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Later | edward
So I’ve been mum about my misadventures, thinking no one cared. Apparently I stand corrected (or maybe not, since I don’t live in the DW house, or even in DC).
But lately I’ve had more than a few. Case in point, I punctured another tire last night.
Three things galled me about the experience. A) It’s my fourth flat in exactly two weeks, and on a brand-new tire (thankfully insured and under warranty). B) I’d had a night of exercise, Lean Cuisine, CSI, and a bath planned that was ruined. C) I pulled into the Baltimore Convention Center drop-off area, and the guards/reception people just watched as I changed it.
Two weeks ago in DC (see below), despite the rain, time, and location (or maybe because of those factors) I was twice asked if I needed help or a phone (once from a middle-aged white woman, the second time from a young African-American couple, for those doing theses on race relations in auto crises contexts). Yet at the Convention Center, whose job it is to make the city attractive, not one person, employee or otherwise, offered to help.
Of course, I was bundled in my winter clothes (read: camouflaged army jacket) so, frankly, I looked like a terrorist or militia nut. But if that was the case, you’d think they’d call the cops or something. (Then I really would have had a story to tell, assuming I survived—"This is the police! Drop the tire iron now, smart guy!"). But no, they just sat watching.
No, it’s not their job to help me (and they did let me in to watch the tire schmutz off my hands) and it was damn cold. But I would have liked to have engendered some reaction from them—positive or negative. All they had to do was come out and say, “Do you need a hand?” or “Can we call a tow?” and I would have said, “No, I got it; thank you, sir” and I would have had a totally different impression of the evening. Instead, I was gawked at like a zoo exhibit.
And what if I had been a convention-goer from another city? What impression would that have left? I’m always trying to convince people Baltimore’s pretty cool, and usually it is, but nights like last night make me feel somewhat dumb for being the apologist.
And of course, NTB was out of my replacement tire, so I’ve left my car in Columbia since the parents were nice enough to help me out. I’m left with the amusing task of trying to parallel park my ’rents’ minivan in the meantime. At least it has a CD player….
I'm one of those girls who's not embarrassed not to know about sports. I like sports, I like watching sports, I especially like the eating and drinking rituals which accompany watching sports; but apparently there's more to it than that:
If you do not want to look like a football-watching rookie, you must first focus your attention on your attire. Now read carefully, ladies, because a fashion faux pas as minor as a crystal brooch can mess up your entire football ensemble. Real football fans do not show up to a game in Jimmy Choo heels or cashmere ponchos.
What? I can't wear my Manolos to the Superbowl party? That's good because I left them in Houston. But now I wish I hadn't, dammit.
A suitable outfit could be jeans, a fitted T-shirt, fashionable sneakers and an NFL hat. But beware of the "cap trap." If you pick your NFL hat based on which team best matches your outfit, you may find yourself sporting a very attractive, yet unpopular Cardinals cap (a dead giveaway that you are a football faker since no one is a Cardinals fan these days!).
And, lucky me, I get sound tutelage not only on my attire, but also on refreshments and even commentary. Fortunately we aren't watching a game this Sunday, so I have extra time to bone up on my jargon. I think I'll make flash-cards.
Scenario No. 8: The Patriots jump on top of the Eagles by 20 points or more.
You say ... The AFC sure kicked the NFC's butt this year! or ... This is a dynasty in New England!
I had meant this as the second article, and find we’re already up to #4. Brad is a machine!...
Another great starting point for watching anime isn’t a Japanese cartoon at all—it’s Teen Titans. Why am I recommending TT for newbies? Several reasons:
1) Ease of viewing: Almost every cable provider offers Cartoon Network, and it’s on at a reasonable time…several reasonable times, actually. I work out to it after work, and watch it in the evenings when I know I’ll be too beat to stay up for The Daily Show.)
2) A sense of normalcy: No culture confusion—the TTs are American kids—and none of the ingrained weirdness inherent in many anime cartoons (“Of course, we are all ninja assassins in schoolgirl outfits! Why do you ask?”)
3) Familiarity with a twist: The TTs are the sidekicks and lesser lights of the DC Universe. So it’s the world you’ve grown up with (Super Friends, Batman, Justice League), but in a neighborhood you probably haven’t explored if you’re not a comic reader.
