Molt Be Blog

Thursday, December 30, 2004

Sainthood in the 21st century

At the national gallery and noticing a lot of paintings with saints in them. Ther's the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, the martyrdom of Saint Giovanni, the portrait of this or that saint reading... It makes me wonder what would happen to someone today if they were to behave as saints did in the paintings in which they're depicted. Some might immediately assume that they'd be declared insane and locked away, but that seems trite abd unimaginitive. Plus, all of the mental facilities in this country are full and/or underfunded.
More than likely, they would be labeled as unproductive slackers and ridiculed for being lazy. What would you call someone whose idea of a good time is sitting in the woods reading and getting closer to god? A jesus freak? A loser? Certainly the term "saint" wouldn't be thrown around too much.
More important than this lame observation was my realization that there's a direct relationship between someone's pretentiousness and how close they stand to a painting.
And don't try to go see the declaration of independence any day between christmas and new year's, you'll never make it out alive.


Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry

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Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Chain restaurants

I'm sitting on the metro listening to a family from out of town trying to decide where they should eat this evening. Every single idea that's been floated so far has been a chain restaurant. Ruby Tuesdays, TGIFridays, Red Lobster, the Cheesecake Factory (to which the question of whether or not this was just a dessert stand or an actual sit-down eatery was posed), etc.
Why do people eat at these festering petri dishes?
Laziness is the best reason that I can come up with. Think about it. There's no research involved. It's restaurant service combined with fast-food menu convenience. Too bad for folks that that the food is all microwaved and soaked in butter. As a friend who once worked at Red Lobster explained to me, "the only things that don't come premade and get put in a microwave are the steaks and the lobster. That's it."
If the food wasn't bad enough, R points out that all the crap on the walls (hockey sticks, boomerangs, license plates, photographs of football players from the 1920s, and the classic "Free beer tomorrow" sign) collects dust and creates an atmosphere of tacky-ness that, for some reason, still doesn't kill one's appetite.
The only explanation for remaining hungry despite the crap on the walls must be some kind of pheromone pumped into the air. Conspiracy? Damn straight.


Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry

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The "Orwellian Mode" on this site is genius.
"Whatever I feel like doing. Gosh!"

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Monday, December 27, 2004

Ah....


Christmas is over and so is a short break from work. Thank goodness that I only have three days of work this week. My sister managed the awesome... Incredible... gift of Napoleon Dynamite, which I will now quote at least once per blog. Lucky. She was also in charge of the stocking stuffing and utilized the dollar store to its full potential. She managed to come up with these gems:


cool_eye_frontcool_eye_back

As you can see above, the "cooLeye" is an unfashionable eye covering that supposedly helps to reduce swelling or something. The best part about this product is its insane description on the back, the full text of which is as follows:

INTRODUTION
Cooleye is especially designed for people who are constantly using their mind and eyes for work. The product is adopted the new formula-DVT.It is mixed some kinds of non-frozen macr-omolecule compound. It Has the stable energy transformation function according to the unique physical theory. The product absorbs heat automatically, it is not need to freeze it. The product is naturally and refreshing, never freezes below 0°C. It can be directly acted on the body regions by cold dressing or hot dressing. The product can promote the blood circulation. It is convenient for use.it can be sued in hot or cold condition and can be used repeatedly. The surface material of the product is smooth and ventilated environmental protection material,it is made from international comportable material, can pr-event static electricity and resist low or high temperature. The product has no stimulation and poisonous to the skin so it is necessary for our daily life.
USAGE
1.Cooleye should be stored indoor or put in room which has air conditioner, you can get better effect if put it in refrigerator for 15-30 minutes before use.
2.For hot spread,put in about 70°C, hot water for 10-15 minutes. Please put on a towel to guard against frostbite and scald If it is overcool when freezed below 0°C or overheated when he-ated.
3.It can be used repeatedly.
CAUTION
It must be stopped using when its content leaked out.
It is only for external use, not edible.

Given my major in college, I'd feel bad poking fun at this, so I'll just let you make your own jokes... They can be used repeatedly!

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Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Boy Shuns Blog

It's not my fault that I haven't been updating this thing lately, I swear.
I read some article in the washington post sunday source section about blogging and it said that I'm supposed to be updating at least as often as I eat. This little piece of advice clearly doesn't work in reverse as I'd be dead if I only ate when I blogged...
What's somebody doing writing an article about blogging and “having a successful blog”, anyway? It's a web log, not a product. That's like giving people advice on having a sucessful diary. I want people to read this, of course, but it's as much for me as it is for them... At least I think it's supposed to be... No, actually. I lied. It's totally for other people to read otherwise I wouldn't publish it.
The reason for the lack of updates is that I'm currently trying to balance this stupid job that I have to work at until all hours without overtime compensatioon (55 hours last week... I'm such a martyr, aren't I?), this website that I'm designing for some band from NY called “the volunteers”, and all the extra fun that comes along with the holidays. Guess who suffers first?
If you said you, then you're a lovely person for thinking that this writing not being around actually makes you suffer. If you said me, then you caught on to the whole martyr thing. If you said the ghost of christmas present, you're probably right, but also may not have been paying attention. That's all I've got (my thumbs are tired).


Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry

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Saturday, December 18, 2004

R had her office party last night. With a belly full of wine I fell asleep on the couch and apparently was not a fan of being dragged to bed. I woke up at 7:28 and was crawling into bed when I heard something that I had read about in the paper. At 7:30 this morning the old DC convention center was demolished. R was awake with me to hear the rumble and luckily I remembered what it was or we would have both been ducking and covering underneat a doorjam... or something. The footage is pretty sweet. Nothing gets people happy like watching destruction.

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Thursday, December 16, 2004

This blog is for CA, since he's the only reader and is now forcing me to blog at work where I will undoubtedly be punished harshly in my upcoming review.
This article talks about one of the government expenditures that pisses me off the most. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the logical argument behind a missle defense program is a leftover from the cold war and does not apply to today's world. Just like Bush's token attorney general appointee said about the Geneva Convention, missle defense does not apply to the "war on terror".
Terrorists have a hard enough time finding AK-47s to shoot around, let alone intercontinental ballistic missiles. This program is a Reagan-era leftover and I can only guess that it's being completed because of campaign promises to defense contractors.
That only five of the eight tests have worked is disturbing enough, but add to that the fact that for those tests we've known exactly when and where one missle was launching from and its exact trajectory. We still missed three of them.
I'm no rocket scientist, but this seems a lot like the game of throwing one rock in the air and trying to hit it with another. This game is pretty hard even if you know when and where your friend is throwing the rock that you're trying to hit. I can only imagine how difficult it would be when you don't know where and when the rock will be thrown from and only 5 of your eight rocks are throwable.
What we have is a good start towards something totally unneccesary.
I know what you're thinking: "How often has he played that rock throwing game and where can I find the rules online?"
It took me ten hours at work to write this between ridiculous assignments. I left work at 9pm and I got there at 9am. That's pretty sad. I wonder if the link still works...

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Monday, December 13, 2004

Wow, people are wusses in this country. Normally, I would be all for removing Evanescence CDs from Walmart shelves, but I suppose that on principle I'd have to say that asking for $73,000 in damages for each copy of the cd sold because it contains "profanity" is too ridiculous.

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Saturday, December 11, 2004

Another really dumb product


Want to breath fresh clean air? Why not wear an air purifier around your neck?

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Thursday, December 09, 2004

go here. It's really, really cool.


shortest post ever

Maybe not, found some other cool stuff:
herehere, and here.

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Two Things


AM, this extra amount of Blog is for you. R said you read every Friday and I thought I might as well put something interesting up here.

1)

Rumsfeld is an AS$H#LE! His answers to troops questions were wrong. What kind of person has such total disregard for his own responsibility? Read the article. Be sad at the type of person we have as the Sec. Of Defense. I couldn't believe the kind of callous remarks he was willing to feed to people who had the courage to ask questions that need to be asked. What an ass. He's worse than the guy who steals my paper or the guy who pees in the elevator. He's just a bad person.

2)


On a lighter note, doesn't the "Green Zone" have an uncanningly similar shape to New Orleans? It's really weird:

neworleans   IMgreen_zone

Maybe I'm wrong. Sue me. I think the real war is somewhere in Louisiana.

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Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Pixies show pt II


Man, that was a good show!

