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Sunday, August 31, 2003
i love this. 2/3 of voters can't name a single democratic candidate.
of course, 2/3 of voters don't vote.
Friday, August 29, 2003
decent, shall i say balanced(?) read on al franken's book.
i love chris rock.
Besides Madonna, Spears and Aguilera's bump-and-grind performance, there was 50 Cent's pimp-a-licous performance of "P.I.M.P.," during which he was joined onstage Snoop Dogg, the ubiquitous former pimp Bishop Don Magic Juan, members of his G-Unit posse — and a bevy of half-naked women.
"Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream' speech — isn't it nice to see that his dream has finally come true?" cracked host Chris Rock after their performance.
Thursday, August 28, 2003
just to establish that i do think our president is, at times, shall we say ridiculous? let's agree to agree on that. but i also think quite a bit of these gaffes could easily have applied to every president since washington dropped his wooden teeth in john adam's tea.
here it comes. oh yeah? oh yeah? have at it kids.
thomas starts guitar lessons next wed.
iTunes iSbogus
a list of classics and when they will become available in the public domain. you heard right. once the copyrights expire on these books, they will be available for anyone to publish.
where have all the human shields gone?
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
rob has a new painting. it's for a silent auction at hunter college. every year now they put on this event to raise money for a little girl named wallace dibble whose father was killed in a hit and run two years ago.
things i noticed the past few days...maybe the past week stretching on into last month
-who am i kidding? hell, i don't remember anything anymore.
- despite the fact that now both speakers in the back of our honda are blown or perhaps because of it, the white stripes hotel yorba sounds better than ever. i screamed it all the way to work. "let's get married in a big cathedral with a priest, 'cause if i'm the man you love the most, you could say i do at least!!!!"
- the average length of a design document at my company is 22 pages. there's a recycle bin in my office, but you simply cannot overuse a paper shredder.
- i have a questionable stomach. it's probably stomach cancer. no offense to stomach cancer patients. i'll be with you shortly.
- my mom came into town and took us all out to dinner. thomas noticed her adjusting her wig and said "you mean, that's not your real hair?" my mom leaned over and lifted it up to show him. she's got to start in with the chemo again. her cancer markers are up. she told me and i didn't know what to say. there's nothing you can say. what the fuck. that's what i want to say. what the fuck. but the boys hugged her and told her they loved her and meant it. and she hugged them. one big hugfest. intersection. there's your inside joke.
- i let myself get roped into maintaining thomas' school web site. i figured that if i got on the volunteer boat early with the website, then i'd be free and clear for the 10,000 other things they come at me with. cookies? nope. fall carnival? did i mention i do the website?
- because i let myself get roped into maintaining the school web site, i got invited to the pta board meeting. towards what purpose, i'm still not clear. i was the only guy there. besides the principal. me and the principal and forty women who basically don't get to manage enough things as it is. they have something close to fifty committees. everybody is a committee. i mean each person is one committee. welcome to academia. so, my turn comes around and they introduce me as the new web guy. "he has a son in first grade," the lady said. i heard this lady in the back whisper, "he looks like he's in first grade." hey, i heard that lady. i felt like a male stripper at a second-marriage bachelorette party.
- thomas has conceived of the perfect tree house. it's actually not a treehouse or a fort. it's a house. three houses. he drew three houses and we voted. the one with twenty windows won. he had counted all the rooms he'd need for cousins, etc. twenty. i told him my dream house was one room. in a tree.
- some hepper than thou shitface at the bike store made fun of my polyester pants. "you work at the post office?" he asked me, while i waited for my bike. "as a matter of fact i do," i said. he wasn't sure if i was kidding. here's the truth about wearing pants during the summer. men look like idiots in shorts. i'm sorry guys, but it's true. look around some time. look in the mirror. 99% of the time, you look like fucking bozo the clown. your white-ass, hairy, soggy legs look like two melted sticks of butter.
