Category: General

I stopped by the Apple Store on my way home last night, and I can report that the new laptops are, indeed, sexy. Duh. Water’s still wet.

They feel as solid as… well, as a brick. There’s no “flex” or “give” to them at all, and in spite of that, the 15″ MacBook Pro feels about half as heavy as my MBP, it’s definitely thinner than my current one, and the curves are all nicely rounded (completely subjective measure – in reality, the new one weighs 5.5 lbs and is .95 inches thick and mine weighs 5.6 lbs and is 1.0 inch thick, according to the tech specs for for each. Not sure I can actually feel a tenth of a pound or a 0.05 inch difference. Must be the sexay getting to me).

In the store, the glossy screen isn’t as distracting as I thought it would be, but I’m still skeptical that glossy is the right choice for all lighting conditions. And me and two of the sales folk had our doubts that the trackpad was, in fact, glass. If it’s glass, it’s painted or coated with something because it looks and feels just like the trackpad on mine.

And the clicky pad is… odd. It would take some getting used to. I’m used to touching or tapping the trackpad to do my clicking; the pressure required to click the entire pad feels like too much to me. Luckily, I still have the option to enable tap-clicking in System Preferences.

The thing of it is – yes, they’re beautiful machines, and yes, my laptop is getting older, but there isn’t really any compelling new features (beyond better battery life, more storage space, and a faster overall machine) that would make me want to upgrade right now. My laptop already does more than I need.

So I’ll wait until after the January Macworld Expo before I consider upgrading.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFC9jv9jfoA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&fs=1]

Speaking of Joe the Plumber, did you know:

1. He’s registered as a Republican in Ohio?
2. He’s a convicted tax cheat?
3. He’s not licensed to be a plumber in Ohio? (Same link as A, above)
4. He’s apparently related to Sen. McCain’s good friends, the Keating family? (Yes, that Keating family!)

Hmmm… Republican, tax scofflaw, practices without a license, family friend of McCain… Wonder what he was doing at an Obama Q&A right before the debate?

Sen. John McCain looks… stunned… in this exchange from tonight’s debate:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao5V66m5FaA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1]

Stunned! Flummoxed! Befuddled! Aghast!

I just play this over and over and over again.

(No, I didn’t actually watch the debate. My mind’s made up already. I hope all y’all out there still trying to figure out that you need to vote for the Democrat this time, for the good of us all, of the economy, the Constitution, and our standing in the world community watch this clip and remember that the economy always does better under Democratic presidents – always.)

Update: I’ve found a video that gives a bit more context to the question Sen. Obama is responding to and changed it. And, seriously, I can’t stop watching McCain blink. He just blinks and blinks and blinks. I try very hard to only ever refer to politicians by their formal title. I’d have to go back and check, but I don’t think I’ve ever even slipped and referred to our current President by anything other than “President Bush” or “George W. Bush”. If I have, I apologize for letting anger and frustration cloud my debating skills.

But, man… watching that video of Sen. McCain… so hard not to poke a little fun at that expression on his face. Wow. He’s, just… wow.

And Sen. Obama is one cool cat. Hot damn, it’s gonna be good having him in the White House.

The best part of this video is finally (finally!) hearing Hayden Pantatrooper pronounce her own last name, settling a bet between Ken and me.

The second-best part is hearing Hayden use the word “fucked”. Several times.

PS: It’s a political video. Just warning all y’all.

(h/t to Atrios)

more animals

If you’re living in Oregon and you’re not registered to vote by 5PM today, you’re a dummy. Yeah, I said it. Get out there and register! Here’s the Oregon Secretary of State page that has all the info and links you need.

Starsky says “G’wan… do it.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra70O9nps6E&hl=en&fs=1]

I know, living in Oregon, it may feel like voting is a forgone conclusion – despite the traditional media thinking Oregon is a “battleground state” or “leaning Democratic” (ha, ha!) it’s almost a lock that Oregon will go for Sen. Obama. Yes, it’s important to vote for President… but there’s other, downticket races that are much closer than the Presidential race. I would urge my friends to vote Jeff Merkley, Democrat, against the Bush rubber-stamp incumbent Gordon Smith. Merkley spoke out against the $700 billion bailout package (Gordon Smith voted for it; Oregon’s other US Senator, Ron Wyden, voted against), and Merkley also was strongly opposed to the FISA rewrite that gave the telecom companies retroactive immunity and gave Bush cover to continue his up-until-then-illegal surveillance of American citizens on American soil.

My friends living in Darlene Hooley’s old district (OR-05, map of the district found here) would be well-advised to vote for Kurt Schrader against Republican Mike Erickson. Schrader is a veterinarian and state senator from Canby. He seems like a regular joe and he says his priorities are bringing the troops home from Iraq (but apparently, not Afghanistan) and health care for all Americans.

Having larger majorities in Senate and the House will help keep Barack Obama on the progressive side of the political spectrum and will ensure that legislation is passed that will help all Americans – not just the super-rich.

Electing more Democrats to the local legislature will position Oregon nicely for the upcoming census – which means it’s redistricting time. Again, an important goal is making sure that district lines are drawn fairly and evenly, and the chances of that are better with more Democrats in the state house. It’s also better, I should add, when more voters and citizens participate in the process and keep up pressure on our representatives. Don’t just vote once every four years and consider your duty done; get involved year-round.

Dear Republican co-workers in the next cube over, please stop pushing the lie that the current economic collapse was caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac giving out too many loans to “low income” Americans. It’s not true, and as McClatchy points out, both the Federal Reserve Board data and the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets disprove that lie pretty conclusively.

