Kara & Michael’s Blog

Just a quick post to say sorry to all the people who’ve reported trouble with the telnet comments system. I did a server reconfiguration a while back that broke inetd in a way that wasn’t immediately obvious to me. The telnet comments are working once again…just connect to 4d2.org on port 23.

I’m really surprised that so many people are reading this blog over Gopher. I am truly flattered to be in the company of such silly people.

In case anyone’s interested, the software that handles both the Gopher page generation and the telnet comments is open source. It’s available via Gopher and via Floodgap’s Gopher-HTTP proxy.

I haven’t updated WP2Gopher for WordPress 3.0 yet–I don’t know if an update will even be necessary–but I plan to handle that in the next few days.

No, that’s not my bleak sentiment for the day, as fun as it is to remember ever-encroaching mortality. Nope, the title is coincidentally the title of a Type O Negative song. Their front-man Peter Steele died last week.

His death has sort of brought to a head lots of ideas swirling around in my head.

I believe kids around 12 or 13 start to form an identity to oppose the familial influences over them. My identity was, well, one of the goth kids. Don’t get me wrong, I never died my hair black or wore black lipstick. But I wore black t-shirts and jeans every day of the week, listened to the music and wished I was thin enough to wear the skanky goth clothes, not that my father would have (1). paid for it or (2). let me out of the house wearing it.

In my locker, there were three pictures. Trent Reznor, Peter Steele and David Bowie. I won’t tell you how but somehow me and a couple girlfriends got the  pictures from the Playgirl shoot of Peter Steele. It may have involved the internet (Porn…on my Internet?!).

Anyway, that was my identity. For a few years anyway. But I never stopped listening to the music.

Recently, I had to explain some of my clothing to – well, I guess I’ll call him a coworker. I was wearing an older Jeff Buckley shirt, and he asked me about him so I explained his music and his death. A few days later I was in my favorite Elliott Smith hoodie and he asked me about that. So again, I explained about his music and his death. And my coworker looked at me and gravely said, “You need to stop hanging out with dead guys.” Maybe he was telling one of his trademark dry jokes, and I laughed but it made me think.

I don’t intend to give up music I enjoy. But for someone who used to define themselves based on music, life is getting kind of hard. Many of my favorites were dead before thirty.It’s starting to look like I’ll be alive for thirty. I mean, hell, I want to be.

An old friend once told me, surround yourself with people you want to be like. He said we all need role models for life. I admire the musicians I listen to in a lot of ways, but I’m starting to realize, maybe they’re not my role models for life.

In conclusion, the death of Peter Steele makes me sad. *sigh* It reminds me of so many adolescent fantasies gone unfulfilled.

I’m breaking my blogging fast to talk to you about a vegan cheese.

Michael and I have tried, sometimes successfully, to do the “vegan thing,” as I call it. We’ve probably come back to it ten or fifteen times now. The problem is, we’re not particularly concerned ethically, unlike a lot of vegans. I don’t identify with the animal liberation front, I’m pretty sure that the means they choose, at least, are wrong. I fucking hate PETA. I wear leather shoes (although my favorite shoes are still my animal-friendly earth shoes).

What’s really convincing Michael to give the vegan diet a solid chance is The China Study, which you can purchase from Amazon for about ten bucks. The basic gist is that cancers tend to rise where animal protein is consumed. The more animal protein you consume, the greater health problems you’ll have, supposedly. The book is interesting, but one of the most interesting things is when they put people with severe heart problems on a vegan diet, they experience next to no problems, and even manage to undo damage to their hearts over the course of 20-30 years. Compelling stuff, that.

In any case, you’d think it wouldn’t be that hard for us given that we don’t keep eggs or milk in the house. Were stocked up on quick vegan soups and breakfast cups, courtesy of Dr. McDougall. The problem is really, what do you do when you crave junk food. I don’t mean potato chips, which are frequently vegan… I mean a slice of oozing cheesy pizza. A plate of nachos with jalapenos. A little cheese to top your tofu and spinach stuffed shells.

Vegan cheese, at least Follow Your Heart – the brand we tried before, tasted nasty; melted poorly. So Saturday we drove to a little storefront for Pangea Vegan Foods in Rockville, Maryland. It’s totally metro-accessible, if you live in the DC area, take the red line to the Twinbrook station. Pangea is only open on Saturday and Sunday. We went there for one thing: Daiya cheese.

