So I met this person tonight with really great eyes. Words fail me. This person made the whole evening worthwhile (though the Red Sox game helped!) and now I'm thinking of altering my plans tomorrow accordingly. Am I really that guy?

In addition, I had a great idea about an hour beforehand. A really, knock-you-down great idea. I just have to do some coding before I can deploy it. So, yeah, the idea is related to the web. So what. It's still cool. It's the devil reflected.

I'm kind of distracted at the moment though. A curse on hopeless romantics. May they forever be disappointed in humanity. Focus. Focus.

So I invite several people to a party. Some people occasionally ask to be removed from the list. That's fine. Most have good excuses, like they're moving to China. Many people, however, remain on the list because I only e-mail them occasionally and it's very small. Plus, you never know when someone could make a cameo.

But now this chick wants off and I'm ticked. Mainly because she never came to any parties, despite my pulling her bacon out of the fire. At an event a couple years ago she left her cell phone. I called the last number dialed and asked the person whose phone I was calling from. After tracking down who the owner was, I got in touch with her and said she could pick up her phone at a party which was happening in the next three days from that time. She says sure.

Thirty minutes later she calls and she's outside the house, wanting her phone back. I give her the phone and she thanks me. I point out that she's still invited to the party and she assures me she'll come. So at the party: no show. Classic.

Over the years she drops the ball a couple more times. And it's not like she's super charismatic or mega-hot or anything. She just seems to be rude. And now she wants off the list, the list that has troubled her mighty inbox three times in the past year. Sheesh.

Some people need to stop sweating the little stuff and just roll with it. I'll take her off the list. Good riddance.

Yes, Helena and Brad, it's a fast food story. Eat it up.

First off, it rains. Although three days of blue skies buoyed my spirits significantly (including a picture perfect day on Sunday to go for a 55+ mile ride) it is somewhat annoying to come back to work on a dreary day. Plus, my left foot was hurting badly enough that I could barely walk. Significany mileage out canvassing for Dean on Saturday, cycling on Sunday and more walking on Monday left me hobbling around Monday night and unable to move this morning.

But move I did. To work. At work, I got the conservative intern I occasionally spar with to buy me lunch, since I'd bought him lunch (along with two other people) last week. All I ask is that he goes to Subway and gets a foot long chicken breast with red sauce. Every single time I go to the local Subway I get the same thing. They know what I want as soon as I roll in there. So the kid comes back with my sandwich. I bite into it eagerly.

The sandwich is covered in pepper salsa. Not red sauce. Not Franks's red hot sauce. Pepper Salsa. Spicy but unsatisfying. I was annoyed but I could barely walk, so I had to eat half of it before giving up. Waste of a meal.

The day drags on and I leave a bit early to catch the Red Sox game. Splurging despite my day-to-day tenuous financial situation, I decide to order a pizza from Papa John's, because they've got this new "Hawaiian Barbeque Chicken Pizza" deal. It looked tasty in the commercials. So I order one before I leave work and jump onto the metro. Which isn't moving.

Twenty minutes later I emerge near my house. The pizza guys is about to leave. I catch him (what luck!) and explain the problem with the metro. How come everytime I order a pizza at 7:00pm it takes an hour to arrive, but the one time I order it and take the metro it only takes 20 minutes? No matter. I sit down and continue watching the Sox/Yankees game. I bite into a pizza. Ugh.

It turns out the "Hawaiian Barbeque Chicken Pizza" has tons of onions on it. Now this surprises me enough to check the Papa John's website to see if this was a mistake, but no: the pizza I ordered contains onions, pineapple, chicken and barbeque sauce. I'm baffled. Everyone knows a Hawaiian pizza contains ham and pineapple. You know, like they have on Hawaii, plenty of pigs and pineapples. So naturally, I thought they'd merely add barbeque chicken to the mix. I'm not sure where the damn onions came from, but the combination was atrocious. I thought about ordering another pizza but with my luck, it'd take an hour to arrive and I was hungry then, so I ate it anyway. While watching the Sox lose.

It turns out the Cubs lost, too, but I didn't watch that game. And the idiots at Equifax have screwed me again with a credit error. It's been almost two months since this madness started. I just want them to know who I am and where I live. So far that seems too much to ask.

In all, a horrible, rotten, no-good day. So I spent a couple hours after the game cleaning the house. At least something looks better now than it did. Plus, I scored $20 from Amex, for nothing. Free money rocks. But it doesn't make up for a lack of blue skies, or a good day.

In the beginning, there was Mosaic. And the people were not content. Then came mighty Mozilla and the book spoke thusly:

And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.
from The Book of Mozilla, 12:10

Then more changes were made and another prophecy arose:

And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.
from The Book of Mozilla, 3:31
(Red Letter Edition)

Now, as I discovered the other day via the about:mozilla command, we have a new prophecy:

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.
from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15
(Red Letter Edition)

For the full story, read this. I don't follow all the back-channel stuff for Mozilla, but I am using version 0.7 now, and it rocks. I'm glad there's a new prophecy to go along with it.

