Absurd Singularity

Been feeling extremely lazy these past few weeks for some reason so haven't been keepin' up much with the postin'. I would've thought the advent of spring would give me a nice kick to the rear and get my shit in gear but not so. Ah well, work doesn't get done by itself apparently no matter how hard I try (or don't try in this case ;-).

Last 2 weekends were pretty spectacular. Perfect days for lollin' about at Yankee Stadium. Caught the Saturday afternoon game vs. the archrival Red Sox 2 weekends ago with Andy. Game was close and actually went into extra innings but the Bombers went down in the end. Good thing we left the inning before the show ended so didn't have to deal with having to get out in the mad crush. Then this past weekend I went again with Erin and my parents to see them take on the Royals. They wiped the floor with them and we missed Sierra's grand slam in the bottom of the 8th cause we left in the middle of the 8th. =p But still a pretty good time. Watching baseball's a pretty good way to spend a gorgeous day. Now if only the prices would come down alittle. ;-p

Been nosying around some Republican blogs the past few weeks and have come to the conclusion that I should really stop doing so. Originally I just wanted to keep tabs on what it was they get annoyed about but after awhile it's pretty much the same things ad nauseum. I can never agree with the current conservative mindset anyway.

Last week, the media was breathlessly recounting with the story of Pat Tillman, the NFL player who gave up millions to become a soldier in Afghanistan.

This week, a memorial service was held for Tillman. It didn't get as much coverage, but I thought the reports of it were much more interesting.

Tillman wasn't the White House's perfect poster boy you would have guessed from all the media accounts. That makes me respect him more. And it also underlines what a self-serving job much of the media did with this story.

Now Ben's not the only one to play G.I. Joe around here... =)

As most of you probably know (if not, what, you think you're above TV or something?), Friends finally ended last night. And damnit, I watched it and I'm proud of it. I don't wanna hear any of those tired "it's soooo unrealistic" or "what's with all the white people?" complaints. The damn thing was a tv sitcom. You don't watch tv sitcoms for their realistic settings or plots. You just need to be easily entertained. And that's what I am. Although that doesn't explain my aversion to the reality tv fad. I guess I'm just an old-school sitcom kind of guy. Anyhoo, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of loss when watching the final moments of the show. Not cause it was ending but cause of the situation they were in. If everyone you knew were moving away and moving on all at the same time, you'd be feeling emotional too. Ah well, at least there's still Joey. ;-) And Scrubs. If Joey's not a worthy successor, then Scrubs definitely is.

Looking forward to Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. The sideshows have finally become stars! ;-p

Amusing email sent out at work today:

We received a Mother's Day wish from a little boy in the general
mailbox. If you have a little boy, he sounds about 7 or 8 years old,
let me know and I can forward you the message.

And a rather disturbing recount about US/Asia trade orgs in DC from a friend who was just there for business:

Most if not ALL Asia-affiliated trade organizations and gov. entities in Washington, D.C. are staffed by CAUSASIANS, making relations with Asia-staffed entities a bit challenging!  Very few Asian or Asian-American professionals.  The entire staff at US-Taiwan, for example, is Caucasian which from my POV puts them at a serious disadvantage as far as really establishing their Taiwan-connections and forwarding their cause.  I was also told that the Asia Foundation and Asia Society are also largely staffed by what they term "Sinofiles", white people obsessed with Asian culture/politics and believe themselves to be "China/Asia Experts"...

It's the strangest phenomenon, but evidently the word is that these groups are formed to service OTHER white groups, and that Asian-Americans who do get in, don't stay for very long as they are often passed up for promotions, etc...

Apparently these "Asia" organizations in D.C. come up with their own conclusions about what is going on in Asia (some have never been, don't speak the language, don't have Asian-studies background, nothing) and then provide that info to other white groups that are equally clueless but have strong political ties and thus have big PULL at the gov. level, so it's an eco-system of its own that effectively fuels itself.

