Mr. Rogers was one of the Grand Marshals for the Tournament of Roses this year. Here's a shot that i got from the stands on new years day.

One thing that Will and I both forgot to mention last night was the little disruption that happened at dinner last night. We went to Carmine's for dinner. When we walked in to put our name down the hostest says "hold on just one second, let me see if there is a table ready", and she turns around to look into the restaurant. As she does this a semi drunk guy comes from inside the bar and steps right in front of us and asks her when his party is going to be seated. She turns back around and looks at this guy for 2 seconds and then asks him, Where did you're group go? We've been calling you for a long time now. He then goes into a little rant about how they are sitting right there in the bar. She tells him it will be one second, because they had called them many times and thought they had left. SO... he says a few words about there needed to be a better way to do THIS. I assume that he meant the normal act of waiting to be seated. So he goes back to join his group in the bar. She looks at us and says it will be one second. We kinda laugh and say, "we will be no trouble whatsoever". She walks into the restaurant to find us a table. Another hostess come back into the little lobby. ANOTHER guy from the bar come in and now confronts Hostess #2. She immediately asks him where they were. She's the one that has been sent all over the bar looking for them. He proceeds to tell her that she's full of shit. Ok, at this point there is no logic involved. The hostess says that she has been looking for them, and the guy says she has not. It gets to the point where another lady waiting in the lobby says to Guy #2 that he heard her yelling "Bill Party of 5" from where she was sitting. And she must have heard them yell it 5 different times. Guy #2 ignores the lady in the lobby. A few more little stupid ass remarks come out of drunk Guy #2's mouth and he walks back into the bar. At this point all the people in the lobby are just about fed up with "Bill party of 5". So we're laughing and the hostess (both #1 and #2) look at us with the "what the fuck is the deal with some people" look in their eyes. At this point they walk us to our table and our waitress comes and says "thank fuckin god i got you", i was one of the only people with a table and i was afraid they were going to give "Bill party of 5" to me. She takes our drink order and a few minutes later we still see a large group of people still in the lobby. You can tell there is some serious shit going down. So a few minutes later hostess #1 comes by our table and says i can't believe that guy. He tried to hit me. She shows us her hands and she's shaking. Will and I are both "Fuckin call the cops". She's already thrown the guys out of the place and it looks like at this point the Bus Boys are getting a little group together to do a little payback. LOL So we don't know exactly if "bill party of 5" got what was coming to them, but i kinda wish they had seated them and just given them 5 specials. Anyway, that was not it. Just a little later there is a commotion in the room just beyond the lobby. Our waitress is seen a few minutes later making a bee line back to us very quickly like she is trying to avoid something. She now says, "it's a nightmare in here tonight! I just had to carry a girl passed out into the bathroom." Will Jen and I all look up in disbelief. I guess the girl had just gotten tanked and fell over. The waitress came to the rescue, but found shortly there after that there was nobody backing her up. The "date" of the girl had not stepped in at any point to help out. SO... our waitress got her as far as the sink where she came to and she left her there.

Its just so damn funny to watch these little things go on. Will's camera wasn't quite quick enough to get a picture of "bill party of 5" but they get my vote for assholes of the weekend.

Recently i have taken a look at a few car steros that are being made that include a 10GB hard drive. That's great. BUT you have to copy all the mp3's to the drive via CD's with either the mp3s on them or RIP the music in the player itself. Ok, it's not that big of a deal, but what would make it better? This is what i was thinking. Put a WiFi system in the car stero as well. You come home and park your car. It uses a little power to keep a WiFi connection open once you've turned off your car. You walk inside and sit down in your home and relax. As you're screwing around on your home computer you are now able to transfer mp3's to your CAR STERO via the WiFi connection. DUH! it's so simple.

BUT that's just the start.

Now we're talking about a metropolitan area with cars EVERYWHERE. Suddenly this takes music sharing to a whole new level. Gnutella and Napster never even thought of this possibility. You could literally share music as you drive. With a simple interface you could even set search parameters for your car stereo to go out and find the music you want to listen to AS YOU DRIVE. It would literally be a whole new sharing system. There would be major draw backs though. If you do find a song that you want, and start downloading it, who says that the person you're sharing with is not going the other direction on the freeway at 90mph? So i started thinking about the network itself.

