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What Are Words For? [02 Mar 2025|03:10am] [ mood | literary ] [ music | Let's Make This Precious - Dexy's Midnight Runners ] ( Book Recommendations ) 33 comments|post comment

dem bones [04 Aug 2009|07:08pm] [ mood | dictatorial ] [ music | E60 ] If you haven't already, please register with the National Marrow Donor Program. You can receive and submit the swab kit by mail. The process is very easy. These days, even if you match, most of the time the donation is performed by a simple apheresis procedure similar to donating plasma. You can order the kit at: http://www.marrow.org/JOIN/Join_Now/join_now.html Do it. Compel others to do it. Now. 1 comment|post comment

In practice, Vegas Daylight Time is about a six hour difference from CDT...ugh [28 Jun 2009|09:28pm] [ mood | lagged ] [ music | Mythbusters ] Sorry, i was too busy at the time to deal with both LJ and Facebook updates, but i did very well (but not great) in the my World Series of Poker Event ($1500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low). I ended up in 17th out of 762, getting $8570 (-> net of $7070). Since that Event was the specific reason i flew to Vegas, i'm am happy it worked out...especially considering that only the Top 72 were paid. I almost didn't enter, since i had been sick all week. I ended up coughing throughout most of the two days (covering my mouth with a hanky), but no one complained. Poker chips are already gross, with or without my phlegm. Lasting that long, i ended up playing at a table with a whole bunch of "name" pros. Mike Sexton was at my first table. I also spent extended time against Kathy Liebert, Brandon Cantu, Lee Markholt, Lee Watkinson, Ben Roberts, Aaron Kanter, and a very amusing Perry Friedman. Starting when there was around 40 left until i busted out, I had the pleasure of sitting right next to Phil Hellmuth. He was actually pleasant during the periods he wasn't whining or getting all didactic on how one should play poker. Hellmuth did at least laughed at my attempts at humor. Getting to "play with the pros" wasn't a big deal, except that they generally were friendlier and more willing to joke around a bit than the average player. ---- In other news, because i didn't make the final table, i got back to Houston in time for the Gay Pride Parade. That way i got to help distribute all that lube that i paid for. It wasn't quite as fun as previous Parades because we moved much faster and i couldn't yell as much due to my lingering illness. I did have one crowd member put his hand on the back of my head to pull me in for a kiss, but he didn't persist after i resisted. No, he wasn't very cute. post comment

Lube Up Houston [10 Jun 2009|11:51am] [ mood | moist ] [ music | Cure for Pain - Morphine ] Planned Parenthood will be marching in the Gay Pride Parade on Saturday, June 27th. Due to a scarcity of funds (from increased client visits and budget reductions), they weren't going to distribute lube during this year's parade. I found this rational, yet unacceptable. Rather than sit idly by, i went out and purchased a thousand count box of lube (aka one kilolube) to fight the good fight against chaffing. We must stop citywide friction now! I challenge you to match my donation in order to support PP and all their services, lube-oriented or not. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation. You're welcome to make the donation as a "Memorial" to uncomfortable dryness, if you so choose. If you'd like to join Planned Parenthood and me in marching in the Pride Parade, you can e-mail me or PP directly. I highly recommend it as a ridiculously good time. Figure 1: Juicy Lube post comment

Terrorism [31 May 2009|01:44pm] [ mood | many ] [ music | none ] George Tiller was murdered this morning. Tiller was the #1 target of Neal Horsley, The Nuremberg Files and other anti-abortion nutjobs. I find it rather depressing that my first reaction on hearing the news was: "i'm surprised it took them this long." post comment

