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Below are 20 journal entries, after skipping by the 20 most recent ones recorded in
Kirk's Blurty:
| Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 | |
| 1:28 pm | Polling shenanigans So there's an AP poll out today that shows Obama ahead by 1 point. It's an outlier, but sure to cause some panic (or glee, depending on where you stand) and some wankery in the news cycle. So here's a good rundown on why it is suspect: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/some-likely-voter-models-are-suspect.html (Analytical bitch-slapping is so sexy.) Here's where things stand, keeping in mind my prohibition on making any prediction: -270 electoral votes wins the election. -Obama has all the states Kerry won locked down. Meaning, not just a lead, but a big lead, well above the margin of error. That's 252. -Obama has Iowa locked down. Add 7, that's 259. -Obama has Virginia all but locked down (between a 7- and 10-point lead, depending on which poll you look at). Add 13, that's 272. -New Mexico, locked down. Add 5, that's 277. -Obama is ahead in Nevada (5) and Colorado (9), though neither is locked down. -Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, and Missouri are toss-ups. McCain could certainly win any of these, but the thing is, he needs to win all of them, and even that wouldn't be enough for him. -McCain spent 2 days this week in Pennsylvania. PA is locked down, Obama leads by 12 points. There is no explanation for McCain being there other than naked desperation. I think I'll survive the next 13 days. Probably. |
| Friday, October 17th, 2008 | |
| 1:08 pm | idle thoughts Nixon's plumbers were alot more interesting than McCain's. My dad would appreciate that joke. It's occurred to me of late that I miss my dad most during election years like this. That's partly a function of time; in earlier years I would think of him most around his birthday, or holidays. I assume that's how it is for most people. Then after x number of years you're just used to someone no longer being around. I felt his absence when we had our wedding ceremony (as did Mary-Jane with her dad), mostly because I know he would have loved Mary-Jane, and he got the English better than most, as the son of one. But he was even more a political animal than me (he taught political science, and was great at it), and grasped things intuitively that I have to work at getting at all. Ergo, his absence has really been felt in recent years. (Not that he could have made it bearable--he didn't work miracles.) On the bright side, he only had to endure Bush41, who was at least sane, relatively moderate, and not an idiot. And he was around for Clinton's early years. Next week, October 22, it will have been 14 years. He'd have voted emphatically for Obama. |
| Friday, October 10th, 2008 | |
| 10:02 am | McCoward Wow, I never thought McCain could run a sleazier campaign than Bush. Um...going to mostly dispense with filling in the details here, if you're following the election you know anyway. McCain and his running mate, Bible Spice, are now openly inciting the crowds at their rallies to violently expressed hate. Among the things shouted out from the crowds the last few days: Terrorist!.....Treason!.....Kill him!..... Yeah, the Secret Service is looking into that last one, as well they should. Interesting, though, did you watch the rather dry debate earlier this week? I did. And McCain made no mention whatsoever of this former '60s radical who is the latest prop in their desperate attempts to smear Obama. Gosh, did he forget? It was all over his speeches the two days preceeding the debate, and then started up again the day after. Seems a curious oversight. Except I think Joe Biden has it right. Biden essentially called McCain a coward, saying "In my neighborhood, when you've got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him." Spot on. I guess he lacks the guts to bring this up when Obama is standing a few feet away, but he's happy to stir up the troglodytes at his pseudo-Klan rallies. Now, I have a vow to myself to make no predictions in this election, and I'm sticking to it. And anyway I suck at predicting how voters think and what will or won't motivate people. But I do check various political websites obsessively these days, and indications are this bizarre scorched earth tactic is not bearing fruit. McCain is losing in Virginia by 8 points (last voted Dem: LBJ in 1964). Obama is essentially tied in fucking North Carolina, the proud state of Jesse Helms, the last openly racist U.S. Senator. I'm going to go out on a limb and venture the opinion that this might be, just possibly, not a good sign. The saddest thing is, McCain used to be among the increasingly small group of Republicans that commie pinko America-hating liberals like me respected. He wasn't a religious fanatic, he (occasionally) bucked his own party, he called out hacks like Limbaugh and Falwell. He even voted against Reagan keeping Marines in Lebanon, weeks before 300 of them were blown up in their barracks by a truck bomb. Now he'll be remembered as a disgrace, whenever he retires. Even some in his own party are backing away from him: http://www.mlive.com/grpress/news/index.ssf/2008/10/former_governor_milliken_backs.html Just sad. Worse than sad. |
