Cat Blogging

Looks like Mean Mr. Mustard got a kitten a little too soon. This would have been the perfect excuse to make Emma wait until 2007..."but honey, we placed the order, it'll be here in a few years." Maybe Ming can use this with Julie when she asks for their seventh cat.

Genetically modified cats for sale
(CNN) -- A California biotechnology company has started taking orders for a hypoallergenic cat for pet lovers prone to allergies.

Susej

I was sitting at Caribou in Edina this morning, reading a book before training and four teenage girls came and sat down to have "coffee" (i.e. smoothies, coolers and tea) and immediately began discussing how you would pronounce Jesus if it were spelled backwards. I really wanted to say "Antichrist" and scare them with the idea I was some sort of evangelical (of which there are plenty at Caribou, having morning Bible study).

Does Kevin Have an Alter Ego?

Klund, is this another instance of you pretending to be something you're not? It's the only other blogger from St. Peter, Minnesota. Is this you writing as though you were a younger version of yourself named Alexander Wales or Ben Friesen? Does your wife know about your other site? You should stop before your children get old enough to figure it out.

I quote you:
And so it wears at my stomach, makes me stay up until this ungodly hour. Because now that she's mine and no one else's, now that I don't have to worry about some sixteen year old French boy hiding away inside her house over the summer or keeping her away from me, I worry that this happiness will be ripped away from me.

That's the attraction, right? My Anumati is whoever I most need at any moment. She changes to suit my desires and our life inside my head is lived in perfect balance. If I need someone to comfort, she'll be upset. If I'm feeling a surge of lust, she'll be standing in front of me, naked and ready for anything that I can dream up.

Julia, Anumati, is my muse. She is my perfection, my constant dream, my hopes and a symbol of me. She exists within me, trapped in my mind with no way of getting out.

Kelly came back to today, and we went for a walk. She was wearing a t-shirt and short shorts, smiling and laughing and telling me all about her weekend. I hate lust, and I hate love. The lust, the look of her creamy thighs, that would all be bearable if I weren't so otherwise attracted to her....

Fuck I'm horny -

Dear God, Are you there? It's me, Ben. So it looks like things are starting up with Claire again, and I ache for her so bad it hurts. We had cyber sex, then phone sex.

Well then. Claire. My first love. My first sexual experience. My first... Claire was my very good friend at the beginning of senior year. I'd sit outside the swimming pool with her before school got out, skipping the last fifteen minutes of accounting. We went to the ren fest together

I'm going to fucking kill my roommate

Favorite Post of Today - George W. Bush, Meet Ashlee Simpson

Courtesy of Fanatical Apathy - the blog of Adam Felber. Lessons George W. Bush could learn from Ashlee Simpson (and perhaps why they share a "hump").

Vacation Notes

So, these are my observations from my family vacation to Chicago.

I don't know why anyone would stand around the train depot in downtown Chicago with a headphone/phone on, whistling Terry Jack's "Seasons in the Sun". It's just weird and it makes me nervous. He looked Malaysian, but that's probably coincidence.

Doing traditional Chicago things is fun - deep dish pizza at Giordano's (note that sausage and pepperoni deep dish pizza at this particular place tastes pretty much like bread covered with cheese. I think no matter how many toppings you had, it would taste like bread covered with cheese) - beeping at your sister-in-law because she slows down for a pothole (everyone in Chicago beeps their horn all the time, it doesn't matter if the person ahead of you is being held in place by a building falling on their car, you still beep) - wandering aimlessly along the sidewalk and getting in everyone's way - all of these are fun.

If it's not rush hour, the train (the Metra) departs every 1 to 2 hours. This is important if you don't have anything to do for one to two hours and you didn't pay careful attention to the schedule coming or going, and you have a rambunctious eighteen-month old with you. However, it gives you the chance to watch Boston win over a rather lackluster Sam Adams (damn Chicago and their lack of Summit) while you're chasing your little girl around the train station at 9:00 p.m.

Little girls like water parks (Daddy and Eryn near the slides. Eryn realizing how big a water park actually is and wondering when that 700 gallon bucket is going to tip - a word of caution, the Metra train horn sounds like the big bucket warning horn and some little girl gets very anxious worrying that the train is going to dump a lot of water on their head).

I also don't know why a waterpark in Wisconsin would have wallpaper that encourages those staying at the waterpark to travel to Minnesota - as near as I can tell, none of these places is in Wisconsin.

