Short haired yellow bellied son of Tricky Dick

Check out this great column/blog concerning the release of the FBI's John Lennon files. Funny stuff.

Bush wants to read your mail

Oh yeah, and in a recent signing statement George Bush thinks it's OK to read your mail.

Reading stuff

Thanks to James I have been
reading a delightful book for the last couple of weeks. It's called
"The Brothers K" by David James Duncan. I took James up on an offer he
sent out on his blog. He offered a few books up for grabs and I asked
for one by the Japanese author, OE, and he sent me that book, a mix CD
and this book by Duncan. James said he sent the Duncan book because he
knew I was not afraid of a hulking family novel and it had baseball in
it. He was right, it's a sweeping family novel in the vein of "East of
Eden" with a mother who is overly religious instead of a prostitute.

I was reading the book at lunch and this passage stuck out. This paragraph describes why the extremely religous mother defends he daughter after the daughter commits what a crazed Sunday school teacher thinks is blasphemy while class was in session: "The mechanism of Mama's sudden loss of sympathy fascinates me. Had the Babcocks told her that all six of her kids were now irredeemable cult-worshippers who'd end up writhing eternally in hell, I know she wouldn't have batted an eye. Yet to hear her daughters accused of a simple lie was intolerable. "Ungodliness" in one's offspring is, after all, a lofty-sounding but essentially incomprehensible condition that leads one to reflect upon the terrible powers of Satan and the still greater powers of God. Whereas bald-faced lying is a tacky little crime that implies one has simply blown it as a parent."

Good stuff.

Mmmm...new software

Over the long Christmas weekend I decided I needed to load up my new hard drive with some software. First I bought Day of Defeat for ten bucks. It's a multiplayer only World War II shoot 'em up game and I suck royally at it. It's fun though. I am having a hard time adapting to the mouse and keyboard control of a PC first person shooter after playing Halo on the Xbox for so many years.

Next up was Anapod. My Ipod is really starting to fill up and I have spent a lot of time and money downloading and uploading music to the device. I was starting to worry about what would happen if I lost or broke my Ipod (which would in itself to be a terrible tragedy). It literally took me months to upload all my CD collection to the Ipod and during that time and since then I have been adding Itunes purchases, newly bought CD's and other finds. Anapod is supposed to replace Itunes as the piece of software you use to interact with the Ipod. So far I have had trouble using the Anapod to update the Ipod but the backup software that comes with it worked like a charm. Not only do I have my Ipod backed up but I now have every song I own on a hard drive and I can access this music to make mix CD's.

So after arranging it so I have easy access to all 10,000 of my songs I figured the only piece of sofware I was lacking was Nero. I needed Nero so I could manipulate audio files and burn them to CD's. I had no idea how powerful Nero was. I can acually chop songs up and insert audio files into songs. I'm as happy as a clam.

What I am getting at is I am making a cool mix CD with some fun soundbites and I want to know who wants one. So who, G. wants one? Email me with your address and I'll hook you up or leave a feedback message and I will also hook you up.

How did this happen?

The other day I finished up "Terrorist" by Updike and then started up the new Orson Scott Card book called "Empire." I am shocked and saddened that I can honestly say this may be the worse book by him I have ever opened. Are you familiar with the old rule of writing known as "Show, don't tell?" I don't remember a time outside of a writing workshop where I have seen this rule violated so consistently. The dialog is clunky and little more than telling inside of quotes and the two action scenes I was able to get through were as unexciting as action scenes can be.

I read a review on another blog about this book and the reviewer claimed that Card had a right wing agenda to push with this book but I was unable to get far enough to tell for sure. The hero of the book did view left wing professors as evil so maybe the reviewer has a point. You read that right: evil left wing professors are polluting the minds of our nation's youth in the world Card created here. But, that is a opinion of a character. It would be wrong to base an opinion of an author on the thoughts of a character. That has been done with Heinlein too much so I don't want to do it here.

