According to Blogger, this is my one thousandth post. One thousand of anything is a lot. One thousand whiny, boastful, neurotic, insecure, funny, sad, vitriolic, scary messages from somewhere within my cerebral cortex.
Now, if you've read all one thousand of them, God bless you. I don't think I even read all one thousand, and given the grammar I sometimes display, that is not hard to believe. But there they are, one thousand posts, from 2003-present, all about life, liberty, and the pursuit of good fitting pants.
My wife and I are going to the Borgata tonight to see comedian Brian Regan for our anniversary, which cynics will note was a full month ago.
So, as Jim Bouton once wrote, tell your statistics to shut up.
I should be back here at some point tomorrow.
Peace Out!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Not a Fan...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dE9GWecp3s
I'm not a fan of new music, typically. For me, mostly, if it isn't from a group that was popular when I was sixteen, I don't want to hear about it.
(That's 1987, in case you're keeping track.)
This, however, was a pretty cool discovery. Youngster Avril Lavigne kicks out the jams on Metallica's "Fuel", from a tribute show I somehow missed.
I'm not a fan of new music, typically. For me, mostly, if it isn't from a group that was popular when I was sixteen, I don't want to hear about it.
(That's 1987, in case you're keeping track.)
This, however, was a pretty cool discovery. Youngster Avril Lavigne kicks out the jams on Metallica's "Fuel", from a tribute show I somehow missed.
Master of Puppets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEL6_SuQCu8
My boys, San Francisco's own Metallica, bringing the noise, Old School style, from the 1989 tour that still reigns as the most intense experience I have ever had.
My boys, San Francisco's own Metallica, bringing the noise, Old School style, from the 1989 tour that still reigns as the most intense experience I have ever had.
Friday, November 14, 2008
It's Over
http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/nov2008/ca2008117_654471_page_3.htm
Bloody brilliant article in Business Week, an opinion piece about the failings in American business. Professor Shoshana Zuboff argues that Obama's victory heralds a change-that, like the character from "Network", we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more. Profit is no longer our sole master, and productivity is not its own goal.
I hope she's right.
Bloody brilliant article in Business Week, an opinion piece about the failings in American business. Professor Shoshana Zuboff argues that Obama's victory heralds a change-that, like the character from "Network", we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more. Profit is no longer our sole master, and productivity is not its own goal.
I hope she's right.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
111 Reasons Why DRM Blows
(First 110 Reasons Edited For Space)
111. Because, ITunes, you refuse to acknowledge that music that I PAID for exists on my new computer.
Damn DRM.
111. Because, ITunes, you refuse to acknowledge that music that I PAID for exists on my new computer.
Damn DRM.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Veterans' Day
In a sense, every day is veterans' day, like when you used to ask your parents why there was a Father's Day and a Mother's Day but not a Children's Day.
So, from the farmers who stood on Lexington Green and said, "No. We've had enough", to the soldiers in the Middle East who are trying to let tiny little flowers of hope bloom in the hard, dry soil of misery-I say thank you.
Thank you for, if nothing else, ensuring the fact that assholes like me get to blather on about nothing, or to accuse the President of heinous crimes, or to say basically whatever the hell pops into my head without fear of retribution. Thank you for being an example of decency. Thank you for, as Demi Moore's character says in "A Few Good Men", saying that nothing is going to happen tonight, not on your watch.
Thanks.
So, from the farmers who stood on Lexington Green and said, "No. We've had enough", to the soldiers in the Middle East who are trying to let tiny little flowers of hope bloom in the hard, dry soil of misery-I say thank you.
Thank you for, if nothing else, ensuring the fact that assholes like me get to blather on about nothing, or to accuse the President of heinous crimes, or to say basically whatever the hell pops into my head without fear of retribution. Thank you for being an example of decency. Thank you for, as Demi Moore's character says in "A Few Good Men", saying that nothing is going to happen tonight, not on your watch.
Thanks.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Keith Olbermann rocked tonight!
