Sunday Observations 4.6

I'm going to start by saying I have no idea what Google is doing with Chrome and by extension Google+, blogger, and all it's other web apps. My main problem? Everything is double spaced including menus and bookmarks. The bookmark spacing is what is driving me insane because I save a lot of bookmarks and now I either have to scroll through them or sort them in more folders than I already have.

We were out last night and saw a woman walking a pink poodle, I do not lie. I really need to know what kind of evil causes a person to dye their dog pink. If you have any clue please let me know.

Sometimes it's best to just avoid reading anything related to healthcare because even with Obamacare it seems the country keeps heading in the wrong direction. A headline caught my eye because it involved Express Scripts CEO George Paz and Express Scripts is the company that handles my prescriptions. The article said health plans hire companies like Express Scripts to help keep a lid on prescription drug costs. Last year Paz had a salary of $12.8 million which made me wonder if I now need a company to keep a lid on the costs of the company that keeps a lid on my prescription drug costs.

Back in November MoMA announced the acquisition of its first collection of video games in a blog post that now has over 200 comments. I'm only mentioning it now because the art world controversy it started fascinates me. I'll be the first to say I have a problem with someone standing on the street corner holding a garbage bag art, I've seen it, but there are plenty of people out there who will argue with me like I smashed the holy grail. Now you have these same people almost ill because MoMA considers video games art. Is a film art? Is architecture art? For different reasons both are so why not a video game? If Damien Hirst's spot paintings can be considered some of the greatest art in the history of man I'm sure a classic video game can be considered art too.

In an earlier post I mentioned Christine Quinn running for Mayor of New York. Lately I have been seeing articles written about her temper and arrogance as if this was a bad thing for a politician, including last week in The New York Times. For the record she has a temper and she is arrogant, probably two reasons I like her, but I have to wonder how one is even supposed to dream of being Mayor of New York without being either. Just look at the recent string of Michael Bloomberg, Rudy Giuliani, and Ed Koch, three of the more arrogant politicians you will ever hear of. Now I'm sure plenty has been written about all three's arrogance over the years but not in the 'this woman has a mouth' type of way the Quinn articles are leaning. A former donor is quoted in the Times article as saying Quinn "used the ‘F’word at least 20 times." Sounds familiar.

Finally a bit of total twitter randomness, one of the better profiles I have ever seen, very short and to the point. Actor John Cusack (@johncusack, verified account), Apocalyptic shit disturber and elephant trainer.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 4.4

Over the past few weeks I may have read more about same sex marriage than I ever did before. Whether for marriage or against it everybody has an opinion now and they want it to be known so in no particular order here are a few odds and ends that stand out.

I'm putting this one first because I enjoyed reading it. I know, I said no particular order, but I really did enjoy it. In "The county where no one's gay" CNN's John D. Sutter went to Franklin County, Mississippi because the last census said that, well, there were no gays. My favorite part is this; "When I brought up the topic with a gray-haired woman I met in front of the grocery store in Meadville, she basically told me gay people don't exist, like, at all. "I don't believe in them kind of people. I don't believe in it," she said. "We don't need that same-sex marriage. That is wrong!'" A few paragraphs later Sutter adds, "I didn't even get a chance to tell her she was talking with a real, live gay person." The short version is that yes there are gays in Franklin County, it's just very few people want to admit it. The article is a good follow up to the Harvey Milk quote I used in a previous post.

For possibly the first, and hopefully the last, time I found myself agreeing with Bill O'Reilly; "The compelling argument is on the side of homosexuals. That's where the compelling argument is. 'We're Americans, we just want to be treated like everybody else.' That’s a compelling argument. And to deny that, you've got to have a very strong argument on the other side. And the other side hasn't been able to do anything but thump the Bible." Watch the video here.

I've never paid much attention to reddit and now I think I know why. Rules, I can't stand rules, and I'm thinking that until I finished reading reddit's rules and FAQs I'd forget what I had wanted to post. Here is a sample from the reddit LGBT page; "Rule 1: No homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, racism, serophobia, or misogyny. If you are unclear about what may constitute any of the above, please see the LGBT FAQ. If you are using triggering language in an educational or demonstrative capacity, we ask that you please wrap it in a trigger warning, e.g. [](/tw "problematic text"). If you are submitting a post that contains hateful remarks or triggering language, please precede your post's title with [TW]. For example: "[TW] Title of Post."