Walking downtown is fun if your wife is prepared to actually walk downtown (I'm sure she'll be blogging about that soon). Chicago is fun just for the architecture and weird sculpture gardens (Millenium Park face sculputure, with and without me and Eryn, the Bean, my favorite building in Chicago, Marina City, and the opening to Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life").

Chicago Police, when equipped appropriately with two wheeled transportation and a lot of balloons, can fly. Don't even try to escape.

An eighteen month old daughter who makes lots of noise can ruin your tour of a Frank Lloyd Wright house. However, it is possible to ruin a Frank Lloyd Wright house more completely (from far away, and then the close up, then very close up).

Never ever, ever, never, go to a place named Michaels that serves hot dogs. It should have been a hint that it's got the same name as a crafts store. It was nauseating - permeated with the smell of ketchup, it was difficult muster more than a single thought in several minutes between the cognitive interference of the Wizard of Oz (on two large screens), a West Virginia football game (on the screen in the middle), the clown making crappy balloon animals, the hundreds of children with dip and dots pseudo ice cream and the numerous parents who looked like they were barely tolerating the existence of the place. But the chicken sandwich was pretty good.

Finally, I very much liked the way the local Democrats were tying Barack Obama to Kerry/Edwards on all the campaign signs. You simply didn't see that with the Keyes signs or the Bush/Cheney signs. It was almost like they (the Republicans) didn't want to be on the same sign...go figure - maybe that "two politicians, two gay daughters, two much discrimination" design was shot down. On a similar note, in Wisconsin, not too far from the border, is a nice Bush/Cheney sign on the same pair of posts as a sign for the local Assembly of God congregation. I'd worry a little about messing with my ability to register as a conscientious objector/pacifist if I were them - dip your toes into politics and take your chances - some of us think taxing churches and sending your kids off to the wars politicians you vote for create isn't such a bad idea.

Vacation so Far

So the best story so far belongs to Pooteewheet - I trust she'll publish it tomorrow, but vacation has been going well. We noted that in non-battleground states they don't care if gas is more than $2.00 a gallon. And today I got to see my first Alan Keyes lawn sign. I want to steal one so bad it's disturbing me.

I've spent a huge part of my time reading all about SQL Reporting Services while Pooteewheet drives, but not all our time is driving. Night number one was spent at the Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells. We enjoyed the waterpark both last night and this morning. Eryn tried out a few slides (and not the smallest ones, slides with actual running water and curves) , rode the crooked creek on an innertube for two with Pooteewheet and me (and a nasty bandaid we kept trying to get away from), and played with a number of small fountains. She was not quite so impressed with the big bucket of water that dumped 700 gallons from four stories up about every five minutes. Fortunately, it would clang right before it dumped, so she'd get a panicked look on her face and run for the nearest parent, begging to be lifted out of the dumping's way. However, it didn't matter if she was right near it or halfway across the waterpark when that bell went off - she was looking for protection.

We also went to some kids' playground at the hotel that was four stories high and had 25,000 squishy foam balls you could drop in pots, in trees, shoot from guns, etc. Eryn liked crawling in the pots that were full of balls and hanging out while we bounced balls off of her. The real point seemed to be that if you registered your bracelet, you could run around accumlating points for putting certain colored squishy balls in certain contraptions. I noticed that one enterprising child had amassed 85,000+ points in one instance - considering that you seemed to get about 30-150 points per action, he must have been running around that playground forever. I now have new goals for Eryn - she will not be the 85,000 point child and she will not be on the list of high scores for children "15 and up".

By the way, Eryn officially left the state (of Minnesota) for the first time yesterday and today she entered her third state. I don't think she noticed the difference, particularly since we brought the "ooks" (the Wiggles) and a portable DVD player with us.

Dyson Vacuum Cleaner

Dyson commercials claim their vacuum cleaners have 100,000x the power of gravity. Just by jumping, don't I have more power than gravity? Don't I have more power than the gravity of the entire earth (to some extent)? Doesn't this make me more powerful than a Dyson vacuum? Not a very convincing endorsement.

Apparently Kryptonite is Red and Shaped Like an Elephant

This is just, well...yuck. Disgusting and wrong. Let's make a cowardly gesture against a stem cell research advocate using a bill that has nothing to do with stem cell research. Is that what being part of the Christian right is about? This should be one of the signs to your own party that perhaps your fringe is a bit too fringy for even your quilt.

Here's the Thomas entry for S.1010

You can be certain and be wrong

So I don't know what they're doing here, but there's this low-pitched buzzing noise in the background while I'm sitting in my cube, sort of reverberating through the ceiling panels and the walls - it sounds like the kind of noise you hear in horror movies that's designed to set your nerves on end. It's working - I keep looking around expecting the guy from Texas Chainsaw to show up, or perhaps the robotic thought police. Maybe it's a Harrison Bergeron thing; punish the guy who's working on the weekends so he won't show up anyone else (that's right, I picture myself as Harrison Bergeron - give me a pretty ballerina, you fools!).

On to the title quote:
Norwegianity and Chris Dykstra both have postings up about the new Ron Suskind article from the New York Times, "Without a Doubt" (link is to TruthOut so you don't have to log in to read it like you do with the New York Times, but if you prefer The New York Times: link). Scary, scary, frightening read. And Chris follows it up with a very funny video as a foil so you can wash off some of the creepiness of reading phrases like:

"blind man in a room full of deaf people"
"lack of curiosity about complex issues"
"He believes you have to kill them all"
"writ of infallibility"
and "open dialogue, based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value".

Freeway Blogger

Minnesota Politics notes that the Freeway Blooger's Freeway Free Speech Day has a number of pictures taken in Minneapolis (about one a page, lots of pages). I far prefer these to the homeless-looking guy in Eagan who stands on the 77 and 35E bridges waving his American flag. I can't tell what he's trying to say (and never could, contrary to anyone who might say that's because the patriotism behind it has become diluted).

We got our Teresa Daly sign in our front yard yesterday, it's right next to our John Kerry sign. My hopes for her winning are slim, this being south of the cities and all - but we can always vote and hope. I've been enjoying the banter and bickering in the community newspaper between her supporters and the other guy's supporters - the locals are incensed that she's being supported by MoveOn.org. Makes me wonder what the local letters say about Patty Wetterling in her newspaper.

The Art Institute

Pooteewheet, Eryn and I went to the Art Institute today to see The Art of Democracy exhibit with my sister. It wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped - mostly a single room with a lot of posters, but some of them were interesting. I particularly liked the entirely black U.S. flag, although it's a motif I've seen before, and I liked the rather commercial-looking poster that just had pictures of Kerry, Wellstone and anti-war posters from in front of houses throughout Minneapolis. My sister was pretty sure she recognized several of them as from her neighborhood. There were a couple of pro-Bush posters there as well, but they were few and far between and most seemed to be by a single artist.

As a side note, the Art Institute is on the list of KMWB 23 advertisers, the local Sinclair affiliate. So my sole act of rebellion today was not to pay them any "recommended donation" money because I know where it's going.

The most important thing we learned, and just in time for our trip to Chicago, is that our little girl is not ready for museums. Her experience consisted of running for the fountain inside the front doors and dipping her arm in, coat and all, and yelling "down down down down" until she made herself a little sick. On a positive note, the Institute has a playground, and at no point did she push over another kid's block construction and scream "crash!" (which happens at our house whenever I pile any two blocks together).

Soldier Stories

Norwegianity has a very interesting post linking to an article about the myth of anti-war protesters spitting on troops. I thought it was fascinating reading, particularly as I know of a few families, including mine, that would be definitively labeled anti-war, but are still sending books and food to soldiers in Iraq (and pens to children in Afghanistan). I don't want U.S. troops over there, but if they are, I'm not going to deprive them of books, baby wipes, beef jerky and pop tarts.

Which leads to good news - Pooteewheet and I got a letter from the reservist we were sending these things to that he came home and is safe and sound, enjoying the company of his family and working with Toys for Tots, among other things. I immediately celebrated by eating the beef jerky left over in his most current box on the counter and cutting up the three-dozen odd small boxes I've collected from work for the recycling truck. We're going to take a few months off of the program in order to donate that money to Toys for Tots (believe it or not, it's fairly expensive to keep a soldier in extras, about $12 a week in postage and $12 a week in various things to enjoy - they don't really cut you a break on express postage to a soldier, and anything slower just never gets there). We're excited he's home with his children and doing something that doesn't involve a gun.

