Before Greg went into surgery, he prepared a mailing list for his wife to provide updates. Got something a short while ago in which she told us that he’s recovering well. She didn’t want to send mail too early to be overly optimistic, so the fact that she sent it now at all is cause for celebration.

The surgery went well; the doctor in LA said he had a 50/50 chance of surviving it, but the guy in Cleveland who operated on him gave him much better chances, and appears to have been correct. In fact the OH doctor said that he would not have expected someone to have such advanced valve disease while under constant care of a cardiologist. Greg has already made plans to hit his regular cardiologist in the head with a shovel, which is also cause for celebration.

Greg goes under the knife today. I’m not the prayin’ kind, but if I were, my prayers would be going to him. Maybe you can use up a few God tokens, if you’re so inclined.

I and the rest of the bastards hope for a successful operation and his speedy recovery.

Last week I noticed I had this neato diagonal link thing going on in the calendar display of this month, so I was hoping I’d have something to write about today. And then Craig linked this in IRC, and we have a winner.

I had to read it about three times to be sure, but it really does appear to be: acoustically…wait, I don’t even know the right word to put here. “Active”? “Aware”? Well, let’s just say, acoustically significant outlet covers. I’m not sure how to describe it, because they sort of don’t really explain the problem of “regular, inferior” outlet covers. This must exist to prey on the rich, nervous audiophile who isn’t sure they’re getting the optimum sound experience from their home theater. Though really, if you’re worried about the freakin’ outlet covers, do you require everyone to wear clean room scrubs (er, acoustically significant clean room scrubs) when they come in, and shuffle them around the room for two hours while doing audio test for optimum sound placement and reflection?

I love this part of the description: Tru-Tone Duplex Outlet Covers produce a remarkably powerful, detailed and focused sound. They’re really not taking full advantage of their core market here though…they should put a little ]]] TRU-TONE [[[ logo on the bottom, either make them matte black, or some shocking matches-with-nothing color. What’s the point of buying acoustic outlet plates if people don’t notice them?

Oh, and P.S.: see also Brilliant Pebbles. Apparently the new-age version of acoustic management. Might as well say you’re directing sound via chi flow.

Holy Christ, man. This following bit is from Squidi…and really I just can’t be bothered to explain who he is or why I care. I’m quoting this because he’s learned not to keep his text archived for long, because it’d be too easy to find previous writings where he’s contradicted himself, or had such mind-bogglingly self-absorbed comments like the ones following that they’re fun to link to and point at him.

Here, he’s talking about scalpers who resold the Wii for tremendous profits. If you don’t have the context to know who Squidi is, then just appreciate that there are people in the world who actually think like this.

Sometimes, I’m ashamed to be a gamer. It honestly seems like I’m the only one who deserves to play videogames. When I do it, it is for righteous and intellectual reasons – to study, to understand, to appreciate. It seems like other people just fuck around until they get bored. It’s why I won’t buy used games (above and beyond being a hypocrite). How can anybody who deserves to play videogames lose the cases and manuals, or have discs with more scratches than a hard wood floor after a roller derby? There’s no respect there. No honesty. Just use and abuse.

I don’t tend to hang out with typical gamers all that much. Frankly, I try to avoid them for exactly this reason. It’s hard to not feel superior to them when they pride themselves on being shallow and ugly. So, occasionally, I forget the ugliness that is out there. I don’t play online. I don’t get cursed out by 12 year olds, or see people’s butts through their Xbox Live camera, or deal with spawn campers, or any of that behavior that only makes sense if you are selfish and stupid.

Scalpers are a problem beyond just being selfish and stupid, but it’s the same cause. It’s not just greed, but also low self esteem. To need to exploit someone just so that there is someone out there that you are superior to. A lot of people say I’m arrogant, and I do not even remotely disagree, but I’ll say it again. My arrogance is better than that. It’s like super arrogance. It’s got so much pride, it won’t even be associated with the pride of idiots and losers.

Oh, and P.S.: as you know by now, the OJ book was cancelled, along with the FOX interview. I wonder if he’ll have an interview on the CW called If I Still Had An Interview On FOX, Here’s How I Would’ve Done It. 

