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Saturday, September 25th, 2004
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5:01 pm
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:: how jedi are you? ::
You are David Hume. You single-handedly made
monkeys out of guys with a lot more education
and experience than you, making you the most
famous empirical skeptic who has ever existed.
You believed that all ideas were merely copies
of sensations, and with this simple principle
you almost destroyed all of philosophy, not to
mention religion, ethics, and the basis of
natural science. While you give us no
assurances that we are justified in any of our
most treasured beliefs, you never let these
pain-in-the-ass views stop you from enjoying a
beer and a good game of billiards at the end of
the day.
Which philosopher are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
I'm trying to get warmed up for an actual entry, here...
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| Friday, July 9th, 2004
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9:37 pm - Movin' on up
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Getting promoted rules. That's me getting awarded my third stripe (Senior Airman). I'll be able to go up for my fourth (Staff Sergeant) early next year. That'd kick serious rocks.
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| Friday, July 2nd, 2004
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12:12 pm - OMFG, what is the law for then??
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From Wired Magazine, by Kim Zetter:
E-mail privacy suffered a serious setback on Tuesday when a court of appeals ruled that an e-mail provider did not break the law in reading his customers' communications without their consent.
The First Court of Appeals in Massachusetts ruled that Bradford C. Councilman did not violate criminal wiretap laws when he surreptitiously copied and read the mail of his customers in order to monitor their transactions.
Councilman, owner of a website selling rare and out-of-print books, offered book-dealer customers e-mail accounts through his site. But unknown to those customers, Councilman installed code that intercepted and copied any e-mail that came to them from his competitor, Amazon.com. Although Councilman did not prevent the mail from reaching recipients, he read thousands of copied messages in order to know what books customers were seeking and gain a commercial advantage over Amazon.
Authorities charged Councilman with violating the Wiretap Act, which governs unauthorized interception of communication. But the court found that because the e-mails were already in the random access memory, or RAM, of the defendant's computer system when he copied them, he did not intercept them while they were in transit over wires and therefore did not violate the Wiretap Act, even though he copied the messages before the intended recipients read them. The court ruled that the messages were in storage rather than transit.
The court acknowledged in its decision (PDF) that the Wiretap Act, written before the advent of the Internet, is perhaps inadequate to address modern communication methods.
But critics said the decision represents a huge privacy setback for e-mail users.
"By interpreting the Wiretap Act's privacy protections very narrowly, this court has effectively given Internet communications providers free rein to invade the privacy of their users for any reason and at any time," said Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "This decision makes clear that the law has failed to adapt to the realities of Internet communications and must be updated to protect online privacy."
In his dissenting opinion, which contained a detailed description of how e-mail works, Justice Kermit V. Lipez wrote that Congress never intended for e-mail temporarily stored in the transmission process to have less privacy than messages in transit. And he acknowledged that "the line that we draw in this case will have far-reaching effects on personal privacy and security."
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| Sunday, April 11th, 2004
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7:56 pm - Everybody's having fun but me
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I walked out of my dorm room into the hall at 5 AM to go check on my laundry, only to be assailed by the extremely loud sounds of a couple of people getting seriously freaky. I'm not just talking about some barely-overheard sighs, here. I'm talking full on porn-style moaning and a very resonant and clear rapid *slap*slap*slap*slap*slap....Damn, people, don't you know it's mean to flaunt it? If I'm not getting any, neither should you! Argh.
Unbelievably, stupidly, I just dropped 75 bucks that I don't have on CDs. I'm usually pretty good about buying music if I download some mp3s and I end up liking what I hear, but I've been poor lately. Now I'm trying to play catch-up...I'm finally just now getting my own copies of Sage's Personal Journals, the Grouch's Making Perfect Sense, and Atmosphere's God Loves Ugly, Lucy Ford, and Seven's Travels. Mp3s, mixes, and burns are all nice, but nothing is ever quite as good as having the original. I've definitely still got a long way to go, though.
