BunkBlog

From Smattering, this week’s Friday Five.

1. Where were you born? La Puerta de Santa Maria, Cadiz, Spain.
2. If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don’t live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not? Don’t really give it much thought, since we left there when I was 2 years old. Seriously doubt I’ll move to Spain though.
3. Where in the world to you feel the safest? On Asilomar Beach, central California. Or in my home, once the locks are allowed to be changed.
4. Do you feel you are well-traveled? Within the US, yes. Never been to Europe as an adult, though.
5. Where is the most interesting place you’ve been? Most interesting is a tough one, but I’d have to say West Hollywood, in the few years immediately following it becoming a separate city. They have a Starbucks now, instead of the Burger That Ate L.A., so it can’t be as interesting any more. Wonder if Wacko is still there.

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current_mood: tired

The federal government wants you to download their software and run it on your machine. It will tell you if you’re vulnerable to attacks.

And, they also want you to spy on each other.

Yep, always trust the guy in the suit…
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current_mood: amused

This article says her pilot was stoned when she died. Think there’s a connection?
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The Friday Five! OK, so I don’t have much to do at work lately. 🙂

1. What is your browser start page? In Opera, Slashdot and LJ Login Page.
2. Favorite news sites? CNN and Slashdot
3. Favorite search engine? Google of course.
4. When did you first get online? BBSes – 1984. Internet (PPP) – 1995
5. How do you plan to spend your weekend? Being lazy after cleaning the house and doing the dishes.

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current_mood: amused

I’ve gotten calls from the Tucson Symphony the past two nights, but they don’t leave a message. Caller ID says they called, but why would you not at least say something to the machine? They probably just want me to join so I can get into their exclusive club room or something. 🙂

What sucks is they don’t have any performances scheduled until autumn, since they figure nobody wants to leave their homes in the summer time. Reasonable assumption, I suppose…
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This article is a bit disturbing at the beginning. There are folks selling “Ground Zero” hats and commemorative cups in New York, and even snow globes with the WTC towers in them. Capitalism will overcome anything, especially good taste and decorum.
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When one must turn on the cooling system at 7 am, one lives in a region with a climate that is just fucked up.

At least it rained a bit last night, supposed to rain the rest of the week, and I won’t have to worry about my apples and peaches looking sad.
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current_mood: hot

Continuing the riff I refer to in one of my old “thoughts” on my site, Janis Ian (an artist I’d never heard of but may seek out now) has written an article about the hypocrisy of the RIAA and their rapacious attitude toward consumers and artists.
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current_mood: amused

Earth’s population will be forced to colonize two planets within 50 years if natural resources continue to be exploited at the current rate, according to a report from the World Wildlife Fund.
Read more
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current_mood: annoyed

Here is what I want for my birthday. It is only two weeks away, so get hopping!

Or, if you want to “surprise” me, check out Amazon for my wishlist.

Hey, it’s worth a shot!
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current_mood: depressed

Latest Friday Five

1. Where are you right now? At my computer, duh. At home.
2. What have you lost recently?My life.
3. What was the first CD you purchased? Does it embarass you now? I have no idea. Maybe LL Cool J or Prince. Not embarassed.
4. What is your favorite kind of writing pen? As opposed to a pig pen I suppose. Parker, chrome, with a pressurized black refill.
5. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Festivus, the Ben & Jerry’s flavor only available during December and inspired by a Seinfeld episode.

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I added a new page of photos to the site, this time from my trip to Biosphere2. There are only a few photos up right now, but more will follow as I resize them and get a round tuit.
current_music: Roxy Music – Take A Chance With Me
current_mood: accomplished

Who sang that song, “I Spy” from like 1986 or so? The cover of the album had a guy in a fedora or something. “I spy for the FBI, I spy for the CIA, I spy for MI5…”

Once again, I feel the need to make it perfectly clear that not all of the intelligence community is James Bond. I just got an absolutely hilarious phone call today, telling me that I was in the CIA and knew hitmen. Sorry, I don’t know any hitmen. I wasn’t in the CIA. In fact, I don’t know anyone in the CIA even today. I know folks in the NSA, in NIMA, and some other acronym agencies no doubt, but nobody in the CIA.