Dark far away pictures below:


the_bennies

The Bennies

tv_on_the_radio

TV on the Radio

pixies_set

Pixies Set

pixies_02

Before the Encore

pixies_03

Pixies Encore


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Pixies show

Currently sitting in DAR waiting for the pixies to go on. Just got finished watching the first opener, the bennies, whose lead singer/guitarist is a little person in a wheelchair. He was talented, but the music was a tad too punk for my style. TV on the Radio is up next. They were good when I saw them open for the faint, so it should beat the debacle I just witnessed.


Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry

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Quote from the Streets?

Off "Get Out of My House" by the Streets (I can't imagine they thought of it
themselves, but it's good):
"It's hard enough to remember my opinions without remembering my
reasons for them."

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Something's going around

I think everbody in my office has a cold. I sit here listening to
coughs and sniffles from all the other cubes. I tried drowning it out
with headphones yesterday, but today I'm definitely going out to by
some Zicam. That stuff is amazing.

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Tuesday, December 07, 2004

A recent conversation:
Other Person: What is civilazation iii
Other Person: by the name I can tell it is for complete losers
Other Person: like dungeons and dragons
Me: It's a computer game where you build a civilization. It's kind of like D&D b/c there are turns. I played the first one in MIDDLE SCHOOL.
Other Person: and promptly realized it wouldn't impress girls
Me: Nope. Never realized that. I think that's when I got really into YoYos and Juggling. Things that also don't impress girls.
Other Person: juggling is kind of cool
Other Person: kind of
Me: nope
Other Person: but yoyos kill it
Me: It's cool until you realize how long someone had to practice... then you realize that they must have used up their free time practicing juggling... then you recognize them as a loser.
Me: it's a simple logical progression to loserdom that jugglers are blind to.
Me: I mean, really. Read an f'n book.
Other Person: or practice juggling....I guess the book might make you more interesting whereas hours spent practicing juggling will certainly not.

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Monday, December 06, 2004

Don't you see?

By using the power of the blackberry I can now write messages to the 1.5 readers of my blog from anywhere in the worl at any time... It's kinf of like a phone... Wait a second. Why didn't I just buy a phone?
Ah, then I wouldn't have anything to blog about.


Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry

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Blalking

It's completely official: with the power to blog while walking to work I've reached the height, nay thr pinnacle of nerdom. Monday...
Was thinking last night about how if regular TV adds 10 lbs., HDTV probably adds 100.

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Saturday, December 04, 2004

I'm sorry, but this device is the height of laziness. Nothing says sloth like a voice activated remote control with LCD display.

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Friday, December 03, 2004

This is an actual quote from the t-mobile website (underneath the map):
"Roaming charges and long distance charges may apply where applicable."
Really? Something applies where applicable? That's the most obvious
thing I've ever seen written, I think.



*Words on this blog may be written where writable.

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Test

This is just a test email to see if I can blog from my new Blackberry. Yes, I am extremely nerdy.
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

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Wednesday, December 01, 2004

*reminder*
This is just here to remind me to check out http://www.pillowfightrocks.com later when I'm not at work. You can check it out too, but it will burn your retnas... seriously.

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Cubicle


Dusty walled work space,
You let people see me work.
I want a window.

I've been counting pages for 2 days.... starting to hallucinate... work week... not short enough... like... last week... ugh.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Elevator Puddles


Saturday night R and I left the apartment to go to R's birthday celebration at her friend's house. With each of us carrying a cake for the party, we approached the elevators and could hear a very loud argument that sounded like it was coming from the shaft on the right. Yelling, cursing, and general discontent could be heard as we kept our fingers crossed for the elevator on the left to arrive first. Ironically, this was the elevator we were going to wish we had missed. The doors on the left opened first and we stepped quickly into a large puddle covering the entire floor of the elevator (which is thankfully rubberized).
"There's a lot of water on the floor in here," R commented.
"Well, it is raining," I said.
"Still, it's a lot of water," R exclaimed as the doors opened in the lobby.
We were met with a very strange scene: One of the many different security guards that work different nights in the building was yelling at two men. One of the men was wearing only a t-shirt, boxer shorts and socks and the other had a broken nose that was bandaged and two black eyes that were swelled shut.
"You see," said the security guard to the man in boxers pointing at R and I as we stepped off the elevator, "people are walking in your urine!"
Disgusted, R and I decided to stay to see how this would all pan out. We had seen these two men several times before and, like this time as well, we had never seen either one of them sober. On one occasion, shortly after the first Bush-Kerry debate, we had had the pleasure of riding in the elevator with the boxer-shorted man (hereafter referred to as "el Urinador") and learned that he "liked bush". If only I had taken the chance to explain that it's not about whether or not you like the guy, he might not have peed in that elevator.
I digress. El Urinador was looking particularly unsober this evening as the security guard explained to him, "you either go get a mop and clean it up or I'll mop it up with your head."
This seemed a bit silly, though I wouldn't have put it past this particular guard as he's a lot bigger than any of the other guards I've met.
A small crowd of different tenants had gathered around to watch el Urinador and his black-eyed partner get yelled at. This was apparently not the first time that the Urinador had relieved himself somewhere outside of his apartment and inside the building, which may have explained why the guard was particularly irate. It also may have been the fact that this time el Urinador had peed directly in front of the guard and mocked him mid-stream.
As R and I were watching, a door opened to our right from one of the apartments on the ground floor. A bleary-eyed teenager came out and gave me a look to see if I could explain what was going on. Just as he did, the guard repeated his yell of "you pissed in the goddamn elevator!"
"That's about the whole story," I said to the latest spectator, who smiled and stuck around to watch.
After a bit more yelling and with another tenant threatening to "go upstairs to call the police," the guard and el Urinador started pushing each other a bit. El Urinador was eventually placed in the elevator, but jumped back out as the guard was trying to get the black-eyed friend to calm the urine producer. Again, el Urinador was pushed towards the elevator, but this time the back of his head came into contact with the corner of the elevator doorway and he immediately slumped to the ground. He was back up in half a second, but seemed a bit more subdued as blood began to trickle down the back of his neck and onto his shirt.
At this point R used the phone I'd already handed her and dialed non-emergency police (311 for those that don't know). A minute later, as the guard had just left with el Urinador and friend to accompany them upstairs to get a mop, the police arrived. They were a lot quicker than I thought they would be, but I realized why when I recognized the first officer as "that tall red-headed guy that always gives people parking tickets in front of the Whole Foods on the opposite side of the block."
R explained what had happened and was backed up by other tenants in attendance. The cops said they'd just wait downstairs for the guard and drunks to come back down and we didn't need to stick around.
On Sunday night we ran into the guard again and asked him how things turned out.
"They didn't even file a report," he said, "This guy has been doing this forever, all the time. Thanks for calling the police, though."

Every person I told this story to since Saturday has immediately asked where I live in DC. I don't think location has too much to do with it, since these guys could be drunk anywhere, but I always give them my address anyway. (Who wants normal people moving in around here any more than they already have?)
I've definitely learned a few things from this, though.
First of all, that Urinador guy is a Bush supporter.
Second of all, he urinates in enclosed places that aren't his or anyone else's bathroom.
Third of all, he does this when wearing socks and no shoes.
Bush can have him.

I've also learned that el Urinador definitely does not suffer from shy bladder syndrome, but instead may suffer from Urolagnia. Part of this article also mentions the fact that "Male porcupines use urine to soften the females' quills before mating." So perhaps, just perhaps, el Urinador was so drunk that he thought he was a male porcupine, the elevator was a female porcupine, and that he was finally going to make his move.

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Sunday, November 21, 2004

You can take the basketball out of the player's hands and then he can use those hands to punch fans in the face. Ridiculous.

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Friday, November 19, 2004

This goes out to Hong to welcome his blog to the blogosphere.
If you look, you'll notice that Hong has placed pictures of himself on his site. I choose not to do this because I'm neurotic. Awesome!

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Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. The minor amount of uproar over a monday-night football spot featuring a little skin is a bit on the hypocritical side. A sport that regularly features grown men being beaten to the point that they must be helped off of the field should probably be a little less concerned about a naked lady. Watch the video here link.
Thank God for this well put op-ed in the Washington Post.

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Thursday, November 18, 2004

One more thing about the Badly Drawn Boy show last night: Enough with the flute. So annoying.
One other thing: Google bought this company Keyhole, which, if you check out their site, has a really cool product that you should check out.