4) Art and iconography: Anime and manga—particularly those with comic or romantic themes—have developed highly stylistic forms for denoting emotions. Sometimes this is very expressionistic: when a character is mad, they might turn into a volcano, or hit another character with a hammer (At first this seems strange, but it’s really no different than the “wild takes” of a Warner Brothers cartoon, with the eyeballs and hearts popping out. It even occurs in a kind of live-action anime, Jackie Chan’s City Hunter.) Other times, a kind of shorthand is used: when a character is mad, an asterisk appears on their forehead; when nervous, a giant bead of sweat; when happy, little upside down Us or Vs. (This is also why you see sometimes see smiley emoticons that look like this ^_^ instead of this :-) .)
TT uses both Western and Eastern styles: Robin, embarrassed, will blush and grit his teeth as he would in a Batman cartoon, but he’ll also have the anime giant sweat droplet. As such, TT is a useful Rosetta Stone for watching anime in general.
5) Smart writing/directing: One recent episode involving a magician was divided into vaudeville acts with outlandish and punny titles displayed on cards with carnival playbill lettering. Another episode should have been terrible, given that the villain, Mad Mod, is simply an evil Austin Powers rip-off, but great design decisions (when Mod takes over the sky becomes the Union Jack and the buildings all look like cutouts from the Times) and rapid-fire in-jokes (Monty Python and Yellow Submarine homages, among them) pulled the affair off seamlessly.
6) Great stories: TT understands that all the superhero combat is (or at least should be) a continuation and animation of the characters’ emotional dramas. And—like the first two generations of Digimon (one of the only “kids with monster pals” shows that doesn’t royally suck)—the drama here is the trials and tribulations of teen angst...a source of endless conflict, and hence, stories worth telling.
Extra bonus) The TT site has an episode guide, so you know which episodes you’ve seen, and in what order they were meant—crucial in a series with emotional arcs and recurring villains (Terra, Red X, Slade) and for those of us now accustomed to watching series in order on DVD.
Let’s not lie, I was a teensy bit drunk when I pressured Edward into giving me blogging privileges on this site. After all, I thought, I do live in the 'werkz now. And I really wanted to be able to leave comments. About how I have no gray hairs. That was my logic at the time.
But now that I’m sitting here, trying to write, I’m having more trouble. What’s my shtick? When it comes to politics and technology I'm a relative moron, and pop culture seems pretty well covered.
So, for the moment at least, I’ll content myself to being shtick-less (what would Lacan say?)*. And - as I while away the hours contemplating my seemingly interminable future as a delinquent intern - I will leave you with this appropriate, if not anxiety-inducing, link.
Even the title stresses me out.
*I am not the pomo blogger. Maybe I could the fauxmo blogger. Or the fauxcialite blogger? I could handle the Dredwerkz' bustling society page. It'd be like a Dredwerkz Page 6.
This is cool.
Of course, as usual, our nation's capital is not one of the cities listed. Can you imagine any other country that treated its seat of government with so little respect? I mean, hell, even Denver got to test this out before us.
I'm sure they'd mumble something about "security" in response, but that's just a smoke-screen.
I demand cool technology! In DC! On the bright side, you can submit pictures of your own to supplement the official A9 ones. Perhaps it's just a big ploy to get suckers like me to take snapshots of places. Which, now that I think about it, is an even cooler idea...kind of a giant image wiki that is automatically semantically better than the standard google images because each image is chosen to match up with a particular business which has already been indexed in the yellow pages. The starting cities therefore are just seeds for the idea.
As much as I dislike helping giant companies create proprietary databases, I have to respect Amazon's approach. If it allows people to extract the data in xml the way they have their other services, A9 could be great.
Read this WaPo story. Try to ignore the god-awful picture of one of the thieves involved...
Separately, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and nine colleagues released a report showing that the Bush administration spent more than $88 million last year on contracts with public relations firms, an increase of 128 percent over the last year of the Clinton administration. Medicare and Medicaid officials have spent the most on outside publicity firms over the past four years, the report said.
The Washington Post reported yesterday that syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher was touting Bush's "healthy marriage" initiative while working on the program under a $21,500 contract from the Department of Health and Human Services. The news followed an earlier controversy over conservative commentator Armstrong Williams, who has apologized for not disclosing a $241,000 Education Department contract to promote the president's No Child Left Behind law.