damn her tantalizing private sections [06 May 2009|08:47am] [ mood | faced ] [ music | Aeon - Antony & The Johnsons ] In Livejournal redux, after a long period of hesitancy, i finally submitted and signed up for Facebook. As before, i joined solely for the opportunity to view punkalicia's private parts. My problem is that i'm not clear as to what i'm supposed to do with the thing. And, no, i'm not playing dumb for humorous effect. As far as i can tell, Facebook was created primarily to be vehicle through which people can complain at me: Why haven't you joined Facebook? When are you going to do something with your Facebook account? When are you going to add me as a friend? Your profile's not done, you need to finish it. It's called "Facebook." Why don't you have a picture of your face up there? It's clear that Facebook has achieved much greater critical mass than LJ ever could. Moreover, it appears useful for dispersing news of mass interest about things like memorial services, engagements, calls to political activism, or other similar timely events. It appears that on average Facebook is much more ephemeral in nature compared to LJ (though LJ is certainly used for items of transitory relevance). One would be less likely to revisit an old Facebook post(?) than they would for an LJ entry. Twitter, in turn, appears to be the next step on the TypePad-LJ-Facebook continuum. For you people who do both, is that how you distinguish between what material goes to which site? Or is it more a matter of audience? Where Facebook tends to consist of more people you know in real life, yet may have more casual mutual interests, whereas LJ is more of a self-selected group with more closely shared sensibilities? Is there anything in particular i should do with the damned thing? 4 comments|post comment

kitten on fire [16 Mar 2009|07:42pm] [ mood | artistic ] [ music | NCAA Women's Basketball Selection Special ] I have to concur with catamorphism that the Internet was invented specifically for Broken Picture Telephone. For future meme historians, catamorphism got it from caladri. 1 comment|post comment

Zero is a special number. If there are zero things, there are not any things. There are none. [06 Mar 2009|10:28am] [ mood | ouch ] [ music | Chaos Streams - Son Volt ] While catching up with xkcd, i just learned about simple.wikipedia.org from this comic. While i realize it's fairly new and i approve of its mission, reading the articles gave me a headache: Hat Zero Infinity Holocaust Deconstruction I realize that the whole point of the comic was that simple English give brain boo-boo, but hurts. 3 comments|post comment

Today's the real square day (American date format) [05 Mar 2009|03:57pm] [ mood | geeky ] [ music | There She Goes, My Beautiful World - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds ] My brother called me on Tuesday to wish me a happy square root day (and belated happy birthday). My response to ask if 3032009 was a square number? It isn't. To check, i knew that if a day in March, 2009 was going to be a perfect square, it'd have to be 17472 or 17532 (since it had to a little more than the sqrt(3,000,000) ~ 1732 and end in 009). Sure enough, turns out that today's date actually is a perfect square 17472 = 3052009. April 1 this year also works (20032 = 4012009). After grabbing a calculator, i verified that August 98th and October 58th of this year also qualify. The next one after that would be Feb 26, 2016. 3 comments|post comment

The previous thing i taught myself was a much more efficient means of calcuating 8.25% sales tax [04 Mar 2009|09:31am] [ mood | learned ] [ music | Pangaea - Miles Davis ] On Sunday night, watching the Amazing Race and How's Your News inspired me to get off my ass and learn ASL finger-spelling. It turned out to be easier than i thought using this website. I don't know that i'll bother learning more than a few ASL gestures, but it'll be good to be able to communicate with the death with writing or using my pitiful charades skills. I don't have much use for ASL, but i'll probably use it get myself into trouble this weekend at the Special Olympics. I will have no problem remembering the ASL gesture for abortion. Scrape that uterine wall and throw away the contents. post comment

who organized all of my ex-girlfriends in a choir and got them to sing? [22 Feb 2009|09:29pm] [ mood | poorer ] [ music | Eastbound & Down ] Goddamn Obama. All non-hourly employees at my company received the equivalent of a 8-12% pay cut last week. Only 5% of that was in base across-the-board salary cut. However, they also changed the company match on the 401(k) plan from being 6% to a sliding scale of 0-4% depending on company performance. On top of that, they canceled our share ownership program where we could use up to 10% of our salary to buy company stock at a 15% discount (it used to be even better than that). That was equivalent to a free 1.75% of base salary (10% * (100-85)/85). I recognize the need for such things with the current economic situation, so i don't blame the company that much. I *am* still employed, which is better than the alternative. The CEO technically took a 20% salary reduction, though i have no idea what that means in terms of his overall compensation. Point being that it's clear that Obama's presidency is a failure because this never happened under the previous president's reign. Worst. President. Ever. I certainly didn't lose 8+% of my income under James Buchanan. And this is only after one month! Imagine how little i'll be making after the next 47 months. An obnoxious side-effect of this is that it may cause me to stop fully funding my 401(k) for the first time in the twelve years i've had one available. I've always put the legal maximum in both a Roth IRA and (now) Roth 401(k). Even after the pay-cut and the increase of the 401(k) limit to $16.5K, i could still manage maxing out in 2009, but that'd require a very insane saving rate, rather than a mildly insane rate. I know i shouldn't worry about it, but there's an irrational part of my nature that hates not doing all that i can do. 8 comments|post comment

