Bar Bill

My silent boycott has succeeded: Lighters Back on Planes

HA!

Yesterday afternoon, I am happily moving along the Charles River Bike Path (on feet, mind you), stopping occasionally to madly flail about when I wanted to take a picture with my new toy (see last entry). All of a sudden, my ear buds start getting funky. No problem, I think, I'll just double check the connection. As I take a look, I do realize that the connection is doing pretty well; it must be the ear buds themselves. Now I'm a bit more frustrated - these ear buds didn't come cheap to only last 6 months. But, what can you do?

I'm close to the Apple Store anyway, so I just make the store a destination. Once there, I pick up a new pair of ear buds and go to Starbucks for a quick iced tea and an unwrapping. Once I have the ear buds unwrapped and attached, I notice the same problem. Now, I'm getting nervous. Further inspection shows nothing stuck in the headphone jack itself. Process of elimination leaves me with only one end result: my iPod's headphone connector is getting wonky. So, in addition to spending a whole lot of too much money on a new digital camera I have now purchased a new iPod 80GB. Thankfully, the pain was lessened somewhat by a 10% discount for "recycling" my old iPod, which is incidentally much better than my earlier practice of leaving them on a dresser until I forget it was broken (true story).

Ok, time to get back to what's really important - flailing helplessly with a Nikon DSLR that doesn't seem to make sense to me.

Between sentencing a teacher for having what was most likely an infected computer in front of students as a sex offender and making using pirated software in a hospital as bad as murder, I am pretty sure the United States is falling apart. My only question is will cooler heads ever prevail in this ever-increasing tabloid nation?

What's next? Please don't answer that.

From Cat and Girl

Antarctica does seem to be one of the safer places anymore, although you do need a lot of sunscreen, preferably in a CFC-producing container, with a SPF rating that ages quickly, and is carcinogenic... wait! I mean not carcinogenic... Oh well...

In the mail tonight came a letter from my land lady. She's offering me the wonderful opportunity to renew my lease here in sunny, warm, nice, quiet, not run down at all Allston, MA. At only $30 more a month, it is a steal (from me, but I digress). Should I take it?

Also, someone needs to find the album art for this CD, it's totally crazy...



Yes, that giant panda just ate a cartoon person. It amused me.

Life has a pretty funny way of sneaking up on you sideways...

After an over four month process, I sold my car today. As freaked out as I am about no longer having the freedom it affords me, I must admit to feeling mostly relief in no longer having to worry about it. There is no doubt that this decision is the best possible one available to me, and I cannot imagine a situation in which I might actually need it.

I am in the middle of attempting to figure out a vacation in Europe for the fall. Right now, I'm torn between Southern France or Northern Italy. I'm also torn about affording it, but that is a situation that should remedy itself relatively soon.

After a series of sureal issues, I have taken to losing weight fairly seriously. Of course, the whole experience has been amusing on some level. I have proven to be far more successful in my January weight loss than the last couple of weeks (12 pounds versus 2). The major difference between January and this time being that I walked about a quarter of the time I am now, and I made no major diet changes. All of this points me towards two possibilities: either I'm putting on muscle mass (in quads, the last place I need it) or my body is totally fucked. I'm hoping for the former, but a little voice tells me the latter is more likely. The dietary changes are the oddest; if I eat more than have recently (which isn't all that much, as I'm on a 1600 calorie diet), I feel like shit for the rest of the day. Perhaps that freakish feature of my appetite might actually be my saving grace.

http://twentymajor.net/2007/01/09/countdown-to-next-election/

It's roll on the ground funny if you follow Irish politics, but it's guffaw out loud funny even if you don't.

Let me be thy guide into how to avoid horrid sffering in times of illness.

First off, if you feel you are getting sick, run your symptoms by a list of symptoms in the past. If the symptoms scream (for example) Sinus Infection, stop thinking it is a cold, such an assumption will always hurt in the end. If a coworker talks about how he or she has (for example) a sinus infection, you probably have one too.

Second, don't put off a trip to the doctor until you can no longer move. I can't stress this step nearly enough.

Third, if you have recently moved and you have an HMO (if you can avoid it, don't have an HMO), make sure you've changed your primary care physician before getting sick. If you've negleted all of my other steps, the last thing you want to do is decide between an emergency room visit or a change of PCP over the phone to some guy you don't know. If you have to make such a choice, choose (unless your copay for ER visits isn't 5 times as much as a visit to your PCP) a new PCP.

Fourth, the only thing worse than trying to find a doctor's office in the city is trying to find a specific doctor's office in the city when it is pouring and you are completely sick.

