Casual Observations

Vote!

2008-11-04T08:05:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama isn't perfect, but he's the best candidate we've had for president in a long time. These are the 5 main reasons why I support Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the Democratic Party.

1) Ending the War in Iraq.

2) Affordable Health Insurance for Everybody.

3) Tax Cuts for Working People.

4) Fair Trade and Creating Decent Jobs for America.

5) Clean, Safe Environment.

Why Barack Obama isn't perfect. Here's a couple reasons and things we need to push him on when he's president.

1) National Health Insurance. America has by far the most expensive health insurance in the world with over 48 million people with no coverage. Obama has NOT expressed outright support for true national health insurance, which almost every other industrialized country in the world has. His plan would still keep private, for-profit health insurance companies in existence.

2) Bloated Military Budget. Half of our federal taxes go to the military and towards a foreign policy that meddles with other countries when it benefits corporate profits. Horrible atrocities have been committed and many democratically elected governments have been toppled with our tax dollars. Obama has NOT significantly challenged this system.

3) Corporate Influence In His Campaign. Take a look at Obama's economic advisors. They include a lot of bigwigs from Wall Street, such as Robert Rubin (Citigroup), as well as Clinton era free traders who cost us millions of manufacturing jobs, such as Lawrence Summers and Robert Reich. We're still not sure how much Obama's economic policies will benefit regular working people.

song a week

2008-05-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

1 new song every week for the next year. every friday is the deadline.

build your own tube amp

2008-04-20T23:13:00.000-07:00

i bought a really expensive mesa boogie roadster head and 2x12 cab a few months ago, but it's so loud and bulky and a little complicated that i hardly ever use it. it'll be good if i ever start a rock band again, but for now it's just collecting dust. so yesterday i bought a used fender blues junior combo amp off of craigslist. i paid 300 and it sounds nice though i should probably get the tubes changed cuz the guy bought it in 2002 and hasn't ever changed them.

if i had more time i'd try building my own tube amp. this website has a few simple designs and instructions. a youtube search of those designs shows that other people have done this and their amps sound decent.

what i mean

2008-02-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

so i've been describing my ideal band sound as "half indie rock, half punk rock with a splash of reggae and a sprinkle of metalcore." what do even mean by that? this is rough recipe of what i mean:

quarter ted leo
quarter bright eyes, pedro the lion, elliott smith
quarter lawrence arms, broadways
quarter nofx, green day, anti-flag, bad religion, saves the day, thrice
splash of bob marley, pilfers, rx bandits, buju banton
sprinkle of as i lay dying, atreyu, avenged sevenfold
mix together while listening to figher destroyer, the beatles, and nirvana

hope that helps. i'm in no hurry to rush together a band. want to do it right. so now i'll work carefully on writing good songs. i've starting meeting some musicians and checking out some of the open mics in sac. it's a good vibrant scene. old ironsides. true love coffeehouse. some other places.

SMT5800

2008-01-26T21:28:00.000-08:00

after much deliberation i decided on a new phone. i'm going to get the SMT5800 (Verizon Wireless's version of the HTC Vox). it's a Windows Mobile Standard smart phone with a full slide-out qwerty keyboard as well as the standard numerical keyboard on the front.

i was also considering the more powerful and more expensive Samsung SCH-i760 (cnet review), which has a touchscreen. but it's too big and bulky for a cell phone. this dude just switched from the SCH-i760 to the SMT5800. his pictures show the size comparison.

i was also considering the LG Voyager, but i figure the SMT5800 is more like a computer and can do more stuff.

also there's the Blackberry Pearl but that doesn't have a full qwerty keyboard. the version that does (the Blackberry Curve) isn't offered by Verizon Wireless. plus, the blackberry keys are so small compared to a slide-out qwerty keyboard.

so anyway, the SMT5800 seems fairly compact, has a large enough screen, has a full qwerty slide-out keyboard, can open microsoft office files, and isn't going to break the bank.

UPDATE: here's a youtube video review of the phone.

Clarinets Rule

2008-01-12T00:13:00.000-08:00

Buffet makes these clarinets now that are 95% grenadilla dust (the dark African wood) and 5% carbon fiber and epoxy resin. They're called "Green Line." Neat, eh? Whatever happened to my old clarinet? Chris, are you playing that now in marching band?

