I've got a self-confessed addiction to spy novels - most embarassingly Tom Clancy. Of course, the politics in them are almost always really annoying right-wing crap. Well, I've found a spy novel that I don't have to feel guilty about - John le Carre's newest, "Absolute Friends" - it's a spy book by a pissed-off Euro-leftie with an unimpeachable anti-Communist pedigree. And boy, is he pissed off. FanTAStic freakin' book - bought it this morning, just finished it. Read it.
My friend Rachel has started a blog of her own - and she couldn't even come up with an original naming scheme. Biter. =)
I just ordered Girl Scout cookies from a co-worker for the first time. =)
On a whim, I did a Google search for my grandfather - Palmer Bayer. I'd almost forgotten about this, but there's a British bridge tournament named after him - this year's ran last weekend. So congratulations to Jason Crampton and Sam Oestreicher - this year's winners of the Palmer Bayer Trophy. There's also the Peggy Bayer Trophy, named after my grandmother - it's the under-20 component of the Home Bridge Internationals (see the bottom of the page) - England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland compete as teams in it. There's a little mistake on that page there - while my grandfather is deceased, he didn't donate the trophy for this in "memory" of my grandmother - she's still alive and living in Chicago, thankyouverymuch. In fact, I think I'm going to email the maintainers of that page - I want to get the facts straight. =) Anyway - congrats to the English team, which won yet again, last weekend as well, I believe. They always win, I think. Anyway...
It snowed, well, all day today, and it was my first snow driving experience in the new car. And it kinda sucked. It's so light and powerful that it kind of careens all over the place without a lot of effort. Ah well. I didn't hit anything.
Holy crap - I'm ninth on a Google search for top movies 2003. That's a little scary.
Atrios, in response to a little tidbit from Alterman, is wondering what would happen to John Kerry's spot in the Senate if he were to resign. This is inspired by Alterman's tease mention of Barney Frank being the favorite for the job among the Mass. delegation. But Massachusetts has a Republican governor - Romney would NEVER appoint Frank. So what's going on?
Back in '96, Bob Dole resigned from the Senate to focus on the presidency - a mistake in his case, since he was blown out of the water. But his replacement, Sheila Frahm, who was appointed by the governor of Kansas, only served until that Novemeber, when she was replaced by Sam Brownback, who won the special election for the seat. If Kerry were to resign, Mitt Romney would appoint some Republican to fill the spot for the rest of the year, and then there'd be a special election for the rest of the term (running through 'til the '08 election) in November.
So how Barney, then? Well, the first thing to note is that the seat would be won by a Democrat. While Massachusetts isn't as diehard Democrat as it's portrayed outside the state, there is a general lack of viable Republican figures. As in I can't think of any beyond Romney and Bill Weld, and I don't see Romney appointing himself or Weld - for that matter, I don't see Weld going after the Senate job right now anyway. Hell, I'm not even 100% sure he's still a Republican. Anyway - whoever wins the Democrat primary wins the Senate seat, all but guaranteed. In '00, Kennedy beat the really pathetic Republican candidate, Jack E. Robinson, 73% to 13%, with 12% getting picked up by the Libertarian candidate, Carla Howell. In '02, it got even sillier - the Republicans didn't even bother to run a candidate against Kerry, who got 81% of the vote to the Libertarian Michael Cloud's 19%. (btw, Howell and Cloud live together - Howell was busy running for governor at the time.)
So yeah - even if the Republicans make an effort to contest the seat, they don't really have anyone to run for it. Maybe they'll try bringing ex-gov. Celluci back from his ambassadorship to Canada, but I tend to doubt it. Frank's been mentioned as looking at Kerry's seat in the past, so it's probably safe to say that he'd be interested in it this fall. He's one of the biggest figures in the Mass. party, so, unless Joe Kennedy decides to step in (unlikely - though I've got better than even money that he goes for Uncle Ted's seat in '06 if Ted retires), Frank can probably get the Democratic nomination, and hence, the seat.
So that's how we could easily see our first openly gay Senator, starting this November. I'm all for it - I'd rather have Frank in that seat than Kerry anyway, and it won't really hurt us to be down one Democrat for a few months. We'll see how this plays out...
I've mentioned a message board I go to and talk politics on - it's not a political board, though it's got a politics section. There's one guy on there who's got the intellect of a lobotomized chipmunk - he's a kneejerk Republican, kneejerk Yankee fan, and a total bigot towards anyone who isn't both as well. He's tons of fun to pick on, obviously. But last night he gave me the biggest opening ever - he stated, definitively, that Bush will win in November with 62% of the popular vote. Now, I personally find it unlikely that Bush will win in November with ANY percentage of the vote - well, at least of the popular vote - we know he's quite capable of losing that but still winning the electoral...anyway... But I'm willing to guarantee that Bush doesn't get 62% of the popular vote. Hell, I offered to put $10,000 down that Bush wouldn't do that well.