But then i really started thinking

Forget music for a second. What if the cars themselves provided the backbone itself for the network? I know in most free WiFi systems you really need wireless systems tied to ground based lines. But what if you could manage a extremely dynamic set of moving connections to piggy-back or hand-off a connection. If there were a large number of cars with WiFi, would you be able to maintain a network while it is moving at high speed? If so, could you dump wireless phone calls to this kind of network? OR lets even think about SOMETHING USEFUL. All cars could easily be set to send out BASIC telemetry. Like speed and location. As you move along during your commute, you could be feeding traffic information to a database so that up to the second traffic reports could be fed to other cars around you, or more importantly, the ones stuck behind you.

Then comes the part that i think is going to happen SOON

Lets just say that advertisers embrace the WiFi system. Why the fuck would they? Lets say in this same car you could set the stereo to a "passive mode". Almost like just scanning whatever is around. There could be a new WiFi protocol made for the general purpose of telling you about WHERE you are. You drive past a movie theater, and you get movie times. You drive near a shopping center and you get information about sales. You could distribute information about events, food, lodging, AMBER ALERTS, just about anything AND IT COULD BE USEFUL.

SO where does this leave us? Well i can say it leaves me waiting for Apple to make a car stero. :)

OK quick addition

There's nothing in the flugtag rules that says the entire machine has to fly. hmmmm i wonder if a Trebuchet would be legal? We could have it hurl one person with little paper wings on, and a crash helmet.

Koga just left. He came over here after hanging out in hollywood and joined us for dinner. Jen and i cooked dinner and we had a good time. Jen crashed cause she was so tired and Jeff and I watched the new episode of Angel. DAMN GOOD STUFF. I just wish they would really do the spin-off of "faith". anyway... talking to jason now and i need to get some sleep.

--Conan O'Brien

Ok, enough.

Ok, here comes the rant

In California, things are fucked up beyond all belief. We've got a power shortage, a water shortage, and now fuel prices are going higher and higher.

Well, for those of you who don't know, California has the highest EPA standards for gasoline emissions in automobiles. That means that the fuel we use to fill our cars is not the same fuel that people in Arizona use. ALL the fuel in California is RFG. Re-Formulated Gasoline. So, what does it mean? Its MORE expensive, cause the gas companies have to make it special just for us.

Los Angeles is a desert. We get most of our water from an aqueduct. Well lets be honest. We steal it. But we have been using this water supply for decades. This last year the US government decided to roll us back to limit that was set up. So we're really on our own now.

Finally, with deregulation of utility companies in California, most of our power is being bought by utilities that decided to sell their power plants. And now what? They're getting charged through the ass, so they are now trying to pass the cost onto the consumer.

I don't have the answers, but i can tell you one thing that i would do to be part of the solution. When i buy a house I WILL INSTALL a FUEL CELL. I have been looking for a long time now and i still have not found one that is residential. Well until now. This system is currently being tested in California, and it looks like it's a solution to at least one of the problems we're having.

The solution is much more elegant than the problem. We don't have water, we're short on power, and oil prices are going up. Do we really need all these things? Well, we do need the water, there's no question about that. I don't know exactly how efficient desalinization is, but it's a MAJOR option. Did anybody miss the fact that we've got a fuckin ocean running down one side of the state!?!? Ok, then the power issue. I'm ready to get a fuel cell as soon as one is available. I've even been looking at solar units for the roof of a house. They are expensive to install, but they actually will pay for themselves over their lifetime. And finally, we need to rely on an alternative power source to fuel our cars. There is a lot of fuel cell research going on right now, but we're still waiting for the major breakthrough. I am hoping it is soon. There would be nothing better than being able to travel efficiently where i need to go while knowing i am not polluting.

I know the breakthroughs will come. I am just waiting.

Its just an interesting piece of information to look at and think about. There are all kinds of UN "violations" going on all the time. Make your own decision.

For those of you who don't know what happened last night

We went to C&O down in marina del rey to have dinner for Jon Simon's birthday. During the night we all decided that we could all use a good suntan. But in the middle of the night the only option was to take 5000 flash photos. Ok, so the suntan thing is bullshit, but i did take 5000 photos. And i think will and koga and wendy did too. I'm putting money that the only ones that come out decent are wendy's. Mine are all really funny cause i'm so damn drunk, but none of them are worth the pain that i will suffer if i post em.

