one step closer to normalcy… i now have an ethernet hub installed, which means that i now have a network: i can share information on one machine and access it from another machine. i also have internet access from all machines. this may sound ordinary, but it’s not. i’m still surrounded by boxes, i don’t have all of the shelves installed, i don’t have a workshop space set up, i don’t even know where i’m going to put my workshop, i still hate my job, don’t get paid enough and i have no insurance(!!)

so i’ve got internet access from all of my computers… whoopee… 8/

well, i’m still going to search out some kind of treatment for what might be PTSD, but things are a lot better today… today majid got the very clear and definite message that indesign, whether for windows or mac, is probably not going to be the best decision for our shop, and i didn’t even have to do anything. first, it turns out that both the black and white laser printer slash copier, and the colour laser printer slash copier, both of which are machines that cost multiple thousands of dollars to replace, are old enough that the manufacturers don’t make drivers for either windows XP, or mac osX, and have no plans to make them in the future… second, for some unknown reason – but apparently confirmed by adobe tech support – indesign CS2 wants documents that you are working on to be local, and not on the network… if it’s on the network, something bad happens to indesign, and it shuts itself off with no warning… precipitously… to be specific, it crashes, and not very gracefully. previous versions of indesign apparently don’t do that (i’ve tried it with indesign CS and 1.5 on both mac and windows and have had no problems opening documents over the network), and all of the documents that we work on are on the network… and quark works over the network with no problems… i REALLY wanted to say "i told you so" to majid, but i somehow kept my mouth shut… he was fuming… he spent 4 hours on the phone with tech support and he just bought the software, so now is definitely the time to find major flaws in it… hee hee…

also, i went over to gunnar’s today after work, and he got me really stoned, so i’m feeling a lot better than i have for a while…

i’ve been feeling REALLY depressed recently. it seems as though my life is getting exponentially more difficult on a daily basis, and i simply don’t have the energy to keep up any longer. i live in a tiny house that only has enough space for me to unpack about a quarter of the stuff that i currently own, and the rest of it, and most of moe’s stuff as well, is stacked around me in boxes, in the bedroom, in the dining room, in the living room, in what passes for my office (which was supposed to be my workshop as well, but there isn’t enough room), and in both of our unheated, uninsulated sheds outside. in one of the sheds – the more waterproof of the two, but that’s not saying much – i have three or four stacks of boxes that contain books and papers and suchlike, and my drill press and band saw (along with a bunch of other stuff), and i’m afraid that if i don’t move them to a less damp environment pretty soon (thank god for the relatively dry weather we’ve been having so far), they’re going to be a growing mass of mold and rust by the time i finally get around to doing anything about it.

and the reason i live in a house that is not big enough is that i was unemployed for 9 months immediatly prior to my moving here, and then when it was settled that we were going to move here, i got a job, so now i have to work 9 hours a day, plus at least an hour and a half commute each way (and that’s if moe gets off work on time, which she frequently doesn’t), and when i get home i’m SO EXHAUSTED that i barely have enough energy to take a shower, much less do the myriad of other things that have to be done, like mowing the lawn, or unpacking boxes, or dealing with incense orders…

then there’s the fear that i’m soon going to be living in a place that could very easily turn into one of those places… you know, the ones that have boxes of moldy books, and piles of dirty dishes, and dirty laundry, and animal filth everywhere, and nobody who cares enough to do anything about it, and you wonder how it is that people can actually live that way…

then there’s my job itself… to say that i hate my job is a simple, but understated way of putting it. specifically, i hate that my bosses have so much control over me and what i do for 9 hours a day, five days a week, and yet they know practically nothing about the nuts and bolts of the business they are in. i hate the fact that when i get frustrated, i have even more difficulty than usual in talking, when it’s essential that i be able to communicate clearly and effectively, especially when i get frustrated. i hate that i have an easier time showing people something than i do telling them about it, especially when those people are my bosses, and they have very little time to be shown things that don’t really concern them anyway. i hate that i am the only native english speaker in the shop (greg doesn’t count, because, although he was born in the united states, he’s black and from new orleans, so he might as well be a non-english speaker), and even when i am not frustrated, simply saying something is frequently a challenge. i could go on for days…

i have my computers sort of set up, but i can only use one of them at a time, because i haven’t had the energy, time or space to attach them to the ethernet hub that i bought last weekend. i have to make an invoice for dr. howard for the business cards i made for him four months ago, but i can’t, because that’s on the other computer. i have an incense order that’s been sitting on top of a stack of boxes, half filled, for a month and a half, and there’s no telling when i’m going to get around to ordering the rest of the incense so that i can fill it. i’ve got to take out the trash and the recycling – AGAIN – for all the good it’s going to do. i eat lunch because i get a lunch break, but i have not eaten breakfast or dinner for a long time (a month and a half?), because there’s no food, and even if there was, i’d have to cook it before i could eat, and then i’d have to clean up afterwards, and i just don’t have enough energy to commit to doing that. i’ve got to take a shower (for some reason, after my injury, my sweat stinks even more than it used to). and somewhere in there i’ve got to get enough sleep to make it through another day just like it tomorrow… which NEVER happens…

utter exhaustion…

really, i’ve had a rough week with majid and his PC/indesign fantasies, which are getting more unrealistic and more idiotically single-minded as time goes on – apparently his friend mike, who owns a minuteman press in downtown seattle, said that he made the decision to go with PC and indesign two years ago, when indesign was first released, and hasn’t regretted it… but he’s not a designer or a typographer, he’s a business owner, and there’s a good bet that if you asked his designer(s), you’d get an entirely different response… and it is my guess that he would experience less overall chaos if he made the decision to go with any platform and application combination and stuck with it for any length of time – but that still doesn’t mean that he’s getting things done the most efficiently, or the right way. alhthough he hasn’t fired me yet, i’m officially looking for a new job, because he probably will eventually, and if he doesn’t i’m going to walk out on him as soon as i can… 8/

my right arm has been more than ordinarily tired, to the point where i actually have to look at it before i can get it to do anything… like typing… this has already taken about twice as long as it would have ordinarily, because of misspellings and backspacing and extra spaces and suchlike… it looks like more acupuncture is in my future. my next appointment is next saturday, just before chris goes to bali for his honeymoon… i’m hoping he’ll pick me up a pair of gongs while he’s there.

and that’s not to mention the cirque performances, which are going extremely well, although it looks like tonight will be the last night we ever perform in seattle, because the mayor has decided to raise the rates for our safety permits from $800 for six nights to $866 per night (which we can’t afford)… hell we’re lucky to make $800 in six nights… so the probability that we’re going to start performing on the road has just increased exponentially.

now i have to go and get some "stuff" which will make my continued survival more bearable, and an ethernet hub, so that i can have all of my computers online, rather than the lame one-at-a-time feature that i’ve currently got… and then i’ve got another cirque performance which will get out around 1:00 am, whereupon i’ve got to go home and sleep so that i can get up and get ready for work at 5:30… oy! 8/

yet another review of the cirque de flambé show… now this is more like it… although it’s not as good a review if you’re not in the band, but i’m in the band, so this is an excellent review…

Friday, August 5, 2005

Flambe’s latest gig passes silliness torch

By Misha Berson

Seattle Times theater critic

Cirque de Flambe’s “In the Shadow of the Giant” will be at Magnuson Park from today through Sunday, featuring a variety of flaming and incendiary devices.

Uh-oh. The goony clown’s pants are on fire.

And — whoopsie-daisy — the fabulous Mademoiselle Mimi’s tres petite dog Fifi didn’t quite make it through that flaming hoop intact. She’s just a furry little pile of ash now.

All this can mean only one thing: The circus is back in town. Or, more specifically, Cirque de Flambe, the Fremont-based pyromaniac troupe, is at it again in Magnuson Park.

If you’ve never been to a Cirque de Flambe show, here are the basics of their latest blazing pratfalls show, “In the Shadow of the Giant.”

There is a ringmaster/authority figure clomping around the parking lot/playing area on stilts, whom the rest of the anarchic characters love to hate.

There is an enthusiastic live band (the rather grandly named Fremont Philharmonic), which specializes in deranged oompah and snake-charmer music. There is a large contingent of brave and blasé firemongers, The Flaming Fromaggios, who do a lot of juggling and other fiery shticks.

And, as the ringmaster emphasizes, the audience must “suffer the little clowns, because they know not what they do” — wisecracking, firecracking clowns, whose express purpose in life is to burn things up and be annoying.

If this sounds an awful lot like previous Cirque de Flambe productions, it’s no misfire. (Hey, they’re not trying to reinvent the Roman candle in every show.)

The experience is, as ever, funky, silly and funny — if your idea of fun is watching a Tin Man-style robot get attacked with blazing bazookas.

Some bits are cool, some get boring. Many are stupid beyond belief. But every now and then there is a truly dazzling act in the cheerfully ragged and strangely lovable extravaganza.

Such as? Take the double-Dutch rope-jumping bit. How do they jump around those fiery strands of rope without getting scorched? And though it goes on forever, the flaming-hips routine, with flaring hula hoops, is quite impressive.

Kids in the audience are reminded more than once not to try this sort of stuff at home.

And there’s a safety crew on hand at all times, in case a fiery stunt gets carried too far.

Sitting on bring-your-own chairs or blankets, however, you won’t find much cause for worry. Just remember to dress warmly (the breeze off Lake Washington was very chilly the night I attended). Pack your own snacks along with the comfy seating. And don’t forget to bring the kids — anybody’s kids.

Children just lap up Cirque de Flambe. Think about it: It’s like their wildest dream come true. A whole bunch of people playing with matches (as well as lighters, dynamite, cherry bombs and other incendiary devices) — and getting away with it.

another review of the cirque performance from the weekly (weakly?), from someone who is not as critical as joe adcock, but i personally feel that joe’s review was better… oh well…

Fire?
Shadow has a little spark.

by Lynn Jacobson

Seattle’s friendly band of firebugs, Cirque de Flambé, is back with a 90-minute revue of pyrotechnical circus acts performed in a lakeside parking lot in Magnuson Park. Directed by Burning Man vet Maque DaVis, In the Shadow of the Giant (ends Sun., Aug. 7; 206-770-7602) is framed as a sort of showdown between a tyrannical ringmaster and his mischievous clowns.

Aside from a few tasteless bimbo jokes, the show is perfect for school-aged kids on summer vacation. First, there’s the thrill of staying up late (it starts at 9:30 p.m.); then, the excitement of periodic explosions, flaming jump ropes, and fire leaping out of performers’ mouths. And what kid wouldn’t love to see two clowns running around with sparks shooting out of their butts?

Children are also more likely than adults to forgive the show’s amateurish aspects: numerous dropped props, in expert physical humor, and clunkily ad-libbed lines. According to Cirque’s Web site (www.cirquedeflambe.com), it’s an all-volunteer circus, and, to be blunt, it shows. Many of the cast members are no doubt graduates of Cirque’s Fremont-based workshops—enthusiastic, but still learning their trade. If you go expecting to see performances on a level with what you’ve seen at Cirque du Soleil or Big Apple Circus, you’ll be disappointed. Of course, the ticket prices ($10 children, $20 adults) are about a third of what you’d pay for entry-level Soleil tickets, so it’s a fair deal.

No denying the show is a feat of organization and engineering. The onstage cast numbers over two dozen, and on Sunday night, there looked to be at least that many people offstage handling fire effects and safety. The brassy Fremont Philharmonic, led by Fred Hawkinson on trombone, oom-pah-pahed bravely throughout, despite high winds off the lake and clouds of gnats attracted to the lights. And the audience, half of whom forgot their lawn chairs and blankets, sat gamely on the cement, huddling against the chill. None of this mattered a whit to the kids, who were transfixed, fireworks in their eyes.

a review of the cirque show by a person who reportedly hates shows like that… it’s not universally good, but if i didn’t know anything about either the show or the reviewer, i’d be tempted to go and see it anyway…

Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Cirque de Flambe’s antics can be blazing amazing

By JOE ADCOCK
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER THEATER CRITIC

Playing with fire combines risk and thrills. In the case of Cirque de Flambe — “flaming circus” in permissive French — the risk is self-indulgent sloppiness. The thrills derive from uniquely sensational feats of skill and daring.

Some of the Cirque’s 27 performers juggle fire. Others swing it around on ropes and bars. Some play jump rope (even double Dutch) with flaming ropes. Others spin flaming hula hoops. Providing non-pyrotechnical thrills is Primary Element: three clever acrobats who twine and combine like rubbery Lego pieces. Their accomplishments involve extraordinary strength, flexibility and balance.

For a literally blazing finale, the cast members whirl exploding fireworks up and down and around and around.

The 10-member Fremont Philharmonic, masters of fluctuating rhythms, supplies admirable musical backup. Sometimes the tunes are subtle and insinuating. At other times they are swingy and nostalgic.

The Cirque has been a Seattle institution for eight years. The current production is called “In the Shadow of the Giant.”

A dozen clowns play out the archetypal clown thing: one, the giant, tries futilely to impose order. The rest succeed in creating chaos. The whip-cracking ringmaster, on stilts, fawns on the glamorous skilled performers. He bullies and denigrates his fellow zanies. His rebellious minions retaliate with weapons ranging from a 1940s foundation garment (worn by a buxom “nurse”) to a chainsaw (watch out for those stilts).

The clowning often involves failed pyrotechnics. The stunts are not uniformly ingenious or funny. Whether they are amusing, they do go on and on. A clown with his pants on fire or a blazing stuffed toy dog are among the striking but unduly extended bits.

It is easy, however, to feel affectionate indulgence toward the Cirque. The lame stuff is harmless. And the effective stuff is amazing.

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yeah, i’d say an attack on the FBI’s level of incompetence is entirely warranted…

so there’s been this job floating around the shop for the past couple of weeks. it’s not high priority, or, rather, it wasn’t high priority until today, and it was one of those jobs that, when i originally looked at it 2 weeks ago, i said would have to be redone from scratch before it would print, and majid disagreed with me, so i said he could do it… so today, majid says that he can’t get it to colour separate – it’s only two colours to begin with, yellow and black – and when he can get close, it doesn’t print correctly. he wants me to recreate the document…

o-kay…

it was originally an illustrator file, saved as an .eps and placed in indesign. i imported the original illustrator file into freehand and almost immediately discovered that part of the reason why it wouldn’t print correctly is because it was made out of three individual sections, layed over a solid background, where it had to be one contiguous section in order to avoid some extremely arcane and rather nasty bizarreness in the postscript code required to draw that particular figure, that causes it to print out strangely… as it had been doing.

so i made a new layer, and traced around the logo, so that i had my one contiguous section, and then recreated the rest of the logo, saved it as a colour separated .eps, and had colour separations out of quark for him inside of 40 minutes, as well as finishing two other jobs at the same time.

majid was in awe.

if he gets a new version of indesign without also getting a new version of quark, then he’s a bigger fool than he appears to be, and it’s guaranteed that i will not be working for him very long.

okay, if i understand this correctly, if you click here, you will be taken to a gallery of some of my pictures from the oregon country fair… but i’m not sure if i understand it correctly or not, so if you’re not taken there, i would appreciate it if you would tell me, so that i can fix it.

update:

cirque de flambé performs "In The Shadow of The Giant" next weekend (the last weekend in july) and the weekend after that (the first weekend of august) at sand point-magnuson park, friday, saturday and sunday, 9:30 pm curtain. bring yer own seating and be prepared to watch things blow up and people get set on fire – quality family entertainment for $20 ($10 for under 13). tickets here.

majid is going to, theoretically, have two new computers next week, but i’m not sure how, or if i get to say anything about what they are, or what software goes on them, or anything like that, in spite of the fact that i’m sure going to be expected to operate them as efficiently as possible in the shortest period of time possible… but all this is still in theory, as he has been threatening to do this for the past month, and has yet to do anything like it. compound that with the fact that, for some mysterious reason, when i installed service pack 4 on windows 2000 friday, something broke, or something that was broken is now fixed, or something like that, and the result was that i got 40-some emails from as much as 2 weeks ago, AND farah’s email client, which is on a completely different computer that’s running windows XP and hasn’t been working right for a week or so, suddenly was fixed as well. of course, this is all my fault, because i am now the person with the most knowledge about computers, and particularly email, in the office, but it’s windoesn’t, which means that i know practically nothing. when everything had cooled down (after it was discovered that we lost 2 customers as the result of not having our email work correctly) they asked me what we could do to prevent such a thing from happening in the future, and were not happy when i my response was to say that we should move away from so much reliance on microsoft for things that are essential to the business, like email… oh well… so much for being the person in the office with the most knowledge about computers. good thing i’m only a typesetter. i’ll let him pay someone else three times as much to tell him the same thing, ’cause i don’t care.

two more incense orders are ready to ship, and i’ve got one incomplete order, and one order that i’ve not even started on left to order. the one i haven’t even started on is the one who ordered 6 sixteen-inch tubes of sandalwood, and i’ve recently taken all of the sixteen-inch tubes off the site, because they’re difficult to ship, so i’ve got to decide what i’m going to do with the last customer. plus i’ve got an order for a ganesha murti that’s going to be arriving next week some time. also i’ve got a bunch of new products to add to the site as well; some new murtis, and rudraksha malas (with crystals and without). unfortunately it’s probably going to have to wait until at least after the cirque de flambé performances before i do anything about it.

i’ve got 5 incense orders, 4 of which are partially complete, and they along with the remaining one will be entirely complete when the package i’m expecting tomorrow or monday arrives. i’ve also got an order for a niruta ganapati murti that i’m going to have to order on monday, because the supplier is only open monday through thursday. i’ve also recently got an inquiry about a pipe, but i basically put the guy on hold, because i don’t have my shop set up yet… and i’m not sure i will, because i’m coming to the conclusion that there isn’t enough room for me and hybrid elephant in this tiny office. i wrangled around and put up my steel shelves, and immediately filled them up with no appreciable space cleared, and i’ve still got a drill press and a band saw and half of the shed full of stuff that hasn’t been unloaded yet. i’m thinking that there’s an office building down the hill that has a sign up that says “cheap rent” that i should look in to, but i’ve got to run the idea past moe before i actually do anything about it.

meanwhile, i’m still a wage slave. today is friday, so i get a brief respite from wage slavery, but i’m still gonna go back to work on monday. i finally finished whittling down the pile of 15-20 jobs that sprang up while i was away. majid is threatening to buy a new mac and then buy adobe creative suite, which includes indesign, and then not buy real typesetting software, and his reason is “because more people use indesign and windows”… which is true, but that doesn’t mean that we have to follow the crowd of people who don’t know any better into the jaws of chaos by accepting a standard of quality that is less than 100%. and besides, adobe has sweetheart deals for local folks, which is why more people use it locally, but from what i understand, the farther you get away from seattle, the more quark-like the world of printing becomes… and who can blame them for using software that works, rather than software that has terminal microsoft disease? unfortunately majid knows little enough about computers that he’s likely to listen to the advice of someone he knows (who also knows nothing about computers) rather than a person (me) with 20 years’ experience in the printing industry, who has been using the computer for typesetting almost ever since it was first available for such things. 8/

finally…

my computer broke a couple of weeks ago. it was working when i left for work, and when i got home, it wasn’t, and it wouldn’t restart. after fucking around with it for a couple days, i discovered that it was probably the power supply that had failed, but i didn’t have the time to determine if it was for sure or not, and i had to go play with the hippies for 4 days, so i didn’t get around to actually doing something about it until today. i actually took my computer somewhere, bear computers, and they fixed it for me while i was at work. now my main linux computer works again, which is good because windows, which was taking the place of linux (sort of) during the interim, seems to have developed a disagreement with the monitor – something linux doesn’t do – so i’m thinking something may be wrong with the video card, or whatever laptops have instead of video cards. thrill-a-minute… i get one computer working and another one breaks. i wonder if it will ever end?

the oregon country fair is over for another year – my second year attending, and tonight is the second anniversary of my injury. the hippie ineptitute factor seems to have attacked someone else this year. stuart and i drove to portland wednesday night, and proceded to veneta on thursday morning, i had no problems getting registered, we drove in to chela mela meadow(!) and unpacked the car in record time – i finished setting up camp around 1:30. i still had to wait in line about an hour and a half to get the priveledge of paying the hippie $5 to cut my wrist band off and make a laminated card out of it (the wristbands remind me too much of being in the hospital, and besides, the laminated card is a “collectors item”), but all in all, OCF was excellent. we played at the ritz sunday night, i actually took 5 one-hour saunas in 4 days, and left feeling cleaner than i came. it rained on saturday, but we were more prepared for the rain than we were in vancouver, so it wasn’t that bad, and besides, our stage – the “morningwood odditorium” – was one of the few venues that was covered, and so we got the people who were looking for shelter from the rain right when we were starting our shows. i latched on to the end of one of the parades featuring “The Fighting Instruments of Karma”, a group from seattle(!) which features a sousaphone player who has a really beautiful silver sousaphone, and took a whole bunch of pictures of people taking pictures, which i’m going to post in one form or another once i get my mac working. i got my little sivalingam “wrapped” in silver by a craftsman, so now i’m a “lingayat”, or a “person who wears a miniature sivalingam around their neck”, something i’ve wanted for quite a while. we did a burlesque show friday night that was so well recieved that we did another one on sunday night, after the ritz. hacki was there, who is a clown from germany that was part of the moisture festival, and his acts were sheer genius. it was also really cool to hang out with him backstage and smoke pot. i didn’t even remember that i had a computer until i came home…

of course, i came home and was suddenly struck with how much work there is to do… i still have a couple rooms full of boxes that need to be unpacked, i still have no shelves in the office, so i’ve got nowhere to unpack those boxes anyway, i’ve got 4 incense orders and a murti that i’ve got to order for customers, i’ve got to get the post office box and the billing address for hybrid elephant changed in reality and on the web site, but i still need an ethernet hub so that i can have more than one computer on at once…

and then there’s my job… sigh… i REALLY HATE being a wage slave… i returned to work on tuesday, and majid was frantic because “internet went down on thursday”, the day i left, and majid couldn’t figure out how to get it working again until monday – apparently earthlink changed something and it required that majid reboot his ethernet router – but he couldn’t figure out why his email wasn’t working… he wanted me to reboot the router, and unplug the router and connect the computer directly to internet, and a bunch of other useless tasks, and didn’t think that it was something wrong with outlook at all, until i looked at the server settings and discovered that his outgoing email server was set to 127.0.0.1… and then there was the job that i had sent to proof just before i left, which returned with an approval while i was gone. majid said he looked for the file, but couldn’t find it, so he ended up reproducing the file based on a scan of the file that i had sent out, except that it was wrong, and he couldn’t figure out how to fix it. i found the file in about 2 minutes, determined that he actually hadn’t looked for it – because its name included the work order number, which is how i found it – fixed the problem that majid had introduced by scanning the document and had plates ready for it in about 5 minutes… there were several other jobs like that, which were problems because majid doesn’t know what he’s doing, which i fixed almost immediately… but this is only wednesday! it feels like it should be thursday, because of all the screwups, chaos and hassle i’ve had to deal with since returning, combined with the fact that i REALLY didn’t want the oregon country fair to end just yet anyway…

meanwhile, my physical birthday was monday, big deal, and the cirque de flambe performances at sand point/magnuson park start in 19 days.

i’ve got to take a shower and shave my head, then i’ve got to start a load of laundry before bed. tomorrow i’ve got to get up extra early, because i’m not carpooling to work, so i’ve got to leave at 6:45 instead of 7:30. after a full day of work, i’ve got to come home and finish packing, then i’m going to the oregon country fair for the weekend. i’ll be returning on monday, which is my physical birthday (i’m going to be 45… wow!). then three days later (next thursday) is the 2 year anniversary of my brain injury.

my computer is dead, and i don’t know when it is going to be fixed. the problem is most likely either with the power switch on the front of the case, or the power supply itself, but i won’t know until i return from OCF, and probably not even then. it turns out there are no studs, or at least no discernable studs in the interior walls of this house, which doesn’t surprise me too much given it’s vintage, but it makes putting up shelves in the office a problem, and until i get shelves up, i essentially don’t have an office, which is not a good thing.

my primary machine, my linux computer, is broken. it was working fine on thursday morning when i was getting ready for work, and it was down and wouldn’t start when i got home. it may be just the power switch, but it may be worse… and, of course, i won’t have any time to do anyting about it for at least a week, because of barbecue, work, OCF, and a myriad of other things.

meanwhile, i’m almost caught up with the orders that came in during the time when we were moving, and i’ve got two new orders in the past two days… that’s good, i guess…

You Are 20% American

You’re as American as Key Lime Tofu Pie Otherwise known as un-American! You belong in Cairo or Paris… Get out fast – before you end up in Gitmo!

PAGE LAYOUT FILE FORMATS PREFERRED

quark xpress 4, 5
indesign CS2
freehand 7, 8, 9, 10
pagemaker 5, 6, 7
illustrator 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

acrobat 4, 5, 6 – files must be saved at a high resolution (“for printing”)

acrobat files that are meant to be printed on the press (instead of digitally) should be colour separated where necessary. if they’re not colour separated, we CAN NOT print them on the press.

we MIGHT be able to accept other page layout file formats as long as one of the above applications can open it.

we CAN accept microsoft word and microsoft publisher files, but we reserve the right to re-set the files using industry standard page layout applications if they give us problems. we CAN NOT get colour separated files from microsoft word.

if your file uses a particular font, please advise us of this when the file is delivered to us and be prepared to deliver the font files if necessary. we have a lot of fonts, so usually this is not necessary, but if you want a particular font and we don’t have it, your document WILL NOT print with the font you want unless it is provided to us.

GRAPHIC FILE FORMATS PREFERRED

native format files we can accept:

freehand 7, 8, 9, 10 – line art, greyscale, spot colour, CMYK
illustrator 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 – line art, greyscale, spot colour, CMYK
photoshop 4, 5, 6, 7 – line art, greyscale, CMYK
The GIMP – line art, greyscale, spot colour, CMYK
corel draw – line art, greyscale, spot colour, CMYK

CMYK stands for Cyan Magenta Yellow blacK. it is the way that files that are in “full colour” are printed. RGB stands for Red Green Blue, which is the way files that are in “full colour” are displayed on a computer screen. CMYK is an “additive” colour mode, whereas RGB is a “subtractive” colour mode. since printing is a process of “adding” ink to create a printed document, RGB is not an option, because it is not possible to take away ink once it is layed down. ALL FILES WHICH ARE IN A COLOUR MODE OTHER THAN CMYK WILL BE CONVERTED TO CMYK BEFORE PRINTING.

we MIGHT be able to accept other native file formats as long as one of the above applications can open it.

we CAN scan hi-res printed graphics. they will be turned into bilevel (one colour) .tif files, greyscale .eps files or CMYK .eps files, unless we receive specific instructions to do otherwise.

we CAN also accept the following graphic file formats

.jpg
.png – MUST be 600dpi resolution or higher. colour files will be printed as greyscale, or as CMYK.
.gif

these file formats, plus scans, will most likely be converted into one of the following file formats, which are also acceptable:

.tif – one colour, no greyscale (line art only), 600dpi resolution or higher
.eps – CMYK, greyscale, or spot colour (if it’s set up for spot colour), 600dpi resolution or higher

dpi stands for Dots Per Inch. it is the industry standard measurement for the resolution of a printed graphic. it corresponds with ppi, which stands for Pixels Per Inch, which is the industry standard measurement for the resolution of a graphic on a computer display.

graphic files that are lower than 600dpi resolution will print, but they will look grainy and not at all like they look on your computer screen. this is because your computer screen is 72dpi resolution, regardless of what your screen resolution (ppi) is. the rule of thumb when it comes to creating graphics for printing is “bigger is better”. we can always make something smaller if necessary, but making things bigger is guaranteed to make the printing customer dissatisfied.

we CAN accept other graphic file formats, but we will probably convert them to either .tif or .eps before printing.

if your document contains graphics, you MUST include the source file for the graphic as well as the actual document, if you want your finished, printed document to contain graphics. if they’re not there, we WILL contact you to get them before we print your document, which wastes time and makes a tight deadline harder to keep.

CLEAN UP THE FILE! don’t leave unused graphics or bits of type on the pasteboard, but outside of the printing area of the document. also, don’t include layers that are “invisible” in the document that you wish to print. doing this leads to wasted time finding the links and fonts that are not used. the only things that should be in the file are things that are going to print. if it’s not going to print, then leave it out of the file all together.

where possible, make sure that the “paper size” of the document is the size of paper you want the finished print to look like. exceptions to this would be business cards that print on a “master” or imprints on already printed postcards.

where possible, put crop marks, registration marks, bleeds and so forth on a separate layer. they’re good for layout and proofing, but they’re not always so ideal when it comes to printing.

if the file was made for use on a macintosh, then you should compress the file before emailing it, because if you don’t, then what we receive on this end is a file that cannot be printed, or rescued for any purposes. please use stuffit compatible with Os9, or zip to compress your files.

i am beginning to hate indesign. i don’t really know what it’s like on the mac, but on the PC, we’re running indesign CS version 2, i think (although it could be version 3, for all i know), and it has already screwed up several jobs which i could have done more efficiently, and with fewer mistakes on the mac, using quark… except that for his own perverse reasons, majid insisted that i do the jobs using indesign, and then was surprised when they didn’t come out the way he (and i) expected. of course it’s my fault… it couldn’t possibly be the fact that THE SOFTWARE IS DEFECTIVE!!! it doesn’t matter that mistakes like a text box getting slightly narrower than it was originally set, thus making the text it contains go from one line to two lines, don’t happen when i use the mac and quark – i was supposed to notice that it had happened before the job got printed, and certainly before it was due TODAY…

the week has gotten even more chaotic than it was before. i have 2 rehearsals, one yesterday and one tomorrow, plus my job, and when i get home, i still am in the middle of box hell despite my concerted efforts to end it, we’ve got a housewarming party on monday, and now, much to my chagrin, moe has decided that we have to go to portland to see her mother’s brother’s daughter (does that make her a cousin or a niece to moe? i’ve never been able to figure that out…), a person who i know only vaguely, get married – an act which everybody that i know, including moe’s mother, think is the worst possible mistake she could make, what with the fact that she’s just graduated from high school, her intended is in the military and will soon be shipped to iraq, and other "wonderful" things like that. so, instead of busting my ass getting ready (and probably failing, but at least i tried) for the party, i’ve got to go to the wedding of someone i don’t know and act like what she’s doing is the most wonderful thing ever, in spite of the fact that nobody believes it… which means that i will fail to get ready for the party, which will make moe upset… 8P

Microsoft Purchases Evil From Satan

Redmond, WA – Microsoft purchased evil from Satan for $2.7 billion after many months of tough negotiations.

“We’ve been after Satan for some time,” said CEO Steve Ballmer. “Negotiations were tough, but I think both Microsoft and the Prince of Darkness are happy with this deal.”

Microsoft already controls 15% of the evil market, and with this purchase that number nears 100%. The Department of Justice voiced concerns over one corporation controlling so much evil, and launched investigations.

“We feel that there are real opportunities with evil, and that when evil is integrated into our next generation of Windows products consumers will appreciate evil on their desktop,” said Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. “Businesses haven’t been able to fully realize their evil potential. With evil integrated into Office XP, corporations big and small will begin to see enhanced evil productivity.”

“Evil is a real growing market,” market strategist Frank Dresgan of Merrill Lynch explained. “Microsoft is a little late in the game, but even when they enter a market late they still tend to dominate. I think we’ll see the same results with evil.”

“I’ve been dealing with Microsoft for some time,” Lucifer said. “I’ve been at this evil thing for millions of years, and wanted a way out. I considered an IPO, but then Steve-O and Billy came along and told me about their ‘Evil Everywhere’ plan. I just couldn’t refuse.”

