An unhealthy comparison...

Omaha and I did our weekly financials this Sunday. Omaha does the bulk of them, but I at least have to contribute my part. One of the thing I noticed as I was going through them is that two days at the nominally "free" Folklife arts festival is as expensive as three days at the members-only Norwescon SF convention, after food and parking are factored into the equation. Ouch! That signals a need to bring my own lunch to Folklife, but eating the festival food is part of the experience, dammit, even if it is overpriced.

Getting Things Done with the Buddha!

One of the things I like about the current crop of Buddhism books I've come across is the way they encompass Buddhism in a call to action. They aren't passive, which can be a real discouragement in any course of investigation. Even meditation is doing something, and the real trick is to figure out how to do it mindfully, to do it with real consideration for the costs and the benefits (and why else would any engage in any line of inquiry?).

The passivity of Buddhist religionism is best seen in, for example, a passage from Budhhanet entitled A Basic Buddhism Guide, which repeats the mantra "Buddha's first teaching was that life is suffering."

Yawn.

At my right hand are the three tools I use to keep track of my life: a daily calendar, a daily planner and note book, and a long-term project planner. This is my basic layout for GTD (Getting Things Done). The first lesson is that life is full of "stuff" and the objective is to deal with it: "stuff" is "anything you have allowed into your psychological or physical world that doesn't belong where it is, but for which you haven't yet determined the desired outcome and the next action step." GTD is all about learning to deal with stuff: where it goes, how to dispose of it. Like the Buddha, GTD practitioners are encouraged to deal with stuff mindfully, and to seek constant improvement in their effort.

And following on this observation about stuff, we have the GTD rule that "everything should be written in terms of something you do." Not someone else. If you've delegated a responsibility or need more information, write in your to-do list or calendar a note about when to follow-up, and what you must do if the work isn't completed or you don't have the information in time.

So it's nice to see that some modern Buddhists have managed to get a grip on the GTD problem of Buddhism and have rediscovered the call to action inherent in Buddha's teachings. It is not just that "Life is suffering"; it is that anguish has many individual causes (call 'em "stuff"). It is not just that "suffering is caused by irresponsible desire," but that understanding and acting responsibly toward our desires, often simply by recognizing their irresponsibility in the first place and letting them go, leads to enlightenment.

Blecch!

One of the nice things at work is that, along with our lunchroom, we have a dishwashing machine. Nice one, too, stainless steel and all that. I have a coffee mug, one of those steel-bodied things with a safety meant to reduce spill damage, and I usually wash it by hand.

I left it in the dishwasher on Friday, set with the timer to wash it later that evening. This is probably the first time this cup has seen the inside of a dishwasher in five years.

The coffee mug smells awful now. Whatever it went through in that satanic bath of overheated water and powerful soaps, it released the plasticky smell of the lid. A half-decade buildup of layers of coffee residue has been stripped away, leaving the unpleasant industrial origin of my mug laid bare to my nose.

Now this is how editorials should be written!

Now this is how editorials should be written!

Abraham Lincoln did not shoot John Wilkes Booth. The Titanic did not sink a north Atlantic iceberg. And FOX News is neither fair nor balanced. These are facts intelligible to all adults, most children, and some of your more discerning domesticated animals. But not, as the third story on the Countdown proves yet again, not to Bill-O. The guilty pleasure offered by the existence of Bill O'Reilly is simple but understandable. 99 times out of 100, when we belly up to the Bill-O bar of bluster, nearly every time we partake of the movable falafel feast, he serves us nothing but comedy, farce, slapstick, unconscious self-mutilation, the Sideshow Bob of commentators forever stepping on the same rake, forever muttering the same grunted, inarticulate surrender, forever resuming the circle that will take him back to the same rake. The Sisyphus of morons, if you will. But this is the 100th time out of 100. It is not funny at all.

Listen to it all!

Bwahahaha

Linux. Mac OS X. Microsoft shows you why.

Wine: Ironstone Vineyards 2004 Shiraz

I haven't been wine blogging recently because I haven't been drinking. Wine is for when my life is calm and relaxed and I have an hour to sit and read and appreciate a good wine. Tonight, after a stressful week, since I had an hour, I forced myself to sit down and take a break and try a new wine.

Ironstone 2004 Shiraz.

That wine is Ironstone Vinyards 2004 Shiraz. The nose is unremarkable for a red wine, but maybe best described as a bit spicy. Initial taste is sweet with some oak, some blackberry on the wings, a finish that's not perfectly smooth but the bite is refreshing and pleasant. A good wine to pair with pasta and a deep meat sauce or a solid steak. It's an active wine; if you leave it bottled for a few days it develops a good pop when you pull the cork, and the bite is sharper so drink it quick, but it's definitely worth the $7 price tag at Trader Joe's.