Wild Friggin' Kingdom

Noticed a mourning dove sitting outside of my bedroom window in the snow Sunday morning, so (naturally) I grabbed my camera and fired off a ton of shots. This is the best of the bunch:

(Look for a better/bigger shot on eighteenpercent.net soon.)

A bit later, we went downstairs for breakfast. While getting things ready, I look out the back window and see a bigass hawk, pulling apart some small, fuzzy thing in my back yard. No big deal in the country, but I happen to live in the middle townhouse in suburban-hell. So, it was kinda a big deal. I dash upstairs, get dressed, throw on my boots, grab the camera (naturally) and run out the front door. The plan was to circle the townhouse row and come up on the bird from outside my back fence. The snow did me in, as it wasn't the quiet powdery kind, it was the heavy kind that squeaks when you walk on it. I got to a point where I could peek through wooden plank fence slats. I saw that every time I moved, he'd stop eating the fuzzy and look around nervously. So I shot maybe ten half-assed shots through the fence before deciding I would try to sneak closer and get my camera above the fence. That worked well. I took one step, and he took off. Oh well. Sorry for interrupting breakfast, bird.

Here's the best of that series:

Sorry for the dark smudging on both sides of the image. That's the best I could do when cropping out the fence I was shooting through. Don't look for this one on eighteenpercent.net. It's pretty rough quality. Not "good" from a technical (or aesthetic) standpoint, but interesting enough that I thought I'd share.

'nother photo

Posted another photo up to eighteenpercent.net. Feel free to tell me what you think of it (or any others).

You ate what?

I love me some sushi. But I've made the rounds through all the beginner-level sushi. The salmons, the tunas, a shirmp thing, I've even gone all the way up to eel (one of my current favorites). So when we went out for sushi last night, I decided it was time to take the next step. Sea urchin. It's always been there on the menu, taunting me, daring me to do it. I'd never seen a picture, so I had an image in mind of a nice little sliver of something fish-like, tied to a little dab of rice. Thus:



Imagine my surprise when they brought out what appeard to be some orange sponge, wrapped in seaweed:



Needless to say, it was not what I was expecting. When you ate it, it had the consistancy of jelly. The flavor was really good, but stronger (more fishy) than the eel or tuna. I could eat it all the time, if it weren't for the feeling of cold mush in my mouth when I took a bite.

So, I just wanted to post up a quick warning for all my sushi-eatin' readers. Ask for the menu with the little pictures on it before venturing into new territory.

Sad day



It just occurred to me (via a poll on Slashdot) that today is the 19th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger blowing up on takeoff. Man. 19 years. I remember it pretty well. I just happened to be home sick from high school that day. 10th grade. I was sitting in the recliner in the TV room, flipping channels when I came to the countdown for the launch. I'd seen tons of launches on TV before, but I figured since I was home, and I didn't want to watch other circa '86 daytime TV, I would leave it on. Pretty routine all the way up till the boosters were supposed to separate. I remember seeing it happen and thinking "that explosion is too big...those weren't just the boosters blowing off". I don't think I turned away from the TV for the rest of the day. I was pretty crushed. I'd always been (and still am) a space/NASA fanboy. My aunt worked for them for years, so I had (have) a closet full of patches and stickers and promo stuff that I still appreciate.

NASA has a tribute page up. Worth a look and a moment of remembrance.

What a Dick

It's been all over the news today...

CNN

Google News

...Dick Cheney can't dress himself for a serious outing like the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. He dressed like a redneck in a bomber jacket and knit hat, while everybody else dressed like they were attending a funeral. Fitting of everybody else, I think. My favorite comment on the situation came from a friend who said:

"Apparently his knit cap says "Staff 2001". Maybe it's me, but I don't think Auschwitz is a place where you want to be linked with the staff--even 60 years later."

Thought it was worth sharing.

Entertainmant update

For those of you who were dying without your crappy crock-alternative fix, it seems WHFS has been resurrected...sorta:

"Washington (AP) - Fans upset when the plug was pulled last week on WHFS Radio now have somewhere to turn.

The station's owner, Infinity Broadcasting, says the alternative rock format is available online through a partnership with America Online. Starting Friday, fans can go to WHFS.com and click to listen through the computer. Infinity says they'll have some old material from station archives, along with new music and some performances from the concerts the station sponsored.

Also, Baltimore radio station Live 105.7 will have WHFS programming every weeknight and all day on weekends."

