Brian for Hillary?

Last week, I think, I let you know that Hillary is running an online contest to pick her campaign song. I really think it's a neat idea.

Today, she posted an update video.



If she keeps this up, I might just switch to her team. I like when our politicos show us they have a soul.

Liberal Guilt

A few weeks back, my roommates and I decided to hire a housekeeper. We really needed one. We often work seven days a week, and 12 or 14 hour days aren't unusual. So we hired Angela.

She comes on Mondays but I've never met her because I am always at work. Today, Memorial Day, I have the day off. We had a number of house guests and I think we shocked her this morning when there were about 8 people in the house.

After running errands, I came home and am relaxing in the house. Angela is working. And I feel really badly, like I should be helping her.

We are paying her -- well. Why do I feel bad to have a Latina working while I sit on my ass watching TV?

Damn, liberal guilt.

No comment. Just watch.

Then call your Congressmember. Tell Democrats to stop their leadership's stupid compromise!

The Triple Crown: Three sheets to the wind?

Coming from the Old Line State* (that's Maryland for those of you that don't know), I occasionally pay attention to horse racing and, specifically, the Triple Crown. Maryland hosts the middle race -- the Preakness -- that follows the Kentucky Derby and precedes the Belmont Stakes.

The Kentucky Derby is a classy gathering at Churchill Downs. This year, it even attracted the Queen of England (and apparently, Angie Harmon?). The Queen, mint juleps and big hats: it reeks of class.



The Free State* (still talking about Maryland here) is not to be outdone. From this year's Preakness:



The drunks, cans of Coors Light, and portable shitters: it reeks of, well, spilled beer and urine. Eat that Kentucky!

* The great state of Maryland has two nicknames, the Old Line State and the Free State, both of which seems to come from the Civil War Period. For example, the Maryland border formed much of the Mason-Dixon Line, marking off the Confederacy from the Union. It was Maryland's northern border unfortunately. And, based on that line placement, you can probably guess that Maryland wasn't a "free" state back then. Nope.

Old Line State was a name given to it by George Washington during the Revolution. A war, just the wrong war. The Free State was a name given to it during prohibition because it refused to pass enforcement laws which would have led the arrest of sellers and drinkers of booze. Thus, the Preakness video above.

Huh? What? "I was wrong"???

Today, I am supporting John Edwards for President in 2008. Now, it's May 2007, so I am entitled to change my mind. But, today, I'm an Edwards man.

I like John Edwards for a lot of reasons. I understand and appreciate his story of two Americas. I am inspired by his personality. I love that he seems to care about poverty and understand how it is the root to many of our other problems: poor education, crime, family dysfunction, violence, drugs, etc.

Even more than anything though, I like that he will take bold positions and acknowledge when he's wrong, something politicians like Bush and Clinton would never do. Having a leader who understand accountability and leadership is invaluable.



He voted for the war, and he understands that vote was wrong. From that point forward, he's ready to fix his mistake, unlike our current commander-in-chief.

He will say, "I was wrong."

Maybe one day, I'll do the same.

Schadenfreude Wednesdays

I had a conversation on the way to work this morning with a friend of mine. It was funny, because he's a lot like me. We are fun people to be around, and I'd definitely say we can be nice. I mean, I'm fiercely loyal to my friends, and will do almost anything a friend asks. I take pride in that. However, I'm not the most sympathetic soul. When facing a tragedy, I might not be the first person to call. I tend to skate around that stuff. Please make note of that and don't expect much more from me.

For example, I have no sympathy for Jerry Falwell or Paul Wolfowitz. So let's celebrate Schadenfreude Wednesdays with these two poor souls!

"Falwell in Hell" Now, that's an idea I can get behind. When Jerry Falwell was committed to worm food, apparently some day this week, but I never saw it on the news, Fred Phelps' gang from the Westboro Baptist "Church" showed up to demonstrate. Apparently, Falwell was in cohoots with the gays! Besides "fucking us over" every chance he got, I wouldn't throw Falwell in with the gays. But "Kudos" to anyone who wants to make a joke out of Falwell's pitiful life.

Jerry the Fatass isn't the only Republican scold who is a little lonelier these days. It would seem that it's a good rule not to make your girlfriend look like the winner in this Miss American Nepotist contest. After losing his job at the World Bank because he helped get a sweet-cherry-pie promotion and raise for his girlfriend, Paul Wolfowitz has now lost his girlfriend, too!

It these stories got us up to the hump, coming down on this week is gonna have to be an awesome ride!

Ouch!