I'm listening to Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major on the Mozart wikipedia site. Man, the internet's amazing. Wikipedia and Youtube are so useful. Even Google which we take for granted now. Kids in rural nowhere or wherever have access to everything we do. The world is flat like that idiot billionaire crap columnist Tom Friedman says.

weird world of used book stores

2007-12-28T18:09:00.000-08:00

just sold a audiobook on cd for 3 dollars to the local used bookstore. the owner lady is new to this; the store's been open about 5 months and she said she's been doing well. the store is decorated more nicely than most used book stores. she said other used book store owners in the area come in and count her books to scope out the competition. i usually just buy my books online.

hey sacramento i wanna start a band

2007-12-27T21:48:00.000-08:00

25yo Guitarist Seeking Drummer, Bassist for Punk/Indie Rock Band

RIP Oink

2007-10-31T03:43:00.000-07:00

for now i'm trying STMusic. i wonder if the waffle thing is any good.

Trent Reznor: I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn't the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustled when I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc. Amazon has potential, but none of them get around the issue of pre-release leaks. And that's what's such a difficult puzzle at the moment. If your favorite band in the world has a leaked record out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? People on those boards, they're grateful for the person that uploaded it — they're the hero. They're not stealing it because they're going to make money off of it; they're stealing it because they love the band. I'm not saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that it existed because it filled a void of what people want.
-New York Magazine

it's time i got back

2007-10-31T00:46:00.000-07:00

to the good life.

so i ordered the guitar from guitar workshop and that should arrive in 6-9 weeks. next i'll need a nice amp head and cab to go with that. gonna check out some mesa boogies from northridge. probably won't buy anything until i get the guitar to try 'em out.

but before that arrives i'll get some basic recording gear: an 8-track firewire recording interface (presonus firepod), mic cables, mic stands, an SM57 to record the amp, and a cheap condenser mic or two to record vocals and acoustic guitar.

if i get that within a week or so, that'll give me at least a good month to work on songs with the acoustic before i'm all set with the electric. then i can get a band together (half indie rock, half punk rock, with a splash of reggae and a sprinkle of metalcore). also still need some furniture for the apartment.

get your sleep

2007-10-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

The new frontier of what to expect, and what to do about it, involves studies of the relationship of sleep to pain. It’s no surprise that pain can disrupt sleep. But what is new is that a lack of sleep can apparently increase the sensation of pain.

Michael T. Smith, the research and training director of the behavioral sleep medicine program at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, reached that conclusion with a study of healthy young people. One group slept normally for eight hours in the hospital. Another was awakened every hour by a nurse and kept up for 20 minutes. Their sleep pattern was meant to mimic the fragmented sleep of elderly people. A third group was allowed four hours of solid sleep.

Comparing the second and third groups allowed Dr. Smith to tease apart the causes of the problems that arise from fragmented sleep: were they because of the short total sleep time, or because of the disrupted nature of the sleep?

Fragmented sleep, he found, led to severe impairments the next day in pain pathways. The subjects felt pain more easily, were less able to inhibit pain, and even developed spontaneous pain, like mild backaches and headaches.

Timothy Roehrs, director of the sleep disorders research center at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, also found that healthy young people became exquisitely sensitive to pain after a night of fragmented sleep.

And getting more sleep, Dr. Roehrs found, had the opposite effect. His subjects were young healthy people who said they were chronically sleepy, just not getting enough time to sleep at night. Dr. Roehrs had them stay in bed 10 hours a night. The extra sleep, he said, reduced their sensitivity to pain to the same degree as a tablet of codeine.

-NY Times (also see this piece on learning and memory)

G&L Comanche

2007-10-24T02:29:00.000-07:00

so i think this is the guitar i'm going to buy. pretty sweet, eh?

Five Guys > In-N-Out

2007-09-21T19:06:00.000-07:00

In-N-Out didn't meet the hype. Five Guys burgers and fries are unquestionably superior. I still have to try Fat Burger.

what kind of guitar

2007-09-15T16:26:00.000-07:00

i think i might get an American Strat. an upgrade from my vintage style (small fretboard radius) japanese strat. that's what i'm used to.

or maybe i should try something totally different and go for a gibson les paul. those are real popular for some reason even though they seem kind of heavy.

or maybe i should get some kind of semi-hollow body. i think ted leo plays one of those.

i want something versatile that can play different styles of music. a 50/50 mix of indie and punk rock with a splash of reggae and little sprinkles of metalcore.

rubbernecking

2007-09-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

people drive super fast on the freeways here, but they slow down for anything on the side of the road. also, i think the radio stations are better here: more indie/punk rock.

