Archives for January 2004

January 27, 2004

The Bunkomentum Meter

Now it's time for New Hampshire to fade back into another 46 months of well-deserved obscurity. And I'm sure millions are desperate for another amateur analysis of the primary season: who are its winners and losers? Can anyone take down Captain Empty Flight Suit? Who in the entire damn universe does Joe Lieberman think he's kidding? And more. Rankings, in order of Bunkomentum:

1. John Kerry. I'm still a bit mystified what people see in him. He seems to be the ultimate politician's politician, with a knack for saying exactly what he thinks people want to hear. And I still shudder at the idea of Kerry trying to debate Bush, while trying to explain why he voted with him so many times in the past few years. I'm not convinced.

2. Howard Dean. I'm disappointed. I froze my toes off for a few days up there, and he finished 2nd. Now there's the big question: he has all this energy behind him; where and when does he turn it? The thinking seems to be that he won't go after the Feb. 3rd primaries, since there are no clear-cut easy states (though I expect a run at AZ and NM). Rather, he'll concentrate on big showings later in February in Michigan, Wisconsin and Washington. Probably a good idea; there's also the fact that Dean still has a good number of those "super-delegates", so he's technically in the lead. It's not over yet.

3. George W. Bush. Got 86% of the vote in the Republican primary, in which he ran unopposed. But he's found the meme for his campaign...

4. John Edwards. It all comes down to SC and MO now, doesn't it? I think he did gain a lot of respect from people (well, from me anyway) who didn't think all that much of him. My gut feeling is that Edwards is high on everyone's VP list.

5. (tie) Dennis Kucinich/Al Sharpton. Didn't do one bit worse than we expected.

6. Wes Clark. Gave up on Iowa to concentrate on N.H. Got whacked in N.H. Clearly needs to win about five of the seven 2/3 states to stay alive.

7. James Carville's shirt. A purple, yellow and green large-stripe pattern with a white collar. Ye gads.

8. Lyndon Larouche. Narrowly beat Carol Moseley Braun. Lost to Gerry Dokka and Katherine Bateman. Somehow, though, I don't dare hope we've heard the last of him.

9. Joe Lieberman. I guess "Joe-mentum" means limping to a 5th-place finish and crowing about how you almost tied for 3rd. Sure, Joe. You fought the good fight; you have about an hour left in which you could still exit gracefully. He's starting to sound like a shellshocked Boston fan rationalizing how the Sox would've wiped the floor with the Marlins in the World Series (trust me, I know whereof I speak).

And now on to some places where volunteers won't have to run 15-minute shifts to avoid hypothermia. And North Dakota...

January 24, 2004

Friday Five

If you haven't seen it, the Friday Five is a series of 5 questions designed every week to give regular (or close to it) web writers some kind of frame to hang an entry on. So I'll give it a whirl. And yes, I will overanswer.

At this moment, what is your favorite...

1. ...song? It's kind of sad. I'd built up a pretty good mp3 collection on an auxiliary computer, but since I moved, that computer hasn't been exactly, well, working. I can probably somehow take the hard drive out and salvage the mp3s, but I haven't yet. And procrastinator me, who intended to back up all the files onto CDs in the event of just this sort of crisis, only made it partway. So I have everything from A3 ("Woke Up This Morning" - the Sopranos theme) to Cake on CD. But there are 23.8 letters still in limbo. Including "E" so no Elvis Costello. So when I was driving home from work late the other night, and I got to hear something I haven't heard in weeks, I realized that, at this moment, "Veronica" is my favorite song.

2. ...food? I go through phases where I find myself dying for a plate of pancakes. And Boston, unlike some other cities, is not a hotbed for 24-hour Denny's and IHOPs. But I got to Johnny's Luncheonette in Harvard Square the other day and devoured a short stack in a short lunch break. So pancakes.

3. ...tv show? As it was, as it is now, as it will ever be.

4. ...scent? The smell of a spring day in the city, when people cook outdoors, the trees bloom, and...wait. That's only in my imagination, since it's clear that spring will never come. So I'll continue the theme from Question 2 and say maple syrup.

5. ...quote? Right now, it's gotta be Nic Cage in Moonstruck. When he tales the sad tale of how he lost his hand in a bread-slicing mishap, and blames his brother for the injury and the ruination of his life, and Cher points out that it wasn't his brothers fault..."I don't care! I ain't no freaking monument to justice!" Classic stuff.

January 23, 2004

One More Thing About the Yell

Just before the aforementioned yell, Dean listed a whole bunch of states.

"Not only are we going to New Hampshire ..., we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we're going to California and Texas and New York! And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House, Yeeeeeaaaaaah!"

How many states do you think GWB can name?

January 22, 2004

The Yell

I can't believe this has even been a story.

A disappointed Gov. Dean, speaking before a group of disappointed but dedicated supporters, gets a little fired up. I read somewhere (forgot where) that Dean's speech was just like the halftime speech of a coach whose team is down 13-3. What's wrong with trying to keep the troops motivated?