Daiya is being shopped to pizzerias in progressive cities like Boulder, Colorado, for example (and many more, check it out!). Pangea sells 8 oz bags or 5 pound bags of cheddar or italian style. We got a 5 pound bag of each.

The taste and texture are remarkably cheese like. There’s something a little off about the flavor, but it’s very impressive given the comparison of say, Follow Your Heart. The Cheddar flavor is less realistic, but still very good. And it melts like shredded cheese normally does. We made ourselves some microwave nachos with tortilla chips and the cheddar cheese and they were very good.

Then last night, we made a pizza with the Italian cheese. It was good. The Daiya cheese was even a little stringy like mozzarella cheese so you got the total pizza experience. We may have watched Frank the Entertainer while we enjoyed our pizza, the perfect guilty-pleasure.

Of course, the cheese is expensive, not too expensive, but expensive enough to be used sparingly, like a luxury. Which is good, because eating vegan can’t just be about replacing meat and dairy and eggs with heavily processed products.  But then, that’s an argument for another day.

In conclusion, Daiya is tasty. It’s also soy free. And you can order it online, if you can’t get it locally.

I find the commercial below absolutely hilarious, for a variety of reasons that would take much longer to explain than it will take you to just watch the commercial:

THE TICKETS ARE NOW DIAMONDS!

The thing I find most impressive about this commercial, after watching it for the twelfth time, is that it appears to be done entirely in a single shot. CGI notwithstanding, that’s pretty cool.

Kara and I have been a little wrapped up in ourselves the last month or two. I know at this juncture it’s customary to say “OMG so sry 4 not bloggin more LOL”, but I am far too classy for that.

We’ve been a little sparse here because we’ve been moving out of Frederick, where we’ve spent the past year, and back to the same patch of suburbia that we called home before moving to Frederick. I’ve also had the swine flu, which is not incredibly scary but is still totally lame if you have the kind of lungs it likes to eat.

Anyway, the past year has taught me a few things, which I’ll be brief about:

1. Living in a city is a romantic idea, but living two and a half hours away from work in a small city that really only functions as a suburb of DC is less romantic.
2. You should never ever rent an apartment from an individual that you don’t know personally, and if you or anyone you know are considering renting property in Frederick or Baltimore Counties from a couple named D. & E. C., you should probably email me first so I can tell you my horror stories. (I could complain about my landlord by name here without fear of being libelous, but that would be a trashy thing to do.)

Apologies 4 not postin aside, the real reason I’m posting today is to quote the following. It’s out of context, but that doesn’t really matter because it’s probably the weirdest single sentence I’ve ever read on Wikipedia:

In “Green Fire” (1998), a collaborative novella by Eileen Gunn, Michael Swanwick, Pat Murphy, and Andy Duncan, the science fiction writers Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and L. Sprague De Camp, along with Grace Hopper, take part in the Philadelphia Experiment, with the assistance of Nikola Tesla and the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl.

Folks, it is my sad duty to report that the people of the state where I was born–Oklahoma–are morons.

I can’t help but hope that it hasn’t always been this way. The educational system in Oklahoma hasn’t ever been great, but they’ve occasionally done OK for a smallish state with a low per capita GDP. Heck, the white people that settled the state have to have been smart enough to stake a claim and survive the winters. And who can forget Will Parker’s humorous take on the modern wonders of Kansas City?

Wait, I’m getting confused.

In case you haven’t read about it elsewhere (I’m sure it will be news), public high school students in my native state were recently given a survey where they were asked to answer ten questions chosen at random from the battery of questions administered to applicants for naturalization. They do this sort of thing all the time all over the country, but Oklahoma’s results are truly shocking. Before we get into that, though, see how many of the ten you can answer correctly!

1. What is the supreme law of the land?
2. What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution?
3. What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
4. How many justices are on the Supreme Court?
5. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
6. What ocean is on the East coast of the United States?
7. What are the two major political parties in the United States?
8. We elect a U.S. Senator for how many years?
9. Who was the first President of the United States?
10. Who is in charge of the Executive Branch?

How did you do? If you got six or more right, you’re eligible to become a naturalized citizen of the United States, and you’re less ignorant than 97.2 percent of Oklahoma high school students. That is not a typo. More importantly, of the 1000 students surveyed, only 6 could get seven questions right, and absolutely no one got eight or more.

I am not willing to cut the high school students much slack here. This is basic f’ing civics and these kids are still in school, so they should have an easier time than the average person. In case you’re wondering, here are the most common answers from Oklahoma high school students to the ten questions above:

1. Don’t know.
2. Don’t know.
3. Don’t know.
4. Don’t know.
5. Don’t know.
6. Atlantic.
7. Don’t know.
8. Don’t know.
9. George Washington.
10. Don’t know.

