dear dudes on the bus,

SCOOT OVER.

I DO NOT WANT TO CUDDLE WITH YOU.

unless you feel like subletting part of my seat (i'm open to reasonable offers—$2/stop? $1/minute? a reasonable flat rate of $20?), then stay the hell over on your side.

i don't care if you'd rather sit with your legs all splayed out like a dog sunning the spot where his balls used to be, or if you prefer to drape your arm around the back of the seat beside you. i'm sorry if you're lonely or if you never developed basic social skills, but not sorry enough to want you to let you touch me or invade my space.

QUIT IT.

a five year old, on eeyore

"that would be scary if he had teeth. i wouldn't know how to imagine that."

great news!

wondering exactly how awful what atlas shrugged, the movie, is really like? ed from gin and tacos has watched the movie for you! so now you don't have to.

the whole review is really worth reading. here's a just a sample:

Ayn Rand may be your favorite philosopher, but she is an appalling writer. Her novels call into question whether she ever met another human being let alone spoke with one. With absolutely no understanding of how narrative, plot, character development, or exposition work, Rand produces fiction that sounds like it was written in Urdu and translated into English with the least reliable free online translator available.

go!

i fail to see what the problem is.

girl on the bus, talking on the phone: "he doesn't go to school, he doesn't have any hobbies, he just rides his bike all day."

options to help japan

with links to charity navigator pages for each organization so that you can read about how they spend money.

americares (four star charity navigator rating)

doctors without borders (four star charity navigator rating)

save the children (four star charity navigator rating)

world vision (four star charity navigator rating)

global giving (three star charity navigator rating)

the international medical corps (three star charity navigator rating)

operation usa (three star charity navigator rating)

oxfam (three star charity navigator rating)

peace winds japan (affiliated with mercy corps [three star charity navigator rating]; not evaluated by charity navigator itself; here is the organization's own financial statement)

the red cross (three star charity navigator rating)

second harvest japan (no charity navigator rating)

shelterbox (three star charity navigator rating)


also of interest:

google's personfinder tool
google's crisis response page


with love to japan.

equal marriage rights: not just an abstract question

courage campaign institute: ed watson and derence kernek on the importance of lifting the prop. 8 stay

california's prop 8, which took away the right of gay people to get married in the state of california, was a crushing political defeat for people who believe in equal rights. the california state supreme court is considering a challenge to prop 8, but not until after they take a six month summer vacation—sorry, for judges it's apparently called a summer recess—and in that time, some people have gotten the idea that the ban on marriages while the court case is being settled should be lifted.

and here's one example of why. ed and derence have been together for forty years, but ed has alzheimer's disease and it's progressing quickly. he and derence want to get married before ed's health deteriorates further. note that this video might make you cry.

but i think it's really important to consider that forbidding gay marriages is impacting the lives of real people. it's not just a fascinating legal matter with vast social and political implications. depriving people of equal rights harms them and our society. and it's categorically the wrong thing to do.

more stories and the opportunity to submit your own here.

if i lived in japan, i'd watch entirely too much television.

kittens in bowls!

(and don't forget this!)

i'm sure we can all agree.

if you can't park it, you sure as hell shouldn't be driving it.

what a fun sixth birthday!

angry birds birthday cake

dan deacon show=summer camp for grownups

last night i went to a dan deacon show. i was tired. i am tired. lately, i have been tired. last night was no exception. there were some openers, so by the time it was dan's turn i was pretty tired and also tired of being stepped on and pushed by people way taller than me.

but then his set started, and it was really...fun. i've been to a lot of shows in my life, i think, and i like live music, but rarely have i had so much fun at a concert. a nice time, a good time, even a great time, but a fun time?

every now and then he'd give us directions (creating, for example, a dance contest where my side of the room had to "dance like jurassic park" and the opposite side was to "dance like what you wish the movie avatar was actually about.") and just about everyone enthusiastically went along with it (even when the activities involved kneeling on the beer-soaked floor.)

it was during the song where everyone was supposed to dance under the bridge made by the arms of a few volunteers, then emerge from the other side to add their own arms to the bridge that i really noticed it. i was outside, watching strangers dance beneath me when i had the strong urge to compliment them. and just as i was feeling pretty amused by that, someone said, "great job! thank you for being so strong for me!"

and all the dancing and activities and silliness really made me think of summer camp, and the many times that i've seen junior highers or high school kids who were too cool for everything forget about that and just have uncomplicated, unself-conscious fun.

it was great.

you know what i like?

liberated billboards.

CIVILIZATION COSTS MONEY: PAVED ROADS

while there have long been people who don't think that they should have to pay taxes and who believe that there is too much government interference in the life of most americans, i am profoundly frustrated at the way that this sentiment is gaining popularity.

at least in part because of the continued presence of the teabaggers tea party in american political life, i keep reading about (and talking to) people who insist that "the government" meddles too much in their affairs and takes too much of their money.

recently i was talking to someone who had spent the last few years on unemployment, and whose spouse retired early from a federal job, receiving a substantial severance package. also, the federal retiree had always held the insurance for the entire family (they raised several children.) however, despite what seemed to me like several dramatic examples of interaction with the government being the only thing standing between them and total financial ruination, this person vehemently announced to me that the government had "no business" besides national defense, and expressed strong wishes toward a total cessation of all government activity not directly related to national defense.

