:: Archipelapogo ::

:: 31.3.04 ::

Sheesh

For all the hand-wringing and hullaballooing that the conservatives did regarding activist judges and the gay marriage issue, I'm getting more disturbed by this recent trend of activist pharmacists. This time it's in North Richland Hills (a very well-to-do pocket of the DFW Metroplex) and someone refusing to fill a prescription for birth control pills. Criminey.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Tedium

I know it's the calm before the storm and the busiest worktime of the year is just around the corner, but I'm really hating this current lull in things-to-do here in the Office of Government Slack. Case in point: I just spent the last hour and a half playing with binder clips and a plastic knife from the bakery down the street.

See, in my little game, you take a small binder clip and stick it on the knife. Then you fold the metal tab thingys forward so that they meet. Then you grab the end of the kinfe and hack it down on your desk, with the metal tab thingys hitting first. This causes the wonderful sensation of shoving the binder clip off the knife, a delicious snap, and the clip magically springing up in the air.

Yes, seriously, I did this for an hour and a half.

Then I got the novel idea of trying two binder clips at once. I began to have these delusions of grandeur involving multple knives all bound together and snapping scores of binder clips up at once, having them land chaotically all around my cube and maybe, just maybe, in an orifice of an unsuspecting coworker.

Mission failed. The addition of a second clip caused the height of the action to be lessened. Apparently there's a finite amount of Springocity and and adding the second clip cut it in half. Now I'm no physicist, but I think it's safe to assume that my dreams of dozens of binder clips all raining down from the Heavens like a plague of metal locusts will have to reamin just that. Dreams.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Resistentialism

As I believe I've mentioned here before, I've been a subscriber to Anu Garg's A Word A Day e-mail for a couple of years now. Anu's got a knack for finding strange and interesting words and putting them in a sometimes humorous context. Today's word is resistentialism - The theory that inanimate objects demonstrate hostile behavior against us.

Anu goes on to explain that the term was coined by humorist Paul Jennings. After doing a little googling, I found a copy of his Report on Resistentialism. It's a little lengthy, but there are some interesting parts to it. It always fascinates me when people take a somewhat humorous or quirky part of life and analyze the everloving juice out of it.

A convenient point of departure is provided by the famous Clark-Trimble experiments of 1935. Clark-Trimble was not primarily a physicist, and his great discovery of the Graduated Hostility of Things was made almost accidentally. During some research into the relation between periods of the day and human bad temper, Clark-Trimble, a leading Cambridge psychologist, came to the conclusion that low human dynamics in the early morning could not sufficiently explain the apparent hostility of Things at the breakfast table - the way honey gets between the fingers, the unfoldability of newspapers, etc. In the experiments which finally confirmed him in this view, and which he demonstrated before the Royal Society in London, Clark-Trimble arranged four hundred pieces of carpet in ascending degrees of quality, from coarse matting to priceless Chinese silk. Pieces of toast and marmalade, graded, weighed, and measured, were then dropped on each piece of carpet, and the marmalade-downwards incidence was statistically analysed. The toast fell right-side-up every time on the cheap carpet, except when the cheap carpet was screened from the rest (in which case the toast didn't know that Clark-Trimble had other and better carpets), and it fell marmalade-downwards every time on the Chinese silk. Most remarkable of all, the marmalade- downwards incidence for the intermediate grades was found to vary exactly with the quality of carpet.

Enjoy, if you so desire.
:: Scott [+] ::
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More Peace

Speaking of Peace and good things of that nature, I took the time this morning to signup with the Music For America folks to table and register voters at the Plea for Peace tour in June. The lineup for Dallas is: Cursive, Saul Williams, Planes Mistaken for Stars, and Mike Park. Location is TBA, but IIRC, last year the Plea for Peace tour played at Tree's. So if you happen to be going to the show, drop by and say hey. I can hook you up with some free swag.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Cupdate

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the potential "Peace Team" playing in this year's Dallas Cup. The schedule was recently released and it looks like they did manage to get an under 12 team assembled and ready to roll. For those interested, you've got at least three chances to see them play. All of the following are out at Richland College:

Sunday, 4 April 12:00 noon vs. Nomads Academy

Monday, 5 April 10:00 AM vs. Classics Blue

Wednesday, 7 April 4:00 PM vs. MTY San Nicolas

I'm definitely going to the Sunday game. I'm hoping there will be a lot of press out there covering this significant and touching story. The organizers of the Dallas Cup did also manage to get together an under 14 team from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, all of their games are during worktime so I think that's a prosect that probably won't be realized. We'll see. (Afghanistan Select schedule here).
:: Scott [+] ::
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Puedo Cocinar!

Part two (1) in a series of "why Scott shouldn't be allowed to live by himself" or the more apt description of bumblefuckery.