- i forgot what else i was going to say, i got so pissed off about shorts.
dear abby, dear abby, my feet are too long
my hair's fallin' out and my rights are all wrong
my friends they all tell me are no friends at all
won't you write me a letter, won't you give me a call
signed, bewildered
bewildered, bewildered, you have no complaint
you are what you are and you ain't what you ain't
so listen up buster and listen up good
stop wishin' for bad luck and knockin' on wood
Sunday, August 24, 2003
further proof that given enough time, our semi-free-wheeling market system can figure out anything.
as if i needed one, yet another reason i'm not voting for howard dean. what a fucking motard. he balanced vermont's budget. didya hear? he'll tell you. what is vermont's budget? $5? i'm sure after all the maple syrup sales are sorted out, it's closer to $10.
so, i rolled over to the gender genie and it turns out, on average, i do write like a guy. i feel so much better. try it.
Saturday, August 23, 2003
powerpoint is evil. amen.
Friday, August 22, 2003
this is an actual aim btwn. me and kevin today with every other line and then the next line taken out. i didn't realize we said "hahahahahaha" (me) or "haha" (him) so much. somehow hahahahahah with the extra h at the end seems better than either haha or hahahahahaha. of course everything beats lol. lol is so insincere.
kalexa2: i was passing someone (my boss i never see him) in the hall today and i hate when peole ask "what's going on" and don't really care
kalexa2: i just said "i ain't fraid no ghosts"
joshmag70: i always say "hey how's it going?" and don't mean it
joshmag70: nobody here sez anything
kalexa2: nobody here means anything.. all relationships here are rice-paper thing
kalexa2: thin
joshmag70: one time i yelled at this guy b/c he was giving me the isaac games treatment
joshmag70: "helllloooooooooooooo"
joshmag70: he looked at me kind of startled
joshmag70: later he came up and told me he was deaf in one ear
joshmag70: so who look'd like a jackass then?
kalexa2: at least you didn't mimick a deaf person speaking
kalexa2: yeah this place reminds me of like a place where cattle is herded prior to slaughter.. they're calm and expecting to die anytime soon.. an outburst like "HELOOOOOOO" loud at any time would have them running for all exits -- as if a disgruntled employee
kalexa2: opened up with a semi-automatic weapon
joshmag70: ok, what do you make of this?
joshmag70: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s56072.htm
joshmag70: i can google to you know
joshmag70: too
joshmag70: goddamn it
joshmag70: i hate when i flub a perfectly good comeback
kalexa2: well i find it hard to believe that 9000F is close to temperatures found with nuclear fusion.. i don't believe it
joshmag70: i don't believe in your sun-god theories
joshmag70: your evil cray computer does not speak to me
kalexa2: it's from Paris for chrissake! what are you thinking?
joshmag70: london
kalexa2: hey look at here : http://www.earthsky.com/2002/es020719.html
kalexa2: the last "DB" quote
joshmag70: ok, so we're nitpicking now
joshmag70: surface vs. interior
kalexa2: well maybe we're both right (and both wrong) just depends on what perspective we're approaching
joshmag70: you're both wrong
joshmag70: i'm both right
kalexa2: but thorax you hosed!
joshmag70: oh yeah
Thursday, August 21, 2003
i think it's just b/c i recently bought a book on the history of the universe in general and the earth in particular that i find this slate article interesting in the least. but also, i think, it's the way that it's written. it doesn't assume you know anything about it. but it assumes you can grasp the basic concept. and it doesn't presume that the "known" is in any way fully "known," as in textbooked and put away with all the other dusty facts. i'm a sucker for that.
i was never any good at science and always feel like i'm "making it up" by buying big, confusing books that have pictures of the earth all sliced up like pies. but i never come away figuring anything out. like if there's a molten core to the earth that is as hot as the sun, why aren't we all burning up? i mean the sun is a long ways away and i burned my ass off at schlitterbahn. or why does cosmic radiation indicate there was a big bang? i hear that all the time from my car mechanic and i don't understand what the heck he's talking about. bryson's book and this article are the way i wish all science stuff were written.
this is the school that my son was supposed to go to.
i don't know what's more disturbing. the southpark-like pictures that the teachers decided to put up of themselves? or mr. taveirne, who has just finished writing a HyperStudio stack that scores bowling.