And I swear I'm going psycho the next time anyone says that Dean's passion, or anything else, looks "unpresidential". Nothing on the face of the Earth could look more unpresidential than what we've got now.

Look at this and tell me you don't picture Raymond Babbitt. "Course, definitely eat some ribs now...5:30...time for ribs...ohhhhhh".

If there is any benevolent power looking over us, Bush has 364 days left.

January 20, 2004

Late Night in NH

Sooz and I went up to Portsmouth on Monday night - er, make that Tuesday morning; I'd forgotten how all-nighters can screw up my internal clock - for a 2 AM Dean rally.

She wrote up all the details and has some audio links. And it's her birthday!

I got a Dean Deck, too. I'm a sucker for any anti-Bush trinkets; I just hope I don't turn into Winston Smith and have to start cramming all of them behind a loose brick in two years.

January 15, 2004

Cowardly Bullied Spineless

CBS won't sell Superbowl ad time to MoveOn for the winner of their "Bush In 30 Seconds" contest. CBS claims that they don't accept "issue" ads; yet, AdAge is showing that the White House Drug Office is going to show more of their credulity-stretching "drugs=terrorism" ads. Maybe it's just specific issues CBS doesn't want?

Remember, CBS also collapsed faster than a Jenga game on a Greyhound when conservative groups complained about "The Reagans". If you're interested, here's some CBS contact info.

Atlanta

Every time we think the Bush Administration has killed irony off for good, they come along and stick another spear into the corpse.

Protesters try to greet Bush in Atlanta

They actually tried to break out of their "Designated Free Speech Zone" and get closer to where (I swear this is true) Bush was going to lay a wreath on the grave of Martin Luther King. How dare they? How dare they take the birthday of Dr. King and turn it into a..a nonviolent protest? How dare anyone chant or sing or wave signs and try to remember MLK the way they think he should be remembered?

Don't they realize that King's grave is now suitable only for a cheap photo-op? A chance for Smirkin' Whistle-Ass to show his deep deep concern for the African-American community by spending three minutes laying a wreath, totally oblivious to the (here's where I would say irony if it weren't already dead), then getting on a plane and whizzing off to the next $2,000 fundraiser.

If Dr. King were alive today, would Bush go two seconds out of his way to listen to him?

LaPierre On the Loose

When I listen to the radio in the morning, it's almost always WBZ. It's all news, straightforward, with the soothing trustworthy voice of anchorman Gary LaPierre.

Which is apparently coming from Florida. How disillusioning.

Bitter Pills

Hilary pointed me toward this post on Miscellaneous, Etc., which addresses a problem I've been having lately: desperate spammers, no longer content to clog up America's email inboxes, are now leaving bogus comments on blogs to hock their fake wares. (scroll down to 'surlybird''s comment for an example). And while my email spam tends toward the mortgage and Paris Hilton ends of the spectrum, my comment-spam is more often than not geared toward some questionable medication.

Now, I'm one who firmly believes that 95% of the prescription medication being taken out there isn't actually needed. That's just me. But even if you're acutely aware that there's something wrong with you - something that gingko biloba and the Atkins plan aren't addressing - are you really going to seek out your cure-all pill because someone linked to it on BunkoSquad.com??

It makes almost as much sense as asking your doctor about some ridiculous pill because Mike Ditka told you to. That may work for Bob Swerski, but I'd personally like to have some clue what the freaking pill does before I march hungrily into the clinic.

So all you incautious pill-pushers: go peddle your snake oil elsewhere. Or, better yet, go back to whatever it is you did before the Internet revolution. I hear there are some freeway drivers in LA who could use some oranges. And if you're here looking for a hot tip on what medication will finally bring it all together for you, here's my advice. Eat right. Take a damn walk once in a while. Be excellent to each other. And party on, dudes!

January 12, 2004

Warm Enough To Type...

...finally.

I moved into my new apartment in Central Square last week. The good news? It's within walking distance of Harvard Square, the Charles, Boston...almost everything. The bad news? My first week here we had temperatures best expressed in degrees Kelvin. So you can't really walk anywhere without exposed skin turning to solid ice within seconds.

And there were heat problems in my new building. Sunday morning I woke up and it was 45 degrees in my room. Yikes. Now that's fixed and I've thawed out a bit.

So back to what the charitable-minded would call a regular posting routine.

January 01, 2004

New Year

Maybe I've said this for each of the last few years - but doesn't 2004 seem like it's too far-off and futuristic to really be upon us?

Anyway, I just moved, so it may take me a few days to get running at full speed (ahem) again. But here are my wishes for the new year, in no particular order:
1.) This will finally be the year for the Red Sox.
2.) Hollywood will produce a movie that actually inspires me to plunk down nine bucks at a theater.
3.) Peace on earth, good will to men, yada yada yada,
4.) Howard Dean wins so convincingly that even the Republican crooks can't rig the results their way, and Bush and Co. get to stand on the unemployment line with everyone else they've helped put there.

Happy 2004!