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Jason!
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| Jason leaned on the red GTO, smoking a Djarum Black. "I don't even know what the fuck I'm doing here." L. looked on, inscrutable. "I left this place twenty goddamn years ago. More, even." He blew smoke into the cool night, tossed the butt to the ground, and started towards the hotel. "Let's get this over with."
( So, is this some kind of mid-life crisis? ) | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment   |
| | Tags: | drinks | | Subject: | In other news... | | Time: | 12:04 pm |
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| Whole Foods 365 Ginger Ale is now my "well" ginger ale. For three reasons.
- Real Ginger Flavor
- Cane Sugar
- Cheaper than premium ginger ale.
Tastes damn good in drinks requiring ginger ale, and doesn't dominate the drink or the pocketbook like a Blenhiem's or a Reed's. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Menace 2 tha 'hood. | | Time: | 10:17 am |
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| I've been doing yardwork, which involves mostly killing things and piling the branches in the back of the yard. Given my great experience with the Raleigh Mulching system, I've decided to try and get rid of lawn waste, instead of piling it in the back and waiting until I can rent a chipper/shredder (because I certainly don't want to buy one).
So I had a small pile out last week, the type of which had been picked up before, and it got passed over. Ok, I thought, this means I'm going to have to prepare them in the official manner, and they'll get picked up next week. I did that preparation on Monday.
Tuesday, I come home to the referenced web page printed out and taped to my door with a city inspector's card taped to that.
Someone in the 'hood had apparently reported me.
W.T.F.? I know I'll never be Hero of the Garden Club, but give me a break here! Here's the text I sent to the neighborhood mailing list:
From: "Jason Sullivan" <redacted@redacted.com>
Date: Tue, 06 May 2008 22:38:07 -0000
Subject: [FairviewAcres] Thanks for making my day!
I never used to think of myself as an intimidating person, but now that I'm the proud owner of note from the city calling me to task for my yard waste, I feel like I've graduated to a full-blown neighborhood menace. Thanks, whomever you are, for making my day.
Seriously, though, people. I'd much rather someone had come to me personally about this, so that city inspectors could spend their time on actual neighborhood menaces, rather than some guy who slacked off on bundling his sticks because he'd gotten away with it before. I'm certain none of you good folks did this, but if you could get word to the person that did, tell them I'm not as mean as all that. I promise.
PS: The extra cars will be gone in another week or so, when my Dad gets back from Hungary. Please don't have the city tow them or anything.
Jason.
I think what really bugs me is that it replaces civil discourse and community building with a false civic pride. Yes, the proper authorities have been informed, but now you've undermined the local community communication channels. | | comments: 15 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Public Service Announcement. | | Time: | 02:35 pm |
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| Dear Last.FM:
Yes, I know I like Curve, Bjork, Elysian Fields, and countless other ethereal female vocalists.
I will never like Evanescence, please stop putting in my suggestion radio. You'd think "never play this again" enough times would work. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Stuffing is EVIL. | | Time: | 01:06 pm |
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| I finally found a program that seems to do most of what I want with minimal fuss. Tracks. Minimal setup grief, and seems easy to enter in information in a variety of ways. Heck, if I open the port on my router, I could do it from my phone, apparently.
It's implemented in Ruby on Rails (hence the title, a harkening to the reflexive (and ultimately useless) refrain oft found on "Good Eats"). Rails doesn't scale, but I don't care, since it's just me. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | dream | | Subject: | You dropped a bomb on me, baby. | | Time: | 01:02 pm |
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| Bizarre dream.
I was taking over some project from J [ed: not the usual one] that somehow involved both lots of writing, and lots of building. There were sheaves of paper, and a big barn like wood building that smelled of sawdust and dirt. There was lots of travel through beautiful green mountains to get to A., who has a missing piece of the puzzle. There was strife between J. and A., and several members of the goth community helped sort it out .[ed: nobody here, just random girls in black] I ended up designing a system by which buildings were built on top of basements where the initial excavation was done by bombs. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Need some crafty help. | | Time: | 02:37 pm |
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| | So, I've got some plants that I want to protect from nibbling creatures (not sure, maybe bunnies?), so I was going cut some guards out of 2-liter bottles. Problem is, L. and I don't drink anything out of 2-liter bottles. Anyone local got a few empties to spare? | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | I got the sandals and everytihng. | | Time: | 09:35 am |
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| I went to the Raleigh version of the World Beer Fest, and I think now if folks ask me how it's different from the Durham version, I'm going to say "Nobody called me Jesus at the Durham World Beer Fest". I think that says everything you need to know, as a beer fest attendee.
That being said, the Durham version didn't have STAR INDIA selling awesome veggie plates and samosas. While this is not beer, it's essential to my enjoyment of beer (since I hadn't any dinner beforehand).
There's apparently a picture of a young lady stroking my beard, too. I have no idea who this was, but they wanted to take the picture. It's somewhere out on the internets now. Keep an eye out.
| | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| or: Gin and the Cognitive Surplus. I've watched this about three times since pointed to it by Warren Ellis, and it's still riveting.