Maybe the problem is that Card is venturing into the real world with this book. He's created some great fantasy and science fiction universes in his time and the real world may have been too much for him. They say that creating a science fiction world is an involved process but the advantage there is that everything that takes place you get to completely make up. Maybe he was handcuffed by that. I don't know. What I do know is that if he does have a right wing agenda and it s trying to push it with this book then, thankfully, it's too badly written for most people to read so his message will die on the vine.

More

I just read an interview with Card and it appears the novel is tied in with a video game. I did not know that. I guess that can explain why the novel is not very good. The story idea is not his and he was given the basic premise of the game and then allowed to create a story around it. Doesn't make the book any better but it does explain why it is so poor.

Survey Monkey

For this project I am working on at work I had to create an Survey Monkey account. If you want to have a little fun try out my silly little survey so I can see how the results are gathered. Thanks.

Still not convinced

Still don't think the president blows ass? Just remember, this photo essay was made possible by men who didn't have the balls to put themselves in harm's way.

This is not funny

"...oft marketed under the name "Hang Ten," managed to hang 12." OK, maybe a little funny.

Lists, lists, lists

If you enjoy end of the year best of lists then check out this website which posts a list of lists of many different categories.

Wowzers

I was just taking a gander at my archives and I have been doing this for over four years now. I believe I during this time I haven't gone more than three or four days without posting. You'd think by now I would have more than five readers. I guess you take what you can get.

Last night was the real last night of our move. I had called the county and arranged to have some furniture picked up and today was the pick up day so last night you had to get that damn couch with the hide-a-bed out near the dumpster. It wasn't too bad once we were able to get that bad boy outside. I thought the couch would be a lot heavier than it was. Maybe because I am getting fatter I am used to carrying around a lot of weight so the couch seemed lighter than it did when we moved it in.

When I called the county last week I was unable to get anyone on the phone who could tell me where to put the couch so it could be hauled away. I didn't know if I should put it out near the road, leave it outside the old apartment or leave it by the dumpster. I was leaning towards leaving it by the dumspter and that turned out to be where it needed to go. Dang, if I had to call various numbers over a five day period to get an answer. First the employee on the county's 311 line told me to talk to the manager of the property. I did that and the manager had no idea where I should deposit the unwanted furniture. He recommended I call Allied Waste, the waste management company that dumps our dumpsters. I did and the Allied operator said they didn't do that kind of pickup. She claimed the city did it. So, I call the county 311 line back and that operator gives me a different number for Allied Waste. I call that number figuring that maybe it's a different department and they can help me. Nope, that person tells me the same thing: the city does that type of pickup. I call the county back and get another operator and she can't tell me anything. I wait a few hours and and call back and get another county 311 operator and I lay it out for her politely. I tell her all the steps I've gone through and end my polite spew by suggesting that there has got to be someone somewhere that can tell me where to put this goddamn couch. She says simply, "Put it by the dumpster." I was shocked. I told her that she was the first person that could give me a straight answer and that she was the bomb. She seemed underwhelmed by my praise and just wished me a pleasant day. Each time, before you talk to an operator, you hear a message warning you that calls are recorded to ensure quality. I hope someone reviews that woman's call with me that day because she is the shit and deserves some praise from her supervisor.

God bless this great land

"Federal officials declined to disclose the location of the facility or the number of actual detainees.
In Cache County, minorities make up 12 percent - Latinos are 8 percent - of the population of 98,000 people.
Women were crying as they were handcuffed with plastic ties and put on the buses. Some weren't allowed to get their belongings from their lockers. Maria, who declined to use her last name, argued with an agent because she was getting the coat for her 34-year-old niece, Blanca, who was arrested.
''She [the agent] told me, 'Do you think it's going to be cold in Mexico?' '' Maria said, holding back tears. ''I've never seen people get treated como animales.''"

Those with the dough make the calls

Looks like we won't be leaving Iraq anytime soon since Cheney's superiors have told him we need to stay put.