I'm not sure why it costs so much to get this people to flack for administration initiatives...perhaps, as some have speculated, this is really more about providing low-wage jobs for low-level GOP operatives.
It's weird, but there's an odd turing-test-ish device out there, a AIM bot called "SmarterChild". If you're using an instant messaging client that supports AIM, just add "SmarterChild" to your buddy list and then say "hi!" to them.
The concept is very cool.
The execution leaves a little to be desired, but it's super fun to fool around with. Go give it a shot. The only error I've discovered is that sometimes around lunch time the service gets overloaded. Considering the number of people who have it though...
Here's a brief sample of my last conversation:
(15:34:24) Edward: can i track stocks?
(15:34:25) SmarterChild: What if I want to track stocks?
(15:34:31) Edward: i don't know
(15:34:31) SmarterChild: Well think about it then.
Hilarious.
Have you read Hersh’s New Yorker article about the Pentagon and Iran? Everybody—even those folks in the billabong—is talking about it. (Thanks to my friend A. for pointing me to the Carlton piece; I knew about Hersh outing Abu Ghraib, but was stunned to learn he broke the My Lai story.)
consider me inspired by another eight inches o' snow (20 cm, adriana!) to review the finest bit of storytelling in a long while. and no, for once, i'm not exaggerating terribly.
for those that have heard the hype, skip to the review. the rest of you hosers should check out this trailer first, though it requires real player and doesn't really tell you anything about the show other than there will be sword fights.
it's samurai champloo - a heavily anticipated anime from shinichiro watanabe, the dude who brought you cowboy bebop. he's changed the setting and the story, but in many ways sc is like a younger brother to cowboy bebop - far less interested in cool and more interested in action.
it's set at the close of feudal japan, during a time of chaos when the old ways and codes are dying. for various reasons, a quiet ronin and a loud-mouthed vagrant end up promising a girl that they will help her find a samurai who smells like sunflowers. along the way they'll battle yakuza, ogres, and hungry stomachs while trying their best to kill each other when they get frustrated...
but while bebop's true appeal was how it mixed jazz and blues into the very structure of the show - champloo does the same with hip-hop. hard to believe? i certainly thought so, but after the first fight, i was convinced. the vagrant, mugen, wields his katana like a street-fighter, mixing it with moves that are half-capoiera and half breakdancing. and while the ronin, jin, and the girl, fuu, seem a little more constrained, their philosophical approaches mesh with the solid beats.
i could rave about the animation (again, the fights are incredible) and the amorality of the protagonists (they each have a sort of code) but you really have to check it out yourself. far east meets the west side ~ i promise you'll love it!
First off, if you haven't signed up for my cool walmart fact page please do! As soon as I get two levels of sign-ups, the viral map will start to look much more interesting. Come on, help me out! You could win $1000!
Second, if you haven't read them, you should check out Ted Turner's thoughts on the current state of the media. Some highlights:
On Fox News: While Fox may be the largest news network [and has overtaken Turner's CNN], it's not the best, Turner said. He followed up by pointing out that Adolph Hitler got the most votes when he was elected to run Germany prior to WWII. He said the network is the propaganda tool for the Bush Administration. "There's nothing wrong with that. It's certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy. Particularly when the news is dumbed down," leaving voters without critical information on politics and world events and overloaded with fluff," he said.
On TV news in general: "We need to be very well informed. We need to know what's going on in the world. "a little less Hollywood news and a little more hard news would probably be good for our society."
On media consolidation:"The consolidation has made it almost impossible for an independent. It's virtually impossible to start a cable network." Broadcasters and programmers "don't want more independent voices out there. They own everything. That's why I went into the restaurant business. Either that or I'd work for a salary for one of the big jerks.
Ted's a smart guy. But this piece in TNR is wrong.
The problem with Hollywood and Democrats isn't that Dems need to be more vocal about the levels of sex and violence. This is a central fallacy of many left-leaning commentators: that the average american is a gun-lovin' nascar watching bible-thumping gay-hating person who can't stand higher taxes. But all of these tropes work against each other: the rural voter who wants low taxes and watches nascar while drinking beer is not a bible-thumper. Likewise, the uber-conservative gay-hating crowd hates all sin not just popular sin. The fact that the GOP has managed to unite these two groups reflects their ability to convince both that they need to be afraid.