Oh yeah, and WOOHOO to the White Sox for giving the Yankees the big dick the past couple of games, and may they fuck them up again this afternoon. The Yankees have always and will always suck.
current mood:  awake
current music: Akrobatik - Remind My Soul
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| Saturday, April 10th, 2004
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3:50 am - I'm in love with modern moonlight
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Ramble ramble ramble...
I'm moving off-base next week! No more dorm! No more drunken assclowns pulling fire alarms and yelling in the halls at 3 am! My own little house. My own kitchen. My own bathroom.
So, I'm packing right now, which has become very interesting since I decided to get a bit buzzed first. I have decided that I have too much shit. I also do not like the last loaf of bread I bought. No more experimenting with the freaky bread.
And I so love the song ( Roadrunner ) because it's about driving in Mass at night, which is what I used to do whenever I got feeling caged up and restless. It's too hard to do that around here, because there's a toll for almost any road that you can actually drive over 60 kmh (about 36 mph) here.
Drive...I'd go out and drive right now, but the Japanese legal BAC limit is .03 and while my buzz has since worn off, I'm not taking that chance. Sigh.
current mood: unscrupulous
current music: "Roadrunner" by the Modern Lovers
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| Wednesday, April 7th, 2004
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3:18 pm - multifaceted
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| Saturday, March 27th, 2004
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9:23 pm - For beneath the surface, lies the future
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About a couple weeks ago, the first season of seaQuest DSV shows up on suprnova.org. Flashback, eighth grade. seaQuest was my drug of choice, not least because I AM A TOTAL NERD. Secondly, the weekly dose of Jonathan Brandis *may* have played a teensy-weensy bit part in my affections. 'Cause my room was really only half covered in every picture and poster of him that I could tear out of a magazine.
Jon Brandis was my first teen-girl, Tiger Beat-style crush. I know it seems like it took me a little long, but even as a little kid I had already developed and unfortunate attraction to older men - I had a crush on Harrison Ford when I was three, and it all went downhill from there - and Jon Brandis was the closest guy to my age that I'd ever fallen madly in love with.
March, 2004 - after downloading and watching (and getting hooked on all over again) a few seaQuest episodes, I throw in a Google search and stumble across some fan sites, episode synopses, fanfic, and merchandise hockers, amongst other things.
Imagine my shock when one of these "other things" is that Jonathan Brandis committed suicide in November. Hung himself, apparently, at the age of 27. And it's not like he hadn't had any work or anything, and according to the archived "news reports" (in quotes because they consisted of about three sentences) his friends and family said he was happy. So what you have left is two parents of an only child, parents who are probably too old to have more children and will now never get to see any grandchildren.
Something that really pisses me off - if Jennifer Lopez' left ass cheek twitches we'll hear all about through every possible media outlet for two weeks straight, but a decent actor commits suicide and I find out five months later on fanfiction.net??? Damn.
current mood:  sad
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| Monday, March 22nd, 2004
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9:25 pm
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Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us truths.
--Bailey, Philip James
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| Wednesday, March 17th, 2004
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9:29 pm - WEAK
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It's 9:30 PM. I'm alone and half-buzzed.
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5:30 pm - Get yr GREEN on!
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UGH! Why should I be unhappy, you ask, on this, the greenest of all days, St. Patrick's Day? What's an Irish girl like me got to pout about? I'll tell you what....I'M HERE!!!!!!!!! Fuck.
Don't misunderstand - Japan is swell. I'm lucky to be having this experience.
But, dude?
I'm from BOSTON, dammit! There's no better place - except maybe Ireland - to be on St. Patrick's Day.
Last St' Pat's I was stuck in San Angelo, TX. San Angelo is a hole. You know how I spent the night? I couldn't find anyone to go out with me, so I went to the local "Irish" bar, Baileys, ALONE, and got drunk with this 45 year-old Mexican who kept proposing to me. (Highlight of the night: I told him that everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day, to which he replied, "Oh really? What are they gonna start calling us Mexicans, then, 'MacGonzales?' 'MacDiaz?'")
