Sorry, non-broadband readers

As promised, lots of pictures! When I left Korea, I stopped off in Hawaii for a week with my friends Chowsky and D, who were both also being reassigned back stateside. The military actually runs a very large, very nice, and very cheap resort for servicemen who want to vacation there. Your tax dollars at work, folks. Here's Chowsky headed out to sea:

And D contemplating breaking the rules:

And few others of Hawaii:




Unfortunately, after Hawaii I had to go to El Paso, which is probably the ugliest place in the United States. If you're curious about what West Texas looks like, here's a representative picture:

The best view in all of El Paso: I-10 East on your way out. As you can see, I've developed a bad habit of taking photographs while I'm driving. My old camera is filled with about 100 similar shots, taken all over the country.


The Southwest does have a sort of rugged and dramatic beauty. There are times -- when you see the sun setting over the desert, or the flowers are in bloom on the mesas -- when you can appreciate how it must have looked to the Indians who lived here or the first white settlers. Unfortunately, the landscape now is marred by about 50 thousand Walmarts.

If you go West into New Mexico, which is just a stone's throw away from El Paso, the scenery actually improves quite a bit. For one thing, New Mexico is a lot greener. I imagine this is because God has punished Texas for delivering into an innocent and unsuspecting world the blight of George W. Bush. This is from right outside of the charming town of Las Cruces:

The mighty Rio Grande. If you look closely, you can see a Mexican stealing one of our jobs!


This is from the Trinity site, where the first test of the atomic bomb was conducted. I like to think that the black mass of rock, which looks like cooled lava, is actually a remnant of the blast. But given the distances involved and the relative weakness of that first bomb, I doubt that could really be true.

This should make French kissing more interesting

Man, just when I get out of the military, they start doing some crazy cool shit.

I went to a job fair yesterday. Not as an applicant, but as a person looking to hire! My boss took me along to help him try to find some very senior level networking and database folks. Of course, very senior level people generally don't wander around job fairs, but we found a couple possibilities. At any rate, it was weird being on the other side of the table.

Hint: when you go to job fairs, don't be rude to the people there. They hate it as much as you.

Dinner with the intellectuals

I went with my friends Meier, Susie, and David to Mark's Duck House for dinner tonight. I've known the three of them since I was studying Korean at DLI and they're all great people, but they're also all smarter than me. That can be irritating, but it does make for interesting dinner conversation. Tonight we discussed rationality and genocide over some delicious duck.

From left to right, David, Susie, Meier.

David and Meier in the restaurant.

For anyone who is ever in the DC area, I recommend the Duck House; it was some of the best Chinese I've ever had. The decor isn't much to look at and the chairs are kinda hard, but man that's some good duck.

I found myself arguing that most of our actions and motives are pre-rational and that our conscious thought system is merely a shroud that we use to cover our primal instincts. I think I may have come off more extreme than I meant to, but I am finding myself more and more cynical. It's become very difficult for me to continue to believe in what formed the basis of my philosophy when I was younger: objective morality, the primacy of rational thought, and the basic goodness of mankind. According to Meier, I've adopted wholesale the thinking of Richard Rorty. I read Rorty a little when I was in college and don't remember much, but apparently he rubbed off on me.

Even Rorty, I assume, could appreciate roasted duck with sour ginger and pineapple.

I love DC in the spring time

I forgot how beautiful this place can be in April and May.









I'd apologize for being so tardy in updating, except that no one actually reads this blog enough to care. I've got more pictures coming, stuff that has been sitting around on my old camera for ages. Hawaii, El Paso, and a few shots of Korea. Stay tuned.

Mapusaurus is the lamest dinosaur name ever

According to the New York Times, scientists have discovered the bones of a new carnivorous dinosaur even larger than T. Rex. Well, large is fine, but how is he at stomping people?

Well, pretty damn good actually, judging by this extremely scientific looking diagram.

Thumbs down to Sable Island

My sole contribution to American letters is a book review for Salon.com. Despite this, I don’t think I’m very good at evaluating writing, because I tend to like almost everything I read. This may be partly because I’m picky about what books I buy, but it’s also because my brain is, to put it charitably, synthetic rather than critical. Sure I can identify poor writing, clumsy ideas, inept organization and all that, but I rarely walk away from a book with the feeling that it was a waste of my time. There was even a nugget of enjoyment buried deep in the dark heart of The Da Vinci Code, although you’ll never catch me admitting that out loud.

