Well, that's reasonable. You don't just break your own bank, you break our entire financial system, so it's only right that you should be
paid more than the total worth of the organisation you work for.
So basically, we bail these fuckers out just so that they can continue to pay themselves enough money for helicopters and yachts? Seems fair.
Bang goes the music
Here's a great idea I wish I'd never had. I was running out of space on my HD for music so I bought a Western Digital external drive. It was easy to use and I put all my music files on it, and ran iTunes using it with no problem.
Until a couple of days ago. The drive started whirring and sometimes would stall. So recognising a disaster in the making, I started pulling off the files onto a portable HD. I got a third of the way through before it stopped. It had got stuck on a bad sector.
So I was talking to P. and she suggested using XP to check the disk. Big mistake. Now I have a disk that says it has 120ish gigs used but won't tell me what's on it. The drive letter is there in My computer but there's no sign of any actual data.
So that's fucking great. The data's still there, obv. But I shudder to think how much it will cost to get it back.
***
Well, I found a piece of software that will let me copy stuff off the drive (which is just as well, because it also made it disappear from My computer. It's awesomely slow, but at least I can get some of the files off. When I say slow, I mean slow. It takes ages just to list the files. But it does see them, which is more than can be said for Windows.
***
Luckily, I got maybe a third of my music off before my external HD gave up the ghost, and my iPod has about two-thirds of my music on it, and I can use Sharepod to get that off, and of course, I have a lot of CDs full of a lot of the rest, so although it's a PITA, it's not a tragedy. A double PITA, actually, because my portable drive is only just big enough to carry my collection, and it's going to be a grind to figure out what I haven't rescued. Basically though, it's going to be stuff I don't listen to much (isn't on my iPod), although for some of that, that will be because I only acquired it recently. Boo.
But no one died, it was only a bunch of files, etc. I can get them again. My iTunes library is obviously fuxxored, but I can rebuild that easily enough. No need for tears. Except for those of frustration.
Golden age
Zenella is eight today. I have been a father for eight years. That is long enough for it to have become something I am, rather than something I try to do.
Like most things I am, I'm not very good at it, but I'm stuck with it.
Still, she knows she is loved, and in turn she can show love, to her brother and sister, her relations, her friends, to Mrs Zen and to me. She is good at it. I do not know what else of value you are supposed to achieve.
***
So the veggie meals and hostels in KL and Melaka are booked, I have spending money and there's a freezer full of food for Mrs Zen to work the microwave magic on.
I'm hoping a month off the weed will help my chest. If it doesn't, I'm probably fucked. So to make up for not smoking, I expect I'll have to drink heavily. Luckily, the UK is jampacked with pubs, specifically for that purpose. Hooray! I know that most of the few readers of this blog are American or otherwise impaired, but if you happen to be in southern England in the next month or so, I'm shouting the first round. Not you, Gunt. You know I'd piss in yours as soon as your back was turned and you don't want that.
I'm furious at the banks. A couple of weeks ago the British pound bought 2.1 Aussie dollars. Now it's 2.5. That's wiped out some of my spending money. And we're paying our tax money to rescue those fucktards!
***
You know, I love it when someone smiles because of something I did. It beats tears.
Debate 3
Bring a fork for Sen. McCain.
***
Here's the key moment for me: McCain lied about fining "Joe the plumber". "Tell us what you'll fine Joe."
So Obama said "well nothing; I'm only taking action against big businesses. I'll actually help small businesses."
And McCain simply repeated the lie. Didn't defend his own policy. Didn't rebut Obama. Just lied again.
***
First half hour was about even. The moderator, a Republican whose brother is a Republican-appointed ambassador, lobbed soft ones for McCain. The next hour was a bloodbath.
WTF at the CNN analysts? McCain did not do well. He was basically an arsehole. It's not "strong" to shit-talk your opponent for an hour and a half. It makes you look like a loser. And he will be.
use
I don't have anything interesting to say. (Makes a change, eh?) Everything is shit.
I was going well at poker, but when I moved up to the 24-dollar games, I had such bad luck, and played so badly, I think, that it has completely discouraged me.
Now I will never get out of this prison.
My work has gone to shit too. As you know, I'm an editor. I don't mind doing a bit of writing, and I suppose if you give me a brief to develop a course, I can do that. But the work I have now is like torture. I would never have agreed to do this job if I knew that I'd be doing this. Not that I had a choice.
And I've been feeling bad in myself. I can't really describe what I mean, but I can't keep a grip on my emotions. The bad really hurts. (There isn't much good at the moment, so I can't tell you how that is.) I seem to be on a ridiculously short fuse.
No one seems to want to know me very much. Out of three people back home that I tried to arrange to meet, one was keen, the other two keen but not keen enough to give me their phone number or current address.
My poker friends have got sick of my whining, I should think. I can't help it. The same impulse that makes me unable to handle minor annoyances makes it really tough to bear the relentless injustice of poker. I mean, I know it's like that. It's nothing new even, but it's crushing me: I am winning very nicely at the 12s and getting crushed at the 24s. The 24s are a bit tougher, but not the ridiculous amount I'm getting crushed by. My luck has been just awful (as I talk, I get it in with KK on a Q high flop vs a guy with AQ. He rivers another Q. That's how it is just now. How I'm winning even though this keeps happening is a total mystery to me. I won't be for long though: guy minraises on the button. Easy shove with 99. He has QQ. He could have absolutely anything but it's QQ. OMFG).
