The sun just came out for the first time today. Finally.

For the second night in a row I walked almost all the way home from a distant locale. Last night I at least fueled my walk with rage over the particular social circumstances leaving me near the National Cathedral with a transmission-less vehicle driving away. Tonight I walked almost all the way home from Cleveland Park. Yes, before you ask, it was far too late to take the link. I lacked the fuel of yesterday though, so walking past Klingle Park left me tired and willing to take a cab.

This weather continues to beat me down, one raindrop at a time. I try to focus on the present, on the here and now, on the pool game I excelled at, on the meaningless bits of conversation traded back and forth like bad pennies turning up yet again. And again.

I am so tired of the mundane. I am tired of the usual games, of the faux surprises and the need to act annoyed when I have been wronged. I want to whisper in class, I want to tell people what I really think of then, I want to shout out loud my displeasure when things go wrong. Yet I skipped class, am painfully honest and manage to always have things break my way late. In a world defined by a lack of control, I can't even seem to grasp why I want things to skew against my will just to show I still have one. I want to insult that which is beautiful, to degrade all that is holy. I wish to drag everything down just to point out how high it was to begin with.

I may know many things, I may be ignorant. I may sit here with suble notes impacting each word, a verse for a paragraph, a minor chord for an alliterative aside. I am so cold now my fingers have grown numb, fumbling on the keys and producing more errors than actual thoughts. There is no solution except escape.

Sometimes I doubt. This evening I had a fairly loose set of plans involving two different people, a friend from out of town and Dwight. The scenario was that I'd hang out with Dwight early at a movie, and maybe catch up with the friend later. To do so, of course, I had to push Dwight to an early slot. So when my friend bailed, that left me wanting to push Dwight to a later slot. So what happens?

Dwight calls me an hour before I'm supposed to meet him and says he's running super late and needs to push things back a bit. So far, everything is good. I leave to meet him at Eisenhower Avenue and realize that, once again, everything has worked itself to the perfect solution: despite my friend bowing out, everything is great.

That is, until I get to the spot and realize I've forgotten my credit card so I need to purchase more movie tickets. Oh, and Dwight is running so late I need to push back the movie time to 7.5, except that that particular show is sold out.

For a second, I doubted I could pull it off.

Then I woke up, realized that everything always works out perfectly for me, called my housemate, who hooked me up with the AmEx digits to cancel my earlier order, then spoke to Dwight, convinced him he could make it in time for an earlier (read: non-sold-out) showing, then got a pair of great seats. Later I hit Cleveland Park and met some cool people, including a kid from Conway.

The moral: I will always find a way to triumph regardless of how many spanners are thrown in the works. Or 'werkz, as it were. Regardless, I had an enjoyable time.

Actually, it was Bill Paulson. Regardless, I met him last night. I don't ever want to be at a party surrounded by my kid's friends. The concept is entirely too weird for me to comprehend. But if I am, I definitely don't want to cook dinner while they're there. Also weird.

At least that's what it says on the top of my bag of wasabi peas. Which, incidentally, are about as addictive as crack. The crunch combination alone is delightful, but when you add that extra zing of horseradish, it really clears up your day. Of course, it's got some wacky kanji warning label on the front that probably translates to "WARNING: CAUSES CANCER IN AMERICA" but I don't care.

Two of my co-workers just had some and exclaimed "Oh, they're hot!!!" Yeah, newsflash, kids: that's why it says "Roasted Hot Green Peas" on the bag instead of just "wasabi peas".

Deborah pointed me to this page about cruising through an irradiated town.

And no, no foolin' around this year. Unless I think of something particularly funny. Like this story about getting a job. Go, you lazy bums!

Today you have to just pick up the Post, which is rapidly becoming so far in front of the numerous White House missteps that you'd be a fool to read any other paper. In addition to the huge Condi Rice/Missile Defense sccop (by a reporter I've never even heard of), there's also a great piece on the White House messing with the 9/11 commission and then of course, more commentary on the horrific attacks in Iraq, topped off with a new poll showing most Americans don't feel safer from the steps we've taken since September 11th. Can it get worse for the administration?

