dear readers:

it is now 4:32 am. i have been up for twenty minutes or so. my marathon is in four hours. i am, somehow, both strangely calm and utterly terrified. and my biggest concern of all? needing to poop.

that's right, pooping is instrumental to the quality of one's race. believe it or not. you may not have realized that a race can hinge on whether or not one can empty one's bowels before running, but truly, nothing else has affected the quality of my long-distance runs like whether or not i've pooed. seriously, using a portapotty in the middle of a run can be a serious buzzkill. if you can't go before a race, you may as well consider yourself doomed. i'm not even kidding.

and currently, i cannot. go. that is.

thus, terror.

UPDATE: 45 minutes, two shots of espresso, and 25 jumping jacks later, VICTORY! everything will be dandy.

well, halloween is upon us this weekend. i truly do love halloween, more and more so as i get older, but i can't participate this year in any festivities because i've got to do things like rest up, gorge myself on pasta, and drink enough water to make my intestines float in preparation for the marathon on sunday.

anyway, i wanted to write a post about a funny halloween story for everybody's entertainment. then i sat at my desk for a while, staring off into space, and realized that i have no good halloween stories. isn't that sad? well, there was the time that tommy set a pentagram on fire in his driveway during college, but that's not so much a story as an event.

so i thought of other scaryish stories that i could tell, and the best i could come up with was the one when i earned the hatred of our entire neighborhood at the tender age of 8 by writing them all death threats.

fun, no?

UPDATE: do not forget that saturday night (well, really sunday morning at 2am) is daylight savings time! we fall back one hour. so don't forget to switch your alarm clock back one hour before you go to bed saturday night.

alrighty. you should know the following things:

my bib # is 20333.

i think the best places where i will know to look for my friends/family are the following:

-as i'm heading north on constitution at mile 11, let's say on the righthand side of constitution, in front of the washington monument (i know i said the museum of natural history before, but i just noticed the course dips down 14th street so that might get confusing.)

-after that viewing point, run across the mall to independence avenue, and place yourself either in front of the smithsonian castle or the smithsonian metro stop. that's mile 14.5 or so.

-then run down 14th street to the beginning of the 14th street bridge. that'll be mile 20. i'll probably be hallucinating by then, so it'll be nice to see some friendly faces.

-after you see me at mile 20, your best bet is to race back up to the smithsonian metro stop, hop on a blue line back to arlington cemetery station, and try to see me at the last mile or so. if you don't catch me then, remember, we're meeting at linkage area 1, letter A post-race.

(print out a map to better see what i'm talking about)

additional tips are here.

also, i've uploaded an image of the map here and marked with smiley faces the three viewing points that i'm talking about. (it's a bit of a large file.)

leave questions in the comments!

update: my dad sends me this link to a wapo.com marathon discussion.

it's not like halloween is actually a pagan holiday or anything...but scott takes you on a tour of the scariest haunted house ever: the one put together by jerry falwell's followers in lynchburg, virginia:

Basically, the whole experience was windy hallways and college kids jumping out at you and screaming. Oh yeah. And the abortion room! There was a room filled with aborted fetuses. They were actually fetal pigs with white gowns on them, which is perhaps far scarier, but they were meant to represent the horror of abortion. And this was supposed to be the scariest room. Seriously.

But then, the best part. Up until the very end, things had been somewhat anticlimactic. The abortion room was somewhat of a consolation. But I wanted real, genuine, crazytalk. I wanted purple teletubbies burning in the pits of hell. I wanted Larry Flynt getting lynched by the Pope. I wanted Bert and Ernie lying peacefully in bed together with Satan suddenly popping out from under the covers between them. And man did I get what I wished for.

As we were exiting the haunted house, we had to walk through the woods to get back to the parking lot. There, for all to see, in the middle of a circle of spotlights, was Jesus Christ. Nailed to a wooden cross. Draped in a barely concealing white gown. With a crown of thorns. And druids surrounding him. No shit! I was so excited I nearly peed my pants. I honestly might have been jumping up and down. I was interrupted, though, by this kid who asked Molly and I if we wanted to join him in a tent to learn about the man that made this all possible, the namesake of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, himself, the big JC. Molly looked terrified and was clearly about to say "No thanks", but luckily I was able to shove her behind a tree and scream "Would I?! Would I?!" We gathered in the tent with about 10 other people, only 2 of whom looked as horrified as Molly Meek. The kid who was herding us in took a deep breath and began speaking at a rate and volume that seriously had me debating the merits of Depakote vs. Valproate in my head. "DoesanyoneknowwhyweareheretonightweareherebecauseGodcreatedhea
venandearthandhecreatedAdamandEveandhecreatedtheuniverseandthenth
ousandsofyearslateramancameandthatmanisthemanyousawnailedtothecros
sjustnowdoesanyoneknowwhothatmanis-"
"Mark Profitt."
(I am on the floor at this point)
"Ummm...ummImeanwhoherpresentsherepresentsJesusandJesusdiedforoursinsand..."

I kind of tuned out at this point, but there was some praying, and the kid asked us basically to reveal to him in private whether we had sinned against Jesus, and I thought about reminding him of the fact that is was very sinful to interject yourself into matters that are between God and another individual, but I was tired, so I left that battle for another day.

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is set to play Johnny Depp's father in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Treasures Of The Lost Abyss.

this weekend, after waking up at 4:15am to take tommy to dulles, so he could fly to beautiful san fran california to visit mr. jeff nye and check out grad schools, i went straight down to charlottesville with my dad to check out my brother's navy ROTC drill performance. there's a standard drill team and a trick drill team; he's in the trick one, where they do cool shit and flip their guns around in the air and stuff. pictures are here.

i have never been exactly sure what the point of learning to twirl your guns around in unison is, but it sure looked neat.

The OC stars and onscreen lovers Adam Broody and Rachel Bilson have secretly gotten engaged in real life.

so, it's another entirely crappy, wet, cold day outside in the nation's capital. looking out the window right now, i was inspired to get home early and make some hot chocolate with a bit o the alcohol tonight, instead of going out to the pinback/mates of state show at the black cat (first i have no one to go with, second, i feel the itchy beginnings of a cold, and i MUST NOT GET SICK before the marathon).

but i didn't want to make just any hot chocolate. so i searched around on the internet for some super special hot chocolate recipes. and lo and behold, the very first hot chocolate recipe that pops up on google is a whitehouse.gov recipe for hot chocolate by laura bush.

i actually think laura bush is a lovely woman, and her recipe doesn't sound bad (though not as decadent as i was hoping for; where's the real chocolate and heavy cream?). but i was intrigued by the idea of white house-sanctioned recipes, so i searched the web site for some more. here's what i found:

Smoked Shrimp with Mango Salsa
Carrot Muffins
Baked Potato Soup
Guacamole
Vegetable Soup
Cowboy Cookies

all offered by mrs. bush, and all good-sounding, though kind of bland and boring.

but the best page BY FAR was the page containing recipes from various administration officials for their favorite 4th of july foods. the page suggest that "As you celebrate Independence Day, try one of these tasty recipes or have a Bush Administration holiday party and have your guests each bring one of these dishes" (gawd, doesn't a bush administration holiday party sound like an awful lot of fun.) we have, in no particular order:

Secretary Ashcroft's "Simply BBQ"
Secretary Thompson's "Bratwurst of Liberty"
Secretary Snow's "Land of the Free Cole Slaw"
President and Laura Bush's Deviled Eggs Recipe
Secretary Evans' "Enchiladas Verde de 1776"
President and Laura Bush's Guacamole Recipe
Greg Mankiw's "Fourth of July Coq Au Vin"
Dale Haney's Yankee Doodle Dandy Ambrosia Salad

okay. the fuck? bratwurst of liberty? enchiladas verde de 1776? second, the recipes are all terrible. they include such directions as "place meat on grill and cook for a while" or "mush this together and serve with mustard, it's real good!"

and i know these terrible recipes with their terrible names aren't the faults of these particular administration officials. the idea that our public servants need to offer up some sort of recipes or proof that they know how to cook is an abomination long-held for whatever reasons, and only propogated further by the the fascists over at family circle magazine. (of course, laura bush won this stupidest of contests with 67% of the vote.)

but honestly, i don't want my high-ranking administration officials telling me what's good to cook and how to cook it. i'd rather they, you know, do their job. so next time, instead of having a recipe page from whitehouse.gov, let's see a little hard work, eh guys? like protecting caches of weapons so the terrorists don't get them?

i'm reading barry unsworth's book, the songs of the kings, right now, and it's quite good. it retells the ancient greek myth of king agamemnon's daughter, who, it is decided, must be sacrificed in order to cease the wind that is holding a large contingent of greek soldiers in the straits of aulis and thus preventing them from waging war on troy. we see much of the story through the eyes of calchas the diviner, an adviser to the king who understands the political and personal rationales and desires for the war.

i was reading the book during lunch, and found parts of the following passages rather striking.

well, my doomsday is almost upon me: the marine corps marathon takes place this sunday, october 31st.

i thought i'd put together a post of all the available information for those interested in coming to watch and cheer me (and friends) on. i understand getting up early on a sunday morning to yell at some delusional runners might not be your cup of tea, but in previous races, i have found that it makes a monumental amount of difference to see and hear your friends on the race course.

first off, my personal recommendations and ideas: if you come out, the best way to get a glimpse of me is to let me know which points you'll be watching from, and also to maybe make a sign. it'd be much easier for me to see a sign with my name on it than for you to pick me out of a sea of runners.

