Date:	2006 Jan 31 14:10
Subject:	Aren't bushbabies in roughly the same family as groundhogs?
Mood:	amused

Got this via email from my wife, and it was just too good not to repost:

This year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address fall 
on
the same day.  

As Air America Radio points out, "It is an ironic juxtaposition: one
involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little
intelligence for prognostication, and the other involves a groundhog."

Date:	2006 Jan 31 13:44
Subject:	And that's a wrap.
Mood:	bouncy

Done. Finito. I am now officially among the ranks of the unemployed. And none too sad about it. Been looking to get the living hell out of the tech support business for...oh, about five minutes after I started doing it--ten years ago. Granted, it would have been more convenient if they had laid me off in another five months or so, to dovetail nicely into graduate school, but hey...them's the breaks, and this gives me the freedom to take summer classes if I need to to fill pre-req's.

BTW, how odd is it that my last day on the job coincides with Alan Greenspan's, hmm? Maybe I should call Al up, see if he wants to go into business together or something...


EDIT: Just read up on the Blackworm virus. Which is spreading and scheduled to fire its payload on Friday. But of course, it only affects PCs with full admin rights and which don't have their anti-virus software updated. Which only describes about 3/4 of the PCs I dealt with on a regular basis. Bwahahahahaha, they're so f'ing SCREWED. I'm going to enjoy reading the news to see which major corporations get reamed by this one. And given the 3-to-4 day advance notice, any major corporation that gets it ought to fire their entire IT security staff.

One week and counting until I'm done with this job, and hopefully done with tech support altogether FOREVER. And the first call I had this morning was one of those that made me think the unemployment line doesn't look so bad...

Date:	2006 Jan 17 14:28
Subject:	Full circle
Mood:	cynical

So today I see an article about how the US is supporting the Sunnis behind the scenes in Iraqi politics, and trying to weaken the Shi'ite "grip on power".

Lovely. So now we're trying to weaken the majority-elected government and artificially prop up a minority which oppressed the majority we went in to "liberate".

Granted, I recognize that it's really the only course of action we have, because leaving a theocratic-leaning, Iran-friendly Shi'ite government in full control is highly problematic down the road, especially if things go even more sour with Iran than they already are.

But at the same time, you can't help but laugh at the sheer hypocrisy of it all. This is what way too many people in power fail to realize about politics in places like the Balkans, or the Middle East or Afghanistan. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys". Every faction out there has its own agenda, and will happily use us to do their dirty work, then knife us in the back when it becomes convenient to do so. Makes me wonder if our policy planners have ever played any kind of multiplayer strategy games. Hell, even a hard-fought game of Monopoly should teach them that nobody does a favor for free, and that ANYONE will betray you if the prize is right.

Date:	2006 Jan 13 16:49
Subject:	3 down, 1 to go
Mood:	pleased

Got the applications for Georgetown and George Washington submitted and all documents in the mail today.

That just leaves NC State, which I've got plenty of time to do, but will probably go ahead and get finished this weekend, since it's nearly complete anyway.

Then it's just a matter of sitting and waiting with crossed fingers.

Date:	2006 Jan 12 10:40
Subject:	New Comics Find
Mood:	amused

As if I didn't have enough comic strips as part of my morning ritual, I now have to add a new one that has quickly won me over with a few well-built strips: Cow and Boy

It kind of makes me think of Calvin and Hobbes, but with a different art style (one that I find strangely appealing, incidentally).
( Read more... )

Date:	2006 Jan 10 14:54
Subject:	Take my lungs...please!
Mood:	sick

Still suffering from what I can only think of as "the damnable cough". Sinuses have mostly emptied, but there's a continuous irritation at the base of my throat which periodically elicits a...cough isn't a sufficient word. These are paroxysms of bone and muscle, pneumatically-driven convulsions which are slowly bruising my ribs and making even my jaws ache.

I had a cough like this once before, a few years back. Went on for six weeks before I went to a doctor, by which time I had actually torn the lining of my chest cavity and had to be put on massive anti-inflammitories and a high-powered codeine cough syrup. This time, I'm going to the doctor after about two weeks. Was supposed to be going for a physical, but I'm sure when I show up trying to projectile-hock a lung up on his exam table, he'll write me out a prescrip for something good.


