I always hang in a buffalo stance. I do the dive every time I dance.

Glasses?

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 09:46:10 GMT

Both I and my brother-in-law are thinking about getting these frames. Whaddya think?

I currently wear this. As glasses go, the physical design is pretty chintzy. But you have to hold them and really look at them to tell. With the antiglare coating and shipping, I think I spent maybe $30, so no complaints here. They've held up for eight months so far and show no signs of dying.

Fun pic

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:29:51 GMT

Via matrixleap via daemonwise:

Post vampirezombiepocalypse Scooby Dooism. Of course Velma is the last one standing.

Menstrual funny

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:42:43 GMT

Cramps are just God hugging your uterus.

If Christmas were a noise,

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:24:14 GMT

The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing Galway Bay,
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day...

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Plumbing!

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:42:50 GMT

I finally got around to going shopping for new cores for my bathtub faucet. It's a clawfoot, which makes access all kinds of easy.

I've posted about this in the past; it's had a problem where the cold faucet shreds seat washers. There was a huge nick in the metal seat (like, nearly 1/16" deep) that would seal with a new washer, but start dripping again in two or three months. Also, the hot side had a loose o-ring and would often auto-advance if I didn't ramp it up slowly. The second-to-last time the maintenance guys came out to fix it, they installed washers that were too large, that proceeded to blow out the sides of the washer cups on both the hot and cold sides. And when I called them again and specifically asked that they change the cores and described why? THEY DID NOT. They just put in new washers. Which lasted about a week. Jesus.

So anyway, it turns out that the little Ace Hardware parts package for my valve type includes not only the cores, but new seats! I didn't even know you could change those! You just shove an Allen wrench in there and twist. Also awesome is the fact that the new part has a thicker band of brass around the cups, making them harder to blow out. NOT awesome is the fact that the cores are 1/16" longer than the old ones. I had to stack the old and new core sealing washers to get enough clearance for fierce water pressure. This would piss me off and send me shopping again if I owned the home, but it's a rental, so whatever. I pulled the old seats and actually wrapped some teflon tape on the new ones before installation[1]. This is a little crazy—soft brass into tapered thread will probably just form its own seal. But whatever. I so do not want any drips at all out of this thing. I installed the cores, saw the low clearance and shitty pressure, stacked the washers, and was then satisfied.

FULLY SATISFIED. For the first time in years with this damned faucet. Total parts expenditure was $24, and that included a $5 set of SAE allen wrenches.

I think the next step is to replace my bathroom sink's faucet. It's neat-looking because it's old, but it sucks on two or three levels WRT functionality. New cheap ones at Home Depot are ~$25, which breaks my $20 rule for repairs on a rental property. But I think I can make an exception.

____________________
[1] I learned on install why they sell a tapered hex tool called a "seat tool" for just this sort of thing for $9. Being tapered, it'll handle any size seat. But much more importantly, the taper lets you exert pressure while getting the thing threaded, which you kind of have to do. I solved this problem by wrapping some tape around the allen wrench. Booyah.

Crab

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:19:36 GMT

I've had a little hankering for crab or lobster recently. Haven't had it for ages. The Oregon coast is Dungeness crab territory, hardcore, and I think it's still fishin' season for it. Apparently this year's crab have an unprecedented meat-to-shell ratio. I've been keeping an eye on prices, though, and they're still way higher than I want to pay for that much food. But today's spied deal? $4 for a 1.4lb precooked whole crab? I WILL GET ONTO THAT BUS.

For reheating, the guys behind the counter said boil or steam, but only for a minute or two to avoid further cooking the meat. That sounded dangerously inexact, and not enough to warm through all of the meat without killing the legs (and the guys were barely out of their teens and seemed like they were making it up as they went along). So I've got the crab on its back in a covered pan with a little water, in the oven at 180. Hopefully it does not suck.

ETA: That was the messiest thing I've done in about a decade, and that includes sex and car maintenance. And I paid money for this? Eh.

The reheating method worked very well. It took nearly an hour, but the meat wasn't waterlogged and remained tender and tasty.

By far the most interesting thing was taking apart the body to get at the meat in there. I had no idea that Dungeness crab have a tail structure that spends all of its time folded under the body.

