soon i will be moving this blog to hosenpants dot com. there is not much there yet except for a picture or two, but as its my new domain, i'm gonna get stuff off of pacbell. so for shits and giggles, and because Movable Type is listed on the homepage of my new domain host, i have been thinking about switching to either MT or perhaps to the upcoming TypePad that Six Apart is developing.

today i was looking at the feature tease that is out for TP and came across some thoughts that, perhaps true in a development/marketing way, seem like such a bummer:

While every weblog is unique, one of the common ideas that has emerged is that weblogs represent a person's identity online, and one of the best ways to present your identity is by presenting supplemental information that's important to you, such as the media you consume.

i wouldn't even think to argue this point on any level, but the fact that it is so pervasive a practice amongst the people who weblog and who web at all seems like such a homogenizing and dulling aspect.
similarly, yet another person invited me to be in their friendster network today. i think i'll pass again, feeling that i can barely keep up with the actual friends i have, including the friends inviting me to meet their friends via friendster!
what happens when everyone is on friendster?
instead of a list of what you are reading, i would rather know why you like or do not like something in particular - that record you have, the movie you just saw ( how was 'gigli' anyway?) - that to know that, yep, just like me you buy lots of extra stuff. once i have a relationship with someone, then i can derive some sort of meaning from yr "currently listening to" list.

last night, perla and i took the gold line from south pasadena to the end of the line, rosemead. we've taken the train from her joint into hollywood a couple of times to see movies, but thats the ye olde red line. (yawn)
the gold line JUST opened this last weekend and runs from just east of pasadena down to union station. apparently it was a mob scene on saturday and sunday, with two hour waits to get on the train at the stations in any direction. last night around 9 o' clock and most of the seats were taken.

"Boy I'd like to see those words on a PR banner behind Snow at the podium:
Jobs and Growth: Just Wait."

Hello,thanks for visiting my site, JobforJohn.com. Last Thursday, July 24th I was "downsized" from my job of 3 years at a software company.
Later the same day I heard that President Bush's economic team would be doing a bus tour through Wisconsin and Minnesota this week touting Bush's tax cut and its prosperous economic effects.
"What a bunch of BS. I'd like to give their PR tour a dose of reality," is what I thought. So I packed up the minivan and decided to follow their bus around the countryside and talk to whoever would listen about the real facts--that this economy stinks, and Bush's tax cuts are making it worse.

IMPALED NORTHERN MOON FOREST DISCOGRAPHY.

we tried to print this out to put up here in the office, but i think resolution has a lot to do with effect, so it was no dice. so dig it online.

berliner Unterwelten -- the berlin underground association -- a particularly interesting place to be part of an organization dedicated to steam tunnels, unused transit corridors and crypt-like storage facilities...not to mention, NAZI BUNKERS! facinating.
if/when i get back, i'm signing up for a tour.

open source web design. ain't had a chance to look through this much, but at first glance this looks like a great mufuggin' idea.
will i use some of these? who the hell knows. but as i've gotten older i've found myself more drawn to editing and working with some initial given, rather than creating completely from scratch.
it even shows in how i collect sayings, expressions and what not.

lynda weinmans book on color (o.p. but i think the info has been folded into a different book by now) has been a great place for me to start working on something, go with my first guess, what catches my eye, and then start mixing it up, or down, from there.

idi amin dada is lookin' to cash it in soon. i remember a tv dramatization of "raid on entebbe" that was particularly disturbing to my then kid sensibilities. the image i have in my mind is of a show that was shot with the same look/feel of a soap opera - all indoors, very controlled lighting, kind of like a stage set but with a different distance than say 1/2 sitcoms. perhaps it was all shot on one set, the airport waiting room.
other shows i remember shaking me up when i was young were a documentary on the 1972 munich olympic hostage nightmare (there was the detail of on of the israeli weightlifters or wrestlers attempting to bar a door while their teammates ran for their lives), the made for tv movie "helter skelter", which i did not watch but the commercials advertising for it portrayed manson, head shaved with a swastika carved into his forehead all wild-eyed in the courtroom, and the coneheads.

Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. (via billmon)

from the mighty TalkingPointsMemo:

I think the thing that discouraged me about the vice president was uttering those famous words, 'no controlling legal authority.' I felt like that there needed to be a better sense of responsibility of what was going on in the White House. I believe that--I believe they've moved that sign, 'The buck stops here,' from the Oval Office desk to 'The buck stops here' on the Lincoln Bedroom, and that's not good for the country.

George W. Bush
October 3rd, 2000





President Bush on Friday put responsibility squarely on the CIA for his erroneous claim that Iraq tried to acquire nuclear material from Africa, prompting the director of intelligence to publicly accept full blame for the miscue.

Associated Press
July 11th, 2003

on a day that lies, generously being called spins, about the african uranium fear-mongering comes to more light, there is this new list from the mightly Billmon.

This is not a man who is an ascetic like Osama bin Laden who is willing to go live in a cave for a long period of time and be cut off from the outside world. This is a man who's used to his palaces and his luxuries.
Dick Cheney
Meet the Press
March 16, 2003

...

People wonder if he is dead or not. There is some evidence that suggests he might be.

George W. Bush
NBC Dateline
April 24, 2003

etc, etc, and sadly, etc...

I hope when kids see them perform, they have that same reaction as they do when they pass by the sculpture-strewn front yard of a house that has been altered to resemble a huge whale. You know, where they turn to their mom and dad and say, “Mom, Dad, look at that cool house!” and then when mom and dad, smiling, happily listening to Sting (“Something we can all agree on!”) as their SUV drives past the house, turn to the kid and reply, “Wow, look at that.” The kid will say, “Can we do that to our house?” And when mom or dad says, “No,” that the kid will say, “Why not?” But this time, when neither parent comes up with a satisfactory explanation and ultimately resorts to the time-tested “Because I said so, that’s why,” that the kid will turn to them and say, “Pull over. I’m out of here. If I want any kind of halfway decent shot at not living the rest of my life in mind-numbing boredom, I gotta take off now while the gettin’s good. See ya later, losers!” Then, when that kid’s older, I’ll read his book.

an editorial by david cross that seems related to the episode of This American Life that dealt with the subject of "wacky". (scroll down, its the 3/20/98 episode - real player needed.)
as in, here are the wacky designers of the company.
or, look at that funny decoration, its so wacky.
and as in the perfect easy-going term to marginalize some behavior that threatens whatever boring ass norm passes for living these days.