About a week or so before my birthday, my dad and I went to Block Island. It was the first time I’d ever been there, and I spent roughly 10 straight hours in the sun, resulting in the worst sunburn I’ve had in my life thus far. But I’m really happy with how the pictures turned out, so I guess it was worth it.

Link to the set on Flickr.
Link to slideshow.

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.

A recent question on AskMetaFilter reminded me of a couple ideas for martinis I’ve had. I haven’t worked out the specific measurements, as I lack the time or materials, but maybe it’d be a good project for this summer.

The clamtini. Pretty simple, really. Vodka and clam juice (Snow’s comes to mind), perhaps garnished with a littleneck clam.

The pickletini. I’m sure you can guess what it entails: Vodka and “pickle juice.” It would, of course, be garnished with a kosher baby dill pickle. I fucking love pickle juice. I drink the stuff out of the jar. While the clamtini would be something of a jokey experimental adventure/potential vomit fodder, I imagine the pickletini would be something that I’d actually enjoy. And maybe also potential vomit fodder.

Me: Do you know if my mask thing is at home?
Me: and if not where I could buy one?
Mom: unknown…. I would think so… you used it for your film and left it in the kitchen, I remember seeing it then
Me: Not my gasmask, my balaclava, the one I wore when all those cops came to the house?
Mom: oh… no, you lost that ages ago
Me: Darn, ok thanks.
Mom: k

After almost 20 years, I don’t think anything phases her anymore.

The following is a letter I submitted to my college’s student newspaper in response to this column. He has since written another column which you can find here. If you’re asked to enter an email address, use ghetto bean 3 at cox dot net (no spaces). It’s an old email of mine that I don’t use anymore so I don’t really mind putting it out here.

I must admit that after a solid month and a half of silence, I found myself pondering the absence of the University of Rhode Island’s Grand Old Party from the headlines of the Cigar. I felt a void; I missed their antics in much the same way one misses waking to the soothing melody of jackhammers outside one’s window each morning. When the construction is finished and you wake one morning to discover the cacophony has left you, you almost miss it. Almost.

As I walked across the campus this afternoon, almost as if to answer my ponderings, I noticed something written in chalk in front of the student union. The term “Islamo-Fascism” caught my eye, and beneath that, the URI GOP. I smiled. “Billy Boy” is back.

“Billy Boy” is, of course, my pet name for URI GOP lap dog Ryan Bilodeau. You may remember Mr. Bilodeau from such farces as the “White Heterosexual American Male” scholarship, or perhaps his fundraiser to collect money to “buy guns for underprivileged women in an attempt to end domestic violence.” Classy.

As I mentioned earlier, Bilodeau’s newest act appears to revolve around “Islamo-Fascism.” Islamo-Facism, in laymen’s terms, is used to suggest an association between Islam and Nazis. One need only read Bilodeau’s Thursday’s column in the Cigar to realize that he makes little, if any, distinction between Islam and Islamo-Fascism. His copious use of “skeptic quotes” and (pointed parenthetical asides) while describing Islam, not Islamo-Fascism, to preface his harangue only reinforces this notion.

One can’t help but wonder what caused “Billy Boy” and his cronies to decide that URI needed immediate illumination on the imminent threat of Islamo-Facism. Given that 9/11 happened six years ago, I find his saber-rattling to be rather remiss, if not entirely non sequitur.

What’s more, he doesn’t even make good points. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone; I just felt it was worth bringing up. He seems hell-bent on making as many references to Islam not being a peaceful religion as he can. “[Fundamental Islam] as subscribed to by Jihadists and fascists.” That’s right, fascists. Apparently Nazis were Muslims. Go figure.

A funny thing I noticed is that parallels can be made for practically all of the points Bilodeau makes. Mohammed was a warlord you say? I suggest you read Numbers 31 in your Bible, Ryan. That’s the part where Moses instructed the Israelite soldiers to kill every Midianite woman, boy and the non-virgin girl. The virgin girls were then raped by the soldiers (Numbers 31:18).

And last I checked (a few years ago), you listed Matthew 10:34 as one of your “favorite quotes” on Facebook.com, where Jesus says “Do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” Yes, “espousals of and incitements to extreme violence” indeed, Ryan. Surely Islam is alone in this regard.

Bilodeau talks about how the Quran is outdated, written for a “far different time than we are now living in.” The same could be said of the Bible. He bemoans the fact that some followers interpret the Quran word for word. If some people didn’t insist on interpreting it word for word we wouldn’t have to go to court to keep things like “Intelligent Design” out of our schools. Bilodeau talks of “ignorant, indoctrinated youth.” The irony is overwhelming.

Though no matter how hard Bilodeau tries to get students’ hackles up, I cannot help but smile. I’m filled with a gleeful sense of schadenfreude. He appears to be completely unaware of just how much of an ass he makes of himself. It’s like watching someone leave the lavatory with toilet paper stuck to their heel, except that person is notorious for unmitigated boorishness and insists on calling attention to his heel by submitting pictures of it to the Cigar. Every time he stands on his soapbox, my attention shifts from the uncouth rubbish exiting his gaping maw to the toilet paper on his heel, which only seems to grow larger with each passing word, a never-ending source for derisive laughter.

So keep on talking, “Billy Boy”; you’re the best laugh I’ve had all month.

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.

The following is a customer review I wrote of Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” on the iTunes store.

“Yes I crank it everyday/haterz get mad cuz/I got me some bathin apes” With such lyrical brilliance, it’s not hard to see why this is iTune’s best selling song at the moment.
The song is a breath of fresh air, especially when contrasted with songs in which the artists clearly pronounce their words. I, for one, am sick of that trend. Why annunciate when you can jabber on like you’ve got a mouth full of marbles? Although he sounds like any other uneducated 17-year-old that apparently slept through or skipped every single English class in his entire life, don’t let it fool you; that is a clear sign of TRUE GENIUS.
Another indicator of Soulja Boy’s musical mastery is the fact that he manages to create an almost 4 minute song that contains only TWO (unintentionally hilarious) verses. How so? By repeating his tedious chorus (which itself contains four identical repetitions of the same two lines) a total of 8 times throughout the song. Bravo, Mr. Boy, bravo. The message behind your urbane lyrics will surely live on through the ages, becoming a benchmark against which all songs must be measured.