Sadly, the guy hasn't taken the bet. He's avoided taking it in weaselly ways - like saying that I don't have the money to back up the bet, etc... But the real reason is because there's no chance in hell Bush gets that high a percentage. Why am I so sure about this? Because no president in history has gotten 62% of the popular vote.
First - the popular vote wasn't used to select electors in all states until 1836 (and actually, South Carolina still used its state legislature to choose electors until 1860, but we'll pretend that's not the case). So Washington wasn't elected with the aid of the popular vote. Since 1836, a grand total of four presidents have won 60+% of the popular vote - Harding in 1920, with 60.32% (which tells you something about how popular the outgoing Wilson was at that point), Nixon in 1972 with 60.67% (and, of course, there was a wee bit of dirty tricks involved in THAT election), FDR in 1936 with 60.80%, and LBJ in 1964, with the highest percentage ever - 61.05%. So the four highest percentages in history were all against sacrificial lamb candidates, at a time of extreme popularity for the winning party/president. In an increasingly divided country, what are the odds that Bush can get 62%? Nil, I'd say. Hell, even if we enter Worst Case Scenario Land, I'd say Bush can't get any higher than MAYBE 55% - and that would require the Democratic nominee announcing that he was, in fact, Satan's handmaid on Earth. So I'd love to get this guy to take the bet - $10k would pay off my car loan pretty quick, let me tell you - but I'm afraid he won't bite...ah well...
Screw you guys - they're attacking Kerry with the "How will you respond to being called a Democrat - a Massachusetts Democrat - a Massachusets liberal Democrat?" Fuck that - being a Democrat is something to be proud of. Being from Massachusetts is somtehing to be proud of. Being a liberal is something to be proud of. Kerry's responding well, but I want him to throw down the f'n gauntlet, man. Lash out at these CNN Republican HACKS. Argh...
1 p.m. exit poll reportsI'm getting hazy reports from the field. As of 1...
I don't know about you, but I have no real problem with Kos doing this. Atrios rightly points out that the media calling an election before the polls close is a Bad Thing, but, as he also points out, the media already have the numbers - so why not let those of us that care get access to them?
Since I don't watch TV news almost ever any more, I'm trying to figure out what I should watch tonight. I'm lucky enough to get WMUR, the one non-PBS network channel out of New Hampshire, so I'm assuming that's one place to watch. But it's local news... Obviously, I'd chop my feet off and throw them out the window before watching Fox News, and, well, Wolf Blitzer makes me want to go get those defenestrated feet and throw them at the television, so CNN's probably not what I really want either - especially since they let Larry f'n King act as if he's a real person, and not just a senile cartoon. Eugh. MSNBC sucks, I think, but I've never really bothered to watch. I guess it'll have to be a combo of 'MUR and C-SPAN, with a nice dose of online commentary to get me through. Damn, I wish that Al Gore's network was for real and live by now...
I did manage to get Lakers tickets - I'll be in a nosebleed seat for the Wed., Feb. 18 game at Golden State. I'm happy. =)
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Propaganda by numbers
You have to give George Bush credit. He does just what he says he is going to do. He promised not to involve his government in nation-building, as he called it during his election campaign four years ago, and he has not. No awkward exercises such as the Clinton administration undertook in Haiti and Somalia. Regime-change, yes, but let others take over the job of piecing together replacements.
No one understood at the time that he meant to avoid nation-building at home, too. Instead of becoming the president of all the people, seeking to overcome the bitter aftertaste of the supreme court's intervention in the election, he applied the sophisticated tools of modern political propaganda to maintain the divisions, exacerbate them, and then rule a fractured country.
Why is it that the best newspaper coverage of American politics comes from a newspaper in the UK? Ah well. I'm watching the Guardian closely today - looking forward to seeing the results of the tuition fees vote. It looks like this could be the first vote that Blair loses since becoming PM - and the Hutton Inquiry (into the David Kelly/WMD/Iraq morass) comes out tomorrow. There's a semi-decent chance that Blair is toppled by all this. Good riddance, says I. Get a REAL Labour man running the party or get out of the way and let the LibDems take over.
