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August 31, 2006
And... We're back...
Sorry for the interruption folks. We're back online as of today...
Posted by Andrew at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)
w00t!
First paycheck just arrived. It’s one dollar less than I’d estimated it to be. It’s also the largest I’ve ever received, roughly 4x the amount I was getting at B&N...
Posted by Andrew at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2006
San Francisco Beaches
As a point of geeky reference: the beach he's on is roughly where StarFleet academy would be...
Posted by Andrew at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2006
Sexism: still alive and well
Good news: got to spend the weekend with the GF
Bad news: The GF has strep
Good news: I have health insurance
Bad news: given that I just moved into this town, i have no idea who doctors are, or where to find one. So I made a call to my PPO...
me: Hi! It looks like I'm about to come down with strep, and I've just moved. What doctors are in my area
PPO Call-center person: I have a doctor on Castro
me: that's fine, but anything on mission?
PPO: [after giving me the Castro address] I found a doctor on mission street, it's a woman. Is that alright?"
Me: [shocked] that's absolutely alright...
By all the Gods of Heaven and Earth! What year is this? What fucking country is this?
Since I don't actually want to see the doctor, I'll wait until tomorrow to find out if I need to go in. My boss has already told me to stay home if I'm feeling bad-- she doesn't want to get sick...
Posted by Andrew at 05:53 PM | Comments (1)
August 27, 2006
Moments of transition
Yeah... so I can’t not blog. No, this won’t be a political post; it somehow seems wrong to use LiveJournal for political reasons. President Bush still sucks, if you couldn’t guess that my opinion hasn’t changed. It’s the anniversary of Katrina, and Bush ought to be impeached in celebration...
But enough of that. I had a great weekend. Got to see my favoritist hunny bunny (who will shoot me a dirty look for using that particular name). We spent some quality time snuggling, watching movies, and window shopping. I found myself a new aftershave, she got one hell of a massage—no, not from me...
Sunday I got my cat back! A friend of mine had been taking care of him for the last few months while I got my living situation under better control. He is wandering the house right now, trying to get his smell on everything. This place is truly home now...
On, and one more thing: I am back to using Librarything. I deleted my old entries—Too many of the catalogued books were stolen from me by a certain EX someone. I’ve only done a few so far—under a hundred. However, if you want to search my library, feel free:
(Does LiveJournal not allow Javascript? If not, take a look here)
I just randomly book the books on my shelf, and randomly pulled them off to catalogue them. Which means what I’ve got now is actually a fairly good sample of the sorts of books I read—assuming I remember my statistics at all well. I think I even have a large enough sample size to be relevant...
If you’ve got a librarything of your own, or put one up in the near future, let me know. I’m curious what you’re reading...
You want some Cat pics? You’ve got ‘em...
Posted by Andrew at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2006
life stuff
As you may recall: I was living in Davis California; a recent graduate and broke. How broke, do you ask? I’d lost 40lbs because I couldn’t afford more than 2 meals a day. Granted, I _needed_ to lose the weight, but...
Well, I found myself a job. It’s not in politics, but I will no longer have to steal my roommate’s peanut butter as sustenance. Anyone who wants to tell me that minimum wage doesn’t need to go up is free to tell me so. But I digress. I’ve also moved from San Francisco to Davis...
The move was fraught with peril 
. We had a pair of sickouts, and my father isn’t exactly in his top physical form anymore. The hour and a half wait for U-Haul to send a repair crew didn’t help matters all that much. Nonetheless, when I hit SF, I had a full crew...
In some respects, the move wasn’t very far 
. I went from commuting between California and Davis, to commuting to California and Davis. The work itself isn’t intrinsically satisfying, but working for the SLA has it’s rewards—even if none of them are a red beret. At least I work with people who understand that joke. Or perhaps its simply that they find it funnier than most...
Speaking of things that haven’t changed much—during the time I refer to as my Exile, John Weidner of Random Jottings was kind enough to send me a good many pictures of the SF Bay. Well, I no longer need those pictures on my desktop, because of the view from my window 
. It’s 18 floors up in the financial district, and the view is phenomenal! If only my camera phone were of higher quality...
Oh, and you have have heard rumors about me and a certain woman? Well... things seem to be going fairly well. Also, First SLA paycheck on Thursday, expect more regular blogging then...
Posted by Andrew at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2006
Startrek quiz thingie
Your results:
You are Will Riker
| At times you are self-centered but you have many friends. You love many women, but the right woman could get you to settle down.  |
Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test
Posted by Andrew at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2006
End of an Era
Today is my last in the Sacramento/Davis area. Tomorrow morning at 8am, I’ll be moving back to the Bay Area...
This experience has been good to me. I have learned the limits of what I can do and who I ought to be. In addition to my more formal training in my chosen field, I have learned to give others the autonomy they need. Not that I’m not still arrogant—but I’m no longer an arrogant prick...