All of this is just to make the point that when I dislike a book, it must be really, really bad. And when I dislike a book as much as I disliked Sable Island by Marq De Villiers and Sheila Hirtle , it must be because the author(s) set out with the intention of pissing me off, right?

It felt like it sometimes. You can’t call them talentless, because it requires extraordinary skill to take a subject as inherently interesting as Sable Island and produce a book about it that is so uniformly dull. The subtitle is “The Strange Origins and Curious History of a Dune Adrift in the Atlantic.” Sable Island’s origins are strange and its history is curious, but it’s hard to care about such things when they are lost amongst so much tedious prose. When the writing isn’t tedious, it’s purple, and sometimes it reaches inane. Sometimes they just list shipwrecks without any accompanying narrative. Remember the catalogue of ships from the Illiad? Neither do I and that because it was the most boring part! Imagine taking it, expanding it to book length and selling it for 15 bucks in the non-fiction section! The only spark of vitality comes from the frequent inclusion of first-hand accounts, some by people only halfway literate and almost all livelier than the authors.

There is also a conspicuous lack of any organizational principle and I repeatedly found myself lost in time and space. The book jumps between centuries and explorers and settlers at random, both within chapters and between them. People and events appear, disappear and then suddenly reemerge 100 pages later. I’m sure some structure or pattern must exist, but finding it would require spending more time with a book I already had to force myself to finish.

Sable Island also suffers, somewhat unfairly, from comparison with the book I started reading when finished it, William Langewiesche’s The Outlaw Sea. The book is partly composed of a series of articles Langewiesche had written for the Atlantic Monthly, some of which I read and greatly admired. Langewiesche is a functional yet stylish writer and a superb reporter. We’re fortunate to see him here at the top of his game, tackling a subject of immense importance and interest. Highly recommended, although it will keep you up nights, both by gripping you in the narrative and scaring you awake with the facts. If you want to sleep, I recommend Sable Island.

All tied up

For the last 30 minutes I've been standing in front of a mirror tying ties around my neck. Yes, somewhat belatedly, I'm finally going through that male rite of passage: the learning of the tie-lore.

To just be clear, I already knew how to tie a Four In Hand knot, which is actually the Army standard. And while a Four In Hand is a perfectly adaquate knot, in that it results in a piece of fabric hanging from your neck, I've been noticing that everyone else in corporate America uses much, much more elaborate knots. And how am I supposed to keep up in the fast-paced, dog-eat-dog global economy if my breathing is constricted in only the most obvious way? Hence the tie practice. I think I've got the Half Windsor down pretty well, except I still can't get that sexy crease down the middle. I think that might be what they teach you during management training.

I can do a full Windsor knot too, except that I end up with the fat part of my tie hanging somewhere around the nipple region.

Fear & loathing in Alaska

Tim Treadwell found himself unable to fit peaceably into human society, so for thirteen years he spent his summers living among grizzly bears in Alaska until one of them finally killed him. In many ways he wasn't a very attractive person; he was naive, sentimental, self-aggrandizing and occasionally weirdly petulant. But he was dedicated and his story has pathos. If you haven't seen Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog's documentary about Treadwell, you really should. It's good to see that personal, idiosyncratic and affecting documentaries are still being made.

What's especially interesting is the conflict between two worldviews. Treadwell saw the bears, and nature generally, in an almost mystic sense. He felt them to be an essentially benign community at harmony with themselves and their environment. Herzog explicitly rejects this. He says in narration:

And what haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food. But for Timothy Treadwell, this bear was a friend, a savior.

This is the crux of the movie, because it doesn't matter whether Herzog or anyone else sees in the grizzles what Treadwell did. What mattered is that Treadwell did see something and that he was able to find meaning in it. Sure he was a loon, but he was also able to transcend his looniness and achieve moments of beauty and peace.

Incidentally, Treadwell has his scenes stolen repeatedly by the foxes that lived near his camp and come off as playful, intelligent and friendly. It's very easy to see how the fox became such a central mythological figure.

Workin' 9 to 5

Well, one week down and no major mishaps. Except that I went to entirely the wrong office this morning. If I had bothered to check my e-mail last night, I would have found that today I was supposed to go to the Maryland office, not the Virginia one. But what's another 90 minutes of driving between friends?

Also, I got to listen to Larry getting fired today. Larry's a guy who works on the same project as me, except Larry (until today) made a lot more money. His title is "Senior Systems Architect" which, although pretty much incomprehensible to me, certainly sounds awesome. He wasn't really fired, he was just kicked off the project, but unless he can justify his continued employment he'll be out entirely. It's too bad. I met Larry for the first time yesterday and he's a very nice guy and obviously knows his shit. But there have been some performance issues and the end client doesn't think his output justified the cost.

I know all this because the Maryland office has paper-thin walls.

Tonight I'm going to hang with Meier and his wife, order some Korean food, and watch Grizzly Man. I hope Larry has a good evening.

TGITF

Which stands for "Thank God It's Technically Friday." Which it is, on the East Coast.

Yes, only four days on the job and I'm already looking forward to weekends. Which isn't because the job is bad, but because I'm just lazy. Waking up at 0700, putting on a suit, and driving out to Reston every morning isn't making me love the civilian life as much as I had anticipated. Plus, I really don't have a whole lot to do right now; I'm just getting acquainted with the company, setting up 6 trillion different accounts and passwords, and reading tons of boring documentation. And sometimes I get to have long, unproductive meetings with strange people.

And then there's the drive home. As you may know, Newton's fourth law states that motion will completely cease in the event that you're on the inner-loop of the beltway after 5 o'clock. Today I received almost an hour's worth of experimental confirmation of this fact. But I don't hate it nearly as much as I should, for a very simple reason: Kill The Moonlight by Spoon. I bought it last weekend and it rocks enough to make stop-and-go traffic almost bearable. So I forgive you guys for those Jaguar commercials.

Speaking of which, a man and a woman were arguing in their SUV today on my way home today. Loudly. Loudly enough that I could hear them across four lanes of backed-up traffic and over "Jonathan Fisk." Not even Spoon can drown out enraged yuppies! The moral: if you're going to call your wife a bitch on the beltway, at least roll your windows up first.

May 1st (or so) I head out to "the foreign site." Wooo!

Issues fixed

It's been called to my attention that you needed a blogger account to post a comment here. Screw that! Free comments for all! It's been taken care of.

Anyway, today was my first day at work. I'm exhausted from eight hours of pretending I'm a systems analyst rather than some hipster nerd wearing a bad suit. So no big update tonight.

Nekomania!

Yes, I have a stupid schoolboy crush on Neko Case. I admit it. But that doesn't mean I'm not being objective when I say that she just put on the most awesome concert of my life. Better than Ted Leo. Better than Wilco & The Minus Five. Better, even, than the R.E.M. show I went to when I was sixteen and thought Michael Stipe walked on water. Don't believe me? NPR recorded it.

Secretly I always half-wondered whether Neko's voice is real. It's just too perfect; I suspected some Ashlee Simpson work was going on behind the scenes. But her recordings don't even do her justice. Listen to her doing "Look For Me (I'll Be Around)" with only minimal backing or her tender, warm rendition of Bob Dylan's "Buckets Of Rain." Or "Deep Red Bells." Or, really, almost anything from tonight's show. Absolutely astounding.

I arrived at the 9:30 club just five minutes before Neko's opening act, Martha Wainwright, started playing. She was actually very good, although the crowd didn't pay much attention. These people were devoted Nekophiles and anything sans-Neko didn't seem to interest them much.

When Neko and her band came on everyone got really quiet. They didn't exactly stay that way, unfortunately; I heartily approve of cheering and yelling, but the guy behind me didn't really need to sing along with every song at the top of his voice. A very slight mar on an otherwise amazing evening. If any of you thought the songwriting on Fox Confessor... wasn't quite up to the standard of Blacklisted, as I did, let me tell you that the new songs really grow into themselves live.

Fun Neko Fact: Neko really, really, really loves R. Kelly.

Best Neko Fan Response Of The Night:

Neko: If you see the President on the street somewhere, tell him how much I hate him!
Crowd: (wild cheering and applause)
Random Dude: I hope you got that, NPR!

Second Best Neko Fan Response Of The Night:

Neko: This next song is about desperation.
Girl: WOOOOOOOOOOO!!
Girl's Boyfriend: (mortified) You can't cheer for desperation!

Here are some pictures. They're not very good because it's hard to get a decent shot in a dark club and because I didn't want to spend the entire concert holding a camera in front of my face.