Evil was founded by Satan close to the beginning of time. It has been growing steadily ever since, although most of the growth has accelerated in the past five years with the development of the Internet. Satan plans to retire to a small island in the Bahamas and write a column for the local newspaper.

tired.

it’s sunday evening. i should be rested and ready to go to work tomorrow, and to go to rehearsal afterwards, but i’m fucking tired… i worked all day yesterday emptying out the POD, and performing at myron and marylin’s wedding until 11:00 last night, and i got up and finished emptying out the POD today (it’s scheduled for pickup tuesday or wednesday) while watching out for the guy from craigslist who came and picked up the refrigerator and the other guy from craigslist who came and picked up the washer and dryer. now i’ve got to put two working television sets on craigslist and see if we can get rid of them as well, because they don’t accept televisions at the transfer station. i’m slowly getting things whipped into shape, but that doesn’t negate the fact that moe has scheduled a housewarming barbecue for july 4th, and approximately 30 people have confirmed that they’re going to be here, so i’d better speed up the whipping if everything is going to be presentable by then.

the oregon country fair is july 8, 9, and 10, a little more than a week away, and i’m not ready for it yet, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s going to happen whether i’m ready for it or not. this year i’m going to spend more time at the ritz.

i may be making progress towards ending the chaos at work. this morning majid and i were talking about what to do with the computer situation (lack of filing system, problems with the PC, etc.), and he told me that i had convinced him. later on this afternoon, farah asked me why majid had it in for the mac, and i told her that i didn’t know, but i did know that for applications that did what i wanted to do, consistently, i much prefered the mac to the PC, and she said she would “talk to him” about it… in the way that makes me think she’s getting really fed up with the lack of filing systems that my predecessors have foisted off on me, and other suchlike stuff. i’m slowly formulating a file system: i’ve got most things in one of three places, depending on whether it is for a bellevue customer, a woodinville customer, or i’m not sure. there’s still at least five folders called “trash” in various places on the network that contain large quantities of customer files, in alphebetized folders that i’m not sure about… i found a customer file that wasn’t anywhere else on the network, that i needed to complete a job today, in one of those “trash” folders the other day… 8/

today is our 7th wedding anniversary, and if you didn’t know, i married the best, the sweetest, the most caring, the most loving (hoo yeah!), and the most beautiful woman in the whole world… sorry for all you other people who may think that you’re that person (or are married to that person), but you’re wrong: that person is MY wife, I’M married to her, and you can’t have her! 8)

by the way, a six-legged puppy was dumped at a temple in port klang, malaysia, recently… no shit, there’s really a town called port klang – probably reminiscent of all those gamelan orchestras…

also, the world beard and moustache championship inspires me… i may never get to the point of competition myself, but they certainly give a fine example of an ideal to live up to…

i’m getting really fed up with spam… the spammer’s most recent trick is to send me spam to my hybrid elephant email address, that appears to be from my hybrid elephant domain, but which is really from rr.com and contains a virus… fortunately, their virii attack windows only, and as i am a linux and mac user, i laugh at their feeble virus attacks and report the hell out of them anyway, but i have to be very careful not to report myself in the process. it’s irritating that i have to deal with it at all… any business which uses spam for adverising definitely does not have the priveledge of reciving business from me!

okay, now that i’ve actually had the chance to sleep, and don’t have to rush away to my job or to a rehearsal, i have the time to update a little…

the vancouver performances were rained out, which i probably could have told you would happen right from the beginning… what were they thinking, scheduling fire performances in the pacific northwest (well, okay, pacific SOUTHwest, because we were in canadada) in may anyway? ultimately, i spent three days and two nights standing around in a parking lot, in the pouring rain, without enough protective clothing, or even a rain coat, waiting for them to make the decision not to perform, combined with bits of frantic scurrying around unloading and loading the truck, trying (more or less successfully) to get the band gear under the canopies so that it wouldn’t get soaked, and rescuing the surrounding temporary fence which had blown over. i did get the chance to go to punjabi market, where i bought 5 music CDs and a kilo of incense (which, miraculously, i managed to keep dry), and we went out to a big chinese dinner the first night, and i had ostrich congee, which was a lot better than i expected, but on the whole, what with the motorhome being my ultimate destination, the whole trip was a wash. they did offer me a per diem, but i told them that the per diem was for when i had actually performed something.

today’s (yes, today’s) performance is for the fremont solstice parade, and i have to leave in about half an hour so that i can find parking reasonably close to where we are going to perform. this year’s scandal/controversy is over the members of a performance group called PURE, People Undergoing Real Experiences, which has been kicked out of the parade because they were going to run a float which was a pirate ship, and have people suspended by body piercings from the pirate ship… and fremont kicked them out of the parade because "they might frighten the children". personally, if the naked bicyclists are okay, then i don’t see what’s wrong with people who are clothed suspending themselves from hooks, but i’m just the tuba player. EDIT: there were a ton of naked bicyclists all throughout the parade – way more than there were last year – and the PURE group actually crashed the parade, but instead of suspensions from their body piercings, they were bound and gagged and carried signs with the international “not” symbol over a hook – thus meeting the parade organisers’ requirements of having no words in their display… also my parents were there, across the street from the stage where the fremont philharmonic played. i saw them, and said hello. they asked how i was doing, several times, and then walked away without saying goodbye. lame.

tomorrow is the fremont street fair, and the first two performances of "Babes in The Wood", which is another traditional british panto whose story, for those of you who don’t know, is a cross between robin hood and hansel & gretel, only it’s set in medieval england (so they’re "trevor" and "abigail" instead). sasha is friar tuck ("allow me to introduce myself… i’m fire truck. no, wait, i’m trier… er… i’d better be careful, there are kids present…"), but sasha is going to amsterdam and israel, so bradley is his "understudy", with the emphasis on "under"… he’s not the best, but he was the director for last year’s "jack and the bean stalk" and he works cheap.

this year’s performances of babes in the wood are directed by matthew stull, otherwise known as matthew bob, much to the chagrin of moe, who has expressed her extreme jealousy that i get to work with one of the bobs when she introduced me to the bobs music just a few years ago, whereas she’s been a FOB (friend of the bobs) for over 20 years.

whew, we’ve finally got internet at home… things will be back to more-or-less normal soon…

tadaa!

we FINALLY have internet at home! huzzah!

things are relatively quiet for a change. the only people in the shop are me and the press operator, greg. farah is at woodinville and majid went off with some guy who spoke persian (or farsi or something that majid also spoke, but that i don’t) and who said he was a buddhist (he asked me if i was jewish, people keep doing that, i wonder why?). i’m caught up, which i get the impression didn’t happen too often before i started… however we’ve got one job which is a full colour, two sided postcard from a senior care company which didn’t know how to spell “alzeimers” or “atmosfere” and wanted us (well, me) to “design a postcard” around a microsoft word document which was a copy-and-paste job from their web site, with no graphics… so i wonder if we’re even going to get paid for this one.

we still don’t have internet at home… as i suspected would happen, when i called wednesday and the guy said that the order was “expedited” and someone would be calling me within 48 hours, it didn’t happen. we did get an automated call at 7:30 am, saturday (grumble, mutter) which said that our DSL service had been hooked up and was available as of 6th june, which it was, only our provider was not drizzle, like we requested, but MSN, which we specifically did NOT request, but when moe tried to hook up her computer last night, it still didn’t work. as of 8:00 am this morning, any further delay in getting our internet hooked up is going to cost someone at qwest $120 an hour for my loss of business.

getting shelves put up, and with the exception of internet, got the computers all hooked up and ready to go. ordered 2 boxes full of boxes from uline for incense storage, so now i don’t have to keep all my incense for sale in milk crates. things are settling in slowly.

well, it’s just about over. we finally moved into the house on tuesday of last week, and the phone was hooked up on friday last week, but we still don’t have internet, and who knows when we will have it, because of qwest, so i get to update between jobs. things are going as well as can be expected at work, despite the fact that my bosses are without a doubt the stupidest business owners on the planet – when someone makes an order, they recieve a proof copy, which is exactly the same as it will look when it comes off of the press. then it is their job to proofread it to make sure everything is the way it should be, the spelling is all correct, the typesetting and layout is correct and so forth… except that with farah and majid, they only require the customer to proofread for spelling, and only on the stuff that has changed… the customer is not required to proofread for typesetting or design on jobs that are being reprinted. that, combined with the fact that they have absolutely no backups of any kind, and only a rudimentary filing system makes it practically impossible for me to get any job right the first time, and it means that if the customer doesn’t like what we have printed for them, for any reason, we have to reprint it again (and, potentially, repeatedly) for free, until we get it right. it’s a wonder they have stayed in business this long… also, because of the fact that their customers have not had to take responsibility for their mistakes, they subsequently have developed a long list of extremely spoiled customers who go out of their way to make sure that their jobs are done "right" regardless of what kind of garbage they submitted, and if it’s not done right, guess whose fault it is?

i wonder how long it will be until i get fired…

whooy… not much time: new job is going okay, in spite of the fact that majid and farrah know practically nothing about computers, but still insist that i use a PC and indesign for the work, in spite of the fact that it would be more accurate more of the time if i did it on a mac with quark instead… but they’re the bosses, so it’s time for some subtle education on my part, which i’m not sure if i’m ready for it or not. still don’t know when we’re going to close on the house, but presumably it should be this week some time… we hope… fingers crossed… meantime, living in a 30 foot motorhome in juanita (the owner said bothell, but it’s really juanita, regardless of what the owner says), which is small, but tolerable as long as we know it’s not forever. later.

today may be the last time i update until we get moved into our new house. but we still don’t know when that will be, because we still don’t know the closing date. moe has told her mom that it’s going to be the 17th, but that’s more to make her mom feel good than anything else, because we really don’t know. meanwhile, i’ve got a cirque de flambé performance on the 20th through the 23rd, and i start a NEW JOB (!!!!!) on wednesday the 11th, at which time we’re going to be staying with some friends (tom and wanda, people that moe knows through dog agility) in a 35 foot motorhome in butt-hell. anyway, i’ll try to update again sooner, but there’s no telling when or how, so it’s kinda up in the air.

good news/bad news…

bad news is that we’ve still not found out the closing date on our new house, which means that we’re going to have to spend a week or two living in a 35 foot motorhome in bothell (known by the people who live there as “butt-hell”). and there’s still the remote possibility that the financing won’t go through at all, which will mean a “slightly longer” stay in “butt-hell”…

good news is that i (finally) got a job. i start wednesday at minuteman press in bellevue, on 130th, very close to where i used to work when i worked at software dot com, before it got swallowed by openwave.

by the way, happy no pants day… and regardless of what some people think, i’m wearing my oh-so-trendy utilikilt and wondering why i don’t wear it more often. next we should think about having a no pants month… 8)

i got a “new” car yesterday – i hope it lasts a little bit longer than the last one, which was the only one to break the tradition – it’s a 96 mazda protegé (maintaining my tradition of never owning a car that is newer than 10 years old) that was a rental car in washington and oregon before i got it (which knowledge came to me from carfax), but the title has been lost, which means i can’t legally transfer my license plates that say GANESHA until after i’ve applied for a new title, and there’s no guarantee that’s going to happen before i go to canadada on the 20th, so i’m still planning on going with someone else… and i still don’t know who that is yet. 8/

another attempt to clear out my desktop:

Jumbo Queen says fat is beautiful

Mon May 2, 2005, 12:56 PM ET

NAKHON PATHOM, Thailand (Reuters) – In an era of chiseled supermodels and bizarre weight-loss diets a Thai beauty contest celebrated women with a bit of flesh Sunday when heavy-weight contestants battled for the Miss Jumbo Queen crown.

The annual contest, which aims to raise awareness and money for Thailand’s dwindling elephant population, allows full-sized women weighing over 176 pounds to show weight-conscious Thais that big is beautiful.

This year, 24 women participated in the contest at the Samphran Elephant Ground and Zoo, 38 miles west of the capital Bangkok.

“I want to show people that just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I’m any less beautiful or talented,” said 18-year-old winner, Tarnrarin Chansawang, who weighed in at 242 pounds.

Tarnrarin, a bubbly business student and tuba player from Bangkok, took home several prizes, including a Jumbo-sized trophy and $50,000 baht ($1,270).

Judges also looked at other talents of the contestants who mesmerized hundreds of spectators with raunchy dance numbers and revealing costumes.

In keeping with Jumbo tradition, a side award for Miss Jumbo Universe went to university student Thanchanok Mekkeaw for weighing in as the heaviest competitor in the pageant at 400 pounds.

Girl, 13, argues right to abortion – Judge asked to reverse decision by state guardian

By John Coté
Staff Writer
Posted April 30 2005

“Why can’t I make my own decision?”

That was the blunt question to a judge from a pregnant 13-year-old girl ensnared in a Palm Beach County court fight over whether she can have an abortion.

“I don’t know,” Circuit Judge Ronald Alvarez replied, according to a recording of the closed hearing obtained Friday.

“You don’t know?” replied the girl, who is a ward of the state. “Aren’t you the judge?”

Against a backdrop of state and federal efforts to pass a parental notification law for teen abortions, the exchange was typical of L.G.’s pluck as she argued that she had the right and capability to make her own decision, despite a move by the Department of Children & Families to seek a judge’s permission for her abortion.

“I think if I want to make the decision, it’s my business and I can do that,” she told the judge.

The DCF is the teen’s legal guardian after she was taken away from her parents for abuse or neglect. State law allows minors to have abortions without notifying their guardians. Experts say the law extends to wards of the state, raising the question of why this girl’s decision has ended up before a judge.
DCF Secretary Luci Hadi requested a judge’s ruling, according to a department statement released Friday. DCF attorneys filed an emergency motion Tuesday morning, the same day L.G.’s caseworker was prepared to take her to a clinic for the abortion.

“The Department of Children and Families has the custodial responsibility to do what is in the best interest of the child,” the department said.

Alvarez had ordered a psychological evaluation to determine L.G.’s mental condition and whether she would be harmed by terminating the pregnancy or giving birth.

The case is now before the 4th District Court of Appeal where it has been fast-tracked after attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union filed an emergency appeal Wednesday, arguing that neither the judge nor DCF should be involved in L.G.’s decision.

While delaying any ruling until the appeals court decides, Alvarez held a hearing Thursday to weigh arguments.

DCF attorney Jeffrey Gillen said he was concerned L.G. was more likely to suffer “detrimental effects” if she underwent an abortion because she had psychiatric or behavioral problems in the past.

L.G., who told Alvarez she had run away at least five times from her youth shelter, maintained, “It would make no sense to have the baby.”

“I don’t think I should have the baby because I’m 13, I’m in a shelter and I can’t get a job,” the girl said as Alvarez and her guardian ad litem, assigned to shepherd her in the legal system, questioned her.

L.G. laid out different reasons for wanting an abortion.

“DCF would take the baby anyway,” she said, but later added: “If I do have it, I’m not going to let them take it.”

She also questioned the health risk of carrying the fetus to term.

“Since you guys are supposedly here for the best interest of me, then wouldn’t you all look at that fact that it’d be more dangerous for me to have the baby than to have an abortion?” she asked. Alvarez called that “a good point.”

Dr. Ethelene Jones, an expert in obstetrics and gynecology, testified earlier in the hearing that abortions are “definitely” safer than full term pregnancies for girls L.G.’s age.

“At her age and at her stage of gestation … her risk of death from an abortion procedure is about 1 in 34,000,” said Jones, who has held positions at Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. “The risk of death in pregnancy is about 1 in 10,000.”

L.G. said her caseworker had taken her on three visits to clinics, and risks and alternatives to abortion were discussed.

Lynn Hargrove, the court-appointed psychologist, testified L.G. had a “mild mood disorder” but did not have “a significant psychotic or delusional thought process” that would interfere with rational decision making.

J.G. is 14 weeks pregnant, witnesses testified, which would indicate she became pregnant after she ran away from a group home in late January and was missing for a month.

She had sex with “a boy” but refused to disclose his name to Alvarez saying: “That’s not really necessary.”

The judge blasted the DCF, saying the agency never asked the court to issue an order to take the child into custody after her most recent disappearance.
“To say that I am angry at that would be an understatement,” Alvarez said. “To rush into this court on an emergency basis because this child is pregnant and wants an abortion, I don’t know where our priorities in life are. The priority should have been to make certain that an order to take her into custody was issued as soon as possible, and that she was found and taken off of the streets or wherever she was. But nobody cared.”

Munoz said DCF immediately notified law enforcement in Pinellas County when the girl ran away Jan. 29.

Munoz declined to specify what agency was notified, saying that could compromise L.G.’s privacy rights by leading to information about where she was living.

“As we do in all instances when a child runs away from their placement, we immediately notify law enforcement, submit a report into the Missing Child Tracker System, and notify other state agencies as appropriate,” the agency said in statement Friday.

John Coté can be reached at [email protected] or 561-832-6550.

i think it’s about time we rethink this: california has always been "the nuttiest state in the union", but i think it’s time for that honour to be passed on to florida…

archie mcphee has band-aids, but they’re not what they appear… they’re actually band-aids! weird!

here is an audio CD that i want… anybody interested in buying it for me?

somebody took my idea of writing grafitti in the moss on buildings to it’s logical conclusion… writing grafitti with moss… and beer! but i’m not sure that the beer couldn’t be substituted for some other moist product that isn’t beer, so that the beer could be consumed by the person writing the grafitti…

aaahhh, grafitti and mind altering substances – the beginnings of a religion!

also, 6th may is no pants day… wearing my kilt is a necessity!

i applied for my passport (!) so i can go to canadada (!) today. i went at 8:30 this morning, but the office doesn’t open until 10:00, so i took the paperwork and returned home. tried again at 11:00, and actually got in the door this time, but the lady said the name on my birth certificate doesn’t match the name on my driver’s license – well DUH! – and no, my social security card is not enough for the department of clownland security folks, they’ve got to actually see the paperwork, which is buried in one box, presumably in the back of the POD, and they won’t accept my paperwork without it. so i go back home, unpack the whole POD, digging through every box, because i don’t know which one i put it in, freak out, find it, and go back at 12:30… but the person who accepted the application is not the person who has to see the stuff, and according to the person who accepts the application, i won’t actually get the passport and supporting paperwork back for 5 to 6 weeks, unless i want to pay an extra $60 so they will "expedite" it back to me in 2 weeks (meaning that she put it in an express mail folder instead of in the regular mail). finally i raise my right hand and say "yes" when she asks me if all of the information is correct to the best of my knowledge. now the US department of state has my birth certificate and my certificate of name-change, which means that if, for some "god-knows-what" reason i’ve got to prove my identity to someone, i can’t do it… presumably they’re going to mail it all back to me, but with everything else in an uproar, there’s no telling what is going to happen.

we still don’t know whether we’ve got financing for our new house yet, and probably won’t until after the 10th, which is when we have to move out of our current place. the real estate agent says not to worry, but he doesn’t know who he’s talking to here… i’m an expert at worrying… and it’s worse, because i keep wondering what will happen when we’ve moved out of our current place, and then discover that the financing for the new house didn’t go the way we all want it to go, and we end up without a house. everybody says that won’t happen, but i say "why won’t it happen" and so far nobody has an answer to that question. and it’s even more worse because, since my injury, i’ve been worrying about everything a lot more than i used to.

EDIT: i’m fairly sure that this entry by wasn’t meant for me, but i’m not sure… and even if it wasn’t, it’s strangely appropriate to my current condition…

the house is definitely looking like we’re moving at this point: the basement and the back bedroom are empty, the garage is my “staging area” for moving stuff into the pod, so it has been cleared out, but currently has a whole bunch of stuff that has been packed but not moved yet in it, the office has one wall that needs to be finished, but everything else is out, the living room is about half finished, i’m taking ezra’s last bit of stuff to him this afternoon. what remains is the bedroom and kitchen (which get packed at the same time, according to moe’s “secret patented method for moving”), and the computer stuff, which actually gets packed last, because that way they get unpacked first.

we have to move out of our current house by the 10th of may, but we don’t know when we’re going to find out when we can move in to our new house yet, because the financing is still up in the air. the stress is getting palpable.

combine that with the fact that the cirque de flambé has an “international” show (in vancouver, canadada) to do at the end of may, and i haven’t even tried to get into canadada since the fiasco eight years ago which happened because of the fact that my “criminal record” (i was convicted of shoplifting 20 cents worth of candy from a bulk candy bin at the grocery store 15 years earlier) had been expunged and i didn’t know that it mattered… so i ended up having to pay $350 CN (which i didn’t have) for a “humanitarian discretionary entry” in order to get into the country, because it was either that, or forfeit a week’s vacation (which cost significantly more than $350 CN)… i’ll have to remember all my paperwork from that… and i still don’t know whether they’re going to want a passport, or if they’ll just accept my birth certificate and driver’s license… and the fact that i still don’t have a car, so i’ll be relying on someone else to transport me and my stuff.

plus, the only email i have recieved for about 2 weeks (apart from various legitimate mailing-list banter which doesn’t involve me) has been spam… and spam has been REALLY bad the past few days. i’m feeling discouraged and depressed because the only people who want to be in contact with me are ones who are trying to scam me in some way.

DAMN straight!

other links:
boom… really!
hallucinogen myths put to rest – see? all the drugs i took in college may have actually been good for me, like i’ve been saying all along!

badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom mushroom

we are moving some time after 7 may and before 15 may, but we’re not sure of the exact date yet. the basement and the back bedroom are completely clean, i’ve gotten rid of the old futon bunk bed and taken three pickup loads to the dump. i’ve still got the stair climber, the old recliner, an inflatable boat, a box of books and 3 bicycles that need to be donated. all that’s left is the remainder of the garage, the remainder of the office, remainder of the living room, the kitchen and the bedroom, but the last vestiges of the office (the computers) are probably going to be saved until the last possible moment, because they have to be hooked up at the new place first. also, the kitchen is mostly packed already, it’s just a matter of actually putting stuff in boxes. supposedly ezra’s going to come by on friday and pick up the rest of his stuff, but i’m going to see if i can’t arrange to meet him sometime and just take it to him, because it’s getting in the way currently.

the Cirque de Flambé has performances in vancouver bc, the 21st and 22nd. at this point i still don’t have a car, so i’m planning on car-pooling with someone, but i don’t know who yet.

Bravehearts in Kilts Against Trouser Tyranny
Vurngicgxef of vmiosgjle jfpoeijd ajbva eemri – which is what i feel like all the time… 8/
it’s the quilt!
our new house which is actually a glorified trailer

NOT for the squeamish!

Don’t say i didn’t warn you!

but it’s kinda cool in a weird sort of way

adobe develops microsoft disease… time to start moving away from adobe applications now, especially on the mac… time to have an Os9.x machine on which you can run freehand, and a W2K machine on which you can run homesite. oh well. competiton was overrated anyway: microsoft has already proved that it’s possible to dominate the market, tell the consumers what they want, and spam them into oblivion, and nobody will care, so why can’t adobe do the same thing?

first, there’s "senator" frist, who defended his effort to strip democrats of their ability to block votes on "president" shrub junior’s court nominees… the filibuster is one of democracy’s last ditch measures to make sure that people aren’t subjected to government which is not by, for, and of the people. the essential criminalisation of things like the filibuster and protection from self-incrimination should make everyone sit up and take notice!

then, when they’re through trying to take away another vestige of the democracy that failed, they decide that you’re not paying enough in taxes, that one fifth, or more, of your income isn’t enough, and they have to have more of your hard earned cash to support the massive war effort waste of environmental resources sweetheart deals with places like enron and halliburton… um… er… things that aren’t evil in one way or another…

i am a terrorist! if something isn’t done to rescue our own people right here at home, from the stupidity of our own government, SOON you’re all going to wish that it had!

Frist Defends Effort to End Filibusters

Sunday, April 24, 2005

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was telling conservatives on Sunday that judges deserve “respect, not retaliation,” no matter how they rule, and he defended his effort to strip Democrats of their ability to block votes on President Bush’s court nominees.

“I don’t think it’s radical to ask senators to vote. I don’t think it’s radical to expect senators to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities,” said Frist, whom Democrats have accused of engaging in “radical Republican” politics.

A potential candidate for the White House in 2008, the Tennessee Republican made no overt mention of religion in a brief address taped for a rally Sunday evening in Louisville, Ky., according to a text of his remarks released before the event.

Instead, Frist seemed intent on steering clear of the views expressed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and other conservatives in and out of Congress who have urged investigations and even possible impeachment of judges they describe as activists.

“Our judiciary must be independent, impartial and fair,” Frist said in his taped remarks.

“When we think judicial decisions are outside mainstream American values, we will say so. But we must also be clear that the balance of power among all three branches requires respect — not retaliation. I won’t go along with that,” Frist said.

The event, organized by the conservative Family Research Council, was being held in a church and was to be broadcast around the country. Fliers for “Justice Sunday — Stopping The Filibuster Against People of Faith” said the filibuster, a tactic used by the minority party to stall debate and sometimes scuttle votes on presidential nominees, is “being used against people of faith.”

The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate said on Sunday that the Constitution prohibits a religious test for a person to be appointed to a public office.

“What’s happening today with the Family Research Council is wrong,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told “Fox News Sunday.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaking on the same show, said the Family Research Council should not question whether Democrats are people of faith or religious bigots.

“I don’t think that helps the country and I don’t think it’s fair,” Graham said.

For months, Frist has threatened to take action that would shut down the Democrats’ practice of subjecting a small number of judicial appointees to filibusters. Barring a last-minute compromise, a showdown is expected this spring or summer.

While a majority of the Senate is sufficient to confirm a judge, it takes 60 votes under Senate rules to overcome a filibuster and force a final vote.

Rather than change the rules directly, Frist and other Republicans have threatened to seek an internal Senate ruling that would declare that filibusters are not permitted against judicial nominees.

Because such a ruling can be enforced by majority vote, and Republicans have 55 seats in the 100-member Senate, GOP leaders have said they expect to prevail if they put the issue to the test.

Democrats blocked 10 appointments in Bush’s first term. The president has renominated seven of the 10 since he won re-election, and Democrats have threatened to filibuster them again.

Republicans pushed two of the nominees — including Texas Supreme Court Judge Priscilla Owen — from the Senate Judiciary Committee last week on party-line votes.

In his remarks, Frist singled out Owen for praise, possibly indicating she will become the test case for the expected showdown.

“She has received praise from both parties,” he said of Owen, nominated for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Justice Owen has also been a leader for providing free legal services to the poor. And she has worked to soften the impact of legal proceedings on children of divorcing parents,” Frist said.

Frist said that “even though a majority of senators support her, she has been denied an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate. … Justice Owen deserves better. She deserves a vote.”

In his remarks, Frist noted that some Republicans are opposed to ending judicial filibusters, fearing that they may someday want to use the same tactics against appointments made by a Democratic president.

“That may be true. But if what Democrats are doing is wrong today, it won’t be right for Republicans to do the same thing tomorrow,” he said.

Frist also said that the Democrats’ filibuster against Bush’s nominees was the first time ever that “a judicial nominee with majority support had been denied an up-or-down vote.”

Republicans held a Senate majority for six of President Clinton’s eight years in office and frequently prevented votes on his court appointments by bottling them up in the committee, knowing the nominees would be confirmed if allowed to go to a vote by the full Senate.

One nominee, Richard Paez, a district court judge when he was nominated, waited more than four years before being confirmed to the appeals court.

Frist’s comments on the independence of judges follow DeLay’s campaign against the federal courts since judges refused to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube.

After the death of the brain-damaged Florida woman, despite swift congressional passage of a law giving federal judges jurisdiction to review her case, DeLay said, “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.” He later apologized, saying he had spoken in an “inartful” way.

Commission Says Too Many Tax Breaks Exist

Sunday, April 24, 2005

By MARY DALRYMPLE, AP Tax Writer

WASHINGTON – As taxpayers recover from finishing their annual filing chores, a presidential commission studying the tax laws has reached the conclusion that there are just too many deductions and credits.

Three credits and a deduction help taxpayers cut college costs. Special urban and rural tax zones encourage investment and job creation. Dozens of other tax benefits help families raise children and save for retirement, encourage adoption, nudge drivers toward hybrid cars and push businesses to invest in new equipment.

“We have lost sight of the fact that the fundamental purpose of our tax system is to raise revenues to fund government,” according to President Bush’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform.

The commission’s chairman, former Florida Sen. Connie Mack, said its nine members have been surprised at the number of tax deductions and credits.

“It wasn’t until we really had the opportunity to listen to so many different people talk about so many different aspects of the code that it really sunk in about how much and how often the code is being used these days to either create incentives or disincentives for either investment or behavior,” Mack said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The White House budget office ranks the cost of a deduction for businesses that provide health insurance to employees as the top tax break, worth $126 billion next year. Also high on the list are the popular mortgage interest deduction, a capital gains break for home sales, a deduction for charitable contributions and the child tax credit.

The list includes many tiny tax breaks. Among them are ones that encourage biodiesel fuel, help the elderly and disabled, make interest on educational bonds tax-free and allow teachers to deduct the cost of school supplies.

The problem comes when taxpayers try to decipher the rules that govern those credits and deductions. The tax breaks often overlap and typically come with pages of instructions and qualifications.

“It was clearly stated that the level of complication has become so great that in many cases it ends up deterring the activity that you’re trying to encourage,” Mack said.

Bush has asked the panel to preserve tax breaks that promote homeownership and charitable giving.

Tax breaks started proliferating in the 1990s for two reasons, said Eugene Steuerle, a former Treasury Department official and co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

“There’s always been this political reward for claiming to do something new rather than merely cleaning up or slightly expanding something that already exists,” Steuerle said.

Lawmakers want to brand their own education tax breaks, for example, which means there are multiple deductions, credits and special savings accounts instead of one tax break everyone can use.

Tax breaks also provide benefits without creating a government spending program. But the proliferation of tax breaks end up costing the public because they mean lawmakers cannot lower income tax rates, Steuerle said.

“They make it look like smaller government, when in fact it’s actually bigger government,” he said.

The tax breaks amount to billions of dollars.

Tax benefits that provide indirect subsidies to homeowners add up to more than the entire budget of the Housing and Urban Development Department.

The earned income tax credit for low wage workers is bigger than any welfare program, including food stamps.

The tax break for businesses that provide health insurance is growing faster than almost all other domestic programs.

Some critics say no one tracks the tax breaks to find out if they succeed in promoting the behavior lawmakers want to encourage. Limitations often mean that some breaks are not available to wealthier taxpayers or poorer ones.

“It is worth noting that the deductions are of little or no benefit to the 40 percent of taxpayers who don’t owe taxes,” Fred Goldberg Jr., a former Internal Revenue Service commissioner, told the presidential panel.

Would taxpayers give up some of those deductions and credits to make the whole system simpler? Not likely.

“Anytime you’ve got a benefit, wherever it happens to be, whether it’s spending or taxes, people don’t want to give them up,” Mack said.

This summer, the panel plans to recommend ways to make the tax laws simpler and fairer.

windoesn’t is acting up again. the 1.03 update for firefox is out, but when i ran the update, it stalls out starting just before it loads my “homepage” (which is a html file on my local network): the menus won’t work, although there’s a “double-click to check for updates” button in the wrong place on the toolbar which does work (although, as i expected, it doesn’t find any updates, because there aren’t any) and the only thing that does work is the “X” box in the upper right corner which quits the program. i checked the task manager and there’s only one firefox process, which goes away when i quit (which is what i expect), and i uninstalled, cleaned out the registry of every occurrance of “firefox” and then re-installed 1.02, but it still gave me the same problems when i got 1.02 installed, which leads me to believe that something in the windoesn’t operating system is getting in the way, but not in a way that i’ve been able to figure out. i’ve updated and run 2 different virus/spyware/malware deteciton programs with no results, and linux version of 1.03 works without a problem (which i expect), but it’s kind of irritating when i have to post things on the web before checking their validation, because my validator on windows is dependent on a local version of firefox… 8/

EDIT: it’s fixed, and linux, which broke afer the first posting of this message, is fixed as well. apparently something was not called correctly when i installed my extensions, and starting it up in safe mode, disabling and uninstalling, then re-installing the extensions fixed it for both platforms.

this was borrowed from who borrowed it from : “this is the meme where you throw some lyrics into Babelfish and translate them into Dutch and French and German and Yakian Discordian and then post three hints as to what the song is and people have to guess it.”

i’m actually going to do a number of these, but this one is, in my opinion, terrifically easy if you know my musical tastes at all:

It is a song regarding the vegetable, it is you regularly, it real for and holds effective calls the any vegetable.
The call it the name.
Mention today, if you receive from the course.
Calls are good any vegetable and the chances, which will answer the vegetable at you!

1) it is a song by my favourite artist.
2) it is a song which invokes a deity for which i have an affinity.

jeez, do i really need to post three? okay…

3) it is the song that the Tinite High Priest sings before a special yearly celebration.

from

You are a stone key, and you unlock old and magical
secrets. What you have to offer is powerful and
difficult for many to understand, but
invaluable to the few who can truly grasp it.
Give the things you have carefully and
wisely, because not everyone will use them for
good.

What sort of key are you and what do you unlock?
brought to you by Quizilla

Exploding toads baffle German experts

BERLIN (AFP) – Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days, it was reported: they exploded.

According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre (three feet).

It is like “a science fiction film”, according to Werner Smolnik of a nature protection society in the northern city of Hamburg, where the phenomenon of the exploding toad has been observed.

“You see the animals crawling on the ground, swelling and then exploding.”

He said the bodies of the toads expanded to three and a half times their normal size.

“I have never seen such a thing,” said veterinarian Otto Horst. So bad has the death toll been that the lake in the Altona district of Hamburg has been dubbed “the pond of death.”

Access to it has been sealed off and every night a biologist visits it between 2:00 and 3:00 am, which appears to be peak time for batrachians to go bang.

Explanations include an unknown virus, a fungus that has infected the water, or crows, which in an echo of the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds”, attack the toads, literally scaring them to death.

habemas papam… white smoke and a new nazi… benedict XVI, for whatever that’s worth…

also, i’m sure nobody else will remember this (it’s odd what you remember and what you forget as the result of a brain injury), but bob larson’s old talk show line – 1-800-821-TALK (8255) – has turned into a toll-free pornography line. i couldn’t have wished for a more appropriate outcome. by the way, if any of you do know what i’m talking about, ralph ewggleigh (otherwise known as “wraith ugly”, the “witch” who bob ranted at incessantly for the first few years he was on the radio, who then “committed suicide” only to be “resurrected” by the Church of Tina Chopp), can now be reached at ugly at fuckthatshit dot org…

although i am not responsible for what happens if you send him spam…

one of the advantages of cleaning house in preparation for moving

does anybody know who this person is?
her picture was amongst a bunch of otherwise tossable paper junk
i just don’t know who it is, or why i’ve got it…

Motorola v60i/v60s phones and chargers
Collectible Mother Goose Cookie Jar
Christmas Bear and Gifts Cookie Jar

by the way, that’s stuff i’m selling, not stuff that i want… just to be clear about it.

it’s official… we sold our house today, which means that we are moving at the end of the month. it’s remotely possible that we actually will be moving into the "glorified trailer" near star lake, but we won’t know for sure until monday. meanwhile i made a button that says “IN WALLA WE TRUST” for someone named ariel who lives on mercer island, and i’ve filled three incense orders and i’ve got another one sitting on my desk which i’m going to have to order one of the three items that they ordered, but that should be fairly easy.

How much is enough?!
A Social Justice Quiz
Twenty Questions By BILL QUIGLEY

1. In 1968 the minimum wage was $1.60 per hour. How much would the minimum wage be today if it had kept pace with inflation?

2. In 1965, CEOs in major companies made 24 times more than the average worker. In 2003, CEOs earned how many times more than the average worker?

3. The US is composed of 3,066 counties. In how many of the nation’s 3,066 counties can someone who works full-time and earns the federal minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment?

4. How much must the typical US worker must earn per hour hour if they dedicate 30% of their income to housing costs.

5. How many million workers in the US earn poverty-level wages of less than $8.20 an hour?

6. What are Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Tennessee?

7. What are Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia?

8. In 2001, the average financial wealth for black householders was about what % of the average for white households?

9. The median financial wealth for blacks is how much of the corresponding figure for whites?

10. Over the entire 28 year history of the Berlin Wall, 287 people perished trying to cross it. In the ten years since the Clinton administration implemented the current U.S. border strategy with Mexico, how many people have died trying to cross?

11. Where does the US rank worldwide in the imprisonment of its citizens?

12. In 2004, the direct reported US military budget was how much for each second of the year?

13. In 2003, the US military budget was how many times larger than the Chinese budget, the second largest spender?

14. In 2003, the US military budget was how many times as large as the combined spending of the seven so-called “rogue” states (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria)?

15. The difference in income per head between the richest nation and the poorest nation in 1750 was about 5 to 1. Today the difference between the richest nation and the poorest nation is what?

16. Of the 6.2 billion people in the world today, how many live on less than $1 per day, and how many live on less than $2 per day?

17. The richest 1% in the world receive as much income as what percentage of the poorest?

18. The Congress under President Bush has been more generous in helping poor countries than under President Clinton. In 2003, the US increased official development assistance to poor countries by one-fifth. Where does the US contribution rank in the top 22 countries in proportion to our economy?

19. Americans give how much per day in government assistance to poor countries?

20. Americans spend how much on soft drinks each day?

…

ANSWERS

1. The minimum wage would be $8.70 today if it had kept pace with inflation. Brennan Center, NYU Law School, November 3, 2004.

2. In 1965, CEOs in major companies made 24 times more than the average worker. In 2003, CEOs earned 185 times more than the average worker. “Wages” in State of Working America 2004-2005, Economic Policy Institute, www.epinet.org

3. In four of the nation’s 3,066 counties can someone who works full-time and earns the federal minimum wage afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment. New York Times, “Study Finds Gap in Wages and Housing Costs,” December 25, 2004.

4. In fact, the typical US worker must earn $15.37 an hour if they dedicate 30% of their income to housing costs. New York Times, “Study Finds Gap in Wages and Housing Costs,” December 24, 2004.

5. How many people in the US earn poverty-level wages of less than $8.20 an hour? More than 30 million workers. William Quigley, ENDING POVERTY AS WE KNOW IT: Guaranteeing A Right to A Job at a Living Wage, 24 (Temple 2003).

6. What are Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Tennessee? The total population of these states represents the number of people in the US living below the official poverty line. William Quigley, ENDING POVERTY AS WE KNOW IT: Guaranteeing A Right to A Job at a Living Wage, 23-24 (Temple 2003).

7. What are Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia? The total populations of these state populations must be added to the states above if you count all the people below 125% of the official poverty line, a total of 22 states. William Quigley, ENDING POVERTY AS WE KNOW IT: Guaranteeing A Right to A Job at a Living Wage, 23-24 (Temple 2003).

8. In 2001, the average financial wealth for black householders was about 12% of the average for white households. “Minorities,” in State of Working America 2004-2005, Economic Policy Institute, www.epinet.org

9. The median financial wealth for blacks was $1,100, less than 3% of the corresponding figure for whites. “Minorities,” in State of Working America 2004-2005, Economic Policy Institute, www.epinet.org

10. Over the entire 28 year history of the Berlin Wall, 287 people perished trying to cross it. In the ten years since the Clinton administration implemented the current U.S. border strategy with Mexico, more than 2,500 people have died trying to cross. Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego. Marc Cooper, “On the Border of Hypocrisy,” December 5, 2003, LA Weekly.

11. Where does the US rank worldwide in the imprisonment of its citizens? First. The US imprisons over 700 persons per 100,000. Russia is second with 584. Sentencing Project, Facts About Prisons and Prisoners. www.sentencingproject.org

12. In 2004, the direct reported US military budget was over $399 billion, $12,000 a second. www.globalissues.org

13. In 2003, the US military budget was more than 8 times larger than the Chinese budget, the second largest spender. www.globalissues.org

14. The US military budget was more than 29 times as large as the combined spending of the seven “rogue” states (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria). Even if you add China and Russiaís military spending to that of the seven potential enemies, all nine nations together spent $116.2 billion, 27% of the U.S. military budget. The US military budget is more than the combined spending of the next twenty three nations. www.globalissues.org

15. The difference in income per head between the richest nation and the poorest nation in 1750 was about 5 to 1. Today the difference between the richest nation, Switzerland, and the poorest nation, Mozambique, is about 400 to 1. (David S. Landes, THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS, xx, W.W. Norton 1998).

16. Of the 6.2 billion people in the world today, 1.2 billion live on less than $1 per day, 2.8 billion live on less than $2 per day. 2002 UN Human Development Report.

