The front page of this site officially validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional!! The layout’s been fine for a while, but the posts usually broke the validator in the past. Now, the posts (at least the ones on the front page) are fine, and I think will be in the future. Ahhhh, bask in the glory of my geekiness with me. Doesn’t it feel nice?
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Photographic (Puzzling?) Evidence
Yeah, baby, there it is: my coppertop hair.
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Los Betos Rides Again
Fantasy Football was supposed to start this weekend, but we couldn’t get twelve dependable dorks to register for the league in time. So, attampt two drafts on Wednesday. It’s quite a luxury to be able to see your prospective players in action the first week before you have to draft them. My team, as it has been the last three years is Los Betos named after my favorite greasy Mexican place in Tucson. It’s also funny to me because it either means “The Beasts” or “The Dummies”.
My sinus infection sucks… And in an effort to take my mind off the sucking of my sinuses and the accompanying pain, I decided that Saturday night would be a good time to dye my hair. I don’t have a good picture of it yet, or I would have posted it along with this. The last time I did this (I think it was spring of last year), I went ultra-blond, which isn’t too big a departure from my normal color. Having already done the “one shade off” thing, I decided it was time for something a little more adventurous and Saturday morning picked out “Auburn”, which is a slightly less than ultra-red. I thought my hair would come out a little redder than it did… Right now, I have coppery colored locks (ok, lock? I just got it cut so it’s mighty short). Jen loves it, and I’m pretty happy with it. It’s totally different without being a “crazy teenager” color like purple or blue – not that I won’t go purple someday, I just might.
I would tell you more, but my face is going to pop any second – CAT Scan’s on Thursday.
UPDATE: Since Dawson asked so nicely, I posted a shot from the Sidekick’s crappy camera to my TypePad Mopho Gallery. It really doesn’t do the absolute coppery happiness of my hair justice, but it’s the best I got.
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Geez, I Inspire Myself
I so inspired myself, I decided to write my letter tonight instead of put it off any longer. You can too. Here’s what I wrote:
Dear Senator McCain,
I have voted for you twice in my young political life, once as a citizen of Arizona for Senate, and once in the 2000 Virginia Republican Presidential Primary. I had strong hopes back then that you would win the Presidency. The 2000 election was painfully disappointing to me on many levels. I felt you were a better candidate and stronger leader than George W. Bush could ever hope to be, and your politics much more moderate and inline with my own and the rest of the country.
According to this poll, which I’m sure you’re aware of, a lot of people are unsure of President Bush’s leadership. I am so disgusted by the President, his policies and the people he’s chosen to fill key positions in the government that I no longer consider myself a Republican, even though I respect you, my current Senator, John Warner and many other moderates in the party. I feel the GOP has been taken over by the extreme Right and that’s a dangerous thing for this country. The Administration’s diplomatic failures would never have happened if you were President.
As I said before, I no longer consider myself a member of the Republican party. But, not so long ago, I considered myself a conservative. The past two years I have watched the Republican party turn from its principles and embrace the wrong issues and for the wrong reasons. I’ve seen the President lie to the American people and take us into an unneccessary war. I thought President Clinton was dishonest, but his lies were never on this scale. I’ve seen an Administration set on serving corporate interests in its “secret” energy task force in which the Vice President possibly broke the law by not turning over documents to the Congress. I’ve heard a President egg on terrorists, putting our soldiers in Iraq in even more danger (if people who were against the war were “aiding and abetting the enemy”, what did the President do in utter those three words?). I have seen a President push for changes in labor laws that will deeply hurt middle class families, and environmental laws that will hurt our environment. All this from a President who promised to return “honor and dignity” and “honesty and openness in goverment” to the White House.
What’s my point? Why am I writing? I beg you to challenge George W. Bush and run for President in 2004. President Bush has done lasting damage to this country: his diplomatic and military miscalculations, his sops to big corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the middle class, his complete abandonment of his campaign promises (an honest and open government?) and his gutting of the campaign finance reform you worked so hard to get passed. You can save the party from the extremists running it today. I believe you are an honest man, and want the best for our country. I believed in you then, and I believe in you now. Please run and show the world that all Republicans are not the neo-conservative extremists in power today.
Sincerely,
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Kevin Lawver -
Anyone Up For Begging?
Do you think that with this news we could convince John McCain to run? I voted for him twice (once as a Senator, once in the 2000 Republican Primary) – I could be convinced to vote for him again. He’s a reasonable and moderate Republican – not an unreasoning idealogue like the President and his friends. So, who wants to send some letters? Anyone?
