My Words of Wisdom

My 17 year old cousin was up here (from LA) visiting last week. We did a lot of tourist stuff like eating lunch on top of the Space Needle, taking a ferry over to Bainbridge Island, racing go-karts, wandering Fremont, etc etc etc.

I figured I should impart some of my vast wisdom while she's still in this impressionable phase of her life. Here are the tips I gave her (and had her repeat back to me several times during her visit):

1. Be polite.
2. Never drive a yellow car.
3. Be nice to people from the "middle". It's not their fault.

I think numbers 1 and 2 are pretty obvious. 3 came about because we bumped into some folks who had absolutely no elevator etiquette and I explained to her it was possible that they lived somewhere that didn't have any buildings higher than 2 stories. Having spent her life in LA and NYC, she thought this was impossible, but I taught her about the midwest. Nuff said.

Hmmm...a pretend Darth Vader attacks a pretend Jedi (and a hairdresser) and the news media in England is all over it.

Jedi Master Jonba Hehol - known to family and friends as Barney Jones, 36, of Holyhead - was giving a TV interview in his back garden for a documentary when a man, dressed in a black bin-bag and wearing Darth Vader's trademark shiny black helmet, leapt over his garden fence.

Wielding a metal crutch - his lightsaber presumably being in for repairs - the Sith Lord proceeded to lay about his opponent, whose Jedi powers proved inadequate for the task of defending himself.

After besting Master Hehol in single combat, Vader, who The Sun reports was under the influence of alcohol, went on to assault the camera crew and a hairdresser.

For the whole story, go to the Telegraph.

Baseball fans are not Bush fans, it appears

Cities I've visited

1. Copenhagen, Denmark


2. Edinburgh, Scotland


3. Moorea, French Polynesia

• Create your own travel map or travel blog


• Visit TripAdvisor.com

Dolly Mania?

This woman is obsessed with Dolly Parton. I think there's something wrong with her. Seriously. (via Jezebel)

http://jezebel.com/372677/dolly-parton-enthusiasts-give-new-meaning-to-the-word-fanatic

Happy Easter!

This is like Guantanamo for Peeps...

Unique John Malkovich Interview

Thanks Karen!

Hating the Dem Party Today

New poll posted on stupid drudge.com (I'm not providing a link cause they're morons) now shows John McCain beating both Hillary and Obama. Nice job Dems (and Hillary). Way to eat your young.

I know, it's just one poll, but I can't believe there's even a chance that we're going to blow this election to a man who got all mixed up when talking to officials in the Middle East and referred to Shia when he meant Sunni Muslims and mixed up Iraq and Al Qaeda. Yeah, that's not a problem for foreign relationships.

Viva la military!

I'm just disgusted.

Disturbing

Look, as far as I am concerned, any picture of Carrottop is disturbing, but this one really takes the (carrot) cake.

The Onion's take on Obama's speech

CHICAGO—According to witnesses, a loud black man approached a crowd of some 4,000 strangers in downtown Chicago Tuesday and made repeated demands for change.

"The time for change is now," said the black guy, yelling at everyone within earshot for 20 straight minutes, practically begging America for change. "The need for change is stronger and more urgent than ever before. And only you—the people standing here today, and indeed all the people of this great nation—only you can deliver this change."

It is estimated that, to date, the black man has asked every single person in the United States for change.

Thanks to The Onion (via Slog)

Is this part of the "gay agenda"?

Oy.

Nice blog post

Why live more like a Zen monk? Because who among us can’t use a little more concentration, tranquility, and mindfulness in our lives? Because Zen monks for hundreds of years have devoted their lives to being present in everything they do, to being dedicated and to serving others. Because it serves as an example for our lives, and whether we ever really reach that ideal is not the point.

12 Essential Rules to Live More Like a Zen Monk

Jewno

I love the bagel phone...and the revised song.

Turns out Heather Mills is a nutcase

The ruling in the Mills/McCartney case has been published, and the judge basically calls Heather Mills a liar liar pants on fire. Some choice excerpts: "The husband's evidence was, in my judgment, balanced. He expressed himself moderately though at times with justifiable irritation, if not anger. He was consistent, accurate and honest. But I regret to have to say I cannot say the same about the wife's evidence." And: "I find that the wife's case as to her wealth in 1999 to be wholly exaggerated." And: "I find that, far from the husband dictating to and restricting the wife's career and charitable activities, he did the exact opposite, as he says." And finally: "I accept that since April 2006 the wife has had a bad press. She is entitled to feel that she has been ridiculed even vilified. To some extent she is her own worst enemy. She has an explosive and volatile character." Oh, and also? Mills-McCartney poured water on Paul's lawyer's head yesterday in the middle of the divorce proceedings. Way to endear yourself to the judge, Heather!

