here's to you, not sucky monday

so the past two days have been pretty decent, all things considered. we finally got some snow, heroes came back on, the colts beat the patriots, and hillary clinton finally announced her run so we can stop conjecturing about it and start bitching with the facts (those of you that choose to bitch. i say let her run, yay women, etc., vote for obama. but that's just me, and it's only january.)

i just wanted to have a shout-out to these lovely days of sunday and monday, because tomorrow is the state of the union address and it can only be bad for us. normally i try to watch it from a bar with plenty of alcohol at hand to play drinking games and numb the urge to put my hand through the t.v., but this year the crowd is decidedly less political and i have a feeling i will be venting my feelings here along with 9/10ths of the blogosphere, or everyone not associated with pajamas media. it will be covered by every channel, pre-empting whatever you were hoping to watch, but both cnn and msnbc should have good coverage, with msnbc putting chris matthews and keith olbermann on it. also he'll be interviewing hillary later this week, which should be interesting as he hasn't shied away from asking people questions they'd rather not answer. tune in.

that said, here's to a lovely beginning of the week, and the downhill slide that's sure to follow.

shoes are like potatos?

as a recent (ok, i'll say it) drop-out of a literature ph.d program, this combination of article/commentary from gawker brought home all the reasons why grad school is so great, and all the reasons why you want to leave as soon as humanly possible...

n+1 takes on the semiotics of payless
(via gawker)

step by step, lie by lie

as the rhetoric between the administration and iran grows and my boyfriend and i argue over the likelihood of war with iran, it seems worth revisiting this excellent timeline from mother jones, which chronicles in excruciating detail the run-up to the iraq war. they call it "lie by lie" for a good reason...even though we all lived through it, and many of us saw it coming, you'll be shocked to look back and see how much it all fits together in retrospect. it's a disturbing echo of current events, and worth a look for anyone interested in revisiting exactly how we got ourselves into this mess. it's also (nerd alert) a great use of flash and really well put together from a design perspective, if any of that matters to you political junkies. i believe it's also searchable, paper writing folks.

random blogosphere items of interest

not so breaking news:
bill o'reilly is an ass, believes kidnapped children "have more fun" with their kidnappers
(via media matters)

it's heeeere....it will monopolize your system resources, but you'll love every minute of it.
google earth 4

college republicans, still lame.
18-24 and support the war? great, don't enlist, take cookies to some wounded troops.
(via this modern world)

yes yes yes.
why being a feminist does not mean backing all women
(via alternet)

this doesn't even deserve a title

from bush's recent 60 minutes interview:

PELLEY: Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job?
BUSH: That we didn't do a better job or they didn't do a better job?

worst. president. ever.

iphone- shiny goodness or sucky letdown?

most people i know (read=mac obsessed fanboys) have been waiting eagerly for months for the announcement of the iphone, sure to be God's gift to the computer using world (read=everyone). now that they can finally put away their mock-ups and feast their eye's on the real thing, however, the shiny object joy of the touchscreen and the sheer mac-ness of it all seems to be wearing off under the decidedly not so shiny glare of reality. as a person who has worked fairly extensively with both mac's and pc's, i have to say in the interest of full disclosure that i generally consider myself to be more of a pc person. i will say, though, that mac does what it does well, and that they have an absolutely killer marketing strategy. i won't list all my pros and cons of each here, but in my last laptop buying consideration process i came thisclose to a mac but just couldn't bring myself to make the switch...to me macs are an illusion somehow, and they never quite live up to their expectations in day to day use. plus i make my living fixing broken pc's at the moment, so who i am to complain about shaky os's?

at any rate, initially the iphone does look pretty effing sweet, but it looks like it might be better as the new ipod (though apple won't be the first working this touchscreen) and not so much as a phone. the good cnet bloggers over at crave have put together a pretty good list of why the iphone may just be good for shiny object lust and not so much actual use...sorry mac fans, but you can't be all right, all the time.