It can always get worse. Word on the street is that Woodward (again, the WaPo connection strikes!) is going to burn the administration in his next book, using his years of cuddling up to the administration to get unfettered access and choice quotes. Only this time, he's not writing a feel good memoir of the post September 11th era. He's writing a hard-nosed look at the failures of the administration in said time period.

I said it before and I'll say it again, barring the capture of UBL, the Dems are going to romp in November.

We found the smoking gun: Condi Rice was to give a speech on September 11th, 2001, downplaying "conventional" terrorist messages and focusing on ballistic missiles. It would note that counterterrorism received twice as much money as missile defense (under Clinton) and propose that missile defense get more money in the future.

Missile defense? Fucking missile defense? I am amazed that it's taken almost three years for this information to finally come out. It's truly bizarre. I don't understand it at all. Mind-boggling, that's what this is. It's difficult to imagine a more damaging testament to the cluelessness of the Bushies than this speech, which was postponed for obvious reasons.

Yes, Helena's chess set has been restored to its regular spot. And the racks aren't quite as bare as the picture indicated: Carroll had merely taken off most of the bottles for purposes unknown. (They were sitting with the other spirits in my bedroom, as if I was an uncontrollable lush.) Like the Rashid love, they were returned to the racks. I still plan on purchasing some more to boost up the levels this evening, but it's difficult to get motivated to go to best cellars when one doesn't have a particular reason to party, or the weather is rainy and cold. For some reason I associate wine with summer. Perhaps too many delightfully sticky screen on the greens have fused a taste in my mind of mall mischief. Of course, when one needs to party, it's too late to go get stuff, hence a catch-22. So I think I'll buzz by the spot after dinner. My card only has three stamps on it anyway, so I need to fill it up and score a free reward.

The price for the small pix is between one and two benjamins. The chili peppers is two even, I believe. Other 'werkzians are welcome to inquire.

So I'm outside the 7-11 last night, scoring a drink after a long night of work. There's a guy outside who looks like he wants some money, but he doesn't say anything, and as I approach the door from the east, a woman approaches from the other side. I hold the door for her, and then enter. She says thanks...which is nice, considering most of the time people either try the awkward "I'll barely touch the door and pretend to ignore you're holding it" or the "I'll barely touch the door and merely monosyllabicly grunt" technique. I pick up my drink and move to the counter.

The guy outside then comes in and announces to the entire 7-11, "I had heard chivalry was dead...but it's not, and you are the man. I salute you." I say thanks and he walks outside. Weird. He then asks me for money when I get outside, and all I can tell him is I just have credit. I would've given him some money, too, which made it annoying that it sounded like I was being a jerk. Chivalry and kindness shouldn't be exclusive.

Time to get out of the office. For the first time in a week (6 days!) I'm not going to come back here later this evening to do more computer work. I'm so thankful. Computers suck. Trust me.

Here.

I'm a liberal hawk, but even those with steelier resolve have to question what happened today. When this happens, the neocons and my argument (we must foster democracy) falls to pieces: if we're so hated we can't get democracy to flourish in a formerly secular country, what does this say about religious countries? When OPEC cuts production, the loony lefties (the old blood-for-oil) argument falls to pieces as well: if we went to war for oil, how come we can't even get it out of the ground? And why is OPEC winning over domestic producers? All you're left with is pure empire-building, which only the radical right espouses. And which leads us to today.

All we're left with is the charred bodies of men who were just doing their job. They deserved better than to go out like this. They deserved...a lot better.

As Americans, we need to all think about the people and policies that got us into this position, and ask ourselves if we really are making ourselves safer, or if we're pouring gasoline on a fire.

Air America launches in a few minutes. The main site doesn't have streaming links up yet, but here's a site that does. Check it out.

