the times actually has two travel articles that don't make me want to retch all over a set of luis vuitton luggage: one on ljubljana, slovenia, and one on bologna, italy. you can see my ljubljana experience here and my bologna trip here. the bologna one is funny (to me), because it was written before i really got or knew about blogging. so it's kind of short bus. but the pictures are pretty.

The inevitable Tom-just-finished-HBP Harry Potter thread. Hopefully someone else has the patience for it. So, what I came away with (packed to the brim with spoilers):

UPDATE: Sorry for not having it behind the cut. I counted on the <spoiler> tag working, but I guess those of you with funky CSS implementations or reading this through RSS might've had something revealed. Sorry about that.

this song. i am thinking i might like it even better than "bleeding heart show"?

scott's recipe for salty oat cookies. yum yum. i'm particularly intrigued by the person in the comments who mentions a cookie recipe that includes potato chips...

screw introspection and sobriety! we're heading to wonderland. drunken abandon and columbia heights hipsters, here i come.

i should also note that tommy's and my relationship has evolved (devolved?) to the point where we joke about who we would run away with in blogland, if the opportunity arose (and the blogger would have us. but who wouldn't have us? we're adorable). my inherent discretion (bwahaha) prevents me from stating who, but not from asking you all: who in blogland would you run away with? who's your blog crush? c'mon, don't be shy; it's just the internets. and i know it's me. you can say it.

UPDATE: in drunken debauchery, kriston and susan told me this is now a meme (ie, me, tommy, kriston and susan were talking about it; 4 people=meme) so now everybody has to do it. DO IT. (it was seriously drunken debauchery; somebody got "i heart pumping" written in sharpie on his face. and a borf tag on his arm.)

UPDATE II: FINE! i realize i need to facilitate this. i think the ghost and fontana labs are crushworthy. now you go. this is a safe place.

oh, blog. bloggity blog blog. i've missed you this week. i been busy over here. but i still love you, baby. tommy's taking good care of you. posting pictures of his belt and whatnot. it's great. and nobody ever leaves racist ass comments here. i love you, commenters. zunta blog readers: not racist. good job, guys.

it's been a weird couple of weeks. moving is starting to hit me a little bit more. i'm ready to do it, yet can't quite get ready to totally do it due to work and timing, so i feel like i'm caught in flux. it's strange. i don't really like it. i want to be here, fully, or i want to be doing something, going somewhere. i'm just in between right now. and as a result, blogging moody posts on a friday night. i thought about going out tonight, but tommy is reading HP, and i'm tired after a farewell work happy hour (which was totally sweet; my coworkers bought me one of those ipod base speaker thingamajigs as a going away present. they're awesome. they also made me drink 15 vodka tonics. not so awesome. but still kinda awesome).

i leave work august 12. i have about a month before heading to chicago after that, and i'm not sure what i'm going to do with myself. hopefully, a lot of running. hopefully a lot of meat-eating and beer-swilling. i thought about doing a DC SOB type list, but we'll see.

it's a weird time, internet. maybe i should sign up for a livejournal account. because, what the fuck, that's what this is turning into. maybe i should go put on a hoodie and cry to conor oberst.

Oh, Tivo. You know me better than I know myself. Did I realize how badly I wanted to watch the first four minutes of STEALTH? No, I did not.

But you did. You put that little "thumbs up for more!" icon on the ad for it, and when I inevitably clicked it, you had the footage ready. Without you I never would have known that the movie is about an elite fighter jet squadron created to fight terrorism.

Thank you.

I'm trying to figure out this whole ebook thingy, and stumbled across Amazon's bestselling ebook chart. There's smut, Dan Brown, and very little else. Ew.

What is the best all-time breezy pop song about terrible things happening to little girls?

A) Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland 1945"
B) Okkervil River's "Black"

Other nominations welcome. Really, I'm just looking for the poppiest song about the worst thing, ever. It sounds easy, but once you eliminate the songs about drug abuse the field thins pretty quickly.

(Oh, and thanks to the governess for introducing the internet, of which I am a part, to Okkervil River. They also offer this song for download, and it's also a knockout.)

It's time to say goodbye to BIOS. If you're lucky, you have no idea what it is, anyway, but the less fortunate have hit F2 or Del to enter setup when their system was booted, and browsed through the myriad options presented. The BIOS doesn't just let you flip settings; it also serves to manage the very low-level hardware on your computer, like RAM, basic video, plug-n-play support, and the built-in hard disk controllers. It translates the commands of more sophisticated programs into the language of your computer's specific chipset.

But most agree that BIOS has outlived its lifespan, and it's time to move on. Apple, for instance, uses OpenBIOS, a newer technology that offers advantages that make it easier to recover from a system crash, boot from the network, or run multiple operating systems on the same computer. Now industry heavyweights like AMD, Dell, HP and IBM are banding together to design a next-gen BIOS architecture called United EFI. That's fine -- but in the process they're going to try to cripple your computer. You shouldn't let them.

ted leo read harry potter and the half-blood prince (spoilers).

But apparently I need new playing cards.

Looks like the panda cub's actually zeroing in on "cute". Maybe this wasn't all a horrible mistake.

"We wanted to see if we could make a record that isn't referred to as 'the windows down, car-stereo-blasting summer album of the year', if only once."

That's Carl "A.C." Newman of the New Pornographers, discussing his approach to their new album Twin Cinema. Someday we will have the technology to send powerful electrical shocks to his nether regions whenever someone clicks on that link. Sadly, that day is not today.

And as a result, the new album is only okay. Carl wanted more dynamics, he says. I'm not sure I hear that exactly, but he certainly does more with tempo changes than he did on past NP releases. The thing is, the results just aren't that pleasing. It's very nice that he's got 5 time signatures in a song, and they're all numerologically derived from the kaballah. But usually they're separated by clumsy all-percussion transitions. And really, I just want a rolling singalong melody that's so impossibly fun and catchy that it makes me want to run down the street screaming.

Despite a few exceptional songs, Carl's solo album didn't wow me. That's pretty much the situation here. "The Bleeding Heart Show" is great. So is "Spanish Techno". I'm sure the rest will grow on me, but they aren't as immediately great as those on the NP's last two albums. That's Newman's prerogative though, I guess. At this point he can write his own ticket.

I just wish that he would realize that Neko Case is still the one that punches it. Newman's got a fine rock voice, but it really can't compare with Neko's almost husky, almost flat, and almost screaming timbre. It must be frustrating to slave over the songs and then have someone otherwise unconnected to the creative process (she's referred to herself as Carl's "puppet") come in and completely steal the show. I imagine it like this: Newman's bleary eyed from rewriting a bridge until 4am in order to have it ready for today's session; Neko walks in thirty minutes late, in a fur coat and a bad mood, and belts out the last 90 seconds of "The Bleeding Heart Show" without taking off her sunglasses. Then she asks for some time off and a raise.

So it's understandable that Carl wants to make sure he's the one in the spotlight. I'm sure that after the first album he saw Case getting most of the headlines and didn't like the way things seemed to be going. But although Neko gets to do more on this record than the last, I still hear a lot more Carl Newman vocals than I'm really interested in listening to. Which would be fine, except Newman seems to have decided that serious musicians don't do hooks. If he keeps systematically disassembling the things that make the New Pornographers great, I'll be pretty disappointed.

UPDATE: The ghost has a better review up here. I completely agree about "Jackie Dressed in Cobras" -- it's probably the best example of the album's tendency to stich song parts together with stuttering, awkward drum transitions. Oh, and one other thing: according to the link that starts this post, the payoff to album highlight "The Bleeding Heart Show" is apparently a recycled bit of unused melody from the Electric Version sessions. Draw what conclusions you will.

who here who reads zunta knows what RSS means/does and uses some form of an RSS reader? hands up, folks!

