Here’s the low-down on everyone’s favorite oilman: Dick Cheney. The claims I verified in part here, by CNN.
I had no clue Chevron actually named one of it's oiltankers after Condoleeza Rice. Damn! § “”
I recently got a five-disc CD changer from my dad for Christmas. The old one I had kept skip skip skip skipping or playing for a while, then jumping back 10 seconds, playing, and skipping back again. A real pain in the ass. Though it wasn't as noticable with stuff like Grandaddy, Sparklehorse, or Kid A. Speaking of which, I still need to see if the rumored 17-second overlap works or not. (Hypothesis == play 2 copies of Kid A on two different players, starting one 17 seconds after the other. There's rumored to be this overlap/reinforcement/self duet-type effect on several songs.)
So I unpackage the CD player, plug it in, and hook it up to my stereo. Immediately a message reading STANDBY appears on the LED. So I wait thinking it’s initializing.
And wait.
And wait.
Finally, I say the hell with it, and pop the power button.
Then the message briefly changes to HELLO and the LED lights up in a brilliant cool white and orange with all the requisite icons for the discs, time, and play mode.
So I put in U2's The Joshua Tree (personal favorite for audio testing). Sounds good. Hell, at this point, I’m glad the thing just plays continuously.
Apparently, some designer at RCA thought it would be neat to have the CD player constantly say STANDBY when it's plugged in.
Very pleased with Santa this year. He (meaning the collective term for friends, family and cohorts) actually read my list this year.
My girlfriend, Amy—thoughtful as always—got me a set of “mandles”: manly-candles that is, though not on The List. Given the astute observation that I have no decorative candles around my place, she felt that I needed some, so she bought me one similar to this, except in a 3×3 matrix, set in a walnut (dark brown wood) finish. I still have no idea where I’m going to put it, but I’ll have candles in the house.
My holiday decorations at home were spartan at best, just to provide just enough of a sense of the holidays. I bought a 2' (vertical) juniper bush, a string of 100 white lights, and a box of 75 mini candy canes. Simple, but effective. The funny thing is I only need about 25 lights for my Christmas “tree”, so I strung the rest over the balcony doors, and hung the small candy canes on the tree—any normal set of ornaments would have felled the poor juniper.
The same principle of too much for so small goes for the candy canes too. I’ve stuffed my coat pockets with the remaining 60 or so mini candy canes, which make for a near-perpetual waft of peppermint coming from my office.
The 12.05.00 U2 B&P from NYC, by way of Texas, should get here after Christmas. :)
Saw the new video for “Stuck in a Moment”, which won’t be released in the States as a single for a while yet. Es muy bueno. I also spied a good part of the Dave Matthews Band's next single “I Did It” due out in two weeks. I’m beginning to learn not to trust first snippits from new albums. (The DMB one has me skeptical thus far, but…) You actually need to hear the song, as well as album, for the full effect.
I conjured up the wrong impressions from the “Discotheque” sample I downloaded in 1997 for Pop, with the same being true with the first downloaded snippit I heard from “Beautiful Day” for All That You Can’t Leave Behind.
We’ll see come February how Dave and the guys are at baking from scratch. § “”
Let me see if I can recall back to my high school AP American History.
When was the last time a man held the office of the president without being elected to it by the concensus of the American people, while utilizing the staff of a former administration, and whose administration was tarnished from Day One by the circumstances which afforded him the presidency?
Hmmm…. Oh! That’s right. Gerald Ford. Good ol’ worthwhile and influential Ford became Vice President to Nixon after Nixon's first VP, Spiro Agnew, resigned due to income tax evasion (á la Al Capone). Then when Dick Nixon resigned from the presidency due to the Watergate scandal, Ford gained the presidency, without the dictum of the people, by a construct of the Constitution.
God help us all.
Cross Reference: Shep 12.14.00 § “”
So the Electoral College has voted. Bush by 4 with 271; Gore with 267.
<OBSERVATION mood="embittered">
God Bless Americans. I cannot trust a politician (or any man for that fact) that grins as much as W. does.
I remember when I took a Primatology course at school how when many animals are nervous, they put forth a big wiley grin as a show face, as a way to somehow reassure the others that everything is all right, there is no danger present, or: “Cookies? What cookies? Ohhh. Those cookies.” He acts like he has this little inside joke he keeps giggling to himself about in front of the cameras.
</OBSERVATION> § “”
First of all it was ass cold outside. With the wind gusting around us, and blowing the lights off the Christmas trees around the Center, our ears easily went numb—damn quick. The opening act, Steve Earl and the Dukes were pretty good, but too many of the songs sounded similar to my untrained ear, 20 rows down from the top of the arena. I suppose that happens it when you have just three electric guitars and a drum kit (along with the occasional harmonica). Although not being terribly familiar with their material contributed to it, I did snag a few songs from Napster as a sampler.
Yes, our seats through The Warehouse, the Dave Matthews Band fanclub, were in Section 205 in the top tier, a section down from the top of the Center. Can’t complain much though. Our tickets to RFK this summer (7.19.00) we in Row 13 on the floor, and was a kick ass show.
The Philly show wasn't that bad (with a pair of binoculars) since it let us kinda take in the whole venue, enthralled crowd, beaming spotlights and all. The oddest side-effect (whether it be a positive or minus) was that it was the first concert in a while where my ears weren't ringing afterwards; kinda unsettling actually. More later.
