Ain't it weird?

"Here's my beard, ain't it weird?
Don't be skeerd, it's just a beard."
--George Carlin

My dad grew a beard. This is causing me...not really consternation. More confusion.

My dad has not had facial hair since before I was born. Of course, then, he had the dippy sideburns-attatched-to-mustache-with-no-beard thing that was popular in the 70's. Since he (thankfully) shaved that nonsense off, he hasn't had facial hair.

His hair has also been white since I was about 10 (he was 45 when I was born, and didn't believe in Just For Men Haircare Solutions, since he didn't have much hair), so the effect of a beard is to make him look like either:

a) Ernest Hemmingway
b) some sort of professor
c) Santa Claus
d) the Sea Captain on The Simpsons
e) Richard Dreyfuss, except older.

I can't say I wasn't warned. My dad told me he had grown a beard on a 6-day whitewater trip he took with my stepmom, and that he had let it remain for the remainder of their trip. He had said he was going to shave it off, but never actually mentioned getting rid of it.

He told me Ray Ann let him keep it just long enough to freak me out when I picked him up at the airport, and that he's shaving it off next week. Thanks, Ray Ann...

I'll try to find some pictures of him with and without his beard to show you guys exactly how different he looks, because it's very hard to describe in words. Suffice it to say it's really amusing.

Savage Love(s the El)

Dan Savage tells Seattle why they should get off their asses and get themselves some rapid transit.

He's wrong about the El always being faster than driving, though. It's certainly faster than driving during rush hour, but it still takes 45 minutes to drive to O'Hare, and an hour and a half on the El.

Besides, Seattle is missing out on the best part of inexpensive public transport: The Weirdo Factor.

The strange people that hop on the El, sometimes in the middle of the night, sometimes in the middle of the day, sometimes just randomly riding around. I find these people supremely entertaining.

A few of my favorite psycho El people memories:

- The guy who got on at one stop, already talking to himself very loudly, continued to do so for six stops, then got off, still talking to himself.

- The really drunk guy in a Cubs hat who gave me a piece of ivy he claimed to have pulled off the wall at Wrigley.

- The guy a couple of weeks ago, when I was ranting to my friends about a subletter's tendency to purchase several pounds of expensive cheese a week, said to me "So whaddaya got against cheese?"

- The two guys who got in such a huge fight I thought one of them was going to pull a gun in the middle of a rush hour, in a car so full of people nobody could move. Ok, that one wasn't really funny.

I've been fortunate enough to avoid the real sickos (flashers, masturbators, etc.) that I know a lot of people have had to put up with. Ignoring those wonderous morons, the "local flavor" you get from riding public transportation is always worth the $1.50 it takes to get to the Loop.

Tip for Ameritech customers

If you're in Chicagoland or anywhere else that is serviced by the moronic denziens of Ameritech, and things are fucked up with getting your line installed, here's a tip: Just tell them you're having trouble with the line.

A bit of an explanation: I'm in a 3 bedroom apartment with 4 people. I'm in one room, Adam is across the hall from me in the 2nd room, and Katy and her boyfriend Dave share the 3rd (much larger) bedroom.

Each room has its own landline, I think mostly for people who dialed up a lot before the advent of Cable Internet. We keep the seperate landline system so as to avoid nasty fights over long distance bills and over phone use in general, and so we can save the Celebrity Deathmatch-style smackdowns for fights over the need to do the dishes.

My landline went out yesterday, and Katy and Dave's (which had been accidentally routed into Adam's room) started acting up at the same time, and since I thought we had the same problem, the service tech wrote down the complaint as a "trouble on the line," not just that they're fuckheads.

The Ameritech people had told Katy and Dave they couldn't fix the botched routing until late next week, and they were kind of pissed about that, but more so about not being able to access their phone.

So the guy comes out, and after a bit of confusion, we explain that there are two different lines with two different problems, since we didn't realize the lines didn't have the same problem (mine was just dead, theirs had a dial tone and was ringing twice, then conking out).

So the guy fixes not only my problem (which I think took about six seconds, since this is at least the third time this has happened), he fixes Katy and Dave's problem and moves the line into their room.

Thank god for service techs that are more competent than customer service people.

Improvement

I've tried to improve the temporary fix by moving it to a little javascript window. I'm trying to figure out how to make it control the main window, but until then, it's just gonna open stuff in a 3rd window, but then all the archives will go to the same window, so it won't be quite as bad.

If anyone knows how to a. make the links go back to this page instead of opening another page (I've tried making the target=parent. no dice) or b. fix this stupid javascript problem, please help me out and email me.

Or if you just hate the new design and want me to go back to using the link to the archive page, you may also send me your electronic disdain through the above link.

As if Congress weren't weird enough...

Stan Jones, the Libertarian candidate for Senate in Montana, accidentally turned himself blue when an attempt to avoid Y2K antibiotic shortages by drinking a silver solution backfired just slightly.

They sure grow 'em nuts in Montana.