Sunday, August 17, 2003
i always mean to link to this, but never do.
one of my favorites:
shut those goddamn dogs up.
if not - legal action follows - big time
is the browser-safe color palette dead? i don't know how many of my web designing hours were consumed with figuring that stupid thing out. trying to match #cccccc with #666600 or approximate the dark purple that someone used in their print brochures could easily take up hours of tweaking. now it seems to be pretty much meaningless, going the way of handwriting and check-book balancing as a lost art that will make future generations question our commitment to laziness.
our friends, jenny and kyle, got a dog. apparently, they will now live longer than me. of course, i'm going to die from hypertension at 52, so screw feeding a mangy, fleabag beast for the next twenty years. i'll only have to worry about my kids for what, fifteen? that gives me five years of relative peace and quiet.
i think you are gorgeous
if you got this email by mistake
Leave
watched punch-drunk love last night. i think adam sandler deserved at least a nomination for that role. he is magnificent to watch. and p.t. anderson. first hard eight, then boogie nights, then magnolia, now this. people complain about the hollywood movie, but here's a guy with A-list actors and big budgets doing exactly what he wants to do. i mean, it is a little unbelievable that, in this day and age, you could get a big studio to buy off on adam sandler playing a toilet-plunger salesman who finds a harmonium and true love in the valley, but anderson did just that. he almost reminds me of a twisted billy wilder.
Saturday, August 16, 2003
double team
william's sitting next to me at the computer banging on an old hermes 3000 typewriter. he tells me he's an astronaut. of course, this is what they told him yesterday at the dentist when they had to give him laughing gas. "just like an astronaut," the dentist said before putting the purple grape nose thing over william's face. i think the dentist may have had too much of the good stuff. an astronaut?
now thomas comes in and tells me i need to take a shower.
"you think i need a shower?" i ask him.
"smell yourself." he says.
great artlicle on madden 2004. who's michael vick though?
Friday, August 15, 2003
FIFTEEN per cent [of australians] are so afraid of their own computers they avoid using them altogether.
[chicken shit. people are stupid too. nothing new under the sun. just different examples.]
what starts out as a quircky article on prison pen pals becomes downright creepy.
[chicken shit. funny pictures, but ultimately of very little consequence since it is likely that most of these people are just like the ones on friendster, only more confined and ugly]
Thursday, August 14, 2003
i heard from lonanne (my main source of news these days) that the hotels are booked up in nyc tonight with all the commuters who are stuck in the city. oddly enough, most of the rooms are secured with those electronic card-readers, so they're having trouble getting the rooms open. you never think about that stuff. just yesterday our power went out b/c of the storms here in austin. still, i dutifully opened up the microwave and threw in some food to heat up.
[chicken shit. like the weather. things you can't control, but want to gain some power over through commiseration]
new (relatively) cds:
four tet - came to this guy by way of prefuse. glitchy and hop. mellow.
mazzy star - i can't get enough of hope sandoval's voice. she could be singing commercial jingles for all i care.
cody chestnutt - the headphone masterpiece. much better than expected. slo-mo-town-groove thang. like lenny kravitz if he went nuts and, also, could bring himself to be more egotistical and put out a two album disc.
the flying burrito brothers - i'm a sucker for the sweet country stylings of gram parsons. apparently so is beck and ryan adams since they rip him off at every turn, but that's another story. the original alt-country-rockers and the reason the rolling stones went semi-country on some girls. listen to sin city some time and tell me that's not some sweet, sweet shit.
p.j. harvey - is this desire? early album. 1998. pretty mouth between her eyes. reminds me of cat power in some weird ways. a blues belter at heart.
fatboy slim - you've come a long way baby. this is my guilty purchase. i've always been meaning to buy this cd, but never have. now i have it. i like it. not great, but solid beats. the time passes quickly at work when i pop this one in. let the gay jokes fly rob.
