I'm Reminding You of Who Your Enemy Is...the Enemy. Today is the tenth anniversary of the bombing of the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. To mark the occasion, the first military trial at Guantanamo Bay has sentenced Bin Laden's former driver to 66 months in prison.
Chris Nolan talks too much I was driving to work on the highway yesterday afternoon and one of the drivers behind me started to tailgate me…really badly. And I was already going between 80 and 90 miles-per-hour. As soon as we passed the car that had been next to me, the driver behind me changed to the right lane, sped past me, and snuck between me and the car that had been in front of him for those two seconds that he was in the right lane.
I may have gotten annoyed, but I was more amused to see the Connecticut license plate. Apparently, the dude thought that being in Massachusetts gave him the right to drive like a madman. And it did not do him much good as the cars in front of both of us were going slowly comparatively speaking…so I repeatedly ended up right behind him…not tailgating, of course.
At one point there was this pickup truck on the right lane next to him. There was a ladder at the back which tipped over and almost smashed the roof of Mr. Connecticar. Mr. Connecticar swerved off to the edge of the road and kept on speeding by as the pickup truck stopped at the side of the road. I instantly reevaluated my opinion on his driving, figuring that I would not have been able to avoid that ladder so well. Basically, Mr. Connecticar prevented me from getting seriously injured and prevented my car from getting more dented than it already is.
Eventually, Mr. Connecticut went so fast that I almost lost sight of him. It turned out not to be the case, as he ended up entering the town where I work and I ended up right behind him yet again. In fact, it was not until I turned onto the road where my workplace is located that I stopped driving directly behind him. He might have thought that I was following him.
Hot Diggity Dog Well, compared with some silly things that some of the library patrons have done, I suppose that my little cooking mishap yesterday makes up for it. I put the cooking oil in the pan and stepped away from the kitchen area for a little longer than I should have before putting the food on. Long story short, I almost burned down the entire apartment. I suppose that some quick thinking, namely throwing the food onto the fire, calmed it down...so that the only the pan and the food got burnt. The whole apartment reeked of smoke and it still kind of smells, though not as bad. I was unharmed, but my eyes were pretty not good and my nose was runny. I am okay now.
Additionally, my attempt to make ice tea by putting the teapot in the freeze led to a broken teapot...and a little cut at the base of one of my fingers that about six different bandages could not stick to.
Well, at least I did try to open the door of an airplane while in mid-flight.
Sweet Mother of Preston Tucker One of the library regulars called today, asking if we had the DVD for The Secret Life of the American Teenager. She was a bit disappointed when I told her that we did not have it. And no, we do not have it upstairs either. And given that the first season of the show has not finished airing, the chances of any library having it is pretty slim. And, no, we cannot order it for you. And, no, we do not have it. And is that show really appropriate for an eight-year-old anyways? Or for anyone? I heard that it sucks. If there is one television show on ABC Family that you should watch, it is The Middleman, which airs Mondays at 10:00 PM. That's right, The Middleman. Watch it. No, I am not going to give you a reason. Just watch it.
That is The Middleman. Mondays at 10:00 PM on ABC Family. Watch it.
Song for the Summer I know that I posted a link to this...like maybe a year ago, but here it is again. It is Since I Left You by the Avalanches, one of the funnest albums that I have. It was released in November of 2000, which is like the May of Australia. Basically, it is an album of the summer. The tracks on this album are combinations of hundreds of samples from works that you might recognise if you really really tried to listen for them. I would not advise doing that, since trying to do so might distract you from the dense, complex, and beautiful melodies that the combination of samples become.
If you want pop, this is probably as pop as it gets. Oh, sure, it may tend to push aside the verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure in favour of repetition of certain phrases, but it is easy to get used to. Besides, even when the repetition starts to strain, you can always start to listen to the sheer density of each track...that is, if you are not too busy dancing.
Since there is no way that I am going to let you simply sample it, I am giving you the whole thing at once. It may take longer, but it is better this way. This is most likely a slightly different version from the one available at the store, so it is still a good idea to buy the album...provided that you like it, of course.
