JESSICA YU: looky here.

I went to Southeast Asia last fall and had one of the best trips ever. My favorite destination was Bali, which is both beautiful and cheap (a perfect combination). I stayed at the small, inviting Bali Spirit Hotel in Ubud. The fare to Bali is on sale right now for $599 (plus taxes of about $90) from Cathay Pacific as the airline's Deal of the Month.

If you can believe it, that fare is even valid from New York ... it's also valid from LA or San Francisco. The only limitation is that you have to spend one night in Hong Kong on the way back. You still have two weeks to book for travel from September 1 to November 30 if it's not already sold out. Remember who gave you this tip while you're being massaged in the spa or relaxing under the palm trees.

unless september to november is like, monsoon season (which it might be; i'm uneducated), this sounds awesome.

Work has suddenly exploded, but it seems worth the time to share a few links designed to frustrate corporate America's attempts to reduce you to a number in a database.

BugMeNot is a database of logins to sites on the internet like the Washington Post, NY Times and -- looky here -- the subscription-only WSJ. That's handy -- I've been having to create a new WaPo account every time I clear out my cookies due to my complete inability to remember throwaway passwords.

Then there are these two sites -- one for Safeway, another for Giant -- that'll let you print out a random or shared discount club card. This way you can have your privacy without being forced to essentially buy it back from the supermarket by forgoing their ubiquitous savings club discounts.

I can understand if you think this is a bit too much trouble to go to just to make sure Safeway doesn't know how much and what brand of toilet paper you use per day, the better to target advertisements to you and your individual toilet paper needs. I guess it depends on how gloomy your conclusions about free will are. Me? My laser printer's warming up right now.

via naomi i see the live on penn concert schedule is up. good news: the old 97s and fountains of wayne are playing! bad news: they're opening for eve 6 and they might be giants, respectively. spectacularly unfair.

i also see antigone rising is playing (opening for cowboy mouth) , which might ring a bell with a few people.

unrelated: i'm going to have four unused days of vacation by august (my one-year anniversary at this job). any good suggestions on where they should be spent?

via guido veloce, these little charming posters that make an effective comment on the perils of electronic voting this fall. as g.v. says - if it weren't so true, it'd be funny.

mr. reynolds quotes tim cavanaugh from hit&run:

TIM CAVANAUGH IS STAKING OUT A BOLD POSITION:

It doesn't matter how much gas costs, how poorly things are going in Iraq, what new torture memos surface, or whether there are new terror attacks inside our borders. John Kerry hasn't got a whore's chance in a convent, Bush is going to kick his ass all over the United States, and when we see the results in November, the idea that anybody ever thought Kerry had a prayer will seem as quaint and absurd as the brief flurry of "excitement" for Dukakis (or was it Kakdukis?) back in Old '88.

As I say, bold.

what he doesn't quote is the rest of tim's passage:

I realize that this isn't a particularly bold prediction, and of course if I'm wrong I'll just throw up my hands and chalk it all up to the mysteries of this great democracy we're privileged to live in. Nor is this one of these "predictions" that really expresses a heartfelt wish: Though I find Bush slightly (ever so slightly) less emetic than Kerry, he's a crook, a stumblebum, and a lazy, mirthless little prince, and any country that would re-elect him deserves every bad thing that will happen to it. If I have any degree of preference between the two candidates, the best word for it is the vaguely theological term velleity: the lowest level of volition, unaccompanied by any intention to act.

heh. indeed.