the race starts at 8:30 am. i believe my pace will be 9:30-10 minutes a mile. however, it could take me as long as 10 minutes to cross the start line, so adjust for that. you can get updates on my time and status sent to your cellphone via SMS here.

i think the mall is a pretty good viewing point. naomi and becca might have more and better ideas for viewing points since they ran it last year (and if you guys do, please leave them in comments), but maybe on constitution in front of the museum of natural history, between miles 11 and 12, on the righthand side of the road? (i'd guess that i'd be there around 10:30am) then you'd be able to cross the mall to get across to independence avenue, before i hit mile 15 (probably around 11am). also, any point during the 14th street bridge would be fantastic, because apparently that's where a lot of people hit the dreaded wall. a map of the whole course is here (PDF file) so you can get some idea of what i'm talking about.

anyway, the race starts at 8:30am, but i wouldn't worry about finding me at the start line. the beginning of the 14th street bridge is really where i could use some help. i estimate that i will be there around sometime around noon, maybe a bit before if i'm doing a good clip.

the marine marathon site also suggests this:

After all the marathon runners get over the starting line you have time to watch the starting of the 8K before walking across the Memorial Bridge to the Henry Bacon Drive (near the Lincoln Memorial). This is the 10-mile point. A runner's pace will dictate how quickly spectators have to get to this location. Next you can walk around the Lincoln Memorial to Independence Avenue, which is approximately mile 16. Runners will head into East Potomac Park and down along Haines Point. Spectators should return to the start/finish area by crossing the Memorial Bridge. Find a great spot along Marshall Drive or Route 110 to help your runner ascend the 110-foot elevation on their way to the Iwo Jima Monument and the finish line.

the best way to get to the race is the metro to arlington cemetery stop. more spectator information is here.

at the end of the race, people reconvene near the iwo jima memorial. a map of the finish area is here (PDF file). i can rendezvous with you all at the linkup area #1, which is A-F (A for Andrews). apparently it's still really hard to find your runners at these areas, so holding up a sign or a balloon or some sort of identifier might not be a bad idea. it would also be great if you could bring along water/gatorade so that i might replenish my sure-to-be-severely-dehydrated-ass post-race. it'd also be wonderful if you could bring along pretzels/orange slices or something to throw in my mouth during the race. sugar+ salt are good.

that's all the information i can think off. in the days to come, i guess it'd be a good idea to settle on 2 or 3 viewing points where we all know to look out for each other.

eek!

let's forget for a moment that bush and his administration let 380 TONS of majorly enormous killer bomb material (which has probably been used in most of the car bombs and attacks in iraq in the past months, and ONE POUND of which brought down the pan am lockerbie flight) get completely looted away during the war because of mismanagement, ass-hatted-ness, and general incompetence. that's just yet another fuckup in a long string of terrible decisions, lack of accountability, and total disregard for reality that the bush administration has been guilty of. i mean, blogger please. THAT's not news!

the REAL event, the total scoop that happened over the weekend that EVERYONE should be talking about is this:

Teen queen Ashlee Simpson withered through an unfortunate Milli Vanilli-like meltdown on "Saturday Night Live'' the other night when the poor punkette was caught lip-syncing to her own song!

The little sis of "Newlywed'' bubblehead Jessica Simpson, who has been criticized in the past for her flat live vocal performances, belted out her first song, "Pieces of Me,'' without a hitch.

But when Ash returned to the "SNL'' stage for her second number, the track (vocals and all!) of "Pieces of Me'' began to play again, revealing that the manufactured MTV darling had been lip-syncing the first time around as well. Oops!

As the tape ran, the mulleted songbird did an awkward jig on stage while her band bravely feigned a hard-rocking posture to the music. And after a few moments, a mortified Ashlee fled the stage!

When the cast of "SNL'' came out to bid the audience good night, guest host Jude Law tried to explain Simpson's slip-up.

"What can I say folks, live TV,'' the hunky Brit shrugged.

One blogger on Simpson's official Web site claimed to have backstage information leading up to the gaffe.

"Ashlee can't sing. She tried all day Friday, but was whining to her voice coach. They decided to leave her mike (sic) on so she could sing along to the track, but after the first line or two of the first song, (they) turned her off cause she was awful,'' wrote Barbscoop.

"So, as of the first song, all the mikes were off. Now, they had the wrong song queued up for the second song, obviously. . . . They were going to turn on Ashlee's mike so she could sing the real song, but decided not to because the band was just playing the first song. The guys were smiling cause they were simply thinking "What a (bleeping) cluster (bleep).''

what a fucking clusterfuck indeed. letting tons and tons of bomb material get away, most likely follwing in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and soldiers, ain't nothing compared to this. ashlee lied, how many died?

watch it all here. we must hold ashlee accountable!

update!: ashlee has previously HATED on lipsyncing. from a lucky magazine i/v:

LM: What are your takes on lip-synching?

AS: I'm totally against it and offended by it. I'm going out to let my real talent show, not to just stand there and dance around. Personally, I'd never lip-synch. It's just not me.

I was consciously avoiding mention of this, but unfortunately, it doesn't look like the issue is going to blow over. You might have seen the doodad on the right on Gizmodo or your local news. It's called TV-B-Gone (catchy!) and it does what you'd expect: it turns off televisions. It's basically a universal remote with a single button that cycles through all of its available codes.

Fan-fucking-tastic. It was bad enough to have to listen to the people with a pretentious philosophical opposition to TV. Now these people have been given an actual weapon in the battle to save us from ourselves. Make no mistake, these are the exact same people who shine laser pointers on movie screens. Self-righteousness and a subscription to the New Yorker are the only things separating the two ends of this particular demographic.

Hating TV is fine -- hell, I resent it, although I'm definitely in its thrall. But clearly this thing is designed primarily to irritate people whom the owner deems stupider than himself.

So what's the solution? Our options are somewhat limited. Remote controls use a binary infrared signal that looks kind of like this:

Only longer. As anyone who's had to program a universal remote knows, there's not much standardization in the industry -- different brands use different codes.

The solution will likely require the creation of a signal format that allows a TV work with only one (or a couple) of specific remotes at a time. This is complicated somewhat by the slowness of the hardware used in TV sets. Higher-end consumer IR receivers like the one in your phone or laptop can handle speeds of at least 9600 bps, but the one in your TV was probably made using less than two dollar's worth of parts. They may not be able to handle a fast signal. An even more important consideration is the noise that real or artificial light can introduce. The signal needs to be loud and slow, like those punk kids ahead of you on the escalator.

This speed limit means you've got to keep the signal short, to allow quick responses. But it still has to be long enough to accomodate bits that differentiate not only all of a device's functions, but the different devices themselves (so that your DVD player knows to ignore your VCR's "play" command). It may be tricky to accomodate the necessary changes and keep your channel surfing as spry as it currently is.

In a way I hope the TV-B-Gone really takes off, forcing the industry to finally sit down and draft an ISO standard. Presumably they'd add a privacy code to the signal large enough to prevent jerks like the inventor of the TV-B-Gone from messing with your stuff more often than every few minutes (during which time they'd have to cycle through all potential values for the privacy code).
From a practical standpoint, this means that when you buy a new remote, you'll have to introduce it to your TV through some onscreen menu, telling it to trust its signal -- similar to how Bluetooth pairing works, if anyone here owns any BT gadgets.

On the upside, this would mean that, once introduced, any modern TV remote could work with any modern TV without any configuration. But I wouldn't hold your breath for this. In the meantime, I think we'll start seeing a lot of black electrical tape being discreetly applied in restaurants and bars.

wow, i can't wait to hear from all the people who said andrew sullivan only turned away from bush because of the FMA justify why josh chafetz and daniel drezner have decided to vote for kerry.

well, it's apparently crap weather time here in the nation's capital. it normally happens like this: we regularly get a brilliant couple of fall weeks, which eventually fade into a pallid gray sky, drizzling rain, and dropping temperatures, until we get a potentially dreadful winter that doesn't let up until april.

hurray!

it's this kind of gray, dreary weather that makes it seem like you're constantly walking underwater that always, every year, inspires me to listen to depressing music. and elliott smith is constantly at the top of my Favorite Musicians Who Make Me Feel Like I Want to Die, or At Least Sleep and Cry Hysterically All Day.

mr. smith has been one of my favorite singers since high school. yes, i jumped on the "good will hunting" bandwagon, but i have stuck persistently by his side ever since. i wrote terrible, florid, teenage articles about how much i loved him. i traveled from charlottesville to d.c. and back in one night to see him in concert. i drank wine and felt artistically melancholy while listening to "between the bars" over and over again. and it literally hurt my heart when i read that he had committed suicide almost a year ago today.

in no small matter of timing, smith's new album, "from a basement on a hill", was recently released. apparently it had almost been finished at the time of his death, and a couple of close friends (one of whom is that female bassist from the jicks that tommy thinks is hot) helped master and arrange the tracks.

i haven't yet bought the album, but my dad has been emailing me several articles that review it. unsuprisingly, most of the pieces, which are largely positive, contain grandiloquent and flowery remarks on elliott's death and music (it's always seemed funny that no one, including myself, can write about elliott smith's music, which is at its heart very simple and unaffected, without sounding like a bombastic idiot).

i'll certainly buy the record soon, but one thing that i pray and hope doesn't happen is that elliott smith's memory and music get turned into the huge, unneccessary whoredom that is jeff buckley's legacy. buckley has been dead for seven years; every scrap of everything that he's ever half-assedly recorded has been put out; and his live performances have been repackaged over and over again. there's a difference between honoring a musician's works and exploiting them. i understand that it can be difficult to let go of the memory and brilliance of a musician who died in their artistic prime, but at some point, it has to happen. or you lessen the intensity of everything they put out while they were alive.

jesus christ. when did harry potter movies become the newest receptacle for british musicans? in addition to franz ferdinand's cameo as the wyrd sisters in the next harry potter movie, and their addition to the soundtrack, jarvis cocker, formerly of pulp, will also have a cameo and will write the score. is this savvy marketing or the worst idea ever? i can't decide.

i do think the JC addition is rather cool. i'm not so sure why i think franz ferdinand's cameo is terrible, while jarvis cocker's score will be wonderful, but it probably has to do with the fact that i've wanted to have sex with jarvis cocker since i was seventeen.

anyway, who's next? damon albarn? liam gallagher? THOM FUCKING YORKE?

