Temping is teh s uck.

I just thought I'd get that out there asap. I'm in the midst of a serious job hunt, in addition to my little/no pay music writing gig, and three months is longer than I'm willing to go with zero income on my part. Hopefully I'll have another interview to pursue soon. We'll see though.

Speaking of music...

One thing that I cannot stand is the almost slavish way in which a lot of indie kids will fawn over their favorite bands. I mean it's bad in alot of scenes, but not nearly as much as in the indie music scene. I sometimes got the impression that if Win Butler came out on stage and started pissing off of it, indie kids would run right up to the front, mouths open, shouting "Yes! Thank you, Win! Thank you, Arcade Fire! We don't deserve to have another brilliant band that takes older rock concepts and recycles them for a new audience! Please give me your waste! And don't forget my hair!"

More later...

"Ice cream for dinner"

As J and I were walking down the street in our new neighborhood, we overheard a man saying these words as he talked into his cell phone.

GREETINGS FROM MONTANA

Billings, actually. Better known by its other name "I can't believe I'm in Billings, Montana." Just a stopover tonight on our way to our new home. So far we've stopped in Pittsburgh, PA, Youngstown, OH, Cleveland, OH (for a quick bite), Madison, WI (really not a bad little town), Minneapolis, MN (for Lupper at Ecopolitan, an all vegan raw foods restaurant that I highly recommend), Fargo, ND, which brings us to where we are. Anyways...

Holy crap. Leave for two months and the world goes batshit crazy. O'Connor retiring, so now we finally get to see if the Dems have some sack or if they're just going to be whiny, chatty compromise wusses and totally cave in on the founding values of the party. I'm hoping for a fight, but I'll be surprised to get one. In the meantime, I don't usually do this, but if anyone who manages to stumble across this thing feels so inclined, and one of your congressmen/senators is on the judiciary committee, make it clear to them that this President will not get another Scalia in the court.

Speaking of Batshit, Christian Bale totally sells it as batman/bruce wayne. Katie Holmes (looking more and more like she has the Stockholm Syndrome every day)...not so much.

More when I can. The mountain time, she screws me up.

Much More To Come

Both of us have been rather lax in updates, as life has sort of taken it's toll. A quick update on things to come:

1) Graduate School: I think a month is more than enough wiggle room to allow Em to report that she has accepted admission to the University of Washington's School of Engineering . Obviously this means that we're;
2) Seattle Bound: We will be heading west in late June/Early July. Hopefully enough time for me to seek out and find a job, a task which I'm hoping will be slightly easier now that I've finally;
3) Earned My Master's Degree: Granted, it's a degree in writing, but I have more than enough general office skills and specific industry trade skills to get me by. Nevertheless, glad to finally be done. In celebration of the above two events, we took a much needed;
4) Vacation: To London, actually, from which we just returned. Now was the perfect time, since travel to the U.K. from the West Coast would have been that much more expensive.

So that's where we are right now. More updates soon I promise. And sorry to keep the hangers on...well...hanging on.

Last evening, I was driving down 13th St, and on a block just north of Cardozo High School, I came across several police personnel and vehicles along the side of the road. Traffic was getting by in both directions, but it was going quite slowly, as we had to squeeze by. As I passed by the scene, a police officer stepped out from between the cars and headed toward the driver side of one of the cop cars. He was a youngish-looking guy, and he was dressed in what looked like SWAT gear, including a kevlar vest and helmet. That made me kind of do a double take, and I wondered what was going on. I figured it was some sort of drug bust, and continued on to my destination. Several hours later, I headed back up 13th Street on my way home, and I found that several blocks of the street had been closed off, including the block the police were on earlier. I wondered again what had happened, and when I got home, I tried to find out what had happened. There was no information then, but there was this morning.

There was indeed a drug bust. Not too long after the bust, a 9 year old boy was shot in the face while playing on the sidewalk. The worst part is that this was one of three shootings (with 4 people shot) within a span of about 15 minutes last night.

Just another sad night in the district.

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Copied from my post on dc.metblogs.com

I don't usually rant about how much I hate being PC, because I think that "Politically Correct" has become too charged a phrase, and immediately brings to mind people who supposedly intend to suck the joy out of everything by making it satirically neutral, a la Harrison Bergeron. I especially hate comedians who bitch about political correctness, because they're too damn lazy to figure out how to be funny without resorting to racism or stereotypes, but that's a different story.

