pictures!

I have started preparing my pictures from the recent Christensen picnic. Though it is nowhere near ready to openly announce, you can check out the progress here.
And in case you missed it over on the left there, the pictures from the 2002 Calder reunion are up here.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

But is there anyone left who isn’t a victim?

I work with a bunch of obnoxious assholes.
I say that in the most loving way. I would rather not work with any other kind of people. As the old saying goes, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”
But is there anyone left who isn’t a victim?
In a discussion about soft drinks, after saying she didn’t drink pop, I mentioned, as might happen in a discussion, that I’d heard Coke was the number one selling beverage in the world.
The response involved an indignant rebuff, that she simply didn’t like any soda and didn’t drink it!
Who asked? Who offered? Who beat you about the head and shoulders with a 12 oz. can and forced a Sprite down your throat?
When a fact doesn’t apply to your life, it is hardly cause for great personal grief. My discussion of facts will not be curtailed by your indignation.
As if you didn’t know by now that I thrive on upsetting people. But if you make it too easy for me, it will just take all the fun out of it.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

FSB Calls FBI Agent an Illegal Hacker

“”If Russian hackers can be convicted on evidence obtained by the Americans through hacking, it means the U.S. secret services may use further illegal means of obtaining information in Russia and in other countries,” an FSB spokesman told Interfax on Thursday.”

The Moscow Times
Good point.
Apparently search warrants are only necessary when dealing with God-fearing American citizens, as opposed to those heathen fer’ners.
(Unless of course you’re a member of the RIAA, in which case you can do whatever the hell you please, without being held responsible.)

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

17th Street Truck Ban

“The U.S. Secret Service as of today will ban most trucks on an eight-block stretch of 17th Street NW just west of the White House because of the threat of potential truck bombs, D.C. and federal officials said.”

Washington Post

They’re lying to you.
My guess would be it’s the SS that is the one misleading. They already have a reputation for insane security precautions. And they currently have a president who demands more security than any in history.
The White House is already secure from any reasonable truck bombs. From t he front and back of the White House, you can approach no closer than the rough equivalent of 2 city blocks. And to each side are building so massive that they easily dwarf many times over the 300 unit apartment building in which I live. Buildings so large they would absorb the largest truck bombs I have ever seen.
They lie.
Now ask why.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

Same-Sex Unmarried Partner Data

fact n. (‘fakt):a piece of information presented as having objective reality – in fact : in truth
“1) Same-sex spouse responses were flagged as invalid to comply with the 1996 Federal Defense of Marriage Act (H.R. 3396) passed by the 104th Congress. This act instructs all federal agencies only to recognize opposite-sex marriages for the purposes of enacting any agency programs. In order for Census Bureau data to be consistent with this act and the data requirements of other federal agencies, same-sex spouse responses were invalidated. The legislation defines marriage and spouse as follows:

“In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.”

“In order for the Census Bureau to be consistent with this act and the data requirements of other federal agencies, same-sex “spouse” responses were invalidated. “

The U.S. Census Bureau

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it worked

oh soo suhweet.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

testing testing one two six

Just testing out a new program — Kung-Log. Should let me post to my movable type logs without using a web browser. Nice clean interface. Good basic features. And if it doesn’t work, you won’t see this anyway.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

security in the skies

“British tourist Judy Powell, 55, bought a GI Joe doll in America as a gift for her seven-year-old grandson George.
“Security officials at Los Angeles airport found the toy — similar to Action Man — when they searched Judy’s bags before she boarded a flight to London.
“Then they took the figure out of its box and confiscated its tiny replica Armalite rifle.”

The Sun
Stupid, inbred, moronic, bonehead.
The security guards say they were simply following instructions to “confiscate anything that looks like a weapon or a replica”. This is what happens when you put people who could reason their way out of a tent in charge of securing a high traffic gateway.
These are the same people I saw on a recent trip to Texas. The guard who made me feel the safest was working the cummuter flight building at DFW. He must have weighed at least 300 lbs, all fat. I’m not sure if he could walk, because the entire time I watched him, he was leaning back in a chair, (a truley strong chair), facing the doorway; presumably guarding it. To be fair, he only passed out and started snoring once. The little line of drool down his cheek was endearing.
Just fucking give eveyone an glock when they get on the plane. When was the last time a NRA meeting was held up? I guarauntee I will be able to keep the fat guy from drooling on my shoulder on this flight.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

why not me?

I’m disturbed.
More so than even Sara will tell you.
I have been the modern internet.
I have been through every trend and every type, before any of them became fashionable. I IRCaddicted and romanced. I cracked and pirated. I telneted to online music shops before CDnow was a nightmare in customer service. I learned to handcode HTML not to be cool, but because there was no other option. And even then, there was damn good money in it. I have been at least six months ahead of every major web design trend. (here’s a little tip: half of them were crap). When I lost all interest in being online for a while, it disturbed me. What would happen if the other half million did.
Where’s my money. Where’s my fame. Where’s my options. Where’s the obsessed fans?
If I saw all this, a step ahead of the masses, why didn’t I make something out of one of the ideas. I proposed these many of these things to friends.
I’m too fucking lazy.
………………..
I have no modesty, so don’t even bother telling me how concieted I am. Modesty is an utter waste of time.
You know when you have done anything of value. If you don’t, you’re probably too clueless to accomplish anything deserving pride or respect.
Pride is not a evil thing. The Bible was wrong. Egotism is what will destroy your soul.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

