LiveJournal Project - October 2003

Happy carved-up pumpkin day!

Date: 2003-10-02 17:25
Subject: woooooo!!
found out today that New Model Army is in fact doing a US tour in November... and they're coming to Phoenix!!

November 21st @ Mason Jar

so for those of you out there that know who these guys are, mark your calendars.

Date: 2003-10-15 15:24
Subject: run a website, go to jail
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=1&u=/nm/20031010/ts_nm/security_internet_groups_dc

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has added Web sites to its list of "foreign terrorist organizations" for the first time, under the category of aliases for conventional groups, a State Department official said on Friday. A list published in the Federal Register includes newkach.org, kahane.org, kahane.net, kahanetzadak.com as aliases for the Jewish group Kahane Chai or Kach, which is suspected of organizing attacks on Palestinians. Under U.S. law, it would be illegal to provide money or other material support to the designated Web sites, the people who run them could be denied U.S. visas and U.S. banks must block their funds. The State Department said it was yet clear how this would work in practice. But the law may not enable the United States to block access to the Web sites, if only for technical reasons.

websites are terrorist organizations?? since when has a website killed anyone? this is not fear dot com. where're thomas jefferson and a happy band of revolutionaries when you need them?

Time: 16:39
Subject: Cox communications can suck my cox.
8th inning, game 6, red sox vs. yankees, and my fucking cable goes out. and of course, the people on the phone at cox have no bloody clue when it's going to be fixed except to say that it will be fixed sometime this evening. yeah, you fuckasses, by the time you get it fixed the damn game will be over!
Mood: pissed off

Date: 2003-10-16 09:19
Subject: asshats galore.
what's the point in having a group make a decision if one person is going to unilaterally override the will of the group due to whining from someone else in the group who wasn't even there when the original decision was made? not only does that sort of thing set a dangerous precedent, but it basically tells everyone else in the group that their opinions don't mean shit, and despite the rhetoric about how everyone in the group "owns" the event being discussed, apparently that's only true as long as their opinions fall in line with that of der fuhrer and his concubine. and i'm not even talking about george w. bush here.

add another name to my "you deserve zero respect" list.
Mood: pissed off

Time: 20:11
Subject: grady little is an ass.
watching the yankees-red sox game... and granted, it's not over and anything is still possible, but what the hell was this fool thinking? it's 5-3, the red sox are leading, and it's fucking obvious that pedro martinez is running into trouble. bring in the fuckin' bullpen. yeah, it's great to have respect for your starters, but the goal isn't to stroke their bloody egos, the goal is to win the motherfuckin' game and go to the world series. but no, this doesn't happen. pedro stays in and gives up a double to hideki matsui and then another double to jorge posada, and now the game is tied in the bottom of the 8th with one out. i'll be amazed if the sox win this one now - gotta love this managerial incompetence. i think grady little is taking lessons from bob brenly.
Mood: indescribable

Date: 2003-10-17 14:17
Subject: it's been the week of asshats.
yeah, everyone's fucking pissing me off this week. today in constitutional law one asshat in particular decided to proclaim that i don't know anything about history because i wasn't aware of some small detail concerning the internment of japanese americans during world war 2. wow, aren't you cool, mr. pompous ass? ya know what, i'm not a history expert, and if this were a history class, then maybe that'd be a problem. but guess what? it's not. it's a law class, and i'm well aware of what the law says. my guess is that this shitball had someone who died at pearl harbor and thus he has some personal vendetta against the japanese, as evidenced by his comment about the 1200 people who died on the uss arizona and are sitting at the bottom of the water. hey, fuckwit, did you know that it was japanese people from japan that bombed pearl harbor, not japanese people living in san francisco?

if anyone cares, the case in discussion is korematsu v. united states (1944), in which the supreme court upheld the constitutionality of the internment of persons of japanese descent. if anyone out there has read this case or knows anything about it, i'd love to hear a convincing argument that the court made the right decision. as far as i'm concerned, not only was the decision racially motivated and predicated upon bad and incomplete evidence, but it was just plain unconstitutional.

and then we have the health insurance people, which i'm still dealing with. today i get another letter saying that they've refunded the premium i paid because they didn't receive a response to their offer of coverage within two months. my god, what the hell is wrong with these assholes? apparently i STILL do not have health insurance, despite the fact that they've cashed my check and the last time i dealt with this issue i was repeatedly assured by my insurance agent that everything was taken care of and that i wouldn't have any more problems. fuckin' christ. i think it's time to take my business elsewhere, not only with respect to this issue, but with my homeowner's insurance and car insurance as well.

every time i make an attempt to show a little faith in humanity, i'm reminded of why i continue to uphold the truth of the following: cats are great. people suck.
Mood: pissed off

Date: 2003-10-20 17:11
Subject: baa baa black sheep - updated

Man, no wonder I have problems. -Ed.