Linkdump: Asphyxiation Nation

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:22:56 GMT

··· So it looks like Dr. Peter Watts, a well-known Canadian science fiction author and marine biologist, got roughed up and arrested at the US-Canada border (northbound) for asking why his car was being searched [Link]. Watts' account is that he asked about the search and was punched in the face, pepper sprayed, and generally assaulted. Border cops' account isn't elaborated upon much, but Watts has been charged with assaulting a federal officer. After bond was posted, he was released on the Canadian side of the border in his shirtsleeves (his vehicle and all of his belongings are still impounded) in winter storm weather. WOW AWESOME THANKS FOR MAKING ME AND MY NATION LOOK GOOD YOU ASSHOLES. Beyond that, a good number of Watts' readers are in the US, and if the charge sticks, he could be excluded from the country permanently. Legal defense is expensive, and both that cost and potential penalty are pretty fucked up results for a trumped-up charge.

Now, there exists the possibility that Mr. Watts actually did assault someone, but really, at this point, given character testimony, other border/customs events I've read about, and general circumstances, I'm inclined to believe that this is an unfortunate holdover of the Bush II corporate culture of fuck-all-nonamericans-first, ask-questions-later. Our military adjusts more quickly due to their rigid command structure: they were calming down as soon as brass told them to—years before Obama's election, when it first came to light that blind pressure was nonproductive. Civilian quasimilitary organizations, like police, border patrol, and TSA, have looser rules and require cultural pressure within the organization to really change habits, and that's slower to happen.

It could have also been just the actions of one screwed-up border agent, with no relation to overall border patrol culture. I guess. Maybe.

Regardless, the Boingboing link has info on a legal fund for Watts to which you can contribute if you'd like. I'll be sending him a little something.

··· Yootoob: Pink Glove Dance. Shot up at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center here in Portland to promote breast cancer awareness. Fun! I'm more aware of breast cancer!

··· Santa, NO! NSFW.

··· This foul fixed-gear velocipede!
Q: What's the best thing you can do for your fixie?
A: Put on a freewheel and a front brake, you self-involved fucktard!

··· Some unusual Star Wars photos.

··· Another great one from Overheard in New York. I had my own little moment not long ago when all someone overhearing my end of the cell conversation would have heard is, "I wanna legislate like a NINJA!"

··· Meat hand via Boingboing.

··· Squirrel recipes. Bacon wrapped squirrel sounds alsome!

This weekend

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:14:31 GMT

1. Saturday night saw me at a highly bus-accessible party, put on by my friends Laurel and Cheri at their friends' gigantic house in NE Portland. Most of the crowd was younger than me by half a decade or more, but whatever. Most folks my age that I know in this town have so many kids that they can barely look up. House parties? Not so much. Toddler birthday parties are fun because (a) kids are awesome when they aren't mine, and (b) the folks there talk things like real estate and time management and other painfully adult things that I enjoy discussing, because I am painfully an adult (it's like we're commiserating without ever phrasing it as such explicitly). Anyway, I'm glad I was invited and I'm glad I went.

2. Today I discovered the benefits of nit-picking bag weight. I was heading out for some errands and cleaned the crap out of my messenger bag to make it lighter. Do I have too many bus schedules in my bus-schedule-pocket? Ohay, what's this? OHAY IT'S MY RENT CHECK THAT I NEVER MAILED. The agency doesn't check its box on weekends, so if I got it in today I'd still be okay. I walked over to my rental agent's office and got my rent paid. Then I decided to get all clever and take the 12 out farther than downtown to intercept the MAX light rail line at the Hollywood transit center. But I forgot it was at 42nd instead of 33rd. So I walked a bunch in subfreezing wind and now I know where the Blind Onion tavern is. Caught a train out to Gateway, slowed due to a switch malfunction, then hit Winco for cheap groceries (I should make that a scheduled weekly run). On the way back I found that the switch malfunction for eastbound was still there and that Trimet was being its usual ass-kicking self. There were about a dozen chartreuse-jacketed field officers/techs working repairs and crowd advisement, and a couple of buses were parked there for no other reason than to give people a warm place to wait for the intermittent eastbound trains. Westbound was no problem. Headed home and put some ribs in the oven with a good homemade rub on them. They've got just under an hour to go.

