I went to the post office today, but I forgot something.

user: root
passwd: root

My dad mentioned to me a while back that Paul Wolfowitz was a childhood friend of his, all the way from elementary school through high school, IIRC, and they both went to Cornell for their undergraduate degrees.

Now, for those of you who don’t know my dad, he’s a professor, and a liberal Democrat. Paul Wolfowitz is Deputy Secretary of Defense, reporting to Rumsfeld, a so-called “neoconservative”, and is credited as being one of the prime advocates for invading Iraq, even before the 9/11 attacks.

How is it that these two boys, who grew up as friends in Ithaca New York, ended up having such a divergent view of the world?

I guess I don’t really have a great world-altering point to this, but I think for me it helps to ground the fact that the people that we read about on the news…they’re just normal people, ya know? And it means that we’re not that far removed from the decisions that people like Wolfowitz are making on our behalf. Just like my dad, these people make mistakes sometimes, except with far more severe consequences.

Even though there are only 3 degrees of separation from between me and George W. Bush (me –> Dad –> Wolfowitz –> Bush) I would like to endorse John Kerry for president. I hope especially that if you are in a swing state, you will realize the enormous harm the current administration has done to our economy, the deficit, our standing in the world, how it has botched the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and vote accordingly.

You know, it’s really sobering when, looking at the 7 deadly sins, you can safely say 6 of them have been committed by you.

I just got a big reality-check yesterday on how I’ve been living my life. I think it’s easy to say “oh I’m a procrastinator” and rationalize why the little things one misses don’t really matter…and maybe they don’t but cumulatively they DO matter.

I guess one good thing is that I now know what my greatest flaw is: being self-centered and not thinking of others. At least now that I know this (and it’s been confirmed by outside experts) maybe at least that’s the first step in recognizing when I fall into that pattern and actively working to address it.

But this weekend I’m still back on my heels. Man this sucks.

Looks like all LJs now have RSS and Atom feeds. Excellent.

So, I went back and looked at pics of Mt St. Helens from when Kathryn visited last spring, and I noticed something I hadn’t before…

How’d I miss that??? 😉

Outpost # 4071772 Qty: 1
Description: OCZ 1GB PC3200 400MHz 2-64×64(2x512MB)
Price: $159.99

Outpost # 4202624 Qty: 1
Description: AMD Sempron 2500+ Boxed Processor with Motherboard
Price: $69.99

It’s a POS mobo/cpu, but hopefully I will be able to upgrade at some point and still use the memory. So we’ll see how fast this is…my P4 1.5 with 512MB RDRAM is faster than one would think…

ok, must stop being such a nerd… did I mention I tried a fretless bass the other day? I *really* liked it. I really felt more connected to the instrument without the fret clanking, and the ability to slide around so easily. Now I have to decide if I get one, if I should sell my Schecter (because I have this rule, see, 2 basses at a time, max.) or change the rule? I’ve decided I really don’t like it all that much…although it may be the Elixir strings I don’t like. I have some SIT strings on order for it, so we’ll see if it’s just the coated strings that are bugging me. I also experienced momentary GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) over the Alesis Ion and Micron, as well as the Novation KS4, but I was able to make it though…my Nord Lead plus the Juno 106 is enough, but sometimes it’s so hard to stop oneself… 🙂

Hmm. HL2 not out yet. Hopped up on coffee. Time to play some Counterstrike…

Hey haven’t posted in a while but a lot’s been going on…

MusicfestNW. Great. The Gossip rocks.

Mah paerty. It kinda rained so attendance was a little on the low side but that was ok, enough cool people came for it to be a success…although I got wayyy too much food. I’ve been trying to grill up the burgers and eat them before they go bad but I don’t think I can do it!!!

The consensus from the party was I need to worry less about the tree and more about my roof….grrreat…

I’ve been sleeping a lot lately…does it have anything to do with fall? Don’t know, but I don’t like it. I need to work out more, and stop eating burgers. 🙂

Is it just me or is Iraq turning into an incredible facsimile of Vietnam? The parallels are many, many. It seems so obvious that Bush and the neocons fucked up bigtime, and everything he says is just bullshit. How can it be that he’s doing so well in the polls?

I can’t wait for my sabbatical.

I think Prince might be the best concert I’ve ever seen.

A friend of Jack’s brother Aaron had 2 extra tickets, so Jen and I snatched them up. They were in the top tier of the Rose Garden, but relatively low. The stage was in the round, and luckily for my poor eyes Jen lent me her binocs.

I can’t tell you how tight the show was. He had an amazing band, and his way with the audience was great. He has SO MANY HITS, that he was able to roll between them just like James Brown at the Apollo. Very spontaneous-sounding, even though I’m sure it took a lot of work. There was a lot of audience participation, and highlighting of various members of his band (bass, sax, etc.) and a couple interludes by the keyboard player while everyone else took a breather.

Using the binoculars I was able to ascertain that one of the keyboard player’s synths was a Nord Lead (which I have too) but instead of being Nord’s trademark red, it was painted black and purple. 😉 I bet it’s no surprise there were a lot of purple lighing effects, and people wearing purple.

Did I mention that he and his bass player did a bass duet/solo thing??? Nice.

He ended with Purple Rain. Phenomenal. If anyone deserves his fame, it’s Prince.

So the gig at the Roseland went well, once I got past the anxiety caused by my car getting backed into. (Luckily not too much damage, but it’s a hassle, ya know?) The size of the crowd served to emphasize the non-viability of Templeshock, alas. But I think we played well and sounded good so it was a good way to end, I think.

In other news, the court date for the speeding ticket I got in March was pushed back to Nov 8. What the hell is up with this court system? I barely remember getting the damn thing, now.

Finished Doom 3, although I admit I turned on God mode for the last few levels…it was getting a little old, although it did definitely cause shivers up my spine multiple times, I kid you not…hey I’m a baby what can I say 😉

Who is , I wonder???

OK, off to go catch up on my email correspondence and send out evites.