this has nothing to do with Jerry Garcia [22 Dec 2008|12:18pm] [ mood | recycling ] [ music | What Sweet Child O' Mine Is This? - The Wonderful World of Joey ] This AV Club article on the 42 holiday entertainments that don't make us want to claw our eyes out with rage induced me to comment with my favorite holiday song: What Sweet Child O' Mine Is This? by The Wonderful World of Joey It's a loungey fusion of What Child Is This? and Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns 'n Roses. Yes, it's exactly as awesome as it sounds. Since i already went through the immense effort of making a tinyurl for where one could download it for free, i figured i'd post about for you people to enjoy. post comment

That's not my hat [17 Dec 2008|10:42pm] [ mood | toothy ] [ music | Never Not Funny ] We're standing in front of Wahatoya aka The Breasts of the Earth aka The Spanish Peaks aka Dos Chi Chis. Also, no, you may not purchase that dog. 5 comments|post comment

Bachmann and Schmidt failed to lose, goddammit [05 Nov 2008|02:06am] [ mood | wired ] [ music | Fox News, which has been awesome tonight ] Why am i still awake constantly reloading Minnesota's Senate results? Al Franken's up by 1065 votes with 96% reporting. Of course, i'm also doing things like looking at individual counties and noticing things like Hennepen County, with 92% of the precincts reported, should add another 8000 margin in favor of Franken assuming that the remaining 8% precincts have the same composition as the other 92%. At least this is better than me doing the same for Obama's chances in NC, IN, and MO after he's already won. I haven't fallen asleep before 2:30 on a presidential election night since 1996. I need help. 6 comments|post comment

If i pad this out to 150 pages, i wonder if i could get a book deal [27 Oct 2008|01:35pm] [ mood | stuffed ] [ music | Can We Start Again? - Tindersticks ] I have unintentionally developed a new, effective diet method: Get food poisoning. Expel human waste from body, with great vigor, for a 24-hour period. To be a success, this should be done with enough violence that one should have slightly strained their diaphragm or other abdominal muscles. Try to keep self from dehydrating, but be incapable of retaining nearly as much fluid as expelled. For the following days, cease being hungry because of strained tummy muscles. Consuming a half-sized meal should make one feel a bit queasy and as though he overate. I think the above describes my past five days. The first day, i believe i lost four pounds in fluid alone, though i assume i've gained that back now that i'm hydrated. The strained belly is a little strange. I don't notice it much, except that my appetite is almost completely suppressed. Any kind of physical exertion (running up the stairs) makes me a bit winded. I guess i should just take this opportunity to lose some of the weight that i gained after my knee surgery. As always, please consult a doctor before initiating any diet regimen. 2 comments|post comment

Great Ohio Desert [02 Oct 2008|05:34pm] [ mood | earger ] [ music | It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia ] As some of you may recall, i offered free beer for anyone adventurous enough to diagram some of Same Old Bill's sentences.1 Needless to say, i'm thrilled that someone attempts this with Mrs. Palin (click on image for the Slate article): 1 See also: here and here. post comment

alive, but sleepy [13 Sep 2008|08:50am] [ mood | dry ] [ music | 24 Hour StormCenter ] In the middle of a hurricane, perhaps calling a radio station to complain about the callousness of a hospital staff member referring to the "number of beds evacuated" in his report isn't the best prioritization of the issues at hand. Unlike, say, using one's cell phone battery to post trivial anecodotes during a power outage... 3 comments|post comment

spending, non-discretionary [09 Sep 2008|08:08pm] [ mood | geeky ] [ music | The Night - Morphine ] I just signed up for a geek convention outside of LA next June: MaxFunCon 2009 Hosted by Jesse Thorn of the excellent The Sound of Young America and Jordan, Jesse Go!, it's going to feature John Hodgman, Jonathan Coulton, and Jimmy Pardo, among other guests. The thing that put me over-the-top was when i learned that Maria Bamford was going to be there. She's one of my top two Marias! No way I could resist that. If any of you people are just as easily swayed, you're welcome to join me. Tickets are fairly expensive, however ($590 for non-Maximum Fun donors). 5 comments|post comment