LESS RECENTLY

I watched I've Loved You So Long, a subtitled French film. I don't wanna link to IMDB because the one-sentence synopsis contains a minor spoiler that the viewer can really do without. I'll just say that it's a lovely film. It's slow-moving, but that's not bad. There are some things that are obvious, and a detail or two that I'd rather hadn't been explained. But I'm terribly glad I watched it.

I also watched the first four episodes of season 4 of Battlestar Galactica. I'd watched Razor already. Regarding the episodes, wow. Episode 3 had the most hardcore ending I've ever seen in any television show. Looking forward to more. Glad I got on the Netflix train.

Car fell through

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 09:37:07 GMT

It appears I will have no pimp car.

My mom woke up this morning to find the rental room full of crap[1], the housekey on the dresser, and no car in the driveway. We both sort-of kind-of expect that things just got away from him, that he overslept and ran out of time and just wasn't able to properly clean the room and get a cab to the airport. He woke up late and had to drive. So the car's abandoned in short term parking at the airport and he's too ashamed to return our calls. Yeah. Either that or he gave the car to someone else and just doesn't give much of a shit. I would find this hard to believe, since he's apparently been a stand-up guy so far—my mom kept making jokes about adopting him and all. But he also didn't leave behind the $100 he owed my mom for his last week. If we don't hear from him in the next 24 hours, I'm going to call this karmic balance for the wallet return. I'll only be angry on behalf of ma, who's out some rent money and has to get rid of the crap that this fool left behind.

____________________
[1] Old clothes, etc. He at least had the decency to bag the room's trash.

Car

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:28:50 GMT

I will soon be in possession of a 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis, white, automatic, 4.6 liter V8, alloy wheels, in excellent condition.

This is a car from which I would normally run screaming.

16mpg is not an ideal situation for me, and I hate automatics because of how the transmissions fail. That would be catastrophically instead of gradually, for those keeping score. But at the same time, it's damned hard to argue with free.

See, my mom's tenant responded to a little contest at his workplace. He submitted an idea for company improvement. He won. He's had his salary tripled and been transferred to New York, as soon as possible. In lieu of giving 30 days' notice, he's giving my mom his car, and she's kicking it down to me. He claims it values at no more than $500, but some research reveals something closer to $2,000. Wow.

On a practical level, I hate everything about this car. It's a sedan, not a wagon or hatch. It gets shit mileage. It's big and therefore hard to park. It's American. BUT IT'S FREE. I've decided to treat it like a big, new toy. This will be my pimpin' car. I'll pimp to work and around town, and pay for the pimpin' gas and do the pimpin' repairs as necessary for a few months at least. My Black Friday consisted almost solely of buying SAE tools at Sears (my previous stock was all metric). $40 for a 12pc set of combination wrenches and a socket set (including a 3/8" drive if-it-breaks-we-replace-it-no-questions-asked ratchet)? Sign me up. I've even begun figuring out what music is most appropriate to blast out of this car whilst I cruise. A trusted source falls to the standby late-90s hip-hop, but I'm more partial to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63WhE1_wzYg
[1]

I'll post pics when I get title. And maybe after I fix the one glaring flaw—the dreaded missing turn signal cover (that stuff always costs bank; I may fabricate it with materials from work—it's only a transparent shield, and there are benefits to working in a packaging shop).

____________________
[1] And hey, if you're a military geek, check this shit out.

Linkdump: Singing Mammogram

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:23:00 GMT

··· Remember Steven Bierfeldt, the guy I blogged about a bit back? Well, his ACLU lawsuit hit gold. Before the defendant was even required to respond, i.e. because the lawsuit was ever brought, the TSA made an explicit policy change. From the article:

What a difference a lawsuit makes. Eight days before the government's response was due in our case, TSA issued a new policy directive making clear that its safety screening procedures would be strictly limited to passenger searches for the purpose of safeguarding flight safety. In combination with other directives issued in the wake of our lawsuit, TSA's policy now makes clear that passengers should not experience the kind of suspicionless detention and questioning I had been subjected to.

In light of this victory, yesterday the ACLU informed the court of our intention to voluntarily dismiss the suit. The Constitution draws a critical distinction, which these new directives reflect: when subjecting individuals to blanket, suspicionless searches, TSA agents must adhere to their limited mandate of protecting flights against weapons or explosives. The new policy is clear: passengers are no longer forced to check their constitutional rights at the airport counter, and that is a victory for all.

