DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

In search of a band to join, I traded several emails with a guy whose band seeks a new drummer. I was impressed by the guy’s ability to articulate what he was looking for. He drew extended comparisons to various drummers and bands I respect, citing as influences numerous artists I like.

At one point he wrote of his band’s original music, “it’s almost a perfect blend of the Police and Rush.” This had an impact. I like both those bands, and I think both Stewart Copeland and Neil Peart are amazingly talented at the drum kit. (I bought the Oysterhead disc just to hear Stewart Copeland play.)

So I went to the band’s next gig to check them out before committing to an audition. I didn’t really know what to expect, but my anticipation level was high.

Here’s the first clue that I might be in for a surprise. The gig was part of a local Heavy Metal Wednesday show. I noticed, but drew no useful conclusions.

Here’s the second clue that I might be in for a surprise. There was a smoke machine onstage. I began to wonder what I’d gotten myself into.

Here’s the final clue that I was definitely in for a surprise: the lights come up, a huge power-chord sounds through the PA, and the four guys standing on stage begin head-banging in unison. With smoke. And then the singer started barking.

I heard no Police. I heard no Rush. Actually I heard no melody either. I mean no disrespect to the band; each one of the guys had plenty of talent. The music was very much not my style though… too little dynamic change, too few hooks, too much distortion, too much straight time. Part of the problem was the mix; it wasn’t bad per se, but I couldn’t discern much music through the wall of noise.

I laughed at how surprised I had been. I really hadn’t asked the right questions. But now I’ve got a good checklist for next time. (“You guys don’t do any unison head-banging, do you? Will I be expected to do unison head-banging? What about studded collars and wristbands, are those actually required?”)

“26 members of Congress criticized CBS for rejecting the [MoveOn.org commercial].”

“Apparently, [CBS] is more comfortable with dirty old men than innocent kids.”

Four statistics describe how often this site is updated:

• number of days this week
• number of days this month
• number of days this year
• number of days since the site was launched

All are shown as percentages. For example, if I post something to the site on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, my posting rate for the week as of Friday would be 3/6 or 50%.

I put these counters together so site visitors can get a sense of how frequently the site is updated. There are four counters of decreasing recency so that when taken as a group they would reflect trends. For example, as I write this, my overall (site-to-date) post rate is 55%, but this month I’ve been writing much more than that. So far this month (and this year), I’ve posted on 87% of days.

By subtracting these values from 100, the reader can calculate a related measure, which I call the “Flake Rate” — the percentage of days I’ve flaked by not writing. I chose not to display these counts because I don’t want to tempt Fate. She is tempting enough already.

Current values appear elsewhere on this page, under the calendar.

I saw a comment in a web forum recently that contained this apologetic introduction: “I don’t mean to flog my own site, but…”

I thought: what the hell, usually I do mean to flog my own website. If I stumble into a discussion on a topic I spent three hours writing about last month, of course I’m going to point to it. How is this a bad thing?

And so I decided there should be an acronym or abbreviation for this, to get the tedious and phony apologia out of the way efficiently, clearing the way for immediate inbound linkage.

Thus, NTFMOB: “Not To Flog My Own Blog”

Sample usage: in a discussion about the sweet/salty/sour/bitter tongue-region map you learned about in grade school, I might write:

NTFMOB… but in fact the taste map is all wrong.

Strictly speaking, NTFMOB is not an acronym, I think, just as HTML is not an acronym. It is an abbreviation and an initialism; it’s spelled rather than pronounced.

I think the proper way to render the abbreviation in HTML is:
<abbr title="Not To Flog My Own Blog">NTFMOB</abbr>…

Now, go forth and flog and multiply. And, of course, link back here to ease your karmic guilt for pointing to your own website all the time.

Local power utility PG&E declared bankruptcy in April, 2001. Now they’ve managed to get a plan approved that sticks ratepayers with over $7 billion dollars in debt. In other words, in addition to paying for (expensive) electric power, everybody in the state will also be making payments towards this enormous suckhole of missing money.

$7 billion divided by the 14 million people in utility’s service area equals $500 per person… if it would be paid off right away. Presumably there will be interest charges because they’ll spread that payback out over nine years.

PG&E doesn’t have 14 million customers, though. Some of those people are spouses and children. So that $7 billion will be divided by just 4.8 million families. Assuming a 5% interest rate over nine years, the per-ratepayer cost is $1800.

PG&E had to come up with a palatable way to sell this ridiculous expense — basically an incompetence charge — without causing uproar. They did: they’re lowering rates.

Err, what? How will a 4.1% rate decrease allow PG&E to pay off $7 billion in debt? It makes no sense, and in my opinion the Chron’s reporters have dropped the ball. That $1800 per customer has to come from somewhere… fees or surcharges, maybe. I think the 4.1% rate reduction was just a distraction, some financial smoke and mirrors to reassure the populace. “Don’t think about the $1800 you owe me. Look over here, rates are going down. It will all be OK.”

Speaking of corruption at PG&E, I am appalled that the utility paid its executives $83 million in retention bonuses over the past three years, an apparent reward for, what, driving the company into bankruptcy?

This is the new math: to make money, lower your fees. To punish employees for doing a crappy job, pay them huge bonuses. This is business as usual for PG&E. Is it any wonder they’re $7 billion in debt?