So, I guess this one can't be worse. Regardless of whether I find someone to go out with tonight, I *will* be getting cocked off my rock tonight. If all does not go well, I'm sure there'll be some drunken, angry postings later.
HAPPY ST. PAT'S, EVERYONE!
current mood: Irish
current music: DROPKICK MURPHYS!!!
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| Sunday, March 14th, 2004
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7:11 pm - Kickin' it live
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I purport to be this crazy music lover/nerd/???, but the dearth of concerts I have been to is embarrassing as fuck. This guy was listing a bunch of his music-related numbers on his blog, with which he listed every concert he had ever been to. Now, granted, this guy has about 15 years on me (I think), but I still feel like I was slacking, big-time. I'm noticing it even more now that I really *can't* go to concerts any more. (We were supposed to go see Rancid down in Sendai last month, but I couldn't afford the 6300 yen -about 60 bucks- for the ticket on top of paying my cut of the road toll, which would have been about another 20 or 30 bucks. In case you couldn't tell, it's expensive to go ANYWHERE in this country.)
Anyway, I'll try to remember and list accordingly, so you can understand my shame (I don't know how much more lame I could be here, either - I didn't even go to my first show until I got out of high school!):
~Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (fuck off, okay?) - The Big E, Springfield MA - August or September 1999
~Ben Folds and few other cool bands that I wish to fuck I could remember, Government Center, Boston MA, Summer/Fall of 1999 sometime
~Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (great show, believe it or not) - Avalon, Boston MA - 27 Nov 1999
~Muse - Bill's Bar, Boston MA - sometime in 1999 or 2000
~Sno-Core Tour (System of a Down, Incubus, Mr. Bungle, and Puya) - Avalon, Boston MA - 16 Feb 2000
~Warped Tour (Jurassic 5, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Flogging Molly, Green Day, MXPX, Suicide Machines, NOFX, and some other great little bands that I have sadly forgotten)- Saratoga NY *AND* Suffolk Downs, Boston MA - Summer 2000
~Pearl Jam - Tweeterwoods, Mansfield MA - 29 Aug 2000
~Flaming Lips - Roxy, Boston MA - 6 Oct 2000
~Ani Difranco - Orpheum Theatre, Boston MA - 29 Oct 2000
~Henry Rollins (Spoken word/standup comedy, not the Rollins Band) - Avalon, Boston MA - 13 Mar 2001
~Eve 6 - Avalon, Boston MA - 23 Mar 2001
~Ani Difranco - Tsongas Arena, Lowell MA - 28 Mar 2001
~Nikka Costa - Paradise, Boston, MA - 07 Dec 2001
~David Byrne (!!!!) (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) - Paradise, Boston MA - 11 May 2001
There are a few others that I know I've forgotten and a handful of local bands that I didn't figure you'd know about in there, but that's more or less it. I am shamed. You'll also notice that all of these shows fall in the three-year period in which I was working at the record store and free tickets were readily accessible.
current music: brotherjacob's mix
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| Wednesday, March 3rd, 2004
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5:36 pm - I finally found the words...
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"All I have to say about these songs is that I love them, and want to sing along to them, and force other people to listen to them, and get cross when these other people don't like them as much as I do." --Nick Hornby
That is an unbelievably apt description of me and all the musicheads like me. How much do you HAAATE it when you sit someone down to have them listen to a mix or a song because there's something so great about it and since you like this person you want to bestow this gift upon them, and when you get to this amazing part - whether it's a beat or lyric or whatever caused you to fall for it - the motherfucker starts talking!?! Or you can tell that they didn't pay attention or appreciate it as much as they obviously should, since it's so frickin' genius that you took the time to set it up for their bitch ass to listen to?
Then you have to find some subtle way of re-cueing the song/part that doesn't make you look like the totally obsessive nerd that you are, trying to keep your cool all the while thinking "...and the punk better LISTEN this time..."
