Category Archives: Rant


Rant

Smile Mob Gets Unhappy Ending

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BoingBoing: Bloggers who attended a “smile mob” in Minsk, Belarus, were arrested for coming to the central square and smiling at each other. Some face months in prison.

Belarus is an ailing former Soviet state, and it’s where my paternal grandfather’s family comes from. All my life, it was a kind of romantic place of my origin, but all the news I ever hear from there is like this — police-state tactics that make the Soviet era sound like a paragon of liberty. Sad.

Sad? What’s so sad about it?

Smile at everyone you see in New York and you’ll get far worse than a simple arrest.

Rant

Something Feels Odd

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Something feels odd. Leaves are starting to change. Temperatures are dropping: I already turned on the heat for my house. Skies are getting cloudier each day, which is normal for this time of year…

Oh yeah: I’ve been spared the emotional roller coaster that has become a staple of October during the last decade, as MLB winds down…

The Red Sox aren’t in the Playoffs.

Rant

Friendly Poker Etiquette

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Had a small part of my east coast ire poke through my laid back west coast veneer during a poker game last night… I don’t think it was my fault – in fact, I think it was warranted – but it caused a little lull in the friendly banter at the table. If it’s any consolation, I feel sorta bad about that aspect of it, considering that it’s supposed to be a friendly game, but still…

Yeah, I think it was justified.
Continue reading Friendly Poker Etiquette →

Rant

Serenity Now!

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CNN: NYC eyes ban on restaurant trans fats

Wow. Does that sound insane to anyone else? Is it just me? Has insanity taken over the city over there? What’s next? A law that keeps Exotic Dancers four feet away from the customers???

Oh, wait – that law is already on the books in Seattle. I guess if a “liberal” city like Seattle can be that asinine, New York City can compete for the title as well.

Yay!

Rant

Howard Redux

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After landing in CT last week, I was stuck in traffic – shock! – and was station surfing on my radio… landed on 95.1, which was very faint seeing as I was still east of Hartford. They were playing something Rock-ish and then all of a sudden, I heard Howard and Artie arguing with Robin over something. I didn’t think twice about it, since I used to listen to Howard in the car for years, but then Artie swore a bit. “Wait, why is he on now? And on WRKI??? Wait, how can they swear on FM???” And then the signal dropped out. Then it came back.

That’s when I noticed a car next to me: it had a Sirius antenna on the trunk. Obviously, the driver was using an FM blaster to listen to Sirius and I was close enough to pick up the blasting signal, as we were all in stopped traffic… the end result is that I heard “Fuck” via my FM radio – can you imagine the fun you could have with people if you got a more powerful blaster and sat in traffic? Mind boggling. The FCC would be powerless to field the complaints too… in fact, if you hated a show on FM, you could do this to people, generate complaints (and fines) and the FCC would jump on the show.

Of course, Howard was on terrestrial radio again this morning, which is what reminded me of the story – was very strange to hear him call into another radio show even if it was for just a few minutes…

Rant

Pedestrians

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Question: when you’re walking in a parking lot, is it the responsibility of the pedestrian or the driver to avoid collisions while opening car doors?

In WA, you only have to yield right of way to pedestrians if they’re in a crosswalk and are following the signal. True, this doesn’t mean you get to run them down if they jaywalk, but if someone is waiting to cross a street mid-block, you aren’t allowed to stop and let them cross either. Yet, as with most traffic laws, things get muddy when it comes to parking lots: private property, non-city road, etc. So, if a pedestrian was walking in a parking lot between cars and got hit with an opening car door, who would be at fault?

I ask because this morning I opened my door (which is rather large on a Mini, considering the size of the car) and it almost whapped the backside of some dude walking close to my car. I pulled in while he was walking across the lot, if he was thinking about it. The spot next to me was open, so it was his choice to walk right next to my car. Given how far past the door he was, I’d say he was in my blind spot even if I thought to look. The thing is that he shot me such a dirty look that I apologized before I had a chance to think “I wonder if he just dinged my door with his travel mug.” Which makes me think that it’s a driver’s responsibility, but even so: you can’t go running around parked cars without paying attention.

Did I waste an apology on the git?

Rant

I <3 Rudy

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ABCNews: Video on demand.

Caught this short interview with Rudy Giuliani on this morning’s news, as part of “Five Years Ago Today” montage that’s going through the nation today… he’s just a class act. Polished politician? Doesn’t sound slick or greasy, yet doesn’t sound raw either. He certainly said a couple of things that most people don’t say when being interviewed, i.e. he thought that we would have been attacked again before now. When asked “if you were president these last five years, what would you have done differently” rather than do the typical and popular tearing down of [insert a republican or democrat here] he talks about all of the stuff that has gone well and then follows it up with “we still have more to do”. Even down to the latest hot topic of “health care”… he answered how I would have: “fix the problem, not the blame”.

Should he run for President in 2008, I will actively support his campaign no matter which party he runs for.
Continue reading I <3 Rudy →

Rant

Yesteryear: Wow

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I just realized it this morning… twenty years ago to the day, I was wearing a knitted tie and an ungodly light blue blazer, while actively being psychologically abused, during first full week of high school.

I don’t know if remembering the memory sucks as bad as realizing that it was twenty years ago… either way tho… jeesh.

Think you’re immune to thoughts like this? Current freshmen classes of high school and college car the Class of 10. Yes, as in 2010.

Ugh.

Rant

Bestest. Quote. Evar!

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CNN: “Everything I do is blown out of proportion and it really hurts my feelings,” said [Paris] Hilton, who called the [arrested for DUI] incident “nothing.”

I typed about twelve different things under this quote, but have deleted each one – everything I say can only take attention about from this remarkably clueless pearl of whorish wisdom.

Rant

Oopsie!

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How about the readers here being smarter than most of the press (and the blogger) about JonBennet, eh? Silly tosser has had his charges dropped! Meh.

And if I hear one more fuckin’ thing about Katrina and New Orleans, I’m going to blow my top. It’s been one year. One year. A city doesn’t get rebuilt in one year. Hundreds of years to build, 24 hours to destroy, a decade to restore – it’s that simple. Especially since you first have to rebuild a levee system around the outside of the town as the town continues to sink into the Gulf of Mexico. Not when it was filled up like a cereal bowl on a Saturday morning by a hurricane. New York still has a gaping 3 acre sized hole in downtown Manhattan, five years after 9/11. They only have to rebuild 10 city blocks or so and it’s still a pooch screw. And frankly, they have a lot more money to work with than New Orleans does.

Take my advice: leave the existing city as part of the delta deposit, head north and start over on higher ground – in fact, take over Metarie and call it good.

Rant

Marketing 101

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Marketing is one of those skills that is rather… intangible. Subjective at any rate. Or at least elusive.

In years past, I had the annoying habit of finishing projects on time. I was even accused of padding my estimates for work tasks. That one always amused me… I would give a figure, say, two weeks. My boss would then pad the estimate to 3-4 weeks, because he never liked or trusted my figures, so the 3-4 weeks estimate would be passed on to the higher ups. In some cases, all of the code just popped into place and I’d be done a day or two early; worst case scenario would have me done exactly on time, within two weeks. I’d then get yelled at for working too fast, since it was way under the 3-4 weeks. Ah, the joys of confused management.

Anyone ever have problems with marketing yourself? Is there a fix for it?
Continue reading Marketing 101 →