I need some sun, and soon. This past week has sucked out all my energy and the continued absence of powerful daylight isn't helping matters much. Of course, it's pitch black right now, but in a few hours we'll see how things stack up.

Now that the problems at work have plateued (a steady stream of things breaking, but the rate is constant!) I hopefully will have more time during lunch to throw up articles and reviews. And I'll have my evenings back, finally. You go to the beach for four days, and all hell breaks loose. Maybe I need to go somewhere farther away next time so that I at least feel guilty when I come back and can therefore atone by being placed in processor purgatory.

Lots more pics in the picture project. Almost all from the art show, although I decided to go ahead and make sure Internet Explorer users (curse you!) get to see the nifty css drop shadows I made for the pictures in the way you're supposed to. Go get firefox so I'll stop having to do crappy kludges to fix things, okay? All the cool kids have already.

I suppose, if I had more time, I'd actually load these devilish images into another table in the database, but that's be treading perilously close to something I did during my college years that was singularly cool. Well, maybe a little geeky cool, but since I didn't code it (I was the "idea" guy!) I felt good either way.

In my free time. Yeah, right.

Yeah, the art show looked like a great time. I'm incredibly annoyed I missed the chance to hang out with Carroll and company. I'm going to throw up several of the pictures she took in the process over to the picture project. So if you want to see more, just head over there. The house looks amazing in the shots, as if a troop of redecorators had come in and scrubbed it floor to ceiling. Of course, there's a huge pile of spirits next to my bed right now that I've been too lazy to move back, but that's a bonus right? How better to end one's night than with a couple of fifths, eh?

Which reminds me: how much more obvious can I be to prospective tenants than having a huge banner headline saying the room is no longer available? I'm baffled...especially because most of the people applying are lawyers and the like. Intelligent people. Yet several have said "I didn't have time to check the website..." as if that makes a difference to me, and then add "but is it still available?" My advice to you is to go to the damn page. The first group of people who applied well before the room was taken didn't have this problem. They weren't lawyers, though.

I was raised on a diet of anti-lawyer sentiments. Such is the life of those born to a doctor. A good life, I might add.

So today, the icing on the cake was delivered: at noon, our internet access went down. I remembered that someone from our ISP had called to talk to me an hour before, so I thought it was a problem on their end. After I checked my voicemail, I found out we simply hadn't paid them in weeks, and that the phone call was a warning that they were going to cut off service at noon.

Yeah, a Morton salt-style disaster.

A couple faxes later and the connection was turned on within seconds, almost as if they had one person sitting in a big switch closet just unplugging connections on a lark. Bizarre.

The house is cold, but I refuse to turn the heat back on. It's almost April and it's a matter of principle. Plus, it keeps me awake enough to pen some more lines, code a bit (for some people I've been neglecting) and even shoot out some e-mails. I don't mind the cold: I mind the dank wetness far more.

I remember a class in political theory where I argued, unsuccesfully, that women basketball players would eventually catch up to men. The argument centered on whether we should treat men and women differently, and whether there were biological reasons for doing so. My point at the time was that many of the cultural "norms" we have accepted, namely, that women are smaller and weaker, are just that: cultural. This is not to say that genetic differences can be eliminated in the general population, but when it comes to professional athletes, we're talking about mutants anyway. Pro basketball players are all outliers to begin with, just like professional athletes in almost every sport.

My classmates claimed that women played "a different style" of basketball that would never change. I argued that once more women began to play, their style would start to mirror the style of the men. I argued that many of the arguments they claimed were "natural" had long been used to discriminate against black athletes as well. No, they claimed, these were "scientific reasons" and pointed to the inability of women to dunk. See, they said! Women just can't jump!

Well, stop the presses, kids!

It turns out women can dunk. And beat men at it.

You see, it doesn't matter what group you belong to...there are always going to be enough people in the general population to be good at a certain sport. And since 50% of the world is composed of women, that's a pretty large group to pull a few NBA players from. Bring on the ladies!