Oscar nominations are out - and Scarlett Johannson didn't get nominated for Lost in Translation. Ah well - she's not even 20 years old yet, she'll get more chances. At least there are a plethora of other nominations for Lost in Translation - Bill Murray for Best Actor, Sofia Coppola for Best Director AND Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture. Johannson's other movie of note this year, Girl with a Pearl Earring, snagged Costume Design, Art Direction, and Cinematography nominations...I'm a little annoyed that LiT didn't get a Cinematography nod - I thought it was a fantastic looking movie, but hey... I'm amused by the fact that City of God, a Brazilian movie about the violent youth gangs of Rio, is up for Best Director, Cinematography, Film Editing, and Adapted Screenplay, but ISN'T up for Foreign Language Film - I'm guessing that the Brazilians didn't nominate it or somesuch.
My other favorite movie of the year, American Splendor, got almost totally screwed, picking up only an Adapted Screenplay nomination. In America, which I thought was fantastic, if not quite as good as LiT or AS, grabbed a couple acting nominations - Djimon Hounsou for Supporting Actor, Samantha Morton for Lead Actress (as if anyone but Diane Keaton or Charlize Theron's gonna win that anyway...), and Original Screenplay as well. That sounds about right. A movie no one saw, 21 Grams, got two acting nods - Benicio Del Toro for Supporting Actor and Naomi Watts for Lead Actress. Mystic River snagged a bunch of nominations - Sean Penn for Lead Actor, Tim Robbins for Supporting Actor, Marcia Gay Harden for Supporting Actress (which I question - yeah, she did what she could with the role, but there wasn't really anything there in the first place), along with Adapted Screenplay, Director, and Best Picture.
The big Hollywood-style movies did pretty well - Master and Commander was nominated in Art Direction, Costume Design, Film Editing, Sound Editing, Makeup, Sound, Visual Effects, Cinematography, Directing, and Best Picture. Eh. Never saw it - it didn't actually sound, well, interesting. Seabiscuit got in on Art Direction, Costume Design, Film Editing, Sound, Cinematography, Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. Again, didn't see it. Cold Mountain got Jude Law for Lead Actor, Renee "I win EVERYTHING!" Zellweger for Supporting Actor, Film Editing, Cinematography, Score, and two nominations for Song. Oh, and that hobbit flick is up for Art Direction, Costume Design, Film Editing, Makeup, Score, Song, Sound, Visual Effects, Adapted Screenplay, Directing, and Best Picture.
Oh, and Johnny Depp scored a Best Actor nomination for Pirates of the Caribbean - his first nomination. Heh.
So there's some new Outlook virus making the rounds...no biggie. I'd chop my feet off before using Outlook, so I'm safe. But the funny thing is that I've been getting a huge number of these emails - from people subscribed to the XEmacs mailing list. Yeah, a significant number of people who are on a mailing list for one of the variations of the dominant hacking tool on the planet ARE RUNNING OUTLOOK. Unpatched Outlook, no less. Funny stuff, I think.
What? So I'm a geek. =)
Peter Jackson just got announced as winning Best Director - a total scam, since Sofia Coppola was 18,000 times better with Lost in Translation - and Clint Eastwood, also nominated for Mystic River, had this look on his face that just screamed "I did a movie about child abuse and trauma and I lost to some bozo with a movie about hobbits? God DAMN!"
At least Bill Murray (rightly) won for Lost in Translation, and I can deal with Diane Keaton winning of Best Actress in a Comedy over Scarlet Johannson... I saw a brief bit of Mary Louise Parker after winning Best Supporting Actress On TV (it really is just about that vague and all encompassing) for Angels in America that was funny - she thanked her newborn kid for her big boobs. It was funny. Oh, and Pacino just won for Angels - I have a feeling it's going to sweep...
EDIT: Good. Lost in Translation won Best Picture, Musical or Comedy. I freakin' love that movie. That and American Splendor are so far and away the best movies of the year that it's not even funny.
Is it just me, or has it been below 10 degrees more this winter than normal? I don't much care for it - though the unbelievable heating power of the new car minimizes the pain. =)
On a completely unrelated note, I walked into the building tonight and heard very loud music blasting from an apartment. It was easy listening-type pop music. Y'know, like that horrible, evil "Afternoon Delight" song. Really, really loud. At 11 pm on a Saturday. Something really wrong must have been going on in that apartment.
And it drives niiiice. If you have any interest, take a look - I screwed up and took the picture at an absurdly high resolution. But hey - it's my new car. I'm happy. =)
I'll be driving away from the dealership in the new car in like an hour and a half. I've got to do a little bit more dustbusting - even though the car's just going to get junked, I'm embarassed by how messy it is, so I'd like to get it semi-acceptable first - and then I've got to pick up the bank check and head over. Last night felt more like Christmas Eve when I was a kid than anything else - the nervous excitement, hard time sleeping, waking up really promptly, etc... But it's all good. Just a little while longer and I'll have my new car!