UPDATE: i meant to ask if you do use an RSS reader, what is it? i use bloglines. i used to use thunderbird before it imploded on me.

the one day i don't give in to my obsessive umbrella-toting...

well, kevin drum is here again. he's got a post about the half-blood prince that asks the very question i've been pondering since i read the book. it's very spoilery, obviously, but there's a good comment thread.

UPDATE: as pointed out in drum's comments, there's also a very good thread at alas, a blog, here. spoilers, warning, etc.

for those still interested, the zunta harry potter thread is here.

UPDATE II: this is a great theory about the blank that blank blanks. in the cave. heh.

UPDATE III: and another good theory about the blankity blank blank. dear lord. i need to stop.

kriston just sent susan and me this link, which states (or shouts, rather):

AMERICAS NEXT TOP MODEL WILL BE NEAR THE NATIONS CAPITAL ON AUGUST 20TH AT MACYS 1000 HAYES ST. ARLINGTON, VA. FROM 10AM TO 5PM. LADIES YOU MUST BE AT LEAST 5 FT' 7'. PLEASE ALSO EMAIL PICTURES TO US TO BE CONSIDERED TO COME TO L.A. AND ATTEND TYRAS NEW SHOW, 'THE TYRA BANKS' SHOW AIRING THIS FALL

susan's response:

AWESOME. Cath let’s get on the show together and then claw each other’s eyeballs out. I’ll be the virgin anorexic, and you can be the atheist coke addict.

i'm so in. all i have to do is lose 30 pounds. i think that's where the coke addiction comes in.

kevin drum is always so good and so widely-read that it's rarely necessary to point out his posts, but i just wanted to say that i really liked this one.

why yesterday was the worst day ever:

1. tommy's off in christtown, PA.
2. i melted into a large pile of sweaty human flesh.
3. my drycleaner lost my favorite pair of black pants. apparently somebody else who shares my last name came in and they gave the pants to him, without checking his ticket number. nevermind these were a size 4 pair of obviously woman's pants, and he was some dude. god. i hope he didn't try them on.
4. i went down to chinatown to snap some pictures for a DCist-thing. on my way out the door, i grabbed a square of chocolate to nibble on. as soon as i stepped outside, the chocolate melted into a gelatinous pile of ooze, which promptly smeared itself all over my hand and mouth.
5. across the street from me and my chocolate-covered fatass face were two beautiful, extremely skinny and athletic-looking girls attaching a kayak to a car roof. they are god's gift to the human eye, and probably kayaking. i am god's gift to melted chocolate. they saw me and my sweaty, chocolate-covered face. and pointed and laughed. well, not really.
6. i cut back into alley to avoid people on street. while wiping off the chocolate, i NEARLY STEPPED ON A DEAD RAT.

signs today might be better:
1. tommy gets back today
2. i finally loaded the new new pornographers album on my ipod, and it's pretty good. not their best, but "the bleeding heart show" is pretty kickass (you can download it here). apparently it has to do with "Zulu choral music Isicathamiya." okay, mr. newman. even though i'm not a huge fan of the cd right now, i don't doubt it'll grow on me, much like "slow wonder" did.
3. the drycleaner's called. dude returned my pants.
4. i think my PDA will come today
5. i might try to make ice cream tonight. hopefully it won't end up smeared all over my face.

Pennsylvania local news is great. A teaser featured an anchor asking, "gas prices got you using regular instead of the recommended premium?", thereby portraying a wildly inaccurate idea of what you're supposed to put in your car; their intro to a piece on the $100 cheesesteak actually referred to its purchasers as "suckers"; and an elderly woman being interviewed about a watermain break noted that during a surgery she had died on the table twice. "So how bad could it [the watermain break] be?"

All of this within the first ten minutes. Awesome.

Okay, not really. But things are fine here. The job is manageable, the food is cheap, and the clients are pretty nice. The guy I'm working with is particularly cool -- lots of tattoos, piercings, and pictures of his cute six year old daughter in various vaguely punk-rock poses.

The hotel's not too bad, either, as these things go. The clerk seemed awfully upset at us for callously having forced his coworker to misbook our room, but they were ctually handing out free beer when we came in. That's a pretty good pace to set for yourself. Unfortunately, I eschewed the beer in favor of a trip to the hotel gym. Obviously this was a stupid, stupid mistake. The ancient rusty all-in-one machines in these places never work anything except my rotator cuffs. They, at least, got put through the paces.

The only really noteworthy thing about this place, though, is the smell. Or smells. Okay, sometimes they're predictable -- the wing with the pool stinks overpoweringly of chlorine. And frequently they're variations on a theme -- the hallway smells like old people; the other hallway smells like another, different old person; and the bathroom smells like feet (possibly a pair belonging to an old person). But there are odd wildcards... was someone baking oatmeal cookies in the gym? And did Mr. Kool-Aid drink fruit punch wine coolers in my microwave until he got violently sick? It's all very mysterious. But seeing as I have to be at work by 7:30 tomorrow, I don't have much time to investigate.

well, well, a weekend report. i haven't done one of these in a long time, primarily because there has been crapall in my life lately to report, unless you want to hear about me constantly being stressed and bitchy - who doesn't want to hear about that?! - but i did a couple of things this weekend that were kind of fun. so onwards, blogging soldiers.

my ATM has a limit of a $500-a-day withdrawal. i did not find this out until today when i tried to get more than that to get a money order to put down the deposit on my apartment in chicago. wah. hopefully the delay won't be a problem, but i'm a little stressed. for the voyeurs, you can see pictures of where i'll be living with my 367 cats all next year here.

the small matter of the kitchen being in the bedroom: i'm not really sure what to do about that. this is how it's set up: there's one large room off the entry hall. a small room is to the side, and the kitchen is also part of that smaller room. the previous tenant used it as a bedroom, but the thought of having my bed two feet away from where i cook sort of weirds me out. i might just turn it into a den and keep my bed out in the main room. we shall see...

A billboard in baltimore, visible from 95 north:

this is not washington, dc

this is gin BEEFEATER

Are we being insulted? I honestly have no idea.

PS: overturned greyhound bus north of Charm City. Not something you see lying in a ditch every day. Hope everyone's okay.

Thunderbird: don't use it. My computer has been begging to be reformatted for a little while now, but that doesn't excuse a mail program throwing out all of your email. Oh, the big, mammoth files that used to contain them are still there, peeking out at me -- 100 megs of personal stuff, 150 of work -- but every single byte of them is set to 0x00.

Losing one mail file? I could forgive that. Shit happens. My hard drive might be to blame. But given that a) all of the files and directories surrounding this one are perfectly fine and b) both content files are hopelessly fucked, I am less inclined to be charitable.

I'm totally stumped as to why it's apparently so hard to write a decent email client. Filtering spam? That's tough. Rendering HTML? Hugely complicated. But those parts are already written -- they're the bits that actually work! The part that nobody can seem to master is efficiently and flexibly sorting, storing and displaying a lot of small text files. This is something that computers are well-suited to doing very very well. But for some reason, email clients can't quite manage it.

i know it's completely passe (not to mention useless) to complain about ticketmaster charges, but this has gotten TOTALLY OUT OF HAND! i haven't used TM in a while, but i've been raging since i just bought a single ticket to see bloc party in chicago come september 14, and this is how it broke down:

item	charge
Full Price Ticket	$21.50
Total Building Facility Charge(s)	$1.50
Total Convenience Charge(s)	$8.50
Additional Taxes	$.032
Order Processing Charge(s)	$4.55
ticketFast Delivery	$2.50

TOTAL CHARGES US $38.37

and this is how a ~$20 ticket gets turned into a ~$40 one.

kids, it's time for a revolucion! i dunno what, but...this cannot go on.

tommy makes fun of me whenever i watch vh1's best week ever, but my liking for the show has JUST BEEN VALIDATED FOREVER because they pointed me towards the awesomest, most bizarre internet clip EVER - really, ever, no kidding - a promo clip for next season of lost, directed by dave lachapelle, showing all the characters dancing in slow motion, dressed in sort of 20s-style-meets-starving-deserted-island getups and smeared makeup to FUCKING PORTISHEAD.

watch it here.

