okay…who the fuck goes shopping for their engagement ring at Walmart?
Walmart wedding
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Author Archives: Patrick Calder
Donyale Monique …
Donyale Monique …
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Drew, the designer.
Drew, the designer.
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rage against the dying of the light
Do not go gentle into that good night
“Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
— Dylan Thomas
There are times I think about dieing. It’s not morbid. For most people, it’s a fact of life. And while I have every intention of living forever, I am forced to acknowledge there a situations I put myself in that are very dangerous. It’s like how I never worried much about violence in the city until I was jumped. My neighbors seem to be pretty cool people, raising families and enjoying their retirements. Except for the guy next door who occasionally photographed some porn, and eventually found himself chopped into little pieces. And while the least favorite part of my flights home to New York are the drives from the airport, I remember every time I step foot in the airport terminal that this is the city one of the planes took off from.
Anthrax.
Shotguns.
Snipers.
Disease.
Cabdrivers.
Goddamn, I must be bulletproof.
No. That’s not it.
I read something recently. That you truly own your life once you accept that whatever you do, your continued existence is in your own hands. That nobody is here to protect you. Even if they were… this is your life, not theirs. “Public Safety” is a ridiculous idea and a myth.
Ya know… this is my life. And I will damn well do what I want and need to do. I cannot live my life as if someone might come at me with the knife next, or set off the nuke outside my window. That would be obsessing about what could happen instead of what is happening,
When I leave this city, it won’t be visions of a mushroom cloud that make me do it. That cloud could appear before I press the next key, but there is nothing I could do to stop it.
If it comes, I will face it face-forwards. If someone decides to kill me, they will certainly be in barely better shape before I’m gone.
There is a great line; I think it is in Red Dwarf. Something to the effect that, “If the Grim Reaper shows up for me, I’m gonna bloody well rip his nipples off!”
I better post this now, just in case.
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voted.
Yeah. You know it. I’m gonna be bitching now.
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pity
Excuse me while I torture myself one last time tonight.
While looking through my photo archive, I kept coming cross pictures of me with these beautiful women I was dating. They utterly depressed me.
It’s been so long since any woman has shown the least interest in me, that I’m beginning to wonder why any ever did.
…
Okay… that’s enough self-pitying for this week.
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Lindsey
Just looking at the picture down there of Lindsey.
She really is beautiful. Easy to take a good picture with a subject like that. Just looking at her can leave me feeling weak.
When she started at work, I thought she was a pain in the ass. And she spent half the time pissed off at me.
But looking back, nobody is ever really like the first impression they make at work. The one problem I still have with her, (and I don’t think it is always a problem), is that she is almost always completely focused on herself and her own interests. It’s not selfishness and it’s not ego. She just always sees things in how they relate to her. When dealing with company wide issues at work, it can be … restrictive, but otherwise, nothing. She’s a salesperson after all.
Besides, her main ‘interest’ that she is always concerned about is her son, (who happens to be too cute for his own good, and will soon have more women that god himself, no doubt). She’ll do whatever it takes, for him. I don’t think there’s a thing in the world she loves more.
I think it’s very easy to underestimate her. She is as close to wild as women my age get without being floozies. But I don’t know anyone else so interested in learning. Even Sara is more like me… learning because we want to know how to do something or because learning is fun. But I’ve watched Lindsey squeeze every last bit of information out of a trade show presenter, to where the poor guy had to admit ignorance of anything further.
Fighting with her or flirting with her, you take your life into your own hands, either way.
I am surrounded by amazing women. And not one of them has the least bit of interest in me.
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Sara’s Tongue
That’s my favorite intellectual.
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Reverent
Boy Scouts kick out avowed atheist
—
The Seattle Times
Okay… not one reporter who has written about this story seems to know anything about the boy scouts, really.
The guy is an eagle scout. End of the line for boy scouts. He’s effectively done. To get to this stage, you have gone through no less than 5 “boards of review”, including what should be a very thorough one that usually specifically touches on the religion issue to get his Eagle rank.
Which means one of two things:
He either blatantly lied multiple times when confronted with this issue, which makes me question his ethics more than any belief in religion.
or
He was reviewed by people who either never checked his beliefs before or at the time chose to ignore it, which would really make me wonder why they chose to bring it up now, when you cannot do anything to this scout in particular.
He has his Eagle and all the training, skills, and recognition that goes with it. I would have told the Boy Scouts where to stick it.
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Lindsey after the Spy Museum.
Lindsey after the Spy Museum.
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Sir
That’s it.
The next person who’s within five years of my age that refers to me as “Sir” is getting bitch-slapped.
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Oct 26 protest
I wasn’t looking forward to yesterday’s protest very much. If you’ve read this far, you know mmy opinions of the annual World Bank/IMF protests. Barely pubescent weekend anarchists living out some delusional rite of passage.
“look how hard I am, man”
Yesterday’s protest didn’t get much buildup in the mainstream press. My only information came from some light pole banners and the anarchist web sites.
(The shit I read.)
Right from the start this was different.
