winter cometh

it was 15 degrees* outside when i left for work at 7:45 this morning. it had warmed back up to a balmy 26 degrees* by the time i got home around 5:30 though, so i may still have a few days left before i need to start wearing my coat.

*all temperatures in fahrenheit

random historical fact of the day

john locke died two centuries, two years, and two days ago. or at least he would have had i remembered to post this last night, and for some reason it's not letting me backdate it. oh well.

go mike!

as the election draws ever closer, mike mcgavick, the republican challenger to incumbent democrat senator maria cantwell, has been gathering several newspaper endorsements, making it appear that he'll actually have a chance of winning this. king county is a hard obstacle for any republican to overcome, but mike has managed to get himself endorsed by several newspapers from the left/liberal side of the state, including the seattle times, the king county journal, and the bellingham herald. which, to me, means one of several things: a) they actually believe he has a good chance of winning; b) they actually think he's the better candidate; or c) they think he has no chance whatsoever of winning, and see this as an easy way to gain favor with the more conservative elements in the state and make themselves appear less partisan. or, i could be completely wrong on all of those... maybe they just pull names out of a hat, who knows?

but after reading those endorsements, as well as those from the spokesman review, the yakima herald-republic, and several others, i'm much more hopeful about his candidacy than i was a week or so ago. i just hope that if he does win, it's not close enough for the democrats to pull out their "count every vote; or, failing that, keep counting until we win" method that they used to deny dino rossi the governorship.

is it just me...

...or does it feel like it's about an hour later than it actually is?

Thor's Day I.v

Thor, fickle fellow that he is, decided that he'd rather be out smiting giants than talking with me. So unless I can convince him that talking with me is more entertaining than the sound a giant's head makes when it is crushed by Mjolnir, or come up with a whole lot of mead, the Thor's Day posts will be discontinued indefinitely.

boycott chevy!

i never planned on buying a chevy anyways, so this probably won't make much difference, but oh well.

tuesday night, during game 3 of the world series, chevy showed a commercial highlighting the positive influence of "latin americans" on America. which, in and of itself, is not a bad thing; along with crime, and typhoid, and driving wages down, latin americans have done some good north of the border. my problem came when i noticed that the commercial was in spanish. now, maybe i'm just old fashioned, but i think that anything even remotely related to the premier event of America's pastime--such as a commercial aired during the game--should be in America's national language, which, last time i checked, was ENGLISH. chevy, for all their claim to being "an American revolution," seem none too concerned with actually being American.

balancing act

i am really looking forward to my trip next weekend... partly because i'll get to see some friends i haven't seen in awhile, and partly because i won't be at home. living with my parents hasn't driven me crazy yet, but i'm definitely getting close to the point where my sanity will be more important than having money.

wrong, but funny

an example of my family's humor.

my uncle was quoted in the paper today (not sure which one, but i'm guessing either the seattle times or post-intelligencer, since he lives over there). one of his employess killed someone else and then committed suicide. my uncle's response: "I wondered why he didn't show up to work today."

i don't think it was actually intended to be funny, but it definitely made me laugh.

liberal bias?

nope, i ain't seen none of that.

fortune cookie say...

sender: changes
subject: breaks visitors. Let natures
description: Absent consider absence absence action or against without of considered in resign resign legal

on which note, has gmail been crapping out on anyone else lately? it still works for me, but half of the time i get stuck using the html view, which is barely functional.

movie review

i'm going to steal a page from jeff goldstein... sort of. i was originally planning on doing a movie review in five words or less. but instead, i think i'm going to write a "full" review (probably a paragraph or so worth of sentence fragments) and use the auto-summarize function of word to make it smaller... maybe 5%? i'll figure something out.

movie: green street hooligans
starring: claire forlani, elijah wood, and a bunch of people i didn't recognize.

or maybe not... word sucks. so here's the 5% it came up with, the rest is down below. spoilers are included, if anyone cares. also, this one includes some swearing; fair warning for those who are offended by that sort of thing.

5%:
Hatchet goes berserk and kills little brother, which pretty much ends the brawl.