Second Saturday

2007-09-09T09:58:00.000-07:00

If you're into music and you want to visit me here in Sac Town, make sure you visit on the second Saturday of the month. They have all these local bands playing for free on the streets all through Midtown, along with art galleries, stores, and people selling their art and trinkets. At 18th and Capitol I saw this indie rock band called The Matinee Idols who covered some Elliott and The Shins. At this artists' co-op bands were playing in a little gazebo; that was more of a younger crowd of college kids.

A lot of people play in bands here. I've met people who play in Another Damn Disappointment, Vol 4, and The Snobs. I haven't been to any shows yet, but some of the venues I hear of are Old Ironsides, The Distillery, and The Boardwalk. After settling in for a few more weeks and after buying a new guitar and amp, I'll work on starting a band.

M.I.A.

2007-09-05T02:44:00.000-07:00

Bird Flu
galang
boyz
Jimmy
Bucky Done Gun
Sunshowers

2nd half drive report

2007-08-30T17:31:00.001-07:00

so let's continue where i left off.

omaha, nebraska - wandered around the yuppieish old market area. went to some local bars and a house party with a friend of a friend who's dating the guitarist of Saddle Creek band Son Ambulance. lots of indie rock. met some cool people from omaha. a brooklyn band called Cause Co-motion played at the party. bought a nebraska t-shirt at drastic plastic.
laramie, wyoming - had dinner with xtina and her friend/neighbor at some cajun place. walked around the university of wyoming campus.
salt lake city - lunch at the red iguana, mexican food. great food and service. i had the mole.
las vegas - waited a few boring hours at the casino til my friend got off work, met some of his friends
los angeles - good people, horrible traffic
sacramento - more good people, we'll see how it goes

sac town

2007-08-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

arrived last night. good people here. i'll be busy applying for jobs now. thanks to all who helped on the trip.

O!

2007-08-26T10:17:00.001-07:00

man, the kids in omaha are really into indie rock.

imo's sucky pizza

2007-08-25T19:59:00.000-07:00

be warned. "st. louis style pizza" is not very good.

Midway Drive Report

2007-08-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

due to popular demand, this is a brief report of how things are going midway through my cross country trip to california.

brooklyn - saw lots of old friends from college. stayed with clark. watched bonnie and clyde at some hipster swimming pool in williamsburg. tried some polish food in greenpoint. walked around cobble hill. met starbucks peeps in bushwick. saw dynamite plan for the first time.
pittsburgh - start of the drive. people were nice. stayed with patrick at his $7,500 house that he's fixing up.
columbus - had lunch w/ annabel
cincinatti - had a drink w/ rich
indianapolis - stayed with mike and his friends
chicago - too much traffic! great hosts
st. louis - had dinner at "the loop" with alex

so i'm still alive and today i drive to omaha.

awesome t-shirt

2007-08-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

ancestry, outsourcing

2007-08-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

Before it's too late, I want to put together a family tree, collect stories and information from all living relatives (especially the older ones about dead relatives), and have at least a brief bio for each person in the tree. My hope is to find some distant living cousin who will do all this work for me.

The Sixteenth Round: Out of Print

2007-07-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

Hey, what gives? The Sixteenth Round by Rubin "The Hurricane" Carter is out of print. How can I get a copy?

Free Silver Sprung!

2007-07-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

Free our streets! Who owns the streets and common areas of downtown Silver Spring?

Py, a Silver Spring resident, discovered earlier this month that what looks and feels like any old public downtown is in reality a private, if roofless, shopping mall where private security guards can and will stop you from taking pictures just because the developer who controls the place feels like exercising its control jones.

-Marc Fisher, Marc Fisher, Express

Lights Out. Gorilla Radio!

2007-05-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

"Gorilla goes on Dutch zoo rampage"
-BBC

jerry falwell

2007-05-16T06:56:00.001-07:00

check out mikolaj's latest

500 gigs of freedom

2007-05-15T13:10:00.000-07:00

alright! just got my very first external harddrive delivered to the door! the package (delivered by UPS) was kinda warm so i hope it's still good. seems to work.

Incan Rope Bridges

2007-05-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

neato

dance dance

2007-05-09T18:26:00.000-07:00

Feist - 1 2 3 4

Happy Belated Loyalty Day

2007-05-02T03:38:00.000-07:00

read and weep

music vidz

2007-04-16T22:42:00.000-07:00

Bright Eyes - "Four Winds"
Ted Leo - "Bomb. Repeat. Bomb."
Charlotte Gainsbourg - "The Songs That We Sing" (Science of Sleep actress)
Bloc Party - "Pioneers" or "Helicopter"

bob

2007-03-07T23:02:00.000-08:00

Bob's Noodle 66 in Rockville is an interesting restaurant. Check it out. Taiwanese food. very big menu. I had some big noodle soup dish with pork and udon style noodles.