Keith Olbermann's Special Comment, from today's "Countdown". Please just read the whole thing and then please, if you disagree, tell me why.
A Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.
Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.
And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics.
This is about the... human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not... understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want -- a chance to be a little less alone in the world.
Only now you are saying to them -- no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights -- even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?
I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage.
If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal... in 1967. 1967.
The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry...black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.
You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are... gay.
And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing -- centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children... All because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?
What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.
It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.
And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?
With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness -- this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness -- share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
---
You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of...love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know...It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow **person...
Just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.
This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.
But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:
"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge.
"It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all:
"So I be written in the Book of Love;
"I do not care about that Book above.
"Erase my name, or write it as you will,
"So I be written in the Book of Love."
A Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.
Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.
And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics.
This is about the... human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not... understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want -- a chance to be a little less alone in the world.
Only now you are saying to them -- no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights -- even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?
I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage.
If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal... in 1967. 1967.
The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry...black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.
You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are... gay.
And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing -- centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children... All because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?
What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.
It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.
And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?
With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness -- this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness -- share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
---
You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of...love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know...It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow **person...
Just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.
This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.
But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:
"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge.
"It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all:
"So I be written in the Book of Love;
"I do not care about that Book above.
"Erase my name, or write it as you will,
"So I be written in the Book of Love."
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Andrew Sullivan says it best...
"What I wrote last Monday was not meant casually. Knowing that the Bush-Cheney-Addington axis will be forced out of power is an immense, slackening relief. I've felt compelled by politics these past few years in ways I don't like or enjoy. With men and women finally back in power I can trust to act reasonably and ethically and within the rule of law, I feel less hesitation in getting on with life."
Palin in 2012!
I haven't been blogging much at all since the election and the end of baseball season. I've had plenty of thoughts in my head, just not time or wherewithal to put them down here.
I really have got to get another job. I feel like my talent is being wasted where I am. Of course, now is probably the worst time in the last 80 years to be trying to find a job, even in my profession, which is in high demand. I think my problem is I really don't like my profession.
Yeah, that would have something to do with it.
So while I was sitting around cursing my fate (which other people call being alive), I was thinking about the following:
-I don't agree that Sarah Palin's political future is over. Kenneth O'Donnell tried to point out that all previous vice presidential losers have essentially sunk back into the woodwork, which is true. However, I don't think there has ever been a vice presidential loser this young, incredibly compelling, and popular. I have a feeling Caribou Barbie will be back.
-Scott Boras is smoking crack. " "When you think about the parameters of who should be the highest-paid player in the game, Manny Ramirez fulfills them all," Boras said " ( from http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/thebuzz/)
Uh, yeah. Except for "catching the ball", "showing up on time", "running",...stuff like that.
Boras also wants Jason Varitek to get a four year contract from the Red Sox. I love Jason Varitek. Every Red Sox fan loves Jason Varitek.
Jason Varitek hit .220 last year.
Jason Varitek does not deserve a four year contract, not even if he is the second coming of Johnny Bench.
I really have got to get another job. I feel like my talent is being wasted where I am. Of course, now is probably the worst time in the last 80 years to be trying to find a job, even in my profession, which is in high demand. I think my problem is I really don't like my profession.
Yeah, that would have something to do with it.
So while I was sitting around cursing my fate (which other people call being alive), I was thinking about the following:
-I don't agree that Sarah Palin's political future is over. Kenneth O'Donnell tried to point out that all previous vice presidential losers have essentially sunk back into the woodwork, which is true. However, I don't think there has ever been a vice presidential loser this young, incredibly compelling, and popular. I have a feeling Caribou Barbie will be back.
-Scott Boras is smoking crack. " "When you think about the parameters of who should be the highest-paid player in the game, Manny Ramirez fulfills them all," Boras said " ( from http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/thebuzz/)
Uh, yeah. Except for "catching the ball", "showing up on time", "running",...stuff like that.
Boras also wants Jason Varitek to get a four year contract from the Red Sox. I love Jason Varitek. Every Red Sox fan loves Jason Varitek.
Jason Varitek hit .220 last year.
Jason Varitek does not deserve a four year contract, not even if he is the second coming of Johnny Bench.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
The Last Word/Why Is It So Bloody Hard To Understand?
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/11/08/transition-team-wont-discriminate/
Apparently, the Obama/Biden transition team has announced or stated that they will not discriminate when selecting candidates for employment.
Specifically, Christopher Anders of the ACLU says, "As the new Administration gears up, it should be focused on hiring the best people for the job. By including sexual orientation and gender identity in its non-discrimination policy, the Obama-Biden transition team makes clear that it will focus on the relevant qualities that actually predict an applicant’s success on the job – professional experience, character, skills and education."
Now, I've been reading and listening to all my commie pinko leftist podcast and bloggy comrades, all either falling over themselves in praise and hosannas, or warning that the Bushes can still wreak horrible vengeance upon what remains of the Constitution, or even climbing the barricades to scream that Obama isn't left wing ENOUGH for their tastes, and sometimes I still have to remind myself that it really happened. That 200 years on, old Tom's bit about being entitled by our Creator to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has been, far, far too late and not yet completely,but still, redeemed.
After hearing it, and hearing it, and hearing it, all day long, while I was supposed to be, y' know, working, this quote reminded me. It's over. Our long national nightmare, as my parents' generation used to say, is over.
We're actually going to start giving jobs to the people who deserve them. Imagine that. Not the person we went to school with, not the person who went to Liberty University, not the person who has no experience but was a good fundraiser. The person who can actually do the job, no matter what their personal life is. The person that will come in at 9 and leave at 5 and give the taxpayer value for their dollar. THE BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB, THE RELEVANT QUALITIES! Imagine, picking people on merit again!
No more "we won't do that because the last president did it and everything they did is yucky-ucky-poo-poo." No more "well, we locked them up because they're bad. And they're bad because we say they're bad. No, we can't let you see the evidence why they're bad, but trust us, they're bad." No more, "I'm going to sign this law, but I'm not really going to do what it says." No more, "Press conference? What business is it of yours what your government is doing?" No more of Chimpy McFlightsuit and his rotten, evil little smirk. No more of , in Ann Richards' glorious phrase about Bush Senior, being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple.
Now bear in mind, I'm exaggerating. I know full well that there will surely be legacy hires, and screwups, and goofballs, and money being wasted foolishly. I wasn't born yesterday. Lincoln had war profiteers too.
But I just get the feeling Obama won't be PROUD of it, the way the current president seems to be. Returning shame to government-what a gift!
BART: "What's the opposite of shame?"
HOMER: "Pride?"
BART: "No, not that far from shame."
Apparently, the Obama/Biden transition team has announced or stated that they will not discriminate when selecting candidates for employment.
Specifically, Christopher Anders of the ACLU says, "As the new Administration gears up, it should be focused on hiring the best people for the job. By including sexual orientation and gender identity in its non-discrimination policy, the Obama-Biden transition team makes clear that it will focus on the relevant qualities that actually predict an applicant’s success on the job – professional experience, character, skills and education."
Now, I've been reading and listening to all my commie pinko leftist podcast and bloggy comrades, all either falling over themselves in praise and hosannas, or warning that the Bushes can still wreak horrible vengeance upon what remains of the Constitution, or even climbing the barricades to scream that Obama isn't left wing ENOUGH for their tastes, and sometimes I still have to remind myself that it really happened. That 200 years on, old Tom's bit about being entitled by our Creator to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has been, far, far too late and not yet completely,but still, redeemed.
After hearing it, and hearing it, and hearing it, all day long, while I was supposed to be, y' know, working, this quote reminded me. It's over. Our long national nightmare, as my parents' generation used to say, is over.