Monday, March 17, 2003

A Letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush on the Eve of War

George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC

Dear Governor Bush:

So today is what you call "the moment of truth," the day that "France and the rest of world have to show their cards on the table." I'm glad to hear that this day has finally arrived. Because, I gotta tell ya, having survived 440 days of your lying and conniving, I wasn't sure if I could take much more. So I'm glad to hear that today is Truth Day, 'cause I got a few truths I would like to share with you:

1. There is virtually NO ONE in America (talk radio nutters and Fox News aside) who is gung-ho to go to war. Trust me on this one. Walk out of the White House and on to any street in America and try to find five people who are PASSIONATE about wanting to kill Iraqis. YOU WON'T FIND THEM! Why? 'Cause NO Iraqis have ever come here and killed any of us! No Iraqi has even threatened to do that. You see, this is how we average Americans think: If a certain so-and-so is not perceived as a threat to our lives, then, believe it or not, we don't want to kill him! Funny how that works!

2. The majority of Americans -- the ones who never elected you -- are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction. We know what the real issues are that affect our daily lives -- and none of them begin with I or end in Q. Here's what threatens us: two and a half million jobs lost since you took office, the stock market having become a cruel joke, no one knowing if their retirement funds are going to be there, gas now costs almost two dollars -- the list goes on and on. Bombing Iraq will not make any of this go away. Only you need to go away for things to improve.

3. As Bill Maher said last week, how bad do you have to suck to lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein? The whole world is against you, Mr. Bush. Count your fellow Americans among them.

4. The Pope has said this war is wrong, that it is a SIN. The Pope! But even worse, the Dixie Chicks have now come out against you! How bad does it have to get before you realize that you are an army of one on this war? Of course, this is a war you personally won't have to fight. Just like when you went AWOL while the poor were shipped to Vietnam in your place.

5. Of the 535 members of Congress, only ONE (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces! If you really want to stand up for America, please send your twin daughters over to Kuwait right now and let them don their chemical warfare suits. And let's see every member of Congress with a child of military age also sacrifice their kids for this war effort. What's that you say? You don't THINK so? Well, hey, guess what -- we don't think so either!

6. Finally, we love France. Yes, they have pulled some royal screw-ups. Yes, some of them can be pretty damn annoying. But have you forgotten we wouldn't even have this country known as America if it weren't for the French? That it was their help in the Revolutionary War that won it for us? That our greatest thinkers and founding fathers -- Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, etc. -- spent many years in Paris where they refined the concepts that lead to our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution? That it was France who gave us our Statue of Liberty, a Frenchman who built the Chevrolet, and a pair of French brothers who invented the movies? And now they are doing what only a good friend can do -- tell you the truth about yourself, straight, no b.s. Quit pissing on the French and thank them for getting it right for once. You know, you really should have traveled more (like once) before you took over. Your ignorance of the world has not only made you look stupid, it has painted you into a corner you can't get out of.

Well, cheer up -- there IS good news. If you do go through with this war, more than likely it will be over soon because I'm guessing there aren't a lot of Iraqis willing to lay down their lives to protect Saddam Hussein. After you "win" the war, you will enjoy a huge bump in the popularity polls as everyone loves a winner -- and who doesn't like to see a good ass-whoopin' every now and then (especially when it 's some third world ass!). So try your best to ride this victory all the way to next year's election. Of course, that's still a long ways away, so we'll all get to have a good hardy-har-har while we watch the economy sink even further down the toilet!

But, hey, who knows -- maybe you'll find Osama a few days before the election! See, start thinking like THAT! Keep hope alive! Kill Iraqis -- they got our oil!!

Yours,

Michael Moore

This leads me to believe that the people that live on the corner are not that bright. Or maybe just crazy. Well the stop sign issue and the fact that they have a car parked on their front lawn. Well it's really not a lawn, its more like a huge ivy patch. And the car is actually loosing the battle between itself and the ivy. Ok, so what i am saying is that these people are NUTS.

SO....

Jen and i go out for a walk tonight to watch the sunset and i took a few photos. As we walk back i take notice of the stump that used to be the stop sign and the car overgrown with ivy. I take a look at the house, and think... "Well it doesn't look bad. They keep good care of their house. Look they even have taped the windows to paint the trim. They're keeping it clean" Then i stop. The tape on the windows is not for painting. I notice that there's some on the AC unit in one of the windows. YUP. They're NUTS. They've sealed themselves into their house. All the windows have been sealed completely with tape and plastic. I'll go get some pictures later when i don't think they're home. I was going to take a picture tonight, but i was worried that they were somewhere inside behind a window shade with a high power assault rifle aimed at my head.

Ok, PHOTOS added 3/20/2003

I was wrong about the car. It actaully is not parked on a lawn. BUT it IS being used as a storage SHED. Its packed to the top with boxes and junk.

Ok, the red no parking zone is there so nobody can park directly in front of the hydrant, but that forces them to park on the corner itself.

