Not much writing going on lately, obviously. With the holidays, a brother-in-law's near-xmas-wedding (which I attempted to shoot with mediocre results, some of which can be seen here) and all sorts of other goings-on time has been tight and motivation has been nil. I seem to be in full-blown hibernation mode. Tonight the wife and I have our first meeting with a Realtor (proper noun? Who knew?). Time to stop paying other people's mortgages and start paying our own. Hopefully.

Anyway...I have a few drafts in the hopper. I'll finish them up and post them shortly. I've moved the blog to the new, non-beta Blogger format. This adds one super-cool feature on which I've been waiting...tagging. So now I'm spending time going through my 400+ old posts and tagging them appropriately.

So, until I have some quality content to provide, I'll offer this random tidbit found on CNN the other day. Sad situation, random-ass quote. On the suicide of Nikki Bacharach, daughter of Burt Bacharach and Angie Dickinson, the family's official "announcement" contained this gem:

"She loved kitties, and earthquakes, glacial calving, meteor showers, science, blue skies and sunsets, and Tahiti".

(via)

Sounds like a Playboy Playmate bio on acid.

Weak!

'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin dead.

I guess if you gotta check out, doing what you love while snorkling the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is an OK way to go.

I was never a huge fan, but if I was bored lying on the couch on a rainy Saturday afternoon and I happened across "The Crocodile Hunter", I'd watch for a bit. He definitely did a lot for the conservation movement, and his help in that field will be greatly missed, I fear.

The Crocodile Hunter was the second (as far as I know) of the "Hey, there's something creepy and slimy in that dark hole in the rock-face, I'm gonna jam my arm in there and pull whatever it is out!" naturalists, and I like that (as, obviously, did a great many fans around the world). It was much more interesting to me than the "We're sitting in our Land Rover with our cameras and 800mm zoom lenses shooting video of a lion a mile away taking down a zebra" style.

The first and foremost "creepy thing in the hole...let's grab it" naturalists was (is?) the great Aussie Harry Butler. Harry hosted a show in the 70s called "In the Wild with Harry Butler". I caught it two decades later in re-runs, but it hadn't lost any of it's charm. Harry looked like an outback hermit,



and he would do the creepiest shit (for example, swim in a water hole with a bigass croc and a decomposing kangaroo corpse...cuz it was the only water for 100 miles, and he was hot). Since the first day I had internet access, I've searched for tidbits of info on Harry and "In the Wild" with no luck (literally, zero results). It's probably been a year or two since I last looked, and in looking again, it's nice to see there is a bit more info on him now (thanks to Wikipedia and everything2). There was an entry on Harry on Wikipedia, but nothing for "In The Wild" specifically, so I created a brief blurb. Hopefully I, or someone else, will be able to flesh [thanks Ben] out the article in the future.

Anyway. I've gotten off-topic. The point of this post was mainly to say "Farewell, Steve". Your acting was a bit over-the-top, but your contributions to the conservation movement will be missed.

Officially...

...I am an idiot.

I saw the following headline on cnn.com



and my first thought...I swear to god...was "Fuck, that's a long way to walk".

Just for a second.

Ok, on a positive note...

At least I'm not *this* big of an idiot...

Again from cnn.com:



A quick poll produced the following reactions from the public:

"Who exactly gives a fuck?" said 99.986% of the people in America.

"WHAT? WE CAN'T HEAR YOU BECAUSE OF THE FUCKING CAR BOMBS BLOWING UP NEXT TO OUR HEADS EVERY DAY", commented the people of Iraq.

"I'M SORRY, WE COULDN'T HEAR YOU EITHER BECAUSE OF THE ROCKETS RAINING DOWN ON US AND BLOWING UP OUR FAMILIES EVERY DAY FOR THE PAST 3 WEEKS" the people of both Lebanon and Israel agreed (surprisingly).

Seriously, CNN. Stop wasting the electrons of my LCD display printing that useless shit on the screen please.

Dear God,

Enough already!

Love,

Noah.

