End of Silence

200 things about me

Miscellaneous No Responses »

Sep 282004

Time for another meme (via Sean):

Stuff in bold I’ve actually done.

01. Bought everyone in the pub a drink

02. Swam with wild dolphins

03. Climbed a mountain

04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive

05. Been inside the Great Pyramid

06. Held a tarantula.

07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone

08. Said ‘I love you’ and meant it

09. Hugged a tree

10. Done a striptease

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

14. Stayed up all night long, and watch the sun rise

15. Seen the Northern Lights

16. Gone to a huge sports game

17. Walked the stairs to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa

18. Grown and eaten your own vegetables

19. Touched an iceberg

20. Slept under the stars

21. Changed a babyâ€™s diaper

22. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon

23. Watched a meteor shower

24. Gotten drunk on champagne

25. Given more than you can afford to charity

26. Looked up at the night sky through a telescopes

27. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment

28. Had a food fight

29. Bet on a winning horse

30. Taken a sick day when youâ€™re not ill

31. Asked out a stranger

32. Had a snowball fight

33. Photocopied your bottom on the office photocopier

34. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can

35. Held a lamb

36. Enacted a favorite fantasy

37. Taken a midnight skinny dip

38. Taken an ice cold bath

39. Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar

40. Seen a total eclipse

41. Ridden a roller coaster

42. Hit a home run

43. Fit three weeks miraculously into three days

44. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking

45. Adopted an accent for an entire day

46. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

47. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment

48. Had two hard drives for your computer.

49. Visited all 50 states

50. Loved your job for all accounts

51. Taken care of someone who was shit faced

52. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

53. Had amazing friends

54. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country

55. Watched wild whales

56. Stolen a sign

57. Backpacked in Europe

58. Taken a road-trip

59. Rock climbing

60. Lied to foreign governmentâ€™s official in that country to avoid notice

61. Midnight walk on the beach

62. Sky diving

63. Visited Ireland

64. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love

65. In a restaurant, sat at a strangerâ€™s table and had a meal with them

66. Visited Japan

67. Benchpressed your own weight

68. Milked a cow

69. Alphabetized your records

70. Pretended to be a superhero

71. Sung karaoke

72. Lounged around in bed all day

73. Posed nude in front of strangers

74. Scuba diving

75. Got it on to â€œLetâ€™s Get It Onâ€ by Marvin Gaye

76. Kissed in the rain

77. Played in the mud

78. Played in the rain

79. Gone to a drive-in theater

80. Done something you should regret, but donâ€™t regret it.

81. Visited the Great Wall of China

82. Discovered that someone whoâ€™s not supposed to have known about your blog has discovered your blog

83. Dropped Windows in favor of something better

84. Started a business

85. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken

86. Toured ancient sites

87. Taken a martial arts class

88. Swordfought for the honor of a woman

89. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight

90. Gotten married

91. Been in a movie

92. Crashed a party

93. Loved someone you shouldnâ€™t have

94. Kissed someone so passionately it made them dizzy

95. Gotten divorced

96. Had sex at the office

97. Gone without food for 5 days

98. Made cookies from scratch

99. Won first prize in a costume contest

100. Ridden a gondola in Venice

101. Gotten a tattoo

102. Found that the texture of some materials can turn you on

103. Rafted the Snake River

104. Been on television news programs as an â€œexpertâ€

105. Got flowers for no reason

106. Masturbated in a public place

107. Got so drunk you donâ€™t remember anything

108. Been addicted to some form of illegal drug

109. Performed on stage

110. Been to Las Vegas

111. Recorded music

112. Eaten shark

113. Had a one-night stand

114. Gone to Thailand

115. Seen Siouxsie live

116. Bought a house

117. Been in a combat zone

118. Buried one/both of your parents

119. Shaved or waxed your pubic hair off

120. Been on a cruise ship

121. Spoken more than one language fluently

122. Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone

123. Bounced a check

124. Performed in Rocky Horror

125. Read – and understood – your credit report

126. Raised children

127. Recently bought and played with a favorite childhood toy

128. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour

129. Created and named your own constellation of stars

130. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country

131. Found out something significant that your ancestors did

132. Called or written your Congress person

133. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over

134. â€¦more than once? â€” More than thrice?

135. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge

136. Sang loudly in the car, and didnâ€™t stop when you knew someone was looking

137. Had an abortion or your female partner did

138. Had plastic surgery

139. Survived an accident that you shouldnâ€™t have survived.

140. Wrote articles for a large publication

141. Lost over 75 pounds

142. Held someone while they were having a flashback

143. Piloted an airplane

144. Petted a stingray

145. Broken someoneâ€™s heart

146. Helped an animal give birth

147. Been fired or laid off from a job

148. Won money on a T.V. game show

149. Broken a bone

150. Killed a human being

151. Gone on an African photo safari

152. Ridden a motorcycle

153. Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100 mph

154. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced

155. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol

156. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild

157. Ridden a horse

158. Had major surgery

159. Had sex on a moving train

160. Had a snake as a pet

161. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon

162. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing

163. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours

164. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states

165. Visited all 7 continents

166. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days

167. Eaten kangaroo meat

168. Fallen in love at an ancient Mayan burial ground

169. Been a sperm or egg donor

170. Eaten sushi

171. Had your picture in the newspaper

172. Had 2 (or more) healthy romantic relationships for over a year in

your lifetime

173. Changed someoneâ€™s mind about something you care deeply about

174. Gotten someone fired for their actions

175. Gone back to school

176. Parasailed

177. Changed your name

178. Petted a cockroach

179. Eaten fried green tomatoes

180. Read The Iliad

181. Selected one â€œimportantâ€ author who you missed in school, and read

182. Dined in a restaurant and stolen silverware, plates, cups because your apartment needed them.

183. ..and gotten 86â€™ed from the restaurant because you did it so many times, they figured out it was you

184. Taught yourself an art from scratch

185. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

186. Apologized to someone years after inflicting the hurt

187. Skipped all your school reunions.

188. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language

189. Been elected to public office

190. Written your own computer language

191. Thought to yourself that youâ€™re living your dream

192. Had to put someone you love into hospice care

193. Built your own PC from parts

194. Sold your own artwork to someone who didnâ€™t know you

195. Had a booth at a street fair

196. Dyed your hair

197. Been a DJ

198. Found out someone was going to dump you via LiveJournal

199. Written your own role playing game

200. Been arrested

ACL 2004 Pt. 2: Better late than never

Austin No Responses »

Sep 282004

Ok, so I’m a little late with the second ACL post.

On Friday, we checked out Trout Fishing in America, Rebirth Brass Band, and Franz Ferdinand. Trout Fishing was great. This was our first time checking them out live since starting to listen to them a year or so ago. I’d heard about the height discrepancy between Keith and Ezra, but you have to see it to truly appreciate it. I highly recommend them, especially if you have kids. Big Trouble is a good album to start with. I haven’t got much to say about Rebirth Brass Band as much of their performance was spent dealing with a tantruming soon-to-be-two-year-old. I’m not a big fan of New Orleans Jazz, but I can say that their sound certainly carries. It was damn loud even though we were 20 feet back from the tent that housed the stage where they were performing. By the time Franz Ferdinand came on, The La had worn herself out from the tantrum and fallen asleep. However, she still managed to croak out “Push me, mama” whenever The Wife stopped pushing the stroller. The Wife bravely stayed in a less populated area of the park pushing her around while Andy, Rachel, Anne and I took the boy for a somewhat closer view. The Boy digs Franz Ferdinand’s Gang Of Four inspired single, “Take Me Out” and really got into the live performance of it. From what I could see of it, it wasn’t a bad show. We left before they finished.

