Can She Bake a Cherry Pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Altho Grandmarie always said the quickest way to a man's heart was thru his stomach - I've had great success aiming a little lower... Nonetheless, today on a whim I am dabbling in the domestic arts by fondling a different cut of meat. A largish slab of top round sirloin steak, specifically.
Now, i do not enter into this litely, nor without counsel. Unskilled tho i am in culinary craft, I descend from a long line of experts in the field, and thankfully Grandmarie is still a phone call away... her advice - to go with a london broil approach, which is relatively difficult to fuck up. She has approved of my marinade substitutions (sesame oil for vegetable, red wine vinegar for balsamic, worcestershire for soy sauce, and rosemary for thyme), while adding those inside tips on tenderizing and such. Ooooh, I am good at the tenderizing part :)
So, we'll see how this turns out in about two more hrs. Thankfully, i live in an area with many gastronomic wonders available for back-up should my foray into the kitchen fail miserably (a statistical probability).
And of course, i can always rely on my expertise with the other meat...
RNC Snail Spam
Myself and several of my friends have been recieving snail spam from the RNC, asking us to become "grassroots leaders" for the reelection of Bush/Cheney. It's an obnoxiously pitched letter asking for donations, personally addressed wherever possible, and includes a large glossy photo 'signed' by GeeDub himself.
Well, they certainly aren't getting any money from me. But I do appreciate the photo - I found it so inspiring i am using it in a painting:
Backseat Driver
As an (arguably too frequent) NYC Taxicab rider, I know that among my rights is the right to 'direct the destination and the route used'. So i understand that when the driver inquires as to my preferred route, that s/he is simply following the rules. However, I have driven in this city all of like five instances over the last six years, unlike any of my past or future taxicab drivers. I have zero clue as to which route to anywhere is the best unless you want to walk, or take the subway or bus.
A driver asking me to specify the route is as useful as me asking them
to define a business operations strategy or design an organizational
change intervention. Hell, it's their JOB to drive around this city, so one would think their expertise in this area far outweighs mine.
My usual answer to "Which way would you like to go?" is "whichever is fastest". In light of recent experiences, though, i shall also consider the following answers:
- the one where you don't turn onto a packed side street primarily because you are trying to get the attention of the soda vendor on the corner
- similarly, the one where you don't actually park and get out of the car to buy the street falafel
- the one where you don't get stuck in a one lane street behind a garbage truck
- any one that avoids times square and a surrounding 6 blocks radius COMPLETELY
Atowne Wrap-up
Ok, i get the 6.95 "a day" airport wireless access thingy now. Flight outa ABIA delayed an hour or so. That means that this time i am getting nearly an hour for 7 bux, as opposed to 15 minutes. I guess this is good...
But now to more important stuffs:
Along with myself, my mom is now a Texas Ex!! The eyes of Tx are upon you. You can not get away. Congratulations to our family's first BFA. And Mom, i have just one word for you, one word - plastics.
Congratulations, as well, to Ms. Frey, the first ever recipient of the Sarah Gale Ing Scholarship for the Performing Arts!
Also, muchos gracias to k and the RRPF for the impromptu sat nite house party. I was way too hungover yesterday. I blame the new high end box wines from central market.
And It has been in general wonderful to see all friends and family and love and hug on you.
Open invite extended to all who want to come to NYC this summer/etc for in person luving and huggin.
Bless, keep well, and store in a cool, dry place.
Silly Human Trix
Flip back and forth between this and this real fast. Hee hee. Don't know why, but that just makes me laugh.
Country Life
So momz picks me up from the airport and about 15 minutes into the drive out to the country where my family lives i see this teeny white spider dropping down from the rear view mirror.
"Whoa!" i say and move as far to the right as possible, "Uh - Mom - therez a spider in here..."
She looks over at the spider, who, after descending nearly down to the gear shift has begun ascending back towards the rear view mirrow, as if he's just checking shit out. "Oh, he's ok. I've seen him in here before."
Pre-flight Miscellania
As i wait for flt 1733 to AUS to board...
AT&T is gonna ream me with roaming charges in atown. Please leave vmails if i don't pick up.
These comm companies that offer pay as you go wireless hotspots in LGA got a cute sell here = "$6.95 a day"
Itz effectively SEVEN dollars, but you hear SIX. And who actually spends a whole DAY at the airport if they can help it?
And if they call it "deplaning" when you exit, why don't they call it planing when you board?
Oh, planing now.