My most painful instance of this, ever: last October or so, I made a CD for my ex, at his request. He wanted what he kept calling "upbeat techno," which (for him) actually meant generic, mainstream-friendly house. This is not stuff I normally listen to at all, but since I was in lurve at the time, I was determined. With about two days of research, I was able to compile a CD of tracks that didn't violate the parameters he set for the mix, but that also didn't offend my sense of taste (and I have a really strong gag reflex when it comes to music).
Let's break it down:
Time spent gathering appropriate tunes: 2 days
Time spent whittling list down to 13 tracks: 5 hours
Time spent picking the track order: 2 hours
Time spent actually burning CD: 25 minutes
Time spent creating a cover: 30 minutes
Time it took for my heart to break when the fool put the CD in and skipped the first three tracks
to get to one he recognized: .0005 seconds
I almost broke down in tears. I think that was actually one of the reasons I broke up with him. If he understood me that little, we'd never get along.
current music: still Massive Attack's "Teardrop"
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11:14 am
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I hate that expression, "There are other fish in the sea." That has to be one of the worst things you can say to a person whose heart is breaking. The boat I was fishing from sank a long time ago and I'm really just sick of swimming.
current music: Massive Attack's "Teardrop"
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| Monday, March 1st, 2004
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7:20 pm - "No system fails all the time. No system is that perfect."
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//10 bands you've been listening to a lot lately\\
1) The Black-Eyed Snakes
2) The Weakerthans
3) Lyrics Born
4) Rancid
5) Radiohead
6) P-Funk
7) The Mars Volta
8) PJ Harvey
9) Lots of internet radio, but...
10) I usually just open up WMP and hit "random." With 1400 mp3's
and more getting dl'ed every day, it's hard to get bored. This was
such a hard question to answer, because I usually don't think of
what music I'm getting into in terms of a specific band or artist
any more. It's a mix, mix, mix, mix world.
//09 things you're looking forward to\\
1) Going on leave this summer
2) Mids...31 days and counting...
3) Seeing Jeremy again
4) Driving with my window down
5) Learning as much Japanese as possible
6) Making my next rank
7) Being out of debt
8) Deciding which book to read next
9) Music I've yet to hear
//08 things you like to wear\\
1) Any civilian clothes, really
2) Jeans
3) Black
4) No socks
5) Combat boots
6) Any boots
7) Tank tops
8) My hair down
//07 things that annoy you\\
1) That my horrible haircut is still too resident to let me wear it down
2) Fatass, lazy dependent wives
3) Irresponsible journalism
4) Narrow/closed-minded people
5) Smelling like smoke
6) Being on days
7) A suitemate who's CONSTANTLY in the bathroom
//06 things you say most everyday\\
1) "Something like that"
2) "Who in the what, now?"
3) "You're fucking kidding me"
4) "What/Who/Where/How the fuck??"
5) "Hello"/"Hey"/"Hi" variants
6) "Drive FASTER, ASSHOLE!"
//05 things you do everyday\\
1) Listen to hours upon hours of music
2) Read
3) Work out
4) Hate my job
5) Miss Boston
//04 people you want to spend more time with\\
1) Everyone I left back home
2) Jeremy
3) Micah
4) Random Japanese people
//03 movies you could watch over and over again\\
1) Full Metal Jacket
2) Any of the holy trilogies (SW/Indy/LOTR...)
3) Lost in Translation
//02 books you could read over and over again\\
1) LOTR trilogy
2) I love way too many books to choose just one more
//01 word to describe yourself\\
1) Lost
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| Sunday, February 29th, 2004
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7:28 pm - I'm not really that bored...why do I keep posting?
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5:53 pm
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Fuck, I need to go buy a new iron. I'm expecting to spend about $60 on it, too. I know you're probably all "WTF? $60 for an IRON??" Yeah. See, when you use the thing for 2+ hours every couple of days, it needs to be good. And the cost of replacing a set of BDU's (or a freakin' blues shirt) is a lot worse than buying a nice iron.