I think this is pretty great: an Oregonian troublemaker submitted fake, anti-gay marriage arguments to the state voter's guide and got them published. Via Sullivan.

Well, my dim-witted and carefree suburbanite mindset was finally shattered forever this morning: somebody stole my bike.

It was my own fault. I left it in my car, parked on the street, overnight. It's such a pain to get it in and out of the backseat, and I knew I'd need it today to bike from my dad's house (where I park) to the metro. I guess I was subconsciously counting on potential thieves knowing that it was a really, really shitty bike due to its being stored in a really, really shitty car. Apparently they didn't.

At least it was a considerate theft -- rather than smashing an entire window out, he just broke the small triangular one at the car's back right corner. Maybe I'll get to the auto glass place and they'll say "Triangular? Oooh. That's a tricky one. You've gotta order those custom made from deepest, darkest Africa. And you've gotta use that special enchanted safety glass, from a, wahaddayoucallit, dragon's hide." But right now it doesn't look like the damage was too bad.

This isn't my first brush with bike larceny. In elementary school I had a totally sweet white and blue BMX, with a white front tire and a red rear one. I rode it every day for a summer to the bus stop where I'd get picked up to go to computer class at the Arlington Career Center. You can understand the neighborhood toughs being jealous of a glamorous lifestyle like that, and the hot-and-cold-running 12 year old babes that came with it. So I got back from class one day and found my bike gone.

Fortunately the guys who stole the bike showed up two days later, riding it, at the exact same place where it was stolen, at the exact time when the buses were dropping off the kids who were the only plausible owners of the stolen bike. My grandfather, who was now picking me up in lieu of the bike, went over and scared them, and I got my ride back. Awesome.

Unfortunately Grandpa passed away several years ago, so this time around I'm not quite sure what to do. Without the sweet red and white tire setup, it doesn't seem worth going to the trouble of getting ignored by the DC police. Frankly I'm most pissed off that I've now lost the mounting brackets for the bitchin' LED safety light set I bought a week ago. That's right, safety lights. No, I haven't gotten any cooler since the career center days.

So I guess I'm in the market for a new bike. In the meantime I'll have to just console myself by ratcheting up my levels of misanthropy and paranoia toward my neighbors. That I can handle by myself; the bike is a little trickier. Does any one have any good suggestions for where to get a cheap bike for riding around the city? And does anyone know if any of those folding bikes are worth the money? It'd be nice to be able to bring one on the metro at rush hour.

so last night after we got home from work, charles and i were watching a rerun of "west wing", having a drink, chatting, etc. we somehow got on the topic of haircuts and how we both needed one. charles for a while now has been getting his hair cut at a place called nantucket salon on H street, where i gather that his mother and sister, over time, convinced him to go. they do nice work. charles has a good haircut. his hairdresser is named ivanique. i find this hysterical.

anyway, i was wondering last night if i should give ivanique a go, and charles did say that his mother and sister rave about him. charles' father, however, while he does get his hair cut at the same salon, doesn't use ivanique. he apparently prefers a hairdresser named paul. apparently, paul also cuts dick cheney's hair.

my head whipped around at this comment by charles. first off, i've generally received the impression that nantucket is a somewhat upscale salon, so i was surprised that such a rough-and-tumble, straight-shootin' real man like cheney would get his hair cut there. secondly...dick cheney doesn't really have hair. so what's the deal there? why does he need to be spending taxpayer's money on a pricey hair cut for that tiny little weakly wisp of white?

but the most SHOCKING revelation that came from charles was this exchange:

catherine: dick cheney has a HAIRDRESSER?
charles: oh yeah. paul is apparently a flaming democrat, but he's not going to turn away good money.
catherine: that is so fucking weird.
charles: yeah. and apparently, cheney paid for paul and paul's entire family to go to the republican national convention so he could take care of his hair there.
catherine: WHAT???

this, from the campaign that has made fun of john kerry's need for expensive salon haircuts. this, from the side that nearly went into apoplectic shock when clinton reportedly received a pricey trim from christophe on air force one. this, from a vice president who has repeatedly made fun of john edwards being picked as a running mate on the basis of his luxurious hair.

so let us try to figure out how much, approximately, dick cheney might have spent in order to fly his ritzy hairdresser and HIS ENTIRE FAMILY up to the RNC for four days just so he could have instant access to a trim or style for the THREE STRANDS ON HIS HEAD. i'm not sure how much a haircut for a male at nantucket costs, but i'm not sure the exact price really matters, because i'm going to go ahead and assume that paul charged cheney for all the time and business he might have otherwise had back home at the salon in d.c. (hey, they did it when the drudge report kerry hair flap was happening.)

people estimated that john kerry's one-day cross-country haircut cost at least $1,000, including airfare and lost time for the hairstylist. here, we have a stylist who a) had to be compensated for four days of lost salon time b) had his entire family flown to new york city and c) also had his entire family lodged in new york city, just so the hairdresser could be at cheney's beck and call. you know what? i'm going to be conservative and estimate that haircutting costs, plus airfare for paul's enormous family (who knows? it could have included second cousins, uncles, etc), plus lodging for them all, plus lost time at the salon, ended up costing cheney (or the taxpayers? who knows?) at LEAST $10,000.

plus, not to mention the fact that cheney is an effete asshole who needs a hairdresser at his beck and call.

why isn't this a DNC talking point? why didn't lovely loyd grove report on it in his gossip column? why isn't chris matthews telling stories about cheney's $10,000 haircuts night after night after night?

repeat after me: dick cheney is an effete, effeminate motherfucker who pays thousands of dollars for haircuts. we need to get the word out.

Check out today's Penny Arcade.

Speaking of celebrity sightings and ill-advised public art, the building in which I'm working today has a weirdly pointless exhibition in the lobby/mall area along those same lines. It's called "Celebrity Specs", and it's being sponsored by the Prevention of Blindness Society as part of their ongoing mission to raise awareness of blindness and blindness-related issues (e.g. "going blind would be bad"; "perhaps we should spend money to prevent people from going blind"; "Ray Charles was a pretty cool dude"; etc).

The installation consists of a bunch of cubicle-wall-style panels holding autographed celebrity headshots with sunglasses attached. I guess we're supposed to assume the sunglasses at one point belonged to their associated celebrities. Among the luminaries featured: Scott Biao (sic); Artie "Thank God Farley Died" Lange; and third understudy for the position of America's Sweetheart, Tea Leoni.

I don't mean to make fun of the blind (my behavior during viewings of America's Next Top Model notwithstanding). But I'm having a hard time understanding this exhibit. I guess they're going to auction off the sunglasses, but come on -- do we really think an important celebrity like, uh... let's see... Dick Vitale! Do we really think Dick Vitale is going to give up his famous signature shades, which I have never seen him wearing? Of course not. He probably just got some intern to go drop ten bucks at Rite Aid, throw the purchase in an envelope with a headshot from the stack, and email ESPN's accounting department about a $500 charitable donation.

The dividers are obnoxiously in my way when I want to leave the building to get some lunch, though. I hate celebrities; I also hate things that keep me from having lunch. So maybe the exhibit is really a highly conceptual statement on celebrities' inevitable lack of awareness -- blindness, if you will -- toward the negative effects their existence has on society, despite their best intentions. Maybe.