Matt Taibbi wrote a scathing column in Rolling Stone about a David Brooks column in The New York Times in which Brooks argues that gays are losing their 'freedom' by winning marriage. Taibbi finished with this; "The whole world seems rapidly to be coming to an understanding that this discrimination against gays and lesbians has to end, and the fact that this change is coming is a beautiful thing. You have to be a very unhappy person indeed to feel anything but joy about it, much less this sarcastic depression."

And that line is a fine one to finish this post with.

update - It seems David Brooks has struck a nerve. Here is another column about his thoughts, "David Brooks's Gay Marriage Delusion," by Amy Davidson in The New Yorker. "Brooks’s argument is that it is right and proper that they were (some earlier gay rights goals put aside): now, at last, gays can and should stop worrying about anything but whether their wedding announcement will make it into the Times. They can stop challenging things. They can be smug, too. Brooks, apparently, would consider that only polite."

Observations from the Road 4.1

It's April Fools' Day and what would it be without those fun peeps at Google freaking people out. They announced on the YouTube blog that YouTube has been one big contest all along and that after 8 years they have found the world's best video so will be shutting down at midnight tonight. Google also announced that Google Maps will now come with a treasure mode.

Semi-seriously speaking of Google, the sudden controversy over yesterday's 'Google Doodle' is too funny. So maybe somebody screwed up memorializing Cesar Chavez on his birthday instead of celebrating Easter. Am I serious? No not really but it looked good. So is the doodle all that important? No. Is Easter that important? No. Is everybody suddenly a Christian? No. Would Google have been better off with Easter eggs and a bunny? Very much so. Messed up world.

My dad was always a big Jeopardy fan and he had some info for me that I wish was and April Fools' prank. Supposedly Alex Trebek is finally going through with a retirement announcement and will leave the show in 2016. The rumor is that the front runner to replace him is Matt Lauer. Please no. I'm more of a fan of the Saturday Night Live version of Jeopardy so maybe Will Ferrell is available.

I haven't done any Sunday Observations for a few weeks but there is one thing I need to mention before I lose the note. I was watching MSNBC one night, probably The Last Word, and there it was, my dream panel. Krystal Ball and Alex Wagner seated next to each other. All I needed was the addition of Mika Brzezinski and I could have died a happy girl right then and that's no April Fools' joke, seriously.

Observations 3.13.1

I always have had a habit of calling my collection of websites my 'empire' because I spend so much time on them. Recently the empire has morphed has morphed into something a bit more important. I've made some important contacts for both Ash and myself, gotten my point across in ways I never imagined, and just gotten a large amount of exposure. The problem with exposure is it can be both good and bad.

For some time I've had a faux Facebook account the primary purpose of which was pushing this blog and some photos into Facebook. I know, totally against the terms of service and hard to do on Facebook but there are always ways. I finally decided it all wasn't worth the effort and stated looking for other options including blogger's dynamic views or just starting another tumblr to re-post this blog on. For various reasons I decided on the new tumblr and after learning some of tumblr's text code, a bit different from blogger's, I published it this week. As I said in the previous post, the tumblr introduction, it's very much a work in progress and looks a bit stale but you can see it here.

Now back to the bad exposure I mentioned, another reason for the change. I never have been much of a fan of Facebook, liked the movie but hate the product. Their statements to the contrary I just don't think they care all that much about the security of your information and they collect too damn much of it. Because of their terrible IPO and poor stock showing they seem more concerned with profit than security, not that it was ever the other way around.

A few months ago I started getting spam mail, the usual "grow your manhood four inches" type of thing, that I can trace back to that Facebook account. Now I began getting spam texts, Facebook is the only site requires/demands you list a cell number, that can only be related to that same account. These just added to my desire for a change and that account will be history as soon as I finish erasing it. I really don't trust them to delete it themselves so I'm doing it manually. It always goes without saying that you shouldn't post anything online you don't want to be there forever because it will be just that, forever. It's another thing entirely when personal information leaks from, or is sold by, somebody without permission and against their own rules.

There is a totally funny side story to all this. Facebook just announced their new design and it looks totally like, yes, tumblr. In a post on its blog Facebook says it developed the new feed using paper, Post-its, and a large blank wall. The blank wall must have looked remarkably like tumblr.

Seems I made the switch just in time.

Observations 3.13

This is something I have been posting on my tumblrs over the past few days. I'll have a better explanation in my next post here but I'm posting this alone so I don't have to re-post it on tumblr ....

