Seattle

I have lived in Seattle and the surrounding area my whole life and I love it. There are plenty of other cities that I've spent time in that I also love, but I honestly wouldn't want to live anywhere but right here.

The thing I love most about it is how green it is.

The view from the parking lot

What I see out the window at work every day

These are pictures of the view from the office park where I work. Down the hill from us there are a bunch of other office parks, of course, but what you see when you look out the window is, primarily, a see of green. Even in the winter, though these pictures were taken in the spring.

Of course, there is greener country in the world than the Emerald City. Ireland for example, though Ireland is more uniformly green, all one shade. Seattle, on the other hand, has every shade grade you can imagine. It's beautiful. Everywhere you look it's green...except where there are mountains or water instead (which are also, kind of everywhere).

The thing about it though is that you have to be here to really experience it.

You can see the beauty of Seattle in photographs (and establishing shots on Grey's Anatomy), but that's not the full experience. You have to smell it too. There are days when you can smell the ocean from miles away. I've been to a lot of other coastal cities and Seattle is the only one were I've been able to smell sea water when I couldn't see it. Right now I live in the suburbs which are far enough away that you can't smell the ocean anymore, but here you can smell the dirt, and the grass, and the trees. Cotton wood trees, for example, smell almost minty sometimes. If you have a sentimental attachment to the smell of Christmas trees you don't need to celebrate Christmas to enjoy that. We have them growing here all year round. You'd be surprised how great dirt can smell unless you live here. I suppose I have to talk about the rain. In truth it doesn't rain a lot here it just rains often. That light nearly constant drizzle in the spring and fall only enhances all of the amazing smells. My favorite smell is the chamomile. It grows wild all over the place and, though I rarely seem to see it, I can always smell it especially after it rains.

I guess that the only thing I have left to talk about is the attitude. Seattle embodies the west coast attitude, I think, better than any other city. There's a sense that people on the east coast are wound just a bit tighter than those of us on the west coast, things move faster, appearances matter more, things are higher energy in the east. On the west coast, and especially in Seattle, we are a laid back people. Go to the opera here and you'll see as many people in jeans as formal dress. The things that recommend Seattle to me specifically are numerous. The rain. The thriving theater and music communities. The Mariners. The mountains, and trees, and water. The smells. But it's the soul of the place that really makes it great.

Mail

I am notoriously bad at keeping in touch with people. If I cared to psychoanalyze the behavior I'd probably say that it stems from deep seated insecurity. Meaning that I believe a) that people wouldn't want to hear from me if I called and b) even if they did want to hear from they'd change their minds once they did hear from because I wouldn't have anything interesting to say. E-mail has improved the problem slightly though not a whole lot. I do hate talking on the phone and in writing I don't have worry about awkward silences after I say something that no one finds interesting.

I used to be way better at keeping in touch and I have a theory about why. I think it's because I used to write actual letters. When my brother was in the Army I wrote him letters all the time, and he wasn't the only person I wrote letters to back then. I think it was actual pen and ink and stamps that made me a better communicator.

So, in an attempt to recapture that I'm going to start writing letters again.

Kindle

I just bought a Kindle, I've had it a week and I love it. I was really sick last week. I pretty much didn't get out of bed for six straight days except to eat (barely), use the bathroom, go to the doctor, and answer the door when my Kindle was delivered (which was on day three).

I love books. Really love them. I've loved stories (of all varieties) forever, but my love of books was a slow burn for me. It was all movies and television when I was younger. I did get my degree in English but my love of books has even grown, exponentially, since graduating from college. Now, you see, I can read anything I want to read. My reading is simply for my own entertainment (or edification...but voluntary).

I'm the type of person who routinely has two or three books at a time that I'm reading. Sometimes I read one book beginning to end before starting (or going back to) other books, but most of the time I alternate and that may be the main reason I love the Kindle so much. I have, according to Amazon, over 400,000 books at my fingertips any time I want. Okay, in that respect Kindle may not be much different than any other readers, so that can't really be why I love it, specifically, so much.

I like that it is the size of a book. My brother insists that reading on a tiny cell phone screen is great, but I just can't do it. I can't claim its size sets Kindle apart either though. Yes, it is book size (smaller than an iPad and larger than a Blackberry) but there are other readers on the market of similar size (Sony's got one, and Barnes and Noble).

It's not just the size that makes it better than a cell phone or tablet, the back lit thing is also bad. Again, my brother will argue, he thinks being able to read in the dark is great. I'm not going to argue the "it's bad for your eyes" angle (though I am very conscious of what is bad for my eyes) because the real reason I don't like the back lit screen is because it's so unbooklike. Of course, the Nook and the Sony reader both use "E Ink" as well so there, again, the Kindle doesn't really set itself apart.

