I went for a big long bike ride yesterday, and ran across one of these signs (photo stolen from the interwebs, but it looked exactly like this):
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I was just amused by what I saw in the design: A big roaring monster wave chasing a bunch of of little, scared, screaming waves.
This year, I’m thankful for:
And finally, a card I was highly amused by from someecards.com, which describes the entire conversation with my father I’d be having had I dragged my ass to Atlanta to get attacked by my 8 nieces and nephews:
Hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving!
I don’t know if it’s been reading about the potential SAG strike or the fact that we’re going to have a double-unit Monday to welcome us back from Thanksgiving, but apparently my problem of grinding my teeth has gotten a bit worse.
And by “a bit worse” I mean, goddamn, the tendons in my jaw are killing me. It started early this afternoon (I thought it was a cavity until I realized I could push on the teeth I thought were affected and felt nothing, but opening my mouth absolutely killed) and has been getting worse throughout the day.
I mean, perhaps it’s a good thing for my continued weight loss attempts that at the rate I’m going I’m not going to be able to open my mouth on Thanksgiving, but goddamn it, I want to be able to eat at least one of the three Thanksgiving dinners I’m stopping by.
Bah.
You know, if you’re a federal mediator and you give up on trying to get SAG and the studios to agree to something after TWO DAYS, you’re not very good at your job.
I seriously can’t believe we’re about to go into another round of this craziness.
And I’m amused that this cat who resembles him has managed to learn how to do it:
I think the only thing missing from this video is the Benny Hill theme music.
FedEx’s SmartPost service does not live up to its name.
The idea is that they leverage the FedEx system to get a package most of the way, and then the US Postal Service to get it the “last mile” to the customer. So you get the best of both worlds, with FedEx’s expertise in covering large distances and the USPS’s specialized local knowledge….
…in theory. In practice, here’s what FedEx did with my shirt.woot that was ordered on Halloween (click to enlarge, and note that the timeline is in reverse order, with the most recent scans first):
Note in particular the fact that it somehow managed to get sent from Chino, CA to Denver, Colorado, to Sacramento, then BACK to Chino before it finally meandered its way to Santa Monica.
And this doesn’t even cover the two days it spent getting from the Post Office less than a mile from my house to my actual mailbox. It took two weeks to get the damn shirt here from a place just outside of Dallas.
I think this is even goofier than when I got my PowerBook in 2004, when FedEx managed to ship it from Anchorage to LAX via Indianapolis.
Sarcasm briefly aside, it was really nice to see the huge turnout (estimated by the cops at 12k, but really, looking at this picture, I think it’s a lot closer to their original estimate of 40k) at the big pro-gay-rights rally today, and some of the speakers were really great.
The head of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference pledging to fight for equal rights, the LA City Attorney announcing he’s joining the suit to get Prop. 8 overturned, and mayor Antonio “Look, Cameras!” Villaraigosa giving a great speech in both English and Spanish.
It was kind amusing to see the collection of gay-friendly celebrities the rally folks elected to trot out: Ricki Lake and Marisa Janet Winkour, the past and current Tracy Turnblads; as well as Lucy Lawless. Let me tell you, there were some excited lesbians about the latter.
The march, which was basically up Spring street about 3/4 of a mile and then back up Main the other direction, was pretty nice, with some fun repetitive chants, but with the temperature in downtown spiking above 90, it was pretty exhausting.
But really, when the gays protest anything, the signs are always the most fun aspect. Some of my personal favorites:
Also, go Wanda Sykes. Given the comments she makes to the guy with the podcast linked on that blog, I think she’s going to be a little surprised by the fuss her officially coming out kicks up. But I’m very proud of her and everyone else who’s been shaken out of their complacency by this stupid measure passing.
The overwhelming feeling I came away with from today was optimism. This won’t stand. Not for long. And that fact is incredibly heartening.
Today marks the end of my Sprint contract, and the beginning of a technological battle royale. Let’s meet the contestants!
IN THE RED CORNER….
The Blackberry 8703e, better known as the Crackberry. A practically indestructible phone on a shittastic network. A phone that I’ve dropped on concrete or asphalt so many times I’ve lost count.
But it’s started to act up. It’s starting to refuse to come off roaming. It’s starting to send calls straight to voicemail. I don’t know how much of it is Sprint’s asstacular network and how much is the Crackberry itself.
And it’s also starting to get old. It strains and buckles under the weight of simply trying to load Facebook’s mobile site. It freezes up when I’m trying to switch between applications.
It’s only a matter of time.