Observations: A bit of an introduction
I have been writing a blog over on blogger for over three years now. At the same time I have a few, some not totally safe for work, photo blogs on tumblr. I had been re-posting my blog to a public facebook page but finally decided that was a total waste of time so I decided to combine some of my projects, lose some others, and re-post “Observations” here.

The first few posts will be what blogger calls my popular posts and some art posts I have done over the last week. After that I’ll just re-post what I’m blogging with maybe throw in some fav photos. There is a link to my blog in the header of this so if anyone has any interest there is plenty more to read there.

My thoughts for this are very much a work in progress so we shall just have to see what comes of it.
Katie

Observations from the Window 1.9

You may or may not have noticed but I am never satisfied. It shows when I'm seriously paint because as I have said before I can lock myself away for days until I look at what I'm painting and decide it's finished. I am constantly tweaking the code of this blog in ways you will never see and probably wouldn't see if I told you what I did. I play with embed codes down to the pixel so they are centered, something that can be frustrating because I realize it is all going to look different on a comp with resolution settings that aren't the same as mine. More than once I have changed the whole design only to change it back before ever posting it.

Lately I've been seriously toying with the idea of changing over to a complete dynamic view template. Serious to the point of learning some of the code. One thing holding me back is that there are some things I can't do with a dynamic view that I can with this one. Another problem is everything in this blog is fitted to this template, some of which I wrote myself, so if I change over videos, photos, and other embeds could be totally out of whack, out of whack being a highly technical term for totally messed up. One option is posting dual blogs for a period of time and than gradually phasing out this one. That also has a downside because even with links between the two a new blog is just that, a new blog, with all the problems of a new blog.

My geek side is pretty much just mulling this over in print but you can take it as a warning if you want to. If one day everything looks weird, if it looks like my geek side has suddenly and totally lost it, I have no problem with you letting me know.

I've never had much use for Pinterest, I have enough photo sites with Flickr and Tumblr, but I like the idea of saving what I find online to look at later without making a mess of my browser. I just ran into a newer site called Clipboard that I like. With a browser attachment you can save not just photos but entire web pages or just parts of them to Clipboard. It's CEO and founder Gary Flake says Pinterest is about expressing an aspiration but Clipboard is about getting things done, one of the reasons that the site's default setting is private. As there website says "the Internet is more than two decades old, doesn't it seem strange that the typical way to save something online is to put it into an email or a document?" If you're an online pack rat like me it's a site you might want to check it out.

Did you know the TSA has a job described as a Behavior Detection Specialist? Maybe the Mayans were right after all.

Sunday Observations 12.2

I had a busy day and never got around to my Sunday observations but watching the Eagles game I just saw something I had to share. First the Eagles are terrible but are beating the Cowboys at halftime which is reason enough to watch. Any year that they beat the Cowboys isn't a total loss. Still my highlight of the game is going to be this Lenovo Yoga commercial. Not only is it a hot ad for obvious reasons, the jacket, but it has a directors cut. Really, a TV commercial with a directors cut. Soon it will be a full length short on blu-ray.

link

While I'm in geek mode I should also mention iTunes again. For some reason I have been having problems with iTunes for a few months now. It's been slow to load and a total memory whore. Normally I don't update it as fast as I do other things because the updates don't usually concern me but this morning I updated to a totally new version (11) as soon as I got the notice. If you are having any problems with iTunes you should too. It's sleeker and has some new features but more importantly it took care of all the problems I was having.

Observations from the Gallery 11.26

I love my Kindle even though I'm using it for something I hadn't really planned on using it for, reading. I have a button attached to Google Chrome that with a click will send any article I can read online to my Kindle, "Send To Kindle for Chrome". With the HD no glare screen it's much better to read on than my laptop and oh so much easier on the eyes than phone reading. Totally worth the investment and worth waiting for the HD models to arrive.

The following paragraph is just a minor geek vent. Somebody recently accused me of setting my tumblrs to private. For the record no I haven't made them private and no it's not something I ever really considered. What would be the sense of having them if I didn't want anybody to see them? Also the links to are right there on this blog's sidebar so I ask again, what would be the sense of making them private? Honestly if this blog got as many hits as my tumblrs I would be a rich girl. But enough about that.

