Donald Trump will be my President. And he will be your President. And saying otherwise will make you sound no better than the petulant parents who kept their kids home from school so that they wouldn’t be exposed to Obama speaking on a telecast, 7 years ago. He’ll be my Continue Reading
rant
Why Trump?
I am mystified by the relative success of Trump’s campaign. I can understand he’d have some amount of support. He’s been a media personality for 30 years. He’ll have developed a fan base in that time. But the idea of seriously voting for him for President, on a mass scale, Continue Reading
Why do I still blog after 18 years?
My blog’s older than Twitter and Facebook, and it will outlive them. It has seen Flickr explode and then fade. It’s seen Google Wave and Google Reader come and go, and it’ll still be here as Google Plus fades. When Medium and Tumblr are gone, my blog will be here. Continue Reading
Inspirational Television
Small observation, regarding television shows: I like Aaron Sorkin shows. Yes he’s an incredible writer. Yes, while he has a definite liberal bent, he has no trouble calling out stupidity wherever he sees it. But… but… it occurs to me tonight–while I have Studio 60 on in the background while Continue Reading
Mother.
Dear lady with the cute baby in the stroller, You may not know this, but muttering snarky comments under your breath as you walk away isn’t the best way to convey information. If I caught your words correctly, I should point out that given how I was walking down a Continue Reading
Buy a house.
The perfect antidote to the desire to buy a house is the process of buying a house. My process so far certainly hasn’t been standard, but even the best of sales seem to take their toll. You spend a large amount of time looking through listings and going on tours, Continue Reading
Gentrification
I like this article on gentrification in DC. (“Gentrification in D.C.: How will we remember those displaced?” in the Washington Post). While ‘gentrification’ is a loaded word, the article is one of the more balanced I’ve read on the topic. It doesn’t instantly assume that the new people moving into Continue Reading
bad light
You want a horribly colored photo? Stick me in a room with incandescent lighting, and beige walls, and beige furniture. No matter how much I mess with the white balance, I can never quite get it right, under those conditions.
Photoshopped
Just had another photo chosen as Photo of the Day on DCist. And immediately — and not for the first time — received some comments about photoshopping. I adjust things like the lightness and darkness and sharpness. In that sense, yes it’s photoshopped. But these are the same things photographers Continue Reading
Shopping
I am impressed. I placed an order with Amazon yesterday. Well … one of the retailers who sells through Amazon. Because if this was Amazon, I would not be impressed. If this was Amazon, they would tell me “Your order has shipped”, and for the next 3 days, UPS would Continue Reading
Rules for dating (especially for “nice guys”)
In no particular order, and open to frequent revision: Rule 1: Forget everything you’ve learned. Forget whatever you saw on every TV show, movie, fairy tale, or webcast. Most of them are ridiculous, stilted, or simplistic. Real emotions and hormones are unreliable, gritty, and erratic. To think a cleaned up Continue Reading
Don’t be a dick
Don’t be a dick, when you get drunk. I can live with drunk people getting loud. And they can even get reasonably obnoxious when they’re drunk. (I have one friend who gets very adamant about everything when drunk). But don’t be a dick. Don’t be the guys who dragged me Continue Reading
hate.
Occasionally it feels really good to have money to throw at a problem. Coming home on the subway, 3 car-hopping poster-children-for-abortion threatened to set me on fire with a lighter. They followed me off the train and out of the gates. Reported it to the booth worker, who called in Continue Reading
Nice Guys
Being a “nice guy” is like being an alcoholic, in that you’re never really cured. There’s always that little bit of something in the back of your mind, waiting to jump out and take over your life again. So I speak from personal experience, but hopefully at a distance. It Continue Reading
bad. fucking. mood.
bad. fucking. mood.
bad does not equal evil
It’s important to remember, when you’re latching on and criticizing the man for the latest unpopular or controversial thing done by the Obama administration, that every president does bad things. No one can lead and be perpetually good and popular. We weren’t ashamed of Bush for doing bad things. We Continue Reading
no i.d. for you
must kill someone. jesus. I have always thought it incredibly stupid how every building wants you to sign in unless you work or live there. There’s absolutely no security value to it.* Even if I didn’t go to the mental effort of giving a fake name, it’s not going to Continue Reading
politics
obligatory: yes, i voted. Spent an hour in line at my polling place. Which wasn’t too bad, compared to the last 2 major elections. I kind of want to write before I hear any of the official results. As it is, it seems very likely that Obama will win, barring Continue Reading
not just you
So there were two thoughts bugging me on the metro tonight. One new, and one very old. Here’s the first, and we’ll see about the second if I still have the energy later. More than a few times recently, I’ve been thinking of things I want to write. They’ve concerned Continue Reading
Down with Xenu
Stupid little buggers. I went to take pictures at the Anonymous protest, yesterday. Anonymous — if you’re unaware — is a protest movement against the Church of Scientology. The movement’s organizers cloak themselves in anonymity to “protect” themselves from the Scientologist’s well-documented harassment of any critics. So the protests are Continue Reading