After a four-year dependency, I’m moving away from the usage of a blind HTML page on my site as a bookmark site; every morning when I wake my Powerbook from sleep (or boot my PC workstation at the office) all my browsers point to the same page. This way I avoid migrating troublesome bookmark files from one browser/platform/version to another, and I don’t spend days formatting them to fit my peculiar workflow. With the advent of Safari as my main browser, and its beautiful method of organizing bookmarks, I’m slowly migrating all my favorite links into the browser.
The financial planning meeting went very well, and I left with one very important goal: Sell the house. Fix it, clean it, paint it, sell it. Quickly.
Today is Old-School Van Halen Day. Fair Warning: Women And Children First. (the latter is also nominated for the title of Best Rock Album Cover.)
Happy 30th Anniversary, Roe V. Wade. Ladies and Gentlemen, please consider your rapidly dwindling rights as an American citizen and support the 1973 decision. Please don’t let a group of old white men dictate women’s rights.
Another example of how real creative people think. I’ve not taken a lot of pictures these days because it seems like the only time I see the world is when I’m in the car, driving to or from work. And that’s a pretty boring stretch of road. Michael Sippey found a way to make the situation a little more interesting, from a west coast perspective.
Here’s to standing up for what you believe in. God bless.
A Hint to You, After a Trip To Smith & Hawken: A few years ago I went crazy and for Christmas bought every woman I knew a paperwhite forcing kit, because I thought they were pretty. It turns out that while they look really pretty, about a week after they bloom they tend to smell like urine. Rancid urine in your house. You have been warned.
Today I have a new playlist in iTunes: the 80’s mix. I’ll list a few of the hits here:
Moments In Love – The Art of Noise
I Want Candy – Bow Wow Wow
Beyond Belief – Elvis Costello
Hyperactive! – Thomas Dolby
Fall On Me – R.E.M.
Pretty In Pink – The Psychedelic Furs
I Got You – Split Enz
Welcome To The Pleasuredome – Frankie Goes To Hollywood
I love this news in Salon (registration or ad-viewing required) about shoulder-launched missiles used against airliners inside the U.S. Guess we shouldn’t have sold all those Stingers to the Afghans back in the Reagan years, huh? (this happy reality courtesy of the folks who brought you supply-side economics and Iran-Contra.)
Clue for you: Explain to me why the Democrats are opposing the Homeland Security Bill. Don’t just list what the Republicans say it does. Tell me why McCain has decided to oppose it. Educate me. Don’t patronize me, or merely spit back what the Republican party line is. Show that you have some brains. Meanwhile, I’ll go somewhere else for my news.
So the fax thing isn’t working. Nice of the website, box, and instruction manual to tell us up front that the unit won’t work if you have a modem on the same line. My DSL apparently interferes with the incoming signal, so it’s a waste of time. In the meantime, I’ve signed up for an account with eFax, which at first has worked well for me. unfortunately now, their site is bollixed up so that even if I wanted to upgrade to the pay service (which I’d like to try) I can’t, because paths like www.efax.com/help/inetpub/wwwroot/default.asp just don’t work for some strange reason. May I suggest…?
Take a look at this article: the 100 best albums of the 80’s. Right the hell on. This is music, not the dreck you hear these days. I would go a little less Pixies and Sonic Youth-heavy, but otherwise they get a lot of it right.
Jen’s mom called yesterday to let us both know that the Leonid meteor shower was last night, and won’t be around again until 2098. Luckily, Jen, my mother, sister and I woke at 4am one morning last year, drove up the hill out of Aurora and sat shivering in a field to watch the display. After a brisk 10 minutes or so outside, we returned to the Subaru, sipped hot chocolate, and steamed up the windows. The shower was beautiful. I only hope I can share that experience with my children.
Jen and I are knee-deep in two freelance projects that will simultaneously eat all our free time and also provide much-needed capital in our bank accounts. They are both very exciting projects, and should be challenging to work on together. Meanwhile, I’m juggling three separate home improvement projects right now- grouting the tub, wiring the backyard, and finishing the deck. Sleep? Bah. For lightweights.
Sen. John McCain was on NPR yesterday talking about campaign-finance reform and sounding like the intelligent, free-thinking man he is. He brought up a very good point about advertising during elections: We, the citizens, own the airwaves, leasing time on them out to the big communication companies. Instead of mandating that equal free airtime be provided to each of the candidates, we instead let the conglomerates sell time for campaign ads to PACs, who devise attack ads designed to blur the facts and smear the opponents. Originally, this idea was built in to the reform bill, but the telecommunications lobby shot it down. Imagine a campaign cycle dominated by debate and discourse instead of mudslinging?
Note: This will be the last vaguely political thing I write here for a while. I’m going to get off the soapbox and put my high horse away. Thanks for indulging me.