Something else I have found so very interesting is how many people have discovered VPN (virtual private network) software since the whole Petraeus email mess. Suddenly everybody wants to be anonymous and they don't think other people realize that their emails aren't originating in Russia. To be fair I should say that I have been using one program or another for years but it's funny seeing the pizza delivery guy using one. I'm thinking maybe I should just give up art and go into the security business or maybe, even better, art security.

This short geek post is actually a bit of history in the making. This is my first blog post written and posted entirely by Kindle. Technology is a wonderful thing, until it's not.

Observations on Sandy 10.31

ghost on flickr

With power in the Village out for at best a few more days, and the temperature plunging into the forties, it just may be time to activate plan B. I hope my dad is ready for company because ready or not it's going to be there soon, probably for the weekend.

The photo above is one I took of a friend of mine during the storm. We were down near Hudson River Park and the visibility was atrocious so I really didn't think I had any shots worth keeping, including this one. But the more I looked at this the more I liked it, sometimes bad visibility is actually a good thing, the lesson being don't delete your shots on first impression.

The flooding in the subways is so bad that something called the "unwatering team" from the Army Corps of Engineers is in the city, I have no idea what it is but I like the name and I wouldn't mind having one of their jackets as a souvenir. Seriously, one of those blue jackets with "Unwatering Team" across the back in big yellow letters. No?

I haven't been online much because cell phone service is getting increasingly spotty around here. I think one of the reasons for that spottiness is mental; Monday was the day of the apocalypse, Tuesday was the day to look around and take a deep breath, and today was the day to get back into it (Ash started living on her cell again), whatever your it happens to be. Another reason is purely technical, the backup batteries on the cell phone towers are going dead and have no way to recharge. The truly ironic thing is that the POTS lines are working just fine, not that anybody has them anymore.

I finally had some news about Stone Harbor today. My dad has had no info and with the spotty cell service I couldn't find anything out myself. What video I had seen from the shore so sad, places I had been totally devastated. Earlier today I had an email from a friend who had heard an interview from Stone Harbor on NPR and said it sounded good. That was so awesome to hear and I hope I thanked her for emailing me.

Finally a fashion note, I've been getting some rave compliments on my Timberland hiking boots, mountain holdovers that have come in damn handy lately.

Happy Halloween

Observations on Sandy 10.30

Thought I would throw up a quick post before I wander out to see what's happening. Just shy of two million without power in the city and as of now I have no idea for how long. I have double batteries for everything so I should be okay for now and I can always go uptown for a charge but than I'm sure everybody has the same idea. The apartment smells of wet clothes and something electrical. The latter isn't anything here, I think it's coming from the subways, probably everything shorting out overnight. As with the power there isn't any timetable for when the subways will be back, than again I suppose there can't be without knowing about the power first. It's either a vicious cycle or I'm still mentally wiped, hard to tell at this point.

I guess I'm just an adrenalin junkie because I need to get out and look around while the VQs seem to be perfectly happy watching a movie and contemplating empty wine bottles, probably mentally calculating how many they have left and how long they will last. As for myself, I went up on the roof when i woke up and what stuck me was just how quiet it is, unreal how a city this size can be so quiet.

12:45PM - Surviving so far, actually I'll be happy as long as I have batteries and a 4G connection and those are a few things I do have. Well I have batteries and Ash has the 4G but she doesn't need it to drink wine and watch movies so I claimed it. Latest is the power could be out here for two or three days but that is subject to change. All the subway tunnels in lower Manhattan are flooded and it's a total mess in the streets, trash, trees, leaves blowing everywhere. Haven't heard anything about Stone Harbor yet, my dad said it could be days till anybody gets in there too. I was looking at photos I took yesterday and so far I'm unimpressed, visibility was terrible, it was more like a blizzard than like Irene. As always we shall see, maybe with some work. Now I'm off to check on Foxy.

5:40PM - The sun returned to the Village an hour or so ago, briefly, but it was there, I know it was, I saw it, maybe. Anyway, when I checked on Foxy I found the family had sustained an injury, Foxy has a massive scratch on her hood. The garage manager said some branches had blown in and one landed right on her. Pisses me off cause that may be the biggest scratch in all the time I own her. The latest on the power situation is four days, via Reuters not ConEd, but we have come up with a wonderful plan in the event it drags on, it seems my dad is going to get some company. There is nothing much to keep us here without power so some outlet shopping may be called for plus I can get an estimate on a paint job while I'm there because I am not about to pay what they would gouge me up here.