Fifth, it seems that every doctor's office does things differently, try to figure out what's going on. Looking miserable and lost will do the trick, but there is a feeling of shame associated. This shame is multiplied ten times over if the only thing going through your head is whether or not the diseased substance taking over brain could attack and fly out of your nose as the person is helping you. The shame is multiplied thirty times over if the nurse taking you into the examination room is an attractive member of the opposite sex. If you find yourself in this situation, don't try to make light of the situation. She has seen you at your (I hope for you) worst; she's never going to be interested. If she is, your fever is lying to you; she's got two heads.

Sixth, you are going to be tired, dead tired. Don't think you are going to get any real amount of sleep. Even if you manage to fall asleep, your phone will ring about a half hour into whatever fevered dream you are having. If they know, this is definitely going to be your parents making sure that you are trying to sleep. It seems that even after living with you for decades, the concept of irony is still alien to them.

Finally (and the one mistake I didn't make this time), when on antibiotics, you are (contrary to popular belief) allowed to drink (you probably won't want to, but that's another story), just don't take alka-seltzer and your antibiotic at the same time in the morning. That will make the antibiotic not work, especially if you are special and are taking Zithromax. This info would have made my first trip to Ireland better, not during the trip itself, but it would have negated the need for two more antibiotic runs afterwards.

Also, and this could vary from person to person, give yourself approximately the same number of days it took you to realize that you were really sick to get better. If you smoke, accept the fact that you are going to develop bronchitus symptoms, even if you defeated the root cause. This is because you are stubborn and stupid. I also suspect it has something to do with antibiotic manufacturers and their desire to get people to quit. If I could figure out a mechanism, I would totally check for it...

http://www.negrophonic.com/2007/bjorkdiddygif/

It's probably the funniest animated gif ever (a telephone conversation between bjork and and diddy) (via BoingBoing)

1st - I love South by Southwest and am quite depressed I am not going yet again. Last couple of years, I have gone to Europe right around the same time, so I generally didn't regret the thing too much. This year, I wasn't planning on a trip, so the missing is even worse. However, I do love the massive exposure to great new music once a year that is found in the torrents of available music. This year has proven to be no exception, so for those who have bittorrent and know how to use it: http://player.sxsw.com/torrents/SXSW_2007_Showcasing_Artists-Release_1.torrent. There will of course be more of these, but this is 739 new mp3s for those who love finding new music.

2nd - Europe. I have been flipping back and forth over what I wanted to do this year with regards to my annual trip across the pond. I had resigned myself to maybe a September trip, depending on finances. Now, it looks like I might actually get to sell my car soon, which would mean a fairly massive infusion of cash. This would give me the opportunity to travel a bit earlier. My original thinking towards this trip was dependant on timing. UK if it was in the spring or Portugal in the fall.

A couple of days ago, I had an idea that I refer to as The Very Bad Idea, which would consist of going to a massive festival in September outside of Doolin, County Clare (I'm not making it easy for you; if you want to know what makes it The Very Bad Idea, you're going to have to figure it out by yourself - Kenny, don't help). And now, I am thinking maybe Iceland would be a lot of fun, plus a quick look at airfares has it in line with last year's trip to the Erin shore. So, I think if I sell the car quickly enough, I might do this late March or early April. Then, if I hate everything in September, I can always do The Very Bad Idea.

As the horrid weather let me out of work an hour early and I am single, I did something real exciting today, my taxes. So, we have the usual depressive epeisode that comes from dealing with governing bodies. It's not that I really mind paying taxes, I mind paperwork. This is the main reason why I support a flat income tax: simplicity. To top it off, this year I worked in two states, a painful experience in the best of times. One state is Rhode Island, thus greatly increasing the screwwing. Therefore, I went in to this situation in the correct frame of mind.

Now for some fun facts about my income (sans actual numbers): I worked up in Boston for the last quarter of 2006. I worked in RI for the rest of the year. In my time in Boston I madde a shade over three times as much as the rest of the year. This means that I somehow managed to not have my car repossesed and to go to Ireland on what was essentially pennies a day (not literally, it seems, but much less than 20 dollars a day) gross.

On more positive news, today I officially paid off my car, meaning that it shall soon appear on craigslist, hopefully sponsoring a trip of drunken exploits somewhere socialist.

I was named after William O. Douglas (obviously during my father's ill fated ACLU membership days). Up until now, I really never paid much thought to the man, so much so that I never even looked at what he stood for. There was a reason for this: for a long time I thought he named me after Rehnquist, as I was young and new of the Chief Justice from the news. My father corrected me a couple of years ago, but I never found it all that important.

