Month: October 2012

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I Had Every Intention of Waiting Until the Hysteria Subsided…


…and Apple had time to work out the scratched-right-out-of-the-box issues I'd been reading about and the general inability to actually buy one and get it before the Mayan Apocaplyse, but a combination of my current contact with Verizon being conveniently up for renewal and learning of a not widely advertised method of ordering one and getting it the next day changed my mind.

It works like this: you go onto Apple's website and place your order between the hours of 10pm and 4am and then select in-store pickup for the next day. Apparently Apple has a certain percentage of phones held in reserve in each store for this very purpose. With even Verizon quoting me a delivery date well into November, I figured I had nothing to lose by trying this.

I really didn't think it would work, so I was simultaneously surprised and elated when I placed the order last night and the configuration I wanted popped up as available for pickup in the Lakewood store.

I had previously arranged to take today off, so this morning, after receiving the confirmation email from Apple, I drove over to Lakewood and picked up the shiny new Precious. Not a scratch or nick on it. Relieved. Setup and transfer of all my apps was about as painless as possible, and while I had some initial buyers remorse when I hit that buy button last night, I'm quite happy with the purchase.

 

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Gleeful

"I sometimes have the feeling that we should kiss."

"I sometimes have the feeling I should do crystal meth, but then  I think, hmmm…better not."

This past weekend Ben and I saw Pitch Perfect. It wasn't a film that was even on my radar, but it had been months since we'd gone to a movie and this seemed to be a good escape.

I went in with no expectations and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It was everything—and more—that made the first season of Glee so delightful until it transformed into the hot mess it's become. Great songs, good singing, cute boys (and girls, if you're into that) and characters that you generally come to care about (or at least want to bitch slap).

"Nothing makes a woman feel more like a girl than a man who sings like a boy."

I liked it so much I even got the soundtrack off iTunes…

Highly recommended. Go see it.

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Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

I can't take much more of this election bullshit.

You can't watch a YouTube video without first being assaulted by either Romney or Obama telling you how horrible the other one is. While I agree with Obama and will be voting for him, I can't tell you how many times I've just closed my browser rather than sit through another minute of this crap. No video in the world is worth it.

And television? I guess by living in one of the "battleground" (Why is everything steeped in war terminology?) states, I can pretty much forget about seeing any sort of ad for the next three and a half weeks that doesn't involve one candidate or another calling the other one the Antichrist—and in the case of the Republicans—just spewing outright lies. "Let's just throw out this shit and see what sticks."

You're right, Mr. Romney, I'm one of the 47% who will never vote for you, or any of your downstream cronies. The Republican party is toxic waste, full of aging racist bigots who will say or do anything for no other reason than to simply "get that Nigger out of the White House."

I'm not thrilled with Obama, but the alternative is just too horrific to contemplate. Can you imagine the mess this country would be in right now if McCain got elected? With Sarah Palin in tow? Sarah. Fucking. Palin. A Romney/Ryan win would all but guarantee a similar—if not worse—scenario. Can you say "Endless War?"

At this point, if a Republican announces that he or she is against anything, I'm voting for it because you know whatever it is, it has the potential for hurting the their corporate masters—otherwise they wouldn't be whining.

And while we're on the subject Mittens, just because you got a little bump in the polls after the debate and the Reich Wing are orgasming their panties into a frothy mix over it doesn't mean the missus should go measuring for drapes just yet.

I'm sure there are people on the other side of aisle (i.e. willfully low-information voters who are immune to basic reality and too lazy to research anything beyond what Faux News tells them) who feel the same way about Obama and the Democrats. That leaves the mythic "middle ground" voters that the two parties are trying to woo.

I call bullshit. If you're in the "middle" and at this point still haven't made up your mind who you're voting for, you have no business going anywhere near a voting booth and should instead simply stay home November 6th and try to decide what color socks you're going to wear that day, because you're an idiot.

 

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Where It All Started

Someone should've warned me back in 1984 that this damn thing was the gateway drug that would eventually cause me to easily spend the equivalent of twice my 2012 salary on this "hobby" over the next twenty-eight years…

(Click to embiggen.)

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Married Men (NSFW)

Married Men
Bette Midler

The world is full of married men
with wives who never understand.
They're looking for someone to share
the excitement of a love affair.

They say they do it, they do it, they do it, they do it
again and again.
Wooo, they do it, they do it, they do it, they do it.
These married men.

Ah, he'll run when the scandal
gets too hot to handle.
He'll say he just wants to be friends.
And then he'll walk outta your life
and go home to his wife
'cause he's a married man.

Oh, your love is a secret.
You've got to sneak it
long as you can.
Don't cry for your lover.
There's always another
married man! Married men!

