Binary Tangents / Analog Musings

A a bit of a tradition of referring to the President of the U.S. of A. by his initials. JFK and FDR leap immediately to mind.

If John Sidney McCain the 3rd were to win, I can see headlines abbreviating it JSM. Not bad, not exciting, but normal enough.

Now, Barack Hussein Obama, well the media has pretty much put a kibosh on using his middle name because it reminds us his (to use a liberal term) sperm donor is a muslim. That leaves us calling him Barry, nice and informal, and for initials, well just the first and last apparently. Simply out of respect.

That would leave us with B.O. in the oval office if he's elected. Frankly, I think things stink enough in Washington just having him in the Senate...



His leanings may be too extreme for some, but at least there won't be a B.O. problem!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eonline/20080929/en_movies_eo/31509

Then again, I like Branagh...

AH, and the Ironman DVD comes out today... (or so I think I heard)

Shuffle your iPod or MP3 player, list ten songs in order as they come up

1. If I could build my world around you - Marvin Gaye
2. Senorita - Los Lonely Boys
3. Poor Wayfaring Stranger - Natalie Merchant
4. Walking in your footsteps - The Police
5. Walkin' after midnight - Kellie Pickler (okay I skipped through this one without listening..)
6. Candy Everybody Wants - 10,000 Maniacs
7. Trouble Sleeping - Corinne Bailey Rae
8. Tramp - Otis Redding
9. Stop Breakin' Down Blues - Eric Clapton (Me and Mr. Johnson)
10. Renegade - Styx

01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favorite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you?
08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst Habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favorite sport?
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What color eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can soda?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
27) What's your favorite place to hang out at?
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
30) Do you swear a lot?
31) Biggest pet peeve?
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
34) Favourite and least favourite food?
35) Do you believe in God?
36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

Shrewd.

1. She's not afraid to call out corrupt members of her own party.

2. She's been a Governor for a little over two years, which is an executive position and all that entails.

3. She herself chose to have a baby late in life even though she knew it had down syndrome. This is a tough choice for many people and speaks to those for whom abortion is an issue.

4. She has a pregnant soon to wed, 17 year old. And this is surprising because? Five kids, one teen pregnancy sounds below the national average to me(opinion). Coming from Alaska we should be happy we aren't finding out about a drinking problem (no offense just speaking of statistics).

5. She's not a lawyer, nor did she go to college to study law. I'm so not kidding on this.

6. She's young, and relatively new to politics. I'm contrasting this observation against the Obama accusation of "McCain is more of the same". She is certainly not more of the same in anyway shape or form.. especially when put up against Senator Biden, who has a political career spanning 35+ years in the Senate(yeah, like he's a breath of fresh air...)

That's it for now, I know I'm not voting for Obama, which means I'm left with McCain as the alternative. His choice of Sara Palin actually makes me feel better about voting for such a liberal Republican candidate.

Now, if we can just keep enforcing our immigration laws already on the books... but that's a different rant (or is it?)

Who says the republicans don't admire the actions of the democrats?...

Thanks Zod!

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

followed by the sequel, Seeing Redd

Trish is reading them now, and is so enthralled she's titillating me with brief paragraphs here and there... in the middle of me making my way through the original Dune series, on God Emperor now..

Anyway, the Looking Glass Wars not only sounds cool, all of my costume crazy friends (and you know who you are) will love the cool 'true vision' of those characters Lewis Carrol changed and/or toned down thinking the story from Alyss couldn't really be true... you see, Lewis didn't get it right at all...

:)

-w

http://www.latimes. com/news/ opinion/la- oe-stein26oct26, 0,7942535. column?coll= la-tot-opinion& track=ntothtml

From the Los Angeles Times
A holiday for sluttiness
Halloween should be freed of adults who use it as an excuse to dress up like
hookers.
Joel Stein

October 26, 2007

Holidays are for children and conservatives. And the one holiday that is
still just for kids -- free of campaigns to replace Santa with creches,
painted eggs with crucifixes, fireworks with flag lapel pins -- has been
ruined by the rest of the adults.