That's why the idea that Dems can rally "against the market" in the TNR piece is so silly: it's not that most Americans think there's too much violence on tv. Most Americans are happy to play GTA to their heart's content. Here's the bad graph from the TNR piece:
Once you get past the issue of free speech--more on that in a minute--attacking the entertainment industry is a natural fit for Democrats. Republicans court charges of hypocrisy when they bash crass popular culture, since it is a relentless focus on the bottom line, typically an unquestioned good on the right, that propels the entertainment industry forward, as anyone who works in Hollywood can attest. For Democrats, the connection between an unfettered market and toxic values is exactly the point--and a point that can serve as the linchpin of an authentic new progressive moralism.
The argument here is simple: When financial self-interest is touted as one of society's greatest virtues, as it has been lately, individuals will behave badly. The recent paroxysm of greed and dishonesty at places like Enron, Tyco, and scores of other companies is evidence of this point. So is the terrible ethical climate in law and medicine, where a money culture is increasingly subverting professional ethics. The epidemic of cheating in schools and even the steroid problems in sports also show how today's outsized imperative to get ahead can bring out the worst in people.
I'm not sure that the unfettered market/toxic values connection applies here. But I am sure that having Dems defend a kind of popular elitism (the "you should listen to NPR" idea) is a bad political move. And furthermore, often the type of programming that is critically acclaimed is extremely popular. There just isn't a connection between morally bankrupt shows and profitability. Otherwise every show would be awful.
The problems with the media are important...but Turner grasps them better. Instead of focusing on violence in the media, why not concentrate on the sad fact that the news coverage ignores Africa, where real violence takes place every day? Why not emphasize harder news which would help educate people? I'm willing to bet that the tsunami coverage exposed more Americans to foreign lands than anything before. Was it violent? Sure. Was it tragic? Sure. But Americans responded to the disaster in a way not seen since September 11th.
That's how I differ from TNR. I think Americans are savvy media consumers. If a network has good programming, we'll flock to it. We're not quite as dumb as many would like to think.
I think that Rice should not be Secretary of State.
I think that Gonzales should not be Attorney General.
Let's focus on the latter for the moment. Gonzales personally condoned the use of torture as a technique for interrogation. Ignore the fact that it doesn't work and let's focus on the legal implications. Let's go back to what actually happened:
- The CIA asked the White House if it could use torture to elicit information from subjects at Gitmo.
- The White House (through Gonzales) said that the Geneva Convention statutes no longer applied to certain individuals. It gave the green light to torture.
- The techniques applied at Gitmo were exported around the world, frequently to groups and individuals in a variety of settings that not only failed to elicit information, but actively harmed our soldiers in uniform.
Torture is wrong. As the world's leading country, we need to lead by example. Yet with that said, I can certainly see step #1 occurring. What's crazy, in my mind, is that #2 would ever take place. By setting up a legal precedent, Gonzales knew #3 would occur. His legal arguments (outlined in the infamous August 2002 Bybee Memo) were slipshod and amounted to a usurpation of the division of power outlined in the Constitution. Gonzales argued that the President, as Commander in Chief, could arbitrarily refuse to enforce laws he didn't like.
Think about that. There's another word for that.
It's called a dictatorship. Yet Gonzales thought it was not only necessary, but good! He provided the legal framework, shoddy though it might be, to allow the President to imprison any American citizen without access to counsel, to subject any individual suspected of terrorism to torture, etc.
Such a man could never be elected to public office. American's wouldn't countenance such an evil. But to have such an individual chosen to be the nation's top police officer is just as evil. Democrats and moral Republicans must stand united against this nomination.
when you're stuck in a blizzard and you just finished your last netflix disc, the long but rewarding once upon a time in america - you need to do something other than watch illegal cable.
so off i trudged through yard-thick snow to tower, which remained curiously open despite everybody else being closed. cool, eh? where i decided to fork over megabucks for a couple boxes of ghost in the shell:stand alone complex which proved to be as enjoyable at three in the afternoon as it previously was at one in the morning. you know, if they actually moved adult swim to a more reasonable hour, i think i might stop wasting my snow-blind days.
