Serenity premiers tonight.
Greggg has the advantage over most of the rest of us; he's already seen it.
For the rest of us - god, high hopes, fears, and I know whatever I see, I'll be left waiting for more. Joss, you better be hard at work on Serenity II already.
You know, I just don't get the whole Alias thing.
Or maybe it's the Jennifer Garner thing that escapes me, and that's what the whole Alias thing is about.
But you know, I look at Garner, and all I can think is, 'eh'. Maybe a dose of 'whatever'. And you know, no one, anywhere, likes women more than I do. So when I look at woman and think eh, it means I'm really not very interested.
She's just so average. Oh, she's talented, sure; she's got a gift for accents and voices and languages, and she's certainly physical. but I look at her face and I feel like I'm looking at a Mannequin. She's made of plastic, utterly empty and soul-less.
So maybe that's all there is to Alias. Because well, you know, I want to like it; same people as make Lost, so I'm on their side. But Alias seems to be nothing but empty spy-movie cliche with no style whatsoever. The plots are convoluted to the point of incomprehensiblity, and while the whole everyone's double-crossing everyone else thing is entertaining, the bottom line is that I don't care. Anyone in the series can die at any time and I just shrug. None of them are well enough characterized to engage me.
And then there's the fact that they keep wanting to go supernatural. Which just makes me roll my eyes. What works so well on lost, here just plays like writers who are out of ideas and turn to the fantastic out of desperation. They borrow from Neal Stephenson, they borrow from - hell, I can't even remember where last season's ender was borrowed from, some secret-society, orb-of-infinite-doom nonsense.
I just don't fuckin' get it.
Why, you might ask, am I watching it?
Honestly, I'm not. Sometimes it's just on, and you just don't feel like getting off the couch. And I'll admit, I tried, last season, because people I know like it. Sitting on a couch full of giggly girls, you know, you find a reason not to leave even when the show isn't good. So I tried.
But - eh. Just eh.
So, first impressions on TAR, family style (Amazing Race 8), before my medication takes effect.
The family concept worked better than expected. I liked it.
Most of the families are likable. I liked seeing some kids in this game, and damn, ain't Carissa Gaghan adorable?
My favorite team so far are the Aiellos -- good guys, funny and likable. They won me when they started to joke about spooning.
Most of the others I'm still forming an opinion on, but my favorite tasty treat is Brittney Rogers, who clearly needs to be licked all over, and I gotta say, I wanna see all three Linz Brothers pull a train on little sister Megan.
And then there are the villians. Every TAR has to have a couple. This time it's the jesus freak Weaver clan, who are just going to have to be bent over, spanked and corn-holed if they say 'lord' or 'jesus' one more time; and then there are the Paolos, who would be ok if someone fucking gagged them all. Just make them stop talking. Make. Them. Stop.
As usual, the first episode was hard to track with so many teams. It always hits speed around the third. But so far it looks like they're keeping the standard up. This is the definitive reality teevee show as far as I'm concerned, it deserves all the awards it wins. And I'm glad I don't have to see Rob and Amber on this one, they brought TAR7 down. If they do any more celebrity TARs, it needs to be an all-celeb edition to keep it fair.
Mmm. Medication. Me like medication.
I don't know that anyone else cares about this, but you know, I'm a geek.
Finally, after all these years, they got pictures of Architeuthis, the giant squid.
Researchers have been trying to do that forever - they've seen dead ones, and young ones, but this is the first time anyone has ever gotten pictures of them, mature and moving. Scientists have even hitched cameras to sperm whales to get footage of Architeuthis, to no avail.
Hey. You know, I have a cephalopod tattooed on my arm. I'm into this shit.
This just in - the doctor tells me I'm sick. That'll be a hundred simoleons, please.
Thanks, doc.
At least it's not a sinus infection. The downside is, no pass-go-collect-two-hundred-dollars pills. The upside is, I don't have to take antibiotics, which is always a good thing.
His prescription? Sleep.
Thanks, doc, I'll get right on that.
Some days it feels like nothing is working.
I had the classic three am wakeup again. What the fuck is it with three am? It's the fucking worrying hour. I wake up at three am, every goddamned bad thing in the universe comes to camp out behind my left ear. Everything I have to do, everything I'm ignoring, everything I want but can't get, everything I've done wrong or fucked up or wish I'd done differently. It all comes up in forced perspective and looms over me like fucking dementors and ring-wraiths, and no mental game I play makes them seem any smaller. Every fantasy becomes an object of sadness and desire, every day-dream becomes a nightmare.