This time, this place, this journey—it has been good and useful and necessary. I have done everything I’ve said I wanted to do: Got the degree, managed a campaign, made some friends, didn’t make enemies—hell! I’ve even lost some weight...
It’s been Exile. I’ve been cut off from friends, family and every resource I have had access to. Building new friendships and gathering new resources has told me much about who I am. Not all of it has been good. I’ve been working on those issues, however...
Thank you Davis. Thank you Sacramento. I have learned the lessons you’ve taught me. I’ve become the man I could become from where I started. I’m ready to go back home. I may well return some day, ready to learn new lessons. But it won’t be Exile...
Posted by Andrew at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2006
Compare and Contrast.
Governor Reagan:
Governor Brown.
Which do you think I prefer?
Posted by Andrew at 03:26 PM | Comments (0)
ad ditionally
Ad*Access
Remember those simpler times when governments told us that paying taxes
helped the economy, and was our patriotic duty besides? Me either. Still, it's interesting to read about...
there are thousands more ads. From every product category imaginable...
Posted by Andrew at 12:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 07, 2006
That's right, baby, number 10!
Go Aggies!
Posted by Andrew at 01:24 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
August 05, 2006
Which 10?
I am always amused when I hear someone tell me that (paraphrasing) the 10 commandments are part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and as such can be put up as a reminder of “our” proud heritage. Except for one thing: Catholics, Protestants and Jews each have a different version of the commandments!
Are they substantively similar? Yes. Catholics get to have all the graven idols they want, but everything else seems about the same. Nonetheless, the wording on each of these is fairly specific—for a school to put up one version is to deny the others. The State (through the school) is therefore implicitly taking the side of Catholics, Protestants, or (unlikely) Jews over the others. Not to mention that by deciding to include some version of the "Judeo-Christian" commandments it is excluding things like the Wiccan Rede, or the 5 pillars of Islam...
Now, I can see some fundamentalists not minding putting their own values above that of Muslims or Pagans. Having "Popish" values placed above their own might cause a quick rethink of the debate, however...
Posted by Andrew at 02:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 04, 2006
Silly Quiz...
| How to make a andrewcory |
| Ingredients: 3 parts competetiveness 3 parts silliness 3 parts beauty |
| Method: Layer ingredientes in a shot glass. Serve with a slice of caring and a pinch of salt. Yum! |
Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com
Posted by Andrew at 08:47 AM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2006
Yo filters!
This blog isn't porn. That is all...
(I just changed one of my category topics to try and get around the filters. I wonder if that will work)
Posted by Andrew at 10:36 AM | Comments (3)
The rich are different from you and me...
In that they have freedom from Want. What the Rich want, as Py Korry explains is the same sort of things that you and I want...
I’m not sure that I share his sense that this is at all strange. By and large income inequality isn’t _so_ great that there are that many rich-only consumption options. Furthermore, as the book Trading up explains, often the middle class will show their aspirations to wealth by buying a single luxury good and making up for it with several lower-quality goods. So the Rich can be identified by the fact that they buy a lot of the same sorts of goods that you and I might buy a few of. Fascinating stuff...
The other thing to keep in mind is that individual’s tastes tend to stay the same. By and large American wealth is earned, rather than inherited. This will begin to change as the Inheritance tax is phased out, but for now Bill Gate’s isn’t passing all that much onto his children. So someone with middle-class tastes is going to have middle-class tastes until the day they die. Their children, though might be different...
We’ll just have to wait and see...
Posted by Andrew at 09:34 AM | Comments (1)
August 02, 2006
Tunderbird HO!
The Rumbling Edge: Thunderbird 2.0 Alpha 1 Released - Changelog Part 1 of 2
Some of you know that I am fan of Mozilla's Thunderbird Email client. It's about to get better...
Looking at the change log (top link of this entry) makes it very clear the future direction of Email clients. A couple years ago, Google revolutionized Email with their Gmail system. I don't use anything else: Gmail has a great interface. Now Thunderbird will be emulating it. I can't wait to try it out. If it lives up to expectations, you can expect hearty exhortations to switch over. Indeed, if you're using Outlook Express, you're gonna receive that exhortation no matter what...
Posted by Andrew at 06:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
ok, yes. Much better Mel..
CNN.com - Statement from Mel Gibson - Aug 1, 2006
I have begun an ongoing program of recovery and what I am now realizing is that I cannot do it alone. I am in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display, and I am asking the Jewish community, whom I have personally offended, to help me on my journey through recovery.
I don't know why this is the problem of the Jewish community (obviously it's a problem _for_ them), but at least Mr. Gibson is recognizing that he didn't simply say these words in a vacuum...
If Mr. Gibson is sincere about seeing something ugly within himself, and if he is making an honest attempt to route it out of himself, I can only wish him well. Honest searching for stains on one's soul is a difficult and painful job. The Gods know I've done a lot of that sort of work in the past. It's never fun, but always rewarding...
Posted by Andrew at 12:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack