Living in fear is no good to anyone.

There is movie night tonight. I'm making farfalle with a red sauce, royal_spice is making a salad, lalabob11 may be making bread, and I've heard rumor that niap_si_efil is making cupcakes, but I don't know. I have no idea what the movie(s) will be.


Random things:

( Look At These Fucking Peppers )

( Curves )

There is a movie night tomorrow. I'll be making a very simple mac and cheese, maybe some fried hamburgers to optionally mix in to the mac and cheese, and also some green vegetables of some manner. I have some ideas for the movie, but nothing is definite yet, so feel free to bring things to be played.

Women and the Bush Administration

This is really long, but an interesting discussion:
Event Transcript "Same-Sex Marriage in California: Legal and Political Prospects"

10th Annual Festival of the Crayons.
Originally uploaded by jarrodlombardo.

royal_spice came down to Socorro Saturday night and we went to the Festival of the Cranes on Sunday. I didn't really get any good photos of cranes, but I got lots of snow geese. Photos from the Festival of the Cranes

I also uploaded the panoramas from last week's North Baldy Trip.

It's wonderful watching a bunch of beautiful women wander around dressing each other up to be prettier for a show. :D

Women in the ‘Quiverfull’ movement are kept at home -- away from the evils of feminism -- where they birth armies of God’s soldiers.
I'd guess that most of you are offended by the Quiverfull people. Does anyone have a plan?

Links with no explanation because I'm lazy:
Immigrants held without due process
An untold story of a real Marine finally surfaces
Wiccans sue feds over military headstone rule

Friday night, JPL went upt to Casa Imbri and played games and generally had a good time with the various Albuquerque people we know. We spent the night there.

Saturday morning, I went on a bike ride with aisa0, ravendisplayed and royal_spice. After the ride, I spent the rest of the day with royal_spice.

We went mattress browsing (I need a new one). After getting the info from ~6 stores, we went to the new Williams-Sonoma in the Uptown Center. The area was a madhouse of way too many snooty people. We didn't buy anything and got out of there pretty quickly.

We then got some coconut milk tea with lychee jelly before going to a coffeeshop for yarrowkat's poetry reading. I generally liked the poems I heard, but poems (and lyrics) aren't usually my thing. For many of her poems, I didn't really hear the words as much as I heard the sounds and cadence (there was nothing wrong with her speech or the sound system, it was just the weird way my mind was working). My unusual way of experiencing the reading was good, even though I'm sure there was lots of meaning in the poems that I missed.

Finally was dinner with a bunch of Albuquerque people at the Taj Mahal. A total of roughly 15 people came. We ended up having the big downstairs room to ourselves, so we were able to be loud and raucous to a greater degree than if we had been seated in the main dining area upstairs. I believe everyone had a good time and enjoyed the food.

After dinner, we stopped back at Casas Imbri and Spice to pick up items we had left there that we needed to take home. We still ended up forgetting the 2 pillows I brought up to stay the night at Casa Imbri (if you guys could get my pillows to royal_spice some time this week that would be excellent, because I know I'll be seeing her this coming weekend, but I don't know that I'll be seing you that soon). The ride back to Socorro was uneventful.

Unrelated to the rest of this post, this is awesome in a broken sort of way (sfw):
http://community.livejournal.com/webcest/433555.html

I watched Chinatown today. It was pretty good. While watching it, I noticed something I had never noticed before. Faye Dunaway's face (in 1974 at least) looks incrediby similar to Julia Siles'. Sexy blondes for the win.

Voting Machine Design

To say that politics has gone to the dogs is a libel on the dogs.

Self-esteem is down. Hyper-sexuality is up. It's even seen as a badge of empowerment. What, who, huh? Having the freedom to walk around in public like a vamp is empowering? Having the freedom to sell your body means women have achieved parity?

Fettes Brot

I'm definitely in the majority:

Song meme answers:
The first one was "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division. royal_spice was able to guess it.
The second one was "Stakeout" by Freezepop. No one guessed it. lizenthusiasm's cake is here.

While I'm on the topic of songs, here are a few I've been liking lately (in no particular order):
"Common Gound" by Dave Aude
"Searching" by Offer Nissim
"I Begin To Wonder" by Dannii Minogue
"Let Go" by Gabriel & Dresden
"Jupitersex" by Sylvie Marks & HAL9000
"Hello" by Howard Keel (This one is doesn't fit in with the others, but it does fit somehow.)
"Hung Up (Bill Hamel Remix)" by Madonna

To listen to the Pandora station I've been hearing these on, go here:
http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh157171957377396061

I took a few big sections out of this one to make it "for public consumption". Comments are open, as is usual.

The questions overlap, so I'm going to have a sort of overlapped answer. I don't fully know what I want from life. As regards work, I hope to keep making enough money such that I don't need to worry about money too much. I'd like to do work more enjoyable/fulfilling than the programming I'm doing now. There are other jobs in the computer field that appeal more, but I'm not really qualified for them yet. What I'm doing now can be used as a stepping stone though. I'd kind of like to eventually get an SJD and become a judge somewhere, but I don't want to go back to school for any graduate degrees until I have a much larger savings base than I currently have and deciding to go to school for another 7-10 years isn't a decision I'm ready to make right now. I'd also like to be able to make convention organization a paying job somehow, but there are location issues with that (it would be much easier if I lived in a major metro area, and NM doesn't have any of those).