Facial Recognition Finds Twins, Rapists

2007-02-17T09:32:00.000-08:00

They're scanning through drivers license photos and mugshots looking for fraud.
-NY Times

bad astronaut

2007-02-06T09:18:00.000-08:00

humans are crazy

ted leo on punk rock and veganism

2007-01-26T01:53:00.000-08:00

“It was about purifying the movement, about being poison-free,” said Ted Leo, of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, who led the band Chisel in the 1990s. He became vegetarian in 1988 and has been vegan since 1998. Many punks became vegetarian to protest corporate and government control of the food supply. Veganism takes vegetarianism farther into cruelty-free territory by avoiding anything produced by animals: milk, cheese, eggs, honey, etc.
...
In a 2006 poll of 100,000 college students by the food service giant Aramark, 30 percent of all students said that it was “very important” to them to have vegetarian food options on campus, up from 26 percent in 2004.
But punk vegans like Ms. Moskowitz and Mr. Leo acknowledge that they are still far outside the mainstream, and that the label “vegan” — unlike “vegetarian” — can still inspire a strong negative reaction.
“Any time you confront a deeply ingrained societal norm, people are going to get upset,” Mr. Leo said.
-NY Times

Google Food

2007-01-24T21:31:00.000-08:00

free fine food for Google workers

blink182

2007-01-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

most common myspace passwords:

password1 (106)
abc123 (73)
swimmer1(43)
iloveyou1 (41)
monkey1 (40)
****you (37)
123456 (33)
myspace1 (32)
****you1 (32)
i(32)
password (27)
babygirl1 (25)
iloveyou2 (24)
football1 (24)
danny12031986 (23)
blink182 (23)
princess1 (22)
freesh**4me (22)
16188s (22)
123abc (22)

new suit

2007-01-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

Spiderman 3 trailer!

down with sprawl, up with high density zoning

2006-12-21T12:29:00.000-08:00

If Northern Virginian sprawl is hell, route 1 is its main street.

is that alright

2006-12-20T17:47:00.000-08:00

yeah
live
studio

bang bang

2006-12-14T12:12:00.001-08:00

you shot me down

cell phones are bugs

2006-12-09T11:30:00.000-08:00

supposedly the mic on your cell phone can be used by others to listen in on nearby conversations, and the phone doesn't have to be in use or even powered on.

If ordered to do so, mobile telephone operators can also tap any calls, but more significantly they can also remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call, giving security services the perfect bugging device. "We have inadvertently started carrying our own trackable ID card in the form of the mobile phone," said Sandra Bell, head of the homeland security department at the Royal United Services Institute.
-Financial Times

here's the details of how it might work and how you can detect it if you're the paranoid type.

blue garlic

2006-12-05T20:05:00.000-08:00

a how-to and why guide

third world laptop closer to production

2006-11-30T03:38:00.000-08:00

getting there

so sad

2006-11-20T14:57:00.000-08:00

kiwi!

Larry the Southern Caricature

2006-11-09T03:44:00.000-08:00

fake accent!
(Huzzah to David Cross)

raise the roof

2006-11-08T22:52:00.000-08:00

let's bake some bread!

Atheism

2006-11-01T03:34:00.000-08:00

Post article on Sam Harris
Recent articles written by Sam Harris
Newsweek article about Harris, Dawkins, Dennett
Wired article about the 3

Intellipedia

2006-10-31T23:41:00.000-08:00

interesting

cool places to check out in DC area

2006-10-18T00:44:00.000-07:00

Post list

battle of the bands

2006-10-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

album covers

Turn Off The Radio

2006-10-15T02:43:00.000-07:00

hip hop lament

traffic court

2006-10-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

not guilty. cop never showed.

elliott cover

2006-10-10T01:44:00.000-07:00

Metric

vegetarians

2006-10-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

Rise Against

the progenitor

2006-10-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

Slapstick

bluegrass v. NPR

2006-10-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

i like it better when they play bluegrass on WAMU 88.5.

productive

2006-10-03T16:46:00.000-07:00

I spent a good portion of the day reading about robots and watching youtube clips.

amusing stories of post-college angst

2006-09-26T17:04:00.000-07:00

Today I finished reading Burn Collector issues 1-9, which was recommended by Dave Robot a while ago. Originally released in zine form, the book includes funny and existential reflections on temp jobs and cross country greyhound trips among other things.