I managed to claw my way back to sleep a little before six, just in time to be woken by the get-the-kids-to-school alarm and the garbage truck.
Fine - sleep is over-rated.
And then there's this sore throat I've been ignoring for a week, and the feeling of things-not-right that no amount of coffee or whisky seems to ease. I give in. I write this in my doctor's waiting room, where I'm pirating wireless from the office next door.
And then there's the fucking web project I'm supposed to be doing, for which I simply cannot figure out the css. I don't know why css makes my brain hurt this way, when I can program in three or four languages (ok, badly, I admit, but it gets the shit done). Some reason, css kicks my ass, and I can't seem to find a decent example to go with.
And then there's the new VPN secure id cards they just issued, which work great at work but seem completely dysfunctional elsewhere; I'm trying to get some shit done while I wait for the doc, but I can only get to the internet, not work.
Ignore me. I've been in a foul mood all day. Look to the right-hand column and click on someone over there. I'll just pound my fist through a wall until I feel better, or until something breaks.
From Guerilla News Network via Mikey via Ray:
George Bush Don't Like Black People, the video.
Wow. Just -- wow.
My friend Lisa sent this to me. New Yorker cover, aug 2005. Hugs 'an kisses, Lisa!
I'll let it speak for itself. If anyone knows the name of the artist who painted this, give me a shout.
Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live.
I bet 'ol Dorthy was a riot at parties.
It's a good time to get the Kenny Love this weekend; Basement3 acoustic at Blue Rock Shoot in Saratoga, CA.
Kenny's words:
just a simple, quick reminder about the Basement 3/Lyndie Way performance tomorrow ---- that's sunday, sunday, sunday, sept. 25th!! an event not to miss! Better than ice motorcycle racing (when you go down, you come up ground round.....huh? Whatever happened to that lovely sport?).
Oh yeah --- so what i was trying to say --- sunday, september 25th, at the Blue Rock Shoot in Saratoga---14523 big basin way. Basement 3 starts at 7 pm, and the Lyndie Way trio will follow.
kenny loves you and needs you to come visit!
Show Kenny some love, y'all. You know he loves you!
Ok, maybe I'll do a detailed review of this tomorrow. Or maybe I need to see it again to form a full opinion, sometimes Burton's like that. I needed to see Nightmare three times before I really got into it.
But the quick impression; aesthetically stunning, truly, completely stunning. Technically brilliant. I've never seen animation any better.
Yet, there are some significant weaknesses. The script is ok, but not great. There are some really bad jokes, worthy of a low-grade disney movie, but not worthy of a movie this well done. The music is somewhat uninspired, though of course typically well done.
So my impression overall - wow, mostly, but with a lingering feeling that it should have been better. A movie this intensely beautiful should be a great film, but it just missed being great.
More thoughts as they form, there's no question it's a film to think about. And maybe go see again right away.
I'm not really a fatalist. I don't really think very many things were meant to happen.
Ok, there are a few people - very, very few - who walked into my life and I felt, this had to be, this person needed to be here, and the universe would have brought us together somehow. People who changed me, changed my life.
But as a rule, I don't think there are things fated, or meant to be.
And then I look at pictures of the ninth ward vanishing under water again and I think, maybe some primitive thing, something that was here before europeans walked this continent, has chosen to take it's land back. And maybe we need to just give it back.
Sigh.
I'm afraid to look at any more news. I'm afraid to look at the pictures tomorrow morning when Rita hits ground.
Ok, ok. Freya made me do it, by putting me on her BILF list. It isn't easy to limit these lists to just seven, I'm tellin' ya.
Seven bloggers I'd like to meet, watch, and fuck (ok, some of these are on more than one list but I'm gonna make the lists exclusive):
I'd like to meet:
Seven I'd Like to watch go at it (Honestly, this is an extension of the list below):
And finally, seven I simply need to get my hands and mouth on, and my cock into (God it's hard to get this list down to seven)
People I've already met, watched, or done, are excluded from this list, though that doesn't mean you're off my to do list if you get what I'm sayin.
I've missed a good dozen people. I'm sorry. Damned numeric limit...
It's like moving into a new house that looks exactly like your old house.
So I jumped the gun last night and transferred moronosphere.com to it's new home. I figured out how easy this was gonna be and just did it.
Things should be a little faster, that's about all you should notice.
If you're scared to fly, don't look.
