My Friend

I'm at home.
Working.
On a Saturday night.

At times like these I listen to this song which reminds me of good times and keep going.

Elvis + Neil Diamond =

I have been putting off installing something to let me save YouTube vids, but it is time.

Family Business

One whole entire side of my family is in construction. I have done some, but it doesn't really speak to me. I love the Net.

But there was one day a couple months ago where I was home in Winnemucca for the weekend and my dad and brother were working on a Saturday. It was my day off and I drove 6 hours the day before and then partied all night to enjoy Winnemucca, not to work! But something about working with dad and Clay sounded so fun! And I had been behind a desk for a year so physical labor sounded pretty fun too. So I hopped out of bed, unloaded building materials, and operated a forklift with my dad and brother.

Well my friend Brian has days like that all the time. He works with his dad and brother. Because of that day with my dad and brother, and because of what I have seen of them working together, I realize why there are so many business names that end in "... & Sons"

Brian's dad was just interviewed for Nevada Business Journal so I just thought I'd take the opportunity to say, Awesome. :)

We are going to lose our ass and we deserve it

The Seven Gummie Sins: Greed
Originally uploaded by Wiedmaier

I was going to make a note about the american dollar and some of the recent bad signs. But I just got caught in the tractor beam that is the E! channel, and I have something to add to that.

So I just basically watched an hour of television about spoiled rich people. The Kiamora show and the show about the Kardasian girls. (yes i'm misspelling that but a. I don't want to search for how to spell it and b. I like Star Trek references) The shit that these people care about. Kiamora takes 20 pieces of luggage on her trip to Cannes, says that she will probably change 4 times a day. She tells us that she loves yacht. They are one of her "Passions."

Honey, if you can have yachts because your husband is a huge record producer and you happen to have the ability to realistically enjoy spending time on them and getting a different one, that is not a passion. That is just thinking "Holy shit I'm on a yacht! And its mine!" That is what anyone that could afford to have a yacht would think. Its a fucking yacht.

Through the rest of the show she is generaly bossy and has a i know that the hell Im doing attitude while running the new fashion business she is starting.

Next the Kardasians are even worse. They are not ultra rich like Kiamora Simmons but just as snotty and disconnected from the reality that 95% of the world lives in, and the Kardasians are loving it! They get a call from the Girls Gone Wild guy (from jail) asking them to do a swimsuit photoshoot. They take his plane to his house in Puerta Viarta where they are served hand and foot. Meanwhile back at home the little girls that are back home (about 11?) do their GGW impression on the stripper pole that is of course installed in their family home while the brothers manager holds a camera (all in jest) talking about how he will manage them (in jest again). Oh my how hilarious that these girls are playing girls gone wild. Just girls playing harmless games. I'll play along with my stupid guy jokes since I dont see anything wrong with GGW. Im am so funny. I is harmless right!? Right?

On a related note, the dollar is going to drop, soon, and we deserve it.

In the last couple months there have been some signs about the dollar, the Chinese hinted that if they really wanted to they could dump some of their dollar reserves and hints that Saudi Arabia might get out of the dollar currency for their accts and might go to euros (Venezuela and Iran have already done this). Last week the dollar hit an all time low against the Euro and more and more people are saying get out of the dollar.

Dollar, please drop and take these useless fucking people off of the screen.

Postscript: When viewing the IMF chief story, there was an add for a 60 Minutes special "Mansions Gone Wild." Kill me now.

Many customers are buying one for each side of the bed

You heard the man, get up now, and call the number on your screen!

An interesting use of Geotags

Firenze
Originally uploaded by fgirardin

Here's an interesting use of Flickr data. Thanks to ASC for pointing it out.

"We retrieved from Flickr, large amounts of photo taken by thousands of users in the world’s most photographed cities. Based on the time, explicit location and people’s description of their photos, we design geovisualizations. They reveal patterns of tourists and citizens consuming a city, such as the flow of people between city attractions (see figures below), the monuments areas of influence or what is happening with day/night and working/weekend periodicity."

http://www.girardin.org/fabien/tracing/

That is not what I saw tonight.

[No image available]

Tonight I looked up at the night sky from a place with almost no ambient ground light. I cannot show you what it looked like.
My camera will not capture the milky way, much less the stars.
No camera will show you how deep and dark the sky is.
No moving camera will show you the twinkle of the stars, especially on a chilly night like tonight where everything seems a little more crisp.
Neither the black image my camera captured or anything I can write will let you see what I have seen tonight, miles from any planetary light.
I can only hope that you have looked up at the sky, miles from any light placed there to make you safe or show you your way so you have a memory of what I saw tonight.

Tomorrow I will drive out of the desert to go to my job the day after. I am excited. But I will miss the desert and the night. You can always be yourself here because there is no stimuli and nothing there except what you bring and what you have left behind.

Nothing's gonna stop us now

How to explain part of what it is really like here in Argentina and especially here at the customer care center with these amazing people?

I think I am in a moment right now that will help. Right now we are all sitting in the customer care center. It isn't the most exciting room. Frosted windows so you cant see out and get distracted. Mini cubes to work at, old computers, homemade Yahoo! decorations on the walls. The room itself is just a room. But everyone has fun working so it makes it really, fun!

Every shift change is a flurry of hugs and cheek kisses.

And smiles!

When they lean in and greet each other they are happy to see the other. It is really wonderful.

During the day there is music on small stereo computer speakers. It is all kinds of music and goes of temporarily if someone breaks a rule (like talking on their cell phone). Right now Nothing is going to stop us now by Starship (that's right, from the 80's classic Mannequin with Kim Cattrall post "Big Trouble in Little China and pre "Sex in the City") is playing and I hear a low hum of singing along from the room. After a minute i hear Michelle (my counterpart from Yahoo! US) singing under her breath as well.