The internet connection at home has slowed to a horrible 60some kbps, only marginally better than a dialup modem and much too slow to access the applications I need in order to actually get any work done. You might think this is a good thing, but alas -- it means Xbox Live is out of the question as well. Fucking irony.

Normally I don't bother entering online sweepstakes, even though Naomi has actually won several by using downtime at work to enter them. But hey -- Dell's offering a 1-in-100 chance to win a 26" LCD TV, and that seems worth 30 seconds of your time. Enter here. And remember to use a spamgourmet address.

a comment to a DCist borf post i wrote a while back about his arrest:

Comment:

borf is not caught.

Tomorrow, Saturday July 23rd
MEET BORF at Dupont Circle

Meet at 4pm in Dupont Circle for a celebration and discussion of public art, graffiti and vandalism. There will be sidewalk chalk, stencil cutting materials, free spray paint, hopscotch, handstands, millions of dollars, and the first in a series of communiques from Borf. Borf is not caught. Come tomorrow so we can talk about what all this shit means.

the post gives DCist a shout out (and a web link) in the metro section today. hoo fucking rah. now if only they'd mentioned us by name in their borf article, i would be placated.

we introduced you to the freakish butterworms that are baby pandas, so i thought i'd give you an update on how they're coming along, appearance-wise:

not as terrible, but it still looks like a bald, bloated, blind squirrel.

Kyle has a good review of the Teenage Fanclub show over at DCist. He mentions that the sound started off muddled, then got better. Now, just to be clear: there's a great chance that it was a poor sound mix that got corrected, especially if Kyle had already sat through an opener. He's a smart lad and has been to a lot of shows. I'd trust him on this one.

But another possibility exists, and I think it's interesting enough to prattle on about for a while. It's also the reason that earplugs not only make you look lame, but also make shows sound worse (instead of just quieter).

I'm sorry to get all sour grapes on you, but this is retarded. Two Salt Lake City high school students have won a $50,000 "Sustainable Development" scholarship award from Ricoh for creating a new car air conditioning system that doesn't use moving parts or freon.

The system works by using Peltier coolers, which take advantage of an interesting effect whereby applying a current to a properly constructed semiconductor creates a temperature differential -- one side gets hot, and the other gets cool. These kids basically rigged up a bunch of Peltiers and a hairdryer fan to blow air over them. It's a nice science project, but the idea that someone gave them fifty thousand dollars for this boggles my mind.

For one thing, it's not like these kids invented the Peltier Effect, or even built the relevant coolers. Check it out -- you can buy these suckers for $8 on ebay. Idiots who overclock their computers buy them to cool down processors.

I say idiots because Peltier coolers simply don't work that well. For computers, you're usually better off just buying a bigger fan and heatsink or (sigh) a water-cooling kit. Relative to conventional automotive air conditioning systems, Peltiers are terrible. For one thing, they're horribly inefficient, consuming much more energy than they transport. Traditional mechanical refrigeration, by contrast, is extremely efficient -- about seven times moreso than Peltiers.

For another thing, Peltiers take electricity, which is not something car engines produce. Engines make rotary motion, which your alternator turns into electricity. Alternators are also pretty efficient, but by using a thermoelectric solution you invariably end up throwing away some energy in order to produce the electricity needed to power the already-inefficient Peltiers. Compressor-based A/C systems just hook up to your engine via a belt, and skip the electrical step altogether.

So why would you ever, ever try to use the Peltier solution? Well, the short answer is "you wouldn't". But is is compact, lightweight, and pretty cheap. Also, it doesn't use freon. But then, neither do modern automotive air conditioners -- their refrigerant (although still sometimes called freon) doesn't deplete the ozone. It's a greenhouse gas, but if you're worried about automobiles' greenhouse emissions, the A/C system is not the place to concentrate your fretting.

So basically these kids bought $50 worth of computer cooling accessories and rigged a fan to blow over them. It's like if I proposed using glove warmers to replace that bulky, polluting gas furnace in your basement. No emissions! More compact! A great solution... until you actually figure out how much it's going to cost.

I realize that beating up on a couple of kids' failure to develop a revolutionary technology is a little silly. But c'mon -- $50k and writeup that makes them sound like the next Jobs and Wozniak? It's a bit much.

i know, i know. i've been a bad blogger. but trust me - i have nothing of interest to say. the humidity is sapping out all of my energy; dealing with stuff for leaving work, starting school, and moving to chicago is taking up any remaining brainpower; i have decided to commit myself to rereading every harry potter book ever; and i have the awesomest foodie schedule coming up to occupy the rest of my time. i'm going to like six restaurant week dinners (okay, well, two), and next weekend we're finally going to check out dino's, the new italian place.

but otherwise, sigh. summer is draining me. it's been more work and stress than bbqs and alcohol than i'd hoped. a few good things:

i bought an ice cream maker! a small, cheap one, but hopefully sparkly delicious streams of gelato will be forthcoming.
i bought a PDA! tommy told me that bensbargains had a good deal on some sort of axim thing - this one - so i got it!
i think i got an apartment in lakeview! saw a normal-looking one advertised on CL; got sent pictures and talked to the current resident, a very nice guy who is also a former wahoo; the lovely johanna consented to check out the place in person for me, deemed it liveable, and i'm hopefully going to sign the lease in the next week or so. hurrah! that is a considerable load off of my mind.

anyway, i finish up work in about three weeks. until that time, i'm pretty sure my mind will be elsewhere, but i'll blog when i can. until then, go watch the trailer for goblet of fire, and tommy will keep you entertained with how he loves that esurance lady. whore.

If esurance thinks I am going to switch insurance companies solely on the basis of a sexy cartoon secret agent mascot, they are temporarily mistaken.

Listening to NPR. They're talking about Gus Van Sant's new film, Last Days, an abstract meditation on Kurt Cobain's last few "lost days". Sounds pretty miserable. Oh yeah, and it's not really about Cobain, just a fictional rock star played by a guy who looks exactly like him. Right now Van Sant is explaining how this was an artistic decision. I guess it's nice when your artistic decision just happens to also be one that saves your ass from getting sued.

Anyway, I mention all this because the NPR lady insists on pronouncing biopic as "BIO PICK", which I think sounds terrible in a newspeak sort of way. I prefer the almost totally unjustifiable "BUY OP ICK", which at least sort of rhymes with "epic", which is a word I like associating with movies because it usually means the film will either involve a lot of graphic violence set in ancient Rome or a lot of spaceships zooming around.

Is anyone with me? Yeah, didn't think so.

Sitting in Mclean (at an absent coworker's unpleasantly messy desk) doesn't do much for the ol' inspiration -- I used up all of my daily bullshit quota trying to convince my boss to buy me an Axim for no particular reason. But I can't let the weekday blog streak break. What has it been? Two weeks? Ripkenesque, baby.

So let me offer this: some dude is offering the SveaSoft binaries for free.

Allow me to explain why this is worth knowing (briefly). Once upon a time, Linksys released a consumer router called the WRT54G that runs Linux. Because of a license called the GPL, using Linux legally obligated them to release the changes they made to the public in a way that would let others build on their work. They didn't, but nerds noticed and eventually badgered them into compliance.

Linksys's code wasn't all that great, but others took and improved it. One particular guy who happens to live on an island off the coast of Sweden decided he'd like a wireless link to the mainland, and hacked in a function called WDS to make it possible. Other modifications followed, and the WRT54G turned into a much more powerful device than its $50ish price tag would suggest.

I've been meaning to write about the WRT54G for a while now, having bought one myself when the cheap Belkin routers I was using to pipe data from the kitchen to the Xbox proved to be pieces of shit. It works great -- in fact, I've been able to keep one of the Belkins. And I've been using the release of the Sveasoft firmware that's named "Alchemy".

