Category: Uncategorized

Travel ambitions

A week or two ago at work, I wrote down a list of vacations I’d like to take. Or vacation destinations, roughly. I’ll be trying to take it easy on the budget this school year, but I’ll have weekends free, so I’m thinking 3-5 non-family related trips. One of the key features is seeing people I know, or meeting bloggers I’ve read, in the destinations. Especially if they can show me around or put me up. Another key feature is places I’ve never been to before, or at least haven’t been to recently.


Other proposals are welcome, leave them as comments. =)

Still got dat special groove

So, After the “Farewell to the Interns” happy hour (2 weeks early for me, but so it goes). I was grabbing the red line north to collect my laptop (from which I am now regaling you with tales of my exploits) with my fellow intern and former stats partner Katie. As I get on the train, a cute guy in a bright purple t-shirt makes eye contact and says “Hi.” Katie and I chatter for a bit, and purple shirt guy and I keep making eye contact. He gets off with two friends, one male, one female, at the stop before my destination, says ‘bye’ and continues making eye contact and friendly smiles until the train pulls away.

Katie is amazed. She wants to know how he knew. I explain the eye contact thing, and she says she was totally oblivious.

Well, feeling impulsive after I got off the train, I booked it south. I spotted the purple shirt half a block off, walked up beside him and said hi. We chat for a bit. He’s from pittsburgh, lives in long island, and is in town ’til wednesday. He introduces me to his friends. He sends his friends into the restaurant, and goes off with me to find an ATM. We exchange numbers. He says he’ll call after dinner, and if he does, great. And if not, oh well, it was a good ego boost.

Live from the apple store.

Hyperopia

I often have trouble attending to the details in life. I’d definitely consider myself a big picture kind of guy. It’s on odd sort of hyperopia. It certainly has its benefits. One of the reasons people think I’m so smart is that I see connections and patterns that other people miss. I see them, because I’m always focusing on them. But it also has its downsides. Leaving aside the prozaic difficulties of my oft missing keys, glasses, and wallet, there are the larger concerns. “I’m going away in 3 weeks, why should I go out and have fun? In the long run, it’s not like I’ll be seeing much of these people, cool though they are.” Then there’s the shit I give myself for not going to the gym, given its clear long run payoff for short term discomfort, boredom, and sacrificed time.

Sometimes it helps to take my eyes off the prize. Every once in awhile. It’s just that, when I do, I have trouble focusing.

current status on the separation of church & state

Apparently, Bush has declared his support for teaching religious psuedoscience, in particular, intelligent design, in public schools. Additionally, we the American taxpayer are funding fundamentalist indoctrination electives in our public schools (though that is generally paid through local property tax, so not so much _our_ money, but still violating the first amendment like a cheap whore on roofies in a back alley in thailand).

I occasionally feel the urge to throw Bible bits back in the face of fundamentalists. Particularly Jesus’s words. Ask ’em how they think Jesus would have felt about taking away from the poor to give to the rich. Ask them what he said about proclaiming one’s faith at high volume, or on the street corners. Perform a bit of religious Judo. Because, fundamentally, I view religion as an arbitrary, ad hoc, internally inconsistent set of explanations for the world which put adherence to doctrine above perceived reality. Basically all religions fall into that categorization for me. Religion also reminds me of the practice of saying what you believe then claiming it’s your religion, regardless of how you came to believe whatever you came to believe, see also north African female genital mutilation.

I’ve been bitten in the ass by this attitude of mine from time to time. Backed myself into a corner, whatever. Using tools I don’t believe in to convince people who do believe in them that they’re wrong seems pretty dumb to me. And yet, how else to get through? I’ve played this game with a Wiccan or two in my time as well as with Fundies. (The Wiccan was trying to say that the 3-fold rule made it okay and safe for him to engage in acts of revenge, he dismissed me as ‘not even a broomrider’ when I started criticizing his actions based on my understanding of it, under which he was smoking crack. Small loss, in retrospect).

recently posted a copy of an essay on the subject of misapplying christianity in the realm of politics. Not that this is new, Crusades anyone?

So, what are your thoughts on atheists (or adamant agnostics) talking bible with theists? And, for that matter, how should any person deal with whackjobs of other religious persuasions in discussing matters of state? Particularly when the whackjobs can’t even keep their own religion straight?

A decent explanation of what public policy is

So, half the time when people ask me what my major is, my answer is immediately followed by the question of “What is public policy?”.

So, in random stumblings around the net today, I found out that wikipedia has a much more articulate, if long winded, explanation than most of what I’ve come up with off the cuff.

Today after work

I went to the apple store, got my express-service-with-blowjobs for $99, and a huge external hard drive for $160 or so. Plus a little ipod protector. Woo. Soon I will backup my hard drive’s beautiful uniqueness to the external hard drive, and then turn the laptop in to them for 1 day service to replace my fucked up hard drive and jammed disk drive. Yay?

Then over to ‘s place. We went skating on the lakefront all the way north just past hollywood and all the way south to downtown (well, as far as the trail goes as a trail, per se). Afterwards, showers, then dinner at Penny’s noodles (good + cheap = yay).