Random Access

Thursday
Day 9 of GymTrek: Muscle Fatigue 9. This is almost becoming a habit. Again.

Got to chat with Kristen (the other younger sister) for a few minutes this morning. She’s on the homecoming court and she’s Miss Gamma Phi for her sorority this year. She’s doing well.

It was another night of broken sleep. This means that it will be another day of espresso-laden frozen mocha goodness.

Song of the Day: Fool in the Rain by Led Zeppelin. And, since it’s Triple Play Thursday… here are two more: All of My Love and Kashmir.

Off to work!

Peace.

Wednesday (Episode II: Attack of the Zoned)
The workday wasn’t too bad. Zipped by, more or less. It’s amazing how quickly time flies after you’ve had 32 oz. of frozen mocha goodness… especially when there’s two shots of espresso kickin’ it in the proverbial ass.

NPR/PRI
Talk of the Nation: Hawks, Doves and In-Between (Opinions about War)
Talk of the Nation: American Delegation Goes to Iraq
Talk of the Nation: Leon Wynter / Changing the Face of American Media

What’s more American than starring in a commercial to pitch Coca Cola or Budweiser? From Mohammed Ali to Oprah Winfrey, writer Leon Wynter says using African Americans and Latinos as pitchmen has changed our perception of race. On Talk of the Nation, Neal Conan talks with Leon Wynter about how popular culture is blurring the color lines.

Talk of the Nation: Writer Michel Houellebecq’s Comments on Islam
All Things Considered: California Power Supply
All Things Considered: Maine School Vouchers
All Things Considered: Vocal Sampling (www.ciocanmusic.com)
All Things Considered: The Man Who Created the First Emoticon

NOTE: : Check out The World‘s article on Medical Interpreters

Stray Toasters

• I was going to have a little diatribe about the TotN segment with Leon Wynter, but I’ll put that on the back burner for now.
• What Marvel Comics has done with their dotCOMICS is a great idea: Take some of their books. Make the pages into static Flash® presentations. Put ’em online. For free. Sure, they’re a few issues behind the newsstands and comic shops, but this is an excellent way to take advantage of the Internet…and maybe pick up a few new readers of the hardcopy books, too. Maybe someone should clue the higher-ups at AOHellTimeWarner (the parent company of DC Comics) about this.
• Song of the Day #2 will have to be Sympathy for the Devil, also by the Rolling Stones. If turned the right way and looked at from a certain angle, it’s an interesting look at a few scenes from history, like Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire. Of course, Sympathy doesn’t have a line in it where no one remembers any of the lyrics except “….Marilyn Monroe!” But, it doesn’t need it, either.
• Cats are funny. (According to , monkeys are funny, too.)
• There is almost nothing to compare to tasty popped corns… well, maybe tasty iced creams, but that is another story altogether. I have come to realize that I seem to put popcorn in the Spider-Man promotional popcorn tub/bowl/whatever-the-Hell-you’d-call-it. Ironically, I got it at some movie that wasn’t Spider-Man; I think that I got it a week or two before that movie hit the silver screen. It holds roughly the exact amount of popped corn that are produced from one scoop of kernels that go into the popper. Synchronicity, indeed.

Bedtime. No, it’s well past bedtime. Oh, well.

Peace.

Wednesday
About :03 into the cardio part of my workout (recumbent bike), I was wondering “Why am I doing this…? I could stop now and just get on with the rest of my workout.” But I didn’t. I kept going. Actually, I kept waiting for the endorphins to kick in and carry me through it… but they were a little late showing up. By the time they got there, I was almost done with the bike. Oh, well. It’s good for me…

Song of the Day: Beast of Burden by the Rolling Stones… although, I suppose that the Bette Midler version will do in a pinch.

NPR/PRI Stories (Tuesday)
Talk of the Nation: Analysis of Iraq’s Allowing U.N. Inspectors to Return
Talk of the Nation: Changing Peoples’ Minds
All Things Considered: 100 Words College Students Should Know
All Things Considered: Santa Cruz Pot Giveaway
All Things Considered: Assisted Suicide in Switzerland
All Things Considered: Private Moon Mission

Stray Toaster
Every once in a while, you’ll come across a mailpiece with a fake address or a fake name. Imagine that: People really don’t want snail mail spam! Yesterday’s little nugget of joy was a name: “Allison Wonderland.”

And now… off to make sure that the worlds’ mail gets delivered in a timely manner!

Peace.

Tuesday
Day 7 of Gym Wars: Return of the Workout

It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside….
No, that was Elton John. That’s not what I was after. Let’s try that again.