But I still think I'm missing something. Isn't one of the hallmarks of great art its ability to inspire an emotional response? If it is, then I don't truly understand the piece. Because a few hundred feet below me, more likely than not, exists a trace amount of Judge Judy's DNA. And that thought terrifies me for reasons I can't even begin to fathom.

well, last night was disappointing. i really thought the libertines sucked. i have no idea how they've gotten such an incredible amount of buzz. i swear to god, if you put a black, shaggy wig on me, make me lose 30 pounds, dress me in skinny black pants, dangle a cigarette out of my mouth, and teach me to play three chords on my guitar, the british music press would annoint me the Next Big Thing.

on the other hand, a band i do think was deserving of its earlier buzz, franz ferdinand, is officially a group of LOSERS: they're appearing in the next harry potter movie as a rock band made up of a bunch of witches called the wyrd sisters. in the movie, "harry potter and the goblet of fire" (which is my favorite thus far in the series) they'll be doing a gig at the hogwarts yule ball.

if you know me at all, you know that there are certain things i cannot handle. one of the most obvious is my problem with embarrassing situations on television; for example, i could not, repeat, NOT, watch the debates on tv sober. there is ample evidence of this. physically, i couldn't do it. watching the debates sober meant that i might have to see kerry make some utterly terrible gaffe, or start speaking french, or get beatdown by bush, and then i would see this terrible occurence and have to process it while in the throes of sobriety, and it would just be too much for my brain to handle, and my head would explode. however, while drunk, i can handle almost anything (or at least i think i can, which might explain why i talk shit to large men or attempt to dance while intoxicated). alcohol totally smoothed the process so that my neurons didn't combust when kerry did some stupid stuff.

i also cannot handle socially embarrassing scenes on tv shows. for example, had i witnessed the tucker carlson/jon stewart flak the other day, i probably would have run out of the room crying, with my shirt pulled around my face in order to hide it all from my eyes, even though i think tucker carlson is an ass and i would have been rejoicing in the exchange. it's even worse, if possible, with sitcoms, even though i know in my head that these are, you know, fictional characters, and they're not actually being humiliated on nationwide tv in front of millions of people. i literally moan and hide my face behind pillows when ryan and marissa are in a compromising situation, or when one girl gets such a bitchy ass-thrashing by another girl on america's next top model that all you can do is sit there, shame-faced along with her. well, that actually happened, and that girl actually did get humiliated in front of millions of people, but damn, it's some good tv.

anyway, it's well-documented that i can't handle fictional embarrassing situations that occur amongst actors on television. but if there's one thing i deal with even more poorly than these humiliations-via-catheter-ray it's the real-life situations where i meet famousish people. which occurs more often than you might suspect.

susan reminded me of my affliction when she forwarded me this cute encounter between a blogger and a dude from "lost" at the airport. she actually comes off quite well compared to certain interactions i've had. let me list a few:

So over at Grammar.Police, Kriston has found himself a troll -- Wunderkacker Dellis appears to have been leaving comments advocating voting for Nader. Shades of the John Lott affair, although obviously on a smaller scale. Still entertaining, though!

Anyway, Dellis' biggest mistake was to post messages claiming to be a Cleveland resident when his IP address came from a tiny Virginian ISP -- one that happens to have a contract with UVA, where Dellis goes to law school.

I find all of this hilarious. But it brings up the question: if someone really wanted to sway the election by mildly criticizing Kerry from a left-wing perspective in a blog comment section, what should they do? Besides finding a better use for their time, I mean.

Well, there are a couple of options. The simplest: use a web anonymizer. Here's one of the better ones, to get your career of political subterfuge started on the right foot. You basically view a web page within a web page. It's slow, usually has a lot of ads, and it'll be obvious you're trying to hide your identity if anyone tries to track you down. But it's a start.

Somewhat more sophisticated: SwitchProxy, a plugin for Firefox. If you can find some good anonymous proxies -- and they're out there, although the free ones are slow and spotty -- this tool lets you switch between them quickly, and surf from within your browser as normal. Those proxies might keep track of your IP, but it's probably enough to keep it out of the hands of folks like me, if not exactly a subpoena-proof solution. Try to use SOCKS proxies for maximum usability and anonymity.

Finally, there are the ultimate solutions, the cadillacs of right wing conspiracy vehicles. First, email Mr. Scaife and ask for a few bucks. Then use a site like this one to find an ISP in your chosen swing-state -- alternately, just sign up with AOL, or a cheap, pay-as-you-go nationwide ISP like MyFreeI (great service -- I use it). Presto! Authentic-looking IP addresses. Unfortunately, you'll be paying long distance telephone charges. Well, it might take a little more work, but you can look through the lists linked here -- a lot of small ISPs offer 800 numbers for access from the road. Find one of those located in your chosen pretend location and you're golden.

So folks, please keep this in mind the next time you get the urge to subvert the public discourse. It's a natural urge for a healthy young demagogue to have, and one that he should only feel kind of ashamed of.

i'm going to the libertines tonight at the 9:30 club avec kyle and a few other bloggers. we're meeting at dc9 for drinks, then kyle and i are going to try to catch some of the sox game before the libertines are on at 10. anyone else in?

speaking of d.c. bloggers, yall should be reading the dceiver. he's mucho funny. and a former wahoo to boot, apparently. reads like the declaration before it started sucking.

i was sad to learn that i missed the washington social club this weekend at dc9, since i've heard good things about them. BUT, they will be playing the black cat on friday, november 5th. and i would like to go. and you should go with me. you know why? because that will be the first friday post marathon, and i will be so drunk you won't even know what to do with yourself. it'll be awesome. i might like, bite your face off or something because i'll be so drunk, but it'll be great. i swear.

oh also, more bands: pinback and mates of state are playing the black cat next monday and i would also like very much to see them. tommy will be gone that week in the golden state of california, so i need some buddies to keep me occupied. sigh. take pity.

i'm back from boston! back from a lovely, perfect new england weekend! back from spending time with dear friends, some of whom i haven't seen in a year and a half! back from eating clam chowder and italian food in the north end! back from wandering around taking pictures of beautiful foliage! back to...rainy d.c. and work. oh well. anyway, excuse my absence. and excuse any future absences as i decide to move permanently to boston because i just loved it so goddamn much. of course, the pefect fall weather and excellent company had something to do with it, so i'm probably looking at the city through rose-colored glasses, but it was still wonderful. a few pics behind the cut, along with some more commentary...

If you're reading this you probably know me, and if you know me you're probably sick of hearing cartoon recommendations. I appreciate the polite nods when I start talking about the cultural significance of Dragonball Z. Really. So I feel bad about this. But I'm going to have to abuse your patience again, and tell you that you ought to be watching the Venture Brothers.

By now I imagine a lot of you have seen the clip of Jon Stewart on Crossfire. If not, Wonkette's got a list of places to download it here. For all of you Luddite blog addicts, a transcript is here.

In a nutshell, Stewart took the offensive against Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson, explaining calmly but relentlessly -- and not in a particularly funny way -- that he thinks their show detracts from the public discourse in this country by reducing serious debate to a childish partisan caricature. The money shot: calling Tucker Carlson a dick.

you're really doing yourself a disservice if you're not reading these documents on the smoking gun in regards to the bill o'reilly sexual harrasment scandal. a few of my favorite excerpts:

After these words during the course of their dinner, Defendant Bill O'Reilly's demeanor abruptly changed. O'Reilly's eyes became glazed and bizarrely strayed in opposite directions. Defendent then said to Plaintiff, "And just use your vibrator to blow off steam!"

...When Plaintiff responded that she never engaged in phone sex, Defendant professed disbelief, and told her that the sexual stories he told were all based upon his own experiences, such as when he received a massage in a cabana in Bali and the "little short brown woman" asked to see his penis and was "amazed."

...[on the phone] During the course of Defendant Bill O'Reilly's rant, it became clear that he was using a vibrator upon himself, and that he ejaculated. Plaintiff was repulsed. Immediately after climaxing, Defendant launched into a discussion concerning how good he was on a recent appearance on the "Tonight Show" with Jay Leno.

zee theeng on bush's back, i theenk it eez steel there.
so what the fuck is it?

pic 1
pic 2
pic 3

those are the only images i can find. i found about a billion shots of kerry's back, though.

also, can we get a round of applause for both the candidates' daughters? they all looked smokin last night. at least whoever wins will be helping out the dreadful fashion scene in d.c.

update: for you doubters, there's a seriously bulge-y photo here.

i don't think it's a wire, but it must be some sort of medical device. some more of the tin-foilish people that i've read have suggested that bush has had a stroke in the past four years, which would also explained why one side of his face was droopy last night.

or else bush has extremely freaky shoulder blades.

viva la conspiracy!

If you were intent on being very, very bad, you could now find Halo 2 on the internet via Bittorrent, console P2P apps, and newsgroups, despite the fact that the game won't be officially released until November 9th.

It appears that sometime during the development of the French-language edition somebody ripped the game and put it up on a french warez newsgroup. Finally, the French contribute something to America's culture of violence! I'm glad you guys have come around.

Anyway, I'll be downloading this without qualms -- I've already got a copy preordered (Outpost.com has it for $10 less than everywhere else, if you're shopping around). Besides, this is the unfortunate nature of unchecked cross-border game proliferation: if I don't want to get slaughtered online come November 9th, I've got to make sure I'm as well-prepared as the least scrupulous of the world's nerds. Nobody said digital brinksmanship was pretty.

I didn't even really like the original Halo that much. Movement in it is slow, the weapons are unbalanced, and the game doesn't have much visual pop. For purposes of reducing my friends to a fine virtual paste, I've always preferred Doom 2 and Quake 3. Unfortunately, as graphics card capabilities blossomed, staying on the bleeding edge of PC gaming became tremendously expensive, and Halo is the best of an admittedly meager selection of console-based multiplayer action-heavy first person shooters.

There's something to be said for submitting to a universal standard -- even if it's an inferior one. Speaking Esperanto may be totally awesome when you can round up enough people to do it, but it's still probably not worth the trouble. I may prefer to rain fiery death upon my opponents in Quake, but if I find myself at some unknown friend-of-a-friend's house, a few rounds of Halo serve as the official language of male-bonding diplomacy.