Also, completely unrelated, but cool anyway, Audrey Tautou has been cast to play the French woman lead in the movie adaptation of the Davinci Code. I dig her. Cooler still, Jean Reno (aka "The Professonal") is part of the cast as well. He's just badass. The only drag is that Tom Hanks is playing the lead. I don't see it, but who am I to say.

No Child Left Behind...for the war machine

I heard the other day that little noticed provision of the "No Child Left Behind" act that Bush signed into law in 2001 was that any high school that recieves federal funds (lots, probably most...if not all of them) must turn over names, addresses and phone numbers of it's seniors and juniors to military recruiters. Oh joy.

I origianally heard this on NPR, but all they have is an audio segment here. I then found the following written article:

Maynard, who was puzzled at how the recruiter got his telephone number, experienced one of the military's weapons in recruiting: The No Child Left Behind Law. Thousands of high school students across America are being recruited by telephone because federal lawmakers passed the law in 2001 with a little-noticed provision that requires the nation's public schools to report the names, phone numbers and addresses of high school juniors and seniors to the military.

Pretty sneaky.

New photo posted

I put up another new photo at www.eighteenpercent.net. Check it out if you desire.

And I'm not even a pot-head!

This scares me:

Drug-sniffing dogs can be used at traffic stops, Supreme Court rules.

No probable cause? No consent to search? No problem anymore!

The worst thing is that this is just the beginning.

Blowing the dust off

In the 80s, I spent a good bit of my life memorizing the bass riffs in nearly every song by Iron Maiden. As well as other 80s hair-metal bands I'm not willing to admit to.

By the 90s, I had progressed to learining Jane's Addiction, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Faith No More (among others). (Keep in mind, please that this was when the Chili Peppers were good, if not great. Not what they became later. Disgraceful).

Now, in the '00s (as I like to call them the "ooooh"s), I've decided that I need to blow the dust off the old basses and start playing more. Most of what I listen to these days is electronic (and thus, hard to play along with). About the only two bands that make me want to pick up the bass again are Bad Religion and Tool. So I've decided to learn as many BR songs as possible. (Maybe some Tool too, they tend to have weird bass tunings and stuff, right now, I'm digging the punk sounds). A good resource for this project of mine is the Online Guitar Archive where they store guitar and bass sheet music (in tablature form) for countless songs. The seem to be a bit lacking in bass tabs for BR tho. Guess I have something to do.

More Critical Mass blogging

Steve, one of the fearless foursome, has written an account of the day's goings on. It's posted over at Singlespeed Outlaw's site. Definitely check it out. He's more gooder at words (and brevity) than I am. Plus, they layout is nice, and he's incorporated a couple of my shots into the story. Nice job Steve. I knew you'd get hooked on this "Blogging" thing.

Chiapas '05.

Critical Mass post script

I meant to include that the total miles traveled during the CM ride was about 21.6 for the day, according to my odometer. I also managed to stay in one gear (singlespeed baby!) the whole time, with the exception of when I sprinted ahead of the pack on a hill climb. After the group passed and I needed to take off, up hill, and catch up, I shifted down one gear. So I nearly kept to my SS roots.

Critical Mass Photos up

Here are my shots from the Critical Mass ride yesterday. You should *not* have to log in or register for an account at ofoto to view these. If you have any problems, let me know. (I went with ofoto since I already had an account there. If they piss me off, I'll move to another site like shutterfly).

shots of us (32 photos):

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=96cpijzl.7dcvvp65&x=0&y=-dwhtmw

general shots (180 photos...may take a while to load all the thumnail images):

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=96cpijzl.6uw7sip9&x=0&y=qcbe71

Ofoto doesn't seem to respect my file ordering, so the images are not in chronological order. Sorry.

More shameless self promotion

Just posted the first shot I really liked from the Critical Mass ride over at eighteenpercent.net. Give it a look-see.

The war on sobriety, pt. 2

If you haven't read part one, scroll down (or click here) and do so before reading this.

Anyway, continuing...

We arrived at 7th and D to find a large number of people and cops milling about. Clearly, we had missed the exciting part of the rukus. We spent some time in the intersection talking with the other protesters. When it was clear that there was no more rukus-making forthcoming, we decided to head over to Zack's work. He had a couple of things to take care of, and the rest of us wouldn't mind the heat of an office building.

At the office, Zack does what he needs to do, while the rest of us annoy the shit out of his coworkers, who are trying their best to be productive. They were good sports to not throw staplers and shit at us. Thanks guys!