It's funny, how the tiniest details can make one's day seem better. A particularly vexing problem was troubling me at work, and I think I just found a solution to it. I can't fix it until this evening but I feel better already. It's strange to think that almost everyone else who works here has tasks to perform that can be stressful, but all boil down to working harder. If something is "difficult" it is always become time contraints. My job, on the other hand, is almost always knowledge driven: if there's a problem it is because I do not know the answer to something. The solution is to simply recover the information. Sure, occasionally things break, but the solution is to discover how to fix them in as short a time as possible. Knowledge is the weapon.

Though I mind the stress, after several years I've gotten fairly adept at figuring out problems. So there are less situations where I don't know what I'm doing. Ideally, yes, I try to learn something new every day, but it's getting harder. Still, each time I think I'm set, some new obstacle comes up. The best part of all is that all the knowledge in question is transferable: the technology I'm dealing with will be around for years to come.

That's not to say, of course, that I enjoy working in IT. I, personally, hate computers almost as much as I hate the people who work on them. But until I'm in a position with a similar knowledge requirement, it's the best place to work. Politics, by comparison, is far messier. And as the end goal has always been an island, writing, the course I navigate to get there is somewhat superfluous. Because, after all, I know I'll get there in the end.

It's not even a blue sky day and I'm feeling good. At least until I check my bank account, that is.

I met Mr. Obama this evening. He's going to kick ass and take names.

Then Nicole and I went back to the office, where I proceeded to burn an hour working, only to lose another hour wasting time, only to miss dinner completely.

Ever want to keep running until you fell down? I feel like that right now. The only thing I ever enjoyed about running was the feeling you got when you finished and someone handed you a cup of water. That was the tastiest water I had ever consumed. Yu could just fall down, legs sprawled in the grass, and drink the ice cold teeth hurting water until your stomach hurt almost as much as the rest of you. The trick with pain is to spread it around until you go numb. When skiing, you only feel bad if your feet are cold, or your hands. If everything cools off at the same rate you don't notice anything is wrong until you get home and see the bite marks on your extremities, tiny frost flakes stealing your life while you were otherwise occupied.

I found a book sitting on the ground yesterday on the street. I picked it up and brought it home, despite already owning a copy. You can never own too many copies of a work with someone named Isabel in it. Today the sun was bright enough to read during lunch yet I sat inside, mundanely masticating a tasteless sandwich. I wanted to be outside, to catch the few rays coming down and treasure them for the tiny joy they could provide. Instead I sat, watching a few minute of CNN, my soul slowly ground down like so many others before me.

Tomorrow will be a better day. It always is.

Another awful day at work. More machines broke. I'd say I was immune to the problems, but they just don't let up. Oh, well.

Read this Post article about a bunch of people who went to Karl Rove's house.

There's only one word for the tactic: badass. He's running scared now.

I'd rather not talk about the 27 hours I spent working this weekend. It was not a good time.

I did manage to plow through some e-mails today, almost getting my electronic mail in complete order, which hasn't been the case for months. And I'm getting closer to burning all my cds into Chiaotzu. Plus, I soaked up a few rays reading Rushdie this afternoon, which helped my mood a great deal. When I awoke, I felt as if I had just finished a cross country race that I'd done poorly in. Happy to be complete, yet unhappy things hadn't gone better.

There was that odd feeling throughout the day, perhaps augmented by the number of festivities I'd planned to hit last night including an art show at the 'werkz itself courtesy Carroll and friends, and some fun with Deborah at Nikki's place later. The frustration of being at work while all the fun was going on without me was huge, but it made today feel even odder. If I had finished up work at seven o'clock I would've jetted home, shaved and hit the events in style. Instead, all my pent-up energy simply stayed with me into the morning hours, so that even my sleep wasn't restful. I awoke and needed to do something, but didn't want to see anyone in the process. Like I mentioned, it's an odd feeling.

