September 29, 2008
Rachel lost her job
Helen and Angus had one of THOSE fights
The Republicans are all but guaranteeing Obama a win
We're all broke.
The 'pints crew is calling it quits
Rich's dad has pneumonia
Can I just crawl in a hole now?
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September 27, 2008
Yep. That's it. Exactly.
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September 26, 2008
Moments of equanimity followed by hours of make-do, fix this, and putting out all the fires that suddenly spring up.
I'm not surprised it's fire season, BTW. That's what it feels like in my head. I have a million things to do, about 85 other things to take care of, and more things to prepare for.
And all I want to do is crawl under a rock.
Some people feel accomplished when they can plow through a to-do list of small errands, phone calls, and the like. Me? I just feel exhausted, as if the mental task of switching glibly from thing to thing was more difficult than the doing.
However, I am making the phone calls I needed to make in the last 10 minutes before my first meeting of the day. I have 3 back to back meetings. Ugh.
More later, maybe.
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September 23, 2008
Meet Broc Obama:
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September 22, 2008
It has become increasingly clear to me that the Democrats are scared shitless of Sarah Palin. The sheer amount of vitriol being flung around (BTW, anyone know what vitriol REALLY is?) combined with the increasing hysteria about the fact that they can find any dirt that seems to stick is becoming increasingly laughable. Memo to the MSM: when hardcore BDS suffering Liberals begin to feel that the all-out, anti-Sarah barrage is TOO much, it's time to back off. And on a related note, so what if Sarah won't sit don for yet another hit-piece interview? Who said she had to let you piss in her sandbox? Or that she had to play your game? Especially when the rules change more frequently than Calvinball and the only thing that stays the same is that Sarah loses...
ESPN makes me happy. Not sure why, but there's really something comforting about being able to turn on something on the TV that sounds like the news, but won't make me scream and throw things at the TV. I need the "audio/visual wallpaper" when I'm working. Usually I have FoxNews or the local news on, but I just am so tired of knowing more about the story being reported than the editor or reporter who write and read the news scripts.
Anyone else think Kenley's dress on Project Runway last Wednesday looked like something Betty would wear on Ugly Betty? Yeah, me too.
Fake sudafed is for shit. It works about 1/10 as well as the real stuff, and they don't make the formulation that works for me with the real stuff any more. AARRGH. So I suffer. Benedryl ain't cutting it either, and I am sneezing every 5 minutes. Not to mention waking up every 45 minutes and sleeping badly in between...
Just waiting to see if shit rains down on my head about coming home early. I met all my responsibilities for the day, I taught my class and picked up HW and went to my meeting, where I also sat far away from everyone so I wouldn't give them germs.
I still have a hell of a lot of work to do, and a million small personal things to get taken care of. But I think it's nappy nap time.
Two quick links before I go:
1. Check out the investigative journalism done by the fine folks at My Pet Jawa regarding anti-Palin "viral" videos
2.wRitErsbLock went to see the Sarah Palin rally at the Villages, FL this weekend, check out her pictures.
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September 20, 2008
EPA Shuts Down Local Ghost-Entrapment BusinessRead the rest, and be sure you put down your drink before you read the last paragraph!NEW YORK --Citing unsafe practices and potential toxic contamination, the Environmental Protection Agency shut down a small ghost- entrapment operation in downtown Manhattan today, and had four of the business' spectral-containment specialists arrested in the process.
According to EPA agent Walter Peck, employees of the company ”located in an old fire station in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York” had repeatedly refused to grant him access to their storage facility, which posed a health hazard to the surrounding community.
"The facility in question unlawfully used public utilities for the purpose of non-sanctioned waste-handling, and was in direct violation of the Environmental Protection Act," Peck said. "Additionally, this company possessed several unlicensed portable nuclear accelerators that were frequently discharged within mere feet of civilians."
Some who witnessed the arrests felt that Peck had launched a personal crusade against the business, possibly due to a previous verbal altercation with one of the ghost-removal professionals, former parapsychology research professor Dr. Peter Venkman.
"It definitely seemed as though Agent Peck had an ax to grind," said Consolidated Edison technician Brian Holmes, who was ordered by Peck to turn off the containment system located in the basement of the company's headquarters. "I had never seen anything even resembling that type of equipment before. I was extremely hesitant to shut it down, but I didn't want to lose my job."
Though its incarcerated employees were unavailable for comment, the company released a statement denying any wrongdoing. The statement also repudiated claims that those associated with the spectral-entrapment operation were afraid of any individual ghost, and went on to say that the act of capturing said ghosts simply made them "feel good."