Geek notes, I know it's probably something not worth mentioning but don't forget you can always use your cell phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot if you lose your Wi-Fi. Also there are some decently priced battery packs out there that can run your comp for up to 6 hours, I just grabbed a Duracell model today.

Political note, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was asked on Fox News whether Willard would tour damage in his state and said; "I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested. I have a job to do in New Jersey that is much bigger than presidential politics. If you think right now I give a damn about president politics, then you don’t know me." So some Republicans still really are relatively sane, too bad their party despises them for it. Today was probably the day Christie lost the 2016 Republican nomination for president.

Observations from the Window 10.14

A rare geek post here, maybe a bit of geek vent, actually it's an explanation of sorts. If you look here often you know I like to post videos. Lately you may have noticed that the videos, or some of them, have an ugly title bar on top that really gets in the way on smaller frames like my blog. Well let me tell you it has nothing to do with me or my coding the fault is all YouTube's.

About a year ago YouTube released a new embed code replacing the long used flash code with a new HTML5 friendly one. Since than you have had a choice between embed codes, there was a small check box if you wanted the older flash based code. Now it seems that on new videos, some possibly all, the flash version is no longer an option. The look and play of the new player is just as good as the flash version was, the problem lies in the code as it's much shorter and as of now I have no clue how to tweek it.

The new version is viewable on more devices, I just don't like the look of the bar. With the old code I would insert a small line that deleted the info bar and some of the controls so it didn't look so busy. I never went so far as to delete the YouTube logo even though I could if I wanted. Maybe I wont be so polite with the new player.

As of now YouTube says it isn't planning on actually disabling the old player, they just will no longer support it. Than again one morning I may wake up and all my embedded videos are gone.

Something to keep in mind if you blog and use embedded videos.

10/15 update - Something I forgot to mention about the new embed code that probably annoys me more than anything else. Once you insert the code you can't get rid of the viewer even in HTML mode. It is still there over top of the code itself so really what you have to do is write your entire post than insert the embed code last which can be one big pain.

Observations from the Window 4.20

"I apologize but we seem to be having technical difficulties here
 at the empire, be back shortly."

I really should make some kind of button that says that because lately that is the story of my life. For a variety of reasons I have just been having all kinds of probs with the interwebs for a couple weeks now. As always insanity rules.

Last Friday night I was watching the Flyers' playoff game and tweeting about it when suddenly TweetDeck cut me off. It gave me some bogus error message that said I was tweeting over limits. Now there is a limit but it's in the thousands so I have no idea where the error came from. I just switched to a diff platform and went back to tweeting my inner most thoughts with minor irritation.

Than there is Tumblr. I probably enjoy Tumblr more than anything else because the combined four sites have become my pseudo gallery with me as the curator. I usually queue the posts the night before, spending way too much time picking and sorting the photos and quotes to appear just the way I want them. This worked just fine for the longest time but now, if I queue the day before, Tumblr sees it in my best interests to post randomly in the appointed time frame. This is more of a major irritation. I  mean what curator wants the movers to bring in works of art and randomly hang them on the walls?

The totally worst is Yahoo. There are all kinds of rumors out there but one thing that is a fact is that Yahoo reorganized recently and cut back heavily personnel wise. As far as I'm concerned it's starting to take a toll because Yahoo Mail is driving me insane. My Droid app loses mail or doesn't send it, I have to type in one of those anti-bot codes a few times a day, and yesterday morning Yahoo totally cut me off for suspicious activity. The only suspicious thing I see is that I stick with them and don't totally move to gmail. Maybe Yahoo should spend more time and money on their lawsuit against Facebook because the legal department seems to be the only one hiring.

I take my empire way too seriously.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 2.2

The SOPA blackout of January 18^th may have been a sweet victory for internet freedom but I am beginning to think it was a minor one. Between Google's new privacy policy and Twitter's censorship rules it is beginning to seem as if the web giants fought SOPA for their own private reasons.

Than Google stuck yet again. It seems Google very quietly announced earlier this month that they would allow country by country censorship of their Blogger service which you happen to be reading right now. On January 9^th they revealed they will comply with censorship requests on a per country basis which they will accomplish by using country specific web addresses. If you were reading this in India, the only country effected so far, the address would now have a .in added to it. The announcement was so quiet that it went unnoticed until reported by Wired yesterday. So much for all the vaunted cries for freedom of the internet that were heard only weeks ago.