'werkz advice: go see it in the theater.

Tarantino's new work: "Kill Bill: Volume 1" is a bloody masterpiece. Like Rodriguez in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Tarantino takes a big budget and goes all out with it, snagging some cool special effects in the process, while paying tribute to a genre he love, namely, the low-budget Asian martial art film from the 70s. Like Rodriguez, Quentin manages to incorporate most of his old style into the new, producing an over-the-top affair that doesn't take itself too seriously at any point. Unlike Rodriguez, there aren't any "slow" moments to the film, which is good.

I'm not an Uma Thurman fan: I think she's gawky and unattractive. But even she comes off well in this flick, and the bad guys come off as amazing cool, even in the shape of pure evil. If you can handle multiple decapitations and arms lost, Kill Bill Volume One will satisfy. Now I can't wait to see the sequel.

My foot is killing me.

I had a great three-day weekend.

The Sox triumphed tonight, as I knew they would. Go Sox! It was a low-scoring affair, but the game was fun to watch.

I bought the "Kill Bill" soundtrack. It's only fairly good. The RZA contributed very little. Tracks 5 and 9 and 10 are nice. The move slices heads, nicely.

I'm too tired to write more. Perhaps tomorrow.

This is scary stuff. Go read it. Then get set to fight for the right (read: left!) side.

So I read this review by Tom Shales several weeks ago about the new show Joan of Arcadia. I didn't really get the review, because it seemed to miss the entire premise of the show, namely, some sort of comparison with Joan of Arc. The review just ignores the premise while dragging up lines like,

"Nevertheless, the premise is loopy and hard to accept even if one has a high tolerance for hokey Hollywood inspirationals."

"And yet a combination of Katharine and Audrey Hepburn would have a hard time putting this material over. For reasons unexplained, Joan is chosen by the Supreme Being to perform a series of tasks apparently designed to improve the lives of those around her --"

Um, earth to Tom: we're talking about someone being compared to Joan of Arc. Of course she's going to see visions and the premise is strange. So was the virgin maid! For a real review, check out this piece which criticizes Joan the right way: by comparing her to the real Joan, and saying that the current material needs to improve. The whole time I read the Shales review I was expecting something like this, and when it ended I thought to myself, "Wow. That Tom guy really doesn't get it, does he?"

I haven't seen the show, but it couldn't reach the Dustin Hoffman level of hilarity of The Messenger or the hotness of Milla, so I probably won't tune in.

So last night I've got a busy schedule of a few events too close to each other for comfort. Walking over to a tony alumni fundraiser, I pass an elderly gentleman clad in what appears to be African clothing. I'm walking on Pennsylvania by the White House and he say "Excuse me."

"Uh, yes?" I reply, taking my radio headphone out. It's difficult to listen to HFS and pay attention to people at the same time.

"Where would I go to talk to the President?" the man asks.

"Well, uh, I guess you would go over to that gate over there and talk to the guards," I helpfully point out. He thanks me and proceeds to do that. Crazy.

I get to the fundraiser and an hour later am instantly transported back to high-school. Back in the day, the big deal for college admittance was "extra-curricular activities". I was already well-heeled in this regard, playing multiple sports and a musical instrument. The one hole in my resume was community service. Not having committed any major crimes recently, I hadn't picked up trash, ladled soup or really much of anything to help my fellow man. Sure, occasionally I'd help out with said activities for church or some other group, but since I didn't belong to any clubs devoted to service, the opportunities were limited.

So I joined the "Key Club", basically a younger version of Kiwanis. The other several service organizations in town, like the "Lions" or the "Eagles" or the "Moose" club (what's up with all the animals? and what the hell is a kiwanis?) the Kiwanians had a significant presence in my high school. There were maybe 5 kids in the Lion's club (maybe it was called the "Cub Club"...maybe not) and no other clubs in school. Everyone who was a goody-two-shoes was in the Key Club. They did stuff like pick up trash, and help seniors.

The organization itself was tightly regulated. There was the usual cast of uber-goody-two-shoes who were officers, plus activities that seemed to serve no purpose except as revenue generation (the annual "pancake day" when volunteers were forced to work in a sweaty makeshift kitchen after they were forced to sell tickets to said event in order to generate money for, that's right, the club!) and weren't all useful to the community, unless you count stuffing yourself full of pancakes as "useful".

The sheer efficiency, the stupid bureaucracy, the idiotic rules all led me to mock the organization itself. Although we did some good, the fact that we were always wasting time on stupid speeches and presentations annoyed me.

So to connect to the original thread, I first look up the club yesterday to see where it's at. The website shows a picture of the club and has a link marked "members only". That's right: the club only allows members to see the website. What kind of web-nazis would do that? Later I learned.

I roll up to the club and the guy at the door looks at me with an odd expression. I tell him I'm here for the event and he notes that I don't have a jacket. I say, "yeah" and wait. He then lets me in and forced me to wear a club jacket. I already don't like the spot, but hey, it's an open bar and free food, right? And I don't have to pay anything, right?