17. The richest 1% in the world receive as much income as the poorest 57%. 2002 UN Human Development Report.

18. The Congress under President Bush has been more generous in helping poor countries than under President Clinton. In 2003, the US increased official development assistance to poor countries by one-fifth. Where does the US contribution rank in the top 22 countries in proportion to our economy? Last. Nicholas D. Kristof, “Land of Penny Pinchers,” New York Times, January 5, 2005.

19. Americans on average give how much per day in government assistance to poor countries? 15 cents. Nicholas D. Kristof, “Land of Penny Pinchers,” New York Times, January 5, 2005.

20. Americans spend how much on soft drinks each day? 60 cents. Nicholas D. Kristof, “Land of Penny Pinchers,” New York Times, January 5, 2005.

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing” oriented society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.” Martin Luther King, Jr., “A Time to Break Silence,” April 4, 1967.

Bill Quigley is a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He can be reached at [email protected]

Computer-generated gibberish submitted, accepted at scientific conference… hah! they’ve finally created a computer program that generates believable enough gibberish that even scientists are fooled. now it’s about time for people to realise that computers can do a lot more than that, and start thinking about how to change society for the better!
Fresh-air breathing device and method with a twist… don’t say i didn’t warn you!
police in great britain scan license plates from a helicopter… i would say "dude, where’s my country", but it’s not my country… dude, where’s my world!

so we’re not going to be living at the end of a gravel road that is off another gravel road near star lake, because of the fact that we can’t get financing for the “trailer” in spite of the fact that the people who are in charge of our current mortgage said they would loan us money… we’ve recinded our offer, and our real estate agent (who should have known that this was going to happen) says he’ll be able to get our earnest money back, but if not we’re going to make him eat it, because he should have known that this was going to happen, but lead us down the garden path anyway. meanwhile, we’ve found another house which looks about right, although we haven’t seen it yet… we’re going to see it tomorrow, so hopefully it will work out. our current house is still in the process… the buyer’s agent was going to meet with the buyers this evening, after they get off work, so we still don’t know anything for sure.

US-CERT Technical Cyber Security Alert TA05-102A — Multiple Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows Components

Overview

Microsoft has released a Security Bulletin Summary for April, 2005. This summary includes several bulletins that address vulnerabilities in various Windows applications and components. Exploitation of some vulnerabilities can result in the remote execution of arbitrary code by a remote attacker. Details of the vulnerabilities and their impacts are provided below.

I. Description

The list below provides a mapping between Microsoft’s Security Bulletins and the related US-CERT Vulnerability Notes. More information related to the vulnerabilities is available in these documents.

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-020: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (890923)

VU#774338 Microsoft Internet Explorer DHTML objects contain a race condition

VU#756122 Microsoft Internet Explorer URL validation routine contains a buffer overflow

VU#222050 Microsoft Internet Explorer Content Advisor contains a buffer overflow

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-02: Vulnerability in Exchange Server Could Allow Remote Code Execution (894549)

VU#275193 Microsoft Exchange Server contains unchecked buffer in SMTP extended verb handling

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-022: Vulnerability in MSN Messenger Could Lead to Remote Code Execution (896597)

VU#633446 Microsoft MSN Messenger GIF processing buffer overflow

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-019: Vulnerabilities in TCP/IP Could Allow Remote Code Execution and Denial of Service (893066)

VU#233754 Microsoft Windows does not adequately validate IP packets

II. Impact

Exploitation of these vulnerabilities may permit a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable Windows system, or cause a denial-of-service condition.

III. Solution

Apply a patch.

Microsoft has provided the patches for these vulnerabilities in the Security Bulletins and on Windows Update.

good news/bad news… and since there’s nobody to choose which comes first, you get my choice, and i’m not sure which is which.

we’ve had two offers on our house, and despite that, we continue to have to let total strangers walk around and “preview” the house, because the offers are not finalised yet: one of them was an investor who had bunches of money he was willing to throw at us with no contingencies or prerequisites, but he suddenly developed some “family emergency” or something like that, which made him have to leave for europe, so he withdrew the offer. the other one is from a family who is buying their first house, and their offer comes with some things that make us question whether they are actually going to get what they are asking for, and may end up not going through at all because they may want us to spend money to fix things – which is why we’re selling in the first place: we don’t have enough money to pay the mortgage, let alone fix things that they may want to have fixed before they’ll actually give us money.

however, the owner of the house we want to buy wants to sell to us, and has basically said that she’s ready to move at the end of april, so we’d be able to move in around the 1st of may… except that when the people who finance our mortgage, who have already approved a new mortgage based solely on moe’s income, found out that the “house” is actually a “glorified trailer”, they changed their minds and now say that they won’t lend us money unless we put up 30% of the cost of the “trailer” as a down payment. apparently the house is a “single-wide”, which are the most frequently defaulted-on mortgages of any out there, and despite the fact that we have great credit, they say that a “single-wide” is more like a car (or, more specifically, a trailer) than a house, and they’re afraid we’ll move it somewhere else (as if)… so they’re willing to loan us money to buy the “single-wide” if we’re willing to put down 30% to start with, but not at all if it is to be a “no down payment” mortgage, which is what we can afford… and if we recind our offer at this point, we’ll lose our earnest money, which we can’t afford to do.

SUCK!

the whole thing has put enough stress on moe that i’m starting to worry about her, along with all of the other things i’ve got to worry about. 8P

oh, yeah… the moisture festival is done for another year. i’m told that we won’t have to wait until next year to “get moist” again, but nothing apart from that.

My japanese name is 福田明 (bright happy rice field).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey‘s Name Generator Generator.

apparently kids in japan play a game called kancho, which involves “kids clasping their hands together, sticking out their first fingers, and shoving them up your butt”… here’s a link to the whole story for the morbidly curious, as well as a link to the JET Programme, for those who want to go and find out for themselves whether it’s really true or not.

Leftist Hatred Behind Pie-Throwing Thugs… “Pie-throwing thugs attacking conservative speakers on college campuses are motivated by left-wing hatred…” or they could just be getting totally fed up with doing things according to the rules and getting shot down, overridden, and out-“voted” at every attempt. hrmph!

oh, all right, i’ll update my journal, in spite of the fact that the same things are going on now that were going on a week ago (stress over not having a job, stress about moving to an as-yet-unknown place, stress about my car’s deteriorating condition, moisture festival performances, etc.), if for no other reason than to get the mass of links off of my desktop.

the moisture festival is in the middle of it’s second week of performances, and everything is going amazingly well, although as disorganised as ever. apparently hobbit wrote to someone at the moisture festival back in february, but nobody responded. oh well, better luck next time, ‘eh? there’s a review of the moisture festival, and a whole bunch of pictures taken at the moisture festival by john cornicello, who is the fremont philharmonic’s keyboard player, but there’s only one of me. we’ll have to fix that…

please note, what you can see of the hat was given to me by
now that i’ve got the photo on a server which doesn’t prevent me from linking to graphics of my own face… grumble, grumble…

through not very much poking around i found my father’s web site. the last time i talked to him, i called to ask for a copy of my birth certificate, about a month ago. he said he would send it to me, and then hung up with no further comment. that was the first time i spoke to him since my injury, almost 2 years ago, and i’ve not been in contact with him and the rest of my "family-of-origin" for maybe 3 years before that. i wish i could have expected more from him, but he’s been that way for close to 20 years, so i don’t know why i should expect anything else from him. he sent me a certified letter with the original of my birth certificate (!), but it was addressed to my old name, which i haven’t used for more than 20 years.

along the same lines, i found another species of salamander on the web, Aneides flavipunctatus, whose name i like almost as much as Ambystoma tigrinum (the Tiger salamander, which is a "Mole salamander" according to the family name, but which isn’t listed at wildherps.com).

turning the corner, there’s an article i rather liked about the "chaliban" – the "christian" taliban which is slowly and insidiously taking over this country – which has been hypocritical enough to allow the government to pull the plug on a 6-month-old baby with a fatal form of dwarfism (over his mother’s objections), and hypocritical enough to allow tom delay to pull the plug on his own terminally-ill father, but hypocritial enough to rush in and repeatedly try to deny michael schiavo’s attempts to pull the plug on his brain-damaged, used-to-be human wife, terri… similarly, there is now evidence that a good deal of the information that "we" used to "justify" going to war with iraq came from a drunken liar… dude… where’s my country?

more linky-links…

Pope Joan – myth, or what?
huitlacoche is a south american "delicacy" made from corn smut… EDIT: the original article, with more pictures, can be seen at The Sneeze – not for the squeamish or weak of heart… don’t say i didn’t warn you… i mean it!
here are a number of articles by Swami Abhedananda about jesus and "churchianity", which i have bookmarked for future reference.
the robo-urinal, which is bizarre enough that they included a picture of it, to assuage any skepticism…

thanks to

reefer "madness" – or, more accurately, reefer sarcasm. they’re grasping at straws here…
DON’T SAY CLICK HERE, and other dangerous words that i’ve been warning people about for years now… but people still ask me to use it anyway, which really frustrates me…

there, now i’ve updated. satisfied?

well, we’re officially moving… soon… but we still don’t know where yet. there’s a 2 bedroom manufactured home (read "glorified trailer") near star lake, or one of those small lakes in auburn (i’m not sure exactly which lake it is) that we’ve made an offer on, but we haven’t heard anything yet. in spite of that, we put the house on the market yesterday and we’ve already got a bunch of calls. i’ve been busting ass cleaning up and doing yard work…

and doing moisture festival performances, which are going really well, in spite of the fact that they’re somewhat disorganised. everybody’s going on when they’re supposed to go on, but when they’re supposed to go on is sort of transitory, and doesn’t get decided upon until right before the show, and in some cases (like last night) they change the order halfway through the show… plus they claim (for example) that there are sound effects for the thunder/lightning/rain effect at the beginning of the show that are on mini-disc, but the sound person (who isn’t me, because i’m in the band, more on this later) doesn’t know anything about it, and doesn’t have a mini-disc player that they can plug into the board anyway… so minutes before the show, john and i are running around trying to find hacki’s son myron to see if he has a mini-disc player (which he doesn’t), and yelling across a crowded performance hall to the sound person telling her that i will do the sound effects "manually" with a thunder drum and a metal sheet… and then, when it came time to do it, they skipped over that part without telling me, so i was all set and they began the next number and i was standing there holding my "props" looking like a fool… and it wasn’t even april fool’s day! i said earlier that i would also be running lights and sound, but this won’t be possible because i’m in the band, which has got to be available during every performance, at a moment’s notice, to go on and "cover", in case something goes wrong… plus it is a big enough performance this year (!) that sound and lights are actually two positions and the sound person, by necessity, can’t run lights as well.

anyway, for those of you in the boston area, MIT is giving a day-long workshop called regarding evil that i’d really like to attend if it weren’t on the wrong side of the country, and along the same lines, now that there’s more than one of us saying things like this, perhaps there’s a slight bit greater a probability that we won’t blow ourselves up before we can actually save the planet, Death was arrested and charged with theft from a cemetary in (where else) san francisco (i’ll let you figure that one out), and now there is further proof that people are Tinites whether they like it or not!

images by Jim Kirwan

this is an advertisement? for what??

more "advertising" by the same artist… what is he advertising, anyway??

finally, thanks to , iCopulate for all those lonely iPods out there… i’m pretty sure the west has too much money, and too much time on their hands.

terri schiavo died a few minutes ago… now the battle is for where and what manner she will be buried. michael says she will be cremated and buried in pennsylvania, the parents want her not cremated and buried in florida…

can’t they leave well enough alone????

http://www.moisturefestival.com/

The 2005 Moisture Festival, A springtime celebration of comedie and varieté featuring Fyodor Karamazov, Du Caniveaux, The Fremont Players, Zebra Kings, Lelavision, Kevin Joyce, Martha Enson, PK Dwyer, Godfrey Daniels, Dangerous Flares, Artis the Spoonman, Flordigan Can Can Girls, Dr. Calamari and Acrophilia, Berlin’s Hacki Ginda, Avner the Eccentric. Tom Noddy the Bubble Guy, Rhys Thomas Jugglemania, Buttrock Suites, Magical Mystical Michael, Circus Contraption, The Aerialistas, Canote Brothers, Henrik Bothe, Baby Gramps, The Peculiárs, Amanda Starr, Widow Twankey, Cirque de Flambé, Christian Swenson, Savannah Fuentes, The Fremont Philharmonic, Janet McAlpin’s Madame X, Frank Olivier plus Late Night Burlesque! with Indigo Blue, Wade Madsen Ultra, and More!

Dates: March 30 – April 10th

Location: Hale’s Palladium, 4301 Leary Way NW, Seattle, WA

Ticketing Information:
Kids: $5.00
Matinee show: $10.00
Evening show: $15.00
Late show: $10.00
Fri. and Sat. night shows: $20.00

amusing, in a scary sort of way when you think about it, the Furry Home Page (thanks to ) at Furry Elementary School, in sandusky, ohio… and the reason it’s scary is because if you look at it with anything other than internet exploder (which i do by default, since micro$nooze doesn’t make IE for linux, and even if they did, i wouldn’t use it anyway), it looks like shit… it looks like it was made by a 5 year old who doesn’t know anything about HTML, because it doesn’t validate… but instead of making sure it’s compliant with industry standards for such things, instead, the perkins school district, whose ultimate purpose is "Excellence in education for all", makes it everyone else’s fault on their "technology" page, by saying that if you use firefox (which, while good, is the only alternative they offer, ignoring mozilla, or safari, or konqueror, or galeon, or…), "some web sites, including those of Perkins Local Schools and NOECA, may not appear as the web designer intended, and some dynamic content may not function correctly."

wull yeah, if the "web designer" has a pole up his ass and can’t write HTML because he relies on micro$hit to do all of the important stuff for him because he doesn’t understand how to do it himself, yeah, i can see how that might happen…

i wonder how much money micro$not has thrown at the perkins school district… i wonder if there are any computer users who run mac or linux systems in the perkins school district… if i was in sandusky, ohio, i would have some words with the school district’s network administrator, or their "webmaster" or whoever he is – i’d email him, but there appears to be no email address for Philip Alldredge – and if that didn’t work, i’d consider moving to another school district just on principle.

my LJ style changed again… i wonder how long it’s going to be before somebody does something about it?

changes from component to generator, changes from english to danish, changes from purple to blue…

i don’t have much to say, but i’ve got a lot to say about it…

about terri schiavo… just about as much has been said about the case as can be, but i’d like to add my two cents. much as the "CULTure of life" would like to ignore the fact, people actually don’t grow new brains… and that’s exactly what terri schiavo would have to do in order to be anything other than a persistent vegetable for the rest of her natural-born days, i don’t care how many "sounds" you hear coming out of her!! to illustrate this, here is a graphic:

the dark areas on the left are places where there used to be brain material, but are now spinal fluid… i don’t care how much wishing and believing the parents do, i don’t care how much they wish that they heard her say "i want to live", their daughter simply won’t grow back even a fraction of that brain material. she’s a vegetable! QUIT APPEALING THE DECISIONS OF PEOPLE WHO KNOW MORE THAN YOU AND LET HER DIE, FOR GOD’S SAKE!!

more links that express my views pretty well…

if you want to stop the government from doing "cat" scans without your knowledge, then you’ve got to see Pet Foil Hat Technology… some people will buy anything…

and then, we have the "Art Outlives Politics" section of the post, which includes the recent actions by banksy, and Will SpongeBob Make You Gay?, yet another attempt by the religious right to control anything that might prove to make people realise how insidiously stupid the religious right is…

finally, we have art imitating life… or life imitating art?

oh, by the way, The 2nd Annual Moisture Festival starts next week…

okay, this is getting really annoying… my LJ style changed again! without me doing anything to it… i don’t know what is going on, but among other things, i changed my password, just in case.

i’m distressed and depressed, so i don’t feel like updating that often. i’m still here, and things are still as good as can be expected, considering that i’ve experienced a brain injury and been unemployed for almost 9 months, and there’s a good chance that we’re going to have to move pretty soon, which means that i may have to go another year or more before i actually get a chance to have the poppies that i successfully planted earlier this year actually grow to maturity in my yard… and i won’t have the multicoloured roses all over the yard… oh, yeah, i can plant more, but then i’ve got to wait for them to grow, which won’t be this year, and probably won’t be next year either. there’s so much more about this that i could say, but that’s what i’m thinking about right now. i’m not particularly disappointed at leaving our current location, it’s just that i don’t know where we’re going to end up yet… and the last time this sort of thing happened in my life was shortly before (as in a couple of years before) i broke up with ruth. and i can already hear moe saying that she’s NOT ruth, but old habits die hard (even if what i’ve been experiencing recently can’t exactly be described as a "habit")… and i have the added "bonus" of having my injury now, so if we did break up (for God-knows what reason), i’d be even more out of it than i was the last time. thus distress and depression.

according to ezra (who talked with her last week) katharyn is out of the state loony bin in steilacoom. apparently she was transferred to some regional care-center in bellingham, but as she has basically told her care-givers not to give any information about her to anyone, including ezra, and as she still maintains to ezra that she was "kidnapped" (in spite of the fact that she is now a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic), ezra has been unable to find out an awful lot more than that.

i’ve noticed that, about every 2 weeks or so, something gets messed up on the livejournal server such that my livejournal style gets changed from it’s current "component" style to "generator" style, which is definitely undesireable, and means that i’ve had to learn all of the nuances of the "component" style so that when it changes i can change it back as soon as possible. i would prefer it if it didn’t happen at all, but at least i’ve been able to learn all of the twiddly little details enough that i can tell almost immediately when it’s about to change, and change it back again fairly quickly.

okay, ezra has this goal of putting up 100,000 stickers that have this stylised picture of a bald man with the words "the bald man is watching you", similar to the picture shown here. this is a story that he told me about one recent expedition to help realise this goal. he says he was out putting up stickers recently in pioneer square, and there was a person standing outside of an art gallery smoking a cigarette who saw him and inquired if he was the one responsible for the stickers (which he is). she said that she is a member of a nationwide group of people who have been subjected to "testing" by the U.S. government, which she’s not supposed to talk about (<ding ding> wacko alert going off…). she said that in seattlle, there’s a guy named frank, who is paid by the government to make sure that members of this group who have been subjected to this "testing" actually don’t talk about it, and, coincidentally, he looks exactly like the bald man. now this is a person who, previously, didn’t know about ezra, or who was responsible for the bald man, but she said that she had a friend who lives in seattle, who is also a part of this group of people who have had this "testing" done to them, and this friend of hers had drawn a picture of this woman (her name is lynn) punching this guy named frank. she showed it to ezra, and he said that indeed, it looks almost exactly like the bald man. i said that, if it were happening to me, it would either inspire me to put up more stickers, or it would scare me enough that i would stop putting them up all together, with my particular preference being towards the former, and he agreed that he felt the same way. at that point, we got to talking about internet domains and suchlike, and there’s a good chance that the bald man is going to end up with a domain which people can go to, to find out more information (such as it is) about the bald man.

there’s a site which has, among other things, an article about starting a revolution (which is stuff i’ve been saying for 30 years), and an article about how to arm ourselves once that revolution has begun. and this site has chocolate deities and an interesting story about ganesha. here’s a funny story about the cats and the roomba. then, of course, there’s nice-tits.org which is 100% work safe, oddly enough. finally there’s 13 (more) things that do not make sense, if you needed some extra things that make you go hmmm…

i’ve noticed that on some (but not all, which is what makes it weird) of my livejournal pages, instead of my name being "?????????", which is what i would expect, it is "महà¥?श्वरदस", which leads me to believe that the FPI character set is not making it on to all of the pages. does anyone else notice that, or is it just me?

it’s amazing what i can do when i’m depressed…

yesterday was π day in the united states (3/14), but it won’t be π day until 22 july (22/7) in the rest of the world.

(courtesy of some guy i used to work with)

I thought we were all sufficiently geeky to see the significance of today, 3/14.

If 3/14 isn’t enough, look at the rest of the schedule: 3/14, at 1:59, for 26 minutes. That’s 3/14 1:59 26′. Or, smooshed together, 31415926.

The 22/7 part was especially obscure, it was supposed to be a joke about how 22/7ths (3.1428571428571428571428571428571…) is an excellent approximation for Pi (3.1415926535…), and thefore 22/7 (July 22nd for those European metric chaps) is an approximation for Pi day (3/14). There’s a good lesson for engineers in this, as 22/7ths is a “good enough” version of Pi for all but the most demanding applications, despite being a (literally) infinitely less complex expression than Pi. Something for us to keep in mind to temper the natural tendency to “overengineer” solutions.

More resources on Pi and Pi Day:

Pi Day Mission Statement
Pi Day openly promotes the celebration of mathematics education, the collective enjoyment of mathematics, and the ageless, multicultural interest in pi. Educators, students, and parents are encouraged to join together in a variety of public activities, expressing in imaginative ways, their passion for the longstanding creative nature of mathematics.

http://www.mobot.org/education/megsl/pi.html
http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/pi/
http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/pi/pi.html
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Edu/RSE/RSEorange/buttons.html
http://www.joyofpi.com/pifacts.html

2006 is the 300th anniversary of Pi, in that the first recorded use of the Pi symbol to represent this ratio was in a book in 1706, so maybe we’ll have a bigger celebration next year. Any maybe a real blowout in 2020 (314 years after publication)?

now you know.

i’m not sure what is happening but it’s probably not going to be entirely good. we only have $1000, and we need $2600 this month. i’m not sure what’s going to happen, but we’ve already shut off our cable service, and moe is working on finding us a cheaper cell phone provider… we’ve also talked about selling the house, and the new car, and moe’s new computer, but that’s all we’ve done, and at this point i don’t know how much of it is going to actually happen. i’ve also applied (again) for disability benefits, in spite of the fact that i already applied once and was denied… because i understand that they deny everybody the first time around in hopes that we’ll get discouraged and look for help somewhere else, but i’m desperate at this point: i’ve already applied for 14 jobs this week, and i don’t have any hopes of hearing back from anyone, because i haven’t heard back from anyone in 8 months.

meanwhile, somebody sent me a check, so now i have to go make a pipe. it’s a good thing i have a whole bunch of creative outlets (i’ve made 3 more sets of runes since sunday, and i’m now the sound effects coordinator – read "funny noise maker" – for the cirque and the players), otherwise i’d really be going nuts.

i wonder if has seen this… if not, it seems like an appropriate link for him.

blatantly stolen from … without even responding to the one he posted (although i probably will eventually)

1) Does my username suit me?
2) Is my journal’s title cryptic or descriptive? What do you think it means?
3) Does my journal expand your knowledge of me?
4) Do you think my bio describes me well?
5) Which of my interests surprises you the least?
6) Which of my interests surprises you the most?
7) Which of my interests needs explaining?
8) Which of my userpics suits me best?
9) Which of my userpics suits me least?
10) Which of my userpics needs explaining?

in a pouch with "instructions"… do you think $35 is too much?

yay! cirque du soleil has dropped their appeal, which means that now we have "successfully defended our trademark" in court. now, if they sue in civil court (which they still have the opportunity to do), we would very likely win, and at that point, macque said that we would very likely countersue for damages, harrassment and whatever else he could think of… at which point we could very likely own cirque du soleil! we’re gearing up for a very busy year, which includes shows in canada in may, three weeks of shows in seattle, and a show in reno in august or september, along with the fremont players’ shows at the moisture festival, the oregon country fair and other places, and all of the stuff that the phil is doing as well. also, nathan is coming back!! which means we have johnny jetpack to look forward to this season as well… WOO HOO!

Top 10 advantages of being a member of a circus family:
10. The bearded lady will always save your ass in a bar fight.
9. Being able to tell the teacher, “The lion ate my homework.”
8. You never get yelled at for dangling your sister from high places.
7. You can run off and join corporate America.
6. If you get tired of Beppo the Mime’s snoring – you can just close your eyes.
5. No matter how many of you there are in the family, you can rest assured you will all fit into the family Volkswagen.
4. Watching Mom kiss dad goodbye every morning before she loads him into the cannon and fires him off to work.
3. All Spandex laundry loads
2. Buying Elephant-Chow is cheaper with the circus discount.
1. When your rebelious kids run away… they end up in medical school.

in other news, i suppose i should have been more skeptical from the very beginning, but now there is a conflicting version of the details surrounding the capture of saddam hussain, which makes a lot more sense than the "official" version. also, remembering all those arguments made 1,500 deaths ago is one way of saying "i told you this was going to happen", especially when i told you this was going to happen before any of those deaths occurred! maybe i’m psychic, but somehow i doubt that’s going to make a lot of difference. and the muslim community in spain has finally issued a fatwa against osama bin laden, as if it is really necessary to do so to show the rest of the world that islam condemns attacks on innocent people… and, again, i seriously doubt that it’s going to make an awful lot of difference anyway. 8/

busy-ness…

i took my car in to have the valve cover gaskets replaced, so now it doesn’t spit oil and smoke as much. but it still generates a funny smell from time to time, so i took it in again. this time he said that i have to have a whole bunch of seals and an O-ring replaced, and he said that it would be the easiest to replace by doing all of them at the same time as i get my timing belt replaced. the seals and O-ring are apparently not that expensive of themselves, but the cost comes with the labour, and it is multiplied exponentially if i have them replaced separately. it’s my impression that hahn replaced the timing belt a little more than a year ago, shortly before i actually bought the car, so i don’t think i have to replace the timing belt yet, but that brings up two other issues, which are 1) if hahn replaced the timing belt, did he also replace the seals and O-ring, and if so, why have they failed already, and 2) honestly, i don’t have the funds to replace all of these parts at this point, so what happens if i drive it anyway? the guy said i shouldn’t drive it that much, and if i do, i should check my oil every day, but i’m paranoid.

while i was waiting for the diagnosis of my car, my cell phone rang (i have it set so that it plays the theme from "Uncle Meat" by frank zappa), and the salesperson on the other end (i know it was a salesperson because they started the "conversation" by assuring me that it wasn’t a sales call) said that "president" bush needed my help… riiiiiight… obviously they have no clue who they’re talking to. looking back on on the situation now, i wish i would have said something witty and acerbic, but as it is, i said forget it, and hung up.

in the past 3 weeks i’ve made 3 orders from om imports, and i’m getting pretty close to having "enough" incense again, but not quite. i just ordered 6 different auroshikha fragrances, 2 tulasi fragrances, a hem fragrance, and 2 tapestries. also, i got email from the guy at glow industries, checking up on me to see if i got the catalogue he sent… but i’m still not sure whether i want to represent them with hybrid elephant or not… however moe suggested that i probably could carry some of the more questionable items at The Church of Tina Chopp, and when i pointed out that the church isn’t really set up to sell stuff, she said "why not? every other church does it…" which got me to thinking about what it would take to set up something for the church… more thought is required.

thanks to , i have links to the biscut-eating dummy, boobies, more boobies, and furries from japan, and, thanks to i have another in my long list of reasons why i am a terrorist, Senator Byrd is correct to equate Bush with Hitler… too bad bringing hitler into it will do more to make the religious right see us as lunatics, but it can’t be helped, especially when they’re right for a change.

ooooohh-kay… i suppose the fact that i had an injury to my left hemisphere does nothing to influence that… or, maybe (as kitty pointed out) now i have enough room to grow more brains than most people have…

i got my first order of more than $50 yesterday. somebody from sammamish, which is right up the road from me, so to speak. too bad i have to charge them sales tax, but i don’t think it matters that much. he ordered auroshikha rose, sandalwood, jasmine, frankincense, and myrrh, all of which i am getting (hopefully) in a shipment tomorrow. now all that needs to happen is that there needs to be more people like him. check it out!

i got a dealer’s catalogue from "Glow Industries" (no link, ’cause they don’t have a web site!), which, according to reliable sources (the indian representative for Sital, somebody ironically named "Guru"), is the US outlet for Sital brand incense. they have been trying to get me to check out their catalogue for at least a year (through the use of spam, which is why it hasn’t been working), and i finally gave in and ordered a catalogue from them to get them off my back. apparently they either are not the US outlet for Sital any longer, or they don’t have Sital products in their catalogue, but i’m not sure which. they have a lot of "body jewelry", but no indication of whether it is made with surgical steel or not. they push the fact that they are suppliers of "Satya Sai Baba" nag champa incense, but they are apparently unaware of the fact that i don’t carry sai baba incense because of the fact that everyone who sells incense carries sai baba incense, and it’s really not that good anyway, compared to the champa fragrances i do carry. they also carry a whole bunch of products that make me wonder whether i really want to represent them or not… things like "tobacco accessories" including "hand-blown glass pipes", "cigarette" rolling machines, and "grundge-off", and "adult toys" including dildos, vibrators, pocket pussies, and Ms. Pinky (after whom the frank zappa song is named).

i have another "random" (i know it’s random ’cause the computer printed form letter they sent me says so) job search log review tomorrow. just so that everyone knows ahead of time, i have four job contacts on my log for the date in question (12th february), which is one more than the minimum required, but i’ve been averaging 8 to 10 job contacts per week (this week i have 10 job contacts, and it’s only monday). i still find it somewhat hard to believe that somebody is getting paid, by the state, to check my job contacts to see if i actually made them or not, and to "recommend job search activities" to me (which, so far, has been one recommendation for a job that was posted 6 weeks previously – meaning that by the time i got the recommendation they had already hired somebody else). WAGE SLAVERY SUCKS!!

You scored as Hinduism. Your views are most similar to those of… Hinduism! Consider becoming Hindu, if you aren’t already. Hinduism 90% Satanism 85% Paganism 70% Islam 50% Christianity 40% Atheism 40% Judaism 20% Which is the right religion for you? created with QuizFarm.com

Belief-O-Matic
Your Results:
The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

How did the Belief-O-Matic do? Discuss your results on our message boards.

both of these are easily predictable, although the second one is somewhat more comprehensive… but scientology? secular humanism?? mormons?? jehovah’s witnesses??? and my beliefs are more compatible (which isn’t saying that much) with a non-theist than with "mainline to conservative christian/protestant" or with jehovah’s witnesses, despite the fact that i chose "most important" in response to the question about how important the section on worship is compared to the other sections.

i originally followed this link because it contained the term "Fire Vortex", but it turns out that the whole page deserves a lot more perusal than just the fire vortex link… but i’m going to have to change computers to be able to listen to the whole thing, because my main (linux) computer doesn’t have any sound hardware. on the other hand, this link doesn’t require sound hardware, but i still wouldn’t recommend it unless either you or your partner are masochists.

unrelated linky links:

Chavez Says Washington Plots His Murder, U.S. Denies – uh… yeah. "We have enough evidence… If anything happens to me, the person responsible will be the president of the United States"… and if they were planning chavez’ assasination, do you think they would cop to it? i think not.

Judge: Schwarzenegger Delayed Nurse Laws – let’s elect him president next… can we please? that way we can suffer even more when we get wounded in the (inevitable) war and have to wait in line because there aren’t enough nurses to go around because the government is doing "new studies" to make sure that the nurse to patient ratio isn’t too great…

Subaru at Top in Quality Survey – why did i include this? because i drive a subaru, that’s why!

ezra performed in this year’s BFA Dance program this evening at the Broadway Performance Hall. it went really well. ezra was the solo dancer in the first piece. of course, i really liked the piece that used Knee 5 from Einstine On The Beach (an opera by philip glass that drove my parents up the wall), and there was one where the sound score started with a bunch of sounds from the audience – people coughing and rustling papers, along with a couple of people with photo flash units (after having been specifically told that, in order to protect the safety of the dancers, no flash photography would be allowed made it really obvious to me that it was part of the performance, but apparently not everyone is so observant, as the people next to me started making "uh-oh" noises). it was a really good show, and of course, was all the better because my kid was in it.

here is a good article about anarchy with which i totally agree, so if you’re a department of clownland security mole you should take note: i don’t often classify myself politically (although i am a terrorist). also, there’s a bloticle (blog article?) about "birth control" for republicans that is along the lines of something that might actually work. i’m big on karma too… kinda strange mixture, but it works for me.

Which Animaniacs Character are You?

You are… unique to say the least. Though the events around you often seem complex, even convoluted, you tend to drift off into your own world. It’s nicer there. People tend to think you’re joking, even when you think you’re being serious. Though, seriousness is taxing for you. You’d rather play all the time than do boring work of any type, and perhaps that’s why inane dribble tends to issue forth from your mouth.

ZORT!

moe did this meme as well… hers was… wait for it…

Pesto the pigeon???

oh well, what did i expect?

oh, by the way, the cirque de flambé got written up in Exhibitor Magazine… W00t! also i’ve gotten two orders with the new shopping cart, and i haven’t been doing anything different, which i think is a good sign. i ordered a whole pile of incense which came today, and another huge pile which is scheduled to be delivered on tuesday. check it out!

i’ve had a set of original dubé juggling clubs for about 25 years, i bought them from jack bosco, of the bosco boys (the juggling team before the flying karamazov brothers started happening). before my injury i either really liked them, or really hated them (depending on how much juggling i was doing), because they were extra heavy, and had lead tape wound around the handles.

recently there have been a series of workshops for the cirque and other folks (those who are now in charge say that we have to have workshops that are open to the public in order to keep our 401C3 tax exempt status, but i’ve never heard of it before, and we were 401C3 tax exempt for 4 years before those who are now in charge showed up, so i don’t know if i really believe them or not). the workshop that was given this week was on club swinging, and the big bois with poise were supposed to show up for it because there is a lot of similarity between spinning poi and swinging clubs, and at this point just about anything would help, so i went. because of the fact that tim “fyodor karamazov” (the instructor of the workshop) had requested that if we had clubs of any variety, to bring them, i dug out my dubé clubs (which i haven’t touched since my injury).

i would expect that clubs, whether they are for juggling or swinging, would be sturdy, and resist breaking. as i said, i’ve had this set of dubé clubs for 25 years, and i have juggled (and, thus, dropped) them a lot during that time, so i was quite surprised when, in the first five minutes of the workshop, i dropped, and broke two of my set of three clubs!

dubé has a warranty on all their products for the lifetime of the original owner… but i bought them from jack bosco, so i’m not the original owner… but i bought them 25 years ago, so not only do i not have the receipt any more, but i sort of wonder if anybody will notice that i’m not the original owner or not. what i am sure of is that they don’t make this variety of clubs any more.

i guess i’m going to find out…

does anybody else remember these? they used to put emblems like this on LPs (those things on which people bought music before compact disks) to dissuade people from copying them onto cassettes (which people used to make music more portable before the ipod). did anybody else believe them? apparently not, because music is still being converted from one format to another with great abandon, despite the fact that "it’s illegal", and as far as i have been able to tell, music isn’t dead… at least not yet. along the same lines, i modified my master license application so that now, $20 later, i own the trade name Rent-A-Geek, but i found out that there are two other businesses in king county that also use that name, not to mention the one in philadelphia, the one in maine, and a few other places i found thanks to a $6 business name search… so now i’ve got to consider getting the name trademarked, so that nobody else can use it, because if i don’t then someone else may do the same thing, and despite the fact that i’ve been doing business under that name for 10 years, i may not be able to use it any longer. if anything is killing the creative person’s ability to do business, it’s that kind of thing.

how much inside is another example of a guy who, if he’s making enough money doing things like that (which may or may not actually be happening), then there’s a good chance that i can do it too… on the other hand, he could be making enough money at it by being in the primary business of nepotism, i’m not sure.

mahasivaratri is next tuesday. happy mahasivaratri everyone.

welcome wireheads… i wonder how long it will be until this form of "therapy" turns into a recreational pastime… it also gives new, more sinister meaning to the fact that THERAPIST and THE RAPIST are spelled exactly the same way.

apparently there’s a local radio station in philidelpha which has been running advertisements for a business which has a very similar name to one of my DBA aliases, Rent-A-Geek, so this is for the people who have been calling me today: i have been doing business as Rent-A-Geek for 10 years, and before that for 10 years i did business as Hire-A-Geek, which was an offshoot of a business that a friend of mine ran called Hire-A-Punk, which goes all the way back to the mid-1970s. other people may do business as rent-a-geek, but they aren’t the original, i am. if you want tech support in philadelphia, you’re welcome to email me, or call me on the phone, but if you are using software that i am not familiar with, and/or have a system that requires major, hands-on surgery, either pay to fly me to philidelphia (or wherever you are) or you’re going to strike out trying to get help from me.

now, time for a trade name search and another master license application.

another neuropsychological evaluation is completed. last week was the psycological tests, this week was the neurological tests, so they were doing things like blindfolding me and then giving me different shaped blocks and watching me fumble around trying to find the correct holes for them to fit into, or holding my hand behind a screen and drawing on my fingertips and then asking me to identify what they drew. they had a list of four numbers, 1 through 4, and a stack of 60 cards which had one to four different coloured shapes, and they asked me to categorise them, but they kept changing the rules about how they were categorised, so that when i categorised them incorrectly they could evaluate my ability to figure out that the rules had changed and how long it took me to figure out what the new rules were. it wasn’t anywhere near as mentally taxing as the last time, and it was also two hours less time than the first one. now i have to wait until my "counsellor" from DVR (who i have never met) gets around to scheduling a feedback appointment, at which point i get to go and meet him and the neuropsychologist to figure out what to do next.

meanwhile, i’ve been scheduled for yet another "random" job search log review, which i gather will be exactly like the last time. i find it rather odd, and somewhat suspicious that in all the times i’ve applied for unemployment in the past, i have never been subjected to these "random" occurrences, and now, for some reason, i’ve managed to get 2 of them in three months. it makes me wonder who is saying what that is negative about my job search, and why they are saying it… because nothing is going on, except for the fact that i am looking for work and not finding any, like 10% of the rest of the population of this state… and it’s the reason why i’m having a neuropsychological evaluation for the DVR, and that sort of thing. i suppose it’s probably typical, and i’ll probably come to expect this kind of thing eventually, but at this point it’s more bizarre than anything else.

and speaking of bizarre, somebody did a college-level project on MIDI-hamster control, which is about as bizarre as they come. i suppose it’s useful in that the guy learned about different ways to control a synthesizer, and i’m sure nobody else has done a project like this, but still… weird!

and then there’s the medicare toad test (thanks to and the annals of improbable research) which is even more bizarre, but only because the toad actually scored higher than the medicare customer service representatives… they’d probably come up with some reason to pay the toad less, as well.