Deconstructitution of the People
This weekend I had occasion to pull out my copy of The Federalist Papers (yes, that counts as fun in my household). Some people labor under the delusion that these musty old documents matter. Trip with me through the totally essential clauses:
As the people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived, it seems strictly consonant to the republican theory, to recur to the same original authority, not only whenever it may be necessary to enlarge, diminish, or new-model the powers of the government, but also whenever any one of the departments may commit encroachments on the chartered authorities of the others.Okay, yeah, I saw your eyes glaze over. Mine did too. And although Madison would become our 4th President back in the day, i think itz safe to say that he'd never even get nominated in modern times with that rhetorical style. These musty old documents, although so very important, are far more difficult to wade through than any of us has time or inclination for. Hell, if you've read this far into this blog entry, I'm suprised.
(The Federalist No 49, by Publius, aka James Madison, 1788)
So despite the anti-thetical nature of it, I am going to bullet points now:
- Power will never limit itself. It will coalesce and accrue into tyranny unless balanced by the power of other forces.
- The power in our government is distributed to prevent concentration:
- Executive branch: Can DO stuff but can't pay for shit.
- Legislative branch: Can't do shit, but can SAY and PAY for what should done.
- Judiciary branch: Can't pay for or do anything. But can UNDO and UNSAY, as well as UNPAY (i.e., restitution).
- Now, ALL the power in our government is nominally derived from "the people".
- Yet, the framers of the Constitution made a decent case against "direct democracy".
- Itz a legitimate "too many cooks spoil the stew" sorta argument.
- Because, hello, democracy IS mob rule.
- Thus we have a "representative democracy"... Yes, your vote counts. But past a point itz pretty much symbolic.
- You people gave away all your powers, see, and the only real say you have left in what happens after that is via who/what you support with your money or time.
- You should be really, really worried when public accountability for government actions becomes less important than national security.
- No, the government does not know what is best for you, and likely never will.
- The whole damn thing was set up with transparency and oversight EXACTLY BECAUSE we knew government would never give a damn about what is best for the common good.
- You should also be concerned that, more and more, your free and independent press is 0wn3d by fewer and fewer people.
- Who have more money than you.
- Unless, of course, you trust them to know what's best for you, too.
- Then, hell, walk on off that cliff clutching your petty bourgeoisie supersized freedom fries.
Note 2 Blog
Whassup blog? Just thought I'd test email you a blog entry.
Post it for me?
XOXOXO
Pwyllz
Shitstorm of the Surreal
Under Post-Modernity's general public license, I am appropriating the phrase "shitstorm of the surreal" from psh at Suckful. And in an open source fashion, I am hereby releasing into the public domain the following functional extensions I have developed. I hope that some of you may find them useful. Please consider all of them 'beta', and feel free to report any bugs or incompatibilities. (In the below, "SsotS" = original shitstorm app developed by psh)
- Opossum Extension: Useful for rolling over and pretending to be dead when SsotS application cycles ad infinitum. When engaged, this extension removes you from conscious acknowledgement of the shitstorm. It also preempts any other system tasks at the same time, however, so be aware that if you wish to perform any actions after invoking the Opossum Extension, a system reboot will be necessary.
- Eat Shit and Die Extension: This extension allows you full immersion in all aspects of the shitstorm. However, in the current SsotS version, the resulting volume of illogical commands and error handling will very quickly lead to fatal exceptions and system crash. WARNING: This extension is very unstable, and may actually damage the contents of your drive.
- I Know You Are, But What Am I Extension: Upon start-up, this extension enables you to select one side of the political dichotomy and thereby only recieve half of the shit. It is important to realize that this extension operates primarily by fully aligning your operations with one side or the other of the dichotomy. As such, your system must promote the values of your chosen side at the expense of the other, using the most malicious shitware possible to launch attacks upon the other side. Thus, in effect this extension functions to add to the overall shit in the SsotS. Use sparingly.
- It's Not My Problem Extension: Under ideal conditions, this extension operates similarly to the Opossum Extension, in that it enables you to deflect engaging in the shitstorm. However the successful functionality of this extension is dependent on the operating parameters of shitstorm, and in the current SsotS version, it is rendered largely inoperable due to the volume of surrealism and the complexity of shitstorm vectors. This extension was only ever intended to be a patch anyway, to deflect shit in the hopes that the SsotS would die down, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe someone can take the current version of this extension and develop it into something more effective.