| Friday, September 26th, 2008 | |
| 11:38 am | Tell 'em, Dave "Hey John--need a ride to the airport?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjkCrfylq-E It's not in that clip, but apparently Dave also said that Sarah Palin thinks Warren Buffett is the President of Margaritaville. Damn, wish I'd thought of that. The clip runs 9:11, which I can't make any sense of because doesn't that mean Rudy Giuliani would have to sign off on it? |
| Thursday, September 18th, 2008 | |
| 10:20 am | CA poll: Sulu getting married a non-issue Prop 8 is going down. The attempt to ban same-sex marriage is now losing 55% - 38%: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/17/BATM12VSRA.DTL&tsp=1 I particularly like the whining of proponents about Jerry Brown making the wording of the measure more, what's the word...accurate. Yeah, that's a low blow, culture warriors. So the last time I mentioned this, I also talked about gas prices. Still high but not as bad as it was. My personal record for a fill-up was $56.30. Last weekend it was $49. Of course, a year ago I wouldn't have imagined looking at $49 as lower than I expected, but there ya go. |
| Monday, September 15th, 2008 | |
| 2:22 pm | one more for Katherine's list [list=http://www.soupytwist.net/parlant/?p=910] Well, minus the positivity, so maybe it's for a different list. Barack Obama, win or lose (and unlike, sadly, John Kerry), knows how to hit back hard. http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/obama_campaign_launches_ad_hit.php One of the bizarre aspects of the continuing degradation of once proud American journalism (no, really; ask your parents; as recently as the '70s, our journalism rocked) is that there appears to be an unwritten rule that a journalist can never use the word 'lie' in reference to a politician. You can use words like misleading, deceptive, inaccurate, dishonest, bending the truth, etc. But 'lie' seems to be verboten. An interesting result of the past ten days of McCain adver-sleazements against Obama is that various reporters are actually starting to use the L word; I've seen a half dozen or so examples, amazingly enough. Maybe it's just a blip, or maybe St. McCain has worked the refs a bit too hard. Who knows? Another maddening press habit is to value 'balance' over accuracy. Now to my few Brit or German readers, balance might sound like a good thing, but it depends on how you define it. A typical example might be, The McCain campaign has said Obama called Sarah Palin a pig. It also claimed Obama would force comprehensive sex education on kindergartners. And of course, Obama will Raze Ur Taxes!!!1 On the other hand, Obama once mentioned scoring 39 points in a high school basketball game, but our investigation has revealed that his point total was actually 37. So, you know, these politicians, they all bend the truth, right? It all balances out. I think that in Canadian or British or European journalism schools, if a professor really wants to shame a student's paper or exam, they should say it reminds them of American journalism. Now that would sting. |
| Friday, September 5th, 2008 | |
| 10:42 am | Tell 'em, Jon http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/05/DDPQ12NGOI.DTL To which I can only add: Pretty much. |
| Monday, August 25th, 2008 | |
| 4:08 pm | Robert who? Page should go on tour with Leona Lewis. That was totally awesome, and the ridiculous incongruity of it only made it more so. Also, that bus? Man, I thought Transformers were fictional. Good start, London. |
| Friday, August 8th, 2008 | |