10 things that i have done that you probably haven’t:

1. climbed a 150 foot sheer “sea-stack” on the water side, with no equipment
2. performed in the kennedy center and on the white house steps in 1976
3. rode, as a passenger, through the longest freight (not passenger) train tunnel in the world, three times in a two-week period
5. crossed the deception pass bridge below the street level, twice
6. made several months worth of long distance calls using william f. buckley’s credit card
7. passed myself off (successfully) as a “witch” in front a group of over 300 “christians” who would have killed a witch, given the chance
8. been “initiated” in four of the world’s major religions (Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam)
9. survived a medical conditon which results in death or severe brain damage 75% of the time
10. had an 8th hole cut in my skull

here’s what i looked like on july 21, after having the big clot seen in yesterday’s animation removed.

i made this animation half the size, but i extended the display time on the last 4 frames, so you can see my craniotomy and the swastika-shaped plate in my skull.

i learn something new every day. today it was that the CD that they gave me at the hospital that has all the pictures of my brain has even more pictures of my brain than i imagined possible… there are movies of my brain in varying stages of repair… this, for example, which is what i looked like on july 14th, 2003…

tomorrow i’m going to put together one from later on, when i have the pins and clips in place… that is really interesting!

thanks to :

a lot of new stuff on hybrid elephant, but not much of it is visible… the main thing is the ability to accept credit cards and the shopping cart, which is thanks to paypal. there’s actually less content, but only until i get the buddhist and egyptian statues scanned and written up.

hunter s. thompson died yesterday. admittedly, i’m not as familiar with his work as i could be, i haven’t read any of his books and i’ve only read a few of his articles, but i get the very strong impression that if it weren’t for hunter thompson, i would be a very different person today, so i’ve got a lot of respect for the man, in spite of the fact that i don’t know that much about him. i’ve complained in comments in other people’s journals about this, but now it’s time for me to complain in my own journal about the fact that all the cool people have been dying recently – jimmy smith, shirley chisholm, HST – and none of the people who deserve to die have been dying for a long time. it’s time we did something to change this. any suggestions?

okay, drunk puppet night was invited to invade portland saturday night, and it was REALLY cool. it took place in the portland center for the performing arts, winningstad stage, which unlike the rebar, the jewelbox and new city theatres, and other places where i’ve been performing recently, is a real theatre, complete with 300 hanging lights, 100 more lights that are in storage in back (just in case), a computerised lighting board, and enough microphones that each act had their own mic, which had it’s level set before the theatre opened and then was simply muted until it was needed. there was only one major screwup, when i couldn’t get the CD for one of the acts, a shadow puppet show called "Eat", to start (it would play for the first couple of seconds and then stop automatically), and when i finally got it running i realised that the volume was turned down, so i had to start it all over again, but it was relatively minor compared to some of the things that went wrong at the rebar. not only that, but i got my name on the program as the "lighting and sound designer", so it’s going to look really good on my resume. after the show we went to dinner at bistro montage, which was nice, although rather crowded which surprised me given that we got there about 1:00 in the morning. the food was good and i got an aluminium foil snail in which my leftovers were wrapped.

i’m kind of disappointed though, because i’ve put a lot of energy into coming up with ideas for the puppet show based on a frank zappa song, and when i mentioned it to josh, without any further discussion, he said "not in my puppet show production". it makes me think that i probably should confirm that i can actually do the show before i get involved any further in planning. it also makes me feel like, if i can’t do the show based on frank zappa music, then i might just as well not do any puppet show at all for drunk puppet night, and at that point i would also think about not doing lights for it as well… so i guess maybe i should talk with josh about the potential reality of the show before going any further.

on my way out of portland yesterday, i was requested by moe to "drop by" her mother’s house, because she had something for her, but they didn’t (or wouldn’t, i was never able to tell exactly which) tell me what it was that i’d be picking up. so i got marginal directions for how to get to monique’s mother’s house from where i was staying, and actually made it to monique’s mother’s house after only getting lost once… because they changed the freeway signs on the I205 offramp near clackamas town center (they don’t say that any more, which is what threw me). however, i only got lost once, and it was only for about 15 blocks, until i realised that i actually knew where i was anyway. in fact, there was a moment, before i got on the freeway, where i was travelling away from downtown on hawthorne, and i could have turned right on 39th, instead of left, and i think i would have been able to get there anyway, even without the marginal directions. i know that, before my injury, i wouldn’t have had any problems with this, and i’m glad to see that this ability has been retained afterwards, even if it is more instinctive than conscious at this point. it makes me feel as though i’ve probably got a lot of knowledge that is more instinctive than anything else at this point, and i’ve just got to trigger the instincts for it to come out.

one of ezra’s friends from cornish bought a building in old fairhaven (don’t ask me how a college student buys an entire building in a historic business district… i am not even sure i want to know), and renovated it as a performance space and "dance club" – which is something i think bellingham has needed for a while now. ezra was in charge of the first performance in the space, which happened last night, and actually performed himself, as well.

i’m off to portland. see you tomorrow.

i worked all day yesterday and succeeded in putting a "shopping cart" that works on the incense portion of Hybrid Elephant. i’m probably going to do the same thing, eventually, to the other parts of the site as well, but it was a lot of work, i want to make sure that it’s done correctly, and i’m going to portland for a knock-off "drunk puppet night" tomorrow so i don’t have enough time to spend 14 hours straight on it (like i did yesterday). depending on how it works i will probably add it next week some time.

in fact, "drunk puppet night" is interfering with my ability to attend the crazylands ten year reunion… i finally get reconnected after at least 3 years of being in a splatted state and not being able to get anyone’s attention because so few people log in these days, just in time for the 10 year reunion, and it turns out to be on the same day, at the same time as DPN. according to nexus, who should know since it’s his machine, the last time i logged in was in august of 2003, which is impossible for me to have done, because i was in the hospital in august of 2003… nevertheless, nexus said that i was logged in, idling, not responding to says and being automatically logged back in when i timed out (which, in spite of everything else, doesn’t sound like me), and had been that way for a couple of months, so he splatted me. of course, i didn’t know anything about this, because i was in the hospital, and by the time i actually tried to login again, i had already been splatted. according to what i recall, which is hazy at best, about the time i quit openwave, greg and i were having a disagreement about something relatively trivial, like idling in my locked room, or something like that, and he dragged me (which is not a "permanent" condition) and i never went back until i tried to login after my injury and couldn’t. you can tell that i’m a true SPOD (Superior People Online Daily) because even after my injury this kind of thing concernes me: somebody guessed my crazylands password? well, it wasn’t too difficult, but the first thing i did when i was un-splatted was to change it to something more secure.

here’s an oral history by phil ager, who was the dean of fairhaven college when i was a student there.

i would guess that i am the biggest defect in this tux… there are a few other defects, but they can be fixed or ignored fairly easily…

i got my "dealer’s package" from the label company, so now i have to figure out how to add stickers to the Hybrid Elephant web site. it’s pretty competitive (500 stickers retail 8.5 cents per 2" diameter sticker, plus whatever i charge for the artwork, or submit your own artwork for a "discount", and that’s just for 2" diameter circles… there are a lot more different shapes and sizes) but i’m not sure how i can advertise them on the site… it’s clear that i can’t sell individual stickers…

i went and got fitted for a tuxedo yesterday, and i should be able to pick it up today. one of the clowns in the cirque de flambe worked out a deal with the tux shop where he was able to order a whole pile of "defective" tuxedos and sell them to us for around $50 each… now all i have to do is figure out what i do that requires a tuxedo. the "defect" in mine is a teensy pulled thread in the right arm of the jacket, that i would never have even noticed if there weren’t a circle around it drawn with chalk, so for $50, there’s a good chance that i’ll be able to figure out something.

we’re gearing up for the moisture festival already, which is at the end of next month. kim still hasn’t figured out whether she wants to do tech stuff or not, but i got email last night that seems to indicate that i could do the entire show if i wanted to… but i’m not sure how i’d be able to manage actually performing on stage and doing sound and lights at the same time, so i don’t think i’ll be doing that. apart from that, however, i’m open to doing any or all of the rest of the shows.

if this guy is able to make money, then there’s bound to be a way for me to make money… there just has to be… maybe i could make t-shirts and sell them to unsuspecting japanese people…

by the way… this is a great song. it has been ever since it first came out, and i’ve never heard it on the radio… which is, perhaps, one of the reasons why it’s so great.

now that i’ve actually found a mirror that works…

there aren’t that many of you, but that’s the way i like it anyway…

~przxqgl~

whoo boy… it’s been a tough day. i got up at my normal “work” time, i.e. when moe got up, around 6:30 am or so, and took the bus downtown, to avoid having to pay for for 5 hours of parking, because i had an appointment for a neuropsychological examination… except that as the bus was pulling into downtown, i realised that i had neglected to print out the address of where i was supposed to be. so i called moe at work, but she couldn’t find a phonebook listing for the doctor, and i wasn’t even sure of the doctor’s name anyway. i was vaguely remembering that it was somewhere near broadway and madison, but there are all different kinds of medical offices in that neighborhood, and i didn’t know the correct address… but i managed to figure it out, with the help of the old lady information person at swedish hospital.

then, i actually had one half of my neuropsychological evaluation (the other half is going to be another 5 hours on friday next week), which literally wore me out mentally. they had me listening to lists of letters and numbers and then telling how many numbers in the list, or listing them back, with the numbers in numerical order and the letters in alphabetical order… or repeating them back, only in reverse order… they had me read a list of nonsense words like zoop and prefqua… they told me three short, and relatively meaningless stories (one about a woman named thompson from south boston who reported to the police that she was robbed of $56, that she has 4 children, and the rent was due, one about a guy named joe garcia from san francisco, who was getting dressed to go out when the TV program he was watching was interrupted by a weather bulletin concerning a storm, and the third was meaningless enough that i don’t remember what it was about at all), and then asked me to repeat them back, as close as i could get to verbatim, 2 hours later… which didn’t happen… and the math questions! i’m not very good at math anyway, even before my injury… but they asked me questions that i wouldn’t have known before my injury: probability questions, the area of an irregular polygon and that sort of thing. there were also questions for which i knew the answers, like “what does the aphorism ‘shallow streams are noisy’ actually mean?”, and questions which i new the answers to, but i didn’t know how to describe them… aphasia questions, like what is the definition of “fortitude”, and questions which i don’t really know the answers to anyway, like “why do we have to pay taxes?” they had me duplicate designs with 9 blocks, including the final design which didn’t actually show the individual blocks, so i had to figure out which way the entire 9-block set as a whole was oriented, as well as figuring out how to duplicate the design… but i did that one, unlike the exact same test that they gave me when i was in the hospital.

then i had an hour-long interview with the phd neruropsychologist (he’s a doctor, but not an MD), where i had to tell him all of the ways i felt my injury had changed me, and also went into my relationship with my parents, and the fact that i spent 15 years in counselling. i thought about mentioning what i’ve heard about AS, but i know that would just complicate things even more, and i’m also aware of the fact that a professional (who it’s not happening to) has a vastly different opinion than a person who actually has a "qualitative" impairment about what, exactly, is a "qualitative" impairment, so i decided to keep my mouth shut for the moment.

so, after 5 hours of tests and an interview, i was spit out of the medical system again, and left to find my way home on the bus. before i left downtown seattle, i checked my seattle PO box (two pieces of actual junk mail and two pieces of mail addressed to others, one to box 368, and one for the architect who hasn’t had that box for 10 years). naturally i was a quarter short on both the bus from downtown seattle to renton, and the bus from renton to home, in spite of the fact that i bought coffee (that and a cookie were all i’ve had to eat today) on the way. when i got home, i turned around and went out again, this time in my car, to check my renton PO box (one piece of junk mail that was a duplicate of the two i got in seattle, plus a catalogue for stuff that i never have ordered (and probably never will), and a CD backup copy of WinRAR). also i went and bought my sweetie ob-flowers and ob-chocolates. obviously, i celebrate valentines day, but then again, i’m not culturally hindu. maybe things would be different if i were culturally hindu, but then i wouldn’t be who i am, so i can’t really say what would happen. also, there’s this article about pornography not having it’s beginnings at the same time as the photographic process, but it’s not really news to me, because i am hindu, and familiar with things like angkor wat.

i found another possibility for a Drunk Puppet Night performance, that’s not based on a frank zappa song! it’s called "They’re Made of Meat" and unlike my idea for the frank zappa song (which hasn’t yet been codified), this should be really easy.

uh oh… dude, where’s my country?

i went to the post office yesterday, and to my surprise, i received two huge boxes. when i got them home, i discovered that you can, indeed, order huge quantities of priority mail flat rate boxes for no charge… i.e. free. now all i have to do is figure out what the priority mail flat rate fee is, and i’ll be in business, so to speak.

at the same time, somebody has to make those boxes. if they’re free, they can’t be getting paid too much, which makes me wonder why there is a waiting list for DVR. if they’re willing to pay the people who manufacture the postal service boxes nothing, then why can’t the also pay the DVR people nothing as well, and make them do their jobs anyway? or is it because the DVR people are smart enough to not work when there isn’t enough money, and the people who manufacture boxes are… what? prisoners? slaves?

there’s something severely wrong with the whole system.

take "christians" for example… not being content to rouse rabble in their own country regarding same-sex marriage, there are an increasing number of right-wing "christian" americans who have been calling the canadian government, petitioning against the civil marriage act… and, to their credit, for the most part the canadian government has been telling them to shut up. you’d think that any intelligent life-form (i’m not sure they’re actually human) would get the idea.

okay, it has come to my attention that i haven’t explained my "handle" here, . let’s change that, shall we? in the book The Magic of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, one of the characters, a boy named Kiki Aru discovered a "magic word" that would transform anything into anything else. according to the book, the word was "pyrzqxgl". unfortunately, this word was outlawed by royal edict, and thus, even though we have a transliteration of the letters in the word, nobody now knows how to pronounce it… i’ve been working on a few theories, but i get the very strong impression that it’s actually transliterated incorrectly: the word isn’t "pyrzqxgl" or "peerz-kwux-gull", it’s more like , or "pirzix-quiggle"… but, obviously, that’s not exactly right either. i’ve been told that "pruh-zuks-ka-gull" is also not correct. i’ve been through a number of handles in various places on internet, including mahiswaradas on crazylands, tesla on batcave, resort, and a few others, and MrBlint on several other talkers, MUDs and MOOs. i’m not as likely to interact with people in live situations on internet as much these days, because my injury has made it difficult to type anything like fast enough to keep up, even taking frobulation into account.

The First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra is very definitely interesting. i’d have bought their CDs already, but i’ve got to figure out the conversion rate for euros. along the same lines, there’s Odd Music, a gallery of weird instruments, including one of my favourites, the contrabass sax.

finally, this could be just the beginning of more worse things to come. "collapse in blood circulation" huh… what makes a person experience that? well, getting shot or tortured, having a heart attack, experiencing a head trauma…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 3, 2005
Contact: Nancy Aldrich, Artistic Director
(503) 284-7562

* *
Tears of Joy Theatre /SATURDAY NIGHT SHOWCASE /presents:
*/Monkey Wrench Puppet Lab/*
*NOT FOR KIDS!*
*Strong language-Adult Content*
*Saturday February 19, at 8:00pm*
* *

*WINNINGSTAD THEATRE, 1111 SW BROADWAY, PORTLAND, OR*
Individual tickets: $12 – $15 plus service charges
Box Office: (503) 248-0557 or (360) 695-0477
www.tojt.com

Monkey Wrench Puppet Lab* brings some of the best of “Drunk Puppet Nite” from Seattle. It is subversive, ugly, ridiculous, sublime, controversial,
lovely, righteously political, literary and definitely NOT FOR KIDS.

Tears of Joy Theatre’s SATURDAY NIGHT SHOWCASE presents*/ Monkey Wrench Puppet Lab/*, for one night only, Saturday, February 19 at 8:00pm at the Dolores Winningstad Theatre in Downtown Portland. Tickets are $12 – $15 and can be purchased by calling the box office at (503) 248-0557.

The members of the*/ Monkey Wrench Puppet Lab/* are the originators of the annual /Drunk Puppet Nite/ in Seattle and are pleased to bring their special blend of puppet lunacy to Portland this February. */Monkey Wrench Puppet Lab/* will present a collection of their best professional pieces of puppet theatre. These performances are sometimes dark, crude, lewd, occasionally silly, and will haunt and entertain adult audiences who are brave enough to attend.

Monkey Wrench will descend upon Portland’s Winningstad Theatre, hot on the heels of a sold out run of Drunk Puppet Nite in Seattle’s Re-Bar. Among the selections they will bring are: “Henry Box Brown,” the true story of an American slave who mails himself to freedom, “Barney and Betty Hill,” the story of an alien abduction from the 1950’s, “Eat,” a love story with a horrific ending, “Homage a Lola Flores,” an exquisite flamenco performance, “The Sexual Life of Plants,” “We all Fall Down” and “Primitive Instincts.”

———————————————————————-

*/Monkey Wrench Puppet Lab/*, a cluster of Seattle area puppeteers, are working to expand the public definition of puppetry and performance by joining artistic excellence with a special blend of the surprising and the bizarre. The Lab uses live music, experienced actors, and puppets of all kinds to re-invent performance in their daring productions. These productions include _Frankenocchio_, _Halfpenny Opera_ and _The Mermaid Who Broke My F***ing Heart_.

Photographs available by request

Kris Bluett Woolen
[email protected]
Tears of Joy Theatre
PO Box 1029 Vancouver WA 98666
www.tojt.com (503) 248-0557 or (360) 695-0477

something is wonky with spam assassin and spamcop. for years, i’ve been subscribed to the disinformation newsletter, and it’s been getting delivered to my disinformation mailbox on my computer without problems… until about a month or so ago. apparently they’re putting something, i’m still baffled as to exactly what, that spam assassin is identifying as "disguised porn". i figured that if i whitelisted it, it would solve the problem, but it still goes to my spam mailbox instead of where it’s supposed to go. i’m about ready to chalk another one up to demons, because i can’t think of anything else that i could do to fix the problem.

i found a message on alt.brain that was someone raving about deaf children who spontaneously developed a sign language, which could have been very interesting… but then i looked at the place which hosts the article, world science, and i realised that i’d seen this before… someone else used an article from this source to "prove" some point or another, whereupon another person warned him against believing anyone that says that alien TV is a reality… just goes to show you: don’t believe everything you read on internet.

After reviewing your application for vocational rehabilitation services and information about your disability, I have determined that you are eligible for services. Your eligibility is based on a determination that:

1. You have a physical or mental impairment;
2. The imairment hinders your ability to prepare for, get, or keep a job that matches your abilities and capabilities; and
3. You require vocational rehabilitation services to prepare for, get, or keep a job.

Due to limited funds, there is currently a waiting list for services. By law, when DVR cannot serve everyone who is eligible, it must establish an order for selecting individuals from the waiting list. The order must give priority to individuals with the most significant disabilities first, individuals with significant disablilities second, and individuals with disabilities third.

By reviewing records about your disability, I have established your priority category. You will be placed on the waiting list for this category by the date you signed the applicatiojn for DVR services. The results of this review are as follows:

Priority Category #3 – Individual with a disability
Date of Application: 12/03/2004

…

Your priority classification is provisional pending more current medical information. A neuropsychological examination will be arranged for you.

—–

so, "president" shrub junior has proposed a new budget for the coming year that includes cutting back on health care for poorer and middle-class americans, and a huge increase in military spending that doesn’t even include the "operations" in iraq and afganistan (which will be addressed in a separate, special budget request), erases scores of programs, slices medicaid and disabled housing but still worsens the federal deficits by $42 billion over the next five years, and scientists now working on a whole new generation of nuclear weapons… their way of thinking totally escapes me: a "safe" nuclear weapon?? but at the same time, they don’t have enough money to help me, a person whose brain exploded, because i’m "not disabled enough" to suit the guy who made the determination… i’d like to see him live through the same brain injury…

i suppose that if i were more affected by my injury, i’d have a greater chance of getting assistance, but if i were more affected by my injury, the possibility of getting meaningful, creative work would be significantly reduced… i’ve worked in "sheltered workshops" before, which primarily employ severely handicapped adults, and i would rather be a vegetable or outright dead than i would to work in a place like that as anything other than a "normal" person.

moe has to teach for 9 hours today, without a break… she’s got her four regular classes, plus she’s taking over for another teacher this week. she left the house at 6:30 this morning, and today’s sunday… she really needs a break.

despite the fact that it comes from another blog, and has no actual basis in any reality that i’m familiar with, i like the idea of Tao Shielding. it’s definitly worth thinking about, if nothing else, and may actually work its way into my own mythology in some way or another.

hey… check this out… the state of new york may actually allow same-sex marriages, despite complaints from "christians" and other republicans. it’s a good idea that has waited too long to come out of hiding… and who knows? it may actually have some effect nationally as well.

and the next time you enjoy a piece of chocolate, remember that it very likely came from here.

i updated my journal’s style yesterday. it’s different, and i’m not sure how to get it more like i want, but it’s close enough that i’ll let it be for a while.

i was just accosted by a spider. apparently it dropped from the ceiling, but i didn’t see it until it landed on the edge of my glasses… just within my range of vision, but too close for me to actually see. fortunately i didn’t freak out and squish it, but it took me a minute or so to locate it and transport it safely to the cat tree, where i’m sure one of the cats will squish it if they bother to wake up.

pliny’s birthday was yesterday, and the fleamont thrillharmonic played a lot more time than we originally arranged for when we first made the engagement… pliny’s two other bands didn’t show, and it turns out that at least two other phil members are vaguely assocaiated with various people who it turns out (not too surprisingly) are also friends of pliny’s, so we stayed and played two extra sets, plus we got a potential gig playing for pliny’s cousin ben’s wedding, and another potential gig playing for fricker’s follies at the rendezvous. it turns out that i know both of the owners of the rendezvous, so the probability that we are going to get more gigs from this is relatively high. also, i spoke with "professor" don ehlen, who promised to hook me up with someone who can give me some advice about painting my car (you thought i’d forgotten about that, didn’t you).

along the same lines, the phil is playing at the late night cabaret this evening. i’d invite you all to come, but most of you are out of state, and i don’t think i’ve got enough extra space to put you all up for the night.

you would think that people who run linux would be aware of the fact that most computer virii are directed towards windoesn’t, but apparently there are people who actually attempt, with a certain amount of success, to get windows virii to run on linux, just to see what they will do. it doesn’t seem to have much of a point to me. what they will do is obvious: you will get infected, and potentially infect others, which is Not A Good Thing™.

and speaking of "Not A Good Thing™", you would think that she would be safe from accusations of pirating music, but no… just another example of why the whole system needs to be defenestrated.

i had to include this link because it’s not only someone doing interesting artistic things with macintosh computers, but it’s someone doing interesting artistic things with antique macintosh computers! i’d like to see someone do the same thing with windoesn’t computers that are that old… wait… windoesn’t didn’t even exist in those days. ahhh, those really were the days…

a few days ago i commented about how "doctor" james dobson was ranting about spongebob squarepants’ attempts to make people more accepting of homosexuals. it appears that he and his ilk are at it again… only this time it’s a lot more apparent that they’re lying about just about everything in order to raise a stink. maybe if we ignore them, they really will go away.

and finally, i leave you with The Cuddly Menace… good night, sleep tight… don’t let the bedbugs… um…

today is pliny’s 40th birthday. it’s strange to think that i have known pliny since he was 14. he really hasn’t changed, except that his ideas are more mature. the fremont phil is playing at his birthday party at the rendezvous grotto this evening. tomorrow, the fremont phil is playing at the new city theatre for the late night cabaret. it’s also presumably when i am going to collect whatever money (at least $20.50, for the buttons) i am owed for drunk puppet night.

i was recently contacted by aaron c, who had a potential job for me at schemalogic, which is the place i contracted for last year. they are still privately funded, and going from one handout to the next, but this year they no longer have fred-the-netgod working for them, so i was initially a good deal more skeptical about them than i was the last time around. i went and interviewed with andrew, who remembered me from the last time, and everything sounded like i was supposed to start last week… but last week came and went with no word about it, so i called aaron last friday to find out if he had heard anything. he said he hadn’t, and he would get back to me. well, i called him again today, and there’s apparently no more job, because the guy who interviewed me wasn’t clear about exactly how the testing should be done initially. so, there’s no job any more. it’s not like it surprises me that much, and, as i said before, i’m a good deal more skeptical about them than i was in december of 2003, right after my injury and getting fired from minuteman press… and it is exactly the reason why i’m not really sure that i want to be a professional computer geek anyway, unless it’s working for myself, and doing other things as well.

speaking of which, i used to work for micro$haft, and i still have friends who work in the macintosh business unit, so i was a little (emphasis on little) amused when i saw this thing in wired about how ipods are a “career-limiting move”… when i worked there, it was common knowledge that billg had a mac on his desktop, so i have no doubt that he’s currently got an ipod. whether he is discreet about it or not, i assume, is for other people to determine…

and if this guy was in a “christian” church, he would have been arrested for sexual abuse of a child with no further warning, but because he’s jewish… ??? there is definitely something wrong with the world.

eminentise the eschaton.

i bought a colour printer yesterday. nothing fancy, just a deskjet 3845, but it’s pretty much exactly what i needed for making colour buttons, and it does an awesome job. unlike “jobs” i’ve had in the past, where one printer is replaced by another one, i’ve actually got both printers on the network at this point… which is to say, mac os 9 sees one printer, mac os 10 sees two printers, linux sees two printers but can only print to one of them (the local one, i don’t know why), and windoesn’t sees… do you have to guess?

that’s right, windoesn’t see any printers at all… ✻✼✽✾✿ windoesn’t anyway.

Pokemon causes cancer… What I Heard about Iraq… ☹

drunk puppet night ended last night. we had a "cast party" at the six arms, on capitol hill, but i spent 40 minutes driving around looking for a parking place before i found one, which made it almost midnight by the time i got there, so i basically just showed up for long enough to give the CDs of peoples’ music back to josh and then went home. today i went to a housewarming party/rehearsal for the fremont phil at john’s new house, where i learned that i’ve been recruited to run lights and sound for the moisture festival, which is actually a paying gig. according to what i now understand, there are actually a fair number of “lights-and-sound” gigs out there, if you just know who to ask, and one of the people i talked to last night knows one of the people to ask, so things are not looking as dismal as before.

Microsoft dominance poses security risk is not a joke, despite it’s similarity to the other link i posted last time. it’s enough of not-a-joke that the report’s appearance cost the author of the report, dan geer, his job – not because of the fact that it’s not true, but because of the fact that it “wasn’t approved” by his employer, a microsoft affiliate called @stake. it’s exactly this kind of thing that is one of the primary reasons why i do not want a job as a computer geek.

i just installed a bit torrent client on windows, because of a deal at kiddierecords.com in which they’re posting mp3s of a new kiddie record a week for the year of 2005. i may actually get all of them, but for sure i’m going to get the tales of uncle remus, which i actually had as a kid, and gerald mcboing-boing, which is next week’s bit torrent. let’s hear it for sound-scavangers, which is how i learned about all of this stuff. if nothing else, the kiddie records are going to make outrageous sound sources.

here is an article about the things you can’t say, why you can’t say them, and why there are several good ideas about why to say them anyway, one of which is humour. along those lines, the news from central ohio is that a "Hebron pastor is charged with abuse"… i suppose the fact that he was the associate pastor of the "Licking Baptist Church" wasn’t warning enough. of course, this has absolutely no bearing on myself, as i live in washington, but i couldn’t resist posting the thing about the "Licking Baptist Church" associate pastor.

drunk puppet night is going amazingly well, and this is it’s final week of production. i sold 31 buttons since last week. ezra is supposedly coming to tonight’s performance, which reminds me, i need to call annette. the next thing is pliny’s 40th birthday at the rendezvous, followed by the late night cabaret at the new city theatre, then the art sharing in bellingham (possibly), followed by winningstad theatre in portland. i’m not sure how much, if anything, these things will pay, but moe sez if they don’t pay anything, then we’re going to have about $200 until she gets paid again… typical wage slavery.

there’s a new(?) meme out there, which is "What Hindu God or Goddess are you like?" i’m not going to post my response, because it’s entirely predictable (in fact, all of the answers are pretty predictable, although i doubt that it includes deities like balaji, jagannath or nagaraj), but here it is for any of you who might be interested. there’s also this:

Which Nigerian spammer are You?

and this:

Who’s been commenting in your journal?

1			66 comments	27.16% of total
2			19 comments	7.82% of total
3			16 comments	6.58% of total
4			11 comments	4.53% of total
5			10 comments	4.12% of total
6			5 comments	2.06% of total
7			5 comments	2.06% of total
8			3 comments	1.23% of total
9			3 comments	1.23% of total
10			2 comments	0.82% of total
11			2 comments	0.82% of total
12			2 comments	0.82% of total
13			1 comments	0.41% of total
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16			1 comments	0.41% of total
17			1 comments	0.41% of total
18			1 comments	0.41% of total
19			1 comments	0.41% of total

These statistics were generated using the LJ Stats Web Interface by . Original idea from ‘s LJ Comment Stats Wizard.

it’s no wonder i’m suspicious of these things… there is NO … 8/

here is a place in the netherlands that makes 3 dimentional models of subjects which were once the subjects of historical painters like hieronymous bosch, salvador dali, and m.c. escher.

Maneki Neku

i’ve been playing around with the idea that the tanuki (an animal similar to the maneki neku) is one of my "totem animals", and i’ve made an icon out of one, for those of you who haven’t noticed.

Tanuki

a tanuki is a real animal, Canis Nyctereutes procyonoides viverrinus, or "japanese raccoon dog", but it is also an animal from japanese folklore which has magical powers of transformation, likes to fuck, and is perpetually broke, which isn’t that desireable, but it describes me fairly well. along the same lines, scientists have recently succeeded in creating the first animal human hybrids, or chimeras. the first question that springs to mind is where are the "christians"? they’re usually all over things like this, trying to get them banned or something. the second question is, of course, should things like this be banned? interesting as it may be, it’s just a matter of time before someone rampaging through the human genome like a bull in a china shop will permanently break something and then where will we be?

Microsoft’s AntiSpyware Tool Removes Internet Explorer – i saw this and my first response was to burst out laughing… but then i realised that this is internet, and there’s a good chance that it’s a joke (particularly since this is posted on the same server)… but even if it is, it’s a good joke!

here’s a DVD that i want. anyone want to buy it for me?

Tuesday January 25, 09:52 AM
British Hindus fight to reclaim swastika
By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) – Hindus have launched a campaign to “reclaim” the swastika from its Nazi past and reinstate the 5,000-year-old emblem as a symbol of good luck.

They were stung into action when European parliamentarians called for a Europe-wide ban on Nazi insignia after Prince Harry provoked international outrage by wearing a swastika armband and Nazi costume at a party.

“What we have decided to do is to reclaim the swastika,” said Ramesh Kallidai, secretary-general of the Hindu Forum representing 700,000 Hindus in Britain.
He said of the Hindu religious symbol purloined by Adolf Hitler for his National Socialist Party: “It has been used for 5,000 years to promote life. It brings good luck and wards off evil.”

Ever sensitive to the concerns of millions of Jews who suffered the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, he told Reuters: “For Hindus, the misuse of the swastika is as repulsive as it is to everyone else.

“It’s like saying the Ku Klux Klan is burning crosses so let’s ban the use of crosses worldwide.”

Pictures beamed worldwide of the queen’s grandson wearing the Nazi uniform at a costume party prompted deputies in the European parliament to call for a ban on Nazi insignia, an idea that the European Commission said was worth considering.

“The Hindu Forum was inundated with calls over the proposed ban,” said Kallidai. “If it came into force, that would mean if Hindus use the swastika for religious purposes as they have done for 5,000 years, they risk breaking the law.”

First came a media campaign to put their case. Then Hindus pressed parliament to debate the issue and lobbied deputies both in London and Strasbourg to support them.

Next comes a major conference in London and public awareness workshops across Britain.

“We have already spoken to the Board of Deputies of British Jews and want to have a dialogue with them. Everyone must understand that the swastika has nothing to do with hatred and is purely for worship.”

A spokesman for the Jewish Board told Reuters: “We respect the Hindu Forum’s desire to take back the Swastika but our line of caution is that Neo-Nazis and racists continue to use the Swastika as a potent symbol of hatred.”

To the millions who suffered in World War Two, the swastika is a loathed emblem of hatred, racism and xenophobia.

But to Hindus, it is a revered symbol, derived from the Sanskrit “svastika” and meaning “Good to be.”

“In Gujarat, when a baby has its first haircut, a swastika is painted on the top of its head to ward off evil. You find it on the door of the house as a good luck charm. It appears on wedding cards and holy paintings,” Kallidai said.

But he fears it will be a tough battle eradicating the swastika’s nightmare image.

“It is a very uphill climb because a 5,000-year-old symbol became associated 65 years ago with hatred, destruction and xenophobia,” said Kallidai. “This could take a number of years.”

don’t forget: tomorrow is Rabbit Hole Day… now all we have to do is create a day for the rest of the rabbit.

i have to file for unenjoyment “benefits” every week, on sunday. during the week, i keep a record of all of the places i’ve looked for work (which averages around 7 or 8 places a week), and then, on sunday, i call and answer a bunch of questions for an automated machine which then dispenses my meager check in the mail each week… except that this week, it quit working. so i called the “telecenter” early this morning, which is where you call when you’re having a problem, and talked to the guy who said that apparently two weeks ago the machine didn’t accept my claim for some unknown reason… which is odd, because i got no indication from this machine that anything was different than any of the other hundreds of times i’ve called and successfully filed my claim. because of this foul up my claim was cancelled as of thursday last week, and has to be re-opened, which means that both this week and next week i’ve got to be out there looking for work, but i don’t get benefits… and this is because of nothing i have done wrong, but because there was a screwup somewhere in olympia. the guy said that they can’t even tell what went wrong, because they deleted my answers for that week on saturday. they hold on to the answers for 2 weeks, and then they’re purged from the system… but if that’s the case, how could they tell that i had been overpayed one week, back in october, and actually sent me a computer printout of my responses to the computerised questions, back when my check was almost $400, over a year ago?

grumble, mutter, bomb, george w. bush, mutter, republicrats, democretins, grumble…

week two of drunk puppet night ended last night. it went surprisingly well considering that the producer and director of the show was in washington DC with his giant puppets. the house was packed, which is very good, and i sold 14 buttons, which isn’t outstanding, but it’s something. reminder for all you people in the seattle area: only one more week of drunk puppet night, then you’ll have to wait until next year.

