Some recent thoughts....
10/14/04
I know I'm not the only one that's entranced by those Overstock.com commercials.... Something about
that woman is even sexier than the DirectTV internet infomercial woman (now appearing as the mother
buying a refrigerator for her "chefs" from Best Buy). I think it's the vague accent, the vague hair
color, the hypnotic pace and tone of her speech.... She also seems to have a wider
mouth than most people; I don't know why that's sexy, but it is (see Juila
Roberts).
She's a martial artist, has a skill called "basic tactical pistol", and she's
done improv comedy with the Groundlings (who I've heard of). Send me more! I saw rumors
that she's done some underwear commercials....
8/02/04
Been in a funk for a while, but something clicked late last week.... I remembered that the source of all my power is a burning inner rage. Connecting with that again has made me feel better than I have in months! It might seem counterintuitive, but between that and some great music I've been pretty happy despite the ordeal of cleaning out my house. To quote a full-blooded asthma hound chihuaua:
Hey... I feel great! I love being angry!
5/28/04
For those laboring under the misconception that I am perfect, I present a non-inclusive non-diagnostic list of the personality quirks I possess that might be distilled into serious problems:
- Superiority Complex
- Inferiority Complex
- Muscle Dysmorphia
- Alcohol Dependence
- Attention Deficit Disorder
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder
- Narcissistic Personality Disorder
- Sociopathy
- General Tendency towards Evil
2/03/04
Someone put up one of my favorite quotes on a message board today:
"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
- (Then Vice-)President George Bush, to Robert Sherman of American Atheist Press,
at Chicago's O'Hare airport while announcing federal disaster relief for Illinois
Not sure what else I can really say.... I wish I could boycott printed money.
1/22/04
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President Bush set me off again with his address to congress on Tuesday.... Not even his bold and timely stand against steroids in professional sports can make up for his other crap. Taking pre-emptive credit for a bunch of stuff that he won't pay for, neglecting to mention the collosal expenditures he supports, and using religious motivation for federal law are just the tip of the iceberg. Every time someone says "God Bless America" I feel a rush of anger- The $87 BILLION bill for bombing Afghanistan and Iraq back to the stone age and building secular governments for people who routinely kill over religious differences should serve as reminder that maybe religion and politics shouldn't mix.
It's the "protection of marriage" that really ticks me off. A Constitutional Amendment? It's easier to get a marriage license than a hunting license- What does the government really stand to lose here, considering that anyone with $75 and a pen can get married? The President of the United Fricking States should have to put forth a serious secular, ethical argument before the words "constitutional amendment" can even pass his lips in a national address.
Any tax money, any time that a politician or legal scholar spends on this is an utter waste.... The only thing dumber than an amendment banning same-sex marriages is one banning flag burning.
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United We Stand!
As a heterosexual completely eligible for a marriage license, I hereby vow not to recognize state-sanctioned marriages until they are legal and recognized for all.*
The power to destroy a thing is the power to control it....
*That is, until Liz stops puting up with my crap.
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And who the hell brings their kids to the State of the Union Address? This is grown-up time, people.... |
No fewer than six people recommended The DaVinci Code to me in the
last month, including a priest. The funny part is that I was reading Umberto
Eco's Foucalt's Pendulum at the time- It seems to me that Brown pretty
much Grisham-ized Eco's work and is making a truckload of money off it, but I
don't know much about conspricay theory. Pendulum was published in 1988,
and he presented the main plot of Code as a commonly accepted piece of
the templar myth. I liked Code, but it pales in comparison to Eco's
superior work; I recommend it to any of you neo-conspiracy theorists willing to
put in the time!
For some reason I've been thinking about the Cobra Hydrofoil lately, and how
I never realized what a hydrofoil was and that I missed one of the few
educational opportunities GI Joe had to offer. Last night I was visualizing the
toy, trying to figure out why I never questioned those things on the bottom of
the boat- I became convinced that they weren't there. Sure, it had a little
stand (since you can't very well play with a pointed-hull boat on the carpet),
but there weren't no damn hydrofoils on the Hydrofoil!