We're actually going to start giving jobs to the people who deserve them. Imagine that. Not the person we went to school with, not the person who went to Liberty University, not the person who has no experience but was a good fundraiser. The person who can actually do the job, no matter what their personal life is. The person that will come in at 9 and leave at 5 and give the taxpayer value for their dollar. THE BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB, THE RELEVANT QUALITIES! Imagine, picking people on merit again!
No more "we won't do that because the last president did it and everything they did is yucky-ucky-poo-poo." No more "well, we locked them up because they're bad. And they're bad because we say they're bad. No, we can't let you see the evidence why they're bad, but trust us, they're bad." No more, "I'm going to sign this law, but I'm not really going to do what it says." No more, "Press conference? What business is it of yours what your government is doing?" No more of Chimpy McFlightsuit and his rotten, evil little smirk. No more of , in Ann Richards' glorious phrase about Bush Senior, being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple.
Now bear in mind, I'm exaggerating. I know full well that there will surely be legacy hires, and screwups, and goofballs, and money being wasted foolishly. I wasn't born yesterday. Lincoln had war profiteers too.
But I just get the feeling Obama won't be PROUD of it, the way the current president seems to be. Returning shame to government-what a gift!
BART: "What's the opposite of shame?"
HOMER: "Pride?"
BART: "No, not that far from shame."
Blog Me A Secret!
http://newsomi.blogspot.com/2008/11/blogsecret.html
So here's the thing...everyone is going to submit secrets to this one blog. The secrets will be stripped of personal information and redistributed, where each participant will post a secret, not their own, on their blog.
How illicit!
So here's the thing...everyone is going to submit secrets to this one blog. The secrets will be stripped of personal information and redistributed, where each participant will post a secret, not their own, on their blog.
How illicit!
Ralph Predicts The Future!
"It seemed too rash, on a purely local reputation, to build so grave a trust in such anxious times."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, on the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for President.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, on the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for President.
Lightning Crashes
For the first time in a long bloody while, I have not posted, I believe, in two days.
I see the Internet got along ok without me.
My desktop PC has gone from being unreliable to downright annoying to DOA.
So as a new one makes its way to me from the fine folks at Dell, I am stuck on the laptop downloading podcasts now. Not exactly Stuck in Mobile with the Memphis Blues again, but what can I do?
I see the Internet got along ok without me.
My desktop PC has gone from being unreliable to downright annoying to DOA.
So as a new one makes its way to me from the fine folks at Dell, I am stuck on the laptop downloading podcasts now. Not exactly Stuck in Mobile with the Memphis Blues again, but what can I do?
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
This I don't get
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gaymarriage5-2008nov05,0,1545381.story
" "I think the voters were thinking, well, if it makes them happy, why shouldn't we let gay couples get married. And I think we made them realize that there are broader implications to society and particularly the children when you make that fundamental change that's at the core of how society is organized, which is marriage," he said."
In a word, uh, no.
What implications? Where? When? The same implications when we banned polygamy? Allowed interracial marriage? I was born in Massachusetts, and travel there several times a year. At no point has the presence of gay married couples affected me in any way. Ever.
I'm sorry, but I take this personally. There used to be laws that said I couldn't marry the person that I married. It offends me that we treat any group of Americans as second class citizens.
I only barely understand my own marriage, so I am hard pressed to pass judgement on anyone else's.
Why don't they just call it what it is: "Proposition We Hate Gay People"?
" "I think the voters were thinking, well, if it makes them happy, why shouldn't we let gay couples get married. And I think we made them realize that there are broader implications to society and particularly the children when you make that fundamental change that's at the core of how society is organized, which is marriage," he said."
In a word, uh, no.
What implications? Where? When? The same implications when we banned polygamy? Allowed interracial marriage? I was born in Massachusetts, and travel there several times a year. At no point has the presence of gay married couples affected me in any way. Ever.
I'm sorry, but I take this personally. There used to be laws that said I couldn't marry the person that I married. It offends me that we treat any group of Americans as second class citizens.
I only barely understand my own marriage, so I am hard pressed to pass judgement on anyone else's.
Why don't they just call it what it is: "Proposition We Hate Gay People"?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)