Category: Uncategorized

• Monday evening: dinner w/ Joe, ,
• Tuesday evening: burbs gaming w/ , Mike, Mike, Zach, and John, followed by a trip to yuppy bar by and . I’m finding the company, or at least some of it, enjoyable. The gaming experience… A little less than inspiring. Less with the killing, more with the talking. =)
• Wednesday evening: recovery from tue’s sleep dep? I thought I did something else, but maybe not… Chat and LJ
• Thursday evening: downtown with , , and the visiting with general park outing, running into a former cmu person at the wireless coffee shop I dropped by, and eating italian. Then home and directly to bed.
• Friday evening: finally get a gym membership (for a month). Discover I’m up to my lifetime peak weight of 166. (Maybe I weighed more at the height of my high school swim team activity, but I don’t think so). strolling exploration of lincoln ave, mostly catch up on lj. Find other ways to relax.

An additional amusing incident from friday. It comes from using one’s gym bag as a grocery bag. As this guy was filling it up with food he says “I just touched your underwear” and immediately walks away. The cashier and I chuckle at that. It turns out that he touched the clean (unworn) pair of underwear in my bag. I feel no guilt for traumatizing the poor lad, but it does remind me to bring a plastic bag for such things next time.

40 hours/week is inhumane. =)

This was a comment I left in response to ‘s post. I ventured off topic. He was originally discussing evaluating the Iranian execution of teenage homos from a modern American cultural framepoint and the sensationalization of the single incident (not unlike, oh, say, Matthew Shepherd, but in this case more the rule and less the exception), and I wandered down a topical trail about cultural imperialism and Iraq:

Given my typically american appalling lack of historical knowledge, the Middle East more or less stopped existing between the crusades and World War I. A few hours before I’d read your post, while bored at work, I’d actually been researching what was going on in the middle east in the years between desert storm and shock and awe when I stumbled across something that started with the formation of Iraq in the early 1900’s under british colonialism. That still leaves a very large gap.

I agree. I don’t think we can turn them into us at all. And that’s not what I want. I also don’t recall proposing bunnies & rainbows. =) I propose conversion via a combination of education, food, healthcare, work, and most importantly, contact with the rest of the world all served with a religious and social neutrality. The two keys in that are education and work. From that the food, healthcare, and contact with the outside world would pretty much become self-sustaining. Obviously, that can’t be done in territories where most are hostile to us, nor can it sensibly be done in a country that’s tearing itself apart (see also, Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis packed together under one roof). But we could fund aid programs carried out by more liberal Muslims or any other group they are unlikely to bomb on sight.

As for lacking the luxury of time, I’m afraid that we have no choice. You don’t change people’s hearts and minds overnight. No matter how quickly you can get a fax from the Appalachian Mountains to the Fertile Crescent, the human time frame is less amenable to speed ups. Unless, of course, you want to slaughter the majority, and separate the rest, that is, forcibly disassemble the culture with an ongoing campaign of genocide. Color me not in favor. We’d start learning what international disapproval really means, even in the absense of disapproval we couldn’t afford it, and it’s simply completely wrong.

I agree with Pat Buchanan (and thanks to whichever livejournaler posted this where I could find it). This “stay until we fix things” idea is bullshit. Our presence there is inherently destabilizing.

That’s not to say that I think packing our bags tonight and leaving tomorrow with no further planning is a good idea. That would be a disaster. Saying “we fucked up and we can’t fix it, can somebody please help” might be a start (expect that from Bush about the same time I grow wings and fly). Maybe do a little nation deconstructing so that the kurds have their own state, the sunnis theirs, and the shiites theirs. I’m no expert on middle eastern affairs, and I don’t pretend to be. I’m throwing out my best guesses.

They love me. =) It was more of a 2/3 than 1/2 internship review.

We’ll see how much love they have to spread around when the time comes.