A man accused of checking out hundreds of books and DVDs from libraries around the Denver area and then trying to sell them will be doing all his library borrowing from now on behind bars. Denver prosecutors say 34-year-old Thomas Pilaar was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $53,549 in restitution. He pleaded guilty in May.
Authorities have recovered about 500 of the estimated 1,400 books and DVDs Pilaar borrowed from area libraries. The Denver Public Library estimates it has lost $35,000, while Douglas County says it had $11,000 worth of overdue items.
Authorities were tipped off by a woman who recently bought books through an online listing site and noticed the library identification stamps.
I don't know if I would have given him ten years, but sheesh. $53,549?
My library has a limit of fifty items, and a five-DVD limit. That would be a maximum of maybe $1,500 stolen from us on one account. Unfortunately, it would be three weeks before we notice anything wrong (one week if a thief took out DVDs) and a few more weeks before we block that person's account. That leaves several weeks for the thief to steal from other libraries. And if the thief got a hold on someone else's card or account information, that could be another $1,500 stolen from us. I read elsewhere that he used false names; here, that would mean fake IDs. How many fake driver's licenses can one have before screwing up? Even if Denver libraries allowed people to take out 300 items (ridiculous), I am amazed that he had gotten away with over $50,000 and I am wondering how he would have been able to get away with much more than that before having to move on to somewhere else.
It is not necessarily the best plan to steal unless the person has a well-thought-out escape plan. While we pretty much get rid of any patron's borrowing information if the patron does not trouble us, if that patron starts to not rack up fines past $200, it eventually becomes a legal issue. And it is quite easy to reach $200 in fines if one is not careful. And we have that person's name and contact information. Still, it is interesting to note how many telephone numbers are no longer in service. Maybe some people would rather move house than pay $400 in lost books.
And why steal from the library? It is not as if we can easily get the money back. And already we have to deal with vandalism. All the gripes about paying taxes does not make up for us getting funding cuts. And we provide free programs and whatever. If people want to sell something that we gave to them for free, they can sell the snacks that they ungraciously and ungratefully horded during our special events; we don't want that stuff back.
ETA: I have read some online comments comparing his 10-year sentence with the supposedly shorter sentences that child-molesters get. I wonder if these people would be complaining if this guy had robbed a bank.
Signed: Tommy's Mommy As I had said in a previous post, I have never really had any of my extended family live close to me, with the exception of my paternal grandmother. My father's sister lives eight hours away by car, and his cousin lives nine hours away by car. So it is pretty much a rarity when a relative comes to visit or when we go to visit a relative. There are people who have grown up with so many uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, grandparents, and great-grandparents that it can drive them to exasperation. I am not one of them. The branches of the clans are clustered elsewhere.
On Wednesday, my cousin, who is currently studying in Montreal, e-mailed my mother to tell say that her younger sister had flew in from France to visit and they wanted to come down here for a few days before the sister went back to France. The older cousin came to visit for about a month back in 2002. As for the younger cousin, I had seen her when I went to visit France 13 years ago, but I do not believe that anyone in my immediate family had met her before. But, come on, they are family from far away. Of course, they are welcome, and my father called me immediately to ask if I could extend my Fourth of July holiday until Monday. My boss gave me the okay and all was set.
They were supposed to come early this afternoon, go touring around for a couple days and then leave on Wednesday. They were supposed to, but they did not. They learned, while trying to board the bus, that 16-year-olds need written consent from their parents in order to cross the US/Canada border. They did not have this, their mother was asleep in France, and there was no real access to a computer in the bus line.
On the one hand, it was their responsibility to learn about border-crossing rules before doing something like this. That they contacted my mother merely five days before they had planned on coming suggests to me that they did not think this all of the way through. We are a getting a bit paranoid in this country regarding security, and child-trafficking is a serious issue. On the other hand, my cousins are from France, where there have been suburban riots, subway bombings, and the ETA on the border. As I understand it, they do not even need a passport to travel across Europe. So, why would they suspect that we, a nation that has not had a major terrorist attack or riot in years, would require something like a permission slip from mommsy?
