I have a soft spot for smart people with no social skills [amy]

I saw Al Gore earlier this week. He didn't really talk about proposition 87, but that's okay, it was still fun to listen to him. It was the most positive and optimistic speech by a polititian that I've heard in awhile. His use of obscure facts is fun too. (Oh, and he uses "facts"... that crazy guy.) I'm thinking he's getting really really tired of being introduced as "the man who should have been president" though. Really really tired. Wow, that must suck

...

"If I saw Al Gore I would have gotten him to sign something, like..."
"Like a dictionary?"
"No, I was thinking more like a baseball hat, but I don't have a baseball hat"
"Neither does he."
"Yeah, a dictionary would be cool."

dag, yo [amy]

Vote or Become P. Diddy [Chris]

Political news is starting to sound more and more like you’re reading the police blotter, With Bob Ney pleading guilty to bribery charges in connection to the ongoing Abramoff case that already targeted Tom DeLay. Chris Weldon is now being investigated as well. It goes on and on.

And that’s just one scandal. How about sexually abusing children, Mark Foley? Interested in bribes? Read about Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Planning on “outing” an undercover CIA officer? Please see Scooter Libby. For the truly bizarre check out George Allen calling an opponents’ volunteer a ‘macaca’. WTF? Seriously. WTF.

Just in the last few days Tan D. Nguyen as acknowledged that his campaign sent a letter, which wrongly said immigrants could be jailed if they voted.

Let me be the first to say the scandals don’t end with the Republican Party.

For some good old fashioned Democrat bribery check out William Jefferson and Bob Menendez. Both are being investigated.

Minority Leader Harry Reid is a real estate genius. Or a crook. I tend to think the crook side will win out.

It seems like every day there's another grim story involving allegations of corruption, sleaze, or human weakness. I’m not saying I’m perfect or these men should be, but c’mon. Give me something to latch onto. Perhaps some sense that our politicians are not the sleaze of the earth. That would be nice. A welcoming thought.

It hurts to care about politics right now. Maybe if you're part of the machine or feel the adrenaline rush of an election you can still put all of your enegry into politics. But for me it all feels so disingenuous. Probably always was, but right it feels heightened. I find myself struggling to care. Struggling to care about anything involving voting, the government, or who runs the government. It’s a defense mechanism. I don’t want to be disappointed anymore. I want to ignore it all. Badly.

Daily bombardments of political flyers, TV Ad’s and news commentary are relentless, but I can now mentally block them out as I do with billboards on Van Ness. Not a problem. At all.

I was close to possibly just not giving a shit this year, which is just sad. I might have stilled voted, but who knows. The point is I was a political science major. I worked in D.C. I worked in a political office. I almost did again. I should care MORE than most people.

Luckly, I read something by David Foster Wallace, and I’ve gotten back on track. It's not mind blowing or revolutionary, but helped me. Maybe it can help others. So here it is:

“If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don’t bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parities, who please rest assured are not dumb, who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible psychological reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don’t bullshit yourself that you’re not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.”

HOOK [Liam]

I saw this at the liquor store across the street. It was in an open can with perhaps 12 semi-identical brothers and sisters. Had to buy it. One of those situations where a really shit idea is just staring you in the face and it's impossible to turn away. Maybe that only happens to me.

I could write you a list of a few thousand things that I would expect to see sitting in can in the liquor store across from my apartment wearing a $1.00 label... *hooked dental pick* would NEVER make the cut.
Therein lies everything needed to ensnare Liam Boylan.
The pull of something like this for me is immeasurable. In fact I think it's safe to say that one of the most likely forms in which my ultimate demise will come is "slack-jawed destructive curiousity." Me just standing there with my head cocked to one side, mouth agape and eyes wide open as the great beyond hurtles directly at my face.

"WOW! A poorly-machined sharp metal thing that goes in my mouth!"

I have been on the receiving end of a dental pick many times. In all of these situations it was wielded by a trained professional... in all of those situations the equipment was autoclave sterilized... yet nearly without exception I'd say all of these encounters went quite badly for me.
There's probably some kind of cautionary lesson to be gleaned from that, but I'm way to stoked about dental amateur night to piece it together.

unscrupulously sloppy [Liam]

and now... the dirtiest graft in the history of image restoration
(1 minute)

I could clean this up further but I just get a kick out of seeing the collar and the suspenders reversed on the other dude...

Productivity and Han [Liam]

UNO

Slow week.
Friday at my part-time job I caught a spider and started training him to fight. I'm not even joking. Here's a picture.



His target is the silhouette of a cat and the simple directive: ATTACK.
I decided to start him on smaller targets; punching his own weight, so to speak. Here he is retreating to his side of the ring to receive more complicated instruction from his corner man (me). My co-worker Jeremy has more pics of him actually utilizing "ground-and-pound" techniques on the target, I gotta get those. At the end of the day he was released into the wild. He hasn't received actual training in taking down humans, but his psych screens showed remarkable adaptability and he applies his lessons well in the practical world so there's really no telling if we should be worried. I'd tell you to be careful, but if Slobodan sets his mind to something you really won't have any say in the matter one way or another.

DUO

Instructions for the attempted viewing of "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift":
-Have already watched Justin Lin's "Better Luck Tomorrow" (extra credit if you have also seen "Annapolis").
-Remind yourself than Japan has been done badly in film for time immemorial, and probably deserves it anyway.
-Understand that below a mess of industry crap projects a legitimately sustainable precedent for studio-quality Asian American cinema is being planted in the form of Justin Lin's mainstream success, and he's bringing his actors with him. He has undeniable, immutable skill regardless of where they put him; making LIN do a movie based on exoticized Hollywood impressions of Asia is either the most horrible dues-paying imaginable or a subtly brilliant pick (It's the first "White Outsider in Japan" movie in American history without a thoroughly neutered *positive* Asian male lead or a geisha princess love interest).
-Have a comfortable chair and the best television available to you. Place enough chilled alcohol within arms' reach to keep you in the chair, and eventually to limit your mobility to said chair.
-Treat it as an unofficial followup for the character of Han in BLT; Sung Kang's character not only has the same name but at one point says of his origin:
"You know in the Westerns when the guy gets in trouble at home and has to split for Mexico? This is my Mexico."
(Justin Lin confirms this nod to BLT in the commentary track)
-Accept that Sung Kang is the bomb. Watch Leonardo Nam laugh at his own character repeatedly over the course of the movie. Note various thematic nods to the anime "Initial D."
-Continue drinking as necessary.


TRE

5 Movies I REALLY want to see that start with "The":

1-The Motel <--OCTOBER 20th if anyone else is interested!
2-The Namesake
3-The Departed
4-The Prestige
5-The Bridge