Payment in Kind

So, it was an interesting day for me. Yesterday my manager asked me if I'd be interested in moving half time (remaining half time on my current project) to a project that involves a few architects, (at least) two new technologies and a visibility that absolutely dwarfs what I work on at the moment. Sometimes you get the immediate impression that something is probably what you should agree to if you ever want to move up in the company. This seemed to be one of those times. I asked a few questions, confirmed a few suspicions, said I'd think about it, and 24 hours later, even without saying anything else, there's an architect in my cube explaining that I can't read the book about the primary technology because it doesn't exist yet, I'm expected to be at 4 days of training with a Microsoft specialist immediately after my week of vacation, I might be headed south for a Microsoft project workshop, and handing me a chart that indicates that the (primary) second bit of technology is pretty much still in beta as well, although at least that one I've installed on one of my dev servers for fun, though I haven't actually touched it yet. I explained to Erik that if he was willing to put a positive spin on it I wasn't stabbing him in the back by bailing on our project as it was gearing up for a slew of new changes, but rather it was his chance for filling the void and moving closer to a promotion and that I wouldn't be any more absent than our old tech lead when she had her headaches. I'm pretty sure this is one of those situations where I get to work a whole bunch of extra hours for six months to nail down two positions - bad for my family life, good for my career - but at least at only six months I can reevaluate at some point and make sure I'm not abandoning my family entirely. The fact that it lends itself to familial abandonment means it must be a career-enhancing position as there's a shared joke about finding a mistress/mister in order to advance.

I also got a call today about an old project from my consulting days and issues about moving it to a new server. That in itself isn't interesting. What's interesting is that the guy who came to my cube to talk about the move saw my pictures of Lance Armstrong and started talking to me about bicycling - seems he used to race professionally - Tour of Flanders and all. We talked about Lance, his divorce, Tyler Hamilton, his dog and his doping (well, hyper red blood celling), etc. Very cool - you just don't expect to meet a former professional cyclist at work - it's neat and depressing at the same time. I always wondered if I should have been cycling instead of programming, and now I know I would have just ended up at West 20 years later than I did otherwise :)

Finally, I spent four hours (including travel) visiting Erik's house to look at his boiler with my friend Dan, the furnace man. Dan's specialty isn't boilers, but I thought he might be able to at least give Erik and Holly some sort of idea about what was wrong and what it might cost to fix it, or at least patch it until it needed fixing. He spent all sorts of time hitting the furnace with a hammer until it worked (honest - mostly I sat around drinking Summit and asking questions about whether it might make it until Summer) and then watching it while the pressure and temperature climbed and he bled the air out of the system. End result? Erik can pay $500-$700 for a new regulator system (as long as he doesn't get a furnace guy in there who might red flag his furnace with the city), or he can get a somewhat shady furnace/boiler guy in there for $3500-$5000 to chop it out and put in a new furnace, or he can get a standard guy in there for up to $10,000-$15,000 (possibly). These are things you don't want to hear right after you get a new house. His other option is to sit in the basement and keep the gas feed button pushed while the house heats up every night - ugh! Sounds like Holly might double check with her boiler friends (she looked downright paranoid), and Dan will refer them to his boiler friend, and they'll figure something out amongst all those options; but I'm sure it won't be cheap. I though it might be nice to offer them a loan either through Jen and I (partial portion as that's all I have after my flex plan gives me some money, no interest) or the LLC (just enough interest to cover the loan the LLC covers as a home loan) , but I'm pretty sure Erik will find a way to swing enough money/a loan with a family signature - I know I've always been a little careful about who I owe money to in the past. Just a note if he's reading this and needs a signature for some collateral or proof that his good faith is backed up by definitive assets from somewhere, I'm definitely game as a signatory - $5,000 isn't enough to break either me or the LLC if he drops dead.

Finally, as payment for working on the furnace, Dan got a 12-pack of Miller High Life and the joy of torturing Holly about how to turn off the main gas line. I love inflicting Dan on people. He just doesn't have good boundaries at all times, particularly after partaking of any part of a 12-pack of Miller High Life. I thought he'd be in big trouble, seeing as I got him home late (his wife went to high school with me as well), but her friend was still there, so I think that mitigates it a bit. I got paid in something infinitely more valuable, a really good story from Holly that Erik wasn't willing to share with our group in his discussion about vacation. Seems that when they were in Japan, Holly's sister took them to her classroom to show them off (Americans and all). When she was done introducing them, she asked if there were any questions. One traditionally-Japanese-school-girl-dressed teenage girl in a sea full of similar girls raised her hand and asked Erik in her Japanese-accented English, "Do you think I'm pretty?" At which all the other girls giggled with their hands over their mouths. Erik...you g*ddamn stud.

W Stands for Women

I think that slogan was actually started by an Eagan attorney - ah, yes, here we go, Debra Repya (Star Tribune requires login).  I hope she's still convinced - of course she probably rationalizes that at least U.S. women's rights aren't being trampled by U.N. hegemony.