Fun for the whole family

I love CNN.com. On their home page, they have headlines of videos you can watch, followed by a "try it free" or "watch now" tag line. Often, when you take the headline along with the "try it free" part, you get some inappropriate sounding "offers". Like "Man shoves entire six-pack up rectum. Watch now!". I'm going to start saving them and posting them, just for fun.

The first:

It's official, it's quantifiable

According to a story on CNN, MD drivers are dumber than VA drivers.

DC still takes the "Dumbest Drivers in the Region, and Nearly the Nation" award. You could have fooled me. I'd have sworn MD drivers were the dumbest on the planet. I don't think I've seen one on the highway in weeks who knew where the turn signal was. And why oh why, do so many MD drivers feel the need to go 56mph in the left lane?

(Note to my MD readers, I'm not saying all MD drivers are bad, just that the vast majority of bad drivers I've seen in the last few years have had MD plates).

The test is currently offline, but I'm hoping it is back up soon. I'm interested to see how I score.

***

Edit to add, if you hit this link, it should take you to the test, even tho the main page still says it's down. Strange. Good luck!

***

Religion and skydiving

Here's what I don't get about religious people (and I'm not knocking them...I'm just saying). You have a story like this:

Skydiver survives fall, gets baby surprise

"SILOAM SPRINGS, Arkansas (AP) -- Shayna Richardson was making her first solo skydiving jump when she had trouble with her parachutes and, while falling at about 50 mph, hit face first in a parking lot."

And your take on it is:

"...not only did God save me but he spared this baby," she said.

Why not "Not only did God throw me face first into a parking lot at 50mph, but he did it while I'm pregnant."?

Maybe that's the definition of "faith".

Fuck You, Senate

Senate endorses oil drilling in Alaska wildlife refuge

I hope 51 of you (and you know who you are) get rectal cancer, and have to have large, cold, uncomfortable things with sharp edges shoved up your asses. I hate you.

"Increasing our domestic energy supply will help lower gasoline prices and utility bills", says He-of-the-38%-Approval-Ratings George Bush.

Mark my fucking words, the odds of seeing $3/gallon gasoline prices are a hell of a lot better than the odds of seeing $2/gallon prices. Especially in urban areas like my home town (DC). You want to "lower gasoline prices and utility bills"? How about reigning in those huge fucking oil company profits?

"Conoco Phillips profits were up 89 percent, or $3.8 billion; Exxon's profits were up 75 percent, or almost $10 billion; and BP was up 34 percent, for a profit of $6.4 billion".

The only way supporters of this measure could get it past the opponent's filibuster was to tack it on to another budget measure that is immune to filibuster. You fucks.

Here's a silly idea...Why not spend the next 20 years (while you're waiting for ANWR to get up to speed*) trying to break America's reliance on oil? 20 fucking years. I bet if we taxed the shit out of the oil profits, and used that money to study alternative fuels...in 20 years, what does, and does not, come out of ANWR wouldn't matter for shit anyway!






* "no oil is likely to flow from ANWR for 10 years and peak production of about 1 million barrels a day isn't expected until about 2025, according to the Energy Department. Currently, the United States used about 20 million barrels of oil a day."

hrmmm....

CNN/Reuters says:

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair's eldest son Euan will work as an intern with Republican staff in the U.S. House of Representatives, the prime minister's office said on Sunday.

Wonder if George and Tony spoon when they're in the sack toghther? I bet George is the boy.

I swear to god...

When I first glanced at this headline on CNN my brain saw:

"Some see Virgin Mary in underpants stain"



http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/20/mary.underpass.ap/index.html

I wonder...

I wonder when the government is going to make it illegal to be fat? I can see it now, they'll start issuing tickets, writing fines. Maybe even hand out some jail time. They can have stake (steak?) -outs at McDonalds restaraunts and bust all the fat people coming out with ginormous Double Quarter Pounder Meals with extra lard. Mmm mmmm.