The immediate plan is for me to stay at PMC and save money as well I can (I need to budget better, but even with my lax budgeting, I'm saving a sizable portion of every paycheck, 15%-40%) until near Lauren's graduation. The plan then is for me to find a better job, hopefully in the western WA area, and we would move to that job after she graduates. We don't have enough information at this time to really plan more specifically. We'll see where we are in another ~year and have more things roughly figured out.

Of the parts of the country I've visited or lived, I like the Pacific north west the best. I really dislike the climate here in NM. The dryness and altitude work together to make my lungs strain with a near continuous low level amount of pain (I'm able to ignore it most of the time, except for especially dry days, but it's still annoying). I sleep waaay better in a more humid, lower altitude place. Washington appeals to me for the general prettiness in addition to the climate reasons. The Seattle area appeals to me more specifically because I already have a bunch of friends there, through PAX and other things. Depending on where political things go, I might like to leave the country on a long-term basis. I'm not really worldly enough to go anywhere but Canada in the soon, but I think I'd have time to get ready for many places if it came to that.

I have vague plans and goals, but nothing is really very long term. I want to be happy. I want my loved ones to be happy. I don't want to hurt others to do that. I deal with situations as they come and try to make them fit the goals, though I don't just stand by and wait/hope for fortune to come to me without effort.

This one is pretty edited, but the content is there. If you know who I'm talking about, please don't use full names in any comments you may write. To watch for this, comments will be screened, but then opened if they don't use names.

It makes the most sense to tell this in chronological order, so I will. I was waaay awkward back in middle and high school. I had very few friends and none of them were close. I was very intimidated by nearly all girls. I wasn't able to ask someone out until 10th grade and I didn't go on a date until 12th. My first date was with a somewhat skanky, hick, nerd girl that I met in court (I was pleading down a speeding ticket and she was another girl's alibi for a trespassing charge). We only went out once, and we kissed at the end, but it wasn't memorable (I can't even recall her name). I ended up going on one other date during high school. We went to a bunch of yard sales in the afternoon and then saw a community theatre version of Jesus Christ Superstar in the evening. We were friends before and after, and our one date was technically cheating because she didn't tell her steady boy about it, but I didn't feel guilty about it because he was a jerk.

My first weekend at college, I met a girl, B, and her annoying roommate T (that I thought was her brother at the time). We didn't see each other much the first semester. Our second semester, we had Calc II together and quickly became good friends and started dating a few weeks later. T is gone for Air Force training and B has a new roommate while he's gone. I then find out that B and T are not siblings; they are married. She says that she married him only to get in-state tuition and that she's talking to lawyers so she can divorce him. I'm young and stupid, so I believe her. T is gone for about 18 months and she and I date during most of this time. Toward the end of his being gone, she tells me she tells me that she's going to stay with T because he's going to kill himself if she leaves him. We break up. T threatens my life on multiple occasions, but never follows through with any of the threats. We generally avoid each other forever. B and I never become friends again. I later find out that nearly the whole time she was with me, she was cheating with another guy. T finds out about this other guy, but never threatens him, and becomes somewhat friendly. I don't know what went on there. I had some bad feelings for the other guy for a while, but we're cool now. I wouldn't have had bad feelings for him or B if they had been honest with me. I might not have liked it, but I think I would have dealt with it better. I can't know for sure.

About a year goes by and then I date another girl for a few months. At the end, she tells me that we were just friends the whole time and that I am now too clingy to even be her friend. She dumps me. I may have misinterpreted some things, but we were doing lots of things new couples do together, like going out on dates as often as we could and spending all of our free time together.

A few months later, I met J. We went out once just before summer break. She was going to be out of town for the summer, so nothing much happened then. When she got back for the fall semester, we spent a bunch of time together the few days before classes started. The first day of classes, we both just kind of realized that we were dating. We were pretty happy together for the first ~10 months. There was a girl in Texas I was friends with and there was potential for more. I was going to be in her part of Texas pretty soon. I asked J if it would be OK if I had sex with this other girl if it came up. She was really offended that I asked. I told her that I wasn't going to cheat on her or lie to her and that I'd always ask about things first. Since she wasn't OK with it, I said I wouldn't do anything with the girl and I didn't when I saw her a few weeks later.

We generally aggravated each other often. I was losing interest and she felt stronger for me than I did for her. These things came together along with a particularly bad fight to cause us to break up after ~21 months. I was in Alaska doing an internship at UAF the summer after we broke up. We talked on the phone often and reformed our friendship. She dated another guy that summer, but the relationship was falling apart by the time I got back in the fall. As a friend, I comforted her during the last throes of her relationship and for a while after. Since she was at my house often, it had sparked the interest of one of my friends. He asked me if I thought she might be interested in him. I said I didn't know if she would be, but that he would be really good for her. They started dating a few days later and have been happily together for about 2 years now.

While I was comforting J after her break, I was hitting on a girl I knew from the Anime club. We spent a good amount of time together when we could. We both had very busy schedules that didn't overlap much, so this wasn't a large amount of time. She didn't realise I was interested in her in a more than friends way and I didn't realize she was a closet lesbian. At the end of that semester, we had a very blunt conversation and realized where we were with things. We stayed friends but didn't see each other nearly as much as before. By the following spring break (2005), she was online-dating a girl and the girl was going to come and visit during her spring break, a different week than ours. M (the visiting girlfriend) and I met and became fast friends.