Thankfully, after catching last Friday's episode of Wonderfalls (a great one involving demonic possession!) on the TiVo, the sun came out and I moved outside to read a beach book I'd given my parents as a gift, only to borrow back last weekend. Oh, the multitude of books and movies and even former said television show have all been reviewed for your pleasure. All were seen within the week, and almost all were good. But you'll have to read the reviews yourself to see that.

I want another day off from work. I want to sit in the sun some more, breathing salty air while reading some large tome. Things will work out, I'm sure, as they always do. I just have to wait and catch the right wave.

So I got back a reply to my question of McDonald's Shamrock Shakes. Here's the lowdown from them:

Well, at least they responded. Nothing irks a former English major like myself than to see someone use quotes where inappropriate. A "promotional" product? Does that means it doesn't actually "promote" anything? Or am I being too "literal"? Quotes don't add emphasis, people. Making something bold makes it stronger or louder, and sometimes you can use italics for emphasis, but quotes are to be used for quotations. Or book titles and articles. Sometimes movies as well. But never for emphasis. Got it?

werkz advice: a great read and timely too.

Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies" is a great book to read, but not for the reasons you're likely to hear. Clarke's tale is not one of invective against the Bush administration. Sure, it does point to flaws the Bushies made (which have been obvious to most inside-the-beltway folks for over a year now) and the timing couldn't be worse for the administration, but the book is called "Against All Enemies" for a reason. Clarke argues that two sets of enemies, those who seek to kill us, and those who seek to reduce our liberty without increasing our security, are both undermining the American way.

The book, however, reads like a thriller. Clarke takes us through the events of September 11th, then goes back in time and walks us through the entire history of counter-terrorism under his watch. It's an engaging style that keeps you hooked through the entire work. The tiny snippets many have focused on are fairly damning, but even the most fervent Bush supporter should read this work. Unlike those who, in hindsight, were big terrorism people, Clarke was Cassandra like from the beginning. And though I don't personally agree with some of Clarke's ideas (he dislike the Department of Homeland Security but thinks we need a domestic intelligence agency...I feel the exact opposite) he argues his case well.

He not only apologized on television for the families of September 11th, but also does so in the book. Would that more were like him.

werkz advice: the best wacky show on television.

The newest Fox show, "Wonderfalls" is a charming drama set in scenic Niagara Falls. Except it's not. It's a wacky comedy set in a knick-knack filled gift shop. Except it's not. It's a bizarre Lynch-like unreal world filled with (according to the Fox network) "inanimate animal figures" that talk. (So that clears up the distinction, I suppose of "animate animal figures" ...like dogs and cats, which don't speak to her) Except it's not.

The animals tell the main character, a 24-year old white slacker girl, to do things. Not why, or how. Frequently she misinterprets what they tell her to do. Sometimes they do things without her help. (In the last episode, one of them drove a car into another car after she refused to help them.) It's all somewhat surreal. If it were actually Lynchian, with melodrama throughout, the series would be bizarre but boring. Instead, each episode is filled with humor, most too subtle for the casual watcher. In addition, the protagonist is the embodiment of sloth: she is 24, went to Brown, graduated with a degree in philosophy, and now lives in a trailer park while working at a gift shop because she's too proud to live in her family's house. She has, as one person notes, created an entire world of low expectations to surround her, a cocoon which insulates her from any stress or hard work whatsoever. Consequently, she has no real problems, because she doesn't ever attempt to do anything. Things just happen to her. I empathize completely.

Since her ethos is one I can identify with, the whole show simply works. At one point, she becomes annoyed that the guy she casually flirts with is being hit on by another girl. Her friend reminds her that she could be that girl, if she only put in some extra effort. Oh, the hilarity! Yeah, you probably had to be there. Regardless, watch the show. Or you'll miss the exorcism in episode III. The only negative about the entire show is that the main character always appears to be dressed well, for 1/2 of her body. Either her shirt doesn't go all the way down, or her sleeves are furry, or something, but she appears to have been dressed by wolves. Which, I suppose, fits with the whole idea, although it makes her look like an idiot.

