Uncharted Territory

I know! I’m surprised too. But according to this MSNBC news alert, Barack Obama is, in fact, caught in some kind of intergalactic time warp. I’m rather shocked that the mainstream media has managed to keep a lid on such an important story for this long.

If you’d like to see other news stories you probably didn’t hear about…

1. Open your GMail account.
2. Run this search: in:spam MSNBC
(or just click the image above)

If in doubt about whether to go to a concert or not, always default to going. Even if you don’t think you’ll have a good time.

The Faint played at La Zona Rosa yesterday. And, I thought about skipping it. It was , and I’d heard a couple of the new cuts off Fasciination and I was (to put it mildly) unimpressed.

But a friend talked me into going anyway and they BLEW MY FUCKING MIND.

Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I had such a good time at a concert. I was exhausted, my body drenched with sweat, my heels hurt from stomping the wooden platform I stood on, my legs sore from dancing.

I recorded a bunch of their songs on my camera, and the bouncers didn’t catch on until their last song. So I’ll post a couple to YouTube if they turn out ok.

Jesse Jackson Jr. just made this point on CNN this morning, and it’s worth repeating.

Barack Obama is scheduled to accept the Democratic nomination for president on August 28th, 2008. That will be 45 years to the day (1963) that Martin Luther King delivered the historic “I Have a Dream” speech.

That sent chills up my spine.

All three guests on the panel, Jackson, Maxine Waters, and Kenneth Blackwell, made the point that the rights of African Americans have come a long way in a very short time. I couldn’t agree more. I’m really proud of my country right now.

I’ve made some long-procrastinated upgrades to the site today. You’ve probably already noticed the new layout. I’ve needed a wider column width for a while now. Many of the images I post are pretty big, and they had a tendency to break the old layout. Also I didn’t much care for the old page style. I’m not really fond of this one either, but I’m too lazy to find a better one, so this will do for now.

I’ve also finally upgraded to Wordress 2.5. Like I said, long overdue. I had been running version 1.5, which was the original version I installed way back in November 2005.

The plugin I use to syndicate entries from last.fm and livejournal is broken. I’m still playing around with that. Everything else should be working. Comments & feedback are appreciated.

EDIT: Ok, I tolerated that layout all of a day before finally admitting to myself it was ugly. This one’s a little better.

He’s perfectly capable of mocking himself, thankyouverymuch.

You know how they say “To Kill a Mockingbird” should never be technicolored, because black-and-white makes a perfect medium to explore racial tension? Well, for reasons not quite so profound, the censorship from this next video should never EVER be removed, lest it equally detract from the art. You’ll see what I mean. And believe me, it pains me to have to argue in favor of obscuring big, bouncy, (fake) boobies. Should I ever do that again, I consent to someone removing my spleen by way of my sphincter. With a corkscrew.

As I sat and watched this video, I wondered, had this video been released a year ago, would Rivers Cuomo have incorporated it in the Pork N’ Beans video? Maybe even starred in it? Rivers shirtless, hairy chest, bouncing around your tv screen. I’ll let that image set in your brain a while.

Giant Squid Thrown On Ice To Celebrate Red Wings Hat Trick

Very silly, The Onion. But I gotta give them credit, they’ve shown the NHL a lot of “love” (if you can call it that) this year. Here’s a couple more pieces they’ve done recently:

Stackley Cup Playoffs Underway
NEW YORK—The 2008 Stackley Cup Playoffs, a set of odd-number-of-games series that will determine the champion of the National Huckie League, are well underway, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman confirmed Monday. [Read More]

Also, this: apparently that Alex Ovechkin guy has finally made it to the big leagues….

A car collides into cyclists participating in a race in Mexico’s northern border city of Matamoros, Sunday June 1, 2008. At least one person was killed and 14 injured when a driver slammed into a bicycle race.
(AP Photo/Jose Fidelino Vera Hernandez)

Holy crap. Thems a lot of flying bodies.