It’s funny how you can just strike up conversations with perfect strangers (And what is it about a “stranger” that makes them “perfect?”) at the gym… or how they can/will start one with you. Today, it happened twice. I’m not saying that this phenomenon (do DO do-do-do) is a “bad” thing. Far from it, in fact. I think that it is a very good thing.

Song of the Day:
Today, being Tuesday, we’re going to give you two (two, TWO) songs of the day. At no extra cost to you! Both of today’s songs come from Pink Floyd: Learning to Fly (not to be confused with the Tom Petty song of the same name) and Money.

What in the Nine Hells…!?!?
I was going through my email and came across the “New Movie Tuesday” email from Best Buy. So far so good. I opened it… and saw the second sign of the Apocalypse in the “DVD pre-order” section:

American Idol: The Search for a Superstar $14.99
available 10/15/02
Contains an exclusive bonus DVD with footage not shown on TV!

As someone who didn’t follow the show… no, that’s not emphatic enough. As someone who didn’t give a rat’s ass about the show when it aired: WHY would I want to add this to my DVD collection? From what I gathered from friends who watched it, it was pretty much “Star Search,” except that the judges didn’t just rate your performance; they were apt to be rude to you if they didn’t like it. Whoop-de-damn-doo. Yeah, this deserves DVD treatment. Circling the drain, I tell you…

Anyway, time to get ready for work.

Peace.

Monday
I got up and went to the gym (sixth day) this morning.

I don’t think that I’m going to take the day off, but I am tempted to leave a little early to watch football tonight. Of course, that may also depend on who is playing. Hmm. Eagles-Redskins. I might just stay at work.

Song of the Day: Dance with Me by 112

And now, off to finish pre-work prep and get out of here.

Peace.

Sunday
Football.
NO WORK.
Nothing on the agenda but relaxing.
At this rate, I’ll be tempted to take tomorrow off.

Song of the Day: Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne
I first became aware of this song thanks to a Nissan commercial. I didn’t know what it was at the time because they only played a few seconds from the beginning of the song. Eventually, I heard the whole song and discovered the title. Now, I’m hooked.

Stik ‘Em Up
I was going through my latest issue of Wizard, a comics and comics-related magazine, and came across (or as some people around here say: “acrossed”) an ad for Stikfas. Stikfas?! What in the Nine Hells…!? So, I took a look at the site. Interesting. I also took a peek at the “Stik ‘Em Up” Gallery of fan-pics. If you thought that people put a lot of time and effort into customizing Lego® figures, wait till you see some of these figures.

I think that a scouting trip to Toys ‘R’ Us may be in order.

Peace.

Saturday.
Nice, quiet, relaxing day off.
…and I’ll be watching a professional fisticuffs competition this evening at Dee’s.

Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” came on the radio while I was driving around this afternoon. It’s not only a good song, but it’s a song that is good to turn up as loudly as your radio and/or eardrums can handle. Mercifully, I had the windows up so that I didn’t have to subject anyone around to my attempt to sing along with Corey Glover.

All that I need now is to find my (or go buy a new) lead pointer for my mechanical pencil and everything will be top notch.

Peace.

Friday
Tis the end of the work week once again. And work was “mostly harmless,” to use a Douglas Adams phrase. I listened to a little of The Salmon of Doubt tonight… because I had forgotten that it was still in the mp3 player. I think that I will buy a copy of the book.

I went to The Gateway (again) tonight, after work. I met (she’s nice and also quite easy to talk with… and witty, to boot); we had coffee drinks at Starbucks. We sat and talked for a bit – some of the stories she told me reminded me of my old retail job. I liked the job, but some of the people (customers and fellow employees)…? *shrug* After coffee, I headed to the B&N and did some browsing. I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular, but I figured “What the Hell” … and I wound up getting a magazine.

NPR/PRI
Talk of the Nation – Science Friday

• West Nile Virus
• “Should there be censorship of scientific information?”
• Imperfections in Cloning
• Hydrogen Fuel Cells

The World – Since they only keep a five day archive, I’ll just link to the main site and let you sort it out from there. You can download the mp3s of the articles. Of note from today’s program are: September 11th Films, Iraq History, Un-Islamic Dress Report and Earth’s New Moon.
All Things Considered: Fall TV Season
All Things Considered: Media Competition and Editorial Decisions
All Things Considered: Tibet – Dalai Lama
All Things Considered: Corruption at the Gates (Pt. 2)

Another Stray Toaster…
We have a couple of odd phenomena (do DO do-do-do) at work. One of the more… unusual ones involves the chairs in the mens’ room. We have two 70’s lime green swivel rockers in the “lounge-ish” area of the mens’ room. It is not uncommon to see someone sitting in one of these chairs during a break. (Not that we don’t have a fully-functional Break Room…) That, in itself, isn’t so bad. But it takes a left turn when you see someone sleeping in one of them. But wait, there’s more! We have one person who will sit in one of the chairs, turn it towards a wall or the corner, put on his Walkman® and just… stare blankly at the walls. This guy reminds me of “Pvt. Pyle” from Full Metal Jacket. Aside from the fact that this is in the restroom, if I ever hear him say “I *am*… in a world… of shit, “ I just pray that I can find adequate cover before the lead starts flying.

