For some reason everyone was pissed off with Paulson's 3 page proposal to fix the financial industry, roughly simplified to: "give me $700,000,000,000 in non-sequential bills, go on with your life and patriotically buy something you can't afford, and we'll all live happily ever after." But it was short and simple and even republicans could understand it (except John McCain). Off the topic but for the record, my sources tell me Paulson was going to hide the pile of cash behind a bunch of glowing barrels under a mountain in Nevada so nobody could find it.
Anyway, now Chris Dodd has a counter proposal and it's really long and complicated and goes on and on and even numbers the lines because it's so long and sounds like something important when it's really as simple as giving someone smart full freedom to fix things (like a James Bond for the financial industry, except here maybe we should pick a name more tightly linked to the financial arena, something like maybe James Bond).
So I'm writing in Paulson for President, love the chutzpah and the blind unfettered arrogance. That's a man I would follow into battle (monetary or otherwise).
8 more years!
2 more wars!
1 more bubble!
Retire no more!
I should write jingles.
Red white and blue baby.
2008/09/22
2008/09/14
Escaping the black hole
I was searching online for how to avoid the inevitable suck of the black hole being created under switzerland somewhere by nefarious physicists and I found the answer (obvious in retrospect): tinfoil. Start wrapping yourself in tinfoil today and the gravity can't find you. That is because gravity is complex, complex because it is both attractive and repulsive apparently (only if you consider dark matter a type of gravity as it is just as confusing but from a large scale repulsive way), complex like teenagers and indian food. Fortunately for us, gravity is also sort of like mole rats and can't see well and depends on intuition to find people. The reflection and heat insulation of the tin foil protects you. Hope! Exactly how you are going to live without the earth and wrapped in tinfoil is a problem I'm still trying to solve...
The other solution I found was to contort yourself into a thermos bottle. Not a cooler, only a thermos bottle. I have now given you two options, good luck to you.
The other solution I found was to contort yourself into a thermos bottle. Not a cooler, only a thermos bottle. I have now given you two options, good luck to you.
2008/09/13
David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace was found dead today. That's too bad, he was an incredibly talented writer. I don't know what type of person he was.
When I was travelling to Mexico I wanted to take along a great big book to read on the buses and in the parks and everywhere so I could be somewhere else but also somewhere inside me. That's reading, right? Anyway, it came down to Ulysses, Infinite Jest, or Gravity's Rainbow. My friend said Infinite Jest was one big intellectual jerk off. That might be true. I chose to read Gravity's Rainbow (I'll figure out what the hell that book was about some time, but it's a book all right). Infinite Jest is a non-fiction book with hundreds of footnotes, some of which could basically be chapters and are phenomenal. Others are the patent for aspirin or some other unnecessary tidbit. But it's his book and it's a helluva book and it's a great book and although I didn't read it in mexico I did read it and I am glad I did. For the record. I almost read it again a few months ago, and if I ever finish Against the Day I might. Now. Maybe. Sad how things like this work sometimes.
However, I also read a book of his essays entitled A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again. The entire book is solid, some essays are better than others as you would expect. The title essay of that book is one of the greatest essays about an activity (taking a cruise) that I have no desire to do, and he perfectly captures exactly what I think a cruise is and why I don't want to do it. I read that essay a handful of times before returning it to the library. If I had it right now, I would read it again. I strongly recommend that particular essay if you want to know how he wrote. Then you can be anti-cruise snobby like me.
It's always sad and a little scary to see a person commit suicide, to know there are demons out there stronger. It happens everyday. Famous people, nobodys, people in between. I wonder sometimes what those demons are like, what it's like to feel that helpless, to lose hope so completely that you choose the eternal abyss before another sunrise. Or another sunset. As much as I complain and I tend toward solitude and negativity, I can't imagine that type of isolation, how the mind could so deny itself. Then again, when I'm healthy I can't really imagine having the flu either.