| 12:48 am | Mulder & Scully chill out We're heading up to Tahoe for a few days, and again over Labor Day, and man do we need it. The hours I've put in clearing brush around our house this summer (scotch broom = evil), more than past years due to exceptionally bad fire conditions...well, that would make for a boring entry. But it was alot. Anyway, we've seen a surprising number of movies of late that did not disappoint. Mostly I want to talk about The X Files, but a few others briefly. [no spoilers] Mongol - I always wanted to see a badass movie about Genghis Khan. Now I have. This makes me happy. Appropriately awesome tagline: Greatness comes to those who take it. Tell No One - a French movie, the sort of intricately plotted thriller that Hollywood did well in the '70s, and less so since. Great stuff. Edge of Heaven - I'd need a separate entry to do it justice, which ain't happening. Overlapping stories about Turks living in Germany, Germans in Turkey, fate and random connections. This really stayed with me. Highly recommended. The Dark Knight - Mostly excellent and surehanded, Heath Ledger in particular. Then around 20 minutes before the end, it was like everyone paused and said, "Um, now what?" Apparently no one had a good answer. But we did enjoy this alot. Mama Mia - Wait, I haven't seen this yet. But I still hope to. The X Files: I Want to Believe - The first movie was so disappointing that I'm really glad this got made, even if it took ten years. Now the story is fine. I won't go into it, but it's a stand-alone, so there's no alien black oil horseshit to deal with. Billy Connolly plays the hell out of his role as a disgraced and possibly psychic priest. A few logical inconsistencies, but nothing major. Oh, and Leoben plays one of the bad guys. But what really made this sing for me is how they handled Mulder & Scully's relationship. It's central to the movie but not central to the plot, if you follow. The expected existential world-weariness is there, but also a looseness that's new. They haven't worked together in years, but fit each other like an old glove. They kind of know they should be together, but each is convinced it wouldn't work. Scully is a bit more attuned to the personal cost of continually diving into the abyss, but then Mulder wouldn't be Mulder without that heedless maddening oblivious quality of his. And, it was just a pleasure to watch them work together again. Also, how to put this, but none of this that I'm talking about calls attention to itself. Chris Carter just tells his story, the rest is just there for us to observe. Also, if you see this, stay for the entire end credits, which are amazing and at the end there's an unexpected bit of optimism. So off to the wilderness for us. I'm taking Watchmen with me. Saw the trailer, and I want to read it while I'm still unspoiled, before the hype has everyone and their cat talking about it. |
| Friday, July 25th, 2008 | |
| 2:31 pm | All last night, sat on the levee and memed So Jenny did this meme she got from The Onion A.V. Club, in which you pick a favorite album from every year you've been alive. [Jenny's entry, which includes the relevant links: http://entrechienetloup.blogspot.com/] I could see instantly how time intensive it would be, and vowed not to do it. That lasted a day before the siren call of the music geek roped me in. And it was even worse than I thought. Days later, here I am. Oy. If you have some spare hours (and hours), it's interesting to scan thru the years. (Note: wikipedia's music by year is helpful but by no means comprehensive.) I managed to choose something for all but 3 of the years, which isn't too bad. For me the strongest years seem to be 1971 and 1993. 1971 runners up included The Who's Who's Next, Rod Stewart's Every Picture Tells a Story, & The Kinks' Muswell Hillbillies. 1993 runners up included Belly's Star, Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville, Kate Bush's The Red Shoes, Concrete Blonde's Mexican Moon, & The Breeders' Last Splash. Other years were a reach to find anything suitable. At any rate, here be the list. Jenny, one day you will pay, oh yes. 1963: no selection 1964: no selection 1965: My Fair Lady - soundtrack 1966: Face to Face - The Kinks 1967: The Doors - The Doors 1968: Beggars Banquet - The Rolling Stones 1969: Led Zeppelin II - Led Zeppelin 1970: no selection 1971: Led Zeppelin IV - Led Zeppelin 1972: Pink Moon - Nick Drake 1973: Quadrophenia - The Who 1974: Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan 1975: Physical Graffiti - Led Zeppelin 1976: Boston - Boston 1977: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols - The Sex Pistols 1978: The Cars - The Cars 1979: London Calling - The Clash 1980: The Pretenders - The Pretenders 1981: Moving Pictures - Rush 1982: Avalon - Roxy Music 1983: War - U2 1984: Learning to Crawl - The Pretenders 1985: Hounds of Love - Kate Bush 1986: Lifes Rich Pageant - REM 1987: The Joshua Tree - U2 1988: Short Sharp Shocked - Michelle Shocked 1989: Disintegration - The Cure 1990: She Hangs Brightly - Mazzy Star 1991: Out of Time - REM 1992: Automatic for the People - REM 1993: So Tonight That I Might See - Mazzy Star 1994: Live Through This - Hole 1995: Relish - Joan Osborne 1996: Dilate - Ani DiFranco 1997: The Book of Secrets - Loreena McKennitt 1998: Car Wheels on a Gravel Road - Lucinda Williams 1999: Central Reservation - Beth Orton 2000: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea - PJ Harvey 2001: Essence - Lucinda Williams 2002: Miss Fortune - Allison Moorer 2003: World Without Tears - Lucinda Williams 2004: The Revolution Starts Now - Steve Earle 2005: Plans - Death Cab for Cutie 2006: Notes from the Underworld - Persephone's Bees 2007: American Doll Posse - Tori Amos 2008: (so far) We Started Nothing - The Ting Tings |