Turns
out I was wrong. Now I'm convinced that the only reason it was a hydrofoil
(as opposed to a normal boat) is that they needed a reason for it to stand flat on
the floor of kids' bedrooms. After all, how many kids knew what a frickin'
hydrofoil was? Plus, I'm pretty convinced that we took that sucker into a pool
once or twice, and I don't remember it magically lifting out of the water when
we chucked it at each other....
Goddammit! I've got a nasty cough today, and I'm getting dizzy from the
menthol fumes inside the Halls of Medicine. You're not supposed to get sick when
you're in good shape, and I'm in better shape than the last.... than I've
been.... crap. You know what I mean. Fricking dizzy throat lozenge crap.
My favorite quote from this week's Onion, mostly because the thought had
occurred to me as well: "Apparently, the type of performance-enhancing drugs
the Raiders were using aren't the kind that help you pressure the quarterback,
stop the run, or establish a goddamn passing game."
Second favorite quote of the day: "Because in the end, science offers us
the only way out of politics." Michael
Crichton speaking to the Commonwealth Club.... Funny, considering that I'll
probably spend the rest of my career slowly abandoning science in the interests
of politics.
It's been a while since I last rapped at ya, but I'm gonna go lay down for a
while. crap.
Do you too suffer from the heartbreak of
Lucas-itis?
These movies are so bad that they diminish the first.... CGI robots and cave
dancing? I don't give a damn about 75% of the people in these movies because
they nor anyone like them was in the brilliant original! My problems with
this movie are too numerous to list exhaustively, but let's go for some stuff on
the surface:
- If your most powerful weapon is the EMP, why not build a few and keep
them around the house rather than sending them off on joyrides to the Matrix?
- If the machines are vulnerable to EMP, why not build some huge-ass
electromagnets in the dock, and aim some pulses toward the roof?
- When the drilling robots are hanging in the air, punching through the roof
for 3-5 seconds, why not launch a few missles at them?
- How much Galaga can two brothers play? Actually, that was kind of cool....
- If you're building a killer flying robot army, why not give them some
frickin' laser beams?
- Why not just turn off the frickin' Matrix before it threatens your
existence? Killing the Agents Smith pretty much did that anyways....
- For people that live in caves and eat amino acid gruel, they sure have
some shiny white teeth.
- No one in the world can drive through a mechanical tunnel! Except for her!
Wow, she's a great pilot! repeat comments every 90 seconds for rest of
movie
- Impaling Carrie Ann Moss on seven or eight hunks of rebar is cool, but can
you pick up the frickin' pace already? Hundreds of people died while we had to
listen to five minutes of a crappy death scene. Note for the future: Short and
simple, pinheads!
- If you're forced to change the Oracle, why not go for a totally different
look? Maybe one of the other potentials could serve as an Oracle? What about
using Neo for the new Oracle at the end, or the little Indian girl?
- Apparently this Merovingian dingus has some history with every freakin'
program in the Matrix, but we don't get to hear about it. Instead of cool
henchmen, he's reduced to Tom Waits with fake teeth.... How bad can this guy
possibly be?
- Can you rip off Dune Messiah any more blatantly?
- How do programs have children? If they just write another program, why not
write it with a purpose?
- Has something happened to make Hong Kong wire-fighting less cool? Not
that I'm aware of.... Instead of freaking out cuz everyone stole your shit,
why not just do it better? The little bit they had was awesome, and just about
everything else in the entire movie sucked rocks.
I'll leave the rest for some other time. It's one thing to suck, but to suck
directly from the teat of George Lucas is quite another.
