entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

Sometimes, sleepy suburbia gets just a tad too exciting, and one must slip the surly bonds of home for less familiar surroundings, accompanied by one's best girl Friday (but that should go without saying), in order to again achieve a baseline level of boredom.  Three weeks ago, 2wanda and i headed to DC, under the pretext of some job-related conference which she was to attend with some of her coworkers.  The horrors of air travel aside, it was an enjoyable few days in our nation's capital, which i had not visited in over two decades.  Visiting the National Air & Space Museum rekindled all of the "i wanna be an astronaut when i grow up" urges i had as a boy, and we walked our legs off; outside the museum, a guy with the stereotypical Vietnam vet look played guitar under a pavilion in front of banners decrying the Chinese Communist Party's repression of Falun Dafa, and as we left the building, he was ranting about the evils of secularism and Marxism to someone who was obviously provoking him.  The next day, we walked what legs we had regenerated overnight right off again at the National Museum of the American Indian, which featured an excellent cafeteria with all manner of cuisine from native cultures all over the Americas.  After that we headed to the National World War II Memorial because Kim wanted to look up her grandfather.  Then we took a taxi back to the hotel because we were totally pooped.  I flew home the next day and spent two very lonely days until Kimmy came home.

Last weekend, we hit Sonoma Valley for our birthdays.  We stayed at the Birmingham Bed & Breakfast, which was conveniently located a short walk away from several wineries, which meant that we didn't drive at all during our stay; they were very good hosts and easily accomodated both Kim's gluten-free diet and my incessant list of food aversions.  We hit Meadowcroft (good wine, poor service), Chateau St. Jean (good [albeit overpriced] wines but a lack of warmth from the people), Kaz (wacky characters galore, from the winemaker to his daughter to the wines themselves), Landmark (good but nothing remarkable), and Kunde.  Kunde was definitely the best overall experience; a wide array of wine at a fair price, gorgeous grounds, cave and field tours, and nice folks.  Plus, their estate is where a great deal of Bottle Shock was filmed; we drove past the boxing ring that was specifically built for the movie.  The view from their mountaintop tasting patio is stunning and i highly recommend it.

The Quietus interviews my favorite musician:

Petra Davis: You're about to publish a book of your diaries, is that right? Paradoxical Undressing, or Rat Girl – which one is the UK title again?

Kristin Hersh: The long one, because you guys know how to talk. The spoken word show, before I had the book deal, was called Paradoxical Undressing. But apparently that's not immediate enough for Americans, so in the US it's called Rat Girl. And it's a very appropriate title.

Offsides rule in futbol is like calling a violation if the Lakers don't pass three times before a shot. Artificial and unnecessary.

I'm not sure what qualifies as "artificial" in a game that is, perforce, man-made, but as far as weird rules that feel forced, football's "players with numbers in certain ranges may not be downfield to receive a forward pass unless they report to the referee as eligible" rule is pretty high on my list.  In baseball, there's the classic infield fly rule.  And then there's basketball, with multiple instances of rules created to stop a single player (e.g., George Mikan, Wilt Chamberlain); how's that for "artificial"?

A Yes on 8 sign has appeared on our neighbors' lawn.  My first reaction was to try to get a hold of a No on 8 sign and put it on our lawn.  Note that we like our neighbors and that, despite being really Jesusy, they're not pushy in the least about it beyond offering to pray for us in our endeavors (like when i mentioned i was going for a job interview) and wishing that God bless us, which fifteen years ago would have had me seething, but now i don't mind at all because i'm not that much of an asshole anymore.

The way things are going, it looks like Ecuador will have same-sex marriage before the US will.  Who saw that coming?

dennisperrin:

Like so many liberals, numerous reactionaries appear to believe that Obama's not a willing servant of capital and empire, but that he harbors a secret self, saying what he must in order to be elected.  Come Inauguration Day, the Real Obama emerges, which for liberals is a progressive patriot channeling FDR, and for right wingers, a treasonous surrendercrat, wiping Iranian and North Korean asses with Old Glory.

<venividi> ok. just when i thought it couldn't get weirder.
<venividi> one of my step daughter's friends has registered to vote because "Obama is a muslim"
<venividi> turns out he wants to  vote *for* obama
<venividi> because he doesn't want the zionists to win.
<venividi> *sob*

Found in the men's bathroom in a Barstow gas station.

Apparently, the Golden Gate Bridge has been silently supporting the Chinese invasion of Tibet.  Or something.

For some reason, it's trendy to support Tibet against China (frankly, i blame the Beastie Boys).  I would direct the curious with some time on their hands to read motis's lengthy treatise against irrational activism, which includes a discussion about depleted uranium, as well as the current state of affairs in Tibet.

Somewhere, there's a person who's responsible for all the poor fools dancing on street corners, swinging and spinning arrow-shaped signs that almost always seem to be advertising some goddamned condos.  And when i'm king, i will find that person and i will have them abused, ridiculed, and humiliated to the full extent of the law.

Every one of these get-rich-quick motherfuckers need to go on Oprah or something and give away 100 copies of their books to people working two full-time minimum-wage jobs, then come back later to see how many of those people they've managed to rescue from poverty with the brilliance of their book.