Looking at three weeks of gainful employment left. No idea if I'll have any prospects lined up by then or not.

Oh, and I forgot to mention--the ride down was in my in-laws' new Dodge Caravan. With the built-in DVD player, flip-down LCD screen and wireless headsets. Pretty damn slick. Watched the Family Guy movie, followed by a ton of Miyazaki flicks (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, Spirited Away) on the way down. Watched the entire Firefly box set on the way back up.

Date:	2006 Jan 5 11:41
Subject:	Surviving Florida
Mood:	pessimistic

Finally back after spending almost two weeks on vacation. Went with my wife's family to Disney World. Which meant going to Florida. Which...was not so bad as expected, even if we did only hang around Kissimmee and Orlando. Stopped in Savannah, GA on both the trip down and the trip back, and ate at Paula Deen's restaurant there. Hella good eats, especially the shrimp and grits.

First full day down there, we went to Animal Kingdom, which is more or less a glorified zoo. But had some fairly neat exhibits nonetheless, such as the recreation of a Thai monastery that you wander through and then realize that there are adult tigers like two feet away from you, with only a pane of what I was praying was some space-age tiger-proof glass separating us.

Second day was Christmas, and per my father-in-law's wishes, we went to Magic Kingdom to see the parade and the fireworks show that night. Magic Kingdom is probably awesome when you're nine years old. When you're 30, it just doesn't have the same oomph. Tomorrowland was somewhat neat (good arcade with a lot of immersion-type games) and Space Mountain is always fun. But elbowing your way through rivers of people who can't speak English kind of drains all the fun out of it. Which brought me to an interesting observation during on of the fireworks shows:

Disney has long had a wholesome message of peace, multiculturism, and goodwill toward all mankind. But actually spending an hour or two in Disney World will make you want to go postal with a Roomsweeper.


Next day we went to Epcot. Not as superniftykeen as I had imagined it as a kid (I remember when they first opened it) but still fairly neat. Had lunch in the Germany portion of Epcot, and ordered a liter of beer, forgetting that a liter is somewhat larger than a pint. Good times were had.

Couple of days later we went up to the Kennedy Space Center, which was pretty cool. Went to dinner at a place called Dixie Crossroads in Titusville, FL which specializes in rock shrimp. They're about the same size as your average cocktail shrimp, but they have a very hard shell, and as such they're not as commerically in demand. This place butterflies them from the underside and cooks them in the shell, so that when you get them, you just peel the meat out of the shell, dunk it in a little drawn butter and nosh away. The flavor has a succulent sweetness to it, almost like lobster. And because most places don't want them, they're fairly cheap so you could order them by the dozen. REALLY good eats.

Started developing a cold about midway through the trip which progressively got worse. Didn't get any better when we got back on Tuesday. In fact, I stayed at home yesterday huddled in the bed, begging the dog not to jump on my chest. Dragged myself into work today just because I have no remaining time off. Whatever I've got, it's somewhere between a bad sinus cold and the Black Death. It started high up in my sinuses and has gradually worked its way down into my throat (coughing like crazy now). Praying it doesn't get into my chest, especially since I'm going to be without job and associated medical benefits in a couple of weeks. This is all just really bad timing, and I don't mean just the cold. Robin was crunching some numbers last night as far as our bills and the fact that the mortgage payment just went up, and she started to get a migraine from the stress. I know she doesn't expect me to find work, and is massively stressing thinking that she'll be the sole source of income. Which is why I have to find work, even if it's a shitty job (and really, is there any other kind?)

Also need to finish the applications for G'town and GWU before the 15th. I have this feeling that 2006 is going to be a very long, rough year. :-/

Why in the name of all that is holy are some people so goddamn blind and stupid??
This deal with Bush tossing FISA out the window just astounds me. I mean, how can anyone with even a 9th-grade background in civics defend this shit??
Let's seperate out the issue, shall we?

For the moment, let's not even deal with the issue of whether he needs this much power. The simple fact of the matter is that the President CANNOT grant himself more simply because he feels he needs it. If the law (FISA, passed by Congress in 1978) is somehow restricting the President's ability to defend America, then there are established methods by which he may have the law changed or removed. He could have his allies in Congress submit an amendment to FISA to allow him this power, within whatever limitations Congress chooses to set. He could take the issue to the Supreme Court for clarification. He could have Congress issue a clarification of their unbelievably vague and irresponsible 2001 resolution authorizing the President to use "and and all necessary force" to combat the terrorists responsible for 9/11.