I'm probably going to see Matrix: Revolutions tonight,
so I've been thinking about the stuff that ticked me off in the first two. On
top of that, my main man Kevin sent me a link to Gregg Easterbrook's recent
thoughts on the series. Finally, someone with a platform pointed out my main
problem with the first (which is otherwise pretty awesome)- If there's no sunlight,
there's no energy to grow the plants that feed the humans. You can't use
them as heat sources if they don't have anything to eat. Besides, you'd get even
more heat by just burning whatever food you're giving them! Computers wouldn't
need us for energy, electricity, or heat when they have giant robots with
onboard fusion power plants.
Instead of holding up a Duracell,
Morpheus should have held up a Pentium!
The human brain is a powerful processor. If one
could only figure out how to harness this processing power.... They'd probably
need to keep the small percentage of the brain that people actually use
occupied, though, or they wouldn't physically develop very well. How might we do
that? Hmmmm....
The sci-fi aspects of this are pretty deep, too, with implications way deeper
than using us for raw energy. As virtual constructs, the techno-overlord folk
couldn't exist without our calculational power; their existence is intertwined
with our own. The Matrix would be more closely tied to the reason for its
existence, making for a cleaner plotline. The Tron aspects of the plot might
have more tension as well.... Sending denizens of the Matrix through their own
looking glasses could make for some great CGI opportunities.... Why bother with
the robots-drilling-to-Zion plotline, when you could have the entire fight
occurring in a virtual world well-established by the first movie?
Anyways, I'm not real enthusiastic about seeing Revolutions. If I want power
armor battles and super-powers I'll rent Robot Jocks and X-Men.
It seems clear to me that the problem with our electoral system is money.
Offices are won with scattershot marketing campaigns designed to hit hot-button
issues, or even worse to strive for raw name-recognition. This means killing
lots of trees and buying lots of advertising time; we end up with photogenic
fundraising puppets in charge of our tax money. I don't really think it's
possible to ever talk to more than about 150 people without spending some major
dough.... The first thing I'll do when I take over: We're becoming a tiered
republic, baby!
More Fun with Numbers!
(150 local
voters)(4 electoral levels) = ~500 Million represented voters = ~175% US
Population
Let's make sure this is clear: Everyone in the country is divided into groups
of about 150 people, and each year they elect the person they trust to vote for
them on local issues. I see this happening similar to a massive personals ad,
where you join a group of local people with beliefs similar to your own. If you
feel strongly about a particular issue, you can create a voting block and elect
someone who shares your goal.
Groups of 150 voters will get together and choose electors for the 22,500
citizens they collectively represent. The electors get together in groups of 150
to choose a senator for the 3,375,000 citizens they represent. Finally, those
86-87 senators choose a president to represent all 292 million of us. Of course,
because it's my system, I'll install myself as president for life.... But after
that it's open to anyone!
Do you see the beauty of this? Voter turnout would be an afterthought- Less
than 1% of the population would have to vote on anything besides which person
they want voting on local issues. The democratically elected voters at every
level won't be career politicians; they'll hire politicians to do a job!
Laws will be crafted by career-minded professionals and voted on by the most
trustworthy people available. The president will put together his own cabinet,
propose candidates to fill job vacancies at the national level, and provide a
focus to the direction of the country. Almost everything will work like it does
now, but there won't be any significant campaign costs to give lobbyists
overwhelming power. Even the highest level representatives could be removed from
office by the will of the people with no more than four levels of voting, so we
don't lose much of the the "accountability" of the current system.
I'll forgive you for not buying into my plans now, but I promise it'll be
really cool once it's in place.
I was thinking about the stock market the other day.... I'm trying to figure
out exactly what it is that bothers me so much about "investing," since I'll
probably have enough money for it to be an issue sometime in the next year or
so. The whole thing just seems fishy, and I think I've got one part of it
figured out.
If people make regular deposits into their market accounts, they're buying
more often than they're selling. This means that one or more of the following
should be true:
- More companies are becoming available for purchase.