When I was travelling to Mexico I wanted to take along a great big book to read on the buses and in the parks and everywhere so I could be somewhere else but also somewhere inside me. That's reading, right? Anyway, it came down to Ulysses, Infinite Jest, or Gravity's Rainbow. My friend said Infinite Jest was one big intellectual jerk off. That might be true. I chose to read Gravity's Rainbow (I'll figure out what the hell that book was about some time, but it's a book all right). Infinite Jest is a non-fiction book with hundreds of footnotes, some of which could basically be chapters and are phenomenal. Others are the patent for aspirin or some other unnecessary tidbit. But it's his book and it's a helluva book and it's a great book and although I didn't read it in mexico I did read it and I am glad I did. For the record. I almost read it again a few months ago, and if I ever finish Against the Day I might. Now. Maybe. Sad how things like this work sometimes.
However, I also read a book of his essays entitled A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again. The entire book is solid, some essays are better than others as you would expect. The title essay of that book is one of the greatest essays about an activity (taking a cruise) that I have no desire to do, and he perfectly captures exactly what I think a cruise is and why I don't want to do it. I read that essay a handful of times before returning it to the library. If I had it right now, I would read it again. I strongly recommend that particular essay if you want to know how he wrote. Then you can be anti-cruise snobby like me.
It's always sad and a little scary to see a person commit suicide, to know there are demons out there stronger. It happens everyday. Famous people, nobodys, people in between. I wonder sometimes what those demons are like, what it's like to feel that helpless, to lose hope so completely that you choose the eternal abyss before another sunrise. Or another sunset. As much as I complain and I tend toward solitude and negativity, I can't imagine that type of isolation, how the mind could so deny itself. Then again, when I'm healthy I can't really imagine having the flu either.
2008/09/10
Tunnel comparisons
Two tunnels created. One under the mountains of Switzerland, one in Boston. One may tell how and when the universe was created (cool). The other cuts the travel time from downtown Boston to the airport down (cool). The first cost somewhere around $10,000,000,000 ($10 billion). The other a slightly higher $15,000,000,000 ($15 billion). The first could finally bring about the prophesied golden event horizon that will destroy the world. If read properly, then ignored and modified and imagined upon for my own convenience, the biblical book of Revelations is all about this particular black hole. What could be more rapturous than being sucked into a black hole, c i r c l i n g c i r c l i n g circling ever more quickly as we approach until we are torn apart and nothing is left but our soul, which everyone knows if you really think about it can in fact move faster than the speed of light and escape a black hole. But only if our soul is light and free of sin. Repent! Repel! Repent again! Actually a little known fact is Einstein knew the soul was so light but his editor scratched it out of his papers (that right, papers with an s, he did it multiple times) because he said it was, and I quote, "a bit nutty even for you, Al." His editor was allowed to call him Al but nobody else was. Some people are quirky like that.
To put those numbers in perspective, and some people have complained about the size of both, the combined cost would support our occupation of Iraq for around 2 months. On the bright side, our new vice-president has seen Russia and is apparently a foreign policy savant so we should be fine. Quite frankly, I would rather be invited into a black hole than have her as our vice-president. And I'm almost convinced republicans are going to win.
I wrote a prayer in preparation - it's also a Haiku!:
Dear God our father
Creator in heaven high
Please suck me in now!
That should keep my soul light and faster than light regardless of whether it's god or the mythical Ukiah, the god of haiku, who finally does us in. I should probably quote the numbers but I'm lazy. I'll double check them later, promise. I'll also fix the bad wording and expand on this when I'm feeling less lazy.
To put those numbers in perspective, and some people have complained about the size of both, the combined cost would support our occupation of Iraq for around 2 months. On the bright side, our new vice-president has seen Russia and is apparently a foreign policy savant so we should be fine. Quite frankly, I would rather be invited into a black hole than have her as our vice-president. And I'm almost convinced republicans are going to win.
I wrote a prayer in preparation - it's also a Haiku!:
Dear God our father
Creator in heaven high
Please suck me in now!
That should keep my soul light and faster than light regardless of whether it's god or the mythical Ukiah, the god of haiku, who finally does us in. I should probably quote the numbers but I'm lazy. I'll double check them later, promise. I'll also fix the bad wording and expand on this when I'm feeling less lazy.