| Monday, July 21st, 2008 | |
| 4:10 pm | Radovan Karadzic arrested Ever wait 13 years to see a particular news headline? I did: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/21/warcrimes.internationalcrime and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7518543.stm One of the vilest human beings still drawing breath is thankfully no longer a free man. And one hopes the arrest of Mladic will soon follow. All credit to Serbia for finally doing the right thing, and likely it had to be, since the international community clearly lacked the political will of late to even try. Hurrah! |
| Friday, June 27th, 2008 | |
| 9:18 am | book list thing Tip o' the hat to Annika for this. It reminds me of one of my favorite responses to a wd post, one of the periodic book surveys. One of the questions was, how many books do you read per month? My reply in its entirety: "Isn't it funny how everyone lies when they answer this question?" Because seriously, alot of the responses to that question were nothing short of hilarious, especially the ones from people with post counts that indicated they were on the wd 20 hours per day. Anyway, the instructions: “The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.” 1) Look at the list and bold those you have read. 2) Italicize those you intend to read. 3) (deleted) Let's not complicate this too much, ok? 4) (deleted) Seconding Annika's comment. How stupid is that? 5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them ;-) Well, I doubt I'll be in any position to act all superior. 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible (I figure if one is a civilian, reading a good portion will suffice) 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (I do own a copy. Someday..*sigh*) 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Again, I own a copy..) 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis 34 Emma - Jane Austen 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (I own a copy) 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (I own a copy, and I'm embarassed I haven't got to this yet) 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel 52 Dune - Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses - James Joyce (No, no he said, No! Perversely, I own a copy. That does not mean I'll be reading it.) 76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons 78 Germinal - Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession - AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 83 The Color Purple, Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (I'm amazed I missed reading this. One day I shall.) 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo So I've read 17. Yep, nothing to boast about. Omissions There is no Faulkner on this list. Come on. There is no Dr. Seuss on this list. Come on. Those two authors alone would probably double my total. No Mark Twain?? Seriously, Vanity Fair makes the list and Huck Finn does not? I think the list may have a British slant. Granted Jane Austen is popular everywhere, but I'd bet real money far more Americans have read Mark Twain than Thomas Hardy. The smoking gun may be Enid Blyton. I only know who this is because I married a limey. The American equivalent would probably be Beverly Cleary. As far as popular reads, the list has Sebastian Faulks who is hugely popular in England, but not, for instance, The Godfather by Mario Puzo. I'm sure Mary-Jane would score higher with this list. Mitigations I've read quite a few Shakespeare plays (and sonnets), but far from all of them. I've read Dickens' Hard Times. (I've also read Studs Terkel's Hard Times, which is excellent.) I've read short stories by Daphne Du Maurier. I've read Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and The Dead. I've read Bill Bryson's Notes from a Big Country. |
| Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 | |