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Sick In The Head
This morning I found out that my sinus infection is back, the pain in my neck is most likely caused by stress and my doctor said the word polyp in my presence. This wouldn’t be your normal butt polyp (you know, a ‘roid or a boil). This would be a polyp in my sinuses, you know, near my brain. I get to go get a sinus CAT scan (which is the most uncomfortable posistion I’ve ever been in for a medical test, I swear, my neck doesn’t move that way). I don’t get any more antibiotics because they obviously aren’t working. I get Alleve, a pat on the back and a prescription for a bunch of lab tests.
So, I’m going to listen to the Housemartins, pretend everything fine and that my head doesn’t hurt. I’m going to play with my new toy (DOM hacking in javascript – I hate javascript, but this is kinda fun), and not think about anything else.
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Keep Your Mac Happy
It’s the Mac Maintenance Post! Working where I do, us Mac users are outnumbered big time, so calling our internal help group for Mac help is practically futile. So, my boss, my pal and I (all in the same group and all Mac users – go figure) troubleshoot most of our own problems. Here’s a list of indispensible Mac utilities and sites that make our lives easier, and if you’ve got a Powerbook or a computer that’s not on 24/7, will makes your’s better too:
- MacJanitor: Runs all the maintenance scripts that are supposed to run in the middle of the night. If you turn your machine off at night, they never run, which will make your Mac crawl like mine did until I ran this.
- RebuildDesktopX: Takes you back to the good ol’ days of Apple+Option booting, doesn’t it? Nope, this is just a little application and does some magical cache deleting and really helped me get some speed back.
- OS X Troubleshooting: A great site for OS X tips and tricks to keep your Mac happy.
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Friggin’ Dreary
Is it just me or is everyone depressed? NetNewsWire is delivering a stream of woeful folks and things that will depress you if you aren’t already. It’s rainy and miserable outside. It’s miserable inside. Is it the back-to-school-end-of-summer bleaghs? Or, is it something deeper?
I admit it, the news today isn’t great. It’s dreary. Listening to Groove Armada isn’t helping. This gigantic headache and neckache I’ve had for the last week isn’t helping (the hypochondriac in me is sure that I have West Nile).
I’m not sure Phish is the cure for the blues, but it’s worth a shot. I’ll come back after The Mango Song and let you know how it goes. And because I feel today is nothing more than a steady stream of asides to a non-existant audience – did you know I have 1.73 gigabytes of Phish MP3’s from probably \$300 worth of CD’s that I own?
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Decisions, Decisions
John Kerry officially announced his candidacy today. To compare, I went back and read Howard Dean’s. Now, Dean’s was a couple months ago, and is lacking in specifics. Kerry’s was today and is pretty darn specific on the big issues. After watching his Meet the Press appearance yesterday, I’m not sure who I’m going to vote for on February 24th (the day of the Democratic Primary in Virginia).
John Kerry has years of experience at the national level. We’ve elected governors the last two presidents, and maybe it’s time to see how a Senator does (you have to go back to, I think, Kennedy to find another President who went straight from Senator to President – LBJ was VP first, Carter – Bush II were all governors, right? Correct me if I’m wrong). John Kerry, like Dean, strikes me as a reasonable man who uses a sharp intellect to make decisions based on facts. This is an advantage over Bush. Kerry has military experience. Kerry is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and therefore has some foreign policy experience, which Dean doesn’t.
I still like Dean’s fire. I love the grassroots support he’s built up. I like his honesty, but Kerry impressed me. They both have until February to win me over. Honestly, I’m happy to have two quality candidates to choose from, both with a solid chance of beating GW in 2004. I’ll be happy to support either one against GW next year.
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Depressing and Enlightening
This article about how the Administration makes policy decisions is scary. It’s depressing that the most powerful man in the world makes decisions without the facts and then tries to make the facts conform to the outcome he wants. It’s unbelievable. It’s unethical. Jen and I have been talking about this quite a bit (I finally got Ms. Political Science degree to talk politics with me – yay me), and we both agree that we’d rather have a President who reasons through an issue and comes up with what they honestly think is the best solution and not what we have now – a President and Administration that decides on a course of action before looking at the facts or consulting experts. Their disdain for people who actually know what they’re talking about is frightening to me, but makes perfect sense when you think about their track record – read the article. It’s an eye-opener.
And because I linked to that, I have to tell you about Talking Points Memo and Oliver Willis. Talking Points is one of the most intelligent and coherent political blogs on either end of the political spectrum, and has turned into a daily must-read for me. Oliver is a funny guy who frequently makes excellent points (plus, he’s got a huge Dean banner on his site and is a ‘Skins fan). Read ’em both. Enjoy.
Oh, and Dawson loves me.