This year, I was invited to six Halloween parties, which would not be
strange if it weren't for the fact that I'm older than 12. Meanwhile, I was
invited to zero New Year's Eve parties last year. People vastly prefer
Halloween parties because New Year's Eve involves dressing up like an adult,
whereas Halloween involves dressing up like a slut.

I understand that the masquerade ball is a classic that faded away, and that
people need an opportunity to hide behind a mask in order to safely express
their hidden selves. It makes sense that once a year I get to peek into your
psyche and find out whether you think of yourself as a whore nurse, a whore
pirate, a whore angel or a whore whore.

That's fine. But not on the kids' favorite day. It's transforming formerly
child-friendly costume shops from fun-creepy into Chris Hansen-creepy.

There's no chance that harrumphing will return Halloween to the innocent and
carefree days of threatening neighbors who don't give you candy and
vandalizing trees with toilet paper. So we need to invent a separate holiday
when adults can get drunk and finally wear that pair of boots that seemed OK
in the store but it turns out go up a little higher than you thought.

That's why, after much research and consultation, I have founded our
nation's newest holiday: Slut Day.

It will take place the first Saturday of every August, a time both barren of
holidays and plenty hot enough for really degrading costumes. Slut Day
festivities include costume parties with themed drinks such as the Lindsay
Lohan (just whatever in a giant glass) and, if possible, flat-screen TVs
showing the latest celebrity sex tapes and select parts of "Meerkat Manor."
Or anything else. Flat-screen TVs are just sexy.

In addition to fixing the Halloween problem, Slut Day also can replace the
"Pimps N Hos" parties scattered across the calendar, which are racist and
sexist, with an event that is only sexist. That's a 50% reduction in
offensiveness.

Slut Day rights the wrong that dates to the late '80s, when San Francisco's
Exotic Erotic Ball, which takes place on Halloween, went mainstream. Even at
liberal-yet- uptight Stanford University, I was dragged with my freshman dorm
mates to an Exotic Erotic party, where I wore a red clip-on bow tie and a
plastic bag from the campus bookstore that I had punctured for leg holes.

It was neither exotic nor erotic. But it did make a point that society has
since learned: Neither gender wants men to try to be sexy. Slut Day will
embrace that fact by having all men dress like Hef: silk pajamas or
bathrobes only. No, those aren't sexy either, but women feel uncomfortable
if they're wearing a fishnet bodysuit and their date is wearing chinos and a
blue Oxford. Or a bow tie and a bookstore bag.

Conflating sexiness with scariness never made sense to me: It's too Freudian
and Puritan and 1980s movie. Now sexiness will be unfettered. We as a nation
need one day to vent our nationalism, one to be thankful and one to focus
our love of arbors, and it is way past time to give an equal outlet to our
incredible sluttiness.

Let the Japanese hide their perversions in creepy clubs; we shall have a day
when CBS will broadcast a parade where the grand marshals are Tila Tequila,
the Pussycat Dolls and whoever is dating Brandon Davis.

So enjoy your last Slutoween. I've put some calls in to Playboy, asking it
to spearhead this movement and drop its yearly Halloween party, its
second-biggest annual event. I also beseeched Playboy to channel all its
party-planning energy into its biggest annual event: the Midsummer Night's
Dream Party, which, it turns out, takes place the first weekend of August.
And needs a better name.

My stats are:
STR:9
INT:11
WIS:13
DEX:14
CON:12
CHR:18

http://www.thehaws.org/add_quiz.shtml

that's annoying... so I was average above average when I was 18... need to start lifting weights again... yeah, right...

My Soundtrack
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool..

Actually, I AM going to try to pretend to be cool. Im going to skip anything thats not mine, since I have a LOT of music that isnt mine. After all, if its my damn life, its going to be something I like.

