September 2011
26 posts
August 2011
46 posts
“
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
” —Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech in 2005
“I’ve been accused of not being macho enough to direct the Avengers. Oh yeah, that’s right. Well guess what: I happen to be very macho, so if you see me in a bar and you don’t think I’m macho, don’t talk to me. You walk away unless you want a cosmo all down your shirt. ‘Cause I will. I will pour it.”
—
Joss Whedon
(more on The Avengers here)
Tell me something
Which of the following works better:
- telling me, “Hey, don’t use that” when you walk into the kitchen as I’m just starting to use it, or
- standing there watching me use it, waiting until it’s already used before saying, “Are you really using that?” right as I finish up?
Top it off with a bitchy tone and you’ve got yourself a pleasant morning :)
Dear Tumblr
I kinda want to start carrying a money clip instead of a wallet.
Pros:
- Not as annoying to have in a pocket
- Encourages use of only cash, not my trouble-inducing debit card.
- Ultimate minimalism
- Classy shit.
Cons:
- More upfront about how much cash I’m carrying on me.
- Not as easy to carry essentials, like my license/ID.
- Could mess with the envelope system Meghan and I use.
- Surprisingly expensive for a good one.
Thoughts, tumblr folk?
Lingerie for your grade schooler (link) →
glamour.com
Just in case you guys were wanting any.
Thank you, Mr. Stewart (link) →
mediaite.com
Finally SOMEONE is talking about how Ron Paul is getting blackballed by the MSM. I may not agree with everything the man says (read: the idea that Iran isn’t trying to get a nuke and wouldn’t use it if they got it), but that’s no reason to completely ignore a guy who came in second place by less than 200 votes in the straw poll.
“
Imagine moving your leg and noticing that it appears a 3” flap of raw chicken skin has fastened itself to the midpoint between your crotch and upper thigh. Everytime you move it peels, sticks, and re-folds itself like Satan’s Own Salty Playdough.
Now imagine it’s 90 degrees outside and your crotch feels like a Vietnamese labor camp.
Now ask your question again.
” —Best answer ever to “why do you men always adjust yourselves in public?”
“It doesn’t make it a gotcha question just because it got - ya.”
—Jon Stewart (via cathartictumbleweed)
“I disagree with most of what Ron Paul said, but just because he’s mostly wrong doesn’t mean he’s always wrong.”
—Rick Santorum
“Is she unqualified, or is she just beating you in the polls?”
—Chris Wallace to Tim Pawlenty concerning Michele Bachmann.
can you say "totally spoiled"? because i can:
- me: i'll get v8 and milk at the store tomorrow. you have frozen pizzas, and the sandwich stuff is all right here. you're good on shampoo and all that, and you have enough yogurt to last you until next wednesday.
- chet: okay.. will you be back before that? i'll miss you a lot by then. and i'll be out of yogurt.
Random Sports Thoughts
I haven’t been paying attention to the sports world much at all lately. About the most I’ve been doing is seeing a random article here and there (largely posted on Twitter by my friend), but I haven’t been glued to ESPN every morning like I was earlier in the summer. As such, I’m getting some sports overload. Here are some thoughts:
- I am PUMPED for the NFL season to start. I’m not a big college football fan since I refuse to root for any school but my own, and I go to Indiana — we’ve played 123 seasons and only reached 9 bowl games in our history. Things are looking up for the 2012 season, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Still, though, I love the NFL. I’m a diehard Colts fan, but I can definitely appreciate good plays from every team. This is such a big change for me, as I largely hated football until 2006 when the Colts won the Superbowl.
- Also football related — Ochocinco and Haynesworth are both on the Patriots now. I think this will be the undoing of the Patriots, honestly. I agree with what this article says about the matter. Long story short, they both think they’re bigger than the team, which goes entirely against the Patriots’ philosophy. Ochocinco loves attention more than football (as an example, he’s decided to live with a fan rather than get an apartment), and Haynesworth just plays for the money, not the game. These two guys will distract the Patriots and frustrate Tom Brady just enough that the season won’t end on a strong note, particularly with Randy Moss having retired as well.
- Basketball: I’m the opposite of my football stance here. I love all Division 1 college basketball, but I mostly hate the NBA. I pay attention to it because I like some individual players (read: Kobe), but the environments are just totally different between the two leagues. I’m pumped to get the college season going, since IU is getting somewhere again. Obviously we’re not going to win a championship this season, but we’re at least getting somewhere. We’re not just going to be that team that other Big Ten teams look at and think “automatic win.” And I feel like we *need* to go .500 this year or Tom Crean has a possibility of getting fired. I *really* hope not. I love Coach Crean, and I really think he’s the savior of this team, but the alumni might not feel that way. We’ve improved every year since he’s been the coach, and his first season was with *one* returning player. He deserves to at least fulfill his contract and see where we’re at from there. Honestly, with the number one recruiting class in 2012, I think we could be a Big Ten title contender.
- Baseball: I don’t follow this nearly as much as I used to. I haven’t, really, since the Steve Bartman Incident. I just sort of keep track of how the Cubs are doing, and when I realize that we’ve got no playoff hopes, I go back to the other sports. It dawned on me today that the Cubs are never on the good end of a SportsCenter top play. *sigh*
- Other sports: ‘merica.
A World Without Pants
- Me: You should be at Classy Night, Sam!
- Sam: It's okay, I'm really happy right now.
- I played Oblivion all day today
- and created a character who only wore pants
- and I ran around attacking people w/ my fists and shooting them with fireballs
- but I got carried away
- and killed pretty much everyone
- the streets were strewn with bodies
- but every time I had killed someone
- I stole their pants
- I had so many pants
- And all about me were pantless bodies
- it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen
- A world without pants
- ...