So in this episode, I decide to take a shot at stir-fry. I've been enough places to know the basic ins and outs and what-have-yous. So last week I went to the wonderful little market and bought some oil, some Kung Pao Sauce in a jar, broccoli crowns, bell peppers, and some rooster sauce. I already had some carrots and chicken here at the apartment, so everything seemed to be in line.

The day I actually decided to undertake this ordeal, I popped into the Tom Thumb real quick to procure some water chestnuts and crunchy noodles. Texture is vital to me, culinarily. Came home, no freaking waterchestnuts in the bag. Not willing to drive a quarter mile to argue over something that cost $1.40, I shrugged that off. So I get everything out, set up, rice going, blah blah blah. Then the fun begins.

Careful so as not to create a massive fleshwound in a thumb or finger (I use them for typing, ma!) I managed to get the veggies all chopped up and set them aside in a bowl. Of course, it was a different bowl than I started with as the original was too small to hold even the broccoli, but guesstimation has never been a strong suit of mine.

Chicken thawed, I squidged through dicing that, managing to get salmonella all over my kitchen. Hey, one week later and I'm still standing! Okay, prep's done, let's get to cooking. I'm sure the handy guide that was the three step instructions on the side of the Kung Pao sauce will suffice, right? Okay then...oil in pan. How much? Hmm, this is about 8 ounces, half should do, right? *glug glug glug*. Oven on. Go smoke a cigarette and spread salmonella to the balcony. Stupid ants will never see that coming. Allright, oil's looking hot, let's test it with a couple of drops of water...

What ensued was a series of popping, sizzling, burning arm hairs, panic, expletives, and bewilderment.

Managing to get the pan off the stove (intuition worked...and hurt), I slowly figured that I uh, had the uh, the heat on too high. Hmm. So, praying that I didn't let the greasy panhandle slip from my greasy burning hand thereby dumping hot oil all over my feet, I slowly reached over to turn the stove down a hair. After a while the pan was sufficiently cooled off, so time to test the water again.

What ensued was a series of popping, sizzling, burning arm hairs, panic, expletives, and bewilderment.

What the hell? I thought this shit had to be Hot to do stir fry. So once more, managing to get the pan off the stove, praying that I didn't spill hot oil on my floor, I turned the stove down a little more. After sliding across the kitchen floor that was greasy enough to make an Exxon executive drool, I held the pan gingerly under the air conditioner and waited some more. Sufficiently cooled off, I once more took the pan over to the stove and set it on. Gingerly testing some drops of water, nothing happened. Great. Waited two or three minutes, tested again, not too shabby. Hmm. This is gonna take some courage after what happened before. Gingerly holding a small piece of chicken over the oil, protecting my eyes, and readying to run, I dropped it. Success!

Added the rest of the chicken and thought to myself, man, these little buggers are drowning in that oil. That doens't seem right. So I began to spoon some of the oil out and into a jar that I had in my recycling pile. Or, well, attempted to. You know, idiot, slotted spoons are made to that liquid will fall out of them. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

Everything else turned out pretty well and the end result was nothing short of a tad better than the Kung Pao questionable meat at your local strip-mall or bowling alley Chinese grab and scram. Had enough leftover for a couple of lunches, which is always a bonus. Served some up for myself the next morning to take to work, set the tupperware container in the floor of my car. Right next to the can of waterchestnuts. Idiot. I'll definitely have to give it another shot soon, lessons learned, arms scarred, and floor sticky.
:: Scott [+] ::
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A little something for everyone

..::This was so good, I shamelessly ripped it off and posted it here (credited, of course)::..

..::Get your own personalized action figure (via askme)::..

..::Something tells me this whole on-line community thing (Friendster, Orkut, whathaveyou) is getting a little out of control. Maybe I'm just bitter I don't have a pooch of my own to put up there. Who knows?::..

..::The American Gallery of Psychiatric Art - via tui::..

..::The odd story of Haruurara, the Japanese racehorse who has lost 106 straight races and become a national hero::..

..::Interesting WaPo article on eco-friendly flooring for homes::..
:: Scott [+] ::
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Tour Dallas

A co-worker and I enjoyed the brilliant weather this weekend by taking a little leisurely bike ride around White Rock Lake. While out there, we spotted a table of organizers for Tour Dallas, a charity event in a couple of weekends. Basically, a couple thousand people and their bikes will all be meeting up at the American Airlines Center and heading off on either an 8-, 20-, or 30-mile -ahem- Tour of Dallas. The website is very explicit in stating that this is not a race, there are no prizes, nobody will be keeping track of when anyone finishes, etc. which is pretty cool.

