Austin, I Hardly Knew Ye

So... Austin kind of reminds me of New Orleans with wider streets and less 'vomit smell' .
I had no idea that the 6th st strip was such a ridiculous collection of bars and people yelling 'one dollar drafts! No cover!' The big difference between 6th and Burbon streets seems to just be that Austin is much cleaner and doesn't incorporate chest-showing into the mix.
We're down here for a (shotgun) wedding. We weren't sure it was a shotgun wedding until yesterday when R confirmed with the bride that she was with child. Needless to say, an air of urgency and forced commitment is present in Austin this weekend. I'd better roll out of bed.
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I wonder if the people who write hallmark cards are really cheesy in real life... Or if the people who make those “funny” shoebox cards have horrible senses of humor and laugh at things that aren't very funny.
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Yee Haw

R and I are off to Texas tomorrow morning for four days. Please do not break into my house to steal my cats.
Things are going just peachy at the new place. We're going to wait about a month before trying to convince the condo association that having two cats is ok. They're fascists, what can I say.
Sorry for the total lack of updates recently, but with the moving and hating my job as much as I do, I'm pretty busy. I got a shining evaluation today at work. This means that it's a one-way hatred of the job... which I guess is better than a two way. I should have plenty of pictures of Dallas and Austin for when I get back. IN the meantime, I don't have much that's new going on. I think I'd start to like being less afraid of saying what I truly think about everything on this blog. Including work, the condo association, etc. The fear that those people might actually care enough to read this is paranoid, self-centered and moot. Deep down, I'd probably like it if those people read this. It's supposed to be a relief, right?
OK. Need to pack the suit into its bag and get ready to wake up early to foot it to the metro to get al aeropuerto.

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Artists drop while they shop

Artists drop while they shop
Originally uploaded by !Habit Forming.

This is interesting. There are a lot of good pictures to be found on flickr from loads of random people. Most of the ones that I upload to the 'ol blog here are from my flickr page. Definitely something worth checking out. I'd be down for replacing some of the crappier items at CVS with my own packaging... Or I could just redo the packaging for products that I like to see if they start selling better. That's starting to sound a lot more like a second job than a fun prank to play, though.

And this is pretty cool too: Google Moon

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New Place, Same Blog

Our New Street

The "Italian" Kitchen

The Bravery - Rockin' Like the Killers (just kidding)

The Bravery - Rockin' It a Bit More Dim

We're almost all moved in! R and I just have a few more loads off stuff to carry from our old place to our new place. I threw up some pictures on the right of our new street and what the kitchen looked like before we moved in. We haven't really gotten everything out of the way such that I could take a picture of what the kitchen looks like now, but if you can imagine the countertop stuffed with utensils and other crap, I think you get the idea. Let's see: I spent some time today changing my address with HR at work. Our new phone line gets set up tomorrow. DSL gets set up on July 29th, but I brought over my wireless card in case a neighbor's network wasn't encrypted. Lo and behold, here I am blogging over someone else's connection. I doubt they'll notice, since this takes up no bandwidth, but I suppose the good thing to do is to get my own internet connection... oh well. I have pipe dreams about becoming president of the condo board and organizing a network for the building where we could all just split the cost of a T1 line. Doubtful and nerdy, but it could happen!
We went through settlement this afternoon and had no hiccups. The closing costs were $500 higher than the estimate that we got on Friday, but $1000 lower than the estimate that we got three weeks ago, so I can't complain too much.
Ok, work in the morning and the excitement of being able to do this for free is starting to wear off. Just a lot of trash to throw out and some clothes to take over. Almost there. Remind me via email or comment to never, ever, ever move again. What a pain in the ass. I know I'll move in at most seven years, but I'll say this now anyway.
I threw two pictures from The Bravery show last Friday up so that AM can complain about not being that interested in the pictures of bands on my blog (ha!). This next weekend is the family reunion near lake Ontario and the next weekend after that R and I are each taking Thurs and Fri off and heading to Austin via Dallas for a wedding. It's going to be fun, but the timing couldnt' be worse for these two events, given that we have to paint our old place back to its original colors before we leave. Insanity. Luckily, I think I might still have my mechanic's jumpsuit to wear while I paint. It says Ron and that I work for "La Salle Auto" or some such business, but it keeps the paint off my jams.
Seriously, what am I still doing awake. I think I'll check the news. Maybe Karl Rove has managed to get himself into more trouble. I can't wait to see his stupid, evil ass fired. Then he can go work for a lobbying firm or conservative think tank and get paid millions for doing the same thing he's doing now, but with no culpability. Wait a second, that's not a fitting punishment!