"doctor" james dobson speaks out against spongebob squarepants, even when he’s wrong. this strikes me as being very similar to when bob larson spoke out against boy george… if he wants to discourage people from being influenced by spongebob, the worst thing he could do is to speak out against him. any attempt to "speak out" is just as good as saying "here’s something at which i think you should take a closer look". and what is he talking about? "doctor" dobson is concerned that spongebob is "being exploited by an organization that’s determined to promote the acceptance of homosexuality among our nation’s youth." in other words, spongebob is a terrorist. why don’t these "christians" learn from history? it’s as though they don’t really care about "christianity" as much as they care about getting their own name out there, and making a few bucks.

along the same lines, but in a completely different direction, there’s a web site that encourages people to make their dog’s pile of shit into a political statement. not only is it warning about the dangers of "bush-think," it’s a biohazard warning label, so people will be more aware of where they’re stepping. it’s especially good when you’re out collecting dog shit you’ve run out of little pooper-scooper bags. as an aside, it’s instructive to realise that The Book of Dog Shit is number six on the google results page when you search for Dog Shit… just goes to show that the religion of Tina Chopp has more influence than you realise.

guess what? yesterday was “inauguration day” and i didn’t do anything except go to the first performance of the second weeks run of DPN, which went very well indeed, despite the fact that the producer and director of the show is in washington DC with his giant puppets this week. i mean, really… i didn’t vote for the man, and in general, i think that he’s the most innately stupid president that this country has ever had, so why bother celebrating his inauguration, or even protesting it? all of the other people who did protest it (i heard that there were around 400,000 protesters downtown yesterday) just end up making the stupid people who voted for him think that they’re having another party, so why bother? “The most efficacious method of dealing with deviancy is to ignore, to the furthest point of our tolerance, those items which we find offensive.” — Ilbert Geis. if enough americans ignore the president, maybe he’ll go away… and maybe he’ll go away more quickly than the 4 years it would ordinarily take… and if not, then the fact that i have ignored him will make it that much better when we actually elect a president with two brain cells to rub together.

i found this site, which goes a long way towards describing what’s going on here, but that still doesn’t make it any less amusing… and i still think these japanese are crazy.

today is moe’s birthday, but i don’t think her birthday present is going to arrive in time, so i’ll just have to wait. as it is, i’ve got her three presents, one of which she asked for, one of which isn’t actually good until 5th february, and one of which hasn’t arrived yet. if i’m lucky, the postman should deliver it today, but if not… well, her official “birthday party” isn’t until sunday, so i may have a reprieve until then. she’s off getting her drivers’ license renewed at the moment.

hey look… they’re starting to take this whole phenomenon seriously. maybe now they’ll develop the idea that ethics are for everyone… at the same time, it makes me wonder what’s next. thanks to Bunger Mulkin! i now know what happens when you drive a truck under an overpass that is slightly lower than the truck’s maximum height… you wake up the neighbors, but apparently, you don’t notice yourself… i bet this guy had a bunch of explaining to do when he got back to the budget rent-a-truck office. also, again, thanks to Bunger Mulkin!, i know where to go to get a tinfoil hat for my entire house… oy!

i got this really outrageous recording the other day from Toast And Jam. according to the liner notes, the artists used “music you dislike to create music you like”. it’s an interesting method, and one which i am going to have to try myself, but that doesn’t make the music on this recording less outstanding. if i were still a radio broadcaster, i would recommend that everyone go out and buy this recording. excellent!

nicked from …

scan my interest list and pick out the one that seems the most odd to you.
i’ll explain it to the best of my ability, since i will be the first to admit that some of my interests are, indeed, quite odd.
then you post this in your journal so other people can ask you about your interests. … then we can all be one big happy family with nobody like this hanging around screwing things up for the rest of us.

here’s an article i rather liked about audio luddites and their effects on seattle, and (thanks to ) i don’t know what this is, but i think i want one… babelfish translates the text as “Luxurious edition desk-top type of interior accessory “suicide bombing button”. Installing in the reception table, and on etc. the foot warmer please enjoy. As for function this as a switch completely being not to be, please note.”

i finally got buttons updated (my prices were 20 years old!) and added to the hybrid elephant site, and i’ve got about 150 left to make for (at the old price). i also had an interview at snowdogs, which was rather interesting. the guy said that he had a resume for me from 2001 and wanted “up to date” information, in spite of the fact that i have communicated with people at snowdogs as recently as april of 2004. he didn’t actually have anything for me, but if the information they’ve got in their database is from 2001, i wonder what they’re actually doing in their big fancy office in belltown anyway… sitting on their thumbs? i told him that i’m still available, but in the long run i’m not available for positions in the computer industry. he said he would look for testing positions for me, and we left it at that.

i know, more-or-less, what’s going on here and here, but it still leaves me wondering what the hell is going on. these japanese are crazy…

an interview with the bobs on dr. demento last week (part 1 and part 2), which isn’t as good sound quality as all that, but most of it is just words with no actual singing, so it’s bearable, and amusing.

i made a new icon, since somebody stole my old one.

an opera about Moammar Gadhafi, contraband fruit flies, and “christianity” taken to it’s logical extreme are definitely things to think about.

drunk puppet night just finished it’s first week’s run, and it’s shaping up to be an excellent show. josh was saying last night that i am the number one best tech person he’s ever worked with. i suspect that it’s because i’m also an artist and i understand what it’s like to be up on stage performing with tech people who just want a list of cues and don’t even bother to follow the script. i’m responsible for providing music for pre- and post-show, but josh has stipulated that there will be no frank zappa (which i don’t really understand, but he’s the boss), so i’ve developed an idea for next year’s DPN, which is a puppet show based on the zappa song called “Mr. Green Genes”… magnificent! i told josh about my idea, and he encouraged me, saying that he’s really looking for puppet shows that push his buttons. jill and her new boyfriend, rick, came up to see the show, and stayed overnight at my house. among other things, jill told me that she’s going through the legal steps to have “officer” lee’s adoption annulled, which is definitely several steps in the right direction.

i’ve recently realised that my button making machine is a good way to suppliment my income, so i’ve been making buttons for the past few days. hybrid elephant is really wonderful that way… i come up with a new money making scheme, and all i have to do is post it on hybrid elephant to see if it will really work. i haven’t posted the buttons on the site yet, because i’ve been too busy making buttons, but as soon as i have a free half-hour or so, it’s going up there. along the same lines, i got a call from aaron c. on friday that he has a potential “job” for which they’re interested in interviewing me… and it’s at schemalogic… i don’t really know what to expect, though, because in the little more than a year since my last contract there, they have laid off or fired almost the entire crew and hired new people. at the same time, aaron said that my name was the only one that came up while they were discussing how to procede with the project that they would have me working on, so it probably won’t be that bad.

i’m starting to get really fed up with the cirque web team. this woman named Q has taken it upon herself to take over just about everything from macque, which could be a good thing except that she seems to think that this makes her in charge of everything, which it doesn’t. i put up a trial site based on what we already had on the web, just to get the ball rolling, and her response was to say that she would prefer a “more modern” design… in spite of the fact that the web as it exists now has only been in existance for a little more than 10 years. she bases this preference mainly on the fact that she has a degree in communications, and has been requested to sit in on initial consultations with clients in a corporate setting, but she’s been a member of the cirque for only a year, and there are other people with more seniority both in the cirque and on the net, who are just as qualified as her to be making decisions. if nothing else, regardless of what kind of degrees she’s got, she’s a very poor communicator, and that’s not just from a web-site perspective (she taught the poi class i took last summer, and she couldn’t understand how my brain injury makes poi difficult for me). i’m ready to quit the team, even as it is just getting started, which is not a good sign. i’m probably going to stick with it for a while, just to see if things get better, but i’m not holding my breath.

i finally got infected. i searched for viruses last friday, and i came up with two on my windoesn’t machine… i don’t really understand exactly how i got infected, because i don’t install software, i don’t do email on this machine, and i’m very careful about the links i click, but they’ve found a way in somewhere. it’s just more fuel for the rant that is posted here. so i went to the symantec web site, because they’re one of the biggest manufacturers of AV software for windoesn’t, and paid for a downloaded version of antivirus 2005, which, i then discovered, doesn’t work on my operating system, which is W2K server. as far as i can tell, there’s no way to tell from their web site that AV2005 doesn’t work with server operating systems, and, as far as i can tell, they don’t make an AV system that works with W2K server… so i called (and spent over an hour waiting on hold) and gave them my story, and the guy said that i would get a refund. i then went to the mcafee web site (because they’re another big one), and paid for another antivirus program (which i made sure would work on my system before i bought it), which should be delivered by UPS tomorrow. then i got an email from symantec telling me how to download their software (which i had already done, which is how i discovered it won’t work), so i called again (and waited another half hour or so on hold) to complain, and they said that if i had already downloaded their software i would either have to pay for it, or fill out a “letter of destruction”, proclaiming that if i didn’t really destroy their software i’m subject to a massive fine or something. they gave me a link to find the letter of destruction, which i found and filled out, and i thought the matter was settled… then, yesterday, i got another email from symantec, saying that the software i had “ordered” wasn’t available, and had to be back ordered. so i called again (and waited on hold for about 45 minutes), and the guy said that i hadn’t filled out the letter of destruction, which i said i had… i also complained about the fact that they don’t say that it won’t work with W2K server, there’s no phone number posted ANYWHERE on their web site, and that when i did finally get their phone number, i had to wait on hold for an extremely long time, and i felt as though for as little time i had spent actually dealing with them that i had been the recipient of extremely poor customer service, and that i was going to go with mcafee because of it… so he sent me another link to the letter of destruction, which was the same as the first one, which i filled out again, and hopefully this time they’ll get the message. the moral of the story: use linux.

Monkey Wrench Puppet Lab presents Drunk Puppet Nite #5!

At The Re-Bar
1114 Howell St. at Boren Ave., Seattle

Thursday, Friday & Saturday.
January 13-15; 20-22; 27-29.

Show at 8:00 SHARP; Door open at 7:00
21 and over only w/ID

Tickets $15
Thurs. Jan 20 pay-what-you-can

For info and reservations call Monkey Wrench Puppet Lab (206) 675-4500
http://www.monkeywrenchpuppetlab.org

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the 5th Drunk Puppet Nite!

Once again, Monkey Wrench Puppet Lab is hosting Drunk Puppet Nite at Seattle’s Re-Bar. Drunk Puppet Nite is an evening of puppetry from beyond the pale; a chance for Seattle’s best, and most notorious, puppeteers to expose their ids in public. We dare to enter the nether realms of puppetry. Drunk Puppet Nite is subversive; it’s ugly, it’s ridiculous, it’s sublime, it’s controversial, it’s lovely, it’s righteously political, it’s literary.

The truth is, no one knows what to expect from Drunk Puppet Nite. Over these three weekends, our puppeteers have no boundaries. Performers include Clay Martin; Matt Fontaine & Tamara Paris; members of Circus Contraption, Cry of the Rooster, Islewilde, Tears of Joy; Thistle Theater and all of your Monkey Wrench favorites! No two evenings are the same.

Monkey Wrench is a cluster of Seattle area puppeteers who are working to expand the public’s definition of puppetry by bringing their blend of the surprising, the bizarre and the artistically excellent to audiences around the Puget Sound. Monkey Wrench is the group responsible for Frankenocchio, The Mermaid who Broke my Fucking Heart, Halfpenny Opera and the upcoming Dracula.

For more information call Monkey Wrench at (206) 675-4500.

moe left at 7:12 am, which meant that i had to wake up at 4:30 to take her to the airport. she’s scheduled to be in san francisco at around 9:00 am, then she leaves SF at noon, and isn’t scheduled to land in orlando until 8:00 pm… which always throws me. the fact that a four hour flight actually takes 8 hours because of shifting time zones is boggling to me. at least i’m not having to live through it. i hope she comes home soon. i already miss her…

digging around in the garage, i found this, printed in “old fashioned” type on computer paper:

Ye anciente obscure weirdnesse spelle

Assemble magickkal tools: magickkal knife, magickkal dagger, magickkal sword, scissors, whip, chains & rubber candles. Lock yourself in a closet and face Pittsburgh. Pour water in a paper bag; add salt, pepper, two cloves garlic, one ripe tomato. Bake at 358 degrees.

Chant: “I excersise thee, O sprites of Walter, casting out yuckies and grossness. Kiss my nose.”

Walk in triangles pouring the mixture on your feet. Pound on a bell. Cast the circle out the window and jump after it. Light 6 candles with a burning sock. Face the 4 quarters and revoke the incrementals. Sprinkle incense in your hair and light it. Fill your pockets with sand and dance naked on the roof. Recite the Middle Pillow, visualise Gro-Lites down your spine and goose the first entity to cross the circle.

Point your magickkal twanger, froggie, drink the spirits, uncast of thousands and collapse in a stupor. Fly to Cleveland and debauch. Repeat twice a day for life.

WARNING: On peril of risk to body & soul, be utterly certain that you prefckqua or a plage of foul marmots will grossly and then eat up your favourite. Tear or burn along the line.

EDIT: she called from san francisco at about 10:30. apparently they disembarked at the international gates, which is on the opposite end of the airport from where she is leaving from, and she had to go through the department of clownland security checkpoint again before being allowed to procede to her departure gate. it’s a good thing she had a 2 hour layover before she had to depart, she said that people who had another flight to catch in 30 minutes were screwed.

moe is going to orlando for a week, and she’s leaving tomorrow. this has something to do with continuing education that is required to maintain her license, but it ultimately means that i get to stay at home for a week and be depressed because i can’t find a job, while my wife goes off gallivanting halfway around the world to further her already impressive career. not that i don’t want her to go, it’s just that i’d be a good deal happier about it if i were going with her, even if it would mean that i get to sit around in a hotel room for a week while moe attends her symposium on organisms that grow inside dead animals and how to tell them apart. i’ve actually got a friend in orlando that i haven’t seen for a very long time (1975), and if i were there, i could be out looking for him, because i don’t know if the address i have is any good or not, while moe is in class, and there’s a good chance that she won’t have much time herself, so it’s a good bet that i won’t find out if he really lives there or not until much later… not to mention the fact that it means a week of sleeping by myself. i suppose it’s partial payment for her missing a month of sleeping with me while i was having my injury.

i got a reminder that it’s time to pay my annual combined excise tax but honestly, i don’t remember even using any annual combined excises during the past year, so i’m not sure i have to pay anything.

jill may be coming up next week for drunk puppet night, and if she does, i’m going to invite her to stay here, because that way she won’t have to face a four hour drive home at midnight, or whenever it’s over. something seems wrong about inviting the woman i fantasised about when i was 17 to spend the night in my guest bedroom when i’m 45, but what the hell… it’s only one night, moe will be home from orlando, and that way she won’t have to pay for a hotel… besides, i’m not 17 any more.

May 3rd, 2003

now admittedly, i’ve submitted to a fair amount of brain damage since then, but i seriously wonder what criteria they’re using to make these "diagnoses"…

the mars rover spirit has been on mars for a year now. pretty good considering that it was only intended to last for 90 days, and there’s no spare batteries. too bad we’re so hung up on the war in iraq and afghanistan to pay any attention. the internet is shit is a rant by someone who is disappointed that McNewspaper isn’t the happening thing any more, but their basic premise is still sound. the more geeky it gets, the less shit-like it becomes, but on the whole i tend to agree. at the same time, if it weren’t for internet, i would never have found out about eric doeringer who makes illegal objects as art. if he is able to make a living at it, then i should be able to pull it off as well…

shirley chisholm died saturday. i mention this only because i have seen no other mention of it on internet. admittedly, i haven’t been paying that much attention, but at the same time, i would have hoped that she was enough of a hero to everyone else that more would have been said about her death. i should have known better…

i went to 47° 58′ 23.7″ n, 122° 31′ 20.1″ w today. it was the first day in over a year that we have taken the dogs to the beach, because of various injuries (mine, then the dog’s knees), and only the second time we have ever been to the double bluff off-leash area, but paddy and magick both remembered it and were making all kinds of noise by the time we actually got parked. i imagine that if i give it the right information, the device that i’ve got that gave me the coordinates above could tell me exactly how far away from home i was, but i haven’t figured out what information that is or how to give it to the machine yet.

create your own visited states map

create your own visited countries map

see, this is the reason i find north america to be boring. i want to emigrate to new zealand…

i recently commented in someone’s journal, and got banned from commenting as a result, because i had the audacity to disagree with the person when they said i am clueless and brainwashed… i may be clueless about his specific situation, but if he’s going to be that negative about a comment in his journal, and ban me with essentially no warning, then i don’t think i want him as a friend anyway… this is exactly the reason i was hesitant about taking up this "hobby" to begin with. so far i think i’ve done pretty well at staying clear of "drama", and i don’t want to start up with it now. enough said.

You are WEED.

What Drug Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

it seems vaguely appropriate until you realise that by changing one answer (no prizes for guessing which one) results in extacy, which i have never tried.

if you like coil (which i do), you can download all 197mb of "Full Cold Moon", a tribute album dedicated to the memory of jhonn balance, from here.

xmas was full of driving and in-laws, which is to say, somewhat boring, and somewhat scary, but way better than it would have been at my parents’ house. i didn’t get what i wanted

but i got something almost as cool

and, as i predicted, around 100,000 innocent civilians were killed within 24 hours of xmas… but the fact that it was because of natural causes doesn’t matter, because the tamil tigers have refused even to talk with the sri lankan government, in spite of the fact that one of the provinces hardest hit by the tsunamis is under their control. no word on what’s happening in iraq or afghanistan, but i assume that it’s bushiness as usual.

drunk puppet night begins in a couple of weeks. as far as i know, we get one rehearsal before it starts, which is better than none at all, but considering that we’ve got at least 20 different acts which occur more or less randomly over a 3 week run, it should be interesting, to say the least.

the web site for the cirque doesn’t have an initial meeting scheduled yet, but it probably will within the next week. if it doesn’t, then i’m going to schedule one myself, because the work really needs to be started.

dominionism
dominionism
satanic christians
jesus was a loser
the poor

i’m so fucking frustrated with the whole thing that i can’t even type straight… which means that this is taking even longer than it would otherwise. of course, once it’s typed nobody will recognise that, which is even more frustrating.

for those who can’t be bothered to actually read more than one web site, dominionism is a “militant post-millennial eschatology which pictures the seizure of earthly power by the church as the only means through which the world can be rescued”… and, by logical extension, if that earthly power isn’t seized by the church, then the world will continue it’s “downward spiral” into chaos, madness, and, potentially, islam. no matter that the world will continue to exist, it will be so emmeshed in evil and hatred (which means “no war” and “equality for everyone”) that we won’t be able to get anything done…

meanwhile, donny rumsfeld is under scrutiny for not caring enough about the troops that are already over there “fighting for freedom” that he’s not providing them with adequate body armour, and signing letters of condolence to families of troops killed with a “rubber stamp” (“but there’s so many of them, and i’ve got so many more important things to do”), more prisoner abuse has surfaced, which the government says will be “thoroughly investigated” (meaning they’re trying extra hard to sweep it under the rug as quickly as possible, in the hope that if it’s “investigated” quickly enough, nobody will notice that these muslim “terrorists” that are being abused are just as human as the rest of us), and the president’s approval rating has fallen below 50% one month after his election – THE FIRST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY to have that happen.

meanwhile, there are still homeless people around the world, there are still sick people who don’t have any way of paying for necessary medications and hospitalisation, there are still orphaned children with nobody to take care of them, there are still people who don’t have any means of supporting themselves and nobody seems to care about these things. they (YOU) are so caught up in the “war on” terror, or drugs, or whatever, and they (YOU) are so caught up in their materialistic fanasies that they (YOU) don’t even seem to notice these things at all. ALL of these things could be adequately addressed by application of 10% of the current budget that’s being spent, instead, on war in iraq, war in afghanistan, war on drugs, war on terrorism… in short, WAR!

one thing is for sure… there won’t be a “christmas truce” this year (like there was in world war I). i wonder how many innocent civilians will be killed on christmas because “terrorists” hate our “freedom”? i wonder if it’s even possible any more for individual people to say “that’s enough,” to go and make friends with the “enemy,” and dispense with war all together. it’s too bad that it wasn’t more permanent 100 years ago, because if it were, we’d be looking at a totally different society today. one in which there are no homeless, sick, orphaned, out of work people anywhere!

i had a performance last night. before my performance, i went out to buy a single present for a family member. it took me an hour and a half to drive less than 10 miles to and from (thus making me late for my performance), because of people who are hung up on the wrong message. they can’t seem to get it through their heads that they WON’T HAVE this kind of “xmas” much longer because it will all come crashing down around them when the “war” on terror finally comes to their doorstep.

my whole life i’ve heard the “peace on earth, good will towards mankind” message, but, oddly enough, i’ve only heard this kind of message around xmas time… the rest of the year, it seems like the message is “peace and good will to people who are “christian” and to hell with everyone else” (or, as one LJ user put it, “christmas is a time for giving and loving and snow and happiness and if you don’t stop trying to ruin it i am going to kick your ass”). it’s kind of amusing, in a sick and twisted sort of way. like the people who say it are just parroting what their parents have parroted to them. nobody pays attention when someone refuses to go back into combat because it’s combat, in spite of the fact that there have been at least two such cases in the past year… as long as it’s not xmas, almost everybody is either willing to go, or votes for the guy who lied to get us into the war in the first place, while people like me are left wondering where our next mortgage payment is coming from.

i could write for hours, but i’ve got to go to my “random” job search log review, a lovely conflagration in which i sit and listen to information i’ve heard at least three times before, being read from powerpoint slides (with trendy, eye-catching “clip art”) for an hour and a half, and then spend another half an hour waiting in line to have some flunky at the unenjoyment office check to make sure i’ve really been keeping track of the jobs i said i applied for (i know it’s “random”, because it says so on the computer printed form letter they mailed to me), otherwise i won’t be getting any more unemployment benefits… a lovely way to be looking at “xmas”… 8/

i hope everyone has a “merry xmas”.

Almost Half of Americans Favor Restrictions on Muslims’ Rights

Nearly Half in U.S. Say Restrict Muslims

from here, but since it may not stay up as long as i’d like…

Bhutan Bans Smoking in World First
Fri Dec 17, 6:04 AM ET

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan banned smoking in public and tobacco sales on Friday, the first country in the world to do so.

The ban by the reclusive, predominantly Buddhist state follows a decision by its national legislature in July to curb smoking to promote national well-being.

“A total ban on the sale and smoking of tobaccos has been imposed in the country from December 17,” said Lily Wangchuk, a spokeswoman at Bhutan’s embassy in New Delhi.

“It is for the well-being of the people, to protect the environment and preserve our culture,” she told Reuters.

People who cannot kick the habit can import tobacco for personal use, but at a 100 percent tax. They can only smoke indoors in the privacy of their homes.

Shops and businesses defying the ban face fines starting at $225, a steep amount by Bhutan’s standards, and repeat violators would risk losing commercial licenses.

Bhutanese officials said only an estimated one percent of the country’s 700,000 people smoked or used tobacco. The loss to tobacco businesses was not immediately known.

Bhutan, sandwiched between India and China, is governed by a monarchy which believes in tight controls.

The tiny country, home to breathtaking mountains and scenic valleys, restricts foreign tourists to avoid the erosion of its culture. Television was banned until 1999 for the same reason.

The ban was not expected to be opposed, one commentator said.

“People won’t go against the order because they follow what the monarchy says,” said Kinley Dorji, editor of Kuensel, Bhutan’s only newspaper.

But residents of Samdrup Jhongkhar, a Bhutanese town near the Indian border, were not so sure. They said smokers were upset by the ban and predicted that cigarettes would be smuggled in from India.

“I will now have to pay more to smoke. It will become a luxury,” said Prem Dorji, a Samdrup Jhongkhar resident. “Common people will be worst hit as they won’t be able to give up the habit easily and will be forced to pay exorbitant prices.”

i wonder what it would take to emigrate to bhutan. from what i understand, they’re not particularly fond of “foreigners”, but neither am i (speaking of “foreign” thought patterns: the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on intellectualism, etc.). it’s a buddhist monarchy, too, which means that they’re constrained from participation in more conventional wars… i believe christian evangelism is illegal there, as well.

Choose a band/or artist and answer only in song TITLES by that Band:

the band: frank zappa

Are you female or male: i’m a beautiful guy

Describe yourself: i’m the slime

How do some people feel about you: strictly genteel

How do you feel about yourself: dumb all over (a little ugly on the side)

Describe your ex girlfriend: the toads of the short forest

Describe your current girlfriend: teen-age prostitute

Describe where you want to be: the village of the sun

Describe what you want to be: evelyn, a modified dog

Describe how you live: can’t afford no shoes

Describe how you love: broken hearts are for assholes

Share a few words of wisdom: what ever happened to all the fun in the world?

much as i hate to do this, at the same time, i’m that close to obtaining a free ipod, or so they claim, so forgive me if you’re offended by things like this, but i’ve got to see how far they’ll really go…

there’s this site that claims to be giving away free iPods (i haven’t seen mine yet, but they’re reporting it on TV as a genuine offer, so it’s either a genuine offer or they’ve pulled the wool over more peoples’ eyes than just me)…

all you have to do is join and complete an online offer (which means submitting your email address to thousands of potential spammers, so be sure to use a throw-away email address), and then refer friends to do the same (like what i’m doing now). i know it’s verging on spam, but bear with me, okay?

to help me get my iPod, click this exact link to join, or copy and paste it into a browser: http://www.freeipods.com/?r=12545079

have fun and beware of spam. who knows… i may actually get a free ipod out of the deal.

i just came from the annual close-of-season meeting/potluck/party for the cirque de flambé… it turns out we’re not playing in spokane for first night, because they didn’t bid for a band, so that’s one thing i don’t have to worry about. consensus among the attendent rabble was that it would be a good idea for us to come up with a 5-year-plan for the cirque, because 1) bizarre and exotic places like brazil, oman, and the united arab emirates have expressed interest in having us go and perform for them – really, no shit… and 2) the cirque du soleil has filed an appeal on our copyright (which they contested to begin with, but was given to us anyway), which means that maque is going to have to find an attorney who knows what colour paper to file his briefs on, otherwise they’re going to be summarily thrown out. i bought two cirque de flambé belt buckles…

and then i find out that i’m getting a belt buckle, complete with belt, as a part of my costume for Big Bois With Poise, so now i’ve got two extras… i can’t decide whether i want to give them as presents, sell them, or hang on to them until after the copyright fiasco has been straightened out…

DVR, the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, has become interested in the fact that i’m "unemployed" (although i gather that’s somewhat of a politically incorrect term these days, in spite of the fact that it’s true) since my injury. they gave me a list of professions that are "in demand" and a list of professions that are "in decline", from which i’m supposed to choose, or something like that… the problem is that musicians are listed on the "in demand" side of the list, but musical directors and composers and musical instrument repairers are listed on the "in decline" side, which strikes me as pretty pointless… sure, you can have all the musicians you like, but they can’t play anything, there’s no one to lead them, and even if they could play something, their horns are broken and there’s nobody to fix them… also art directors and graphic designers are "in demand" but graphic artists are "in decline", which makes me think that the list is put together by the crazy person they keep under the dome in olympia… maybe they expect the actual graphic art to just appear or something… and i’m just sniffing around the edges at this point. DVR has just taken my application last week, and they’ve got a 9 month waiting list for people who have "category 1" disabilities, which are the most severe… and in spite of the fact that i can prove that my brain actually exploded, i don’t think they’re going to classify my disability as "category 1".

i’ve already got updates on the absurd thing that happened to me web page, but nothing substantial. i just found out the likely reason for the screwup… it doesn’t make it any less absurd, though… in fact, it makes it even moreso.

georgeanne clark died november 25, and today was her wake… she would have approved, except that she would not have had the party be intoxicant free, which it was, for the benefit of those “family members” who choose to be abstinent at this point in time… if she had been there personally, she would have been sucking up the intoxicants of various varieties, both legal and illegal, with the best of them. i went, and saw for very likely the last time, the vastly extended (distended?) dysfunctional quasi-family of which georgia was mother/grandmother/drug dealer, all in one place. i’m pretty sure that’s a good thing, too, because much as everyone was putting on a good face for georgia, i could tell almost immediately upon walking in to the house that there are hatreds that run extremely deep among some of those people. i saw jim for the first time since my injury. he was one of the people i was talking about whose hatreds run deep… i sat in on the edge of a conversation with tall paul, gunnar and jim where they were talking about the direction georgia’s house had gone since gunnar and tall paul moved out. my philosophy generally is to avoid speaking evil of the dead. they set up music gear, and gunnar and matt and joe and leonard and a girl that played mandolin whose name i don’t remember, but probably should, played… i would have played except they didn’t have a keyboard, and i couldn’t remember the chords even if they had had one. tall paul is looking a lot better than he was the last time i saw him, but then, the last time i saw him, he was living in his truck which was parked next to georgia’s house. matt has cut his hair, and moved to california. he’s a good deal balder than he was the last time i saw him, as well… snicker…

the fremont philharmonic played for the 132nd Annual Lighting of Lenin in fremont last night, and next saturday and sunday they’re having a fund raiser for the 2005 moisture festival at hale’s ales in fremont, where the fremont phil is performing at least three times in various different forms. also, there’s going to be an art sharing in bellingham on friday, which in which i’m planning on performing, and i have to do some final tweaks on kenyth’s flute while i’m there. supposedly we’re playing for winter feast, which, i believe, is the 21st, and again, supposedly, we’re playing first night in spokane on 1 january, but i haven’t heard anything definite about either one, and i’m not too enthusiastic about either performance. the winter feast is another one of those “good old boy” events where, if you’re not one of the “good old boys” you’re not invited, except in my case i’m invited because i play in the band that’s providing entertainment… moe and i went to winter feast 2 years ago, when the phil played, and it was a typical pagan community gathering, which is to say, not worth moe and i not even being invited if it weren’t for the phil. i was even sworn to secrecy about the location of winter feast until after it was over, for fear that “unauthorised” people would show up… it was the segway, by the way, which is probably where it’s going to be again this year… i’m not too enthusiastic about first night in spokane because it’s an overnight gig, but they’re only providing us with 5 motel rooms, and i probably will have to attend without moe, which is a miserable way to spend the new year… but i haven’t heard anything definite about either one, so i might as well say i don’t know anything.

also, this absurd thing happened to me the other day… so absurd that i had to post a separate web page about it… it’s that absurd… really!

thanks to , the Patron of Inflatable Reindeer of The Church of Tina Chopp, and because this is, among other things, the season of Bizarre Holidays…

" tried to do the Silly Fake Mustache Meme last month, but I’m not sure how well it got off the ground. Maybe I’ll have better luck with it, because everyone seems to think I’m cool for some reason. Hey, if we’re lucky it could turn into the next Veginostrum — or at least confuse the hell out of folks browsing the Recent LiveJournal Images page."

(that’s by the way, i have no illusions about whether people think i’m cool or not.)

1. Download kingnose.pdf.
2. Take a picture of yourself impersonating the King of All Cosmos.
3. Post the picture in your journal.

halfpenny opera ended last week, and i’m going to really miss working with those people. it was a good show, they ended up paying me, which was more than i expected, and i made a bunch of contacts from it, including a for-sure job doing lights for drunk puppet night in january, and another for-sure job for a weekend in portland in february. seanjohn, halfpenny opera’s "mack the knife", really is giving up his evil ways and pursuing a job in real estate, although he’s still going to do the first friday cabaret, the next one of which is in feburary.

on the other hand, it’s almost december and i still don’t have a regular job… which is a good thing and a bad thing, as so many things in life are: there’s not much of a chance of my finding regular work, either as a tester or as a graphic artist, until at least february, because of the "holidays"… and the presence of those "holy-days" requires that i have had a job recently, so that i can afford the inevitable material glut that is their result, so my prospects for a "merry x-mas" are slim to none… which doesn’t matter much anyway because i don’t celebrate "x-mas", although a number of people who i hang around with, and who expect me to "be there for the holidays" (i.e. my inlaws) do…

on the other hand, i believe that the philharmonic is doing something for winterfeast, in december, plus i’ve more or less committed to going to bellingham for the art sharing, i believe that cirque de flambe is doing first night in spokane, and drunk puppet night is every weekend in january, so the fact that i don’t have a "real" job, once again, plays to my advantage… it’s too bad all these things don’t pay…

i lost two auctions on ebay. one for $250 worth of belt pouches, and the other for a proximity coat. neither of them are things that i particularly need, but they’re both things i could have put to good use.

i think magick, our australian sheperd, is trying to herd me. whenever monique is home, magick hangs around with her, regardless of where i am… and when i get up to go into the other room, or if i’ve been sitting in the other room for a while and make some noise, even a keyboard noise or something small like that, magick barks, and she barks loudly and sharply enough that my right arm jerks. it’s really irritating, especially since i can’t control the jerking, and it has affected my computer a couple of times as a result – i’m mousing with my right hand, magick barks, i jerk and the mouse drags the window to a place where i can’t access the menus. this is usually not a problem, because most of the applications i use have keyboard commands that i know, and i can just use the keyboard commands, but occasionally they have keyboard commands that i don’t know, and that’s where it gets to be a problem. there’s a possibility that we’ve found a solution, which we discovered over the past few nights (while monique was home sick), but if it is the solution, it’s going to mean training magick to do something other than barking, which will take a while.

check out Animusic… i got their DVD (which is fantastic, by the way) last year, and this year they sent me a web-coupon – EMN4 – which is good for $4 off anything at the animusic online store before 31 december. i’m not sure whether i’m going to use it or not (their new DVD isn’t available until sometime next year), and they said that it was okay to share the code number, as long as it was only used once per customer.

Memes don’t exist — tell your friends.

1. When did you first “friend” me?
2. Why did you first “friend” me?
3. What posts of mine do you like to read the best?
4. What would you like me to write about that I don’t?
5. Do you think we would be friends in real life?
6. How often do you read my journal?
7. What do we have in common?
8. Will you post this in your journal so I can answer?