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Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Went to see Badly Drawn Boy (aka Damon Gough) at the 930 club this evening. Forgot to take my camera, so there'll be no dark pictures of men with guitars on the page for this one.
These weeknight concerts kick the crap out of me, so I had to leave after the first hour and a half. He claimed that he and the band had played for four hours at their last show, but I just can't stay out that late... Please email here to make fun of me.
To start, BDB played his newest album "One Plus One is One" in its entirety. This was awesome to see since I'd seen him before, but hadn't seen any of the new stuff. There were some serious sound problems at the beginning and at least three songs had to be stopped and begun anew. Something about him not being able to hear himself (turn the monitor up). Me think that Mr. Gough was a bit sauced and is an angry drunk, but he played a damned good show either way. I was also happy to hear of his disdain for Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair, and calling Korn "shite".
Ok, off to bed so that I can be at work at 8:30 (which is a new thing since I was told to quit slacking off and getting in at 9:00...)

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Thursday, November 11, 2004

Open Letter to the Today Show


The Today Show
NBC

To Whom it May Concern,

I am a regular watcher of the today show and was very disappointed
this morning while watching your news story on a DVD of a high school
fight. I found it to be a disturbing sight and the fact that you
showed the footage of the fight appeals to the same animal tendencies possessed by the high schoolers who bought copies of the DVD.
The fact that you would show repeated footage of a high school fight
and not show a single clip of the Palestinians marching to honor
Arafat's death is a sad sign of the quality of the "news" on the Today
show. This is nothing against Anne, she does a great job. It's more of
a complaint about the job you're doing as the media. There are plenty
of shows out there that will stoop to the level of showing footage of
a high school fight (Povich, Springer, Dr. Phil, etc.). Why does your
show feel it necessary?
I find it almost ironic that your story on the fight DVD was meant to
comment on how appalling it would be to sell a DVD of a fight when
your program itself proceeded to show parts of the fight for free. Was this a
preview to encourage high schoolers to buy it? Isn't it worse
to show this to people on broadcast television when otherwise they
would have had to make a conscious decision to see it?
I have been continuously disappointed in some of the low brow footage
I have seen on your show. Much like the over-shown footage of an ice
skater hitting her face on the ice a month or so ago, this incident
was especially disturbing.
I am not a conservative person who becomes ill at sights like these,
but showing them makes a mockery of what I think to be a legitimate
news organization.
Just because we have base instincts doesn't mean you need to appeal
to them on every show.

Thanks,

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Friday, November 05, 2004

I'd rather be divided thanks.


Here it comes. Can you hear it? It's the call for "unity". Well, I'd rather be divided, thanks.
The republicans "unity" is dems surrender. I already heard someone on the today show yesterday morning tell a critic of bush that their "attacking isn't helping to unite us." Don't let them use this unity card against us. It's not just being united that's important, its belief in what you're united over as well.
Argument and dissenting opinions do not necessarily divide and even if they do, they are necessary to proper discussion and decision making. The simple fact is that there are going to be facts out there that go against things that Bush et al. are saying. This doesn't mean that the peple who point those facts out don't want "unity". Then again, I don't particularly want to unite with conservatives over partisan issues like abortion and tax-cuts for rich people.
It is perplexing to try determine why George would even claim the desire to unite us. What possible interest could he have in it? He regularly takes pride in his 'unpopular' decisions. The GOP has control of the House, Senate and soon the Supreme court. Even more disturbing is that this time W is not up for reelection. Don't listen to the "unity" hype. It's all a lie to get the Democrats to not use the filibuster.
This is a call to arms for those of us that think W is wrong and lying. Do not unite with him. Unite with the idea that people are inherently good, that war is evil and that "personal responsiblity" as used by conservatives is just newspeak for "greed".
That's my two cents. As usual. Which is why I have this webpage. Awesome.

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Thursday, November 04, 2004

Open Letter to Barack Obama:


Dear Barack,
Could you believe that election Tuesday night!?! Enough chit-chat, I'll cut straight to the chase. I want to come work for you. There are many reasons why I'd be an excellent candidate for a position as an aid, researcher, gopher or anything else that puts me near your greatness. I strongly believe that you will be president some day (it's looking like 2016 this morning) and am dedicated to helping you achieve this goal. I'd like to be your Karl Rove only good instead of evil. (This isn't to say I'm the type of person who lumps things into categories of good and evil, but come on!)
Why would I be a good employee? I'm fun to be around, I travel well, I live in DC already so I wouldn't have to relocate, and I clearly know how to use a computer.
I'd hire me.
You're going to have a tough time in the Senate trying to get anything remotely close to crossing the president's desk. I want to be there to complain with you when things don't go well.
You're also going to have some long nights filibustering (is that a word?) to keep Mr. Bush from getting another Scalia or Thomas onto the Supreme Court. That can be rough. I'd like to be there to fetch you coffee and pretend to pay attention to whomever is speaking.
My mom is from Illinois. So are her parents. If that's not enough of a reason to hire me, I don't know what is.
I look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

Greg

P.S. Another great reason to hire me? I just had my spell checker learn your name. Don't let that go to waste!

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Wednesday, November 03, 2004

Too Sad


Too sad to enter anything. I'm off to bed.

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Friday, October 29, 2004

Some Ironic quotes from W


In yesterday's nytimes Bush was talking about those tons of missing weapons (see below) and said "This investigation is important and it's ongoing, and a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief." [Italics mine]
I'm not sure I understand whether or not Bush wants me to vote for him or Kerry. He's definitely jumped to several conclusions without knowing the facts (Saddam, WMDs, etc.).... But then again, he did say "political candidate", not "president".
And today's ironic remark:
Kerry, Bush said, "has taken a lot of different positions, but he rarely takes a stand." I would call testifying about war crimes in Vietnam taking a stand. I would call refusing to testify in front of some winky 9/11 Commission and then later agreeing only on the condition that you can bring Dick Cheney with you NOT taking a stand. I would call actually having an opinion about something and defending it "taking a stand." I would call skirting every issue and being a yes-man for the religious right "not taking a stand." It's actually really difficult to say that someone running for president "rarely takes a stand." The man is running for president! I can't imagine he got there by having no convictions whatsoever. More important than taking a stand at all might actually be what these candidates stand for. Bush apparently stands for simply having a stand and then defending it no matter what the "facts" say.
Conclusion? Bush is a wuss. He panders to the wealthy and the fundamentalists, is too scared to give a press conference and can't even make a decision for fear of political consequences (9/11 commission existence? dept. of homeland security? These were things that obviously needed to happen, so why the flip-flopping from Bushie?).

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Monday, October 25, 2004

That's funny, with enough unguarded weapons being stolen in Iraq, we might be able to give them the weapons of mass destruction that we never found in the first place.
For the super-duper political news junkie try the note's noted now.
For more on Ashlee Simpson's lip-synching debacle, R found the comments on her website quite informative and damned funny.

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Friday, October 22, 2004

How can people still believe this?


Read the study at p.i.p.a. and let your jaw drop. Further proof on how dumb your neighbor really is.

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Monday, October 18, 2004

If anyone hasn't seen the footage of Jon Stewart on Crossfire, do it NOW.
And, oh, what's this? More dark pictures of bands at the 930 club?
R and I went to see The Faint last night and I was pleasanlty surprised to find that TV on the Radio was opening. First we had to wait through Beep Beep, which is on the same label as The Faint, but not quite the same level of "rockin'". The Faint put on a great show and were decidedly more dancy than I had expected from their tracks that I'd heard before. TV on the Radio were a close second for quality music and will probably gain a lot of fans on their tour.
We did notice a few other things.
(1) One of the guitarists for Beep Beep looks remarkably like Billy Corgan.
(2) The lead guitarist for The Faint dances more than he plays and also helps to put the band squarely into the category of "sissy-rock" (a term that I cannot take credit for, but enjoy using as of last night).
(3) The Faint was so loud that by the end of the night much of my hair had fallen out and I still can't hear out of my left ear... which also fell off.
(4) If you look really closely you can see that the Bassist for The Faint also played with Beep Beep (or was it the other way around? The sheer mystery of it all!!!)
(5) The pants on that Billy Corgan guy (furthest to left) are waaaaaaaay too high. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Pictures below (duh):







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Sunday, October 17, 2004

This is just a bunch of nerdy, but useful, keyboard shortcuts for me to use in my nerdery, feel free to ignore the link and move on with your life.