I'm not saying this to poke fun at fat people. This whole line of thinking came about watching the 37 hour marathon of Biker Build-Off on the Discovery Channel Sunday. At one point, two of the motorcycle builders/riders elect to go helmet-less in a helmet law state. They're quickly busted and given tickets for this grevious offense. At this point, I think the girl asked me why there were motorcycle helmet laws (perhaps she stated why she thought there were helmet laws, I forget). I told her it was (theoretically) to keep insurance premiums down by keeping us all safe and secure (and totally defeating that whole "natural selection" thing that Darwin was kind enough to point out). I kinda started in on my little "helmet laws are dumb, seatbelt laws are dumb" tirade, when I started thinking about regulating fat people. I mean, if motorcycle helmet laws and car seatbelt laws are in effect to keep insurance premiums down by preventing people from needing to file claims, shoulnd't fat people be regulated for the same reason? I mean, what is the bigger health concern? Helmet-less (and seatbelt-less) vehicle accidents, or obesity and it's related effects (heart disease, diabetes, etc)? Here in the good ol'e USA, my bet would be on obesity.

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.

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.

Asia and India got smashed. 76,000+ dead. The Earth's rotation sped up by 3 microseconds. Tectonic plates moved by 98 feet (they usually move about 1cm/year, I think). This was a big deal.

Slashdot has more of the technical news.

Google has set up a tsunami help page.

As has Amazon.

CNN has a clickable list of links to places you can donate.

I'm pretty sure the Red Cross has need of donations too, but their site seems slammed at the moment.

There's also a tsunami help blog.

Help out.

Souvenir

When I went to San Francisco a few weeks back, I found the coolest souvenir ever:



It's a 11x17" poster for "The San Francisco Bay Guardian" newspaper, a free Bay area rag (like the DC City Paper).

(Sorry about the weird angle. I had to take the pic from off to the side to avoid the reflection of the flash).

It's nice to see that the San Francisco Bay Guardian's secret monitoring device inside my head is still transmitting.

In their November 10th-16th issue, they said:



On November 5th (well before my November 9th-16th trip), I said:

http://gmr2048.blogspot.com/2004/11/four.html

Irony
Main Entry: iro·ny
Pronunciation: 'I-r&-nE also 'I(-&)r-nE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -nies
Etymology: Latin ironia, from Greek eirOnia, from eirOn dissembler

Definition:

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- A man suspected of trying to illegally hook up electrical service died after police shocked him with a stun gun when he was found hiding at an apartment complex, authorities said.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/11/05/stun.gun.ap/index.html

Rollercoaster

The latest wave of unease started Monday. I felt the end was near. Or, more appropriately, I felt the end was not near. I started to feel that the the Bush/Cheney era in the White House was not on it's last legs. And I was scared.

Then, late in the day Monday, I made up my mind to travel to PA and offer whatever I could to the Kerry election effort. My state (VA) is a loss anyway, always falling to the Republicans. There wasn't really any reason to volunteer here. PA was the closest battleground, and had a lot of electoral votes at stake. I had a connection inside the Kerry camp in the Philadelphia suburbs, so that was my destination.

Tuesday dawns. A timeline.

5:00am - Alarm goes off. That sucked.
5:15am - Out the door (I'd showered the night before as not to be entirely gross to my fellow volunteers).
5:30am - In line at my local polling location. 5th person in line.
6:00am - Doors open. I'm in. I'm the first vote cast at my location (the first 4 people in line were older/slower, so they were easier to shove out of the way when it was time to make my move. Only kiddng. They did take extra time signing in and figuring out the electronic voting machines.
6:04am - Back in my truck, headed north.
6:25am - Hit the DC beltway.
6:44am - Make it to 95N.
7:04am - Pass the big "Balimore" smokestack in Charm City.
7:57am - Ahh, Deleware.
8:18am - PA.
8:36am - Media, PA. I'm here.
9:30am - At this point, it gets pretty busy. [* see detail below]
7:43pm - Done. Head for home.
9:58pm - Home.
2:18am Wednesday - Bed.