After the office space interlude, someone comes up with the bright idea to go over to the bar across the street from the office (a dangerous place for a bar, no?). Not seeing any reason to forgo this, we head over. More beers and bar-food ensue. Thankfully we get there at 3:53pm and only have to wait 7 minutes for Happy Hour to go into full effect.

Sometime after 4:30pm, somebody suggests that we head out and ride back to Dupont Circle to meet up with the Crit Mass ride scheduled for 5pm. We arrive back at Dupont to find a number of the usual suspects from the morning ride milling about. Still no obvious leader, so Zach again attempts to rally the troops. It seems to work, and there seems to be a group as we ride off into the city. A block or two later, it seems what group there was decided it wasn't time to ride yet, and peeled off. Now, it's just DT, Steve, Zach, me and a couple of CM guys. I'm not really sure where the breakdown occurred, but the six or eight of us ride off, kinda in search of the "main group" (assuming one even existed). At some point, the few people we didn't know peeled off, and it was just the four of us. Not ones to let something like that get us down, we ride around, in and out of traffic for a while longer before calling it quits, sometime around 7pm-ish (I think). From the few mails I've received from the CM list today, evidently, the main group had a good ride as well.

We head back towards home (Zach on his bike, the rest of us in my truck). Hit Arlington, get DT's car. Hit Lost Dog for pizza. Drop Steve and pizza off at DT's and head home. The end to a very very cool day. Even if it was the first day of the new term of our dumb president. Only 3 years, 364 more days to go. Tick tock tick tock.

Protest Sobriety!

The alarm went off at 5:45am Thursday. Inauguration Day. The first day of the rest of my life (or at least the next four years). DT, Steve and I were supposed to meet at a bagel shop in Arlington at 6:30am, so that we could be at Union Station by 7:30am for the Critical Mass Anti-Inauguration ride.

Arrive on scene, DT was waiting. Steve rode up soon after. We decide to park DT's car in a lot in Arlington, pile all the bikes onto my truck, and drive down as close to Union Station as we could before road closures forced us to park. We made it all the way to 5th and Mass Ave, found a parking lot, left the truck and headed towards the meeting place.

When we rode up to Union Station we found probably 150 people milling about. I'd guess 75 of them were on bikes and seemed to be CM participants. The rest were "mainstream" media (FoxNews(*cough*), TVTokyo, Washington Post and others), independent media/photographers, general curiosity seekers, and people getting off of buses, heading to the ceremonies. The most frightening thing (aside from all the cowboy hats and fur coats) that I saw was one redneck carrying a sign reading "I support the torture and execution of terrorists". Nice. Because it's so easy to tell which ones are terrorists, and which ones aren't, there's no chance of torturing and executing innocent people. Just ask all of those "terrorists" in Guantinimo Bay. Like the ones we keep releasing, 4 years after locking them up because...oops! they weren't really terrorists after all...sorry! Anyway, I digress...

We were supposed to meet Zach at the rally point for the ride. When he finally comes up, he tells us that he's been swamped for comments and interviews by the media (as he's standing there telling us this, TVTokyo comes up and asks for an interview with him). Nobody is really sure why he was so popular, but he had a lot of really good points to make (DC's lack of representation, the $17+million bill that DC is being stuck with by the Inauguration committee), and did so very articulately, so he was a pretty good representative for DC and CM.

We end up standing around for a while when it becomes clear that one of the good points of CM, a lack of centralized leadership, is also one of it's biggest failings. 75 people standing around in the cold waiting for somebody to say "go". Luckily, Zach took the reigns and got things moving and lead us along the ride route. He lives on the Hill, so he seemed to be the most familiar with the area.

We left Union Station, headed who knows where (I was just following the lead. I'm not all that familiar with the DC streets) until we got to a counter-inauguration HQ. There, they had hot chocolate and restrooms waiting for us. The group stayed there for maybe 30 minutes before heading out to our next stop, the "indy media center". Evidently they had Internet access setup inside for bloggers or anybody who wanted to file reports "from the field". It didn't seem like anybody was interested in doing that, so we pedaled on towards the end of the ride.