Full:

Elijah wood takes the fall for his crackhead roomie at Harvard, gets kicked out and goes to visit his sister in England. Gets caught up with his sister’s husband’s little brother, who leads a soccer/football “firm” called GSE (green street elite), which is basically a gang without guns. says shit, fuck, and possibly bitch. Gets shit beat out of him. Helps beat shit out of some other people. Other firm members find out he was a journalism major—they hate journalists, and think he ratted them out to the papers. Meantime, his sisters husband found out and went to protect him; but people at the pub recognize him as the former leader of the GSE (“the major”), and he gets sucked in for a few drinks. At the same time, a member of GSE who’s fed up with wood betrays the group to a rival firm; the son of the leader (“the hatchet,” or something like that) of said rival firm was killed during a brawl w/ GSE when the major led it. The major gets stabbed in the throat with a broken bottle; pretty fucked up, but he’ll live. Little brother decides to call for a finishing match, which goes well until Claire forlani (the major’s wife) shows up and is about to get the crap kicked out of her, but little brother draws off the attackers by telling the hatchet that it’s his own damn fault his son got killed, he didn’t protect him well enough. Hatchet goes berserk and kills little brother, which pretty much ends the brawl. Wood goes back to America, gets a tape recording of former crackhead roomie confessing to being a crackhead, which he uses to get back into Harvard. The end.

opinion: i don't really like elijah wood, and it was really weird to see him swearing, but overall i'd have to say it was a good movie. don't watch it if you don't like swearing and violence, though... the major reasons it was rated R were for "brutal violence" and "pervasive language," and those are probably understatements.

yarrrgh...

because obviously, weekends aren't actually for relaxing. they're for doing more work! the local highschool's homecoming game/dance are today, and my little brothers are having their dates over here for dinner. which meant mom went on a cleaning spree. which meant i got recruited to do quite a bit of cleaning... my hands still smell like bleach.

on the bright side though, my good friend trevor and his wife ashley stopped by with their new daughter on their way to the coast. it was really good to see them again, even if it was only for an hour or so.

so, now it's back to sitting in front of my computer, and hoping that kate-lynne gets back from wenatchee at a decent time so that i can do something other than sitting in front of my computer.

junk mail wisdom

from: parents. According
subject: Scanners
description: Supreme Court ruled same am as those of private employers Youre Injured Workers insurance

great moments in literary history

from Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver:

The Dutch Ambassador rolled his eyes and tossed the waffle back over his shoulder--before it struck the ground, a stout, disconcertingly monkey-like dog sprang into the air and snatched it, and began to masticate it--literally--for the sound it made was like a homunculus squatting on the floor muttering, "masticate masticate masticate."

for a book that, for the most part, deals with semi-serious matters, like cromwell and the royal society (men like hooke, wren, and newton), it manages to have some very entertaining bits.

if only...

if only i lived in michigan, i woudl vote for mike bouchard.

quote of the day

"Reading whole books is not a bad idea." --Dr. John Yoder

bring out your dead!

well, maybe not. actually, i'm going to attempt to resurrect something that i think i did here in the past, the posting of odd subject/description lines in my gmail inbox. here's the one that most recently caught my eye (no, not in that way):

From: Blackmon Jeri
Subject: best prices for impotence drugs Harriet [ed: harriet sounds a lot like daniel, right?]
Description [the first little bit it shows after the subject]:
ED Choice, your best choice for ED drugs. Viagra 100mg - $1.56/pill Viagra SOFT - $1.89/pill

....

wait a minute, viagra soft? it was my understanding that people who used viagra were not using it to get soft, but rather the opposite. unless i completely missed something...

Tigers Win!

Magglio Ordoñez just hit a walk-off 3-run homer to send the Tigers to the World Series.

when life gives you lemons, kick it in the balls

the road trip that was supposed to be happening this week is quite obviously not happening. which is somewhat disappointing--i think it would have been a good experience--but at the same time, i really hate driving, so i think i'll get over it. also, at the beginning of next month, i'll be doing the next-best thing: an air trip. it won't be quite as cool, since i won't be flying my own plane (which i don't have, and which i would probably just crash when i tried to land it anyways), and there aren't quite as many stops (portland for a few days with geanna, hopefully getting to see alyssa as well, and possibly even a detour to visit BD at multnomah, time depending; and then down to sacramento/davis to visit rachel, who i haven't seen since march, and who hasn't updated her blog in almost as long); but in terms of cost it will be about the same or a bit cheaper than the road trip, and it doesn't require me to drive for an ungodly amount of hours. i've already got all the days cleared with my assistant manager, so unless the manager decides to veto those because he really needs to go golfing (unlikely, since it'll be november, but he does enjoy his golf) or southwest somehow screws up my tickets or the planes i'm supposed to be on, i'm looking forward to what should be a very enjoyable trip in a few weeks.