- You All Fukkin Suck, I Am Taking My Toys And Going Home Extension: I developed this extension a long time ago and like the It's Not My Problem Extension, it seems to be mostly incompatible with the current SsotS version. I can't get it to work anymore, anyway - I posit that this may be due to the fact that the economic variables in the current shitstorm have eliminated my cache of Toys and Home resources. Again, I hope that other members of the open source community may have sufficient Toys and Home resources to test it and develop its functionality.
- Shit Fan Extension: This extension leverages the plug-in architecture of the SsotS app, and essentially extends your manipulation of the application's shitstorm vectors. However, it only provides for so much manipulation, particularly given the complexity of current vectors. But it does operate to ensure that when the shit hits the fan, it spreads pretty evenly.
Making a Difference
I have all kinds of ideas about how to help people, improve our quality of life and give back to society. I tend to be pretty damn vocal about it, too. Sure, I mean well, but turning intention into action in that area is not my strong suit. Since my only real contribution to the betterment of the world is my incessant bitching and whining, I am lucky that I have friends that make up for my worthless ass by actually going DOING something about it:
So, go now, and give my friend Jill a few bucks to help cure breast cancer.
My Virtual Horizons
Hey! We've finally discovered the 5th dimension (sadly, all the missing socks are not there). Well, ok, so maybe it's not new or an entirely different dimension. I guess it's really just "cyberspace" - a term which is so 80's itself if you go by the Gibsonian coinage - and whether or not itz even a space has been and continues to be argued. However, over the last 7 years online interactions have steadily infiltrated my meatspace world to the point where it's undeniable some things have changed:
I find I now answer "Have you seen so and so" with "Yes, just this morning", even when so and so lives 4 or 5 time zones away and I saw them on AIM or Irc. For instance, my coworkers and i usually only see each other once a month at our All Hands meeting but we work together every day via chat and email. Hell, i talk more with my brother on Y! now that i live half a country away than i did when we shared an apartment in 1994. Even more fun is how much my clients use chat even when we are in the same room or just down the hall.
Client: hey can you see the break room from where UR sitting?And when I log off the internet, my mobile devices automatically log themselves on. G*d help me, I know when anyone sends email (to any one of my 6 email accounts), because any one of three different devices will tell me so, depending on which i am closer to.
Me: yeah, why?
Client: have they put the leftover catering from that breakfast mtg out yet? :)
Me: ... what did you DO before AIM?
Client: yelled real loud across the office :)
Then there's the increased access, speed and GUI-greatness. Back in '95, i had a dedicated phone line for my 14.4k modem and I thought I was the shit with my leetle geocities website. But now, I regularly surf the web from just about anywhere - the park, random coffee shops and any room in my apartment - w/o wires. I can copy entire hard drives onto one USB drive that looks like a fashionable silver pendant hanging from my neck. Editing and publishing interfaces have become so intuitive and user friendly that it's hard to believe what we put up with before. Hexidecimal code reference sheets and shit.
Back in the early 90's when i first read Neuromancer, it set my expectations for an internet where organic and digital lines crossed, but typically, you 'jacked in' to the matrix. I didn't really think about how online communications could pervade meatspace to similar effect in terms of connectedness, communications and data access. But, hell, it has been and is happening.
I am still holding out for my retractable razor nails and mirrorshade eyes tho, dammit.
Ahm Dysfunkshunall
I don't think i have dyslexia, necessarily. But there are a few select words that i consistently read inaccurately:
uniformed = uninformed
historic = histrionic
inconstant = incontinent
Although vision is involved, dyslexia is mainly a language processing problemSo, you should withhold from ascribing any greater meaning to the actual transpositions.
Better Than Inhalants
BWAH-HA-HA-HA!!!!!! I am frikking walking on air over here!! After 14+ months of avoiding calls, making excuses, robbing peter to pay paul, and, in general, suffocating thru a thick fog of impending personal fiscal doom, I am actually giddy. Can it possibly be true?!? I checked and rechecked my math just to be sure, and it is!!! OMG, it is...
MY INCOME OUTPACES MY DEBT for the first time in three years.
Today I:
- Reconciled my two Almighty lists of "Who We Pay This Month" and "Who We Don't Pay This Month" into one "Monthly Bills" list (which is an entirely reasonable and not at all frightening list, unlike it's predecessors)
- Paid off three credit cards in their gotdam entirety
- Paid down two more to reasonable levels
- Actually put something in my savings account
If this is a dream - and I should start to wake up - somebody better knock me the fuck back out, b/c i haven't felt this good in ages.