World cup chances

I just realized...at 26, my prospects of playing in a world cup are really starting to dim.

Fuck.

Mmmmmmm hmmm!!!

"Girl, he craaaaazy! He a low-down dirty dawg!"

Knee-jerk Republicans

A nice op-ed on the ridiculous of the Republicans, and to some degree their critics, on the bank transaction surveillance.

Yet another personality meme

My personal DNA. From Lisa.

Unnatural

Okay, I just woke up. Please note the time.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Also, happy half birthday to me. Woo! Woo.

More Craigslist shenanigans

My most recent Craigslist posting:

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Hey...I'm moving to Seattle (back to Seattle, as it turns out) from California to start grad school at UW at the beginning of September, and I'm hoping there are some other souls wandering around the great Craigslist housing limbo who might be in a similar situation and either searching for housing themselves or have an imminently vacated or otherwise unoccupied room they're looking to fill.

I've browsed through most of the other entries on here, and I gotta be honest, people: weak. Very weak. You have managed to differentiate yourselves from the occupants of Riker's Island, Arcum Asylum, and the defendants of the war crimes tribunal at The Hague. Otherwise, I'd be hard-pressed to choose the 5-foot-two albino nursing student with a Smurf fetish from the six-foot-three Ukrainian baritone who secretly longs to pursue a career as a jockey amongst you. You can do better! You are unique! You are special! In both the good and the bad way...

As for me, my ideal roommate is:

- absolutely filthy
After all, haven't many important scientific discoveries been serendipitious? For all you know, that decomposing pizza box may well contain the cure for cancer. Others may call it a slovenly, slothful, and a negligent failure to maintain even basic third-world health standards, but you, my forward-thinking friend, call it iconoclast scientific inquiry!

- likes doing hard-drugs
If God hadn't wanted you to do intravenous drugs, he wouldn't have put the veins in your arm so close to the surface. Alcohol is for pussies, and when you pursue alternative perceptions of reality, you don't fuck around. If an enema full of methamphetamines and paint thinner is wrong, well then goddamnit you just don't want to be right.

- totally unreliable
You wake up every day striving to bring some excitement to my life. You understand that were you not to go missing for weeks at a time, I might take you for granted. And rent? Don't get you started. If I want to be The Man's bitch and pay my rent "on time" and in "US dollars," well, that's my decision, but you won't be tied down like that. You pay your rent when _you_ feel like it, and if I won't accept your frequently updated list of celebrities who are "fucking queer" as your contribution to supporting the apartment, that's just my problem.

- likes drama
You are an emotional time-bomb waiting to go off. Willing to fly off the handle at the most miniscule provocation, you ensure a healthy dialogue with your roommates by surrounding them in a warm, nurturing ambiance of passive-aggression. Was the beanie-baby with a fork stuck through its eye left in front of my bedroom door as revenge for forgetting to wash your favorite plate, or for failing to compliment you on the new Prada bag you got that's currently covering the final notice from your credit card company? I'll probably never know, and that's why living with you is such a unique and educational experience.


Anyway, drop me a line if you're interested in teaming up for housing (seriously...I do actually need to find a roommate; I'm not just being a wise-ass :). I'm more interested in finding good roommates than beholden to any particular area.

And if I'm not your cup of tea, good hunting. I'm sure you'll find the "cool, laid-back" roommate that's right for you. ;)

"Oxygen bars"

There's an oxygen bar in the hotel we're staying in in Frankfurt (airport Sheraton). I knew such things existed, but to actually see one just reminded me how fucking stupid people are. If you're not familiar with the phenomenon, these are bars where people can "purify" their bodies by sitting in a ridiculous-looking seats and breathing pure oxygen. Now, it would be one thing if we were in La Paz or some other god-forsaken remote mountain location that exists despite nature's best effort to make it inhospitable to human life. But we're not. We're at fucking sea level. I assure you, there's more than enough oxygen hanging around. And yet, there are some idiots out there who will pay. FOR AIR. Water I could almost understand given how much shit is in the drinking water these days, except for the minor detail that things like Desani are just tap water from some other polluted tap besides yours. Random useful fact: the water in Desani is exactly the same water used to make Coke and Sprite, bottled at exactly the same plant. Next time you're at the store, look at the relative prices of the two. Then feel retarded for ever even considering buying bottled water.

Anyway. Air. People are paying for air. Fucking AIR. Have I mentioned that people, supposedly in full control of their faculties, walk in, pull out their wallets, and say to the clerk, "Hi! Here's some money. Do you happen to have some extra air? I'd like to purchase some." And being the clever businessmen they are, the oxygen bar owners don't say, "Are you fucking retarded? You want _air_? Have you looked around, you fuckwit? You're surrounded by it!" Instead, they say, "Why yes! We happen to have just gotten a fresh shipment in! You're in luck!" And then the customers walk in, self-satisfied and...breathe.