2008/09/09
the world
The world feels very angry today and has for the last couple of days. I can't really describe it, just every time I look outside, I feel it. It's in the clouds and the people passing by, the dull isolation of the street and stale stench of people as they pass by me as I sit drinking coffee or standing on the corner or listening to music. It's angry, whether it be the collective soul of the people, or a downturn in the city, or just a few cloudy days I can't say.
Some could say this is really just me projecting, but I never much believed in psychology. I wonder how that makes me feel?
Some could say this is really just me projecting, but I never much believed in psychology. I wonder how that makes me feel?
2008/08/15
Credit cards
My bank has a big promotion and giant posters in its windows where I can customize the picture on my credit and ATM cards. I can get the american flag, My bank has a big promotion and giant posters in its windows where I can customize the picture on my credit and ATM cards. I can get the american flag, or myself, or my family, the golden gate bridge, or your dog, or kittens, or whatever.
It seems to me that since we have so many problems in this country with credit cards and over using credit cards, maybe we should pass a law that all credit cards should have pictures of famine starved people, war orphans, refugee camps, or something like that. It doesn't even have to be in other countries, it could be pictures from the aftermath of Katrina or forest fires or hopeless inner city/rural communities consumed with poverty and I want to say hopelessness but maybe that's just me. Or they could be people walking or biking to support cancer research or MS, just anything positive.
Anyway, this might help people remember (realize?) there is a larger world outside our own circles and maybe help us control our own spending.
It seems to me that since we have so many problems in this country with credit cards and over using credit cards, maybe we should pass a law that all credit cards should have pictures of famine starved people, war orphans, refugee camps, or something like that. It doesn't even have to be in other countries, it could be pictures from the aftermath of Katrina or forest fires or hopeless inner city/rural communities consumed with poverty and I want to say hopelessness but maybe that's just me. Or they could be people walking or biking to support cancer research or MS, just anything positive.
Anyway, this might help people remember (realize?) there is a larger world outside our own circles and maybe help us control our own spending.
2008/08/14
Overheard on the bus
You are very complicated.
I have many layers, like an onion. Except I only make myself cry.
Sigh.
I have many layers, like an onion. Except I only make myself cry.
Sigh.
Janitor's march
The SEI Union for janitors is marching along the street in front of my company right now looking for a new contract. They aren't even cleaning the streets as they go. I wouldn't give them a new contract.
I happened to be on the phone with a friend when they went by and he asked if they were janitors and I said, well, they seem to be mostly latinos...
I happened to be on the phone with a friend when they went by and he asked if they were janitors and I said, well, they seem to be mostly latinos...
2008/08/11
overheard at the coffee shop
He comes in late and sits down.
Sorry I was late, there was a lot of traffic.
Traffic? Nobody drives in San Francisco.
Then why was there all that traffic?
Indeed. He's having an affair. He probably doesn't even own a car. You can tell these things, even with perfect strangers in the coffee shop. And you know what - they aren't even perfect.
Sorry I was late, there was a lot of traffic.
Traffic? Nobody drives in San Francisco.
Then why was there all that traffic?
Indeed. He's having an affair. He probably doesn't even own a car. You can tell these things, even with perfect strangers in the coffee shop. And you know what - they aren't even perfect.
2008/08/10
Earliest memories
Like most people, my earliest memory is from my childhood. I was maybe 3 or 4 and I was walking around a city with my father. As you may recall from previous posts, I grew up in a small town so were on vacation somewhere but, in typical fashion for my family vacations, we were not all together. Apparently today we had broken up by gender.
I remember walking up a hill in a city with a lot of people around a lot of activity. I will confess I might be re-imagined these specifics though since I had this memory while riding on a bus in Chinatown San Francisco. My father and I were walking down the hill and i remember taking off my shoe and carrying it in my left hand while holding my fathers hand with my other hand. He noticed my shoe, pulled me towards the wall, and told me to put it back on.
