Random basketball content - I'm watching the Pistons v. the Pacers and rooting for the Pistons. Why? Well, I've enjoyed the Wallace Boys for a while, but really, it's Rip Hamilton - the guy's got 28 points with half of the 3rd quarter to go, and I don't think he's actually had his hands on the ball for more than 30 seconds total. I've never seen anyone move without the ball as well as this guy. Wow.
Ok, it's in the low 50s outside, but seems a lot colder than that in here - probably because the heat's off. I can turn the air conditioning on, which is nice, but it's too damned cold. What is WRONG with the seasons?!?
I'm watching part of Gore's speech from today. He just referred to the Bush administration as "America's long national nightmare". Daaaamn. He's naming names - calling for Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Cambone, Rice all to resign. The raw emotion in his voice is amazing. Honestly, this man should be our nominee for President, not John Kerry.
So I'm working from home today, and a nasty thunderstorm comes through. No biggie - except for the extremely annoying car alarm that keeps going off whenever a lightning strike (and related thunderclap) hit close enough to my building. Considering that I'm pretty sure we've been hit once or twice, and the other tall buildings right around us have been hit a couple times that I've seen, at least, that means that car alarm has been blasting at me pretty much constantly for the last twenty minutes. Argh.
I've been going through apartment listings at craiglist for Palo Alto and Mountain View, and I've come to a realization - I really want stairs. I want a place with multiple floors, even if the space on each floor is relatively small. I don't know why, exactly, but I think it'll feel more adult to me, if that makes any sense. I'm a bit interested in the idea of having a yard, too. Frankly, if I had more money on hand and a better credit rating - oh, and if I were moving to a non-insane-house-price region of the country - I'd probably be trying to buy a house. 'course, that's not happening right now, but that's not the point. I wanna be a grown-up, dammit!
Looking at pictures of the yards and lawns around various apartments out around San Jose is kind of freaky for a New Englander like myself - the vegetation looks almost completely different from what I'm used to. They've got palm things there! Spooky! I can't believe I'm actually moving out there in less than two months.
Holy crap! I'm really honest-to-god moving. Yikes. Hits me once in a while - it's kind of scary, to be honest. I'm gonna stop looking at apartments now - I've sent enough emails for one night...
Don't. It's not good. The entire movie focuses on Achilles - but it's a bland, vapid Achilles, one who can (and is!) redeemed by the love of a woman. Seriously. They get rid of all the homoeroticism between Achilles and Patroclus by making Patroclus his cousin. Odysseus, who Sean Bean was well cast as, barely shows up. Brad Pitt...well, I had high hopes for him in this. I thought he could do the psychopathic whackjob Achilles pretty well. I still think he could have. But this was Meet Achilles Black, if you know what I mean. Bleh. Just not a good movie.
There were two non-Troy highlights to my movie-going experience today. One was the absolute mob scene at the theater - every single show of Shrek 2 was sold out, hours ahead of time. I've never seen the theater so busy on an afternoon. For some reason, I got a kick out of this. The other highlight? The preview for the new King Arthur movie, which I'll admit to looking forward to. Hey, I like Clive Owen, alright? Anyway, it looks trashtacular - Keira Knightley as a badass Celtic warrior-princess version of Guinevere (yeah, a Celtic warrior princess with a French name. That'll work.) - complete with woad face paint in at least some scenes - should be worth the price of admission on its own. Stupid, stupid fun - the one good thing about a Jerry Bruckenheimer movie is that you know it won't take itself TOO seriously. Unlike Troy.
I'm rooting for the Pistons. I can't help it - I hate the Nets, and I really love watching Ben Wallace play.
I got this from here, via Atrios. Here's the Instahack quote that inspired this whole discussion:
Freedom of the press, as it exists today (and didn't exist, really, until the 1960s) is unlikely to survive if a majority -- or even a large and angry minority -- of Americans comes to conclude that the press is untrustworthy and unpatriotic. How far are we from that point?
Roy (of alicublog) responds with four semi-serious points, and then...
5.) Fuck you, you stupid fucking hayseed fuck.
Nice. The wave of right-wing assholes who think that the media is anti-America simply because it reports bad news about Iraq need to get slapped down and hard. Wanna-be fascist jackasses.
No, seriously, for their show on Sunday, the 26th of September, at the Greek Theater at Berkeley. I just happened to come across tour dates and decided to take a look on Ticketmaster to see when they were playing where. Lo and behold, a third show in Berkeley, the Sunday afternoon show I bought two tickets for, was added last week. They still haven't announced any dates in the Boston area, which is kind of sad, but hey, I'll be in the Bay Area in two months anyway.