There is my extreme brand loyalty (I think I've mentioned it). I love Amazon.com. I buy everything that I can there (and you can buy almost anything there). I get that some people are upset about Amazon wanting to enforce low prices on Kindle books, and I even sort of agree. Sure, publishers should be able to charge what they want for their books, or be able to charge as much as people are willing to pay, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect e-books to be (significantly) cheaper than regular ones either. Amazon, if I recall, is offering a 70% royalty to publishers who sell Kindle books for cheaper so those publishers could make just as much (or more) off the books while charging way less for them so...come on...that's win/win/win, right? I have to side with Amazon on there. Another reason to love the Kindle (and, okay, all e-readers) is that the books are cheaper (especially if you consume books in large quantities, as I do), but a reason to love the Kindle in particular is that Amazon is actually adjusting their business practice to facilitate making the books cheaper and, in fact, attempting to enforce a cheaper price for Kindle books.

Maybe I'm just partial to the Kindle for the same reason that Netflix dominates the video rental market...I give extra points to innovators.

Whatever the reason, I love my Kindle. It made being home sick for almost a week nearly bearable.

Brand Loyalty

I am a huge brand loyalist. If I need a new TV or DVD player I will always buy Panasonic. I've bought four Dell computers. I waited for the Zune to come out rather than buy an iPod. I'm loyal to Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com...There's one thing though that I've never had any loyalty and that's my cellular service provider. I was with T-Mobile for many years, but I didn't have any qualms about switching to AT&T and now I'd like to switch to Verizon.

My contract is up in a couple of months and I am the very epitome of the target customer in the the current cell phone wars. I have done my research and it looks to me like the top three choices would be the Windows Phone 7 Series, the Google Nexus One, and the iPhone 4G, none of which are actually available yet. I'd stay with AT&T if they had subsidy on the Nexus One (but I'm not going to pay $529 for it). I might stay with AT&T if they came out with the iPhone 4G very soon though it will almost certainly cost at least $250. From what I've read it sounds like the Windows phone won't be out until next year so that's out entirely.

That leaves the Nexus One on Verizon, which, if Verizon subsidizes like T-Mobile did will be the best and cheapest option, but it was supposed to be available by now and it's not. So, Verizon, you have a chance to win me over, and I'm extremely brand loyal. Give me the Nexus One before the end of this month and I will not only buy it, immediately, paying the fee to break my contact with AT&T early, but I will most likely never change cellular providers again.

Twitter

Dear Twitter,

I resisted Twitter for a long time, mostly because I tend to be skeptical of things that are popular on general principal. I usually come around, and ultimately become such a devoted fan that when the majority moves on to the next new thing I remain a loyal fan. So, I've finally come around to Twitter, and I love it. Not only do I love Twitter but there are some other things that I'm now a fan of that I might not be were it not for Twitter.

First, there are podcasts in general and SModcast in particular. Of course, I've been a fan of Kevin Smith for 15 years and have even been intermittently active on the boards at View Askew. So, naturally, I was aware of SModcast, but I wasn't really a podcast listener so I didn't start listening until I started following Kevin Smith on Twitter (@ThatKevinSmith) and his tweets about SModcast peaked my curiosity. Very shortly after I started listening to SModcast two of my friends launched podcasts as well (@pitchersnpoets, and @Milk_of_Minutia) and now I'm actively seeking out new podcasts to listen to (in addition to these three).

Josh Lawson I also would probably not be a fan of (yet) if not for Twitter. I haven't really seen anything he's done. I keep meaning to watch Spaced, but I haven't yet. I follow him on Twitter though (because of @Alyssa_Milano and the Twitter phenomenon Follow Friday) and his Twitter feed is often hilarious. I feel a little wrong being a fan of someone based solely on their Twitter feed, but I'm a little bit in love with @joshlaw81 and I no nothing about him that I haven't read on Twitter.

What they say (you, know them, they're full of advise and gossip on all sorts of topics) is that celebrities...lets not use that word...entertainers like Twitter because it gives them an opportunity to communicate with their fan base directly and immediately which is cool especially for someone like me who geeks out over stuff a lot (hence this blog devoted to being a fan of things). Kevin Smith replies a lot to tweets from his fans (not to mine yet, but to many others), which is kind of to be expected as he's always maintained pretty close ties to his fan base, but he's not the only one that does.