Opening Credits:
Poisonous Garden - Concrete Blonde

Waking Up:
Perfect World - Huey Lewis

First Day At School:
Lovely Day - Donavon Frankenreiter

Falling In Love:
I Love You (The smile you smile) Van Morrison

Breaking Up:
Signed, Sealed Delivered - sung by Lisa (season 5 american idol)

Prom:
Giddy Up - 'N Sync

Life's Ok:
Heart and Soul - Huey Lewis

Mental Breakdown:
Gravity - John Mayer

Driving:
What about Love - Heart, Sung by Melissa (american idol season 5)

Getting Back Together:
Here We Go - 'N Sync

Wedding Scene:
Ophidiophobia - Cee Lo (Snakes on a plane soundtrack)

Birth of Child:
But It's Alright - Huey Lewis

Final Battle:
Joey - Concrete Blonde

Death Scene:
I'm gonna Find another you - John Mayer

Funeral Song:
Black Mamba (Teddybears remix) - the Academy Is... (snakes on a plane soundtrack)

End Credits:
Stop this train - John Mayer

Anyway, one of my grandmothers passed away yesterday morning. I've never had to deal with a lingering death before this. I went through phases (mind you I'm still going through phases).
1 - concern over the fact she isn't getting better and they don't know what's wrong.
2 - worry and concern over such and advanced state of stomach cancer, I'm wondering how we'll beat this, what the next steps are...
3 - shock at the realization that when she decided to go home, it was to die of starvation. I figured okay she's home and the cancer will spread or some such and she'll die real fast. Then in conversation I realized she couldn't get ANY food into her digestive system even with a J tube bypass to the duodenum. That was a hard day.
4 - Grief stemming from guilt over all the should haves and wish I hads... couple of brief crying jags and that hasn't happened again, yet.
5 - A feeling of complete uselessness at her bedside. She was all doped up on morphine the last time I spoke to her and she couldn't string two grunts together. I'm told she was lucid a couple hours later. 36 hours later and she was gone (roughly speaking).
6 - not really feeling the guilt over my choices, the missed chances, I did get to spend lots of great times with my grandparents and while I wish I had done things differently so that my daughter would know them the way I did.. she did get to know them. She's out of pain, whether you believe she went to heaven and met up with Grandpa or not, for her this journey on earth is over.

Life goes on, my father and his brothers have the task of dealing with the property. Nick nacks, photos, paintings, furniture, house and car, jewelry, I always forget the jewelry... Supposedly each grandchild will get $3000 worth of stuff... reality check please? No grandchild should get more than #3000 worth of things. Just my opinion, I'm not trying to be an ogre, but let's be real for a second. The oldest girl grandchild is slated to get some significant jewelry and a bunch of furniture which is fine, she's a single mom and I'm certainly not personally interested in most of the stuff. Now, what kills me is that four grandchildren were left off the distribution list. No good reason, just forgot. I'm not angry, I'm just confused. You wonder how something like that happens, there aren't that many of us.. and I was the first and I wasn't on the list...

and not really felt like posting, commenting on everyone else's blogs, sure, but post myself? Why do that?

quick update, Took the position with the local test lab, they've been around awhile and things are working out. I probably was one of the fastest new hires to start generating money in the history of the company. They certainly have seemed pleased. One drawback, they expect you to arrive 15 mintutes early and sometimes stay 15 minutes afterwards, and every two weeks they've got mandatory lunch meetings (half hour of the one hour lunch), on the plus side they obey the law and that all is time and half... so I'm nickel and diming along with everyone else, basically getting 1-2 hrs of OT a week, without trying hard, kinda neat, this would be a tax issue if not for the fact we get paid twice a month so it begins to add up. I haven't started working any real overtime yet... but it's out there just waiting, we're pretty busy here.

In other news, I have been blessed with grandparents and great grandparents, the living kind, the kind I got to know and visit with. Great Grandparents passed on in my teens and early 20's. Now, last year in March my father's father passed away in his sleep while recovering from a stroke (his third). Last month his widow (my grandmother) discovered she has advanced stomach cancer. She opted not to have her stomach removed and instead she's got a J tube installed at the top of her duodenum which my friends is only being used to administer medications and teeny bits of water. I took Skye to visit a little over a week ago, I went to visit without her too. She's now completly bedridden and can only handle brief conversations.. I know other's have gone through their own journeys with family and death. It's hard waiting for the inevitable. She's ready, it's the rest of us beginning to grieve and not able to really get started with the process.. it's weird with my other grandparents things were a little sudden, even with the stroke last year he was getting better, he was working on getting better. Then he died. Poof.