 

"Bush AWOL As 250 World Leaders Reaffirm Women's Rights"

West in the News

From Yahoo:

 

Wed Oct 13, 7:39 PM ET	AP Press
Andrea Mackris, left, looks on as her lawyer Benedict Morelli, right, speaks at a news conference in New York, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2004. Mackris, A Fox News Channel producer, sued Bill O'Reilly for sexual harassment Wednesday, alleging her boss had phone sex with her against her wishes three times. Fox filed a claim of its own, saying the complaint was a politically motivated extortion attempt. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Erik Needs to Come Home

I brought in a full pot of coffee to share with Erik today because he was supposed to be back from Japan.  But he didn't come back, so I drank it all.  And now I'm all twitchy.  Really twitchy.  I'm sure it will last another sixty minutes, and then I'll be napping under my desk or in Town Hall during my benefits meeting.  To top it off, a bunch of the developers in my project are gone because they're falling apart because they're old -- back problems, -oscopies, and the like -- but they're not really much older than me, so I have to worry about whether I'm falling apart while I sit here and just don't realize it because I'm too hopped up on caffeine to notice.

Watch This

AmericaBlog is correct, you should watch this.

 

Wonderful...absolutely wonderful.  U.S. Representative Tim Ryan's speech on the draft.

 

 

Sinclair, Jadoo, Enron, Bush, Rove...wtf...

This just keeps widening and widening and widening - this is the best of the articles I've seen so far, the whole Sinclair forcing their anti-Kerry show by the Swift Boat wankers on America (via 23 here in Minneapolis, yuck, but still wrong), then following the trail back to Jadoo, Enron and Bush in a great big circle jerk. Clinton's Whitewater non-story was a story forever and this isn't being thoroughly examined? Maybe someone can complain about the conservative press now?

More to Do in Minneapolis - Institute of Arts

New Patriot has a post about the Minneapolis Institute of Art's artist project, "The Art of Democracy: Tools of Persuasion", an open call/exhibition of works revolving around the 2004 election - October 8 through November 28 (although it's probably more fun before the election).  The Institute is open until 9:00 p.m. on Thursdays, so I think I'm going to convince Pooteewheet and Eryn to go on a family trip.

 

The Hunting of the President

Pooteewheet and I watched "The Hunting of the President" last night, about the Whitewater scandal surrounding Bill and Hillary Clinton. I'd agree with Rotten Tomatoes that it ranks about a 60-70% on the movie scale - the little bits they spliced in, ala Michael Moore, weren't particularly effective, even distracting, and the sum total of the movie wasn't a lot more instructive than what you might have gleaned living through the mess (although there was still the odd point to learn). However, the DVD also included Bill Clinton speaking in front of an audience during the premiere of the movie, and that was my favorite part of the whole thing. He tries to put Whitewater, and the current administration, into a historical context. He alleges that Hilary is correct - there is a vast right wing conspiracy, a conspiracy aimed at accumulating power via power and wealth for the purpose of arresting progress. He notes that many times in the history of our nation there have been watersheds where progress comes into conflict with towing the line and this current incarnation of the struggle, which started in the 60s-70s, is the newest round of something we've already seen before: just after our Republic was conceived, during the Civil War era and during the era of WWI-WWII. Sure, that covers a lot of ground, but when you tally it up, it's really only about 50 years or less he's referring to. Clinton makes the argument that in this current battle (which historically has been identifiable by impeachments and close electoral votes) the right has decided that maintaining the status quo can best be accomplished via aligning itself with the three g's that matter to a sizeable portion of those interested in staying the course: God, gays and guns. During the 60's they had decided that this was a surefire way to continue to control the government. When Carter won, they assumed that their plan had only failed because Nixon had been caught up in Watergate. But when Clinton won, the whole foundation of what they were trying to achieve was threatened, hence the all out push to destroy everything his administration claims to have accomplished and they current push to embrace even more tightly the three g's. Clinton argues that in the past, the path of progress (which is not necessarily embodied by Democrats at every stage of history) has always been the victorious path, but that it gets more difficult as money and power centralize and as moral issues are brought into the fold.

It's a very interesting addendum to Orcinus' series about the rise of fascism.

Why People Blog

I've created my own list of why people blog (some of which may apply to
me):

1. No one else will read my damn poetry when I show it to them, maybe they'll read it by accident.


2. I love my boyfriend, I really love him, we'll be together forever, or for
   as long as I keep this blog.


3. I love my girlfriend. See #2 for a further explanation.


4. I'm abroad and it's really really fun. Want to know what they do for
   excitement in Nimkatusk on a Tuesday night after the bars close?


5. Being a student is so tough - it's like the hardest thing anyone can
   imagine, it's much harder than work, but no one can really imagine it,
   because I'm the only student in the world that has ever been, or at least the
   only one who really understands what it means to be a "student".