I get upstairs and get a name-tag and start chatting with some friends. Later I'm told that before I come downstairs, I have to remove my name-tag because the club doesn't allow them. Now they're name-tag-nazis. I really don't like the spot now. But hey, it's an open bar and free food, right?

Finally this lady comes around and tells us "you have to go into the main" room as if we were cattle to be herded. Not, "the speaking begins in a minute" but "you have to leave here". What nerve! So I walk in and note that they're forcing everyone to sit near the front. Just like good ole' Key Club. I slip between some chairs and sit near the rear of the room, but close to the exit in case my beverage or attention span runs low. Fortunately, another equally irreverent guy sits to my left. The lights dim and it's just like one of those boring lectures from the day, only they're hitting me up for money instead of time. I crack some jokes at their expense, leave twice for drink refills and give the presentation the (dis)respect they deserve. The main speaker was actually fairly funny, so I don't rip on him too much, but everyone before him was taken down a peg. I end up rolling, snagging the free food and then jetting to watch the sox/yanks game, which ended up stinking.

More spirited than ever, I ditch my friends and retreat to catch the Dem debate, which turns out to suck almost as much as the sox game. None of the Dems gets any real time to speak. The format was horrible. And once again nothing of interest happened. Oh, well. I guess my contrarian leanings just want to see some of the Dems really mix it up, like the upper level candidates asking the lower-level ones (read: Joe Lieberman) why they haven't dropped out yet, or any sort of physical combat. Okay, maybe that's a bit too far.

Okay, atrios just put me onto one of the funniest screeds I'd ever read: Margaret Cho's blog. Now, I always thought Ms. Cho was hilarious, back from her early stand-up days on Comedy Central. But this blog is even better. Let's see her in action as she talks about Ann Coulter:

I dove into Ann's writing, which was a cross between bizarre accusations about liberal politicians and psycho babble hyperbolic lies that make no sense. The conservative men love her, because she is a loyal slave to the status quo. She is Cunta Kinte. As well as betraying her gender, as a notoriously anti-feminist woman hater, she is also racist, homophobic, without compassion, inhumane, arrogant, dishonest, contradictory, not funny, has an arguing technique that compares closely to "I know you are, but what am I?", wears red leather miniskirts and is just plain fucking wrong. I cannot even quote her because everything she says is too awful for me to write. All this and she isn't even hot. If you are going to be wrong, at least be hot. I am guilty of some of the biases that Ann is, but in reverse. My prejudice and hatred of the establishment, the judicial system, anti- abortionists, racism, misogyny, the integration of church and state - can spiral downwards out of control, and maybe my facts could be discounted and I could be called a liar as well. But I don't give a shit, because at least I am hot. I know I may not be traditionally pretty, but playas line up around the block to make some time with me, and they aren't even getting it right then. The line is just for the wristband, yo. The hotness is not about age, looks, body type, race - it is about honesty, knowing who you are and being who you are, without trying to front like you are better than you are. It is about the down deep authenticity of self, then living it, loving it and looking it.

You have to read the whole thing because it's too good to read here. I need to meet a woman like that. Damn. We could all use a little more Cho in our lives.

So I'm walking to work this morning, running a little late but not really that bad. Halfway there I run into this guy who asks me a question in Spanish.

It turns out he's a 53-year old worker from Guatemala with a bad knee looking for spiritual guidance. I don't know much (read: any) Spanish and he knew very little English so it was a frustrating conversation. The guy asked if God was there for everyone, or just some people. He said his spirit was hurting (as well as his leg) and that he'd read Darwin and Kant and that he just couldn't believe in anything anymore. I thought about suggesting Kierkegaard, but then I realized I couldn't really communicate that in Spanish. He said he didn't know what the point of confession was and I told him that in my church, we don't have confession.

So after 15 minutes (making me horribly late for work) I tell the guy I can't help him. I don't have any money to give him, because I haven't been to the bank lately, and he doesn't want any anyway. I left feeling kind of down. The guy wasn't crazy...if I just knew some Spanish I feel I could've helped him. As I turned to go he said his name was Carlos. I wanted to say, "My name is..." but I didn't know the right words so I just repeated my name twice and turned away. Not that much fun.

I arrive at work late, hot and down.

In one of the intellectually laziest arguments ever made, Grover "I want to down the government in my bathtub" Norquist has now compared the estate tax to the Holocaust. That's right. Read the article. Read it again.

What is this guy smoking?

Yeah, they killed the evil Yanks tonight. I caught the entire second half of the game, punctuated only by occasional shots of the Cubs demolishing the Marlins. If the series ended up being Sox/Cubs...the entire game of baseball would benefit.

For now, though, I'm simply savoring the moment.

It's a pity that the Dem debate occurs tomorrow near the same time as the Boston/NY game. Fortunately, the debate will be over quicker, so you can watch both!