| And make me some pie! |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|10:34 am] |
 |
|
|
| |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|09:39 am] |
So I started to write a loooooong post about the weekend. I got to about Saturday night and realized it was too long for even me to read. So I'll sum it up thusly:
Dying of death. Kate taking good care of me. Visited mom. Visited Mannix. Bought a new Wii game. Saw Hancock. Had my car towed because I was parked illegally. Saw Fireworks. Celebrated 16 years of Rocky Horror. Watched Venture Brothers. Slept a whole lot to kill the death disease monster. Took off work Monday to work more on that. Still dying.
All in all, other than the death part, it was a great weekend. |
|
|
| Get a Free Audiobook for reviewing my book! |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|09:43 am] |
Get a free ebook for reviewing my book online!! Even if you already reviewed my book, follow the instructions and get your free ebook! Thanks for your support!
-Devyn Amazon.com & BN.com Review Promotion Amazon.com review programme has been extended to now include reviews on BarnesAndNoble.com. In addition, we have extended the deadline for reviews until Dec. 31, 2008. Under this programme, you will earn free ebooks or audiobooks if you write reviews of our products that are posted on Amazon.com. Here's how it works... 1) People who post a review of one of our titles on Amazon.com or BarnesAndNoble.com are eligible.
2) According to the rules on these sites, you need not have purchased the book/audiobook/DVD from the site to review it there. On Amazon.com, you need an account to post a review; this means that you must have purchased something in the past there, or that you create a user profile (they tie these to credit card numbers, so the profile will need a credit card added.) You do not need to have made a purchase on BN.com in order to post a review.
If you have purchased one of our products - from any source - take a few moments to find the product's listing on Amazon.com or BN.com and post a brief review of the product. Reviews need only be a few short sentences to qualify, and must meet Amazon or B&N's rules for acceptability: no profanity, reviews must be of the product not the author, etc.
3) Once the review is live on the site, the reviewer must fill out the form at http://www.mmpubs.com/business_consumer.html to tell us where it is posted, their contact information, and the product that they would like to receive for free. They may receive ANY ebook or audiobook from our web site (www.mmpubs.com/catalog) -- they just need to let us know which one.
4) We will contact them with further details. Basically, they then register on our site, and we will add the free product to their profile so that they may return and download the digital product at their convenience. Your application will be reviewed and within 2-3 business days you will receive download instructions for your free ebook or audiobook.
(And, yes, you can enter a review for the free ebook or audiobook to earn an additional free ebook or audiobook. And so on, and so on...)
This promotion is only available for a limited time, and may be ended without notice, so get you reviews in early. |
|
|
| |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|02:23 pm] |
I'll give next person who pays for a ticket for the convention a nifty piece of Rocky Horror memorabilia.
EDIT: The winner of this contest was Jamie Froemming. Congratulations! |
|
|
| Don't forget to watch the movie... |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|12:01 pm] |
A disturbing number of films from the golden age of cinema are incomplete or lost forever. A few of these I'd known about, like the missing scenes from King Kong and Lost Horizon--and I'd go walk pretty far to see the 1917 Cleopatra, but there was one I hadn't been aware of: Metropolis.
I've seen the film, of course, but had no idea that it was missing more than 90 minutes from the original Berlin release. Evidently, it isn't Fritz Lang's fault the movie makes so little sense--after its lukewarm release in Berlin, Paramount brutally edited the film for an American release, resulting in a huge loss of scenes and plot. The cut scenes were lost, and modern editions are cobbled together from bits and pieces of existing releases, but are still an hour and a half short.
I learned this this morning. Because the German magazine Die Zeit announced on Tuesday that a complete print of Metropolis has been discovered in Buenos Aires.
Somehow nobody discovered just how valuable it was until now, despite the fact that it's been held by Argentina's National Art Fund and then the Buenos Aires Museum of Cinema for the last fifty years. Gives a bit more hope for all those other lost treasures, dunnit?
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to check the attic for a copy of Cardenio.
[update: Die Zeit also has stills from the discovered reels.] |
|
|
| I wanna get down on my knees, and start pleasin' Jesus... |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|08:20 am] |
I've said for a long time that I don't much like people, but I love persons.
People, when they respond as members of a group, start to get stupid. They buy more extreme party lines, they stop listening to evidence and accept ideas based on what their friends believe, and get less tolerant of difference. They're more likely to buy eye-for-an-eye arguments. They get more scared by real threats, exaggerated threats, and things that're simply unfamiliar.
A person, on the other hand, will generally be pretty laid back about differences, listen to reason (though the two of you may still end up disagreeing), and take a whatever-works-for-you attitude. As long as you give another person an opportunity to see you as a human being, I've found that nine out of ten do.