[Telegraph, People via Jezebel]

Edited to add: Heather Mills has hired celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred to be her "advocate" in the United States. In my book Gloria Allred is the same kind of "lawyer" as Al Sharpton. The minute someone hires them (or they jump to someone's defense), I stop believing that person.

Recycle your electronics for free

Recycle your old electronics for free with the US Postal Service's new "Mail Back" program. The program, which allows you to discard your used electronics in an environmentally friendly manner, provides free envelopes in 1,500 post offices to handle everything from inkjet cartridges to cell phones and MP3 players. The postage-paid Mail Back envelopes are located in post office lobbies, and you can take as many as you want for free. Currently the pilot program supports 10 areas, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., but could go nationwide this fall if the trial is successful. If you're not part of the pilot program, you can still recycle cell phones, computers, and more if you know where to look.
Free Recycling Through the Mail [USPS via Computerworld]

This is brilliant

Poor Heather Mills

She's going to have to find a way to live on only ~50 million dollars for the whole rest of her life. Yeah, she's complaining:

After today's announcemen  that that Heather Mills will receive a £24.3 million divorce settlement from Paul McCartney, Mills took to the courthouse steps to launch a tirade against Sir Paul and the entire legal system. "What the judge has said is that Paul is only worth £400 million. Everyone knows that he has been worth £800 million for the past 15 years," Mills complained.

Old white guys can snipe too

This clip starts off kinda slow, but once the anchorman and the "man in the field" start interacting, it gets a little spicy...

This is brilliant

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

Watch this video.

(Thanks Volker)

Death Metal Doggy

Heh. Love him.

Death Metal Puppy - Watch more free videos

Posted a few new pictures

from wandering Fremont & Pioneer Square last weekend. Click here for misc. pix and here for new troll pix.

Lots 'o visitors lately

My friend Karen from LA stayed with me the last two weekends - she was working in Seattle during the week. Her boyfriend came up last weekend to hang as well, which was a lot of fun, including the fact that I finally got to meet him! I sent them off to do a little sightseeing on their own while I got my hair cut, but we met up in Pioneer Square and wandered around there, including wandering the Elliott Bay Bookstore!!!, galleries, shops, etc. for a bit, had some nice dinners, hung out with some other local friends and just generally had fun.

My former neighbor & friend John was working up here this week, so he crashed at my house on Tuesday night.

Basically, Gus the dog has been in doggy heaven, with lots of fresh, new laps to lie on. He even slept with Karen one night (gasp!).

My 17 year old cousin, Natasha is coming to visit in a few weeks, which should be fun. We get along very well and she's a cool kid. I've already warned her that I am very good at Guitar Hero. She thinks she is too, but I'll show her...(children!)

Other than entertaining visitors, I've been doing the walking at work thing. I'm finding I'm on it between 4-5 hours a day generally, which is about 400-500 calories (or so they tell me). That helps a lot, I think, because I'm not actually eating very much food these days. I've invented a little something I call "protein surprise" that I've been eating every day at work. I go to the caf's salad bar and make a little bowl (maybe 4-5 ounces total) of tuna fish, edamame, carrots (so I get my veggies), hard boiled eggs, soy nuts and sunflower seeds. I put some red vinegar on top and mix it all up. Runs me all of $2 for lunch. Of course, I have been occasionally eating a chocolate chip cookie at lunch after eating my protein surprise, but I figure it's not too bad with the walking at work deal.

At dinner, I've taken to mixing a 1/2 of a chicken breast with a Lean Cuisine and then eating it over two nights (I can't eat a whole Lean Cuisine these days - weird). Breakfast is usually eggbeaters scrambled. I have a little fridge in my office, so I keep raw almonds and grapes in there that I have sometimes in the afternoon. And of course, I'm chugging the water.

I'm almost halfway to the weight I'd like to be and it's been about six months since I started focusing on this and losing weight (while in Italy, oddly enough), so hopefully in another six months I'll be where I want to be. It doesn't seem that far away (or unlikely) any more. Nice.

Have multiple computers?

I have 2 PCs at work (a desktop I work at when I'm walking on the treadmill and a laptop I work at when I'm sitting or in a meeting or offsite). There's often information that I want to synchronize between them. And occasionally, there's info I want to sync with my home PC.

I've been using FolderShare for more than a year now and it's been incredibly easy to use (and set up). I can identify directories that I want to synchronize on which machines. It also syncs my Internet Explorer Favorites, which is super-handy.

And they just did a nice cleanup of the site and it's super easy for me to access information directly on my other FolderShare machines remotely, which could be helpful in an emergency or some unforeseen circumstance.

Definitely worth checking out.