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I just got finished sifting through the Post from Fri, Sat and Sun while sitting on yee 'old balconie and listening to people yell at eachother on the street. It was awesome. The paper definitely piles up. I'm considering switching to Sunday only and reading it online the rest of the week... I mean, shit, I barely have time on weekday mornings (let alone the nonexistent evenings) and my neighbor is just going to steal the Sat. one anyway. Somebody took that yellow sunday section with the comics and magazine yesterday. I thought that this was over, but I can only assume that I'm going to have to do another stakeout.
Later on I spent a few minutes trying to shoo a yellow-jacket out of the living room. That was also quite awesome. I'm not sure if he made it out, but he's not crawling around on the inside of the balcony door anymore, so that's good.
Now I'm going to waste time on the internet. I love Sunday!
Read this Vanity Fair article about Supreme Court Clerks breaking their vows of silence. I had no idea that they were monks and clerks.
If you don't like the format of that link, just google "The Path to Florida" and look for you favorite results.

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Thursday, October 14, 2004

I leave him alone for two seconds and Bill O'Reilly goes and sexually harasses one of his workers. What an idiot. And now he's trying to sue her for extortion. Further idiocy.

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Wednesday, October 13, 2004

See, China? You see what happens when you start being capitalists? You GET FAT! Remember how fat those pigs got in animal farm? Ridiculous.
I've been splitting my posts between this blog and my kickball team blog, so I kind of feel like I've been negelcting this one. Too bad that so many people read the kickball one, it makes it more encouraging to write there.

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mp3s for 5 cents! Can it be legal? Yes. Yes it can. If it's from Russia. Apparently, music is really cheap in former communist nations. Check out allofmp3.com and thank me later. You have to join as a vip, but that really just means using your credit card to buy $5 worth of music (i.e. 500MB). I tried it last night and I'm still alive, so I say go for it. Even if it is illegal, you can just say that you "though you were paying for it" when you get caught and they won't have anything to say to you.

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Saturday, October 09, 2004

Back! Thank God!
I really enjoyed my time in Chicago, but it's great to be back in DC. Unfortunately, this means I'll have to go to work next week.... which is pretty lame. There will be less picture on the blog for a little while, but I'm going to start on a pretty interesting story that I'll be putting up here in a bit.
Definitely check this out.
And this is nerdy, but amusing.

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Friday, October 08, 2004

Another day, another powerpoint bonanza. If I see another slide.... good God. My kickball team lost today. Managed to get some pictures while I was on my way to get a new watch battery over on S. Wabash.





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Thursday, October 07, 2004

Another day in Chicago. Don't have much time to write, as I need to wake up super early tomorrow morning. I forgot the battery for my camera this evening, but managed to borrow one from someone with an S410 to take this picture from the riverboat ride that we went on:

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Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Just as a point of interest, check out visualthesaurus.com, it's pretty interesting.
Another picture from Chicago below. This is of the inside of Union Station (and you thought there was only one in DC) that I took while I was waiting for a train out to Skokie to visit with one of my Mom's high school friends and her husband. They're staunchly liberal and let me yell at the tv as I watched the VP debate. It was awesome.

Union Station - Chicago

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Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Powerpoint, how I loathe thee.
Another day at employee training school. After eight hours+ of "training" we got to participate in a pretty cool scavenger hunt, which was actually the best way to experience a city that I've ever had.
Enough kissing up.
I'd like to say that the toilet in my hotel room has nothing on the toilet in my apt. R and I have the most kickass waste evacuator that I've ever encountered. If any of you have ever been over... it's a powerful device that's not to be trifled with.
I'm back from the bar where we finished the scavangering and am now being inundated by MTV. Damn you cable!
Chicago is a really, really cool city. From what I've seen so far, and this has been confirmed by popular opinion, it's like a clean NYC with wider streets. Unlike DC, it has really tall buildings (i.e. lack of "capital building height restriction") and the people are friendly. I'm a fan, but it's supposed to be under 30 degrees tomorrow morning, so I'm not sure that the seasons are bueno.
Found this sight while wandering around for the scavanger hunt. With a wide angle, I think I could've caught the Chicago Tribune as well, but I'll have to settle for the Ebert media source:

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Monday, October 04, 2004

I've arrived in the windy city! Here's a view of some fancy fire-escapes out of my hotel window:


The next few days will be just full of silly corporate stuff, but I'll try to keep things updated as much as I can. Luckily there's wireless internet access in my room... and the cable tv!

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Saturday, October 02, 2004

The show that the features put on last night at the black cat was awesome. I think the Features were actually better than the Kings of Leon (the headliner), but that may just be that I'd had enough beers to deafen my left ear by the time the main band went on stage. Does that happen to anyone else when they drink?
Tomorrow I'm off for some corporate training thing in the windy city and won't be back until next Friday. Hope my plane lands it time for the debates.
I still can't get over how much ass Kerry kicked. Brilliant.

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Wednesday, September 29, 2004

20040929 - Supergrass - 001

Dude! Supergrass is awesome! Saw them at the 930 club and they put on a great show. The bassist is amazing and they're a very unnotugly group of dudes.


Gaz




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J brought this article to my attention about CBS spiking its 60 minutes story on the lies about wmd that led to the Iraq war. I'm considering spiking more of the stuff that I write...

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My friend from high school has an exhibition of his photos online. He takes pictures of restaraunts. I think he's a "culinary photo documentalist" or something. Check it out by visiting his main site or by going straight to the photos.

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Monday, September 27, 2004

This is a message to remind me to check out pitchfork media.
And Mount St. Helens is going to kill us all.
And this is pretty interesting as well.

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Sunday, September 26, 2004

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but this is pretty strange.

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Friday, September 24, 2004

We caught a mouse this morning. It was in the trap that he had eaten the spinach out of the day before. Maybe this means that mice like spinach residue just as much as actual spinach.
Everyone must read this article and later should check out Bush singing.

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Thursday, September 23, 2004

Last weekend, R and I borrowed some mouse traps from her parents to help us with the "mouse problem". It seems that everytime we come home there's another little fun rodent running around the house. R said to bait the traps with peanut butter. After two days, not much. Then, last night, while making a salad, R dropped a piece of spinach on the floor which happened to bounce and stick the peanut butter in one of the traps.
Tonight, upon arriving home, what should we find but no more peanut butter and no more spinach in the trap. no mouse either, but this proves what some of us have been saying since the dawn of time: "mice really like spinach."
THE END

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Wednesday, September 22, 2004

Did you forget about Janet Jackson's Super Bowl boob incident? I did too, and then today the FCC fined CBS $550,000 for it, which, oddly, is only $50,000 less than the amount that Halle Berry was paid to do double the work when she bore herself in swordfish.
What does this teach us all? It teaches us that some breasts are worth paying half a million dollars to bare and others are worth paying the same amount to keep covered. Is this chest discrimination? You bet it is.

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Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Another evening at the office... spent waiting for someone to get out of a meeting so they can tell me why I'm here this late.
In the meantime, I've been being a big hippie and checking out fair-trade coffees and all the fairness they have to offer. Sound granola? It is!
oH WAIT, now I'm working and it's almost 9pm and R bought a rotisserie chicken that I won't see until I get home! Dang!

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If you've got cable, check out the fox blocker, which you can put in the back of your cable box to block out fox news channel forever (not the regular fox channel with the simpsons, the fox news cable channel). And if you're thinking, "why would I want to block fox news channel?", check out outfoxed from your local video store, library or whatnot.

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Monday, September 20, 2004

Kerry gave Bush the whatfor today.
And the debate dates are set for Sept. 30th, Oct. 8th and Oct 13th.

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Go here. Play the game. HUGE waste of time. It's fantastic! Then go here. Play another game. Waste more time.

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Sunday, September 19, 2004

Looks like Autumn has officially started here in DC. Thursday it was 83 degrees. Today the high will be 72. Everybody buy your ZiCam and start spraying before you catch a cold.

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Saturday, September 18, 2004

Off to see the Thrills tonight at the Black Cat. Please don't read this and then break into my apartment while I'm at the show.

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Wednesday, September 15, 2004

I just realized how amazing dubyaspeak is. Listen, learn, vote.

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Monday, September 13, 2004

Hooray for hypocracy!