From our friends at ARG, as always - despite the fact that my friend Brad, who works for a DC pollster, hates them, I think they're the most interesting numbers we've got on New Hampshire. Anyway...
Dean continues to melt down - his three day rolling average is down to 18%, from a peak of 39% the first few days of January, and a sustained around 28% from mid-last week until after Iowa. What's more, here are his daily numbers for the 20th, 21st, and 22nd: 24%, 17%, 13%. Ouch. His favorable numbers have continued to melt down, too - he's gone down from (if I remember correctly) 57% or so favorable to his current 31%, and up from mid-to-high-teens unfavorable to 42% now - and that 42% is a 12 point jump from Wednesday's number. More painful still? Of the 31% with a favorable opinion of Dean, 28% plan to vote for him - and 32% plan to vote for Kerry. Double ouch.
The rest of the numbers aren't as monumental as Dean's - Kerry's up to 31% in the three day, with daily numbers of 29%, 29%, and 35%, and 77% favorable, 14% unfavorable, and 9% undecided. Mind you, Kerry had MUCH lower favorability numbers just a week or two ago, but we're only a few days from the election, so the softness of that number might not matter that much. Clark's at 20% in the three day, leapfrogging Dean back into second, with single days of 18%, 21%, and 21%, as best as I can tell. His favorability numbers are pretty good, though not as impressive as Kerry's - he's at 49% favorable, 19% unfavorable, and 32% undecided. That's comparable to Edwards, at 56% favorable, 14% unfavorable, and 30% undecided, with a three day poll number of 11%, on days of 10%, 10%, 13% - yeah, Edwards might actually be tied with Dean right now. Probably not in the end, but still...
Mind you, other polls show very different numbers - the Globe poll shows Clark losing points pretty much in sync with Dean (Kerry 31%, Dean 19%, Clark 14%, Edwards 11% in the Jan. 21-22 average), for example. More importantly, all of these numbers are pre-debate, so who knows what'll come out of that?
I'm sure that Clark's going to get pilloried for saying it, but I love him saying that the ACLU should have been brought in on the CAPPS II passenger screening program to make sure there weren't privacy violations. Sorkin's movie The American President nailed it when Michael Douglas' President said:
For the record, yes, I am a card carrying member of the ACLU, but the more important question is "Why aren't you, Bob?" Now this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question, why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the constitution? Now if you can answer that question, folks, then you're smarter that I am, because I didn't understand it until a few hours ago.
America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of it's citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.
Damn straight.
Wow, these questions suck. Jennings just asked Clark why he didn't stop Michael Moore from calling Bush a deserter in his presence. Huh? What, he wasn't kissing Bush ass enough for you, Peter? I don't get that at all.
I'm heading back out to San Jose next month, leaving Boston on Feb. 16, Presidents' Day, and then coming back the following Sunday, the 22nd. I'm going to try to plan ahead of time in terms of non-work activities, and, of course, the first thing I want to do is already sold out - the Lakers are playing the Golden State Warriors in Oakland on Wednesday the 18th. So I need to figure out how one would get a single ticket to that game - just seems like an opportunity not to miss...
Five days after I put down my initial deposit to buy my new car, I finally have my loan terms. Of course, I had to go in to the dealership and raise holy hell to get it, but hey... It's a bit of an ugly loan, interest-rate wise, but that's about what I expected. I plan to pay the whole thing back in less than the 60 month term anyway - I was originally going for 48, but the interest rate is the same in either case, so it really doesn't matter. I even got them to take the old shitbox in trade - donating the car to charity wouldn't have done much for me, since it's worth less than $3,000 and I don't itemize deductions. I'm getting a whole 200 bucks. Woo! I'll be donating that big chunk o' change to WBUR, the NPR station I was going to donate the car too, so I'll still feel like I'm doing good. =)
Did all the paperwork today too...all I've got to do tomorrow is show up at the dealership with my old car, its title, and $7500. Oh, and call the insurance company. That's gonna go up about $600. Ah well. Took me a little while to find the title - I had it filed in my filing cabinet thingie, but, of course, it *wasn't* filed in the 'car' folder. It was in the damn computer games folder. I'm not making this up. But now I've got it - all that's left is cleaning out the old car. And waiting for the cash from the stock options to show up in my bank account - it's supposed to show up tonight. Can you tell I'm nervous? Yeah. I'm nervous. Like I promised - pictures will be up tomorrow or Saturday at the latest.
EDIT: woohoo! The stock option cash just showed up in my bank account. So all I need to do - prior to showing up at the dealership at noon - is clean the car and go to the bank to get a bank check. Yay!