Was the Kaaba Originally a Hindu Temple?

now i know that this is likely to cause some controversy among those muslims who read this journal, but remember… i’m hindu, and hinduism doesn’t have a concept that is equal to blasphemy, so calm down and read the article – then blast away at it, if you can… but just remember, hinduism is the oldest religion continually practiced on the planet, so it’s kinda difficult to find something religious that hasn’t been affected by hinduism in some way or another…

Cirque de Flambé presents Chicken Flambé, which was not accepted when they applied to be chefs on the Food Network…

too bad, really…

okay, this is just cool in spite of the fact that it points out just how much of a geek i really am… particularly pngreader, which is a tool for encoding other works of art (graphic, movie, text, and music files) as graphic files. so much for intellectual property… yes, a song on a CD is intellectual property, and an unauthorised mp3 of that song is, technically, a "violation" of the intellectual property holder’s rights concerning that property, but what about graphic that encodes that mp3?

if you run this graphic through the right decoder you get an mp3 file that contains the song Burn Hollywood Burn, by Public Enemy. how can you control it? what’s to say that it’s not just another graphic, and doesn’t encode anything? and if you don’t have the proper tool to decode it, how can anyone else prove that it is, in fact, a mp3 file and not just another graphic?

oh, there are all sorts of problems that this type of software will now create. i can hardly wait! }8-)

and that’s not to mention all of the other goodies to be found at runme.org. definitely some place where i am going to have to do some intensive browsing.

also, if it hasn’t been said enough already, JOHN ASHCROFT RESIGNED!!! now if he had only resigned over some tawdry scandal, that would be really sweet, but i’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

i finally got the plushies i ordered (i ordered them around the 15th of october, and just got them a couple of days ago): a baby nyarlathotep, a cthulhu plushie and a cthulhu hand puppet. they’re really cute. i made the baby nyarlathotep into an icon, if you hadn’t noticed.

apparently the fact that i suffered a brain injury makes me eligible for job placement and training opportunities for which i wasn’t eligible without the brain injury, so maybe it’s a blessing in disguise, but i don’t think so. i’m waiting for a call back from the representative for CARES of Washington, but i’m not holding my breath… i’ve been waiting for a reply to an email i sent to the worksource lady who ran the classes i was forced to take about two weeks ago, and so far i haven’t even gotten a received notice, much less an actual reply. they put phone numbers and email addresses on their cards, but i get the impression that they’re the same as they ever were when it comes to actually responding to them.

i heard from jill a few days ago. apparently, with all of the cancer-related problems she’s been having (which she’s surviving handilly, in spite of how life-threatening they appear to be), since i saw her at the oregon country fair, her husband of 25 years met someone else and she has moved out. you’ve got to wonder how a person could be so heartless, but if anyone is prepared to face this challenge, it’s jill.

divali is friday. happy divali, everyone.

thanks to for linking to it, and d.c. simpson (holder of the copyright) for this enlightening, if a little late, commentary.

okay, if anyone is searching for something to get me for christmas (even though i don’t celebrate it, i still give presents, so don’t be shy), this is what i had in mind:

(the one i want is the black wool one, 58.5 cm)

now it’s $150, so i don’t expect it, but it’s out there, if anyone wants to step up… i’d be eternally grateful…

alternately, if you don’t want to spend $150, you could get me this one

which is only $80, and i’d be just as happy.

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

hmph…

there’s one thing about the technogocical community in brazil that really impresses me: they essentially have no micro$oft, and they like it that way. here’s what i’m talking about.

i particularly like this statement:

“In 1556, not long after the Portuguese first set foot in Brazil, the Bishop Pero Fernandes Sardinha was shipwrecked on its shores and set about introducing the gospel of Christ to the native “heathens.” The locals, impressed with the glorious civilization the bishop represented and eager to absorb it in its totality, promptly ate him. Thus was born Brazilian culture.”

now if we could only convince people that those who threaten our way of life (or who we want to know more about) are good for food, we could solve all sorts of problems in the united states…

flagrantly stolen from . enjoy…

Professor Garbanzo

1. Stop talking about politics for a moment or two.
2. Post a reasonably-sized picture in your LJ, NOT under a cut tag, of something pleasant, such as an adorable pony, or a comical garbanzo bean, or a llama in a car. Something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.
3. Include these instructions, and share the love.

there are only two industries which refer to their customers as "users" – the computer industry, and the drug industry… but bad interface design is rampant in more than just visualisation of information. the recent election springs to mind as an example.

also, as if you needed any more reasons to hate microsoft, what i’ve suspected all along about powerpoint is actually true: "It induce[s] stupidity, turn[s] everyone into bores, waste[s] time, and degrade[s] the quality and credibility of communication." why else would THE U.S. GOVERNMENT use it!?

on a different note, there’s evidence that the world isn’t bound for hell just yet (thanks to )… God willing it will have some effect, since nothing else we do seems to affect anything whatsoever.

it’s too late for me, but if i were single, i’d go for this.

by the way, in case you’re interested, i reincarnated . it’s not very active, but it never was. we’ll see what happens.

i’m torn between apathy, because i know that regardless of who is elected, things probably won’t change that much (and it will continue to remain more or less the same until someone gets tired enough of seeing things go the same way again and actually does something about it), and saying "OH… MY… GOD!" and immediately moving to one of the 9 countries listed in the Index of Economic Freedoms as being more free than the US…

even if (God willing) shrub-boy does something smart for a change, like dying, we’re still going to have to deal with the republican backlash for a long time to come. this is definitely looking like a place i would rather not live.

i’ll be glad when all of this political furor has died down, but i’m pretty sure it won’t be gone by tomorrow, which is what i’d really like. i mean, why are all those political signs all over the place? littering is illegal, but putting up political signage with no intention of ever taking it down is not, and personally i’d rather see heaps of rotting garbage in the street than the over-abundance of political signs that have cropped up within the past few weeks. it’s not as though they’re being there is going to automatically make me change the way i vote… i’m actually sort of offended because somebody put a “george bush” sign in our front yard (fortunately it was at night and i found it when i came home from the halfpenny opera at 1:00 in the morning, and removed it before anyone had the chance to see it), as though having the sign in our yard was going to change the way we think about this whole thing – if anything, it would have the opposite effect. i’m pretty sure that the people who put them up, especially the ones on the freeway on and off ramps, and by the side of the road in areas which are not residential, are not going to be the ones who take them down… and i’d be willing to bet that there will still be john kerry and george bush signs still up 6 months from now.

i’m still unemployed. oh joy. i’m going to “worksource” (which is the modern, “politically correct” term for the unemployment office) today to talk with someone about finding a job, but i’m not holding my breath. i’m thinking that i might go back to school, but i’m not sure whether i can or not, because i’m not sure whether i’m eligible for any kind of financial aid. i’m still determining whether i want to be employed or not, anyway. i’m not sure that i want to support the concept of wage slavery in any way, and being employed is one of the biggest ways i can see for doing that.

trolloween, and the first week of halfpenny opera went down without a hitch. moe didn’t go to trolloween because she had to work in the morning (see what i mean?), and she’s going to go to halfpenny opera on thursday of this week… if there were just some way that i could make my participation in these events pay money, then i wouldn’t have to worry so much about not having a “regular” job… well, i’ve got a worksource appointment this morning, so i’m probably going to talk with the person about that then.

recently i was made aware of this, and this, which make me think that i should update my “I AM A TERRORIST” page, but i’ve been so uninspired to even read the news that i’m not sure whether i’m actually going to do it or not. i keep thinking that if i ignore the news enough, eventually it will go away… and besides, i’ve got more interesting things to do anyway.

check this out…

SCARY!

they actually expect us to believe their crap????

that’s why i’m voting for badnarik… or maybe kerry, but probably not.

Monkeywrench Puppet Lab is proud to present Halfpenny Opera – In these troubled times, our only heroes are troubled men. What can an honest man do in a world where all the cops are criminals, all the saints are whores and all the politicians are on the take? A sad and sordid story of love in a time of greed and cynicism. A satire of the classic tale of political corruption, with original music, puppets and actors. – October 28 – November 20, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm at the Rendezvous Jewel Box Theater, 2322 2nd ave. Tickets can be had at Brown Paper Tickets for $12 or $10 if you’re a student or a senior. November 4 and 11 are “pay-what-you-can” nights for those of you for whom $12 is too much.

unless you’re using linux or mac, but if you’re smart enough to use linux or mac, you’re probably smart enough NOT to use AOL…

—–

Security for Internet Users Deemed Weak

By TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer

WASHINGTON – Internet users at home are not nearly as safe online as they believe, according to a nationwide inspection by researchers. They found most consumers have no firewall protection, outdated antivirus software and dozens of spyware programs secretly running on their computers.

One beleaguered home user in the government-backed study had more than 1,000 spyware programs running on his sluggish computer when researchers examined it.

Bill Mines, a personal trainer in South Riding, Va., did not fare much better. His family’s 3-year-old Dell computer was found infected with viruses and more than 600 pieces of spyware surreptitiously monitoring his online activities.

“I was blown away,” Mines said. “I had a lot of viruses and other things I didn’t know about. I had no idea things like this could happen.”

The Internet always has had its share of risky neighborhoods and dark alleys. But with increasingly sophisticated threats from hackers, viruses, spam e-mails and spyware, trouble is finding computer users no matter how cautiously they roam online.

The technology industry is feeling the pain, too.

Spurred by the high costs of support calls from irritated customers — and fearful that frustrated consumers will stop buying new products — Internet providers, software companies and computer-makers are making efforts to increase awareness of threats and provide customers with new tools to protect themselves.

Still, many computer users appear remarkably unprepared for the dangers they face.

The study being released Monday by America Online and the National Cyber Security Alliance found that 77 percent of 326 adults in 12 states assured researchers in a telephone poll they were safe from online threats. Nearly as many people felt confident they were already protected specifically from viruses and hackers.

When experts visited those same homes to examine computers, they found two-thirds of adults using antivirus software that was not updated in at least seven days.

Two-thirds of the computer users also were not using any type of protective firewall program, and spyware was found on the computers of 80 percent of those in the study.

The survey participants all were AOL subscribers selected in 22 cities and towns by an independent market analysis organization.

The alliance, a nonprofit group, is backed by the Homeland Security Department and the Federal Trade Commission, plus leading technology companies, including Cisco Systems, Microsoft, eBay and Dell.

The group’s chief, Ken Watson, said consumers suffer from complacency and a lack of expert advice on keeping their computers secure. “Just like you don’t expect to get hit by a car, you don’t believe a computer attack can happen to you,” Watson said.

“There really is quite a perception gap,” agreed Daniel W. Caprio, the Commerce Department’s deputy assistant secretary for technology policy. “Clearly there is confusion. We need to do a better job making information and practical tips for home users and small businesses available.”

Wendy Avino, an interior decorator in Lansdowne, Va., said researchers found 14 spyware programs on her borrowed laptop and noticed that her $50 antivirus software was not properly configured to scan her computer at least monthly for possible infections.

“We don’t go in funny chat rooms, I don’t open funny mail,” Avino said. “If it says ‘hot girls,’ I delete it. We do everything in the right way, so how does stuff get in there?”

She complained she was misled believing her commercial antivirus and firewall programs would protect her from all varieties of online threats; most do not detect common types of spyware.

“It is very complicated for the average home user,” said Ari Schwartz, an expert on Internet threats for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington civil liberties group.

“There’s a lack of accountability all around, from consumers who don’t believe they should have to do this to companies who blame the consumer. It’s finger-pointing back and forth,” Schwartz said.

Microsoft’s chairman, Bill Gates said the company spent nearly $1 billion on its recent upgrade to improve security for customers using the latest version of its Windows software (and that was before the study which found spyware and malware on the computers of those people who participated in the study… IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!).

AOL purchased full-page advertisements in major newspapers this month pledging better security for its subscribers. Dell has begun a campaign to educate customers how to detect and remove spyware themselves.

The government is increasingly involved, too.

The FTC this month filed its first federal court case over spyware. The House overwhelmingly approved two bills to increase criminal penalties and fines over spyware. The Homeland Security Department offers free e-mail tips for home Internet users to keep themselves secure.

Thung or Feeblens V is another piece i’ve worked on recently. it’s another random, "hands off" piece that could be longer, but isn’t because of size limitations. my impression is that it’s not very accessible either, but i never know how other people will take it…

a little thing called roscoe which is the latest piece of music i’ve been working on… not very accessible, is it?

alert: Lore Brand Comics (courtesy of harpal)… especially this one:

got a gig doing lights for the monkywrench puppet laboratories “Halfpenny Opera” which i’ve been hearing about and seeing bits and pieces from (at the late night cabaret, with seanjohn as Mack the Knife) for the past year. the performances are coming up pretty soon, and they’re going to be at a “professional” venue, the rendezvous jewel box on second avenue. i’ve never done lights for a “professional” show before, but the concept isn’t too difficult to understand, and i’ve run a light board before, so it won’t be anything new. it even pays a little bit, although my guess is that i’m going to be paid with comp tickets and alcohol a lot more than with money.

trolloween is coming up soon and the theme this year is "the trials of trollmetheus", and it’s a trouser affair. the fremont trollharmonic is going to perform, as well as a bunch of trolls (of course), the fire-breathing troll gods, vamolá, and the usual suspects. i’ve recently made a new acquaintance who is turning out to be a tremendous source of inspiration to me. he’s put me one step closer to being able to create the ganesha mask that i’ve been fantasizing about for 10 years or so (i’m probably going to take his mask-making workshop this spring), and is even more interesting because of his apparent survivial in spite of not having a “regular” job outside of making masks and puppets for the fremont arts council.

i recently got a catalogue from Art & Culture, which is a predominantly vaisnava resource outlet. i’ve been considering adding some of what they’ve got to the selection of stuff at hybrid elephant, but i haven’t decided what yet, although i’m not sure that i’ll offer things like the marble radhakrsna set (temple-style, for dressing and decorating) for $1800, until i’ve got some more reliable business… they’ve got everything from tablas, mridangams, sitars and tamburas to yantras, incense, t-shirts, murtis, books, and everything else imaginable. i’m slowly getting the last of the old inventory on the web site, and i’ve still got a bunch of new stuff for which i’ve still got to write pages.

the vegetable sacrifice was tremendously disappointing, and i’m still upset about it. not only that, but i’ve applied for 11 jobs so far this week and have gotten no responses, and a recruiter called me with a testing position that i’d be perfect for, except for the fact that it requires a level of coding that i’m not even close to… it’s becoming quite difficult to get beyond being depressed about things. if it weren’t for the fact of the show, and the minimal positive bump i’ve gotten from the mask-making connection, and the fact that it’s so boring to be depressed for any length of time, i’d be headed in that direction very strongly at this point… at the same time, i suppose that the fact that i’ve been able to identify the fact that i’m depressed, and i’ve been able to identify specific steps i can take to alleviate that depression is a step in the right direction.

there’s a meme that i’ve seen recently, but i’ve waited a while to post it myself. of course, the first thing i did was to delete the first two columns of interests completely and then re-do the thing, because i so do not need to be identified by interests that are universal or popular. in fact i considered deleting all of my "common" interests as well, but not for now…

meme to be added with a (non-windoesn’t) system that is unicode compliant… which would be linux this time.

---

Enter username:

InterestRank was bought to you by _imran_ and MemeLand.org

---

this is why i’m depressed: i plan for months, pretty much ever since i get out of the hospital… i send out notifications a month in advance and a week in advance, i say that it’s going to happen rain or shine, and still i was the only person at the vegetable sacrifice! and then i got back in time to be invited to go and see team america with moe and scott and nancy, and while it had some extremely funny parts, it also had a vomit scene that puts the one in the meaning of life to shame (in spite of the fact that the vomit was coming out of a puppet), and overall, it wasn’t funny enough to offset the fact that i put a lot of energy into something that totally bombed… and then moe left to go do treatments at the clinic and then she’s going out for sushi with a woman that she’s trading dog lessons for sushi with, so i’m alone and depressed.

i don’t say this often, but fuck!

today is the ritual vegetable sacrifice… 1st real sacrifice since my injury… there was a vegetable sacrifice last year, but only one person other than me showed up. it’s 10:30 am, and the ceremony starts at 1:00 pm, i have to be there at 12:00. at this point, i’ve had two people say they might show up, but it’s been raining all morning – it’s not raining now, though. i said that we would have a sacrifice whether it was raining or not… we’ll just have to see.

the past few days have been spent more or less successfully fighting off depression…

all told i applied for 17 jobs this week, but i don’t have any prospects yet, and i’ve got to do it all over again next week. i talked with the woman at sacred traditions and she said that she would probably be placing an order for incense, unlike what she said last time i talked with her a couple of years ago, shortly after they first opened, when she said that the only incense they were going to carry was their own brand. i also talked with the manager of stargazer’s, but there’s no telling what she really thought… she asked me about palo santo, which is not really an incense, but i can get it, if she wants to buy a whole bunch of it.

it’s difficult, though… a lot of people are out of work around here, plus i’ve got a brain injury, which doesn’t make a lot of difference to me (apart from the fact that i still can’t type as fast as i used to, and sometimes i either don’t or can’t say things in an understandable way, and once i’ve said whatever it is, i’m just as confused about it as the people who are listening to me, and i don’t know why), but who knows how much difference it will make to the person who has to choose between my resume and the one of someone who is not brain-injured. and that’s not to mention the fact that i’m already predisposed towards depression, even before my injury. so far i have been, as i said, more or less successful, but i’m not sure how much longer i can be so, especially if things continue to go the way things have been going recently.

i keep getting random catalogues in the mail. it’s probably because of hybrid elephant, but it’s still strange. recently i’ve gotten two different catalogues from suppliers of packaging materials, boxes and lables, and today i got a catalogue addressed to “gifts and accessories buyer” for “enchanted world of boxes” which is really strange… it’s “polish boxes”, not boxes for packing things in… kind of decorative, keep gifts in, or perhaps give them as gifts type of boxes.

magick was in a big hurry to rush out into the back yard last night, and caught one of her toes in the groove for the sliding glass door and ripped out her toenail. with both her knees having been surgerized recently, that only leaves her with one leg that is not injured in some way. moe has been really upset about it, primarily because magick’s been going stir crazy with being kept in her kennel all the time for her knees, and now that she’s allowed to start working again, this toenail thing comes up.

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Shiva Panchakshara Stotra Mantra

Stotra 1:
Nagendra Haaraaya Thrilochanaaya
Bhasmaanga Raagaaya Maheshvaraay
Nityaaya Suddhaaya Digambaraaya
Tasmai Nakaaraaya Namah Shivaaya

I offer my humble salutations to Lord Mahesvara – who has a garland of serpents around the neck; who has three eyes; whose body is covered with ash (vibhuti); who is eternal; who is pure; who has the entire sky as His dress and who is embodies as the first letter Na.

Stotra 2:
Mandaakini Salila Chandana Chaarthitaaya
Nandeesvara Pramatha Naatha Mahesvaraaya
Mandaara Pushpa Vahu Pushpa Supoojitaaya
Tasmai Makaaraaya Namah Shivaaya

I bow to Lord Mahesvara, who is embodied as Makaara (letter Ma), whose body is anointed with holy waters from the river Ganges and sandal paste, who is the sovereign king of the Pramatha Ganas and who is adorned with innumerable divine flowers such as Mandaara.

Stotra 3:
Shivaaya Gauri Vadana Aravinda
Sooryaaya Dakshaadhvara Naashakaaya
Sree Neelakantaaya Vrisha Dhvajaaya
Tasmai Shikaaraaya Namah Shivaaya

I offer my salutations to Lord Shiva, who is the resplendent sun for mother Gauri`s lotus face, who is the destroyer of Daksha`s sacrificial ritual, who is the blue necked Lord (due to the Haalahala poison which He agreed to consume), whose banner bears the emblem of a bull and who is embodied as the letter Shi.

Stotra 4:
Vasishta Kumbhodbhava Gautamaaya
Muneendra Devaarchita Sekharaaya
Chandraarka Vaishvaanara Lochanaaya
Tasmai Vakaaraaya Namah Shivaaya

I prostrate before the God of Gods, who is worshipped and prayed to by great sages such as Vashishta, Agastya and Gautama, whose eyes are sun, moon and the fire and who is embodied as Vakaara (letter Va).

Stotra 5:
Yajna Swaroopaaya Jataadharaaya
Pinaaka Hasthaaya Sanaatanaaya
Divyaaya Devaaya Digambaraaya
Tasmai Yakaraaya Namah Shivaaya

Prostrartions to the sacred Lord who is the Yaksa incarnate, whose hairs are long and matted, who holds Pinaaka (trident) in His hand, who has the entire sky as His attire and who is embodied as the letter Ya.

Stotra 6:
Panchaaksharam Idam Punyam
Yah Pateh Shiva Sannidhau
Shivaloka Mavaapnothee
Shivena Saha Modate

Whoever repeats this prayer composed with the five holy letters before Lord Shiva, attains that supreme abode of His and enjoys the eternal Bliss.

http://www.logicalcreativity.com/jon/plush/01.html

that led me to this…

http://www.toyvault.com/cthulhu/plush_cthulhu.html

and so i’m getting one. i’m also getting a plush nyarlethotep…

and, finally, http://www.necfiles.org/ is the place where you can discover the background for all of this.

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus.html – tree octopus? i can’t tell whether it’s serious or just someone with a lot of time on their hands… The TRUTH About “Belgium” tends to make me think that it’s someone with a lot of time on their hands… a lot of free time… oy…

http://www.freedomware.us/stars/microshaft/index.php – he’s a wacko, but he’s an interesting wacko… kind of like the guy at http://www.digicrime.com/ – but only if you’re using windoesn’t and internet exploder.

p.s. i need the following frank zappa CDs to complete my collection: Uncle Meat, Waka Jawaka, Hot Rats, Burnt Weenie Sandwich, Chunga’s Revenge, Shut Up N’ Play Yer Guitar, Strictly Genteel and The Grand Wazoo. they’re officially going on my wish list, if anybody’s interested.

Name a CD you own that no-one else on your friends list does:
????? ????? by Anuradha Paudwal

Name a book you own that no-one else on your friends list does:
how about five books:
De Arte Magica by Aliester Crowley
The Philokalia
?????????????
The Boo Hoo Bible
The Books of Tina Chopp
??????????? by Adi Shankaracharya

Name a movie you own on DVD/VHS/whatever that no-one else on your friends list does:
The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T

brought to you by Rene Laanen, author of the Trombone Page of the World.

blah blah blah…

debates: didn’t watch them. i’m probably going to vote for badnarik. I872: no, I884: no, I892: yes, R55: reject, I297: yes. unenjoyment has mandated that i go to “job hunter orientation” and “job search preparation” classes, which i need about as much as i need another hole in my head, but if i don’t go, they deny my meagre unemployment check, which is now half of what it was, and will probably last another 6 months. meanwhile i’ve applied for 13 jobs so far this week, but no possibilities at this point. we’re doing allad’din at the tacoma mall in december, because they want us to perform, but babes in the wood is not ready yet. music, but nothing amazing yet.

i went to bellingham yesterday and came back today. i saw darol and collette, and gave them my old imac. they’re both so computer illiterate that they may actually be able to use it for something. i certainly can’t anymore, and it’s just as well that i gave it to collette and darol, because i was thinking about how else i might get rid of it. i stayed at serendipity last night, with ken and kamalla, and their housemates lucy and phyllis. there was an art sharing last night, and ken, kennyth and i played together in celebration of 25 years of playing together… and now that i come to think about it, that was our second public performance, too… the first one was at the end of the show and everybody left during it, except for ken yanik, who was asleep. i also saw david mason, who has parkinsons disease now, but i understand that he still has moments where he is as bright as he’s ever been. leslie conton was there, also. ken has a new friend, by way of phylis, who is a very young guy named aaron (yes, another one) who may be the third member of and more. i’m currently playing a piece that ken, aaron and i did with reason, that’s pretty amazing. i started out with the original sound, then ken took over and made his part of it, then aaron tried his hand… we went back and forth all morning with it, and it turns out that there’s a whole genre of music called "glitch" which it fits into very nicely. if you’ve got reason, here is a link where the rps is located, but if you don’t, then you might as well not bother.

kamalla has this fantasy of turning the property that the blue house, kennyth’s house, serendipity, the yellow house that i lived in, the wind-up neighbor’s house (which was owned by kathy veterane, and is now owned by karl meyer), and the field on the other side of the yellow house, into a combination intentional community and teaching center. i have heard a number of wild-ass schemes for doing that kind of thing in varions different parts of bellingham throughout the years, but if anyone’s going to do it, i think that kamalla has a better chance of it than anyone else i know about. she’s got enough interest already that some people from the findhorn community are giving talks there, one happened today, but i couldn’t hang around for it. if such a thing does happen, eventually, i’m going to have to be a part of it in some way or another.

moe approached me with another “eventually” idea, as well. apparently micah has this fantasy of him opening up a mammal center somewhere in california – at this point it looks like santa barbara, but this is all just a fantasy at this point – and if he does, he plans on offering moe a job, which would mean moving to santa barbara. as much as i hate the idea of living in california, i’ve actually been to santa barbara a couple of times, and it’s enough different from both LA and SF that i could probably handle it.

it was good to see all the people from bellingham again, and i’m definitely going to have to plan on going up there next month for the art sharing, if nothing else… now all i have to do is find a job. soon.

gunnar has finally got a web site where he can keep his amazing fractal drawings. i just shipped out a wholesale purchase of om gayatri incense for someone in california… now all i need to do is get more of those kinds of people to buy my incense and stuff and i wouldn’t have to worry. another major site update is coming soon. i’ve got some new jewelry, a new ganesha statue, and a bunch of “new” incense (which is to say, the last of the old inventory) that i have to add to the site. i’m still going to carry incense from sugandha prabhu, i’m just not going to rely on him as my main supplier any more, because he’s not well, and even when he is, he’s more than a little flaky.

this is a test.

???????? ????????? ????????????????????? ? ???????? ?????????? ????????????????? ??

this is the end of the test.

पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पूर्णमुदच्यते । पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥

this is what it should look like.

i saw ezra and his new (as of yesterday afternoon) apartment yesterday. he said that he wanted to be closer to school, and i don’t blame him. he’s got a schedule that only a 20-something college student could handle, from 9 in the morning until 8 to 10 at night, every day with no days off… i wonder how long he’s going to be able to keep it up. he also said that he moved partially because cornish is giving him several tons of money for rent, tuition, books and supplies, and so forth, which is probably a good thing since i can’t afford to give him money myself and katharyn’s in a mental institution. he seems to be doing a much more successful job of getting money for going to college than i ever did.

i’m going to the vedanta socity in about half an hour. swamiji’s lecture today will be “After death experiences existance” (brain injury) which should be interesting since it is subtitled “Fact or fiction”, and i’m pretty sure that swamiji will come down on the side of “fact”, but i’d like to see how he’s going to prove it.

more memes to ponder. i could just post a link to quizilla dot com (or whatever) and let whatever comes of it happen, but i’d like to post only those memes which i have personally come in contact with, even if i do only post links to them and not my actual results.

i don’t use windows… for much! so when i ran virus scan, found a bunch of spyware applications (on my recently installed system mind you) and deleted them, i wasn’t too worried when the result was an error message telling me that c:\winnt\system32\bridge.dll wasn’t installed… but i just got rid of the error message! apparently there’s a registry key that doesn’t get changed back when you eliminate spyware using “unusual” (that is to say “manual”) methods. in case you’re wondering, open the registry editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\run\ and the key that loads bridge.dll should be apparent (it contains the words “rundll”, “bridge.dll” and “load”. delete that key and you won’t get an error message any more!

<edit>

highlights of swamijis lecture (which i need to remember): there are five types of proof; direct perception, inference, comparison, reliable testimony and “non-perception” (the latter of which is not accepted by all schools of philosophy). existence after death can be proved by the fourth variety – reliable testimony – because the scriptures say so, and because people who have “super-sensual knowledge” say so. you can question this if you want to, but the only other way to prove it is with direct perception, which we will all have, eventually, but unfortunately for those of us who are left, the one who has this direct perception will be unable to share it with anyone else.

he included a descripiton of what a “non-perceptive” proof might be as well: a husband says “i left my wallet on the dresser, would you go and get it for me?” to his wife, so the wife goes and finds that it’s not there… that is a “non-perceptive” proof: the wife, by her “non-perception” of the wallet, proves that her husband didn’t leave it on the dresser…

there are actually two bodies which make up an individual (which is stuff i knew before): the “gross” body, which you can perceive, and the “fine” body, which is made up of as many as 17 or as few as 11 (depending on how you count them) limbs; the five sense organs, the five motor organs, the five energies (prana, upana, etc., which can be combined, as prana manifests differently depending on whether it is ingesting, digesting, excreting, etc.), buddhi and manas or “cognative ability” (which can be combined as “mind”). the mind is the “mirror” which reflects divinity resulting in the soul. thus where the mind is, the soul is as well.

a review of the august cirque de flambé shows by Seattle Sun magazine, for those of you who didn’t see it.

mount saint helens is erupting at this very moment! this is the 2nd time it’s erupted in my lifetime!

the wurst festival went as planned and was pretty much the same as it was last year, except for the fact that i wasn’t recovering so immenently from a brain injury this year. i actually got a chance to look around a little, although there wasn’t much. basically it’s a church/school/neighborhood party that’s gone a little overboard: they had a bunch of inflatable “rides”, a dunk-tank, a few food booths, a few more sales booths and that’s it… although they did have a really nice mixing board, which i assume they had last year as well, i just didn’t notice.

the tacoma gig was excellent if you were the audience, but it was so-so from a performer’s point of view. we started performing at 5:00 and finished at 10:00, after a “parade” (in which the rich, starched-collar patrons of the two museums involved wandered from one museum to the other while the band – especially the tuba player who has an upright tuba, no strap, and a brain-injured right hand that doesn’t work as well as it’s supposed to – struggled to keep up), and a two hour “break” in which we had to frantically get set up and ready for the show while the rich patrons had dinner. my book ended up in the back of alan’s truck during the parade, and then alan disappeared, so i didn’t get my book back until just before we started, but it all worked out. the show was only a half an hour, but we included all of the best parts from august’s show, and macque added a new twist to pyrochaotica without telling anybody: two pyro-fountains at the end, which were loud enough that they drowned out the band for a couple minutes. the effect was sensational though – a fountain of crackling sparks going about 75 feet in the air, along with the standard compliment of other pyro stuff, with the backdrop of puget sound and the glass museum. there will probably be pictures eventually. it’s kind of odd, though, because one of the organisations that was putting the whole thing on was the philanthropy northwest society, but apparently they didn’t think to provide the “hired help” with important things like food, and passes to get in to the dressing room. we had a dressing room, but we had about 30 performers and only four passes, so there was as much searching for someone with a pass to get in as there was just about anything else, and i went home hungry. it’s presumably a good thing though, because now we can put the show on our “resume” and people will know that we can interact with highbrow society without getting under their skin, which will mean more performances in the future.

also announcing the fremont philharmonic performing at the Late Night Cabaret, friday, 1st october, at 10:00 pm down on airport way just north of boeing field… i think the address is 2110 airport way, but i’m not sure.

this is the continuation of performances that took a break in june. now they’re back again, and if they’re going to be anything like what they were like in june, they should be loads of morbid, grisly fun with a side of pie and shack jack frost to boot. don’t miss it!

announcing the Fremont Philharmonic performance at the Wallingford Wurst Festival, saturday, 25th september, at noon, and the Cirque de Flambe performance at the Tacoma Museum of Art and the Tacoma Glass Museum (which are, apparently, fairly close to one another), sunday, 26th september, between 5:00 and 9:00 pm. be there or be trapezoidal.

hoo boy, the shit really has hit the fan with katharyn this time… and this time i didn’t have anything to do with it, and haven’t for several years now, so there’s no way she can possibly blame it on me, in spite of the fact that i have no doubt she’d want to if she had the opportunity.

i talked with ezra yesterday, and with what he said and from talking to darol, i learned that darol bailed her out of a house-sharing fiasco back in december, and then she moved into the mad house in may. she apparently lived a fairly normal madhouse existence for about 4 months, and then went off the deep end. she locked herself in her room and spent four days there, pounding on the floor and being abusive to the many requests that she had to be quiet. when she did come out she freaked out and ran out of the house and into the neighbor’s house (who she didn’t know) and ended up seeking sanctuary at the synagogue, which kicked her out. then she came back, drew stars of david in red felt pen on people’s doors, met darol screaming about aliens, and ended up in a bush a few houses down the street raving about how she wanted to talk to the intergalactic police, because the local police were going to put injection cuffs on her.

apparently she’s been confined against her will at the western state hospital in stillicum for the past three or four months, with no telling when she’s going to get out, if at all. darol has decided that he doesn’t want her living in the mad house any more, and who can blame him… but it’s interesting that the only person who darol has ever decided that about, is someone with whom i used to be associated. darol also wants to put katharyn’s stuff somewhere so that he can rent out the room, but it’s not going to be with me… even if i was willing to take katharyn’s stuff, i imagine that she’d be even more irrational about me than she was when we were dealing with each other.’

i sure must have missed a whole bunch of stuff while i was in the hospital, because i hadn’t heard any of this. in a way, i’m kinda glad i had my injury instead, because if i hadn’t, i’m sure that katharyn would have come up with some way for me to be involved in her little debacle…

in other news, apparently kolette and ben have broken up after 15 years together, because ben went out and got married to someone else, so kolette is back in b’ham, living at the madhouse again after 13 year absence, and shacking up with darol… which is probably really good for both of them.

i might have known… they’re looking for someone with more PC experience. apparently mac protools isn’t good enough for ’em, they want windows experience… but you know, nobody uses windows for sound engineering.

they said that there are some other positions that they would consider me for, but they’re not open until october.

feh!

i don’t know whether i should do this or not, but i’m already doing it, so it’s a foregone conclusion…

i have a job interview tomorrow morning at micro$oft. they apparently need a sound engineer(!) in their codec testing team(!!). they were reluctantly going to offer the job to someone else, but then my resume(s) came along and they decided to change their mind and interview me instead. apparently the manager, who is a 2nd level manager, with the option of offering me a blue badge position if the cards fall just right, thought i was a very strong candidate for the position.

it’s microsoft, but what the hell… i don’t have to like it, or use it at home, but if they’re going to pay me to be a sound engineer and network maintenance geek, who am i to complain?

i wouldn’t normally mention this to anyone, because i’ve had horribly bad luck with jobs i’ve told other people about before i’ve actually gotten the job, but this is different, because it’s a sound-oriented job at microsoft, rather than a computer or print-shop job somewhere else. we’ll just have to see what happens.

another new icon. hopefully it works out okay…

the clowns were excellent. there was some performing, but by people who were much more prepared than i. i was the only member of the band to show up, but there were various kinds of fire-dancers, poi-spinners, hula-hoops and fire-breathers (and, fortunately, no fire department, although the police made a brief appearance, it was well after everything incriminating had been cleaned up and put away), and they were all much more prepared to perform than i would have been. now i’ve just got to remember to put their email addresses somewhere where i’ll be able to find them. i met a clown of indian descent (who was actually born in cincinatti), whose name is gotham, and his actual indian cousin, named akshay, who happenes to be living in renton for a month while he is a consultant at boeing… so maybe i’ll take him out to pabla’s in downtown seattle or something. he was complaining that he hasn’t got the chance to see any of the city during his stay. i also met greg, who is “the black clown”… he said people ask him which one he is in the show, and his response is “i’m the black one”… that way there’s no question. he’s leaving the show at the end of this, his fourth year, but he says he’s not sure what he’s going to do afterwards. i met a bunch of other clowns as well, people from hungary and japan, but they didn’t speak any english, so i didn’t get the chance to communicate with them much.

the talk at the vedanta society this morning was about divine mother sarada devi as an example of the global ideal. the speaker was swami swaahaananda, the head of the vedanta society of southern california, and the translator of (among other things) my copy of chaandogyaopanisad. a few things he said made an impression: the way to be happy in life is to find no fault with others. for a family, sometimes individual interests must be sacrificed; for a village, sometimes a family’s interests must be sacrificed; for a nation, sometimes a village’s interests must be sacrificed, and so with the world, sometimes even an individual nation’s interests must be sacrificed.

i’ve discovered the reason why i didn’t die last summer…

D.R., from the cirque, sent out an invitation last night. it seems that he and a bunch of random cirque people have been invited to go and hang out with the clowns from Barnum & Bailey tonight, and i’m going along with him. this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, as well as a great way to get to know some new people, and i would have hated to die, knowing that this kind of thing was going to happen.

i’m still resting my right hand on the keyboard for long enough that i’m typing lines of llllllllll or multiple spaces between words and stuff like that, which is irritating…

but i’m going to hang out with professional clowns! WHEEE HAH!!!

The Church of Tina Chopp is pleased to announce yet another

PUBLIC RITUAL VEGETABLE SACRIFICE

yes, it’s happening again, and this time i’m preparing for it early, since
last year was such a disaster (in more ways than you think).

the date is

SUNDAY, the 17th of OCTOBER, 2004 at 1:00 pm

please bring the following:

0. AN OPEN MIND!!!
if you don’t approve of bizarre rituals involving vegetable sacrifice and
snake worship, do something else that day. if you show up and cause problems,
we’re not responsible for what happens.

(the following are suggested, not required)

1. YOUR OWN VEGETABLE TO SACRIFICE!
we will be supplying at least one pumpkin, but it’s always more fun when other
people are involved.