And what kind of insurance is that anyways? At best, it sounds like one of those bureaucratic tactics to cover one's posterior. At slightly less best, it sounds like a tactic to instill a false sense of security within the minds of the citizens of the United States and Canada. I do that too where I work, but I require written parental consent so that the parents cannot yell at me, not to ensure that a 23-year-old French girl is not part of an international child-smuggling ring. There is no way to authenticate a letter of consent at the bus station. If my cousins had learned about it anytime between the time when they ordered the tickets (why no one told them then is a different matter) and the time that they got in line for the bus, they might have been able to forge a note.
Regardless, they gave up and stayed in Canada. The younger cousin, who had apparently had no problems traveling by airplane from France to Canada, will be returning to France on Wednesday. The older cousin might be coming to visit at the end of the month, but on her own. As for me, my disappointment turned to irritation and anger. I cut my holiday at home short and drove back to my apartment. Am I going back to work tomorrow, instead of Tuesday? Absolutely; I am still upset about this whole thing and I do not want to take it out on the kids. I am taking my extra vacation day to unwind from all of this.
Meme Well, I got tagged, so I suppose that I have to do it...well, at least the first part; why make this like a chain letter?
A. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself. B. Tag seven people to do the same. C. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it."
Do these have to be things you all don't already know about me?
HABIT: Before I go to sleep at night in my apartment, I tend to check the locks to the front and back door using my mobile phone as a light.
HABIT: I have somewhat specific rules for brushing my teeth. It does not necessarily make them look less yellow, but it is pretty much how it is.
HABIT: I loved trains when I was a child and would count the carriages whenever I saw them. While time and my experiences with Massachusetts public transportation has soured my opinion on trains, I still have the compulsion to count carriages when I see a train and to look for a train whenever I hear one.
FACT: After years of not getting it, I learned to use chopsticks from the diagrams on a chopsticks wrapper at a Chinese restaurant when I was eight. Only with my right hand, though. Someday, I will learn to use them with my left hand as well.
QUIRK: Ever since I heard on television that sandwiches are an American staple, I put pretty much everything solid that I cook for myself between two pieces of bread as opposed to on rice.
FACT: In high school, I took a Peter Pan/Greyhound bus to New York City in order to catch up with a class field trip that I thought that I had just missed when it turns out that the class never went. In order to not get in trouble for essentially playing skipping out on a group project (that I knew would be a hilarious failure) for another class, I wrote a ten-page report on my trip to New York City. I got an A-.
QUIRK: Ever since my semester abroad in Australia, I have used some UK/Australian words and spelling, and have used phrases, such as "no worries" in conversation. I even said "no worries" instead of "you're welcome" to someone over the phone at work today. It was not until I hung up that I realised that it was probably not the most professional thing to say.
ORLANDO, Fla.—Vandals have spray-painted 60 city vehicles in Orlando, Fla., some with messages against Sen. Barack Obama. The cars were parked across from city hall late Saturday night. Investigators say the culprits tagged notes such as "Obama smokes crack" and a racial epithet. They even left business cards on each vehicle.
Mike Lowe, a videographer working for The Associated Press, first told police about the damage. He saw three cars with anti-Obama messages, while the others were just heavily painted. The business cards disparage both Obama and Sen. John McCain but have messages of support for Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Police also found that many of the vehicles had open gas tanks. Orlando police are investigating.
Could we have found a solution to the high gas prices? Open gas tanks for everyone!
The "J" stands for "Jenius" A little late to comment, but I quite like the album by Drip that catatonia00 had provided. I downloaded it a while ago, but I only just listened to it. Some of it is not my cup of tea, but most of it is good stuff. At the moment, "Identity Theft" is my favourite song of the bunch.
Anyways, I watched a few shows during the whatever. One is new, one is from elsewhere, and one is not here yet. No real spoilers here; just a few words. ( Middleman ) ( Capadocia ) ( Fringe )
I also have that Carrier reality show from a few months ago to watch.
Mash Pit So, my fears over having a lot of work to do over the summer has not stopped me from making mashups. In fact, it probably is what caused me to do so. So I turned these four out during the past week. I have not gotten any better at making them, I just got quicker.