Martha Wainwright:

Neko Case:

NPR has some better shots on their website. But they won't ever love you like I love you, Neko.

Test day

Well, I just finished my Foreign Service exam (and a huge tuna sandwich). The State Department is very nice; they don't change at all for the test in order to attract as wide a range of applicants as possible. Consequentially, it was a diverse group gathered in Georgetown today: men and women, young and old, white and not-so-white, rich and slightly-less-rich. Oh yeah, and the Devil himself.

Yes, Satan made an appearance, and while he doesn't seem to have a tail, he does have sharp, black eyebrows, slicked-back hair, a menacing grimace, and a pointy goatee. I imagine the Devil comes to these events to harvest souls from desperate test-takers and, perhaps, to wreck the grade curve. During our 15 minute break, he actually bummed a cigarette from me and we made small talk for a while. It turns out that the Devil's name is Scott, he's originally from Seattle, and he just graduated from law school. At least one of those facts is not particularly surprising.

The test itself is divided into four sections:

Job Knowledge. The job knowledge section is actually composed of two parts: everyone answers the first 40-some questions and then there's another 30 or so that depend on what "career track" you select. Your career-track, or "cone" as it is sometimes called, basically determines what sort of job you do in the Foreign Service. It is very important. Once you take the test, you cannot change it. Ever. There are five options:

• Political
• Economic
• Management
• Consular
• Public Diplomacy

Since you compete against the other people in your chosen cone, I initially had planned on choosing Consular because it sounds pretty cool and is less competitive than the Political track, which is really where my interests lie. But since I don't really care too much right now, I went for Political. It was hard, but I imagine I did alright. I think there were maybe two or three questions (out of both parts) that I was completely clueless about, and maybe five or six more where I could narrow the options down but couldn't pick out a definite answer.

Written Essay. This is fairly self-explanatory. You have 50 minutes in which to write an essay on one of three different topics. Yes, you have to write by hand, with an actual pen and paper. Who the Hell does that anymore? The answer: The State Department.

Biographical Information. This is by far the weirdest and in some ways the most difficult section of the test. There are 88 questions about your personality, schooling, and work experience. The questions are all multiple-choice, but many of them require you to expound in writing on your answer as well. Sometimes listing examples was pretty difficult. Frankly, I don't remember many papers I wrote in college, much less whether or not I used multiple sources in researching them. Also, there are about 50 questions about the telephone and how often you used it in your previous job. The Foreign Service, apparently, is very concerned with telephones.

They tell you that there are no right or wrong answers in this section, but they still give you a score so they must be looking for something. They also tell you to answer honestly and not to try to "game" the exam. Well, I answered completely honestly. If it turns out that I don't pass because I admitted that I never, ever use a schedule or day planner, I'm going to be pissed.

English Expression. 90 questions about grammar and usage in 75 minutes. If you've taken the SATs or another standardized test, you've probably seen something a lot like this. The questions aren't very esoteric or technical; they just want to ensure you can write like an educated person. I'll be annoyed at myself if I get any of them wrong.

Test results are posted in late July, by which time I should be sunning myself on warm Moroccan beaches. Even if I didn't pass -- and given the intense competition in the Political cone, I doubt I did -- I'm still glad I took it. For one thing, there were a lot of cute girls there.

The FSWE: a good place to pick up chicks, meet the Devil, and (if you're really smart) become a Foreign Service Officer.

This is why American diplomacy sucks so much

Stupid Foreign Service people changed my testing site. Instead of American University, nearby and with abundant parking, I now have to go over to some hotel in Georgetown that is 20 minutes away from the nearest subway stop. I'll probably end up driving and paying a fortune at a garage. All this just for a practice test that will take up six hours on Saturday.

Frankly, I'm half inclined to say "screw it" and just not go. But that would be the easy way, and I'm making it a point to not do things the easy was as much as I usually do. Besides, I do want to join the Foreign Service eventually ... perhaps five to ten years from now. Better start preparing now.

Of course, I'm not really preparing all that much. A few months ago I was studying for the exam on a regular basis, but I haven't even opened my study guide since I left the Army. I did reasonably well on the practice exam -- perfect score on the English Expression section! -- so I'm not sweating it too much. Anyway, it is just for practice.

Countdown:

• 1 day until the FSWE.
• 2 days until the Neko Case concert.
• 3 days until I start work.
• 3 weeks (roughly) until I leave for Africa.