Luckily, we got babysitting for Saturday night, so we could enjoy The Pixies. Anne went earlier in the day to hear Cat Power. I would’ve liked to have seen Old 97’s, but it didn’t happen. Anne, Rachel and I went at 5 and The Wife arrived at 7. We parked ourselves at a spot where we could see both the Cingular stage and the Bank of America stage. Modest Mouse had already started when we arrived. They were pretty good. As with most of the festival, I felt like I was really too far away to really get into any of the bands. I decided just to sit back in my collapsible lawn chair, have a few beers, talk, and enjoy being outside. Modest Mouse was followed by My Morning Jacket, Dashboard Confessional, and Neville Brothers. My Morning Jacket and Dashboard Confessional (DC) were underwhelming. DC seemed to have the bigger draw with The Kids. I found their singer’s voice annoying. The Wife arrived during their set and went off to see Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. I should’ve followed her, but was too lazy and stayed put. I was already familiar with The Neville Brothers from my Sound Warehouse days. They were fine, although still not my music of choice. The highlight of the evening was definitely The Pixies, despite the crappy sound which included several moments of feedback. They played a lot of stuff off of the older albums, “Bone Machine” and “Where Is My Mind?” among the highlights, and made me regret not having seen them in my high school/college days at a smaller venue.

Sunday was our longest day at the festival. Unfortunately, we missed Earl Harvin Trio, but arrived at 2pm to ensure that we got a good spot for The Roots. I’m a huge fan of Do You Want More?!!!??! and haven’t ever had the chance to see them live even though they seem to play Stubb’s every few months. I was unfamiliar with most of the material that they played and this particular performance seemed more rock than hip hop, so much so that they reminded me of Fishbone on more than one occasion. In the end, it was a great live show. I recommend going to see them if you haven’t had a chance, although I’d pick a time when the sun wasn’t baking me alive. Their show more than any of the others reinforced for me that the festival needs to be about a month later than it’s current date. After The Roots, we trudged across Zilker toward the Cingular stage for Elvis Costello. On the way, it became clear that we were going to have to seek shade for at least part of the afternoon if we were going to survive the rest of the day. We ended up at the H-E-Buddy Beach, which is usually sand volleyball courts, but were converted to an impromptu beach with umbrellas, plastic chairs and beach toys. It was supposed to be for families with kids and this rule was enforced by security until the sun finally went down. We made the beach our headquarters for the rest of the day, occasionally venturing out of the shade of the umbrellas to check out another stage. I listened to Elvis Costello, Spoon, and Pat Green from the beach. The sound was pretty bad for the bands unfortunate enough to be on the Cingular stage (Costello and Pat Green) and I really can’t stand Pat Green or any music of that genre, so I just closed my eyes and pretended I was on a beach but with crappy music. Some of our group went over to see Wilco at the other end of the park. It was obvious when Wilco finished as it seemed that every person from that end of the park walked past (and through) us on the way to Cake. I took the boy a little closer for a few of their songs. I really liked Fashion Nugget and Prolonging the Magic. I distinctly remember listening to Prolonging the Magic incessantly around the time The Boy was born and looking forward to singing “Sheep go to heaven ” with him. “I Will Survive” has to be one of the greatest covers ever recorded. Once again, I couldn’t really get into the show because I was so damn far away. Maybe I’m just getting old and cranky?

The Verdict?

Too damn many people
Too damn hot
Too many KGSR-friendly bands. I need some more raunchy/hard rock.
Hudson’s On The Bend had the best food
The beer selection sucked ass. In retrospect, it’s probably because they were limited to those that come in a can. Glass was a no-no and I guess they didn’t want to mess with kegs.

The line-up next year will have to be as good or better than this year to get me to fork over $160 again and even then, I might have to be persuaded.

ACL 2004 Pt. 1: SMS, stupid!