So now I've got a spare ticket to see the freakin' Pixies - I've got a way to make people be my friend once I've moved. =) Damn, this is great. I f'n love the Pixies, and have since, well, forever. I remember hearing "Debaser" for the first time and just getting blown away. Doolittle is still firmly in my top five albums of all time. And now I'm finally gonna get to see them live. By the way, the Phoenix has a great article on the Pixies and their performance at Coachella a couple weeks ago. Go read it.
I'm going to see the god damned Pixies!
Well, everywhere in Massachuetts. Here's an article on the first same-sex marriages in blue-collar Lowell. Just to reinforce the impact this has had, take a look at this map of Worcester County - this isn't the immediate Boston suburbs. In fact, Worcester County is the home of a number of the extremist anti-marriage types in the legislature. But even there...wow.
...it's all old hat now, but still - look at these pictures from around Massachusetts. This has just been an amazing day.
Boston.com has a schedule of events around the state today. I don't think I'm going to be able to get out of the office in time to go provide moral support - someone else do so for me!
Boston.com has pictures from Boston City Hall, namely of the Goodridges, the lead plantiffs in the case. How can anyone look at this picture of the Goodridges and their daughter and find something to complain about?
This AP article just reinforces that point:
In neighboring Boston, the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to the landmark ruling Hillary and Julie Goodridge walked hand-in-hand into city hall to begin the process so they could get married later that day.
It was three years ago that they were turned away from Boston City Hall when they sought a marriage license. This time, Mayor Thomas Menino greeted them personally.
''Once again, we've broken down a barrier in the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts,'' Menino said. ''That's what it's all about.''
The Goodridges, tailed by a throng of reporters watching their every move, were effusive.
''Next to the birth of our daughter, this is the happiest day of our lives,'' Julie Goodridge said.
''It's exhilarating, it's absolutely thrilling, it's overwhelming, I'm so happy,'' Hillary Goodridge said.
It is worth noting that the Goodridges won't actually be the first couple to get married. From the same article:
Tanya McCloskey, 52 and Marcia Kadish, 56, of Malden, went at a breakneck pace to fill out paperwork, get a waiver from the usual three-day waiting period, then return to city hall where they got their marriage license and exchanged vows.
At 9:15 a.m., Cambridge City Clerk Margaret Drury told the couple: ''I now pronounce you married under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.''
Congratulations to all!
During the SF weddings, people from around the world were sending flowers to City Hall through local florists. There's been interest in doing the same in Massachusetts now, but I haven't actually seen anyone posting instructions. I'm a little too busy right now to do so myself, but I have found a florist just down the street from Cambridge City Hall. I'll throw more florists up here near other prominent city and town halls (Boston, Somerville, Northampton) as I find 'em. Let me know if you happen to use 'em and it works out well.
Via Atrios - you can see 'em here. The site's a little slow, but the pictures are great. Yet more pictures here, too. Yet more pics at the Boston Herald, Yahoo, and the Globe (linked to in the next entry).
Driving to work this morning, I went a little out of my way and went past Lowell City Hall. While there weren't any couples lined up outside (it was already past 9:30 when I went by), there were supporters outside, with a whole bunch of bouqets, which I assume they plan to hand out to couples. This really is happening, and not just in the great liberal bastions of Cambridge and Provincetown - the San Francisco, New Paltz, and Portland weddings, besides not actually being legal, were also in very liberal cities. There's something really amazing about same-sex couples getting marriage licenses in a socially-conservative old mill-town like Lowell. Plus, the Lowell Sun, the not-very-high-quality and rather conservative regional daily newspaper, has a big headline of "Wedding bells are ringing" and a not-too-freaky-looking picture of a gay couple kissing. It's like I always predicted - once it's a reality, very few people are actually going to feel so strongly against same-sex marriage.
Of course, some people are still whining, namely the Christian Coalition. They quote something from O'Malley that just sounds ridiculous:
Christian Coalition statement said that the group agrees with Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley when he said last week, "The creation of a right to same-sex marriage in the end will not strengthen the institution of marriage within our society, but only weaken it, as marriage becomes only one lifestyle choice among many others."
Um...so....how exactly does letting more people marry turn marriage into one lifestyle choice among many others, if it wasn't ALREADY one lifestyle choice among many others? That's just gibberish.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Well, either that, or gay people is gettin' MARRIED! Here's one tidbit:
Keith Hershberger, 54, and Kevin Green, 50, drove up from Brooklyn to become the 32nd couple to apply for a license. On their form, they initially wrote that they were from New York City and intended to stay there, but a clerk told them that they would not issue them a license unless they intended to move to Massachusetts. So they crossed out New York City and wrote in Shelburne Falls, Mass.
"We do love Shelburne Falls," said Mr. Hershberger, who wore a long braid, a brown cowboy hat and a turquoise earring. "And we would like to retire there."