no, virginia, they don't really have herpes.

so i'm actually old enough to remember a time when prescription medicine wasn't advertised on television in hopes that you'll take your desire for the new anti-depressant/statin/bp lowering med to your doctor. apparently this trend causes some confusion among the younger generation, as i learned while watching a valtrex commercial with my step-sister:

her: so do you think these people actually have genital herpes?
me: um, no. they're actors.
her. really?
me: yeah, they're getting paid to talk about it so more people take this medicine.
her: huh.

what followed this exchange was an even more ridiculous conversation about exactly which types of herpes it's ok to make fun of people for having between her and her brother (answer=none), but it left me feeling slightly disturbed that a 13 year old girl might think that all of the people shilling meds, or anything for that matter, on t.v. might really believe the things they're saying and not just be paid actors. i'm not sure if it says something about her age, personal naiveté, or complete lifetime immersion in advertising, but it does seem slightly problematic that kids don't even take commercials with a grain of salt. not giving me a heck of a lot of hope for questioning the media/government/etc as they get older.

generation sheep? i sure hope not. maybe we need to expose them to the power of nancy pelosi's womb.

disco balls and the feminazi agenda

as if you needed any more evidence that ben shapiro is a jackass, he helpfully wrote this editorial a few days ago to remind you what a moron he is, harvard law or no. his problem? nancy pelosi's womb and it's apparent influence over the m.s.m and beltway politicos.

(article example: "Pelosi is ardently pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality, soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on illegal immigration, anti-gun rights, anti-religion and anti-welfare reform. She wants to dramatically escalate taxes and doesn't believe that we're currently engaged in a war on Islamism. But she used the Lamaze method, so don't you dare call her a San Francisco liberal!")

anyway, just to further clarify matters, shakespeare's sister creates a helpful diagram to demonstrate exactly how the radical gay and feminazi agenda is formed in the womb and spread to all those so easily influenced on capital hill by it's subversive ways. i especially dig the disco ball.

when really bad plans go wrong

it's been a weird week for news. strange, unidentified smells in manhattan, birds falling out of the sky in australia, and now this: a body found dead in the wheel well of a plane that had flown from senegal to atlanta. not too much is known at the moment, other than that it appears to have been a stowaway. the flight is nine hours long. this story begs questions on several levels. we can't take more than three ounces of lotion on a plane, but someone managed to sneak into the wheel well? nice going, airport security at about fifty different levels. also, not that senegal is the type of country from which one flees, but if one was trying to leave, shacking up in the wheel well of a 767 seems, well, more than a little misjudged. they were interviewing people on the plane, so it will be interesting to see how this story develops. as usual, they were quick to assert, there was no terrorism involved, but just as quickly, that no one really knew the details, so who the hell knows. senegal, the new front in the war on terror? they were a colony of france...........

why msnbc deserves a special place in our hearts

it came to my attention over my christmas vacation that not everyone has heard of keith olbermann. this is a travesty, to be sure, as mr. olbermann is one of the very few people in any form of media "speaking truth to power" as they say, and i am regularly shocked the man still has a job. his show, "countdown," is aired on msnbc at various times, but you can download all kinds of clips from youtube and many of his speeches are up online as well. the whole show is frequently hilarious, but when he does his final speech (special comments) he's almost always deadly serious and as on point as can be. here's an excerpt from a recent show, on bush's new (moronic, evil, pointless, etc.) plan for a troop "surge" in iraq:

This senseless, endless war.

But -- it has not been senseless in two ways.

It has succeeded, Mr. Bush, in enabling you to deaden the collective mind of this country to the pointlessness of endless war, against the wrong people, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

It has gotten many of us used to the idea -- the virtual "white noise" -- of conflict far away, of the deaths of young Americans, of vague "sacrifice" for some fluid cause, too complicated to be interpreted except in terms of the very important-sounding but ultimately meaningless phrase "the war on terror."