What he CANNOT do is simply ignore the law because he feels it's inconvenient. To allow such a thing is to basically allow the executive branch to be the final arbiter of law, something found in dictatorships, not democracies. To knowingly flout the law and order subordinates to do so as well would seem to me to be an impeachable offense, and I certainly hope it begins to receive the deadly serious consideration that it warrants.


Moving on from that, let's look at this piece of legislation that they would have you think is a danger to truth, justice and the Ameriacn Way. FISA, contrary to some of the stories floating around, does not prevent domestic wiretaps. Nor does it require a FISA search warrant before the wiretap is begun. Much like the War Powers Act, it allows for emergency situations by authorizing the executive branch to begin a secret wiretap inside the United States on US citizens, PROVIDED that the matter is brought to the FISA court within 72 hours. That's all. That's the stumbling block that would otherwise handicap our glorious War on Terror. And to top it off, this is after the Patriot Act lowered the threshold required to get approval from a FISA court to an unprecedented low level. Basically, all the government has to do is go before FISA and say, "We think Mr. XYZ is in league with terrorists and we need to bug his phone." That's it. AND THEY COULDN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO DO THAT.

This is not a partisan issue. This is a Constitutional issue. And there are plenty of conservatives (real ones, not the goosesteppers which have their claws into the GOP) who are plenty upset at this. And rightly so. Imagine their furor if it had come out that Bill Clinton was secretly wiretapping militia groups in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Benjamin Franklin

Pretty decent weekend. All the area sports teams won, went up to G'boro to spend brief time with family, and went Saturday night to watch a local blues artist and got treated to one of the greatest live performances I have EVER seen. Cool John Ferguson gave what I can only think of as a tour de force performance. It was just about all cover tunes, but holy hell in a handbasket...he played the best cover of "Hey Joe" I've ever heard, outfunked The Commodores on "Brickhouse", and outsouled Otis Redding on a couple more tunes. Then he had a couple of instrumentals that were could only be described as "blues metal", with about 10 seconds of lyrics and about 4 different guitar solos, all of which produced grinding, thrashing, screaming licks that left my jaw hanging open. Damn good show. Will have to look him up the next time he plays around here.

Date:	2005 Dec 16 12:22
Subject:	I'm easily suggestable
Mood:	restless

Okay, since this is making the LJ rounds (penitent_tom pushed me over the brink):



FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE
1. Tech Support
2. Line cook at a Greek restaurant
3. House painter (for all of two days)
4. Umm....more tech support? (I've worked tech support for three different companies and a university)

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER
1. Army of Darkness (I mean, really...is there such a thing as TOO much Bruce Campbell?)
2. Aliens (and actually not for Sigourney Weaver in her underwear...I'm just a huge fan of the whole Aliens mythos)
3. The Blues Brothers (I hate Illinois Nazis. And I love about a zillion blues legends making cameos.)
4. The Matrix (hey, regardless of your opinion of the later movies, you have to admit the first one was a thing of unparalleled beauty and just oozed kewlness out of every pore)

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE LIVED
1. High Point/Greensboro, NC
2. Raleigh/Cary/Morrisville, NC
3. Waukegan, WI
4. Chicago, IL

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH (currently on-air)
1. Battlestar Galactica
2. The Venture Brothers
3. Family Guy
4. The Colbert Report

FAVORITE FOUR 'DEAD' TV SHOWS
1. Farscape
2. Babylon 5
3. Strange Luck
4. American Gothic

Note: I wanted to put Firefly somewhere in there, but since I've only actually seen one or two episodes of the show (despite having the box set sitting on my shelf), I'm going to have to go with shows I actually watched some.

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION
1. Montana
2. Kentucky
3. New York
4. Prague, Czech Republic

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY
1. comics.com (morning comics fix -- 9 Chickweed Lane, Get Fuzzy, Pibgorn and Sheldon)
2. livejournal.com (duh)
3. ucomics.com (2nd part of the morning comics fix -- Big Top and Tom the Dancing Bug)
4. penny-arcade.com (and yet more comics. Really the only reason to go to a site EVERY day, other than a blog)

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS
1. Tiramisu
2. Catfish with hot sauce
3. Fried shrimp
4. Mashed sweet potatoes w/ bourbon and walnuts

FOUR PLACES YOU'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW
1. At home playing games (probably World of Warcraft these days, or Mount & Blade).
2. Somewhere warm. Maybe Australia or New Zealand.
3. In school. Any school.
4. Eating out somewhere with friends. Food is always better when shared with others.

Date:	2005 Dec 14 12:26
Subject:	所有稱讚上升的龍
Mood:	frustrated

Saw where the Chinese have announced that they plan to send a manned mission to the Moon by 2017. I had previously hoped that this might provoke a good-natured space race back here in the United States of Apathy, but don't guess that's happening anytime soon what with this little thing called Iraq eating our budget alive. And despite Bush's flash-in-the-pan "Gawrsh...we'uns gonna find them little green men on Mars!" announcement.

Someone pointed out that while the Chinese have built their space program (admittedly with some heavy reverse-engineering from purchased Soviet gear) for about $1 billion US dollars, the city of Boston spent $20 billion (and years of time) to build an 8-mile tunnel. And it's still not fixed right.


This is why we're not going to be the undisputed heavyweight superpower of the world in a decade or two, folks. Waste, apathy, and a complete lack of vision. We're so concerned with keeping our short-term gains ($300 "tax rebate", anyone?) that we lack any capacity as a nation to look ten, twenty, fifty years down the road.

Date:	2005 Dec 13 11:36
Subject:
Mood:	contemplative

Second batch of recommendations is back, so I'm only waiting on one more now. And I have a first draft of my personal statement done for Georgetown and GWU. I'll need to tweak it a bit for State, and come up with a completely different one for Carolina. Still, feels good to be making progress.

Also helped address Christmas cards last night. Which once again had me mulling over what an insanely huge extended family I have. We just saw around 100 of them back at the end of July in Montana, and that's just on my maternal grandmother's side. There's probably another 80-100 on my maternal grandfather's side. Then there's my father's family which I know next to nothing of, but apparently it's sizable too. I think my father has something like 11 or 12 aunts and uncles, although most are probably dead by now. As opposed to the 25 aunts and uncles that my mother has, of which 8 are still alive.

I have cousins like a stray dog has fleas. According to my handy dandy genealogical database, I have 49 first cousins once removed, and 44 second cousins. That I know of. And that's pretty much just on my mother's side. It also got me to thinking back to the reunion and how different it felt from previous ones. I think part of it was certainly being older and more cognizant of how many layers of the family tree I was meeting, and how they all interconnect. But a big part of it was being there for the first time as head of my own house, not just as "so-and-so's son/grandson". And likewise, being treated as such. Made me feel...well, old. But also proud, and more like an actual member of the "clan" than just a tagalong.

Date:	2005 Dec 12 15:45
Subject:	Texas Roundhouse!
Mood:	amused

I've come to realize in the past couple of months that Chuck Norris has become a pop-culture icon, in much the same way that Yakov Smirnov is/was a pop-culture icon. He (and especially Walker, Texas Ranger) is, in many ways, the live-action version of the Real Ultimate Power Official Ninja website.

If I watched the Conan O'Brien Show, I guess I would have caught onto this sooner, but about the only things I watch on TV anymore are things on Adult Swim, the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and occasionally sports. Oh, and Battlestar Galactica, when they ever get around to putting out new episodes.

In any case, a friend emailed some "facts" about Chuck Norris which had me in tears. My favorite:

Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.


( More fun facts about Chuck Norris )

Date:	2005 Dec 6 10:35
Subject:
Mood:	pessimistic

Still working on the applications. I think I'm realizing why I only work on the applications in spurts. I'm easily discouraged, and going through these applications is like an exercise in ego destruction.

Publications? None.
Relevant work experience? None.
Academic awards? Well, I made Dean's List. Once. And two semesters before that, I nearly flunked out of college. So that's kind of a wash.
Language fluencies? Well, I've studied several, but I wouldn't say I'm fluent in any.
Test scores? Yeah, my GRE (verbal and math) scores rocked the house, but my writing score sucked. I'm not a bad writer by any means, but writing an extemporaneous essay on a topic which I may or may not have any interest or opinion on, with no time for research or to mull the ideas over? Well, obviously there are a number of people out there better at that than I am.