These are some great pictures of a JetBlue plane making an emrgency landing at LAX with bent, twisted landing gear.
Those are some good pilots. Landed with no one hurt. But I can't stop picturing the feeling inside that plane as the flames came off of the wheels.
These people were evidently watching live teevee of the event from inside the plane.
'Cos I'm moving on up. You're moving on out.
Movin' on up. Nothing can stop me.
Moving on up. You're moving on out.
Time to break free. Nothing can stop me,
Yeah.
Time's come to find a new home.
What's this mean?
Well, not much to you, the reader, nor to my friends for whom I host blogs. Other than a short downtime and then some (hopefully) much better performance.
Basically, I've been hosting this blog by the generosity and good grace of my friend Seth, for nearly two years. I owe him a great debt, he's asked for nothing, and given me space and bandwidth and support. He's helped me recover from a couple crashes, given me full root access, trusted me not to break anything, and let me monkey to my heart's content with his server.
Thanks, Seth, and thanks, Jen, for suggesting I start up a blog when all I wanted was a place to park a domain I had hanging around.
But all good things, and all that. I'm hosting a few blogs now, and we're using more bandwidth, and I need backups and some management tools to handle things I've been doing by hand. I got an offer I couldn't refuse from my friends at http://www.athenahosting.net/.
So I'm picking up and moving this weekend. If you have any problems getting to moronosphere.com this week, it should be short-lived, but let me know about it (click my name down there near where it says 'comments' and 'permalink', or any-damned-thing at moronosphere.com will get to me).
I'll post an update when I get moved over, and for those of you whose blogs I host, I'll let you know before I take things down, so carry on blogging until otherwise advised.
I gotta say, I watched the whole season, and each and every time INXS sent the person home who should have gone home. Not once did they falter in any way.
I was saying that to myself when I watched the finale - they've been right every time.
(I'm gonna put the rest of this after the cut in case anyone hasn't watched the show yet...)
Honestly. Why do I care?
It's one half hour until the west coast showing of the rock star inxs finale, and I'm climbin' the fucking walls.
Ok, I know I could go look up the result on the net. But I don't wanna spoil it, right? I just want it to fucking start already!
I don't think a reality teevee show has ever gotten me this wound (again, aside from when Lex got down to the final three, but you know, he's a personal friend). But it feels like that sitting here wishing for JD to win when I know the choice is already made.
I'm thinking, tequila or ice cream? tequila or ice cream? I mean, I gotta do something.
Ok, so I've talked about the whole referrals in the logs thing. I get all sorts of useful info about who's reading (Hello out there! Yeah, you! I see you!), where I'm getting hits from (how'd I get on Sam Burns random blogroll, and how can I get her in bed?), and all sorts of random searches on skulls and tattoos and pirates and martinis and taco flavored kisses.
But I just got a hit from someone looking for a recipe for 'dirty margaritas'.
Now, I don't think that's even a real drink, I think that was a confused user. But all I can think is, ick.
I'm trying to find a way to make that sound like a good drink, or to make it something dirty about a nasty little seniorita. But it's not working. All I get is, tequila, lime, cointreau, and olive brine. Hell, that might even be good, but it sounds vile.
On the other hand, I'm now thinking, in this order:
But that's not really a surprise, is it?
Sometimes you see a tattoo and you wonder - what's he/she saying with that?
I was playin' goofy-golf and there was a hispanic family ahead of us. Nice, friendly people. Woman in her twenties, a couple little boys, and a guy. But the guy was kind of interesting. Older, a bit, but it was hard to tell how old since his head was shaved. I'd guess he was my age, fourties, but he could have been ten years either direction of me.
Later they were joined by several more kids and a couple late-teens-early-twenties girls.
I'm looking at them and thinking, ok, family, birthday party. Guy's either dad or grampa.
But you know, I look at this tattoo he has on the back of his neck and I keep thinking, that means something different.
I dunno. Maybe it's just me. But a tattoo that says daddy, on a man. It just sorta makes me wonder.
Of course, I can think of a person or two I'd like to see that same tattoo on. And no, Ken, you're not one of them. No matter how much I love you.
Arrr, it be Talk Like a Pirate Day, t'day, the nineteenth' a' september.
Avast there ye bilge rats! Be spreadin' the word, sez I.
(I'm sorry)
(No, actually, I'm not.)
What exactly is the latin for I came, I saw, I watched some great teevee?
