Transylvanian History Week

So apparently I missed the Dracula convention held at the Westin last weekend.  Not that I'm into Draculas or anything, but you might be, and as a journalist, it is my duty to report the facts, even if I have to make them up.  Fortunately, my esteemed colleagues at the PI made it to the event, and I will use my powers of summary to tell you what went down.

First, we have this girl.  According to the caption, she is wearing "vampire themed contact lenses."  I'm not sure what this means, exactly.  I would have just called them "red".  When I think of "vampire themed" objects, I have something more like this (mildly NSFW) in mind.

Various celebrity Draculas were in attendance, such as Count Chocula and Count von Count, seen here posing with some of their fans.  Also of interest are the young man and woman to the right; their gazes belying a profound sense of trepidation and/or disappointment.  I speculate they are deeply upset that Franken Berry was unable to make it.

Gregory House, M.D. also made an appearance, for reasons which are thoroughly unclear to me.  If I had to guess, I would say it is lupus.  I've been wrong about that in the past, however.

While werewolf/Dracula relations have been historically tenuous and even violent, things have changed significantly in the last decade (thanks in large part to the work of noted scholar Glenn Danzig).  The situation has come so far, in fact, that werewolfs and Draculas now invite one another to their respective birthday parties and conventions.  Here, we see two werewolfs sharing an inside joke.

Finally, you are probably wondering how you can become a Dracula.  Rumors and misconceptions abound, and once again I am intensely grateful for Yahoo Answer's ability to resolve this in a definite and accurate manner.  According to ichigotenshi11, a level 2 Dracula, you either have to be born a Dracula, or find one who is willing to give you a total blood transfusion, and then teach you the ropes.  Without these ropes, you apparently "become a killing machine. Craving blood all the time. Because your confused you go mad. That's why there are so few vampires in the world."  In other words, not a decision to be made lightly.  Good luck!

How Midi Forever Changed the Internet, Part I

The internet became self-aware at 2:14am EDT August 29, 2003, and since then, the landscape has changed drastically.  Users once lived in Homepages, but no longer: the internet has provided them with blogs, Facebooks or Twitters to call their own.  There is now a vast system of Youtubes, inhabited by webcam-wielding 13-year-olds.  Most significantly, the internet now gives its users these gifts free of charge or Computer Science prerequisites.

You may ask yourself, "How did I get here?  Where does this information superhighway come from?"  The events leading up to this new era (sometimes called Web²) are poorly documented and often forgotten (largely because Wikipedians keep reverting my edits).  It is therefore my great pleasure, dear friends, to present, in complete and thoroughly researched detail, the story of how midi forever changed the internet.


In the Beginning Was the Command Line

Long ago, the internet was a text-based dungeon fraught with danger. Its sole inhabitants were a technocratic cult of wizards, the only people powerful enough to tame this frontier. For the time, the non-wizard public had to be content with the relative safety provided by AOL and similar services. With the advent of the Wide World-Web, however, everything changed.

The wizards had added graphics to a portion of the internet, and it was now safe for a new generation of users to venture out and explore. What they found was mostly confusing to them, but also wildly fascinating. They moved around by riding WebCrawlers, capable of taking them to the StarTrek webpage, the NASA webpage, or the MIT webpage. It didn't take long before they started to want webpages of their own; the frontier was wide open, and they were ready to stake their claim.

My midi collection. You are the visitor to my Homepage

Construction guys building a Geocities Homepage

To create webpages, they needed to learn to html, a technique not easily mastered.  By observing the techniques of the wizards, however, this new generation of users were able to pick up the basics of the skill. With the assistance of animated construction guys, they founded Geocities, and built themselves Homepages. It was a golden, prosperous time.

DOOM midi is pretty cool, actually

Just like today's internet users, the citizens of Geocities enjoyed trading music with one another. They were limited in their choices of format, however. The internet's tubes were significantly smaller then; so they got used to midi, the only format small enough to fit. It was a decision made out of necessity, but one that would have consequences not even the wizards could have predicted.

Thanks for Tuning In

Well, this has been a hilarious first week for "Fight for this Fish", I think we all can agree. There's no possible way this pace can continue, as I'm not actually as funny as you think I am. I've used up my cache of good ideas already, in fact. But here are a few of the average ideas I'm considering subjecting you to anyway:

• Other good places to shit in Seattle
• What if survivors of an apocalypse thought "The Family Circus" was an important historical document?
• A special series on how midi built the internet.

And as a special sneak peek, I leave you this:

What if the Survivors of an Apocalypse Thought "Red Meat" Was an Important Historical Document?