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Saturday, September 11, 2004

Snow Patrol kicks ass! They put on an amazing show last night. Looks like I won't have to go into work this weekend as I was told I might, so now I have to figure out what to do instead. Besides writing in a blog... enough of this. Pictures below:





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Friday, September 10, 2004

A movie I can't wait to see will be screened in washington on Sept 14th
Check out http://hijackingcatastrophe.org and click on screening to look for one in yer area.
DC one is at
Visions Cinema
International World Media Festival

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Thursday, September 09, 2004

Lost our kickball game. The score was pathetic. What really made it worthwhile was being able to arrive on a scooter. Yee haw. Snow Patrol at 930 club tomorrow night. Muy bueno.
And GOOD GOD, the latest thing to come out of W's mouth: "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country"

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Wednesday, September 08, 2004

The Scissor Sisters put on a really great show. I highly recommend going to see them if you have the chance. It turned out that this show was the first one of their US tour. I felt good to know that I was there to see it kick off...

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Tuesday, September 07, 2004

R and I are going to see the Scissor Sisters tonight,
Then Snow Patrol plays the same venue (930 club) on Fri.
Other good shows coming up in DC are:

SAT SEPT 18- THE THRILLS, THE ZUTONS will be playing at the BlackCat for $14
and FRI SEPT 24- THE FIERY FURNACES, WHITE MAGIC, INOUK at the black cat for $10
and the BIGGEST BESTEST show will be:
FRI OCT 1- KINGS OF LEON, SIMPLE KID for $12
Oct 3rd, the Killers are coming to the 930 club and the Libertines will be there on Oct 19th.
then there's also
TUES OCT 5- THE 5.6.7.8.s, DEAD MOON, THE FEVER for $10 and
SUN NOV 14- DELGADOS, CROOKED FINGERS for $13
I definitey recommend the Kings of Leon... but don't buy a ticket before I do.

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Monday, September 06, 2004

All in all a pretty good weekend. We rode the scooter down to the hirshhorn to check out the Gabriel Orozco on its last day. I can't say that it was particularly good. It was a photography exhibit that I cut out an article about sometime over the summer and finally got around to seeing today.
I also found out about this thing called Ghostzilla, which helps to hide the mozilla browzer within whatever application you happen to be working. I also downloaded the firefox web browser to see if it was just as good as Internet Explorer or possibly better. I seems to be doing just fine and even imported all of my old settings from IE. Not bad!
Back to work tomorrow............ lame. lame. lame.

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Sunday, September 05, 2004

Scooter! Whoo-hoo! R and I went out to the ghetto in DC and bought a scooter yesterday. It was the last one within 30 miles of DC, since all of the '05 models are coming out so soon... Here's exactly what it looks like:


Took it up to R's parents today and drove it around Georgetown yesterday. Loads of fun.

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Saturday, September 04, 2004

My God this is a funny video... political funny, not haha look at that donkey in a hat funny.

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Friday, September 03, 2004

Bush by the Numbers from the Independent... England's less liberal paper. Disturbing/Telling

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This is interesting: http://optruth.com/main.cfm

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Bush gives his little speech and then Kerry takes the gloves off. Finally!
And this article was posted somewhere on the unfiltered blog.

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Wednesday, September 01, 2004

I had a random thought the other day:
Why is it that you can spend your entire life cutting the fingernails of your right hand using the scissors with your left hand and never get good at it? It makes no sense. Unless of course you're left handed, in which case reverse it. If you're ambidextrous, I'd like to know if it's just really difficult to cut your nails at all or really simple. And lastly, do you ever find yourself switching hands before cutting your right toenails?
You'd think I would have thought of this while clipping my nails. Oddly, no.

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Monday, August 30, 2004

Found this newseum site using that stumbleupon site that I mentioned a while ago. If I had all the time in the world, reading the front page of every local newspaper in the country would be a lot easier.

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Sunday, August 29, 2004

Spent all weekend housesitting for R's boss and taking care of this adorable animal:



Now it's back to work, but check out this link that my brother sent.

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Friday, August 27, 2004

R sent me this link http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?ChannelID=96. I bet W doesn't even know what a dictatorship really is.
And this is pretty amusing as well.

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Thursday, August 26, 2004

This whole webpage appears to be turning into one long gripe about my missing papers. Well.... I like it that way.
It was missing again today. I called up the post again and talked to the girl there for a while. At first she was just going through the standard speech about how they "apologize for that, sir" and "will add another day to your subscription and make sure this doesn't happen again." Shortly after I started explaining how long this had been going on and had her look at the records of all my calls, she started to take a little more interest. I ended up getting the number for my distributor's manager. I think I'll call tonight.
I was thinking about this problem in depth earlier this afternoon while I was waiting for one of five bosses to get off the phone. The reasons for my missing paper must either be: A) Someone is stealing it or B) Someone is not delivering it.
I highly doubt that the thief is still stealing the paper, unless he's crazy. The fact that he's been caught would probably discourage him from such actions.
I also doubt that the delivery guy isn't delivering it, unless he's crazy too. When I caught up with him in the hall after he failed to deliver my paper on Saturday, he distinctly said "oh, you're back now? I thought [skipping your apartment] was wrong."
So there are a few options that I can think of for why the paper isn't showing up.
1) There's a separate delivery guy Monday through Wednesday (at least). This is entirely possible, since I've only seen the delivery guy twice and both times it was on a Saturday.
2) There's a new thief. I kind of like this option. A new contender for interrogation would be quite nice.
3) Either the delivery guy or the thief (the old one) is crazy. Their dementia might lead them to believe that I was a figment of their imagination when they were confronted.
4) Both the delivery guy and the thief are completely insane and are constantly wrestling in the hallway about who gets to keep my paper (this would explain the wrestle marks all over the walls and rugburns on their knees and elbows).
5) I'm completely insane and have never actually had a subscription to the Washington Post. This one is a bit of a stretch given the video evidence, although you can't really see the paper in the video... It would also mean that R would have to be insane as well... Or another figment of the imagination... # 5 is out.
6) The old thief and the delivery guy are in cahoots. They've been doing this for years and years (ever since old thief started living in the building in 1977). They have a deal worked out where the old guy will steal the paper to get it, but that if he gets caught, the delivery guy will just knock on his door and give him the paper that he used to be stealing. "What's in it for the delivery guy," you ask. Well, the delivery guy is actually the old guy's estranged son or maybe his doppelganger. Though, it would be kind of weird for the doppelganger to have a job. I don't think that the old thief has a job. So maybe the old thief is the delivery guy's doppelganger. That would mean that a shadow stole my paper. Maybe I just wrote this as an excuse to use the word doppelganger. Your thoughts?

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Wednesday, August 25, 2004

The Saga Continues


The paper was missing again yesterday morning. We can't be sure that it was the thief since we didn't hear the delivery guy drop off the paper (and he has been kind of sporadic in dropping it off since we got back from Sweden) or see the thief take it. Here's a picture of the thief himself:




Odd, I know, that the thief had
his face erased poorly in photoshop.

I called up the Washington Post for the umpteenth time to complain and was told that my customer service representative would be filling out a "special report form."

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Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Finally took the time to add the pictures from Sweden to some webspace I had on flickr. You can check them out by visiting copying and pasting this http://www.flickr.com/photos/greg and then adding the first letter of my last name before pressing enter. I have to make some vain attempt at protecting my identity, right? Age of identity theft and all of that, right?

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This is just here for me to remind myself to check out www.filmwise.com and to add the latest picture to thepilfered.blogspot.com.

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Monday, August 23, 2004

Ok, I lied the other day about putting the video of the guy next door being confronted about stealing my paper on the web. The file was too big! Where am I going to find the space to host the thing? We shall see. It made my weekend to catch him, that's for sure. I got a suggestion from a friend that I should start doing stakeouts on dumb stuff that police don't have time for. In one sense, it would be a lot of fun. On the other hand, it could get my ass beat.

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Saturday, August 21, 2004

VICTORY!


I got it all on film. It turns out that it was the guy next door. After bounding up the stairs and throwing open the door to hear him drop the paper back on the floor I was able to confront him and get an odd confession and list of reasons why he might be stealing the paper.
Of course, now R and I are scared that he's going to be really angry with us and try to kill us... people will do crazy things when they're embarassed.
I'll see about posting that video on the site. But will upload the .mpgs for download later this morning.