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Have fun, y'all.
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September 16, 2008
Wendy Doniger, professor of Divinity at the University of Chicago on Sarah Palin:
"Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman."EXCUSE ME? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Of course Sarah Palin is a woman. Last I checked she has all the requisite parts, including (most importantly) TWO X CHROMOSOMES.
Why the fuck do I bother anymore?
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07:06 PM
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September 12, 2008
This means that for the past year I have been making do with a crappy, old, MDF computer desk that has pull out shelves and no drawers that I managed to scavenge and 2 tiny borrowed bookshelves. You sense a theme, here. Yep. No drawers. So I have been living out of boxes. My tiny desk is a mess, all cluttered with students' papers, office supplies, my computer, phone, and calendar.
A lot of people come to my office or pass my office. And it is a frigging MESS. It's despicable. And I am SOOOO tired of it.
Unfortunately, there's just no money for office redo's. However, my grant is ending and there's a small sum left in the supply budget. So if the Dean approves, I am getting a REAL desk and a hutch. WITH DRAWERS. And CABINETS. So I can put things away for the first time in over a year!!!!!
Pray for me and my office, folks, I need it fixed for my SANITY.
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September 11, 2008
The speaker is dook's official counsel in the lawsuit brought against them by the University of Louisville.
h/t Paladin
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Today is a bad day. Don't tell me you're sorry or you want me to feel better. It will pass. It always does. And it's less than a blip in the grand scheme of things.
Just tell me something amusing, I really could use the laugh.
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September 10, 2008
But the beam circulation was a massive success.
Yes, I did stay up and watch it. On Caltech's EVO system, logged in with the rest of the geeks. At least all the way through beam 1. I used to be a particle physicist before I decided to spend my life playing with brains.
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September 09, 2008
You see, tonight, just before Midnight (PDT) the CERN laboratory in Switzerland is going to fire up its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for the very first time. Some physicists argue that beam collision could be the very end of our existence...DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS, VENKMAN!!!!
But I don't see any stewardesses crying Caltech professors running around jumping out of airplanes and spending millions they don't have on fast cars and flashy bling, so I guess we're all gonna be fine.
So what is the LHC? According to CERN (which stands for: The European Center for Nuclear Research, just in French):
The LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, producing beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and around 30 times more intense when it reaches design performance, probably by 2010. Housed in a 27-kilometre tunnel, it relies on technologies that would not have been possible 30 years ago. The LHC is, in a sense, its own prototype.CERN technicians have been working on the LHC since construction began on its 27 km-long tunnel in 1983! Tomorrow morning completes the final stages of preparation, with the beams colliding for the first time.
Extensive studies have been performed to determine whether it's even SAFE to do these experiments, and hundreds of physicists agree that we won't vaporize the universe out of existence at 9:30am CEST (that's Central Europe Summer time). You can see for yourself here.More on safety considerations here. (sorry, they won't let me embed the video)
If you're so inclined, you can watch the proceedings here, beginning at 8:30am CEST (10:30 PM Pacific)
And if you want to what on Earth they'd make such a thing for, try watching this:
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Hell, where is they triumph? Death, where is thy sting?
Possibly the funnest part of the Requiem to sing. I mean, who DOESN'T like to scream "HELL" at the top of their lungs?
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September 06, 2008
Well, I just discovered that I was wrong. Instinct users who use Google Talk should go here: http://m.heysan.com/ from your phone, click GTalk, and login. It auto-refreshes, displays a custom status, and even uses smilies! Yeah, it's web-based, but I could care less! It looks like GTalk and works like GTalk.
WooHooooooo! i can haz google talk!
h/t icemanj5 posting on this forum
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Among the things that took some getting used to was the "click and drag" feature, which is essentially how you receive and end calls. You essentially drag a large button across the screen to a destination which leads to action, rather than tapping. That was a paradigm shift for me.
And there are a few features I miss, such as having a separate ringtone for private or blocked id calls. I also am sad that there's no Google Talk support, although you CAN access Yahoo! Messenger, MSN, and AIM via the web.
I also miss the universal power plug that my old phones had. We had quite a supply of chargers using that interface, but alas, we had to ditch them for new chargers. Ugh. Oh well.
Among the pluses are a large, bright screen which so far is easy to use to select buttons, weblinks, etc., even without using the included stylus. Which reminds me. There was a shitload of swag in the box. Aside from the phone and documentation, there was a pair of headphones that could also be used as a hands-free headset, TWO batteries, a battery charging adapter for the extra battery, the charging cord, a USB cord to attach to a computer, a CD of phone related software, a leather case,a stylus, and a micro SD card with adapter.
