden it around in circles around the staircase to my apartment (like I did when I was first learning to ride my 20"). It's fast. It's fun. Falls are scary. I will eventually move away from the stairs. I'm sure it won't take me long to get the hang of riding this thing. Getting on it is difficult enough while holding on to something, simply for the fact that I need quite a bit of extra momentum (plus, getting it started...). Just from the little "riding" I've done on it, however, it's going to be very fun to take around. I had hoped I would instantly figure it out (okay, a bit delusional there- but I was optimistic and full of daydreams this past weekend prior to physically being capable of riding it) in time to ride this on the bicycle visibility ride this coming week. That's not going to happen. I don't think I'll feel comfortable enough to take this out for quite a while... especially getting on. I can only sometimes free mount on my 20". I'm far from doing that on my new 36".

My Coker Big One arrived today. It's a 36" unicycle. I customized mine with their anti-skid tire (probably will be a bit worse on the road than the other choices I had, but will be better if I ever go through sand- which I am hoping to take this off-road eventually). Plus, I also got handlebars and a brake which I'll put on once I get the hang of riding it.

Riding it... ah, yes. I'd love to do that. I can't. No, this isn't an "ability" thing (I suppose it could be?). It's more of a short leg thing. If you notice in the picture, it's a bit tall. I have to cut the seat post down to my size, so I can reach the pedals. I'll do that this weekend when I'm at my parents' house. Until then, I'll be stare at my new, insanely huge unicycle, dreaming of places I'll go and adventures I'll have.

I've been trying to figure out what is going on with Amazon. The last I heard, it was a "glitch" in their system that mysteriously caused glbt-themed books to be de-ranked (although Amazon does like to mention other genres were impacted, and it wasn't targeted at glbt books). It seemed that after the initial uproar on Easter (and the following day or so), things just got quiet. Amazon had responded by saying it's a glitch, and no one knew how to respond. No formal protest (except individuals writing in), no big boycott (perhaps a few customers lost).

At least one person doesn't believe it's a glitch. The person who wrote that suggests not boycotting Amazon, but buying only glbt books from there (and buy other products elsewhere).

I've also found someone else who sees problems with using Amazon.

I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do. I have yet to write a letter, mostly out of confusion (Could it be a glitch? Maybe, but why do they have a policy of de-ranking certain books, even if they are legitimately "adult?") From what I've heard, Amazon has been restoring the rankings of many books (or all? I'm not sure). That's about the last I heard anything on the subject.

A few more links:
#glitchmyass - search on Twitter
Lessons Learned

I think at the very least I'll cut down my usage of Amazon and start trying to buy things elsewhere from now on, although some hard-to-find stuff might be difficult (I've been looking at getting a copy of the screenplay for "Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner"- which is neat mostly because it contains the English version an the Inuktitut version). This also is a bit annoying because I usually get Amazon certificates as rewards for my credit card. I guess I'll just have to save up my points and hope I can get some airline tickets instead.

Technically, this was yesterday. I guess I've been one, but yesterday was my first "big" day as a commuter cyclist. I rode approximately 23 miles total. It wasn't all at once, but just getting around town to do various things: going to the park for Earth Day, participating in the bike ride there (I took the short bike ride- only 5 miles as opposed to the 25 mile long ride), going to the post office to pick up a package (alas, from Amazon- but I ordered before everything happened last weekend), and going to the university for the poetry open mic/hip-hop thing going on there.

Cycling yesterday was fun- a bit tiring at times. I didn't realize the slope the city sits on, and all the hills, until riding. I enjoyed it, though. I've mostly had good results riding my bike around town. There have only been a few problems (for example, a couple of close calls with cars). The biggest dangers on my route are cars at intersections (pulling out too far because they didn't slow down fast enough or starting to pull out because they don't see me), cars backing out of driveways, and parked cars (they reduce visibility from side streets, car doors could open, cars could try to get onto the street). Oh, and parking lots- people drive insanely through parking lots. There seem to be no rules here, pure chaos. Generally, though, it's not too bad. For the most part, I've learned some good routes for riding around town and (apparently) can even go long distances.