(yes, there is no 2nd thing to bring to the sacrifice… we know that)

3. THE TIME AND ABILITY TO CLIMB APPROXIMATELY 1/2 MILE UP A STEEP TRAIL IN
THE CASCADES
the site is located at eXit-38 off I-90, east of fall city. for more details,
see the web site:

http://www.ebeneezer.net/ritual/vegetable/public.html

RSVPs are nice, but not necessary, however if you RSVP and then don’t show up,
you’ll be banished to safeway for the rest of eternity. we know who you are.

we hope to see you there!

qwest screwed up again… it’s not like i wasn’t expecting it, but it’s been closing in on three weeks that they’ve been screwing up, and i still don’t have a cell phone despite the fact that i’ve been paying for one all this time. i’d complain to the WUTC, but they apparently offer no regulation for wireless services, so it’s a matter of waiting until qwest decides to get their shit together, whenever that’s going to be.

roy and irene came by yesterday. we were sort of expecting them, but they said they were going to call before coming over, and they didn’t, so i was sitting behind the computer/synthesizer/keyboard and smoking a bong toke when they arrived, and i had to put things away in a hurry. they’re going on a cruise of the inside passage for roy’s retirement from gerber, and i’m driving them down to pier 30, and then we’re watching their truck for a week until they get back.

i recorded a new piece of music yesterday, in between cleaning up and being here when roy and irene arrived. it’s in 11/8, which is interesting seeing as how the rhythmic samples that i used for the basic tracks were in 4/4 originally… it came out really well, in spite of the fact that i didn’t have any real inspiration, and no clear idea of where to go with the synthesizer when i started out. i’m probably going to perform it at the art sharing in bellingham next month.

painting my car is officially sort of on hold until i can come up with money or something to fix the “minor” oil leaks which resulted in my having no oil when i took it in to get the oil changed the other day… which probably won’t be until i’m employed again.

today was going to be the day that they sent me the correct battery for my new phone. instead, they sent me another phone, and no battery. it has now been two weeks that this has been going on. i had moe call them, because i knew all i would do is get more upset. it’s a good thing, because despite the fact that the guy said he was going to send me a battery when i talked to them this afternoon, in fact, there was no order for a battery at all. i don’t believe that they continue to do business that way and continue to get customers. moe says that one of the reasons we use qwest is because they’re the cheapest. they certainly don’t waste their money on things like competent customer service. i’m scheduled to receive a package on friday that should make everything all right, but at this point, i’ll believe it when i see it.

cool pictures from the cirque show. also, today is janmaastami, which is what amounts to hindu christmas (for those of you who don’t know). happy janmaastami.

they fixed my phone… they also called me at 7:00 am to have me push some buttons on the phone to make sure it works… even when they are trying to straighten out a screwup that they caused they screw up.

i took pictures of the car in preparation for painting it. i’d post them except there’s nothing to compare with… a before, but no after yet. i also bought paint today. surprisingly, not a single art supply place had what i wanted, which is one shot. i ended up getting gloss enamel at mclendons, which is the last place i would expect to find it. i’ll post pictures when there’s something to post, but don’t hold your breath… i’ve been known (recently) to get to the starting point of an art project and then let it sit for a while. especially since i’m not quite sure whether i should use the sivaananda lahari or whether i should use sri vinayaka ashtottara sata namavali, which would be more along the same lines as the license plate that says GANESHA… the problem is that i’ve got sivaananda lahari in devanagari, but i’ve only got a romanized transliteration of the sri vinayaka ashtottara sata namavali, and i don’t trust my ability to re-transliterate it back to devanagari, and i don’t want it to be incorrect, even if nobody would notice.

i’m going to the vedanta society by myself for the first time since my injury. swami’s lecture is going to be The Wonder That Was Sri Krishna.

now here’s the kind of meme i would prefer to see more of…

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html

it was right on the money, too: hinduism, 100%; jainism and mahayana buddhism, 80%; “neo-paganism” (whatever that is) 75%; unitarian universalism 65%… it would be interesting to see what gliz would do with it.

here’s something new, and it fulfills the law of fives as well:

http://www.samkass.com/theories/RPSSL.html

not only does my “new” phone have a battery that doesn’t fit, but they were supposed to pick it up yesterday and they didn’t, which means that now they’re going to wait until after the long weekend to pick it up, which means that it’s going to be that much longer before i get the “correct new” phone. and to make matters worse, for some unknowable reason (in other words, they don’t know why themselves, and in fact they denied that anything was wrong until i had them call the number), my “old” phone doesn’t work any more, and there’s probably no hope for it until tuesday, because of the long weekend.

also i had to shut off two more email addresses at all of my domains, because all the mail they were getting was spam. i spend as much as an hour a day dealing with spam, and i’ll sure be glad when something is done about this problem.

qwest SUCKS ASS!
spam SUCKS ASS!

a lot of grief could be spared a lot of people if these two things simply ceased to exist.

i suppose i should probably update this thing, even though i don’t feel much like it. my contract ended friday of last week, which means that i’ve got to go into overdrive with the job search. it’s thursday, and so far i have made twice as many job contacts as i made during the same period four months ago. no prospects yet, but that’s not surprising given the economy these days. hopefully something will happen soon. meantime, i’ve finished the updates on the hybrid elephant web site, and i’m waiting for one more order before i post them.

i’m gearing up to paint my car. i’ve decided on using passages from the sivaandanda lahari of sri sankaraacaarya. now all i’ve got to do is procure the correct paint, and lay things out on the actual car. maybe i’ll actually be able to get it painted before i have to go back to work again.

they screwed up the primary system in washington recently, which means that now you’ve got to choose one of three political parties, and then vote only that party in the primary, which is totally wrong, and should be abolished immediately. i don’t know who the candidates are, but i’m probably going to vote libertarian, because neither the republicrat nor the democretin candidates do anything for me at all. ultimately i believe the whole party system should be abolished, along with the electoral college and most of the laws, but i suppose it’s not going to happen during my lifetime, unless bush gets us into the war of armageddon, which, unfortunately, isn’t too unrealistic.

something completely unexpected happened: we got a real new car, along with dramatically reduced car payments. a guy from the dealership kept calling monique and hassling her because there’s apparently a huge demand for SUVs, despite they’re being one of the most inefficient vehicles in existence, and the guy wanted to know if we wanted a new car so that he could have our SUV. so we took our 2000 tahoe with 12.9% interest and traded it in for a 2005 venture with 1.9% interest. it’s a minivan, which isn’t much better, but it’s a step in the right direction. now all i have to do is to figure out what to do with the car that doesn’t work and has been sitting in our driveway for over a year.

i finally got fed up with having three monitors, keyboards and mice on what limited desk space i have, so i got on ebay and bought a four port KVM switch, which will reduce the clutter on the desktop considerably, as well as giving me the option of having one more computer, eventually. sadly, it’s being delivered by parcel post, rather than the somewhat more timely UPS, so i haven’t got it yet. along the same lines, we got a notice saying that they were upgrading our wireless network and the current wireless phones we have will stop working. it’s okay though, said the notice, because we’re going to be given (as in free of charge) new wireless phones that will work with the new network. well the phones were delivered today, and moe’s is really cool, but they somehow screwed up (leave it to qwest) and they sent the wrong battery with my phone… so i don’t get a new phone until tuesday. it sucks because moe has been getting a whole bunch of new toys recently (an ipod, a powerbook, a cell phone…) and all i’ve been getting is worried because i don’t have enough money coming in…

which is why i don’t feel very much like updating this recently… sigh…

it is as i feared.

my unemployment claim runs out at the end of september, and i only have enough hours to qualify for half of what i have been getting, because of the fact that when i was working for schemalogic i was on a 1099 rather than on payroll, so i didn’t get unemployment tax paid. and worse, if i don’t apply before 04-october, i won’t get any benefits at all, because i have to have worked 680 hours to qualify, and the hours that i worked at schemalogic don’t apply. all because i suffered a brain injury last year, and carl was an asshole and fired me. if i ever get my hands on him, he’s going to wish he hadn’t.

i remember back in 1995, when i got my first tech industry job, i was talking with tamzin and she was telling me that i would never again have to deal with unemployment, because i worked in the tech industry now… little did anyone know how wrong she would be. she’s still working, doing network administration and technical support on macs for a school district in the san francisco area, and several other places, but she’s self employed.

i’ve made a new icon, but for some reason i can’t see it, so i don’t know if there’s anything wrong with it, and probably won’t until later on in the weekend, and/or whenever i get around to rebooting, or whatever it wants to refresh itself. in case you’re interested, i got it from here.

i stole this from ‘s journal, and then modified it, because i think it goes a long way towards saying what i want to say to gliz, and, just maybe, he’ll understand what i’m talking about.

God, Are You Real?

I whispered, “God, speak to me.”
And a meadowlark sang.
And I took notice.
I yelled, “God, speak to me!”
And the thunder rolled across the sky.

I looked around and said, “God, show yourself to me.”
And a star shone brightly.
And my heart was glad.

I said, “God, show me a miracle!”
And He healed my brain injury.
I cried out, “Touch me God, and let me know you are here!”
Whereupon God reached down and touched me.

But because of human language and stubborn ignorance,
I cannot express that to you.
You disapprove.

When it comes down to either believing you, or believing God,
I choose God.

he wrote 4 more times since the last entry, and, in spite of the fact that i said i was going to be unpleasant and bizarre in hopes that he’ll go away, instead, i just didn’t respond to his last email.

i’ve only got one more week until i’m back on unenjoyment again. oh thrill. 8/

<rant>
in spite of the fact that i’m going to be unemployed next week, i’m not going to burning man for the following reasons:

1) i’d have to go by myself. yes, there would be a lot of people there, and i’d probably end up staying at the cirque camp, but i wouldn’t have anybody watching out for me, and

2) it’s an extremely dangerous environment, which is

3) accessible only with a car whose long term capacity to function is still not reliably known, and if it breaks down in the high desert, i could very easily succumb to

4) weird, unknown things having to do with the combination of my injury and the heat, and

5) i can’t afford the $225 for a ticket, because i’ve been sporadically employed since my injury…

and if that weren’t enough,

6) i’m significantly frustrated with the fremonster people who think it’s okay to get me involved with things (OCF, burning man…) that turn out to be for “elite” people only, in remote, difficult-to-survive-in locations, which don’t allow dogs, that cost WAY too much money, and are of suspiciously unknown artistic value.
</rant>

i heard from steve, which means that he’s not dead, which is good, i guess. he’s been in and out of the hospital three or four times since january, and he hasn’t been doing any business, so it’s probably a good thing that i took the incense offline. now all i gotta do is get off my ass and finish the new catalogue, with some of steve’s stuff included, and get it online again. knowledgeable as he is, he’s too flaky to rely on when i’ve got customers waiting for orders. i made a deal with to trade a quantity of incense for some tie dyed shirts, which i plan on adding to the web site as well. hopefully the coming period of unemployment will give me the opportunity to take care of all my web updates.

random links
If Jesus Was Mexican (requires shockwave)
Terror Tubbies (requires shockwave)
Funny Cats (requires quicktime)
9 naked men… (requires quicktime) don’t say i didn’t warn you.
an amateur PyroBoy! (requires windows media)… too bad he gets burned…
This is actually an expected event at a power substation! (requires windows media) WOW! at the end of the clip, if you look in the lower left corner of the screen, you’ll see two guys, walking away… that was big…
Dedicated to the art of mocking public works
The Gematriculator
419 Eater
Noney
They Saved Zappa’s Moustache
Ramakrishna and Vivekakanda information.
Registration services for the .om TLD… now that’s something i should make use of!

memes
a whole lot of ’em
even more of them
What type of mage are you?
What kind of God are you?
Which trickster are you?
Which Great Old One are you?
20 questions to a better personality, just as intrusive but not quite as creepy as scientology…
you can tell why i’m skeptical of the value of these things.

last minute reprieve, or something… my contract has been extended two weeks, but that means that now i’m going to have to re-apply for unenjoyment, because my current claim runs out in september. i hope i’ve worked enough hours to be eligible, otherwise i’m gonna be screwed.

i don’t understand why some peope have no problems with other peoples’ religion, but others can’t rest until the whole world is converted to their point of view. you guessed it, i’ve been involved in yet another pointless debate with a mindless “christian” who doesn’t know when to quit.

i refer, of course, to my recent “converstation” with glen, who shall from this point forward will be referred to as “gliz” (lt’s a lizard thing moe came up with, i don’t completely understand, but i’ve adopted it anyway, as i generally respect moe’s opinion of things like this). his most recent tirade is because of the fact that i pointed out that his assertions that “you can’t agree that evolution is true, because if it were, then we would be no better than monkeys and apes” and “you must believe in God, for otherwise life would have no meaning” were faulty logic. i showed him proof that these two statements were the result of faulty logic, and he still insists that i defend my position…

it all started innocently enough when he sent me email saying that he’s seen my web site (i had cards printed up with the url on them to give to people who asked me about my injury), saw that it had references to Ganesha and asked if it was all right if he “asked some questions”, and as long as it stayed that way it was fine: he asked questions, and to the best of my ability, i answered them with what i’ve learned… but it didn’t stay that way for long. the “discussion” started on 12/3, and i warned him that i was not prepared to debate him, and i didn’t want to debate him anyway, on that date, but by 21/3 it already had the overtones of a debate, and it went downhill from there. i told him that i didn’t have to justfy the fact that my philosophy doesn’t follow strict logic as long as i wasn’t asking anyone to agree with me, but if he was asking me to agree with him, he was going to have to offer me something better than what i’ve discovered on my own, and so far he hasn’t come up with it… he wasn’t willing to accept that.

it is *still* going on: i wrote back to him this afternoon. it has involved josh mcdowell ministries, who also could not offer me anything better than i’ve come up with, but while the josh-mcdowellite was polite and gave up without raising a stink, gliz is continuing his abusive rants. he said that “a person… with josh mcdowell ministries” wanted to discuss the “questions” i was asking (??) on my site, and that he “did not suggest this or set you up” and that it was “not some kind of plot or trap”, and for the most part, it was a civil exchange that ended when i said that it was about as difficult to change my opinions with the information that he had available as it was for me to change his opinions with the information that i have available. the josh mcdowell part of this “discussion” took place between 14/7 and 21/7, and then gliz got involved again. it turned out that he and the josh-mcdowellite had been comparing notes all along, without telling me. i wrote to gliz telling him that, essentially, the josh-mcdowellite had gotten nowhere, and that’s where the invective started.

he stated that infinity doesn’t mean infinity; that an “infinite god” was “qualitatively infinite, but not quantitatively infinite” and when i asked him why he thought i should believe that an infinite God was not infinite, he responded with the statements above. the fact that he has accused me of “childish insults” and, acting offended, accused me of telling him to “shut the hell up” (which, in spite of the fact that he insists it’s true, i’ve done a text search and the only time that phrase has come up is when he has said it) is only the most recent of ravings from this idiot with a doctors degree…

yes, i’m being childish and insulting here, but he won’t read it here, and i’m tired of being nice and polite anyway. if he doesn’t like it, and he won’t leave me alone, then i’m going to be bizarre and unpleasant until he either shuts up or goes home, because i can’t make an impression on him any other way.

in other news, my contract at jetstream ends on the 15th, only this time my benefits expire in september, so i’m going to have to reapply, which sucks. today is my first real day off in almost a month… i’ve been BUSY since before country fair, and i could use some time off, but i wish it was by my choice. tomorrow the show starts, so i’ve got to do laundry, take a shower and sleep, because i’m going to be up until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning for the next 3 days…

random urls:
talk.origins archive
an ex creationist
“christian”-bashing jew
theremin kit and other goodies
Little Marcy
Reinhardt A. Fuck… really!

memes that i don’t believe in:
How grammatically sound are you?
What’s your stand on…
What bodily discharge are you?
a whole bunch of them
friends quiz
this one is sort of useful, a word count
are you a freak?

this is to announce the upcoming performances of Cirque de Flambé, performing “Uh Oh! Playing With Fire (a parody)” at Warren G. Magnusson Park (the old Sand Point Naval Air Station) next to Hangar 27, on friday, saturday and sunday, august 6, 7, and 8, and friday and saturday, august 13 and 14. this show will also feature the Fremont Philharmonic, and BBWP. be there or be square.

very busy with rehearsals for the upcoming cirque de flambé show. recently it’s been monday cirque rehearsal, tuesday BBWP rehearsal, wednesday cirque rehearsal, thursday philharmonic rehearsal… then last week, friday we went to boise for three days to attend the wedding of laura and scott. laura is a friend of monique’s from high school and scott is a recently graduated from law school guy who lives in boise. boise is a hot, flat, dry place. i think a good word for it is “desert”, but that doesn’t leave much room for doubt, and with boise, there is some doubt. of course we went there on the first day in a long time that we’d had temperatures in the 90s at home, so it was to be expected that the temperature would be 20 degrees warmer where we were going. i’m glad we were on the road, and i’m glad we had air conditioning.

on the way back from boise, we stopped in the middle of nowhere so monique could meet one of the dog breeders she’s been talking to recently, and meet her dogs. she has 16, small, noisy, frantically entergetic dogs, and monique wants to get one, but i don’t think it will be from this lady. she’s gone with trudy to see a dog in gig harbor, one of the ones we looked at a few weeks ago. it’s all a mystery to me. one small yappy dog is more or less the same as the next, as far as i’m concerned, but moe has dreams of being a dog trainer when she grows up, so far be it for me to do anything but support her.

monique bought a powerbook after somebody gave her an ipod a couple of weeks ago, so i’ve spent the whole day rearranging things (again), and have finally got everything working again. basically the powerbook takes the place of the imac, but since it’s faster and more powerful, it also takes the place of the g3, which moves over to my desk, so now i have three computers on my desk.

i’ve wanted to start going to the vedanta society again, now that i’m not reliant on someone else to take me places, but so far i’ve been busy every week. i’ve come to what i believe is the end of a conversation with a couple of “christians”, one of whom is glen and the other one is MH from josh mcdowell ministries. they want to have a “conversation” with me concerning my web pages, but it has very quickly turned into a debate about whether they’re right or not. i recently found the index of logical fallacies which has been indispensible in my arguments with them. i accuse them of redefining infinity when they say that an infinite God is “qualitatively infinite but not quantitatevely infinite”, i accuse them of appeal to consequences, and am able to use the index to my advantage when they accuse me of “begging the question” but they don’t know what it means. they claim to use logic, but in reality they only use logic when it suits their purposes… which is fine as long as i am free to do the same, which i make no bones about. the minute they start saying that their random combination of manmade tradition, sacred revelation and holy scripture gobbledy gook is superior to mine they’re going to have to do a lot more than claim to be logical before i’m going to believe them.

i couldn’t resist, and, as i suspected, this thing popped out emperor norton. who’s surprised by that?

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

You are Joshua Abraham Norton, first and only Emperor of the United States of America!

Born in England sometime in the second decade of the nineteenth century, you carved a notable business career, in South Africa and later San Francisco, until an entry into the rice market wiped out your fortune in 1854. After this, you became quite different. The first sign of this came on September 17, 1859, when you expressed your dissatisfaction with the political situation in America by declaring yourself Norton I, Emperor of the USA. You remained as such, unchallenged, for twenty-one years.

Within a month you had decreed the dissolution of Congress. When this was largely ignored, you summoned all interested parties to discuss the matter in a music hall, and then summoned the army to quell the rebellious leaders in Washington. This did not work. Magnanimously, you decreed (eventually) that Congress could remain for the time being. However, you disbanded both major political parties in 1869, as well as instituting a fine of $25 for using the abominable nickname “Frisco” for your home city.

Your days consisted of parading around your domain – the San Francisco streets – in a uniform of royal blue with gold epaulettes. This was set off by a beaver hat and umbrella. You dispensed philosophy and inspected the state of sidewalks and the police with equal aplomb. You were a great ally of the maligned Chinese of the city, and once dispersed a riot by standing between the Chinese and their would-be assailants and reciting the Lord’s Prayer quietly, head bowed.

Once arrested, you were swiftly pardoned by the Police Chief with all apologies, after which all policemen were ordered to salute you on the street. Your renown grew. Proprietors of respectable establishments fixed brass plaques to their walls proclaiming your patronage; musical and theatrical performances invariably reserved seats for you and your two dogs. (As an aside, you were a good friend of Mark Twain, who wrote an epitaph for one of your faithful hounds, Bummer.) The Census of 1870 listed your occupation as “Emperor”.

The Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, upon noticing the slightly delapidated state of your attire, replaced it at their own expense. You responded graciously by granting a patent of nobility to each member. Your death, collapsing on the street on January 8, 1880, made front page news under the headline “Le Roi est Mort”. Aside from what you had on your person, your possessions amounted to a single sovereign, a collection of walking sticks, an old sabre, your correspondence with Queen Victoria and 1,098,235 shares of stock in a worthless gold mine. Your funeral cortege was of 30,000 people and over two miles long.

The burial was marked by a total eclipse of the sun.

i’m finally done enough that i can write something…

in the past six days i have performed jack and the bean stalk six times, performed with the fremont philharmonic three times, performed Big Bois With Poise once, waited in various different lines for approximately 12 hours, slept four nights in “mosquito acres” (otherwise known as “Chelamela staff camping”), spent 4 hours tearing down the stage, traveled almost 900 miles, got lost in Portland for 4 hours, spent 8 hours working, 3 hours getting my car fixed again, and 1 hour doing an emergency web update for diana.

country fair went well, although it was more of a job than a vacation. it was very odd seeing the dichotomy between the fantastic utopian dream that it could be (and almost is), and the harsh, stark reality of hippies that are so hung up on their own fantasy about “what country fair is”, that they complain because somebody has their tent set up 6 inches to the wrong side of some imaginary line that only exists in the hippie’s over-stoned brain, or bitching because they can’t drive against the flow of traffic, because that’s what they have “always done” at country fair, regardless of how unrealistic it is this year.

thursday afternoon check in was the most difficult part of the whole thing. i drove for 5 hours and parked in the “temporary” lot to check in and get my “wrist band” (which is one of the ways that they identify people and sort them out into categories), but my name wasn’t on the list, so i had to wait in line to see the “troubleshooter,” and then wait in a third line once the troubleshooter had straightened out whatever screwup had happened. then, once i had gotten the wrist band, i had to wait in line again so that i could have the priveledge of paying $5.00 to have it cut off and made into a laminated card that you wear around your neck, because the wrist band was too much like being in the hospital.

then i had to wait in line again to be able to drive my car to the place where we could offload our stuff (which was about a quarter of a mile from the actual camping site), and proceded to lock myself out of my car, so i had to go find the quartermaster, wait in line *again* while he did several other things before he found his lockout kit and opened my car… and after all that, i had to park about 2 miles away from where i was camped, which was about a mile away from the stage… john called it H.I.F.: Hippie Ineptitude Factor. i’m not entirely sure i approve of calling it that, since i *am* a hippie, but it seems to fit anyway.

the jack and phil performances went really well, and the phil sold all 50 cds that we had made (don’t worry, they were phil cds and not my personal cds), so there’s a possibility that i’ll even get paid eventually. BBWP was a gigantic hit: i heard someone that i didn’t know, ahead of me in line at the ritz, raving to someone else i didn’t know about how hilarious it was. there were probably 100 different artists that all swung poi with great aplomb and immaculate skill sunday night, but the one act that they’ll remember 10 years from now is BBWP, which is *REALLY* cool.

as i said before, i met one of the musicians from dreamtrybe. i was talking with pam and R.A., and got inspired to go and chant hare krsna with a bunch of hippies, and it turned out that the one who was leading the chant was from dreamtrybe. i hadn’t even thought of their album since my injury, but i remembered that i had bought the album for one particular song, and it turned out to be *exactly* what i needed to hear. i also saw carl (the one from bellingham, not the slime ball who was responsible for my unemployment), who i hadn’t seen since before my injury, tim “fyodor karamazov” of the flying karamazov brothers, who i haven’t seen for almost two years, and matthew bob, who was also camped in mosquito acres.

i saw jill friday and saturday. she lives in philomath, which is nearer to veneta (the town where country fair happened) than any other place i’ve been since i have been in contact with her. we hung out together for a couple of hours, and didn’t say much… which, i think, is a good thing. there’s really not much that needed to be said. it was nice hanging out with her and gawking at the hippies, and it was really nice to hang out without having to worry about her crazy step father and his shot gun. she had her daughter with her on saturday, and it was pretty odd to be introduced to an adult person whose mother i had originally met when her mother was younger than she was. it was a little awkward, because apparently jill isn’t as much of a hippie as i am, but at the same time, it’s been 25 years since we’ve seen each other, and a lot has changed for both of us in that time. apparently jill took a whole bunch of pictures while she was there, which she’ll be sending me, and i’ll probably post a couple of them either here or on my brain injury page when i get them.

by the time we got to country fair, the car was smoking. NOT what i wanted to see. it turned out that the constant velocity joint cover had come loose, so the smoke wasn’t serious enough to strand us in the middle of nowhere, but i had to get it fixed for real this time. supposedly it was supposed to be fixed on wednesday before i left, but i showed up and the guy who was going to do the work never showed up, so i had to drive to and from with a leaky power steering line, and a constant velocity joint that was smoking. hopefully, now that it’s fixed for real, i won’t have any more problems for a while and i can work on turning it into an art car with no further distractions.

it was kinda sad, not being with my sweetie on my birthday, but i made up for it by taking a 6 hour sauna at the ritz (note to self: the next time, buy a house with a sauna!) and buying myself a double dragon brooch, which is shaped like the letter “S”. i also got goodies for moe, so she wouldn’t feel left out when i got home: a goblin “bonnet” with horns, and two pairs of earrings. all in all, i spent too much money at the fair, so i guess i’m going to have to go back to work again. sigh.

Why did you tap me on the shoulder in my sleep last night,
Telling me I must write this song now, that the time is right,
They’re gonna think I’ve lost my mind,
Some of them will be unkind,
When I say

THERE IS NO HELL!

We do not die,
We are not gone,
We are alive,
We are just on
The other side,
We are not dead,
We are alive,
We do not die!
We do not die!

They’re gonna wonder how I got this information here,
What will they say when I tell them you whispered in my ear,
How can I prove their greatest fears
Have been unfounded all these years,
The truth is

THERE IS NO HELL!

We do not die,
We are not gone,
We are alive,
We are just on
The other side,
We are not dead,
We are alive,
We do not die!
We do not die!

So many people have seen the light,
When what they thought was the end in sight…

I’m not the only one who shares this bold philosophy,
I can only say that what I saw is plain to see,
But I was once a skeptic too,
Until the day I heard from you,
When you said

THERE IS NO HELL!

We do not die,
We are not gone,
We are alive,
We are just on
The other side,
We are not dead,
We are alive,
We do not die!
We do not die!

– Dreamtrybe

it’s shockwave heavy and caused my browser to crash, but it’s http://www.dreamtrybe.com if you want to give it a try.

i got their album Acoustic Autumn specifically for this song, about a year before my injury. i hadn’t thought about it until country fair, when i met one of the musicians in Dreamtrybe and dug their album out again.

more about fair later. i’ve got to go get my car fixed (!#@$^%&!!).

i forgot to mention… The Rite of Slem Bu (my 3rd album) is ready. write to me, or go to Hybrid Elephant for more details.

here is a quiz i found on ‘s journal…

You are the Devil card. The Devil is based on the
figure Pan, Lord of the Dance. The earthy
physicality of the devil breeds lust. The
devil’s call to return to primal instincts
often creates conflict in a society in which
many of these instincts must be kept under
control. Challenges posed by our physical
bodies can be overcome by strength in the
mental, emotional, and spiritual realms. Pan is
also a symbol of enjoyment and rules our
material creativity. The devil knows physical
pleasure and how to manipulate the physical
world. Material creativity finds its output in
such things as dance, pottery, gardening, and
sex. The self-actualized person is able to
accept the sensuality and usefulness of the
devil’s gifts while remaining in control of any
darker urges. Image from The Stone Tarot deck.
http://hometown.aol.com/newtarotdeck/

Which Tarot Card Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

these things are really starting to make me wonder. i’ve heard them called “memes” but i’m not sure what that means. not that i haven’t heard a definition of the word, but i’m not sure if i agree with the definition when it comes to things like this. i think that these *may* actually be more sinister things.

there are many things that i wonder about this quiz, specifically, and all quizzes like this… is it major arcana only, or does it include the minor arcana as well… what are the computer’s criteria for determining which card you are? i tried the page they said their information was borrowed from, but that page is no more, and there doesn’t appear to be any other links on the page that would tell me about how this particular computer program works, or who made it…

how do we know that whoever wrote the computer program interpreted the cards correctly? we don’t. in fact, we don’t even know who it is that wrote the computer program at all. presumably there are ways of finding out, i’m sure that quizilla knows something, but it’s not made very evident for those of us who think about such things. what if the programmer had an alterior motive; what if, instead of giving accurate interpretations of cards based on logical inferences made from the answers you gave to the questions, what if they programmed it to spew out random interpretations and images, totally ignoring the questions all together.

and what about the questions? they’ve got your IP address as soon as you login, what do they do with the answers they gather to the questions? especially if the questions reveal you to be a person likely to do socially inappropriate things? i saw a “quiz” recently called Which America Hating Minority Are You? which had me down as a “terrorist”, which doesn’t surprise me, but now the epithet “terrorist” is associated with my IP address in some anonymous log somewhere… whose job is it to keep track of those logs?

i’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t all a big government conspiracy to gather as much information about us as they can in ways that, for the most part, we’d never suspect. 8/

i have a new car… well, i have a recycled car, which is the only thing that makes me feel even remotely good about the whole thing. we’re desperate enough for oil that we’ll listen to the lies bush spews, and go to war for a commodity that will run out whether we go to war or not, and here i’m getting a car… who put that thought into my head? the car i’d been driving for 5 years, a mazda 626, died last year when i was in the hospital. monique figured (rightly) that i woulnd’t be needing it for a while, so she loaned it to mal, and the first day that he actually *had* to use it was the day it died. one of the things i did to prove to them that i was ready to leave the hospital (a process that took about a month, and required me to have, among other things, a neuropsychological examination to determine how “brain damaged” i was) was to accompany moe and mal to the towing yard where it had been impounded, and “drive” it home (which means i rode along in the car, never got out, and moe and mal did all the driving). the new car is grey, which i plan on modifying by writing sanskrit verses on it, in white (i figure one shot should do perfectly well), with about 6 inch letters. at this point it’s just beyond the fantasy stage, but probably won’t get any farther than that at least until i get the new license plates for it, which, God willing, will say GANESHA, and probably won’t even get to the “figuring out what sanskrit verses to use” stage until *at least* september, which will be after the cirque performances are through.

i’m going to the oregon country fair in two weeks, where i hope to see jill for the first time since high school. it should be interesting, if nothing else. mike and linda are going to be there also, but i’m not sure if they’re aware of the fact that i’m going to be there, and i think i like it that way. mike and linda are sort-of relatives of monique – mike is monique’s mom’s housemate’s brother, but monique’s mom and ann, her housemate, have lived together for long enough that i wonder whether it’s more than just friendship in spite of (or because of?) the fact that they’re both so straight outwardly, combined with the fact that monique’s mom has been sexually mutilated, in a medical sense, and has a rather low opinion of men in general. mike and linda are old-timers at OCF, and they were sort of snooty when i mentioned that we might be coming, and that we’d never been before. on the other hand, i know rev. chumleigh from high school, although he probably doesn’t realize it, so we’re probably more “even” than they’re snooty-ness lets on.

the cirque de flambé is in full rehearsal mode: our next production is going to be called Uh Oh – Playing with Fire: A Parody (in honor of the fact that we finally got the name trademarked, which means that it’s going to be harder than ever for the cirque du soleil to sue us), the big bois with poise (an act for the cirque de flambé) is in full rehearsal mode, we’ve got a weekend’s worth of performances at OCF and rehearsals for the next show (another “british panto” called Babes in The Wood, which is a cross between Robin Hood and Hansel & Gretel), the fremont philharmonic is so far into the recording schedule that fred (hawkinson, not mclain) is practically impossible to get along with – although once the recording is finished, i’m sure he’ll revert back to his normal, easy-going self – plus we’re in the fremont players’ and the cirque de flambé rehearsals as well… i’m working tentatively full time, so it’s a good thing that i got a car, but i’m spending around 10 hours at home, and for 8 of ’em, i’m asleep! in fact, i’ve got a rehearsal i need to get to now, so that’s all.

okay, this is the announcement of upcoming performances at the fremont solstice parade (saturday) and the fremont street fair (sunday) of the fremont philharmonic (saturday) and the fremont players’ rendition of Jack and The Beanstalk (sunday). i’ve been working my tail off, what with cirque rehearsals (performances in august that includes the phil and the BBWP), players’ rehearsals and performances, phil rehearsals, performances and a recording, BBWP rehearsals, and a job. what was i thinking?

nothing else. just wanted to post this.

new job, testing software for big brother, by way of an outsource testing firm called jetstream. it was interesting… i started on 0602 because 0601 was a “holiday”, and worked until friday, then i worked monday through thursday, i *didn’t* work on friday, and it looks like i’m not working on monday either, in spite of the fact that they’ve added me to their payroll… i guess that’s what being a “temporary employee” means. i wonder what’s going to happen next. i’ve still got unenjoyment left, but that ends in september whether i’ve used it or not.

meanwhile, it looks as though i’m having my CD label printed. i talked with troy and he said to bring him the stuff on monday, and i’m not working monday, so it’s convenient, sort of. i’ve also got to go to the social security office, because when i went to renew my drivers license, they told me that the name in their records doesn’t match the social security number on record for me. i’m pretty sure it’s because of the fact that they screwed up my name in order to fit it into their computer, but i’ve still got to go to the social security office to get their word on who i am so i can go back to the dol and say that they’re the ones that screwed up…

i’ve been somewhat perturbed to find advertising windows open on my windows machine, in spite of the fact that there are no other apllications running and haven’t been for a couple of days, so i installed AdAware, and it found a whole bunch of spyware that i *DIDN’T* install. of course i removed it immediately, but when i rebooted, one of them had the audacity to put up an alert window that said “an application has caused the removal of 180search assistant, possibly without your knowledge…” and asked if i wanted to *reinstall*! i’ll tell you what: when i am aware of the fact that i’ve installed your software *the first time* then i’ll think about *re*installing it, but until then you can *KEEP YOUR GODDAMNED HANDS OUT OF MY COMPUTER* thank you very much! it’s that kind of thing that makes me wish i knew more about coding, ’cause i’d write a virus that would track them down and erase their hard drives. grumble, mutter…

what do you know? there’s still just the two of us… the person with the username that matches my real-life name on LJ is the same person i corresponded with outside of LJ a couple of years ago. i would comment on what a small world it is, but that’s been done already, and besides that, when you combine the fact that it *is* a rather unusual name with the fact that it’s spelled wrong (unless, of course, you’re referring to me), it’s not as suprising as it could be.

i just found a LJ user who has the same username that i have in reality. this is odd, because the name that we share is spelled in a way that most people would consider “wrong,” and, as far as i’ve been able to tell, i’m the only person who actually *has* this particular name (no, i’m not going to tell you what it is, i’m not that interested in giving that much of my life over to examination by other people). there is (as far as i’ve been able to tell) only one other person (other than me) with that same username (the other one used to have an address at AOL, but i haven’t heard from her in a couple of years). now i have to poke around and see if this is the same person, or if it’s an entirely new and different person, and if so, why she chose to spell that name “wrong”.

in other news, i’ve started a temporary job testing software for Big Brother (micro$lut), but i’m not actually *working* for micro$lut, so it’s okay. i really like testing windoes’t software, because regardless of what you do (or don’t do), you’re guaranteed to find bugs. this particular piece of software is the windoesn’t “Media Center”, and it is my job to make sure that the TV portion of the program displays properly regardless of the screen resolution, but i’ve only been at it for 2 days, so i haven’t found much yet. i’m working with aaron c., who i worked with at STLabs, several years ago, and he is a large part of the reason i’m working here currently – he said that he told the people in charge that if i was available, they’d better grab me while they could. it’s good to know that i’ve got friends, especially when the rest of my life is in such chaos… now if it were only a *permanent* job…

at the same time, i’m still not completely sure i actually *want* to work in the computer industry. the temporary job i had at schemalogic taught me that in spades. if a printshop job came along at this point, i’d take it, especially since my current job is a temporary one anyway, although if they offered to make me a permanent employee, things might be different… on the other hand, i wonder if *any* job can be said to be “permanent” any more. certainly not in the same way that my father was offered a “permanent” job. one way or the other, i’m glad to be working again, and i’m even gladder to have a job, temporary or permanent, that is as flexible as this one. the day that i started, dave was talking about the possibility that i could work from home, which i probably *couldn’t* do if i had a printshop job.