In the end, the only objective in these types of games is to maintain your superiority over as many prepubescent brats as you can, for as long as you can. To this end, the huge numbers of people who'll pick up Halo 2 will improve my meager odds considerably.

well, in the haze of an early-morning hangover, i agree with basically everything tommy said last night, and i apologize for my insane sweet potato rantings. i honestly thought bush had pulled out a narrow win, simply because the contrast between his performance in this debate and the other two was, like, impossibly better. but i'm thrilled to be proved wrong by instant poll reactions. however, bush did have a few moments that creeped the hell out of me: when he tried to make a joke to bob about not trusting leading news organizations, realized it was a total and complete flop, and then muttered, "eh, well, nevermind..."; every time he laughed his smirky "ha ha ha" laugh that sounded completely forced; and the time he responded to a question (i think it was about health care, and bob scheiffer was asking who he thought was responsible for the health care crisis) and bush was all like, "heh heh, well, i hope it's not my administration!" wtf? worst answer ever.

anyway, i was too busy making the sweet potatoes and anticipating "lost" to really care about the debates. i have to say, i have become completely addicted to "lost". jj abrams has done it again! last night's episode was the strongest so far, i thought. knife dude (super rudy, as tommy likes to call him, in reference to rudy from survivor) is an awesome and extremely sympathetic character (his name is john locke, make of that what you will); the leading man and lady, while totally acting and looking exactly like every other leading man and lady from a jj abrams series (felicity and ben from "felicity", sydney and vaugh from "alias"), are kickass, capable, and likeable. you've got several other interesting characters around which storylines can be built and information can be revealed through flashbacks. then there's the freaky-not-a-dinosaur-thing that's stomping around the island. we have really got to get some sort of bet going on what it might be. not a polar bear; not a dinosaur; any ideas? alien? god himself? government superkilling robot? also: how the fuck did the polar bear get there?

anyway. i need to go browse some conspiracy theory boards and be all nerdy about this show. there are some super awesome and intelligent theories over there:

Well this is interesting...an elephant could toss a person pretty far...what I was wondering is why the creature, whatever it is, did not eat the pilot? An elephant wouldn't eat a human, but it could sure kill one. What if the previous plane/boat (whatever) that crashed was carrying circus animals?

ok here is a theory what if it is just one persons dream he is on the plane he goes to sleep and dreams the whole thing when you close your eyes you can see as many people you want to and stay as long as you want to all in a 3 min dream just a thought

Well, I'm happy to be proven wrong by the instant-reaction polls, most of which seem to be showing a Kerry win. I wonder if that isn't a byproduct of people having decided, based on the previous two debates, that Kerry's demeanor is more presidential. If so, it's bad news for the President.

Still, I really thought last night was easily Bush's strongest performance, and that at times he outperformed Kerry significantly -- particularly in the first half of the debate. Things levelled out toward the end, however. Also working against a decisive victory either way: the high wonkiness level -- I imagine a lot of people (myself included) didn't pay enough attention to detail to truly evaluate the arguments on their merits. The President's positions are harder to attack when shrouded in statistics; Kerry definitely seems to benefit most when he can go after the administration's overly simplistic conceptual approach to inherently dramatic issues like the war on terror.

Given the lack of gaffes and zingers, I think this debate will flow into the others in the minds of most people. I suspect that most folks will remember an overall debate narrative rather than a singular closing impression. If that's the case, then these contests clearly did Kerry's campaign a lot of good.

However, after a night of television viewing and carefully considering the options, I'm leaning toward casting my vote for that dude with all the knives on Lost. Promising to kill the terrorists is fine and all, but how many wild boars have either of the major party candidates personally downed?

Also: how bad were Bob Schieffer's questions? His use of the flu vaccine fiasco as a segue into a discussion of healthcare was kind of like saying, "Apple juice prices are rising. Would you say there's a child care crisis in America today?"

Two competent candidates equals a tie, and a tie, for once, goes to the incumbent. Blame lowered expectations, but the president did better than expected. That's all it takes. Particularly when the press is ready for whatever interpretation best sustains the narrative.

It's strange how much better the President has been on domestic issues. Kerry's got plenty of figures to throw around, but the central Republican domestic message -- that everything will work better if only we'd spend less money on it -- is an attractive one, and I'm not sure Kerry's been able to overcome it.

I'd say Kerry is in trouble. I hope I'm wrong -- I'm not exactly drooling on Catherine's shoulder, but I am, admittedly, violating the blogging prime directive. Still, I suspect that Bush will draw a narrow lead out of this debate.

are they wearing THE SAME TIE????
DID THEY learn nothing from teresa and laura wearing the same suit at the first debate?
DISASTER.

i just felt the momentum change in the debate. bush is stuttering. kerry is gaining back composure and grace. also, i had that other glass of wine, and it was awesome. my sweet potatoes are almost done. martha says to put a dollop of sour cream on them and sprinkle them with brown sugar. delicious!

tommy's, like, TOTALLY WASTED. i just saw him down three shots of vodka and 4 belgian beers, and right now he's drooling on my arm. it's gross. he doesn't know what he's talking about in regards to the debate. KERRY IS WINNING. SPIN, LITTLE GIRL, SPIN.

no, i kid. i'm actually totally wasted myself. bush is doing well. i think kerry is also doing well. i thought his answer in regards to abortion was great. i am also cooking some KICKASS sweet potatoes. i got this great recipe off of marthastewart.com. that woman is awesome. who else can tell you how to make a perfect fall table entertainment party ohmygod i am so drunk well it's time for another glass of wine! mmm. wine. bush would ban wine if he won. REMEMBER THAT, FUCKERS.

George Bush is winning this debate. Kerry's out-of-the-blue invocation of Mary Cheney's name is frankly despicable, and his answers in general sound like the usual carping of a challenger against an incumbent.

How has Bush suddenly gained a mastery of rhetoric and statistics? I won't for a moment imagine that this is the normal state of affairs: our President has been consistently incoherent for most of the last four years. A few more practice sessions with the hidden earpiece? Maybe, although I don't believe it. A moment of lucidity in the midst of whatever degenerative condition the President may be suffering from (be it biological or merely ideological)? It's possible. More likely the President's advisers finally got scared, and decided to put some time into debate prep.

Kerry's been dealing with an outclassed opponent. I hope he manages to adapt by the end of this debate, but at the half-hour mark, Bush's sudden competence is giving him serious problems.

this just totally gives me the warm fuzzies:

Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.

Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.

The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at Democrats. The focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.

Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.

So the people on those forms who think they will be able to vote on Election Day are sadly mistaken.

like susan has said in the past, this is the sort of crap she should be dealing with in, like, THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES NOT THE UNITED FRICKING STATES OF AMERICA.

browsing over at the lovesicily blog, i was reminded that coming up soon is the perugina eurochocolate festival in italy, which takes place every year in the lovely umbrian town of perugia. aka chocolate capital of the world. i mean, screw hershey, pa. this town knows its shit. you think you know chocolate? you've tasted nothing until you've had a baci, a chocolate-hazlenut combination of fantasticness, and probably my favorite chocolate of all time. and they're fun - every baci is enfolded in a sliver of paper containing a quote about love, like a little chocolate fortune cookie for the romantically inclined. i once read that the original producer of baci wrapped his hand-made chocolates in love notes and passed them on to the woman he was having an affair with, who was a master chocolate maker in her own right. is this how chocolate originated as a lover's gift? do i care as long as tommy keeps buying me chocolate? not really.

i was lucky enough to attend the eurochocolate festival in october 2002 - it was actually one of my first substantial weekend trips in italy, and we had an amazing time. a few pictures of the town are here. unfortunately, i was so obsessed with taking pictures of the gorgeous architecture and landscape that i didn't get a ton of good shots regarding the chocolate stuff. like the nutella crepes we had every morning for breakfast, or the 1euro cups of sicilian hot chocolate that were as thick as pudding, or the samples of every kind of chocolate imaginable that vendors were literally throwing at us.

two things we came across were especially ridiculous/awesome. one was the apparently famed sculpting of the chocolate, where a few sculptors are set up on platforms in the town square with chocolate blocks weighing, oh, a ton or two. we actually had to leave perugia to catch our train back to milan before we were able to see what they ended up sculpting, but the memorable part was standing in the rabid crowd, fighting for bags of slivers of chocolate that the sculptors' assistants tied up and threw, laughing, into the crowd. laughing because they knew that old women would beat children, middle-aged men would beat old women, and young american women would step on middle-aged mens' feet all in an attempt to grab a bag. goddammit, i don't care if i gave that dude a black eye. it was worth it.

anyway, the stranger event was something we stumbled on in our walks around the town. as we were considering purchasing some wool scarves from a street vendor, robin noticed an archway across the street that had a large crowd gathering around it. as it seemed to be open to the public, we made our way into the dimly lit room. and it was freaky.

it was sort of like a scene straight out of a fellini movie – that is, if fellini had ever directed a movie about a rather terrifying spa where the main beauty merchandise is chocolate. there were beautiful italian women in somber black lab coats and thick-framed glasses who stood in the corners, holding trays with glass vials of chocolate resting upon them. to the left was a long glass counter containing rows and rows of mysterious bottles that, upon closer inspection, were labeled with names like Chocolate Lotion Super Dream and Invigorating Chocolate Facial Mask. yummy.

shirtless men lounged around in terrycloth towels, their hair and faces smeared with chocolate. over in the next room, an attendant was giving people chocolate hair washes, which is just as bizarre as it sounds. they would rub a mass of liquidated chocolate into someone's hair, sculpt it into an intricate design, and tell them to leave it on for an hour or two, after which point they would wash it out and the hair was supposed to be shiny and invigorated, or some such bull shit.

we got some standard jargon from one of the attendants about how chocolate is actually good for your skin. this is not so strange upon reflection, as you've got the cocoa butter that's used in chocolate. but then why don't you just use, you know, regular cocoa butter? instead of creating an enormous nasty chocolate mess? they blathered on about antioxidants, but i wasn't really buying it. however, they were so incredibly and italian-y persistent that i bought a bar of cocoa soap just to get the hell out of there.