6. I am an artist - see, art! beautiful, beautiful art! Someday you'll
   see it on your wall, if I ever feel like parting with it, it's just that
   good! No one has ever painted a cat the way I can paint cats.


7. Any combination of 1 and 2 through 6.


8. My dog/cat/ferret needs a voice. Isn't that freaking cute?


9. Amo a mi novio. (substitute Finnish, Portuguese, whatever).


10. Amo a mi amigo de muchacha.


11. I'm drunk again - so f-ing, unbelievably drunk. Wanna see
    pictures?


12. This is my first blog entry. Blogging is really kewl. You're
    reading this so you must be kewl too. I might be drunk.


13. I am a geek. Regular people shouldn't blog because they don't have
    anything important to talk about. Let me show you my Perl code I
    worked on last Saturday evening.


14. Would you like to see my thousands of pictures of
    everything...absolutely everything?


15. There are a lot of quotes that really mean a lot to me, here are a
    few...


16. I don't have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or any friends, but love....blah
    blah blah blah...love....blah blah blah blah...love....lonely so unbearably
    lonely....blah blah blah blah...love....blah blah blah blah....

And finally, I reserve a special place of hatred for one solitary blog, MyPurpleTulips.blogspot.com,
which, if you follow the link and are extremely lucky, will lock up your browser
for a while as it plays "Close to You" in a background
.wav.

Orcinus and The Rise of Pseudo Fascism

Orcinus has published part 4 of his series, The Rise of Pseudo Fascism - it's a great read.

Part 1: The Morphing of the Conservative Movement
Part 2: The Architecture of Fascism
Part 3: The Pseudo-Fascist Campaign
Part 4: The Apocalyptic One-Party State

And while I'm suggesting things to read, the Revealer staff has published a very interesting article by David Domke, University of Washington, and Kevin Coe, called President or Prophet. It offers an examination of the subtle differences between how George W. uses religion and how his predecessors used religion. Even if you don't believe the reasoning, it gets you thinking. And, if nothing else, it's a great place to see one of Mean Mr. Mustard's two favorite paintings used in a literary context.

A suggestion for anyone looking for something to do in Minneapolis in November

Pooteewheet and I actually had her parents sit last year while we went to the Get Real Documentary Film Festival with my sister. We hit three separate films all in one evening and they were all great - Hitler's Hat, about the army unit that found Hitler's top hat during World War II; a sort of two-part movie about the guys who created a Get Smart-like Saturday morning kids show called Lancelot Link based entirely around chimp spys (live action) and another part about a collector who collects Jewish sports figure memorabilia; and a third about prostitutes in Camboia/Thailand. This year's collection (November 4-10 at the Oak Street Cinema) looks no less interesting:

Not coming to a multiplex near you: bowlers, bloggers, brothel-born photographers, glam-rockers, head-shrinkers, winemakers, animators, Symbionese liberators, drama-queen documenters, Palestinian border-crossers, Midwestern warmongers, L.A. movie-lovers, indie-rock hipsters, and a self-described "curmudgeon" who's pissed about pretty much everything.
The festival contains 19 Minnesota premieres, including Army of One, I Like Killing Flies, Los Angeles Plays Itself, No. 17, and The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

Buying Republicanism by the Barrel?

Let's see:

Australia is worried about record oil prices.
India is worried about oil prices.
China is worried about oil prices.
England is worried about oil prices.
U.S. oil prices reach new records.

and yet, the price of a gallon of gas near my house in Minnesota is consistently under $2.00, even though it was over $2.00 in the summer when barrel prices were lower. It's almost as though they're unwilling to break that magical value, as though it might be bad news for someone, maybe someone with an election in several weeks. Hell, it might even invalidate the freaking Republican sign the local gas distributors have on their business overlooking Cedar/77 near my house. It's so nice when the global/national energy conspiracy pays a visit to your doorstep.

Dancing for Kerry

I'm not going to give credit to the guy that put me on to this picture until he finds me and tells me it came from him, but I thought this was pretty funny, only partially because Kashalpynya is the same age as me.

(Associated Press)

Kashalpynya, 35, of the Korubo Indian tribe of the Javari Valley in the Amazons dances in front of a poster in favor of American presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) in downtown Brasilia on Friday, Oct. 10, 2004. He said, 'Kerry is love, is understanding, is peace. Bush is bad.'' Kashalpynya has been Brasilia for three months fighting for the legalization of his tribe's lands. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

SMGL - I Geek Out

SMGL - Sméagol's Marked-Up Gollum Language

Rules:

1. The root element is always <SMÉAGOL> because it's always abouts us.


2. All elements should contain namespaces referring to global standards even though the markup is not global in nature, for instance: <HOBBIT xmlns:foo="http://www.middleearth.org/" xmlns="http://www.thestrugglefortheonering.org/">.


