'werkz advice: get supply of food and water and then buy it. block out enough time to shun human contact for a few days.

Ratchet & Clank 2, entitled "Going Commando" is addictive. Nothing else describes it as perfectly. From five minutes of play you can't let go, until you've knocked over every single bolt in the R&C universe. It's not a mature title, with plenty of humor throughout, though it may inspire your kids to become addicts. I'd explain it more except I need to play again. Did I mention you can win and still keep playing?

Thanks to Atrios I'm pleased to announce that our terror level has been lowered to:

Bert!

Um, not to nag, but if anyone's in the mood to buy me an unbirthday present, I think I've found what I want. You might need a time-machine to move ahead to April, though...

In addition to the cool Harkin endorsement, there are some other news items out there of note:

1. Dean and Edwards were the only two people to qualify in all of New York
2. Fourth quarter job estimates fell woefully short of predictions, with only 1000 new jobs created

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Work on the street is that Senator Harkin is endorsing Dean. This is big news in Iowa, and will likely mitigate any of the controversy stirred up by the Canadian tapes, which in my mind were truthful and to the point. The more people see Dean in his natural (read: pre-2003) environment the more they like him.

I'm getting a bit psyched to head to Iowa next week, after we crush Sharpton in the DC primary. Luckily, the race is extremely close but we've got a slight edge according to the latest and only recent poll which has Dean at 29%, Gephardt at 25%, Kerry at 18%, Edwards at 8%, and Clark at 3%.

According to the byzantine caucus rules, once everyone gets in the room to caucus, people are divided into the preference categories. Any person or group who represents less than a 15% threshold must migrate to another group. So if we had a group of 100 people, according to the latest poll, only Dean, Gephardt and Kerry would garner enough people to be viable. The other 28 people would be forced to move to one of the three leaders. (I suppose they could attach themselves to Edwards to move him past the 15% threshold...but why bother?) This is what makes polling a caucus nothing more than guesswork beyond determining who's got at least a 15% threshold. Of course, from room to room, this could vary greatly. The goal, for any candidate, is to get as many rooms with people above 15% as possible. That way you stay viable. If you have 30% support but half your rooms are empty and half have 30%, you only get 15% support. See?

It's complicated. But hopefully I can help.

I walked into work a minute ago. 15 minutes, no problem.

Evidently, outside the district mass chaos was taking place. According to a co-worker, both the George Washington Parkway and I-66 were shut down. The beltway was also barely moving. And on side streets, people were skidding into utility poles.

Did I mention the Orange Line was shut down?

Essentially, no major arteries going into DC were functioning properly. A complete mess. So smart people just didn't bother to come in today, making me the 3rd earliest person to work, despite having left my house at 9:00 AM. I love my job.

I've been standing outside the past three hours with Gwyn and two other Dean people in the 'morg signing people up to get Dean on the ballot in the February caucus.

It was about 20 degrees.

Explaining this to strangers is difficult, even without the occasional crazy guy dressed like uncle sam asking me "how would you raise 10 new divisions for the army?" or the larouche people bothering us while the crazy larouche guy in his car blares speeches up and down the street ad nauseum. Needless to say, I'm too cold to write any more. Now that I'm inside my fingers and toes feel as if they're going to burst. Not a good feeling. Argh.

Nicole is keeping me late here at the office, by prevening me from performing the idiotically simply task of rebooting our server. But I'm not begrudging her anything, because when I was planning to do it (two days ago) she invited me to go to dinner, which was much more enjoyable despite the place being less than stellar. Oh, well. I had a good time, regardless.

Now if I could just get out of the damn office!

werkz advice: just all right.

Sake Club is very well designed. Dimly lit, with a cool look throughout, I eagerly anticipated a high level of service and food. The very polite waitstaff, while nice, didn't rival Kawasaki for sheer coolness. And they were a little slow, especially when my friend broke a glass.

The food was excellent, all around. Nothing spectacular, and a little pricey, but good quality. Finally, when I went (a Tuesday evening) the place was deserted. A little strange...perhaps people should visit it now rather than waiting, in case it disappears. Just lower your expectations.

I've got several new book reviews up on the website from the multitude of books I tackled over the holiday break. Just head over to the reviews section to see them all.