Of all the things I am a fan of, and there are many or I wouldn't be doing this, perhaps prime among them is Sports Night. It's the perfect storm of brilliant writing (that's both funny and poignant) and amazing acting (that, again, is spot on with the comedic timing and hits all the emotional notes as well). I've purchased a ridiculous number of copies of Sports Night on DVD. I give them as gifts to people, I lend them out and then have to buy a new copy before I get them returned to me (there was a point when I had three copies of it for this reason but I'm back down to one copy now), and of course, when the anniversary edition came out I had to buy that. On one of my other blogs I reference my love of Sports Night in at least 6 posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), I frequently used quotes from it to illustrate points (at least
four times), and sometimes even put Sports Night references in the titles of posts (here and here). So, as you can see, I really love Sports Night. I'm a particular fan of the character of Jeremy and the actor who plays him (Joshua Malina), so imagine my excitement when I discovered that he's on Twitter (@JoshMalina), and that he too is often hilarious in his twitter feed, and that when I tweeted about how great he and his twitter feed are, he replied to me.

So, yeah, I'm all atwitter these days.

Love,
The Fan

Cop Out

I don't usually write "reviews" primarily because I have a tendency towards hyperbole when discussing things I like/dislike. For example, you might hear me say that Sports Night is the best television show in the history of the universe and if there is television in other universes it is likely way better than anything they have to offer as well. Or, I might say that I hate all reality television but I especially hate the Bachelor (with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns) and that they are holding a special place in hell for the creators of such a vapid and loathsome waste of airwaves (not to be confused with the special place in hell being held for the network executives who decided to shift away from scripted television to avoid the ramifications of a writers strike with which, by comparison, the hell for reality TV creators will seem like a paradise). Usually I end up looking back on my grandiose statements and wondering if I might have overstate my case (though I stand by these examples, of course). Fan mail is, after all, unapologetically approbative. In fan mail you don't have to qualify your praise or explain your adoration. The difference (between fan mail and reviews) is that my purpose, the purpose of fan mail, is not to influence others.

I read a couple of reviews of Cop Out recently and interestingly found myself disagreeing with both of them despite the fact that one was pro Cop Out and the other decidedly anti.

I, for the record, am pro Cop Out, but unlike Lindy West I find it has value beyond it's jokes. Since it wasn't written by Kevin Smith I don't feel the immediate need to defend the story (which West calls garbage), but that just means that when I do defend it I won't be seen as biased because I'm a fan of Kevin Smith. The plot may be formulaic but anyone who's ever taken a screenwriting class (or any kind of creative writing class) can tell you that all plots are formulaic. Anyone who's ever seen a movie or TV show with me will tell you that I'm well known for blurting out plot "twists" well in advance of their revelation because I'm a all too well versed in the formulas of story telling. So, yes, there's a formula, but that doesn't make it less entertaining, that doesn't make it a sub-par story (and it certainly doesn't make it garbage).

It's not the writing though, or not just the writing, that makes it such compelling movie. The best thing about the film is that it simultaneously pokes fun at and pays homage to its genre. Everything from the score to the religious adherence to the buddy cop story formula lets you know that the people involved are both laughing at and with their predecessors. And that's the way it should be. I shy away from pure satire (things like Scary Movie, Dance Flick, Epic Movie, Not Another Teen Movie, etc) because it too often feels...almost cruel. You have to be good-natured about about it if you're going to make fun of something, and Cop Out gets that.

I loved it, and since this is fan mail and not a review I'm going to dispense with the explanations right now. I just loved it.

Pitchers and Poets, and Rogues Baseball Index

I've been becoming enamored with twitter lately because my facebook feed has been overly dominated by updates on things like Mafia Wars and Farmville and today on my twitter feed I saw this tweet from James Van Der Beek (@vanderjames):

For my birthday, pick someone you know & make their day. Let them know you care & believe in their potential...

So, in honor of James Van Der Beek's birthday, I am writing today's fan mail to a good friend of mine. I don't think his potential (as a writer specifically) is in question, but I'm going to take the time to let him know I believe in it anyway. He's most prolific on the subject of baseball, he writes for Rogues Baseball Index and Pitchers and Poets, but it's hardly the only subject he can write eloquently about. I think he tends to get pigeon holed as a "sports" writer because he's so good at it, but if you ask me he's going to be one of the best novelists of the modern era. His short stories are amazing, and he knows his way around an open ending better than Hemingway. While I think he'd make a terrific sports writer, in fact he already makes a terrific sports writer, but I wanted to take this opportunity to let him know that I believe in his potential as a fiction writer.