Not only is there a bar in the hotel, but there's a little oxygen breather in the minibar. Now, normally, I wouldn't care as I don't touch the minibar anyway, and if they can get some idiot business traveller to actually pay six goddamn euros for air...I still can't believe it's fucking AAAAAIIIIIIRRRRRR!!!!!...more power to them, but in this case they idiocy and gullability of other people has caused an otherwise upscale hotel to put a fucking bomb in my minibar. Pure oxygen is flammable, boys and girls. One errant spark and yours truly would find himself splattered all over the roof of the Frankfurt flughafen train station.

And I would have been blown up by stupidity. And that's just not how I want to go. I want a dignified death, like having a heart attack during orgasm.

The Europeans like their nuclear power

My DNA felt all tingly as we went by.

A sea of orange

This is what it's like to go to a world cup match involving the Netherlands:

*slap*

Oh, grow the hell up. It's not MySpace's fault you're retarded.

Stephen Colbert is a genius

"Social...social..."

Earth sandwich!

If you were to take two pieces of bread and place them on exactly opposite ends of the earth, where would they have to go?

Man vs. Toad

The US is fighting insurgents in Iraq, and Australia...well, Australia has a slightly different battle on their hands...

Week of the ironic headline

As my mother commented, "Capitalism's dream of perfection!"

Civil liberties for everyone...but us

This has to be one of the more surreal controversies to have surfaced in a while...

The lesson

This op-ed just makes me all the more terrified of marriage and child-rearing.

Shockingly, arbitration isn't fair

I fucking hate those mandatory arbitration clauses. I hate more that the Supreme Court has ruled them enforcable. It's a goddamn blank check to put into every contract, "Oh, and no matter how badly we screw you, you're not allowed to sue us, ok?"

World cup schedule

...now that it's somewhat useless if you don't already have it. Nonetheless, the World Cup TV schedule in iCal format (right-click->Save Link As).

Brain...dying...

I tried to watch a few minutes of Access Hollywood today. Not really on purpose...I just kinda left the tv on, and it appeared.

They started talking about the supposed tiffs between Avril Lavigne and Hillary Duff, Martha Stewart and Donald Trump (who is, incidentally, a fucking useless, petty dick), etc. I was on my computer at the time, not even fully listening to it. And I could feel myself getting dumber. I mean _viscerally_...like, I could almost hear the brain cells screaming and then imploding.


"Today, Marth Stewart responded to Donald..." *BAM!!!*
"But yesterday, Avril fired back at..." AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!....*thwap!*

I quickly found Apocalypse Now Redux on Bravo, and I'm pretty sure my entire body relaxed. Don't ask me why watching about a homicidal maniac in the middle of a horrific war is more soothing, but it is.

Bad sports day

So, the US was fucking gyped in their game against Italy. I didn't see the second red card against the US, but the first was fucking bullshit. _At best_ it was a yellow. Certainly not a red. Contrast that against Italy's red card, which was one of the more deserved red cards I've ever seen. McBride's face was _drenched in blood_, for fuck's sake. I'm told that that same ref made a bunch of similarly questionable calls in the '98 world cup, and didn't participate in '02 for that reason. So now he's back. Hey, great.

Now Carolina is down 0-2 against Edmonton, but that has been their own goddamn fault. At the moment, they're being decimated by the Edmonton defense. They get literally slammed every time they step foot in the Edmonton half.

I think I shouldn't root for teams any more. It seems to be bad luck.

(incidentally, I'm now watching something like the 3rd Edmonton power play in about 10 minutes...oooh! Brawl!...bah...didn't last very long)

I am neglected

The results are in: men have it harder.

Democracy of knowledge

...is a bad idea, and I've said so before.

Republican legislators are fucking dicks

They really are assholes, you know that?

"Hi! My name is Nicholas Murphy!"

"I'm a hemophiliac!"

Gates vs. Jobs

Veeeerrry interesting article/commentary on Bill Gates versus Steve Jobs. Guess which one wins?

Live World Cup webcast

Take a look at TVUPlayer for a decent way to watch the world cup feed. It's peer-to-peer, so it should scale in the number of users connected quite nicely.

So far it's decent...it stutters occasionally, but watchable.

Idiots on MySpace

Really, how fucking retarded can you be?

Goddamn tectonic plates

A fucking earthquake woke me up. Motherfucker.

Something new to worry about

This one's an economic indicator I hadn't even heard of.

Google = Borg | Valdemort

I really like the evil superpower analogies.

Hey, wasn't a certain other company often compared to the Borg at some point?...

