Lifted from Media Matters.

Dreaming about throwing up is almost as bad as throwing up.

Sometime Friday afternoon I felt the sickness coming on. I started hitting the Emergen-C and Kombucha hard. I was alright on Saturday... Today, not so much. I woke up this morning feeling awful. My head felt like my brain had swollen over night, I was dizzy, and nauseous. Many naps later, I'm feeling a bit better. Or maybe I'm just motivated by the brownies Lane is making...

I get especially spacey when I'm sick. Reading is too much work... while TV isn't nearly engaging enough. So today I fired up ScummVM and played some Full Throttle. Man that's a fine game. The quality of voice acting and number of genuinely funny parts more than make up for the click heavy trial and error type puzzles. The pace and level of interaction are also well suited for a laptop on the couch.

Which is where I should be right now.

Someone over at Ask Mefi was wondering if he should move to St. Louis. People generally have nice things to say about the ole hometown... except when it comes to the humidity.

It's hard to understand humidity without experiencing it first hand. Even the bitter cold doesn't press in on you like the air on an especially humid summer afternoon. It's sort of like standing in the center of a Jell-O mold that's made of 80% air and 20% hot steaming sweaty ass. Only worse.

I learned an important lesson today. No matter how nice and friendly your landlord seems, or how absurdly obvious things seem, do a complete walk through with them before you sign anything. Point out every smudge, nick, dent, scrape, and spot. Show them dirt. Establish a state of things. Make sure the landlord agrees that this is the expected state of things when you leave. If not, have them get it to that state before you move in.

At my last place, I didn't do any of that. I just assumed.

Today I got an email all about how my landlord can't return the full deposit on my old place at 122 Linda, due to a large list of reasons. Nearly all of which came with the place... And those that aren't seem pretty silly (we didn't clean under the top of the stove?)

Lane was still in North Carolina when I moved. I sent her pictures... and even a little camera made movie. I'm sure I can find some evidence of the scuff marks and the nasty spots on the carpet.... But not definitively, since I wasn't specifically taking pictures of them. The argument is going to come down to my word against his. That isn't going to go anywhere.

Instead of all the hassle for arbitrary outcome, I'm gurdgingly going to eat it.... and be considerably more thorough the next time I move.

It has come to my attention that I'm the number 3 result for both "fuck republicans" and "fuck democrats".

For Republicans, the 1 and 2 results are profanity laden diatribes by, what I'm assuming to be, youngsters. For Democrats, the 1 and 2 results are Dick Cheney.

I, obviously, don't have much faith in the way things have gone in this country. Watching Monday's episode of the Daily Show with Bill Clinton (thank you Bit Torrent) brings a little bit back. To see someone talk about politics and this country in a considerate, educated, and yet completely unpretentious manor is wonderful.

That quite literally doesn't exist anymore on the National stage (except for the newly notched up Obama). It reminds me of the true power politicians hold. Not a heavy handed dictation of what's best.... A stern father grasping for the past while completely unable to come to terms with the present... Whose only encouragement is towards nothing like you rebellion. .....But a pack on the back guidance. Wisdom that come from the experience of being there.... Translated into ideas for everyone to have.... Put out there for everyone to share... and most importantly modify. Encouraging involvement and understanding.

I need that reminder.

Clinton is the best foil to voter apathy I've seen. Let's hope the Kerry campaign see's more value in keeping him visible than the Gore campaign did.

Taken 10/11/2003 at Buena Vista Park.

Awhile back Wire magazine did a 7 page feature on Clouddead (only one of which contains ass-less pants). Those kids have come a long way. They no longer interview entirely in abstraction - Instead offering up more confident insight into the whats and whys they do.

One quote in particular struck me:

"There's a lot of big bags of empty that you're sold quite early," muses Doseone. "And you're on the moving sidewalk before you know it - you've got the degree and the student loans."

There's a list of reasons I never went to college. That's one of them. I didn't understand it as well at the time.. and in many ways I was wrong about it. At least in the reasoning I gave. It was grounded in a general dissatisfaction with everything (lets call it MidwestSyndrome).

Now days, I'm more inclined to cite enough as nothing special. More often than not, big bright eyes open those bags to bask in the nothing. And stay bright. No one wants to be the only one with enough empty bags. ...That's not cynical - just natural. An effect caused by our unique awareness of each other.

So no degree and no loans. No expectation and no requirement. Freedom to pursue an end outside of routes, rather than end up.

But damn is enough tempting. Once you start buying in, it doesn't take long to loose sight. "Comfort is a crutch", someone said. And a misnomer. And all the locks on your door. And before you know it that sidewalk is whisking you away to another work day...

Taken shortly before landing at Lambert airport in St. Louis.

The full size version makes a fine desktop background, if I do say so myself.

Scott Rosenberg - The prez who cried wolf

...is there, as we're hearing, something truly, definitively different about this threat report -- something, beyond the specificity of the named targets, that distinguishes it from the previous, transparently manipulative Tom Ridge scares?

The only reasonable answer anyone not sitting in or near the Oval Office can provide is, we don't know. And that's precisely the problem the Bush administration has created for the nation.

[...]

Perhaps the Bush administration knows more than we do. But between its weapons-of-mass-destruction debacle and its record of timing bogus scares for maximum politial gain, this gang is no longer in a position to say, "trust us."

Amen.