Look, I am absolutely not going to be the first person from whom you hear of this, but screw it, I just gotta write this down.
O.J. programs show a lot about today’s media | Chicago Tribune

Two-day interview with OJ Simpson. If I did it, and I’m not saying I did, mind you, but if I did it, here’s how it happened. 

Man. Man-oh-man. Of what use is irony when confronted with this travesty? I’m trying to think of something funny to say about this but I can’t top it. 9/11 didn’t kill irony, this did.

You know how I loves me some logic. Well, follow the bouncing bobblehead:

Bush Says ‘America Loses’ Under Democrats (Oct 30):

“However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses,” Bush told a raucous crowd of about 5,000 GOP partisans packed in an arena at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, one of his stops Monday. “That’s what’s at stake in this election. The Democrat goal is to get out of Iraq. The Republican goal is to win in Iraq.”

Bush: Time to put elections behind us (Nov 8):

“This morning I also spoke with the Democrats. I spoke with Senators [Harry] Reid and [Richard] Durbin. I congratulated them on running a strong campaign in the Senate. And I told them that, regardless of the final outcome, we can work together over the next two years.”

There he is! Consorting with known subversive terrorist-lovers! Does he get his phones tapped or do we just ship him right to Gitmo?

Everything’s okay…happy place…everything’s okay…

A game I play with myself is trying to determine what instrument someone plays (or would, if they had the chance). It’s interesting to see how different personalities are attracted to different instruments. I remember from Debb’s high school marching band days, the drummers would get involved in some problem, or they’d come back with busted drums or something, and she’d say “well yeah, drummers.” I don’t remember whether that was the first time I started thinking about it, but it was probably when the correlation between personality and music got my attention.

A similar question I’ve had for myself, obviously a bit more topical, is the personality difference between Republicans and Democrats. I mean, you can usually tell, right? Long hair, plays bass guitar, reads Wired–probably Democrat. Suit and tie, big house, investment banker–probably Republican. But wait a minute, what about Kansas, pickup truck, hunts deer on weekends–also a Republican? How do you stand that guy next to the suit and say they’re the same?

The “big government/little government” distinction never made sense to me, especially since Republican presidents since WWII are more responsible for the rate of increase in national debt (christ, especially George W…those graphs are really depressing, especially the one lower down where it compares to %GNP). So if that broad generalization doesn’t work for me, what does?

A few days ago I worked out something that makes sense to me: Republicans have faith in the system, while Democrats feel a responsibility to the people. I’m saying this without value judgment at this point, because each has its benefits and downfalls. But it makes sense to me for grouping personality types by political affiliation. Investment Banker is an investment banker because he works with the system. Kansas Hunter thinks that if people just do their work, live a good life, then everything falls properly into place. Kansas Hunter is also disdainful of Long Hair’s desire to make governmental programs to help people, because if the people were just doing their jobs like they should, then the system would hum along like it’s supposed to.

And now here’s the judgmental part that I worked out last night: I wonder if this is why there’s been such a godawful run of Republican scandals recently. If you believe in the system, then once you’re in charge of the system, you feel like you’re safe. Then those who were open to temptation are more likely to feel like they can get away with it. I’m not saying Democrats are free of corruption, obviously, but I’m wondering if the personality type is more prone to think about the consequences of its actions on other people. If my correlation holds, then I would much rather have people in power who feel a responsibility to the public, rather than ones who have faith in the system.

I used to be paranoid about my real name being used online. Well, more paranoid, I still am kinda, but now more out of habit than anything. A few years ago, I don’t think I would’ve properly enjoyed seeing my name so prominently in the credits for Chris’s comic:
Concerned #205: Monday, November 6, 2006

But now, I think it’s pretty cool. Thanks, Chris!

Hey, just haven’t been in a typin’ mood recently. But I dig this cartoon:

Opinions: Tom Toles Cartoons – (washingtonpost.com)

I’ve always liked Toles. I gotta pay more attention to him.