Also, i'm now able to sleep in my bed, like a gentleman, instead needing to use my La-Z-Boy [22 Aug 2008|08:58am] [ mood | semi-liquefied ] [ music | Close Encounters - Mogwai ] Tomorrow, i get to put weight on my right foot for the first time in 54 days, which is exciting. My surgeon was surprisingly uninterested in me doing any kind of physical therapy, saying that "if you wanted to flex your leg 500 times a day, that'd be good." So, I did that in addition to some leg lifts and ankle flexibility things that my personal trainer friend recommended. This morning was the first time i really looked at my leg in a long time. Holy crap. My right calf feels like it consists of Jell-o that failed to set. This is even more extreme compared to my left calf, which is more ripped than it's been since i stopped refereeing basketball. My primary mode of locomotion for these past seven-and-a-half weeks has been hopping around on my left foot without crutches (that way my hands were free to carry shit), which is good for calf development. Not so good for not looking like a complete dork. Tomorrow will definitely be interesting. I should consider hopping everywhere on my right foot to balance things out. 3 comments|post comment

Happy Little Round Top Day! [02 Jul 2008|04:04pm] [ mood | bendy ] [ music | The Sound of Young America ] I just received word from the Physician's Assistant that i survived my surgery. I kinda suspected that i had given that they let me leave the clinic yesterday, but i didn't get the official diagnosis until today. They ended up doing the microfracture surgery, which means that i'm non-weight-bearing for eight weeks, which is rather obnoxious. Fortunately, i do have much more flexibility than expected. I had a prescription for a Continuous Passive Motion device (i.e. knee flexing machine). The prescription indicated that i was supposed to start at 45° and work my way up to 90°. I was able to bend 90° right away, which is encouraging. I didn't get any exciting drugs. Just Vicodin with Tylenol. No codiene for me, which is no fun. I've been taking the minimum amount (10 mg every six hours instead of 20 mg every four). That's largely preemptive, since my knee isn't hurting all that much. Right now, my armpits are getting more sore than my knee, since i don't have much experience with crutches and i have a poor sense of balance, anyway. 5 comments|post comment

It's been so loooo-ah-oo-ong since you heard my pretty voice [01 Jul 2008|08:26am] [ mood | thirsty ] [ music | Pretty Voice (live performance at The Current) - Cloud Cult ] I get to have arthroscopic knee surgery in a couple hours, which ought to be fun. I have a raggedly, partially torn medial meniscus (i.e. cartilage on my tibia), which will get removed. On the lateral side of the same knee (right), i have an "osteochondral defect" that's another cartilage problem, except on the femur. They're not sure what they're going to do with that until i get sliced and probed. They may do microfracture surgery, which will involve breaking things and having them heal properly. Microfracture would also involve being on crutches for six weeks. I hurt the knee playing softball back in late November or early December. Trying to change direction after aggressively rounding first base, i jammed my knee (my leg locked straight upon planting). It's been bothering me off and on ever since. If i keep it static for an extended period of time, either sitting or sleeping on my back, it loses much its flexibility and hurts when i try to use it. This is obnoxious since i'd normally sleep on my back 80% of the time. Occasionally, i'd a small torquing force in my knee would cause it to twinge. During this twinge, it felt like a ligament or tendon would catch on something (possibly loose cartilage) and, rather than flex in a continuous, smooth motion, it'd violently snap into place like one of Kirk Hammett's guitar strings (or whatever simile you'd prefer). My knee didn't care for this, and it'd swell up a little while later in protest. Anyway, i wanted to make sure i got this out before i left. This way, my fans would know to start baking my Get Well cupcakes and/or cranberry-orange breads. 9 comments|post comment