My dad offered me money to fly back for a holiday with the kids next year, but I can't do that. I thought, well I could have that money to pay for our airfares to go home, but he only wants to give it to me next year, and isn't keen to let me have it later.
So fuck it. What's the use of any of this?
Debate this
Complete arsekicking, EOD.
Lost on the way
Say say my playmate
Won't you lay hands on me
Mirror my malady
Transfer my tragedy
When it comes, it's in a wave. You cannot hide. No mantras will dispel it. Like an old friend, you say, I haven't seen you in a while.
***
I am *mumblety-mumble* on Saturday. I'm already older than Jesus when he died, and I'm yet to save the world.
You know, if your god loved us, we would grow to 45, then turn around and start getting younger until we were 18, then turn around. Around and about. Birthdays would then be something to celebrate. We would not waste our lives on wars. We would love ourselves too much for sacrifice.
***
Obama
said something that made the wingnuts salivate. I only just read it, but it's quite stunning. The wingnuts think it is something communist, but it's not. Anyone who knows Buddhism knows what it is:
Because our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation.
Of course, it's possible that Obama is only pretending to be a Christian, but who knew he was a Buddhist? This is as clear a statement of the ideal of an adherent of the Mahayana school as you could wish to read. It's quite striking. It would be inconceivable that Obama didn't know what the Mahayana tradition entails.
Maybe he is enlightened. He doesn't seem like he would be, but who knows? Wouldn't a Buddha take whatever path he needed to? Maybe he's the Antichrist.
Maybe he's just a cunning politician. The notion that the nation is greater than the individual is essential to the left in a real sense. The left is a rejection of individualism
And we should reject it. We are nothing without each other. We truly are unfulfilled if no one ever touches us, if no one ever can. We can build cages of gold, but they are cages no matter their substance.
***
beat the skins and let the
loose lips kiss you clean
quietly pour out like light
like light, like answering the sun
I will never die if you love me. So love me, you owe me my life. You owe me. I've given you so much, you don't even know how to measure it. I've given you so much more than you know how to put a measure on.
Put aside your foolishness, and dance with me. I am old and slow, but we don't get younger. Put aside your rage about what I cannot be. Love what I can and I will love what you can too.
Did you ever hold a flower in your hand and regret that it now can only fade? I watched the crops die in my back yard when my child was born and I had no time to tend them.
All our life is no time to tend the crops we sow. I want to die and you owe me a life.
***
I have learned helplessness because I do not know where the door is.
Is it a sign of hope or simply human nature to believe that there even is a door?
***
Tonight, I pick Zenella up from Girl Guides and she is happy as Larry. Your life is happy? I say to her and she's smiling and nodding. We're going on camp, she says.
We should go camping, I say. I will buy a tent and we can all go. She is smiling and nodding.
I say, we should go first, me and you, to see how it goes. And she beams in a way that you cannot fake, you cannot buy, you can only reveal when you please someone
deeply.
I am a good person. I cannot believe I am being punished for anything, because I am good in my heart. I know it. I know this is knowledge in faith. I know I do not exist in any real sense. I know there is no I writing this. Still, I am good in my heart and that cannot be destroyed, and I don't know why.
***
I feel like I should just leave, and you would not miss me. I feel like you would make me dust before I had even closed the door. I do not know how to be memorable and I do not know how to be worthwhile.
I feel like the pain in my chest will grow, and I will be gone without even a stone to mark me. I do not think I mind it so much that I will do anything to change it. I will pretend I don't know how and so will you.
I feel like I will never sit in my walled garden, with bees in my pear tree. I will not grieve for what I should have had, or could have had. I will grieve only for the tousle-haired boy who ran on Hayle beach, the wind in his hair, salt in his eyes, free, because he got lost in this world, and once you are lost, it seems, there is no way home.
***
I think enlightenment consists not of never having been, but of realising that you never were, and once you have realised that, you are no more.
Watching
this video, it was quite interesting to see that Palin has been well coached in sidestepping "social issue" questions, although she refuses to answer anything even close to coherently. She managed to sound reasonable on abortion, and wouldn't agree that the morning after pill should be banned (it's a bit weird to say "I wouldn't choose it for myself" but we get the message). She managed a firm statement of support for teaching evolution, and restricting science classes to science, while stating that she personally is a creationist. That's not an unreasonable position, even though being a creationist should immediately disqualify you from high office. She managed to evade a religious question about praying for gays to become straight by saying she wouldn't judge what should be prayed for.
She even went for "my best friend is gay". But she blew it. She said that her best friend had made a choice that she personally hadn't made. Uh oh.
I'm looking forward to the debate tomorrow morning. I think Biden should make mincemeat of her. I didn't until these Couric interviews, but she's looked pretty much incapable of being even coherent. That's going to play badly next to Biden, who's longwinded, but surefooted. The election is not particularly close at the moment, with Obama ahead in all the battleground states, McCain floundering on the economy while Obama looks in control (although largely wrong), but Biden could kick Palin to ribbons and end the race right there. McCain would be left with nowhere left to go but balls-out negative; having to shove all-in on Obama's negritude and liberality (as usual, the Dem candidate is nothing like a liberal but is painted as the reincarnation of Lenin). I'm not sure that will be enough, particularly given that his own negatives are pretty evident, and negativity in the next couple of debates is liable to play as ill temper, particularly now that he's slighted Maureen Dowd, who will be sharpening the knife for him.
