December, 2003: 46 posts.

The swelling has gone down, but it hurts still. Ow.

Today: work; bus pass; new pants; leftover turkey; HEALING.

More:
Pedal Power: Look Ma No Wires
Jhai PC – A Computer for Most of the World
JHAI Foundation: The Remote IT Village Project

Now that’s a really interesting use of technology.

I like this:

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all. Take the slough and the forge and the mallet and the lute, The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight. For in reverie you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures. And take with you all men: For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.

I must say, I’m conflicted about not taking RT work more seriously. I do maintain my California license though.

I may yet return to the work in some form.

Perhaps I’ll start a web based RT employment agency. I certainly have the Google PageRank for it.

Though I’m really beginning to think Dean has a shot to be the next President. The re-election of the President is not a fait accompli.

They gave me “fine” business days to remove the page. I think they meant “five” Heh. Crazy lawyers!

Here’s the text of the letter:

Global Telecom Media
December 9, 1997
Joseph A. Crawford
3375 Manning Ave. #14
Los Angeles, CA 90064

A search of VOAA through YAHOO turns up the site //home.earthlink.net/~artlung/logos5.html, apparently your site. An examination of of that site turns up work done for our company (to wit; a VOAA logo and artwork for GTM.NET.) This work is the property of Global Telecom Media and is not to be reproduced without our permission. Please remove it immediately. If it is not removed within fine(sic) business days of this letter being posted, we will have no alternative but to turn this matter over to counsel.

Cordially,
James A. Lee

cc. P. Campbell, Esq.
GTM023.DOC
9713 Santa Monica Blvd. Suite 218
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
(310) 273-7760
(310)273-8860

• My sister sent me the link for videos from The Darkness. She said: “Watch the video for I Believe in a Thing Called Love. It’s amazing.”. I have. She’s right. Unashamed 70’s Power Pop. Reminds me of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody merged with the Beastie Boys’ Intergalactic.
• A plugin for PGP for Mail.app: GPGMail
• I’m alarmed to find out that the open eye racquetball goggles I want so much do not work: Open (Lensless) Eye guards Fail Testing; Racquetball Eye Injuries
• United States Marine, Artist
• The amazing history of Frank Zappa and Louie Louie
• The story of the Frank Zappa statue in Vilnius. And, The statue itself.
• Elizabeth Shin tragedy: comment by Philip Greenspun
• What is this about SCO and SAMBA source code?

(Blogger was down when I wrote this part): A light rain is falling here. It should be a lovely day.

…

Leah and I went to a more solemn Catholic Mass this evening. Fulfilling. This has been a mellow weekend. My ankle is feeling better, too. Though we went to the store to buy an ankle brace and when we got home the box was empty. Oops. That makes me feel dumb.

It was a good day. I trust it will be a good week too.

He growls off into the kitchen, at unseen and unheard forces. Bolt upright, and growling quietly.

“We have our very own guard kitty,” says Leah.

She whispered it, lest he growl at her.

And if you’re in San Diego, you should check ’em out.

No really, more this weekend. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to burst with links and news, and this is one of those times. But not right now.

Afterwards I bought an elaborate lace-up brace at Sports Chalet in Point Loma. I think keeping off it, and stabilizing it can only be good for the ankle.

Leah’s kids are here, though her youngest is ill. I am presently tired and lying in bed due to racquetball and because I happened to stay up till 4am or so working on some freelance. Yesterday’s timing of events and responsibilities was not optimal. I stayed a bit late at work, no problem.

But my Grandma asked me about getting one of my cousins’ varisty football games to show up on her computer. The archived games were available, but there was no video. Well, her Windows 98 machine had an older version of Windows Media Player (these were .asx files), so I advised her to upgrade WMP to version 9.

This of course produced only confusion on her part, and asked me if I could do it.

Under the circumstances, I decided sure, I can totally do this!

The downfall, of course, is that my Grandparents are on dial-up. So the 14 megabyte install took an hour and change to download.

Actually, it was cool to just chat with my Grandma for an hour about the holiday season, about helping her buy a gift for my Uncle (a computer guy), I showed her the photos of Bas on Leah’s site, she talked about having lots of cats when she was a girl. We talked a very little bit about Church. Last Sunday Leah and I went to St. Joseph’s Cathedral downtown, and I can’t think of any reason for me to have gone there with anyone other than her. So it was like a little oasis of a conversation in a hectic day. I feel lucky to have some Grandparents who are still around. She talks about how embarassed she is about having not such good control of her right arm. Twenty years ago she had a terrible stroke, which she has survived with grit and determination. But it changed her life utterly — she had been vibrant and active, and losing her right side catastrophically meant she could no longer drive, write, type, walk the way she once could.