Peace.

If anyone feels the overwhelming urge to get me this, I wouldn’t mind.

It would make a nice companion piece to this, which I already have, and my Darkseid cel from Superman: the Animated Series.

Thursday
Pretty quiet day on the work front.

NPR/PRI
Both hours of Talk of the Nation dealt with President Bush’s speech to the United Nations Security Council. They also got analysis and reactions from various political, diplomatic and military officials.

All Things Considered: FCC Reviews Broadcast Outlet Ownership
All Things Considered: New “Newspaper” Format
All Things Considered: Corruption at the U.S.-Mexico Border

Stray Toasters

• Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was playing as background music for something on NPR this morning. There’s just “something” about that song. A good “something,” that is. If you’re not familiar with it, go buy a copy or download it or request it from your local jazz station. Disney didn’t do a bad job of presenting it as a vignette in Fantasia 2000, either.
• Douglas Adams extolled the virtues of Whiter Shade of Pale in The Salmon of Doubt, the collection of his last works. I was listening to random mp3s today at work and two versions of it (Procul Harem and Annie Lennox) played… one song apart. This is another good song. Same imperative applies here as it did with Rhapsody: Listen to it! (I recommend the original version, by Procul Harem, for beginners).
• A caller on Talk of the Nation made a comment about President Bush’s speech and how, while it was good, it didn’t “move” her as much as Martin Sheen’s post September 11th speech on “The West Wing” did. I believe that Neal Conan made a comment to the effect of “….well, Martin Sheen gets all the good lines.”
• They played clips of the President’s speech on TotN. One of the clips that they played was of him talking about Iraq possibly having “weapons of mass destruction,” as opposed to “conventional weapons.” (SIDENOTE: Aren’t “conventional weapons” weapons of “mass destruction,” too? I know what they mean by this, but I still find it amusing. ) Anyway… It seems that the Shrub has a *wee* bit of a problem pronouncing the word “nuclear.” It comes out sounding like “new-cue-lar”. Julia and I laughed every time he said it. Neal Conan added something here, too: It seems that President Jimmy Carter had the same speech impediment. Why is this funny? Jimmy Carter is/was a nuclear engineer.
• More musical oleo: Don Henley’s song Dirty Laundry has been getting a lot of play on one of the local stations. It’s amazing how that song so accurately reflects so much of what’s become of the news lately.
• There was a test of the “Emergency Alert System” on the radio today. The new alert sounds similar to a dial-up modem attempting to make a connection. I remember the old “Emergency Broadcast System,” which was a simple dual-tone beep. I wonder if it was that way because television stations used a similar tone at the end of their broadcast day (while the test pattern was on the screen)? I’ll have to look into that.

Okay… that’s enough randomness for tonight.

: If you are around a radio from 12:00 – 13:00, you might be interested in listening to tomorrow’s (today’s) Talk of the Nation – Science Friday.

Friday, September 13, 2002
Join Talk of the Nation: Science Friday for a roundup of recent science news, including the latest in cloning and West Nile virus. And we’ll discuss whether scientific information should be censored to protect national security.

Will we ever be driving cars with fuel cells? Join host Ira Flatow in the show’s second hour for a look at the promise and reality of using hydrogen as a fuel source.

And, that’s a wrap. Tune in tomorrow for more.

Peace.

Today is September 11th, 2002.

Here is what I had to say about the day last year.

I don’t think that it is right to call it “Patriot Day” for the reasons outlined in last night’s post. But we should not forget what happened nor should we forget those who perished.

We should also not forget that just because people are different from us – by virtue of race, creed or color – that they are not automatically “against us.” America was established as a country where the freedom to be different and to disagree with our countrymen were not seen as “bad things” (…unless you lived in Salem, MA and were thought to be a witch, but that’s another story).