Chaperone

Great for girlfriends, too!

Seeking to prove you're an asshole

Okay, if there was any doubt before, Chavez is officially an asshole.

North Korea? Really? You're going to ally yourself with an insane dictator with nuclear ambitions just because he, too, doesn't like the US? I'm pretty sure David Koresh didn't like the US either...is he a good strategic ally? What about Hitler? Would he have been a good chum too?

Oh, and re: Facebook

Something else to consider when updating your profile.

Basically, remember the shit you put on the internet is public, and the people you don't want to find it can and will.

*cough*

Fucking China.

Something to consider next time you update your friendster/facebook/myspace profile

Big Brother is watching.

Outsourced CEOs

I love it. It's the ultimate in poetic justice. And not a bad idea, neither.

Top 5 Myths about America

Interesting set of statistics, at least.

Oh Coulter

You're so adorably crazy.

From the "God that's fucking creepy!" files

Ewww...

In other news

1. I'm an idiot and forgot to vote. Fortunately, I don't actually care that much about other people, so it's ok.
2. I also forgot to put my Netflix in the mail.
3. MSFT is at a new low! Hooray! (sigh...)

Cone Juggling

How exactly does one train for juggling in a cone?

Google Spreadsheets

...and this would be why Google scares Microsoft.

Redneck weather report

California Voter Update

If you care, I will be voting:

Prop 81 - Library construction and maintenance bond: Yes
Prop 82 - Universal pre-school paid for by 1.7% tax on $400k+ incomes: Oh hell yes.
(I'll miss you, California...your proposition system is retarded, but every so often you come out with a beautiful prop nonetheless...)

As for the offices...frankly, I'm pissed. I actually give a shit about elections, and I even have the time to do research on all these fucking candidates, and even _I_ can't be bothered to go research them. This is ridiculous. I have no fucking idea what differentiates all these different goddamn people, especially when like 7 of them are Democrats, nevermind the parties I've never heard of (Peace and Freedom?).

Look, folks. There's a reason the framers didn't create a direct democracy. Among other things, it's just basic logistical simplicity. I want to vote for one guy, or one party, and that's fucking it. Let me tell you what I believe in, and then _you_ go figure out how to get it done. In the time it would take to research the voting records and positions of 95-odd goddamn candidates, I might as well go do their fucking jobs for them.

For fuck's sake...

Booster for Dean

Ditto.

Dean is absolutely right to try to make inroads in solidly red territory. It's the only way to get the Democratic party out of the goddamn electoral quagmire they're in. Scraping together an ad hoc majority out of the 2006 elections without building any kind of base underneath it is just providing ammunition to Republicans in '08 and beyond.

Now if only they had any kind of compelling message besides, "We're not Republicans!...Usually..."

Basset bling

Basset Hound Rep-a-zent!!!!

Babies always tell the truth

Yeah...I know how she feels...

Is it mid-term elections already?

I hadn't noticed.

If only a) politicians weren't so goddamned transparent, and b) most of the population weren't retarded enough to take these pandering political pushes seriously.

Your daily dose of Carlinism

"Every Child Is Special: an empty and meaningless sentiment. What about every adult? Isn't every adult special? And if not, then at what age does a person go from being special to being not-so-special? And if every adult is also special, then that means all people are special and the idea has no meaning. This embarrassing sentiment is usually advanced to further some position that is either political or fund-raising in nature. It's similar to 'children are our future.' It's completely meaningless and is probably being used in some self-serving way." -- George Carlin

Hypocrisy, anyone?

Katie Couric on news:

"Addressing the annual convention of CBS affiliates, Couric predicted that the 'pretentious era' of the evening-news anchor is going to be a thing of the past."
...
"'Anyone who watches 'Today' knows that I've done more hard-hitting interviews than any evening news anchor,' she said."


So, when does that not pretentious stuff start, exactly?

(as an aside, I do at least give her credit for this even if it is just rhetoric: "Asked by Stahl why many viewers may have lost their trust in the media, Couric said she thinks that the media are 'held captive by spin,' choosing to repeat 'two separate spins' rather than search for the facts in a story." Of course, has she done anything about it? No. But at least her heart seems to be in the right place)

Disasters are funny

Lesson #1: Never trust a "self-taught" engineer.

City slogans

I was listening to a Talk of the Nation broadcast on city slogans, and I had to share a few of the best (proposed):

"Missouri Loves Company."
"Chicago: Where Voters Never Die."
"Oakland: It's Nicer Than You Think."
"New Jersey: You Got a Problem With That?"
"Oregon: You Know It's Summertime When the Rain Gets Warmer."
"Flagstaff: Come On Vacation, Leave On Probation."
"Naples (NY): A Drinking Town With a Fishing Problem."