i left perugia thinking that the italians have got some serious chocolate fetishes. but browsing around the internet today to try to get some actual factual information on why you might want to dip your head into a vat of chocolate, i came across what can only be described as an abomination of nature: the chocolate spa at hershey hotel in hershey, pa.

for the bargain price of hundreds of dollars, you too can receive such treatments as the whipped cocoa bath, chocolate hydrotherapy (where "Adding the essence of cocoa is sure to conjure up thoughts of childhood during this hydrotherapy experience"), and the chocolate bean polish, where you can have your skin exfoliated (aka scraped off your bones) with crushed walnut shells.

now i'm much more skeptical of any good coming from a hershey chocolate treatment as opposed to an italian chocolate treatment, because, as we all know, hersheys chocolate is to italian chocolate as a pile of steaming dog crap is to gold, as is much stuff in the american culinary realm to its counterparts in the italian culinary realm. but still. i'm almost tempted to break open that bar of cocoa soap i bought in perugia two years ago. except, like totally not. instead i'm going to go home and eat 32 of the chocolate cupcakes i made last night, and pray that someone will send me some bacis.

mwahahahahahahah! MMWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!

merriweather pavilion is apparently in danger of going extinct.

i only wish i could take credit for its perilous state.

for those uninformed, you can read what i think of merriweather here. and here.

so, there's that web site, savemerriweather.org. i am seriously considering purchasing the domain name letmerriweatherrotandburninhell.org. or destroymerriweather.org. or merriweatherisabitchpleaseletitdie.org. something pithy like that.

so, despite the 22 mile run of death, i had a pretty decent, if not-exactly-thrilling and a little-too-sober-for-my-tastes weekend.

friday night was all about not watching the presidential debate and drinking as much water as i possibly could without making my brain float. i succeeded at both; i instead watched an old episode of the west wing and looked at democrat blogs so they could tell me what i should think about the debate, and during the night got up like four times to pee.

saturday morning, i woke up at 5:45 and prepared for the death run. i drank some more water, ate some toast with peanut butter and fig spread, and stuffed my running shorts with power gel packets.

the run was actually surprisingly good. the first 20 or so miles were, in fact, excellent. those power gel packets are little gifts of sugar from god. i paced myself, i drank gatorade continuously, had three power gels and some pretzels, and didn't have to stop to walk once. the last couple of miles were a bit hard - apparently almost everybody hits a wall of varying sizes at mile 20 - but now i think i have the psychological confidence needed to close it all out. whoopee! if you're interested in coming to watch the marathon, some spectactor information is here. i expect to keep a 9:30-10 minute mile pace throughout the whole thing, so you can calculate viewing points based on that. i'll have to ask becca and naomi for viewing tips, since they've run it before. a map of the course is here (in PDF format).

post-run, since i wasn't a complete zombie, i went with tommy to the nunnery to join kriston and susan in cheering for my now third favorite team (behind the redskins and the cavs): the UT, um, i forget their football's team name. but i cheered for them! make them eat shit! sadly, like another football team i wish would do better, they lost to the OU sooners, who are, apparently, a bunch of racist, cheating pigs.

the rest of the weekend was even more unremarkable except on sunday i went shopping with my family, and then had a delicious dinner at the grays' in arlington. it was apple cider-onion french soup, roasted squash and fennel, and grilled pork chops which had had this amazing treatment put on them - they were like, brined in coffee and molasses and i don't know what else for hours, then rubbed with chili and brown sugar and cumin and every other crazy spice and expertly grilled by mr. gray. they were, in fact, so good that i just signed up for two free issues from cooking light and resigned myself to being hounded by them for life just so i can have access to what i think is the recipe that mrs. gray used. i'll post it behind the cut in case anyone is interested.

the dessert was pears poached in wine and pomegranate juice, which was also super excellent. once again i scoured the internet(s) for the recipe, and will post what i think she must have used behind the cut. highly recommended. tommy and i left the grays' full, happy, a little tipsy and loving autumn.

i was walking to work this morning (more like striding angrily, or purposefully; or in fact, if one could walk shrilly, that's probably what i was doing), all pissed off and shrilly about this article, and was totally prepared to write the shrillest post EVER, and reveal my enormous amount of bush hatred to the world (it's even more than you thought!), and tell everyone that THIS is why i'm not voting for bush, not because i think kerry can handle iraq any better at this point (i mean, let's face it, iraq is so beyond help) but that kerry would never use fucking TROOPS as campaign flacks and totally just give the insurgents extra months to prepare in key cities that we need to take over to ensure that elections go decently JUST SO IT DOESN'T AFFECT HIS CHANCES OF WINNING THE PRESIDENCY JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WHAT THE HELL ACTUALLY RUNS THROUGH BUSH'S HEAD ON A DAILY BASIS I CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE BUT I SURE WOULD LIKE TO GET MY HANDS ON SOME OF THE DRUGS HE MUST BE TAKING.

shrill enough?

and then i was all like, i am fucking going to EXPLODE if this sort of shit happens in regards to iran if we are ever in a military thing with that country because i was all talking to my brother this weekend and he was all like hellz yeah everyone thinks something is going to happen there and by the way did you know that iran has lots of diesel submarines and it's totally likely that i could be deployed to the straits of hormuz and remember that we've mos def had naval confrontations with iran before and they've actually got a functioning military and so i'm thinking if bush thinks he can be all not using troops including kids like my brother in the best manner possible to ensure that we win shit just so he comes off looking better in the political arena and he's cool with risking their safety and doesn't mind giving insurgents more time to prepare for battles against us even at the risk of the iraqi elections not going smoothly in january and people are still okay with this then, well, we are truly inhabiting a bizarro world and i think i'm going to go have to live in a shack in yellowstone park or something and start eating SQUIRRELS and learning how to carve bathroom fixtures out of pine wood.

but then i got to work and was all like eh i don't feel like being that shrill. so i won't.

so for some reason today, i was reading through emails that i'd sent to tommy, friends and family when i was in italy. in one of the emails i'd talked about a party we went to very early on in the year, a potluck. the girls and i were poor, had no idea how to cook, and didn't know what the hell to bring.

but someone came up with the brilliant idea of making baked brie. it was super easy: we just needed cheese and filo dough and we were totally set. if you've ever had to make a last minute appetizer or something to bring to a party, you might have done baked brie. it's the easiest thing out there and people always love it.

i didn't have a party to go to tonight (except my own personal pity party i'm throwing myself on occasion of my 22mile death run tomorrow morning), but i felt like making baked brie. one, cause it's yummy, and two, cause i am obsessed with cheese. it's literally my favorite food.

anyway here's my little recipe:

you need filo dough (or actually, pillsbury crescent dough things work really well too) and a chunk of brie. and maybe something to put on top. you can make baked brie either sweet or salty, depending on what you put on it. i usually go for sweet, but i've seen recipes with prosciutto or pesto or nuts, etc. today i went for sliced pears for one minibaked brie and this awesome fig spread from whole foods for the other. and you need an egg white.

all you've got to do is lay out the filo dough, plop the brie in the middle, put your topping on top (oh yeah, strawberry jam is a good one too), wrap the filo dough up by sticking the corners together, brush the outside with the egg white, put the concoction on a slightly buttered baking dish, and bake it for about 15 minutes at 350.

for parties, you can get a big old wheel of brie and wrap it up. for my personal minibaked bries, i used only a wedge, sliced lengthwise through the middle, with the rind face down on the dough.

If anyone's interested and can bear it, Bob Wright has posted a reply to Dan Dennett's complaints that he's being misrepresented. Really, though, it's just Wright digging himself a deeper hole. If you haven't seen the video of the interview that started all of this, let me summarize it for you: Wright builds his case with a series of rapid fire points, getting Dennett to agree to it piece by piece (e.g. "Okay... yeah"), and ignoring the qualifications that Dennett adds to each point to which he agrees. Then at the end, Wright literally claims victory, cuts Dennett off and moves on to a new topic.

In the response above, Wright quotes from the transcript of this interview in "gotcha!" fashion, essentially saying "but you said this! you're committed to it!" Now, I'm no expert on this, but I don't think philosophy is usually conducted by videotaped deposition. I think the traditional way to win a philosophical grudge match is to prove that the other person's position is logically incoherent. Or just be the last combatant to commit suicide -- either way. You certainly don't win these arguments by pointing to a transcript and telling people what they think.

Wright seems very intent on pushing this Gaia-theory-ish business of his, about the planet evolving into a living entity according to some let's-not-say-so-but-secretly-he-thinks-maybe-divine plan. Bob, hey, I like living planets as much as the next guy -- particularly when they're evil, voiced by Orson Welles, and accompanied by a bitchin' hair metal soundtrack. But I don't think Dennett is ready to join the club, and you probably shouldn't try to force him.

A couple of gmail-related technological tidbits:

• As part of their new features, gmail is offering a downloadable tool that sits in your system tray and lets you know when you have new mail. Pretty slick, if you ask me -- this effectively mitigates the biggest complaint I have with web-based email. Requires win2k/XP, for now. I'm sure someone will whip up a Mac equivalent by and by.
• Via paragon-of-nerdiness Kevin Rose comes a way to actually take advantage of your gmail account's gigabyte of space: gmailFS, a utility that turns your gmail account into a new hard drive entry under "My Computer". There are some restrictions on filename size (40 characters) and individual filesize (10 MB), but these will likely be fixed in future versions. Again, no Mac version, but there's a linux version here, if that's your thing.