Also in that fall I met Lauren, but only barely. I was sort of friends with Pi, but didn't know him well. I met A through LJ. She was going to be transferring from somewhere in MA to NMT in January and was trying to meet some people before she got here. Coincidence shown on things, and she was to be Lauren's dorm roommate that spring. I went over the day she was moving in to help her move her stuff. I ended up spending the day with Lauren and Pi before A got there. A ended up upgrading her room a few days later and Lauren was roommate free for the semester. Nothing ever developed with A and I, but that's a good thing because after getting to know her some, I found out that we aren't very compatible. Lauren and I became very close friends, and after some discussion with Pi, started dating, on very restricted terms, at the end of the semester. That semester, I also renewed my friendships with the Casa Imbri crowd, after being distant for a few years prior. Only after entering into our vee did we learn the word polyamory and that there were many poly people we already knew in the area that would be supportive. Lauren and I became closer during the summer and the restrictions slowly fell away as both Pi and Lauren became more comfortable with being poly. I got a blood clot behind my left knee in August, and I needed Lauren's comfort to get through my trying time. I needed someone to stay with me constantly in case the clot broke free and I needed to be rushed to the ER, so Lauren was allowed to sleep over. Things were calm after the first few days and the chance of an embolism was significantly lower. I hope to never again be in a position where having an embolism has a high likelihood. If I ever end up in some sort of similar situation, I hope I have similarly supportive people. Pretty much all of the restrictions fell away shortly after. Lauren, Pi and I still have our vee and things are generally working.

That September, I saw M at an anime convention in Denver, but nothing more than friends happened because I hadn't yet told her that I was crushing on her.

In December, I moved out of my old house, Pi and Lauren moved out of the dorm and we all moved into our current house. I met S shortly before then. S and I grated on each other very much. We later became friends and, for a while, lovers. We just stopped having sex and seeing each other often at some point. I'm not sure where our relationship is now, because we give each other mixed signals constantly and I don't really know what I want and I have even less of an idea of what she wants. She and I need to talk about it at some point.

In March, I emailed M (she lives far away), explaining my attraction. She said she was interested in me too and whenever next we saw each other in person, "It would be quite interesting and I'd be up for it ^_^". We used to talk online often, but then she disappeared for a while. She had a bunch of issues crash on her and needed to retreat from most of her friends for a while. She's getting better and we've been talking some of late, so things are looking up. She's hopefully going to come out to NM sometime in the coming winter or spring.

You know the next relationship history part because it's you. We have fun, and we'll see where it goes.

The above is not 100% complete because there are a few times when I went out with someone once or similar not-yet-a-relationship things that have been left out. They aren't terribly important to this narrative, so I didn't write about them.

kiwi's steps to successful polyamory, found through royal_spice's linking.

This is a cool, simple game about eating things to grow larger and evolve:
Flow

Since about 1400 today, I've had a silly grin either on my face or subtly under all other expressions.

"A woman's body has over three miles of nerve endings. Use them."
http://www.christianfaq.com/sex.html
I, of course, don't fully agree with the article, but it's refreshing to see this sort of point of view.

I found this article in a roundabout way from royal_spice:
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/monkeysphere.html
I'm surprised I didn't hear about it before. It makes sense overall.

Also, I'm feeling a lot better than I was a few days ago. Life is generally pretty good right now. The only real negative is the tedium of my job.

Lauren and I had, for the past ~2 hours, one of the most important discussions I've ever had. It was the culmination of a fight we have been having, on and off for the past ~month that had very strong likelyhood of breaking apart our relationship. Everything was just now resolved very happily and our relationship is probably now at its strongest point. I had never before cried from being so happy. It's great!

lalabob11 and I are on the way to Albuquerque for her to do some work for one of her jobs. If anyone wants to meet us somewhere for dinner or other stuff this evening, let me know. She should be done with her work stuff by 5 p. m. at the latest.

Update: She had 2 stores to survey. Her boss said they'd each take about an hour. The first has taken about 3 hours so far (it's about 1630 now). I have no idea for the second. It might be quite late. Though if Albuquerque people do want to meet with us, ping me and I'll get back to you.

Update: We went to Hurricane's between stores. She'll probably be beat when she's done, so we may go straight back to Socorro after the store.

I heard one of the saddest statements I've ever heard tonight. I don't know how to help more than I am.

I think I didn't post about it before, but there is a movie night tonight. lalabob11 and I are making a vegetable stew. We're using vegetables from radiatorcliffs' mom's garden along with some of my tomatoes and some stuff from the store. I'm going to make corn bread and maybe rice to go along with it.

Does anyone recognise this zombie-killing board game?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lobstar/63396648/

And if you want to know what you can do to help? Don't be terrorized. They terrorize more of us if they kill some of us, but the dead are beside the point. If we give in to fear, the terrorists achieve their goal even if they were arrested. If we refuse to be terrorized, then they lose -- even if their attacks succeed.

"When it comes to terrorism, much of our political leadership appears to have lost both its nerve and its mind."

Regulating Research
http://www.badscience.net/?p=278

GTA: Lego City
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9ShVV8L_o0&NR

Jonas Geirnaert graduation project "FLATLIFE" (2004), selected for Short Films in competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2004.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5377830501271604815

Friday night we can't go up to Albuquerque for the Imbri movie night because lalabob11 has to work Saturday morning. For people who can't/won't go up to the Imbri movie night, there will be a movie night at JPL, but I'm not cooking dinner because I'm not in the mood to deal with it.