Austin No Responses »

Sep 202004

The reviews of this year’s ACL Festival are appearing on the blogs of various friends. I’ll have a more proper review with a picture or two up tonight along with some shots of the kids in the login required section of the site.

The common complaint this year seems to be that there were just too many people. One side effect of the number of people, estimated at about 70,000 each day of the three day festival, was that it was virtually impossible to call another person at the festival via cell phone. I tried several times only to get a busy signal or a voice mail message that was never delivered. Frustrated that I couldn’t contact friends to meet up at a particular location, I switched to text or SMS messaging and discovered what thousands of japanese schoolgirls already know. Text messaging is fairly easy with a T9 phone and pretty damn reliable. I was able to text back and forth and meet up with R. several times throughout the weekend. People in the U.S. don’t seem to have gotten the hang of this feature that’s generally included with most phones and phone plans these days. So, my message to the ACL 2005 Festival-goers: Text, baby! Text!

Of course, I did run into some problems of my own. The Wife supposedly has text messaging enabled for her phone, but she wasn’t able to send at the festival and I tested sending messages from her phone to mine back at the house on Saturday without any luck. Guess I’ll be calling AT&T sometime this week to get it sorted out along with why she doesn’t get a indicator when she has voicemail.

And another thing…

Politics No Responses »

Sep 172004

I didn’t get to finish my rant last night because my sister called in the middle of it looking for car advice. Somebody hit her a few weeks ago and the insurance company decided to total the car since it’s too old to be worth fixing. It looks like she’s going to get a Protege. I’ve been pretty happy with the two that I’ve had over the last 10 years. One of them was cursed, but I’m pretty sure that’s not something they do at the factory.

Anyway, back to the rant… One of the consensus opinions among military leaders on the ground is that the Bush administration totally screwed up Fallujah earlier this year. If you’ll remember, some civilian contractors were killed and then dragged through the streets, prompting justifiable outrage from many here in the U.S. and abroad. The military leaders on the ground wanted to take a measured response, but were pressured from the White House into the large scale seige on Fallujah. Then, just as they were about to go in and it was clear that there would be a lot of civilian casualties, the White House ordered them to pull back. The feeling is that they shouldn’t have reacted with so much force in the first place, but once they did, they should’ve followed through. The waffling made them look weak, which was exactly the wrong message to send, especially in the Middle East.

There a rumors now that a large scale assault on Fallujah is scheduled for just after the elections. Just as with the production of a “high value target” from Pakistan during the democratic convention, if there is, in fact, an assault just after the election, we can chalk this up to one more cynical play by the Bush administration.

One more thing, if you haven’t read Christopher Albritton’s blog from Iraq, you should. He’s got a lot of good stuff there, especially this recent post.

Ooo. Ooo. And then there’s this.

House of cards

Politics No Responses »

Sep 172004

While I’ve been unimpressed with the Kerry campaign since the democratic convention, I must say that things are not looking good for ol’ G.W. despite his slight surge in the polls.

In the the time since the republican convention, questions have been raised again about his national guard service (although the documents causing the stir appear to be fakes), new books have arrived from respected Florida senator Bob Graham and veteran controversial biographer Kitty Kelley that paint an unflattering portrait of our current president, a National Intelligence Estimate was released painting a rather bleak picture of the current situation in Iraq, one of G.W.’s economic professors from his grad school days is speaking out about what an arrogant yutz he was in those days, a number of the 9/11 widows, who were instrumental in getting the administration to appoint the independent 9/11 Commission endorsed Kerry and finally, Donald Rumsfeld emerged from his virtual media blackout last Friday to give a talk to the National Press Club where he confused Saddam Hussein with Osama Bin Laden not once, but twice.

If I were prone to conspiracy theories, I’d say that the Bush administration is setting Rumsfeld up as the fall guy for the laundry list of blunders they’ve perpetrated over the last four years. I can see it now.

“Rumsfeld? He was crazy. It was all his idea. You heard how he confused Saddam and Osama in that speech. It was him, not us!”