So we've talked a little bit about reality teevee (c'mon, people, pick JD already), and we'll get back to that shortly with new incarnations of Survivor and Amazing Race going down.
But let's talk about something a little bit artier, shall we?
Well, not arty in a bad way. There's all sorts of tasty nudity, see.
Let's us talk a bit about the glory that is Rome.
Now, you expect great things when you say hbo and series together. Look at the track record; the Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Deadwood, the Wire, Sex and the City, Carnivale, Curb Your Enthusiasm. I mean, you see a thread there, right?
So it's not like it's news that Rome is really really good.
But it took a little warming up to. Like Deadwood, it's dense, complicated, filled with characters, and at times deeply difficult to track. I feel like I should be taking notes when I watch this show, and the first episode, only the fact that I've studied ancient Rome a bit kept me from getting lost. I think wasn't 'til the third episode that I really decided that a) it was really good, and b) that I really liked it.
There's so much to like. I mean, let's start with the obvious, there's nudity (obligatory homer moment - Mmmmm. Nuuuuuudity...) I mean, lots of it. Yummy, tasty nudity. Beautiful girls riding on men kind of nudity (just about my favorite thing, the girl on top). Beautiful slave girl nudity. Nursing mother's nipples nudity. Roman brothel brutal-hair-pulling-fucking-from-behind nudity.
Did I mention nudity? We just need some more slave girls, is all, to make it complete.
Then let's talk about the technical stuff. The set is simply enormous, and looks incredibly authentic to my eye. The costuming, set decoration, the art design, it's all spectacular and complex and rich and gives the feeling of real, living roman cities.
The cast - mostly british performers who look vaguely familiar but whom I can't place, to a one they're superior actors, with many standouts.
And then there's the writing. I don't care how good your sets are, your cast are, your ideas, plots, special effects. Your show begins and ends with the writers and the writers make or break it. This show is incredibly well written. Oh, I can't say it's deadwood; deadwood makes frontier poets of rough, villainous cowboys, while not compromising their being cowboys. But Rome feels like something distilled down from shakespeare and robert graves, as imagined by modern writers with a modern way of telling a story. So there's a classic complexity to the dialog, without it being rendered impossibly dense.
Everything from bawdy conversations between soldiers to roman senatorial debate has a natural, real sound, while not falling into the trap of having romans talk and act line someone on the west wing.
I must say though, my favorite character is Titus Pullo, a roman soldier who winds up somehow in the midst of all the political upheaval. The HBO character page describes him thus:
A ferocious lover of life, possessing the courage and loyalty of a warrior, but the morality of a pirate. A man of huge appetites and wild passions. Impulsive, unreflective, optimistic, conceited, generous, and brutal.
I of course, identify with him heavily, when he says things like "Women scream my name by night from here to..." I like to think he's the me I would have been had I lived in 52 bc. Particularly the morality of a pirate bit.
If you're not watching this yet, they should be doing one of the catch-up weekends, check the schedule on hbo.com. It's really worth slogging through the first couple shows, even if they seem difficult.
And you know, there's the nudity.
Ok so I keep seeing this headline on CNN.com:
TS Rita gains muscle to threaten Florida
...And sure, I know they mean Tropical Storm. But hell, we all fucking know TS stands for TranSexual.
So this rita, she's some big, muscular tranny, threatening Florida.
Um. You know, that's kinda hot.
I spent my sunday not being at the computer. I think this was a good choice; I'm arm-wrestling a lotta frustration and staring at a screen on which I'm unable to do anything useful makes it unquestionably worse.
I managed to sleep unusually late, thanks to lovely chemicals; what was was that old DuPont quote? Without Chemistry, Life Itself Would Be Impossible.. I woke just in time to make fine, strong coffee (Peets of course - there's simply no better coffee the world over), and then tune in a football game.
Ok. So my team sucked. They basically conducted a clinic in how to suck. Big deal though, it beats that empty, mocking screen. Final score? I think it was about seven hundred to minus 5 or something. If we were not in negative numbers, we should have been. There goes my fantasy team stats for another week - can I have a mulligan on this week and start over?
It was one of those afternoons where it feels, for a day, like summer isn't over. Hot, bright, clear, with the feeling that there's not just a day, but an entire season before me. A life before me. Starting fresh.
I walked out and looked up and breathed in a summer smell, and wanted it not to end, ever. I wanted to walk and keep walking. I felt like if I could just follow the sun it would lead me to a place where summer never ended. But it's not so simple as that and I can't always simply make the choice and have it go as I dream.