- Stocks are becoming more valuable, splitting, and being repurchased as the
net worth of the company naturally increases.
- Prices are becoming inflated, artificially increasing the worth of
companies.
The first is probably true, but is that necesarily good? I don't think there
are that many viable ideas for new companies. The money from privately
held companies that go public probably gets cycled back into the market pretty
efficiently, since the original owner wants to diversify his own investments (or
he wouldn't have sold in the first place). This market pressure is probably
creating unstable businesses that waste the influx of cash that comes from going
public, eventually folding.
The second seems fair, but doesn't solve the basic problem. Someone must be
selling the split stocks.... In fact, I should probably take this off the list.
But a list with only two items looks pretty lame, so I'll leave it.
I think the third is the biggest problem. You can try and circumvent the
first option by being smart about what you buy, and the second implies natural
growth of a company so I'll let it slide. It seems unbelievable to me
that the value of an entire company can be changed by what someone's willing to
pay for a small fraction of ownership, rather than an actual change in whatever
it is that the company does. Ideally the two are related, but I think it's
pretty easy for investors to stop seeing the value of a company in favor of the
value of a stock. Most people seem to have a detachment between their
investments and the companies they invest in....
The vast majority of net worth is held by a tiny minority of actual people.
While all of these little guys are fighting over scraps, it seems obvious that
greater forces are at work. The rich are getting richer, and this is probably
how they're doing it. Sit on your 99% share, and since someone's always
desperate to buy the other 1% your holdings become more valuable. Every dollar
that someone squeaks out means $99 for you, and all you have to do is keep the
company floating.
shudder....
Yesterday I threw out a hand-addressed envelope from Wil Wheaton. I ordered
his book back in May, and after some shipping problems he personally sent me a
copy. The book was okay.... I just had a really hard time throwing away the
envelope. Better than a signature, it's a signature with my name on it! I've had
an autographed picture of Marina Sirtis on my desk for almost 10 years, so why
wouldn't an autograph from Wil Wheaton be just as cool?
Because Troi is
really hot in an awesome ten-years-ago kind of way, but
I'd rather not think about Wil's hotness unless Ashley Judd is involved.
I'll probably fish it out before I take out the trash.... These things take
time.
People really keep a lot of crap in their refrigerators.... After the
hurricane knocked out our power last week, I threw out four tall kitchen bags
full of expired food, but I don't think more than a quarter of it would ever
have been consumed. After that I totally emptied, cleaned, and sterilized the
whole box, which was alternatively disgusting and gratifying. Losing power
really put a perspective on keeping a clean fridge.
I got a lot of reading done, and it would have been more if there wasn't a
generator running 100 feet from my bedroom window at 7:30 every morning. TV just
doesn't hold the same thrall after a week-long absence.... But air-conditioning
will always kick ass. Hurray for
air-conditioning!
President Bush wants $87 billion to continue the "wars" in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Cost estimates for the Middle East wars always make me wonder-
Don't we already have some of these costs budgeted? We've already built the
missles and bullets (although I guess we have to replace the ones we use), we're
already paying the soldiers (even if it's not very much), and we're already
planning to give international aid to needy countries (even if it typically goes
to countries not at war with us). Don't some of the costs overlap with the
mammoth defense budget? Not only did Bush delay Sunday Night Football last
night, but he wants me to chip in for a $87 billion bill?
Fun With Numbers!
$87 Billion / 292
Million People in the US = $297.95 per
Person
To be fair, the $87 billion will probably be paid out over the next few
years, but there's also only about 100 million taxpayers in the US. For the next
three years, my $300 check from Bush is negated by the cost of his two
pre-emptive wars. It's a good thing I'm poor, so most of my $297.95 gets sucked
up by other taxpayers....
As a fun exercise, I did a Google search on "$87 billion" while I was waiting
for a job to process:
No real pattern emerging, but that last one is pretty creepy....