We call ourselves “…the land of the free and the home of the brave.” I would say that we should challenge ourselves to be brave in ways that we might not have considered before:

• We should be brave enough to remember that we are not alone in the world.
• We should be brave enough to know that there are those who do not like us because of the very freedoms that we espouse.
• We should be brave enough to not only uphold our rights to be free, but also to help, not impose our concept of freedom upon, those who wish to be free.
• And, most importantly, we should be brave enough to remember that we, the American people, are a diverse people. We may be united under a common banner, but we are not all the same. We should respect each others’ rights to be different and that it is alright to have divergent viewpoints.

Peace.

Tuesday
Average day. Nothing special.

NPR/PRI
The World: New American Embassy in Nairobi
The World: War on Terrorism
The World: Chelsea Jeans Store… and Museum
Talk of the Nation: The United States as an Empire, Revisited
Talk of the Nation: What Makes a Leader?
All Things Considered: Historical Hindsight
All Things Considered: 1991 Pre-Gulf War Debate
All Things Considered: Sonic Memorial Project: A September Story
(As of 22:15 MDT on 10 Sept 02, there seems to be a problem with the Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered RealAudio links.)

Tonight’s Soapbox
Tomorrow will be the first celebration of “Patriot Day.” While I think that the victims of the events of last September 11th should be remembered, I’m not sure that “Patriot Day” is the most… appropriate… name for the day. As my friend Steve would say, the name caters to good old American jingoism. I would have to agree. Don’t misunderstand me: I am proud to be an American citizen. I just don’t think that we, as a nation, should be so egocentric about the “holiday.” It was a tragedy that occurred on American soil. That is a fact, no problem there. It bears remembering. This goes without question. It was also a tragedy that had global impact and ramifications. That is something that should not be forgotten… especially before we slap a “Made in the U.S.A.” sticker on it.

Correct me if I am wrong, but weren’t they called the World Trade towers? World Trade. Let’s look at that. “World trade.” “International commerce.” Yes, they were in New York. Yes, many American companies had offices there. But, there were also international citizens and businesses in the buildings. What about them? Are they being categorically grouped as “honorary American patriots” for the day? I don’t get it.

And, another thing: What makes this a “patriotic” day? I don’t get that, either. We didn’t fight against an invading army. We didn’t make a heroic stand in the heat of battle. We were attacked. We were stunned. We were caught in a situation that no one would have expected, other than in the pages of a spy thriller or on the movie screen.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of a historic event. A tragic event in history. Not just American history, but in world history. As you take time to remember what happened, please also remember that Americans were not the only ones affected by it. In a case such as this, it is important to remember that. Lives were lost. Needlessly. That’s the bottom line.

Peace.

Monday
Average day. Nothing out of the ordinary at work.

NPR/PRI Stories
The World: Egyptians’ Reactions to Americans’ Thoughts about al-Qaeda
The World: Pakistan President Mushaffaf at Harvard
The World: Muslims in Leicester, England
The World: Indian Widows/Widowers of the September 11 Attacks
Talk of the Nation: Federal Judicial Nominations
Talk of the Nation: Changing U.S. Coin Design
Talk of the Nation: Pauline Kael / Film Criticism
All Things Considered: HMOs and Medicare
All Things Considered: Going It Alone on Foreign Policy (Part 1)
All Things Considered: Going It Alone on Foreign Policy (Part 2)
All Things Considered: Lost City Uncovered

That’s pretty much it. And don’t forget to check ‘s journal for up-to-the-entry updates on the latest LJWF action.

Peace.

You know that it’s shaping up to be a good day when the first thing that you do, when getting out of bed, is to slam your knee into the corner of the nightstand. Of course, it could also be the worst thing that happens. Hopefully, that’s the case.

Going to the gym always seems like a good idea… until you remember that you haven’t been going regularly for the past few months. But, that thought doesn’t cross your mind until you get about one-third to halfway through your workout. At that point, it goes from “This will be good for me” to “When the Hell did I become a masochist?!?”

If I were a member of the LiveJornal Wrestling Federation (LJWF), I’d probably have a life similar to the one that chronicles in his journal. It seems that I held the “Hardcore Champion” title… but lost it in a surprise attack on the way back to the locker room. Isn’t that the way it always goes? *sigh* However, that just gives me more time to work up a new, secret finishing move. And with that, I shall be able to regain the title.

Time for work.

Peace.

Is Harvard really so hard-pressed for publicity that they need to have their name attached to really horrid-looking movies like “How High” and “Stealing Harvard?” I remember that it was one of the “Holy Grails” of higher education when I was growing up and in high school. To have come to this…? I fear it’s another sign that we have taken another circle around the drain.

Quote of the Day
[21:22] Goldsaq Blaqman!
[21:22] ShadoRunr …and his trusty sidekick: Preppy, the Whitebread Wonder
[21:23] Goldsaq aka Whitey!

Peace.