I understand. The chain reaction surrounding my dead internet connection sent me into a fits of gut-wrenching sobs and tears on the couch a few weeks ago.
No. Really. It did.
Who knew that a G5 comes packaged with an external Airport antenna that you apparently really need when you suddenly move your computer and it’s no longer right next to the base station?
The whole campaign can be seen here, and you’re absolutely right, baby. It’s garbage. I’d never actually seen it until today.
“Has your 4th grader ever taken a DANCE class or learned the basics of choreography?” “When was the last time your 12th grader went to a museum or talked about the origins of symbols in the SCULPTURE of various cultures?” Give me a fucking break.
What irritates me so much is not the idea of promoting art, but the idea that anything other than art is essentially meaningless and boring. Frankly, I can’t think of anything more irrelevant to my life than “the basics of choreography” and it would be no more relevant had I been force-fed it in the fourth grade. I just don’t care. If you do, that’s fine, but who the hell are these morons to assume I’m a less worthy individual for pursuing things which have a more practical bearing on my own life.
Parents who support the ideals of this campaign are no different from their overzealous peers who force their completely uninterested kids into Little League or summer camp or beauty pageants. I’m glad I had parents with more sense than that.
Despite the fact that I emphatically agree that the war in Iraq was a bad move and that George W. Bush is an inept, smirking moron masquerading as a president, I find Cindy Sheehan to be one of the single most annoying individuals who’s ever walked the face of the earth.
She’s one of those folks who should never be chosen to speak publicly on any issue, because her strident, whining, and nagging personality causes many people to instinctively tune her out and support any position which doesn’t have her as its spokesperson. She generally ends up doing her cause way more harm than good.
That said, I don’t remember there being a law against being annoying…
I can’t believe this was published so prominently in Sunday’s Chronicle. Imagine someone suggesting that the reason the middle class is fleeing the Bay Area has something to do with the fact that planners and assorted NIMBYs are making it very difficult — or at least rather disagreeable — for them to stay there.
On top of that, imagine them publishing something which suggests that the middle class contributes more to the economic vitality of an area than the very rich or the very poor.
Even better, imagine the author having the audacity to suggest that planners might be wise to consider compromises based on how people WANT to live rather than merely dicatating how they SHOULD live.
Scandalous.
After a very sketchy first few months, where she often looked a little like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, the plant above suddenly seems to be thriving. Apparently, she’s found her preferred solar angle. I haven’t named her — nor any of the other new kids yet — partly out of respect for the ones I left behind, and partly because, you know, once you name them and start feeding them, it’s extra hard when you lose them.
I think this one’s going to make it, though. Ultimately she’ll be one of my favorites since she had to work so hard and all. She might get a name very soon.
Every time I drive up to Greensboro, I see lots of billboards advertising “ranch townhouses.” Isn’t that kind of a contradiction in terms?
Just got back from visiting my parents. My mom has broadband now. What is the world coming to?
It’s kind of funny, though, that I’m thinking of giving her my old G4 when Mark gets a new desktop. Nowadays, you’re just as likely to see kids giving their parents hand-me-down electronics as you are to see parents giving their kids hand-me-down cars.
I love that I have a mother who wants my hand-me-down electronics…
2 ejections from House denounced: Capitol police chief apologizes to G.I.’s mom, lawmaker’s wife:
A 1946 law prohibits demonstrations within any of the Capitol buildings. But a subsequent U.S. Capitol Police Board regulation clarified “demonstration activity” to include “parading, picketing, speechmaking, holding vigils, sit-ins, or other expressive conduct … but does not include merely wearing Tee-shirts, buttons or other similar articles of apparel that convey a message.”
I was right. Apparently there’s not a law against merely being annoying. Which is a good thing, all in all.
I’ve had my websites for a little over ten years now. I added a message board to this one five or six years back, because it amused me and because I thought some of my visitors might enjoy it. I also added a much nicer one at another site, which actually gets traffic.