*...Basically, I first went to the main Kerry HQ in Media PA. I was handed a map and was pointed in the general direction of the Media, PA Theater, where the volunteers were being coordinated. Maybe a mile from the HQ. I arrived at the staging area, got a quick orientation (with a bunch of other volunteers) got paired up with an older local guy and a couple of young Georgetown Law students also in PA to help, got our assignment packet, grabbed some road food (graciously provided by the Kerry organizers) and hit the road. Basically, we were the foot soldiers. Each team of volunteers was assigned a neighborhood, we were given voter registration records and told to knock on every registered democrat's door and ask if they'd had a chance to go vote yet. If yes, thank them and mark them as "voted" on the lists. If no, ask when they thought they might vote, and ask them if they needed a ride or anything else. Once we had covered our entire neighborhood (checking off all the houses we hit), we return to home base and trade data in for a new packet, then hit the streets again.

I managed to outlast three partners: Granville, Bok and Stephen (what is it with these PA names???), not counting the Georgetown Law kids, and make a total of 4 or 5 neighborhood runs throught the day. The last run was completed in total darkness at 7:00pm, using a flashlight to read our map and find house numbers.

After the final run, we went back to the Theater and found pizza waiting for us. Sweet. Food! That's exactly what I needed for the 2.5 hour trip home. Gobble down some grub and get back in the truck, headed southbound. I wish I could have hung out with the other volunteers in the Theater watching the results come in, but after an extremely long day, all I wanted was to get home and crash out.

For the first 30-45 minutes of the drive home, I listened to whatever NPR station I could pick up and tried to keep up with the incoming results. The initial numbers were sounding good, and that managed to get my hopes up. After I found myself trying to do electoral-vote math in my head while driving (and wandering all over the highway in the process) I decided I would let things settle as I drove home and worry about the returns later. I threw in a CD and set the cruise control.

I finally arrived home around 10 (after breaking all my election-night plans to go out with friends) and immediately switched on the TV. Uh oh. The results were pouring in fast and furious at this point, and a lot of states on their pretty map were colored an annoying shade of red. My heart sank, and continued to stay sunk for a long time.

There was one shining moment of sheer happyness that almost brought me to tears. When CNN predicted that PA, and it's 21 electoral votes would go to Kerry, I felt like I had just hit the lottery. I took it personally. He won the state that I went out and fought for. Man, that was a good feeling. I really feel like I played a hands-on part in trying to remove Bush from office. Of course, it's now clear that we had won the battle, yet lost the war. But I'm inspired. Inspired to fight against this right-wing psuedo-moral christian who's got 4 more years to impose his creepy values on me.

-g

One last thing before I go. I would like to thank the two rednecks in the car next to me at the stop light on Sunday. They pulled up, and passenger-redneck sits up in the window of the car (Dukes of Hazard-stly) and starts yelling to a group of Kerry supporters on a streetcorner: "Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck John Kerry! If we give John Kerry the election, we lose our fucking country. Fuck John Kerry! Fuck you!". I thougth briefly about getting out and clubbing him with my Mag light. Then thought better of it (now I think I should have gone with my first instinct). That was the catalyst. I really wish our efforts could have saved this country from mongoloids like them, but I guess the idiots have to want to be saved.

On the plus side, all the bands I like have 4 more years of great material to work with.

$84

Yes, dumdum, you do own a stake in a timber company, you smug piece of sh!t. And you got $84 in income from it in 1991. And that makes you a "small business owner". And that makes John Kerry's statment true. You ass.

From factcheck.org (not, factcheck.com for those of you who are Vice Presidents of this country). (Google mirror here due to heavy post-debate traffic):

"President Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business owner" under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. However, 99.99% of Bush's total income came from other sources that year. (Bush also qualified as a "small business owner" in 2000 based on $314 of "business income," but not in 2002 and 2003 when he reported his timber income as "royalties" on a different tax schedule.)"

So I don't know if he's got so much $$$ and so many different interests that he honestly didn't know he owned part of a timber company (tough life, ain't it?). Or if he was just flat out lying.

Betcha you can guess what I think.


---update---

So CNN this morning (day afer the debate) reported that it's not quite that cut and dried. Evidently Bush owns (in whole or in part) a holdings company. This holdings company owns (among other things) a small stake in a timber company. Evidently, Bush's $84 was income from the holdings company, before they had acquired the timber company.

So, while I have no doubt he's considered a small business owner, and takes every tax cut which that allows, he may not technically have owned a timber company.

But I still don't like him.