mushinnoshin

First, go meet Little Lesley Simpson.

Now then, who’s this guy?

Well, no one really knows, hell they don’t even know his name. He doesn’t say much. The generally accepted rumor has it he was the bastard child of Professor Frink and the Crazy Cat Lady — and was actually raised by her cats. Works for the nuclear plant in the position vacated by Frank “Grimey” Grimes and spends most weekends chanting with Apu in the garden on the roof of the Kwik-E-Mart. It is suspected that were he ever to talk, his voice would, as with many Springfield residents, bear an uncanny resemblance to that of Hank Azaria.

Update: didn’t I see you at Springfield Park last week?

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

– Thomas Jefferson

Techdirt via Public Knowledge

I’m proud to say that, with the possible exception of referencing her humiliating loss to Mr. Slave in the South Park “whore-off”, I’m pretty sure the name “Paris Hilton” has never graced this blog until now, for the singular purpose of saying that the following is awesome:

When you’re unsure about a given issue, whether it’s race relations or equal rights for women, or marriage equality or immigration, just look at what side the social conservatives are on, and it’s a fair bet that history will judge that side to be the wrong one. — tgirsch

Of course it sounds like cynical political snarkiness on the surface but when you think about it — well, social conservatism is “resistance to progress” pretty much by definition. Since progress will happen and the most that those who fear it can ever do is slow it down, social conservatism must always be on the wrong side of history. That’s precisely what it means to be a social conservative.

So I saw Vertigo tonight. The cool thing for me (well, apart from seeing on the big screen a renowned film from a legendary director with a fantastic cast) was that, being set in San Francisco, it was chock full of local references – the Embarcadero, Fort Point, the Presidio, Eddy Street — things that might as well have been fiction for me a few months ago became totally real. So that was neat.

Which seems a good segue into a short bridge post in the travel diary. OK, so Tuesday we had to get to work with the MySQL conference sessions, leaving little for me to report here. That night the conference held a reception with food & beer, which was followed by a vendor party with more beer, which we then followed with our one night in downtown San Jose, hitting a joint called the Mission Ale House. Nothing special really, just a regular, young working class hangout. Good place to knock back a few. Wouldn’t call it a Latin bar, but did seem to be a high Hispanic percentage there, which I guess is probably just a reflection of the local demographic.

This all led to the 3 AM realization that the hotel safe was there to protect The Ultimate Cheeseburger. I guess you had to be there. And be wasted.

Wednesday was MySQL work again, and by the time the night rolled up we were both pretty exhausted. So it was dinner at the hotel bar, a casual beer & pizza roundtable with the MySQL Cluster team, and an early bedtime. Thursday morning, work again. Finally the afternoon hit, the conference was over. Well, except for the “Ice Cream Social”, which, heartbroken though we were, we had to skip — we had a boat to catch.

Sometimes coincidence is a funny master. You may remember a few weeks back, at the party for Aunt B, Kate exposed me as a closet Styx fan* — well that very week, Amazon spammed me to mention they were having some sort of $7 or $8 CD sale, and lo and behold it included Kilroy Was Here — so how could I refuse?

Of course if I’m going to do an Amazon buy, I’m going to buy enough to get the free shipping. Luckily, the sale covered a whole slew of A&M titles (Maybe it was a CEMA thing? Is CEMA still around, and is that the right distributor? It’s been a while since my disc slinging days … anyway I think there was A&M, and Mercury, and Island, and a bunch of labels like that which I’m pretty sure were all covered by the same major distributor) so I got Kilroy and Paradise Theater, plus, inspired by Bonnaroo, I nabbed Zenyatta Mondatta and Regatta de Blanc from The Police, all albums whose cassettes I wore out back in the day, and all of which I hadn’t heard in their entirety since those days.

So I’m on a nice nostalgia kick right now. “Regatta” was the perfect background as I fixed myself some tasty vegetarian jambalaya for dinner tonight. Which brings me to the point of all this rambling, which was all just to say — damn I love Message in a Bottle.

Just a castaway, an island lost at sea, oh
Another lonely day, with no one here but me, oh
More loneliness than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despair, oh

I’ve certainly sent out an SOS or two in my time. So far, no answer.

Well, he goes on..

Walked out this morning, don’t believe what I saw
A hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore
Seems I’m not alone in being alone
A hundred billion castaways, looking for a home

Welcome to the internet my friend : )

—

* You may be wondering how I reconcile my appreciation for Styx with my disdain for Journey? Well, see, Journey is a band that sucks. But Styx is a group of artists painting a complex and nuanced portrait of a band that sucks. I use the same logic to excuse Judas Priest, by the way.

No seriously, I never bought the argument that Styx should be lumped in with Journey and such; their theatrical nature puts them really much more simpatico with someone like Queen. Queen with a lesser singer, but better synth work.

Yup, as of today I’m a brown belt! Sort of a major milestone I suppose. A little over two years in, with two years to go towards black — I guess it’s a bit like becoming a junior in high school.

Well, I made it this far, the goal is in sight and there’s no turning back. But holy shit that next kata is a beast.