According to the latest ARG tracking poll, Clark's at 19% to Dean's 22% and Kerry's 27% - but that's the three day rolling average. On the 20th, the first day after Iowa, Clark had 18%, Dean had 24%, and Kerry had 29%, while on the 21st, Wednesday, Clark had 21%, Dean had 17%, and Kerry stayed at 29%. Edwards stayed at 10% both days, and the undecideds went from 11% to 15%. Looks like Dean's shedding support pretty damned fast...
Watching One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - seems strangely appropriate, doesn't it?
So I call the Nissan dealership today to check on my loan - I know that nothing was going to happen on it over the weekend or Monday, due to the holiday, and they said that they'd have it by today. Nope. Nothing. Though the frighteningly obnoxious sales weasellette continued to spew the "Don't worry! It'll be great! Everything will work out PERFECTLY!" crap that I really don't want to hear. If you don't know what you're talking about, then shut up. Argh.
At a church in Boston today, a minister, the state attorney general, and the governor of Massachusetts gave speeches about Martin Luther King, Jr. and his causes. The minister decried the retreats of affirmative action. The AG talked about ending racial profiling. The governor talked about how MLK Jr was the epitome of great leadership. Guess which one's the Republican?
In general, I kind of throw my hands up in response to the MLK day stuff. I mean, how often does anyone point out that MLK was basically a socialist? We're taught all about him in elementary school - well, we're taught all about he believed in brotherhood and togetherness, and stuff, and how he didn't want to be violent, and stuff. We don't even hear about his opposition to the Vietnam War, let alone his passionate fight against poverty among all people. We get a cartoon MLK, sweet and cuddly, harmless, safe...not the real flesh-and-blood man, the social radical, the devoted pacifist, the imperfect man...it's frustrating.
Wait a sec - the poll numbers were right? Kerry up 37%? Edwards at 33%? Dean at 18%? Gephardt at 11%? Holy FUCK! Can't believe it. Honestly, until I see the final numbers, I'm not going to believe it. Gah. Kerry. We are so fucked.
So why is it that whenever I have chicken soup, I break out in a sweat afterwards?
Did I just buy a car?
...
Yeah, I did. Wow. I still need to figure out what to do with the old car - the sales weaselette at the dealership was pressuring me pretty hard to not trade it in, since it's basically worthless, but she was...difficult in all ways, so I didn't press the point. Actually, I'm going to be calling the dealership tomorrow to complain about how the weaselette treated me - she really bothered me, repeatedly insisting that I pay less in cash, take a longer term loan than I wanted, never really listening to anything I said, etc... I love the car, I love the price, but I *hated* the weaselette. I'm hoping I can not deal with her again. Hopefully, the sales manager will be more willing to listen to me regarding the old car...ah, I dunno. I'm just finding something to be nervous about, I guess. Not a huge shock - I'm putting $18,000 on this. That's a LOT of money...
I did it. I made a decision. I put down $500 to hold the car. I'm buying a black 2004 Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V. I'm totally freaked out right now.
So I cashed out 1100 or so stock options today, right? When I did it, Cisco's share price was at the highest it's been in nearly three years. I thought hey, it's already gone up over a dollar today - it's not likely to go up that much more, right? Yeah, well, it closed nearly another dollar over where I cashed out. Whoops. Not a huge deal - I just find it strangely ironic that the first time I ever do anything with my options, the stock has its best day in years - and I only catch half of it. Ah well - I still have more than enough for the down payment...
So there's been an increase in new car sales in California in the six weeks following the abolition of the new fee that Arnie campaigned against. Seems like a big deal, right? 19% increase across the board, 30% increase in luxury cars... But does anyone actually expect any impact the change actually had to be sustained? Yeah, car sales dropped when the fee went into effect (23%, versus 12% nationally over the same period) - but, if I remember correctly, wasn't that right about the same time as the recall election? And wasn't Arnie campaigning on, among other things, a promise to get rid of the license fee? So, of COURSE, people are going to wait to buy their cars, if they can, (a) until they know whether Arnie's going to get elected, and (b) if he DOES get elected, until the fee stops applying. So suddenly we see a drastic drop in auto sales when the fee STARTS, and then a drastic jump when the fee STOPS.
The article goes on to say that there was about a 2% drop nationally in the period when the Cali sales went up 19%. Sounds like a pretty impressive difference, right? Well, let's take a closer look. If Californian auto sales dropped 23% in the with-fee period, that means we're looking at 77% of the September sales. The US-wide sales dropped 12%, to 88% of September sales. After the 19% boost, California's back up to about 92% of September sales, while the country as a whole fell another 2%, to about 86% of September sales. So it's not like we're looking at a huge difference, in the end, as compared to the rest of the country. When also consider that the last 6 weeks of '03 had a lot of really nasty weather in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, you might expect that car sales would do poorly in that area during that time. I don't have numbers on that, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if that led to a couple percent drop in sales in the nation as a whole. So chances are, the difference is even less.