I just bought gas on my lunch break and paid $3.79 for low-octane gas! $3.79! My daily commute costs me about $4.50 in fuel costs alone. Add in $7 a day in insurance. (I am it figuring the same regardless of mileage so it's not all that accurate.) Plus maintenance which I am figuring at $1.13 a day, means my commute, right now, is running about $12.63. It takes me an average of 45 minutes each way to get home, totaling 90 minutes. If I am value my labor at $25.00/hour, there's another $37.50. Wow! My commute is costing me $50.

Last week was Bike to Work week. I mused about getting a bike and commuting on it 2 days a week. It would take me longer -- probably as much as 90 minutes each way. Hmmm. No fuel costs. No insurance costs. Minimal maintenance costs. Say I find a great deal on a good bike and between my bike and accessories I spend about $450. And I bike 2 days of the 50 weeks I work. And it takes me 3 hours a day to ride. It will cost me about $75 a day.

But I'd get a great ass.

I'll write more later, I'm gonna go look for a bike on Craigslist.

HillaryClinton.com: Tackling the BIG issues!

Hillary Clinton, who you all know has already won the Democratic nomination for President, is putting the big issues right in front of her supporters: help her pick a campaign song. The campaign song worked so well for her husband that no body listens to "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)" anymore without thinking about cigars and interns.

Hoping to avoid the "Beautiful Day" disaster of John Kerry's 2004 campaign -- never has a more cliche song been trusted to a presidential campaign -- Hillary is asking you to vote, and she has some pretty interesting choices. And "Beautiful Day," shit, are these people retarded?

My vote is for "Suddenly I See" by KT Tunstall. I think it has a cool, indie sound, and is remarkably positive. Many of the songs seem to capitalize on Hillary's vagina, something she probably has never done in her own life.

Rock the vote, people!

It's been days...

I am having a hard time returning to the blog from my Thai-atus. Rest assured, I am trying. I just having made it happen yet. I am still thinking though. For example:

1) I had a cupcake today. It was from Auntie Em's and it was good. It was also "Carrot Cake" and thus why it wasn't excellent. I rollerbladed -- so 1995 that Blogger doesn't even recognize the word in spell check -- through Skid Row to get this cup cake.

2) Los Angeles is still like the wild west sometimes. The lawlessness can be pretty bad. I saw an illegal street food vendor -- with no county permits, no sanitation, no hat or hair net -- getting a parking ticket. The meter maid ticketed her for parking her jerry-rigged restaurant in a red zone. Then the meter maid left. No call to the police or the county. You can illegally sell potentially tainted food, just don't park in a red zone.

All this lawlessness can really challenge one's liberal sensibilities. They say, "If you aren't a liberal in your 20s you have no heart, if you aren't a conservative in your 40s you have no brain." They also say, "A conservative is merely a liberal who's been robbed." If I want law and order, if I don't want people selling food from dirty pickle buckets on the side of the dirty street, does that make me unliberal? If I think graffitti is repulsive and not art, does that make me unliberal?

3) I made my first suggestion to JenMac's awesome blog. I hope she does it. I recommended she attend one of those fantastically horrible morning news show concerts that feature Rascal Flats, Jennifer Hudson, or Fergie. If I lived in New York, I'd totally go to one.

I wonder if Los Angeles has an equivalent. I think I should do more weird LA things, things like my mid-day skates through Skid Row. (Did you know Skid Row is the single largest homeless population in the United States. There are an estimated 9,000 people living in this 50 square block are of downtown Los Angeles. It's gross.)

4) Do you know where fresh fish in Los Angeles comes from? Apparently, Skid Row. (Did you know Skid Row is the single largest homeless population in the United States. There are an estimated 9,000 people living in this 50 square block are of downtown Los Angeles. It's gross.) On my skate today, the fantastically foul stench of urine was broken through by the much better stench of decaying fish. I looked up and noticed a number of large businesses with combinations of these words in the signs: fresh, fish, seafood, ocean, sea, fresh??? Seriously, how fresh can seafood be in the heart of Los Angeles?

5) Right now, I am most amazed by mounted police horses. Check these horses out some time. How is it that they don't freak out, storm through crowds and kill thousands? I can't skate through Skid Row once ever 6 months without freaking out and these horses work down here every day! AMAZING!

It's the time of the month...

SCUBA Kicks Ass

I LOVE SCUBA DIVING! Diving is the greatest way to spend a day. If I could, I'd go diving every day. Having just got back from vacation, I am still psyched about the idea of diving, and diving without students... just me and my dive buddies. In Thailand, I had the most awesome group. As a whole, we were probably the best of the four groups. We lucked out -- and by lucked out, I mean as soon as they mentioned we'd be diving in set groups all week, I immediately set about to make sure I had the best group I could pull together. Mostly, it meant not having people with scabies in our group, but it turned out well altogether.