Saturday night, lalabob11 should be off work by 8 p. m. Once she's off, we'll leave for Albuquerque to attend admiral_jc and faeflitt's going away party. We would like to stay with someone in Albuquerque that night.

Assuming we can stay somewhere in Albuquerque Saturday night, on Sunday, on the way home we'll stop in Belen at Auge's (a car dealership). Today I went for a test-drive in a Jeep Wrangler Sport. I'm going to go on another test-drive on Sunday to get a better feel for it. I liked it, but I'm not sure if I want to buy one yet.

A big hurdle was my uncomfortableness with manual transmissions, but my insistence that the next vehicle I get has one. The Wrangler I'm looking at is a 6 speed and is geared low for off-road use (all the Wranglers are). It being geared low is nice for me because starting from a stop (the situation when I and most people out of practice with manuals stall most often) is easy and I plan on using it primarily for off-road/camping trips. My test drive was only about 10 miles long, but I did have 5 starts from a stop and was also able to spend a bit of time in each of the 6 gears. I didn't stall at any time, and my only significantly rough shift was from 2nd to 3rd while making a left turn while being tailgated by an aggressive pickup.

I'm usually pretty calm about things. Some things get me riled or excited, but I don't often freak out. Something made me freak out a couple of hours ago. I did some research and got more freaked. I realised I wasn't being very rational and calmed down some. I did some more research in a slightly different direction and calmed down more. I still needed a hug to calm me more, so I went over to lalabob11's room and got one. Even though I was calmed and everything would work out ok in the end, I didn't think I would sleep well tonight. I get some of my best sleep when I'm more than buzzed but less than drunk. I took a four big swallows of overproof bourbon and then chased it with a big glass of water. I should now sleep well and not be hung over in the morning (I've been well hydrated all day in addition to the recent water).

For those of you who might know what had me freaked, realise that this post is public and you shouldn't comment about things people put in filtered posts outside of similarly filtered posts.

Click the image for some more info.

Unrelated to the above image, it looks like lalabob11's work schedule means we can't go up to Casa Imbri this Friday, so we'll probably be having a "Stuck in Socorro" movie night this Friday. Things may change, so we don't know for sure yet.

Personal stuff:

Does anyone know/know of any NM attorneys experienced with poly and/or gay partnership legal issues?

There is a movie night tomorrow. lalabobo11 already picked the movie we'll watch, but I forget what it is called; it's something with Angelina Jolie that was made after Hackers but before she was really famous. We'll be making empanadas for dinner. Some will be spicy beef, some will be mild beef, a few will be mild apricot and a very small number will be spicy apricot. People bringing food to share is always welcome too.

I bought plane tickets and reserved a rental car for my trip to WA next month. I'll be flying in on August 24th and leaving on September 2nd. I've got a hotel reserved for Aug 24th through Aug 29th checkout. I'll figure out the other nights as the time gets closer (I have a bunch of friends in the area that I can probably stay with and some of them have already been contacted). The days I have the hotel for are the days I'll be busy with Penny Arcade Expo. The rest of my time up there is there for me to visit with people and do some touristy things.

Other stuff:

According to the IRS, in 2001 (the most recent year examined) the government lost more than $340 billion in uncollected taxes. This is money that is actually owed to the federal government — not money that taxpayers have been able to legally avoid paying through creative accounting or the clever use of loopholes. This is a substantial sum. It is approximately 20 times what the federal government spends on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) each year, the main welfare program for poor families. It is 55 times what the federal government spends on Head Start and almost 100 times annual foreign aid spending for Sub-Saharan Africa. Alternatively, the taxes that go unpaid each year are 30 percent of what the federal government actually collects in income taxes (personal and corporate). This means that if the federal government could find a way to get tax evaders to pay their bills, then tax rates could be reduced for everyone by 25 percent, and the federal government would have the same amount of money.

Download Muppet Music! They've got lots of stuff, including almost all of the music from Fraggle Rock.

Also somewhat related to Muppets, a company is selling plush sex dolls that look kinda like Muppets with large breasts:
http://www.teddy-babes.com/ (NSFW)

Drawings of stereotypical fan convention attendees (specifically ComicCon):
http://storyboredom.blogspot.com/
Some of the drawings and descriptions are really accurate to the sorts of people I often have to deal with at cons.

I haven't tried it yet, but this thing is supposed to be able to figure out what song you're thinking of from you tapping the vocal melody with your space bar:
http://www.songtapper.com/s/tappingmain.bin
If it works, it would be useful if you need to find a song but can't remember anything about it but a few lyrics.

My stand mixer came today. I'll be able to make a full batch of CIA chocolate chip cookies now instead of needing to halve the recipe (maybe; it might still be bigger than the mixer can handle, but it's much better than schlake's 4 quart can do). Many other things will also be easier to make. Wooo!

There will be no movie night this Friday as JPL will be out of town for the night.

QuizLaw provides reasoned (if sometimes biased) summaries of Supreme Court decisions. They also link to the official Opinion pdfs.
Here, in chronological order, are the decisions I find most interesting since June 1:

• Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings v. Metabolite Laboratories, Inc. - Not a decision, but an interesting case about patents on fundamental processes within nature.
  
• League of Latin American Citizens v. Perry - The "Texas redistricting case" where the SC decided that gerrymandering isn't a constitutional issue, i.e. the states can do what they want as long as they don't break other laws.
  
