Dear John,
It’s not me, it’s you. I know that years and years ago there used to be an ‘almost’ thing between us. But that was a long time ago. I was a different person then, and so were you. Now, it’s like I don’t even know you anymore, like you’re trying to be somebody you’re not. I have to say, I don’t really like the man you’ve become.

Look, I’ve heard it all before. You’re “almost there.” You’re “gonna win this one.” But I know the truth. You’re almost out of money and time. Why else would you have waited so long to call? 

So please, stop calling me. It’s been three times today already. You’re waking up the kids. I’ve moved on with my life; you need to do the same. Besides, you’ve got whats-her-face now. She seems like just a six pack and a shotgun away from a party.

You’ve made your choices. Now I’ve made mine. And, no, I’m not waiting until Tuesday; I already did it. It’s over, so stop calling me to talk about how your ‘tax policy’ would be so good for my ‘bottom line’. I know your game, so try selling that one to the Alaskan. Maybe she’ll even tell you to ‘drill here, drill now.” I sure won’t.

-Ray

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i <heart> disaster girl.

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I was dragging a bit Monday morning. The previous night went something like: sleep for two hours, wake to tend child who called out just long enough to get you out of bed before going back to sleep themselves, sleep an hour and a half, wake for dear wife’s early-morning-flight-alarm, sleep 50 minutes, wake to kiss dear wife goodbye for the week, sleep for hour and a half, wake with thoroughly enthusiastic children. 

At one point during the day, in a moment of quiet, I sat with my tired head in my hands, elbows on knees, eye sockets resting in my palms, when I was overcome with the sensation of being a skeleton wrapped in so much meat. Which was a tad weird. 

Certainly, on some level we all realize the nature of our mortal coil but often don’t think of it as such. But there on a bench, with the bones of my skull pressed into the bones of my hands, I could sense my entire skeletal network, visualize all the flesh and sinew wrapped around it, animating it. It’s interesting the things which rise to the surface when things are a tad off.

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Yeah, another time to clean out the ol’ Firefox.

• The new Pepsi logo redesign
• MTV launched their own YouTube-like site for music videos. Rex covered it and then really pointed out how awesome it is: by posting a long list of videos you can watch there. Tip of the old iceburg. And I know in the next month, I’ll end up browsing, drunk, with peeps.
• A set of drawings by a man on acid. I’m a little disturbed that my art style easily falls within the second picture. Brains are weird things.
• am i flirting?
• Rex pointed out the Justice documentary trailer. Nice to see a few SF shots from the show John and I went to. Looks like fun.
• This Greek tragedy re-dub makes me laugh.
• And finally, The Guardian is now offering full feeds for much of its news. Welcome to the 21st century. And now I can get a little bit more than just headlines in my feed reader.

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Just heard on NPR that Ohio has ruled to allow the homeless to vote.* For an address, they can use anywhere they have spent the night recently, including a park bench. And if they don’t have ID, they can use a provisional ballot until details can be confirmed.

This is awesome. This is the kind of thing (and to a lesser extent, the extended voting hours in Florida) that make me believe that people can be reasonable and we could actually move towards a systematic respect and basic rights.

* This article mentions absurdity in Virginia, but I was focusing on the good in Ohio.

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1. Planet Money podcast from NPR which follows the current state of the economy, attempting to explain the issues in clear terms.
2. Countdown with Olberman. Left-leaning politics from MSNBC.
3. Rachel Maddow. You can grab her Air America podcast, but I’m sticking with the MSNBC podcast of her show, which they have now updated to be the entire episode.

Note: all links are through iTunes, because, yes, I’m like that. I also am digging Real Time with Bill Mahr, but HBO isn’t streaming it yet. And Frontline costs money through iTunes, so I haven’t subbed to it either.

What news items are you watching online?

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I’m back from Boston; an amazing trip by any measurement. I’m on the Caltrain, as normal, feeling my blood pressure rise as I wrestle with internet service, undelivered customer service promises and a lack of rest.

I really need to work on the fury that seems to leap up in me from dealing with technology. My internet card has, for some reason, decided to become more, shall we say, fickle about connecting. I can vpn into work, but then all outside comunication drops to somewhere around the speed of a 14.4 modem. Meaning that to simply pull my email means a bunch of hand waving, followed by just sitting, unable to do anything in a browser window. I alternate days now of wanting to throw the card out the window with days of wanting to throw my phone out the window. Good times.

I am going to blame a lack of sleep on my hair-trigger of frustration. I was not well rested before flying across the country and the journey back home did not fix this problem.* I’m cranky and seemingly time-zone independent at the moment. The doctor prescribes coffee today, plus a liberal amount of scotch this evening.

Instead of my bitching about things you don’t need to know (hello, blogs circa 2002), how about some strange animal links: catfish so large they eat people, a spider eating a snake and a spider eating a bird.

Also unrelated but timely: dressing your baby up as Gallegher for Halloween.

* Unrelated to being cranky, but frightening perhaps (and somewhat connected to the new ‘Airport security theater’ article): I flew American and because they now charge 15 bucks to check your first bag, I went back to my pre-2004 ways of carry-on only. I carried my razor, a safety razor, which holds real razor blades. I left blades at home, flying with just the empty razor. And on both flights, security failed to stop me to look at the razor. I can’t believe there is any way at all for them to tell if there is a blade in it by using the z-ray machine and the razor itself is all metal. So hey, guess what — it’s probably a simple way to get a razor blade onto a plane. Yikes.

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