Category: General

So cool. Get up, turn on the computer, open up iTunes for some IntarWeb radio (yay! KEXP!)…

And it comes up, and comes on, just as a Harvey Danger song is coming on… a slower, demo version of “Pike St./Pike Slope” which originally appeared on “King James Version”.

I still haven’t heard their Christmas song, “Sometimes You Have To Work on Christmas (Sometimes)”… which appears on their new EP of the same title. I guess I’ll have to dig back in the KEXP archives and find it… or I could ask for it for Christmas…

hint… hint…

Well, I broke down and bought a new battery for my 3G 40GB iPod, a.k.a. “DeadSexy”. Sure, Apple says it’s still “within specification” but dammit, the battery doesn’t even last for a couple of hours playing if I have a playlist that’s longer than 4 or 5 songs. When the thing was new, it could play for 7-8 hours before the battery was dead…

Lithium ion batteries are great, but they start deteriorating as soon as you start using them. Bleah.

I ordered it from Laptops for Less. Only $29.00 + FedEx 2-day shipping for $10.00. Less than half what Apple would charge for the same replacement.

It’s apparently a little tricker to swap out the battery in the 3G iPods but, what the hell, I’m handy with tools… can’t be that hard, can it?

Sorry, people. No big amazing posts over the weekend. I spent more time thinking about writing than actually writing. It’s amazing the contortions I can put my mind through in order to avoid writing.

• “I can’t write now — my apartment is filthy!”
• “I can’t write when Smacky’s scratching himself bloody from fleas; I need to give him a bath.”
• “I can’t write here — it’s too quiet. I’ll go downtown and sit in a coffee shop somewhere.”
• “I can’t write here, it’s too noisy. I’ll go back home where it’s quiet.”
• And the worst of all: “I can’t write now. Maybe I’ll just poke around the internets and see if I’m inspired…”

(That last one is where hours upon hours disappear)

The good news is, this weekend I hung out and drank beer with Caleb and Gus, watched “Ocean’s Twelve” (stylish, witty, excellent entertainment that doesn’t aspire to be more than it is), watched “Donnie Darko” (the non-director’s cut) for the first time (amazing movie but I’m left feeling ‘what’s the point?’), cleaned my apartment, gave the cat a bath, posted my editorial on Sec. Rumsfeld (see previous post), ran 3 miles… more or less, and got most of my laundry done. Oh, had lunch at a swank restaurant in the Pearl District. Can’t remember what it was called, started with a “P”, but it was very good. Just normal day-to-day stuff.

Sitting at Starbucks I saw a girl who bore a striking resemblance to Allyson Hannigan. As I sat there trying to get up the nerve to talk to her (and struggling to find something to say other than “You look like Allyson Hannigan” or “Is it true what they say about redheads?”), she sat there with a notebook, kept checking her phone for messages, and kept looking around. Obviously waiting for someone. The someone showed up; a short guy, balding, goatee, glasses. The girl and he sat down and she started telling him about his part — apparently this girl was a filmmaker and was casting him in it. I listened in as best I could and tried to figure out if they were going to be very long. If not, I’d still try to talk to her.

A half-hour later, they were still deep in conversation. I headed home.

I got a “Contact Me” message last night and it wasn’t one of the 3 or 4 regular readers. Email is always good!

Turns out the guy was trying to track down the live version of “Cinnamon” by the Long Winters (OK, just John Roderick), as heard on KEXP last week, and my site helped him pinpoint where to look in the streaming archives. It’s always good to hear from people who share my good taste in music. Behold the power of Google, or something.

Then I noticed it was Jerry “Tycho” Holkins from over at Penny Arcade! Coolio! An honest-to-internets webcomic superstar! Probably too much to think that he’ll be a regular reader of my rants and posts, but, still.

So the weepy, previous association I had made with the Long Winters can now be replaced with a new, decidedly non-weepy association. Which means I still get to listen to them. Yay, me!

Tycho and his partner, Mike “Gabe” Krahulik also do good work under the Child’s Play banner. Feel free to donate to help out the kids.

Quick post on lunch break (I love free wireless internets!)

Went to Taco del Mar and I didn’t want a lot of food. Was going to get a fish taco and a drink. But it’s Double-Punch Monday (two punches on your customer-appreciation card) if you order a burrito) so I decided I’d get a fish burrito. But only an Almost Jumbo (half the toppings of their regular sized ones, on a smaller tortilla).

