What a Mess

It’s something like 80º in the shade, people are mowing their lawns, and iced tea is the perfect beverage.

I think it’s finally Summer.

Cory Doctorow: Worse than Hitler?

Ask more: Need I?

This blog: I should start writing in it again?

Yes: The answer?

Flickr does videos now.

This is awesome. Assuming wordpress will allow me to embed them at some point.* I’ve been wanting to do short clips of places. Moving photos really. I got the idea after seeing something on someones blog where they just post “soundscapes,” recordings of their surroundings.

This is the exactly what I wanted to do. Hooray.

*Update: Apparently there is already support for embedding Flickr Video and it is incredibly too simple to add them to your post. This is great.

Derek: listen to this news
Me: I CALL BS IN ADVANCE
Derek: Andrew: 1 Derek: 0

I don’t take no nonsense on this day.

I’d like to take a moment out of the entry to say that I unintentionally wrote the title as “Stupid Politics,” so I guess Freud was on to something. Anyway.

There was a post on MetaFilter by KokuRyu about “the ugly side of student politics.” The post sums up how “more than three-quarters of a million dollars in student funds was misspent, a forensic audit of Vancouver’s Kwantlen University College student association finances has found. “It’s been a pretty long process because the financial records from 2006 were ‘lost.’ ” The audit also revealed that $140,000 was paid to former executive members, including former student association chair Aaron Takhar.”

How could I not be interested with scandal like that? So I started reading the article, and it had tidbits like

And that is why she fought in court for two years to get her job on student council reinstated and is now planning to sue over the forensic audit she and her fellow council members ordered when finally back in office.

and

Anderson alleges that he hired a private investigator to spy on rivals, and meddled with ballot boxes during elections.

My college had it’s student senate elections recently. Though only 352 students (that’s about 3% of the total undergraduate population) showed up to vote, one member of the election committee said “That looks good for the fall.”

Of those 352 votes, I saw that Mickey Mouse, Santa Claus, Rudolph, Pigasus, Car Ramrod, Rhody the Ram (the school mascot), Big Bobby C, JWL, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Max the Senate Fish, Buddy Cianci, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Darth Vader, Al Capone, Colonel Sanders, Charlie the Unicorn, Ted Nugent, Bill Clinton, Chuck Norris, The Govenator [sic], Jesus, and Jebus all got one vote a piece (22 votes total).

The most I had heard about the elections before they were over was from a friend who told me to vote for another friend. My response was “vote for her in what?” I had no idea student senate elections were even taking place.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I’m having a hard time comprehending anyone taking student council positions so seriously as to go to court (for two years!) to get a position back, or hiring a private investigator to spy on potential opponents.

In any case, I think that both cases–the situation at Kwantlen University and my college’s recent elections–serve as exemplary models of Democracy In Action.

After much searching, I believe I have found the inspiration for one of BioShock’s Big Daddy suits.

The Carmagnolle suit.

A fair amount of artistic license was taken, of course, but the influence is obvious.

On that note, I’d like to thank Jonathan Case of SeaFreak for providing me with a high resolution image of his BioShock Tshirt design, which I have used to make a wonderful desktop background, as well as a background for my Twitter page too.

Which reminds me! I went to a MetaFilter meetup a couple days ago, where the following took place:

::I hear snippets of conversation between Justin (pictured above) and Alan… my ears perk up when I catch the title BioShock::
Me: Wait say what?
Justin: I’m the something something something (my memory is terrible) for Bioshock.
Me: …Can I shake your hand?

For the next several minutes, Justin tells me a lot of what he can about what its like to work on BioShock. I’m sitting there, pretty much drinking in every word, and I notice Jessamyn holding up a piece of paper next to me.

It’s sad/funny because it’s true.

Only 61 Days 6 Hours 27 Minutes & 24 Seconds to go….

So I deleted my previous post about comments, because I’ve decided (and been told) that the surest way to not get comments is to ask for them. So enough of that. I’m doing this for me now.

The only thing is, I want to use the blog to practice my writing. I just don’t know where to start. I need a little push, something to get me going.

We’ll see what comes up.

What’s sad is I think I like making headers for my blog more than I like writing actually entries.

Maybe I should hire someone.

Typical spring morning. Cloudy, but not too dark. Apparently rained last night. Grass looks nice and green.

The first comment I made online:
“You can’t rape the willing.” On a post about the possible gay undertones of Elvis Presly’s “Jailhouse Rock”.

That’s got to be some kind of omen for the rest of the day…

I have exams this week. I don’t think they’re going to wendell.

Marissa: I want to kill myself because i just had to sing Fergie in my head to figure out how to spell glamorous right
Me: ….And the last drop of my respect for you just went up in smoke.

Sometimes I just don’t know what to do with her.

I’m currently trying to figure out which blogging platform I want to use: Blogger, Vox, or WordPress. I’ll probably end up crossposting to Vox anyway, because nobody reads my actual blogs, but still. So far, I have to say that I really like wordpress. Odds are I’ll end up sticking with this one. The thing that I like most about it is the fact that they don’t obstruct my header with the title of the blog. I like that. Gives me a lot more options of what pictures I want to use, whereas before I had to choose them based on how light or dark they were in certain areas, so you could see the text.

What is the point of Twitter? I’m still unsure. It’s like a tiny, tiny blog, absolutely dripping with Web 2.0. It’s also lagging like a sick dog. As someone had already pointed out on #bunnies, it’s just like the “So and so is_________” feature on Facebook, sans the rest of the profile. There has to be a way you can add a little widget to your blog that will show Twitter updates. Sooner or later, they’ll make it. I’m sure I’ll figure out if I want to keep the damn thing or not in a few days.

So I’ve secured myself work for this spring break. I work at a church up in Providence. I am a jesus janitor, christ’s custodian. I’m out of fancy names. But either way, it’s a job, and a pretty nice one at that. Pays very well, and it’s pretty laidback, so I can’t complain.

I just remembered my roommate wants to go up to Boston to see 300 in Imax. I wonder when he’s planning on doing this, because, as I mentioned, I have work now. I should probably ask him.

Update: Found the widget. They refer to it as a “badge.”