Over the years, I’ve only pulled a few messages and I’ve banned very few users. Ninety per cent of these pulls and bans were for spam. A few more were obvious trolls (people who simply wander in to any message board they find and start posting statements designed to piss people off and get a reaction whether on topic or not). Only in two cases have I pulled posts and/or banned regular posters for specific content violations. Both of these cases have been recent and both revolved around posts which I perceived as racist and inflammatory.
I mention this now because some people (including the recently-purged poster) may have gotten the idea that I remove posts from my message boards because I don’t like the grammar they use. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m a language snob, I know I’m a language snob, and I usually manage to grit my teeth and cope with other people’s more casual approach to grammar and punctuation. Maybe the confusion with the recent post occurred because it just happened to occur at almost the same time as a language rant I’d posted just a bit before. This was a coincidence.
Just for the record, here is the post I pulled from the Otherstream message board:
Hey big guy, don’t forget to mention NC’s newest Idol star “Rhonetta Johnson”, she’s making all the crack head/ghetto mama’s proud thru out the Charlotte area! A fine product of our welfare system, as I heard she know’s her ABC’s to G, and can count to eleventeen. LOL
As should be apparent, the problems with this post are definitely not limited to the bad grammar and punctuation. However, it IS a bit ironic that the poster has the audacity to criticize someone else’s educational attainment when he can’t even seem to compose a sentence himself, isn’t it?
This individual has posted on my message board many times before, and sometimes even has expressed some valid and relevant opinions. Other times, I’ve generally just ignored him and laughed off whatever he was trying to say. On one occasion, he made some pretty blatantly unfounded comments about me. I didn’t “censor” that, but this last bilge was just a little too much.
Maybe I should’ve just left it there and let him dig his own grave. Maybe I should have just pulled it down and let the incident pass. Or maybe I should’ve made it more clear what had happened when I commented on it earlier. Either way, I just wanted to clarify for the record.
I can wake up in the bleakest, nastiest of moods and feel as happy as a clam after a few hours spent in the library and a few dollars spent on photocopies. In fact, I can only think of two other things that can make me that happy that fast. One of them is food and the other isn’t — or is, depending on how you’re mind is working today.
I had a realization today, one that I’ve had before and will probably have again. There’s probably no better career choice for me than to become a librarian. Whenever I think of it, I can’t come up with any compelling arguments against it aside from the potential of having to deal with the public. It’s something I really need to think more about.
But now I’m going to read about the grand opening of Charlotte’s first self-service A&P store in 1938.
That’s what I like about the south:
Somehow, I missed the news about Al Sharpton’s issue with certain language in the TV version of The Boondocks until I read about it in the comic strip version this week. Today’s journal entry, though, is not so much about that controversy as it is about the trend for news outlets to use the cutesy term “the n-word” instead of the real word in question, which is “nigger”.
There. I typed it. Do you find the word rather repulsive? Yeah, so do I. That’s the point, after all. It’s hard to demostrate how offensive a word can be without using the actual word. When newspapers use stupid euphemisms like “the n-word”, the word is stripped of its outrageousness, and it sounds like nothing more severe occurred than little Betsy Wetsy saying “I have to tinkle.” In fact, it makes the whole thing sound sort of cute and endearing, like a fight between Bobby and Cindy Brady.
Surely no one could really object to the use of the word “nigger” in the context of a discussion about the use of that very word, could they?
I remember once, many years ago, that my grandmother was talking about a man she knew. She whispered the word “homosexual” but defined it out loud it as “you know, in love with another man.” In her universe, the word was apparently more upsetting and delicate than the idea behind it. It’s apparently the same for most newspapers.
If someone is using words like “nigger” or “spic” or “faggot”, I want to know about it. They’re not using cute little sanitized family-friendly words and I don’t want to read some wimpy newspaper’s cute little sanitized family-friendly minimization that masks the impact of what was really said.
It may be the first known case of a sportscaster being traded for a cartoon character. Then again, there’s not really much difference between the two species anyway, is there?
And speaking of cartoon characters (by “cartoon character”, I’m referring to the author of this piece, and not to Curious George):
Not only does the story reveals the sinister side of a corrupt wildlife trade with perilous roots in Western imperialism, but recent ethical, legal and scientific considerations on the personhood of primates makes a traditional reading of Curious George both impossible and irresponsible.