and it has really gotten me thinking about this whole "no taxes, government bad" approach to policy. while few people actually enjoy paying taxes, rational grownups should be able to see that taxes are not, in fact, the result of a power-mad, bullying government stealing money from defenseless citizens, but actually a reasonable way to pay for things we want and need. markers of civilization, actually, which sounds hyperbolic at first but really isn't.

here's something that taxes pay for:
1. paved roads. i read a horrible article about a 23 year old woman in alabama who ran over a pothole and dislodged a chunk of highway that went through the windshield of the truck behind her and killed the woman in the front seat, who was riding with her husband and their two small children. no one was doing anything wrong; the first driver was cleared of any wrongdoing. she hadn't been speeding, she was driving safely, they road simply hadn't been maintained. the state says they can't afford it. now the first driver is wracked with guilt, and the husband is a widower, a single dad with two small kids. because there wasn't money for highway repairs.

so "tea party patriots," are you ready to volunteer your time for road crews? or should someone set up toll booths all over the place to fund roadwork? (followup question: should that be the government? or a private company collecting money? if a private company, will there be any oversight? how do you propose to supervise this effort without government involvement? does the mention of tolls constitute a "tax" that will get you all worked up?)

to be continued.

lack of context leads to unintentional hilarity

frequently when i'm on the telephone with the nephews' mama, she says funny things. sometimes this is on purpose (she is a pretty funny lady, and we've known each other so long that we have plenty of inside jokes and references that wouldn't mean much to anyone else but that crack us up.)

and i like it when she makes me laugh intentionally, i really do.

sometimes much funnier, though, are the times when what she says is totally reasonable for the circumstances in which she finds herself (and the nephews), but totally hilarious to people (me) without the same context.

let me demonstrate:

"you guys can play baby all you want but you're not going to be in the fridge."

of course, since i'm a good friend, i try to support her parenting by not laughing loudly while she's disciplining the children.

sometimes i fail.

sometimes certain names work better in ad campaigns than others

photographed by the ever-patient captain awesome (who never seems to mind when we're on the way somewhere and then all of the sudden i really want him to take a picture of something), and who comments: "christian cancer...is the worst kind."

dear flu,

great news! you can go now.

i have recently had an important revelation about the future.

flying cars are a terrible idea.

i know that they're supposed to represent the awesome inventions that science has in store for us and the triumph of technology and progress...but have you ever really stopped to think about it for a minute?

i did for the first time yesterday, when i was reflecting on how bad lots of people seem to be at driving their normal, non-flying cars. i've started riding my bike just about everywhere recently; i don't really drive much anymore (and when i do it's only a non-flying car) and riding the bus isn't usually much faster than riding my bike. and it costs money. and it doesn't burn calories. and it sometimes involves standing around outside for a long time.

all this time on my bike has given me a lot of chances to interact with drivers. and many of them are awful at driving. it's really helped me to appreciate the car-free parts of the city—i love the greenways and bike paths that make it possible for me to get places without much car traffic.

but it's also made me realize that we are far from ready for flying cars. can you imagine what it would be like? it's bad enough to have to deal with cars in the same plane as you when you're riding a bike—but from now on, when i have a close call with someone i'll remember: at least they didn't have the opportunity to crowd me from above!

science, i own you an apology. i'm sorry for being disappointed in you for all these years for your failure to produce flying cars. i think you really have our best interests at heart. please don't ever make flying cars happen, ever. teleportation devices, on the other hand, are long overdue.

micmacs is a fantastic movie and you should probably see it soon

captain awesome and i went to the movies the other night and thoroughly enjoyed micmacs. its french title is Micmacs à tire-larigot, which according to the internet means "non-stop shenanigans," and that seems like a pretty concise summary of the movie.

it was directed by jean-pierre jeunet, who also directed amelie, and it is similarly whimsical and many lovely colors of brown. (jeunet also directed a very long engagement, which is like amelie, right down to the audrey tautou but very sad; i would not necessarily recommend it to a friend unless that friend was in the mood for a movie that is depressing and beautiful.)

micmacs. check it out.

"and bars of gold, platinum or titanium."

oh, freecycle.

"We are in need of a various items: Used Rice Cooker, PlayStation3 or Roku streamly digital DVD player,tv tuner, wireless router,used laptop who are in good conditions. If anyone has any of those and not in need we will appreciate it. Thanks."

i wish i had written down who said this.

i'm getting rid of lots of paper clutter these days (woo!) and when going through a box just now i found a somewhat cryptic note. i have a dim recollection of someone saying this, but since the date at the top of the note is 8/06 i am not particularly surprised or disappointed that i don't actually remember the exact wording or who said it. something like:

so this supercollider that's going to end the world, this is my kind of disaster! not even bottled water can save you!

this seems like as good a time as any to remind you of the hugely useful site "Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?"

the antidote to those awesome/horrifying big dog/little dog videos

(50X) Autonomously folding a pile of 5 previously-unseen towels


while i know that robotics technology generally boils down to military-related applications, it's kind of cute to see this robot folding laundry.

also, the highest rated comment insults naysayers by quoting murray head's "one night in bangkok," which wikipedia calls "a sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek denunciation of the city's moral corruption and comparative glorification of the intellectual purity of chess: e.g., 'the queens we use would not excite you.'" "one night in bangkok" is also notable for being the last show tune to make into the top five most popular american songs. and it is from a musical about a chess match between an american and a soviet chess player. the 80's were really a different time. seriously.


one night in bangkok