Does a photo op with the prez make up for losing your fiance? You be the judge.
Widow strike, anyone?
Saw "School of Rock" at the Parkway last night with a small gang. The Parkway is a great theatre in Oakland with loveseats and tables and you can order pizza and beer and watch a movie. It's basically the living room I've always wanted.
And the movie was good. And people were happy. And well-fed. And a slightly lit. And I found a happy spot I forgot I had.
It was the year of fire
The year of destruction
The year we took back what was ours
It was the year of rebirth
The year of great sadness
The year of pain
And the year of joy
It was a new age
It was the end of history
It was the year everything changed
I sometimes call myself the Emperor's Toymaker. It's got a nice Matrix-cum-Fairy Tale sound to it, but it's also apt. I write software toys for a well-known computer game designer. The toys help him spark his creativity.
Two weeks ago, I wanted to take a few days to integrate Lua (www.lua.org) into our application, so I could expose some of the key algorithms to him and the other designers. "Oh, no," said the Emperor, "I don't want you to get bogged down. Just give me this list of features and we'll iterate on them."
"Nuts to you," sez I. "Give me three days."
"Well," sez he, "when you put it that way..."
We compromised. Those three days came in fits and starts over the last two weeks. I just got the system working last Friday.
Yesterday, I'm meeting with the Emperor and one of the other toymakers and it was all he (the Emperor) could do not to yank the keyboard out of my hand and start hacking away at the Lua code.
"Okay," sez he, "this is cool."
That's why I do this. It is my PURpose. I BELIEVE it is my DEStiny.
No, baby, this is the future you signed up for.
Three cheers for the full faith and credit clause. May the implementation of America some day match the spec. We're a pinheaded gaggle of religious bigots, but we've got a good mission statement.
Quoting the decision:
"Barred access to the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage, a person who enters into an intimate, exclusive union with another of the same sex is arbitrarily deprived of membership in one of our community's most rewarding and cherished institutions. That exclusion is incompatible with the constitutional principles of respect for individual autonomy and equality under law."
Note the utter lack of gobbledygook about marriage being about "family" and "children" and "traditional values." This is one of the great issues in the so-called culture war. THEY believe that marriage is about children. WE believe that marriage is about adults. WE are right. THEY are wrong.
And a fight is coming. A big one. Make no fucking mistake, this is going to be ugly. Ugly. Ugly. Ugly. And necessary. And right. And unavoidable. And ugly.
"Sacramento -- Minutes after taking office Monday Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fulfilled his pledge to roll back the state's vehicle license fee.
The move, while widely popular, will strip the state of $4 billion in annual revenue that was expected to help ease its budget crisis and instead will widen the budget deficit, which already is $10 billion"
This is really not the future I signed up for.
Stuff I Liked About Matrix Revolutions
1) “Everything that has a beginning has an ending.” Christ, I hope so.
2) Greetings Neo, I am Apu, the Storekeeper. I was in the last movie, but I’m not really in this movie. Thank you, come again!
3) No prophesizin’. If you want more prophesizin’, you’ll have to wait until Matrix 4: How Morpheus Got His Groove Back
4) And the Academy Award for longest sustained AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGG!!!! goes to…Nathaniel Lees, Captain Mifune! Thank you, I’d like to thank the Academy and just say AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGG!!!!!
5) Greetings Neo, I am the Trainspotter. As you have correctly surmised, it’s all about choice and reason. Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career….and the reasons? Who needs reasons when you’ve got ‘eroin?
6) As Eli Wallach once said, Bane, when you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.
7) Bane: MIS-ter AN-derson, still dumb as a bag of hammers, I see.
8) Lock: Morpheus, your design for the mechanized battle armor is impressive, but I think we ought to put some armor over the front so the operator won’t be so exposed.
Morpheus: I do not BELIEVE that we will need armor. I BELIEVE that we will be protected by the power of the One. I BELIEVE that…
Councillor Grace: Let’s move on to more pressing matters. Have we decided what kind of pizza we’re going to serve at tonight’s pointlessly overextended orgy?
Lock (shoots Morpheus a nasty look): If it were up to me, we’d serve feta and goat cheese Hawaiian with anchovies
Morpheus: Then I am thankful…that it is not up to you
9) “The Exotic-Erotic After Party” at Merovingian’s…anyone wearing a gas mask or a gratuitous medical prosthesis gets in free!
10) Trinity: Give us Neo or die. What’s it gonna be “Merv”?
Merv: But of course. I do not even know why I am in zis movie.
11) Next time, Neo, you could maybe, you know, IM the Machine City with your offer BEFORE just flying right into their main defense screen.
12) The key to the Matrix series is the subtle Christ imagery, and nothing pounds “subtle” into your skull like a big ol’ flaming cross emblazoned on Neo’s chest.
13) After watching the Zion defense force stave off wave after wave of drillers, squiddies and I’m pretty sure a couple of hundred orcs and TIE fighters, only one question remains: “Hey, isn’t Keanu Reeves in this movie?”
14) Smith: Hi, Mom
Oracle: Hi, boys, come on in and make yourselves at home. Have some cookies or, if you want, there’s some scenery in the next room you can chew on for a while.
15) Nobody says “apropos,” “concordantly,” “ergo” or “systemic anomaly.” Architect Drinking Game score: 0. I drove home sober.
16) The Academy Award for most excessive goddamn use of the word “goddamn” goes to Peter Lamb. He’s out of his goddamn mind, goddmamnit!
17) “Wait, I’ve SEEN this, I was eating peyote and running lines with my wife. What happens next is…I SAY something here and then…no…I assimilate you and then explode for no reason because the movie is almost over…no…even now, it’s too stupid to stay in my head.”
18) Hi everyone, and welcome to the seventh incarnation of the matrix. I’m sure you all have a lot of questions, mostly concerning what the hell just happened. But first, we have a new policy to announce. Anybody who wants to stay here, eat anything they want without gaining weight and remain young, beautiful and athletic for the rest of their lives is welcome to stay. On the other hand, anyone who’d rather live in a cave near the center of the earth, wear ragged cable-knit sweaters, eat nothing but high-protein snot and listen to endless philosophizin’ for the rest of their lives is free to go. Any takers?
19) Let us all give thanks to Neo; he died for our Sims.
"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have...incurred incalculable human and political costs...We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under these circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see...Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations's mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. "
- A World Transformed, George Herbert Walker Bush, 1998
Bring 'em on.
Bring 'em on.
Bring 'em on.
Bring 'em on.
Bring 'em on.
Bring 'em on.