This happened pretty quietly, but it is much more important than might be immediately apparent. Previously, the TSA was treating itself as a de facto law enforcement body, with internal regulation and restraint that was not only loose, but largely nonexistent. People could be detained or prevented from flying for reasons completely unrelated to the security of airline travel, reasons that were never enumerated and had no specified boundaries. Basically, TSA agents were just making shit up as they went along, and a lot of them were far from genius level (and still are). Listen to the audio of Steven Bierfeldt's questioning in my initial linkdump referenced above if you haven't already. It's fairly uncomfortable, to say the least. This ACLU lawsuit forced the TSA's hand, and made it confine its operations to those for which we, as taxpayers, fund it, namely to keep transportation safe. Full stop. They aren't cops, they aren't FBI, they're transportation security officers—nothing more and nothing less.

··· This sculpture is creepy and I like it. Actually, most of this guy's work is pretty neat.

··· Funny! Bad Dog Pate. Ever since the phrase "bacon-wrapped turds" exited the mouth of my ex-housemate as he ran down a list of concepts challenging my claim that nothing grosses me out, and I proceeded to make a lovely meat loaf dish that looked exactly like a series of bacon-wrapped turds, I've wanted to have a What the Fuck Pot Luck. You know, kitty litter cake, the meat head, etc. Bad Dog Pate would be fabulous for that.

··· Great Cyanide and Happiness comic.

··· I'm thinking about maybe doing the 2010 Seattle to Portland bike ride (link goes to 2009 info). I kind of like the idea of being home when I finish. I've also never ridden 100 miles in a day, let alone 200 miles in 2 days. I'll be spending some time considering this.

··· If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. Autotuned musical "A Glorious Dawn" lecture by Carl Sagan, featuring Stephen Hawking.
Also, T-Pain's autotuning iPhone app, as applied to the president on Jimmy Kimmel.

··· "Love Cake," a vaguely suggestive ukelele dessert anthem by Brit sensations Rocky and Balls. Via violet_tigress1.

··· Great one from passiveaggressivenotes.com. And another.

Got my wallet back

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:55:40 GMT

After both calling and filling out a web form with Tri-met's lost and found department, I got an email back yesterday saying they had it. I went down after work (interestingly, using the same bus line on which I originally lost the wallet) and picked it up. My two dollars cash was gone, but the monthly transit pass was still there, as was my ID. Also, my Great Clips receipt is still there, and that's four bucks off my next haircut! But most importantly, I feel some more faith in my city's people.

All the little chicks with the Burt's Bees lips say
PORT-LAND ROCKS,
PORT-LAND ROCKS.

In other news, size 15 Keens seem to be the most comfy for me. They're outlandishly large on my feet, but when I throw in my preferred insoles[1] and take into account my preference for loose shoes, that's where it lands. Or seems to. That particular model I mentioned is only available up to 14, so I'm going to head back to REI tomorrow to do a retest. I hope I was just paranoid earlier. Man, I've been buying the same cheap Hi-Tec boot model for three years (five pairs!) because my feet love them, but they're not waterproof and the quality isn't reliable. I gotta find a new go-to.

And if there's a more dull topic to blog about than shoe selection, you let me know about it.

____________________
[1] I have what are called "thin feet." Though it's lower than it used to be, I do have an arch. But my feet aren't as thick top-to-bottom as an average guy's and never have been. So my MO is to throw a pair of Spenco cross-trainer insoles into whatever I'm wearing on top of whatever the manufacturer puts in there. I do recommend the brand and model of insole, even if you have to break some glue to physically rip out whatever insole your shoes have. I've been using them for over a decade. They cost less now than they did when I first started, about $18.

Shoes

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:42:12 GMT

I've been wanting to try Keen shoes for a while. They have large toeboxes, which my messed-up feet need. They're also relatively expensive. But I think I'll splurge this time. Here's a review that kind of cemented my decision, found on Altrec.com's site, for the Brooklyn Men's Mid Boot:

William Briese - 2009-03-30

Great Boots For a War Zone!

Had wanted to buy a pair of Keen's for awhile and needed a new pair of boots while deployed in Afghanistan (issued pair not so good!). The Brooklyn's are fantastic boots, very water resistant, easy to clean up and comfortable. Do not realize they are on your feet after 14 hours and so great that I bought a second pair and sent them home for when I return from Afghanistan.