What if there was a way to pre-register and pre-vote for your candidate of choice, and then all ads, electioneering and other useless crap directed at you would just disappear? If I have to see another crappy locally-produced TV attack spot, I’m gonna hurl. Or how about this: They make the loser go around and personally clean up all those stupid roadside signs planted on every divider, turn lane, and streetcorner.
Todd wrote this in response to my post yesterday about the Boy Scouts:
One thing Scouting wants to forget is its founder was a homosexual British imperialist who believed a paramilitary youth organization would further the cause of the waning Victorian empire.
If you ask me, I think the BSA should keep worrying about the sexual predators that seem to infiltrate their leadership ranks, not a successful Eagle Scout with non-tradional convictions.
Look here soon for a project I’m working on slowly this month: a collection of letterforms from old Baltimore. There’s a wealth of old hand-painted and commercially produced signage in town, and I’ve begun taking pictures of the stuff that strikes my eye. I’m going to arrange and catalog it, then post it for review.
How not to solicit work: I got an email this afternoon at work from “chingzkhan” with a subject line of “I have visited your site…” Upon opening it, the first line read: I have visited your site and I think that design looks not good now. Then it goes on to list their website (a template sales site) and says, Check it out! We have hired two new designers from indonesia. They rocks!
Way to go, there, captain. See how many hits you get with that.
So, not that I would have expected anything different, but I read this and sat back for a minute, thinking about all the poor slobs in Baltimore City Jail doing the maximum 10-20 year sentence for possession, after having been screwed royally by the three-strikes law. Call me a bleeding-heart liberal, call me a wussy pinko, call me whatever you want. I just think that if this stupid broad gets three strikes, niece of the Prez or not, she goes to the pokey for more than ten fucking days. Otherwise, get rid of the three strikes law completely. Tell me what you think.
For whatever reason, last night I had the annoying, frustrating experience of being able to sleep for 15-30 minute stretches at a time, and then waking up with some part of my body aching, twisted, or hot/cold. So I think I got about 4 hours’ sleep last night. However, I’m wearing my new shoes, so that makes life just a little better.
This makes me happy. I hope to god the Supreme Court upholds the NJ court’s verdict, and this guy takes it. I don’t want to contemplate the horror of a Senate with an overwhelming Republican majority. Not in the current political climate.
In a rare (and momentary) period of wealth, I ordered a David Sylvian CD for Jen to be delivered to her office. We borrowed one of his other CD’s from our buddy Rob, and she reported back that playing it while working had a beneficial effect on her mental health and productivity. So hopefully this double-CD set will bring her double happiness. Being able to do things like that makes me feel good as well. I love you baby.
I looked at the download log for that UMAX scanner software; it took 5 hours last night for a 21MB file to download. On a clean T-1. Um… guys? you might want to set up a mirror somewhere…
Last night I had the most amazing sensation while in the pool. Even though I had an aluminum tank, fins, bouyancy compensator, mask, wetsuit, and 12 pounds of weights attached to me, I was at neutral bouyancy and floating gracefully through the water, using my breathing to lower the top of my tank under the lane dividers. The regulator worked flawlessly, and the only issues I had were the attempts to clear my mask- it is a hard thing indeed to program your brain to switch valves from exhaling through your mouth to the nose underwater. Next week I’ll need to practice this repeatedly so that I don’t panic in the quarry check-dive.
Some new albums to look into buying on the next paycheck: the new Underworld CD and Dirty Vegas, recommended by Matt. Also to consider: Boards of Canada. Plus, there’s a new Thievery Corporation CD coming out October first. Bonus!
I finally, after a month or so of waiting, ordered three rolls of 620 film from Film for Classics for the stable of old cameras I bought at the beginning of August. I also paid off a bunch of niggling little bills that have been nipping at my heels for a few weeks. When I get the film, I’m going to take a walk on the main drag of Highlandtown and shoot some of the buildings still out there, like the movie theater and some of the storefronts.
Boy, Americans sure are stupid. This story about a woman in Houston who made a store put a fig leaf over a copy of Michelangelo’s David is just mind-boggling. Why are people in this country so damn uptight?
I would have punched the guy too. | God help us all. | I’m gonna buy this book. -thread link
I did hear on NPR that the former head of the U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq was on one of the early morning shows speaking out against the “regime change” policy, and offering an alternate solution. He went so far as to describe the current plan as foolhardy (my words, not his). I am impressed by his courage and proud of his ability to take a stand. Let us hope the Congress and U.N. dissuade the government from this plan.
Curious.
This link will tell you what else you might be listening to if you like Massive Attack. (Remove them from the URL bar and replace with your favorite artist; replace spaces with the “+” sign. Or take their survey.)