| 11:08 pm | The forecast for tonight: Dark Monday on the way to work we heard George Carlin on the radio. This was a good thing for about a minute. I don't usually have any particular reaction when famous people die, but this one stings a bit. As a kid in the '70s George Carlin was regarded among my friends with something close to awe. It was the Seven Words... of course. Most of us hadn't actually even heard the routine (it was several years before I got to hear it), but just knowing it was out there, that it existed was sort of amazing. One of the appreciations I read mentioned that Carlin had a unique career arc, in that he started out funny, then got better, and then when he got old he got really funny. How often does that happen? I realized how far he'd evolved some years ago when I was traveling somewhere (New Mexico? I can't remember) and caught one of his HBO specials on a motel TV. As it went on the humor got angrier and angrier, but not in a despairing way, more in an exhilarating way. It's hard to describe, at a certain point it was no longer stand-up but something I don't have a word for, and it was mesmerizing. [Aside: P@, he was in a Bill & Ted movie? I guess if I'd ever seen a Bill & Ted movie, I would have known that. I'm sure I saw him in a few movies, but right now I can only remember Dogma.] Maybe a year ago I read an interview with him on Salon, which showed just how far out on an existentialist limb he had gone. And I realized that was a big part of why I'd admired him so much for so long. His world view kind of matched my own. Not precisely and not in all the specifics, but in general, yeah, it pretty much did. It's not something I'm prone to volunteer because people tend to look at you odd and assume it means you see all of the world and life and existence as bleak and despairing, and that's not actually the case, at least with me. No, moment to moment, I doubt I'm much different than most people. But if I really, really think about the Big Issues--well, I'll just say that some of these things I look at the way George Carlin did. Only he went much further, way out to the edge, and came back with stuff that was really funny. It's an amazing thing to be able to do. I'll miss him being in the world. |
| Thursday, May 29th, 2008 | |
| 12:34 pm | Two 51s, one good, one bad Wow. According to a new Field Poll, Californians now favor gay marriage, 51% to 42%: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/28/MNOU10U8MB.DTL I admit, this stunned me. That's a huge turnaround in a very short time. I half wonder if it's a fluke, but, though the article mentions a different poll with less promising numbers, the Field Poll has long been regarded (and has the track record to show for it) as the most reliable in California. I still wouldn't take it to the bank, and it's a long way til November, but man. No one is saying they saw this coming. And, um, I filled up my gas tank yesterday. Guess what it cost? Yeah, $51.04. For perspective: 1. My car only holds 12 gallons. 2. The previous high was $47. That was two weeks ago. 3. I still remember the first time it topped $40. I swear that was less than 2 years ago. |
| Monday, May 19th, 2008 | |
| 2:50 pm | Wood Yesterday, May 18, was our 5th Wedding Anniversary. Yay us! Apparently the 5th is the wood anniversary, so we exchanged performances by Kevin Costner. [/rimshot] It doesn't seem like it could really have been that long, which I take as a good sign. Other unrelated stuff... -saw Iron Man. It kicked ass. (Also, there was a trailer for the new Hulk: oh my, did that not look very promising.) -liking s4 of Robots so far. Escape Velocity was terrible, but the episodes since have been excellent. (Though we haven't seen last Friday's yet.) Very minor thing: Roslin's bald cancer wig was deeply silly. I feel bad pointing it out, but as Amy commented, she looked like a Conehead. Kara going all Col. Kurtz is interesting, but not nearly as creepy as the Chief going all Full Metal Jacket. Also: Poor Felix. -House. I dunno, it never fails to entertain, but I'm not sure it has the spark it once did. And I wonder if they know what they're doing re: the replacement 3 Enablers. The thing is, I like all the characters. I like the old 3 Enablers, and I like 13, Kumar, & bald-former-plastic-surgeon-guy. But there's too many of them now, and it usually leaves Foreman, Cameron, & Chase with little to do. (Though it did result in Cameron being less of a doormat, which is all to the good.) They may need to cull the herd a bit next season. As long as it's understood that Cuddy and Wilson are untouchables. Especially Wilson. Robert Sean Leonard is such a treasure on that show. He gets two or three scenes each week, and nails every moment. Without him as a foil, the show would evaporate. The season finale is tonight. Just don't do the obvious thing re: Amber and House. That would be lame. -I recently read The Dark Knight Returns. (I'm trying to become a bit more graphic novel-literate.) Good stuff, though not quite the transcendent experience I was hoping for. I loved how it handled Batman/Bruce Wayne, but some of the characterizations were a bit thin. The Joker, for one. And Robin--a 13-year-old girl? Really? 