I didn't know this until today, but you can get a whole carton of eegees shippped directly to your door. If anyone wants to give me an early Christmas gift...

werkz advice: go rent it. now.

Better Luck Tomorrow is a great tale of overachievers gone awry. Shot through the eyes of several Asian-American kids in California the movie shows their descent from good grades to petty theft to outright homicide. Along the way are plenty of laughs and a great deal of moments where you just want to slap the main character silly. Of course, the subject matter is somewhat serious, but the frequent moments of hilarity permeate every aspect of the movie, making it a 'Breakfast Club' for the 21st century. stop reading this and rent it now.

'werkz advice: go rent it!

Whale Rider is a simple story of a young Maori girl who survives childbirth even as her twin brother and mother pass away. She is named after the mythical leader who rode a whale to bring her people to their current land, namely, Paikea. The somewhat worn "she's a girl so she can't lead the tribe" dynamic is what the movie revolves around, but excellent characters from the crusty grandfather who simultaneously loves and hates her to the washed up dope-smoking uncle who just happens to be great at Maori combat all make the movie well worth watching.

Okay, based on the Zogby poll yesterday and the brand spankin' new poll from ARG today it appears that Dean is cruising to victory in New Hampshire. I blew an hour and a half yesterday writing some letters at the latest Dean Meetup which now appears a cakewalk.

Let me also just say that I'm quite annoyed that the number of passionate people involved with the Dean campaign has levelled off, mainly because most of the early adopters have migrated up in the hierarchy. So at last night's meetup we were "treated" to listening to a boring conference call between someone in New Hampshire and here. Plus, I had to listen to several minutes of blather about how we should go to Iowa and New Hampshire.

Don't get me wrong: I'm still going to go to Iowa, which is a much tighter contest than NH. But the whole reason DC is getting disrespected is because of the petulance of the Iowa and NH voters who seem to think they deserve special significance. There are plenty of DC Dems who are angry, but many in the Dean campaign don't understand that DC is more important than padding a already sure victory in NH.

If you're too lazy to read the polls mentioned above, the simple fact is this: Dean is around 43-45% and the nearest competitor, Kerry, is around 12-13%. That's huge. He's walking away with it.

I'd like to say that it's all a result of Dean standing up to Bush but regardless now it even appears that Terry has some cajones. Go DNC!

I've been super-busy lately with fifty million different things flying around me but I finally finished up work on federalist an hour ago so I now have time to write some thoughts down.

Last night, before I run into the rats, I roll over to Woodley Park to catch 24. I leave with plenty of time to spare, but the link fails me badly, and I end up waiting 20 minutes to catch a bus. When I finally see it (on the other side of the road) the next bus is only 2 minutes behind it, meaning that it was running at least 15 minutes behind the normal schedule and that the next bus almost passed it.

By the time I roll into the Mariott to check out the show, there are only seconds before it begins. Fincher and I see a large sign announcing a conference and the low-level hum turns into a throaty roar as we stride into an atrium filled with chair after chair of defense contractors. They're already watching something on the big screen tv. That's right: Bill O'Reilly on Fox News.

Fincher and I walk around for a second before my mind is set and then we sit down at a table a few feet away from the tv. I casually ask the server if I can change the channel and she says sure, but that there's no remote. So I sneak up to the tv, in front of all of the old white guys, and switch it from Fox News to Fox. No grumbles of dissent. Then I turn up the volume.

Seconds later, a couple of guys who were even closer leave their table, allowing us to upgrade, just as the opening credits for 24 begin to roll. Perfection. Surrounded by slightly low-class contractors (I'm not going to repeat some of the stories Fincher overheard) I managed to have a terrific time.

I passed about seven rats (medium-sized) on my walk home by Adams-Morgan this evening. Kind of a statement about DC. On the plus side, I learned that the district has moved into the "most progressive city in the world" status by announcing that it will distribute free condoms in public buildings all across the city. DC rocks.

I've got some reviews to put up, more work to be done on federalist, finishing up the nicknames page, tons of work at the office to knock out and people banging on my door for idiotic computer help.