As a first, I'm joining my dear friend JenMac in putting a video online. My friend BrianMac made the video on our last night dive in Thailand. He used his camera's video feature, so it's pretty simple. It's also short. It's just a video of our entry. Sounds like a silly thing to get excited about, but in all my diving, this video is a shot of my very first backward roll entry off an inflatable dinghy. Another interesting fact about this video: Because it was the last night dive of the trip, the novelty was wearing off so it's a pretty small group. A group so small that everyone in it was an instructor level diver... and Elie. Elie had just gotten certified... ON THIS TRIP! He had maybe 15 or 20 dives, all but 2 he had done in Thailand. It's fun to dive with an experienced group when you are used to diving with first-timers.



Because of this, I decided that I'm gonna go diving, all for fun, on Memorial Day. Wanna come?

Falwell is Dead. Oops.

Jerry Falwell died this morning. Oh well. Humans are mortal, we die. Especially morbidly obese fat slobs. News agencies are speculating on the cause of death. I imagine it had something to do with having obstructed bowels, you know, with the whole Republican Party's lips lodged so far up his ass it was bound to turn out in disaster.

I do not like this man. He is scum of the earth. CNN reminded me of one of my favorite Falwell memories:

Falwell has found himself at the center of several controversies, such as the one sparked by his comments two days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in which he seemed to blame "abortionists," gays, lesbians, the ACLU and People for American Way for causing the attacks, saying they "helped this happen."

On September 14, 2001, he told CNN that he would "never blame any human being except the terrorists, and if I left that impression with gays or lesbians or anyone else, I apologize."

This is wrong in so many ways. First of all, September 11th was carried out by Fundamentalist Islamic terrorists which have A LOT more in common with Falwell than abortionists, homosexuals, and feminists. Al Qaeda certainly wouldn't place itself on our side of an ideological battle. Second, there should be no license in this country to say dangerous, hurtful, ugly things and than apologize 2 seconds later and be welcomed back in to the mainstream. Falwell is entitled to say whatever he wants, and what he says clearly places him with the lunatic fringe. Don't let him apologize and suddenly treat him like his a grade school social studies teacher.

This is all moot because he's dead and I shed no tears for him.

Great Thailand Stories I

So, Brian, Newton, Jen, and Tai, and probably a few others, are walking through Bangla road on our last night in Patong Beach before boarding the Scuba Cat for five days at sea. Realizing we should probably get some cash before we leave -- booze and tips -- we decided to hit the ATM.

We make withdrawals, take our receipts and walk away. Someone notices that our bank balances have been converted to Thai baht. (35 baht to the dollar, give or take.)

Newton says, "Isn't it crazy how big your bank account seems?"

Brian looks down at his receipt.

Balance: 11 Baht

Not so crazy to me!

(It was pay day and there was some mistake and so it didn't post... maybe it was the whole dateline thing. It sorted out.)

Newsman Cometh...

Poor, poor Adam Landau.

Centered?

Should I stop centering photos? I think I do it too much. Basically, when I right or left justify them, I feel the text encroaches on the photos. Centering it is.

Debauchery?

When I was in Sunday school as a child -- which is kind of a story telling device, since I have few "Sunday school" memories because I went to a Catholic school in kindergarten and above and needn't attend Sunday school -- I never imagined at 28 years old I would be up until 3:30 AM on a Wednesday.



But that's the case! Having a large group of childless friends only leads to trouble. I guess this is what being a young gay professional cosmopolitan is supposed to be all about: Thursday morning hangovers nursed with sleeping in and obscene amounts of coffee. And there's 2 more days left to this week!

I'd share photos from last night's Chamber Evening Dinner (a fundraiser for the Hyperbaric Chamber -- an emergency care facility for SCUBA divers -- and not an uptight social of business-minded Republicans) but in my drunken haze, stumbling from Tai's car at 2:30 AM, I apparently left my camera behind. Maybe tonight.

I must be making an amazing impression on my new boss. 1) I called in sick on his first day. (And I was actually sick. You all should know by now how much it pains me to use a "sick day" on an actual illness!) 2) I wandered in in a daze this morning. 3) I desperately want a new job because I got screwed on vacation time. Assholes.

Although, the new bossman is promising. I've worked for 4 women and 2 men. All 4 women were nightmare. The men: amazing creative professional relationships in which I felt productive and mature.

Back to my coffee... and Thailand photos.