Morning Seditionists

Ah, it’s good to be home (and it’s even Friday; how cool is that). And to get a good night’s sleep (as good as it gets these days, anyway). They seem to be quite afraid of transmitting disease or something down there. I saw more bottles of hand sanitizer in five days than I’ve seen in my entire life before that. I always knew DC was a dirty place filled with dirty people. Actually that’s not true. Most of the people there are very nice. It’s the ones that aren’t from there that suck. (more…)

The hardest part of today will be waiting around long enough to avoid rush hour (which, unlike home, lasts a lot longer than an hour; with any luck, I’ll be home in time to see Rielle Hunter on Oprah). Maybe I’ll head over to the Church of Scientology for a quick e-meter session. I hear the first one’s free. It’ll be nice to get back home, though I’m not really looking forward to the drive (looks like a clear day all the way, unlike the drive down, which was drizzly with heavy fog through most of PA). No matter where you are, though, things are pretty much the same – even down to the “don’t text and drive” fluff stories on the lo-cal news. Well, except you don’t get any disappointing “the Panda isn’t pregnant” items on the news back home. I had thought about catching game 7 of the Caps/Canadiens last night, but the cheapest ticket available was $90, and I’m just not that big a fan. In case you’re wondering, after being up 3-1 in the series, the Caps went down 2-1 last night, and lost the series 4-3. (more…)

And so, my last day here in DC begins (though I won’t actually be leaving ’til tomorrow). It began pretty early, actually, as I couldn’t sleep, and finally gave up trying at about 4:00. Being sequestered in a dark room behind a computer all day yesterday, I didn’t get to catch any of the Goldman-Sachs fun (I’ll listen to the Olbermann and Maddow podcasts on my way home tomorrow; that’ll help kill some time). Of course it’s all a big joke on us. Just Theater for the peasants. I don’t expect much to come out of it (my guess is that financial reform will be about as reformative as health care reform; maybe they’ll mandate brokerage accounts for everybody). Still it’s always fun to see multimillionaires get scolded on teevee by rich old white people feigning outrage. (more…)

So, congratulations to the Republicans (and Ben Nelson) for filibustering financial reform. I know they’re proud of themselves, but I just want them to know I’m proud, too. I’m just glad I could be here for it. Better here than the Gulf of Mexico, I guess, where over 40,000 gallons of oil a day are oozing out of of that ill-fated drilling platform. The oil spill is covering 1,800 miles so far. Not to worry, though. I’m sure oil industry profits won’t suffer. (more…)

So, here I am again. I got here a little bit before 4:00 yesterday, but didn’t much feel like tromping down to the Mall to see what was left of the Earth Day concert. Instead I watched the Coal Miner Memorial (was surprised at what a good reception Obama and Biden got; maybe there’s hope for this country after all). One of these days I have to stop at the Anthracite Museum on the way down. Then I walked over to Whole Foods (which was really, really crowded, and smelled kind of like piss) to buy some groceries since my room has a kitchen. It was too busy, so all I got was beer. Warm beer at that. Then I proceeded to turn the wrong way and wound up walking way out of my way, which wasn’t bad, other than it’s too damn hot down here. Between that and the six hour drive, my foot was killing me by the time I got back. Fortunately, my training thing is right across the street, so I don’t have far to walk to get there.

No boobleheads for me, I’m afraid. I’ll be leaving in a few hours for DC to attend a few days of training. While I’m happy to not be at work for a few days, I’m not really looking forward to being away from home. I guess I’m kind of a baby like that. On the bright side, I’ll be staying in a hotel with a 32″ plasma screen and a Playstation, with a daily complimentary happy hour, so at least I won’t be stuck in a cinderblock wall dorm room. There’s also wireless Internet access, of course (my #1 criterion), so odds are I’ll still be able to post, but if you don’t hear from me for a while, you’ll know something’s wrong with the connection (or I died in a fiery car crash on the way down or something). Anyhow, have a good Sunday, and I’ll say hello to Barry for ya.

Ever hear of a company called HTC (the High Tech Computer Corporation)? They make mobile phones and are, in fact, the largest manufacturer of phones that use the Android operating system, which is the free and open source software released through the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), which was spearheaded by Google, but includes companies like Texas Instruments, Broadcom, HTC, Intel, LG, Motorola, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile and has the goal of developing open standards for mobile devices. Enter Apple and the iPhone. (more…)

I hate to get all footbally and stuff, but a quick question for the Broncos: Tebow? Really?

Just ten more days, and I get to go see a Podiatrist. Any idea how many chickens you need for a visit to the foot doctor under the POP (Pullets for Podiatry) program? I just hope frozen is OK, ‘cuz I don’t really have a live chicken connection. Well, except for Melina, but Connecticut is a long way to go to pick up chicks (especially at my age). Plus I’m boycotting the state of CT until either Joe Lieberman is voted out of office or I have some reason to go there.

Speaking of CT and picking up chicks… (more…)

Ah, been a pain in the ass couple of days around here. First, I’m getting really tired of this friggin’ Mac laptop losing the wireless connection constantly. It just drops for no reason, and then I have to turn the radio off and back on again (and there’s no hardware switch on the damn thing, either – I guess they figure that’d just be asking for a rush on the “geniuses” when throngs of average macsters couldn’t figure out why for they’re wireless don’t work no more, or maybe at the rate their hardware fails, they figure it’d just be one more thing to break). It drops a few times a session when I’m not even moving around with, which is pretty annoying, but when I try roaming from one access point to another (say, from downstairs to upstairs or outside), and the stupid thing will drop constantly. Needless to say, none of my other wireless (Windows, Linux, Android, etc) stuff has a problem. I tried some updates (there’s another thing that bugs me; I thought Windows was a pain in the ass with the updates, but the Mac ones seem more frequent, and, damn they’re HUGE). That frickin’ update icon jumping up and down bugs me, too. Look, I don’t want anything to do with iTunes, OK? So, don’t keep telling me there’s an update for it! (more…)

I hate to say this out loud for fear of jinxing it, but I think it’s possible that Obama and his entourage finally get it, and realize that no matter what they do, the Republicans will oppose, stonewall, and demonize it. So apparently Obama figures he might as well appoint an actual liberal to the Supreme Court. (more…)