I handed it to him.
He handed it back and told me to put it back on. I held it. I stared at him. He said we would wait until i put it on. He crouched along the wall like he would at that time, both of us being much younger than we are now, watching the people pass. I wonder if he thought i would make a scene, start crying or running or pouting as I would often do. Instead, I instinctively moved to the wall myself with my shoe still in my hand and began watching the people. So many people just passing and passing and always passing and there were always more people where did they all come from I remember thinking. Where I grew up it wasn't anything like this, even during the annual potato festival, the busiest time of the year.
After a minute, or a child's minute and I don't remember if that is longer or shorter than now, I looked at my father. He was probably trying to teach me something, but maybe he wanted a break. Maybe he wanted a drink. Now, if I were in his situation, that's what I would want and we really aren't so different. I watched him watching the people pass. I loved him then, that he could just crouch there and wait. Actually, I probably hated him then, but I love him for that now. He had long hair and a long beard and I remember now what it felt like when I was a kid, course and hard and fun and playful. It was a time when people could look like that and be hated for being hippies but not feared for being terrorists. It was a simpler time. That is how time works in America.
We continually complicate things. I moved to a new country, across my own country, and still can't find whatever it is I seek. Even the stories I make up come and go. This one isn't really true at all. It popped in my head when I saw the cutest little girl with the most wonderful inquisitive happy eyes on my bus from where I live to downtown, a route passing through Chinatown. Her mother was putting on her shoe and I think she was curling up her toes so it wouldn't go on. When I babysat for my neighbors in high school, my parents told me that was a power struggle between children and parents. They were great parents (they usually still are...), and maybe I always remembered that somehow. These stories, they just pop in my head short and generally fully developed like this, where I just add detail and made up context, I like to say are from the collective consciousness. I don't know if I think I am being clever or if I really believe this, but i think it is a combination of both.
I remember walking up a hill in a city with a lot of people around a lot of activity. I will confess I might be re-imagined these specifics though since I had this memory while riding on a bus in Chinatown San Francisco. My father and I were walking down the hill and i remember taking off my shoe and carrying it in my left hand while holding my fathers hand with my other hand. He noticed my shoe, pulled me towards the wall, and told me to put it back on.
I handed it to him.
He handed it back and told me to put it back on. I held it. I stared at him. He said we would wait until i put it on. He crouched along the wall like he would at that time, both of us being much younger than we are now, watching the people pass. I wonder if he thought i would make a scene, start crying or running or pouting as I would often do. Instead, I instinctively moved to the wall myself with my shoe still in my hand and began watching the people. So many people just passing and passing and always passing and there were always more people where did they all come from I remember thinking. Where I grew up it wasn't anything like this, even during the annual potato festival, the busiest time of the year.
After a minute, or a child's minute and I don't remember if that is longer or shorter than now, I looked at my father. He was probably trying to teach me something, but maybe he wanted a break. Maybe he wanted a drink. Now, if I were in his situation, that's what I would want and we really aren't so different. I watched him watching the people pass. I loved him then, that he could just crouch there and wait. Actually, I probably hated him then, but I love him for that now. He had long hair and a long beard and I remember now what it felt like when I was a kid, course and hard and fun and playful. It was a time when people could look like that and be hated for being hippies but not feared for being terrorists. It was a simpler time. That is how time works in America.
We continually complicate things. I moved to a new country, across my own country, and still can't find whatever it is I seek. Even the stories I make up come and go. This one isn't really true at all. It popped in my head when I saw the cutest little girl with the most wonderful inquisitive happy eyes on my bus from where I live to downtown, a route passing through Chinatown. Her mother was putting on her shoe and I think she was curling up her toes so it wouldn't go on. When I babysat for my neighbors in high school, my parents told me that was a power struggle between children and parents. They were great parents (they usually still are...), and maybe I always remembered that somehow. These stories, they just pop in my head short and generally fully developed like this, where I just add detail and made up context, I like to say are from the collective consciousness. I don't know if I think I am being clever or if I really believe this, but i think it is a combination of both.
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