The ride ended at some park, where other counter-inauguration festivities were under way. The mock caskets (which represented some of the 1000+ soldiers killed in Iraq) were being assembled and flag-draped. There was a speaker and some music going on in the distance. The four of us (DT, Steve, Zach and I) hung out for a bit before deciding to strike out on our own ride. There was another CM ride scheduled for 4pm, and as it was now maybe 10:30am...we had some time to kill. It's decided that we would head down to Dupont Circle and see what was brewing there. That was another meeting place for demonstrators, as well as being the place for the start of the 4pm CM ride. We get down there and head directly for the warm, sugary goodness that is the Krispy Kream donut shop. We hang out there long enough to thaw out then head over to take a closer look at the rally. A couple of speakers, some pink bows, some signs. Cool. We sitck around there for a bit then decide to ride down to the DMZ (the 100 sq/block no-entry zone) to see what was happening there.

I really wish I knew more street names so I could be more descriptive in my...err...descriptions. But alas...

So we arrive at the DMZ, checkpoint 10 to be precise, just north of Lafayette Park. Not much to see here, so we decide to start a lap around the DMZ and see what we see. We don't see much besides more cowboy hats and fur coats and long lines waiting to get into the promised land. At some point, I think it's decided that since we're near RFD, we should stop by and see if they're serving beer yet. After all, it's got to be nearly 11:30am, why wouldn't they be?

Thankfully, RFD doesn't let us down. We lock up the bikes and head in to warm up, get some grub, and get loopy. Many beers flow. Zach calls a couple of coworkers who come and meet us for lunch. Many more high-octane 8-12% alcohol beers flow. A good time is had by all. After a while, the workers-bees have to get back to the office, and the slackers see a news report about a rukus going on at 7th and D streets. Sounds interesting, so we take our less-than-sober asses out the door, we mount the bikes, and ride off in search of chaos....

(Here endeth part 1. Scroll up, or click here to read the rest).

Oh goodie

Guess who's the new neighborhood pedophile? Yep. You got it.

I just had a visit from two of VA's finest. It seems that while I was taking the pix of the below "Kyoto Now" van, there were a couple of kids around, sledding. I waited until they were well out of the frame before taking any pix, but they got creeped out, and told their parents that some guy in a totally identifiable truck was sitting in the middle of the street with his hazard lights on, taking their picture. Pretty stealty of me, right?

So I explained to the officers that I was taking pix of the van because it had been spray-painted with the title of a song by a band I liked and it was a curiosity, especially with the Inauguration tomorrow. I showed them my Blog, plus all 6 or 8 of the shots I took, and my ID and they left, seemingly satisfied. I'm a bit concerned, however, as to how I'll be looked at around the 'hood from now on.

Overall, I'm pretty creeped out myself.

Had you asked me yesterday if anybody in my neighborhood was cool enough to know who Bad Religion was, I'd have said "no".

Evidently, I'd have been wrong:



Bad Religion's "Kyoto Now" lyrics from the CD The Process of Belief.

I guess the vandalizer could have been talking about the "Kyoto Now" campaign, but I prefer to think there's at least one hip person in the area. Even if they are a vandal. Still, I can't figure out why that van was targeted. They don't have any right-wing/pro Bush stickers on it or anything.

Chicks dig me...

...for my keen fashion sense. Presenting, my latest fashion accessory; The 'Live Wrong' bracelet:



Best $4 I've spent in a long time. Get yours here.

File under "shameless promoting of somthing I think is really cool".

The Image Of The Day at The Cellar is almost always incredible. Tons of really cool/interesting/disturbing pictures and Slashdot-like comments on each. Well worth a visit. Check the archives for a ton of pervious posts.

Oh, almost forgot to mention, I submitted an IOTD (that I found, not that I took) a while back and it was accepted. Of course, I wasn't a registered user of the site, so it was credited as "anonymous". But I still get credit.

I may have to give The Cellar a perma-link on my blog.

File under "shameless self promotion"

I posted a new pic to eighteenpercent.net this weekend. Check it out. I also posted one a couple of weeks back that I really like, so if you haven't been there in a while, take a look.

Proof that "use it or lose it" is true

Went out today for another ride (twice in one week, I'm gettin' crazy!). The total opposite of "springtime night road ride" from earlier in the week, this was "balls-out-cold singletrack day ride". And I overestimated myself yet again. A year or two ago, a ride like today would have been no problem. We rode harder and in colder temps than this two or three times per week. Ha. Not anymore.

I met DT and Dave from MORE at the Senica Greenway trailhead in MoCo, MD. The ride was billed by Dave (the organizer) as "casual pace, easy/intermediat terrain", which makes it even more embarrassing that I was only able to hang on for 5 miles until my head was spinning, and I felt like I was gonna barf up the three Pop-Tarts I had eaten for breakfast. The trail was nice, but the 30 degree air felt like it was searing my lungs with each breath. Added to that was the fact that my rear shifter doen't work in the cold anymore, and the bike was still ghost-shifting (see my CCT ride write-up for more whining on this) and the ride wasn't as much fun as it should have been (for me).