The Earth Day event was okay. The ride was fun, but very slow and leisurely. I hardly had to pedal (but didn't resort to peddling at any time). Nothing wrong with that. It was actually slow enough I could have probably done it on my unicycle (if I was able to get on it a bit easier). It was nice to see kids out biking in this event (riding their own bike, in a trailer, or even a "bike" that connects to the bike of a parent). I loved seeing the different kinds of bikes: one tandem, an electric bike, the different trailers. Sadly, no unicycles. I even asked someone in the organization who sponsored it. That might change soon. The rest of Earth Day involved walking around to booths, talking to folk about various things happening- nothing super super cool, but still enjoyable.

The open mic event was also fun (especially nice to sit down inside after being outside after being outside all day). One girl decided to sing a song, playing a ukulele while in her bathing suit top. Then there was the usual slam poetry, a rant by a vet, and a few other performances.

The interesting thing at the hip-hop thing on campus was the emcee battle. You basically belittle your opponent while boosting your own image. It was surprisingly entertaining, although the homophobic remarks were disappointing. I have no idea why they would imply the other emcee would get down and perform fellatio on the other (and use that as an insult), but that's hip-hop I guess. I guess I should make a reference to an Ill Doctrine video related to this. There's also the Gay Hip Hop forum, which conveniently has links to gay hip hop artists.

It's now time to lounge around and spend time with the rats before I clean

While Amazon has not specified anything more than a "glitch" occurring that marked many glbt-themed books as being "adult" (even a children's story about having two mothers), people have been talking about what possilbe glitches could make this happen. This person suggests not so much a glitch, as an organization taking advantage of the user contribution aspect of the website (tags, in particular). For every book, movie, etc, there is a feature where users can tag everything so others can more easily find related items. You could tag Brokeback Mountain with "cowboy, gay, romance" for example. You can also tag it as "adult." Supposing there was an organization who decided that gay content should be hidden as much as possible wanted to do something about it, they could take advantage of that (the person above who wrote about this possibility suggests tags aren't really used much- which is true for me... I generally ignore them, never tag anything myself, but might glimpse at them). People are figuring that maybe there's something that happens if a book gets X amount of "adult" tags, particularly within a short time frame. This group could have then manipulated the system to get this to happen.

I have no idea if that's what happened, but it does sound plausible. It was Easter this happened, when Amazon staff would probably be limited to handle any complaints of ranking removal (maybe they were hoping it'd go unnoticed?). There's an attempt to mark This Aristotle book as "adult" to see what happens.

It does seem a bit odd to refer to this as a "glitch" if there's an organization trolling the system. If that was the case, it would make more sense to point out that Amazon's been used to advance someone else's agenda (unless they are afraid that by revealing how easy it is to get books de-ranked that others will follow this plan, and totally screw up Amazon).

Actually, I don't think that's what happened. I just checked on Heather Has Two Mommies and it has no adult tags (no rankings, either). Drats, and I already flagged Aristotle as being "adult."

There's an attempt to Google Bomb, and a new definition: Amazon Rank (note: explanation) because of the "Amazon fail" movement. Lots of people (including me) are angry about Amazon's "glitch" that seems to impact glbt-themed materials on their site.

Oh, but there is good news. It just has nothing to do with Amazon. Vermont is the first state to pass legislation (without going through the courts) to allow same-sex marriage. It had initially been vetoed by the governor, but that was overturned by the House. *whew* This means 4 states allow, or will allow, same-sex marriage (MA, CT, IA, and now VT), and 1 state in some weird confusing court battle limbo thing (CA). Colorado also recently passed a law allowing for civil unions (or whatever they decided to call it there), making it the 10th state to do so. It would be super amazing if NM was the next state to allow civil unions (or even better if it was same-sex marriage). Last year, there was a bill in the House (HB 9) that was passed. The Senate, however, didn't do anything with the bill, leaving it to die. At least there's nothing banning same-sex marriage or civil unions, either. We just have the law stating nothing about it.