This, this is like "grandma's on the roof and we can't get her down". Come on you've heard that joke right? If you haven't ask me in person sometime.

The point is, first she goes in to have her lens replaced (good news it worked and she can read and watch TV as she dies), then she had her gall bladder removed cause she had gall stones... but she just didn't seem to be recovering and now that someone was monitoring what she ate, we realized she wasn't particularly eating much... so they tested and finally someone sent a scope down her throat which showed some really disgusting pictures... a bit more surgery and long story short, she's home with 24hr care and a DNR order.
She's got everything taken care of, she's planned almost every detail of the funeral.
Sicko that I am, I'm reminded of the movie 28 days later... "How long will it take them to starve to death?"

Out of no where I broke down and cried for five minutes yesterday when no one was around, then abruptly I stopped, cause she isn't dead yet..

Now, on the matrilineal side, my grandfather isn't doing fantastic, but he's getting around and no immediate causes for concern, but my grandmother on that side has non-operable brain tumors which have blinded her, and they can't even do radiation treatments cause she'd just end up with more cancer at this point because she's beyond her lifetime allottment of radiation, so while it may kill what they target, it'll just spawn more cancer elswhere. She's not in much pain, but just as she was beginning to feel her way along in the darkness, she now has vertigo because the tumors are putting pressure on those nerves that speak to the inner ear and she loses all spatial awareness.

Is it so much to ask to only lose one family member a year?

Oh, and a little gem from my Grandmother Fisher (the starving one)husbands, treat your wives like she's your girlfriend and you'll keep them happy.


that's it for now, see you in who knows when
-w

hopefully within the week I'll have an offer letter... I'd be working for a local labratory and expanding my skill base, always a good thing. It's nice to learn new tricks and build upon the foundation I've spent all this time working with. I've interviewed with these guys four times over the last two years and I think they finally realize I'm too good to pass up (again). I'm not counting chickens yet, but this does look promising, this time round with these guys I interviewed once in December, then once in February and once a week ago... sigh...

I had one call from a fellow (from another company) who said he was going to set up a face to face, and I've never heard from him again... hate that... now the EDD wants me to come in so they can help me search... or they might withhold future unemployment benefits... grrrr.... hello, I'm interviewing for Chrisakes!

-w

Cause he's just too damn cool

1. What is your favorite faire and why?
- it's not there anymore

2. Most common color in your wardrobe?
- faire wardrobe? or my normal clothes? stupid question... I like earth tones

3. How many faire-related weapons do you own?
- about 1 dagger, 2 swords all the others aren't "Period"

4. How old is your character?
- Age? ...My age, you weirdo.

5. How many characters do you have?
- just two over the last 18 years

6. Nationality of your present persona:
- Lowland Scots

7. What kind of shoes do you wear?
- english knee high riding boots, square toed

8. Socks or hose?
- hose and socks

9. Have you ever gotten so drunk at a faire that you don’t remember parts of it?
- Nope I have never experienced alchohol induced amnesia no matter how hard I tried

10. What were you drinking at the time?
- see above

11. Have you ever been on cast?
- pretty much the whole time

12. Would you like to be on cast?
- see above

13.How many times has your Character been married at Faire?
- 1

14. Have you ever been a vendor at a faire?
- no

15. Have you ever worked a booth at a faire?
- Yes.

16. How many groups are you in?
- 1 sort of on hiatus

17. List your titles:
- Beerman

18. Are you in the SCA?
- No

19. List your titles and awards:
- that would require being in the SCA right?

20. Caffeinated beverage of choice:
- Coke with no caffeine (can you believe it?)

21. Alcoholic beverage of choice:
- mead or hard cider (nice, I would've forgotten the mead)

22. Have you had sex while at faire or in the campground of faire?
- duh

23. How many times?
- I have no idea

24. Do you sew your own clothes?
- usually, no, but I did my first Ionar

25. What does a Faire Scotsman wear under his kilt?
- depends on the shows he's in and the weather, you can find almost anything under those things if you look under enough of them I suppose you sick monkey

26. What is the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you at faire?
- oh no you don't

27. Do you have a favorite show?
- Reduced Shakespeare and Comedia

28. What is your favorite faire food that you eat at a faire? (Not drink) Where do you get it?
- Stromboli, garlic artichokes, fried oysters

29. Do you wear period underwear?
- nope..

30. Do you camp or hotel when attend out of town faires?
- usually camped

31. Have you ever lost your shoe or shoes while walking around faire?
- Nope

32. Have you ever been assaulted by the alcohol-impaired while attending?
- Assaulted is such an ugly word, I've had words and assisted drunk people, as well as kept them from getting any more drunk.