The sound is also pretty good. The little stereo speaker can put out a ton of sound. Also, it's really easy to make and upload your own ringtones from your mp3 collection using any of a number of websites. My personal fave of these is mobilereelz.com, which allows you to upload the .mp3 of your choice, edit it to the piece you want for your ringer, and then converts it to the correct file type for your phone and carrier (use M4A for Instinct) with pretty good sound fidelity. For someone who sweated through converting mp3s to to WAV, editing the sound settings, and then converting to qcp and finding an uploader previously, this is SOOOOOOO easy and the ringers come out quite well. I use Audacity (YAY! FREEWARE!) to edit mp3s down to size before uploading them, and then just select all of the uploaded file to be converted.
Dr. Horrible ringtones? You bet.
Speaking of sound, both the regular ear speaker and the speakerphone are clear. I sound good to people who I talk to, and I can hear them clearly. This is also true when using my bluetooth, something that people I know have complained about with regard to the iPhone.
The web is also quite speedy. It hangs noticeably on graphics-heavy pages, and there are several anecdotal stories on the net of pages that REFUSE to load, but I haven't had any of those issues. My biggest net pet peeve is that doesn't seem to want to connect when I want to update my email, but it will receive new messages and vibrate at the MOST inconvenient moment. At least it doesn't ring for new messages while in sleep mode. It does, however, ring for calls in sleep mode.
I know Sprint is trying desperately to develop apps for the Instinct, but so far the pickings are slim. And in some cases, EXPENSIVE. I look forward to the Holidays, when I expect there will be a big push towards getting apps out for all the people who will be getting these new toys for Christmas.
Battery life is better than I expected. I usually charge my phone during one or both halves of my daily commute, and I haven't had any power problems, even with heavy web/text use. I was expecting something more like the iPhone, where keeping a spare battery would be a good idea, but so far so good. If you lay off the web, the battery life seems comparable to a more traditional cell phone.
This is my 6th mobile phone (I got my first celly in 1996), and the 4th Samsung handset in a row. Say what you will about technology companies, but Samsung phones have always been good to me, and I'm hopeful this will live up to the hype.
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September 03, 2008
Maybe because I agree with almost all of the things she said tonight, but she is a dynamic speaker with a common, inviting manner that makes you WANT to listen to her.
I loved her speech. I still want to hear her speak to Troopergate, and why she filed an ethics complaint on herself. I want to know more about her earmark requests and whether that's consistent with McCain's position on pork.
But I think she did a masterful job of introducing herself, avoiding distasteful issues, and SKEWERING the Democratic ticket on a number of issues.
I look forward to more from Sarah as the campaign continues, and I think she'll continue to prove just why John McCain picked her as his running mate.
UPDATE: Here's what some of my Cotillion sisters thought of Sarah's speech:
BSCBeth blogging at RightPundits
BethW at Yeah, Right, Whatever
And here's Sarah herself. All 45+ minutes of her speech:
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September 01, 2008
And it is downloading from iTunes as I type this!
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! A lot of people neglect the laugh.
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09:09 PM
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Seriously? Are you seriously gonna run with this whole Sarah Palin is an irresponsible mother thing? The "Sarah the Hypocrite" meme?
Give me a motherfucking break.
First of all, would you be so "outraged" if the mom in question was Hillary Clinton, and the daughter a teenaged Chelsea? I fucking doubt it. And yet, the Clintons ran on a family values ticket, too. Maybe not as conservative as the Republicans, but I've heard Hill trumpet that family values thing a million times and so have you. No use denying it.
Second, you show me a parent, working or otherwise, who is going to sit on their 17 year old daughter 24/7/365. Kids do dumb shit. We all did something stupid or wrong as teenagers. We had sex, we drove too fast and recklessly, we drank, we smoked, we did drugs. If our parents never found out, it's because we just got lucky and got away with it, whichever of the above that we did before we turned 20. Bristol Palin just wasn't so lucky. Every parent who has ever been a child knows that no matter what you tell your kids, or how often you tell them, some things they are just going to do, from day one, and some lessons they have to learn for themselves. From "stoves are hot" to "sex is how you get pregnant".
Tell me how it makes you a hypocrite when your kid fucks up? I assume Sarah and Todd have told all their older kids about the consequences of sex. If they told her, and continued to reinforce their values, what else can we ask of them? It's not like Sarah held Bristol down and forced her to sleep with her boyfriend.