...Wow.

[Link].

Come back, my black-leather lovely...

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:25:53 GMT

I lost my wallet yesterday on the way to help a friend move. I called my bank while retracing my route and canceled my card before anyone had a chance to use it. The only other thing in that wallet I'm worried about is my Blockbuster card, and potentially having to deal with someone renting a bunch of movies and never returning them. Of course, Blockbuster can't bill my card now, so...

And hey, my library card. I'd better go down and get the old number killed while they're still open.

All in all, this is much less traumatic than I'd thought it would be. Although if I'd had my SS card in there, I would officially have no valid ID documents in my possession. I lost my birth certificate years ago, and it was the old original format that places don't accept these days anyway. So I think that once I get my replacing-stuff head of steam up, I won't let it die until I have a spankin' new birth certificate and maybe a passport.

Two and a Half Men WTF Awesome

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:30:50 GMT

Okay, so let's run down the list of WTF-awesome cameo roles on this show:

- Martin Sheen (cheap given the circumstances, but still)
- Jenny McCarthy (seriously, her performance included the best-acted dramatic moment on any TV show I've seen, ever. Said moment was brief, but I kept having to reality-check myself that I was watching (a) TV, and (b) a sitcom).
- And now Carol Kane.

CAROL KANE.

I've had a nontrivial crush on her for years. Even that long-distance phone service commercial she did several years back got me all excited. And she is still awesome.

Secret Crush

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:57:00 GMT

I think I'm in love with Zoe Bell.

I guess I'll just get in line on that one. Really, if you like women at all and you watch Death Proof, there's no getting away from it.

She is her own stunt.

Crock-Pot Fevah!

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:45:50 GMT

</Ted Nugent>

Two chicken quarters, buncha mushrooms, carrots, celery, parsnips, green onions, regular onion, garlic. Salt & pepper. Basil, oregano, parsley. I ran out of poultry seasoning and tried to buy some in bulk yesterday at Winco, but they were out. Had been for two weeks, according to the staff, and no clue why. I dithered in the bottled spice aisle over whether to spend over two dollars for something that would normally cost twenty cents. "Screw it," I thought, and spent eight cents on some bulk celery seed and sage. And I didn't even use all of it.

Yep, it smells pretty magical up in here.

New electronics are necessary. Prepare the horses.

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:26:03 GMT

My TV has an odd handicap that I posted about long ago. It's got an integrated VCR (now nonfunctional), and all signals get piped through it. This means Macrovision copy protection kicks in when anything DVD got sent to my TV. I solved the problem by altering my DVD player's firmware, detailed in this post. It's now Macrovision-free, region-free, everything-free.

But it looks like Netflix's streaming movies use Macrovision, too. I can still watch the movies, but the brightness bumps down, then back up at regular intervals. That's Macrovision's MO. Pretty annoying. And I don't suppose I can just up and solve this by doing a Google search and following instructions. So now the solution is to buy a different TV.

This is why God invented Craigslist. The proliferation of cheap LCD TVs combined with the digital broadcast revolution have formed a Voltron of high-quality CRT TVs flooding Craigslist at ludicrously low prices. I predict that I will soon become the owner of one of these TVs.

Either that or I'll break and shell out for a new 19" or 22" LCD set. Can't tell yet.

Xbox Live Gold

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:37:23 GMT

I'm finally on it (and Netflix!). Username arollin.

I went out and picked up Left 4 Dead.

Fly killa'

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:08:01 GMT

I just reached out and grabbed a fruit fly with my hand, killing it. This is oddly empowering.

Also, this is not a metaphor for something else.

Linkdump: Illicit Sympathy

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:57:06 GMT

··· Chicago’s Loss: Is Passport Control to Blame?
Probably not. Brazil hadn't had the games before, so it made a great deal of sense to give it to them if they can at all handle it. But an IOC member pointing out that entering the United States can be "a rather harrowing experience" in the Q&A session following Chicago's official presentation does make the brows raise a bit. Most importantly, though, I hope that this sticks in the news for a while and that public perception is that the TSA scared away the Olympics. That might lead to less of this (and this past linkdump of mine has three more incidents that piss me off, but none so much as the JFK detention article). I know that a lot of conservatives are blaming Obama for chasing away the Olympics. I haven't heard that sentiment since he got the Nobel Peace Prize, but that might be only because said conservatives are mouthfoaming about that now.