(Nasty, nasty married men)
I know! The world is full of them.
The world is full of them!
They do it, they do it, they do it, they do it.
Whoa, I love a…
Ah! They do it, they do it, they do it, they do it.
Don't trust a…

Ah! They do it, they do it, they do it, they do it!
Don't trust a…
Ow! They do it, they do it, they do it, they do it!
Bum's gonna hurt you, destroy you!
Yeah! They do it, they do it.
They're gonna do it, do it to you.
Married men, married men.
They do it, they do it, they do it, they do it.

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Punching the Nose of a Bully Does Not Make You a Bully

A week ago Dan Savage gave a speech at Winona State University. In part, he said:

LGBT kids are four times greater risk of suicide. Tony Perkins advises the parents of LGBT kids to reject their children. LGBT kids who are rejected by their parents are at eight times greater risk of suicide. Perkins is aware of these studies and yet he actively encourages the parents of LGBT kids to do what Perkins knows will push those kids closer to suicide. The Family Research Council promotes anti-gay bullying in homes and opposes all efforts to combat anti-gay bullying in schools. (Here's Perkins on the "It Gets Better" Project: "According to Perkins, [the campaign] is "appalling," "disgusting," and an attempt to "recruit" kids into a perverted and "immoral" "lifestyle.")

Tony Perkins and the FRC point to the LGBT youth suicide rate as proof that the "gay lifestyle" is dangerous and unhealthy… while at the same time doing everything in their power to drive up that suicide rate.

Tony Perkins sits on a pile of dead gay kids

This of course, got all the usual right wing nut jobs panties in a bunch and the unquestionably heterosexual Tony Perkins responded:

Hate-filled leftist gay activist Dan Savage was at it again last Thursday. In a presentation at Winona State University in Minnesota, Savage went on another vulgarity-laden tirade in front of students this time saying that "every dead gay kid is a victory for the Family Research Council" and that "Tony Perkins sits on a pile of dead gay kids every day when he goes to work" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary, serious vulgarity warning).

Miss Perkins then went on fellow Christianist nut job Mike Huckabee's radio show and continued to beat this horse:

As my teenagers would say, he has some issues. He is a man with some real deep-seated issues … and Dan Savage is nowhere near, he's a hundred and eighty degrees from the positions that we have taken. It's wrong and I will tell you this, we are pursuing everything possible to deal with him because he is out of control…. This is the bottom line, Mike: is that if you don't embrace and celebrate homosexuality and everything associated with it, then you are intolerant. And the truth of the matter is, let's just be very, very truthful, and that's what we deal in is the truth, that even is society embraced homosexuality, there would never be that sense of self-fulfillment because it's outside the way God created man and woman. And that's the bottom line. They cannot erase that, even if they get every law on the books changed, it will never change that.

Naturally, in his indomitable style, Dan responded, basically telling Perkins to "bring it":

Yes, Tony, I have issues.

I have issues with people who would deny me and other LGBT people our full civil equality for no legitimate reason. I have particular issues with high-profile haters who encourage parents to reject their LGBT kids, doubling their already quadrupled risk for suicide. I have issues with people who say that LGBT people are "pawns of the devil." I have issues with people who compare LGBT people to terrorists. I have issues with people who falsely link homosexuality and pedophilia. I have issues with people who suggest that a law calling for the execution of gay people merely "upholds moral conduct."

But having issues with you, Tony, isn't quite the same thing as "having issues." Please make a note of it.

And during your chat today with Huckabee you didn't address the issue I raised. You and Mike called me names—because you were angry that I called you names?—but you didn't address my issue. So here it is again:

LGBT kids are four times greater risk of suicide. Tony Perkins advises the parents of LGBT kids to reject their children. LGBT kids who are rejected by their parents are at eight times greater risk of suicide. Perkins is aware of these studies and yet he actively encourages the parents of LGBT kids to do what Perkins knows will push those kids closer to suicide.

Sue me, Tony. I'd love to see you talk about my "issues" on a witness stand.

I realize that this isn't how you think the world is supposed to work, Tony. You believe—and you're old enough to remember a time when—people like you were free to say vile and disgusting things about people like me without anyone objecting. Certainly people like me weren't allowed to call people like you out. You still believe you should be free to lie about me and other LGBT people with absolutely impunity—we're all pedophiles and terrorists and Satanists—and that we should have to shut up and take it because… well, I'm not sure why you think we're not allowed to respond when you lie about us.

Maybe that's something we could get to the bottom of during the depositions.

I would love to see Tony's sagging ass handed to him in courtroom.

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Visions of Mars

From high above. Gorgeous.

If you look closely, you'll see dozens of black, spidery-looking things in these photos. They aren't Martian arachnids (obviously), but something equally as interesting. It is now believed they are carbon dioxide geysers, the dark color coming from the darker underlying dirt and particulate matter that's being spewed into the atmosphere during the spring thaw near Mars' south pole. Scientists aren't certain this is what's happening because nothing like this is seen on any other terrestrial planet, but based on the evidence it seems to be the most likely explanation.