But that's not the most up-to-date version of the software -- that'd be "Talisman". See, Sveasoft eventually decided they didn't care for the GPL's full implications either, so they reclassified the most recent, sophisticated version of the firmware as a "beta" release, and shut down the help forums and documentation for their software. The older software is available, but access to the new stuff or any documentation costs $20 a year.

Well, the documentation and support stuff is fine -- Sveasoft owns the copyright to those materials, and they can do with them what they want. But while this pay-for-beta system seems to follow the letter of the GPL, it's pretty clearly contrary to its spirit.

Not that it really affects me, per se. I don't really need the Talisman features. For one thing, there are now other, more sophisticated but less user-friendly WRT54G firmwares out there, like OpenWRT. For another, my router needs just aren't that great -- prioritizing VoIP and Xbox Live traffic over BitTorrent would be nice, but it's not exactly a major quality of life issue.

But still -- it's nice to see someone stand up against Sveasoft's hypocrisy.

Requisite disclaimers: Princeton doesn't actually fund the lab, its science is reasonably criticized as irrelevant due to difficulty in reproducing the results, and the article's from Wired. But still, this is pretty interesting. Via BoingBoing.

Next week I get to spend two days in lovely Bethlehem, Pa, for work (we'll be setting out around 4:30 on Monday). Anybody have any suggestions for how to best use my time there? Besides what I'll actually end up doing, I mean (surfing the internet in my hotel room).

Fun facts:

• Bethlehem is known as "The Christmas City"
• It has two websites
• That is all

1. i had a weird dream last night.

2. in the weird dream, i had already packed up and moved to chicago to attend northwestern.

3. except northwestern was really hogwarts.

4. and my first assignment was to kill a magical snake.

either i need to stop thinking about harry potter, or studying new media is going to be a lot more exciting than i anticipated.

I just heard an ad on the radio for UMD's Robert H. Smith School of Business that tried to entice me with promises of leveraging the wisdom of "thought-leaders" in my "cohort". Am I enlisting in the Roman army? This management stuff is confusing.

Normally I'd tell you that executives are vastly overcompensated, but when I hear this kind of shit it makes sense that you'd have to pay business school graduates enough money to keep them from indulging in even a moment of introspection.

Con: Going outside feels like swimming through a suspiciously warm kiddy pool.

Pro: I only had to go as far as the Convention Center.

Con: For reasons that remain unclear, the neighborhood around the Convention Center smells like rotting garbage. GarbageCon '05?

Pro: The new DC Circulator bus provides quick and efficient service to and from Union Station, which is a block away from the server I had to go fix.

Con: The ride's sights currently include a dead body lying in the field near 3rd and H, plus the police that are milling about it.

so, i finished it. i thorougly enjoyed it. and now i'm dying to talk about it. but tommy hasn't read it yet, and if i post any spoilers on here, i think he might cut off my beer supply. for those who have read it, julian sanchez has an excellent and probably correct (spoilerish) point here. i'm also trying to say what i think in the vaguest terms possible so i can't spoil it for everybody, but my guess is that the person who did the very evil thing near the end of the book that made me cry - is it obvious to anyone else that said person is not actually evil? or will turn out to not be evil and have had good reason for doing that?

i have said too much.

The Futurama straight-to-DVD movie has been greenlit. Woohoo!

On a totally unrelated note, does anyone else's Tivo temporarily reduce the volume immediately after fast-forwarding? And don't you find it really, really annoying?

wow. after reading these two essays in the modern love section of the nytimes, and then reading these two responses by the people the essays were written about, i don't think i can ever read another modern love essay without a) puking up everywhere and b) wanting to punch the nytimes authors in the face. it's not that exploiting and distorting personal relationships for fame and success is such a novelty; it's just that in these cases it's done with the consent of the fact checkers and editors at one of the world's most popular newspapers. if they treat these people's personal stories with such casual disrespect, what does that say of the rest of their reporting? parts of these stories are borderline slander.

of course, most of this falls on me, for ever thinking that the fashion and style section of the nytimes should be taken seriously. bad catherine, bad.

This Andy Milonakis thing? Yeah, it's got to be stopped. Is this really the first time TV producers have seen a kid in LOOKATMEI'MWEIRD mode? I'm all for absurd comedy, but it's got to occasionally flirt with actual humor. Otherwise it's just an excruciatingly long non-sequitur.

Now in my day (hikes up pants) Jeff's younger brother David did this kind of stuff like he meant it. Most memorable: Dave writes "Lookyunko Day" on the calendar. Then he waits. And waits. Eventually Jeff asks, "Dave, what's Lookyunko Day?" and Dave replies, with irritation, "Look, yunko..." and trails off.

Now THAT'S comedy. Sort of.

My recent complaints about stealth marketing at the All Star Game might have given you the wrong idea. Sure, I hate ad culture with a passion. But that's only half the story; I'm also a raging hypocrite.

So with that in mind, allow me to wholeheartedly recommend VH1's Hogan Knows Best. Yes, it's a trashy reality show on VH1. No, it has no redeeming values whatsoever. Yes, it is another small step toward the complete destruction of American culture.

But, like the scientists who developed the hydrogen bomb, I don't have the time or inclination to consider the implications surrounding my participation in this process. Instead I am entirely consumed by the potential for the endeavor to attain a state of perfection. And Hogan Knows Best is a significant step forward. Allow me to explain.

Ex-wrestlers are ideal reality TV stars. They have spent years honing their entertainment skills into their crassest, most deadly form. They are visual spectacles trained to convey the maximum drama possible through a severely limited dramatic medium, and they know how to do it with a single set, a few props, and no budget for writers. And, in addition to being well-trained at appearing to be emotionally unstable, many of them actually are (largely thanks to a carney lifestyle and that perennial crowd favorite, substance abuse). Hulk Hogan was very good on the mic, but it would be a mistake to think that he was a knucklehead who just happened to be good at imploring kids to eat their vitamins. It takes a highly specialized set of theatrical skills to become the kind of star that Hogan was.

In the episode of HKB that I caught, daughter Brooke (age 16) would like to go out on her first date with an older aquaintance (age 22). The Hulkster doesn't like this idea. A simple, central conflict has been established.

Cut to the next scene. Hulk is working out in his lavish home gym with a former colleague (a round-looking fellow who I think was in the Legion of Doom). The conversation is completely natural, but focused. "You can't let her" changes to "how about a chaperone?" which changes to "you could always spy on her."

"You know," says Hulk thoughtfully, from beneath a barbell, "That's not a bad idea." Next scene: auto customizer's office. A remote GPS system is surreptitiously installed in Brooke's car. And things unfold from there.

The show moves forward efficiently, amusingly, and naturally. Other episode highlights include Hulk's pre-date interview with the prospective suitor, and son Nick's revelation, in the midst of remotely monitoring the date with dad, that the young man has nipple rings.

It's trash, and the storylines are a bit too tightly structured to be believable, but they're fake in just the right way. Reality has always been the Achilles' heel of reality TV. Putting a wrestler in the starring role ankles that problem nicely.

And did I mention that the show takes place in Clearwater, FL, the location of Scientology's national headquarters? There's something for everyone!

just received a mystery SMS from a phone number i don't recognize, saying i should go to a happy hour tomorrow at buffalo billiards, because this person is moving to boston in a month...who are you, mystery texter?

I was ambivalent about his antics before, but today's Post writeup made me realize that I'm going to miss Borf. His politics were pretty silly (or at least unclear), but the revelation that the iconic Jerry O'Connell stencil is actually a portrait of a dead friend gives his superficially-goofy work a bit more heft.

If nothing else, the guy had style. Too bad he turned out to be commuting into the city from Great Falls.

via amanda, check out the major damage uva's central grounds recently sustained due to an apparently huge-ass killer storm. at least the homer statue survived intact. countless lawn streakers everywhere are safe.

