Why isn’t the truth out there?
The recall disaster culminates in an election tomorrow. I shudder to think what’s going to happen. That being said, I’ll be relieved when it’s over.
Wisconsinites only, please: vote for your favorite Wisconsin quarter design. (I voted, of course, because I’m effectively a permanent Wisconsin resident for tuition purposes, according to state law.) I personally voted for the “Scenic Wisconsin” design, though I find none of them spectacular. I would be fairly disappointed if the clichéd cow/cheese one were to win. What am I saying? They’re all pretty clichéd. [Update: cow design wins. No surprise, in retrospect.]
Off to Washington, D.C. for four days as of tonight! Nick is already out east; I’ll be meeting him sometime Wednesday.
Opus returns. Excellent.
Also, did you know that Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives? Weird shit.
Do you ever export Word files into HTML? Tired of all the proprietary Microsoft crap that junks up your code? Use the Textism Word HTML Cleaner. It seems to work quite nicely. (Kudos to Dean of Textism.)
Finally: Jason’s first earthquake. I was at work when it happened—I definitely felt it and was pretty disoriented for a few seconds. Afterwards, the adrenaline kicked in. Pretty exciting stuff, I guess. No need to worry, people back home. Tornadoes and winter are at least as hazardous to one’s health as earthquakes.
In honor of Nick, here are today’s Things that Suck.
- Crying cats outside the bedroom window
- A cat clawing the screen door and shaking it, loudly, repeatedly
- Ants
- Basements that smell like cat shit that require you to re-do your laundry
- Windows NT used as a web hosting platform
- Scabs (in any sense)
This recommendation from Amazon left me confused. How do those things I’ve purchased have anything to do with condoms? Do David Foster Wallace readers get laid more often than non-DFW readers? Or, more likely, are they more likely to buy condoms online? Or is there a semantic connection—are my purchases of “The Big One” and “A Supposedly Fun Thing…” somehow sexually suggestive to Amazon’s poor, overtaxed recommendations engine?
I have nothing really profound to say right now, which is okay, I guess. I wonder if that has anything to do with my recent decision to cut out caffeinated, sugary soda.
In completely unrelated news, I played a great deal of baseball on Saturday with co-workers and other friends, which was deeply fun. I was only sore for about 36 to 48 hours afterwards, which isn’t so bad, considering we played for roughly 5-6 hours (with a picnic break in between). I probably should have worn sunscreen. My family will be so impressed by my tan at Thanksgiving.
I’ve taken quite a few photos I’d like to post here but just haven’t taken the time to do so.
Even if you didn’t know you were, this is what you’ve been waiting for: The results of the Harvard Dialect Survey are in.
Car boot sale? Twiddle bug? Kitty wampus? Uh… uh… cabbage night? For God’s sake: Whipping shitties?!?
Crap, I hate staying up till after sunrise. Especially pointlessly.
“The check is in the mail”? Doesn’t anyone in the benighted Bush Administration know that’s the most notorious lie ever? [Even if his claim that checks are “almost in the mail” is true, it’s still a highly ironic turn of phrase.]
Speaking of lies, the ubiquitous phrase “weapons of mass destruction” now no longer features—at all—in Bush’s speeches, as of this week. And he has the nerve to call people who challenge his lies “revisionist.”
I’m very tired. Today would be my first true weekend day in 3 weeks. However, I have a lot of work to do.
From an email I just got from MoveOn.org:
In an amazing departure from reality, President Bush explained in a press conference on the 14th that “we gave [Saddam Hussein] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power… ” Inspectors were, of course, on the ground in Iraq for over three months, until they were pulled out because the U.S. was going to war. (White House, July 14)
If you’re not already a MoveOn.org member, join. Contribute. Write letters.
I did make it up the hill last night without getting off my bike to walk, by the way…. 13th to Harrison to Grand to Lakeshore to Brooklyn to Wesley to Prospect (the big hill, then a merciful downslope) to Athol.
I spent 8 hours yesterday cleaning the old place. Fuck that. There’s more to do—see previous sentence.
I’m finding good bike routes to my new house fairly quickly. The area just east of Lake Merritt is quite hilly (for a midwesterner like me, anyway). I’d like a route up the hill that doesn’t require me to get off the bike before I reach the top (or go half a mile out of my way for a gentler slope). Street maps are useless for this purpose; trial and error is the only way. Anyway, I’ll get used to biking up the hill soon.
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