I turn my camera on

Busy day today: up at 10:30, putzed around the house for a few hours, went shopping, read at a coffeeshop, and met some friends for dinner and a play. I'm not sure whether I'm dreading having to go in to work every day or looking forward to it. Getting up in the morning will be bad. The world needs to readjust itself so that the workday begins at, say, 11 am and continues through 7 or 8 pm. That's my kind of schedule. Waking up early was absolutely the worst thing about being in the Army.

Anyway, I bought a new digital camera today. My old one was from 2001, which was when digital camera dinosaurs roamed the Earth. They were too large and stupid to survive, unlike today's modern cameras which are sleek and intelligent, like human beings. I bought a Canon SD550, which is 7.1 megapixel point-and-shoot. My old Sony, besides being heavy enough to affect the gas mileage of a lightweight car, was blessed with lots of cool manual controls. Since I used to be very slightly into film photography -- I inherited a very nice SLR from some weird old uncle who died -- I thought that was what I wanted. But in five years of taking pictures, I manually adjusted the settings maybe ten times at the most. Screw real photography, I'll let the camera do the work.

Here's a picture of me, trying desperately to look cool:



Smoking is bad for you, kids.

I also bought a new album by Bettye LaVette, who's an old soul/r&b singer. There was an interview with her on NPR about a month ago and I've been meaning to pick up the CD ever since. The album is "non-traditional" in that she only sings covers of non-soul songs on it. This works well on a lot of the tracks -- "Sleep To Dream" by Fiona Apple, "Little Sparrow" by Dolly Parton -- but sometimes the conceit is a little strained. A funk version of Aimee Mann's "How Am I Different" actually sounds just about as bad as you would imagine. Still, the album is quite good as a whole; LaVette's band is consistently outstanding, real tight and greasy. I recommend it.

For dinner, I met my friend Meier and his wife Suzie at an overpriced nouveau-Mexican place near Chinatown. Meier thinks the dining scene in DC is bad (compared to Chicago). I think you just need to avoid the pretentious restaurants and probably anything located downtown. Except one day I plan to go to one of those mahogany-and-leather steakhouses on Capitol Hill that the lobbyists frequent. Eat an eighty dollar steak, do some wheelin' 'n' dealin', maybe try to pick up some Indian gaming permits. If you live in DC, you really should do the town Abramoff-style at least once.

After dinner we saw The Gigli Concert at the Woolly Mammoth theater. Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with the Ben Affleck/J-Lo flop Gigli. Still, it was pretty good, at least until the end when the syrup started getting poured on hard. And now I can say I'm a devotee of the lively arts. Viva la theater legitimate!

I'll leave you with a picture of my car. Why? Because I can.

It's official...

...I have the most awesome job in the galaxy. Possibly other galaxies too.

I just spent an hour discussing particulars with one of my soon-t0-be coworkers. I can't tell you anything specific, but it looks like I'll be in Morocco for slightly over a year. The project itself is super-cool, too. I'm going to be spending half my time learning how to use/abuse obscure computer systems. The other half of the time I'll be smoking hashish dealing with urgent national security issues.

Also: Dahlia Lithwick sums up the Moussaoui debacle in Slate. Slate's lost a lot of good writers recently, but I'll keep reading as long as Lithwick keeps covering legal affairs.

Updates from the edge

Just to get the ball rolling, I'm going to recap the major events of my life from the last month or so.

1) I left the Army.

In 2001 I joined the Army as a Signals Intelligence Analyst. It was a last ditch effort to get my life in order and overall probably the best decision I've ever made. Despite getting injured in Basic Training -- and consequentially spending nine months in a rehabilitation platoon -- I don't regret it at all. I got incredible training (including 63 weeks of intensive Korean at the Defense Language Institute), did some really cool stuff that I can't tell you about (or else I'd have to kill you), and met some of the most interesting and unusual people in the world (and some absolute assholes). The taxpayers of America paid for me to live in Korea for a year, where I worked with probably the best analytic team known to man. Here's a picture of us from my going away party:

I'm the third guy from the left, with my arms around the two people next to me.

Unfortunately, my last year in the Army was pretty disheartening. I was stuck in a crappy unit doing boring work in support of a mission that I thought was -- excuse my language -- bullshit. So when my five year enlistment ended, I got out.