Edited 3/13 to add:

FolderShare only limits individual file sizes (up to 2 GB) and the number of files per shared library (10,000)—other than that, it's whatever you want to share. If you've got a different OS at home and work, or you just want an easy synchronization tool for an always-on box, FolderShare fits the bill, and can help you keep Firefox profiles and Greasemonkey scripts in sync. FolderShare is a free download for Windows and Mac OS X systems (with an updated Mac client in the works, according to developers).

Clean your monitor

Get some help >

[via Volker via Rob]

Counting Delegates

As expected, Barack won the Mississippi primary yesterday - 61% to 37% - a pretty decisive victory. Texas announced that he also won their Democratic caucus. Here's CNN's take on the delegate count at this point:

With the (Mississippi) victory, Obama added 17 delegates to his total while Clinton picked up 11, CNN estimates. The Mississippi win was Obama's second win in a row, having won the Wyoming caucuses Saturday.

CNN Tuesday also projected that Obama was the winner of the Texas Democratic caucuses that occurred March 4. Obama will be awarded 38 of Texas's delegates, while Clinton will win 29 delegates as a result of the caucuses, CNN estimates.

Clinton beat Obama 51 percent to 47 percent in the Texas primary that was also held on March 4, but Obama was expected to win a majority of the 228 Texas delegates due to his caucus win.

Two-thirds of the state's 193 delegates were at stake at the primary, while the remaining third were decided by the caucuses.

With the wins in Mississippi and Texas, Obama now leads Clinton 1,608 to 1,478 in the total delegate count, CNN estimates.

I just wish she'd give up on trying to convince the super delegates to overturn the will of the people and end this divisiveness.

Hmmmm....this sounds familiar

From The Washington Post of April 15, 1988:

Placid of demeanor but pointed in his rhetoric, Jackson struck out repeatedly today against those who suggest his race has been an asset in the campaign. President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don't ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his "radical" views, "if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."

Asked about this at a campaign stop in Buffalo, Jackson at first seemed ready to pounce fiercely on his critics. But then he stopped, took a breath, and said quietly, "Millions of Americans have a point of view different from" Ferraro's.

Discussing the same point in Washington, Jackson said, "We campaigned across the South . . . without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got North to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan and then Mrs. Ferraro . . . . Some people are making hysteria while I'm making history."

Do good (and increase your vocabulary)

Last Sunday's NY Times Magazine was all about philanthropy. One of the articles was about the FreeRice website, so I checked it out yesterday. It shows you a word and you select the correct synonym from a list of 4. Every time you select the correct synonym, they donate 20 grains of rice through the UN's World Food Program. Cool, eh?

Good way to waste some time, try to see how smart you are (my personal best after playing twice is a vocabulary level of 40) and do some good...

Terry McAuliffe gets nailed by Bill Maher

Just posted a blog entry and mentioned this interview from last night's Read Time. I absolutely agree with what Bill Maher says and he really holds Terry's feet to the fire. It's absolutely worth watching...

Hillary's getting on my nerves now

This is what happens when you use stock footage, Hillary - the kid in your ad will be 18 by November and was a precinct captain -- for Obama. (oops!)

This is one of the things that Hillary pulled this week that really turned me off. This ad is all about the politics of fear - it's exactly what I'd expect from Bush/Cheney -- or McCain (How easy is it to imagine this as a McCain ad?). It's the "They're coming to get you and we're the only ones who can protect you" bull. Nothing else matters - just that there are bad guys and you should be afraid. Very afraid.

They're even playing the whole "it's a new world since 9/11" card - we can't trust someone who doesn't have Hill's experience crap. That's exactly what Terry McAuliffe (chairman of Hill's presidential committee) said last night when questioned by Bill Maher about Bill Clinton's foreign experience when he became President versus Barack's foreign policy experience now.

Hillary even went so far last week to say that only she and McCain had the experience to be President. So, is that saying that if she isn't the Democratic nominee, the best person is McCain? Sorta sounds like that, doesn't it?

She's getting desperate- I do believe that she and Bill will do and say anything to win. The numbers all indicate that she cannot take the lead in delegates at this point. Basically, she's hoping that the super delegates will not abide by the will of the people (which they don't have to, btw. Which would be a HUGE mistake, btw).

By the time of the convention, it's basically a given that Barack will have won more individual votes, more states and more delegates -- but Hillary wants the super-delegates (don't even get me started on them) to not pay attention to the will of the people and vote for her instead. That's despicable and harmful to the party and to democracy.

The good news is that on Thursday's Daily Show, Senator Tom Daschle (who is a super delegate) said that he has been talking with several other superdels and they all have agreed to vote for the person who has the most (voted for) delegates. That will be Barack, unless Hills manages to win all of the upcoming primaries with HUGE numbers - which hasn't happened yet and the states she has won have generally been pretty close.