13? Police Commissioner Gordon was great, though. And the interaction with Superman was a brilliant stroke. They call each other 'Bruce' and 'Clark' like old comrades. And I liked how, while Batman clearly thought Superman was a tool for being politically co-opted, as a reader you see the merits of both points of view. The main gripe I had is the story puts vigilante justice out there as a major theme, offers every possible point of view, and then--just sort of drops it. I find it's more compelling when a side is taken (e.g., Death Wish or Dirty Harry, pro-, or Mystic River, anti-). The Dark Knight Returns ends up sort of muddled on the issue. But that aside, I enjoyed it very much. I also recently bought Watchmen, though who knows when I'll get to it, as I have at least 20 books on my To Read list. -Pascoe is doing just fine. -the summer flick I'm most looking forward to is The X Files. Get it right this time, or may your soul shrivel up like Smoking Man's lungs. -my sister got a Roomba. Mary-Jane and I had the same instantaneous reaction: it's going to evolve into a statuesque blonde Cylon and kill everybody. Sadly, Ann & Rob don't watch the show, so they didn't believe us. When their house and possibly the entire city of Salinas is a pile of smoldering ash, they're going to feel awfully silly. |
| Friday, May 16th, 2008 | |
| 11:51 am | A couple things about the CA gay marriage ruling "Even the most familiar and generally accepted of social policies and traditions often mask an unfairness and inequality that frequently is not recognized or appreciated by those not directly harmed." -California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George "If you are a loving couple in this fine and baffled state, your particular combination of genitalia has officially been deemed irrelevant as far as whether or not you may hold a lovely little ceremony and enjoy a year or three of wedded bliss and buy a tiny condo you can't really afford, and then fight about money and who gets to name the dog as you lose that once-omnipotent romantic spark and rarely have sex anymore and eat your meals in silence as half of you get divorced in about 5.3 years and end up back on the dating scene, wondering whatever happened to your dreams." -Mark Morford, columnist* *The headline for the above: The Court ruling was 4 votes to 3. But it's instructive to look at the makeup of the court: -Chief Justice Ronald George, 68, Republican. Appointed by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson in 1991. Appointed to first judgeship by Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1972. He wrote the 4-3 opinion striking down the state ban on same-sex marriage. -Justice Joyce Kennard, 67, Republican. Appointed by Republican Gov. George Deukmejian in 1989. Joined majority opinion. -Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, 72, Republican. Appointed by Wilson in 1994. Joined majority opinion. -Justice Carlos Moreno, 59, Democrat. Appointed by Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2001. Joined majority opinion. -Justice Marvin Baxter, 68, Republican. Appointed by Deukmejian in 1990. Wrote dissenting opinion. -Justice Ming Chin, 65, Republican. Appointed by Wilson in 1996. Joined dissenting opinion. -Justice Carol Corrigan, 59, Republican. Appointed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005. Wrote separate dissent which said that the court should not invalidate the ban but that "Californians should allow our gay and lesbian neighbors to call their unions marriages." So there you go. The California Supreme Court consists of six Republicans and one Democrat. One of the dissenting justices made clear that ideologically she is not opposed to gay marriages. There will likely be a ballot initiative in November to amend the State Constitution to ban gay marriage. It may pass. A similar initiative in 2000 (though not an amendment) passed with 61% of the vote. In the eight years since, public opinion has moved unmistakably toward acceptance of gay marriage. The vote in November will be alot closer, whichever way it goes. Gov. Schwarzenegger (from such films as Commando and Hercules in New York--what? He had a better acting career than Reagan ever did) has already announced his opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment. A similar proposed amendment was recently voted on in Arizona. It failed. In Arizona, bitches. The message in all this is a matter of opinion. Personally, I think it's this. "Social conservatives: SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. You're on the wrong side of history. Again." |
| Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 | |
| 3:52 pm | Yes, Mick & Keith were young then, but they were already ugly A P@ented meme: 1) Go to this site and you can find out what song was #1 (according to Billboard Magazine) on the US Charts on any particular week in history. 2) Look up your birthday. 3) List the #1 songs that have occurred on your birthday throughout the years you've been alive. 4) Cringe at how bad music was, and how bad it is now! And btw, like Jenny, I am skipping the 00's. I don't know any of them, and seriously--Usher featuring Young Jeezy? Here's a little story about that--No. 1963 ... "Our Day Will Come" by Ruby & the Romantics I think I know this, maybe. 1964 ... "She Loves You" by The Beatles Ok then. 1965 ... "Stop! In the Name of Love" by The Supremes Cool. 1966 ... "The Ballad of the Green Berets" by S/Sgt. Barry Sadler Paging John Wayne. It may be for the best that I don't think I've heard this. 1967 ... "Happy Together" by The Turtles 1968 ... "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding Now we're talking. Love this song. 1969 ... "Dizzy" by Tommy Roe What now? 1970 ... "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon & Garfunkel Great song. I approve. 1971 ... "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin Very cool. I generally loathe Janis Joplin--seriously, if this were "Piece of My Heart", I would sue--but I love this song. 1972 ... "A Horse with No Name" by America AWESOME. This is the first song I ever remember calling my favorite song. What, I was 9 years old. Like you're one to talk. 1973 ... "Love Train" by The O'Jays Acceptable. 1974 ... "Dark Lady" by Cher Do I know this? It's not ringing a bell. 1975 ... "Lady Marmalade" by LaBelle Hey P@--bookends! Cool. 1976 ... "December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" by The Four Seasons I liked this song. 1977 ... "Rich Girl" by Daryl Hall & John Oates Good song. Was this about Patty Hearst? 1978 ... "Night Fever" by The Bee Gees Hey, I made it to 1978 before getting a song that truly sucks. 1979 ... "Tragedy" by The Bee Gees Ok, that's enough. 1980 ... "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd Cool. 1981 ... "Rapture" by Blondie Silly, but cool. 1982 ... "I Love Rock 'n Roll" by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts Eh. Not her best. 1983 ... "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson Phew. Michael Jackson before he went insane. 1984 ... "Jump" by Van Halen Van Halen does synthesizers. Yes--but why?? 1985 ... "Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon Oh dear lord. Well, I guess it coulda been Styx. 1986 ... "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco No one escapes the '80s without some dire embarassment, do they? 1987 ... "Lean on Me" by Club Nouveau A bad cover song? Trending downward... 1988 ... "Man in the Mirror" by Michael Jackson Can the '80s please end soon? 1989 ... "The Living Years" by Mike + the Mechanics 1990 ... "Black Velvet" by Alannah Myles Cool. 1991 ... "One More Try" by Timmy T. What now? 1992 ... "Save the Best for Last" by Vanessa Williams 1993 ... "Informer" by Snow Who now? 1994 ... "The Sign" by Ace of Base No clue. Blame the niche-ifying of radio in the '90s. 1995 ... "Take a Bow" by Madonna I'm not kidding. That song title draws a blank. 1996 ... "Because You Loved Me" by Celine Dion No clue. Not that niche-ifying was all bad. 1997 ... "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" by Puff Daddy featuring Ma$e Clue, lack thereof. 1998 ... "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" by Will Smith Admit it, Will--even you're embarassed by this. 1999 ... "Believe" by Cher Aw, hell no. A good run thru the early '80s, anyway. Thank you P@, I really needed this. |
| 2:02 pm | the ordeal of the last several days I'm going to skip to the end of this story first. Which is: Pascoe does not have cancer. I won't even attempt to articulate our huge sense of relief. The rest of the story: We got home from work on Thursday and Pascoe was clearly not well; he couldn't even stand. We rushed him to the 24-hour emergency pet hospital in Berkeley. They did an ultrasound which determined he was bleeding internally, and immediately scheduled a surgery. We were told, in cases of large dogs with these symptoms, there was a 2/3 likelihood of finding a cancer. And that there was a particular cancer risk, something something sarcoma (even if I could remember I doubt I could spell it), which if he had it would not be good. More specifically, it would likely mean he would have 6 to 9 months to live. They promised to call us when the surgery was completed, and we went home