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| | Subject: | Preposterous. | | Time: | 04:07 pm |
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| click.
I promise it's not a Rick Roll, although it's just as exasperating.
What you're looking at is the route from my house to downtown, via. bus (Raleigh bus, the only one that runs on the weekend). The first thing you might notice is the... tail hanging off the route. This is because at Avent Ferry station (the transfer point), only outbound buses stop at this time, so one has to go all the way out and back.
It takes an hour.
I could walk there in an hour, I'm almost sure of it. Well, it's about 7 miles, so probably not. 2 hours, easy. Less than one hour by bike.
Still. Preposterous. The bus system in this town is a joke. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Hoo-Ray | | Time: | 03:10 pm |
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| Hey, you know what the absolute last fucking thing I want to see is?
A goddamn military parade. I don't believe I could be more tired of this everlasting war. I have outrage fatigue. Yes, by all means, support our troops. Bring them home. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Creation vs. Destruction vs. Rebuild vs. Renovate | | Time: | 11:31 pm |
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| It's funny, the Architect was coming over today to take the measure of my house (in a very literal sense). Last night, as I came home, I noticed that there was imminent, intentional mayhem planned for a nearby house (bulldozers, dump trucks, and sigils painted on the walls). I predicted a tear-down. This morning, as the Architect was architecting, I was proven right.
Whatever goes there, I hope it's not like the other recent tear-down. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Land speculation long view. | | Time: | 09:16 am |
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| Sea Level Rise Explorer. What's fascinating about this from a North Carolina perspective is that, while I knew were the fall line was for the Piedmont, there's a very clear one in the Coastal plain, too. If I was the land speculating type, I'd start placing my bets there, now. There's plenty of it.
You can also see where, in Greenville, all the land north of the river got screwed during Floyd. Fascinating. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Save me from groupware... | | Time: | 11:20 am |
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| Back in the day, there used to be an application that manages index cards. It showed a stack of cards on the screen, and the current card from your place in the deck. Cards could be reorganized and edited at will. Decks could be saved and loaded. It was sort of like a rolodex, but it wasn't Xrolodex, because that only shows you one card at a time (because you could drag and drop cards).
Anyone know what the hell I'm talking about? It's like having a rubber-banded deck of index cards, but not, you know, a real one. I'm finding more and more that I need to be able to organize / manage / list tasks. I don't need something as complex as the task management tools out there, but I'd like something a little better than a text file (and even better than a rubber-banded stack of index cards). | | comments: 13 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Agrarian to Aristocrat. | | Time: | 06:39 pm |
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| Spent most of the morning in the yard: rough up the dirt with the contractor's rake, scatter seed, and then straw. Having Dad's Saab station wagon made the straw fetching go that much more smoothly; two bales fit nicely in the back (with a tarp under them, ok?). While I was at my local hardware store, I picked up two basil plants and a mint plant and some potting soil. After the seeding was done, I planted the mint, basil, and my front window shade experiment (we'll know when they come up).
I should have got some roma tomatoes. With the scraping and the mulching, I've got room to plant them now in the same place they were before, and the mulch really really keeps the moisture in. Maybe I'll get L. to pick up a few plants on her way home from work Monday.
After cooling off and a shower, it was time to get a new suit. I'd outgrown (width wise) my old double breasted one, and I was looking for something modern that would go with my banded collar ways. I think I've got a pretty spiffy one, and if the tailoring goes according to plan, I should be able to debut it for photos next weekend.
During the suit-buying process, we got a solid shower to soak the ground and straw. Good timing. Next project: rain barrels.
Out to Slim's for New Wave boogie dancing tonight. Catch me if you can. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Serious Brass Ovaries. | | Time: | 10:28 pm |
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| You go, girl.
At least one torchbearer decided to show her support for Tibetan independence during her moment in the spotlight. After being passed the Olympic flame, Majora Carter pulled out a small Tibetan flag that she had hidden in her shirt sleeve.
"The Chinese security and cops were on me like white on rice, it was no joke," said Carter, 41, who runs a nonprofit organization in New York. "They pulled me out of the race, and then San Francisco police officers pushed me back into the crowd on the side of the street."
Like white on rice. Nice. Since the Chinese Security are actually Chinese Special Forces (operating illegally in this country, I might add), someone was taking a big risk here. Someone buy that woman a beer. | | comments: 6 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Movin' On | | Time: | 09:33 am |
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| I remember my elementary school art teacher.
Specifically, a piece I did in second grade of a moving van, the desert, and the blue sky. I used crayon for everything on the ground (and a few birds and whatnot), and a blue watercolor wash for the sky. I'd have to go back and look and see if that wash (which I applied to the whole work) was apparent in the windows of the moving truck. Since it was second grade, everyone got in the art show.
I don't remember being asked about a title for the work, but when it was in the show, a title was applied. This is what I remember about my elementary school art teacher.
Everything about the work is remembered because I still have it. I'm not saying this scarred me for life (in fact, far from it), but I'm betting it isn't the sort of thing art teachers like to be remembered for. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
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Jason!
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