In some totally unrelated news the Susan G. Komen For the Cure Foundation, the world's leading breast cancer research group, cut all funding to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood used the Komen funds, about $600,000 annually, to pay for breast cancer screening for poor women. Komen, which is the creator of the pink ribbon campaign, said Planned Parenthood was cutoff because of a new rule in which Komen states it will not fund any organization under investigation by any government body. Parenthood is being investigated by anti-abortion Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida for the gods only knows what trumped up reason. Rumor has it the rule was specifically written to find an excuse to defund Parenthood after pressure from anti-abortion groups and Komen's top public health official immediately resigned in protest.

Evidently, while our minds were elsewhere, cancer became a partisan issue, a terribly sad turn of events for anyone who knows anyone who has had cancer. That pretty much includes all of us. It seems I'm not the only one who thinks that as in the 24 hours since the Kormen announcement Planned Parenthood has raised $400,000 not including another $250,000 from an unknown Texas couple and a $250,000 pledge by New York Mayor Bloomberg.

What ties these two stories together is something that happened last night. In a classic bit of defacing a so far anonymous hacker, not to be confused with the hacker group Anonymous, visited the Komen website. The hack redirected visitors to an almost identical website with the only difference being an ad for a Komen supported marathon. The original said "help us get 26.2 or 13.1 miles closer to a world without breast cancer," which the hacker changed to "help us run over poor people on the way to the bank:"

Like I said, classic.

Observations from the Road 1.18

I'm currently on a train travelling back to the Village and just a little bored as I observe a self imposed twitter blackout in support of the Stop SOPA campaign. Honestly I think the only person hurt by my blackout is myself as I have to try and occupy my time with other things. The pun was fully intended and you can take it any way you want.

One thing I took away from J17 yesterday was a connection it has with the stop SOPA blackout of today, that being the almost total lack of serious coverage in the mainstream media. The only major msm coverage of Occupy Congress came late in the day when some fool threw a smoke bomb of some sort over the White House fence. As the White House was locked down the sudden explosion of headlines would have you think it was the modern version of the storming of the Tuileries Palace. In fact is was probably the only negative occurrence of a long day filled with protests and marches.

If not for the Wikipidia shutdown I wonder if the SOPA blackout would have gotten any positive coverage at all. Most of the msm outlets are of course owned by organizations that are members of or own members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The MPAA is the main force behind SOPA and in all likelihood its lawyers wrote the bill. The MPAA calls the blackout a  “gimmick… designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals.” MPAA president, and a senator for thirty years, Chris Dodd was crying on all the morning news shows while Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was nowhere to be seen. Dodd said on one show that the blackout turns web users into "corporate pawns." I think just maybe he should look in the mirror more often.

One blog post that totally irritated me said that the twitter blackout wasn't a political issue at all but simply a meme and its participants lemmings following the leaders over a cliff. I was forced to post a rare comment and you can read it here.

Maybe I should just play Angry Katies, emm, birds.

Observations from the Coffee Shop

Today is the New Hampshire primary and it seems a perfect moment to drop some random bits of political information on you.

The Keystone XL pipeline is one of brother's favorite things to complain, vent, and curse about. It would carry oil and diluted oil sands from northern Canada to locations throughout the US, going as far as the Texas coast. Supporters claim it would create tens of thousands of jobs. Opponents counter that it would create less than one hundred permanent jobs, wreak havoc with the environment of the mid-west, and just further our dependence on fossil fuels. Two of the main people pushing for faster approval of the pipeline are Speaker of the House John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. For the record Boehner has received $1,111,080 from the petroleum industry during his time as Speaker, McConnell received $1,277,208. Take that for what you will.

Kansas' Republican Speaker of the House Mike O'Neal sent an email to friends and supporters when he 'discovered' Psalm 109. He wrote in the email, "At last, I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up, it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an amen?" And what is Psalm 109? Bible.org describes it as a prayer for the punishment of the wicked. "May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children." I take that to mean that O'Neal wouldn't mind seeing the President dead and I really think the Secret Service needs to look into that the with same seriousness they would if a random drunk in a random bar threatened him.

