giovedì 30 ottobre 2008

if animals were people...

in response to my vegan condom question, douglas posed the following question:

"I didn't know that animal products were involved [in non-vegan condoms]. I wonder what animals would make out of us if things were switched around..."

good question, esp when there are only five minutes before halloween begins on the east coast.

what would a cheetah do if it were a human and we were exotic animals (as cheetas are to us)? hmmmm...for one thing, they might like us b/c we are such slow runners...they'd think it's cute...and they might like how great our camoflage works when we are walking next to really boring walls. that could be really cool to a cheetah. what else? i don't know...I think they might use our emptied out penises as change purses...did i just quote from a bad b movie that is playing right now somewhere in a dark smoky bar? and why am i not there right now?

mercoledì 29 ottobre 2008

vegan condoms?

i saw a sign yesterday for vegan condoms. It said "protect yourself and the animals at the same time."

Are vegan condoms for real?

giovedì 23 ottobre 2008

gloom and doom

My parents are just back from a two week trip to my mom's parents' farm in Nebraska. My grandparents are in their 80s and still living independently on the farm (my uncles who still farm help out a lot of course).

My mom picked up a Wall Street Journal in the DC airport to read during the 2.5 hour flight. The newspaper ended up in my grandparent's kitchen, and my grandpa took it with him to his reclining chair in the living room by the picture window that looks east across the clay hills of east central nebraska. This is his spot for reading the local newspaper, printed in a town of 800. After studying the Marketplace section of the WSJ with a powerful magnifying glass, he said...

"I don't know where this newspaper came from, but it's all gloom and doom."

More Palin Bashing

More Palin Bashing...i like the baby names on the wall

hat top to Chris

mercoledì 22 ottobre 2008

Vote no on Prop 8 in CA

Two friends of mine (a gay couple) recently got married here in California and they turned what might otherwise be a for-friends-only 3 minute video into a powerful statement for what is so incredibly wrong with attempts to prevent same-sex couples from having all the rights that hetero couples enjoy. Vote no on Prop 8!! If you get bored, just watch the beginning and then the end...or just take my word for it.

ear plugs and alarm clocks

There is an inherent cochlear conflict in utilizing both ear plugs and an alarm clock. Sure, the ear blocks block out the ambient noise and drunk screaming grad students at 2 AM. But said ear plugs also block out the alarm clock in the morning.

Isn't there an overachieving high school student out there who needs a diversion from hacking into bank websites who can engineer a solution to my predicament???

lunedì 20 ottobre 2008

Facebook Faceplant

I took a big ole Facebook faceplant this afternoon. I created a Facebook page months ago in an attempt to better communicate with people within the university where I work. That didn't really happen. Instead, I've amassed a motley crew of friends, classmates and former acquaintances. But it's still a work thing.

In typical style, given uncertaintly and a bit of mild conflict, I just avoided the situation and didn't log on for months. But I still get email notifications saying that so-and-so has requested you as a friend on Facebook. So today, I logged in and "friended" a ton of people...and then answered a question in my Facebook messaging box from someone I don't know. He wanted to know how not to "crush your junk when you do yoga," as he put it. After dispatching some sage advice about NOT wearing boxers at yoga, I said hi to a guy from gradeschool who posted an adorable picture of his unshaven face and a little baby...you know, the kinds of pictures that advertising firms use to get women to ovulate and/or buy perfume.

and then I requested Facebook friendship from a dude from grade school who appears to live in LA. I've actually tried to find him via google b/c my mom said that he was in LA. But I never could find him.

And then I clicked on a picture of another friend and learned that a cool guy I know...my first hookup after my first love and I were definitively no longer together(can you tell I'm mincing words?)...has become a firefighter. So, at least, I can say I have retroactively hooked up with a firefighter. That counts for something, right?

and I joined my gradeschool class of 1990 facebook group and looked at a picture of a little blond boy with smooth skin and shining eyes that turned out to be me.

Then I logged out and walked outside. The soft afternoon sunlight and cool ocean breeze felt real, good, and strange all at once. Being in once place at one time felt real, good, and strage after being in that bizzare time capsule that is Facebook.

venerdì 17 ottobre 2008

if obama loses...