This is one of the reasons I love the US so much. Our groups are often ridiculously intolerant, telling us that gay people are hellbound sinners, that gun owners are babykillers, that marriage is rape, or that brown people are all latent terrorists or dirty parasites, or a hundred other flatly false ideas and the majority of people will tell you that they support at least a one of those groups and what it stands for... But take those people out of their groups, talk to them human-to-human, and it'll almost always turn out that they're much less intolerant than the groups they claim to agree with.
Case in point: The US is positively lousy with religion. We're possibly the most religious developed nation, and more than three quarters of us identify as Christian. Our society and government are pushed hard by Evangelical groups, most of which these days have a strong dominionist agenda of converting the world and enshrining their religious rules into law.
... And yet last year's Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 70% of Americans think that other religions can also lead to eternal life.
The Religious Landscape Survey's findings appear to signal that religion may actually be a less divisive factor in American political life than had been suggested by the national conversation over the last few decades. Peter Berger, University Professor of Sociology and Theology at Boston University, said that the poll confirms that "the so-called culture war, in its more aggressive form, is mainly waged between rather small groups of people." The combination of such tolerance with high levels of religious participation and intensity in the U.S., says Berger, "is distinctively American — and rather cheering."
A small number of people have really learned how to use our modern media to warp people's perceptions of the world, and we know that the ability to warp perceptions is usually stronger than having the better argument. But it's nice to know that at our core we're still a nation of crotchety individualists. The kind who'll say "yeah, whatever. You ain't breakin' my leg, so go ahead and worship whatever you want." Maybe someday soon we'll get past the spin and be able to say the same for marriage. |
|
|
| Hokay, schveethott... |
[Jul. 2nd, 2008|09:29 am] |
Studio Foglio is offering pins of the Jägermonster symbol:
 |
|
|
| "Swallow your tears and look to your heart." |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|06:07 pm] |
Some news:
- The latest Jeff Mach event has come and passed. I got girls coming up to me after the show squealing, and some reports that I wasn't at my best. So maybe it was a hit-and-miss night for me. I felt pretty good about it. It was a long, tough, tough show, though. During one of Angie's songs, I realized I had three and a half minutes to go from the first floor, across a long hallway, past the lobby, up four flights of stairs, across the hall and into my room to get an essential item of clothing. I did it. I almost killed myself in the process, but the relaying made for a good monologue, so it all worked out.
- Speaking of good monologues, I finally can add Elaine Stritch to my list of people I've seen live. Genevieve and I went to Hartford to see her and I loved it all. I saw her after the show briefly but did not really get to talk to her. She is old, and was sick. It happens. She put on a great show.
- Work has been busy as hell. We're doing ok, tho. It's not unlike that running up the four flights of stairs, tho.
- Gay Pride was Sunday. We went to the march, and I had a good time. Lots of exposed male flesh that made me feel somewhat lonely as it passed by.
- 2 shows coming up in this month alone. Lots to work on, worry about, and get through. It's a rewarding experience, tho. It's my favorite thing.
- I finally got my CD rack. It is beautiful. |
|
|
| |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|01:47 pm] |
A couple of amusing credit card related links
The Credit Card Prank: How crazy does one man need to make his signature before someone notices.
The Credit Card Prank 2: The man continues his descent into madness till he finally found a place that stopped him.
Pimp My Card: Make your card sport any look you want - and it still functions!
Credit Card Customer Service: For those who have issues with giving out their mother's maiden names on the phone.
He is also currently in the middle of a bit involving getting a Black Centurion Amex for Barack Obama. Its not quite as good as the others but interesting so far. |
|
|
| When I hold you in my arms... |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|11:08 am] |
 |
|
|
| |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|10:56 am] |
I am not feeling good today. I stopped at Starbucks this morning with Kate. I got a sugar-free vanilla iced latte and one of the pseudo healthy egg beaters/reduced fat cheese/turkey bacon on a whole wheat English muffin. And now, nausea.
But thats not the point of my complaint. Today I am complaining about commuting. Last night I left my office at a semi reasonable hour. 6pmish. I got to Port Authority shortly thereafter and it was packed. Not your usual packed either. It was filled with lines that wrapped around corridors. The lines impeded traffic to the various shops. The escalators to every gate were stopped. It was way too crowded. It was the last day of the month AND the first day of the week - so its not unusual to be crowded. But not this sort of crowded. The ticket vending machines were all full with their own unusually long lines. I called Kate and told her to eat without me. I had dinner in Port Authority and bought a book to wait out the 40 minutes till the lines were reasonable enough to warrant waiting on.
This morning after Starbucks I waited for the bus. Typically you can expect a bus to come by with one or two seats. My stop is right at the cusp of where the buses turn to be standing-room-only. Except today five buses passed by me that were ALL standing room only. As a result I didn't get to my office until right around 10:30.