This is a short one because I can't bare Rick Santorum being in my thoughts for any length of time. I saw him on Morning Joe this morning and he said a couple of things that make me think of the words revisionist history. He called a nuclear armed Iran the greatest threat western civilization has ever known. Greater than the Islamic expansions of the 8th century, the Mongol invasions of the 14th century, greater even than Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. Seems like more of the GOP tactic of winning elections through fear, just another excuse for another war in the middle east. Santorum also stated that he felt the working families of Pennsylvania could relate to him and his family history, I would remind the former Senator that the families of Pennsylvania showed him the door after his 2006 election campaign.

And last something only marginally political but something that may become more important as we move into the new year. Vibe is a new application for iPhones, iPads and Android that allows the user to send messages that are only visible to other Vibe users, and not to police or other outsiders. Vibe messages are anonymous, and users can control how far they are broadcast, from 150 feet to worldwide. The user can also control how long the messages are visible, they disappear after a set time period ranging from 15 minutes to thirty days thus leaving no trail.

And so it goes.

Observations from the Gallery 12.7 Randomness

Governor Rick Perry, gay or not gay? All the world wonders. Maybe all the world doesn't wonder but rumors do continue to swirl. If you have never seen it this would be a good time to watch Outrage a documentary by Kirby Dick about politicians who push an anti-gay agenda to cover the fact that they themselves are gay. Methinks you doth protest too much.

One of the stranger conversations I've had recently concerned the artistic merit of Resident Evil: Afterlife versus Resident Evil: Extinction. No decision was made but my thinking is Mila Jovovich looks rather stunning in either one so I don't really care. Extinction does have that slow cam shot up the legs in the opening sequence, deff a point in its favor.

In geek news I just discovered a Twitter app called Buffer. The free version allows you to load up to ten tweets in your 'buffer' and have the tweets spread out over preset times. The awesome part is you can download a Google Chrome extension that adds a button to Chrome. Click the button and it writes a tweet for whatever page you happen to be looking at. Now if you happen to follow me on twitter don't be surprised if I seem to be constantly tweeting, I'm not really there. 

It seems my little family is spreading farther and farther apart. My brother spends most of his days in the wilds of northern Pennsylvania working. I'm really happy for him because he always wanted a job where he could work outside and that is what this is. As always with us though he seems a little torn by it all. It's a good job, pays well, and he gets to go four-wheeling in his new jeep but in the end his salary is paid through his employer's contract with Shell Oil and its new fracking operation. The sis is continuing to move down her own beaten path and will be transferring out of Penn State after this semester. From art school to uncommitted to a political science major all in one year, seems we have more genes alike than we ever knew. I so miss spending time with her so hopefully we will get to over the holidays. As for myself, I'm always just a dream flight away from Paris. It is what it is, I guess the three of us will just conquer the globe one day.

With the holidays the days get longer at the gallery and the weekend days even longer. I think I need to get home, light some candles, slip into a hot tub filled with those black raspberry vanilla bubbles, and soak.

Maybe some wine is called for too.

Rihanna - We Found Love

Observations from the Window 8.21

Tomorrow, Monday, is the first day of classes at Penn State. The first day of classes for my sis. The first day of classes for the third and final member of our evil sibling triumvirate to attend State. For sure it wasn't her first choice but karma being karma there she is and I wish her the best.

I'm so excited for her but I'm also a little bit sad. Seems my little sis is all grown up which is a slight fact didn't really sink in until now. Our conversations slowly changed over the summer as she became less my mini-me and more my equal in so many ways. I'm going to miss my mini-me but I also welcome the company of the fine young woman that is my sister.

And so a vid in honor of my sis, my school, and the soon to begin 125th season of Penn State Nittany Lion football. For the record JoePa will be 85 in December and has been Penn State's head football coach since 1966, he still rocks.

Late update - In all the thoughts of my sis' start at Penn State I forgot another important bit of information. This was the first time in five years that classes started and my brother wasn't there. God what a torn day.


Link

*geek speak - I dabbled with getting rid of the YouTube control bar for aesthetic reasons and it does look much better. Prob is you can't turn off the vid than.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 4.22

The internet gods truly are annoyed with me. Once again I was consigned to internet purgatory for sins real or imagined. I’m not sure what office of Verizon decides that point, I’m not even sure what side of the world the office is on. After yet another long phone conversation I’m beginning to think I have the answer to the last part.

It's not the modem, not the wiring, or my comps, and I don't buy the theory that rats are chewing on my wires because I feed the rats regularly to avoid just such an occurrence. I even stretched a 50' wire down the hall and plugged into Verizon directly only to find it was just as weak at the source. So I am out of theories of my own and I'm open to any opinions but I did accomplish one thing today. After threatening that my next call was going to be to Time Warner I was told a technician would be out sometime this weekend to check any of their equipment in the area. Sometimes it does pay to be a bitch.