UPDATE: Thanksgiving too.

I totally don't get it. After eight years of Bush, still people think it's the dems who are going to destroy the country (and world)...

I wonder how the big P is going to do on SNL...the spoof of the spoof...like her being picked as the VP candidate...totally surreal

giovedì 16 ottobre 2008

scuscuscuscuscuscuscuscuscuscuscuscuscuscu

scuscuscu = solar conference update solar conference update solar conference update

beer + exhibit hall = a freaking good idea

one of the solar companies brought in two kegs for "the night with joe public." this night is not to be confused with "the night with joe plumber" which, of course, was happening at the same time on the laptops of the exhibit booth jockeys who were tired of fielding questions from "joe public" and thus traded us for laptop screens featuring two politicians trading "joe plumber" quips.

joe public likes beer when he wanders through an exhibit hall. I'm not sayin it was the beer per se, but I i spotted one company that I liked a whole lot from their name "Sun Pimps" until I realized it was really "Sun Pumps". Sum pumps are cool...but Sun Pimps woulda been way better. Pimpin' out the sun...that's what we do, and we do it for you.

but seriously, there is a reason that "cocktails" are a crucial part of "cocktail parties" and "cocktail party conversations". the cocktails help with the conversations. and likewise, beer helps with the formulation of deep questions regarding surge protectors for rooftop solar systems from joe publics who own neither a solar system nor a roof to mount it on.

PS when i type "mount" i think about rabbit breeding, and the pamplet that described how (and how fast) the buck would mount the doe. Associated with this memory is that of the page in said pamphlet in which one determines the gender of the bunnies that were the fruit of said mounting.

newbannernewbannernewbannernewbannernewbanner

mercoledì 15 ottobre 2008

Solar conference

I'm headed downtown to the convention center for the night of the big solar conference in which Joe Public can attend for free and see all the solar bells and whistles for sale. I'm hoping to learn about solar water heaters, not that I can install one in our rental, but I'm just curious.

I'm also curious to check up on the green-washing I expect to see from the big utility companies...

more later

Talk to your parents about John McCain...



hat tip a blog on The Nation for this from MoveOn.org

lunedì 13 ottobre 2008

Candy Corn: Basta Cosi

It's still three weeks BEFORE Halloween, my costume is still only inside my head, and I've only seen one carved pumpkin around town.

HOWEVER...I have already overdosed on candy corn. And I don't plan to buy (note: buy not eat) any more candy corn this year. The problem is that they sell small bags of Jelly Belly candy corn on campus, and I've bought 5 bags so far this year. Basta cosi (which literally and figuratively means "stop here")

Only time will tell if my basta cosi is all bark and no bite.

domenica 12 ottobre 2008

Newman's Own Nation

We all know Paul Newman died.

We all liked his food business even if we didn't buy his products.

We all thought we was f*cking hot (or handsome)

When asked about his long-lasting Hollywood marriage, he said,
"Why go out for a hamburger when you have steak at home?"

And I just now read a short article in the latest issue of The Nation that outlined just how incredibly valuable he was to The Nation during a financial crisis in the 1990s (we're talking more than a million bucks)

And so I have to say Thank You Very Much Paul Newman.

And if you don't check out The Nation, do so (and get a subscription if you can afford one. You generally find what The NYTimes (and all the rest) will be covering in a couple of weeks or months, but less whitewashed. And while you're at it, check out an interesting (and short) article about the rise of Reagan's Supply Side economics whose final paragraph includes the following:
McCain and Palin are losing to Obama and Biden, thank God. But even the possibility that the most powerful nation on earth is in danger of electing yet another president characterized by dishonesty, belligerence, ideological obsession and personal recklessness--coupled with a vice president whose life experience makes her more appropriate for a casting session of Desperate Housewives than a cabinet meeting--gives one pause when considering the future of this country, regardless of whether we manage to avoid this catastrophe on election day.

sabato 11 ottobre 2008

venerdì 10 ottobre 2008

friday night in la jolla

walking home from work on friday night i felt a bit anxious.

that friday night je ne sais pas!

and then the camera came to the rescue.

i turned the walk into a photo shoot.

giovedì 9 ottobre 2008

dirtier mind than me

i am always pleased to be taken by suprise by someone who processes information in way that out-dirties me. This week, for example, I was engaged in a serious conversation about getting approval to pay a contractor at work to return to finish a job that, according to a higher-up, was not done properly.

to fix the problem was going to cost $1700 and would involve uninstalling some hardware and reinstalling it 1.5 inches to the left.