This is clearly a sign of less people driving into work because of high gas prices and instead relying on public transportation. Thats great for the environment. But it SUUUUUUUUCKS for my commute. I think this is really only the start of the trend and that its going to get worse before it gets better. |
|
|
| Hokay, to elaborate somewhat on my last post... |
[Jun. 26th, 2008|11:30 am] |
Some of you have been following DC v. Heller, but this may be the first some of you are hearing of it.
A bit of background. As most Americans are aware, the second Amendment protects the indivudual's right to keep and bear arms. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Now, there's a lot of disagreement about gun control in this country, and lots of discussions to be had, but one of the givens is that, to some extent or other, the people have the Constitutional right to own guns. Unfortunately, throughout recent history gun control advocates have tried to circumvent the 2A through a variety of backhanded tactics, from reading creative definitions into the words of the amendment to imposing prohibitive conditions on the ownership of guns that _amount_ to bans. The most destructive, though, is the "collective rights" argument. Using the prefatory clause to argue that the amendment _only_ refers to militias, anti-gun crusaders have passed blatantly unconstitutional laws on the grounds that the Second Amendment protects not a right to keep and bear arms, but merely a right to enlist in the Army.
Whatever you think about gun control, this is blatant bullshit. Constitutional rights must be protected even when you don't like them, just like when I grudgingly admit that Holocaust-denying fucks and anti-gay fundamentalists have the same free speech rights I do.
In DC v. Heller, the Supreme Court, for the first time ever, tested whether the Second Amendment is a collective or individual right.
I haven't read the whole release yet (it's 150 pages!), but the decision itself is brief, concise, and at the top of the document. It rules on some points specific to DC, but this is the wider conclusion:
Held:
1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
...The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The antifederalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved...
Again, whatever you may think about gun control, this is a victory for the Constitution. Maybe now we can have an honest discussion about what limits on 2A rights are reasonable, without this constant distraction from the hardcore anti-gunners.
Incidentally, you may be hearing lots of fearmongering from anti-gun groups about how this ruling would let your neighbor own a nuclear weapon or somesuch. In reality, the Court _also_ spelled out what their ruling _doesn't_ say. ( Details are under the cut. )
Short version: most Federal and state restrictions on gun purchases and allowable types of weapons will stand just as they are; it's only the absurdly overreaching laws of places like DC, NYC, Philadelphia, NJ, and Mass that will face new scrutiny.
So far, I'm very proud of this Court. First they tell Bush in no uncertain terms that he can't deny terrorism suspect access to the civilian courts, and now they faced this issue and didn't shy away from ruling directly on the core point. Lesser courts have dodged the issue by ruling only on minor procedural aspects of the cases at hand--this one went straight for the heart. |
|
|
| Happiness... |
[Jun. 26th, 2008|10:22 am] |
The lower court's opinion in Heller v. DC was upheld! :D
Hu-fucking-zah!! |
|
|
Taken from ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dizzy150 |
[Jun. 26th, 2008|10:17 am] |
Rules: Post 3 things you've done that you believe nobody else on your F-list has done. Indulge in remorse if someone calls you out on a listed item.
1. Flew a midget from London to New York for other people's entertainment
2. Purchased a statue of Mayor McCheese
3. Done a photo shoot my boss's office wearing a Kool Aid Man costume. |
|
|
| |
[Jun. 26th, 2008|09:51 am] |
|
Today goes two days in a row with no hot water in the apartment. Yesterday we figured it was a fluke. Today Kate called the superintendent. Apparently there will be no hot water till Monday as the hot water heater has a leak or a broken part or hot water is an offense to some lesser god with an agenda. I don't know. All I know is sans good hot showering I am sleepy. I might shower at my mom's tomorrow. Tonight I have a DI meeting. Tomorrow morning two people from my client firm are coming to visit. One from Australia and one from London. I'm gonna have to wear a shirt with buttons on it. I also think I heard a rumor that I might be flying into St. Louis soon. It was originally supposed to be happening Monday but I haven't heard anyone say that I should book my ticket yet. |
|
|
| |
[Jun. 25th, 2008|05:52 pm] |
|
In an attempt to stream line my life and possessions, I just streamlined my theoretical possessions. In the past 15 minutes, I just cut 2 and a half pages from my main Amazon wishlist, after cross referencing things I had on there that the library carried and also considered that I don't need half the CDs and DVDs that were on there. More purging soon. This time of the physical possessions sense. |
|
|
| Oh, and in case anyone's forgot or didn't know, this is where you should go this Saturday! |
[Jun. 25th, 2008|05:00 pm] |
 |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| |
|
|
moody