I am seriously pissed at what the Clintons are doing. I wasn't a fan before but this is serious business and they are helping McCain and the Republican party, IMHO. It's just wrong on so many levels.

This looks like a great flick

It opens here this weekend and is a documentary about a rock camp for girls.

The first song every bass player learns

Even in Japan, apparently...

There's something wrong here

Did no one step back and look at this Dora the Explorer toy?

Surreal

No idea what this video is all about, but it's kinda entertaining.

Walking at work

I've joined the ranks of the walking working. Several guys I work with have set up treadmills in their offices and today I joined them. These are pix of my office.

Basically, there's this doc at the Mayo Clinic who did a study and found that if you set a treadmill to 1 MPH and work while walking at that rate, you burn about 100 calories an hour, without running out of breath or breaking a sweat.

Since I'm no fan of hanging out at the gym, I thought that this was a good alternative. Granted, I don't spend 8 hours a day sitting at my desk typically due to various meetings, but I think I can get in a good 5 hours a day.

Mousing is taking a little getting used to, but I'm all excited about this. I am walking as I'm typing this, btw...

Working for the Clampdown

What are we gonna do now?
Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?
’Cos working for the clampdown
They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!
When we're working for the clampdown
We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers

The judge said five to ten but I say double that again
I'm not working for the clampdown
No man born with a living soul
Can be working for the clampdown
Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall
How can you refuse it?
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power
D'you know that you can use it?

The voices in your head are calling
Stop wasting your time, there's nothing coming
Only a fool would think someone could save you
The men at the factory are old and cunning
You don't owe nothing, so boy get runnin'
It's the best years of your life they want to steal

But, you grow up and you calm down and
You're working for the clampdown
You start wearing the blue and brown and
You're working for the clampdown
So you got someone to boss around
It makes you feel big now
You drift until you brutalize
You made your first kill now

In these days of evil presidentes
Working for the clampdown
But lately one or two has fully paid their due
For working for the clampdown

Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong!
Working for the clampdown
Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong!
Working for the clampdown

Yeah I’m working hard in Harrisburg
Working hard in Petersburg
Working for the clampdown
Working for the clampdown
Ha! Gitalong! Gitalong
Begging to be melted down
Gitalong, gitalong
Work
Work
And I give away no secrets – ha!
Work
More work
Work
Work

(Strummer/Jones)

I've been watching the new Clash documentary on PBS (now, isn't that a weird sentence? Seriously - it just occurred to me that I used the Clash & PBS in the same sentence without irony. Now that's ironic.) Anyhoo, I was thinking about how my friend Rosie (aka "Rosellen" to everyone else on the planet) and I would go to concerts all the time and whenever a band played the "popular" songs that all the poseurs knew, we would cross our arms and sit in our seats while everyone else was jumping up and down and going insane. Some might call it "attitude". 

With the Clash, it was when they played "Should I Stay or Should I Go". We saw them on the Pier in NYC and again at Shea Stadium and we sat down threw that song in both shows. We hated when the pop people would start screaming and jump out of their seats cause they recognized the song from the radio. They weren't true fans - not like us. We knew we were cooler than they were.

We still are.

Live in the Puget Sound area?

I want trains from the Eastside to Seattle so badly...

Puget Sound residents have until March 9 to fill out an online survey and give their opinions on the future of Sound Transit.

According to the site: "The survey will help Sound Transit decide how best to tackle increasingly poor commuting conditions with the right expansions of regional light rail, commuter rail and express bus service and infrastructure."

The information will be used to determine what transit-expansion plan has the most support. The results of the survey will be presented to the Sound Transit Board in mid-March.

Posted some new pix

Went to the arboretum today with Karen and Shoshanna and took some pix. It's not quite spring yet, but it wants to be. Or I want it to be. One of the two. Sometimes I get mixed up.

Nice weekend - Karen is up here from LA and I'm working on convincing her to move up here. I think I'm making progress...we had some nice meals, wandered around some parks, watched Gone Baby Gone and talked wet dreams with a billionaire stranger in a Vietnamese restaurant.

It's true. I mean - the conversation didn't actually start out with wet dreams, but somehow it ended up there. (Of course, alcohol was involved for most of the players in the conversation.) You see, I have a male friend who says that wet dreams are an urban myth. He claims to have never had one. I just don't buy it.

Thoughts?

Are you watching Lost?

I watched Thursday night's episode last night and it was one of the best hours of tv I've ever seen. I really feel like they're opening up and giving us some sorta answers about the oddness that is the island, why virtually no one can find it, who these different players are, and so on.

I have a theory (an overall theory if you will) and after glancing at the boards at Television without Pity, no one there is really heading down the same path as me about this. Do you watch Lost? Let me know so that I can bounce my theory off of you...