Fyrsta Ain't So On "Go On Girl" by Ne-Yo, "Say It Ain't So" by Weezer, and "Fyrsta" by Sigur Ros. The guitars in "Go On Girl", like in "With You", sounded to me really watered down. So I decided to water it down further by juxtaposing it with two of the more White and Harmless bands that I have in my collection. I was originally just going to use a Sigur Ros song, but it seemed to empty. After using the Weezer sample, I considered just dumping the Sigur Ros part, but figured that the song would be too repetitive without it. I switched the starting beat with "Say It Ain't So" because I thought that the chords matched up better. It may be difficult to hear, though.
Graf Thing "One Thing" by Amerie and "Gantz Graf" by Autechre. I guess that the minimal bursts of the guitar chords from the Amerie song reminded me of the bursts of synth chords in the Autechre piece, and everything came together from there. They even share the same pitch at the end, though I had to speed up Amerie's vocals so that it may sound like she is racing to keep up with the beat that is sometimes hard to pin down. I suppose that, where some people may look for the many differences between the two songs, I noticed a few similarities and pounced.
Don't Stop 2 Months "Don't Stop the Music" by Rihanna and "Two Months Off". So the first thumpity thump remix that I did with a Rihanna song may have been a stretch, but when I first heard "Don't Stop the Music", it reminded me of "Two Months Off". That is all there is to it.
Make It Be Love "Make Love in This Club" by Usher and "Let It Be" by The Beatles. I would not be surprised if someone else did something like this already. The first time that I heard "Make Love in This Club" while driving home from work, I could not help but start singing "Let It Be", and I am not even that fond of that Beatles song. Perhaps my lack of attachment to the song may have made it easier to use it in such a manner than other songs by The Beatles. In any case, this is probably one of the less musically interesting than the others, but I suppose that that is how it is with anthems. This was actually harder to do than I had believed it would be, primarily because "Let It Be" does not keep the same tempo throughout, so I had to tweak the samples a lot, and the beat may still sound off unless one makes an effort to not listen for it.
A drugs trial has been abandoned in Australia after several jurors admitted they had spent much of their time playing Sudoku in the courtroom. Judge Peter Zahra aborted proceedings after the jury forewoman admitted she and four others had been playing the popular puzzles to fight off boredom. The problem was discovered when some of the jurors were observed writing notes vertically rather than horizontally.
Sudoku involves completing a grid of numbers in the correct sequence.
The three-month trial had cost taxpayers more than A$1m (US$945,000) and the two accused men faced possible life sentences.
One of the jurors explained that the puzzle had helped keep her "mind busy" as she listened to repeated testimonies from the witness box. "Some of the evidence is rather drawn out, and I find it difficult to maintain my attention the whole time," the juror told the Australian Associated Press.
Lawyers had presumed the scribbling they could see jurors doing was note-taking. "We actually all thought they were quite a diligent jury," lawyer Robyn Hakelis told ABC local radio. "The judge had made many comments about what a good jury they were, how they were taking copious amounts of notes."
There is no legal action that can be taken against jurors for doing puzzles during a trial, so they will face no penalty for their behaviour. A fresh trial is expected to begin in a few weeks, once a new jury has been called.
It's Over: Nobody Listens to Techno Well, these pieces may not technically be techno anyways, but they go under the banner of electronic music. Some of them are pretty good for dancing; others just to listen to in contemplation. Some are fast, some are slow, some are noisy, some are melodic. None of them employ the autopilot poundy thump thump drums, at least not for a sustained amount of time. If you want the constant thump drum, I hear that the new Coldplay song is pretty good. Otherwise, here are sixty-six minutes of electronic music.