I love baked goods

2006-09-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

On occasional afternoons (like today's) a few hours after waking up I enjoy getting a cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee at Kirsten's Cafe in Silver Spring. And though I haven't tried anything else yet, the other baked goods (various pies, scones, etc.) look pretty good too.

labor of love

2006-09-10T22:52:00.000-07:00

Ted Leo interview (November 2004)
"Biomusicology" performance (recent)

Bikes are great!

2006-08-16T17:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I biked a little bit in DC, a meandering route from Petworth to Rock Creek Park. I was thinking of going all the way to Silver Spring but I didn't have time. What a great means of transportation. So fast. So easy.

Like a bird in NYC

occasional mania

2006-07-18T23:14:00.000-07:00

things i'm excited about these days: music, soccer, writing/editing wikipedia articles, other stuff i can't write about.

syriana

2006-06-25T13:12:00.000-07:00

what a depressing movie. what a depressing reality. the bad guys win and the fatcats get fatter.

ThinkPad Z60t

2006-06-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

After great consideration and deliberation over the past 2 days, I finally ordered a new laptop: Lenovo's ThinkPad z60t.

9/17/06 update: I really like the laptop. very sleek, portable, and powerful. I was worried the screen wouldn't be bright enough because of some reviews I read, but it's fine. The only problem I have is the very limited battery life (about 2 hours) compared to my friends' ibooks (over 4 hours). There was an option to get a bigger battery, but I didn't want the thing sticking out at the end.

Ring Tones Your Parents Can't Hear

2006-06-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

NY Times

DJ God

2006-06-11T18:48:00.000-07:00

sweet short film

Advice

2006-06-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

"If this were a graduating class of C.I.A. case officers, my advice would be short and to the point: Admit nothing, deny everything and make counteraccusations."
-NY Times

car woes

2006-06-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

i wasted most of today securing my means of transportation. first i got a flat and had to get the tire repaired. then i got my new right side view mirror (not required by law but good for insurance purposes i was advised) in the mail and spent several hours trying to install it, mostly on figuring out how to take off the inside door panel (hidden screws!). finally, i wrote a letter and a witness statement -- that i need to get signed by certain friends -- to contest a parking ticket from a month ago.

oh yeah, and gas is expensive.

Ukulele Virtuoso

2006-05-30T23:37:00.001-07:00

Meet Jake Shimabukuro. Check out his weeping ukulele in Central Park.

Thank You, Maskman

2006-05-30T23:37:00.000-07:00

a funny animation by Lenny Bruce

Larry David Interview

2006-05-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Fair Credit Reporting Act

2006-05-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

How to get your free credit report

Wolverine: The Batman of the X-Men

2006-05-30T18:30:00.000-07:00

The new X-Men movie is pretty good. Way better than MI3. I'm surprised so many central characters were killed off in the end.

Al Gore: The Movie

2006-05-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

An Inconvenient Truth, the new documentary about Al Gore and global climate change, is playing soon in Maryland and DC. Ebert says it's good.

Learning Spanish

2006-05-29T22:22:00.000-07:00

I'm setting my alarm for early in the morning so I can drive to Montgomery College to sign up for a month long Spanish class. If I don't commit myself to something like this I'll probably never learn Spanish. The class meets 4 times a week for 2 hours and I've already missed the first one.

Update: because of Memorial day I didn't miss the first class. It's going to be hard waking up in the mornings though.

The Big One

2006-05-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

The trailer for the Fast Food Nation movie is out. The movie recently made its premiere at the Cannes film festival. The story is described by director Richard Linklater as "all over the map" and features Avril Lavigne as a college activist.

Video Games

2006-05-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

In front of his computer screen, Kim played hours upon hours of interactive role-playing games with other anonymous online gamers. When he slew zombies and ghouls with particular dexterity, he recalled, the flashing words "Excellent!" or "Masterstroke!" fired him up. Kim played from 8 a.m. until well after midnight -- and in the process, over four months, gained 10 pounds while surviving largely on one meal a day of instant noodles.

"I guess I knew I was becoming addicted, but I couldn't stop myself," Kim recalled from a clinic where he was undergoing counseling. "I stopped changing my clothes. I didn't go out. And I began to see myself as the character in my games."