BDU pants = 28.00
BDU top = 27.00
Sewing on rank insignia and patches = 5.00
Sewing down & velcroing pockets = 15.00
(Waiting two or more days for alterations = painful)
We're looking at almost $80 a set. Why buy the whole set, you ask, instead of just replacing the fucked-up half? The amount of wear on a set of BDUs should match, people. A half-faded BDU top with brand-new pants looks ridiculous. What's up with the sewing-down/velcroing of the pockets, you ask? All about image. Sorry to say. A uniform just looks ten times better without the pockets bagging out. As for the velcro, the buttonflaps don't look all bumpy if you take the buttons out from under them.
Yeah, so the decent ($30) iron I have just left a major, gross scorch in an otherwise perfectly serviceable pair of pants. I'm pissed about that. I've had those pants since basic, and they WERE still in great shape. This iron is normally great, but every once in a while it spazzes out, overheats, and kills a completely innocent uniform. It's getting too expensive, especially when it does things like ruining a week-old BDU top. Back to the BX I go.
Hey? More than you ever wanted to know about uniform care, right?
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4:46 pm - "Time...does not lend itself to warnings or explanations."
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"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." Albert Einstein
Positive things accomplished today: Boots are shined. Uniform is on its way to looking sharp. Room is in the process of cleaning. Talked to my dad for an hour.
Negative things: Went to the BX just to kill time. Bought a lot of medication to adjust to being back on days. (cough drops, painkillers, vitamin c, antacid, etc). Plowed through nearly a whole bag of white cheddar popcorn. Dyed my hair. Felt miserable for a while. Continued to put off making at least ONE of the ten or twelve mix cd's that I've promised various people.
At least my shades are open. I think I could get used to this whole "daylight" thing. (I shit you not, before I opened my curtains last week, this room had not seen the tiniest crack of daylight for four months.)
current music: my launchcast station
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| Wednesday, February 25th, 2004
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11:30 am - There are no fighter pilots in the Army
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Sleep is for the weak. I am currently going 36 hours strong. Not nearly as good as the weekend's near-record (the actual hour count of my current record is unknown, but it's something like a whole week) of 87 sleepless hours, but still respectable. The question to ask: since it's 11:30 in the afternoon, and I have to start getting ready for work at 4:30, do I bother catching a nap? Since it usually just knocks me out, I'm going to go ahead and pass. I'll drink Red Bull until even a Polaroid picture won't have nothin' on me.
Watching Full Metal Jacket at the moment. Love this movie. R. Lee Ermey is a god. I think we should start a religion around him. Basic tenets of this religion include statements like "if it wasn't for dickheads like you, there wouldn't be any thievery in this world!" and "you had best square your ass away and starting shitting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely fuck you up."
Speaking of the military...
I've actually been thinking lately about a really big decision. I know that I want to re-enlist. I kinda have to - needing the money and all. However, I'm not sure that it's the Air Force that I want to re-enlist into. To be brutally honest, all anyone in the Air Force ever talks about is how ridiculous, annoying, and all-around smurfy the Air Force is. The administration is whacked, they treat us all like children, and I have never actually felt like a part of something, not since basic training. And even then, my flight was a bunch of seriously catty bitches.
I am seriously envious of the unit cohesion and general lack of bullshit the Army has. Yes, we make jokes about the Army being stupid (and they do have a lower ASVAB requirement for the Army, but I have yet to see a marked difference between the intelligence levels of the soldiers and airmen I know) - but every branch of the service has it's little stereotype that we all like to pick on: the Army's dumb, the Air Force is lazy, the Navy is fat/gay, and the Marine Corps is just...crazy. These stereotypes lead, respectively, to the expressions/cracks "Army-proof" (meaning so easy even a total dumbass couldn't fuck it up), "The Chair Force" (self-explanatory), "the only weight requirement is to be able to fit through the hatch on a ship sideways" and various jokes about "se(a)men," and "Uncle Sam's Misguided Children." It's a fairly accepted practice in the military to crack on other branches. Need something to make ourselves feel better, I guess.