And the war’s second accomplishment -- your second accomplishment, sir -- is to have taken money out of the pockets of every American, even out of the pockets of the dead soldiers on the battlefield, and their families, and to have given that money to the war profiteers.

Because if you sell the Army a thousand Humvees, you can’t sell them any more until the first thousand have been destroyed.

The service men and women are ancillary to the equation.

This is about the planned obsolescence of ordnance, isn’t, Mr. Bush? And the building of detention centers? And the design of a $125 million courtroom complex at Gitmo, complete with restaurants.

At least the war profiteers have made their money, sir.

too bad the white house only watches fox news, eh?

here's a link to the rest of the speech as well.

now we can swim any day in november

in light of 2006 being the warmest year on record it seems like a good time to either panic about our impending doom, or start cranking out the homemade biodiesel and put our own stamp on the "fight global warming" movement. while we may not all be able to drive the diesel vw golf of stephen's dreams, there are plenty of pretty easy things to do to help steer our pretty planet back in the right direction. al gore would be so proud.

1. super easy. join terrapass. for a variable sum (for a cr-v it's about $40) you can buy a yearly pass to counteract the emissions of your car and eliminate your carbon footprint, which they'll reinvest in green energy. now you can also buy them for your plane trips and for your house. it's not a ton of money and it makes a measurable difference. they have a third party audit them to verify where the money goes as well. they send you stickers too, and who doesn't like stickers?

2. also easy. buy more local food. yeah, it costs more. but the less time it takes your food to get to you, the fresher it is, the less possessed it has to be to stay that way, the better it tastes and is for you, the less chemicals it contains, etc.

3. even better- eat less meat. know very much about how your meat gets to your table? the way we farm animals has direct consequences on our emissions levels, in particular cows. what to do about it? eat less meat for one, support organic, grass-fed beef for another. there are plenty of farms working towards sustainable agriculture and there are co-op farms you can join or buy food direct from the farm- find them here.

4. not so easy- walk, ride your bike, take the bus. this one depends on where you live. of the many places i've lived over the past couple of years, i can honestly say most of the time you could suck it up and walk, but that bike riding was mostly out of the question due to traffic and lack of bike lanes or sidewalks. buses are practically non-existent outside of university campuses and large cities, unless we're talking europe, in which case all public transport is superior, even in luxembourg. bully for them.

5. install those cool looking fluorescent bulbs, turn the heat down, etc, etc, wash your clothes on cold. you know the drill kids, they've only been teaching us this stuff since the second grade. even the repubs are jumping on the save the planet bandwagon, and it's about freaking time.

you already knew all this, right? right. well consider this a friendly new year's reminder to do your recycling, walk someplace once in a while, and stop being so happy it's 55 degrees in january. cute little penguins in antarctica are losing their homes. or something like that.

and really, none of this stuff will do any good unless there are real changed enacted on a national level. i say national because we're responsible for more of this than any other industrialized nation, and i think it follows that we ought to act accordingly to work to fix it. in all likelihood, the government won't be the ones doing the work here....organizations like terrapass, or the apollo alliance, or even states, will be pushing for change. george monbiot's new book "heat" attempts to present some real-world solutions as well, more than just "drive less", etc,...here's a review.

bandit

this saturday, we lost our family dog bandit. he was eleven years old. he was an eighty pound best friend and family member to all of us, and we'll miss him so much. we love you bandit. i'm glad i had a chance to say goodbye.

last night's dream: or, my missed chance at being a debutante

in the occasionally interesting subject of dream interpretation, i offer last night's creation-


me, along with a large group of girls, some of whom i know and some strangers, brought to new york with one suitcase and no real idea what was going on. what is going on? debutante (debutard?) luncheon! to my panic and chagrin, my suitcase lacks the requisite white pantsuit-type lunching outfit every debutante requires and is instead filled with black, vaguely punky hipster clothing that i try desperately to make into some kind of presentable outfit, knowing that i will surely be denied entry due to my wrong-end of manhantten appropriate wardrobe. and the worst part- i'm actually kind of broken up about this.