I don’t have a lot of time to write out my thoughts about the democratic primary race, but here are a couple quick ones.

• When asked why Hillary did not drop out of the race Tuesday evening, when it was widely projected Obama had the delegates to claim the Democratic nomination, Rep. Charles Rangel, one of Clinton’s closest supporters said he had no idea. “Unless she has some good reasons– which I can’t think of– I really think we ought to get on with endorsements (of Obama) and dealing with what we have to deal with… so we can move forward,” Rangel said.

  If I were to guess, I believe the reason Hillary is procrastinating is because she’s deciding, A. whether to suspend or drop her presidential campaign, and B. whether or not to endorse Obama. I can’t imagine what else there could possibly be to decide, now that the delegate math is solidly against her.

  We get news this morning that Hillary intends to suspend her campaign, but will endorse Obama. I pretty much expected this; I’m glad to see she’s not too proud to throw her support behind the party’s nominee.

• The one thing I hate about Democrats is their lack of spine. This primary race should have been over in March or April. There’s no reason the superdelegates should have stayed on the fence this long. I also fault the liberal blogs for being too easy on Hillary through all of her campaign shenanigans. She put us through a lot: the “crying” in New Hampshire, her Bosnia comments, comparing Obama to Jesse Jackson, etc.

  The extended months of this primary allowed Hillary to deeply divide the party, and Democratic leadership did nothing to stop her. This came at a point in history where Democrats have a very good chance of winning the presidency by just putting their name on the ballot. We heard a lot of soft arguments from pundits that this primary was somehow good for the party. Utter nonsense. It gave false hope to Hillary and her supporters that she’d some how pull out a last-minute victory. Now that she’s been defeated, there are a lot of disenchanted Democrats who feel cheated. Yes, time heals all wounds, and in the five months before the November election, many Hillary supporters will swallow their anger and vote for Obama. However, Obama is still charged with the unfortunate task of wooing swing voters, and Democrats, and he’s only got five months to do it.

  And don’t forget, Ralph Nader is still not compeltely out of the picture.

• Hillary played a risky game. The pieces are set, it’s now just a matter of how things will play out. If Obama loses the General election, Hillary will (rightly) receive a lot of blame for it. She’s already drawn the ire of many people in her party, and has killed her presidential aspirations for several election cycles, if not permanently. Furthermore, one must wonder what effect this campaign will have on her Senate seat. If she’s pissed off enough Democrats, or if she’s faulted with losing the general election, there will be a lot of people who want her out of the party. Then her nightmare scenario will be realized. She loses her senate seat, and everything she’s worked for the past eight years will be gone.

“Dude, you need to step back.”

I was with my friends at a bar on Sixth Street. The voice belonged to a stranger standing a good six feet behind me. My friends asked me to take a video of them doing flaming Dr. Pepper shots. So I borrowed Jamie’s camera and started rolling.

A Flaming Dr. Pepper, if you’ve never had one, is a flamed mix drink. It consists of half a pint of light beer, a shot of amaretto, with a thin layer of Bicardi 151 on top. You light the 151 on fire, drop the shot into the beer, and chug. The resulting concoction tastes exactly like Dr. Pepper.

Now, I’d seen flaming Dr. Peppers made many times before, and I know they occasionally get out of hand. However, I was standing as far away from the arrangement as you normally sit from your living room tv set. I figured I was safe, and the stranger in the bar was just overly-cautious.

“It’s all good!” I said grinning.

“No, seriously, you need to back up.” At that point the bartender saw me and pointed. “DUDE,” he instructed, gesturing me to the side. He then tilted his head back and poured 151 straight into his mouth. It suddenly dawned on me what he was about to do, so I scuttled to the edge of the bar, twenty feet away.

The result is below. The video is dark, but you’ll have no trouble seeing the end:

I’m having the time of my life here in Austin. Easily the best decision I ever made was to move here. And not just because of bar-room pyrotechnics.