Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

Howard Dean rally in Seattle

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Howard Dean in Seattle

Well, as it turns out, I was too far away from the stage to get any really decent pictures of Dean at yesterday’s rally. Ah, well, not a biggie — actually being there was the point.

Being able to see Dean speak in person was great. I’d heard and read nothing but good things of his comfort in front of a crowd, and it was fun to finally be able to experience that myself. He’s definitely a strongly charismatic man, and handles being in front of thousands of people really well. He doesn’t need to rely on cue cards or notes at all, which gives him a much better connection to his audience, as he’s not constantly looking down to fiddle at the podium. He also ad-libs very smoothly — at one point, someone yelled out, “Give ’em hell, Howard!” and Dean broke off for a moment to relate Truman’s response to the old “Give ’em hell, Harry!” war cry: “I just tell the truth, and Republicans think it’s hell!”

I was familiar with some of the content of his speech, but some of the sections I hadn’t heard before, including statistics showing a drop of around 45% in child abuse, and a drop of around 75% in child sexual abuse in Vermont following some of the programs he introduced as Governor — just astounding numbers.

Prairie and I brought along Prairie’s sister Hope and her friend Ingrid to the event, too. Neither of them knew much about Dean beforehand, but as we left, both of them seemed very impressed by Dean and what he had to say. Possibly a couple new supporters?

The only downside to the rally was that it was somewhat late in getting going — Dean, scheduled to speak at around 6:30, didn’t make it onstage until around 7:15, and we had to listen to a seemingly interminable stream of uninspiring music and speakers. By the time the last speaker took the stage, she was almost drowned out by chants of “Dean! Dean! Dean!” from a restless crowd. I felt a little sorry for her, but the sad truth was that only one of the pre-Dean speakers (Professor Hubert G. Locke) had any real skill as a public speaker, and we were all getting quite frustrated at the delays. Still, once Dean appeared, things got back in gear, and everyone around us as things ended did say that the wait, while frustrating, didn’t dim their appreciation of the man himself.

All in all, a good time was had by all. I picked up a Dean for America sign for my apartment window and a t-shirt, and have a few stickers in my bag looking for homes. I was already solidly in Dean’s camp before this, but being able to see him in person definitely cemented my position — here’s hoping that his momentum keeps growing, and we can get him not just the Democratic nomination, but the Presidency in 2004.

More posts on the event:

10,000+ rally for Dean!

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I’ll get photos and more impressions up later, but the rally today was really successful — over 10,000 people showed up to the event! Just amazing.

There’s a quick note about today’s event on the Dean blog, and there’s an AP slideshow of Dean’s Sleepless Summer Tour with photos from the Seattle event on Yahoo right now (the first 10 or so photos are from today — this one is my favorite, this little girl was right behind me during the rally).

Anti-Bush protest

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You're never too young to voice your opinion!

I spent this afternoon participating in the anti-Bush protests here in downtown Seattle. While Bush actually spent very little time here in Washington — arriving, touring a dam, having a \$2000 a plate lunch, and then leaving, all yesterday — today’s protest was one of several organized in response to Bush’s visit.

The march along Alaskan Way

The event went quite well, from what I could tell. Starting with a rally at Myrtle Edwards Park down by the waterfront, hundreds of us marched from the park up along Alaskan Way (past all the waterfront tourist attractions and businesses) until we were right by the walkway up to the Pike Place Market, and then turned around and went back down Alaskan Way until we made it back to the park. No arrests, no confrontations, and quite a lot of honks, thumbs-up, and cheers of support from people around us.

That was it for today’s hootin’ and hollerin’ for me, though — tomorrow afternoon is Howard Dean’s stop here in Seattle. I’ll be there, along with Rick, Tim, Prairie, her sister Hope, Hope’s friend Ingrid, and 2500 or so other people. Should be a good afternoon!

Baby shit green

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Browsing through Wil’s site today, a section of this post caught my eye.

…and Nolan said, “Jeebus!” about something. Ryan said, “Nolan! Don’t steal my word! Mom! Wil! Nolan stole my word!”

“Ryan,” I said, “Nolan didn’t steal your word. ‘Jeebus’ belongs to everyone. It’s the word that’s sweeping the nation.”

“How come you don’t say it, then?” he asked, challenging.

“Because I would rather say ‘Fuck.'” I said.

Okay, I didn’t really say that. But wouldn’t it have been cool if I did? You ever unload an F-bomb on a teenager? It’s worth it just to see that look of shock and horror that passes their face, followed by the pause where they try to decide if they can get away with cussing because you just did.

And Ryan, if you’re reading this, no. You may not.

As a rule, my family doesn’t curse much — there are far too many effective words in the english language for all sorts of circumstances to limit yourself to the standard overused four-letter vocabulary. Sure, as a teenager, I could curse up a storm with the best of them, and even now I have my moments, but it’s not a necessary component to my vocabulary.

One day while I was a teen, Mom and I were driving around Anchorage. I have no idea where we were going, what we were doing, or even how old I was, but I’d guess around 13 or 14 or so. At some point during our travels, we saw a car painted the most hideous shade of 1970’s era not-quite-advocado green.

“Wow,” I said, and pointed it out. “That’s got to be the ugliest color car I’ve ever seen!”

“Yeah,” Mom agreed. “A beautiful shade of baby shit green.”

Dead silence.

“What?!?”