It's been pandamonium around here as the city celebrates the zoo's newest addition with the zeal of a pandacostal revival! Yes, the excitement is panda-emic here in the nation's capital! Sorry: pandapital.

But I have a terrible secret to share, people. The media wants you to think that the newborn's situation is too delicate to allow photographs. They throw out all this "the size of a stick of butter" nonsense because a stick of butter is small; delicate at room temperature; and something girls "just want to eat up". Clearly, the rhetoric is designed to evoke human babies.

But panda cubs are not the cute, scruffy pups you've been imagining. BEHOLD!

The Nabob spins a tale of arranged weddings, tumultuous religious instruction, and a little blacksmithing. You should go read it.

But I mention this because I, too, had problems with Sunday School. I think my mistake was assuming that my newlywed teachers were somehow being forced to be there, the same way I was. Not so. Turns out they were just really really earnest.

So we ended up having occasional personality conflicts. One that springs to mind started with a particularly weird exercise they had us perform involving a piece of sandpaper and a cube of balsa wood. "Sand it into a sphere!" they said. The unstated goal was to make everyone end up with a shitty, asymmetric orb-thing. This was somehow supposed to make a point about human fallibility.

But, unfortunately for them, I am an awesome sander, and I ended up with a balsa ball that, as near as anyone in the class's imperfect human eyes could tell, was a perfect sphere.

Then I ran around the classroom telling everyone that my wooden ball was Jesus. That didn't go over too well.

The teachers eventually cornered my parents in the parking lot and, from what I managed to overhear, complained about my distinct lack of piousness. To their eternal credit, my parents never said a word about it to me.

Jesus fucking christ. Argh. Charles and I are watching the All-Star game right now. The broadcast comes back from break, and the announcers tell us (paraphrasing) "a banner's just been unfurled in the outfield" -- and indeed, a large vertical stripe of fabric, seemingly hand-painted, has been draped over a billboard suspended above the outfield, and it's got the letters HHRYA.com painted on it -- "I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, but clearly someone went to a lot of trouble to do it."

Hmm. Some sort of guerilla website promotion at the All-Star game? Intriguing. It's a little weird that the FOX broadcast would give it exposure, but baseball games, even the All-Star game, consist of an awful lot of airtime to fill with chatter. The HHRYA website is slammed, of course, and the Coral cache won't load, but it gets far enough that I can see it's trying to get content from textamerica.com. Somebody's moblog? Very interesting.

Well, it's been a few more minutes, and now I can load the site. And you know what? It's a fucking viral marketing campaign for a fucking Chevy. Rewound the Tivo -- hey, whaddayaknow! The banner was draped over a Corvette ad. And the greenscreened batter's box ad for that at-bat was a Chevy billboard. Yeah Joe Buck, I bet you had NO FUCKING IDEA what was going on with that banner. Must be some kind of authentic piece of underground culture asserting itself upon Major League Baseball! Yup, that's the only explanation. Look at those jagged letters! Look at the amateurish fabric! Yes, somebody is really desperate to share their love of an UPCOMING GODDAMN AUTOMOBILE. And they want you to upload your pictures and music to their site! Or something! And become part of the HHR community! WOW! Are tattoos available?

Man oh man, Chevrolet. I already disliked you for the design abomination that is and has been the Corvette. But now I outright hate you. Fuck you, Chevy. Don't try to relate to me, don't demand my attention, and most of all don't try to fool me. Stay out of my goddamn culture. You make cars. You are not a community, you are not an aesthetic, you are not a way of life, and now you are not a brand I would ever consider purchasing.

anybody looking for a good, moderately-priced olive oil should try trader joe's extra virgin california estate olive oil. tommy bought a bottle the other day on one of our semi-frequent trips to the suburbs, and it is delicious! personally, it is the best olive oil i've had outside of italy. (imagine i just said that last sentence in a truly obnoxious, high-pitched voice.)

speaking of italy, and, er, stuff, i've been meaning to write more about the cooking class at galileo. it was pretty great, and the pasta we "made" for lunch was amazing. but the best part happened like this: when we are all sitting around before the class started, a youngish, very indie-looking guy (be-bearded, wearing a canyon tshirt (somewhat popular d.c. band that broke up a year or two ago), etc) came in and sat down next to us. throughout the entire class, we all chatted, but no one introduced themselves or said what they did or anything. that came later on, as we were eating. tommy and i were chatting with indie guy dave, and earthy motorcycle-riding nasa-worker andy (i think that was his name), and since we were about, oh, SEVENTEEN glasses of wine in at this point, everybod was a bit talky. we asked dave what he did, and he said he was in a band. (of COURSE he is, i judged mentally.) andy asked what kind of music they played, and he said, oh, kinda country-rock. what band, i, vaguely curious, wondered.

oh, he said, son volt.

oh, i said, and went back to gorging myself on pasta.

then i looked up. excuse me, what did you say the name of your band was, i asked again.

son volt.

i looked over at tommy and, i hate to say this, but i kind of snorted. not because i wanted to be rude - not at all - but because, um, holy hell, son volt! what the fuck, band dude, what...er, the fuck. craziness.

have you heard of us? dave asked us.

dur. no. i have been living in a black hole void of outerspace since i was 11 and am allergic to music. of course i have heard of son volt! anyone with even a PASSING interest in alt-rock has heard of son volt. DUDE. SON VOLT!

turns out dave is in the reformed, new-member version of son volt, since they broke up a while back and everything. but DROWN! and JAY FARRAR! the album drops today, it turns out. i have no idea if it's any good, but i'm pasta-friends with DAVE. drummer dave! who was very nice, to boot. so now i have a responsibility to check it out.

(additionally, dave was wearing that canyon t-shirt and everything, so i took a stab in the dark and asked if he used to be in canyon. the way he explained why he was wearing his old band's tshirt: uh, i got stuck with all the merchandise after we broke up, so, you know...uh huh, drummer dave, uh huh. in his defense, he WAS going to a cooking class, so he could have reasonably expected the average age to be 7900 and no one would have inquisitioned him about his band. i know i thought the whole class would be full of old people putting pasta dough in their hair. but rock n roll people like to cook too!)

Strangely enough, I first heard about this last night on a teaser for Fox News at 10, DC's most ridiculously sensationalist news program. But hey! It's actually interesting: a study has found that some drugs prescribed for Parkinson's Disease can prompt compulsive gambling behavior; some subjects also indulged excessively in alcohol, sex and food.

It's too early to say for sure, but there's an obvious explanation that presents itself. Parkinson's is primarily a deficit in the dopamine-related systems in the brain. Dopamine is important for motor function, but it's best known as the key neurotransmitter in the brain's system of rewards. The proverbial rats that'll push an electrode-stimulating button until they starve to death? That electrode is wired into their dopaminergic neurons in the nucleus accumbens. And cocaine and methamphetamine are dopamine agonists (meaning they increase the system's activity). It's the feel good neurotransmitter! (I guess that'd make serotonin the feel-good-about-yourself neurotransmitter.)

So why do these drugs induce excessive gambling instead of excessive consumption of the drug? A strong possibility is that their mechanism of action relies on potentiating dopaminergic activity. The drug doesn't replace dopamine, but it makes it more effective. So when patients participate in activities that naturally light up their brains' reward centers, they get a bigger kick than they normally would. Let's just hope the folks conducting the study keep their subjects away from the crack.

tommy got linked by kevin drum for a post of his over at BTD. i should also mention that boifromtroy (who has guestblogged for wonkette) hit on him over the weekend at the black cat. blog royalty, here we come!

This John Tierney column, which seems to seriously flirt with proposing that hackers be given the death penalty, is almost too stupid to believe. But I couldn't resist giving it attention anyway, and wrote some more about it over at BTD.

Some moderately entertaining bullshit.