1) Grandma: He Near Krxern. The percussion is mostly frenetic pops and what may be fax machine noises to offset the more relaxed mood of the guitar, bass, and keyboard. 4:51
2) µ-ziq: Hasty Boom Alert. It has a melody, sort of, coming out of what seems to me like a 1980s version of a synth organ. The drums move back and forth between mid-tempo and fast. 5:17
3) Coloma: Coat of Senses. Sparse, relaxed, and with actual lyrics. The beat proper does not come in until about a quarter of the way through, and then changes halfway through so that it briefly seems as if the song is speeding up. 6:09
4) Midwest Product: Still in Love in the Midwest. This one sounds like it almost has actual drums in it to go with the guitars. Maybe it is more like those pop-rock songs that employ electronic elements. 5:18
5) The Books: Be Good to Them Always. An acoustic guitar, samples of cellos (or some sort of stringed instrument) and quotes from old recordings over what seems to be someone tapping on a desk while bouncing a basketball. The quotes kind of constitute lyrics. 4:51
6) Venetian Snares: Második Galamb. Part of an attempt to incorporate elements of Hungarian classical music in an electronic album, though it sort of discards it towards the end. Fast and hard. Just try to dance to it. 6:01
7) Aphex Twin: Mt. Saint Michel Mix+St. Michaels Mount. Another fast one, but more danceable. The style of beat changes a lot. It starts kind of hard, but mellows out a little when melody comes in a quarter of the way through. 8:10
8) Autechre: Iera. It starts out just a relaxed piece with a low-key dance beat beat. As more musical elements creep their way into the piece, the rhythm starts to fall apart and begins to sound like popcorn until a new beat comes in during the last minute. 4:55
9) Dntel: Danny Loves Experimental Electronics. Kind of bridging the gap between Hip-Hop and Jungle (or something), the beat drums move back and forth between mid-tempo and fast. Unlike in Hasty Boom Alert, the melody is fleeting and pushed to the background. 3:59
10) Soft Pink Truth: In School. A short piece that is basically a bunch of samples from songs of other pieced together to make some sort of theme. 1:07
11) Moderat: Mode2. More fast fax machine percussion with a bit of bass. Lots of tiny vocal and musical samples fill out the piece. 5:13
12) Rechenzentrum: Radian. Slow and quiet. There is some low-key jazz-like percussion and bass. Basically, it sounds like an old leaky building. 3:54
13) Limp: Night Clouds. Sort of a quiet and dreamlike ambient number with more fax machine drums. I feel that, unlike with He Near Krxern, the percussion fits in with the rest of the music. Halfway through, actual drums kick in. 6:15
Cats and Ketchup I was driving home from work yesterday evening, thinking about how the summer project is stressing me out, and I said to myself: "Oil prices be damned, I am going for a leisurely drive through the nearby town before going home". So I did. I did not know the town very well, but it was nice. At one point, I saw a cute gray and white kitty on the side of the road. Now I do not remember whether I had slowed down to get a better look or was going below the speed limit. All I remember was that the cat decided to run underneath my car while I was still driving. I slammed on my brakes and freaked. I JUST KILLED A CAT!!! Actually, the cat ran out the other side of the car and up the little hill, so I will assume that it was fine. Still, that shook me up and I decided to find my way back home.
I got home and noticed that the paper bag of paper stuffs was still in my recycling bin, even though the recycling was supposed to get picked up yesterday morning (bags for paper are supposed to be strapped on top of the bin here for some reason). Well, turns out that the recycling people rejected it because sometime between the night before and the time when they came, someone put several items in the bin.
A) Napkins. B) Pieces of a styrofoam cup. C) A coffee filter with those coffee crystal bits. D) A capless ketchup bottle. E) Ketchup.
Somehow, the ketchup got on several of the paper items (including the bag), the bin, and several of the plastic items in the bin. I spent a good amount of time cleaning out everything and throwing several paper items in the trash. Fortunately, my trash bag got picked up. I don't know whether the person sliced a hole in it or anything.
Was this pro-active payback (Payfront? Paying forward?) for almost killing a cat? Car-related karma? In any case, I learned a few lessons from yesterday's incident.
1) Do not put your recycling bin out until the morning. 2) Wasting petrol will end up wasting other things. No more pointless driving. 3) Recycling is for chumps.
Why all of the secrecy? So, 4 1/2 months late and I finally saw Cloverfield. I had never intended to ever watch it, but my father had offered me a copy (ahem) of a DVD and I figured, what the hey.