In some ways the above list makes things seem less horrible than they are. The slightly-less-common answers are filled with absurdities. 16% of students said the Declaration of Independence is the first ten amendments to the Constitution. 8% said that the two parts of the U.S. Congress are the President and Congress, which makes my head hurt. 24% said Abraham Lincoln wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Then there’s my personal favorite: 11% of students actually said that the two major political parties in the U.S. are the Republicans and the Communists. Eleven percent! More than one out of ten! These were not multiple choice questions, by the way. 88% of students don’t know how long a Senator’s term is, and even though George Washington was the most popular response to “Who was the first president”, he only got 23% of the vote, with the remainder going to such colorful responses as Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, John Adams, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Richard Nixon, and John F. Kennedy.

If you’re looking for some depressing reading, check out the full report.

I said before that these studies get done all the time, and I want to reiterate that there are always “OMG OUR CHILDREN ARE STUPIDER THAN EVER” studies to be found. But this is the worst I have ever seen by a long shot, and it makes me angry to see all the ugly stereotypes that people throw around about the Plains validated. Oklahoma is full of the sort of people who harp on states’ rights. Should a state have the right to provide such piss-poor education that the new generation of residents is too stupid to participate in the democratic process?

And where are these people’s parents?

Here at 4d2 dot org, we get a lot of spam. Most of it I just flush out of the SpamAssassin quarantine, but sometimes one arrives that looks particularly amusing. This one is my new favorite.

UNITED STATE OF AMERICA
OFFICE OF THE SECETARY OF STATE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN PAYMENT
(RESOLUTION PANEL ON PAYMENT)
WASHINTON DC
UNITED STATE OF AMERICA

From The Desk Of The
UNITED STATE OF AMERICA
HILLARY CLINTON.

Attention:SIR/MADDAM

I wish to use this medium and my new office to inform you that your
CONTRACT/INHERITANCE Payment of USD$6m (SIX Million Dollars) from FEDERAL RESERVE
BANK NEW YORK have been RELEASED and APPROVED for onward transfer to you via an ATM
CARD which you will use to withdraw all the USD$6m in any ATM SERVICE MACHINE in any
part of the world, but the maximum you can withdraw in a day is USD$6000 Only

The UNITED STATE OF AMERICA government have mandated Bank Of England, to send you
the ATM CARD and PIN NUMBER with other relivant document from our government and
british government and the united nation,You are therefore advice to contact
director and the Head of ATM CARD Department of Bank Of England

Contact Person: Mr.Hoffman Okiri
Bank:BANK OF ENGLAND(LONDON)
Phone number: +447024035504
Fax: +442070600934
EMAIL: (mr.hoffmanokiri@sify.com)

Tell Mr.Hoffman Okiri that you received a message from the OFFICE OF THE SECETARY OF
STATE UNITED STATE OF AMERICA to send you the ATM CARD and PIN NUMBER AND ALL THE
DOCUMENT which you will use to withdraw your USD$6 Million Dollars,also send him
your direct phone number and contact address where you want him to send the ATM CARD
and PIN NUMBER to you BUT YOU WILL PAY FOR THE LITTLE INSURANCE AND SHIPMENT FEES
FOR DELIVARY.all the document regards to the release of the funds has been handed
over to Mr.Hoffman Okiri for delivary SO CONTACT HIM NOW FOR DELIVARY

We are very sorry for the plight you have gone through in the past years. Thanks for
adhering to this instruction and once again accept our congratulations.

Best Regards.

MRS. HILLARY CLINTON
OFFICE OF THE SECETARY OF STATE

Today I was looking through the most popular movies in various categories on Netflix’s website, trying to find new things to add to my queue. These are the 4 most popular “classic” films of all time according to Netflix’s data — which is pretty darn good, as data goes.

Surely I’m not the only person who thinks that one of these things is not like the others. Is this awesome or horrible? I can’t tell.

I know, I know. Isn’t this really old news? Don’t we all already know this?

The results of a new Rasmussen poll, released today, show that if the 2012 presidential election were held today between Barack Obama and Sarah Palin, 42% of Americans would vote for Sarah Palin. One wonders exactly why this poll was done this way, given that she’s resigned her gubernatorial post and may not be the most likely Republican candidate for 2012, but still: 42%.