Nevertheless, there is one thing, and only one thing about political correctness that irks me so slightly. "Partner." People who refer to their boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/lover/friend with benefits...basically anyone that they're not involved in a business relationship with as a "partner." There's no real reason for this, I just don't understand it. Are the terms "husband" and "wife" really so offensive? If so, wouldn't it be better to keep using those terms, especially if you're in a non-traditional relationship, to remove the perceived sexism/property rights in them? Is having a "boyfriend" really such a bad thing anymore? Maybe someone could explain this to me.

On a side note, I'm just about done with my thesis so woo to me. I just need to submit it for final review, which I'm hoping to do before Monday.

I found out yesterday that eating too many jelly beans can cause your tongue to feel raw. I also found out that it is possible to pull a muscle in your tounge after yawning in a weird way. That sucked. It hurt to talk or swallow for a few hours. I've actually pulled a muscle in my touge before, after I formed my tongue into a 'W' shape and held it like that for too long. Really, though, it really hurts to pull a tongue muscle, and it extra-sucks because you can't do anything about it but wait out the pain.

This is really neat. Shows you the difference digitally enhancing pictures can make. They show all the different steps they take to make a normal girl look like a cover girl. Found on popgadget.

It boggles the mind that "The Pacifier" was the highest-grossing movie this past weekend.

Recording RealAudio on Mac

The basic reason I want an MP3 player with a radio included is so that I can listen to NPR. However, having the option of recording NPR radio streams online pretty much negates that want for a radio on an ipod. After a little looking and some fiddling around, I got Streamers to work on my iBook.

I had a lot of problems getting Streamers to work properly, so I'm going to outline what I needed to do to get it going. The first issue you should be aware of is that there are bugs in the RealPlayer 10 version. However, the RealOne (real player version 9) version of Streamers works. You can download RealOne Player from the Real website here, or by navigating to the old releases section of the real webpage.

You also need to download Windows Media Player from the Microsoft website. Wow, I can't believe I just linked to MS. I have version 9 running. I don't know why this is needed, but I think it has something to do with the way the author wrote the code.

You need to get Wiretap. Not wiretap pro, but the original program. However, you can google for "wiretap.sit" and find the sucker that way. I didn't want to link to a specific page, as I don't know if/when the link would go dead. If you still can't find it, get in touch with me (I guess you can leave a comment) and I can email the .sit file to you. Make sure to change the preferences the way the Streamers help file says: In WireTap's preferences, specify the Desktop as the location to which files should be saved. Make sure the "Application Name" checkbox is deselected. Select the "Prefix" checkbox, and enter only "recording" in the text field. Deselect the checkbox next to "Open files after recording them."

When you download streamers, go into the "Real Player 9" folder. Drag the Streamers app into your application folder, and not in a folder within the application folder. You can start it up and you should be ready to go. Be aware that Streamers will open iCal (among other programs), so be patient and let all the apps open. Now read the Streamers help file, as it is actually helpful--it tells you how to use the program, and it's not overly long.

I think this is a great program, and you can't beat the price. I really have no excuse for not having an iPod anymore (well, except for the price thing).

One more thing: On NPR's main page, the audio streams are embedded, that is, you can't right-click (or ctrl-click), to copy the URL. To extract the URL of embedded streams, you can download the file (on my mac, the files get downloaded to my desktop automatically when I double click on them), then open the .smil or whatever file using a text editor. The URL should show up front and center. Alternatively, you can start playing the clip, then in real player, you can select "view file info" and view the source from there. I think version 10 left out this feature.

My band is having our first show Thursday Feb 17th, at DC9. Doors open at 8ish, we go on at 9ish, & it's $6. We've been practicing a lot and we're really looking forward to it. See you there?

Drinking Game Time

It's that time of year again. The State of the Union Drinking Game is ready & waiting for your inebriated SotU-watching pleasure. I'm still trying to figure out which station to watch it on. I'll probably start out with C-Span, but then switch between all the major networks. I stuck to C-span for the prez debates last year and got shafted with their lack of camera angles.

We missed National Pie Day. I was planning on baking an apple pie, too. I have the apples at home & everything. Does it count that we made bread and cookies? Anyways, I think they're just trying to prop up the post-holiday lull, when everyone is trying to eat better and shed their excess holiday poundage.

On another note, who knew the American Pie Council existed? They even have a newsletter, the "Pie Times." And you and be a member for $35. Their members must really really like pie. I mean, I like pie, too, but I wouldn't pay $35 to show my love of pie. Although, it must be said: Mmmmm...pie.