Thanks to Coop, who cropped the picture for CNN and dutifully gave me the link.

Temp fix

A temporary solution has been found to the archive problem. I've got them publishing again, I just can't for the life of me get them to show up in the left table cell like they usually do, and I need to go to sleep.

If anyone knows how to fix this, please email me as soon as possible.

Meh. Sleep.

Apologies

There seems to be some sort of problem with Blogger and it hasn't been publishing my archives for the last couple of weeks. This is getting rather annoying. I'm trying to get them to fix it, but they're quite overloaded right now.

Good car

I took my car in for an oil change today, and I had a little coupon that Subaru sent me for an oil and filter change, 24-point inspection, and tire rotation for about ten bucks more than it'd normally cost just to get an oil change, so I went ahead and did it.

The best part was when they were done. The guy told me, "Yeah, everything seems to be working great. I can't sell ya anything today."

I gave him my sympathies.

Explain this to me

The reporters' union at the Washington Post is having issues with the Post's contract offer, so they're having a byline strike.

The reporters' union is mad because the reporters are not getting paid at all for their web stories, and don't feel that's fair. Which is true, but most newspapers (I'm not sure about the Post, though) lose money like crazy on their websites. There's also some chafing on when people can quit the union, whenever they want or with in a 30-day annual period.

Essentially, what this means is that the reporters, as a protest against the company, have taken their bylines off of all their stories so that the stories written by members of the union simply say "By A Washington Post Staff Writer." Some reporters have also pledged not to file anything for the web site.

Let me see if I have this straight:

Reporters, tired of not getting credit and pay, have decided to...not give themselves credit for 5 days of their work.

I tried getting Coop, who works for CNN.com, to explain this to me. His response:

"It deprives the paper of the names of its typically big name writers. A lot of people argue that approach isn't effective because people don't care. But the union thinks they do, which is probably right about the front section."

They may have something of a point with the Post, since a lot of their reporters are known names, but I still think it's stupid to protest not getting credit for your work by not giving yourself credit for it in the first place.

Anyone else got a better explanation?

Mmm...bed....

After 15 looooong months of turning my back into a pretzel on a futon mattress, I finally broke down and admitted I need a real mattress, so I went out and got one.

I just snapped Friday morning when I woke up with my back aching for the umpteenth consecutive time. I just went out, and said fuck the fact that I don't have the money for this, I can't deal with this anymore.

I had a very odd salesman, who, while he was filling out the paperwork for my purchase, regaled me with tales of having to share an extra-long twin with his pregnant girlfriend for nine months of college. He's one of those guys who initially seems nice enough, but then you find out that they're completely fucking psychotic.

However, despite the salesman's personality quirks (to put it mildly), I am very satisfied with the mattress and price that I got. I am very glad to not be waking up with searing back pain.

Oh, I hereby apologize to my ex-girlfriend and her back for not doing this when we were still going out.

I forgot how much better life is when you actually get a decent night's sleep, and wake up not in a great deal of pain. It's helped me reduce my stress to the point that I can rachet it back up to normal by doing things like, oh, forgetting about the career fair until 10 hours before it happens...

So we'll see how long this mattress-induced bliss lasts. And we'll see how it holds up if I ever get around to getting another girlfriend...or more than likely if I get really drunk and decide it would be fun to jump on the bed.

I'll let you know how the traction goes.

Hi, I'm a tool, and so are you! What a coincidence!

The Career Fair was today, which I didn't realize until about 2am last night. I was up until 4am redoing my resume for Things Other Than Professional Sound Nerd, then researching the companies that were coming.

Most were consulting or investment banking firms, so I knew I wasn't going to have to be there for too long, but there were a couple of places that at least seemed useful.

I got out my (one) pair of nice khakis and a decent shirt, put on my biggest fake grin, and went to try and convince people that I could be a competent employee. I felt like I should have been wearing a sign that said WILL SELL OUT FOR FOOD.

I think I did OK at the couple of places I actually wanted to work, but then I just kind of wandered around and collected a fine assortment of free pens. I even talked to the CIA for a bit, but they have 3 distinct disadvantages:

1) I'd have to move back to D.C., which I've vowed never to do,
2) It takes 6-9 months to get a security clearance, and
3) I'd have to at least pretend to like Bush.

I can fake it, but not that well. They did give me a pen as a lovely consolation prize.

I strongly considered fucking with the Marine Corps recruiters and getting into a big conversation with them and being really excited and then going, "Wait, is that whole don't ask, don't tell thing still going on?" and then being like, oh, well, I guess I can't join then.

I managed to restrain myself when I realized they'd probably track me down and kill me, and that was therefore a bad idea. Plus, I know a guy in the Marine Corps and I felt bad when I realized it could have been him standing there, and I'd really feel like an asshole if I did it to him.

Overall, I think I got at least one solid lead out of it, and that's a lot more than I had yesterday. Meh, this real world thing sucks.

But at least I'm not being a nationally televised slut on the Real World.