2) I got a new job.

Just yesterday I signed the papers making it official: I'm now a systems analyst for Unisys. I was pretty lucky; the job just fell into my lap following a recommendation from one of my former supervisors in Korea.

Pros of my new job:

• I'll be getting paid over 75 grand a year.
• My coworkers seem like interesting people to work with.
• I'll be working in the National Intelligence Programs section.
• For my first project, I'll be living in Morocco for six months or so!

Cons of my new job:

• I won't be getting nearly as much vacation time as I did in the Army.
• I'll have to learn some French and Arabic.
• What exactly does a systems analyst do?

I start on Monday.

3) I'm about to take the Foreign Service Written Exam.

One of my medium to long-term goals is to work at the State Department as a Foreign Service Officer. The first step to that is the FSWE, which I'll be taking this Saturday (from 8 to 2!). I have no illusions about passing; it's supposed to be a very difficult test and I haven't been studying for it much in the last few weeks. Many people take it multiple times before they pass. Anyway, I already have a job right now, so this time is just for practice. The exam is given only once every year, so I figure the earlier I get a feel for it the better. This way, five to ten years down the line, I'll be confident when I'm applying in earnest.

If you pass the exam, you are invited to an oral assessment which is even more selective. Supposedly, thirty thousand people register for the exam every year for a total of only 300 to 400 new positions. The written exam eliminates eighty percent and the oral assessment whittles the remaining 6000 or so down to a few hundred. If I pass the exam this time, and I'm not overseas when the oral assessment is given, I may go just to see what it's like.

4) I'm enjoying my free time.

Since I left the Army I've been enjoying the warm hospitality of my parents in DC. So yeah, I'm that loser guy who goes back home to live in his folks' basement...My excuse is that it's only temporary and it doesn't make much sense to get an apartment when I'm about to leave the country. I haven't been worrying about it too much, though; mostly I'm just glad to be home.

For the last year I had been living in El Paso at Fort Bliss, probably the world's most egregiously misnamed Army post. I can't tell you how great it is to be back in DC, where I can go to lectures and concerts and real restaurants. Right up the street from my parents' house is Politics & Prose, my second favorite bookstore (no need to ask about the first). They bring in a guest speaker pretty much every night. Over the last few weeks, I've seen Elizabeth Kolbert, Karen Armstrong, and Seth Lloyd, to name some of the most interesting ones. Studs Terkel is speaking tonight.

Two weeks ago I saw Ted Leo & The Pharmacists down at the Black Cat. This Sunday I'll be rockin' out to Neko Case at the 9:30 club. This dude took me out to see The Cloud Room a while ago too and tomorrow my mother's friend's son is playing somewhere downtown. In El Paso, the best band I ever saw was called King Octopus and my next door neighbor was the guitarist.

Oh, and I went to the zoo. Which fucking rocked.

5) Believe it or not, I still have friends in DC.

Although I grew up in the District, I don't know a whole lot of people here. I've lost contact with many of my friends from childhood and many others have moved away. Fortunately, Chris is still here, along with his charming girlfriend Val. Chris is my oldest friend; we've known each other practically since birth. So I'm very pleased to wish him a slightly early 28th birthday. Happy b-day dude! I'll be there for chili next Sunday!

Also, some of my friends from the military have moved into the area as well. Meier attends JMIC and now lives only a block from the house where I grew up. Good ol' David is marooned out in Fort Meade fighting the good fight against the evildoers, but I've had the pleasure of his company too. Of course Nico is here studying abroad, and Bill, my old partner-in-crime from High School, may stop by from his place in Baltimore. All in all, a congenial crowd.

So that's my life, at least until Monday when my long post-military vacation stops and I have to return to the daily grind.

Starting out strong

This girl keeps bugging me about starting a blog and, even though she has a myspace account, I still usually do what she says. In truth, I've been meaning to get back into the whole blogging thing for some time now. I write a lot in my head; a miniscule portion of that turns up in the form of journal entries on last.fm. The rest is lost to humanity. Oh, the horror.

Of course I want this blog to bring me fame, fortune, and endless beautiful women. Being a realistic sort of guy, I realize that I may have to settle for two out of three. But mostly I just want to record my daily thoughts and ideas so that I won't constantly be forgetting them. Plus I'll get to hone my writing skills a bit and offer unqualified opinions about politics.

So, enjoy.