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It's 7:18 on a saturday morning and I'm already up. R and I are on a stakeout this morning to find the person who keeps stealing our newspaper... specifically the yellow section wrapped in plastic that contains the Sunday comics (how the Sunday comics can appear on Saturdays I'll never understand). I'll be using my handy dandy camera's video function to catch whoever it is red handed.
It's pretty early, my breath stinks, and the paper hasn't even been delivered yet.
Once the bait arrives and the trap is set, I'll be sitting by the door listening intently and looking through the peephole. This will probably cause me some neck pain, but it's worth it.
R is convinced that it's this woman at the end of the hall who is sending her kids to do her dirty work. I think this is a pretty good assumption. Adults probably have a lot more trouble with stealing a newspaper because they think about the consequences of the actions... some of them... not W. Children, on the other hand, really like comics and couldn't comprehend what their actions will lead to if they tried. I'm a licensed psychologist, so that whole analysis is totally valid... The other advantage of using kids is, of course, that they might not be tall enough to see through the peephole.

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Friday, August 20, 2004

This guy really doesn't like Italy. Hrm.

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Thursday, August 19, 2004

These excellent bands will all be playing in DC (and probably elsewhere in the states really soon.
Scissor Sisters - Tue. Sep 7th (what a lame website... all I had time to Google, though)
Snow Patrol - Fri. Sep 10th
Supergrass - Wed. Sep 29th
The Libertines - Tue. Oct 19th

The weekday shows are rough, but I already have tickets for the Snow Patrol show on Friday night.

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Wednesday, August 18, 2004

This link from the O'Franken Factor Blog points the way to George Bush's easy form letter to the editor creator that enables one to write letters to the editors of tons of major newspapers around the country very easily... Perhaps I'll write a few myself.

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A relatively new show on the bbc that they've been showing inflight on United airlines is Click Online, which has a whole team of researchers to find interesting stuff on the web instead of just little old me. Tell me if you find anything interesting.
I did see this toolbar that's also useful in finding odd and interesting webpages.

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Tuesday, August 17, 2004

We're back... finally. I'm totally unexcited about going back to work tomorrow. I also just found out that Rick James died while I was gone. I can't believe it didn't make the news in Lapland. Ridiculous. I'm too sleepy and retarded to write much... but more will be forthcoming.

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Sunday, August 08, 2004

I'm in Sweden! Not a lot of time for the internet and can only gain access after asking around at reception. Even then I'm locked in a little room and have to sit really close to the wall because I only brought a small internet cable for my laptop. S'fun, though. Hopefully, if I got it to work, there'll be a picture from Sweden of some trees and rocks and stuff off of the Baltic coast in the very Nordlund just after this colon:



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Tuesday, July 27, 2004

It hurts to read it, but here's the Ann Coulter column that was dropped by USA today. I almost don't want to give her the attention, so don't click on it... unless you really want to... and even then, just trust me. It's awful.

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Sunday, July 25, 2004

A picture from the sandlot baseball game I played in yesterday. It turned out to be more of a grasslot field, but it did have a nearly naked catcher and a pitcher with excellent tube socks.



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Jeff brought this shining example of why the media in this country does not lean to the left to my attention.

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A big thanks to Chris for sending pictures from the wedding in Poland... I left my camera on a bus... that was a mistake, because now I don't have it anymore. On the other hand, it gave me the opportunity to buy the Canon S500, which is already on my coffee table wating for the trip to Sweden to help on a dig in August... August 3rd... cannot wait... arg.
Picture of the main square of Krakow taken by Chris A. Notice the use of light to create the image.



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Friday, July 23, 2004

R and I cancelled our cable a few months ago. I don't want to be one of those people that always talks about "Oh, I don't have television! I didn't see that! Aren't I great because I don't have television?!?" There's nothing special about not having a television. It might just show that you're cheap... Most people have a television, but anyone can just shut it off. The real admission of a person not having a TV or canceling their cable is that they don't have enough self control to just stop watching it.
Either way, R and I decided that we were spending too much time watching the magic window and that we might as well cancel the cable to save money and encourage ourselves to read the newspaper.
This all leads up to my visit to the local Radio Shack.
With the cable canceled, I thought that we would at least get normal broadcast TV (i.e. NBC, CBS, and the illustrious WB). I was wrong. Just fuzz. We could actually still see the history channel because the cable is running into the apartment for the internet connection. I had considered buying a descrambler, but that would have just ended in us watching even more television and stealing from those poor, indigent media conglomerates. In the end, we decided that we should buy an antenna to try to get some semblance of television (and I thought it might be useful for the Olympics when they come around).
There's a Radio Shack on K street across from my work, so I went over there on Monday afternoon to buy an antenna. I went during work and didn't have a lot of time to mess around. My idea was to get in there, buy the first antenna that I saw and then leave again.
I should say that I haven't had the best experiences with radio shack in the past. I've never purchased a device from them that lasted more than a year or so. I learned not to trust radio shack from my mom at an early age when I listened to her complain about a slew of terrible clock radios she'd purchased, so I was on my guard as soon as I went in.
No sooner had I asked a sales representative where the antennas were was I confronted by a hands-free-cell-phone-attachment-wearing employee who was ready to "make the sale." I have never appreciated salespeople. I know that I could never do it myself because I'm a terrible liar.
"You really don't want to get that one," the salesman said to me as I was eyeing the cheapest of the antennas.
"Of course I do." I said, "It's the cheapest one here."
"Yeah, but that one won't work for you."
"Why would you be selling something that doesn't work?"
"Do you live in the city?" he asked me.
"Yes."
"Well, then that one is 'unamplified' and won't give you reception in the city."
"Oh." I said, "what's the return policy on the cheap one?"
"30 Days"
"Well, then why don't I just buy it and then if doesn't work I can return it and get the next better one."
"But why would you want to go through all that trouble?" He asked.
"It's really not a problem," I said, "I work across the street and I could just bring it back on my lunch hour."
"Well, look: I bought that one and it didn't work too well in the city. Now I own this other one," he said, pointing to the antenna that was $20 more. "I personally own the amplified antenna and it works great. What floor do you live on?"
"Ummm... The sixth floor."
"Yeah. You'll definitely want to buy this one."
At this point I was sure he was lying. Who doesn't have cable? I knew that R and I were outcasts for having canceled our cable and listening to somebody trying to sell me an antenna lie about owning one himself was insulting. And what the hell does being on the sixth floor have to do with needing an amplified antenna? Don't people try to put antennas as high up as they can? Wouldn't being on any floor at all be better than not being in an apartment building?
Needless to say, I picked up the amplified antenna for $30. I felt so used walking up to the counter to pay, until I listened to the clerk to my left trying to sell a French woman a warranty for the battery on her alarm clock.
"Ms. You should really thinking about getting a warranty for this. We get these thunderstorms that roll through here and you'll get a power surge and BAM! The battery will short circuit and your alarm clock won't work anymore."
"I've lived here for 4 years and I've never had a problem like that," she said.
"Well, I'd like to live where you live."
She didn't buy the warranty... Come to think of it, now I feel even worse about having bought the more expensive antenna. Once I got the thing home and had it hooked up, I got to play the fun game of having the reception be perfect until I stepped back and then having it be all fuzzy again. I did find that if I unplugged it (thereby making it "unamplified"), it wouldn't work anymore, which made me feel a little bit better about having spent as much as I did. After an hour or so, I found that the only channel that comes in clearly is the WB. We haven't turned it on in four days.

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Thursday, July 22, 2004

When deciding last minute to go to a family reunion neark Oswego, NY, it might be a good idea to try rent a wreck for your rental card needs.

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Reminding myself to watch this Morrissey video later.

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Wednesday, July 21, 2004

I think I finally figured out what I want to do with my life... or at least a year or two.

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Has it already been a year since the last mercury music prize?

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Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Our visitor, Sam, has recommended the Sacramento Bee for quality reading.

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And I really need to see outfoxed... It's only $9.95.

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These are just lovely photos of moons and a planet. I think I'll add a bunch of links to nerdy sites on the left over there to really drive the science home.

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Friday, July 16, 2004

I really don't want to comment on Martha Stewart. Somehow the media made me think that I care, but I don't and neither should you.

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Thursday, July 15, 2004

This is a link for me of the camera I'm considering buying: camera. It's expensive, but really nifty at the same time.  Don't forget about using pricewatch to find the cheapest stuff out there.