My compartmentalization skills have been improving somewhat over the past couple of days, enabling me to keep my friends in predefined boxes, even if they happen to stray into each others paths. Not so good on the ole' wallet, but then again, almost all socializing tends to deplete my account.

And did I mention my office rocks? The head had his 50th birthday celebration yesterday, including a big blow-out bash. At said event (and today at lunch) I learned that the recent craziness involving people leaving for various reasons was only the tip of the iceberg. In the past some other crazy people worked here in the office, although not necessarily for my firm. Go figure. Never a dull moment here. Speaking of that, I should get back to work. Server maintenance to do...

So the idiotic Amex people throw a $11 finance charge on my bill. For no reason. I always pay on time. I call up these clowns, explain what the problem is, and the lady says "Well, you always pay your bill on time. I guess I'll just waive the charge." I ask why it's there. She asks when I submitted my payment.

I mean, I'm staring at the report right in front of me. I can see I paid my bill on the 22nd. Well before the 27th, which is when it was due. I tell her so. She says, "Oh." Then she tells me she'll credit me the difference. Which is all fine and good, but why the hell did they charge me $11 in the first place? And can AmEx people just "credit" customers without any real process? She seemed to indicate that this sort of thing happened all the time. Go figure.

Makes me almost want to give up my card. Yeah, right. As if I'd do that. But how many other people wait until their next statement to come out and go through the items detail like detail, like I did? I bet AmEx makes a bunch of free money based on their own mistakes.

werkz advice: go buy it and read it today.

I must admit, I'm a Palahniuk fan. Yeah, maybe it's pulp, or cheesy but it leaves you feeling like the guy really knows how to burrow into your subconscious. "Diary: A Novel" is vintage Palahniuk, much better than average, and almost as good as Fight Club. There are still plenty of violent scenes that may disturb some readers, but it's far better than the multiple-plot-twisted "Choke" and more tightly scripted than the otherwise excellent "Lullaby". In short, I think it's his best work since "Fight Club".

The book is a suspense thriller, involving a woman whose husband recently failed in an attempt to commut suicide. The small community on the island where she lives seems somewhat creepy at first, and by the end "Diary" seems like a mixture of "Rebecca" and "Rosemary's Baby" with a slap at the culture of materialism (this is Palahniuk, after all) thrown in for extra emphasis. At each point in the novel, you think you have things figured out, but the end is an excellent twist that satisfied me enough to rank the book almost as high as "Fight Club". Buy and read it today.

werkz advice: worth a laugh or two, but you could read it in the bookstore for just as cheap.

Bill Maher's latest work, "When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden" is an amusing book, designed to evoke slogans and imagery from past war efforts with the current "War on Terrorism". Many of the pieces are topical and serious, yet still contain Maher's trademark wit. The only thing preventing me from wholeheartedly endorsing this book is that Maher seems to fall into the trap that the war on terror, actually is a war on Islam itself. One can see UBL laughing it up in a cave, thinking that the clash of civilizations is finally at hand. By glossing over the difference between different sects of Islam, Maher weakens his argument. (Almost as if someone were to think that all Americans were represented by Jerry Fallwell...) Other than this odd flash of bigotry, the posters and essays are mostly spot-on. Maher seems miffed that Americans today aren't asked to perform any sacrifice other than to spend more. He's right.

werkz advice: a good read, but block off plenty of time for this tremendous tome.

Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy was highly recommended to me. The book is well written, in an almost Jamesian style, comprising of a multitude of characters and of the cultural differences that divide and bring them together. Instead of being a Euro-American split, however, Seth's work takes place in 1950's India, with fault lines between the nascent countries providing a timely political backdrop and many of the plotlines.

This book is huge. Literally, it's 1488 pages of small text. Not a book for a quick hour or two, but good for an extended trip. Fortunately, the plot and characters quickly envelop the reader to ensure that reading it is a pleasure, not a chore. The last few chapters especially raised the bar as simmering plotlines crashed together in a violent finish involving murder, betrayal and, as the title-suggest, marriage.

There were a few flaws throughout the piece, most nostably with one of the major characters seeming like a poor cipher for the author himself. Without any spoilers, let me simply say that making one character one-dimensional with specific attributes the author possesses was a mistake on Seth's part. The ending will either surprise or annoy you, or possibly both, as in my case. Much like the works of James, whose characters were locked into a struggle over Victorian era ideals, Seth manages to convey the conflict between culturally conservative 50's India and the young people trying to break free of the existing system without dishonoring their parents. In the end, those more romantically inclined might be let down. But there's plenty of reasons for hopeless r's to enjoy it anyway. So block out a week and pick it up.

werkz advice: Go pick this up today! Don't wait until after the primaries are over.

