I’m a little late in getting this posted. The party took place on June 28th. It’s Alan (a.k.a. Walendo) and Ellen’s “housecooling” party, which they held at what is now the vacant lot that used to be where their home was. For background on that, please see my posts from May 22nd and May 23rd.
It was amazing to see how quickly what was left of their house had been removed. There were two giant dumpsters on site which were being used to cart off the remainder of the concrete foundation. Ellen and Alan have not yet decided if they’re going to rebuild or buy a new place somewhere else.
It was a fun party and very nice to see some folks I hadn’t seen in quite a while, as well as meet some new people. Ellen, in her private blog, made a really nice comment under the picture of me talking with Victoria and Ian, “Vic, my manager at PARC, on the right, and her boyfriend Ian, on the left. They were chatting with Rob, middle, one of our more socially capable friends who’s good at mingling with new people. Walendo and I worked with Rob at Electric Communities back in 1997-8.”
She then went on to add, “One of my favorite things about Rob was that he once sent out an email saying, ‘This is what you get when you roll your head across the keyboard,’ followed by a bunch of random characters that were indeed recorded by rolling his head across the keyboard.” Haha, yes, well, that’s me! Someone else at the party reminded us that my email was in response to another email from an engineer who was looking for novel ideas on how to produce randomness for use in cryptographic calculations.
Click on each picture to see a larger version along with a brief description.
There is a real initiative that is on track to be included on the San Francisco ballot in November. It will authorize the renaming of the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. Read about it at SF Gate, The New York Times, The Times of London, or just Google for George Bush Sewage Plant.
Today, at 5:01 PM Pacific time, same-sex marriage became legal in California and several dozen homosexual men and women were legally married.
The stunning news is that the universe did not collapse in on itself. The sun did not go supernova. Jupiter did not alter its course and crash into us. And Earth itself did not explode.
Guess we dodged a bullet. Whew!
UPDATE: 6:30 PM on June 17th. Hundreds more same-sex marriages performed. Earth still exists. No reports of comets or asteroids altering their course to collide with us. Will report back later if Earth destroyed.
Maybe heroes is too strong a word, but I’m going to go with it for now. Maybe I’ll make this a category and add to it over time. Maybe not.
I’m not going to go into any detail about why I classify these people as heroes. I’m just going to list them in alphabetical order with, in a couple cases, a link or two to something relevant or that exemplifies them.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Author of Infidel. Co-writer of the short film Submission.
Richard Dawkins - Author of numerous excellent books. My favorite of which is The Blind Watchmaker. Check out this short video on YouTube where someone asks him the question, “What if you’re wrong?” Absolutely great answer.
Fight It!
You say that I don’t want it.
You tell me that you need it.
And everything you’re feeling says I need you.
So I just try to fight it.
And keep it nice and quiet.
It’s getting hard to hide it.
Let it out? No.
I . don’t . want . to . lose . control .
so . keep . your . head .
don’t . let . it . out . just .
Fight It!
When you want it, try.
When you need it, fight.
Tell me.
Don’t you feel alright?
Fills you up inside.
All the love you find.
Tell me.
Don’t you feel alright?
I try to understand it,
but I can’t comprehend it,
and everything I’m feeling takes me over.
It’s all I ever wanted.
I’m hooked and I’m addicted.
A self-imposed prediction.
Keep it filthy.
I . don’t . want . to . lose . control .
so . keep . your . head .
don’t . let . it . out . just .
Fight It!
When you want it, try.
When you need it, fight.
Tell me.
Don’t you feel alright?
Fills you up inside.
All the love you find.
Tell me.
Don’t you feel alright?
What you wanted.
What you needed.
Yeah, you really want it.
Say you’ll bleed it.
Gut it.
Get up all inside it.
An ex-gf of mine (not Hollie) told me about a show called Man vs. Wild on Discovery. I’d never seen it because I don’t have TV any longer. I have AppleTV, which I really like. Well, AppleTV recently got Man vs. Wild and offered a free preview, so I downloaded it. The host’s name is Bear Grylls. And, apparently, he’s insane. Below is the last few minutes of the free preview. What the hell? Have you seen this show? Is this guy for real?
Someone came to my blog by googling for “jana post”. Who would search for “jana post”? Seems like an odd phrase to search for. (Sorry, I meant “for which to search”.) So I googled for “jana post” to see what would come up. The first search result turns out to be the Just Jana blog! Hmmm, could this Jana be anything like the Jana we all know and love?
Let’s take a look!
Well, what do you know, she’s got a picture of herself right on her home page. Hmmm, she is blond, but the resemblance seems to end there, especially when you read the caption, “Me and the Munchkin”.
Well, best not judge a book by its cover, let’s dig a little deeper.
Uh-oh.
Under the About Me section, it clearly states, “I love everything and anything to do with Scrapbooking!” She has links to such sites as, “Scrap for a Cure” (a cure for what? scrapbooking?), “The Scrapbook Zone”, “Faith Sisters”, and “Scrapstreet”.
This is not looking good.
The word hubby is used 3 times on her home page, and BFF twice. Can anyone imagine our Jana using either of those?
She did use the word freakin’. But this is more than offset by Yippee!!
I’m afraid that we have not found a kindred spirit for our Jana. Rather, I believe we have found the Anti-Jana.
Now that I have invisible friends in Chicago who would prefer to attend dance recitals and infect me with tuberculosis rather than entertain me and my ex-gf with their antics, I feel it is appropriate to engage them in a wager.
The currently first place Phillies will be heading to Chicago to trounce the currently first place Cubs on the last weekend in August. It’s a four game home stand for the Cubs. Since both teams are in first place in their respective divisions, and the Phils have to play in Chicago, I am willing to wager that the Phils will win at least 2 of the 4 games. The specifics of the wager to be discussed.