··· Bob Hertzberg is kind of an impressive guy. After a career in politics culminating with his being the 64th Speaker of the California State Assembly (Democrat), he went into the solar technology business. His first venture was in L.A., and relied heavily on job-creation subsidies that were pulled out from under him at the last minute. The business failed. So he started a new one, based in Wales, U.K. He went outside the US to escape regulatory mazes, seeking and accepting no government subsidies there except a smallish one to help build a fence around his factory. It was an existing building, formerly owned by the Acer computer company, and he powers his production largely (entirely?) with a bigass wind turbine.

And his product? Thin-film solar cells, and products using them. They're much less efficient than silicon-wafer cells, but also much less fragile, and generate more reliable and consistent power across a much greater range of light conditions than more conventional solar cell technology. And they're far cheaper. (Fortune Small Business article, G24 Innovations company website).

··· Reeeally thinking about buying these bamboo fiber sheets from Bed, Bath & Beyond. The price—$35 for a full set—is VERY reasonable compared to Amazon.com prices on bamboo sheets. The thread count is lower than I'd normally want, but apparently the material is naturally smoother than cotton, so I don't know. I'd probably want to hit a hard BB&B location to cop a feel before I bought.

··· Your brain is defective (optical illusion).

Update:
.

··· Hilarious Overheard in New York entry. This one is also good.

··· This has probably made the rounds, but here: What stormtroopers do on their day off.

··· A longish while back I saw this post on Boingboing about some multibladed shredding scissors only available in Japan. Now they're being marketed in the US as herb chopping scissors and they got another BB post. Funny! Anyway, they're less than $10 on Amazon [link]. All I really need to shred is account numbers and maybe addresses, so it feels silly to shred a whole sheet of paper in a bigass shredder that makes an obnoxious noise just to kill three lines of text. With these scissors, I could just snip-snip and be done with it in comparative silence. I've also been on the lookout for a full-on hand-crank shredder. I haven't seen any on store shelves, but Amazon has this and also this much more popular (and apparently crappier) model. I'm not sold; the scissors look much more appealing. I do have a little electric mini-shredder that has spent five years not dying under infrequent use, but I hate the noise.

Update: I ordered the scissors.

··· Steel velcro.

That damned bike bearing

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:26:34 GMT

...is still making noise. It's not overtight, it's properly lubricated, and three different professional bike mechanics have said that the cones and hubshells look completely fine. I get the feeling that trying to troubleshoot this issue piecemeal would be a fool's errand. I've already put in new bearings. The noises seem to happen in time with wheel rotation, indicating that it's not the cones, but rather the hubshells that are somehow messed up. There's just no economically reasonable way to replace those—when they get messed up, the cheapest option that doesn't involve me lacing spokes and truing shit is to just buy a new built wheel. They don't even really make seven-speed freehub bodies anymore, so I'll just get a new 8-speed built wheel and a spacer, slap my existing cassette on there and go. And bonus: the damaged spoke replacement and wheel-truing I need to have done on that rear anyway? OBVIATED!!!

Linkdump: Painfully Comfortable

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:24:03 GMT

··· Wow, if you dislike neoconservatism, or just like reading about sociology, please check out this LJ post and the two links right at the end. The post gives some details about a representative poll of 1,000 Americans, cross-referenced with other polls, that was used to determine what I'll call belief associations. I.e., people who believe a, b and c statistically often believe d, e and f. A finding:

RWA scale scores (higher == more authoritarian -- Ed.) correlated highest with attitudes against same-sex marriage, abortion, drugs, pornography, women’s equality, unconventional behavior and free speech, and with support for the Patriot Act and America’s "right" to spread democracy by military force. In contrast, the relationships with economic issues (taxation, minimum wage, the public versus private sector, free trade) proved much weaker. The data thus indicate, as do a lot of other findings, that high RWAs are "social conservatives" to a much greater extent that they are "economic conservatives."

So the Bush presidency and the people who supported him all the way suddenly make sense. And seriously, the first of the two links at the end is a fucking laff riot. Go read.

