The winners have been picked and the invites have been emailed. If you made the cut, you'll have an invite right this minute. If you don't, you didn't make it. Sorry.

All and all, it was a lot of fun. It's hard to beat an inbox overflowing with wacky pictures and poems. Thank you all for sending me things.

Some un-scientific stats:

• On Saturday and Sunday this site received six times it's normal hits
• It's still running around three times as much
• About 60% of you got invites before I ran out
• 99% of the submissions were from dudes
• 5% of the submissions mentioned that they had fun doing them
• 100% of those 5 received invites
• 3 people submitted something completely unrelated to the instructions
• 5 people didn't submit anything
• 1 of those 5 said please
• Total size of all submissions: 20mb (or 2% of my alloted space)
• A surprising number of you have compromising fire hydrant pictures, at the ready

Bush and Cheney are appearing before the 9/11 commision tomorrow, on their terms. This includes:

1. They appear together
2. In private (no press)
3. There is no transcript (written or recorded)
4. They are not under oath

[d] ensures that they can lie. [a] ensures it's not so obvious (by giving contradictory testimony). [b] & [c] ensure no one checks up on said lies later.

Leader of the free world, they've been heard to call him.

Whatever.

I finally got around to seeing the first Kill Bill.

Uma Thurman has incredibly ugly toes.

I'm looking forward to seeing Volume 2.

I'v received 100+ Gmail submissions. It's taking a little longer than I expected to sort through them. Invites will be sent out soon. Unless my apartment is doing it's oven impersonation again tonight. In which case it will have to wait until after I've finished browning.

Our apartment doesn't do well with heat. There's no airflow. It holds heat in like this was the fifties. Sitting in it's favorite chair, drinking a scotch, and not saying a word till work tomorrow.

And then still not saying much.

It's 10:30pm, and still 80+ in here.

Yesterday we broke down a bought a fan. It should have been bigger. I should be sitting on the stoop, drinking organic lemonade, and listening to Tribe Called Quest. Except we don't have a stoop.

Stupid stoopless house.

I've got all the submissions I can handle.

I'll be going through the entries and sending out invites later tonight.

I've got an inbox full of soup. Some great. Many pretty half assed.

I'm going to keep accepting requests until I get home from work Monday evening. At which point I'll send out invites, starting with the best submissions and working my way down until I run out.

Right now, everyone would get one. Even the really lazy people.

You've still got a chance. And a good one at that. Send away!

(Don't forget to read the instructions)

Update: The competition is getting fierce!

Recently MTV Europe did a feature on the Anticon kids, as part of their "Our Music" show. Surprisingly lengthy interview clips are available on their site.

The segment with Sole (pictured) should not to be missed.

Update: The contest is closed.

I haven't been taking enough pictures with my non-built into a phone camera. I was going to wander around and take some Saturday, but it was too cloudy. I ended up taking a bunch of shots around the house.

There are at least two Ravi Shankars in this world. There's the sitar maestro most people are familiar with and then there's His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I bought tickets to the second, thinking it was the first.

As luck would have it, I like a bit of the ole His Holiness now and again.

This sort of something can often times get a bad rap. Often times due to the sort of folks that show up. Fanatical following for answers can rub the wrong way. And rightfully so. I didn't get much of that impression from this crowd, though. People seemed genuinely very chill and happy. Hundreds of them under the same roof. Comfort like that doesn't come often. It was wonderful.

It made me miss the Zen Center dearly. Like an old friend. Like a home that has nothing to do with shelter or memory. I need to start going back. Many times today I caught myself reminiscing about washing pots. Big giant soup pots, too heavy to hold with one hand. That's what I'm talking about.

At some point a change of email address caused me to miss the mailing for Saturday bag lunch distributions. A lack of time (and of course Me) kept it from correction. ...That was foolish. I'm back on it. Too late for this month, but next month for sure. And maybe sneaking some trips to they Thursday afternoon soup distro when I work from home....

That would be nice.

Bush is using millions of dollars in taxpayer money to subsidize his campaign. For example:

• The Bush-Cheney campaign has used government employees to conduct opposition research on John Kerry. Even a former Republican Treasury official admitted that they had "stepped over the line." [Wall Street Journal, 3/31/04]
• The White House directed the Health and Human Services Department to run thinly disguised campaign ads that mislead seniors about Bush's Medicare plan which funnels billions of dollars to giant pharmaceutical companies. [Washington Post, 10/20/02]
• The Bush campaign is charging taxpayers $15 million dollars for political forays into battleground states, turning Air Force One into the Bush campaign plane. Bush has even asked for a larger travel budget for 2004, funded by the taxpayers. [Washington Post, 10/20/02]

The Kerry campaign is currently collecting signatures on a petition asking the president to pay that money back - Which will be delivered to him tomorrow in Miami beach. Please sign it today: http://www.johnkerry.com/bill/

From the Wired News story, A Move to Block Gmail Service:

"'We think it's an absolute invasion of privacy. It's like having a massive billboard in the middle of your home,' said Sen. Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont)."