The terrain of the 2.5 miles of trail I saw was good. Not too hilly, but enough to keep you breathing hard. Some nice swoopy, flowing downhills. A couple of bridges built over streams and mud flats. I'd like to get back up there to try it again. Maybe after a lot of solo get-yer-fat-arse-back-in-shape rides around the old stand-by, Wakefield.

Thanks to DT and Dave for offering to slow the pace to give me a chance.

Not sure how well I'm gonna do at the (anti-) Inauguration Ride later this week. Wish me luck.

Springtime night ride

The phone rings at 5:15pm. It's DT. "Hey man, it's 70 degrees and beautiful outside...wanna go for a road ride?". It's January 13th. I'd be stupid not to take advantage of this weather. "Sure", says I. I haven't been on a bike since my overly ambitious attempt at a CCT full length ride in late December. A road ride can't be any more taxing than that was.

We meet in Vienna, hop on the bikes, and head west on the W&OD trail. It's a slight downhill from Vienna heading west, and we have a bit of a tailwind (a fact that we didn't realize until we turned around much later). So we kept a near-20mph pace for longer than I thought I could manage. We ride for 30 or 40 minutes before deciding to turn around (hello, headwind!). We got back to Vienna with just over an hour of riding done. I think we covered about 16 miles. Oddly enough, I felt pretty good. The only thing bugging me was a stiff neck and shoulders. One day when I'm rich and famous, I'm going to get a custom made freak-sized bike (maybe two). It would be interesting to see how a bike is *supposed* to fit me.

Anyway, back in Vienna. Pop into the world famous Vienna Inn for some quick post-ride refreshments (wearing my "I still hate George Bush" shirt...I wasn't sure whether or not we'd end the night in a barroom brawl). Eat, drink, BS, then it's out the door for home. Great ending to a great ride. And we didn't even have to throw any punches :)

Here's something that doesn't happen every day

Local "modern rock" radio station WHFS (that stopped being "modern" in about '89 and stopped being worth much of anything in '95ish) has been been changed by it's corporate parents, Infinity Broadcasting, into ElZol, a latin/salsa station. I haven't listened to music radio for years (and years and years) but this kinda sucks in that the station was an institution. It's been around for a long ass time. And back in the day, it actually was pretty progressive in it's format. Ah well. Maybe this is a sign of things to come. If you continue to play shitty middle-of-the-road crock rock, you're not long for this world.

Adios WHFS.

SURPRISE!

White House says Iraq weapons search is over

US gives up search for Iraq WMD

Iraq WMD search ended

I feel safer already.

I found this after an email from the girl. I thought it was worth sharing...

This is a clothing label from a small American company that sells their product in France.



Here's the translation of the French part of the label.

* Wash with warm water.
* Use mild soap.
* Dry flat.
* Do not use bleach.
* Do not dry in the dryer.
* Do not iron.
* We are sorry that Our President is an idiot.
* We did not vote for him.


My first thougth was "ha, funny...but not real". I hit snopes.com and found nothing. Then I dug around Google and came up with the site credited above. The company is Tom Bihn Design. They made a shirt in honor of the tag and are donating proceeds from it to the Seattle Vet Center's Homeless Vet Program. $16,000 so far. Tho, they seem to be trying to spin the story of the label in order to prevent a visit from Das Homeland SSecurity Department.

On a sorta related note, I was driving in to work today and saw a "VIVA BUSH" sticker on a car and I had to wonder...why would right-wingers pick a French word (al la "VIVA LA FRANCE") for thier candidate? I thought we didn't like the French? Remember them Freedom Fries? Now that was a good idea.

Just placed my request for inaugural tickets. Not that I have any real desire to go to any "official" events. I just figured I'd see what I could score. Hell, I'm sure some tool on ebay would buy them the day after. Wish me luck. In the "comments" section of the request page, I said simply "Pretty please, with sugar on top". That should win some hearts.

A friend got a reply about the (seemingly) creepy bill in VA that I ranted about before. It certainly seems less creepy when fully explained. Whew.