IN THE BLUE CORNER…
The iPod 5g. Replacement for the first iPod I ever got, a purchase that changed my life because I could carry all my music around without throwing out my back.
This one had enough space (80gb) to let me get some Podcasts going, and I’ve gotten addicted to the point that I’m now a month behind in 2 of my main ones (BBC Global News and This American Life).
It seems to be rolling along just fine. It seems to be handling its daily trips around the universe in my pocket just fine. But the last one seemed to be doing that until one day the line-out just up and died on me.
Will the hard drive hold out? Will the line-out survive? Will I accidentally drop it in a giant puddle of water? Only time will tell.
And finally, we have….
THE REFEREE
…my complete lack of fiscal restraint when it comes to purchasing shiny electronic things.
Particularly after spending an hour playing with my friend Dan’s iPhone this past weekend, I want one. Like, NOW.
My utter hatred of AT&T stopped me from switching when it first came out, but I’ve gotten to the point with Sprint that I’m pretty much ready to tell them to fuck themselves, and at least have some NEW asshattery to deal with.
Part of what’s keeping me from buying one is the extent to which I am fiscally screwed after the last year: $2k to join the union, $4500 on COBRA, PLUS a delightful four months of unemployment have left me damn near tapped out.
But once I’m done with COBRA as of the first of the year, and once they inevitably release the 32GB iPhone that would let me take my main playlist (which by itself is 12GB), my Podcasts, and some videos with me…I don’t know how long I’m going to last.
The battle begins today, and ends when one of the three above breaks. Place your bets on when I’ll crack in the comments.
I am (surprise!) really exhausted and overworked, but I wanted to say something more about Prop. 8 and the ongoing legal and PR battle over gay marriage in California.
The thing that offends me the most, absolutely the most, about the reaction to legal challenges to the validity of Proposition 8, is the reaction I heard from one member of the “Protect Marriage” group.
She argued on the news that the voters have spoken, and that the gays should respect “the will of the people.”
I just wanted to reach through the screen and give this woman a long lecture about the Tyranny of the Majority. And the Federalist papers. And the desire so clearly expressed by the founders of this country to bequeath to the generations a system that prevented a simple majority from abusing its power against a minority.
I wish I were rational enough about this to give an eloquent argument like that.
But all I truly want to say to her, reaching through the screen, is fuck you. FUCK. YOU. if you think just because a majority of people wish to strip me of my rights, I’m going to stop fighting for them. Fuck you if you think that’s what this country is about.
I’ll admit, I’ve never been sure that marriage is the most pressing right on the ever-vilified “Gay Agenda” for my people to hang their hat on at this very moment, particularly given that in many states you can still be fired or kicked out of housing for being gay, with absolutely no legal repercussions.
But to see a right, any right, stripped away is a nauseating, deeply angering feeling. To shake me out of my deeply ingrained aversion to and ambivalence towards politics that grew from 18 years of watching the same old shit get shoveled around in D.C., you really, truly have to piss me off.
And lady, you and your complete ignorance of the spirit of the American system have REALLY fucking pissed me off.
Update, Tuesday Noon: The LA Times has an article up on exactly the sort of folks like woman who made me so angry, although it does contain one truly awesome quote from somone who supports the No-On-8 protesters:
“To be honest, I don’t really understand the issue. If you’re a man and don’t believe in gay marriage, you shouldn’t marry a man.”
Right on.
Last night was like the end of a marathon. The elation and ecstatic reaction after Obama finally won the Presidency was surreal, like crossing the finish line first when you barely thought you had a chance.
And then, watching Prop 8 pass was like having someone walk up to that same theoretical marathoner and punching them in the face.
Really, California? One of the most liberal states in America can have idiot right-wingers get you so pants-pissingly scared that Teh Gayz r after ur Childrens! that we fucking passed a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT to ban gay marriage?
I am still very, very happy about Obama. What I told people at work last night when 8 was looking iffy still stands: We had one chance, and one chance only, to elect Obama, and in terms of the good of the overall nation, that was more important.
It keeps the Supreme Court from going completely to the batshit crazies, it makes the world hate us less, and it gives people some fucking hope that for once, they have voted for a candidate who’s not simply the lesser of two evils.
That 8 passed sucks, there’s no dobut. But we, and by we I mean the Gays and everyone who thinks people deserve equal rights, are going re-fight this discriminatory horseshit at every fucking turn until it is OUT of the CA constitution.
Until then, I’m going to the gym to go take out my anger on an elliptical machine instead of the drywall in my apartment which I sorely, sorely want to put my fist through.