Finally, I'll mention that Xbox Media Player has really evolved into a powerful application. It happened without my noticing -- with an install of MythTV handy, there was never much reason to pay attention to the copy of XBMC that came with my modified XBox hard drive image. Now that I've ditched MythTV for TiVo, though, I can see that that awkward MPlayer port has grown up into a beautiful young, uh, media application suite.

If you've been looking for a good way to get those DivX files you shouldn't have been downloading out of your PC and onto your TV (without having to move the files themselves), you might want to give it a shot. You can put together a modded XBox for just over $150 -- not a bad deal for what XBMC can do, and a great deal if you have any interest in XBox games, emulation, or soldering tiny wires together.

Hey, if you feel like hearing some firebrand democratic rhetoric on the floor of the US House (and who whouldn't), be sure to check out this speech from Rep. Tim Ryan (PC, Mac). Links via Daily Kos.

The real reason I mention it, though, is that I programmed his shitty website. It looks horrible. All I can say is: it's not entirely my fault. And you'll just have to take my word on the fact that the scripted ASP/MCMS integration is top notch!

I started out this job doing data entry on archived press releases for a Republican congressman. I spent a lot of that time wondering whether it would really be so bad if the vast quantities of anti-Clinton demagoguery that I was entering were lost to the ages. But with folks like Ryan -- and, for a little while longer, Chris Bell -- on the client list, I'm actually feeling like maybe my day job is tilting a little closer toward "good" than "evil" -- although if we can add a second dimension to that graph, my data point will shoot straight up on the "useless" axis...

are behind the cut. but first, i wanted to show everybody the much-fabled apple cider donut:

and point you towards this delicious-sounding recipe on how to make your very own apple cider donuts that i recently found in the post. i think i'll try it sometime soon.

selected photos behind the cut. i have to admit, i'm feeling very lazy, and there are about two billion photos, so i'm just going to post certain ones, and you can browse the directory at your leisure here. it's mostly apple-picking photos, but there are also some from a recent trip to charlottesville, and one of that crazy bigass security blimp that was floating around d.c. last week.

we've totally kicked cancer's ass.

today my contact at the lombardi center sent an updated spreadsheet detailing the most recent donations we've received. and i was shocked to find that in the four months since june 3, when i first posted that above entry stating that i had decided to enter the marine corps marathon and raise $2,000 for the lombardi cancer center, i've received over $2,600 in donations.

i mean really. holy fuck.

and guess what? almost $600 of that came through people who donated through the blog. it's totally amazing. i know i've already gotten gushy here and thanked everyone about 2 billion times, but really, just humor me once more and let me say it again:

thank you!

i thought all along that raising money was going to be harder than running the marathon, but i should have counted on my friends' and family's generosity. running this motherfucker and not dying is definitely going to be the harder of the two.

i've been fairly good about weekday training - i've taken to running up and down rock creek parkway for 8 or 9 miles, which is a gorgeous trail, as long as you don't get raped and/or murdered on it. but this saturday i'm entering the 10th circle of hell, commonly known as the 22 mile run. behold:

wish me well!

As some of you might already know, Universal is making a movie based on the Doom videogame franchise. It's easy to understand why when you consider the games' vibrant fictional universe, saturated as it is with concepts like: being on Mars; the sudden, unexplained appearance of monsters from hell; the shooting of said monsters; and many other, uh, ideas. Ahem.

Well, if that sounds as fascinating to you as it would have to me when I was thirteen, be sure to check out this interview with its first-time screenwriter, in which he reveals the exciting plans he has for expanding upon the rich backstory, while remaining true to the spirit of the franchise. Among the juiciest revelations:

• The movie is no longer set on Mars


• The monsters are no longer from hell


• The main character's name is "John"


• There will still be shooting


• Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson will co-star!

Sounds like that licensing fee is really paying for itself.

i was totally anxious during the vice presidential debates the other night (i was sure cheney would wipe the floor with edwards and i didn't really want to witness it), so instead of sitting in front of the tv with charles and tommy, i headed towards the kitchen to use up some of the apples from our carter mountain orchard extravaganza (pics should be up soon) and make an apple crisp.

i was originally inspired by this recipe here, but since i can't read, am terrible at following directions, couldn't find dates at whole foods, and can't do the basic math in order to convert grams into cups, etc, i kind of flew by the seat of my pants and just mixed a whole bunch of ingredients together. it came out not terribly, but i think i added too much milk to the topping and so it wasn't as crumbly as it should have been. but it's pretty good heated and covered with a ton of vanilla ice cream. anyway, if you want to know the recipe, eccola:

-preheat oven to 400 degrees

-take 8 apples and peel and core them (the afternoon before i made the recipe, i asked tommy via IM if we had a corer at home. he responded by laughing hysterically, apparently because this is not a reasonable question to ask. i told him that he and charles are very domestic and gay, and they should not be surprised if people were to ask them if they owend an apple corer). anyway, i just used a knife to slice and peel. i am lucky i still am in possession of all of my fingers.

-arrange the apple slices in a buttered baking dish. oh yeah, i would use a smaller baking dish rather than a large baking dish. i think the one i used was too big, and i ended up not having enough topping to spread over all the apples.

-take 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 oatmeal, 7/8 cup of all-purpose flour, and a stick of salted butter. dice the butter and mix them all up. the original recipe says to do this with a food processor, but i just did it by hand in a bowl. i think a food processor would be a much better idea, as i ended up with a lumpy mess. the original recipe also suggests adding a small splash of milk. i would not do this, because your small splash of milk might accidentally turn into a huge splash of milk, and then you have a lumpy, milky mess. i also read another recipe that suggests mixing all the above ingredients (minus the milk) in a big ziplock bag and squishing it with your hands. that sounds fun, so i'll recommend that.

-spread your lumpy mess over the apple slices in the baking dish. before spreading said mess, i also sprinkled some white sugar and added pats of butter to the apples in hopes that it would somehow salvage the whole thing.

-bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until apple juices are bubbling and the topping is crispy and golden brown. let it cool a little bit, then scoop some out and serve it with vanilla ice cream or cool whip. luckily, baked apples are essentially good and hard to screw up, so even if you've fucked everything else up, it should still taste alright.

voila!

Over at BeliefNet, Robert Wright is twisting Dan Dennett's words into an endorsement of his position. Dan Dennett, although not quite as much of a jerk about it as the late Francis Crick, is an atheist, and a modern philosopher famous enough that people have actually heard of him despite his complete failure to inspire the birth of any fascist dictatorships (the true benchmark for any 20th century thinker).

Wright's article twists Dennett's position like an ad exec quoting two words from a movie review. Wright lays out a very broad descriptive framework -- one so broad that there's basically no option but to agree with it. When Dennett does so, Wright ignores all of the qualifications Dennett inserted, and goes on to use this weak endorsement as a vote in favor of some crackpot speculation about the planet evolving into a thinking organism.

More specifically, Dennett agrees that evolution as a process can be described as a "designer", insofar as it plays a causal role in the development of organisms. He also agrees that evolution can be ascribed a "direction", although he thinks that direction is probably arbitrary.

Wright simply gets Dennett to agree that these descriptive metaphors can be applied on a global scale to the planet. As I understand it, this is the limit of his assent: that the earth's development is proceeding in an arbitrary but consistent direction, and that this development is caused by natural, deterministic processes to which, if you're intent on it, you can apply the term "designer". That's it. He doesn't talk about God, or morality, or the meaning of life. He
just agrees on the validity of a very broad descriptive framework.

From there, Wright engages in some frankly sophomoric philosophizing, throwing out Gaia theory speculations and implying that complexity is synonymous with meaning, and that linear progression indicates deliberate design. Although I'm sympathetic to some of this, it's completely obvious that there is no factual justification for it. And it opens up some unpleasant cans of philosophical worms, which Wright is mostly happy to ignore. For instance: does his position mean that evolutionary progress is synonymous with morality? If so, would I be a better person if I had, I donno, retractable claws? I mean, clearly it would be awesome, but would a prehensile tail make me a righteous person?

I'm no Dennett apologist -- for one thing, I'm not at all satisfied with the only work of his with which I'm very familiar: his account of consciousness, which, after 500 pages, basically boils down to saying you don't really need to explain subjective experience after all (although he would deny this and probably send some enforcers/philosophy TAs to rough me up and/or confuse me). And frankly I am pretty receptive to the idea of existence having a higher purpose, in much the same way that I am receptive to the idea of free ice cream. But I think Dennett will be unhappy with Wright's characterization of his position, and downright pissed-off by the way bloggers like Begging To Differ and Sullivan are linking to it -- which is tending to be surround by language along the lines of "ATHEIST RECANTS! THERE IS A GOD!"

UPDATE: Dennett responds (thanks, Catherine, for finding this)

sometimes, i wish marketing people didn't feel the need to keep up with the times. i wish they didn't think they had to come up with a new product every 2.5 seconds to keep up with the average american's attention span. i wish they could just stick with regular soda instead of crystal pepsi, with normal bottled water instead of vitamin-infused crap, with good old beer instead of B^E.

B-to-the-E (BE), Budweiser's newest entry in a long line of innovative beers by Anheuser-Busch, is a distinctive new product for contemporary adults who are looking for the latest beverage to keep up with their highly social and fast-paced lifestyles.

As the industry leader, Anheuser-Busch is the first major brewer to infuse beer with caffeine, guarana and ginseng. Well balanced with select hops and aromas of blackberry, raspberry and cherry, BE will offer a lightly sweet and tart taste - a great mixture of beer and new flavors for adults to enjoy when out with friends at a club or at a bar after work with colleagues.