So instead, I gathered up my children and spent several hours simply walking, exploring our neighborhood, with stops for lunch in a new italian deli, and for beverages in the odd little market that still scratches a living in town, somehow.
We walked until out feet hurt; Olivia's outgrown another pair of boots. Like me at her age, shoes seems to shrink before our eyes.
We returned home, finally, to change shoes, drink and then we needed to feed Ruby's obsession with goofy-golf.
We spent the rest of a sunny, dusty afternoon knocking small, brightly-colored balls about on ratty outdoor carpet; I entertained my children with snippets of old monty python routines. My hovercraft is FULL of EELS!
I'll finish my day with a short workout, something I'm trying to get myself back to. I'd forgotten how much I need that, how much better I feel when my muscles have the vague ache of weightlifting. So I'll do a short set of curls, some pushups, as many crunches as I can stand. Just the basics, though I need to be back at the gym, I need to get myself back to heavy leg-press sets and squats and bench. I've never felt better, in my adult life, than when I have a routine of heavy lifting.
And then, I think, a glass a scotch, and if my eyes will stay open, tonight's RockStar INXS. This is the last week and I'll miss it. Though I may not stay away that long.
Simple sundays.
Still though, I thought, as the sun was setting, I want to follow that sun. I want to be where summer never ends.
Someday.
If your kids, like mine, are all batshit for the stupid rubber bracelets, here's one they should be the first ones in school to have.
Click the image. They're yours for a donation to the Renew New Orleans Foundation.
Y'know, I've spent five bones for a lot worse things, and my kids will love these bracelets...
I'm having a terrible time with any sort of communication these days. I can't seem to get a blog entry finished (I have at least a half dozen started). I'm not able to maintain an IM session for more than a few flirty comments. I'm not responding to email. I'm not able to maintain a conversation in SMS text.
I'm feeling sad and angry and withdrawn, and finding no good outlet for all this.
Part of it's simple logistics. I just picked up a stack of new responsibilities at work - basically, I wound up the defacto owner of every major internal web site for all of my company's hardware engineering organization. I didn't exactly mean to do that, but once it started to pick up momentum in my direction, I wasn't gonna stop it. But I'm having to un-do a lot of very bad work that contractors did, in a hurry. The goal is to eventually get this all into a content management system, but god knows how long THAT will take. So I'm suddenly a web monkey and having to figure out the basics of fucking css.
This is on top of my existing job; so now in effect I have two.
So that's part of it. I just got an order of magnitude busier. I woke up thinking, not about my morning coffee or about what I'd like to be doing to some nasty little slut or about what I was gonna do with my weekend. I woke up thinking about fucking css and all the work I have to do.
But it's more than that. I feel defeated in some way. I feel things in my life slipping away from me, people slipping away. And I feel like my own ability to communicate is going with all this.
I need to write. I need to create and communicate. Words are my tools, my way of knowing my universe, and when my command of language slips, I feel as if I'm disconnected.
I keep flashing on the last shot in the last episode of firefly; Jubal Early spinning in space, isolated and utterly alone in the universe, insulated by the thin skin of his space suit. And he says - "Well, here I am." Like nothing matters so much.
For the first time in I can't remember how many years, I got up this morning and didn't check my email first thing. I get about 100 automated reports and notices every night, system statuses, database backup reports, disk space checkers. Same stuff every day. I always log in and check email first thing, in case something has gone badly haywire. And because, almost always, I have some conversation going with someone. And today I didn't even open email until I'd made coffee, had some breakfast, settled four kid fights, looked at the usual morning news web sites.
I knew there was nothing but bad news in email. Bad news and empty silence. Well, here I am.
I need to fucking do something.
Ok, I've avoided writing about this because, well, writing about teevee seemed so fucking trivial lately.
But sometimes a man just has to take a stand.
INXS? Guys? I'm fuckin' talkin' to you. Listen up.
C'mon. Come closer.
Closer.
I'm gonna get real close and whisper this in your ears.
Ready?
I swear, I've watched Survivor since it started, and the last few seasons of Amazing Race. And aside from when my brutha-man Lex was on Survivor, I have never, ever been this involved in a reality teevee show. I'm glued to the set when the show is on. I watch the episodes twice. I've watched this group of people go from raw, undeveloped talent to, the last few, truly great performers. They're growing right in front of our eyes. Every one of the last four were good enough for the gig, good enough that I'd pay to watch them, and it's gotten to be emotional, I care about them as people.