33. Head gear: Hats, sashes, circlets or nothing at all?
- Hats

34. Have you ever been picked to be in a show? Which one? What’d you do?
- I was the baby Merlin

35. Who gave you your faire name?
- My mother and father.

36. Have you ever met a special someone at faire?
- Yes.

37. Does your spouse or significant other attend faire with you?
- currently, no. Previous yes.

38. Can you fit into a porta-potty while in garb or do you have to remove some pieces before stepping in?
- Yes... however, there was the year I carried a pike, had to use the buddy system on that one.

39. Do you speak with an accent or stay in character when mingling with the mundanes?
- yes, unless it was impeding a sale, or I needed to be taken seriously for safety reasons.. OR the 'customer' was a friend of mine with no other customers were in ear shot.

40. How often have you actually made a profit at faire? ... and how much does that work out to per hour?
- whenever I dealt with beer, I either broke even for the weekend, or made $9-10hr pretty glamorous pay you know? Which all went to bills in the end, when I finally got the final paycheck months later...

41. What made you start doing faire in the first place?
- Friends already doing it invited me to come have fun with them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF-v-ulFFxc

if this doesn't cheer you up, well then you aren't really my friends

:)

this isn't the worst, they let go 110 people today and therefore we get paid through January 29th as employees even though we won't be working here. We got it in writing that they won't exercise their right to stop severance or WARN act moneys if we find new employment before the 29th of January 2007 either. YEA!

I will get all my flex spending dollars available after the first of the year and only have to contribute two payments... but I need to spend as much of it as possible before Jan. 29th. AFTER January 29th I get six weeks of severance at which time I can collect unemployment IF I haven't found a job yet.

So, overall, I've had a worse lay-off before even if it had longer severance. This is still close to 11 weeks of pay from my last day of working.

So, no, I'm not complaining yet :)

Gimmee till February to become panic stricken.

This will be my last post from this particular computer.

Now, for SUSHI! Then perhaps a bucket of balls at the driving range then I spend some time with Skye.

two more days and I'm out of here, Tyco Healthcare will continue on without me, as far as I know... Good news is they won't exercise their right to cancel severance or the WARN Act pay if we manage to get hired someplace new before the WARN Act period is up. Cause, that prospect just sucked. For the handful that have job leads, the thought of telling a potential employer I need to wait till after January 29th or I loose a junk of cash stinks. Mind you, the important thing is continued cash flow and there really is little reason to be greedy.

But, people are greedy.

For me, this means if I do get hired next week, I'd get paid by Tyco for the time off at Christmas which is nice. OR if I don't find a job, I get paid into January at least. The greedy bastard in me looks and sees the possibility of working ASAP as the opportunity to bank money for my Disneyland vacation, maybe even put a down on a new car... unfortunately if I don't move on the car before the end of January I won't get the awesome 5% over dealer invoice at Ford/Mercury I was hoping to use as a continuing employee of Tyco... did I mention this was a greedy part of me?

My van loves going forward, but stop and go traffic and it starts to overheat, I think the fan switch may be failing... I've had two flats in two weeks on the same Right front (but different tires) and it's just slowly falling apart.. so I want a new car, probably another van, which is sad but true... I like having the room to take people and stuff all over. I'm just happy it still gets 20mpg on the freeway, sometimes a little more, it is a V6 not exactly a small engine... I still love the roar of the Dodge engine it just cracks me up to put my foot into the floor and hear this mild minivan come to life like it thinks it's a charger. I beat this stupid honda off the line yesterday and he was incredibly pissy being beaten by some old dude in beat up minivan. He should realize I dropped to 8MPG for the 1/8th of a mile I was accelerating and feel better about himself... priorities...

okay, enough rambling, so much for a quick update...