Today's Kojo Nnamdi show was all about the annual DC Tax Auction, which began today. It's a massively confusing system -- but even considering that fact, the callers still seemed amazingly clueless. The gist of most calls was along the lines of "wait... explain to me again why I can't just immediately seize poor people's property?"

Sheesh. If you're actually interested in acquiring a pain-in-the-ass investment vehicle with a slight, slight chance of turning into a real estate acquisition, In Shaw has a couple of interesting posts about the process here and here.

Via the DCeiver, an entertaining craigslist post recalling Scientologist antics. This kind of nonsense is standard operating procedure for them.

not too many people outside of the midatlantic seaboard have probably heard of haverford college. it's a small liberal arts school in pennsylvania. my father got his BA there, so i've had the privilege of visiting several times. when i was 15, my dearest wish was to attend haverford, though that changed by the time i thought seriously about schools. i ended up choosing between uva and dartmouth, not even having applied to haverford.

but, being interested in journalism, maybe i should have reconsidered that whole haveford thing, especially after my father pointed out the journalistic powerhouse people that have come out of the school. check it out:

It's July 11th -- go get your free 7.11 ounces of frozen goodness. But remember: no jerky with that Diet Pepsi slurpee, if you want to stay kosher. That particular taste sensation is reserved for gentiles like myself.

Some of you have probably heard of the Dvorak keyboard -- an alternate key layout that was designed to be more efficient than QWERTY. The story goes that QWERTY was invented to slow down operators who were jamming the earliest typewriters by typing too quickly on an alphabetically-ordered layout. With that mechanical limitation gone, Dvorak put the most frequently used keys on the home row and focused on keeping common consonants and common vowels assigned to different hands, to encourage letter-to-letter alternation (which speeds everything up). The result was supposed to be faster and easier on your hands and wrists.

But of course Dvorak never caught on -- railroaded by the market having already decided (poorly), Mr. Dvorak died a bitter old man. Or so the story goes.

I know that Jon learned Dvorak. What with the cathodic adding machines that seem to be so popular these days, it's as simple as downloading some software or flipping a system setting to get started learning the new layout. Here's a web-zine that'll guide you through the process, if you'd like to give it a try.

But today I learned that it's lies, all lies! Have a look here for the rough summary, or here for the academic paper it references. It turns out that the studies confirming Dvorak's superiority were poorly designed or biased; that QWERTY actually did win out over several competing keyboard designs; that ergonomics research indicates QWERTY isn't as bad as folks assume; and we've forgotten that, thanks to a patent, Mr. Dvorak had a financial interest in promoting his keyboard layout. And there's not much evidence that Dvorak is better for your wrists or fingers (which I guarantee will spontaneously start to hurt as you read this ergonomic research). If you're really starting to suffer from carpal tunnel, apparently you should be using one of these wacky-looking things.

I was slightly excited by the announcement of DC's new red buses. It's not that I particularly need more bus service, but their hub is right by our apartment, and it'd at least make it easier to get to Georgetown on my semiannual trip to the comic book store. There's another route, too, going from the convention center south.

But, driving out of the city today to have lunch with my mom, I saw that DC has found a way to make these seemingly innocuous buses a terrible, terrible idea. Namely: dedicated bus lanes on 7th and 9th streets. The crews are out there right now, measuring things, looking confused and blocking traffic in surprisingly inventive ways. It's a little early to tell exactly how it's going to shape up, but as far as I can tell the rightmost lane southbound on 9th and northbound on 7th will be dedicated to buses. At least, that's what I'm taking away from the "BUS ONLY" inscriptions that are being installed as I write this.

I'll admit: for 9th street, this is not an obviously bad idea. It's mostly a one-way street, providing three(ish) southbound lanes. A person who insists on devoting one of these lanes to buses is no doubt deeply troubled, but probably not insane in any clinically diagnosable way (although I do have to note that, assuming 40 foot buses running five minutes apart and at 25 mph a mere 3.6% of available lane space will be used at any given moment).

But 7th street? We're talkin' 'bout 7th street? 7th street? We're talking about seventh street. A street already badly snarled by potholes, MCI center traffic, and clueless tourists. A street with only two northbound lanes, and no left turn traffic signals. This buses-only lane, if actually enforced, guarantees that 7th will become a godawful exercise in waiting for the guy ahead of you to turn left (although I understand it's still legal, I've always considered insisting on turning left to be extremely poor road etiquette). Not only that, but this is a street that already requires drivers to break the law by changing lanes as they cross intersections, due to the way the various left-or-right-turn-only lanes are configured. This bus lane makes that fiasco even worse.

The solution that other cities have implemented is to give buses the center lane, and turn it into a buses-slash-left turn lane -- you only need one bus lane per street, after all, and one left turn lane can be shared by traffic going in both directions. The buses might have to occasionally wait for drivers to turn, but come on -- it's a goddamn bus, and it costs a dollar. What did you expect?

I'll let Catherine fill you in on all of the details, but right now she's napping: we just got back from a cooking class at Galileo. Between the two of us that's about 9 hours and 3 bottles of wine. Chef Roberto Donna does these classes focusing on a theme -- today's was pasta. We made yards and yards, then ate it and staggered home. You can look forward to wildly optimistic posts about future homemade pasta odysseys, promptly followed by oddly brief or entirely nonexistent updates brimming with unspoken recriminations.

Aside from that inevitable unpleasantness, I highly recommend the experience. You know those celebrity fantasy basketball camps that rich middle aged guys go to, at which they jockey with one another to receive compliments from Michael Jordan (or whoever) like "nice bounce pass!" and other phrases not ending with the word "jerk"? It was like that.

Did you roll that gnocchi yourself? Very impressive! The way you almost knocked over your wine but didn't? You looked like a pro! And I couldn't help but notice that you failed to burn yourself. You know, I've been looking for someone to head up the kitchen at our new location...

Yeah, I lapped it up.

So: the Architecture in Helsinki CD. It sounds like somebody snuck a Talking Heads CD and a bottle of schnapps along on the overnight trip to the state band competition. I'm starting to think this is (occasionally) a pretty great thing, but Catherine remains unconvinced. What say you?

(Do the Whirlwind kind of sucks, tho)

UPDATE: Also, I forgot to mention that the opening notes sounds exactly like The Undertaker's entrance music. But that's an impossibly awesome standard to live up to.

you know what the large, front-page picture on the washington post today was?

a camera phone shot, taken by a london subway rider, of people trudging through a dark, smokey tunnel. the post has an article here on the immediacy offered by such shots, and includes the photo they used on their front page in the sidebar. no, it's not great quality, but it shows terror and context and raw information better than any professional photojournalist could have.

despite the horrific nature of the attacks, i think that is rather amazing.

I caught a little Showbiz Tonight on CNN at the gym. Tonight's show focused on the London bombings. Highlights:

• "Celebrity Reaction" featuring Tom Arnold and an unidentified male costar. "My girlfriend is from Glasgow, so..." volunteered the costar.
• A segment with that jerk from Rolling Stone (no, the other one) and some guy from Spin who I didn't recognize, but is probably also a jerk. The topic: will the bombings draw attention away from Live 8's message, and lessen its impact? Sidebar: did 9/11 lessen audiences' ability to clap Tinkerbell back to life?
• And after the break, three easy, breezy summer looks that won't weigh you down when you're fleeing for your life!

Okay, I made that last one up.

Er... they're fine. Thanks for asking.