She’s joking, right? Does anyone really write a sentence using phrases like “scientfic considerations on the personhood of primates” and not expect people to start howling with laughter?
Did I mention how happy I am that I get my husband back tomorrow? I was going to show a picture of my big grin, but my religion doesn’t allow visual representations of myself. At least not when they’re unflattering…
Great. Channel 9 does a big exposé on how badly FTD screws up flower delivery orders placed online the very day after I place an order with them. My timing, as always, is impeccable.
So apparently we were spared the snow, yet again. Has The Great Pumpkin got something against me? Why are we having such a freakishly warm winter my first year back east? I’d particularly appreciate some snow this year, when I don’t have to commute to work. Oh well.
No, it never snowed, but it was incredibly cold and gray and rainy out yesterday, so I did the only sensible thing one can do on such a perfect afternoon. I went for a walk downtown. Afterward, I went to the grocery store and then to the airport, where I picked up something to warm me up a bit.
I spent the entire night of 15-16 February 2004 sitting outside in one of the coldest rainstorms of the year in San Francisco so I could do this. That’s not a choice I could ever imagine regretting…
I love you, baby…
The above was, of course, a photo opportunity which couldn’t be missed.
We spent the past weekend in Durham, with a quick side trip to Raleigh. Mark excelled at keeping my mind off something that was bothering me by feeding me regularly and driving me around in the snow all day on Saturday. We ate at Honey’s and Grayson’s and The Angus Barn and Le Coco and Spanky’s. The Angus Barn was particularly fun, because I’ve been driving by the place on the way to the state fair since I was a kid, and I’d never once been inside.
On Sunday, we got to see Becky, who I hadn’t seen in over a year, and who showed us more of Chapel Hill than I’d probably ever seen before. Then we headed home, loaded down with newspapers I’m still reading. Aside from our accommodations at the worst Red Roof Inn in the country, it was a very good weekend.
The really sucky thing about moving away from California is that you don’t get to completely remove the anal probe until the following year, after filing your last California state tax return.
We went up to Winston-Salem again this weekend. Have I mentioned what an attractive and interesting place it is?
Anyhow, I took Mark to the airport this morning so he could return for another two weeks in the City of Doom. I miss him already. The past two weeks went by way too fast, with lots of food, more travel than usual, etc. Now it’s cold, I have no one but Edgar (who generates very little body heat) to keep me warm, and I need to get back to the neglected job quest.
I love my boy. And my mom and dad. Especially after the past ten days or so.
Based on a couple of email messages I’ve had lately, most of them related to a different site, I’ve decided it’s time to dust off this entry for a re-read.
I’ve always had a problem with the death penalty. Vindictive old cuss that I am, I’m still a little squeamish at the idea of a civilized society killing individuals in peacetime as a matter of justice. More importantly, I’m horrified at the very real potential for error given the irreversible nature this particular sentence.
That said, I also believe that states which use the death penalty should go ahead and do it, without the constant obsession over the most “painless and humane” means of execution. Here’s a clue: there is no humane and painless means of execution. The knowledge that one is about to die is probably the most painful thing imaginable for most human beings.
As Chief Gillespie said (yes, as a matter of fact I was inspired by an “In the Heat of the Night” rerun, thanks), the only way to execute someone without torturing him in the process is to tell him he’s forgiven, set him free, wait for the smile to cross his lips as he leaves the room, and then shoot him in the back before he realizes what’s happening.
I had an boyfriend once who was not a vegetarian, but who would only eat ground beef or sausage, because it didn’t “seem like” part of an animal. The touchy-feely approach to the death penalty seems a similar contradiction to me. If you’re going to kill people (or eat meat, or have sex with members of your same sex, or practice copyright infringement, or whatever), at least have the goddamned balls not to delude yourself into thinking you’re doing something else.
Don’t blame the mechanics of the act when it’s the act itself that you really have a problem with.
For those of you who care about such things, I’ve finally posted the first half of my Charlotte history section over at Groceteria.
Three of the most decidedly low-tech aspects of my life:
If someone tried really hard, he might be able to make some very astute observations about me from this list…