[rabbit shit...somewhere between chicken shit (small talk about music) and horse shit (of immediate concern to hipster stylists who are furiously googling for put downs on the flying burrito brothers and four tet)]
tomorrow is "meet the teacher" night at thomas' new school. when we went up to register two weeks ago, thomas got to meet the principal, a warm and hobbit-like man from, of all places, coney island, new york. he seemed like he smoked a pipe and was full of stories about the school, the neighborhood, the kids. good people from unlikely places. and just when you've about given up. he gave us a tour of the school and listened patiently, answering each of thomas' rambling questions. the school itself is just plain funky, with all the overdone art projects and crafts and pta flyers. the fifth graders just recently completed a japanese rock pond complete with coi. thomas will get to take spanish and art class. when we were finished and shaking hands, i nearly wanted to hug the man. thomas jumped all the way back to the car.
[likely categorized as bull shit at first glance, this does register a certain meloncholy [sic] joy, for it is my oldest son and he is starting first grade. to those without kids what can i say? you will understand one day and most likely you won't be any better at explaining any of it.]
lately, i find myself categorizing forms of communication into what fritz perls called chicken shit [small talk], bull shit [matters of immediate concern] and elephant shit [philosophy, rhetoric, etc]. even my own words. perhaps more so. i'm wrapped up in language, hopelessly. heck, i worship a Word God and throw my bill in with the existentialists, but still sometimes i wonder. is it all much ado about nothing? even the nothing?
sometimes words, words, words
and maybe once, twice
this
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
good article on cat power as a blues belter at heart.
Marshall doesn’t want to speed up the blues—to make it into rock and roll or anything that it isn’t. It’s as if her soft, sometimes plaintive voice and her simple arrangements—a plodding piano or a gently strummed guitar, sometimes supported by backup vocals—were a version of the production values on all those OKeh records from the twenties. (Marshall’s raw emotions are the scratches on the vinyl.) She’s a white girl sucking the sound of the Delta down her throat.
google has a built-in calculator. and a dictionary.
Monday, August 11, 2003
are you ONE of them?
remove me.
Sunday, August 10, 2003
joshmag It works
good bye, forever
some things you may not know about arnold.
i hope he wins.
my spam is taking on the form of poetry:
joshmag be young
count me out
Saturday, August 09, 2003
forget flash. actionscripting is too slow and it's a cheap version of javascript. plus too much data calculations blows the whole load. forget craplets as well. welcome to the future. processing. it's based on java and is inherently 3D. get the beta version and try it yourself.
things i learned on our summer vacation at schlitterbahn:
if you're thinking of going to schlitterbahn, whatever you do, don't pick the last weekend before school starts. a corollary to this: make motel reservations.
when applying sunscreen to your face, don't pick the kind that feels like battery acid when it gets wet and drips into your eyes.
they make waterslides that go uphill. scientifically this happens b/c they shoot a big jet stream of water up your ass and your bathing suit falls off.
americans are fat. oh yeah, i already said that. o.k. o.k. americans as a whole are kind, generous, outgoing and know how to stand in line. for hours. without any sort of violence.
pay it forward with kevin spacey and helen hunt is one retarded fucking movie. the kid dies at the end. i want to ruin this movie for as many people possible. that's my "pay it forward."
don't talk to people when you're standing in line for the bathroom. not only is it awkward, but people at a waterpark are nuts. a corollary to this: don't talk to anyone at a waterpark.
