Friday, July 28, 2006

I forgot to mention that while at the beach last week, I saw a pod of dolphins, a ton of jellyfish and, although I didn't see it myself, members of my party spotted a shark just offshore (a little brown one, maybe 3 feet long). In honor of Shark Week, I give you pictures of my office building at the moment:



Yeah, it looks like a giant shark is swimming through the building. I kinda like it as a publicity stunt, to be honest. It's not everyday that one can send an email like this:

To: Friends
From: Suedisco

Sure, let's all meet at Trio tonight. By the way, the giant shark head on my building is blowing around in the wind. It sounds like thunder.

My desk is 3 windows to the left of the teeth.



Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Post-Vacation Depression

Sorry for the long hiatus...I went on vacation. To where, you ask? Why, to Dewey Beach, that's where! And what's so great about Dewey Beach? Pretty much everything. For those of you not familiar with the joy of this little beach hamlet tucked away between Rehoboth Beach and Bethany Beach on the Delaware shore, allow me to elaborate. This is a typical day in Dewey:

11:30am - Get out of bed (since you can no longer ignore the sunlight coming in through the skylight)
11:45am - Talk someone into getting you coffee.
12:00pm - Choose your own adventure...either head to the beach for the next 5 hours or so, or begin drinking (I choose option 1).
2:00pm - Wake up in time to eye-rape some hot lifeguards
5:00pm - Head back to the house to meet up with those who have been drinking since noon. Break up a verbal argument already in progress. Eat some chips & dip. Begin drinking in earnest.
6:00pm - Optional shower/put on a shirt. Continue drinking through either of these activities.
7:00pm - Eat some more.
8:00pm - Watch some baseball, play quaits, or just continue drinking
10:00pm - Go to the bar...your choices include The Lighthouse (stay away from the Orange Crush), The Rusty Rudder, North Beach, or the Starboard.
10:30pm - Lose someone you came with.
11:30pm - Talk to member of the opposite sex you wouldn't dream of approaching were it not for the fact that you've been drinking for approximately 5-12 hours. This can be taken in either the very good or very bad sense...it works both ways.
12:00pm - Magically find the missing member of your party.
12:15pm - Lose someone else.
1:00am - Bars close. Proceed directly to Grotto Pizza, Mama Celeste or DP Dough.
2:00am - Arrive home. Devour every semi-edible item in house. Immediately begin flip cup game.
2:30am - Prop up whomever is no longer steady enough to play flip cup by moving the couch closer to the table.
2:45am - Ding Ding Ding! Someone has earned a new nickname!
3:00am - Taunt/harass those that have passed out. What lightweights.
3:10am - Retire to your chamber. You've had a busy day, afterall.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. No movie theaters, no shopping, no miniature golf. It seems as though this would be repetitive, nay boring, for an entire week. Let me assure you that you'd be mistaken. Never has my post-vacation depression been this deep.

When you "tentatively" book your reservation for the next year when you drop off the keys at the realty office, you know you're pretty much ruined.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Head On! Like a Drill Bit to the Skull

This commercial may make you officially insane. If this product is meant to cure headaches, then their advertising firm should be promoted. How better to sell lots of headache remedies than if your commercial causes them?

Let's start a list of other things Head On! and it's commercial may be trying to cure:

Sunburn
Rickets
Intelligence
Bad spelling
Vitamin C deficiency
Sanity

Go ahead, think of your own uses for Head On!, and remember...apply directly to the forehead!

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Not this again...

I'm about to get political on you all for the first time ever (I live in DC, so allow me this one indulgence. I'll be back to Supergroup, So You Think You Can Dance, and The Devil Wears Prada soon enough). Today the NY courts ruled that any real ruling on gay marriage would have to go through the legislature. Whoopee. A setback for gay rights for sure, but not a death knell by any means.

Anyway, this led me to check out the comments on Fark about this ruling. You can read the same enormously long thread here. I even posted in the comments...I'll repost it below for your reading pleasure:

I'll never understand the argument that gay marriage denigrates straight marriage...you need a certificate issued by the state to be legally wed (partnered up, unioned...whatever you want to call it). If you CHOOSE to then go to a church and get "married in the eyes of god," then fine. Why can they just change "Marriage license" to "Certificate of Union" for EVERYONE...then let the gays get "married" in whatever church is cool with it, let the straights get "married" in whatever church they feel like celebrating, and then everyone is happy. The Union certificate is the legally binding document, the "marriage" is the traditional, religion-related ceremony. The close-minded straights get to go to their gay-unfriendly churches to get married, and the open-minded straights and gays can support the churches that accept everyone. Why is this so freaking hard?

Anyway, posting on Fark is usually just yelling into the dark...no one responds to me because A) I'm not very extreme in my views and B) I'm not a troll. Today however, I was amazed to get this email shortly after posting:

Hi-
You don't know me, but you're a genius.

My name is Andrew. I don't post on Fark but I often read the political/religious threads because I enjoy the resulting flamewars and the associated ignorance that comes with them.

You're the only person on Fark that realizes that secular marriage and religious marriage are two separate things. Nobody else seems to realize that and I was wondering when someone that posts there would
mention that.

Religious and civil marriages are completely different, yet have been conflated in Western society. It's completely possible to marry in a Church and have it official in the eyes of God, but not the civil state. Likewise, it's completely possible to marry in a judge's office and have it official in the eyes of the state but not of a religion.

However, since the two have been conflated, right-wing nutjobs have done a good job in pushing their religion's interpretation of a proper marriage onto the civil state, thus keeping gay people from marrying
in most places. Like I said above, I read Fark threads for the entertaining flamewars because people say really stupid things, and I find that funny. However, I was happy (and surprised) to see some intelligence there).

Have a nice day.

Best, Andrew

Well...color me surprised! My lowly opinion vindicated. And I'm a genius for it! (Did you get that part, friends?) Anyway, this guy wrote back to joke a little about the trolls and self-proclaimed experts on Fark and to ask "Was your insight just a momentary act of brilliance or do you have experience in a related field of thought or academia that lent to it?" This is what I wrote back. I think this (combined with my above statement) accurately and concisely sums up my views on gay marriage. And to think, I'm not even an expert or academic of any kind!

Ha - I know what you mean about ignoring trolls and self-styled "experts." As for my background, about the only info I bring to the table on this is a whole passel of gay friends. I live in Dupont Circle (similar to the Castro in San Fran for it's percentage of gay residents) so I've discussed this issue many, many times with many, many people. I guess I've just always seen "marriage" as a religiously-charged word that indictes a religious union, not necessarily a legal one.

Along the same lines, I hate the argument that being gay is a choice (vs. being biological or "natural") and that that somehow factors into why gay marriage should be illegal. No one is forcing all the biologically, naturally straight people to get married either...that too is a choice.

Seriously...what kind of morons are falling for this obvious political smokescreen? Is it not abundantly clear that we've got more pressing issues than whether two gay people are allowed to file a joint tax return and collect survivor's benefits for one another? Jeesh. Somewhere along the way, we Americans have completely lost the ability to prioritize.