Most of the money raised is going to Dallas CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), although a buck per registrant is going to the Texas Bike Coalition. So it's for a good cause and seems like it'll be a lot of fun, if I can make it 20 miles (no, I'm not going to shoot for 30). If any of you out there in the land of 0's and 1's are planning on attending, give me a heads up, eh?
:: Scott [+] ::
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Good-bye Terrible Twos



A very happy 3rd b-day to the old 'pogo.

(And no, that's not my dog, thank you google image search, but oddly it does look remarkably similiar to a dog that we had when I was growing up)
:: Scott [+] ::
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Music For America

Music For America is yet another group trying to get out the young vote. They're tabling at indie shows trying to register voters, hand out pamphlets, and just talk to kids about getting off their jaded asses and doing something. Seems cool to me. Their lineup of artists ranges from Sonic Youth to Del Tha Funkee Homosapien to Death Cab for Cutie and a ton of people whose band is "The" Somethings. To boot, if you volunteer at one of their events, you get to see the show for free. I need to keep an eye on this. It's probably too late for tonight's SY show, but still...
:: Scott [+] ::
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BlogMaverick

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has started his own weblog. Truth be told, and I shouldn't be surprised, he's a pretty good writer. I loved this bit, from this entry about shooting some promos for his new reality show.

The highlight of the day came while we were outside the school shooting liners for the show. At various times during the day, I would get the expected “Mavs Suck, Lakers Rule” shouts that are normal everywhere I go in LA. But this time while we were shooting, there were some cars backed up at a light, and one guy just had to shout Mavs Suck or Cuban Sucks everytime he saw me start to talk. So we took a pause waiting for the light to change and this guy to drive off.

The light changes he starts to roll forward while we wait and has to get one more Cuban Sucks in there, and then crack! He rolls into the car in front of him. The whole crew just burst out laughing. It wasn’t even a fender bender: there was no visible damange and no one got hurt, but karma had raised its head. Of course, I suggested we go over there and make the most of the situation. So we gave both parties a hundred bucks, put ‘em on tape, and the Laker fan gave us some great humbling moments. And the lady he hit. She didn’t want the hundred till she found out it was from me. Then she signed the release because she liked the idea of taking the money from the guy who owns the Mavs. She likes the Lakers too.

It'll be interesting to see if he has anything to say about last night's debacle. (first seen on SpoFi)
:: Scott [+] ::
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St. Pat's Links

..::Irish Sushi - via rebecca's pocket::..

..::Guiness Bubbles really do sink - via Czeltic Girl::..

..::The story of the Real St. Patrick - a nice short summary. FYI, just in case you don't click on the link, the "snakes" that Patty drove out of Ireland were symbolic represenations of Pagans and Paganism.::..
:: Scott [+] ::
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It's all about the mystery meat

Here in the Office of Government Slack, we have a pretty nice little conference room that random people, presumably they work in some other office, often co-opt for their own little gatherings, usually food related. Since most of us in the OGS can't be arsed to care about the other offices, opportunities are rare that we ever get invited to these awkward chomp and gabs, something for which I am thankful on at least a weekly basis.

Yesterday it was the birthday of some guy that's rather old and, frankly, only works about four months of the year and is compensated at least 4x what I am. I'm not saying it's not money well spent, I'm just saying... anyways. The remainder of folks that take up the space on our floor that our little eight-member operation doesn't have this annoying habit of buying confections, sticking glowing pieces of wax in them, and then, in unison, wishing whoever it is a happy birthday in some weird unified dramatic way that's quite repititious. It's enough to make one ponder if you can staple your eyelids together.

Even worse though are those that get together and bring in catered food. It reminds me of the extremely awkward family reunions that I spent with 2nd and 3rd cousins in small Oklahoma towns that had gas stations named the Git N' Gallup. If you could manage to make your way through the wafts of smoke left by 30 chain-smoking ex-hippies and their parents to the food, you'd find pretty limited options. But the smell that eminates from the conference room always takes me back to those gatherings. I don't care if they bring in BBQ, fajitas, pizza, thai, or skewered and grilled baby manatees, it always winds up in my cube smelling of hot dogs and potato salad. It's a wonder I haven't hurt anyone.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Blogging for Charity 1.a

I can still remember sitting in my bedroom during adolescence idling playing games on my old 256 and listening to music until all odd hours of the morning. Back then my days were filled with pyramid solitaire and Pearl Jam's Ten, pinball and the Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream, and MineSweeper and Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary. I wasn't a very happy kid growing up, for probably a variety of reasons many of which I'm sure were my own fault, but I always took a lot of solace in the sweet mixture of music and video games. Music that I connected to on some emotional level. Music that I'd fall asleep listening to while dreaming that I was the person on stage playing it, that I was the one that had written those lyrics and presented it to the world and the world nodded and said, yeah, man, I'm feeling that too.