• Hamdan v. Rumsfeld - This is the most important decision of late: "With this case, the Supremes have ruled that President Bush was acting outside of any valid authority when he set up the tribunal commissions at Guantanamo Bay, and that these commissions are illegal under both the Geneva Convention and U.S. military justice law. This raises obvious questions about "what happens next" for the current Gitmo detainees, but it is certain to bring further criticism of Bush's, and his administrations', handling of the war on terror." I haven't read the official decision in full yet, but I'm working on it.

Signing (statements) away our freedom

None of this might have happened had the US and the European Union seized the opportunity created by Hamas's success in the elections last January. Hamas would have extended its unilateral truce into a long-term ceasefire agreement, had the world community recognised it as a legitimate representative of the Palestinians and sought to persuade the Israelis that dealing with Hamas was their best option.

I generally side with the Arabs when the issue of Israel comes up, so I like it when well reasoned arguments against Israeli actions are published. It should be noted that I'm not an anti-semite; I have no more qualms with Judaism than with any other of the Abrahamic religions. I am against terrorism in general (which means I also don't like a lot of the stuff some of the Arab nations/groups have done), especially terrorism being conducted with money from my taxes with the implied support of my government. Israel being a U.S. supported terrorist state offends me and I'd like them to stop being terrorists or the U.S. to revoke all aid to Israel (which would cause a major war and the problem would eventually resolve itself through the deaths of millions).

lalabob11 called me a "ray of sunshine" today at lunch after I talked about the neo-cons controlling the voting machines, which implies that we won't likely ever have a democratically elected President again (we haven't had one for over 5 years: in 2000, Bush was appointed by the supreme court and in 2004 Bush was elected due to major election fraud in multiple districts, particularly districts in Ohio, against the will of the populace).

Tomorrow, for Movie Night, I'm making a pork loin, onion, French vin gris sauté over rice. Dinner will probably be around 8ish because I expect it to take a while for the sauce to simmer down/thicken.

Random Silly/Wrong: Goofus and Gallant Slash.

I was thinking about music today, particularly love songs. All of the evocative love songs I know of invoke religion in some way (usually the Christian religion since it dominates the English and Spanish speaking worlds). Do any of you know any really strong love songs that don't invoke religion in some way?

Some of you know about it, and some don't, but there was some tension between lalabob11 and I for the past ~week. We have mostly worked it out, putting us on strong ground again. It was a different type of hardship than we've encountered before, but we're learning.

Why Do People Only Love Cute Animals?
The ethics of meat eating.
I am a callous person as regards this issue (and animal treatment in general), but I overall agree with Barbara.

Mas Que Nada FTW!!

Merlin Mann is sometimes awesome.

Monday morning we woke up a bit after 1000 so we could go out for a good lunch before I needed to be at the airport. We went to Momo's, a very good Italian restaurant (dexander's favorite restaurant of all time). I had a chicken breast filet with a slice of panchetta and a cheese-brandy sauce over it on a bed of spinach. dexander, being friends with the owner, got a copy of the previous version of the menu. He's going to make me a photocopy of it so I can try to back-engineer some of the dishes.

On the way to the airport we stopped at Fry's Electronics where I picked up the 4 capacitors I was missing for my speaker building project and also "Brain Age" for my Nintendo DS. "Brain Age" isn't really a game as much as it's supposed to be a fun way to keep your mind sharp. We'll see how I do.

My flights were uneventful.

lalabob picked me up at the airport and we went to Apartment Imbri to hang out until dinner. We ended up going to Eurasia Bistro (the place in the old Minato of Japan location) to try their fare. Everything was good (best miso I've had), but everything was kinda pricey.

Sunday morning was calm and easy. There was some confusion between the autograph staff and the crowd control staff, but it got worked out before it could have become a problem. I went and took a nap for a few hours in the afternoon since nothing was going on and I was sleepy. After my nap, I wandered around some, but the only eventful things that happened were people saying goodbye.

dexander picked me up at about 1900 and we went back to Arlington. We went to Rockfish with alphamajor, Vanessa (dexander's goddaughter) and Craig (dexander's long-time friend and Vanessa's father) under the impression that they had Copper River Salmon. It turns out they had run out of the special salmon the night before and wouldn't be getting any more until the next day, which meant that 4/5 of us had to reexaamine the menu to decide what to eat (I don't like the taste of salmon, though I dislike high-quality salmon less than more usual salmon).

After dinner we went to dexander's friend David's house and watched the second half of the Mavericks game and then a bunch of episodes of Robot Chicken (10 maybe). We got back to the dexander family home sometime after 0100.

I have always found the song reasonably enjoyable, but the video (which I had never seen before) is incredibly strange and detracts from the song.

These are some pretty cool stockings.

wolf359nmt will like this photo of a rooster.

This is pretty awesome:
http://elysesewell.livejournal.com/46257.html

A-Kon is in two weeks and the travel plans are pretty well figured out. This year I have a camera, so some of the silly people will have their souls sucked by me. Also my plans for the PAX trip in August are slowly coming together (Yay, I'll get to spend some in-real-life time with ladymarguerite (who's probably going to attend PAX) and the WA people in addition to working the most fun con I've been to).

Does anyone want to go down to El Paso and see Devo on August 17th?

The Optigan is a weird "instrument."

There were some catholic protestors outside the theater when we pulled up to buy tickets. I got a photo I'll post later.