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Considering going to see The Polyphonic Spree. Anyone out there ever heard of them/think they're any good live?

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Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Sweet, sweet liberal propaganda. Bless you.

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Feel like making your F1 key into the F2 key, or mixing up all of the keys on a coworker's keyboard? Download this utility called Key Tweak and get to pranking. Of course, to change someone else's computer you would need to install and run the program on their machine while they're at lunch, but it can be done.

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Gay Marriage Ban Blocked What a relief to know that the entire Senate isn't made up of Fundamentalists like Bush.

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Turn the nerd dial up to eleven with these keyboard shortcuts, unless you have a mac, in which case you are wealthy!

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Monday, July 12, 2004

Man! Those speechwriters for Bush are good! I'm almost convinced that the evil-doers are being dealt with by the power of the almighty, but boy do I wish he'd stop saying that the American people are safer.

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Sunday, July 11, 2004

    Last night R and I were across the street from her parents at their neighbor's house b/c she had asked us to walk her dogs while she went to NYC for the day. Apparently, she "was going to go to Portugal from NY [for work] on Sunday morning, but decided that [she] really just needed to relax and would instead just go to Germany on Monday instead of flying there from Portugal." So she just got her hair cut in NYC and then flew home. R later explained that she had been flying to Portugal from New York (rather than DC) so that she could get her hair done there.
    Conversation progressed to something about voting for Kerry and it unsurprisingly came out that this neighbor who lives in a 1/2 million dollar home by herself, drives a BMW 5 series (it's nice) and travels internationally every week for business, is a republican. She said that this year she isn't sure if she'll vote for Bush again and that it really "depends on this war." I never did figure out what she meant by that. How could it get any worse? She did mention that, much like Vietnam, these soldiers and Iraqis appeared to be dying for no reason. I gave in my two cents about how Bush had an agenda concerning Iraq before he even took office and that half of the people surrounding him were members of PNAC and had been planning to "democraticize" the middle east (i.e. make them friendlier to us to facilitate easier access to oil) since the first Bush administration. That there were no WMDs or Al Qaeda links and that the senate committee on the war had just said so. She thought that Bush didn't know that he was being given bad intelligence. I said that if we were just going on intelligence we should have been trying to stop ethnic cleansing in Darfur and the Balkans, or even, God forbid, discouraging North Korea from building Nuclear Weapons (instead of pulling our troops out of South Korea to go fight in Iraq).
    Then out came a few statements that just knocked me over.
"Well, I just can't see voting for Kerry. I'm afraid of Kerry. He's one of these Massachusetts liberals!"
"'Massachusetts liberal?" I said, "I don't understand. I know plenty of conservatives and independents from Massachusetts. And what's wrong with Kennedy?"
"Who?"
"You know, Kennedy, the other senator from Massachusetts? He's a liberal, too."
"Oh, I don't pay much attention to these things."
"Arrgggg."
"Well, I just know that this Kerry is going to raise taxes. We are taxed to death in this country!"
"Um... I really don't think we're taxed to death in this country," I said, "and besides, if Kerry did raise taxes it wouldn't be for me or you, it would be for the people making billions of dollars a year. He would pretty much raise taxes for those that could afford to pay higher taxes. And also, even if did effect us, Europeans pay taxes at rates of 45%, where our highest tax brackets only get up to between 33-35%."
"That's not true," says neighbor, "He would set a bar at $100,000 or $200,000 and people above that would start having to pay. There are people who have decent jobs and make money, but because of taxes are just scraping by."
    At this point I started to get a bit to angry. Was she talking about herself when she said "just scraping by"? What the hell is her idea of being "taxed to death"? She must have a different concept of death. Her cleaning lady was in the kitchen! She had just flown to New York for the day to have her hair cut!
    R and I left... Seething. The only possible explanation for neighbor-lady to have thought these things is some newsletter she probably gets in the mail every week for having donated to the Republican party at some point in her life. The rhetoric spilling out of her brain was almost visible.
    The reason that we "taxed to death" in this country is that the taxes all go to $200 billion unnecessary wars and missle defense programs to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missles that terrorists could never get theit hands on in the first place where the health care "system" receives none.

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Friday, July 09, 2004

Frontier Pscyhiatrist is a very good song on this album by Avalanches.

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If Bush was Clinton he would be in jail.
read this.

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I almost forgot: go see Farenheit 911 immediately.
A few other quick points before I have to run out the door to sit in my cube:
I've recently run into a few arguement for the election of GWB that are so fallible it makes me cringe.
(1) I'm voting for him because he's a good leader
No. He isn't. He might be a good persuader and he might make you think that he's leading you, but it's mostly his cronies that are doing the leading and even so, have you ever considered where he's leading you?
(2) I'm voting for Bush because the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein
No. It isn't. Who told you that, anyway? Iraq might be a better place, but even that is argueable. There were no WMDs, no chemical weapons, no nuclear programs and no Iraqi terrorists with links to Al Qaeda. Were any of the 911 hijackers from Iraq? Nope. Were 15 of them from Saudi Arabia? Yes. Did we invade Iraq? Yes. Does that make sense?
When was the last time Saddam or an Iraqi had attacked an American citizen?
Has our level of safety increased since the Iraq war? According to a study released by your government that is leading you so well there were more acts of terrorism in 2003 than in any other year previous.
(3) I'm voting for Bush because I'm ignorant
No arguement.

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Thursday, July 08, 2004

And this visual thesaurus is really, really cool.

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We're back from Poland! Today was my first real day on the job. Granted I've been working there for the last year, today was my first day on salary. So that was pretty big stuff. I switched cubicles and everything... might even get a new computer next week.
An amazing time was had at the wedding in Krakow. R and I got to see tons of old friends and eat, walk and drink to our hearts' contents.
I lost my camera on a bus, though.
That sucked.
Otherwise, it was an awesome trip.
On the way home we got to witness some strange behavior at Gatwick airport in London. While getting our boarding passes at the US Airways desk, the US Diplomat standing next to us was observed saying "OK, girls. Let's pray... Holy Jesus... blah blah blah... Amen." to his four children as they were waiting for further details on why there weren't allowed to bring a parakeet as on board luggage. From what R and I could tell, this man had a United States Diplomat passport and a Norweigan wife. All I could think was that some diplomat to Norway from the US is a bit more into Jesus than I would want a representative of the US to be... especially one who needs to take his parakeet on board.
I looked around on the web for half an hour or so, but couldn't come up with a picture of the guy to recognize and put a name to... I'll keep working on it, though.

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Wednesday, June 30, 2004

A hiatus.
R and I will be in Poland for the next week.
It's kind of silly to think that anyone will know that we are gone, but it's nice to think that I should leave something to say we've left.

If you'll notice, I've added the commenting option to this site. If you bother to register with Blogger, you should be able to comment about how sad you are that I am not here (don't worry, I've never ever ever received a piece of junkmail from Blogger, Google or anyone there-affiliated).

See you in a week!

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Tuesday, June 29, 2004

Everyone loves a good "Girthy" hot dog.

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Monday, June 28, 2004

Finally! The Supreme Court makes a ruling I agree with. Who knew that prisoners would actually be allowed to see lawyers?

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Saturday, June 26, 2004

Oh, DMX. What have you done?

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Friday, June 25, 2004

Featured in a Washington Post article, a new study on cosmetics has this site which let's you enter in the different junk you use to make yourself pretty and find out how deadly it is on a scale from 1 to 10.
I linked to this before I entered in my Nivea aftershave and was told that it was a 9.3 (10 is the most deadly). It's the most deadly shaving product tested! I no longer recommend using this site. It will make you smell worse.
Wait, it gets worse. The site lets you find all of the different products that you use and add them to a summary of all of your stuff. Next year I can only assume that they'll be able to tell you the exact day and time of your death. I'm screwed, by the way.

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Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Slate Magazine boils Clinton's book down to one page. I'm sure there was more to it, but there's so much out there to read, this might just have to suffice.
And remind me to remind myself to check out media matters.

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There was some great commentary about water privatization on Air America Radio this morning which directed me to www.wateractivist.org.

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It appears the Dept. of Homeland Security needs better background checks.

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Monday, June 21, 2004

This is Amusing. (Turn yer volume down, though.)