The title is from a conversation I had with my friend Dylan. It seems that Amazon thinks glbt individuals and topics are more "mature" than their straight counterpart. Mature or adult? Anything that is deemed "adult" at Amazon has now been striped of the site ranking. This means it won't appear in the general search. These books (and presumably other items) will be harder to find.

The big problem would lie in the question: what is "adult?" Of course, it will vary from person to person (much like soylant green), but it does have a big impact. Many glbt-themed books, ranging from romantic (non-sexual) novels, to biographies, coming-to-terms books, scholarly works, and other things completely non-sexual (Heather Has Two Mommies) are having their rankings pulled.

Oh, and what's NOT being classified as "adult" and having their rankings pulled? The Complete Playboy Centerfold. I guess they figure enough teenagers have playboys under their mattresses that it's not really adult.


Check out these links for more info:


http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html <-- one of the original people to discuss this (I think?)

http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11369.html <-- lots of commentary there

http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html <-- list of works impacted by this so far


I did run across this article, but have no idea how accurate it (s0rr0w sent me the link, and it came from the group ONTD). The big thing in the article: "[A]n Amazon spokesperson said that a glitch had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new adult policy." Of course, the last thing would seem to be a lie, or there are multiple "glitches" going on.

I'm annoyed I made a purchase from Amazon last week. I'm also annoyed at how convenient they are (so many DVDs that stores around here just don't carry). I'll wait a few days to see how they respond and what happens before I send Amazon a letter or decide to boycott them (not sure that'd really have much of an impact, but at least I'll feel better by not supporting a company that thinks children's books are "adult" simply because they involve two gay parents.

EDIT: According to this and this, Amazon did say it was just a glitch in their ranking system, but they have "no comment" as to why it seems to have impacted glbt books so significantly over any other genre.

Yesterday, as I was riding my bike home from the grocery store/work, pedaling away, some kids watched me. One of them called out to another, "See, this is what you're doing wrong!" The other then yelled out to me, "I like your motorcycle."


My bike


My other bike... err... half my other bike?

Almost. No, I didn't sneak off back into school. I just need to review a couple of things I've been wanting to for a while:

- Dead Like Me (seasons 1, 2, plus the new straight-to-DVD movie)
- Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder
- Attack of the Killer tomatoes: #1 (first part of the comic miniseries- yes, a comic).

Today was surprisingly a "fun" day, ignoring the fact I had to go to work. I had an awesome dream where my family was at an amusement park of some sort, going on this mountain hiking/climbing simulation ride (yay- I got to climb a mountain in my dream!). My ATOK comic arrived, there was a coupon for a 1-topping large pizza for $3.99 (green chile!) and I finally got my bike rack installed on my bike (by that, I mean I had to cave in and take it to the shop after a few failed attempts). What was so fun about that? I put my pizza on my rack and tied it on with bungee cords for the ride home. It was my first successful cargo mission ("You'll be responsible for ensuring that the cargo reaches its destination." "So, I'm gonna be a delivery boy?"). When I got home, I felt it appropriate to watch the ATOK movie (geeky note: I felt odd eating pizza while watching it, because pizza would be more appropriate with Return of the Killer Tomatoes, since the Finletters' have a pizza place, serving no tomato-based pizza).

( Review time! )

Tonight, I accidentally came up with an interesting challenge: in a single photography, try and represent your life. Include hobbies; somehow represent a favorite game, story, or something; places, whatever is important in your life, try to get it in.

I got the idea when I was looking through a video I took tonight while playing with my girls (I'm not sure if I posted this yet- but I adopted 2 girl rats last week who will eventually keep Whiskers company after he gets neutered). I noticed in one frame, you can see quite a lot: my shot glasses (I do believe that's almost all of them), my unicycle, a bike (and possibly part of another one behind the table). There's also a bottle of wine. Hmm... I wonder what all that says about me? Actually, I don't think this would be an accurate representation of my life, but it did give me that idea. Of course, I suppose the best representation of my life would be to take a picture of myself. That's too easy, though.


I don't drink that much, honest.