i figure as long as i’m going to pay for this thing, i’ll get some use out of it. i should check the web archive to see if the entries go in there as well.

still no work. unenjoyment doesn’t run out until september, but i’m starting to get worried. i’ve got an interview for a temporary job on monday, but once that runs out in july, then i’ll be right back where i started from, except that it will be closer to september. monique has mentioned that we may have to sell the tahoe, which would mean either a smaller, less versatile car, or taking the bus, which would add even more stress to our already stressful lives.

have i mentioned recently how much i hate wage slavery? it’s even more pronounced since my injury: i hate wage slavery with a passion that wasn’t even imaginable before my injury. maybe one of these days i’ll do something about it.

so i am going to the oregon country fair, for all three days, by myself. it’s kind of a bummer to think that i’m going to have my birthday and the one-year anniversary of my injury without monique, but that’s easier than dealing with the fremont players bitching at me because i was only at OCF for two days. also, apparently jill’s going to be there, which will be the first time i’ve seen her since i was a sophomore in high school… so it won’t be that bad… i think.

the brain injury is still there, and will be for the rest of my life. deal with it, i did. for more updates, go here. employment is down the tubes. there is hope, but it’s fading fast. i’m thinking of going back to school to learn perl and apache (the web-server, not the language, as google thought), but i’m not teriffically inspired to do that, either. the fremont philharmonic has been getting busier and busier, to the point where i’m almost glad i don’t have a "real" job anyway. i’m auditioning for the cirque de flambé with "The Big Bois With Poise", which is taking up even more of my already diminishing free time with rehearsals and practice (because i have a brain injury, combined with the fact that i’ve never spun poi before). the fremont players’ Jack and The Beanstalk is going to the oregon country fair this year, which is on the weekend of my birthday, which is also the one-year anniversary of my brain injury. i’d be a lot more excited about it, except that it looks as though they won’t let monique come, because of the dogs. they’d let her come without the dogs, but she never travels anywhere without them, and she said that if they don’t allow dogs then she’s not coming. i wish the fremont people would stop doing things (the solstice feast, the oregon country fair) for which to get in you have to "know somebody". on the other hand, they’re getting a lot of publicity, and not all of it is bad. anyway, i still haven’t decided whether i’m going to stay home in protest, or whether i’m going to go and "have fun" without my sweetie, which won’t be any fun at all…

a long silence during which a brain injury happened. details as they come in,

carl is gone. i’m working for someone else now. carl can go to hell as far as i’m concerned.

aum ganganapataye namaha
aum gatahitaaya namaha
aumkaraaya namo namaha

general consensus is that carl would be a lot more use to everyone if we simply shrink-wrapped him and stacked in a back corner on a drying rack. there’s no doubt that we’d get at least twice as much work done and we wouldn’t have to be constantly redoing jobs that got screwed up because carl scheduled them on the press before getting an approval from the customer. how he has managed to stay in business as long as he has with that kind of policy is beyond me.

at this point, it’s fairly obvious to everyone *except* carl that the only jobs that are getting screwed up are ones that carl has had a part of in some way or another. his standard trick is to schedule things for the press that haven’t been approved, or claim that he’s proofread them himself, when what we’re waiting for is confirmation that incorrectly spelled names or phone numbers are incorrect so that we can make corrections. he seems to feel fairly confident in second guessing the customers, but he’s only right about 50% of the time. if he guessed wrong any more than he does, he’d definitely be losing money…

in fact, perhaps that’s part of his rationale for the latest miasma he generated cutting me back to 3 days a week and hiring, and then firing shannon. it’s possible that the screwups she contributed drove the shop beyond it’s 50% screwup limit, and carl started actually losing money.

anyway…

i got email from someone this morning who was responding to one of my rants. i’m not certain if he agrees with me or not. it is my guess that english isn’t his native language, although his message was largely comprehensible enough that i would guess if english *isn’t* his native language, that he’s been speaking it since childhood, because he doesn’t use the language in the awkward, clumsy, hesitant way i’ve seen a lot of non-native english speakers use english.

i wrote back to him, and i wanted to write more, but his mail arrived just as i was getting ready to leave for work, and as it is i spent enough time responding to him that i was late for work. in a way, i’m getting a little tired, and a little annoyed with people who write to me simply to disagree with my web site, especially since most of them have been total nimrods. i’m not sure whether he agrees with me or not, but i was in a hurry, and i was pretty brusque in my response. if i’ve scared him away, that’s too bad, but it’s not my problem. on the other hand, i do sort of hope he writes back, simply because if he *does* agree with me, it’ll be nice to have someone new to talk to.

once again, things have changed… do they ever stop?

carl, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that cutting me back to 3 days a week was a mistake, so he’s brought me back to 5 days a week, at $1 an hour more than i was making before. the only “catch” (as he calls it) is that i have to agree to stay at least until september. i’ll agree as long as it’s to my advantage, which means that if another job comes along that i like better, i’m taking it. on the other hand, considering what’s been going on the past couple of years in the job market, it wouldn’t surprise me very much if i don’t see another job i “like” as well for quite some time.

have i mentioned how much being a wage slave really sucks?

the sad part is that, after having me back to 40 hours for a whole week, he’s informed shannon that if “things don’t pick up”, she’s outta there. damn carl! he’s such an asshole – *ANYBODY* with an ounce of common sense could have forseen that this kind of thing would happen to him, and yet, carl, the quintessential businessman, had to shoot himself in the foot before he figured out that the gun he was playing with was loaded… too bad he didn’t shoot himself in the head.

so, if a job i like better comes along, i’m taking it, regardless of whether september has come around or not. as usual, my choice of a job i “like” is pretty restrictive: i want a full time, “permanent” position, not a time-limited contract (although a contract for a year or more would be an acceptable alternative if all of my other criteria are met); i want *at least* $65k/yr; i want insurance that includes vision and dental; i want to work with mac, unix or linux, but *not* with windows, however if i have to work with windows then i want at least $70k/yr; and i want to be able to work from home as much as possible, or at least 3 days a week, whichever is greater.

those criteria being met, i would *like* to work with graphics or music in some way or another, whether as a software tester, designer or artist. failing that, something having to do with networking and/or internet, communications or publication would be good.

anybody hiring? didn’t think so.

now, off to obtain phad tai. yum.

weeks went by… the weird little web service for which he had paid good money went unused. then, suddenly…

collette, who insists on calling herself “Kitty Mojave” these days, came, stayed for a week, and went back to arizona, which she says is vastly superior to the seattle area. it’s been 10 years since i saw her last. she hasn’t changed much, although she seems to have gotten more obsessed with things that appear to me to be fairly trivial. she’s got surprisingly superior brain power, but doesn’t appear to have much desire to do anything with it. she says she’s content, but i don’t think she is… she certainly doesn’t act content, in fact she acts very restless and frustrated, but who am i to say?

working 3 days a week sucks ass. the paycheck is only about half as big as it was, things are going to hell at the print shop and i have to spend most of my 3 days whipping them back into shape, shannon means well, but doesn’t know anywhere near enough to be able to survive in that job on her own, and, so far, nobody has offered me anything else. fred came up with a testing position that’s a 3-month contract with the possibility of going permanent, but… gawd… i don’t know if i want to work with/for fred, and if it doesn’t go permanent then i’ll be totally screwed at the end of those 3 months. AAA is hiring a web designer, but i don’t know what they want because when i found out about the position, *they* didn’t know what *they* wanted. now the job is closed, all the applications, including mine, are in, and it’s a waiting game. if they hire me, i’ve heard they have great benefits, and i’ll be working with the web, which wouldn’t be bad… and they can’t possibly pay less than carl does, so that would be a step in the right direction. i called yesterday, and talked to cecilia, who is the HR representative. she said the hiring manager is going over resumes and would be calling someone next week, but, honestly, as much as i’d like that job, i’m not holding my breath. i’m going to bet they’ll hire someone with java/scripting/cgi/shockwave/database experience.

i’ve been literally losing my mind recently. if it weren’t nailed down, i’d probably forget my head… cancel cancel! damnit that’s what my stupid ass parents always used to tell me, and they’re FUCKING WRONG!

nevertheless, i somehow managed to forget that the weekend of june 21st is our 5th wedding anniversary, and we’ve planned to go to our traditional dog agility trial, and camp out in lacey for the weekend. what this means is that i somehow volunteered to be “band leader du jour” for the fremont solstice parade – i am the fremont philharmonic’s official representative for the parade which occurs on… june 21st. not only that, but we’ve also got jack and the beanstalk performances on june 22nd.

naturally, i’m the one who has to fix this problem. my solution is to bust my own ass rather than simply cancelling one or the other obligation. i can’t, in good conscience, skip out on my own wedding anniversary, but i also don’t want to appear irresponsible to my band-mates. so, what i’ve decided to do is to go to lacey with monique on friday, then go back to seattle on saturday for the parade, and return to lacey saturday afternoon. i’ll then get up sunday morning, pack up all the camping gear so that all monique has to do is get in the car and drive away when she’s done at the trial, and then i’ll head back to seattle separately, hopefully getting there in time to be in the jack performance at 1:00.

we’ve got a jack performance at 1:00, a fremont philharmonic performance at the fremont street fair at 2:00, and then another jack performance at 3:00. by the end of that weekend, i’m gonna be so exhausted i’ll be surprised if i can stand up… and then, oh joy… i have to go to goddamn work on monday morning and be a wage slave for carl. fuck that!

got another book of scripture by uncle al. i’m developing quite a collection of them. i feel a sense of accomplishment having collected them, and they’re really interesting to read and study, but i seriously wonder what other people would think of them. at the same time, i don’t really care what other people would think, because if they were to read those books themselves, they would certainly find absolutely nothing disgusting or immoral, or even improper. uncle al’s writing helps me understand what i believe better than i would if i didn’t read his writings.

roses are in bloom in our back yard. we have *A LOT* of roses this year. monique hacked them back last year, and it took them a year to recover, but this year they’ve come back in force. they’re really wild. we’ve got one rose bush that has both yellow blossoms with pink edges and pink blossoms with yellow edges on the same branch. we’ve got a whole bunch of different varicoloured blossoms, white, pink, yellow and several different shades of red. the leaves have “black spot” on them, which is theoretically treatable, but neither monique or i know anything about it. the only reason we know it’s a problem is because one of monique’s co-workers has some kind of degree in plant biomedicine. he looked down his snobby nose at the beautiful blossoms monique brought in to work the other day. so our roses aren’t absolutely perfect, show-quality blossoms without any defects, but nothing is perfect, and my impression is that the perfect ones don’t last as long, and aren’t as prolific anyway, so screw his opinion.

installed reason v2.5 the other day. i remember how excited i was when i installed v1.0, and this is just as good. new reason adds to the already increased capability of v2.0, and includes signal splitter/mergers, another new synth module, and a vocoder, which is something i’ve wanted for years. now i can *finally* do my robotic rendition of that old joan jett song “i love rock & roll”… in fact, that’s what i’m going to do now. poof.

does this surprise me?

no.

fuck.

life sucks.

i’ve been working for carl for a year now. recently carl hired shannon full time, to work behind the counter. now carl tells me that he can’t afford to pay me to work full time. he wants to cut me back to three days a week.

most jobs i’ve heard of, after you’ve been working for a year, you get a raise and a little more vacation time. you don’t get your hours cut back.

if carl hadn’t hired shannon, i could be doing shannon’s job. if there wasn’t any typesetting, i could be taking orders, or doing bindery. i could be doing deliveries…

instead, carl pays jeff to come in two days a week to cut business cards and do deliveries. he pays shannon to come in full time and sit around, as troy says, with her teeth in her mouth…

but he can’t afford to pay me to work full time. he says he doesn’t want to hurt me, but he also makes it pretty clear that my options are either reduced hours, or no job at all.

of course, the first thing i did when i got home today is start looking at job listings, and i even found a few for which i would be supremely qualified, which would very likely pay me a fair amount more than what carl pays. i hope that i find another job so i can simply walk away from carl. he’ll have a cow trying to find someone to replace me, although i have no dobt that he’ll put someone in the position (if i walk away, he’ll probably give shannon the job, but i know for a fact that she wouldn’t be able to keep up).

carl, troy and bart, all three, have given me enough details about my predecessors that i know that i’m the first person *EVER*, in the history of that business, to have the knowledge and experience to do the job correctly, but apparently carl doesn’t value that characteristic enough to realise that if i’m not there, it won’t be getting done right… and he’s not making me very interested in keeping the job at the moment.

god damnit! i *HATE* wage slavery!! if i could exist without having to have a job, i would be completely content. i hate having to look for a job, i hate writing cover letters, i hate going on interviews, i hate having to apply for unenjoyment, i hate not knowing whether i’m going to be able to pay my bills or not… and this is worse! i not only have to worry about my bills getting paid, but i also have to worry about what’s going to happen to monique and the animals! i can’t just sell everything and go live in the woods for the summer… i have a house and a wife to take care of. i can’t let them be homeless, too…

fuck carl! i hope he dies… no, i hope he loses all his money and has to ask me for financial assistance, because i’ll step on his head! asshole!

it’s incredible how depressed i can get when i think about the crap that’s been going on between my parents and i ever since i was 6 years old. it really sucks. here i am, 43 years old, and i’m still hung up on what my parents think about me… or, rather, i’m not hung up on what they think about me any more, i just wish they’d either decide to try to get along, or simply leave me alone. the fact that they must drag out the 30-year-old dirty laundry every chance they get, the fact that they claim that they’re still nervous about being around me, and the fact that their hatred of me apparently rubs off on monique and ezra, neither of whom were even born when all that crap was actually going on, make me wish that i could simply swap parents with someone else… although, at the same time, i don’t even know anybody whose parents i’d want to have instead. better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, i guess, but still… my parents REALLY SUCK! if you think you’re going to grow out of them as you get older, you’re wrong!

on a lighter note, animuation is amusing, but noisy. not for watching or listening to while at work, unless you’ve got privacy, headphones, and/or a boss who doesn’t care.

it is not possible for a society to be a “christian democracy” for the following reasons: democracy demands equality for all citizens, including the freedom to practice whatever religion one chooses, or to refrain from practicing any religion at all. “christianity” demands the obliteration of religious belief that is not “christianity”. when a “christian” tries to claim that the creators of the concept of social democracy were, themselves, “christian”, they are lying. plain and simple.

the fact that “christianity” demands the obliteration of every religious belief that is not “christian” is amply demonstrated in that commonly quoted passage from the gospel of mark, chapter 16, verses 15 and 16 – "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."

and, we can rest assured, that if God doesn’t do the damning personally, that the good ol’ U. S. of A. will take care of the job for Him.

here’s the deal. “christians” (along with many other self-proclaimed “spiritual” people) describe God as all kinds of different things, but keep in mind – God is indescribable. how can we, with our limited human imagination, and our limited human language, ever hope to describe that which is indescribable?

as far as i have been able to tell, God has three humanly-describable characteristics. anything beyond that, and you’re dealing with somebody’s opinions about what *they* think God is like. those three humanly-describable characteristics are perfection (or changelessness), infinity (or eternity) and omnipotence. if what you’re describing is incomplete, or in any way lacking, then what you’re talking about is not God. if what you’re describing is not capable of doing anything – even things which appear to us to be contradictory or self-negating – then what you’re talking about is not God. if what you’re describing is finite, limited by time, or limited in any way, then what you’re talking about is not God. the bible clearly states that God is “the same yesterday, today and forever” which covers all three characteristics: if God is not the same, or if God changes over time, then he is not God. if he exists today, but not yesterday or forever, then he is not God. and, obviously, if he is not capable of remaining changeless for eternity, then he is obviously not omnipotent, and therefore, obviously, not God.

a lot of “spiritual” people (i normally gripe about “christians”, but i know that a lot of Christians aren’t like that, and i also know that there are a lot of allegedly spiritually oriented people who *are* like that) will tell you that “God hates sin” or that “God has a plan for your life” – if you don’t happen to believe in God, or if your favourite deity has a different name, feel free to insert whatever you like in place of the word “God” in these phrases.

however, if God really *does* hate anything, if God is affected by emotional states, then God cannot be changeless, unless He is *eternally* hateful. obviously, a God that is eternally hateful is clearly not what the bible or other scriptures are describing – although scripture *does* describe God as having a state of hatefulness. thus we can infer that it may be possible that God *is* eternally hateful, but if that is the case, then God must also be eternally joyful, because scripture also describes God as delighting in certain things. a God that is both eternally hateful and eternally joyful is a contradiction, but only a God who is truly infinite and omnipotent can be capable of such a contradiction. not only that, but the states of hatefulness and joyfulness would, presumably, cancel each other out, meaning that God is eternally in a state which can be described equally accurately as “joyful” or “hateful” – in other words, eternally in a state which we, as limited human beings, are incapable of describing.

the same holds true of the statement that “God has a plan for your life”. to imply that God has a plan for anything implies that God is somehow dissatisfied with your current state of existence, which implies that God is incomplete, or imperfect. as long as you are in a state which causes him disatisfaction. if, as long as your state of being is a source of disatisfaction to God, then God is incomplete, or imperfect, and such an imperfect being cannot be God. furthermore, if God has a plan for your life, that implies that the ultimate goal of God’s existence is to realise that plan, at which point God will become complete. again, this implies change, which, if God is truly changeless, cannot happen.

thus it is logical to assume that a truly perfect, infinite and omnipotent God *must*, by definition, be completely satisfied with the way things are – including all the war, and pornography, and other things that offend certain segments of the population. if God is completely satisfied with the way things are, then *NOBODY* has to change! *NOBODY* has to convert from one religion to another… *NOBODY* has to worship jeezis if they don’t want to, and *NOBODY* will go to hell for saying Tina Chopp is God!

interesting. i was digging through my incense samples, looking for one i hadn’t tried yet, and i found “Hem Precious Chandan”. when it’s not burning, it has a powerful, sweet, sandalwood scent. when it’s burning, monique says it smells like “drakar” cologne – and, i must admit, it has a very characteristic cologne-like smell. familiar in a way that reminds me of ancient times with my family-of-origin, and situations i only barely remember at my cousins’ house. i also found a tube of “boddhi sattva” incense which is a really powerful camphor. monique doesn’t like it – she says it smells like vicks vap-o-rub, but it reminds me of aarati.

i really like being an incense peddler. i recently had to take inventory (the tax people want to know how much money i spent, so they can figure out how much of my profits to take away), and i discovered, for the first time in my life, i actually think i have *enough* incense… three five-foot-long shelves full, plus another half-shelf full is *a lot* of incense, but if things keep going the way they’ve been going, i should be able to sell all of it within the coming year.

another side benefit is the murtis. i shipped out a shi ga murti to my first murti-only customer, someone from ohio. i ended up having to order *A LOT* of stuff from the murti-supplier in order to get *one* shi ga murti, and then it turned out they didn’t have the one i ordered, so i had to substitute it for a different one. blah. but, at the same time, i now have four nine-inch dragons, two sets of foo-dogs and another shi ga, all of which are, essentially, pure profit!

gah… materialism… but, it’s not exactly like materialism. i like being able to provide these things to people… i like being the one resource when they’re not available anywhere else. a good example of this is one of my incense customers, frank. he’s a professional musician, and he lives in new york. he was a personal friend of george harrison, and he is a personal friend of ravi shankar. apparently george harrison gave him some incense many years ago, and the only place frank knew where to get it from was george… until george died. now he gets the same incense from me! 8) and i recently sent him 3 kilos of another kind of incense, which is one of his favourites, which he can’t find anywhere else. i can’t believe that i’m the *ONLY* incense peddler in the united states who carries the kasturi masala made by shroff channabassappa & sons, but if frank wants to think so, i’m not going to get in his way. i don’t do it because i like having a lot of incense, although i do like having a lot of incense. i also don’t do it because it makes me money, although i like the fact that it makes me money. i do it because i like helping out people like frank, who wouldn’t know where to buy his favourite incense if it wasn’t for me. that’s why the business is called Hybrid Elephant and not something else.

aum gam ganapataye namo namah
sri siddhiivinaayaka namo nama
ashtavinaayaka namo namah
ganapati baapaa morayaa
mangalamuurti moraya

hrm… joined a new community recently – the bhagavad gita discussion group… except as far as i can tell it’s that translation by ac bhaktivedanta prabhupada. he may have been an outstanding sanskrit scholar, but his english left quite a bit to be desired. i always like to balance his translation with the superior (IMHO) ones by Sir Winthrop Sargeant, Swami Chidbhavananda and Sir Edwin Arnold. but, and this has been a mystery to me for a couple of years now, i can’t seem to find my study copy of the edwin arnold translation. i’ve got 3 copies of that translation. two of them are little, blue, hardbound books, one of which is held together with duct-tape (because it’s been very heavily used for many years, of course), and the third one was published as a collection of “indian miniatures” – lithographic prints of ancient indian paintings, but this third one *isn’t* one of my two study copies, it doesn’t have the slokas marked in it, and i don’t want to write in it because it’s allegedly a “rare” book. i *KNOW* those books got boxed up and transported when we moved out of beacon hill, but i haven’t seen them since. included in the stack of mysterious disappearing books is a digest-sized, red hard-bound “blank book” that i used as a journal for the couple of years either side of my high school graduation. i’m sure they’re all in the same place, but i don’t know where that place is.

work was slow today. shannon was out – apparently her father had a stroke. for some reason, image east keeps not receiving the emails i send them, so i had to frantically dig around and re-send a job i sent to them on friday, which was supposed to be finished today. it sucks, but at least it’s not my fault. i have proof that i sent it, so it’s their problem.

here it is. this is what i’m going to do with my thoughts about jill. this may actually be the reason, or one of them, for this whole thing.

okay, in 1976 i played trombone in the washington state bicentennial band. we spent 2 weeks rehearsing, then we spent a week in washington DC, where we performed on the capitol steps, and in the kennedy center. jill was one of the trumpet players in the band. she lived with her family in washougal, which is about 200 miles away from where i was living with my family.

jill and i had a very weird, mental connection – very powerful. we could communicate just as easily as talking without saying a single word. i could hear her thoughts in my head, and she could hear mine. we spent the entire three week experience of the bicentennial band being in much closer contact than i’ve been with almost every other person i’ve ever known.

there wasn’t really any kind of identifiable “romance” as such going on, except for a few awkward words spoken (actually spoken) towards the end of the trip, but we both knew that we had found a soul-mate, and we were both deeply in love. we went our separate ways, although we kept in touch by mail.

apparently she had the same kind of mental connection with her father, or, perhaps something else was going on, but in order to keep her father from finding out that she was communicating with me, we arranged for a friend of hers to send and receive letters for her. it turns out the guy i thought was her father wasn’t her real father, and there was a lot worse going on than i knew about at the time, but that’ll come later.

after about a year of communicating by mail, my high school jazz band went to a competition which was held in a city near where jill lived, and we arranged to meet after the competition, which was being held on the campus of the local college, was over. i found the appointed place and, at the appointed time, she didn’t show up. i waited for about half an hour, and then someone i knew from an entirely different set of circumstances, but, apparently, someone who was somehow related to jill (her cousin, or something), came up to me and informed me that jill’s father had found out that she and i were trying to meet, and that i should watch out for him because he was crazy.

the jazz band competition was over, and i didn’t have any reason to stay any longer, and the thought of being accosted by a crazy man who was pissed off that i was trying to meet his daughter didn’t appeal to me very much, so i went back to my hotel and checked out. just as i was getting ready to walk out the door, i heard a knock. i looked through the peephole and there was a guy dressed like a cop, holding a shotgun. i asked who it was, and he said “officer lee”. i figured it couldn’t be good if he had a shotgun, and i knew i hadn’t done anything wrong, so i figured this was jill’s father who had somehow tracked me down, and i took off out the back door of the hotel room… it’s a good thing i was on the ground floor.

he saw me driving out the hotel parking lot and caught up with me just as i was getting on the freeway. he followed me on the freeway from vancouver to olympia. once i was sure i had lost him, i found a state patrol office, and asked them if there was some way i could file a complaint against someone dressed like a cop who had threatened me with a gun, but they said as long as he hadn’t actually hurt me, there was nothing they could do.

needless to say, i never heard from jill after that. through a strange sequence of events a couple of years later (when i was in college), i ended up hearing a rumour that, not long after that whole thing happened, jill married a man named rockie, and that was the last i heard of it.

until about a year ago.

i was poking around on internet, and i managed to find an email address for jill, and we have exchanged quite a bit of email since then. she lives in central oregon, in a fairly remote, small town. she’s been married to rockie for 24 years, and they have either two or three (my swiss-cheese brain can’t remember) grown daughters. jill is a very important person in the nursing industry in oregon, and a practicing nurse of some fairly high calibre. rockie is a researcher of some kind or another (again, my sieve-like mind has forgotten that detail). jill also has terminal cancer, and it’s my understanding that the mere fact that she’s still alive at this point is somewhat of a miracle.

it turns out the guy i thought was jill’s father, “officer lee”, really was certifiably crazy. he eventually ended up in jail for dressing like a cop and shooting someone. according to what jill told me, he perpetrated many years of sexual abuse on her as well. jill’s exact words were “i was his concubine”. no wonder he didn’t want me around.

i gave up on jill a long time ago. being chased out of town by a nut with a gun should be enough to scare some sense into pretty much anyone. at the same time, i didn’t have the first clue how nutty he really was, and how awful jill’s life was at that time. if i had the first inkling that her life was that awful, i would have at least tried again. admittedly, my life was pretty awful at that time all by itself, but i would still have been compelled to help in whatever way i could.

the fact that jill married rockie so soon after her father chasing me away makes me wonder how serious she really was about me, which makes me feel bad now. on the other hand, the fact that she’s only alive because of a miracle makes me feel bad that i would even be thinking of something so trivial, and, at the same time, makes me wonder how, or even *if* i can be a friend to her now. the fact that she’s very strongly medically oriented means that she will very likely have a very interesting attitude about death, but i don’t know if it is even appropriate for me to ask her about it.

apparently my father (!) wrote to jill’s “father”, in an attempt to tell him that i wasn’t a danger to jill. jill told me that her “father” ripped up that letter in front of her, without letting her read it. that kind of thing strikes me as being *extremely* uncharacteristic for my father, who never failed to criticise me whenever he got an opportunity. on the other hand, there’s a very strong probability that my father didn’t have the slightest suspicion that “officer lee” was sexually abusing his daughter – after all, he still vehemently denies the possibility that *i* might have been abused as a child, which is totally ludicrous.

so, anyway, that’s the story, for what it’s worth. my side of it, anyway. now i’ve got it off my chest, so to speak.

more bizarreness. danelle used to work at the clinic, but she was fired because they suspected she was stealing stuff. then, a couple of weeks ago, someone broke into the clinic and stole a huge quantity of drugs. so, apparently, today, the police served a search warrant on danelle, and found huge quantities of drugs which had been stolen from the clinic in her house. they also found her employee file, and her customer file, which were apparently stolen at the same time. the weird part is that now danelle is saying that monique and sarah helped her steal the files, which is a total lie. danelle is frantically trying to cover her butt, ’cause she *knows* she’s gonna do a lot of time for all the drugs and shit she stole. at the same time, according to what monique says, the police have already asked sarah if she’ll submit to a polygraph test. considering that they found stolen property in danelle’s house, i seriously doubt the police are giving what she says much credence, but at the same time, it’s a little scary that monique may have to submit to a polygraph test. it’s not as though she’s done anything wrong, we just don’t want it to turn into a fishing trip.

shannon was hired at work on monday this week. she managed to finish her first week fairly well. hopefully she’ll take over enough of the “brains” function from carl that things will start to run more smoothly. as it is, carl has been making a reputation for himself recently by sending jobs to press that haven’t been approved. i get a call from the customer saying they’ve got changes on their job, and i can’t find the job, so i go back to troy and he’s already printed it on carl’s approval. we’re doing at least two or three of those per week recently. so, shannon and i are conspiring against carl. i requisitioned a proofreading stamp, and now, theoretically, jobs *won’t* go to press until they’ve been signed off by the customer. period. troy says this is never going to work. he says that it has been tried before, and after a while, carl simply ignores it. troy has even offered to bet me $20 that he’s right. the way i figure it, if i put money down it, that’s going to guarantee that i’m going to lose. the way it is now, especially with shannon taking over a lot of carl’s responsibilities, i think we may actually be able to get it to work. status quo never changes until it stops being status quo, and it takes cojones to change things. in spite of everything, my impression is that troy simply doesn’t have ’em.

at the same time, i’ve had a little “frisson” of fear (nice word i learned from jill not too long ago) that carl hired shannon to replace me. shannon has *A LOT* of print shop experience, what appears to be a fair amount of computer experience, and she’s a lot more “customer service oriented” than i am. if it were up to me, i would *NEVER* have *ANY* contact with the customers (’cause i’m too likely to bite their heads off when they’re being stupid), and i’m hoping that carl hasn’t hired shannon because he wants someone up front who doesn’t mine dealing with the customers. so far there’s been no indication that this is *actually* going to happen, but i’m an inveterate paranoiac, and i can’t help thinking that way once in a while.

got a nifty box fulla stuff from the statue people. four 9″ dragons, two sets of “foo dogs” (i’ve called ’em “guardian lion dogs” before, but apparently they’re also called “foo dogs” also), and a couple of shakyamuni statues, one of which gets sent to some guy in ohio. selling stuff to people like this is *COOL*! they pay me, i buy cool stuff and send it to them, and everybody’s happy. i’ve been talking to a few people about doing some commission sales from our site as well, but so far nobody has “bit”. i talked to kolette about engraved talismans or some such thing she makes. pretty much anything she makes will be saleable – her artistic genius is rarely matched. saint fred’s friend who does ceramic stuff also contacted me a couple of weeks ago, and i had a nice conversation with gunnar’s friend joseph about a huge pile of glass pipes and suchlike that he’s got stashed in his basement. if even one of these things actually happens, we’ll have some nice additions to the business.

went to buy mice for herb and agador this afternoon. there’s a new PetsMart across the freeway from the print shop, so i decided to check it out… except that they don’t sell feeder animals because it’s “not ethical”. they also don’t sell reptiles, because they don’t want to have to sell live animals as food for them. oddly enough, they *do* sell predatory fish, and they also sell feeder fish for them, so i really wonder where they draw the line. meanwhile, i had to drive back down to petco to get mice, ’cause i *know* petco will sell me mice. and they’ll even weed out the cute ones for me, so monique won’t gripe about feeding them to the reptiles. 😉

i got email from a random, relatively local innocent bystander, who has apparently been watching The Church of Tina Chopp for a while, and he wants to attend a Vegetable Sacrifice. i told him that he should propose a date and we’ll see what we can organise. it’s a little odd, not having the Public Sacrifice on Sproogle, but there’s been such a small amount of interest over the past few years that i’m pretty desperate for *any* kind of action these days. if he wants his own, special Vegetable Sacrifice Ceremony, who am i to deny him?

new music been crunching around in my head for a few days. woulda got something down on tape (so to speak) several days ago, but massive fatigue has been plaguing me. hopefully i’ll get caught up a little this weekend. i’ve been coming home from work and going to sleep by 8:30. it’s a little alarming. i’ve got a bunch of new music i need to get down, and i’ve got a website update for diana that’s almost finished that i need to upload, so i can’t go to sleep until *at least* 11:00 pm tonight.

vaguely interesting, vaguely Tina related conversation w/a couple of geeks at #verylowsodium. every now and then it’s good to have a reminder why i really don’t like IRC… although, i must admit, i’ve had some fun trading music on IRC, so it’s not all bad.

talked w/nexus about perl code for the big ass form. got some good ideas, but still don’t know how to make any of it work. nex hasn’t done perl for a while, and he was giving me information as though i know what i’m doing, which i don’t… so now i’ve got some nifty code snippets that look like they may be modifiable into something that might work, but i’m not the one to do it… oh well, i’m closer than i was before.

been trading snippets of poetry with ian over the past few days. mostly bits of lyrics from songs by brian eno and godley & creme. my impression is that ian may be able to take the code snippets and do something useful with them, but he’s been somewhat distant… um… ever since i first got back in touch with him after he got out of the army, which was… um… 10 years ago, or something like that. he’s always been kind of a loner, and he’s always lived on the edge of civilization, but he’s working less than a mile from where i work, *and* he’s got a lot more email access than i do currently (only because he’s working as a geek, and i’m not). i guess i should be happy to hear from him as much as i do, all things considered.

the phone company *SUCKS*… i’d just like to say this in public… specifically qwest. i’ll say it again, with emphasis this time: QWEST SUCKS ASS!

monique and i got new cell phones. the qwest drone told us that they would have “the most up-to-date software available” installed in them. when we got the phones, they didn’t do a bunch of the stuff the qwest drone told us it was going to do. i contacted motorola, and discovered that we *don’t* have the most up-to-date software. motorola informs me that the most usual way to get software upgrades is to download them from my service provider. but qwest says their network “doesn’t support downloads”… !?!?

they say that the only way to get a software upgrade is to replace the phone… so i tell them i want a software upgrade, and they send me another phone… which has identical software in it. i contact motorola to see if there is another solution to this problem, and it turns out i can mail the phone to motorola’s offices in texas, and they can upgrade the software for me, but that takes 20 days… and, of course, qwest won’t loan me a phone for that period of time.

qwest says it’s “not in their contract” to provide software upgrades. they say the only thing they’re required to do is provide the ability to make and receive wireless phone calls. anything beyond that is out of their jurisdiction.

to make matters worse, i’ve relied on the WUTC to persuade the phone company to do things they’ve promised to do, but then changed their minds, however apparently the WUTC doesn’t have jurisdiction when it comes to wireless phone providers. they recommended i complain to the FCC…

so, i’m doing that tomorrow.

and they call this civilization?

aum ganganapataye namah

so, i’m going to burning man this year. i’ve wanted to go for a number of years, and now i’ve actually got an “excuse” to go… i’ve even got my ticket, which set me back a whopping $225, qualifying burning man as the single most expensive event i have ever attended.

problem is, i don’t know how i’m getting there. monique wants to meet me on the southern oregon coast *after* burning man (she’s not going to burning man because it’s not a safe environment for dogs, and she doesn’t want to leave the dogs at home), but that’s assuming that i not only have some way of getting to burning man, but a way of getting to the oregon coast afterwards.

20 years ago, i would have hitchhiked, and not been concerned about it. 20 years ago, i didn’t have a job and a schedule to worry about. i’ve got a very limited amount of time between the time i leave and the time i have to be back at work (bleah), so i’ve either got to find a ride to burning man who is also willing to drive me to the oregon coast afterwards, or i have to figure out a way of driving myself.

our small car won’t make it – it’s on its last legs as it is, and an extended road trip would be its death knell. our big car would make it, but if i take the big car, monique won’t have any way to get her and the dogs to the oregon coast afterwards, and if i come home after burning man and before going to the oregon coast, it’ll waste at least two days.

i could rent a car, but that would cost a fair amount of money and i’m already trying to keep expenses down (what with the $225 ticket), and besides, i’m planning on taking at least 20 gallons of water, so it would have to be a fairly substantial car, if i ended up renting one, to be able to transport that, plus me and a week’s worth of camping gear and food.

i was hoping to get a ride there and back from sasha, but now he’s not sure whether he’s going or not, ’cause his sweetie’s father is sick. i’m sure i know other people i might be able to get a ride from, but i’ve emailed a bunch of ’em and so far i haven’t got any responses.

mal offered to loan me his RV, if he hasn’t sold it by then… but even if he hasn’t sold it, i don’t know whether it’s in any shape to make that long a road trip, not to mention the fact that i’ve never driven anything like that before.

blah.

aum ganganapataye namah

this is a test entry, to see if the damn thing works.

so now i have an online journal. thrill.