Having said that, a look now at William O. Douglas's opinions seems almost surreal.

for making Boston's issues last week seem sane: Link

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/02/joyce_and_becke.html

I should warn you of the coarse language, but it is absolutely hilarious.

As per our conversation a couple weeks ago, here you go, a cell phone watch:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/06/up-close-with-the-m300-mobile-watch/

As children, politicians are the ones who, when their favorite toy was misplaced, they would attack the nearest three kids weaker for being thieves. And when said toy was found in the proto-politco's backpack, well the other kids were still asking for it.

1st - I need to figure out if there is a way to report a completely hapless mailman. In the past 2 weeks, I have been mailed 8 parcels. One was a mass mailing, so really 7 parcels. Two made it into my mailbox. The girl next door keeps stopping by with my mail. While it is nice to finally get to know my neighbors, this is getting a bit out of hand... I keep thinking of leaving him a note saying that mail for apartment 400 belongs in the apartment 400 mailbox, but I haven't been able to come up with a way to write it without comparing him to Mayor Menino...

2nd - Speaking of Menino, apparently being completely unhinged an admitted bizarre day doesn't seem to effect a majority of people living up here, as anyone over 30 seems to be flipping out over the 8-bit terrorist sons of bitches. You would think that the old people wouldn't fear death as much as the youngsters, as they ARE ALMOST THERE, but you would be wrong. Shit, are you fucking serious? I bet you still get reelected, you egomaniacal sack of shit. I really despise you, and hope you put your name all over this stupid case just like you do with any fucking thing happening in this city so that when it all goes to hell, you go with it. Moron. I have learned to abhor you more than Alan Shaw Fucking Feinstein, and as anyone from Rhode Island will tell you, that's a FUCKING DIFFICULT THING TO SAY.

I just hope that if I am ever faced with running a city (not a goal, I should add), I will be only half as incompetent as you. Which, if the city is Boston, should mean that I get to rename Southie after myself. Which would be kinda cool...

That's not a hair question.

To those wondering, I double checked with some people, but there is a procedure in place to use during situations like this. Its called SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH THE PRESS. Menino is an idiot, and the press are looing for the big story. Mixing the two only leaves the residents of this city with one conclusion: OH MY GOD! WE ACTUALLY DIED THREE HOURS AGO AND NOBODY TOLD US!

I imagine the whole went something like, "Oh hey guys, sorry about all the trouble. You see, we actually had two issues today and kind of mixed up what was important. We are kind of pissed at Turner, but we realize they weren't trying to make a big stink of things. This guy with the fake pipe bombs that we let slip through the cracks, well that was our bad. We are working very hard on finding this guy so that we can get that little issue out of the way... Again, we probably shouldn't have made this whole thing an international issue, because, as it turns out Al Qaeda doesn't actually get the Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The CIA gave us that bit of info. It turns out the apropriate hidden bomb for them is, well this is kind of embaressing, a gallon of oil. Aparently, they think that we will just grab that shit and dump the crude right into the tanks of our Hummers, which everyone drives... In a completely unrelated note, my Hummer is in the shop, and I needed to take a couple of grand to have my name written all over the new hummer you, the wonderful citizens of Boston, bought me to help me out through this mess... What? The camera was off? We're on now? ...The people of Boston will accept no quarter from these two art school terrorists! We're going to sue them for one million dollars each, and, um, yeah, throw their punk asses in gitmo! Thank you and good night."

Once again, MORON. God, I'd vote for a retarded cat for mayor over our current option...

Jeans with buttons instead of a zipper are annoying for guys.

The Charles does freeze, quite easily even.

Chuckles may or may not have been piling bullshit, but almost every time I see a Boston cop, he's sucking down on a cigarette (I've counted about 30 when I think to check).

Liberals are just as bad as conservatives (ok, this wasn't recent, but constantly confirmed).

A website, designed and implemented over five years by four different people never at the same time is utterly impossible to look at it and understand unless you devote a quarter of a year and half of your sanity.

The average BU student is much like the average URI student, alternating from loud drunk to unconscious to entitled brat in about five seconds.

It takes about two hours to walk from BU to Lechmere stopping only to warm up enough to feel the pain of frostbite.

No matter which direction you are heading, public transportation will always be running three times as much in the opposite direction. always.

Every time I walk over the Mass Ave Bridge, I want to know what a "SMOOT" actually is, but whenever I am not walking over the bridge, I find my curiosity strangely sated.

For those who went to URI and know the story, working relations with a graduate of the Delta Delta Delta sorority can be interesting in so far as you must always keep that one comment to yourself.

The most useful thing I've learned from URI was how to act like a state employee and never let something minor like the fate of your employer really bother you.

Hope these little tidbits help...