The Times has a small slideshow here of pics from Cambridge last night. But you really have to take a look at Boston.com - the main page has a banner headline of "Free to marry" (which, I assume, is also on the cover of the Globe, though I haven't seen it yet today) and this picture:
The Globe has a special section pulling all their same-sex marriage coverage together. They've also got video clips from NECN, among others. There's a BUNCH of articles - I haven't had a chance to read through all of 'em yet - more once I've got through 'em.
Tonight's the night. I'll be dredging for pictures all day tomorrow - but here's the first, of couples waiting in line for when Cambrdige City Hall starts accepting marriage applications at midnight:
And Romney continues to get slapped around by state attorneys - Middlesex County and Norfolk County's DAs have basically laughed off Romney's attempt to get them to charge town clerks who perform out-of-state same-sex marriages. This is particularly relevant because Somerville, which is in Middlesex County, has said they'll perform out-of-state same-sex marriages.
One last thing - while Archbishop O'Malley is doing his best to use the Catholic Church to further his homophobic positions, not all Catholics agree with him - check out this letter from various prominent priests, nuns, and lay Catholics. It'll make you feel a little better about the world.
Wow - I'm sitll churning through the episode, but this one has got to be in the top 5 weirdest episodes yet. There's a classic Tony dream sequence, featuring a lot of dead people and Annette Benning. Seriously. And a dead guy singing that "Once, twice, three times a lady" song. Now we're getting Godfather references - really strange Godfather references, too. Wait - was that just a mob of angry German villagers chasing him with torches and dogs? Yeah, it was. I wish to hell I knew what the hell was going on.
So last night, Tim Duncan makes an amazing shot to seal the game for the Spurs over the Lakers - and then Derek Fisher drains a shot with half a second to win the game for the Lakers. Stunning stuff. Now, the Nets versus the Pistons - two of my three least favorite Eastern Conference teams. Typically, these guys throw incredibly boring low-scoring games at each other. Tonight, there was some actual scoring, but things really got nuts with 12 seconds to go, Nets up 87 to 85. Jason Kidd gets fouled and misses both free throws, giving the Pistons 7 or 8 seconds to score a basket. Chauncey Billups rockets up court, and makes a break to the hoop through traffic. He's got a great layup opportunity, throws it up - and Richard Jefferson flies out of NOWHERE to slam the ball into the backboard from behind. Great, great block, and he's loving it, jumping around and yelling.
So it's basically over now - the Pistons quickly foul Kerry Kittles - who misses one of two shots, leaving a 3 point lead with 2 seconds to go. Billups gets inbounded the ball, and darts across half-court. He needs a three to tie it...and he lobs it up. Nails it. Wow. This is dramatic basketball. Overtime. I'm having a good time watching this. =)
It's official - I'm transferring out to San Jose in late July, with the move happening on or around July 19th. I'll be heading out there for a week in early June to apartment hunt (and work). Wow. I'm quite excited. And a bit nervous.
Now if I could just finish up this work - I've got to convert 140 subprojects into the new build system I've written for the San Jose-based product, and it takes, on average, between 5 and 10 minutes per subproject to write up the new files and test them. I've got 50 done, and 90 to go. I want to get it done by sometime tomorrow. Ouch.
It's nowhere near as much fun as The Mummy, and it's way too long, but it's pretty fun in its stupidity. I've got to admit, though, that my favorite thing about the movie was when they went to "Budapest" - which, as it turned out, was actually located on the island of Kampa, on the left bank of the Vlatva in Prague, just under the Charles Bridge. I recognized the National Theater in the background, on the other side of the river, right away, and then there was a quick shot of the towers at the end of the bridge. Obviously, this isnt a shock or anything - an unbelievable number of movies are shot in Prague now - but I thought it was funny.
It got even better, though - there was a scene in "Dracula's summer palace" - which happened to be St. Nicholas Church in the Mala Strana in Prague, a big and very baroque church. I took a bunch of pictures of it, but I wasn't sure until the shots of Dracula and Anna dancing - if you look behind them, you'll see this statue, or at least the bottom part, with the scroll and the little demon's head:
You can also recognize the pattern on the floor, and the various pseudo-marble-and-pseudo-gold statues, though the alcoves on the side were blocked off. Anyway, now I need to go back and watch other movies shot in Prague and see what I can recognize in them. I'm such a geek.