wtf?

odd manifestation of my current existential crisis? repressed lament over never getting to be a debutante? plain old cracked out standard issue dream?

i'm going to go with number 2. lord knows i always wanted to have multiple male escorts (one military, even), exchange small talk with hotel heiresses, AND impress everyone present with my curtseying skills. i mean, seriously, who wouldn't? once you get your invites, the tables are only ten thou. pocket change.

there's a reason why these people are frequently referred to as debutards.

plan B

allow me and my angry feminist sensibilities to direct you to this cartoon, brought to my attention over at shakespeare's sister, and exactly how very, very wrong it is:

plan B

in light of all the rampant vag-flashing going on (ahem, britney et al.), etc., it seems like jokes about plan B being another excuse for "drunken whoring" barely seem to be about birth control, and actually seem to be about what happens after plan A just stops working out and "plan B" is judt a better publicity strategy.

in the real, non-drunken whore celebrity world, however, this "blame the victim" discussion is so ridiculous is barely rates talking about. as ss points out, more women are raped in thier homes and by people they know, not while wearing short skirts and walking down the street, or for that matter, even for acting like drunken whores. comparing rape to petty theft is demeaning and absurd, but it does reflect one perception that so many people seem to have- that a woman's body is worth about as much as an ipod or a watch.

it just blows the mind.

haben sie special doughnuts?

so, in case the desire strikes you to read about my trip to vienna before i post about it, with many many hotlinks and probably a great deal about erwin wurm, head on over to stephen's hung(a)ry for____ blog for your reading pleasure.

another year

well, i'm officially back in the states after spending my holidays in hungary, and it's been a bittersweet return. our family dog bandit has cancer, and i'm facing the knowledge that i have to go back to indiana to start working two jobs, get some kind of health insurance, and figure out how to sell my apartment, along with find some kind of real full time job/place to live in another state. i don't regret leaving my program because i know i couldn't stay and be happy with what i was doing, but it sure would have made life a lot easier. in the meantime i'll just dwell on the good time i had in budapest and start planning my mardi gras party, which is going to be sweet. also, expect plenty of pictures of various things, because i'm breaking out my assortment of cameras (yes, stephen, even the lomo!) and putting together a real portfolio finally. it's about damn time i got my life together, and that's as good a resolution as any.

Cuki, explained.

So, in case you're wondering, (and even if you aren't) cuki is a Hungarian diminutive form of the word sugar. It's also a 16 year old Hungarian girl who made a Valley-girl style music video that is both horribly awful and catchy as all hell, as well as being pretty much everything you could ever want in a Hungarian pop song whose main lyrics consist of the words "I am sugar." We've pretty much been playing/singing it incessantly, because when no one is saying anything, the tune will suddenly, evily creep into your brain, and you will be helpless to resist. Watch at your own risk. Oh, and if you really feel like a thrill, go on YouTube and watch Speak the Hungarian rapper. Unlike Cuki, he's not parodying anything, but his song succeeds at being waaaay more hilarious. Sorry Cuki, but we still love you. Lalalalalalala.

a mini photo essay of budapest

From Budapest-2006

the courtyard of stephen's apartment building

From Budapest-2006

thier uberscary, but pretty, elevator

From Budapest-2006

the beginning of chain bridge in pest

From Budapest-2006

Stephen outside Fisherman's Bastion at night

From Budapest-2006

Me, The Living Room, Depeche Mode, New Years 2K7

From Budapest-2006

Nada, Kasia, Marko, Jen- who doesn't love Depeche Mode?

From Budapest-2006

Happy New Year!

From Budapest-2006

Emra, our Turkish friend getting his MA in real job skills

From Budapest-2006

Jen and Tyler and the wonders of modern technology

From Budapest-2006

Zombie Chickens. Better watch yourself.

From Budapest-2006

We made our own snow for Christmas

From Budapest-2006

Israel juice represent.