Howard Dean: A Citizen's Guide... is a refreshing look at the record of Dr. Dean in Vermont. It's very even-handed, describing his flaws as well as his strengths in a balanced manner. Interestingly enough, the moments that most on the left would fault Dean for I found to be the very reasons I was attracted to his candidacy: he, like many doctors, is blunt and uncompromising. He often went around state bureacracy to get certain items taken care of in a common sense manner. He was, as the authors (all journalists from Vermont) mention, always surprised that people expected him to act different as Governor than as a regular citizen. He thought (and still does) that he say whatever he wanted to without getting into trouble. That's the greatest part of his campaign, the straight-talking no nonsense that emerges from simple common sense. Read the book, however, and make up your own mind. Far lefties may not like it, but hey, I'm a good liberal, not a leftist.

I basically took the last several days off from any serious writing, simply because I was busy with work and enjoying my brand new TiVo, games, books, etc. With that said, I'll briefly cover the New Years Festivities and then move on to post 1/1 fun.

On the eve, flush from a week off at the plantation, I rolled into town with Brad and set a series of plans and backup plans in motion. My first rule with any evening is to always have an exit strategy. It doesn't have to be well thought out, or even plausible, but merely having one enables a certain level of spontaneity not possible otherwise. (i.e. you're much more willing to roll the dice if you've got a good insurance plan backing you up)

My primary plans were to hit a couple of parties being thrown by Kevin and Gwyn. I then managed to get in touch with Meat, Loaf, Kristen, Forrest and Dwight. All were willing to get together later, assuming I kept in contact with them. (Yeah, foreshadowing alert!) But all had plans early in the evening, as did I, so most of the goal was to get together a bit later.

After purchasing a bit of vc for Kevin and Gwyn, I decided to hit his place first. Upon arrival, with Brad and I both dressed to the nines, we notice Kevin emerging from a trash disposal room. My heart fell. This is, of course, what you get when one acts sponaneously. However, we recovered quickly, presenting the first gift in true style and then a tour of his apartment. I'd seen it during the daytime, but the night was completely different. He's got a view of the city that looks like something out of a Baz Luhrman film. Or maybe a Brian De Palma opening sequence, halfway through the zoom process. It's breath-taking.

Kevin had made other plans, and soon his people showed up to spirit him away to a downtown location of ill repute. After some hard-core lobbying, we got him to throw on a tux and join us at our next destination, a scant block away. We walked over to Karen's house, which I'd visited only twice before, and bounded up the steps to meet the people hanging out there. After a minute, I realized that I was at the wrong house. Whoops! A mistake in the past year, you know. So we regrouped and rolled to the next event, which turned out to be a slam-bang party. Not up to the 'werkz (simple surface area prohibited that), but jam-packed with people all the same and most of them turned out to be super-cool. Midway through the event Meat and Loaf called up and decided to join our party.

After the midnight moment passed in style, I realized that both Kevin and Gwyn were indisposed (for varying reasons) and thus, it made sense to roll to a new location. Meat seemed occupied with a musical instrument, so Loaf and I informed Brad et al. that we were headed to the Rhode Island/Connecticut Ave area to hit some spots.

We walked there.

Keep in mind, Gwyn's place is near Harvard Square, east of the 'morg. So it was a bit of a hike, although the wather was balmy. We stopped off in the 'morg for a few minutes for some reason, then continued our odyssey south. Then I dropped my phone.

You see, the plan all along from my perspective ws to enjoy NYE without blowing tons of cash on an overpriced event. To that end (excluding the vc) I had done well. At least until I dropped the phone. I've dropped it tons of times in the past. In fact, one of the major reasons I enjoyed that phone was that, much like the one I dunked in a swimming pool, its exterior was plastic and replaceable, unlike my-uber-cool original phone which was solid chrome and chipped in a heartbeat. So I never really paid attention to dropping it, often performing tasks while juggling it. This would bite me back.