I was in military intelligence for 12 years. You know how much excitement I saw? None. I read some cool stuff, heard a few interesting things on the radio, but never saw or did anything cool. Sure, going into a blast-proof bunker 3 stories underground may sound neat, but it was just another dark air-conditioned room full of computers and geeks.

Today, I work for a defense contractor and still talk to intelligence geeks. Yesterday and today I had to assist in briefing some high muckety-mucks from D.C. My job was clicking the button to make the powerpoint slides advance on cue. I’m an overpaid audio-visual lab geek now. At least they pay me more than the army did.

But, I still don’t know who to call to have someone killed. Hell, I only got to fire my rifle in the army annually.

Last month, I hung around with Special Forces Command geeks (not green berets, the support team), next month I get to hang around with imagery geeks, in August or September I get to go on a ship and hang around with signal geeks. Lots of geeks, still no James Bond. We’re mainly really mild-mannered, bespectacled dweebs. You know the guys that read Slashdot at work? That’s us.

Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble. Real life is actually a lot duller than fiction in this case.
current_music: Joe Walsh – I Like Big Tits
current_mood: amused

It just struck me yesterday, I’m going on the world’s longest “weekend” starting tomorrow. Mom comes to town on Friday, I am taking off work through the 3rd. The 4th and 5th are mandatory days off from work, followed by a normal weekend of the 6th and 7th. So, I’ve got a 9 day weekend. Pretty cool.

hey
don’t write yourself off yet
it’s only in your head you feel left out or looked down on
just try your best
try everything you can
and don’t you worry what they tell themselves when you’re away

hey you know they’re all the same

you know you’re doing better on your own so don’t buy in
live right now
just be yourself
it doesn’t matter if that’s good enough for someone else

it just takes some time

little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
everything everything will be just fine
everything everything will be all right

do your best

do everything you can
don’t you worry what their bitter hearts are going to say
current_mood: awake

OK, folks, quick lesson in the basis of our government in the United States of America – there is no enumerated right to avoidance of offense. You have every right to be offended at things that happen, and I have every right to tell you to fuck off.

If you are such a kneejerk anti-religion person that you think having the phrase “In God We Trust” on our coinage is making us into a theocracy, get the fuck out of my country. We really don’t need anyone with such a complete lack of intellect around here anyhow.

Since everyone else has weighed in on this…

What I find amusing is that the majority of people who are decrying the recent court ruling assume that Godless heathen atheists, probably baby-killing drugusers as well, are behind it all.

Sorry, but the majority of atheists who came to their beliefs through logic instead of a kneejerk reaction to some bad church experience really couldn’t care less about such matters. Would it offend you that your neighbor, the Buddhist, had a darma bracelet on? Probably not, because it does not affect you in any way. Same thing with words in the Pledge of Allegiance – if you are a true atheist, you wouldn’t care if the words “under God” were there or not, because it wouldn’t offend you to say something that you think is silly and mythical. No more than you would be offended by the names of the days of the week being Norse gods. Oh, no, I can’t say “Thursday” because it means I’m offering fealty to Thor. Whatever.

The unexamined life is not worth living (Socrates).

Apparently the Scifi Channel was having “post-apocalyptic movie” weekend or something. I never saw an announcement, but the fare was pretty clear. Steel Dawn, Mad Max (1 & 3 but not 2), etc. The capper though, was WaterWorld. Never saw it in the theater, since it was only out for a couple days or so. Never felt like picking up the most recent movie to be labeled “Heaven’s Gate” so I missed it until now. It’s actually not as bad as you would expect, but it’s no classic. Think Mad Max with worse dialog, better set design, and Dennis Hopper looking really uncomfortable.