3. Sméagol's default namespace always has two versions: <?Sméagol version="2.0"?>.


4. <HOBBIT> elements must always have a default attribute labeling them either "DIRTY" or "TRICKSY".


5. If a <HOBBIT> element is in the markup, the DTD requires a <POCKETS> tag as well.


6. If there is a PRECIOUS text node in any <POCKET><CONTENT/> element, you must include a processing instruction that results in the elimination the <HOBBIT> node. Be careful, programming this is difficult and XML spiders are not entirely reliable.


7. <DÉAGOL> elements may not contain a PRECIOUS text node.


8. Entity expansion is strictly limited to <SAURON> nodes.


9. Always close the markup with an (end/close) </PRECIOUS> tag. You don't need to finish well-forming your markup, just abruptly close.


10. SMGL works best with particularly sensitive parsers - one that analyses and parses elements as carefully and anally as possible, almost obsessively, reparsing several extra times just to ensure content validity and DTD accuracy, is best.

I can't believe

that the BBC makes it through this whole article without using the phrase "reap what you sow".

 

(courtesy of The Revealer)

Political Compass

Povert has a fun link to a site that tries to put you on a political x/y graph.  My numbers came in pretty close to his - it's probably that question about whether everyone can be rehabilitated that moved me to the right - while I don't believe in capital punishment, I also don't believe that everyone can be rehabilitated.  I note that those results put me down there with Nader, Ghandi, Mandela and the Dalai Lama, so I assume there's a need for a z-axis that shows a relative "crazy" rating in order to distinguish Nader from the rest of the bunch.

 

Direct link to the test

Decrapitation

I realized yesterday that I've been surprisingly busy for the last week.  In addition to the Blood Drive database/website fixes I volunteered to do for our facilities group, I've been in class three mornings (in Search of Excellent Requirements - surprisingly, not so excellent), at a company CLE event one morning (GLBT and the Law, great presentation), sick one afternoon, tied up one evening and some of one morning helping my friend fix his Visual Basic application he uses to raise money for scholarships (which involved his computer at my house attached to my screen/strip/mouse/keyboard, his corrupt copy of VB, a butter knife to try to make his floppy drive work, what might have been a failing CD drive and enough beer to make it all bearable), spent some time fixing the donations database/application, spent some time looking at other applications I worked on as a consultant (over three years ago now) for DSG/Help that are moving from Windows 2000 boxes to Windows 2003 boxes, talking to the new offshore/onshore team that's here for training, pretending that my coworker who's in Japan's work can be ignored although even ignoring it takes enough time to verify it can be ignored, doing some picture uploading/positioning for Brad (negligible, but still busy work) and trying to be a good dad and husband by spending at least a little time with my family (Eryn learned that having Daddy throw her three or four feet so that she lands face first on a bean bag is lots of fun - I'd do the same for Jen, but she just wanted to watch "Supersize Me" instead).  You can tack the Veep debate onto that whole pile, but truth is I'm only 40 minutes into the tape - I needed a nap.

 

So why "decrapitation"?  Because I could have possibly put an end to all this business yesterday if my reflexes had been a bit slower.  I was on the long road home for work when I noticed a silvery round object bounding down the road toward me, sort of like a drunk mini-ufo.  It took me a fraction of a second to realize it was a rapidly moving hubcap. I started to swerve to avoid it (abrupt stopping seemed a good way to meet the car behind me and he didn't look like anyone I cared to know), and then came to the rapid conclusion that my current course of action would put the hubcap at about head level at right about where my open driver-side car window resided which, coincidentally was also where my head resided.  I snapped back left deciding a broken windshield (just got rid of glass insurance, damn) or chunk out of the car would be the better course of action.  So I took the hubcap on the car frame right where the driver window and front window come together - sounded like it was ripping a fist-sized piece of my Saturn loose (you may wonder why I didn't duck, pondering whether I feel that I'd like to see death coming, meet him head on instead of hiding, but really it just didn't occur to me), but closer inspection at home didn't even reveal a scratch.  Hopefully that covers all my near-death experiences for the next few years.

Chili Fest 2004, Brad's Vantage

Brad has asked that I upload his photos for chilifest attendee enjoyment - I grabbed a healthy cross section of them. They're in low-res, so if you need a nice version, you'll need to pester Brad or myself for a copy. They're clickable to slightly larger versions.