You get the idea.

Oh yeah, I somehow missed all of the stuff Anthony Zinni was saying a few months ago. Here’s an example and here’s another.

Look out, I feel a rant coming on…

I think he’s absolutely right on. I think containment was working. There was no imminent threat from Iraq. The inspectors were there. They were having an effect. Congress (John Kerry among them) foolishly voted to give the president a blank check, thinking that he’d wave it around, but wouldn’t actually fill it out. What they didn’t count on was that he and the intelligence community were listening to the neoconservatives in the administration that we all know had a hard-on for Iraq ever since the Gulf War. They had Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress exile group who had a vested interest in seeing us go in there feeding them fabricated crap about what was going on in Iraq when it was really a big mess. We went in. We weren’t prepared to stop the looting. We weren’t prepared to do the nation building that G.W. swore we shouldn’t be doing when he campaigned in 2000. We relied on Halliburton, Bechtel and other contractors for way too much stuff. If you were an Iraqi out of work and you saw that a bunch of foreigners were being employed by american companies and being paid exorbitant salaries to drive trucks in your country, wouldn’t you be pissed off too? At what point do those who keep pointing out that Iraq is part of the global war on terror step back and decide to do a little cost-benefit analysis. Look at what we’re spending in hard cash, lives and political capital. Is it worth it?

At Home He’s a Tourist

Entertainment No Responses »

Sep 152004

Preparations for this week’s ACL Festival have begun in earnest. We’ve got an out-of-town guest arriving tomorrow and we secured babysitting for Saturday night so we can all see The Pixies without tired kids. Now that I’ve realized that Franz Ferdinand is responsible for “Take Me Out”, which I’ve been hearing a lot on the radio, I decided that I need to see them on Friday night. Given their similarities to Gang Of Four, it’s serendipitous that Bob has a post this week about everyone’s favorite late 70’s/early 80’s punk/funk brit band. I must dig up my out of print Infinite Zero CD of Entertainment! for another listen.

Other must-see bands as far as I’m concerned are Trout Fishing In America (for the kids), Cake, Wilco, The Roots, Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello and Earl Harvin Trio. Anybody have any other recommendations? I heard a rumor that the surprise guest this year is Prince. Can anyone confirm or at least corroborate the rumor? You can e-mail me if you don’t want to incriminate yourself publicly. Really.

Douchebag of Liberty

Politics No Responses »

Sep 142004

Last night, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show continued their campaign against CNN Crossfire and Chicago-Sun Times commentator Robert Novak in a segment called Douchebag of Liberty and bestowed the Congressional Medal of Douchebaggery on him. His outing of a CIA agent for partisan reasons, refusal to reveal his source for the outing, recent editorial on the Swift Boat Veteran ads and hypocritical call for CBS to reveal it’s sources for the recent Bush Texas National Guard memos have convinced me that it’s time to start paying tribute to the man, blogger-style. Who’s with me? Let’s all show our love for the Douchebag of Liberty.

Of course, someone has already registered douchebagofliberty.com, so make sure and link that to our favorite commentator’s name.

Targeted Web-Ad Amusement

Geek No Responses »

Sep 142004

I went and checked out a story on CNN today about an altercation between Texas Rangers players and Oakland A’s fans. Apparently, a Rangers reliever, Frank Francisco, threw a chair into the crowd and which broke a woman’s nose after ricocheting off of a male fan who I assume was the intended target. Deplorable behavior by the pitcher, but the amusing thing was the ads that were served up by Overture to go with the story. I’m not sure that everyone will get the same ads. If you don’t, here’s a sampling of the titles that I got: “Correction of Broken Noses”, “Broken Nose Accident Injury Law” and “Settle Your Own Broken Nose Injury Claim”. Gotta love technology.

Random searches at ABIA?