Last nights show, when Sweet Susie McNeil went home, I watched Dave Navarro well up when she was announced. It's not just me, and it's not just the performers, the guys hosting the show are emotionally involved.
But at some point it comes down to, simply, who's right for the job. And from the very first night, one guy has been way, way ahead of the rest. JD Fortune is the lead singer for INXS, and you know it just looking at him.
Guys. Gary, Andrew, John, Tim, Kirk. Listen to me. Forget Mig. Forget Marty, no matter how great he is at singing Nirvana and Radiohead. JD's the guy, and you know it.
Next week is the finale. I'm afraid to look. Tell me when it's over.
From BoingBoing:
Q: What's George Bush's position on Roe v. Wade?
A: He really doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans.
New Neil Gaiman book is due out shortly: Anansi Boys.
High hopes for that. Gaiman is a hell of a creative guy, and a pretty good writer. Sandman is, I would say, one of the major works of fiction of the late 20th century, despite being just a comic book.
But Gaiman's novel output isn't quite up to that standard. Good Omens was, kindly, not that good (or to put it another way, piece o' crap). Neverwhere is ok, worth reading, certainly. American Gods is far better, and in some ways brilliant, but it's got enough flaws that I don't recommend it to everyone.
I keep hoping Gaiman's got that truly, truly great novel in him, and didn't spend it all on Sandman.
His other output is different; his comics, almost to a one, are wonderful and creative. And his kids books are - well, god, just as good as kids books get. Coraline, Wolves in the Walls, The Dad I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish. All artistically and linguistically beautiful.
"No," said her mother. "There are no wolves in the walls. You must be hearing mice, I suppose.""Wolves," said Lucy.
"I'm sure it's not Wolves," said her mother. "For everyone knows what they say... If the wolves come out of the walls, its' all over."
"What's all over?" asked Lucy.
"It," said her mother. "Everybody knows that."
I have high hopes for this new novel. I just pre-ordered it; I'm looking forward to hearing other readers reactions to it. I'll post a review as soon as I finish it, which is likely to be soon after I get it.
Nothing quite like the feeling of your cell phone cracking into pieces under your foot first thing in the morning now, is there?
Now, you gotta understand I live by my cell phone. I do engineering support for a living. I'm the go-to guy for my group 24x7. I'm never off-call. When they can't find key people, I'm on the short list of who do ya call.
I get sms text alerts when machines go down. I get sms text messages asking for help. And of course, I get texts from friends all day long.
I pretty much always have my phone in my pocket, and feel disconnected when it's not within reach. I don't know how I managed before cell phones. Really, I no longer need a land-line, I never give my regular number out anymore.
So after making coffee this morning, I went to get my cell out of the pocket of my jeans; only I was wearing shorts with no pockets and needed my hands free for something or other, and mindlessly tucked my hone in the waist band of my shorts, where it stayed securely for about 3 seconds.
I've dropped my phone a million times, and it's beat up as hell, but still works fine. I tell ya, I'd buy another LG phone. They're durable. And it was fine this time too; battery popped off, and the phone flipped open, but no big deal.
Only I was in mid-stride and... And.
I tried to avoid it. There was that split second and doing a bizarre off-balance tap-dance, like when you realize you're about to tread on the cat, or boot the baby who's not where she was expected to be. So I wound up doing a bizarre stompy dance on top of my fucking phone.
Surprisingly, the phone itself is in pretty good shape. I didn't crack the display, nor break the keypad. All of it looks, pretty much, good as new. Only the top and bottom are now wholly autonomous units, no longer joined with a plastic hinge, or any sort of cable.
The super-fine ribbon cable that, til recently, made these things one integrated system now looks like it's been rat-chewed.
I'm cut off from my world. No sms. No calls. No fuckin' nuthin. AND, I doubt they'll be able to download the contact list.
Do me a favor, k? Email me your cell numbers. I'm trying to scrounge a replacement phone as I type this, but re-constructing my contact list is gonna be the big issue now. On the other hand, if I can just get on the list for the new ROKR, maybe this is a good thing, soon as they start to be available...
I started to write this ten days ago, but have been unable to finish it with the intervening events. It felt self-involved to go on writing about an oddly painful memory of my father inspired by a replica firearm. So I put it away.
Tonight, this just felt right, sitting alone on a thursday night, my family sleeping, the smell and feel of winter in the air for the first time this year.