Mean Mr. Mustard, a bunch of McVays and The Amazing Statue Boy


Mr. Party himself with a box full of silk panties


Brad sarcastically claps at his guests


Moanica


A child


Another child


A disturbed gargoyle-type child


The winner is announced


Erik and Holly


Fixing the Lamp


Cleaning up after spilled chili - Brad's dad is all about making Brad's party a success. Maybe he felt sympathy for Brad because of his Mom's silk underwear gag.


Last year's winner


A second picture, because she got to wear the trophy for only 1/730th of the time as this year's winner


Nidhi's cold


Thumbs up Kevin, oh yeah dude


Poser


Last Year's Winner yet again - Brad drinks a Summit


Mary


Kevin stokes the fire


Kevin and Squirrel - this is why people think he sometimes looks like Timothy McVeigh


Pull my thumb, Erik! Pull it! (Holly whispers to him, don't do it Erik, he's got Summit farts)


Sleeping standing up


Nidhi stealing candy from children


The pictures aren't so pretty after this one, so enjoy this moment of bliss while it lasts


Scooter's Self Portrait


But he's not the only one who might have been drinking too much

Whinging by Proxy, Add it to the DSM IV

"I don't know too many men in politics -- who would have been able to stand up to the way in which they've made fun of him, the way in which they've demeaned him, the way which they've attacked him,' Guiliani said of Bush. " ... the way in which they've ridiculed him and be able to stick with what he knows was right for America."

Guiliani Wins Lands' Ends Votes For Bush: Undecided Voter Calls Speach [sic] 'Incredible'
see also: Lands' End Employees Say Tricked Into Seeing Giuliani

The Revealer

is quickly becoming my favorite source of information because of wonderful stories like this (direct link). I hate to break it to these two doofuses, but a guy who looks very much like Jesus works three cubes away from me, and last election he voted for Nader.

He didn't forget Poland, he's just psychic

I'm sure this will be on every left-leaning blog out there, but you'd have thought that the Bush Administration would have been literally paying them to keep quiet until after the elections.

 

Poland to pull troops from Iraq by end of 2005: defense minister

"The Bush administration is of course going to be disappointed," political analyst Krzystof Bobinski told AFP.

Tall Brad's Chili Championships, Year 2

There have been plenty of pictures and recipies from this event already published, so I shall now add mine to the mix. If anyone from the party needs nicer copies, or copies of all the photos (this is just a selection), let me know, I'll find you a nice zipped up file, or more like five or six. Poo-tee-wheet won second place this year, same place as last year! At least her chili solidly places, and it hasn't been the same both years. Personally, I preferred the North Dakotan chili, which was sans beans. I'm sort of anti-bean and anti-tomato, so if you can fulfill those criteria and still have it taste like chili, you're likely to get my vote.

These were the oldest people at the party. I'm surprised people this old even eat chili, it has to be horrible for them. But, come to think of it, my dad isn't allowed to eat chili anymore, and Monica didn't bring chili, but rather some sort of dip labeled "Horizontal Monica's Flat Chili" or maybe "Flat Monica's Horizontal Chili" or maybe even "Flat Horizontal Monica's Chili", whichever, it wasn't very chili-ish, but I hear it got at least one fourth place vote.


Here we see Christy lecturing Erik and the rest of us on how to appreciate the close, intimate bond that only two women can share when they make a chili together, a bond so tender that it requires making extra batches of chili just so they can revel in the moment. Mary questioned Brad about their reveling, much to Brad's enjoyment.


Brad leers at everyone, but here we can be sure his plan to introduce a "beads for breasts" New Orleans flavor into the ChiliFest is being met with total disdain.


Erik and Holly, laughing because they know they're going home to a house with no heat and will be lucky to live through the night if the temperature drops below 40 degrees.


Erik, thinking about Lisa and Christy making chili together. Thinking about it a lot.


Is it just me, or does it look like Poo-tee-wheet is getting ready to let loose an explicative at Mary?


I always seem to get a picture of Christy's backside at every event - I guess this one is no exception. Here she talks to Squirrel, who seems to have lost her children, and Lisa while Erik and Holly exchange sweet nothings.


Brad should have made it a "Figure out how to fix Tall Brad's Propane Lamp" contest - there was more time put into that activity than most people put into their chili.


Mean Mr. Mustard and Klund, probably laughing about some sort of PERL joke or about where they hid Squirrel's children.


What's Mr. Mustard been up to?


Ah...I see, he's been eating chili in Brad's bathroom. Yuck, Mr. Mustard.