Austin No Responses »

Sep 072004

On the way to work this morning, I was listening to Morning Edition on KUT. KUT ran a story about increased traffic at Bergstrom and buried in the report was the following sentence:

Airport police can now stop you for a random inspection as you drive up to the terminal.

I’ve e-mailed the KUT news department to try and get more information as I couldn’t find anything on the ABIA website, although I did find a really cool feature that allows you to check on the security lines before going to the airport.

Am I the only one troubled by this or is everyone o.k. with random searches in the name of security? Has anybody personally experienced a search?

Freedom of the Press

Politics No Responses »

Sep 052004

I just finished re-reading Animal Farm after finally reading Homage to Catalonia a few weeks back. A portion of the preface struck me as worth repeating.

The issue involved here is quite a simple one: Is every opinion, however unpopular — however foolish, even — entitled to a hearing? Put it in that form and nearly any English intellectual will feel that he ought to say ‘Yes’. But give it a concrete shape, and ask, ‘How about an attack on Stalin? Is that entitled to a hearing?’, and the answer more often than not will be ‘No’, In that case the current orthodoxy happens to be challenged, and so the principle of free speech lapses. Now, when one demands liberty of speech and of the press, one is not demanding absolute liberty. There always must be, or at any rate there always will be, some degree of censorship, so long as organised societies endure. But freedom, as Rosa Luxembourg [sic] said, is ‘freedom for the other fellow’. The same principle is contained in the famous words of Voltaire: ‘I detest what you say; I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ If the intellectual liberty which without a doubt has been one of the distinguishing marks of western civilisation means anything at all, it means that everyone shall have the right to say and to print what he believes to be the truth, provided only that it does not harm the rest of the community in some quite unmistakable way. Both capitalist democracy and the western versions of Socialism have till recently taken that principle for granted. Our Government, as I have already pointed out, still makes some show of respecting it. The ordinary people in the street-partly, perhaps, because they are not sufficiently interested in ideas to be intolerant about them-still vaguely hold that ‘I suppose everyone’s got a right to their own opinion.’ It is only, or at any rate it is chiefly, the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it, in theory as well as in practice.

One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that ‘bourgeois liberty’ is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought. This argument was used, for instance, to justify the Russian purges. The most ardent Russophile hardly believed that all of the victims were guilty of all the things they were accused of: but by holding heretical opinions they ‘objectively’ harmed the régime, and therefore it was quite right not only to massacre them but to discredit them by false accusations. The same argument was used to justify the quite conscious lying that went on in the leftwing press about the Trotskyists and other Republican minorities in the Spanish civil war. And it was used again as a reason for yelping against habeas corpus when Mosley was released in 1943.

These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you. Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won’t stop at Fascists. Soon after the suppressed Daily Worker had been reinstated, I was lecturing to a workingmen’s college in South London. The audience were working-class and lower-middle class intellectuals — the same sort of audience that one used to meet at Left Book Club branches. The lecture had touched on the freedom of the press, and at the end, to my astonishment, several questioners stood up and asked me: Did I not think that the lifting of the ban on the Daily Worker was a great mistake? When asked why, they said that it was a paper of doubtful loyalty and ought not to be tolerated in war time. I found myself defending the Daily Worker, which has gone out of its way to libel me more than once. But where had these people learned this essentially totalitarian outlook? Pretty certainly they had learned it from the Communists themselves! Tolerance and decency are deeply rooted in England, but they are not indestructible, and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious effort. The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous. The case of Mosley illustrates this. In 1940 it was perfectly right to intern Mosley, whether or not he had committed any technical crime. We were fighting for our lives and could not allow a possible quisling to go free. To keep him shut up, without trial, in 1943 was an outrage. The general failure to see this was a bad symptom, though it is true that the agitation against Mosley’s release was partly factitious and partly a rationalisation of other discontents. But how much of the present slide towards Fascist ways of thought is traceable to the ‘anti-Fascism’ of the past ten years and the unscrupulousness it has entailed?

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