And what of that relationship? It looks like Bristol and her boyfriend are planning to do the responsible thing and marry and raise their child. Shouldn't we encourage that? Shouldn't we applaud a young couple with the maturity to face the consequences of their actions and face life head on? Chances are very good that this young couple will be better situated to succeed academically and otherwise given that they both appear to have supportive families who will help them in this time of extreme transition.
Don't tell me you don't know anyone who has ever been in this situation, either the teenage mom/ dad or their parents. It's a tough thing. I'll bet you weren't so harsh and judgmental towards the people you know. I'll bet they told their kids (or were told by their parents) not to have sex, too. They didn't listen either.
And you didn't go off the deep end. You were probably understanding, caring, even, maybe said a prayer for healing. You were probably willing to forgive the mistake and move forward. For your friendship's sake. For your family's sake.
So why the hatred towards Sarah and her family? Is it because you're terrified she can defeat your Messiah of Hope and Change? Is it that her political "inexperience" still beats your guy's "experience"? Is it because she singlehandedly knocked your guy out of the news cycle ALL WEEKEND?
It's kind of silly, the way you people look. Foaming at the mouth is unbecoming, and especially so when it's so out of proportion as a reaction.
According to the record, Sarah Palin has been nothing but a caring mom trying to do her best by her state and her family. Maybe that's too much for you to handle and it confuses you. I don't know. But then again, if your brains were working properly you might be asking the same tough questions of Obama and Biden that you demand of McCain and Palin.
Otherwise, just don't go there. And hopefully that's the last I will have to say on this subject, except to wish this young couple and their baby all the best in a long happy life together.
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Day after day, the more I learn about Gov. Palin, the more impressed I am. Why you ask? Because I am convinced that she is a genuine person who is committed to the ideals of public service that this country was founded on.
Remember the movie Dave? How Dave is motivated to be involved in making a difference because he sees how important it is after pretending to be President? I am convinced that Sarah Palin feels that way. She started out in the PTA, and then the city council before being elected Mayor. Her track record shows that she is interested in fair government, small government, and reform above all else.
I am excited to have a politician on the national scene for once who "gets it" , and who is in fact a public servant, rather than a self-serving politico, although I have some concerns about some of her views.
The other thing I like about Sarah Palin is that she is just normal. She's a mom, juggling work and her 5 kids with the help of a seemingly devoted husband. It pisses me off that some would insinuate that her husband is incapable of helping her take care of the kids. He may be a man's man (from all appearances) but he also seems to love being a dad and relish the chance to be involved with his kids' lives. And so what if her 17 year old daughter is pregnant. Does that really reflect on the parents anymore? Is it a shameful thing these days to have a child out of wedlock?
I'd argue that it doesn't and it isn't. And furthermore, whether Palin is elected VP or not, I'd say that Bristol and Levi's baby is starting his/her life with a lot more on the plus side than most babies born to teen moms and dads.
If anything, Bristol's pregnancy and her parents' support reflects positively on the Palin family. That they love their daughter and support her in the face of what must be an incredibly difficult time for her. Some might say that Gov. Palin is selfish, campaigning and putting her daughter in the spotlight while she copes with the difficulties of being pregnant and the idiots who would rebuke her for being so young and unmarried. And yet it seems that this would be Bristol Palin's fate anyway. After all, her mom IS the governor. And anyway, having a baby is a blessing, not a catastrophe.
I can't wait until one of the attack dogs representing the Obamamama campaign tries to make Bristol Palin into this year's Mary Cheney. That's when the metaphorical excrement will be hitting the air conditioning...
Yeah, I like that she's a conservative and that she is an NRA member and all that. But that's not what makes her so refreshing as a candidate, and it's not what is energizing the party.
And the left is energized too. I mean, they must be so scared they're running in circles. They can't criticize Gov. Palin. They can't find trash on her, so they invent stories. Some of which are so far off base that they're scientifically IMPOSSIBLE. I laughed out loud at Alan Colmes' insinuation that poor prenatal care was the cause of Trig Palin's Downs Syndrome.
This is the voice of the left, my friends, shrill and irrational, grasping at any straw to tear down their opponents, regardless of party. It's almost like Colmes felt so compelled to say something, ANYTHING, that he opened his mouth to get in on the dead air first. That he spoke before he even knew what he was saying.
If the liberals are reaching so hard that all they can do is make shit up, we on the right have every reason to rejoice and support a ticket that CAN win in November.
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