Speaking of bitches; In an update to my last geek post I want to say that, contrary to a minor rumor on Twitter, Madonna and I are not at all close. Funny thing about Madonna and I though, our birthdays are the 15th and the 16th of August so I guess karmically speaking we are a lot closer than I thought.

Game 5 of the Flyers playoff series against the Sabres is about an hour away so I just have to forget my internet ills for now. After game 4 ended in a major fight this should just be awesome.

midnight update - The Flyers fell to the Sabres 4-3 in overtime and now find themselves facing elemination Sunday. This series goes a long way towards explaining why I love sports the way I do. Not that I enjoy watching my fav team lose but anything can happen. The thing is last year the Flyers made the playoffs on the last day of the season after a late season surge and they ended up making a run all the way to the Stanley Cup finals. This year they dominated the NHL for most of the year only to tire near the end and slip to second deed in the east. Still things still looked good going into the playoffs until they ran into Ryan Miller who is playing goal as well as the position can be played. Two of the Flyers' three losses in this series have been 1-0 shutouts and that is something that has never happened before in their storied history. You just never know.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 4.19

Yesterday was just a day of uber-geekness that was followed by a night of sports overload. These are just some random thoughts I typed on my netbook but I never got around to connecting.

I had a geek meltdown when I awoke to find I had internet loading speeds equivalent to a wretched dial-up connection. As my empire began to crumble around me I spent an hour on the phone with a friendly enough gentleman who finally informed me what I already knew, my modem was probably shot. He said in would send me a new one that should arrive in approximately six business days. Now I know the call center was in India but I didn’t know Verizon shipped their products from there. The one thing that did irritate a bit was when the automated system had an Indian accent, jesus I yell at them as it is. "Sorry I didn’t understand, sorry I didn’t understand." I just wanted to say I don’t effing understand you either but all I would have gotten back was "sorry I don’t understand!"

In one of my ultimate geek confessions I admitted to a friend that I owned possibly a dozen Madonna CDs. Previous to this it had been a very well kept secret but that no longer seems to be the case. To make it all the more pathetic I latter ripped all the CDs and now have a huge Madonna playlist on iTunes.

A Philadelphia Inquirer sports writer declared last night basketbockey night because the Flyers, Phillies, and Sixers were all playing at the same time. The Flyers won their playoff game against the Buffalo Sabres and now lead the series 2 games to 1. The Sabres have never won a series after falling behind 2 games to 1, this will be their 13th attempt. The Phillies lost in extra innings and the Sixers were totally crushed by LeBitch James and the Miami Heat in their playoff game.

After a bad outing in game two, a win in which he was replaced early, the Flyers didn’t even dress rookie goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. I know the powers that run the Flyers are reading so I just want to say that I think it was a totally bad move. Goalies in any sport a flaky to start with, witness my brother, so it was a bad enough move not to start him. This was only magnified by not letting him backup Brian Bouchet. Time will tell what it does to his confidence. 

I really just wanted one of those mellow spring baths I wrote about.

Madonna - American Pie

Observations from the Window 2.25

Have you ever sat in front of your computer with four tabs open in Firefox or Chrome (two emails, facebook, and either news or blog feeds), one or two Gchats going orange, Photoshop open to work on photos, and, in my case, TweetDeck open on a netbook? Lost data slips by as you stare at that one orange Gchat wondering why it went quiet, wondering if you said something wrong. I have. In fact I am as I add Word on my laptop to the list so I can write this. I’m not even going to think about where Tumblr, Plurk, and my cell phone fit into this.

Insanity rules.

Tab, tab, tweet, tab, tweet. The Middle East erupts, the Middle West protests, Gadaffi blames the Easter Bunny, and I stare endlessly at that orange dot. I reread the last few lines of the chat knowing I didn’t say anything wrong but still wondering if I did. Why do I always have to be such a smart ass? Did she take something the wrong way? Should I explain what I meant or just let it go?

Total freaking netsanity.

Streaming YouTube, iTunes, half written unfinished than forgotten comments. Endless bits of information careening in front of my eyes as my brain begins to spin totally out of control.

And than the dot goes grey.

The Pretty Reckless - Just Tonight