So, last night, in order to catch up, I went home, blew an hour watching Hardball (Howard Dean was on this week) and rolled to a Clark "Let's All Bash Howard Dean" Meetup afterwards. The Meetup (I showed up late) evidently consisted mostly of fundraising efforts. I wonder why some Dems don't get it: raising money in and of itself is not a sign of strength. Sure, Dean is good at raising money...but the fact that's he great at building an organization is a far better sign. Money may buy ads, but word-of-mouth is priceless. After the Clark Meetup, I headed over to Ben's with Fincher and Friends, then headed back to watch some episodes of Cowboy Bebop I borrowed from Brad. Then I surfed the web for a bit.

Yeah, no useful work got done. Procrastination 1, Work 0. We'll see how today goes.

According to this poll Dean is crushing his other challengers in DC. This after the previous conventional wisdom of "Sharpton will win DC because he's black" crumbled. Even more interesting? If you knock out the guys who refused to campaign here, Dean beat Sharpton 45-11. That's a heck of a lead...and the reason why is that DC voters are drawn to Dean's visits, his stance on issues, and his support for DC rights first and foremost. This poll warmed my turkey stuffed heart.

Due to an odd request, I went searching through some old e-mail I'd send over 4 years ago to some people. During the process, I ended up reading some old e-mail I'd sent over 6 years ago and wow, it was weird. First off, most of the messages make me sound like some sort of work-nazi, e.g.

To:XXXX
From: XXXX
Subject: I'm Ticked
Date: Thursday, 23 Oct 1999 01:57:20 -0400
Okay, I'm going to head back to my dorm in a minute. I managed to:

1) Enter the J.P.Morgan, Take a Break, Council Travel, Tripod and Janus Capital ads into the invoice thing. I didn't print them up because we don't have the tearsheets and we don't have all the ads from 10/22 in the invoice thing anyway. I need the information on Bankers Trust and Japan Exchange and Columbia Law School, as well as any clarification you can make regarding the D.E. Shaw ad. It came in late, and they appear to be paying us $1283.94 each time we run it....(which is every week for four weeks).

2.) Realize that almost all of the messages on the answering machine are for you. Could you call some of the people back, if you haven't. I'd do it, but I don't know what they're talking about. Sorry to sound negative.

Anyway, I'm running on empty now, so like I said in the earlier one, if you could get back to me today sometime so that we could talk before tomorrow, I'd appreciate it greatly. Again, sorry to be a jerk about this whole deal. I don't understand what the hell MXXX is doing, especially regarding the phone....and why he hasn't mailed the billing junk yet. And why we aren't going to get paid this week. I'll speak up on Thursday night very strongly regarding those issues.

Yeah, that was at 1:57 in the morning. And there were tons of other insightful missives where I cracked the whip about idiotic things. One had me justifying a meeting the next day because "I might as well skip Physics because I'll sleep through it otherwise". Quality flashbacks. I wonder if, years from now, i look back at the messages I send to other people and wonder if these ones right now sound silly and superficial. Actually, I don't wonder: I know they will. Every year I've been around, the previous one has seemed shallow and petty, as if I'm climbing to the top of a mountain and looking back evey so often to say "well, that wasn't that high" and to trudge forward. I've burst through the first layer of clouds but there's no end in sight. Reminds me of the time I cycled up Mt. Lemon: each time I turned a corner and thought "there's the top" I'd ride up another mile and realize that I was mistaken. The thing just didn't end.

Okay, I got back to town. But technically, I'm not back until tomorrow, okay? I don't want to have to deal with the piles of e-mail, phone calls, business stuff, etc. I just want to crash.

On a sidenote: several of you people complained that the nicknames page wasn't right over the break. Yeah, well, I didn't intend for people to read it until Monday...er...today. So it's now been update to include almost everyone. However, I will warn people that it's not so that you can deduce other people: it's for my use to help me keep track of the various pseudonyms floating around. It's still not totally complete but I'm going to wait until tomorrow to flesh it out further.

Finally, Brad complained that his profile was lame. So I updated it. Fincher pointed out to me that Helena had written her own but when I read it I realized that she'd (Fincher) been duped: I wrote that profile. It's still valid today. Now if only I could improve my own a bit.