Brewed at Anheuser-Busch's Houston brewery, BE will be packaged in a sleek, slim-line 10-ounce can with stylish graphics. Pending formal government approval, BE will be launched in multiple phases throughout the year in markets across the country.

"Contemporary adults thirst for variety and what's new, and our B-to-the-E delivers a beverage that is true to their lifestyles and range of drinking occasions," said Pat McGauley, senior director of New Products and High End Brands, Anheuser-Busch, Inc. "Our new B-to-the-E provides caffeine, guarana, and ginseng in a great tasting beer."

this basically sounds like the liquid form of pure nastiness. i may be a contemporary adult, and i may thirst for variety (haha, look at my clever adspeak), but i also thirst for non-crapiness. and B^E does not deliver.

you know what's truly atrocious in this country? it's not our incompetent administration, not the skyrocketing poverty levels, not the ever-worsening environmental standards. it's the train service. the fucking train service.

i started thinking about this yesterday while i was planning my extended weekend trip to nyc and boston. you see, i have some very dear friends from italy in those two places - the lovely natania, who's studying education at bank street at columbia in nyc, and carla, cynthia, and claire in boston, who are, respectively, teaching, doing marketing, and studying landscape architecture at harvard. and i haven't seen many of them in over a year. so we were well past due for some sort of reunione.

at first i was just going to fly in and out of boston, but then i realized i had enough time to take of a couple of days and visit natania in new york. literally, the only times i've ever been to nyc were to see radiohead concerts, so i haven't seen anything, really, of the city, except i'm very well acquainted with radio city music hall. i figured i could leave thursday evening, spend friday evening wandering around the city, and natania and i could train it up to boston friday night, ensuring a weekend full of wine, debauchery, and canoli.

except when i checked on prices on amtrak.com to go to nyc and/or boston, and found out that I CANNOT GET A ROUNDTRIP TICKET FOR UNDER $300 THAT DOESN'T TAKE 143 HOURS!!!

i have to admit that i've been completely spoiled by the train system in italy, which is absolutely amazing. contrary to what you might have heard about italian efficiency and organization, the trains are almost always on time, are pleasant and clean even in 2nd class, and also, you're traipsing about the italian countryside, so it's usually a pretty beautiful ride. now, i know nothing about any sort of government regulations that might be hindering awesome train service in america (or at least regionalized train service, especially up and down the east coast), but if the freaking italians can do it, we should be able to.

an example: from washington, d.c. to new york city, it's about 200 miles. this is comparable to the distance between the southern cities of naples and bari. on amtrak, a one-way second class ticket with an unreserved seat will run you $74 and takes about three hours. a ticket from naples to bari does take a bit longer, but you can purchase a 3 1/2 hour 2nd class ticket for $33.

now, from d.c. to boston, i think the distance is about 450 miles. an amtrak ticket between the two cities gose for $90 in its cheapest incarnation, and it'll take you almost 8 hours to get there. the distance is equivalent to the mileage between trieste and rome, can get there in a little over 7 hours, and costs only $57.

obviously, the fact that amtrak sucks and is expensive isn't really news to anyone, but after living in a country where i was able to hop on a train at a moment's notice and hit up city after wonderful city every weekend -- well. it's disappointing.

but i've found a semi-answer to my transportation woes: the ghetto chinatown buses, which are going to have to be my italian train substitute for now. i can get up to nyc for $15, then from nyc to boston for another $15, which isn't bad at all. of course, i'll be watching fantastic vistas like the new jersey turnpike and endless miles of medians instead of rolling tuscan hills or the jagged cliffs of the riviera, but it's a small price to pay to see le mie amiche belle.

sometimes, i find it amusing how much my time spent "at work" has actually become my 8 hours a day spent "managing catherine's life and all non-work-related details."

for example, my work was my marathon fundraising center for a month or two; all emails, letters, and planning were done from my desk, with my computer used to print forms, my phone used to make all sorts of calls to bars, friends and vendors, begging letters and information sent through the company mail (and i never even charged my personal account). i colored in fundraising signs in an empty office and sold raffle tickets to most of my coworkers.

when i was looking for a house over the summer, every detail of the search was conducted from the office. i spent hours browsing craigslist, washington city paper and the post classifieds; i sent countless emails to prospective landlords and filled in my work number as the place they could best reach me.

work is also my social center; of late i have planned my trip to boston in a couple of weeks, my villa trip to italy in the spring, tommy's and my four-year anniversary present to each other, and many a happy hour or weekend outing.

my next big project is doing my grad school applications, and already that's taking precedence over my "work" as well. my personal statement is saved to my work computer's desktop; i'm printing out sheets and sheets of supplemental forms from the department printer; it's like a fricking grad school command center headquarters thing.

the plus side to managing my entire life from work is that i constantly look busy and like i'm doing something important - and i am busy, and doing something important. but it's just not, um, what i should actually be doing. and it's gotten to the point where i'm *extremely* annoyed if i actually have substantial work to do. because DON'T THEY KNOW I HAVE TO RUN MY LIFE?

anyway, i've come to the conclusion that i could actually run a small business from my desk if i so choose. any ideas? stuff i've come up with: italian vacation planner; professional bush hater; blog consultant; piner-after of amazing-looking recipes; or bored editorial assistant in the pubs department.

Looks like the new Q & Not U is out. Based on hearing it live, I'm a little wary of their new stuff. Hopefully that's due to my own lack of familiarity with it. Regardless of the new material's failure to grab me immediately, the excellent Different Damage certainly earned its follow-up some attention.

Whether or not you share that opinion, don't miss Pitchfork's almost entirely incoherent review of the new album. Reviewer Nick Sylvester seems to have liked it, but writes like a chimpanzee throwing darts at a thesaurus. By way of illustration, allow me to present his concluding sentence: "Q & Not U is increasingly supple on Power, but hardly nomadic". This guy must have gotten killed on the SAT antonym section.

the weekend was good, even though i didn't do anything either night except go out to dinner with tommy saturday night at mehak. sunday was especially nice, as we journeyed down to fair charlottesville to hit up carter mountain orchard and strip it of all of its apples. tommy and i together probably picked about 200 lbs worth of the good stuff; now we just have to think of ways to use it. we also sampled apple cider and bought a few jugs, and had plenty of apple donuts and even sampled some wine from the orchard's grapes, which generally sucked. we all seem to be of the consensus that virginia whites are okay, but virginia reds make you want to retch on some poor child's face. susan makes a note here about the more, shall we say, sinister aspects of the festival.

anyway, many pies and crumbly things and other more creative apple recipes will have to be made. i'll put pictures of the pickage up tonight, if we don't go to trivia at fado, or tomorrow evening.

other things of note (to me, anyway)

come on, someone do this with me.

(btw, i'm partial to the veneto 5-course meal or the sicilian one.)

just to say, in my new baking adventures, i decided yesterday evening to make the blueberry coffee cake from chocolate and zucchini, and it was decidedly easy to do and turned out really well, totally moist because you use a lot of yogurt in it (or sour cream, apparently, if you prefer). i guess blueberries are going out of season (though i was able to find them at whole foods for like FOURTEEN DOLLARS FOR A TINY CARTON), but come sunday we'll be up to our eyeballs in apples. tommy will make his apple pies (he even makes the crusts from scratch), and i want to make these apple crumbles or this if there are any leftover.

anyway i should go on a run soon because i basically ate half of the blueberry coffee cake by myself and i am officially gross.

it's amazing what some nice fall weather and a good debate can do for your mood. my office (which is full of evil liberals who work in higher education) is positively full of people grinning and laughing and they may as well be skipping about whistling zipadeedodah.

hey! i found a good recipe blog. chocolate and zucchini. i also found il forno, which is mainly italian food. i may try cooking something tonight. maybe the peperonata (pictured at right, image from ilforno) and pasta e zucchini. except all the measurements from these blogs are in grams, and i don't know how to convert them. what does 500g of tomatoes equal, anyway? well, i'll figure it out. but now i'm looking at all these delicious recipes and am absolutely inspired to have some sort of dinner party. how old and dorky of me.

this weekend is shaping up to be a fun one, i think. i don't have any plans for tonight, but tomorrow i think i'll do an 8-10 mile run (i did a great run yesterday on rock creek parkway, up an abandoned road called klingle road, and past the national cathedral back down to dupont). then in the afternoon, if it's not storming, i want to go to the greek festival at saint sophia. anybody down? sunday of course is apple picking day; i think we'll leave around 10am, stop and get lunch in charlottesville (and force frank's spinach rolls down everybody's throat), then go pick some apples. it's supposed to be 70 and sunny. perfect apple weather.

go check out DCist: later today i'll have a weekend events posting that should have some good things to keep you occupied for the next 72 hours. like the free polyphonic spree concert tonight at the kennedy center.

Tony Blankley, Washington Times columnist and unapologetic Bush apologist, on NPR just a moment ago:

"I think the world is going to hell, and nobody's satisfied with any of the solutions being offered by either candidate, so they are falling back on whoever they viscerally identify with. I don't think anyone would say the world is on the right track."

The above is paraphrased, from about the show's eighth minute -- you'll be able to find it here once the show had concluded. Another panelist agreed immediately thereafter, based upon her discussions with Bush voters.

Is this a scientifically rigorous representation of public opinion? No. But if it's at all accurate -- and I think it probably is -- then all Kerry has to do is finish his campaign by saying "It doesn't have to be this way" -- a theme that his "America can do better" mantra has neatly laid the groundwork for. A pessimistic electorate can't possibly favor the incumbent.