soapbox

A bit inspiring, if depressing at the low standards, a nice column on Obama and foreign policy:

<blockquote>

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Democrats’ nomination of Obama as their candidate for president has done more to improve America’s image abroad — an image dented by the Iraq war, President Bush’s invocation of a post-9/11 “crusade,” Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and the xenophobic opposition to Dubai Ports World managing U.S. harbors — than the entire Bush public diplomacy effort for seven years.</blockquote

Michael made a post a while ago about the Eye-Fi memory card that can both store pictures in your camera and automatically send them to you. It turns out that they might not be such a bad idea, especially if you tend to lose things.

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0534545220080606

Basically, the woman had one of the cards in her camera and left the camera in a restaurant full of pictures of her baby eating its first food and other important pictures. The people who ended up taking the camera walked by an open wifi access point and all the pictures got emailed to the camera owner… along with pictures of the kids who took the camera.

(I’ll try not to get on my high horse about the fact that doing this basically requires that everyone be using unsecured wifi base stations named “linksys”…)

So, I have many excuses for my very poor posting frequency in the last couple months, but you know what they say about excuses, so instead I’ll just provide a Nathaniel-ish report of the weekend.

Saturday morning was spent under the kitchen sink, seeking to find and then fix a leak that resulted in the formation of a rather significant puddle in that cabinet every time the garbage disposal was run.  Technically I could have called the maintenance guys for the apartment complex,  but usually their contribution consists of “don’t put big things down it” (we don’t).  Basically the fault lies with shoddy assembly and materials, so I replaced the crappy no-O-ring screw-down PVC connectors and added some caulk.  Amazingly, our sink cabinet now stays dry!

Then Saturday afternoon we spent six hours furniture shopping downtown; first Macy’s, then Jerome’s, then back to Macy’s once we realized how (relatively) crappy Jerome’s inventory was.  We didn’t plan it this way, but Saturday just happened to be a Mother’s Day/One Day sale so we ended up getting a pretty nice sofa for almost half off.

This is a pretty crappy post since I don’t have any pictures to post.  Maybe once the furniture is delivered next week I can upload something.  Really, all of this is supposed to be an inducement to visit SD, since we now have a more comfy seat for your Nintendo-playing fun.  Oh, and a beach a couple miles away, and at least a 70% chance of sun.

I guess I lied: one photo. come visit!

(1) a 5.4 earthquake in southern ill. wow.  In other news, a recent study reported that there is a 99% chance of a 6.7 quake in CA in the next 30 years.  Given Californian’s laziness, this was met with derision instead of preparedness.  (For those unfamiliar with decade-math, a 6.7 is 20 times stronger than a 5.4.)

(2) racist cubbies - not cool. maybe they can blame the earthquake for disrupting their sense of right and wrong?

(3) Red Sox pitchers are cheaters!  clearly they have taken some weird potion to turn themselves into Mr. Stretch.

shutter speed: 1/30 sec, focal length: 72 mm (432 mm in 35 mm equivalence), aperture: f/3.5, distance: about 2 meters

I took this picture on my honeymoon in Havre de Grace, Maryland. The squirrels on this boardwalk were not at all afraid of humans, and it shows. I would not be surprised if this guy had been hand fed a few happy meals this year. (more…)

So this post is a little delayed, but since I can’t post while at work, these things happen. Anyway, K and I ended up in Beverly Hills on Saturday to visit the Burkes, who were in town for an ABA conference. This conference just happened to be at the Beverly Hilton (cue Paris jokes), and thus the celeb-watching was primo.

(As an aside, the coolest - in my opinion - thing about Saturday was the number of sweet wheels that were in town. Ben and I were constantly on watch in the beginning of the day, but by late afternoon it was like “oh, another Bentley, ho hum”. My favorite was a sweet Mazzeratti convertable, kinda like this. The K’s thought that being at “the Pretty Woman hotel” for lunch was cooler, but who’s to account for taste?)

Things really got cranked up at night, since the Clive Davis pre-party was back at the Hilton. Ben and I discovered that when in the bar/pool patio we could see up into the VIP area, so essentially we were hanging with the big guns, just separated by 20 vertical feet and a lot of muscle. Notables include Alicia Keys, Rhianna, Fergie, Taylor Swift (all looking good), and Ashlee Simpson on the arm of Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz… with awful red hair. I may not know fashion or style, but when the younger Simpson looks extra-ugly, even I am aware of this.

Let’s see, what else… Whitney Houston’s dress was very shiny according to the girls, covered in lots of gemstones, etc.

Slash looked like Slash.

Meatloaf looks like Pete Rose.

Rod Stewart is well-preserved.

Lindsay Lohan looked like [...insert joke here]. Actually she looked pretty good, but then I was 40 feet away.

Funny story about Slash. Over the course of the evening it was pretty clear who was Somebody and who was a Peripheral, even if you couldn’t recognize who they were. (I was relying on the K’s to identify most people for me.) The Somebodies would walk with a purpose, no trying to hide but not flaunting things either. They went to dinner, chatted with friends, etc. The Peripherals gave 110%, tried to be obvious, flirted with anybody and everyone, and took lots of photos. (Honestly, I’d probably have done the same.) Anyway, we were joking about one girl who had been nicknamed “jailbait open-back” - to distinguish her from the other 18-year-old looking girls in half an outfit - and wondering who she was with, since she was obviously of better quality than many of the others… and then people start filing into dinner, and she goes and finds her place on Slash’s arm. Of all of the people there, HE had the hottest arm-candy. Good times.

P.S. Nathaniel, you asked about photos? Here is Slash, he’s the only recognizable celeb b/c of his hat. Perhaps intentionally, they’d lit the bar brightly and the upstairs was darker (as befits the posh people) so photos just didn’t work. Sorry.