Peculiar job posting I found on Craigstlist - Honolulu for a software developer. Of note:

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to stand; walk; sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel; reach with hands and arms; climb or balance; stoop, kneel, or crouch; and talk or hear. The employee must regularly lift and/or move up to 10 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and ability to adjust focus.

A bit too much disclosure of the obvious there.

This showed up on Metafilter today. It reminded me of something else I read so long ago.

Earlier, I posted about the not-very-well-reported details about Pat Tillman, the NFL player killed in Afghanistan. This is interesting too, for anyone who likes to keep a close eye on the media: (from an e-mail I received)

According to Reuters, Vice President Cheney came to Donald Rumsfeld’s defense in a statement released by his office late Saturday calling the embattled Defense Secretary the Pentagon’s best ever and saying “get off his case and let him do his job.”

Several other news organizations—the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times—have Cheney, through his spokesman, coming to the defense of Rumsfeld, praising him as “the best Secretary of Defense the United States has ever had,” and saying “let him do his job.”

They do not, however, have the “get off his case” line which only appears in the Reuters report (thus far).

the absolutely insane and vulgar news coverage coming out of Iraq these days, I figured I might as well link to Operation Iraqi Children. Help out.

I'm not really sure what to think. But it really sucks for the birth parents.

And I do think there has been some media bias. This article's a little more nuanced.

Personal edition: $99.

Free version: maximum of 1 user, 3 blogs.

Cassandra warns those looking for a faithful adaptation to stay away.

If this movie was titled The Iliad, I’d be nitpicking even further about stuff in the movie that actually happens in The Odyssey instead. But compared to other transgressions, these are easier to overlook.

BTW, Happen to be reading the Robert Fagles translation of The Iliad. Unlike the dry version I vaguely remember reading in school, his interpretation brings poetry to the epic poem.

So I was on my way home a bit early today since the higher-ups let us leave due to having no a/c in our office while it's in the 80's outside. On the 5 express downtown to the WTC, I noticed a young teen couple, dressed sorta punkishly (eyebrow piercings, mostly blond with red streaked hair, mesh stockings, etc.) continuously engaging in PDA. They were seriously sucking face on and off for a good 20 minutes. But anyway, not that I have a problem with PDA. What I found kinda odd was that once we started nearing the Fulton Street station, I glanced over to find the girl hunched over with her head between her knees. Once we got to Fulton, the guy got up to get off the train and the girl straightened up and looked like she was crying. As I left the station, I looked back to see that the guy had basically just taken off first while the girl had gotten off at the same stop but was straggling behind still looking rather upset. So anyway, no point to this story, just wondering what the hell happened. =)

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
CONVENTION SCHEDULE
New York, NY

06:00 PM Opening Prayer led by the Reverend Jerry Fallwell
06:30 PM Pledge of Allegiance
06:35 PM Burning of Bill of Rights (excluding 2nd amendment)
06:45 PM Salute to the Coalition of the Willing
06:46 PM Seminar #1 "Getting your kid a military deferment"
07:30 PM First Presidential Beer Bong
07:35 PM Serve Freedom Fries
07:40 PM EPA Address #1: Mercury, it's what's for dinner.
08:00 PM Vote on which country to invade next
08:10 PM Call EMTs to revive Rush Limbaugh
08:15 PM John Ashcroft Lecture: The Homos are after your children
08:30 PM Round table discussion on reproductive rights (MEN only)
08:50 PM Seminar #2 Corporations: The government of the future
09:00 PM Condi Rice sings "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man"
09:05 PM Second Presidential Beer Bong
09:10 PM EPA Address #2 Trees: The real cause of forest fires
09:30 PM Break for secret meetings
10:00 PM Second prayer led by Cal Thomas
10:15 PM Lecture by Carl Rove: Doublespeak made easy
10:30 PM Rumsfeld demonstration of how to squint and talk macho
10:35 PM Bush demonstration of trademark "deer in headlights" stare.
10:40 PM John Ashcroft demonstrates new mandatory kevlar chastity belt
10:45 PM Clarence Thomas reads list of black republicans
10:46 PM Third Presidential Beer Bong
10:50 PM Seminar #3 Education: a drain on our nation's economy.
11:10 PM Hilary Clinton Pi?±ata
11:20 PM Second Lecture by John Ashcroft: "Evolutionists--The dangerous new cult"
11:30 PM Call EMTs to revive Rush Limbaugh again.
11:35 PM Blame Clinton
11:40 PM Laura serves milk and cookies
11:50 PM Closing Prayer led by Jesus Himself
12:00 PM Nomination of George W. Bush as Holy Supreme Planetary Leader