Oh, and you wanna know a nice way to jack up sales? Increase the cost, either to artificially inflate the price or because of outside forces (as in this case), and then after a while, cut it. End effect? Prices are comparable before and after, but people often only notice the drop at the end, and sales go up. You don't think that might have had something to do with this too, do you?
I am SO very VERY freaked out right now - I just exercised and sold a big chunk of stock options. That's gonna be the down payment for the car...but still. Yeah. Wow. Lots of money. Wow.
Oh yeah - today's my third anniversay of starting full time at Cisco. Not bad, huh?
Ok, so there's no chance in hell that I'm getting a Prius - you have to wait like three months for those things. I test drove a Toyota Matrix - a Corolla wagon, basically. I liked it alright, but it had absolutely no power - it felt like my current car. My 10 year old crappy condition Saturn. Yeah. So none of that, thanks. It handled nicely, but not well enough to compensate. And it had a tiny steering wheel - I mean, uncomfortably small, and strangely positioned. I like to sit a little distance away from the pedals, so that I'm not squishing my legs. On my Saturn, I can still reach the steering wheel with no problems. On the Matrix...not really. The final kicker? It's still more expensive than the Sentra, at least after the various discounts/incentives/etc.
And yes, Rayne is right - I'm tending towards the Sentra, but not just because it's a fun car to drive. It is that, don't get me wrong - 175hp, stick shift, bucket seats, sports suspension...it's a fun toy for sure. But it's also the best deal I can get right now. I'm getting something with nice features - that's a given. This is going to be the car I drive for the next five years - I want something I can enjoy driving, and I'm lucky enough to be able to afford something I can enjoy driving. There's no better bang for my buck out there than the Sentra, as best as I can tell. It's comfortable, it's got bells and whistles, it's got a good (though admittedly not great) track record, and it's fun to drive. Seems likely to be the winner.
However - I've still got the Honda and Subaru dealerships to go to...I doubt anything's going to jump out at me from the Hondas, and I'm going to the Subarau dealership on the off chance that I fall in love with the Impreza, so I'm kind of expecting to be heading back to the Sentra in the end. Once I get whatever it is I get, I promise pictures will be posted, with the Clark '04 sticker (I got extras when I was up volunteering, knowing a new car wouldn't be too far out) nicely placed on the back. I've got a feeling that I might have the new car before the primary at this rate...
I'm going out for test drives this afternoon - trial by fire (or rather, really f'n deep cold) for the potential new cars. The Jetta has fallen off the list - Consumer Reports gives it a craaaapy reliability rating. The Civic Hybrid has fallen by the wayside - not quite enough bang for my buck. The current contenders are the Prius (though it is expensive and in high enough demand that I probably won't get much wiggle room on the price), the Sentra (with Cisco's vendor discount with Nissan and the $2,000 cash back they've got going now, a fully loaded really sporty Sentra with all the toys is still under $17k, which is pretty nice), the Toyota Matrix (if I'm really serious about four wheel drive, basically...probably not, but worth a test drive), and maybe a really low mileage 2003 Camry or Accord (I'd sort of like to get a slightly bigger car than a compact, but the '04 Camrys and Accords ain't cheap. But a number of dealerships have ex-rental cars with barely any miles for reasonable prices, so I'll take a look...). If I do decide on the Sentra, I'll probably be aiming at getting it sometime next week - the cash back ends at the end of the month. So this could all be over soon. Eep. It better warm up before then, though - I need to clean out my Saturn before trading it in, and there's no way I'm doing that outside in subzero weather...
I'm replacing the 10-year-old Saturn sometime in the next month or so - it's worn out its welcome by this point. I'm giving myself a budget of about $20k - I'll be covering around half of that with the down payment - and I need to figure out what cars I should look at. Here's what I'm thinking as possibilities so far - Jetta, the Civic Hybrid, the sportier Nissan Sentra model. Anyone else have any other suggestions? I'm looking for a quality car that's at least a little fun to drive.
I swear, my nose hairs froze while I was walking to the car this morning. It was -8 or so at the time. This has gone too far - where's global warming when you need it?
Well, THAT went better than expected. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a bit more traveling out to San Jose in the next few months...
Ack. Ack. Ack. I've got a monster meeting in less than an hour, I'm supposed to run it, and I'm scared shitless. I know it'll work out ok, but that isn't stopping me from panicking like a madman now. Ack. Ack. Ack.