- except for one man
- one man to wear them all
- one man to find them
- one man to steal them all, and in the darkness, bind them
Bush 2.0: 100 Ways Barack Obama Is Just Like George W. Bush →
humblelibertarian.com
The election of President Obama was in no small part, a referendum on the administration of George W. Bush, and his victory was interpreted as a sound rebuke to eight years of open ended warfare, a vast and growing police state, the destruction of civil liberties, disregard for the Constitution, unchecked executive power, lies and broken promises, hypocrisy and arrogance, a lack of transparency in government, out-of-control federal spending, fever-pitch fearmongering, rampant corruption, and some really stupid gaffes. But what have we gotten instead?
More of the same. A LOT more of the same.
“Today, there are three kinds of people: the haves, the have-nots, and the have-not-paid-for-what-they-haves.”
—Earl Wilson (via babystepsthrudebt)
“The opposition to the gold standard in any form — from a growing number of welfare-state advocates — was prompted by a much subtler insight: the realization that the gold standard is incompatible with chronic deficit spending (the hallmark of the welfare state). Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation.”
—Alan Greenspan. (via libertarians)
U.S. eats up most of debt limit in one day: $239 billion spike uses up 60% of funding OK’d on Tuesday →
washingtontimes.com
From the article:
U.S. debt shot up $239 billion on Tuesday — the largest one-day bump in history — as the government flexed the new borrowing room it earned in this week’s debt-limit increase deal.
The debt subject to the statutory limit shot way past the old cap of $14.294 trillion to hit $14.532 trillion on Tuesday, according to the latest the Treasury Department figures, which are released on the next business day.
That increase puts the government already remarkably close to the new debt limit of $14.694, which means one day’s new borrowing ate up 60 percent of the $400 billion in space Congress granted the president this week.
This is one of those “don’t know whether to laugh or cry” moments.
Emmy Snubs (click!) →
awards.tv.yahoo.com
Okay, now this is ridiculous.
Freakin’ Michael Landon never even got NOMINATED for an Emmy. Desi Arnaz (Ricky Ricardo) never got nominated. Andy Griffith only got nominated — and lost — for a TV movie (NOT the Andy Griffith Show). Angela Lansbury got nominated 18 times and LOST EVERY SINGLE TIME, including for the role she won mad Tonys for. Elizabeth Montgomery (Bewitched) lost 9 times. Jason Alexander lost seven times. Steve Carrell and Hugh Laurie have both lost five times. Jackie Gleason lost four times. And Larry Hagman only got nominated twice (both for “Dallas” and not for “I Dream of Jeannie”) and lost both times.
Seriously, Emmy voters. WTF? I mean, I don’t even care about awards, but these people deserve them. Maybe not Steve Carrell, but the rest of them.
UGH.
“If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she’s late?”
—Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 17
Creepy (and unconstitutional): A House panel approved a bill which would require internet providers to keep all users' internet history for a year in case the government wants to look at it at some point. →
news.cnet.com
Data logged would include “customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses.”
Our government is neither law-abiding nor trustworthy.
Correction: They aren’t law-abiding, trustworthy, or knowledgeable about computers in any way. What do they think will happen when (not if, but when) a hacker gains access to an ISP’s database? Do they think they’re going to just sit there, say “Oh, well, I guess that’s pretty cool, time to go back to Minecraft” and call it a fucking day?
My issues with this debt deal
(taken from a long comment I put on a friend’s Facebook post)
Ooh! Ooh! Do I get to say my problems with it? I mean, it hasn’t actually passed through either house yet and as such isn’t a done deal, but I’ve still got complaints.
A.) We’ve still got MASSIVE deficit spending even with this deal. You can’t keep spending more than you make and expect to come out on top. Basic budget rule right there — don’t spend more than you make.
B.) Related to the first one, but still separate. While this deal *does* require a congressional vote on a balanced budget amendment, nothing very little hinges on it (unlike in Boehner’s plan). In Boehner’s plan, the second debt limit increase hinged on the passage of that amendment. This deal has nothing something like that, and one can simply take it or leave it. With how terrified most democrats (and many republicans) are of actually having a balanced budget (“not our entitlement programs or defense!”), there’s no way little chance it’ll pass. EDIT: Lol, j/k. Apparently, something *does* hinge on the balanced budget amendment. The debt ceiling can be increased by $1.2 trillion regardless of passage of that amendment, but if the amendment *does* pass, it can go up to $1.5 trillion. The relevant parts were correct all snarky-style.
C.) It’s too small. This “cut x-amount *over ten years*” crap is just pointless. Firstly, the current congress has no control over the future congress without the passage of an amendment; laws are too easily changed and recommendations are too easily ignored. Secondly, our current debt is $14.3 trillion, and we think cutting less than $3 trillion in *projected* spending (not even real spending, but what we think we might spend) over a decade is going to work? No. It’s just way too small. It will never get the job done.
I don’t want a default, so part of me is happy that a deal has been struck (although there is now worry it won’t pass both houses as both parties have complaints about it), but another part of me thinks that a default is almost necessary, that we won’t come out of this idiotic mindset until we hit rock bottom. You hear that about drug addicts a lot. Well, I think we’re addicted to spending. Massive cuts are going to be necessary in order to get us out of debt, and that starts with NOT having any deficit spending. You can’t spend 175% of your annual income and get out of debt. That’s equivalent to a family making $60,000 a year and spending $105,000 a year. It just doesn’t make sense, and it just doesn’t work. The size of the cuts necessary will *suck* for everyone in the short term, but they’re necessary for the long term.