From Ang:
BUSH ADMINISTRATION WORST DISASTER IN NATION'S HISTORYCost of Damage Estimated In The Zillions
Four and a half years after he was first sworn in as president, experts in the field of disaster assessment today called the presidency of George W. Bush the worst disaster in the history of the United States of America.
The sober assessment came from the University of Minnesota's Enormous Disaster Institute, which studies and attempts to quantify colossal disasters, both natural and manmade.
Dr. Lorraine Cresser, who heads the Institute, said that the University of Minnesota experts decided to place the current administration at the top of the nation's list of huge disasters after assessing the damage the White House has caused over the past four and a half years, both at home and abroad.
"After taking a good look at the wreckage the Bush presidency has created, we would estimate the cost of the damage at somewhere in the mid to high zillions," Dr. Cresser said.
Hours after the University of Minnesota released its findings, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said that given the high price tag, rebuilding the Bush presidency "doesn't make sense to me."
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Rep. Hastert said that based on what he had seen of the Bush presidency lately, "It looks like a lot of it could be bulldozed."
But hours later, the Speaker backtracked somewhat, telling reporters, "Like most Republicans in Congress, I have been drinking very heavily for the past several days."
Elsewhere, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today that his department would intensify the search for those missing since Hurricane Katrina hit, including Vice President Dick Cheney.
Not sure where that came from originally, but it rocks. I'm hearing it's from The Onion but I couldn't find it there in 15 seconds of intensive searching.
...yes, I know the category archives for this site seem to be empty. I'm playing with dynamic indexes to see if I can speed up rebuilds. Not quite working yet, and I'm not sure why.
-edit-
I couldn't get that to work. It required some .htaccess surgery, and I couldn't get it to produce any output.
The idea is that you route the web server request through a php pre-processor and generate the pages on the fly rather than writing out index pages for everything, which is a great idea for pages people don't hit that often. But something wasn't right so I've tuned back to static publishing.
Yes, it's a work entry. But never fear, I can make it dirty.
A few weeks ago, I was working on that super secret project that I could have told everyone about, but then would have had to kill you. Well, then it 'leaked' and then it got announced; macs with intel chips. Now, some citizens of the land of hightechistan were unaffected by all this, being uses of lesser platforms (*cough*windows*cough*), or of linux. But for many, this was big news. Mac users wondered, what does this mean to me; but the industry as a whole wondered, what does this mean for all of us?
The answer to that is still an open question of course. Even inside, we don't really know unless we need to know, and if we do need to know we're placed under a strict Silencio charm and rendered mute outside the confines of hogw... I mean, outside Apple HQ.
But inside the company, it meant a lot of change; work we had been doing in hardware engineering changed focus. Some projects got postponed. Some engineers wound up needing to find new work to do. We had many, many more jobs in certain areas, fewer in others.
My team, 100% focused on support of chip design, suddenly got re-purposed to support a wider user base; not just chip designers, but boards, systems, etc. We wound up with a new director, a new upper-level manager, and then a while new stack of names.
I don't care, generally, what my team is called. You know, I've been in this industry for a lot of years and you get used to new managers wanting to re-define a group by re-naming it. It confuses everyone, and we all need new web site names and sometimes we have to get new business cards, but my job is my job and I don't care what they call it. So when they started to toss around new acronyms that had some vague relation to what we do day-to-day, I skipped the meeting and went to eat sushi instead.
My boss and my group came up with something I could not remember five minutes after I was told it. And that was fine since our top man decided it wasn't what he wanted.
Last night a new name came down from somewhere above (I have a vague suspicion somewhere above has the initials J.D.); thus our new name is Design Chain Management.
And of course I had only one thing to say when my boss asked me what I thought. 'Got chain in it, s'ok with me.'
And you see? Here's where it gets dirty. Because of course in my mind, chain has only one meaning. And I'm picturing a couple of the interns in my group, in, well, you know.
I get to have the word 'chain' on my business cards now. I'm so going to enjoy handing these out in the right circles.
No one gets a piece of your heart
It's over 'cause you won't let it start
You keep your love in chains, love in chains
And only fear remains and keeps your love in chains
Ok. So enough angry politics for a moment. I need to take a deep breath and enjoy some Pretty Girl Therapy.
This would be Jane Birkin, and it would be courtesy of a wonderfully eclectic 60's color gallery at discosantigos.com (via BoingBoing, of course).
Here's another favorite.
There. I feel a little better. And if that doesn't do it, I'll go for this or this or this or this or this or this or maybe this
Evidently Alex Chilton's ok.