I’d never heard Mom curse before. Up until that point, I don’t think I really knew it was possible. Mothers don’t do that! They’re sweet, and nice, and kiss skinned knees after you fall down, and tell you not to ride your bike out of the boundaries of the neighborhood — but they don’t describe cars as “baby shit green!”

Okay, maybe they do. Not often. But they do. And I’ve never, ever forgotten that.

Ow…

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Woke up this morning with a headache. Still have the headache now. I think I’m likely heading to bed as soon as I get home. Bleah.

Antici…

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Talk about a difficult decision.

I hadn’t mentioned this publicly on here yet, but last week I went down to The Mac Store in the University District and plunked down the money for a mid-range 1.8 Ghz single processor Power Mac. At the time I paid for it, the salesmen were fairly sure that they’d be receiving the machines within a few days.

As the week has gone by, though, it’s become apparent that even though Apple has started shipping the new machines, it’s something of a slow process. The current theory (which I read on a messageboard last night, though I can’t find the post now) is that Apple is shipping the low-end single-processor 1.6Ghz machines to educational institutions first, and retailers second, to be followed by midrange single-processor 1.8Ghz machines, then finally, the high-end dual-processor 2.0Ghz machines. When I called The Mac Store this morning to see if they’d had any further word on their shipment date, I was given a similar story — they’re expecting the 1.6Ghz machines “any time now”, but the 1.8Ghz machines have a much looser ship date, possibly “as late as Sept. 8th”.

So, I got to thinking. Part of the reason I ordered the midrange machine was simply impatience — word was out that Apple was on-track to ship on time (which, in all fairness, they’re doing — just not as fast as we’d all like), and I’m more than ready to move up from my current 350Mhz G3 tower. I had the money available for the midrange machine, expected it to arrive within a week, and decided to go for it. Now, however, I’ve been waiting for a week, and it’s possible (though not gauranteed) that I could be waiting for another two weeks. Given that, I turned it over in my head for a bit, and decided that as long as I’m (whimper, whine) resigning myself to waiting longer than I’d expected, I might as well wait for something really worth waiting for — and called The Mac Store and changed my payment from a full payment on the midrange machine to a (large) down payment on the top of the line machine.

So, I’m going to be waiting a bit longer — current estimations for shipping on the high end G5’s are mid to late September. But that gives me a few more weeks to scrape up the last \$600 I need, and when the time comes, I’ll have the absolute top of the line high-end dual 2Ghz G5 Power Mac sitting in my apartment. The waiting’s gonna kill me — but the final result will be more than worth it.

I think…

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One of the guys here at work that is constantly giving me crap about being a Mac user just handed me a t-shirt that he picked up for me.

I think, therefore I mac.

That rocks.

A little stressed?

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Something you don’t see very often on job order forms:

The package must be received…no later than 11am on Friday…. Please call me…once the package is on its way? Otherwise I will lose my job. I shit you not.

Oh, lord, now what?

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From: Jhdbd @yahoo.com
Date: Mon Aug 18, 2003 21:55:16 US/Pacific
To: Susan
Subject: You and your COLON Lbpqqtvx
Reply-To: Jhdbd @yahoo.com

I think I preferred the never-ending stream of Viagra spam, to be honest.

Warning: These hurt!

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Many thanks to Kirsten for sending these my way. I got quite a few laughs out of this list, myself.

And just remember…

…the beauty of the pun is in the “oy…” of the beholder.

Two peanuts walk into a bar. One was a salted.

A jumper cable walks into a bar. The barman says, “I’ll serve you, but don’t start anything.”

A sandwich walks into a bar. The barman says, “Sorry we don’t serve food in here.”

A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says, “A beer please, and one for the road.”

Two aerials meet on a roof, fall in love, get married. The ceremony wasn’t much but the reception was brilliant.

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other, “Does this taste funny to you?”

“Doc, I can’t stop singing ‘The green, green grass of home.'” “That sounds like the Tom Jones syndrome.” “Is it common?” “It’s not unusual.”

Two cows standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says to Dolly, “I was artificially inseminated this morning.” “I don’t believe you,” said Dolly. “It’s true, no bull!” exclaimed Daisy.

A guy walks into the psychiatrist wearing only Glad Wrap shorts. The shrink says, “Well, I can clearly see you’re nuts.”

Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says, “I’ve lost my electron.” The other says, “Are you sure?” The first replies, “Yes, I’m positive…”

A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet and says, “My dog’s cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him?” “Well,” says the vet, “let’s have a look at him.” So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes, then checks his teeth. Finally, he says “I’m going to have to put him down.” “What?, Because he’s cross-eyed?” “No, because he’s really heavy.”

Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. And there are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them. It’s either my mum or my dad…or maybe my older brother Colin. Or my younger brother Ho-Cha Chu. But I’m pretty sure it’s Colin.

I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn’t find any.

I went to the butcher’s the other day and I wanted to bet him 50 dollars he couldn’t reach the meat off the top shelf. He said, “No, the steaks are too high.”

A man came ’round in a hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, “Doctor, doctor, I can’t feel my legs!” The doctor replied,”I know you can’t, I’ve cut your arms off”.

I went to a seafood disco rave last week…and pulled a mussel.

Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly. But when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once and for all that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.

A man walks into doctor’s office. “What seems to be the problem?” asks the doc. “It’s…um…well…I have five penises.” replies the man. “Blimey!” says the doctor, “How do your trousers fit?” “Like a glove.”