William F. Buckley is the kind of conservative we need more of in Congress--fiscally conservative, and socially libertarian-leaning. The kind of guy who'll speak up when the economics of a bill don't pencil out, and who will react against such things as warrantless wiretapping. He is considered to be the founder of modern conservatism, but was critical of the Bush administration. His attitude toward marijuana, as expressed in this 2004 essay is decidedly different from the current conservative political stance (again, libertarian-leaning). He even tried marijuana himself (Boingboing link, not the world's most reliable but generally good, and I've heard this story elsewhere many times), after sailing his yacht into international waters. He was not impressed with regard to the danger of the plant. He was at one time a reasonably profound racist, but rescinded those views in the sixties after observing the processes of the civil rights movement and after being confronted by a close colleague regarding the morality of his views (wikipedia paraphrase). In short, he was rational. We need more of that.

··· Fucking shit! Philadelphia To Close All Public Libraries October 2nd.

··· And completely by accident, here's a neat little arty bit on Benjamin Franklin. Really, Franklin is my favorite historical figure in the world, ever.

··· A Long Walk Across China. Dude did the hold-the-camera-at-arm's-length-and-photograph-yourself thing every day during a yikes-inducing multithousand kilometer walk across China, sometimes several snaps or some motion video (it looks like). THEN HE STITCHED THEM INTO A VIDEO. Omg.

··· This shirt radiates awesomeness. I'm straight and I might wear it. Of course, I live in Portland, so I could wear it and not be afraid of getting the shit kicked out of me.

··· Awesome coilgun. Self-contained with 4 AA batteries (14 shots, 90-second capacitor charge time) or wall-current plugin. I did some experimentation in railgun-building in college, but I abandoned it pretty quickly. I never really researched coilgun technology. This is pretty amazing. Dude built it in a week.

··· Awesome wedding proposal. Scroll down to #5. DO WATCH BOTH MOVIES THERE. The first is what aired on the TV, the second is the fiancee's reaction. She reacts just a little bit dramatically.

··· So that weekly poetry reading I occasionally go to? The one I frequent less and less because it starts later and later and my workday DOES NOT? Yeah, it got picked as Best Reading Series in Willamette Week's Best of Portland issue this year. "With $3 generous pours of bourbon, the scene is anything but gentle or pretentious and topics typically center on, Gaffney says, 'booze, fighting and fucking.'"

Booze and fucking, that I'll accept. Not much fighting, though. But oh, God, the fucking. I remember a few months ago there was a benefit week for a beloved regular, a 50ish guy who'd had foot surgery and been laid off while still under anesthesia. He was there, all becaned and limpy. Gifts and donations abounded and, naturally, all the ladies whipped out their sex poems. But so did one of the hosts (not Tommy Gaffney—the other guy whose name I can't remember because I'm an asshole). I forget the first few words, but after that it went, "...and you ask me if I want to sleep with anyone else. No, I don't want to sleep with anyone else, and I don't want to sleep with you. I don't want to sleep, and I don't want you to sleep." He went on to cover descriptions of the evening he envisioned. "There should be at least one piece of broken furniture and one hole in the wall," was the least graphic line. Among many, many other things, he described his jaw fusing to her pelvis and semen production voluminous enough to turn her irises white. He did this in the most creative and artful way you can imagine, really, and the delivery was almost completely deadpan. His superhot poet wife was right there, in the room, in the third row, wearing a big, shit-eating grin. The entire audience was looking between her and him and thinking OH MY FUCKING GOD! Several people went beyond that and said it out loud between fits of not-as-nervous-as-you'd-think laughter. And when he reached the crescendo of this truly raucous and intricate piece of writing, and stopped, there was a huge round of applause, and people picked themselves up off the floor, and it all died down, and then he leaned toward the mic and said, "Part Two."

THERE WERE THREE PARTS. I think we all lost a year off of our lives just sitting there retching our kidneys out laughing.

Ride soft

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:33:52 GMT

I just rode 6.5 miles with a carton of farm-fresh eggs in my bike basket and none of them broke. Let's hear it for convolute polyurethane foam, yo. I knew there was some damned upside to working in packaging.

In other news, Casa de Tamales, where I got the eggs, has pretty good tamales. Not stellar overall, but the corny outer bit tasted lovely. Their housemade refried beans are bland. The service is friendly.

Posted using TxtLJ

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:34:14 GMT

I'll have limited net access for the next few days.