The financial collapse was triggered by lax lending practices by private lending institutions; only one of the top 25 sub-prime lenders was subject to Federal guidelines against discrimination. It’s pretty simple, really. And if I’m using too many big words, when I say “lax lending practices” I mean that the private lenders weren’t being regulated, nor were the regulations being enforced. Hmmm… deregulation… who pushed for that? Oh, right, that was a Republican thing. And who enforced (or didn’t) the regulations? Oh, right, that would be the President.

Since the Federal Reserve Board data shows that the primary timeframe for private sub-prime loans was 2001-2007, when the Republicans ran both houses of Congress, and President Bush sat in the White House.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don’t loan money themselves, either, my fine Republican co-workers. They purchase loans that were pre-qualified by those private lending institutions. You know, the ones that were giving away loans to anyone and everyone, then passing the shitpile on to others. If those private institutions are lying to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and there are no penalties for lying, clearly the moral responsibility lies on those institutions, right? And if poor people who, under normal circumstances, would not qualify for home loans were given those loans anyway, again, the blame lies with the lenders.

But the lenders are still escaping the consequences for their actions in creating the bubble. Must be nice to be rich these days. I mean, the people who were given loans they couldn’t afford are still on the hook for paying those loans off. And taxpayers get another hit by paying for the $700 billion bailout on top of that.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no love for the current Congressional leadership pushing through the bailout. But that’s a whole ‘nother issue.

Oh giggling Republican co-workers, whispering conspiratorially in the next cube over as you watch some YouTube mash-up that, in your mind, implicates Speaker Pelosi and Rep. Barney Frank in causing the current crisis… you are so wrong. So sadly wrong.

So stop trying to blame the current crisis on Democratic Congresscritters who had no power in the last 8 years, stop trying to push the blame back onto President Clinton, and, honestly, seriously, stop trying to blame this on poor people. It just sounds… well, ignorant… when you do that.

To anyone still on the fence between electing Sen. McCain or Sen. Obama, here’s a comparison of their tax plans.

I don’t know about you, but I could use an extra $1042.00/year. That’s nearly a whole extra paycheck for me.

And before you scream that now’s not the time to be reducing taxes, notice how Sen. Obama’s tax plan increases taxes on the upper class rather dramatically. That will actually bring in more revenue to the government. The Bush tax “cuts” simply shifted the tax burden down on the middle and lower class (that’s you and me, bub) – and McCain has pledged to continue those tax “cuts”.

Oh, but, hey, McCain supporters and surrogates say: look – scary Muslims over there! Don’t think about the economy!

Ha. Like those of us who work for a living can ever really ignore the economy.

I’m a little bit on edge today. Not a superstitious sort, but since almost everyone else is, I’m afraid people will realize it’s Monday the 13th and that it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. With me as the target.

I need music this morning. So far, I’ve heard:

1. Cheap Trick, “Just What I Needed”
2. Queens of the Stone Age, “Go With The Flow”
3. The Offspring, “Denial, Revisited” (about which I’ve blogged before)
4. Eddie Money, “Take A Little Bit”
5. AC/DC, “Shake A Leg”
6. The Killers, “Change Your Mind”

I’m just playing whatever’s on my iPhone all shuffle-like. It’s a tonic for a crappy morning. My Republican co-worker (about whom I’ve blogged before), who normally rants to Ken, was poking around my cube because Ken isn’t here on Mondays. But since I have, in fact, laughed in my Republican co-workers’ face when he’s tried to spout his bullshit at me, he’s much more cautious. He just saw me in my scarf and asked me if I was cold.

“Uh-huh” I mumbled without making eye contact. He got the message.

I spent maybe 15 minutes hunting down a spare set of speakers that I could plug my iPhone into. Luckily there’s metric tons of unused computer crap around here, because my team is the one that collects all the unused computer crap around here. The only speakers I could find had a mini-plug that wouldn’t fit into the recessed iPhone jack, which is to say it had a perfectly normal mini-plug just like 99.9% of all mini-plugs made. Silly Apple! Making their iPhone so damned sexy that it only takes a special “standard mini-plug”. So I had to carve off some plastic on the plug. Then I was missing my power cord, so I had to borrow Ken’s. He’s not here on Mondays (smart boy). Then I spent a few minutes making sure the cords were wrapped and put away nicely (I keep all my cords neatly bundled for aesthetics).

And now, I’m set for some boring ass work. Yay. Mondays.

Kevin called me this morning just minutes after I had woken up and asked if I wanted to join him and his boys for breakfast at the 24-Hour Hotcake House.

I did (want to join him and his boys for breakfast at the 24-Hour Hotcake House). So I did (join them for breakfast etc., etc., yadda yadda).

The strawberry hotcakes were delicious. The bacon was delicious. The single scrambled eggs were delicious. Wait! Did I mention the strawberries on the hotcakes? I did? OK. How about the whip cream? I didn’t? The whip cream was delicious, too. And the boys were cute and Kevin was funny and it was all good.

Then we went to the LEGO Store out and Washington Square. Whoa. LEGOs everywhere.

Then Kevin dropped me back at home. Thanks, Kevin!

Now I’m surfing around, trying to get the motivation to go for a long run. I found this silly wallpaper and set my desktop to that. Yeah. Crazy. I

I watched Britney’s “Womanizer” video and, y’know, she’s kinda hot again. How’d that happen? The song is typical repetitive synth-pop but I’m sure I’ll be hearing it in dance clubs and strip clubs for years to come.

And that’s what I’m doing today.