"Is it worth it to pay $1700 for an inch and a half?" he asked, paused, and then burst out laughing.

at that point, of course, I got it.

financial crisis or not, 1.5 inches for $1700 sounds like a pretty good deal.

mercoledì 8 ottobre 2008

54 people died in TJ last week

at least 54 people died in tijuana last week in gang battling over drug-entry-into-the-USA turf. and as my bro nicknamed (by me) "egg salad sandwich" pointed out tonight on the phone, "How many people have died from smoking weed?"

exactly...but that's what we're good at...putting people in jail and going to war.

and building roads we don't need...but that's another story.

where was I? oh yeah, italian bf bought a great nina simone cd that arrived in the mail this week and I can't stop listening to "who am I?"

but i have to be careful or i'll OD on the song and then it will be a long time till I can enjoy it again...i've done that so many times already...there is always a miniobsession...the other one right now is black tighty whities. yes, black ones. they are the shape of tighty whities but just black...so i guess they are really tighty blackies but that doesn't have the same ring to it. I was firmly in the boxer brief camp for ages and then italian bf bought me tighty blackies and I can't stop wearing them. It's like I've been taken over my an alien life form that demands this and only this type of underwear...for more on underwear...(not mine thankfully) stay tuned for the paper version of the christmas letter, in your mailboxes the second week of december.

sabato 4 ottobre 2008

"where did the last week go?" asked the beef.

where did the last week go?

i don't know.

Did I learn to paint and weld?

That list of to-do's...was it felled?

no and no

and still, last week, boy did it go.

the sun came up, the market went down

an extra 700 billion we miraculously found.

the world kept moving round and round.

and i sat here. ground beef. a pound.

a pound of ground, that's what I am.

not green eggs and ham, not sam i am.

I looked up from my whole foods case

into starring eyes on a la-jolla-lady face.

she chose a steak right next to me.

she didn't check the price. it's all about free.

when you have enough cash to never ask prices

and you hire someone to tell you what arborio rice is...

...silence...

how the hell do I know what she was thinking? she just starred into the case and pointed at a steak. And then she left. She walked over to the hot seafood bar, which if you ask me, stinks. I've been sitting in this case for the last year. Nobody buys me because I slink around at night and always look like the freshest meat in the morning, which means they sell the others in the case not me. I just hang out and watch the meat come in and out of the case. I don't have the numbers on just how much is sold and how much is thrown out...but the ratio ain't pretty. there is a lot of waste.

My favorite thing about life in the case is hanging out with the garnish kale. they always have funny stories they overheard from the migrant workers who pick them. One of them even managed to sneak in the sexy sprig of cilantro he was banging. Those two garnished like there was no tomorrow...for about a week...and then there was no tomorrow for them. they got tossed, like all the rest of them. I don't know why I'm able to look fresh every morning. But i'm not complaining. I'm just learning as much as I can while i'm here, and occasionally at night i'm able to sneak out and hop on the laptop back in the office and update this blog.

the word on the street is that Sarah Palin is a homophobic politician who wants creationism taught in schools. Now, I know i'm just a pound of beef. But it doesn't take a filet mignon to know that this is some fucked up shit. What right does she have to say that gay people don't deserve the same rights as others? And creationism? Are you kidding me? In this day and age? Just because I was grass fed doesn't mean that I think my former stomach's abilitiy to break down cellulose and turn it into something useful just popped out of no where on day 3 or 4.

i've got some serious beefs with Palin, and my beefs have nothing to do with my own beef identity.