Here's the game:  apocalypse or whatever happens, a few generations pass.  People can still read, but they mistake a comic strip for a historical document, and take it really, really seriously.  What if that strip were

 Red Meat

 In the 22nd century, a spaceship-load of ill-tempered and arbitrarily destructive travelers from a distant planet set out to find and harass new life and new civilizations, for the sake of their own amusement.  They found Earth, they blew up the moon for fun, and began their invasion.  The spectacle was quite visible from Earth, and while theories varied, everyone agreed this was probably a bad sign, as the moon didn't usually explode.

 

The spaceship contained a race of lemon-headed humanoids and their metallic robot overlords.  Recalling the recent destruction of the moon, mankind grumpily opted for occupation over obliteration.  Over time, they grew to be nearly as selfish, sadistic and chaotic as the robots. The robots were amused.

Hoping to extract further laughter from mankind's foul mood, they ordered the lemon-heads to serve the humans.  Still relatively displeased with the whole situation, humans treated the lemon-heads rather poorly, forcing them to perform useless and degrading tasks.

 The robots grew more and more amused by the pettiness and arbitrary cruelty of the humans. Thinking maybe they could even learn something from man, they began to experiment with human vices.  Whiskey, in particular became very popular among them, and they ordered production tripled.

Soon, intoxicated flying robots littered the sky, and they were frequently seen colliding with buildings, getting tangled in power lines, and disintegrating one another.  The property damage was extensive, but this was taking its toll on the robots as well.

It seemed making bad decisions while drinking whiskey wasn't an exclusively human trait, and eventually, the robots wound up destroying themselves.  Mankind was once again free, though not a whole lot was left standing, aside from a handful of distilleries.  As the human race began to rebuild, they swore to never forget:
 Whiskey might cause a lot of problems, but it solves a robot occupation pretty well.  

What if the Survivors of an Apocalypse Thought Comic Strips Were Important Historical Documents?

There's an episode of the original Star-Trek, where Kirk finds himself temporarily stranded on a world inhabited by two factions: the Kohms and the Yangs.  They're mortal enemies, but not really sure why; the reasons predate their history.  They don't really care either. Kirk's been hanging out with the Yangs, and they keep saying "E Plebnista" over and over, which makes no sense to anyone.

Eventually, he winds up back at their cave, and they show him this big piece of paper that is apparently a big deal to them.  Then Kirk is like "Uh, what?  This is the Declaration of Independence... Jesus Christ you guys.  It's not 'E Plebnista', it's 'We the People'".  Then he reads the whole thing to them, and everyone gets really excited.  Spock teleports in, and explains that this is a parallel world to our own, that wasn't able to avoid a nuclear war that we did, and then some stuff happens that I don't remember

The point is, this document and phrase passed through a post-apocalyptic game of "Telephone".  I guess if the Yangs (i.e. the Yankees) held onto any single piece of paper, that one sort of makes sense.  What if they had grabbed a different paper or book by mistake though?  What if they grabbed the comics?

Here's the game:  apocalypse or whatever happens, a few generations pass.  People can still read, but they mistake a comic strip for a historical document, and take it really, really seriously. They do their best to interpret the strips, and learn from the mistakes of their predecessors, but of course, they get it pretty wrong.  What kind of nonsense would become their doctrine?

Coming soon:
What if the Survivors of an Apocalypse Thought "Red Meat" Was an Important Historical Document?
and
What if the Survivors of an Apocalypse Thought "The Family Circus" Was an Important Historical Document?

Good Places to Shit in Seattle #1 (U-District)

CAFE ALLEGRO

Cafe Allegro is an independently-owned coffee shop, that didn't used to be across an alley from a giant condo building blocking a beautiful view. It is currently located across an alley from a giant condo building blocking a beautiful view. It's still alright in my opinion, though.

The View Before:

and After:

The cafe is open until 11pm every night, and the bathroom can be used free of charge.  The place has two doors (to the main floor anyway, which is the reason why we're here). Going to the toilet via the main entrance will require passing the counter, but the baristas don't give a fuck about you taking a shit. If this bothers you anyway, the north entrance will lead you directly to where you need to be.

Allegro's main flaw is availability. One bathroom. That's it. One room, one toilet, and two floors worth of people, all of them drinking coffee. If your timer is running low, Allegro can be risky - having to wait is not uncommon.

Once you manage to get inside, the bathroom is clean and provides all necessary amenities, as well as interesting graffiti to help pass the time. During your visit, some other poor bastard may tug on the door to see if anyone is inside, but you locked it, right? Enjoy your well-earned serenity and tell them to go fuck themselves.