I have a hard time seeing how I could do much better than she has considering she lost so much mobility and dexterity. She’s a marvel of energy and mental strength. Sometimes I even see myself in her. Or should I say, sometimes I see aspects of her when I look at myself.

So now I’m listening to Virgin Radio UK on iTunes. They played The Rolling Stones’ Undercover of the Night, a song I like. Ty brought me hot cocoa. Today we’re taking it easy. Chilling out in this 1892 house. Playing games, blogging, having cocoa, and soon I’ll be napping.

I like today. It could be a morass of stress, especially considering it’s the holiday season — presents to buy, lines to be in, and all of that — but today is good.

I watched Three Kings, one of my favorite movies, with Leah’s two older boys last night. I suppose this is the endpoint for one of its’ plot points, Saddam himself.

So the question is, what changes for the Iraqi people?

• I gave blood today.
• next time I give blood I’ll drink more beforehand.
• I’m still loving Quicksilver.
• I have purchased some Christmas gifts.
• I have more to purchase.
• Going to Mass tonight.
• Going shopping tonight.
• I’m wearing an ankle brace.
• The weekend was great — Leah and I had her kids.
• The cat is slowly recovering from the traffic levels.
• Reflective heaters ROCK!
• I prefer too hot to too cold.
• I like the game Go.
• itsyourturn.com is nifty.
• My iBook is a useful, versatile tool.
• I reorganized some books last night and found some mouse droppings. Old ones. The cat found them before I cleaned them up. I hope Bas understands to associate that smell with “KILL!”
• I enjoy french toast.
• The Ukes of Hazzard are charmingly funny and silly.
• Leah makes tasty french toast.
• Old Christmas Content on ArtLung.com: Merry Christmas in other languages.
• Target during Christmastime is busy.
• Possible plans for New Year’s include a trip to Utah.
• More as it happens.

Still very busy now. I look forward to peace and quiet of vacation/holidaytime.

But was Saddam awfully haggard in those photos? And was that spider hole: a of base of operations or more like a prison cell?

Looks like it was actually the Kurds that caught Saddam – note the sources are in the Arab world, Australia, UK, India. I don’t see any US sources there.

They say the first casualty of war is the truth.

So will we see the US domestic media tell this story?

I am content, though a bit more stressed than usual. Supposedly, this is typical during the hoidays. Being aware of it is a nice change. To know my own limits is a wonderful thing.

1. 2001 header
2. Saying “Merry Christmas” in many languages
3. Is there a Santa? (from an engineering standpoint)

• He’s Not In It For The Money: Frank Zappa’s Big Band Brother Ed Palermo
• QRIO: Your Plastic Pal Who’s Fun To Be With!
• Zinni, Vietnam veteran, Bush supporter in 2000, against the conflict in Iraq
• Judge: I saw police commit felonies: A judge who said he witnessed some of the anti-free trade protests complains in open court about how police handled the demonstrations.
• Net Smartass Extraordinaire gives us: Shock and Awe: Merry Christmas from the White House!
• Mission creep for Patriot Act
• From Leah: Tolerance.org: MISOGYNY IN MUSIC: Have Videos Gone Wild?
• Hilarious Audio from NPR: NPR : Humorist and NPR commentator David Sedaris — a Santaland Diary thing. Very very very funny.
• My Quixtar URLs Page was updated.
• I like this Doug Welch column, which can be summed up as Think.
• NFL Click for Cans
• jwz points to Eyesore of the Month by James Howard Kunstler — wow! bitter, smart, witty!
• HTTP made easy
• What Does LVX Mean?
• Great quote: “No man was more comprehensively doomed than him whose chief source of gratification was making favorable impressions on some particular woman.” — Quicksilver p. 389
• Slugging — I did not believe in this — but my sister who lives in DC says: My friend slugs to work every day. She lives with her dad way out in Potomac Mills, slugs to the Pentagon, takes the metro there and is work in about a half an hour to forty minutes. Otherwise it would take her up to an hour to two hours (on a bad day) to get to work. Evidently, there are unspoken rules, for example, no talking, driver controls the radio, driver must pick up two people (to make it safe), and you don’t make future arrangements to meet up. It’s a great way to commute because all parties involved benefit and there’s no commitment. Driver gets to take the HOV lane and everybody gets to work faster. Erica was saying that they did a piece on NPR and she heard that it was started by military folks who lived out in the burbs when the HOV lane was created. Or, so I’ve heard.

It’s 11:24 on 11/23. Here comes Christmas!

Onward.

On the agenda today: getting out of bed, breakfast, laundry, and a birthday party.

Cats love printers.