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The Bravery

Went to see The Bravery last night and they put on a really good show. Apparently, it was their homecoming performance as the lead singer is from Bethesda, the bassist is from Falls Church and the drummer went to GW.
The south-paw lead guitarist seemed a little out of place, so I wonder if he's part of the band or just touring with them. In any case, the first two songs were nothing special, but the remainder of their one hour set was excellent (high marks to “honest mistake” and “something for nothing”).
R and I move into the new place tomorrow, so it'll be email blogs if any until the new broadband gets installed.
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Commercial Breaks and Beats :: The UK TV Advert Music Database

Interesting: Commercial Breaks and Beats :: The UK TV Advert Music Database

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Note to self

A reminder to me to check this out when I'm not at work: The Carlyle Group - Former World Leaders and Washington Insiders Make Billions from the War on Terrorism
The Rove thing is out of control and hilarious. Not much time to write these days as R and I have been packing boxes and are moving on Saturday.

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Karl Rove... I can't say I'm surprised.

What else do expect from the guy who bugs his own office and then blames it on the opposition to help his candidate win an election?
Now Karl has been outed as the one who told Time reporter Tim Cooper about Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, being a CIA agent.
It's interesting that some newspapers are celebrating Rove for having given the OK for Cooper to reveal his name... are they forgetting that there was no good reason for Rove to have done any of this in the first place?
Also, Rove is going to claim that he didn't know that Plame was undercover... this means that she either kept terrible cover, since Rove did know that she worked for the CIA, or that someone else told Rove that she was a CIA agent. Whomever told Rove that she was an agent either told him that she was undercover or forgot to mention it... which seems absurd. There are very few people that knew that she was an agent, and it seems ridiculous for any of them to have forgotten to mention her super-secret status, as they probably knew they shouldn't be talking about it in the first place. Perhaps it was one of those, "you can't tell anybody else about this, but..." kind of things. I think Rove had to have known that she was undercover... how could he know about her working for the agnecy otherwise? This means that he later just failed to mention her undercover status later when he was on the phone with Cooper. To me, that was a conscious action and something that Rove should be fired and jailed for. I don't care if it was someone else who told him that Plame was an agent, it was clearly Rove who thought it was information that the public should have and gave it to them.
I also don't get where Novak is in all of this. He's the one who wrote the column, why hasn't he been jailed? Probably because he heard it from Miller, who is going to jail.
The Dialy Kos' summary of how it all probably went down seems to be right on. Why would Miller go to jail and Cooper not? I'm surprised anyone would go to jail to protect Rove, but here it is.

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Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg!

Stupid goddamn terrorists.
I suppose they'll argue that thousands of innocent people are dying in iraq at the hands of the british every day... of course, that's caused by a lame attempt to help people, not planting bombs in subways.
It's frustrating. I understand that the G8 are responsible not only for the prosperity of globalization, but also for a lot of the visible hardships that it causes. These hardships cause people to seek some kind of help. If it's not from the World Bank or IMF, help is often found with extremists, who occasionally promote terrorism. It's all quite simple. What I can't understand is how anyone thinks that blowing up a bomb in the tube, or a train in Madrid, or a building in New York is going to change the way the world or the markets work.
R and I just finished watching a 3 part pbs documentary on the rise of free markets and globalization called the Commanding Heights, hence my sudden interest in how free markets work.
Off to work!

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News

Further proof that too much sport kills brain cells
This aritcle says it all. So... dumb... can't... comprehend... stupidity... this... enormous.
RIP Steelers guy.
Also, there are reports that Bush collided with a policeman while he was riding his bike in Scotland. That guy really needs to focus on thinking more and less on riding his bike around. He seems to get a lot more free time to have fun than I do... and yet he has a lot more responsibility. How does that work?
My favorite part of the article: "The presidential bike suffered some damage, McClellan said, so Bush rode back to the hotel in a Secret Service vehicle."
Bike force one?
And In Other News
This attack happened about two blocks from the Condo that R and I just bought... Awesome. I'm not scared, though; it sounds like our neighbors really jumped into action.
And I don't know where I stand on the issue of a reporter jailed for refusing to reveal her sources. I'd like someone to go down for having revealed Valerie Plame's identity just as much as the next guy, but I also like the idea of reporter's having a right to not reveal things... they never made Woodward reveal Felt's name... then again, taddling on the president isn't a crime... yet.

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Irony

This article defines irony. Apparently, China is angry that the US is interjecting politics in business as CNOOC is trying to take over Unocal Corp. Does anyone else find it ironic when a communist country is complaining about governments trying to control business... No? Fine. I side with the Chinese on this one on principle. The US should practice what we preach.

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Aaaah, Saturday

Spooning

It's been a while since anything substantial was put up here, but things have been insane around the homestead. I'm also really hungry at the moment, which isn't helping with the creative writing juices. I did find this fun time waster while poking around using my Stumble button.
I took the kittens into the vet today. They're all good except for some "ear mites", which translates to "crap in their ears".

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