i digress, as usual. ghost in the shell:stand alone complex, which acronyms terribly into gits:sac, is great across the board. the storyline is kinda like an offshoot of the popular movies, wherein the major has not completely deevolved into a net-inhabiting ghost yet. sound odd? well, that's part of the appeal of both the movies, and according to rumor, the original manga.
essentially it's just a crime show, with the characters working for a super-secret CT force. but the twist is that in this near future, 2030, mankind has become so entwined with our computers and machines that nearly everyone has a cybernetically augmented brain, in addition to various body parts, of course. though this sounds run-of-the-mill, the writers focus almost exclusively on the philosophical and ethical (note how i separate those two) puzzles that breed in such a situation.
from soul or 'ghost' cloning machines to brain hacking to adorable police tanks, stand alone complex provides nearly flawless storylines, with just enough mystery to keep you guessing. the animation is a mixture of CG (i.e. for car chases) and more typical fare - fights are good, but there is a tendency to favor richly colored scenery over detailed action. plus one kinda has to roll one's eyes at the buxom major's getup - lingerie paired with a military jacket is laughable. and the music puts the series over the top - yoko kanno is, as always, incredibly versatile and gifted at matching music to story. she apparently even noted that the somewhat thin character development and dense dramatic nature made her want to pair it with a lighter, airier music, which she does to great acclaim.
all in all, stand alone complex shines in a sea of mediocre animation, and would be far and away my best pick for tv animation were it not for one late contender - more on that later...
i fondly remember blizzards as concluding with a deadly stillness, the snow pristine and blue under the dull black sky. but not this one. those winds haven't died yet.
no, it wasn't boston's biggest in the year of my birth, but anytime you get over two feet in one sitting, well let's say that my school is rumored to have never have closed. until today. pity i didn't have class!
so to answer your inevitable questions - yes, yes, and are you kidding? i did go out in eight inches an hour, fifty mph winds, and negative fifteen degree temps, twice. though i did score a tall stack involving bananas. and yes, i managed to spend an insane amount of money involving some new shure cans 'cause my old ones broke (aren't i psychic?) snow rape? you know the answer to that ed.
oh and i think i'm starting to go a little crazy. too much gits:sac and not enough policy analysis exercise. all play and no work makes brad turn into a lobster bisque...
Snow, Season Five and Spirits with Jenna. Kevin and football and burgers. A man on fire. Maria full of heroin. That was it.
werkz advice: skip it on the large screen. maybe entirely, actually.
The guy who brought you About a Boy has a new flick, entitled In Good Company. Unlike his former work, IGC focuses on two different characters, one, a workaholic young man played by Topher Grace who has plenty of material goods but few social ones, the other, a hardworking older father played by Dennis Quaid who's going through a difficult financial period but has a warm loving family. Unlike Sideways, which I had low expectations for based on peer reviews, I had heard IGC was funny and interesting. Not quite.
In About a Boy, Weitz manages to make the consumerish character played by Hugh Grant to seem selfish but charming. In contrast, IGC's young character seems constantly needy and charmless. When at one point, early in the movie, Grace's character comments that the high-point of his life might be right then, at age 26, you think it's a funny remark, not foreshadowing. As his prediction turns into truth, the movie becomes less funny and more meandering. By the time the film ends, one is left wondering what the whole point was...
In the last few years, I've definitely become more of a Target fan. So if you're like me, and you dislike Walmart, perhaps you should head over to my brand-new walmart fact-checking page to get the details on why Walmart is screwing over it's "associates" on a regular basis.
Just last week Walmart rolled out the big-guns, net-style to attempt to defend their practices. Nice try, guys. The bottom line is this: aggressive wage policies do more to harm the employees of walmart than they do to boost the bottom line.
This is, oddly, why many big businesses are starting to push for a universal health care system, because as health care costs increase, only a drastic change in how the system works will enable large firms to stay profitable without draconian cuts. Walmart, of course, has gone the other route: forcing its employees to rely upon public assistance to subsidize its business. Imagine if the boss at your firm told you to take a pay cut and make up the rest through public assistance! Essentially, then, Walmart has its hand in the public till, so all taxpayers are helping its business model.
It's time to fight back.