This establishment will now serve my purposes [10 Apr 2008|07:13pm] [ mood | outside-in ] [ music | Cabaret of the Seven Devils - The Fiery Furnaces ] I put my underwear on inside-out this morning. After discovering this four hours later, i decided to leave them the way they were rather than turning them rightside-out. I feel this was the correct decision. What say you? Anticipating your questions, here are the answers: Boxers. Button-fly. Yes. 92% Modal/8% Spandex. Beyond your wildest imagination. 3 comments|post comment

it was slightly less crazy than i thought [19 Mar 2008|01:20am] [ mood | deaf ] [ music | Love You - The Free Design ] I just returned from a Gogol Bordello performance: As starchy anticipated, i am enthused. I rate them seven out of seven gypsy diamonds. 3 comments|post comment

ingrates [18 Mar 2008|07:57am] [ mood | flattering ] [ music | Yo La Tengo's 2008 WFMU Request-a-Thon ] Why would “If you were at the Emperors Club, I’d rate you seven whore diamonds out of seven,” not be considered a compliment? Would it have been better claim that this person would inspire a new rating of more than seven whore diamonds? I don't understand. 14 comments|post comment

inefficient resource usage [02 Mar 2008|09:24pm] [ mood | wanted ] [ music | Jordan, Jesse GO! ] During the past week, i've received at least fifteen phone calls urging me to vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday...nine of them from real, live people. I'm still going to vote for him, but sheesh. I've had one each for Clinton and McCain. 13 comments|post comment

Joan of Arc: literally, sizzling hot [26 Feb 2008|04:38pm] [ mood | braindead ] [ music | Teletubbies...i'm visiting a friend ] My nomination for Hotties from History was read in this week's Bugle podcast. The Bugle - Audio Newspaper for a Visual World is a jolly good podcast featuring The Daily Show's Jon Oliver with his long time comedic partner Andy Zaltzman providing the news in the most British manner possible. Mr. Oliver is better here than he is on The Daily Show since he has even better chemistry with Andy Zaltzman then he has with Mr. Stewart. Hotties from History is a recurring bit they started around Episode 8 or 9 where people nominate and vote for their historical crushes. Joanna the Mad had proved to be popular with the hosts and audience, so I nominated one of her far more grotesque descendents, Carlos II of Spain. Andy read mine at the 25:27 mark. Frustratingly, i preferred this week's other podcast-worthy Hottie nomination (at 24:30). Still, i loved hearing my words read with a British accent. subbes, if you wanted to call me and read my LJ posts to me, i'd enjoy that. This week's episode was among their weaker efforts, but quite entertaining nonetheless. I recommend starting from Episode 1 and listening to all of them if you have the time. 1 comment|post comment