so wrong, but so funny

messing with a telemarketer.

quote of the day

"Nobody has accused me of having a real sophisticated vocabulary, I understand that." -- President Bush, as part of this exchange.

the ultimate tool

100th anniversary swiss army knife:

all quiet on the southern front

oh wait, that's a lie. because a teacher in oaxaca, mexico was recently hacked to death with ice picks for refusing to support a state-wide teachers' strike. just another great example of the left being tolerant, i guess.

h/t tongue tied

random historical fact of the day

the city of barcelona is named for the barca family, who were made most famous by hannibal.

Thor's Day, part I

Thus begins a (hopefully) weekly series in which the Norse god of thunder lays the smite-down on whatever it is he feels like smiting at the moment. Because let's face it, who's going to say "Nope, sorry Thor, you can't smite that"? I certainly wouldn't recommend it.

05 October 2006, somewhere outside of Bilskirnir

Me: So, Thor. Can I call you Thor?
Thor:
Me: Right, moving on. Would you like to share a little bit about yourself with our readers? Most of them have never met a Norse god before.
Thor:
Me: Alright then. Anybody who wants to know more about Thor, go here. Now that we've got all the pleasantries out of the way, let's move on to the fun part: the smiting. This week's topic is overrated bands.
Thor: Gnarls Barkley and Snow Patrol.
Me: That was quick. Why those two?
Thor: Gnarls Barkley's music is not nearly good enough to make up for such a stupid name. The first time I saw it I thought, "What the hell? Is Charles Barkley trying to start a comeback career as a rapper?"
Me: OK, I can see that. How about Snow Patrol?
Thor: Again with the stupid name. Also, their music is whiney, and it's a bad idea.
Me: I get the stupid name and the whiney music, but what about the bad idea bit?
Thor: Patrolling the snow. What a waste of time! In my day, if somebody was stupid enough to get themselves lost in the snow deserved whatever they got.
Me: I'm generally with you on stupid people getting what they deserve, but my religion frowns on letting people die.
Thor: What!? You are not a follower of Thor? Die, infidel!

[A brief scuffle ensues, which mainly involves me being thorougly bludgeoned. Before he does any permanent damage, though, I am able to explain to him that my relationship with God is not a personal insult directed at him, and that we can still be friends. He apologizes and offers me a tankard of mead, and we conclude the session.]

Me: Ow. Mjolnir really hurts!
Thor: That's the general idea.
Me: So, I'm going to go recover. And Thor is going to go find something that is not me to smite. Tune in next week, when Thor and I will talk about smiting somebody or something else.

product recommendation

i don't know how many of you ever have the urge to use sealing wax, but if you plan on buying any in the future, i recommend a place called atelier gargoyole. it's not quite as efficient as it could be--they don't have their online shopping cart up yet, so you have to order by fax, phone, or snail mail, but the folks who run it are very helpful and very friendly. they threw in a few packs of matches with my order, and even did a few sample seals--one done with matches, and one with a butane lighter--to show how different types of burning would affect one of the colors of wax i got. for now, i'm going to give them an A-... once they've got the online shopping cart available, that will move up to an A.

gneato

i found a really cool spider at work last friday, and got a few good pictures of it. not sure of the exact species, but it's some variety of argiope. it's now living (unless it's been eaten) in the hops vines in our back yard.

caption contest

sweet, i managed to pull off another honorable mention in the wizbang! weekend caption contest. here's the suit in question.

the end?

well, i finished watching firefly today, special features and all. final verdict: it's a damn good show. better, in my opinion, than some of joss whedon's earlier work. buffy, for example, was always entertaining, but not always good. i think firefly managed to be both. now that i've got a better feel for the characters, i think i need to re-watch serenity and see if i get anything more out of it. while i'm not quite to this level, i do have to say that on the whole, i am very impressed with whedon's work.