From Andrew Sullivan's latest:
The one anti-war argument that, in retrospect, I did not take seriously enough was a simple one. It was that this war was noble and defensible but that this administration was simply too incompetent and arrogant to carry it out effectively. I dismissed this as facile Bush-bashing at the time. I was wrong. I sensed the hubris of this administration after the fall of Baghdad, but I didn't sense how they would grotesquely under-man the post-war occupation, bungle the maintenance of security, short-change an absolutely vital mission, dismiss constructive criticism, ignore even their allies (like the Brits), and fail to shift swiftly enough when events span out of control. This was never going to be an easy venture; and we shouldn't expect perfection. There were bound to be revolts and terrorist infractions. The job is immense; and many of us have rallied to the administration's defense in difficult times, aware of the immense difficulties involved. But to have allowed the situation to slide into where we now are, to have a military so poorly managed and under-staffed that what we have seen out of Abu Ghraib was either the result of a) chaos, b) policy or c) some awful combination of the two, is inexcusable. It is a betrayal of all those soldiers who have done amazing work, who are genuine heroes, of all those Iraqis who have risked their lives for our and their future, of ordinary Americans who trusted their president and defense secretary to get this right. To have humiliated the United States by presenting false and misleading intelligence and then to have allowed something like Abu Ghraib to happen - after a year of other, compounded errors - is unforgivable. By refusing to hold anyone accountable, the president has also shown he is not really in control. We are at war; and our war leaders have given the enemy their biggest propaganda coup imaginable, while refusing to acknowledge their own palpable errors and misjudgments. They have, alas, scant credibility left and must be called to account. Shock has now led - and should lead - to anger. And those of us who support the war should, in many ways, be angrier than those who opposed it.
Via Kevin Drum. Wow. You need to read the whole thing. Go. Read it. When Sullivan's not just being difficult for the sake of being difficult, he can be one of the most brutally honest and accurate writers out there.
Well, actually, I arrived over an hour and a half ago, but who's counting?
Well, I'm off - gotta run some errands before catching the train down to New Yawk. I'll probably post sometime this late afternoon, once I'm at Rachel's.
It's almost 10pm, I meant to go to bed an hour ago, but lo and behold, I've spent two hours hacking code. I discovered earlier today that I'm the 20th hit on Google for 'workaholic'. Kind of apropos, all things considered. I mean, I love fiddling with code, tweaking it until it works perfectly - the rush from getting functional code done is really unbelievable - but I really need to sleep more...
Well, that's why I'm going on vacation tomorrow.
My MP3 player is all but dead, I'm feeling a strong desire to strangle a certain other-coastal co-worker of mine, and I'm painfully hungry. Today is definitely one of those days. I'm seriously debating going and buying a new MP3 player tonight...I don't think I *will*, but I'm tempted.
Chris over at Left Center Left has a really interesting look at commentary on the new computer science building at MIT - I'll have to ask Dad, an MIT CS alum, how he feels about it, but in the meantime, you've got to see the place:
There's a bird outside my window that I swear is tweeting the first bar of Beethoven's Fifth over and over again.
...this weekend, leaving on Friday, getting there in the afternoon, coming home on Sunday. Should be fun - I'll actually see Rachel in person for the first time in nearly two years!
Just watched The Weather Underground - a docuementary on, well, the Weather Underground, from last year. My gut reaction? Those guys were idiots. I already knew this, mind you - I've read a number of books on the '60s radicals in general and the Weather Underground specifically. But damn - they were really, really stupid. And terrorists - I know, after the townhouse bombing accidently killed three of their own, they never deliberately targeted people again, but bombings are bombings are bombings are unexcusable. Damn.
Bizarre tidbit - Brian Flanagan, a Weather Underground member, now owns a bar and won $23,000 on Jeopardy. I'm not making this up.
This is probably the best article out there yet on the Iraq prison torture scandal - not a huge shock, consider that its author, Seymour Hersh, is the person who blew the My Lai massacre story into the public consciousness.
As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba’s report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.
As Kevin Drum points out, this knocks a hole in the theory that the abuses were isolated and abnormal. I still desperately hope that they were, but I'm terribly afraid that they aren't... If you're one of the five people who haven't already seen the pictures, you can find them here.
Update - 5/5/04 - the spin control in Iraq and the rest of the Arab world is starting. I highly doubt it'll work:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) About 2,000 Iraqis demonstrated in front of Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison on Wednesday to protest U.S. treatment of prisoners there, as the commander of U.S.-run prisons in Iraq promised to end humiliating interrogation techniques.
The protesters, enraged about pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused by smiling American guards, gathered outside the main gate, with some chanting ''democracy doesn't mean killing innocent people.'' They also hoisted a banner which said: ''Free women or we will launch jihad.''
President Bush was to conduct brief interviews with the U.S.-sponsored Al-Hurra television network and the Arab network Al Arabiya on Wednesday to address Iraqi and Arab outrage at the photographs.
No matter how often Bush says that he, too, is disgusted by what happened, it won't change how Iraqis feel about this, and how they associate it with Bush and the US occupation in general. This is the kind of incredibly stupid mistake we should have never, ever allowed to be made.
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