FDA Warning: Doing math may cause insomnia [29 Jan 2008|10:27am] [ mood | tired ] [ music | Pansa Pansa - Fela Kuti ] I couldn't sleep much last night. It's all infopractical's fault. In his journal, he explained a trick he developed in middle school(!) to do the decimal expansion of x/97. I won't get into the derivation here, but the algorithm involves taking the terms two-at-a-time and doing repeated multiplications by three plus an adjustment. If you're curious: x/97 = .aabbccdd... aa = x + trunc( x / (97/3)) ) bb' = (aa * 3) mod 100 bb = bb' + trunc( bb' / (97/3) ) cc' = (bb * 3) mod 100 cc = cc' + trunc( cc' / (97/3) ) That looks a little complicated. But, basically you take the previous two numbers, multiply by 3, and ignore the hundreds place (that's the bb' and cc' part). Then take that result and adjust by zero if it's 0-32, one if it's 33-64, two if it's 65-99. For example, 3/97 =   0.03    : First term is simply x + adjustment      09    : 03*3 + 0     27    : 09*3 = 27 + 0     83    : 27*3 = 81 + 2     50    : 83*3 = 249 -> 49 + 1     51    : 50*3 = 150 -> 50 + 1     54    : 51*3 = 153 -> 53 + 1     63...    .0309278350515463... ---- About ninety minutes before my bedtime last night, i started playing with why his method works (including figuring out the precise addition adjustment of trunc( ((x * 3) mod 100) / (97/3)) ) instead of the more vague "adding 1 for each 1/3 of 100 the result surpasses." I then went off and extrapolated it to some other fractions in the 91sts thru 98ths range: x/(100-m) = .aabbccdd...              : ex.  1/95  (x = 1, m = 5) aa = x + trunc( x / ((100-m)/m)) )    : aa  = 1 + trunc( 1 / ((100-5)/5)) = 1 + trunc(1/19) = 01 bb' = (aa * m) mod 100                : bb' = (01 * 5) mod 100 = 05 bb = bb' + trunc( bb' / ((100-m)/m) ) : bb = 05 + trunc( 05 / 19) = 05 cc' = (bb * m) mod 100                : cc' = (05 * 5) mod 100 = 25 cc = cc' + trunc( cc' / ((100-m)/m) ) : cc = 25 + trunc( 25 / 19) = 26 dd' = (cc * m) mod 100                : dd' = (26 * 5) mod 100 = 30 dd = dd' + trunc( dd' / ((100-m)/m) ) : dd = 30 + trunc( 30 / 19) = 31 -> 1/95 = .01 05 26 31 57 89... -> 9/98 = .09 18 36 73 46 93... 95ths are easy because multiplying by 5 is quick and the adjustment divisor 95/5 is an integer. 93rds are more difficult because I don't intuitively divide by 93/7. However, most of the others in the 90s work out reasonably well. After this and watching some Tivoed Daily Show, it was time for bed. As i believe i've mentioned before, i shouldn't do mildly “interesting” math in the two hours before bedtime. I paid the price for my folly as i spent my time lying in bed pondering other decimal expansions. For example, i realized meant i could finally do 13ths (which i knew had two separate repeating decimal patterns...but nothing i wanted to memorize) and 19ths, by converting to 91sts and 95ths. I went on to calculate 49ths, 190ths, 995ths, et cetera. Initially, while calculating 3/190 i recognized that i could add 19/190 to make it 22/190 - .1 = 11/95 - .1. After doing this, i felt like a complete dumbass because it should have been obvious that it's easier to calculate 3/19 and divide by 10. Of course, i also felt like a dumbass for mathing instead of sleeping. However, that addition of 19/190s inspired me to realize that an easier way to calculate 14ths and 28ths is to convert to 7ths by doing ± .5 for 14th, ± .25 or .75 for 28ths. In the past, i'd just take divide by 2 or 4 and then divide by 7, realizing that the decimal would quickly adhere to the 7ths repeating decimal. Anyway, i apologize that this isn't of interest to most (any?) of you aside from the humor stemming from immense nerdiness causing me pain, once again. However, posting this will help me retain this for later use. Where? I have no idea... 8 comments|post comment

This isn't all that different from my e-mail inbox [19 Dec 2007|11:58am] [ mood | amused ] [ music | Trilogy - Mahavishnu Orchestra ] (from infopractical) This eBay auction is tremendous. 7 comments|post comment

Can someone decipher the whispering at the 2:00 mark for me? [17 Dec 2007|05:43pm] [ mood | awesome ] [ music | Colored Noises - The Hong Kong ] After too much effort over the past nine years, i recently tracked down the most awesome xmas song ever, What Sweet Child O' Mine Is This?. It's a loungey fusion of What Child Is This? (Greensleeves) and Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child o' Mine with some random banter about Jesus and Jerry Garcia thrown in. It's spectacular. Click here1 to listen. 1 Note that the track info on the linked MP3 is incorrect. The correct info is here at AMG. 1 comment|post comment

Like your namesake, go forth to rape and pillage these treacherous bowling pins [04 Dec 2007|08:42am] [ mood | achey ] [ music | Loose Booty - Funkadelic ] At the Special Olympics Bowling Tournament last Saturday, i had two accidentally, awesomely named athletes. The first was named Alaric, which is the name of the Visigoth king that lead the first barbarian sacking of Rome in 410 CE. Somehow, his mom had never heard of this. Rather, all she knew was that Alaric was named after his uncle, but that it's pronounced differently. The other athlete was named Dorian Ray. At least in this case, the father was aware of the similarity to Dorian Gray but said that it was unintentional. You would be proud that, after Dorian's many gutterballs, i refrained from cracking that "somewhere, in an attic, there's a portrait of this lane with all the bowling pins knocked over." Finally, some among you are going to find this Archie McPhee item extremely necessary: 3 comments|post comment

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