the schiltterbahn, which means "slippery road" (insert gay german jokes here) was voted the best waterpark in the world. i have no idea what this means, but it seems to me that a place that charges ten bucks for a pizza combo and has exactly 2.5 bathrooms for 12 square miles of water is looking to get knocked off it's little perch soon. anybody with me?
the sun can really heat up cool, springfed water. so can urine.
when you're getting ready to leave with your kids, do tell them a lie about there being ice cream in your car. do not tell them you are going home. this way you avoid the screaming shitfit where everyone and his brother looks at you like your kidnapping two kids.
if you're me, count on a thunder storm in the middle of august on a cloud-free day with 108 degree temperature. but that's just me. don't worry about that part.
Wednesday, August 06, 2003
this small world
i recently got an email from colt cashner, the kid who i wrote about in an earlier entry. it turns out that if you google his name, my site is the first thing to come up. he sort of freaked me out at first. here's his email:
Hi Josh:
My name is Colt. I understand that your mother lied to my parents about abusing me while she was my babysitter. Well Josh, I think that the time has come for some retribution, don’t you? I will be coming to see you on Brentwood soon.
Sincerely,
Colt
scary shit, right? fortunately, before i blew a lot of money on a home security system, it turns out he was joking. he's alive and well and living in boca raton. he was even kind enough to send me a picture of him and his dad.
Monday, August 04, 2003
a noteworthy speech by one norman geras on the moral failure of the left. read the whole thing. it's long, but thoughtful.
At best you might get some lip service paid to the events of September 11 having been, well, you know, unfortunate--the preliminary "yes" before the soon-to-follow "but" (or, as Christopher Hitchens has called it, "throat clearing"). And then you'd get all the stuff about root causes, deep grievances, the role of U.S. foreign policy in creating these; and a subtext, or indeed text, whose meaning was America's comeuppance. This was not a discourse worthy of a democratically committed or principled left, and the would-be defense of it by its proponents, that they were merely trying to explain and not to excuse what happened, was itself a pathetic excuse.
Sunday, August 03, 2003
i propose a new rating for universities. how much do they care about your privacy?
MIT: 8
Loyola: 1
you gotta wonder. why pay money to a school that's gonna roll on you like a pair of loaded dice?
we went out to salado today to help out an old friend of the family, mancel bolton. he runs valley arts studios out of a converted bldg. in his backyard. he wanted to film our family out by lake belton for a promotional video that he's putting together. yeah, yeah, it felt silly. what can i say? at any rate, he told us that his son's band, lesermore, just got signed to an independent label out of dallas. brando records? will's a great kid and an incredible drummer. i mean it. pound for pound, i'd put him up against the drummer for the helio sequence. he took state two years in a row for jazz drums when he was in high school, and the second year, he did it a week after getting his casts removed for two broken arms. i'm really happy for him and his dad.
when he rolled into town, rob brought us a copy of calder's circus, a film of alexander calder's miniature circus from the late 1920s. we've only just now gotten around to replacing our old vcr (too many toys being jammed in it) and we got a chance to watch it. really great stuff and in many ways, a treasure. thanks rorb.
my good man dj nick nack is featured in last month's feedback magazine. he's recently laid off from tipping point and ready to light it up with a new album, improving silence. you forget, mostly from staring at austin chronicle covers of los lonely boys, that there's actually some talent in this town. godspeed, nick.
interesting strategy piece on liberia. sounds frighteningly like afghanistan. this site, in general, is good for getting a lot of the military-ops perspective. i mean, of course, as opposed to what you would read in the papers (or spin...joey:-). although rolling stone had a good article on liberia one issue ago.
Saturday, August 02, 2003
the un-bituary.
much like with strom thurmond and katherine hepburn of late, i can't really get up the gumption to bash a dead man or woman, even though, with hepburn, it is tempting. in any case, these folks were dead a long time ago. it seems like opportunism whichever way you play it. let me bask in my evaluation of someone who, no matter the chips, actually had a life.
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