The lcd was completely totalled (it turned bright pink!) except for a tiny part on the top. After my last swimming incident I've learned that turning on a phone (power-wise) often is the very thing which transforms it from "broken" to "totalled". So I powered it off. I couldn't use it to call anyone anyway, and I figured the next morning I could take a better look at it and see what exactly was damaged. I didn't know the extent of the problem until 1/1, at which point I was extremely annoyed. We're talking a cool $150, down the drain.

Of course, Loaf doesn't have a cell-phone, so we're immediately cut-off from Brad, Meat and their various friends who were going to join us in the area. After hitting three spots and finding absurd covers (this was after midnight, remember?) ranging from $20 up, we decided to call it quits. And hit Ben's.

So we roll into Ben's, get the usual, and get tossed out shortly therafter because Ben's was closing down. Loaf got in a cab and I walked home, pleased that I had presciently given Brad a spare set of keys before the evening's festivities began. Overall, a great way to ring in the new year.

I was in the middle of a longer post and then came across a few sites you just have to visit:

1. Evil killer robots.
2. The best move-on ad that didn't make it to the finals.
3. Howard Dean was in Ninja III, even if he denies it. (It sounds just like him!)
4. Kerry is so toast.

Okay, maybe the last item wasn't funny to some people. But I think it is.

Read this piece right now. It's lengthy, but important.

Essentially, the administration is caught in a bind between trying to court the Hispanic vote and avoiding ticking off their base. They know they need to placate both voting groups, hence the absurd "you can get a temporary work visa but not a green card" dance. As a proponent of open borders, I think this is exactly what is wrong with America. If we have 8-9 million people living and working here illegally, and we're concerned about giving them green cards because we'll attract more immigrants, we have to remember that stopping immigrants is about proper border security. Unless we're prepared to deport 9 million people, these people are going to stay here permanently, work visas or not.

Yeah, they gamed the system. But remember: they cheated the system to WORK IN AMERICA FOR A BETTER LIFE! If people are willing to risk everything to live in this country, why aren't we letting them? Some would argue that unemployment would skyrocket if we had open borders...well, why then did the administration say that this program was for willing workers who perform jobs that Americans didn't want to do? If Americans don't want to do these jobs, then unemployment shouldn't be a concern. I say open the borders up.

Ha! Okay, I just have to say, going to war over this is absurd. Here's what the guy drew:

On a sidenote, I just happened across this site which is absolutely hilarious...

I was unhappy to see that DC is preparing to follow New York's lead and ban cell phone use while driving. The only bright spot in this idiotic waste of police resources is that my councilmember voted against it. Why don't people understand that cell phone use is dangerous, but no more so than eating while driving, shaving, or switching cds? All serve to distract the driver, but none more than any other. Would people stand to see fast food banned from being consumed while driving? I'd hope not. Plus, why are we wasting police resources on this? DC is still a high-crime city. We should be out preventing murders, not randomly stopping drivers who might be on the cell phone. Grr.

If you want to give a note of thanks to Jim, here's his contact info.

I like General Clark. Despite supporting Dean, Clark would definitely be my second choice. Which is why the latest buzz is so exciting but ultimately frustrating: Clark evidently is overtaking Kerry in the number two slot in New Hampshire, according to two different independent polls. Knocking Kerry to third in NH would presumably kill his campaign. But if you forgot: Clark isn't campaigning in Iowa. So if Kerry manages to somehow get third (or, gasp, second!) in Iowa, he'll have more momentum going into New Hampshire, which could knock Clark to third, which would be seen as a major hit.

Of course, Dean's real focus is on winning DC first, then Iowa, then NH, then every other state on the 3rd. Right now he's going for the early knock-out punch. I predict he'll get it, with my help, of course.

This is ridiculous. Our own government telling companies how to screw workers out of their overtime pay? What's next? I call shenanigans on the Labor Department.

I just saw a small note in the WaPo earlier this morning hinting that Dean may be about to propose a cut in the Payroll Tax. This is political gold: everyone is accusing him (incorrectly) of wanting to raise taxes, when he's merely wanted to get back to the system we had in the 90's. Cutting the payroll tax (which is a regressive tax, since no one who earns over a certain dollar amount...80 g's, I believe, has to pay any more money into the system) helps directly most Americans. And it enables him to go head-to-head with Bush in the absurd "tax-cutting" shell game. Combine that with his stated desire to bring the budget deficit back to zero in seven years and you've got a really fiscally responsible stand.