And now here I am, after dropping my share of Army jokes, wondering if Army green might be in my future. It's a lot to think about, certainly. One thing that pisses me off severely - at the earliest, I'm five or so months away from putting on E-4. Had I joined the Army, I'd be within two or so months of E-5. Because I'm stuck in the AF at least until the end of my enlistment, I might not see E-5 for a couple more years, if that.
current mood:  contemplative
current music: The Weakerthans, Left and Leaving
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| Tuesday, February 24th, 2004
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11:56 am - Thunk
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All right, imagine me thunking my head on the table with each word for full effect:
Never (thunk) ever (thunk) ever (thunk) EVER (thunk) get in a "discussion" (meaning "they compound lie upon lie while you get completely fucking exasperated that someone could be comfortable lying that much) with a creationist when you are hungry, tired, or just don't know your arguments cold.
At 3 am in the laundry room, I was all three of the above. I almost ripped my hair out and started crying. I know a decent bit of the refutations for creationist propaganda bullshit, but I was not at my mental best and he also came at me with some shit about moon dust, which I hadn't heard before and was not prepared to counter.
Finally I'm like, fuck this noise, I need to go get food. Damn, people.
So, I spent the next couple hours online doing research and picking up some more knowledge for the next time I get one of those fuckwitted little tidbits of crap thrown at me. Man, there are a lot of misguided people on the planet, fine, and I don't have a problem with the religion of others (I'm agnostic, if you care), but listening to people lie, quote academic text out of context, and deliberately misinterpret/misrepresent the opinions of intelligent people who have actually gone through all the hard work and research involved in writing legitimate publications on the subject is fucking INFURIATING!
The thing that gets me? This was a friend of mine. It knocked me right on my ass, because I've never been friends with a creationist before. This is mostly because I've never met an intelligent creationist before. Do creationists just not realize that they're giving the rest of Christians (which my family, a generally intelligent and wonderful group of people, is mainly composed of) a bad name just so they can support something some HUMAN dude wrote in a beautiful piece of fiction? I certainly don't think that science and God exclude one another, but holy shit - believing that Earth's only a couple thousand years old? Fuck a hole in that.
All this over a discussion we had the other night at work about wisdom teeth. Fuckin. A.
Good things - I bought new boots today - Corcoran jump boots. I love the way they look. I'm gonna get shit at work for them because it's usually only the Army that wears 'em, but I think they look really sharp, clean and professional. Not to mention they have something neither my Mauraders nor my Matterhorns have - really great ankle support. Sounds dorky, but when you have ankles that roll like nothing else and you're spending 12 hours a day in your boots, it's important. Damn my genetic predisposition to flimsy bone structure in the extremities. /geek
What else? Oh yeah...never really liked Finger Eleven before, but I can't stop listening to their song "One Thing." Probably listened to it about twenty times yesterday.
PS - Fuck the vote. No, seriously. John Kerry is an overpriveledged wank who doesn't give a shit about any of you. And it's actually looking like him and his high-caste Ivy league hairdo are the only hope of a Democrat win. It's going to be yet another election where both candidates suck. Kucinich, Edwards, Dean - any one of them would make a much better President than Kerry or Bush, and it's completely distressing that Kerry ruined any chance for this country to have that.
current mood:  frustrated
current music: Peaches, Fuck the Pain Away
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| Saturday, February 7th, 2004
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6:56 am
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Go here and go to the AIM convos section. This guy basically just baits all these 2 kewl fr u internet kids into conversations and rips the hell out of 'em. A lot of the people are so dumb (seriously, talking shit about how they're gonna beat his ass or send the cops after him), it's priceless. Two of my favorite convos are the ones he has with this kid, weardpunk. Best line:
(dumbass guy)Jackasskid429: YES I AM AND IM NOT UR FREIND IM YOUR WORST ENIMY
(guy who runs the site)J aCkAs Skid: only if I were a spell checker
In context, I damn near pissed myself. Read on and smile.
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dorky