A strange thing happened yesterday – when I went to write a post, all my little quickie toolbar thingies were gone. Now, I don’t actually need them since I know any html I might want to incorporate into a post but it’s still kind of a pain in the ass. For one thing, if I was writing this in the development tool I use for work I’d at least have keyboard shortcuts, code snippets, color coding, and tag completion. Here, I got nothing. Just a plain textbox staring back at me. And that kinda sucks (I mean, my typing stinks as it is – the less of it I need to do, the better). So until I figure that one out (and I’m reluctant make too many changes around here, lest I break the smilies or the embedding or something – then there’d be hell to pay), I guess I won’t be adding too many links or fancy formatting.
Anyhow, it’s Friday, which is always a good thing. But I don’t have Monday off, which is always a bad thing. But Bill Maher is back this week, which is a good thing. This week, his guests include Tom Steyer. Since he didn’t go to SU I’m not familiar with him, but he’s apparently a hedge fund manager and billionaire. He was born in 1957 and Wikipedia says his net worth is valued at $1.6 billion, which makes him about three years older than me, and roughly $1.6 billion wealthier (you know, depending on how many significant digits you want to round it off to).
Yet he also seems to be a “liberal” and an environmentalist who has pledged to give away half his fortune. So that’s nice. I pledge to give away half my fortune as well – but I’ll have to wait until I croak, ‘cuz after we get a Republican House, Senate, White House, and a Supreme Court packed with nine Republican Stooge Conservative Justices, I might be needing it to buy dog food in my old age (and not for the dogs, either). Plus half my fortune is probably about what old Tom spends on a six month’s worth of haircuts. But you folks in the Bay Area will probably know more about Steyer than I do, so I’ll defer to your opinion(s) of him.
Also on is Annabelle Gurwitch. I don’t know her net worth (though she’s a scorpio whose birthday is the day after Roseanne Barr, Charles Bronson, and Adam Ant and she’s about a year younger than I am), but I do know her from her being on WTF as well as her having hosted Wa$ted! on the late, great, Planet Green network (which has now been rebranded “Destination America” – “…targeted mainly towards Middle America and featuring mainly American-centric travel, food, and natural history programming” because we don’t have enough teevee geared toward “middle America” these days, and certainly not enough shows about food). On Wa$ted, she and her co-host would go around to slobs and show them how much shit they were throwing out could be recycled, and how much money they were wa$ting. I liked it. But, hey, I’m sure a show where they visit diners in Ashtabula would be even better.
Next up is John Avlon, who I don’t really know much about, but if I were to judge a book by the cover, I’d say his book is all about assholes. Plus he’s married to Margaret Hoover, who isn’t the biggest Republican asshole in the world, but, let’s face it, that’s a pretty high mountain to climb, and she’s young yet. I’m guessing Avlon is on to be the token “moderate,” which means he’ll be a right-leaning putz smart enough to toss out an applause line or two to the left-leaning (or so Bill always seems to say) audience.
Then there’s this week’s token “libertarian” douchebag, Charles Murray. Oh boy.
Rounding out this week’s guest list is Glenn Cove’s own Christine Quinn – a “Democrat” so far up Mike Bloomberg’s ass she couldn’t even get elected mayor as a lesbian in New York City.
She does look a bit like Edie McClurg, though, so I’ll give her that.
If you’ve been paying attention to my posts of the past weeks, months, and years, you’re probably asking yourself, “hey, didn’t that guy used to use a lot of semi-colons? Where have all the semi-colons gone?” Well, yes, yes I did (and thank you for noticing). Then a few weeks (or was it months?) back, I read this quote by one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut:
“My advice to writers just starting out? Don’t use semi-colons! They are transvestite hermaphrodites, representing exactly nothing. All they do is suggest you might have gone to college.”
Now, I have to admit that the term “transvestite hermaphrodite” is somewhat confusing, because (IIRC) a transvestite is one who enjoys wearing clothing associated with the opposite sex, while a hermaphrodite is an organism that has the naughty bits normally associated with both male and female sexes (like an earthworm or Ann Coulter). So I’m not quite sure what the wardrobe of a transvestite hermaphrodite would actually consist of.
But if Kurt says no semi-colons, then that’s good enough for me. So I’ve been trying to avoid them ever since (trying to cut down on the commas, too, but they’re harder to give up than beer), though I notice I’ve fallen on hyphens as kind of a crutch.
I’ve also been avoiding settling down and getting to work this morning, but I guess I can’t put it off much longer so I better get to it (or at least have another cuppa joe).
OK; I don’t usually do petitions or Daily Kos but you might want to try this one;
Sign the petition: Save net neutrality, stop the dangerous “pay-to-play” rule
The Internet thrives because it is an open and free marketplace of ideas. This new set of rules is a sweetheart deal to Big Telecom that will create a “pay-to-play” system that unfairly favors large corporate websites.
Please reject this proposal immediately, and instead create real net neutrality that protects an open and fair Internet.)
The Colbert Report
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Colbert Report on Facebook
Guess I’ll have to watch the semi-colons. I’m guilty of wearing that garb.
I knew nothing about Steyer. He seems to have stayed somewhat anonymous up to now. I had heard of Farralon. I see he was associated with Warren Hellman who gave us the fabulous and free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and left money in his will for it to continue for at least 15 years. Warren was a republican who was turned a bit by his late in life association with the music scene including his beloved Hazel Dickens, a legendary friend of the working class and a fellow West Virginian who could not believe that I was as well.
I have a friend who is a writer who goes up to perhaps the best known prison in the area, SQ, every week to conduct writing classes for some of the inmates. His commute is probably 45 minutes each way under the best of circumstances. A while ago he was a victim of a home invasion and was shot several times and has some metal in one leg as a result. In spite of that, he resumed his writing class again when he was able when others might have just said fuck it. Tonight he showed up for his weekly visit and was turned away because one CO with a wand detected his metal and refused him entry. It is sad what an authoritarian police state is evolving here in the USA. It seems that the last right that will survive is the one to bear armaments.
My friend will be back next week performing his volunteer effort to do something of the rehabilitation function that has been abandoned in prisons. Thank you, Saint Reagan.