I have run my desire for SF by the office manager, my supervisor, (who were both supportive and encouraging, while sad at the prospect of not having me … if they have the slots available) and the SF people (who didn’t get back to me quickly). =)

Woo! =)

My roommate this summer is Mitch. He’s a medical basketcase. Well, not really, but he’s definitely had more medical unhappiness than most. Type 1 diabetic at 6 months. Born with cataracts (removed). Multiple surgeries for glaucoma. A detached retina. Corneal ulcers. Cornea replacement surgery (he now has to use eyedrops every two hours for the rest of his waking life to avoid tissue rejection issues). So, it’s pretty unsurprising that ‘stoic’ is part of how I think of him. But not a stuffy kind of stoic. More “roll with the punches” than stoic, really. And he’s laid back and gregarious. It’s actually working out pretty well as a roommate situation.

I’m not sure if he took my stated expectation that he wouldn’t want to see Latter Days as a challenge or what, but he sat through it. And enjoyed it. He wasn’t even offended by the ‘blowjob for the straight guy’ scene. =)

When asked to provide a one word description of me, his choice was “fruity”. He then qualified this by saying “but not in a gay way”. Though today he laughed at the idea that his parents wouldn’t be able to tell I was a homo by talking with me. =) *shrug*

So, Joe from Minneapolis is in town tonight. He called me this morning as I was meeting with my analyst in charge (AIC), assistant director, and director. We made plans for dinner. I thought would be a fun addition to the evening, so I invited him. Then I figured should at least be invited since it was a none-too-distant walk from his hood. We eventually all assembled at ye ol’ veggie chinese joint. (alice and friends). It was pretty good. I had fun. Then Joel went home, then Robbie went home. Joe and I had dessert at Chicago Diner. Hot [despite ponytail] waiter kept smiling. Chatted us up on our way out the door. Note, not our waiter. This may be more than wishful thinking. I may have left him my number with the bill some time in april or whenever I was last out here before the internship. Hard to say. *shrug*

Yay for people. Yay for out of town visitors.

I’m finding latter days waaayyy too compelling. I’ve been rewatching snippets of it for over a week now, and I’m still not sick of it.

So, this evening, I took my brand-spanking-new skates, and skated to the lakeshore, then along the park trails, north a bit, south a lot, catch sight of a hot guy, do a mutual double take (him on bike, me on skates), keep skating for 10s in the same direction, then do a 180 and sprint-skate after him for about 4 miles, getting somewhat closer, but never catching him. Tasting the ketosis (well, I was dehydrated and my mouth tasted vile). Skate to the gayborhood, get some berry pancakes. Train back, get off a stop early to skate home. Accidentally run across the tail end of a small (very small) folk music concert in the park sit for three songs, sing along, and clap. Get home. Shower. Update livejournal. Probably sleep soon.

Exercise is good.

beware the scroll

I attempted to indulge in a little retail therapy for my malaise. Largely unsuccessful, but at least I now have rollerblades that are less than 12 years old and a new 3.5 edition PHB.

I now have a better sense of how the apple stores work. I’m debating the merits of getting a procare package, but ~$100 seems a bit pricy to facilitate and speed up appointments that I hope to be having quite infrequently. It’d save me up to 4 days of laptoplessness, and make future laptop care appointments much easier.

Apple could do nothing for my iPod because it’s an HP iPod. Tech support had a sufficiently thick Indian accent that I suspect it may be located in India proper. I asked at both places if it could be exchanged for an Apple iPod, but of course the answer is ‘no’. HP tech support lady asked me if I was satisfied with the service I’d received, to which I replied grimly “as satisfied as I’m going to get”, she thanked me for my feedback, and then informed me that my model of iPod is out of stock, so it could take 10 extra days. Nice timing. Anyone else thinking of getting an iPod, make sure you get an apple iPod, with no other brand names tacked on in front of that. If not for the ‘hp’ on it, I could have walked out with an iPod I would have been happier with (easier to update its software from my laptop) from the apple store. I stab them so much.

I’m planning on getting Latter Days on DVD. I hear that they have the black chick’s songs in the extras. I’m down with that. Never would have purchased it if not for illegal downloading. MPAA can blow me. I also want to see Bear Cub and Angels in America, possibly purchase, since I can’t find bearcub for rent anywhere. ETA: also, I wanna see Mysterious Skin.

I may start up an amazon.com wishlist… Okay I did.

I’m also thinking of getting more toad the wet sprocket, and nickel creek. Anyone have any podcasts you’d like to recommend?