I couldn’t tell you why, but at least outwardly, the police didn’t overreact. It may have something to do with the fact that the event was officially taking place on National Park property which mmeant it was under Park Police jurisdiction for a change. And I did notice the MetroPD Mobile Command vehicle parked near the State Department. But the gratuitous placement of foot patrols on the street was minimal, and I had no real trouble crossing in front of Lafayette Park.
Maybe the police figured the lack of press would keep the event small.
Yeah.
This was the single largest protest I have seen in the Capitol since moving here. In fact, the only events I remember with more and more vocal attendence were the Fourth of July foireworks on the Mall and maybe the Shrub’s innauguration. (That last one is questionable, since it was hard to see much with the terrible weather and the Secret Service lieing to the specttors about access.)
Two hundred thousand people, they’re claiming. Wouldn’t suprise me.
And they were different people.
They were all there. The surest sign of the limits of the IMF protests is the sheer homogony of the participants. But yesterday they were black and white. Asian. Hispanic. Middle Eastern. Old. Young. Babies. Handicapped. It first really hit me as I watched one protestor try to step off the curb. She must of been at least 85 years old. She could barely move on her own, and relied heavily on her cane. But there she was, with a pin in her coat which cast dubious aspersions on the Shrub’s parentage.
These weren’t angry people with puppets and vinager soaked bandanas. They were just your average people, visably from every walk of American life; ethnically, economically, religiously, agewise. There were spontaneous crowds of people dancing and singing. Several times Isw people facing Mecca on their knees to pray. (And not all of them were Muslim). Barring the few apparently unavoidable profiteers, these were people who all shared a common cause, and gathered together to raise their cries as one voice.
They were energized and orderly. They marched on the White House, and left in their wake, not broken windows, anarachy stickers, and spraypainted slogans, but crowds chanting for the disembodied sexual organs of the Shrub. Free people of every ilk coming together to express their hatred for the Ameriacan Resident and everything he has done. My God there are times I love America.
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What part of “fuck off” didn’t you understand?
Neo-Nazi
White Supremacy
White Power
Aryan Brotherhood
These people are all proud of their heritage, of their ‘race’, of their skin color.
Do you realize how stupid that is?
The way you’re born; wether you’re white or black or gray; wether you’re born to a Jewish mother or a Italian immigrant. These are among the only things in your life you have no control over.
And this is what people choose to be proud of.
Have you never done or accomplished a single thing in your life which you can claim to be proud of? Have you not even learned to wipe your own ass after taking a shit?
No, I’m not being particularly one-sided. Black pride is just as stupid. But they haven’t posted comment’s on my web site promoting their cause.
The comment will stay up there because these thoughts are open for public discussion. But that doesn’t mean I have to like you. So in case the headline on the last Nazi post didn’t make it clear enough for you:
You suck.
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Aquyilara
Okay,… it’s official. She’s now the sleaziest person in music. Mick Jagger is dead; long live the queen.
Currently on the box: The Day I Went Away from the album “Sleater-Kinney” by Sleater-Kinney
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Lizard Lawsuit
“O’Neil is alleging that while she shopped there on Oct. 19, 1999, a creature that appeared to be a lizard jumped out of a tropical plant display, and she tripped over the animal. As a result, she experienced extreme pain and suffering, and permanent injuries, resulting in loss of earnings and the need for hospital care, according to the summons.
“The lawsuit does not tell how the creature got into the store, or what happened to it afterward.”
— Finger Lakes Times
I see the stupidity isn’t limited to the big city.
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Lafayette Park behind the White House
Lafayette Park behind the White House
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Medical Center Metro Escalator
Medical Center Metro Escalator
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We’re going in.
okay. for those of you who are still confused about this, the United States will attack Iraq. Just like we always would attack Afghanistan. We were never coalition-building, We were wasting time while our aircraft carriers got into the area to equip our soldiers. The same thing we’re doing now in Iraq,
American troops were recently shot while performing “exercises” in Kuwait. Such a load of crap. Exercises with live ammo, apparently, since they chased down and shot the Kuwaitis to death.
Keep track of the soldiers. As soon as we hit a 10 to 1 ratio of troops in our favor, be prepared for an assault. We’re going in.
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Lawrence Lessig
“(1) The most important first indication that was absolutely clear from the argument is that our fear was misplaced. The Court clearly got it. Though the other side had written literally 300 pages trying to show all the good CTEA did (and pronounce it like it is a disease — sateeeya), the Court hadn’t bought any of it. Congress was not acting to promote progress, it was acting to reward "court favorites." The only question the Court was struggling with is whether it has the power to do anything about it. “
You have been living in a cave the last few years if you’ve heard nothing about Copyright. Whether it is the record companies using it as a bully club, or the now famous Eldred case, everyone want’s to own something.
This past week, the Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the reversal of the Copyright Extension Act. No matter what side you’re on, this article by the lawyer for the People is in depth, interesting, and strangely enough, optimistic.
Read it.
NOW!
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The Big Five music-recording companies
“It’s easy to fail in e-business; what’s hard is failing magnificently. The Big Five music-recording companies have been transcendent in this respect. Their combined efforts have gone beyond killing their e-businesses and are close to destroying an entire industry.”
— globetechnology.com
Very cool article from a Canadian journalist, about all the insanely stupid things the record companies have been doing for the last decade.
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