When I got up to the counter, though, they were temporarily out of fish sticks. I had to wait about 4 minutes for them to bake.

So when I finally ordered, they upgraded me to a full-sized burrito “for waiting”. Um, yay? I felt pressured into eating the whole thing.

But it was soooooooooooooooooo gooooooooooooooooooood!

I started my (latest) diet just over a year ago, in mid-November 2003, right before the holiday season. Yes, before — I know, I am, in fact, crazy.

At any rate, I started losing weight around this time, but by Christmas I was still over 200 lbs. I think. I’m not sure and I don’t really want to go back and dig through my notes from the time.

At any any rate, what I’m getting as is that this, November 2004, is my first “thin” (and I use that term advisedly — I’m only really “thin” from the perspective of where I’ve been) (where was I? Oh, right) — this is my first “thin” winter.

And, without my normal layer of insulating blubber, IT. IS. SO. FREAKING. BITTER. COLD. Great grandiloquent Gehenna! How do actual thin people stand this? I feel as though the wind is CUTTING. THROUGH. MY. BONES. like a freakin’ bone saw chilled to just below absolute zero. And I dressed (ha! I thought!!!) warmly today — two t-shirts, a black hoodie, lined winter coat, stocking cap… And yet, and yet, no. Just no. It’s still COLD.

Gloves, and scarf, and maybe long underwear… yeah, yeah, that’s it. I need more layers. To make up for the layers I’ve lost.

Caleb has been away from the server that runs his site, my site (ta-da!) and Geeks Against Bush, along with all of our email and some other sites I’m not remembering right now. Yeah, can you believe it? He went away for Thanksgiving weekend. As in, out of the range of the internets. Scary, huh? I mean, the server could have fallen over and I would have been without email and my site!

But, it didn’t. Yay! Yay for Caleb! Yay for BSD (which powers our sites)! Yay for rock-solid hardware!

Still… next time he goes away I’m hoping he has a contingency plan.

Shit!

I let the one-year anniversary of this site come and go. I made my first post here on November 1, 2003. It was a rant about my ex, disguised as the beginning of a short story, that I had actually written months previously. It was, sadly, unfinished, very much like the relationship itself was.

In the past year, I’ve become an amateur runner, I’ve gotten my weight under 190 (weighed myself this morning and I’m at 185 — think it’s time to trim up again), been to Puerto Vallarta and Coachella and Vegas, met some new friends, helped some old friends… dated and lived and spent money… hmmm… what else? Discovered lots of great new local and not-so-local music, made some money on the side, learned a lot more about BSD and computers and networking… taken in a kitten, took a stand politically, got mentioned in the local news (a couple of times, obliquely)… shit, I know there’s more but can’t think of it now.

Anyway, happy anniversary Lunar Obverse, here’s to hoping you’re still going strong in another year.

OK, Lea’s story is starting to percolate into the press. The Oregonian picked it up.

From the article:

In the ruling on Nov. 19, however, the jury did not decide whether Lakeside-Scott’s allegations were true, only that she was terminated in February 2002 for airing her complaints in the state filing. That violated the First Amendment, the jury found.

In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court of Oregon in 2002, Lakeside-Scott alleged that co-workers and supervisors used county e-mail and phones to conduct personal and social business; that co-workers sent her sexually explicit messages; and that Jann Brown, who was a manager but not Lakeside-Scott’s immediate supervisor, showed favoritism by hiring and promoting gay and lesbian employees.

Instead of responding to her complaints, she claims that supervisors retaliated against her by dragging their feet on her requests for ergonomic furniture and refusing to reclassify her position or consider her applications for promotion. She claims her firing was at the behest of Brown, who, according to the complaint, “was (at least in part) motivated to have Scott discharged because of the personal nature of Scott’s allegations against her.”

This article adds details that I wasn’t previously aware of, for instance that the jury didn’t rule on whether or not Lea’s allegations were true.

Also of interest is that the total award could actually go higher:

He [Judge Michael Mossman] is expected to rule on a second claim brought by Lakeside-Scott under Oregon’s whistle-blower law, which makes it a civil rights violation if workers who step forward with complaints are retaliated against. At that time, the judge could award a separate amount of money for lost wages and other non-economic damages.

And the official county response to the verdict?

Lawyers for Lakeside-Scott and the county, and county Chairwoman Diane Linn, declined to comment on the case while aspects of it remain undecided. The county has until next week to file post-trial motions.

Update 26 January 2022: I can no longer find a direct link to the Oregonian’s article quoted above. – Brian M.