DC is a planned city

You know..Ierjk .,, ,xc, ,, .,c , .
sorry… sneeze.
I was saying…
I have a hard time taking pictures in this city. A small part of it is no doubt that it is hard to find anything interesting in the familiar.
But the more looming problem is the lack of adequate subject matter.
I enjoy taking pictures of natural objects and situations. Something spontaneous or unplanned. Small items in everyday life.
But this is the District. Nothing goes unplanned here. Everything is a presentation. Whether it is federal, city, or private property, it all looks the same. They all plant the same flower beds. They all get the authentic antique looking accessories at the same Homebuilders store. They all put out the same faux iron benches.
The people are no different. Everyone is putting on a front. The homeless scream and yell or shuffle and moan. The politicians, likewise. The college student’s buy the just right unfashionable clothes, and attempt unnatural things with their hair. There are the fashionable yuppies leaving the bar after work in their black pants and blue dress shirt to rush home to their Dupont Circle apartments or suburban houses to change into khakis and sweaters, before heading off to a show later.
There are parts of this town where the facade doesn’t extend. But I tread carefully. They are not friendly places for a skinny little white boy with an expensive camera.
My best pictures come from travelling. I am going home to NY next week to see my family, and to see what I can see. I will not forget my camera.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

Education is no excuse

"In the way they’re kind of writing it right now out of the Senate Finance Committee, some people could spend their entire five years on welfare – there’s a five-year work requirement – going to college. Now, that’s not my view of helping people become independent, and it’s certainly not my view of understanding the importance of work and helping people achieve the dignity necessary so they can live a free life, free from government control."

Newsday.com
That quote, ladies and gentlereaders, was brought to you by your duly miselected “Education President”.
Just cause the Shrub spent his four years at Yale binge-drinking, tokeing, sleeping late, and gropeing the ugly sorority sister, doesn’t mean other people don’t get some self-respect and ambition out of college.
So unless we’re seeking to breed a class of illiterate peons to clean our toilets, maybe the president shouldn’t be trashing schooling while speaking from the lecturn in a public school.
Heaven forbid this country had intelligent people creating new products and ideas to propel the economy and the planet into the future.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

Lickety Split Couriers

“Jim, a punk dyke bike messenger, is addicted in equal parts to her stripper girlfriend, Ally Cat, her bike and speed, though the three competing habits have a tendency to cancel one another out. Breedlove also was once a speed freak, a dater of strippers and a bike messenger. (She founded Lickety Split Couriers, an all-girl bike messenging service, in 1991.)”

Salon.com
Oh.
my.
God.
Lickety Split Couriers
too perfect.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

Fuck the RIAA

“The Recording Industry Association of America’s Web site was unreachable over the weekend due to a denial-of-service attack.
“The apparently deliberate overload rendered the RIAA.org site unavailable for portions of four days and came after the group endorsed legislation to allow copyright holders to disrupt peer-to-peer networks.
“”Don’t they have something better to do during the summer than hack our site?” asked the RIAA representative, who asked not to be identified. “Perhaps it at least took 10 minutes away from stealing music.””

CNET.com
This has all the maturity of a junior high girl complaining how boys act.

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Russian cargo plane crash kills 14

“An eyewitness who identified himself by his first name, Konstantin, said that the plane had banked hard on its left-hand side, hit the ground and exploded.
“Vasily Nayuk, an official with the Emergency Situations Ministry, said that according to preliminary information 14 people were killed. Two flight attendants survived and were hospitalized in critical condition. “

Salon.com
Okay… dead people = bad. But could someone tell me why there were flight attendents on a cargo plane?

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

He will get me killed.

You kind of get sick of the helicopcopters here. One reason or another, they’re always overhead. But sometimes the definition of overhead gets a bit ridiculous.
Last night there was something, presumably a helicopter, hovering at roof level somewhere in the neighborhood.
Quite a few neighbors were at their windows as well.
This, the night after a pair of F-16 fighter jets chase a UFO across the District.
……….
“When the US goal shifts from one of moderating Hussein’s behavior to the openly expressed purpose of ”regime change,” what does Hussein have to lose? And when Hussein knows an invading US force is surely coming, does he not have to ”use or lose” whatever weapons he has? Isn’t Washington forcing him to respond with his worst?”

Boston Globe
When we finally do take it upon ourselves to enter Iraq, (and believe me, we will eventually) we’d better all just kiss our collective asses goodbye.
It will be the surest trigger to someone or some country to launch a major attack on the US to teach us a lesson.
Americans didn’t seem to get that idea from last September. It wasn’t some mental deficient intent on causing meyham just for the enjoyment of it. This was an organized movement of people, with no intention of a prolonged attack. Repeated attacks would have meant they were interested in outright destruction in this country. Don’t believe it was our security that prevented such attacks from happening. As I’ve said here before, even here in the heart of the country, no one in power knew how to respond immediatly after the attacks, or even for days.
Those attacks were a message. The US has been behaving as an imperial force for better than a hundred years now. We justify our foriegn military assaults and occupations for economic reasons by declaring the need to spread our morality. I for one have never heard God/Allah/Jehova telling me to go forth and convert yon savages.
We armed Iran to fight our enemies. We armed Iraq to fight our enemies. We armed central american drug manufacturers to fight our enemies. We armed Afghanastan to fight our enemies.
Maybe if we stopped being the world’s arm supplier, these people would stop stabbing us in the back. We’re only lucky that the biggest countries on the planet have always been our enemies, or else we would really be sorry for arming them.
We have a Shrub in the Oval Office who is drawing lines in the sand and taunting the enemy. He is the worst possible person to be in office right now. His very nature is being a business man. And a bad one at that. Every decision he makes is based on a business point of view. He has neither the historical perspective nor the national morality to truley inspire his own people, much less the global audience.
He will get me killed. When we get bitch-slapped, it will be close to home. But don’t worry… you can be sure he won’t be in town that day.
………….
The Shrub, the man of perpetual vacations, is leaving on another. He plans to spend a month on his ranch. Does anyone wish to start a pool now on how soon we send forces into Iraq?

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!