They are infectious.

Sounds like This Beat is, This Beat is, This Beat is Technotronic is next.

Economics, not politics

I was trying to explain to a friend tonight that economics is fascinating, That there is a lot of humanity in economics. This is one of those things that is hard to understand or even fathom before the light goes off in your head. Most people when they think economics think of money and numbers. But there is so much more.

So, i came home and started watching Commanding Heights. While Im watching it Im trying to think of how to explain to my friend what I mean. I think a good place to start is that what you think of as politics is not politics, it is economics. Economics is jobs, manufacturing, the balance of one country/state/regions assets against another, prosperity, poverty. All these things create communities or break them up. Government policy based on economic ideas controls these things.

Politics is the political game of getting what you want accomplished. But seperating the game from the economic consequences and influences of jobs, trade, and production is an important distinction.

Look the 2 words up in a dictionary, I think you will see the distinction.

One night we'll go

Whiskey

Grover Drunk
Originally uploaded by (Alex)

Sunday - Zack gets frustrated with text editor and downloads a program that can transfer files between PC and Mac w/o problems.

Monday - Zack enjoys hours of work in new text editor

Monday afternoon - Zack looks for an AutoSave feaature on his new text editor. Doesn't find but leaves work to catch his bus.

Monday Night - Zack opens his laptop and finds that his supposedly easier and foolproof Mac has mysteriously shut down, losing all work from Sunday night and Monday.

Immediately following that - Zack buys a bottle of whiskey

Comptroller General worried that the US will get PWNed by history

David Walker, the US Comptroller General has recently made a statement warning the US of “chilling long-term simulations” and comparing the US to Rome.

Link to Financial Times article.

As if the article wasn't sobering enough. As I write this, there is a commercial on TV where five 40 something men of varying racial backgrounds who are obviously reclaiming their youth and virility are playing and singing a version of Viva Las Vegas that they call Viva Viagra.

It looks like a life of pills, Harleys, and bandannas that is defiantly worth putting on a credit card.

We are so fucked.

2 quick updates

Floating into the blue
Originally uploaded by magic fly paula

I saw a GAP billboard a couple days ago with John Mayer. On is upper arm there was a tattoo that said "SRV". I looked it up online and sure enough it stands for Stevie Ray Vaughn. I liked John Mayer before but that gives me even more respect for him.

In the course or researching this I also found out about Music color synesthesia (which John might have). It sounds like a disease I would love to have. I wonder how it would change your perception of the world. I think if I had it, music would be like a drug.

Into the WIld

I hope I see this and never come back.

Thriller re-make, better than the original

I still think that Michael Jackson's Thriller is the best music video that was ever made. I'm sure this remake is eeeeverywhere on the net right now. But I don't care. My mouth was hanging open in awe the whole time...



The ladyboy is no Ola Rey but sHe's good enough for what they want to do to her. DANCE!

The Lego one is good to, but it doesn't compare.

Furry Karma Sutra

Go here. You can go through the photos using the navigation at the bottom right of the photo. Hilarious stuff.

And for a little background on WTF is going on here. Check out the Wiki.

The term furvert (a portmanteau of "furry" and "pervert") specifically refers to the subgroup of the fandom that sexualizes anthropomorphic animal characters.[28] Similar to the word queer in homosexual culture, the term furvert may be used pejoratively, as a self-referential joke, or merely as a descriptor.

Tattoos + Maps = Awesome

A quick post before I go plow through some email. Here is an awesome idea for a tattoo from the excellent map blog Strange Maps.

I have always thought that I would never get a tattoo relating to Winnemucca because it just seemed to obvious. But I did just recently find this map from 1912. Unfortunately, that WInnemucca map doesnt look as interesting. Damn you urban planning!

Another example of the Net making things a little more awesome.

I love "Bicycle Race" by Queen. It's one of those for me that I don't really think about much but when I hear it I remember, "Hey, I LOVE this song!" Well I heard it today, so I came home and downloaded it and in doing that I also stumbled on the video on YouTube and a Wiki page just for Bicycle Race!

From the Wiki,

To release this song, Queen staged a bicycle race with 65 naked girls. A clip from this race was used as the single cover. The video was originally banned, and the video had to be re-edited with colour added to censor out any offensive imagery.



I love that in searching I actually found out about the video's edited contents before I found it.

Nandoman did also say I should check out I Want to Break Free. He was right.

Insighting street races, for over 16 years.

For some reason my particular driving style has often caused other drivers to want to also speed and try to beat me. This morning I was driving to work pretty fast because I wanted to get here as soon as possible. Apparently some guy in a Nissan Z decided that there was no way he was going to let some guy in full size construction truck beat him so he kept trying to get in frint of me after I dared to pass him. It was one of those races where you aren't really racing, you just happen to be driving at 95 mph. So he would pass me and slow down. Then I would pass him just because my average rate of speed was faster. Then he would do 110 for a while to pass me.

Then some guy in a BMW decided he wanted to get involved. And then I decided, well, what else am I going to do for the next hour on the road. So I wasted that beemer and continued to make better lane change decisions than the Z. But he knew his exit (which was before mine). And gave it one last push right before it and beat me by 2 lengths.

I waved, but he didn't wave back.

Nevada To Phase Out Laws Altogether

The Onion has finally posted to the web one of my all time favorite stories of theirs:
Nevada To Phase Out Laws Altogether

(Also, check out my all time favorite story of theirs.)