Besides the highly usable toilet, Allegro is noteworthy cafe, though tough to characterize.  If Espresso Vivace is J.S. Bach, Cafe Solstice is M.I.A., and Starbucks is Miley Cyrus, then Allegro is Tom Waits.  It isn't pretty, but has no shortage of charm.  It couldn't be any less commercial unless it gave away the coffee for free.  The fiercely loyal clientele define Allegro as much as the building, and are brilliant if occasionally surly.  And seriously: always there.  Always.  While any decent coffee shop or bar has its crowd of regulars, Allegro has perpetuals.  Seriously, go there during business hours, and I promise you that this guy

will be sitting right there, in that exact same spot, smoking.

Don't let them scare you off, though.  They're mostly friendly, interesting people, provided you aren't a total douche.  If you aren't sure if you're a douche, employ this tried and true personality test: calculate the number of syllables in your typical coffee order.  If it's more than 10 (e.g. double-ristretto grande organic-soy half-caf maraschino latte (extra hot)) then you are a douche.  You probably won't like them, they probably won't like you, and I definitely don't like you.  Go take a shit somewhere else.

Good Places to Shit in Seattle

Finding a good public restroom in which to take a shit is an issue I take very seriously. In fact, I consider this one of the more serious dilemmas facing modern man.  This may seem trivial compared to other problems the world is facing, but the need to shit is uniquely capable of preempting all other concerns one might have.  The experience is temporary, but can be so monumentally urgent that research is justified and profitable.

In the future, I will provide reviews and recommendations of specific public restrooms, but first we should establish some criteria for judgment.  Proximity is obviously the chief concern, but knowing a good bathroom from a terrible one is almost as important.  In my view, the primary relevant attributes are:

• Somewhat private and not completely foul. Your expectations should be reasonable, but there is also no need to degrade yourself.  On the "Trainspotting" scale, you're aiming for 5 or better. 
  

Reference points

• Availability. If time expires while you're waiting in line, it doesn't make any goddamn difference how awesome that toilet is.
  

• Hours of Operation. No matter how close the countdown is to zero, I have never broken into a building to take a shit (though I have considered it).  The previous criteria are irrelevant if the place is closed.
  

• Free. Having to buy something before being allowed to visit the facilities is worse than death.  Needing a key isn't ideal, but can be worked with.  In the best case, the key is connected to a spatula and sitting on a counter.  Having to ask for a key, or to be buzzed in is almost as bad as requiring a purchase.

The Boat of Car

When I was a kid (13 or 14, I think), my family planned a longish summer roadtrip. Like every teenage family vacation, it was absolutely sure to be miserable. My father was aware that eventually, my siblings and I would resort to violence to alleviate boredom. Kicking the shit out of each other wasn't our preferred form of entertainment, but long periods of time in close quarters made it seem pretty appealing.

His countermeasures were limited, but he did the best with he could with them. The car had a cassette deck, and he decided to make some tapes.

We all gave him a handful of our favorite albums to provide the raw material for the mixtape. I gave him a bunch of classic rock that I could count on appearing (Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, The Who, etc.). I also gave him a couple of They Might Be Giants CDs, for the hell of it.

My dad had to listen to every song on both of those albums, and probably hated most of them. Against all odds, one song made the cut.

The song my dad chose was "Boat of Car". Which is a weird fucking song; a single synthesizer and a sample of Johnny Cash's "Daddy Sang Bass" provide the background for the narrator's story of taking his boat for a car, and then taking that car for a ride. He was trying to get somewhere, but now he's following the traces of your fingernails that run along the windshield on the boat of car.

Yup. Pretty weird. I now think that this song is probably about Chappaquiddick, though I had no such suspicions at the time. Hunter S. Thompson eventually explained Teddy's aquatic adventure to me, but that was years later. I still can't really say I understand the song though; I might know what it's about, but still, what the fuck? I can't really see a message, just a bizarre retelling of an infamous car accident. In particular, the image of Kopechne clawing desperately at the windshield is pretty gruesome, but the song frames it in such an absurd way that it becomes palatable, even comical.

I guess TMBG did for Chappaquiddick what Kubrick did for nuclear war, what Mel Brooks did for Nazis, and what Bob Saget did for getting kicked in the balls. Boredom had the same effect on sibling rivalry, and maybe that's all there is to it; change the context, and the heinous becomes hilarious.

A person drowning isn't funny. And who knows if Kennedy would have been President had he not taken his boat for a car, but it probably didn't help. One thing is certain, however: we got some more Nixon, and that isn't funny at all. Unless you incorporate a Johnny Cash sample.

This is where my tweets go.

This is my blog. Welcome to it. If you are reading this, then you are pretty lucky, because you are witnessing history - this is the first time I have tweeted to it!

On this blog, you can expect tweets about all sorts of things! You should anticipate personal stories, undue elaborations on unimportant details, reviews of public restrooms, and general observations. Just like every other blog! This one is better, though, I promise.