I missed my radio show because of the snow. But in honor of the winter wonderland the East Coast has become, here are some lyrics from today’s Track You Should Be Listening To Right Now, “Our Retired Explorer (Dines With Michel Foucault In Paris, 1961)":
Oh, I could show you the way shadows colonize snow
Ice breaking up on the bay off the Lassiter coast
Light failing over the pole as every longitude leads
Up to your frostbitten feet. Oh, you're very sweet
Thank you for the flowers and the book by Derrida
But I must be getting back to dear Antarctica
I missed The Weakerthans’ 2003 release, Reconstruction Site, but my brother threw a copy my way just in time for the wintry onslaught. As the above lyrics indicate, they’re not afraid to act smart, and this has earned them some undeserved ire from some folks. But this track is straight-ahead indie rock with catchy hooks, and the text-setting is bravely sometimes on, sometimes against, the length of the lines. Best of all, the track was constantly a surprise, with a pretty standard opening—“Just one more drink and then I should be on my way home”—giving way to unexpected honest-to-God imagery and personification. (Listen to “Our Retired Explorer here or request it here. A live version is on their website, as is a video that I was too lazy to download RealPlayer to watch.)
Speaking of my aforementioned brother, I can neither confirm nor deny rumors that I gave him boxers that say, “I Bukkake for Justice.” But I will say that for Christmas I got him a Cat and Girl “My Record Collection Can Beat Up Your Record Collection” T.
Other fun places for those who like their t-shirts ironic:
T-Shirts That Suck.com has trouble loading on Safari, but it’s worth the look: great parodies (a “Honky” shirt in the Honda font) and faux-retro designs with Duffy-style line art and fun text (even a “Girls Don’t Poop Shirt” cute enough to wear outside the house).
T-Shirt Hell is better known than the above. Sadly, they’re not usually as clever and are a lot more crude…think of a Hot Topic with swearwords and you get the idea. Occasionally there’s a gem (“I Support Stem Cell Research. But Only as a Byproduct of My Support for Killing Babies”) but don’t even bother with the WorseThanHell section. Basically, it's apparel to make nü-metalheads think they’re clever, and that is a bad thing, period.
The New Yorker has a big article this week about CollegeHumor.com. I wasn’t impressed by the site, and their t-shirts, like the site, attempt to give the impression that you’re in on some private in-joke…but, as The NYer rightly points out, if the joke is from SNL, you’re “in” with all of America…and is it a joke? Extra points, though, for Bill Shakespeare’s “Prose before Hos” T.
ThinkGeek: When your apparel needs to be about SysOps, binary code, Schrödinger’s Cat, and whether Greedo shot first. I love this place, though I don’t have enough 1337 ski11z or CompSci knowledge to justify my wearing this gear.
Current Gallery and Artist Cooperative is a Baltimore gallery with artist-designed shirts. I’m hoping to check it out soon.
WebUndies.com: As close as an adult can get to Underoos®. Personally, unlike most geeks I never had a thing for Wonder Woman...but I’m willing to revise my opinion.
For those (two) of you on my class agent list: you may rest assured that the money you give to Williams helps them stock the library with various media crucial to understanding ourselves and the world we live in... like season seven of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, call no. PN1992.8 H66 B8447. And I thought I was going to be bored tonight in Williamstown....
Hey, has anyone else noticed that it's REALLY cold outside?
The Karmella’s Game/Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer show at the Ottobar was, as expected, great. We arrived late, so I missed the first act and Zolof doing “Moment,” which was a disappointment. But I caught the new “Argh...I'm A Pirate,” worth the price of entry alone.
After their set (while the PA-based band June played) I ended up dropping way too much money at the Zolof table—buying both full-lengths and the new EP, which prompted a shocked Rachel to give me two free copies of the new Eyeball Records compilation. A bit much, yes, but as one of the only fans there with a full-time job (and who was able to order from the bar, for that matter), I felt I had to step up and support the scene. Plus, they’re adorably talented.
Speaking of adorably talented, KG were, as always, dressed to the parochial school nines (red cardigans for the boys, red V-necks and kilts for the girls, ties for all). I re-met KTO and Mandy, who were nice enough to email me the next day to thank me for coming out. Clearly, the band was having fun being the headliner, putting extra oomph behind their stage gyrations and doing an encore (“Not the End,” mentioned in PSXVII) for the small but insistent crowd.