-Post

Your Mom's A Chimp

2006-05-18T11:06:00.001-07:00

"Human Ancestors May Have Interbred With Chimpanzees"

Lactic Acid Myth

2006-05-17T05:04:00.000-07:00

Another reason to question everything. It turns out, despite years of what cross country coaches have been telling us, lactic acid is not the cause of muscle soreness and is actually fuel for your muscle mitochondria.

Practice Makes Perfect

2006-05-08T00:40:00.000-07:00

follow your dreams

Nowhere Man

2006-05-06T10:37:00.001-07:00

w eird

dance! for peace in uganda

2006-04-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

this is kinda cool.

nice house

2006-04-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

shaped like a soccer ball

Fast Food Nation Movie

2006-04-23T22:31:00.000-07:00

Coming to this year's Cannes film festival and to a theater near you later this year is a fictionalized film adaptation of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. The movie -- directed by Richard Linklater and shot in Mexico, Texas, and Colorado -- will be the motion picture acting debut of Canadian pop singer Avril Lavigne.

According to Linklater, "The idea that came out of our meetings was that the movie would not be a documentary but a character study of the lives behind the facts and figures. I'm more interested in fiction than nonfiction. You get to the point through human storytelling."

Pentaborough NYC Summit Challenge

2006-04-23T20:58:00.000-07:00

On April 22nd, 2006, seven daring adventurers hiked up the summit of all New York City boroughs. Overcoming distance, hunger, fences, barbed wires, messed up subway schedules, endless bus rides, pouring rain, and bitter cold - the seven heroes succeeded. This is their story.

Big Tire Shortage

2006-04-20T12:11:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to save up 40 grand to buy a big tire.

Church of Punk Rock

2006-04-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

On the Fat Wreck website there's a fun new NOFX video (wmv) for "Seeing Double at the Triple Rock" (off of the new album).

No News Like UnNews

2006-04-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

"Katie Holmes Gives Birth to Reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard"

Mikolaj is still at it.

THE Dynamite Plan

2006-04-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

Pete, Asa, and Ian's new band has a song up on myspace. "The Secret" features the guest vocals of Chris Antal, who was also the recording engineer.

riffmania

2006-04-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

The latest Avenged Sevenfold album is totally righteous. I did a lot of commuting in the car today and it made the ride a lot more pleasant. Hats off to these noble sons of metal.

In other news, the latest album of The Streets is not bad.

Ancient Pyramids in Bosnia?

2006-04-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

Neat. Maybe I should go into archaeology in my retirement.

fakes news is good news

2006-04-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

Mikolaj has written a slew of fake news articles in the past few days:

"Governator declares emergency; goes back in time to stop flood"
"Emigrant rally draws 3 people"
"Iran enriches uranium, impoverishes carbon"
"10th planet larger than Pluto, but smaller than Lassie"
"Man wins $9 million Vioxx lottery"
"Enron's Skilling claims innocence as wallet doesn't fit"
"Italian election too close to call as Florida tally disputed"

Let's hope they don't outsource his programming job to India. Otherwise, he might write 10 times as many of these things.

modern dance revolution

2006-04-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

This guy went to Ithaca High, dances with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and helps run an indie arts center called Chez Bushwick.

Herbal Tea Is The Future

2006-04-06T01:22:00.000-07:00

My sleeping schedule is all messed up again, possibly because I have to stay up late at work and I'm drinking too much coffee on the job. So once again I embark to reduce my coffee and caffeine consumption. History repeats itself and the wheel of time turns.

what the heck

2006-04-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

In today's business section of the Washington Post, pages D13 and D14 are half pages on a half sheet (part of a broad sheet that is three quarters the size of a regular broad sheet). I've never seen that before. It reminds me of the half floor in Being John Malkovich.

This is What Computer Programmers Do In Their Spare Time

2006-04-04T13:03:00.000-07:00

Mikolaj Franaszczuk is not a professor of comparative literature at Cornell university. He does not possess an extensive knowledge of theology and he did not study under the most renowned Christian historians at Oxford. His work is not regarded as the most prominent in the field, and his textbooks are not used in prestigious colleges throughout the country.

Remember Clark's published fiction piece titled Basement Jack? Well they just published Mikolaj's review of it.

Amy's Law School Stories

2006-04-04T01:42:00.000-07:00

Amy (who just got engaged to Perkins, Congratulations) has some funny law school stories about her professors and classmates.