The Guardian has an interesting article on how the leaders of the Labour party in the UK look on the possibility of a Dean presidency - very, very poorly. The key factor is the war, of course, but it's interesting to see Al From of the DLC allying himself with actual bonafide members of the Socialist International against his own party - From has an article in a Blair-controlled journal bashing Dean. I say screw the Labour party - they've betrayed their principles anyway. Let's reach out to the LibDems instead - once we both get in power, things'll be quite nice on both sides of the Atlantic.
Thanks ZellFrom the American Prospect comes this little factoid: Zell Miller voted against the Democrtic position a whopping 95.1% of the time! Comparatively, John Breaux (the next most conservative Democrat) voted against the party 41.9% of the time while Fritz Holling...
[Pandagon]
Well, he's a total bastard, at least. Glad to see HIM go. Seriously, voting against the party 95% of the time? Does that mean he even voted with the Republicans on the most generic of votes? InSANE, I say. I think the Democratic Party could use a good little bloodless purge of Republicans-in-sheeps-clothing like that assmunch.
Why is it that I have to send a fax to get access to do online trading with my stock options? Does that make any sense at all? And when do I get my W2 for last year? I'd like to get my taxes done ASAP - mainly for the refund, I'll admit, since my car is just about dead and anything I can get my hands on will help with the down payment - but it hasn't shown up yet and TurboTax couldn't get it online. I know, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but hey, why not?
How exactly does one check to see if a car is low on transmission fluid, anyway?
I have a nifty little adapter that turns a headphone-style output, like on my computer, into a TV-style left/right RCA audio connector. An ex-roommate of mine had an even better one than the one I've got - his turned the female headphone jack into a female RCA audio jack, while mine turns a female headphone jack into a male RCA audio connector. Which is frustrating right now, because I'd really like to be pumping audio output from my laptop (that is, the 2,000+ songs I've ripped from my CDs) to my home theater while I'm sitting here and working on a couple monumental presentations for work. At work, I'm used to an ongoing random assortment of these songs - I've even got a filter in my music player software to only play songs I haven't heard for the last four weeks. Keeps things fresh. But the cable that's an integral part of my headphone-to-RCA adapter doesn't reach from the couch to the home theater, to my dismay. I know, in theory, I could go out to Radio Shack and get a different adapter, or a gender changer for the RCA cable (I've got a surfeit of super-long RCA cables lying around), but it's currently around 3 degrees out, and my car's still reeling from yesterday morning. So I'm forced to settle for five discs in the home theater on shuffle. Sigh.
Wait, that sounded really bad, didn't it? =)
In case you're at all curious, here's today's work music:
But anyway - I need to get back to work. I've got to wrap up one presentation and pound through a second - I'm basically selling a complete change in the source control/release engineering model for a development group of 80 people, and I've got to do it over the phone on Tuesday. I really should have done this while I was out in San Jose, but hey... What's more, they're notoriously resistant to change, so I've got to seperate out bits and pieces and sell them on each part individually - if I tried to sell the entire big picture, they'd throw riots over parts that are still months away and malleable, keeping us from ever getting to an agreement on the more impending issues that aren't nearly as controversial. We were trying to just pitch them on the near-term changes without bringing up the potential later ones, but someone (if you're a regular reader, you can probably guess who I'm referring to here...) cut-and-pasted a group-internal long-term roadmap email I'd written into an email to the entire development team in question. Ouch. That didn't work out well. Anyway - I wanna get this done by 4pm today, so I gotta get back to it...
Every morning, I reload and reload and reload until the new ARG NH tracking poll comes in. It's not that I think it'll actually mean anything, but when my man Clark has gained 2 points a day for the last four days, it's a little exciting to see if he's gotten even stronger. As of now, there's nothing new, but there will be soon. So I sit here reloading, and working on a doc from hell for a meeting on Tuesday - more on THAT fun later...
Well, ok, so I love the idea. I'm a sci-fi geek with a childhood obsession with astronomy - of COURSE I want to go back to the moon and onward. I also believe that the program could have huge positive impact back here on Earth, at least if managed properly. Back in the '60s, we peaked at around 3% of US GDP being spent on research and development. I don't have the exact numbers for now, but it's nowhere near that high. While outcome-motivated R&D, like what would be needed for a moon base and Mars landing, doesn't have as much potential as the more generic funding also available in the '60s (which spawned the Internet, don't forget), there's still a ton of potential there, both technologically and economically. Hey, if we're going to throw money at American corporations (Halliburton, agribusiness, Boeing, etc...) why not throw it at something that'll give us something grand and glorious in return?