All in all a great night, and since I'd brought a non-indie kid with me (a folkie, no less), I was psyched to find her enthusiastically impressed. (It's always nice to get corroboration that my musical choices are not just spawned from scenester groupthink).
Fridays are great days for looking at cool websites. Here are some:
Goat Farm Design has done a great job on both their own site and their clients’ (including KG, above). As my Design Director put it: “They go right to the edge of too much design, and pull back just short—really nice.” Play around here a bit.
Visual Thesaurus is a neat reconceptualization of how thesauri should work. The demo only lets you try three words (and PG ones at that), but it’s still worth a look.
Rums of Puerto Rico is just stunning—from the “Departures” intro right down to the smallest submenus, and the airport metaphor is surprisingly clever and cohesive. Gate 5 is a must-read for anyone who makes a cocktail—especially the tips on bartending etiquette.
Color in Motion: an MFA thesis that explores and animates the meaning of colors.
Finally, as anyone familiar with the military knows, the major enemy most soldiers fight is staggering boredom. Combating this insidious threat results in 213 Things Skippy Is No Longer Allowed To Do In The U.S. Army.
Building on my lengthy post below I'd like to add the following note:
Remember when Jib-Jab seemed funny? Or Wonkette seemed like a breath of fresh air? They both now just don't seem to get it: making fun of Democrats and Republicans is, indeed, a little funny. But take a hint from the Daily Show: one side had amusingly weird characters, like anyone who claimed to have "Joementum"; the other side has really screwed up individuals who want to bring this country to their knees. Equating the two, whether in silly song-and-dance routines involving Clinton being slapped (I mean, come on, why the hell is Clinton still in the damn videos?) or just silly Dick/Colin jokes, is not funny anymore. Sure, it's very "meta" to make inside jokes about ABC's The Note, but no one really cares anymore, okay? Got it? I think right after Wonkette took the Washingtonienne out drinking, I realized that it wasn't so much a snarky look at politics as it was a sex-obsessed look at, well, snarkiness. Perhaps my puritanical nature got the better of me. That was the end, though. And the latest Jib-Jab, a "funny" look at the next four years, is anything but. There's nothing amusing about getting screwed over for another election cycle.
To be honest, I don't even read Wonkette anymore...but I haven't got the heart to delete it from my RSS newsreaders. As for JibJab, well, let's just say I'm going to wait for us to win a few elections before I start watching them again.
Problem: My email server password has expired.
Why I Admit It’s My Fault: It had done countdown toward when my password was expiring, but I ignored it.
Mitigating Factor: Every other time I’ve had to change a password, the server has prompted me (“Would you like to change your password now? y/n”) so I was simply waiting for the prompt, which this time never occurred.
Response of Staff: Send me to an FAQ—which I had already read—to fill out a form that does me no good, since it will only send a new password to a college-related address.
Rant: Yes, 90% of users are idiots who have the same question, so I understand why FAQs exist. But, being a reasonably competent person, I almost never get the answer I need from them, because my problem is too complicated. Plus, because most FAQs are about computer-related things, they’re written by computer people. This is a disastrous thing, because computer people don’t think like users! They organize, process, and transmit differently—often radically differently. Evidence of this is that a) an entire profession, technical writers, exists to translate from tech-speak to user-speak (if your average computer geek could write, this job wouldn’t exist), and b) the best programmers have borderline Asberger’s Syndrome. And so I'm stuck reading an FAQ that either does have the answer, but has it in a (to me) totally illogical or hidden spot, or doesn't have the answer because my problem doesn't fit within the writer's original universe of parameters.
Back To My Problem: I had explained in my email that I was an alumn, explained why I’d messed up (demonstrating I was knowledgeable about the problem) and asked for assistance. So a coherent, reasoned rely would have been nice. Instead I got reflexively rerouted to an answer that won’t work. And of course, I’ve emailed back to explain my problem again and heard nothing.
Side Note: Is it “a FAQ” (as in “a fack”) or “an FAQ” (as in “an eff-ay-cue”)?
werkz advice: go catch it in the theater.
The latest re-imagining of Assault on Precinct 13 is a great one. I remember seeing the original some time ago and thinking that it wasn't all that good.
