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More Iraq, and More Iraq (Saturday, December 13)

Jesse lost his non-paying job last week, so I bought him an abundance of beer. I drank enough beer that I don't remember much of the actual beer drinking, but he did lend me a book I had long wished to read. It's a biographical account of a Marine Corps grunt who made it through the Gulf War in one piece. I'll share a couple of paragraphs from Anthony Swofford's _Jarhead_, along with my own commentary. Here we find him marching through a valley filled with bombed-out Iraqi equipment, and dead, burnt, and surrendering Iraqi soldier: (573 words)

Got Miles? Support our Troops! (Thursday, December 11)

Are you doing enough for the war effort? I just discovered that the government is giving soldiers two-week furloughs to visit home, but the air fare only takes them as far as Baltimore, Atlanta, or Dulles. That is the suck, and hopefully an embarassment for the Commander-in-Chief, but that's not the point, the real point is that plenty of patriotic folk are chipping in their unused frequent-flier miles, and the airlines are allowing this, so the troops can make it home for Christmas, and in the coming months, to visit their loved ones, without having to shoulder the steep financial burden of short-notice airfare on their modest military pay. (116 words)

"I am Qualified ..." (Tuesday, December 9)

Sometimes I'm sending out a cover letter for a job, and you know, sometimes it's time to have some fun. I prefaced one today as follows: (168 words)

Changing Spectacles (Tuesday, December 9)

Former U.S. Senator from Illinois, and Democratic candidate for President, Paul Simon, has died. (87 words)

Fearless Failure (Monday, December 8)

In case you haven't already received some e-mail from your favorite nerds about it, it is noteworthy that if you visit Google, enter the phrase "miserable failure" and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky" you'll be treated to the official biography of our featured American President. (64 words)

Farewell, Madeline (Tuesday, December 2)

So, the past few days, Mom's cat, Madeline, had been extremely lethargic. Not only had she stopped eating food for the past four days, but two days before had stopped drinking. And while she was barely inclined to move and would walk awkwardly around the house, she fought strongly when Mom would try to give her fluids. (660 words)

Spam Count, Mail Config (Tuesday, December 2)

Since Monday, October 27: (109 words)

Trans-Atlantic Thinking (Sunday, November 30)

I will share a few paragraphs I found recently that help me understand some of the important ways in which European political thinking is different from American political thinking: (668 words)

Worth a Chuckle (Tuesday, November 25)

From an item in The Register, on Dell's efforts to off-shore tech-support calls to India: (52 words)

Thank You Magic Civil Servant Supervisor Lady! (Wednesday, November 19)

So, I called California's DMV and I got through on the second call. I navigated through the phone tree, and spoke with a woman who was exceedingly friendly. She confirmed that I'm still blocked by Palo Alto, there was nothing she could do, but she managed to fill me in on the details of the incident. It was 9/8/01. You don't remember? Well, that's over two years ago ... wait ... that's near 9/11/01, which was a few days after I crashed my car. Apparently, in the haze of frustration with being broke, unemployed, and car-less I was supposed to go to court to explain myself for driving in to the poorly-lit obstacle upon which I crashed my car. Ah! So, I'm being haunted by the ghost of one of the darker weeks of my life! So be it! (640 words)

Bureaucratic Mysteries (Tuesday, November 18)

I received a credit card in the mail today, which is kind of interesting because I haven't applied for any credit cards lately. It was from Chase. I used to have a Chase credit card, which I layed off as soon I was able to pay off the balance that I had transferred to it to reduce my interest expenses. After puzzling over the enclosed literature, I determined that they were sending me a replacement credit card. Since MBNA yanked my Linux Fund MasterCard, because I'm a dirt broke po' gangsta with no credit, I figured this $1,500 credit limit might be worth keeping anyway. I called them up to get the story straight that it just plain slipped their mind that I'd ever cancelled anything, and make sure they weren't going to charge me any annual fees, then I called them again so I could pull the sticker off the front of the card and now I'm qualified to float an extra $1,500 short-term debt at 6.99% APR. (588 words)

Frankenstein's Laptop (Thursday, November 13)

I've spent a little too much time hacking on my laptop lately. And by hacking, I mean hardware, and by hardware hacking, I mean an iron file, wire cutters, trimming off chunks of plastic, and of course carpet tape, electrical tape and duct tape, all in an effort to install an internal keyboard. (423 words)

Contingencies (Monday, November 10)

Exactly two months of unemployment left. (131 words)

The Transporter (Monday, November 10)

Vern, Richard, Julia and I went out to Old Orchard to see the third Matrix movie on Friday. I don't think any of us really wanted to watch it, so much as we are all geeks and have to catch the latest installment of geek canon. I could be wrong, though. I was fairly entertaining. It moved better than the last movie, I think, which was all-virtual-kung-fu-all-the-time, but it sure had a bit of drag to it. Julia put it best during a death scene that was drawn out for way too long with horrible, horrible, lame, crappy, formula dialog, by calling out "Oh just die already!" (645 words)

"Dean Clark" (Monday, November 10)

So, last night I figured it out. If Dean and Kerry are the front-runners, at least for me, then you'd balance the ticket with one of the pretty Southerners who are running for Vice President. Since Kerry's a veteran, and not all that handsome, he gets Edwards, who is pretty enough to be in a girly magazine and can woo women with his Southern drawl. Howard Dean needs Wesley Clark as his wingman. A southerner and a general. (161 words)

U.S. Stands Alone Beside Israel's Policy of Pissing Off Muslims (Tuesday, October 21)

Since I'm being a news dork this week, allow me to paraphrase an AP wire report on our nation's latest outrage: (271 words)

TSA Ignores Box-cutter E-mail Tip (Monday, October 20)

If you have any curiosity about the box-cutter kid, I recommend this excellent AP item. (254 words)

Public Radio, Mini-vans and Cell Phones (Monday, October 20)

Overhead on WBEZ, during their pledge drive, just now: (79 words)

Misquote for BayLISA (Wednesday, October 15)

From: Danny Howard To: baylisa-chat Subject: Re: misquotes & sidesteps (and hiding behind podiums) (280 words)

Steady Progress on All Fronts (Wednesday, October 15)

They are emptying our dumpster. This is normally done on Thursday, except that they've missed the past few weeks due to the garbage haulers' strike. The strike is now over and it would seem our dumpster in now emptied. Yay! (217 words)

No One Expects the Spanish Imposition! (Sunday, October 12)

Surprise is the key element. (201 words)

Recalling "Demolition Man" (Wednesday, October 8)

Those who live in California ought to be grateful, in that when their government is seized in a coup d'etat, the replacement is not a military general, but a Hollywood actor who has played one. At least the rest of the government is still in the hands of Democrats. (268 words)

Colin Powell: Saddam Not a Threat ... so why did we Lie? (Sunday, September 28)

Joe Conason points to a press conference in February, 2001, in which Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed that Saddam Hussein possessed no significant weapons of mass destruction: (734 words)

Pimpin' (Friday, September 26)

Getting over a nastily sneezy cold. It's raining outside but the weather was nice when I did my shopping today. I got deoderant at Walgreens and then browsed through the newest, largest Dollar Store among the handful already occupying the strip-mall at Howard and Western. They had a strict $1 price for each item, so there were no price tags, except for a few places where there were say, two for $1 or four for $1 items. Nevertheless, I overheard somebody ask an employee how much an item cost. They had some fairly nice things in there. I left the store with the impression of a garage sale gone full-out retail. (414 words)

Tora! Tora! Tora! (Thursday, September 25)

Last night I was flipping channels and I caught the excellent war movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" which was the code sent to Japanese fighters that their mission to bomb Pearl Harbor was to proceed as planned. This is a fantastic movie, which tells the story well from both sides. The Japanese soldiers and the American soldiers are portrayed with equal measures of humanity, in their respective languages. There is even a sense of humor, when one famous Japanese pilot responds to a subordinate that of course the new Zero is even better than the Messerschmitt - he has personally seen the latter in combat over London! (406 words)