and agonized for three hours. I felt particularly guilty in that there was no way of knowing how long Pascoe was suffering before we got home. Even on a day when we can go straight home from work (which this was, fortunately) without having to stop at the grocery store or do some other errand, it's still near 11 hours that Pascoe is on his own. I can hope it was late in the day when he started feeling unwell, but there's no way of knowing. These hours of waiting were the worst. It was even possible he would die that night, if, for instance, they found during surgery that he had cancer that had metastisized in several places; in that event they will euthanize a dog on the table. [I should add, I appreciate that Berkeley Dog & Cat Hospital are so straightforward. It does no one any favors to sugarcoat anything. I'd rather know all possible outcomes. Also, their staff are first rate, patient and kind and mostly they just really know their shit.] The worst thing, and I hesitate to admit this, I started imagining Pascoe in the past tense. And then I'd catch myself and lacerate myself for thinking that way, and it's not like I ever lost hope. But periodically my thoughts would drift to that, much as I tried to not allow it. I don't know, possibly it's due to the fact it doesn't feel like that long since Thor died (just over 4 years) so I still remember vividly what that was like. I'll just say it was a bad few hours. I kept thinking how we've only had Pascoe for 3 1/2 years, it was way too soon to be dealing with this. Mary-Jane said at one point, someday, it would be nice to have a dog that dies of old age. Which mirrored the bitterness of my own thoughts. Just before 11:00 that night, the phone rang. I spoke to the surgeon, who told me the surgery went well, that they did remove a growth, and took out Pascoe's splein, and that tests would take several days to determine if what they removed was cancerous. (That it was the splein was good news; a different organ would have been a whole other story.) She walked me through various scenarios, mentioned that though there had been alot of bleeding, what she saw could have been much worse. So I relayed all this to Mary-Jane, and we both felt quite relieved. But it was relief with an asterisk if there ever was one, as we knew the real story would be told with the test results. Pascoe has been very slow to recover his energy post-surgery. He had heart arrythmia (no idea how to spell that), a not unexpected side effect, and wouldn't eat. So he's remained at the pet hospital as they tried various medications to help him get his energy and appetite back. We visited him every day, each day he was a bit better than the last, but progress was very slow. (The first two days he wouldn't even raise his head.) On Monday they promised we could take him home today, and said he would probably start eating once at home. So this morning I got a call at work from the surgeon, and after confirming he will go home today, she told me the test results were back, and: NO CANCER. Yay Pascoe!!!! So this has already been long, and I've actually left out quite a bit. Spare some get well thoughts for Pascoe, if you will. A big thank you from me to all the amazing people at Berkeley Dog & Cat Hospital, in particular Dr. Carlson (the surgeon), Dr. Lee, and Dr. Caesar. (All women, and alarmingly young. Have they broken the glass ceiling in veterinary medicine?) And now, I'm going to have a go at P@'s music meme thingy. I need something superficial, but BAD. |
| Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 | |
| 9:37 am | mini memoirs All P@'s fault: http://ape10.blogspot.com/2008/04/this-memoirs-just-six-words-long.html The original meme thing: Dog person, cat person. Ok then. The rest are P@'s variation... Bette Davis - She did it the hard way.* James T. Kirk - Do alien chicks carry venereal disease? Ernest Hemingway - Never as talented as Faulkner was. Tori Amos - Doing unnatural things with vowell sounds. Isadora Duncan - Perhaps the scarf wasn't worth it. Kenji Mizoguchi - Best director you've never heard of. Sol Tigh - What would be my worst nightmare? Gregory House - I hate everyone. Where's my Vicodin? Columbo - You think I'm dumb? Just wait. Pascoe the dog - Toys! Food! Walks! Humans! Happy dog! *her actual preferred epitaph, suggested by Joseph Mankiewicz. Um, nearly everyone whose blogs I read was in on this before me. So I tag Jenny, if she feels like it. And anyone else who feels like it. |
| Monday, April 7th, 2008 | |
| 11:38 am | next episode, Doc Cottle is replaced by Hugh Laurie as a hologram I'm just happy to have at least one show to watch. Anyway, I don't got much, mostly I'm testing out tags. Let's see... ( Read more... ) |