Related.

actually related, because I feel guilty about being a sarcastic jackass.

pros of staying home after surgery: getting to watch the food network the rest of the day.

cons: listening to giada mispronounce "pancetta" over and over again. it's panCHET AH, biatch, not panCHIT AH. oi vey. did my earlier blog post teach you nothing?

your mixed berry soup with "gee lah toe" does look pretty awesome, though.

first off, my thoughts are with all the people affected by the london terrorist attacks. it seems utterly insane and surreal for some reason.

second off, it all may seem even more utterly insane and surreal than it would because i am rocking some pretty awesome painkillers. i had the boob cuttage surgery today, and everything appeared to go well. i was prepped at sibley hospital for a couple of hours, got an IV, hung out in a more-billowy-than-necessary hospital gown with totally sweet peagreen hospital-issued socks with rubber tracking on the bottom, then was promptly put into "twilight sleep" by the anasteialalaogogist, or however you spell that. woke up an hour later with a big old bandage under my right breast, feeling woozy but good.

i feel very lucky to have had this matter nearly resolved in under a month. did you know that if my mom (who, for those of you who didn't know and were wondering why a 25 year old was freaking out about breast cancer, had premenopausal, extremely advanced breast cancer nearly 10 years ago that was misdiagnosed for several months) wasn't the most hooked up breast cancer lady in all of DC, that i wouldn't have even had a mammogram or ultrasound until THE END OF JULY (after dealing with the lump in mid-june)? but thanks to her and her wonderful, kind breast specialist doctor colette magnant, i had an exam, ultrasound, and surgery within two weeks or so. this is apparently not usually the case.

really, it's kind of ridiculous. i was reading planned obsolescence a while back. she's a late-30s woman (i believe) with family history of the disease, and when she ran into some problems, it was SIX WEEKS until she could get a mammogram (everything turned out fine). i thought if you were any sort of woman with a family history of breast cancer, people were THROWING mammograms at you, and, like, running you down in the street with mammogram vans. wtf? i feel kind of idiotic and like the whole situation is unfair. i'm young and very likely there is nothing wrong with me, but because my mom is a warrior and knows how to work her way around the system and has a phonebook full of important contacts like oncologists and surgeons, i was lucky enough have attention paid to me and to not have to stress out for several months. whereas older women, who very may well have something wrong with them but who have never been in this situation before, have to wait weeks, even months, to even figure out if that lump they feel is benign or something that will change their lives forever.

it is bullshit, frankly. i feel like much of the time, women who feel a lump or a change in their breasts want to believe that nothing is wrong, so when they get put off by doctors or scheduling problems, they'll merely go along with it and try to forget what is happening. well, you shouldn't. you should be the bitchiest, most persistent patient that you can be. ask for early morning or late evening appointments. emphasize any family history of breast or ovarian cancer (especially if it is premenopausal). seriously. be a huge bitch. KF from planned obsolence wrote this in the comments of her mammogram post:

Thanks so much, all of you, for the good thoughts. I’m fairly sure everything’s fine, and that I just need to get the cystic thing under control, but the entire experience just reminds me (as Kari and I discussed here) how much I hate getting jacked around by the medical profession. There’s an arrogance in too many practitioners that insists that you, lowly patient, are in no place to ask questions or to demand more from your doctor than the five-minute listen-to-the-chest and blood draw every other year, because (a) you couldn’t possibly understand, and (b) I don’t have time for this. That’s bad enough in and of itself, but coupled with a too-frequent inability to actually diagnose what’s going on, and a total lack of concern about patient pain or anxiety, it just sends me up a tree. Grrrr.

and it's something i totally agree with. i'm lucky enough to have had wonderful doctors, and in this case, a woman who has been seeing my mother for ten years, but i realize that is rarely the case. no matter how offputting or dismissive a doctor may be, if you feel like something is wrong or has changed, make sure they know it and deal with it.

oh yeah, and also, you ladies out there: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, do self-breast exams! once a month, 2-3 days after your cycle. even if you're young. you should get very familiar with how you feel so that if anything changes you will know immediately. and don't think because you haven't had family history that breast cancer won't be a possibility. no one on my mother's side of the family had breast cancer before she did. just, you know, be aware. lumps aren't the only indicator of cancer. sometimes, there aren't lumps at all. unusual breast pain, rashes, inverted nipples and discharge are all something that should be examined by your gynecologist asap.

sorry for the stern, matronly attitude towards this, and sorry, boys, for how totally awkward and weird it must be to think about boobies in medical ways. especially on a blog that is either talking celebrity shit or is drunk. but this is important stuff, stuff i've been dealing with since i was 15 and stuff i will deal with for the rest of my life. only recently have i realized how uninformed young women can be about this topic, from talking to friends and reading stories on blogs. i mean, you love your boobs, right? as well you should. so take care of them!

Standing in line to buy groceries (booze) last night, I spied an impressively-built guy in a wifebeater with a large tattoo stretching vertically down his tricep. It read, "NEWBY". He must be really bad at Quake.

Thanks to a new coworker, I see that OpenVPN -- the free VPN software suite I rambled about previously -- now has a GUI client for Windows. No more ugly DOS-boxes for you, no sir! Anyway, if you've got a need for secure communication over the net, here's another vote for OpenVPN.

can anybody recommend a decent, reasonable hotel in chicago, preferably in the area of lakeview/belmont/whatever you call it?

UPDATE: speaking of hotels in chicago, jeff has put up plenty o pictures of our last stay there, courtesy of the lovely gray family, for johanna's graduation. i look normal in about 40% of them and really godawful in the other 60%. so enjoy!

DOUBLE UPDATE: totally unrelated, but, heh, i look like i'm singing in this photo. drew has a bunch more of great shots from Unbuckled.

Alright folks -- the incredibly nice Johnny of Blank Of The Day emailed me and let me know that NO ONE has submitted an entry to their Slashdot contest.

Look, it's not an easy contest, exactly, but it's an intriguing one, and the winner gets a Nintendo DS. You've only got until whenever midnight of July 10th is in Japan, but the field is wide open. I'm wracking my brain. You should do the same.

Last night I went and did the moonlighting that I had whined about previously. And it was pretty godawful. Six hours rebuilding systems I told them to junk the last time I was there to specifications that changed halfway through the evening, then again at the end, at which point I finally said no. Topping everything off: I was soaking wet from the 10-minute downpour that marked my trip to the metro. Since when does Washington have a rainy season?

But enough whining. It was good to see the two guys who work there, and it sounds like they've hooked a contract that should help them get back on their feet. Good for them -- they're nice guys, and I wish them luck.

But I do have to ask... doesn't this seem like an unusually large selection of moisturizers for a man's desk? From left to right: Jergen's Soothing Aloe Lotion, Palmer's Cocoa Butter, pink cup, bottle of ibuprofen, Lubriderm of some sort. Browser homepage: Drudge Report. I report, you decide.

By using precise pulses of radiation, researchers have found that they can store up to 5 megabits of data on your fingernail -- that's a little less than half a floppy disk's capacity. The data persists until the nail grows out.

I know this is awesome, but I have no idea why.

man. my opinion of tom sietsema just dropped several notches. for the record, i read several food blogs, almost all of which i find to be a) more entertaining b) more informative and c) more accessible than most of the stuff he writes.

Washington, D.C.: Tom,

Wanted to know your opinions on the proliferation of online "foodie" blogs. It seems that there is little sense of journalistic objectivity in some of these; whereas you are required to fact check your articles, anyone with a computer can post with no filter.

The other day one dc foodie (hint hint) blog writer even wrote that "you don't have to try something to know what it tastes like." I don't know about you, but I've had some great food that looked terrible?

Does the same go for food blogs - is there less or more than meets the eye?

Tom Sietsema: The proliferation of food blogs -- everyone really CAN be a critic these days -- only makes journalists at subscription-paid newspapers and magazines more important. I know that sounds self-serving, but who would you rather get your information from: JudyLikes2Eat or (insert name of serious publication here)?

Don't get me wrong. There are some smart online foodies out there -- but there are also a lot of whiners and crabs and people who wish they could be in these jobs and hate us because they can't be. They don't have the "cred."

I could write an essay about this, but I won't right now.

"only makes journalists at subscription-paid newspapers and magazines more important. I know that sounds self-serving, but who would you rather get your information from: JudyLikes2Eat or (insert name of serious publication here)?"

whiny whiny whiny. it's exactly this sort of sentiment that ensures i'm going to read less of the post and more of the bloggers.

an interesting and completely depressing column about italy and why it's almost ensured its political and economic doom.