From pitchforkmedia.com:
Alex Chilton, frontman for Big Star and the Box Tops, is safe and sound, according to various sources, including e-mails to Pitchfork purporting to be from friends of Chilton’s family. The Memphis Commercial Appeal reports that Chilton spoke to Ron Easley (his former bandmate in the Memphis punkabilly group Tav Falco’s Panther Burns) early Monday morning, who said that Chilton had been rescued by helicopter from his French Quarter home on Sunday.
Robert S. Rivkin on what BushCO should be saying right now:
In his weekly radio address to the nation Saturday, President George W. Bush attempted to sanitize the blistering criticism from virtually all shades of the political spectrum that his administration had received for its handling of the tragic (and partly avoidable) Hurricane Katrina calamity. Words like "death," "chaos," "anarchy," "squalor," "incompetence" and "national disgrace" -- among the most descriptive and emotive ones uttered last week by thousands of people -- were omitted from the president's speech. So, I am offering here a straightforward address to the nation that President Bush could give next Saturday. This speech might restore his credibility as a leader:My fellow Americans: First, I want to apologize to you, and particularly to the citizens of Mississippi and Louisiana, for my administration's failure to prepare for Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. I apologize for our excruciating slowness in getting life-supporting essentials -- food, clean water and medicine -- to the flood victims in New Orleans. Sadly, I realize that the federal government's inexcusable delay of at least two days in providing these essential items caused many unnecessary deaths, and unnecessarily prolonged the agony for thousands of mostly poor, black citizens of the United States, who were barely surviving in disgusting conditions. For that I am truly sorry.
WASHINGTON : Buffeted by criticism over the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, President Bush said Tuesday he will oversee an investigation into what went wrong and why — in part to be sure the country could withstand more storms or attack.
Or to put that another way, he's calling for a probe to see who he can blame for his incompetence.
Hey, you people who voted for him? I hope you each like the taste of blame that comes with the votes you cast. Because you put him there. When you look at the body count go up, remember those are notches on your belts, not just his.
If you're a california reader, Tricia Allen will be tattooing in CA Sept 8 -> Oct 11.
Check her schedule here. She's got limited appointments so contact her right away if you're hoping to get inked this trip.
Tricia is one of my favorite people; not just one of my favorite tattooists, but truly one of my favorite people. She specializes in Polynesian tattoo, and you truly won't find anyone more authentic. She did most of the work on my right arm, and will (eventually) be finishing it, when we finally get enough time.
You know, way back in the days of a newsgroup called alt.showbiz.gossip, I used to get in regular fights with this guy. He gives quality rant, but had a tendency to get on the wrong side of a fight and keep fighting hard when he was clearly beaten.
He's come a ways since then; his rants are better, and in this case, he fuckin' nails it hard.
Read Steve Gilliard's rant - We Told You So
Choice quotes:
(use of the N word is Steve's, not mine)
You say this isn't about politics? Fuck you, this IS politics, real time, real life politics, where the insanity of all your ideas are exposed to the world for the fraud that they are. Tax cuts kill. Ask the relatives of the dead of the Gulf Coast. Well, motherfuckers, the alligators are feasting on dead nigger and there isn't an Iraqi in sight. And Bush is trying to gladhand his way through a mess which has stunned FOX reporters. I mean, Shepard Smith is calling Fox's talking heads liars ON THE AIR. CNN rips Bush in print and online after nearly five years of sleep.
And:
Bush, the man your fever dreams built into the next Winston Churchill when he is really the live action Chauncey Gardiner, has failed to everyone, in plain sight, without question. Rick Perry is trying to save his ass, but it ain't working. NOLA looks like ANGOLA and that ain't flying. Say 9/11 changed everything now, motherfuckers. Ooops, 9/11, 9/11. 9/11. Doesn't work anymore? Gee, maybe the sea of alligator MRE's once known as the citizens of New Orleans has something to do with that. Now you can shut the fuck up about 9/11. Bush just proved what would happen with another 9/11. Dead Americans as far as the nose can smell.
And my favorite:
The most dangerous thing to average Americans is not some mullah in Iraq, not even Osama Bin Laden, but George Bush. If he doesn't get you killed in Iraq, he'll fuck up saving your city so it turns into Escape from New Orleans. Armed junkies roaming the streets, looking for a fix, robbing and looting like Serb paramilitaries and about as sober. George Bush's ineptitude