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Friday, June 18, 2004

This election year, let's all write a letter to the election supervisors for each county in florida asking them not to use the same lists of "inelligble" voters that were handed to them by a partisan db corp.
And why have I not been linking to salon more often?

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This is dumb, but funny. Oh, and NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

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Tuesday, June 15, 2004

I got bored on Saturday and happened to notice that Ben Kingsley looks a lot like the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai. Karzai's country produces tons of dope and bush wants tons of oil, hence the new title:




And that Beastie Boys show I mentioned yesterday sold out in about 2 minutes... tickets were on $15. Aaarg.

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Monday, June 14, 2004

DC Residents - Secret Beastie Boys Show on Thurs night at the 9:30 club. Tickets go on sale tomorrow,June 15th at 4pm.
Go to this website and enter the password pollywog.

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Ran a 10K this weekend and got a kickass time of 48mins 39secs. I'm also famous with my picture on the run washington website. Neato.

photo: www.runwashington.com

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Thursday, June 10, 2004

Playing with Pictures
Here's one of R walking down a trail on Twin Sisters, a mountain in Estes Park, CO.



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Wednesday, June 09, 2004

Might use this site to start uploading dumb pictures for people to look at.

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Tuesday, June 08, 2004

Here's a CBS story on the Enron tapes.

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Monday, June 07, 2004

remind me to listen to these tomorrow
And this is here to see if I can insert a picture from another website.

Hey neato! I had no idea that I could do that. Now I can put pictures on my webspace from starpower and link to them on this site. Lame! There's going to be a barrage of pictures inserted now.

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The truly amazing thing about Reagan's death is that all of the media's fawning over him is actually making me start to think that he was a well-spoken and charismatic president. Bush seems to be charismatic, but frat-boy charismatic; that frustrating "I'm better than you, but I'll talk to you because you can get me somewhere" kind of charismatic. The last thing ue could be called is well-spoken. Maybe that's why voters like him. He fails spectacularly at every public speaking engagement to help the average Joe overcome his own crowd-o-phobia.

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Saturday, June 05, 2004

If only reaganomics could die with him!

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Thursday, June 03, 2004

Attention DC Folks
The metro is going to raise rates for trips from 2am to 3am on Friday and Saturday.
Read the Docket and then write in to explain that raising rates will only serve to decrease the number of passengers and increase the number of kids driving home drunk (instead of taking the metro to a parking lot and driving home from the parking lot drunk).

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I have some stuff to ponder with the resignation of George Tenet being announced today. More amusing is Al Jazeera's coverage of the story and the pictures they have of Tenet compared to others.
There's also a lot to ponder regarding this whole Chalabi debacle and it's odd coincidence with the resignation of Richard Perle who was gunning for Saddam and is defending Chalabi, who he introduced to Dick Cheney in the first place.
Not to mention Bush consulting lawyers. Hope my taxes aren't paying for that...

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Wednesday, June 02, 2004

Now you can price your own drugs as though you were on Medicare.

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Thursday, May 27, 2004

Here's a good link to a bunch of different websites where you can find etexts.
And this is just a link for me to use later for nerd activity.

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Wednesday, May 26, 2004

I get the feeling that if a man threw a condom filled with flour at Bush, the fine would be a bit more than $1,000.
As it should be. That flour could have gone in his eyes! Or it could have been Ricin! Or Sarin! Or.. Why do I know the names of these things?

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Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Funny

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My God! In an overworked stupor I completely forgot to watch the GWB speech last night and chose to rent the last of the Matrix movies instead. The acting in both was probably about the same...
Oh well, the transcript might help, but it's never the same if I can't see that fantastic smile on his face. He's so folksy!
I'll have to find the video later.
I've decided that the video would make me too nauseous. Here's the audio, though.

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Wednesday, May 19, 2004

New blog Post - 04/24/2004 updated 05/21/2004
My PDA and other stuff.
I started thinking that I could work on writing something magnficent. Something that wouldn't take up too much time; allow me to be lazy, but be a story nonetheless. I've never been asked to write a story with no topic. Actually, that's not true. I haven't been asked to do something like it since highschool. I feel like if I actually have a topic, I can really come up with some quality writing, but that if there's nothing there to begin with, I can make it more trouble than it should be. There's definitely plenty for me to talk about, but it always sounds like needless complainig if no one ever asked you to speak in the first place. Maybe that's the trouble with writing like this: there's no audience. There's a lesson in there somewhere about not taking the advice of idiots spouting about "knowing your audience" for granted. I think I got a really weird sunburn today at the track meet. Some splotches under my right eye and a spot on my neck too. Sometimes I think I should be sued for overuse of commas and not having known what the word "trite" meant, despite having used it in sentences for years. Everyone does it, but catching yourself feels pulcritudinous. (Exactly.) So, either way, there's some neat stuff for me to expore here with this portable palm thing and the keyboard. Romantically, I think that it will lead to me writing in public. I picture myself on a bench in the center of Dupont Circle watching couples and bike messengers share seats with hobos. I know that this will never happen, but it's nice to imagine it. I wonder what business people imagine when they get their first PDAs. Do they ponder all of the useless jargon that they have and try to make up new ones by stringing different phrases from different memos together? What else can they leverage independantly of ongoing market variance? Do they know what half of those ten words really mean?
I learned what proactive meant today and was sorely dissappointed. I thought that it just meant being in favor of doing things. I turns out that it means the same thing as "predicting problems or scenarios and acting to prevent or prepare for them." I liked it better before and now recognize how poorly used it is that I could never figure out what it really meant from the context that it was in.
Back to the PDA. I really am fooling the hell out of myself that I'll ever use this in public and the reasons for it rattle off in my brain like pictures out of Abu Grahib:
(1) It's loud and annoying when I type. I hit the keys too hard, especiallythe space bar. I slam it, and only with my right thumb. I think I might even annoy myself with my typing. That's a lie. I revel in it because it makes me sound faster when I'm slamming on the spacebar somwhere along the line I was taught that typing fast is cool.
(2) I don't want people to think I'm some yuppie ass rich kid with a PDA that his mom gave him. Self-loathing must be the most pathetic and epidemic quality of middle class offspring. Kids who moved up from the working class to become our parents were allowed to say that they had made something of themselves. Whereas their offspring will forever doubt if they made themselves what they are or had success based on their parents' ability to support them. Would I be sitting here typng on a collapsable keyboard into a PDA if it weren't for them? What a stupid, trite question. Shoulder, Chip, blah, blah, blah.
(3) I know I'm just going to use this stupid thing to write hai-kus while I'm in the bathroom at work.
So yeah, that's the new PDA. It's a hand-me-down, it's not color, but I'm done fulfilling my subconscious need to defend anything good that happens to me as someting earned or pure luck. It's a great little device that my shoulder-chip will shame me into detesting. Perhaps I'll throw caution to the wind and there'll be more to come.
*UPDATE
And there was more to come. I wrote that stuff up there back in April... --
New blog - 05/21/2004
What an effort it could take to actually think of something intelligent to write. Something that's not trite or boring... why bother?
So I got a PDA. I still have trouble remembering what it stands for... personal digital assistant? portable? eh, doesn't matter. My mom got a new one from her work and I scored her old one with no whining or anything. Good stuff. It's a Handsprig "Visor, ," which, from what I've read online, is a good pda to start out with. I've actually surprised myself by using it every day. I thought I'd be using it to blog stuff that I think of on the spur of the moment when I'm not close to a computer... but that hasn't really worked out. I've been so swamped with stuff to do that I use it for, you guessed it, the To Do list function. This function is amazing... when you check things off, they disappear. It's so satisfying to watch a little line scratch through them that I've started writing in little things that I forgot just so that I can tap the check box to watch them go away. My nerdiness knows no bounds.
Just like a nerd, after I got the thing I started searching around for different little applicatios to download onto it. I've gotta say that there really aren't enough free games out there. Either that, or I haven't spent enough time looking.
Another excellent thing on the PDA is that you can convert large textfiles into a .doc format and then read them all over the place. It's a bit ridiculous to think that I'll actually find time to read some book that's so old that no one owns the copyrght material while I'm waiting for a bus, but it's nice to think it could happen.
Another good feature is this whole Avantgo.com business, which lets you download news, weather, and other info every time you connect the PDA to the internet. I've been happily reading my news on a smaller screen for several weeks and I can't say it's all bad. We'll see if THIS THING ever gets posted.
g

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