I've never been much of an artist, but I have, as I've matured, tried to split the wheat from the chaff when it comes to art and then tried to point people I know to the stuff I deem "good". You know, kind of like filtering the internet for decent sites and writings. Therefore, whenever I go through a period of life where I do a lot of emotional connection to music, I tend to enjoy sharing that with others, even if they don't quite get it at the time.

I've been through a lot of lows lately, so a lot of the shit I've been listening to is of the wallowing "whiskey and a gun" nature. As I look to the future and try to find a way out of this funk, I felt the need to at least mark this period with something, so like all unoriginal slackers, I've assembled a new mix CD.

I tried this once before to absolute failure, much to my chagrin, but I'll have another go at it anyways. I've put together a new mix CD featuring 16 beautiful and (mostly) sad and bitter songs. If you'd like a copy, in tribute to the 'pogo's 3rd anniversary (this Friday) all you've got to do is donate (at least) $3 either to John Kerry's Campaign, the Dallas SPCA, or Doctors Without Borders. After that, just drop me an e-mail with something catchy in the title (stuff about dick-strengthening pills and morgtages probably aren't the best) with your addy included, and I'll pop a copy off to you. Even if you don't "get" this CD right now, maybe someday when you're in the right wrong mood, it'll help, at least just a little bit.
:: Scott [+] ::
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Diversions

..::This Wall Street Follies diagram is a little confusing but ultimately informative and interesting::..

..::Not very practical, but the Splash Car is pretty cool (pics here). Crazy Europeans::..

..::A lot of people love Matt Baldwin, and stuff like this is why::..

..::The Thunderwheels: The world's only official unicycle gang. (via mefi)::..
:: Scott [+] ::
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Marketing

I don't often recommend things here on the 'pogo, but I've got to give a couple of plugs real quick. The new album by the Walkmen, Bows and Arrows, has been getting some major playing time lately. It's a lot more mellow than what I usually listen to, but there's something about it's haunting, desperate, gravelly sound that really resonates with me right now. Never mind that singer Hamilton Leithauser occasionally sounds a little too much like Rod Stewart for comfort, it's really good stuff and certainly lives up to all of the rave reviews I've been reading about it.

Secondly, I've been getting Six Feet Under's first season from Netflix lately and burning through the episodes at a superb pace. I know I'm the last person in the world to actually watch the show, but until HBO comes in on my antenna, I've got to slum it. I loved Peter Krause on SportsNight, and he's certainly one of my favorite aspects of 6FtU. The cast is made up of really talented and unique character actors, and the script is very well written. Disc three will be covered tonight.

And an odd thing that falls under the marketing department: In today's Business Section of the Dallas Morning News, there was a small ad seeking prospective franchisers for the Krystal chain of fast-food joints. They explained some of the benefits and highlights, the first (and implicitly most important) being "Unique, square patties". Now, I've never eaten at a Krystal (although I have seen them in various spots during my travels), and I don't want to prejudge, but when the best thing you can say about your restaurant is "unique, square patties", methinks you need to retool something. For one thing they're not exactly unique. For another, and bear in mind that I'm no burger connoisseur, but wouldn't it be a little better for a restaurant to focus on, oh I don't know, flavor?
:: Scott [+] ::
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Linquitos

..::Ten Things You Used to Be Able to Get Away With in Grade School But You Probably Can’t Get Away With at Work via dana::..

..::Horror/comic artist Basil Wolverton's "book of Revelations" works::..

..::I haven't yet read this 1998 Atlantic piece by Eric Schlosser on the Prison Industrial Complex, but I will tomorrow at work during lunch. His next book is rumored to be about the Prison Industrial Complex. I really like his style as he has the rare ability to be extremely straightforward and matter of fact without lulling you to sleep.::..

..::Socialism says good-night - cartoons from Socialist Slovenia::..

..::May Day drawings and cartoons - via plep::..
:: Scott [+] ::
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Explosions in the microwave

The ultimate in monetary fun. I won't even pretend to understand the technical jargon involved, but if I had an extra $20 around (unlikely), it'd be kind of cool to make Andrew Jackson's eye pop. (via waxy)
:: Scott [+] ::
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Diversionary things

Work's fairly busy and I think I got maybe two and half hours of sleep last night, so here, have some linkage:

..::Search for Calvin and Hobbes cartoons by text, keyword, etc.::..

..::The Guardian talks with Alberto Granado, the man who travelled with Che Guevara on this journey, which is now has been made into a movie. I've been reading this book which is a travellogue by the author who recreates the journey on a bike of his own. The author is among those that credit this journey and Granado as being a major influence on politicizing Che.::..

..::Helen Walsh was 13 when she discovered clubbing, house music and ecstasy - she had her first pill before her first kiss. In this astonishingly frank memoir, she recalls the pain she brought to her mother, together with the euphoria she found with the friends who became her new family ::..
:: Scott [+] ::
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