It's like with every page, I feel more and more out of my league, until by the end, my personal statement is going to be apologizing for wasting their time with my application.
 

Date:	2005 Dec 5 11:22
Subject:
Mood:	stressed

Serenity, as told by hand puppets. Via marikochan Whee!



Getting into crunch time as far as grad school application goes. I have to have everything done and mailed off before Dec 21, because we're leaving for Florida the 22nd and won't be back until after New Year's.

Well, okay...actually I only have to have Chapel Hill done by then, because the deadline for G'town and GWU are Jan 15, and State's is in April (unbelievably late deadline). Still, need to get my ass in gear. I've kind of hit a doldrum where I'm not as excited about the prospect of going back to school as I was originally. But then I spend a few hours here at work and tell myself, "Okay, either you go back to school where you're surrounded with bright people and learning interesting shit...or you spend another ten years talking to flaming idiots all day, every day until the stress gives you an early stroke or heart attack."

That should be an incentive, but it's kind of lost its lustre.
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Date:	2005 Nov 29 11:02
Subject:	Bleah
Mood:	sick

It's rainy, and I have a sore throat that will not go away. And when your job involves talking quite a bit (often to the point of arguing), a sore throat is pure hell.

On the plus side, it's warm. Rainy, but warm. Supposed to be in the low 70s today. I'll take that. I'll even take the rain, given that we need it so badly.

Thanksgiving was decent. Good food as always, and I got to spend a little time with my (half-)brother and his wife and my baby niece. Looks like he'll be getting transferred to Fort Hood after the first of the year. Still not sure if he'll be sent to the 1st Cav or 4th Infantry. Either way, his ass is most likely going to Iraq, it's just a matter of when. As if he didn't get enough of it the FIRST go-around, when he was there for the outset of the war. And it was a lot safer playing water-taxi to jarheads than it will be as an embedded mechanic with a Humvee platoon.

Maybe he'll luck out and we'll start pulling out before he ships. Don't see that happening, and not even sure if I want to see that happen. As much as I want us out (and never wanted us in to begin with), just handing the Iraqis the keys and diving out the nearest exit would be a disaster.

Also reconfirmed my belief that my mother is the biggest flaming idiot I know, and that her giving me up as a kid was undoubtedly a blessing in disguise. It's honestly amazing that half my DNA is derived from that woman. I'm sure that sounds harsh to some, but believe me...if you knew the backstory and spent five minutes around her, you'd understand.

Date:	2005 Nov 23 15:45
Subject:	While I'm remembering my childhood...
Mood:	melancholy

Speaking of feeling old...I miss the Muppet Show. And Jim Henson.

Date:	2005 Nov 23 12:00
Subject:	I'm old...and there are wolves after me
Mood:	nostalgic

One of my friends clued me into this site, wherein somebody has scanned 53 pages from a 1979 Sears Fall Catalog (colloquially known as a "Wishbook"). These things go back ages. My grandmother used to peruse one as a young girl out on the Montana steppes. She and her sisters would cut out and save the ads for dresses they liked, and then try to make them themselves out of whatever fabric they could find. As I discovered when she made me a shirt one time, the cloth from horse feedbags is actually not too bad--light and flowing, breathes well, yet keeps out the chill of a breeze. And it has a great "peasant retro" look now. Back then, it just looked like poverty.

But I digress...seeing those pages brought back a flood of memories and things that have passed. For one, the Wishbook itself. Sears stopped doing a print version back in the 90's and took it online. Which makes sense, I guess, but it's just not the same. You can't lay on the floor and spend hours scrolling through a menu.

As a kid, my heart burned for the mac daddy of all electronics, the penultimate prize for a kid who was already a sucker for sci-fi and had few friends. None other than the HeathKit HERO-1 Programmable Robot:



Yeah. That would've been sweet. Sadly, my folks didn't have anywhere near the bling required back then, so my dreams of a robot buddy/watchdog/tool for world domination would slowly die along with my childhood.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to go off in the corner over here and mutter about these danged kids with their Gorillaz music and their Pokemon and their blogs and pine for the good old days when all we had to play with was a Colecovision or a barrel of Lincoln Logs and that's the way we liked it, dagnabbit!!