Was at my parent's house this past weekend looking through some stuff that my Mom had to move from underneath my old bed since they were putting in a new bed. Mostly some indepth volumes on aircraft but also some grade and high school yearbooks and two photo albums, one with pictures taken during the Loveboat program (if you need to ask, you don't need to know ;-p), and the other of pictures taken during my summer at the Brown University Summer Academy. Looking through those pictures, I was becoming rapidly depressed because I couldn't remember what the hell I did there. Actually, that's not true, I retain a bunch of memories from that summer but the pictures contain more things and people than I remember. It's quite possible that a bunch of the pictures I have were taken by others but I don't even remember enough of that to say for certain. Anyway...

Good to see that Six Apart has listened to the deluge of complaints that they inevitably received last week when they released their new Movable Type pricing structure and modified them to be much more realistic. I now only need to pay $70 to run this blog legitimately! ;-p

unfortunately. Why couldn't we have gotten these guys for our commencement speech?

Jon Stewart's Commencement Address at William & Mary

Conan O'Brien's Commencement Speech at Harvard

Looks like Jasmine finally got the boot on American Idol.

I've never ever watched the show (really!), but it's pretty impossible to avoid her if you go to any Hawaii-related websites.

How does a state with a total population around 1 million manage to put in 5 million votes (via landline alone) week after week?

I like my good food as much (and probably more) than the next guy but this is getting ridiculous.

On another food-related note, Marvin & Ariel are in town this week so as usual, Marvin suggested a new and exceptional dining venue. We went to Churrascaria Plataforma yesterday evening and it's a spectacular place to go to gorge yourself on meat, meat.... and even more meat. My advice, skimp as much as possible on the salad/appetizer bar, ignore the chicken and bacon-wrapped whatever cuts, try the lamb and pork cuts but feast on the beef. Sirloin, flank, it's ALLLL good. Definitely not a cheap place to go though and the $40/person doesn't even include dessert! So expect to pay about $70 for a full meal there.

My dad recently told me to read this Businessweek series on “Where are the Jobs?”

Kinda interesting. Aside from being a defense of outsourcing, it also essentially says the days of the robot-like programmer are over. Specifically, that they might be able to outsource jobs that are routine and can be boiled down to easily repeatable tasks. It says: “Flexible, creative and good with people? You should do fine in tomorrow’s job market.”

I wonder what this means for Asian parenting strategies – you know, turn your kid into a disciplined human calculator. If that’s not the way to jobs and success anymore… what happens?

A store that sells husbands has just opened in Ottawa where a woman may go to choose a husband from among many men. The store is comprised of 6 floors, and the men increase in positive attributes as the shopper ascends the flights.

There is, however, a catch. As you open the door to any floor you may choose a man from that floor, but if you go up a floor, you cannot go back down except to exit the building.

"They're everywhere." Anyone? Anyone?

Anyhoo, finally started watching Naruto. Target audience seems to be much younger than I but ah well, has some cool older characters. I'm starting to understand why some of these series are 50+ episodes long. It's cause one fight (well ok, it's a "story arc") freakin' takes like 10 episodes to get through.

Which Naruto Character are You?

This is hilarious. The Grace Lee project is looking for all those Grace Lees out there. Do you know one? I did. I was thinking, wouldn't it be neat to have a project of my own?

Man, people must really love these things...