The film was fine, I guess. I really appreciated the special effects and stuff. It was like Forrest Gump in that I usually had trouble telling what was real and what was fake. Even after watching the featurettes, I found it difficult. The handicam work did not bother me much. It did not seem any worse than Irreversible, anyways. However, since I saw neither film in the cinema, I may have lost out on the more sickening visual factors. On the other hand, if it was meant to be a video tape, then it was meant to be seen on television. So...there.
The story was meh. I tried to not step back and think of it as a movie, otherwise those tape overlay things would get really annoying. The acting was fine for what it was. I did not really care much for the characters. They were likeable, but I did not really need a 74-minute movie to have a 17-minute introduction that, really is a bare-bones hackneyed story, that, I guess frames the rest of the movie or some nonsense. And the 10 minutes of closing credits? Fuggedaboudit.
Some of the stuff on the featurettes was interesting. I learned a bit about the monster that only kind of came across in the film, though they did not explain why there seemed to be a size discrepency.
I am not sure I bought Abrams' inspiration for a monster movie. He went to Japan, saw Godzilla everywhere, and thought of making an American version of Godzilla? I have not seen Godzilla in a while, but I had thought that, at least the original, was supposed to be a symbol for nuclear power, American might, Japanese aggression, Japan as victim, and those two atomic bombs that blew up a couple of Japanese cities nine years before the movie came out. Or something like that. That is pretty unique to Japan, and something that I imagine I could never fully understand or appreciate.
So, what is the American equivalent of Godzilla? A big scared baby? Is that supposed to mean anything? Is it us? The still young country weilding a lot of power that is scared for its freedom, lonely and apprehensive, prone to violence and lashing out, defensive, unappreciative of the fears and dreams and feelings of the little people whose lives and livelihood it destroys? Eh...I dunno. The people on the featurette did not go that far; they just called it scared, so whatever. From the way the people talked, I doubt that there was meant to be much depth to the story anyways. Godzilla may have been scared too.
I am not sure if there are that many real parallels to 9/11, though I suppose that there were elements that were meant to evoke the feelings of 9/11. The monster, however, was pretty much aimlessly destroying whatever parts of the city was in its path for hours, which was quite different from what the 9/11 attackers did. The aim, the method of attack, and the timeframe were totally different. Cloverfield did not really provide any notion of what the fallout was, except for one hint at the very beginning that New York City would no longer exist as New York City. Perhaps that is what it may have felt that day, but New York City is still here and as feisty as ever. I guess that I might feel different if I were a native of New York City, but I have trouble making that emotional connection.
I heard that there has been thoughts of a sequel. Personally, I would not do a retread of what was going on. How about a story of what happens afterwards? Someone could smuggle a small video camera into...someplace. Like making an actual documentary.
On a related note, eleven years late and I finally saw Donnie Brasco. Funny, cool, and ultimately kind of depressing. There were most likely a bunch of creative liberties on the part of the movie makers, but it was good anyways.
Get a job, Hippie Don't worry; this is not another plug for The Wire. This is, instead, a comment about work, lack of work, and figures of speech. Of course, I am guessing that most of you have already passed on reading this regardless of what I am about to say, especially since it is so long. It would, thus, be pointless of me to ask for you to express your opinion on this matter--whether I am being too sensitive or overly-PC on this matter--even if you have never seen the show or have any idea about the people whom I will be talking about. But I just did, so here goes.
A few days ago, I read this comment from sportswriter Bill Simmons: To Kima's lesbian ex-girlfriend on "The Wire" who now plays a housewife in those commercials for the new Viera televisions. Am I the only one who feels like nobody from "The Wire" should ever be allowed to work again? I feel like all of the "Wire" characters were real people -- I can't handle seeing Kima's ex or Murray the lawyer or Clay Davis in 30-second ads. I just can't.
If you wonder whether I am taking that quote out of context, you can read it again here near the bottom of the page.
What? So, I somehow caught a few seconds of the Doctor Who show the other evening. I had never really watched it much, so maybe I missed several of the more subtle elements of it. Personally, it seemed to me to be a combination of a children's sitcom, a high school play, and a Christmas adventure movie with special effects worthy of a Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie.
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