Dinner at Johnny Carino's was nice for the six of us (alphamajor, dexander, scoffeepie, sweetanniehi, two_pi_r and me). With cannolis for dessert, I had a Sambvca and espresso. I should get some of each for the house (recipe, bottle and grinds).

We then went over for the movie. Most of the reviews I had read said the movie dragged and had too much exposition. I found it quite good with near constant intrigue punctuated by occasional fight or chase scenes. On the Netflix five point scale, I'll give it a 4. I (and most people, I believe) generally like movies that expouse views similar to my own (their own). The goal of the "Rector" was quite admirable although its achievement was left unclear (and doubtful) in the end.

I don't know what the puzzles will be like tomorrow, but assuming they have to do with the movie, I feel I will do well. I'll probably have a tough time with the chess puzzle, but we'll see. The sudoku-like puzzle (I'm assuming there will be one) will be tough, but doable. I have little idea what the other three will be or what their order will be. In the unlikely chance I win, I know who will share the prizes with me, but there may be an issue of not having enough vacation days to go on all of the trips without pissing off my boss (taking unpaid vacation days irks him greatly, but this is the sort of thing I would do it for).

I wrote most of this post on Friday and kept being busy with other things and didn't post it until now.

I hadn't uploaded photos to Flickr in a while. Here are some of the new ones:
Photos of NMT 2006 Graduation.
Photos of redsekhmet's wedding

I was going up to Albuquerque every weekend for over a month a few weeks ago. I was having fun, but going crazy and being frustrated with not getting any of my projects done. I need some time without traveling. This particular weekend there's no way I could have gone up because I had already bought food for Friday, I hosted a graduation breakfast party on Saturday, I went to Commencement, and king_luddite had a graduation party Saturday evening. Overall, I need to be selfish/lazy for a while to stay sane, so I won't be going up to Abq for a while.

Detailed maps of religious adherents by county in the U.S.

Anti-abortion zealots target birth control

A group of ~80 people dress up similarly to Best Buy employees and go into a NYC Best Buy. It's silly in places and also shows us how people react to uniforms as authority.

Q. What could a boarding pass tell an identity fraudster about you? A. Way too much
A simple airline stub, picked out of a bin near Heathrow, led Steve Boggan to investigate a shocking breach of security

Tyson Slocum on gas prices, Charlie Savage on Bush's signing statements. It's an episode of FAIR's CounterSpin. The interview with Slocum gives some excellent information about the price gouging of the oil monopoly.

Topato Breakfast!

When I'm at work I take my keys out of my pocket and place them on my desk because they stab me in the leg while sitting. I went out to lunch with lalabob11 today. I just got back to work. My keys are on my desk and everyone else is still out to lunch, so I'm locked out. People should be getting back from lunch soon, and it's a really nice day out, but I'm still annoyed at my forgetfulness.

Some proposals for reform
Follow the money...
Time to reclaim our America
The organization he's forming isn't "up" yet, but I'll let you know when it is.

[Dr. Shaber] is not a political activist or a conspiracy theorist; in addition to her own practice, she's Kaiser Permanente's director of women's health services for northern California and head of the HMO's Women's Health Research Institute. Yet this decidedly mainstream doctor and administrator says, "I no longer trust FDA decisions or materials generated [by the government]. Ten years ago, I would not have had to scrutinize government information. Now I don't feel comfortable giving it to my patients."

Many prominent figures in science and public health think they know the answer. "People believe that religiously based social conservatives have direct lines to the powers that be within the U.S. government, the administration, Congress, and are influencing public-health policy, practice and research in ways that are unprecedented and very dangerous," says Judith Auerbach, Ph.D., a former NIH official who is now a vice president at the nonprofit American Foundation for AIDS Research. In fact, Glamour, has found that on issues ranging from STDs to birth control, some radical conservative activists have used fudged and sometimes flatly false data to persuade the government to promote their agenda of abstinence until marriage. The fallout: Young women now read false data on government websites, learn bogus information in federally funded sex-education programs and struggle to get safe, legal contraceptives—all of which, critics argue, may put them at greater risk for unplanned pregnancies and STDs.

California court rules that the Bush administration broke the law by ignoring the Energy Policy Act of 1992.

This is a couple of weeks old, but I only just found it:
Sorry, Your Viewpoint Is Excluded from First Amendment Protection: That's what the Ninth Circuit holds today, as to student speech in K-12 schools, in a remarkable...decision

This test was really tough. I've seen easily over 900 movies in my lifetime and I hadn't seen (or sometimes even heard of) a good portion of the movies in the test.
( Actor-Movie Meme )

This is pretty fucked up:
Anti-choice people are setting up "crisis pregnancy centers" that are advertised to be similar to Planned Parenthood Clinics but actually do everything in their power to intimidate and shun the woman into keeping the unwanted fetus.
http://community.livejournal.com/neph_politics/331893.html

I have a somewhat unusual stance as regards abortion and fetuses. I'm pro-choice, but I also believe that the child's life begins as soon as the egg is fertilized. Until the child is live-born and the umbilical is severed, I believe the child is the woman's PROPERTY in addition to being alive (although still a parasite) and the laws as regard property should outweigh any laws that would regard/protect the child's life. In much the same way that everyone has the right to smash/destroy/throw out their property (or have their property smashed/destroyed/thrown out by a professional they contract with), a pregnant woman has the right to do that to all of her property, including her fetus.