Setlist
Muchos gracias to DMB Tour Archive
Seek Up
What Would You Say
JTR
Don’t Drink the Water
Satellite
Song That Jane Likes
Rhyme & Reason
True Reflections
#41
Crash Into Me (Dixie Chicken)
All Along the Watchtower
Grey Street
So Much To Say --> (Anyone Seen the Bridge?)
Too Much
Encore:
Blue Water (first verse)
Christmas Song * (All you need is love, Can't buy me love; Dave and Carter only)
Ants Marching § “”
I personally have no desire nor inclination to go see The Grinch. If I want to go to Who-ville, I’ll head up 29 to Charlottesville (the original Who/Hoo-ville). § “”
When I was a kid, I used to love winter–everything seemed crisp and clear and there was an intangible spark in the air about things. That intangible electricity to things has become anything but recently.
Although technically still autumn until the 21st, the slight annoyance of winter static electricity, manifesting itself around the house and work as “ z a p ! ”, has become a major pet peeve for me this season. I can barely make it from the car to the door without seeing arcing bolts from my fingertips like I was Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi. It was kinda cool the first couple times, but then it actually hurt once or twice. I kept looking at my fingers expecting to see black singes.
Rolling brownouts in California?
Too bad we haven’t the technology to harness the energy from static electricity yet. Just imagine: warehouses full of people rubbing balloons on their heads and people sloughing across shag carpet. Oh, the potential. § “”
I will stop, I will stop at nothing.
Say the right things when electioneering
I trust I can rely on your vote.
When I go forwards you go backwards
and somewhere we will meet.
When I go forwards you go backwards
and somewhere we will meet.
Ha ha ha
Riot shields, voodoo economics,
it's just business, cattle prods and the I.M.F.
I trust I can rely on your vote.
When I go forwards you go backwards
and somewhere we will meet.
When I go forwards you go backwards
and somewhere we will meet.
Welcome to the morning after, folks. Looks like we get another Bush in the White House, but a severely pruned Bush at that (more later).
With the 5-4 decision in the Supreme Court issued, and little further recourse, there was but one course of action for Al Gore. I didn’t concur with the findings of the Supreme Court, but I thought they were justified—in principle—about halting the recount Saturday. However, I did believe that there was sufficient time to recount the votes by the 18th.
Recounting ballots without an agreed-upon standard is pointless until a standard is realized. It’s like trying to count without knowing your numbers. When/if they would have come to a concensus on hanging, dimpled, tri-chads and their ilk, the counters would have needed to restart the whole process anew in order to determine (the buzz phrase) “voter intent”.
One of the issues also being brought up is that in halting the count, the U.S. Supreme Court only gave the officials only an hour to recount the ballots, then stated in its decision, the constraints of time as a factor. This again goes back to the previous argument about ballot standards. Why recount when everyone’s using different measures for intent?
The Supreme Court should never have become involved in these cases. The tarnish of partisan politics has spread from the president-elect to the Florida state courts, and now to the U.S. Supremes. This should have been decided in a state court as it was a state issue, but nonetheless here we are.
Then there’s good ‘ol President-elect Dubya (and I use that title loosely). The man reminds me of an amalgamation of his daddy’s tenure as Chief Exec: the brain of Dan Quayle in Bush, Sr.’s body…I sometimes swear I can see the strings during press conferences. 
Prove me wrong. Please. § “”
— Justice John Paul Stevens, 12.12.00
Supreme Court Decision 00-949 § “”
I turn the heat back on, turn on the computer and wait a good 15 minutes as it downloads the three-day backlog of 800 email messages, mostly from Nancies (mailing list for the Dave Matthews Band), yet I still have zero mail from Vibes (mailing list for Agents of Good Roots), which has been the case for several weeks now, despite me still being officially subscribed as the list manager says. [Yes, that was all one big sloppy run-on sentence.]
So I go to re-subscribe, using another address to see if I had been blocked or removed for some reason. Nope. Instead, I get an error message from the bounce-back email. Fantastic! No info on the band and one step backward. Lists…bands…oh yeah, Nancies. I was talking about Nancies.
I finally get through the 800 messages and pick up the phone to make a call, only to find I have voice mail. So I call up and check my voice mail, and who does it turn out to be but my little sister (only by 2 years) saying that she's in town for the pre-holidays and was over at my dad’s house. For those of you unfamiliar with my family, I'll let you in on a crucial detail: my sister lives in Oregon, yet this is the first I’ve heard of it period.
So I call her back over at dad’s house, and arrange to meet her and the rest of the clan for dinner. Could this have been any more out of the blue. It looks like my parents did an “Oh, I thought you told him” deal. I had no clue whatsoever that I'd be joining my sister for dinner tonight…. Stranger things have happened, though not recently. § “”
I was introduced earlier this week to the recordings of Howie Day and Tom McRae—good stuff so far. Well done guitar and generally more work on the acoustic side, giving it a nice clean sound. I’m still going over them. I have this odd, untrained way for listening to music: I initially pay attention to the “color” of the song. Analagous to the way the visual component of the way type looks on the page as a whole, I listen to see if the melody, instruments used, voice, and meter of the lyrics all work. Only once they jive, do I begin to tease out the contributions of the instruments, and the individual components of the songs. Call it innane, but that's how things work in the cerebral nation of Chad, deal. § “”
All in all, a nice, lazy, pokey day. I forgot what sort of pleasant ambiance christmas lights have. (Further adding to my nice, uninterrupted day of sloth.) § “”