In the new version, Carpenter's (and thus by extension, Hawk's vision is fully realized. The action is fast and furious, with almost no down time. Characters you assume will survive are snuffed out one by one until you become one with the survivors, hoping against hope, that they will hold out. It makes one realize that all the survivor-inspired reality shows in the world can't compete with a tight plot and well written dialog.
Finally, the movie features a powerful anti-drug message: don't do drugs, or you won't be able to shoot people quite as well as you would otherwise.
Seeing all these people in town the past few days is a little depressing. But while weighing different options to enjoy my day off, I came to the conclusion that nothing I could do would really make me feel any better about the Bush administration.
Two days ago as I walked through my hotel I realized a year before I'd been sitting in a freezing cabin with a bunch of college students who were telling a reporter that if Dean lost the primary, they'd move to Canada. I narrowly avoided smacking them and saying Stay on message, you idiots! Too much time in DC, you might say.
I think people judge politics too simply: they assume that those who shout loudly are more driven than those who do not. On the other end of thing, there are many people in DC who relish fighting only for periods of time, and who hate the apathetic worse than any person across the aisle. Kicking back at a capitol hill haunt with the enemy after hours seems perfectly acceptable to them, like visiting a hated rival's team during the off-season and living it up.
Both sides, I feel, miss the larger point. The kids in Iowa were wrong because they thought that a single battle could win the war, and equally naive, that a loss would end everything. Furthermore, their willingness to give up after such a defeat (in a Democratic primary, no less) seemed to betray everything we were fighting for. With the wind at your back, it's easy to pick up supporters. But you don't find out who has the true spirit until things get tough. Those kids didn't.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that I am better than them in that respect. My work for the DC primary, through the Iowa caucus, and eventually in Arizona could hardly be described as generous. I did help, but not nearly enough. I gave money, but it didn't help things change the way I wanted it to. But I don't view any of those moments as a mistake: they were battles we lost, yet the war continues.
And this is how I differ from many of the Dems here in DC. I too, decry the apathetic as worse than the Republicans around town. Unlike them, under my cynical shell, I truly believe the core of Republican ideals is evil. It promotes a selfish behavior. It helps the well off. It manipulates the weak. It hates those who look, speak or act different. It says government is bad. It tells us to fear each other, instead of to trust.
When I see criticism of Democratic ideals, it is always in the same form, a weird amalgam of selfishness and fear: why are you helping that guy who looks different than me? Those people have it so easy. Because you are soft on those people, they will hurt me and my family.
Such sentiments are evil.
And this is where many Dems, across the spectrum, have failed in the past. Like Bush's nebulous "war on terror", we can never truly defeat the small, petty-minded among us who live in fear. But we must try. To give up is to admit that we are powerless against the stereotypes and myths of the past. Democrats have been fighting this fight for years and we must remember, that as bad as it is now, it can always get worse.
Sure, perhaps my exterior of jade conceals my beliefs. Perhaps my attempts to find common ground with people who appear Republican are all for naught. But my central idea, that the Republican ideal is corrupt, has a distinct corollary: that all Republicans are misguided. But we can win them back.
In Iowa, I had a conversation with a man who was convinced that "welfare people" were stealing money from his paycheck. Yet he was equally committed to increasing his child tax credit. And he was a Democrat! I tried to make my argument, but failing that, just had a conversation with him about his family. We talked about his son and how they were building a race car in their garage. He showed me the car, told me about how they'd modded it up. I left feeling like the guy was a decent guy, but one who had been infected with fear. I want to be able to win that guy back.
This is how the GOP operates: they spread fear. It's all too easy to give into that fear, to say to hell with it, to want to leave and go somewhere nice. But that would mean defeat. And I refuse to let this fear conquer my country. It's invaded, set up several beachheads, and taken over the government. Yet the people are still divided, and many still trust one another. The GOP wants us to fight among ourselves, to doubt our abilities, to just give up. Let's not let them.
I was on the metro, surrounded by folks in tuxes and gowns. All old. All white. Mostly ugly.
Dangerousmeta has some thoughts on the subject. Read them all. My fav:
“Is it the less dishonest to do what is wrong, because not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy.” Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813.
More thoughts later...