This is unrelated and very cute:
http://www.deviantart.com/view/32029718/

I also made an icon from a cool photo phyxius posted a while ago.

4 different people talked about getting/needing new glasses in my friends page today. Within the past 2 days I talked, in-person, with 2 other people about their needing new glasses.

( I went through my OKCupid "Real Friends" and "Saved People" and collated our match and friend percentages. )

Yesterday, Google Reader finally pissed me off enough to switch to Bloglines for my RSS feeds. Reader had a slow AJAX interface, often forgot which articles I had already read, sometimes munged the links "back to original" and also didn't have a simple way to read articles in chronological order (scrolling to the bottom was actually difficult due to the AJAX and I couldn't find a way to reverse the order so oldest was on top). My switch to Bloglines was disappointing at first, but this turned out to be due to some major server issues they were having just after I moved my feeds over. Everything has been nice since the servers started working correctly; I'm much happier with it.

Yahoo has a newish maps thing with images. For Socorro at least, it seems to be using the same black and white aerial images that Microsoft serves, but coloring them with colors from the more recent satellite images. The red roof of Jones Annex is very apparent over the not-yet a building in the photo:
NMIMT campus, centered over the yet to be built at the time of photography, Jones Annex.

In the balance:
Is balanced journalism to blame for the lack of action on global warming?

The classic beginner's mistake in Argentina is to neglect the first steak of the day. You will be tempted to just peck at it or even skip it altogether, rationalizing that you need to save yourself for the much larger steak later that night. But this is a false economy, like refusing to drink water in the early parts of a marathon. That first steak has to get you through the afternoon and half the night, until the restaurants begin to open at ten; the first steak is what primes your system to digest large quantities of animal protein, and it's the first steak that buffers the sudden sugar rush of your afternoon ice cream cone. The midnight second steak might be more the glamorous one, standing as it does a good three inches off the plate, but all it has to do is get you up and out of the restaurant and into bed (for the love of God, don't forget to drink water).

A strange story about anger and WoW that crossed over into the real world.
http://uploadfile.putfile.com/videos/9907503497.mp3
"I win the Internet and I ruined this 11 year old kid's life."
It's sad about the kid's family, but the story is still funny in an insensitive way.

Some people are confused so I'll make it as clear as I can:

1. No Movie night this coming Friday.
2. My Birthday party this Saturday evening. Show up around 6ish. There's lots of space for Albuquerque people to come down and spend the night as usual. I'm going to make a barbecue dish of some sort (probably NC Pork).
3. Easter Dinner at 2 p.m. Sunday. I'm making hams, kielbasa and cabbage, and a Polish white soup.

A bunch of Christains are trying to get tolerance laws and regulations repealed because the believe the laws discriminate against them:

[Christian activist Gregory S. Baylor] says he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race and gender. But he draws a distinction that infuriates gay rights activists when he argues that sexual orientation is different — a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait.

I see a very simple counter to this argument: being Christian is "a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait" so, by his reasoning, taking any legal actions to protect them is unreasonable.

...dire pronouncements about new forms of entertainment are old hat. It goes like this: Young people embrace an activity. Adults condemn it. The kids grow up, no better or worse than their elders, and the moral panic subsides. Then the whole cycle starts over.

( Real/Fake Breast Identification Meme )

The other day, a friend was talking about love. She ended her post with a question. I left this in reply:

How do you know?
For me, it's how I feel when I haven't been able to talk to her or hold her in over ~18 hours. She fills a hole I didn't even know was there before and now it hurts when it's empty. I'm the happiest I've ever been and it's mostly due to our relationship.

HerbieHancock-Rockit segues really well into TheHumanLeague-Don'tYouWantMe.

This will tell you how to make your LJ's calendar not show how many times you posted in a day:
http://community.livejournal.com/lj_nifty/142451.html

Political Cartoons:
"Rugged individualism is strongest when we obey"
Banana Republicans

It's really cool when you're listening to the radio and a really cheesy 80's instrumental comes on that you recognize, but it takes you a moment to figure out what it is: Jan Hammer - Miami Vice Theme.

I'm doing well. Work is tolerable and home-life has been good. I've been busy with projects. I gor the water filter installed in the kitchen and I should be able to have the table finished by the 15th when I want it done.

jaberwockynmt's LiveJournal popularity rating is 4.35/10. jaberwockynmt is more popular than 99.04% of all LiveJournal users. jaberwockynmt is more popular than 93.9% of their mutual friends. How popular are you? LJ Popularity created by thehumangame.

I decided to move my mouse to the left of the keyboard. It's frustrating, but I'm already much better at it than I was a few hours ago.

So, people want info about why I posted the poll the other day. A few days ago, I was having a discussion with someone and "lasting" came up. I said that ~45 minutes was usual for me. The person was shocked at my claim of such a long time as being usual (their experience was shorter). I decided that by polling all of you, we could all learn from it. The "average" question applied to the specific conversation I mentioned. The "shortest" and "longest" just seemed to follow from that.

The FCC has declared the word bullshit to be "presumptively profane."

( Three memes under the cut )

Sara picked me up at work and we headed to Albuquerque.

First stop: CostPlus to find some wine to gift to cathyn. I had an inkling of an idea of what he'd like from anda, and figured I'd be able to find something interesting there. I found a Sicilian wine that the label claims is both dry and fruity, and bought two, one for him and one to take home.