-----Begin quote-----

Hello:

I am Delegate Cosgrove and I wish to respond to the allegations that have been made by those who have emailed and called my office. The intent of House Bill 1677 is to require the notification of authorities of a delivery of a baby that is dead and the mother has not been attended by a medical professional. This bill was requested by the Chesapeake Police Department in its legislative package due to instances of full term babies who were abandoned shortly after birth. These poor children died horrible deaths and all that the person responsible could be charged with is the improper disposal of a human body.

The requirement for twelve hours comes from the method that a coroner would use to determine if the child had been born alive or dead. After twelve hours, it becomes next to impossible to determine if the child was alive due to decomposition gasses that build up in the body.

My bill in no way intends that a woman who suffers a miscarriage should be charged for not notifying authorities. The bill in no way mentions miscarriages, only deliveries. After discussing the bill again with our legislative services lawyers, I will include language that will define the bill to apply only to those babies that are abandoned as stated above.

I would never inflict this type of emotional torture on a woman who has suffered such a traumatic event as a miscarriage, and I am confident that the General Assembly of Virginia would also not pass such a terrible imposition on a woman.

I hope that you will understand the original intent of this bill. This bill has nothing to do with abortion, contraception and especially miscarriages. If you were alarmed by this bill or by the websites, I am sorry. I hope that this will explain the concept and intent of this bill.

Sincerely,

John A. Cosgrove

-----End quote-----

Holy shit

I'm telling you, the next four years are gonna be fucked up.


HB 1677 Fetal death; report by mother, penalty.
John A. Cosgrove

Summary as introduced:
Provides that when a fetal death occurs without medical attendance, it shall be the woman's responsibility to report the death to the proper law-enforcement agency within 12 hours of the delivery. Violation of this section shall be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.

I found this via an email linking back to this blog (which has a lot of really good info on it, including a comparison of this "crime" to other "Class 1 misdemeanors"...check it out).

What to do now? If you live in Virginia:

Call, write, email this idiot and tell him to knock it off.

Figure out who your delegate and senator are and call, write, email them and have *them* tell that idiot to knock it off.

I'm totally creeped out, and I'm not even a girl.

(now playing: We Gotta Get Out Of This Place by The Animals)

Not that I voted for him or anything...

But there are some interesting Inauguration and anti-Inauguration events coming up 1/20/05. Plenty of opportunity to make my opinion heard, and maybe take some pictures of the day's goings-on. I'm sure it will be an interesting scene downtown anywhere you go.

A copule of things I'm considering doing with my day (I've already asked for time off from work):

First of all there is the Critical Mass bike ride/protest starting off at Union Station at 7:30am. This is the leader on my list of things to do. I'm just trying to figure out how I can attach my camera/lenses to my body while I ride. I'm sure there will be some great shots to be had.

I'd love to show up and turn my back on Bush:

http://www.turnyourbackonbush.org/

http://www.turnyourbackonbush.com/index2.html

I also found this pretty cool map with parade route, metro stops, street names, entry points and buildings over-lay-able (is that a word?).

If you're coming down, beware the Metro stop closings (my post about this is coming up soon) and street closings. It's not gonna be easy getting around anywhere near the Capitol or parade route. I'm glad I'll be on a bike.

Entertainment Update

Quick movie review: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Be sure to take your acid before leaving for the theater. It will make the already-trippy visuals more intense, and it couldn't possibly make the movie any weirder.


In other news...72,000 football fans sell out to the mouse.


And on another unrelated note, I'm pretty psyched that Deadwood is being re-run. Two episodes a week on HBO, Monday nights at 9pm and 10pm. Where else can you see dialogue that would make the Sopranos blush? Occasionally the language is even a bit much for me, but the semi-realistic portrayal of an old west gold mining town is enough to keep me hooked.

And lastly, please don't drink and iTunes...you never know what you'll end up with the next morning:

Mr. Dobolina - Del the Funky Homosapien
Inside Out - Eve6
Bad (live) - U2
Wax Estatic - Sponge
(I forget the title) - Public Enemy and Moby

There may even be some more songs I'm forgetting. I'm not saying I don't like those songs. I'm just saying looking back, I'm not sure how critical it was for me to own them. Damn you iTunes!

Support our troops!

...use the war for fun and profit!

I was in 7-11 yesterday grabbing some munchies when I see these sitting on the counter. Basically they're wristbands like the Lance Armstrong wristbands that every organization on the planet has started using to get attention/funds, only these are in Army-drab green. The box they're in shouts out "Support our troops!". The small print says "$1 from the sale of each wristband will go to supporting the troops in Iraq". Curious, I ask the clerk "So, how much are the wristbands".

$3

Wonder who the other $2 is supporting?