Am I the only person that has no idea what that means?

It's not just Condie... Ashcroft also has a record of blatantly lying to Congress.

The charges on my card have been corrected, but I haven't heard a word from Dotster support. Not a single peep.

GoDaddy (recommended by Paul) has good prices, real people you can talk to on the phone, and they like to stick it to the man. I think I'll switch a few names over to try it out.

More and more lately, when i come across an interesting blog or a website, i find myself taking a peek behind their scenes, prying. i copy the URL out of the address bar, and click into google's image search. -3 Legged Armadillo

He's on to something. This is fun stuff: Tony Pierce, Lane, Me, Goldman, Buzznet, and I've got to get back to work....

When I got the zero information error message from Dotster yesterday, I started trying other things (I really needed my domain back). I tried renewing for a single year. I tried renewing for multiple years. I tried renewing more than one domain at a time. They all gave the same nothing error in return.

I looked at my bank account today and they charged my card for every single supposedly failed attempt - To the tune of $316.65.

Can anyone recommend a better place to keep my domains? ...Is there even such a thing? Please email me if you know of one.

Bomberman Jetters just came out. It's $19.99. That's because the main game is a pile of crap. It's based on an anime tv show where the Bomberman characters do something really boring and repetitive for 20 minutes every weekday. The main single player 3D adventure mode captures this fantastically.

Fortunately, Jetters includes the real Bomberman. There's a single screen, some blocks you can blow up, and some people you can blow up.

It's one of the best multi-player games ever. They've got the balance between skill and randomness down. Sometimes you feel like your really sticking it to your friends. Sometimes you have no idea what's happening. All the times it's fun.

The Jetters theme song really captures that mood (translated from Japanese):

I'm at the edge
Ha! Ha! The bombs are bursting!
Fire! Fire! In English it's fire!!
Fu Fu! The bombs are increasing!
Hey! Hey! Let's make fires of peace!

Somehow we're always involved
All this time, being either cold or sweating
There are many things to decide
I'm at the edge of a cliff (Hah ha~)
If I have to, I'll do it, regardless of how many times
Raise the power! (Yes~!!)
If I don't do it, who will?
I'll answer the call for hope.
3,2,1 - I won't forget this even when I become an adult.
3,2,1 - Your heart is bursting because you're invincible.

Today and tomorrow
I'm at the edge of a cliff.
Ba! Ba! Babibube bombs!
Good good! Good looking fire!
Pu! Pu! What about fractions?
Bey! Bey! I'm learning about fire!!

That's what I'm talking about.

My domain has expired. I didn't know this, because there's an unusual underscore character in my email address at Dotster. My email doesn't have an underscore. I doubt I would have put it there, but whatever. This isn't the point.

So I go to renew, and I get the following:

Of course I need to contact support. Your error message doesn't tell me anything. I have no idea what's going on. The only way I can possibly know, is to paste that ridiculous number into an email... Then wait.

So I did and I am. Hopefully customer support works on the weekend.

Update: On a whim, I just tried it again. For a third time. And what do you know? It worked. Same exact everything. Nothing changed.

...It'll be interesting to see what customer support says.

The Center for American Progress has a fascinating look at the difference between what Condoleezza Rice said in her opening statement, versus what is known fact (sourced for easy confirmation).

Via: veen

Operation go see more live shows continued last night with Buck 65 at Cafe Dunord.

That man can put on a show. Unlike last time, he didn't go it alone. This time he had some help on the turntables from DJ Signify... But mostly still just stood in front of a mike and a turntable and tour it up. For around 2 hours straight. With no real breaks to speak of. From the first song to the last song it was full on intensity. Mr. 65 works hard.

It was so good Lane nearly passed out.

I hope he comes back to San Francisco soon. Real soon.

...of Bush, made from photos of Americans who have died in Iraq.

via: Boing Boing

In honor of the day after 04/04/04, I've dug deep into the saved as draft archives to bring you a long forgotten, and still unfinished, blog post:

Earlier this week I saw the re-mastered, re-cut, theatrical re-release of Alien. It's a fine film. On a big screen, it's visually stunning... and scary. Aliens are not to be trifeled with.

The end is very strange. I mean... the Alien gets sucked out of the ship. That part is clear... But before that is odd. Ripley launches the escape pod/ship thing just in time. Then she:

1. Nuzzles the cat
2. Gets Undressed
3. The Alien hand pops out
4. Somethign I forget
5. She freaks out and backs into the closet
6. Somehow the ultimate killing super reflexive killing machine doesn't notice this
7. The Alien lays on his side crammed between something? super pimp like
8. She sneaks out
9. The Alien is still getting his lounge on
10. The Alien see's her
11. Ripley sweats and moans and jerks around while occasionaly looking over her shoulder
12. The Alien get's sucked out of the ship

I don't think it should have come as any surprise that she was pregnant in the third one...

I also found one about the similarities between Republican media useage and the art of professional wrestling (think "cheap pop"). ...That's going to stay un-published.