Finally, as we all know, any good show on Fox will be cancelled, so you better watch this season. Since they already bumped it from Friday nights to Thursday nights, the Fox executives are preparing to close the thing down. Fortunately for me, my TiVo solves the problem of a show being on Thursday OR Friday nights (who watches television on those nights? they should be going out!) or whatever day they schedule it for.

werkz advice: not the best film, but amusing in parts. I'd wait for video.

The Coen brothers' latest film, "The Ladykillers" is a remake of a classic movie I've never seen. The original was set in London, whereas this time things take place in Louisiana. Moments in this film are amusing, but not due to the darkness of the comedy. Instead, the absurd moments are what saves the film. Most of the amusements comes from the wordplay (as with all Coen brothers films) but there are less memorable lines in "The Ladykillers" than "The Big Lebowski" or "Raising Arizona". In fact, other than the few funny lines offered by the little old lady, most of the films lighter moments come from Marlon Wayans, who gets to play his typical buffoonish character seen in most Wayans brother movies.

Suffice it to say that just as Arizona had "I'm talking about wife-swapping", and Lebowski had "Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos" , Ladykillers will always remain in my mind, tied to Wayans screaming "You brought your bitch to the waffle house?" That, I think, says it all.

werkz advice: one of the best James novels.

Henry James' "The Bostonians" is lighter than his other work, yet its satirical nature leaves the ending morally ambiguous. Each of the major characters is flat on the surface, whether it be Olive, the repressive, controlling early feminist, or Basil, the smooth talking, conservative, or the main character Verana, who appears to be merely a pretty face who's good with words. As usual, my appreciation of James stems mainly from the moments where the characters are beset by social niceities. In one, Basil is forced to remain on a couch with his over-amorous cousing simply because leaving to go into the next room (to watch his stalkee, Verrana, speak) is too rude.

It is this perversion of politics, whether watching a conservative hang on the whim of every woman, or seeing early progressives tie their movement to upward social mobility, that also makes the book stand out. The ways in which Basil and Olive fight for Verana's love and attention seem appropriate in any day and age, not merely the time of the women's suffrage movement, and the political idiocies of their time also seem transferable to today. Olive fights, not for true equality, but for revenge, and Basil keeps pleading for a time which never existed, showing himself to be a fool. I'll let you guess who wins in the end, letting James construct a perfect coda in his final sentence. Don't skip ahead!

werkz advice: a very interesting book.

First published in 1926, B.H. Liddel Hart's "Scipio Africanus: Greater Than Napoleon" is a great biography of the most successful military commander of all time. Publius Cornelius Scipio saved Rome in the second Punic War, defeating Carthage and personally destroying Hannibal at the battle of Zama. Later he would help rebuild Carthage into a commercial power, inspiring jealousy throughout Rome and causing his longtime nemesis, Cato the Elder, to hound his family till death. (Yes, I'd like to say the "Cato Institute Must Be Destroyed" after every speech too...)

Hart's book is a quick read and focus on Scipio's battle and diplomatic tactics. Though the book is quite favorable towards the commander, it doesn't come across as too biased, or boring. From start to finish, the book leaves you wondering why such a colorful historic figure, who had an emancipated wife, gave luxurious spoils to his troops, and defeated 80 elephants in a single battle, would never be immortalized in a film or more recent work. Perhaps it is a simple lack of adversity: Scipio Africanus never lost a battle he fought in, against the most brilliant of generals and despite overwhelming odds against him.

Yeah, Mr. Sparkle is tired...I just finished up most of the heavy lifting here in the office, meaning that by the time I get home I'll have spent 27 hours working here in the office, not counting the 5 hours I slept at home. And I had 10 minutes for lunch. I'm very, very tired.

Life is kicking me. Hard. I have only a few hours to fight back and I cannot do it.

I need help.