Plus, lowering the FICA amount for most Americans (while, hopefully, either lifting the 80K cap or removing it entirely) would be directly reflected in someone's paycheck. I remember getting my first paycheck back in the day and being outraged that my federal and state income tax was so low, yet my FICA contribution was so high. Americans would eat this up with a spoon, enabling Dean to perform the Edwards-like-mantra of moving taxes from work to wealth, instead of the other direction.

Pure brilliance. Even floating the idea well in advance does much to stem Kerry and Clark's charges.

For some reason I'm too tired to pen another bit. Earlier today the website was down, which prevented me from posting when I had wished to, leaving me now in the unpleasant position of having to wait still longer to jot down my thoughts. Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day. Er, today, I mean. Which sort of negates the whole S. O'Hara bit entirely.

In theory, moving a list of names from a disabled phone to another one should be easy. In practice, it was excruciatingly painful. And boring. And time-consuming. But at least I won't have to do it again until I break my new phone, which should mean I have until summertime. Yay!

Wayback time. Over the past week and a half I managed to plow through tons of movies, books, games and an old friend I like to call tv. Christmas reminded me of my alias, of right before I blew up my own apartment. Remember? The whole place was full of IKEA stuff and everything looked just so. But if was all just stuff, you see. However, the last month I've been getting some nice materialistic items, just the same. I need to beef up the wardrobe, and my aging pentium-133 is on its last legs. And the house is coming apart as usual. But when I sit downstairs, in front of my television, a cacophony of led love lights greets my tired eyes. Blue, green and red inbetween, all seem to convey a sense of technological achievement. If a brand new TiVo and the latest PS2 games don't separate us from the apes, what else does? I'm talking about digital audio routed through fiber optics into my high-wattage receiver to enable me to blast the opening chords to any song at a level that reduces my brain cells significantly. Hell, last night I recorded a movie and the Sugar Bowl simultaneously while I read a book and listened to music on my 400-cd jukebox. Life doesn't get any sweeter than not having to worry about anything for a few hours and simply kicking back. Sure, you don't need expensive items to enable you to do this. I don't have a fancy plasma screen tv, or 110 watts on 7 channels, or even a way to get an s-video output out of my PS2 (yet!). I don't have speakers setup for dual zones (although I used to!) or a tiny mini-fridge to allow me to sit on the couch and embrace sloth even more slowly than before. And I don't even have a decent hard-line phone downstairs, or callerID on said line. (The phone rings, but I can't answer it. It's especially galling because you can hear people start to leave a message and then you have to run upstairs to get a working phone. But it's Brad's old phone, so I imagine when he comes to claim it I'll break down and buy a new one.)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to Christmas. I spent a week at the familial estate, which was very relaxing. The weather was sunny and warm, which was a welcome change, if only because I feel that if it's not snowing the cold air is wasted. I read through plenty of fluff comics (Doonesbury, The Boondocks, The Onion, Get Fuzzy, Dilbert), as well as the latest Chuck P book, a book on Howard Dean by Vermont journalists, Bill Maher's latest screed (which was surprisingly anti-Islam) and a very lengthy James-like book about 1950's India. Which left me time to watch a couple dvd's, catch a couple movies and scarf large quantities of food down. Oh, and hit the old PS2 with some new games, besides.

The estate itself was looking as beautiful as ever, with the final nail on the landed gentry coffin being a brand-new-but-looks-antique pool table delivered to the plantation a day after jc's birthday. This thing was amazing. Simply amazing. I fear for the kids who will get schooled by my younger sibling when she starts to practice. I'm reminded of the foosball table that used to be the big highlight...the kid used to be awful at it but now, mere months later, she's much better than kids I used to play in college. If she has the same learning curve with pool I'm predicting some serious hustlin' action before she hits the age of 15. A very cool way to earn some extra cash as a teenager, imho. Now onto the New Year's festivities...

Yes, yes, I should be writing a lengthy discourse tonight, along with several reviews. But instead, I'm not. The last several days (well, actually, over a week now) have been a period of intense sloth. In that spirit, I'm going to abstain from writing tonight. Suffice it to say that I now have a new, cooler, cell-phone that is missing all my contact information. So if you don't want to get screened out, drop me a line. Same digits, of course.

I'll do a little wayback action tomorrow, while on my lunch break. Until then, happy eleventh night.