Year: 2002

Or Free Speech?

Got a response from the University of Texas. They pulled the page and sent me a semi-apologetic letter which mentions “free speech” and the fact that students sometimes state “strong opinions” on “controversial topics”…

What fucking opinion? What fucking topic? They flat-out lied and said that I use a drug called “soma” and that my site is all about my experiences while using it. That’s not a statement of opinion. It’s a blatant fabrication. And in many academic environments, it could get them expelled…

I’m always amazed at how many otherwise educated individuals haven’t the faintest notion what free speech means…

That said, I’ll mention again that there’s a (completely unrelated) new rant over at Planet SOMA today…

Randomly Monday

Random thoughts for a Monday afternoon:

  • Some days I love the internet: a reader has actually found — an offered to send me — an authentic “hogs are beautiful” poster. He sent me a picture, and it’s the genuine article, the very same print which used to grace every barbecue joint from one end of North Carolina to the other. And oddly enough, it was unearthed in Iowa of all places…

  • So did anyone else watch the hours-long “Richmond, Virgina gas station skycam” this morning (on every network) and wonder how long it would take Fox News to establish that the owner of the van was — in addition to being the one and only sniper — the same individual who masterminded the World Trade Center bombings, Jimmy Hoffa’s murder, and possibly the Crimean War?

  • Just how will Patty and Selma react to this?
  • Going out on a limb: after buying “Saturday Night Fever” on DVD this weekend, I feel compelled to remind you all that — once you get past John Travolta’s hair and the soundtrack — it’s a really good movie…

Maybe more later, or maybe not. I’ve got a pound of ground beef, a can of Manwich, and a bag of buns. The evening is full of possibilities…

Anniversary

Anniversary weekend. A year ago today, I was off the Fresno for what turned out to be a rather fateful weekend. By a year ago tomorrow, I was already hooked. And you know what? I still am. I do love my boy, especially now that I get to wake up next to him every morning…

If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can read about that weekend here…

Things I Don’t Care About

Tip of the hat to Chuck’s list of things he doesn’t care about this morning. I’ll follow with my list of things I’m very weary of:

  1. Trying to “understand” and “be tolerant of” terrorists, ghetto kids who kill each other (and innocent bystanders), and homeless people who have “no choice” but to steal and to shit on the streets. Having a “hard life” or a “grievance” is no excuse for making other people miserable.
  2. The notion that any violence committed against innocent Americans without warning is probably justified by our warmongering imperialism (or whatever), but that any organized retaliation BY Americans is barbaric. Why are we always the ones who are wrong?
  3. The idea that popular opinion is any more sufficient justification for engaging (or not engaging) in a war than it is for denying civil rights or for giving Constitutional protection to a red, white, and blue piece of cloth.

For what it matters, I have not completely formed my own opinion about any impending military action. I am not convinced that attacking Iraq is the most prudent course of action at present, both for economic and political reasons, but I’m also not convinced that it’s an inherently immoral thing…

I can say, though, that most of the arguments expressed in the local paper haven’t swayed me one way or the other. And I can also state with some assurance that trite, simplistic slogans like “no war for oil” are of little more persuasive value to anyone with an IQ above 65 than those “kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out” T-shirts you used to see during the Gulf War..

Unrelated: note the new navigation bar above, which will now take you to the Road Trips and Rants sections, both of which used to be housed at Planet SOMA. This is something I’ve been planning for a long time, and I’m now reducing Planet SOMA to a site largely concerned with San Francisco and the South of Market Area. There will be some new content over there too, but this is where the “action” will be, particularly after my liberation from the Bay Area…

Randomly Hallowe’en

Aside from the fact that it’s not particularly funny, the main reason I can’t watch “Everybody Loves Raymond” is that whenever I do, I can’t help but visualize the father as Frankenstein’s monster singing “Puttin’ on the Ritz”…

Yes, that would be my one and only concession to Halloween, aside from the Simpsons episode I’m watching right now and all the candy I ate at work today…

Unrelated: so Bill Simon had no control over this one either, huh? He can’t keep up with ads run in his name, and he doesn’t know which campaign questionaires he’s signed. Heck, he can’t even manage a campaign and he wants to run the whole state?

Quoth Molly Ivins:

…even in proud Texas we have to admit that this year’s palm for nose-holding voting must go to California. Not to overstate, two of the most titanically unattractive candidates in the history of time — Gray Davis and Bill Simon — are vying for the governorship. How we got from the Lincoln-Douglas debates to this — or what we ever did to deserve it — is unclear. The debate between Davis and Simon raised the always-timely question: Is God punishing us?

I wish I could vote for somebody (anybody) next week…

Stupid Pac Bell

So just how many PacBell technicians does it take to get a DSL connection working properly? Evidently, the answer is “more than three”, as that’s how many we’ve had here so far and it’s still screwed up. After two months. And still (here’s a surprise), no one at Pac Bell has accepted responsibility for the problem…

Since I’m now convinced that everyone employed by SBC Pacific Bell either is a flaming moron or just doesn’t give a shit, I’m asking online. The symptoms are thus: (1) there’s intermittent data noise on the voice line (sometimes it’s so loud you can barely hear the phone), and (2) intermittent inability to make a data connection unless we simultaneously pick up the phone and make a voice call. The problem seems to be much worse on weekdays during the daytime. Any ideas?

The lstest guess (from a technician who arrived after the end of his appointed time, kept two of my friends waiting an hour for dinner, and didn’t apologize once) is that maybe we need to rewire the line into the apartment. This would, of course, result in a fee, making me wonder why I’ve been paying for that inside wiring maintenance contract all these years…

Ever tried asking a company like Pac Bell a rational question like that? They don’t even try to answer; they just sit there looking (or sounding) befuddled…

Winter Cleaning

Funny, those projects you just sort of get started on even when you had no intention of doing so. Tonight’s involved cleaning up the old bookmarks file. I killed off a few I’d had around since about 1995 (many of which havn’t worked since 1996) and organized the rest. I keep a pretty organized set of bookmarks anyway, but it was getting a little hairy in there…

Now if I could just do something with the “in progess” directory on my hard drive…

Election Stuff

Without hesitation, I deem the first paragraph of this page the best-expressed and most sensible election commentary I’ve read on the web this week…

Last time I checked, the apocalypse had not yet occurred. And those who are currently feeling suicidal, planning that move to Canada, or whatever will probably — given the passage of a few days — find some excuse to continue living life pretty much just as they’ve been doing for the past few years…

Today in San Francisco? A beautiful, stormy day with a rare clap or two of thunder, even. I just get all giddy when the rainy season finally arrives…