That said, it pisses me off that Bush is proposing this. Why? Because I doubt he actually will follow through. What, other than invading Iraq and cutting taxes, has Bush EVER followed through on? This is just a ploy to grab headlines and a few votes, no more, no less. Clark would be far more likely to follow through on this - I mean, the guy dreamed of being an astronaut as a kid. Bush? Probably dreamed of being...um...rich. Or something. I dunno. BTW, I'm sure you've seen it already, but the latest ARG NH tracking poll has Dean steady at 35%, Clark up another 2% at 20%, and Kerry continuing to fall at 11%. This is pretty damned big, I think.
Half an hour ago, it was -6 out, with a wind chill of -23. Ouch. Makes San Jose look better, and better. I'm waiting for it to get to at least 10 before I even try to leave - my car does NOT like the extreme cold at all.
Today's update: Dean - 35%, Clark - 18%, Kerry - 12%. That's from 36/16/13 yesterday, and 39/12/14 on Sunday. This is definitely significant.
No, this isn't from the Onion.
In their report, they said the government faces a $47 trillion shortfall in its ability to pay for those and all other long-term obligations. Closing that gap would require "an immediate and permanent" federal tax increase of 60% or a 50% cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Yup, that's the f'n IMF, maniacs for privatization and enemy of leftie economic policies all the world over, calling for massive tax hikes in the US. At the rate this is going, Bush's dad is going to call for tax hikes soon.
Clark Moves Into Second In New HampshireThe American Research Group New Hampshire Tracking Poll shows Wesley Clark has moved into second place behind Howard Dean. Sen. John Kerry has fallen to third place. Clark has a new television ad running in New Hampshire "that gained very favorable playback from women on Monday." If he is able...
Dean's at 36%, Clark's at 16%, Kerry's at 13%. That ain't nothin', especially since it fits with the trends for the last week. Toss in the nationwide Gallup poll from yesterday (Dean 24%, Clark 20%, 5%+-) and the favorable/unfavorable numbers for Dean and Clark (Dean - 28% fav/39% unfav overall, 45% fav/22% unfav among Dems/Dem leaners, 11% fav/58% unfav among Repubs/Repub leaners, with Clark - 37% fav/26% unfav overall, 45% fav/15% unfav among Dems/Dem leaners, 32% fav/38% unfav among Repubs/Repub leaners) and we've got ourselves a race. I think it's especially noteworthy that Clark got a 2% boost the day after announcing his tax plan - which I'm, not surprisingly, a big fan of...
So I wake up at 5:30am, spending a few minutes in that never really fun half-dream/half-waking state. Once I am fully awake, I'm trying to figure out why I'm awake half an hour before my alarm. It didn't take me long to figure it out - my next-door neighbors sounded like they were having a party, with a good four or five loud voices and loud music. At 5:30am, on a Wednesday. Argh. These guys have done this kind of thing in the past, but generally, their really late nights (or really early mornings - I can't tell for sure) aren't during the work week. To make this even worse, I forgot my medication at work yesterday, making it even harder to wake up. Sigh.
Liberals vs. LeftistsAs a preface to this, I have to say that one of my biggest blog-related annoyances is when someone decides to create a new political taxonomy without doing any more research than what's available through their own experience. That having...
[Pandagon]
You gotta read this - Jesse tears apart some loonie who's attempting to create a false distinction between nice, safe liberals and bad, bad leftists. As someone who easily and happily self-identifies as both a liberal and a leftist, I think this guy's whole thesis is absurd, but hey - he's a Instahack knockoff. What can you expect?
Anyone out there know of someone with ClearCase experience and a fluency in Perl in the San Jose area who's looking for work? I *think* we may have a slot open soon for a release engineer consultant, but none of us know anyone in the SJ area, and I dread having to blindly go through resumes. If you're at all interested or know someone who could be at all interested, let me know.
I'm currently sitting in the Derry, NH regional Clark headquarters, taking a quick break from what has to be the most exciting campaign work I've ever done - data entry. They've got pages and pages of call info that needs to be entered into a (rather crappy) Access database, and, well, I don't really want to canvas or do phone calls, so here I am. Fun. =)
While poking around the Clark site, I saw that they're hiring a Perl hacker in Boston. I'm actually exactly what they want. Shame I've already got my job - 'cos I'm not leaving it at this point - but if you're a Perl hacker with Mason experience in the Boston area, check out the Clark page and find their job listings.
If I lived in the UK, I'd probably be a LibDem. If I were in Canada, I'd be a member of the NDP. But here in the US, I'm in the more conservative Democratic Party. So why? I guess it's because there's no other real options, if you want to have your voice actually be heard. I'd love there to be a third party that represented my interests, but there isn't, especially not here in Massachusetts, which is basically a one party state anyway. So I'm working through the established channels, I guess. More on this line of thought later...