There’s something delicious about using sudo to call schroot to chroot into etch32 to run IE6 over wine from amd64.

I can’t believe it works…

Forwarding from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship TN list:

== CONGRESS VOTES THIS WEEK ON CUTTING FUNDING TO THE SOA/ WHINSEC ==

June 18, 2007

SOA Watch has received confirmation that THIS WEEK Congress will vote on an amendment to close the School of the Americas/ WHINSEC. Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts will introduce an amendment to the Foreign Operations appropriations bill to cut funding for the school!

SEND AN EMAIL AND FAX TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVE
(Be sure to click the “Send a Fax” box to have the fax sent).

---

–> CALL-IN DAYS TO CLOSE THE SOA/WHINSEC <--

MONDAY, June 18 - WEDNESDAY, June 20:
Call Congress at 202-224-3121.

---

PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO CALL THE DC OFFICE OF YOUR REPRESENTATIVE – You can call the Capitol Hill Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your representative’s office. Ask to speak with the foreign affairs legislative assistant. Here is a suggested message for you to convey:

“I am calling Representative________ to urge him/her to vote YES on the McGovern amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. This amendment is a cut in funding for the School of the Americas/ WHINSEC. New information indicates that WHINSEC has allowed known human rights abusers to instruct and receive training at the school. The governments of Costa Rica, Argentina and Uruguay have made public announcements that they will no longer send students to the school, citing the negative image and history of this institution. Voting YES on this amendment sends a positive human rights message to Latin America and will help to improve the U.S. image abroad. As an elected official in Washington D.C., I hope you will
represent me and vote YES on any amendment in the House that would cut funding for the school.”

WE EXPECT A CLOSE VOTE in the House this week, and we need as many people as possible flooding the offices of Members of Congress with calls in support of a YES vote on the amendment! We need you to call, email and fax Congress every day until the vote happens. Tell your family and friends to do the same!

–> BACKGROUND INFORMATION – The School of the Americas is a military training facility for Latin American security personnel located at Fort Benning, Georgia that made headlines in 1996 when the Pentagon released training manuals used at the school that advocated torture, extortion and execution. Despite this shocking admission and hundreds of documented human rights abuses connected to soldiers trained at the school, no independent investigation into the training facility has ever taken place. Read more at http://www.SOAW.org.

It’s been one year since our last vote in Congress, and the work of thousands of you and people across the Americas who care about justice has gotten us to where we are today. LET’S MAKE THIS FINAL PUSH TOGETHER!

Visit the Legislative Action Index for more information – http://www.soaw.org/legislative.

---

Our postal address is SOA Watch, PO Box 4566, Washington, DC 20017.

OK, so back to the Californialog (or, for Cory, “Californialogue” : )

When we left off, it was Monday afternoon, and I’d just finished the Berkeley campus tour. I wish I’d had more time to explore the campus on my own, but I had a deadline — it was 3:00, and I had to be at the dock to Alcatraz at 5. Plenty of time I thought, even including the fact that I would have to drive 40 minutes back to Santa Clara to pick up Mike then 40 minutes back up to San Francisco, rather than just make a quick jaunt over the Bay Bridge. Well, it would have been plenty of time had afternoon traffic not pushed the 40 minutes each way to an hour-plus each way. Oops.

So yeah, I summoned up every ounce of maniacal driving DNA I could muster from the automotively-obsessed end of my gene pool (seriously… I mean kudos to Mike for not pissing his pants, ‘cuz we really pushed the envelope…), but to no avail — we pulled up in front of the entrance just in time to watch the boat leave. Damnit. Luckily, they were kind enough to let us exchange our tickets for Thursday. Which kinda sucked because that meant I wouldn’t get to take yoga with Manouso, but c’est la vie. We were just glad they were willing to exchange, because the ticket purchase terms didn’t require it of them.

So with the evening ahead of us and the agenda suddenly cleared, after an interlude for dinner a few doors down at Pier 23, we figured it was a good night to do the requisite San Francisco tourist stops. Of course this meant spending a good bit of time around the Golden Gate Bridge — mostly in and around Fort Point, then driving across the bridge, and stopping for a few more shots from the north end. Then it was off to Coit Tower, making sure to take a spin down “crooked” Lombard Street along the way.

These areas of course demanded a huge number of pictures, so hit the Flickr set to see them all. But here are a couple of my favorites:

Unfortunately I don’t know jack about setting exposure times and whatnot so the night shots from Coit didn’t come out too well, but they’re in the Flickr set, some of the light patterns are interesting : )

Once we finished playing tourist, it was time to get our booze on. Stops for the evening included a nondescript tavern called the Red Jack Saloon (someone had recommended it, but it was nothing special), and I think we hit another Irish pub. Closed out the evening with another stop for late-night Thai — I [EDIT: sorry, no I just realized the second Irish Pub & the second Thai joint both wouldn't come until Thursday. However I (still)] think I’ve decided that a town can only rightfully call itself a real city if I can get a good red curry or basil stir fry after midnight. Sorry, Nashville.