If anyone belongs to Italy's tight group of power brokers -- in Italian, the salotto buono -- it is Carlo DeBenedetti. He briefly ran the Fiat industrial conglomerate before a falling-out with the controlling Agnelli family, whose members he knew from childhood. As the head of Olivetti, he made a bold if unsuccessful run at IBM in Europe but used the remnants of the company to make a fortune during the heady days of telecom privatization. Today, his "group" includes a media empire of newspapers and radio stations, a giant auto-parts company and an energy division.

But sitting in his small, unmarked headquarters on a narrow side street here in Italy's capital of finance and fashion, the 70-year-old DeBenedetti speaks of a "perverse and unwritten alliance" among politicians, financiers and company owners. This alliance, he says, is slowly destroying Italy, enriching its members while undermining the nation's economy through excessive debt, protectionism, serial devaluations and shortsighted "concessions" to unions -- concessions that Italian workers are paying for in the form of meager take-home pay, high unemployment and deteriorating public infrastructure.

"There have been 52 postwar governments, but in truth they have all been the same," said DeBenedetti of the oligarchy's enduring power.

i don't consider myself much of a fashion buff. i know what i like, i buy trendy pieces once in a while, and mostly keep my criticisms to myself. i like to think that most of the time i don't dress like a deranged bag lady, but neither do i consider myself a fashion knowitall. normally i'm all about personal expression. people are gonna wear what they're gonna wear. trends come and go. it'll all be okay, man.

but this summer, my head, it is exploding. every time i step out on the streets of d.c., i see what i consider to be massively misguided fashion choices that have obviously trickled cross country from hollywood. ginormous shiny bags? check. sunglasses the size of the planet saturn? check. enormous strands of chains and plum-shaped beads draped over the cocaine-flattened bosom? check. shapeless tiered peasant skirts that can make a woman look like she's hiding a family of four? young ladies who seem to think that "geriatric chic" is teh hotness? LEGGINGS UNDER MINISKIRTS?!?! gaaaaaaaaaarh.

it's a world gone mad. and i, for one, am not sure i can take it anymore.

If the Governess hadn't mentioned it, I never would have known it existed: the DC InfoShop is about one block away from us. You guys need a better sign. Also, smarter patrons: suddenly all of the juvenile anarchist graffiti in our neighborhood makes a lot more sense.

best not to employ clipboard boys around d.c. who:

-are indistinguishable from the potentially harmfuly and loony homeless man around the corner. a shower and a haircut will go a long way in this town.

-see me coming from a block away, pick me as obvious target, converge with your fellow unwashed greenpeace mate, who has not engaged anybody in conversation either, most likely because the stink is warding off everybody in the goddamn golden triangle, and start doing a strange clipboard/monkey dance in which you swivel your hips and suggestively thrust said clipboard towards me.

-shout something imperceptible at me as i turned my ipod up and speed the hell away from you as fast as i can in my heels.

note to self: never, EVER, give money to greenpeace.

goddammit, i hate the clipboard jerks around town in summer.

The three-day weekend knocked everything out of whack. Suddenly Sunday was the agreed-upon night for debauchery, and my whole schedule was thrown off. We yawned Friday night away, and before we knew it Saturday was almost gone. We had to get out of the house. So Catherine and I went to see War of the Worlds.

Here's where I would normally warn you about spoilers. But the thing is, this story's essential spoiler has been well-known for the past sixty years. If you don't already know it, it's your own goddamn fault.

I'm watching PBS's Fourth of July broadcast at the moment, and while it's nice to have a talented orchestra underscore American awesomeness, I'm a little confused. Sure, I don't know anything about classical music... but did you guys really just play a piece from the last Star Wars movie?

I may actually be a culturally illiterate dimwit, but I don't usually expect PBS to be the one pointing it out to me.

Also: for a celebration of Americanousity in all its forms, this show has got a pretty high percentage of foreigners performing. When does Charlie Daniels go on?

things i've made with my awesome kitchenaid standalone mixer this weekend:

double chocolate mousse torte with berries.

(with tommy) attemps at a french baguette.

the torte recipe can be found here.

can anybody suggest a good moving service? i had previously thought that i would merely rent a uhaul and drive it out to chicago come september, but that option is looking less attractive (and more expensive) than i thought.

i'm constantly reading stories about people who get screwed over by moving companies, so any personal experience you've had would be good to hear. grazie!

Due to comment spam, the following words will now prevent your comment from showing up: poker, casino, rape, incest.

I'm sure you're all deeply disappointed. When this proves to be a difficult, I suggest using "gambling place" or "card game". Or, uh, reconsidering the thought you wanted to share.

The geekery has been intense around here the last couple of days. First, I'm hustling to finish up an overambitious GreaseMonkey project. It was spawned by the ad-killing efforts mentioned here (incidentally, if the project hadn't changed direction, Kanishka's Simpsons reference would have totally won the naming competition). But more on that later. In a few days to a week I should have a script/site that I'm hoping some of you will help me test before it's unleashed on the world.

Second, my external hard drive finally arrived in the mail, allowing me to backup and reformat our Linux machine. It had been limping along -- I'm no Linux guru, and the machine had been built out as a MythTV box. When we got a real Tivo I turned off as much of the MythTV detritus as I could find, but it still had problems working as the MP3 jukebox I wanted. So, after making some backups and downloading Fedora Core 4, I wiped the machine.

Yesterday, an 11-nation raid was conducted on various online pirate operations. Conspicuously absent from the list was Sweden, which is not part of the EU. Well, today Sweden passed some strong anti-piracy legislation.

The most obvious consequences are for The Pirate Bay, which is arguably the world's biggest bittorrent tracker site, and resides in Sweden. They've been particularly smug about their immunity from prosecution. Although TPB doesn't actually host copyrighted data -- the torrent files and trackers they provide simply supply metadata telling your Bittorrent client how to find peers offering the data -- it seems pretty likely that they're not long for this world.

It goes without saying that this won't actually stop piracy, but when TPB finally goes down there'll be a transition, the same as there was when Suprnova.org was shut down. Matt and I were talking about plausible future hotbeds for piracy just the other night, actually. Matt's bet was China, but I have my doubts. It's true that their government isn't keen to enforce intellectual property laws, but though they might be lacking the will, their nationwide firewall gives them a simple way, should they ever decide to. Eastern Europe? Nah; Suprnova was based there (although it used an elaborate -- and awful -- international mirror system). The glory days of slavic piracy have come and gone, and as countries jockey for EU membership they're keen to chalk up good records on IP enforcement. Africa? No infrastructure. Central or South America? Brazil's pretty wired, plus it's run by a bunch of anticorporatist hippies, so it's a definite possibility. But Russia is already in a computer crime class unto itself. If I had to bet, I'd say the next big tracker site's address will end in .ru.

holy moly. last night's unbuckled was more of a success than i had hoped for. i, being guardedly optimistic, thought we might bring out 75-100 people - but we ended up with over 200! mad money was made (most of it going to the deserving bands, and a bit of it covering our flyer and giveaway expenses), and, despite the stifling heat in the backstage, i think everybody had a great time. thank you SO MUCH to everybody who came out - it meant a lot to see you there. and big ups to all the great people i got to meet - wes, michael, amanda, (update; john from prodandponder.com who is a great photographer) lots of cool DCist readers, and anyone else i'm forgetting. both the bands, cartel and bicycle thieves, were lovely and nice and talented and put on amazing shows, so i highly recommend you check out their sites and download some mp3s. it's all about the local music love.

due to the success of the show, i'm in an unreasonably good mood today, so i will forgo my normal bitter recriminations and wish everybody a very happy fourth of july! go america!

UPDATE: forgot to mention that a bunch of photos of the concert are here.