Second stop: Thai Tip for dinner with baronj. It had a strange atmosphere for a Thai restaurant, but the food was good. I'm not sure if it was better than Thai Orchid, but it was definitely better than my experiences at Siam Cafe. (I've only been to three Albuquerque Thai places, so my comparison range is limited.)

Third stop: cathyn and anda's house. We dropped off the wine, said "hi" to people and then baronj, Sara and I jumped into baronj's car.

Fourth stop: Downtown Century 14 to see V for Vendetta. It was pretty good, but will need another watching or two. I'll probably buy the DVD. There was one really silly blood-spray scene that made Sara freak out a bit, but she made it through.

Fifth stop: Back to cathyn's party. Food and drinks and silliness and conversation ensued. When there were only a few of us left, we watched a couple of episodes of Iron Chef and then everyone broke for bed. Now I'm laying on the livingroom futon trying to wind down.

I don't think I'm as messed up as the test says, but if the results were shifted down so "Very High" became "Moderate" it seems about right, but I'm a biased judge.
( Personality Disorders )

I took the above test because the below test suggested it in a question.
( Lonliness Quotient )

Unrelated to the above memes:
I'm not giddy, but I'm happy (giddy was in the realm of possibility, but not where I'm at). Hopefully things go well.

My default icon is happy. I need a happier one for the times when I am especially happy though. Maybe I can mod Portia to stick her tongue out once in a while.

I think I'm becoming dyslexic, which sucks. Dyslexic only on output though. I can read fine. I rearrange the letters inside words very often, and I wasn't doing that a year ago.

I wasn't clear enough in my last post. Things are better between Lauren and I. Thank you, all those who commented or emailed. We learned a lot and things hopefully won't get so bad again.

The rest of the previous post is about a complicated thing that I was trying/hoping for. I'm bad at first moves as regard the transition from spoken flirting to physical flirting. Also, based on some events from Saturday night too, I seem to have "John's luck" in this area.

Yesterday after work, Lauren and I made up. Things are ok. Last night was complicated. I was disappointed, but things are OK. My inability to make a first move was a problem.

WY (R) Senator escalates war on women's health care
http://community.livejournal.com/neph_politics/310913.html?nc=10&style=mine

The definitive rebuttal of data mining as a counterterrorism tool.
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014248.html
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/03/data_mining_for.html
I think we should all send this to all of our senators and representatives and any NSA/CIA/FBI guys we know. Also, we should tell other people about it, encouraging them to do the same.

"China struck back Thursday against U.S. criticism of its human rights record by saying the United States is plagued by crime and racial inequity and is abusing detainees who are terror suspects."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-03-09-china-humanrights_x.htm

"Please try doing some or all of your travel by declining to show ID and report back about what happens to you."
http://www.papersplease.org/investigation.html

A blanket with sleeves is a great idea.
http://www.theslanket.com/product.php

A parenting advice forum with ranking and commenting not entirely unlike slashdot ranking and commenting:
http://www.minti.com/

I'll be able to talk with lalabob11 in about 45 minutes. Hopefully I'll have reason to move my default icon off of "Sad Jellaby" after we talk.

Food tonight will be weird. I've never sauteed cherries before. I think it'll be tasty though. I'll post the recipes if they come out good.

I'm miserable. I hurt Lauren last night.

Many of the comments in the previous post are useful. The overall effect of the comments and my actions has me crying at my desk. I've been unable to get any work done all morning. I want to leave and go home, but I can't afford to take the leave and there's a project I have to work on this afternoon while a consultant we are working with is here. Also, due to her school schedule I won't be able to see her and try to work things out until this evening. I want to make this better.

lalabob11 and I just had a fight.

I experience the world. My experiences are colored by my perceptions.

As part of the argument she said something to the effect of "You think that what you say is always right."

I replied with something to the effect of "Yes, unless they are willing to fight for their contradictory belief harder than I am. Then I can concede to them."

She stormed off. I don't blame her for storming off. I just hope there is a way for us to get through this positively.

We both are stubborn. I think I'm more stubborn than her, but I don't know for sure. It's really hard to convince me of things.

We had an argument earlier about the meaning of the word "scan." Based on the context of my reading and based on personal experience, I understand it to be a cursory thing, an at a glance viewing. She disagreed, arguing that it is was a careful, detailed observation. She got a reasonably modern dictionary off the shelf that backed her up. I then said that the dictionary still disagreed with my understanding from experience. We moved on to other things and then went to our separate beds.

She then came into my room and we discussed it more. It turned into the fight I described.

I am not willing to greatly alter my worldview (at least all at once), but I don't want to lose her.

Update:This is in the comments below, but belongs up here:
lalabob11: I believe that the conclusion we came to last night before I 'stormed out' was that Jarrod's word is the word of god. He failed to mention that part. *hear the sarcasm and bitterness in that*
jaberwockynmt: I didn't remember exactly how you put it and figured that getting it wrong would offend you more than leaving it out, so I left it out.

love is need

For those of you who can read it, I left some interesting comments here:
http://radiatorcliffs.livejournal.com/306051.html

A more extensive listening test than the one I did a few weeks ago:
http://www.delosis.com/listening/questionnaire-handler.html

Retail Patriot Act Abuses

Intel CRAP

Sidestepping the analog hole
Speaking Loudly Can Be Bad For Business

"Doug Doug is pretty much going to be dropped in the fiery pit of hell."
Fear Of Girls