I have only this to say in response: What the fuck, America?

Apparently 42% of us are not capable of understanding that this woman is an idiot. Not “idiot” as in “someone with whom I have serious ideological differences”, either. “Idiot” as in idiot. Stupid. Dim. Cretinous. I’m sure she’s a nice lady whom I’d really like in person but she shouldn’t be in charge of, well, anything. Certainly not a state or–God forbid–a country.

Consider George W. Bush. As president, he was kind of a funny guy. People like me, who thought his politics were kind of scary, liked to make fun of the way he talked because he wasn’t very good at it. He used words like “misunderestimated” and that made him look stupid. That was funny, because we all knew he wasn’t actually that dumb.

Unfortunately, the liberal-leaning folks made a tactical error in mocking Dubya, because the Republicans have now put someone forth as their sort-of-kind-of-leader who is actually stupid. Now it’s like the Boy Who Cried Wolf. She’s an idiot, but if anybody says anything they’ll look like an elitist or chauvinist.

I am prepared to take that risk. Sarah Palin is stupid, and you 42% who would even consider voting for someone that stupid should be ashamed of yourselves. This is not about politics or feminism, we’re not just making fun of her because she’s not a good speaker, and she doesn’t just look stupid because the media has portrayed her that way.

Just to review: She cannot name any Supreme Court cases other than Roe v. Wade¹. She cannot name a single magazine or newspaper which she reads. Alaska’s geographical proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience. She told a third grade class that the Vice President of the United States is in charge of the Senate. These things are not cute malapropisms and they have nothing to do with her political leanings. These things are just plain dumb.

What happened to Mike Huckabee? He scares me just as much as Sarah Palin from an ideological standpoint, but he seems like an intelligent human being and you have to admire his will. Why can’t he be the imaginary 2012 Republican candidate who probably won’t run anyway?

1 – Anyone who took middle school Civics in the U.S. should be able to come up with at least one of Brown v. Board of Education, Plessy v. Ferguson, or Marbury v. Madison. I would have also accepted “Dred Scott” from Mrs. Palin without expecting her to name the defendant. If you couldn’t name any of these, it’s OK: You’re not aspiring to national office.

I really like the idea of RFID road toll collection. It gets rid of the need for people to stand in little booths at all hours of the day to take your money $1.75 at a time. Unfortunately, the implementation on the east coast of the US, in the form of E-ZPass^®, has sucked. They haven’t really removed any regular toll lanes–there are still 2 E-ZPass lanes and 5 or 10 cash lanes on most roads–and the state governments that administer the program seem to be going out of their way to make a good thing suck for everyone.

Maryland recently decided that they needed to charge a $1.50 monthly “account maintenance fee” to all E-ZPass account holders. They are not the first state to do this. On top of the $25 deposit I’ve already put down to cover the cost of the device, it apparently costs them $18 per customer per year more to run unmanned toll collection lanes than to pay a person to stand in a little booth. I don’t buy it, especially because toll collectors are state employees that make upwards of $12 an hour.

Anyway, the change from charging no fee to charging the highest fee of any state that administers an E-ZPass program has predictably caused a mass exodus of customers. There are a lot of people who are willing to put down a deposit and place a device in their car to save themselves and the state a little bit of time, but the subset of those people who are willing to pay $18 a year for the privilege, on top of regular toll rates, is (surprise!) much lower.

But here’s where it really starts to suck: I submitted a ticket online to have my account closed, oh, about two weeks ago. Despite a friendly automated email message saying my request would be processed within “5 business days”, nothing happened. So a week ago I started calling. I called the customer service number probably 100 times over the course of a week, and every time I got a busy signal. People are so busy closing their E-ZPass accounts that the state is not capable of closing accounts fast enough.

Today is the last day before the account maintenance fee takes effect. In an act of desperation I set Google Voice to redial the customer service number repeatedly until it was no longer busy. I sat listening to Google Voice’s ring for about 10 minutes, then sat in Maryland E-ZPass’s hold queue for another 5 minutes, and then was finally graced with 30 seconds of surly human contact — the first time I’ve ever required human interaction to manage my E-ZPass account, as a matter of fact. My account is finally closed, but I don’t know how many people are going to get charged a fee simply because Maryland isn’t capable of dealing with the attrition they’ve brought on.

Maryland, your E-ZPass system sucks and driving people away from it is mindbendingly illogical. Surely the system is most expensive to operate if no one uses it.

Somewhere out there some contractor is getting rich.