Date: 2003-10-21 15:36
Subject: i'll buy my bananas wherever i please.
for anyone that's been following the news lately, it appears that unionized grocery workers are on strike at several points around the country, and currently there are contract discussions going on here in AZ that may lead to a strike as well if things are not resolved. AFAIK, the stores affected around here would be safeway and fry's. so, since i've been doing economics homework for the last couple hours, it seemed like a good topic for the daily rant:

as far as i'm concerned, both the union and the store management are self-serving groups, each one trying to achieve the maximum benefit for their side. there's nothing wrong with that. but neither side seems to give two shits about the third party that's always tacitly involved in these sorts of disputes: the customers. union and management can bicker with each other all they want, arguing over health care and wages and all that shit, but both union and management exist for one purpose, and one purpose only, and that's to provide goods and services to the people who want to buy them. they both might do well to remember that. so let's see what happens if the workers go on strike.

a certain percentage of people will no longer shop at the unionized stores - they'll go to albertson's or basha's, two chains in the phoenix area which are nonunionized. this will, in many cases, cause them to incur extra costs for their groceries, both monetary and temporal. it may take longer to drive to a store that's farther away, thus costing them in time as well as gas money. these stores may become much more crowded than usual, also creating a time penalty for the people that attempt to shop there. and also, due to the increased demand, prices at these other stores may go up - after all, to a certan extent they have a captive audience (those not willing to cross the picket lines) and they'll probably take advantage of that.

fuck that. why, exactly, should i support people (the union) who want me to change my behavior in such a way that it will end up costing me more yet not yield any additional benefits? i'm not a big fan of labor unions in modern america, but i don't have any love for big business, either - as far as i'm concerned, it's MY bottom line as a consumer which is the most important. guess what two grocery stores are closest to my house? yeah, that's right, safeway and fry's. and safeway happens to be right across the street. where will i be shopping when the strike hits? the same place i shop now - safeway - not out of any particular brand allegiance, but because it's quick and convenient and most efficient for me to do so.

as a rambling side note: labor unions are most often pissed off about wages; specifically, they want more than they're getting. in this grocery-store case, it's also about health care and some other things that one can read up on if one is so inclined. and from the union side, it tends to be a case of "we deserve more" because of reasons X, Y, and Z. management usually responds with the standard reply of "we can't afford it." maybe this is true, maybe it isn't. but i wonder if the union ever considers the possibility that management might be telling the truth? (as an aside to the aside: i wonder how much access the union people get to the financial records of the companies, particularly in the case of companies which are not publicly-traded.) everyone knows that profit margins in the grocery industry are EXTREMELY slim. so what's the point here? well, maybe management can afford to give the union what they want while still achieving a profit, maybe they can't, i don't know. but i think it's rather odd that for an outside observer trying to assess the situation and formulate an opinion as to who's right and who's not, only one side has a claim which has any hope of being evaluated from a factual perspective.

ok, one more related aside: what happens if management is telling the truth about the state of their finances, but they give in to the union and then the company starts losing money? if they raise prices, consumers will probably go elsewhere, thus causing the red ink to flow even faster. the worst-case culmination of this little debacle? the store closes, and EVERYBODY is out of a job. sure, it's a doom-and-gloom scenario which probably won't happen, but sometimes you just never know.
Mood: thoughtful

Date: 2003-10-24 00:05
Subject: the single most ludicrous piece of mail i've ever received
today i received a letter in the mail from a company i've never heard of called "acacia media technologies corporation" claiming that websites which i operate are infringing upon patents which they own. in particular, they claim that i "provide access to digital audio/video content via my websites without a license from Acacia and are therefore liable to Acacia for patent infringement."

WTF?!

so i went and did some research, and it turns out that this company is claiming that they own patents which cover any kind of streaming audio/video content on the internet in pretty much any way imaginable. if you provide any kind of streaming audio/video content on your website, supposedly you owe these people money. in addition, if you even LINK to websites which provide audio/video content, you owe them money. further research has revealed that these fuckwits (who don't even own any actual TECHNOLOGY) have been sending out these letters (sent via standard mail, not registered or anything like that) to pretty much everyone they can. what's even more fucked about this situation is that these letters they're sending out don't even detail the supposed infringement.

so, let me get this straight, acacia: you've patented the CONCEPT of transmitting audio and video over the internet in the early 2000s, despite over 20 years of prior art (this is a fuckup on the part of the USPTO), you've sent me a letter claiming that i'm in violation of your patents, you don't tell me exactly what it is that i've done which is in violation, and you expect me to pay you money for having a website which does nothing more than link to sites which provide streaming media? go fuck yourself. i've got the resouices to defend myself against a possible lawsuit as well as file a countersuit for extortion, and i'd be more than happy to shove a foot up your ass.
Mood: annoyed

Date: 2003-10-28 17:47
Subject: to those about to die of stupidity, i salute you.
1: a cavalier is not an "original pimpmobile" - you have no idea how gay you look with that frame around your license plate.
2: when crossing between the store and the parking lot in a shopping center, with many cars (including mine) driving by, remember that the crosswalk is your friend. when you learn to use it, i'll learn to stop.

that is all.

Date: 2003-10-29 17:24
Subject: halloween antics...
off to vegas in a little over 24 hours for dj tiesto and as much insanity as i can handle. so in the spirit of halloween, i thought i'd be a follower too:

Music: DJ Skott - 10.17.03