Here you can see the hole that usually holds the stopsign. Its been filled with a little mix of asphalt (i assume homebrew)

Finally there's the plastic biohazard SEAL they have on their home. Its funny though, they have no plastic on any other windows. Just this one. hmmm. it must be the safe room. I'll bet that's where the guns are.

Ok, lets just hope this goes quickly.

FRENCH PRODUCT LIST (Please forward this list)
Air Liquide, Alcatel, Allegra (allergy medication), Aqualung (including: Spirotechnique, Technisub, US Divers, and SeaQuest), AXA Advisors Bank of the West (owned by BNP Paribas), Beneteau (boats), BF Goodrich (owned by Michelin), BIC (razors, pens and lighters), Biotherm (cosmetics), Black Bush, Bollinger (champagne), Car & Driver Magazine, Cartier, Chanel, Cheese labeled "Product of France", Chivas Regal (scotch), Christian Dior, Christian Lacroix, Club Med (vacations), Culligan (owned by Vivendi), Daniel Cremieux, Dannon (yogurt and dairy foods), DKNY, Dom Perignon, Durand Crystal, Elle Magazine, Essilor Optical Products, Evian bottled water, Fina gas stations and Fina Oil (billions invested in Iraqi oil fields), First Hawaiian Bank, George Magazine, Givenchy, Glenlivet (scotch), Hachette Filipacchi New Media, Hennessy, Houghton Mifflin (books), Jacobs Creek (owned by Pernod Ricard since 1989), Jameson (whiskey), Jerry Springer (talk show) Krups (coffee and cappuccino makers), Lancome, Le Creuset (cookware), L'Oreal (health and beauty products), Louis Vuitton, Magellan Navigational Equipment, Marie Claire, Martel Cognac, Maybelline, M?phisto (shoes and clothes), Michelin (tires and auto parts), Mikasa (crystal and glass), Moet (champagne), Motel 6, Motown Records, MP3.com, Mumms (champagne), Nissan (cars; majority owned by Renault), Nivea, Normany Butter, Ondeo/Nalco Water Treatement, Parents Magazine, Peugeot (automobiles), Perrier Sparkling Water, Pierre Cardin, Playstation Magazine, ProScan (owned by Thomson Electronics, France), Publicis Group (including Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising), RCA (televisions and electronics; owned by Thomson Electronics), Red Magazine, Red Roof Inns (owned by Accor group in France), Renault (automobiles), Road & Track Magazine, Roquefort cheese (all Roquefort cheese is made in France), Rowenta (toasters, irons, coffee makers, etc,), Royal Canadian, Salomon (skis), Seagram's Gin, Sierra Software and Computer Games, Sitram Cookware, Smart & Final, Sofitel (hotels, owned by Accor), Sparkletts (water, owned by Danone), Spencer Gifts, Sundance Channel, Taylor Made (golf), Technicolor, T-Fal (kitchenware), Total gas stations, UbiSoft (computer games), Uniroyal, Universal Studios (music, movies and amusement parks; owned by Vivendi-Universal), USFilter, Veuve Clicquot Champagne, Vittel, VIVENDI-SEAGRAM, Wild Turkey (bourbon), Wine and Champagne labeled "Product of France", Woman's Day Magazine, Yoplait (The French company Sodiaal owns a 50 percent stake), Yves Saint Laurent, Yves Rocher, Zodiac Inflatable Boats.

I couldn't sleep. So i started building a model of a wipeout AG systems ship. It's kinda based on Team AG Syetems, but i know the proportions are all off. I think i am going to paint it with all the team logos and make it look like a prototype system. Anyway. Sorry for the geek.

I would also like to hear from anybody who has seen Divine Intervention. This was a film blocked by the Academy because they say it is produced in a country that is not "recognized". Anyway, after all the controversy over this film, i really want to see it so i can make my own judgment of how good it is. Anybody out there seen it?

Ok, so its been slowly destroying my mother. She's been to see a doctor, she's talked everyone's ear off, and basically made everybody sick and tired of hearing the same bullshit that just ends up being a fight between her and i.

So how did we get here? Lets recap. A month before my birthday, my mother calls 4 times in the span of 2 hours to ask my about my birthday. Each time she asks us to give them a date on which they can celebrate my birthday. At this point in time i had no idea what i was going to be doing myself for my own birthday. I was trying to make plans with my friends, but the date had not been set. I tried each time to tell her i could not give her a date at this point, and this was really not a good time to be dealing with this. Well that was not the answer she wanted. So she called until she finally got Jen to answer the phone. She asks Jen to get out the calendar and give her a date right there on the spot. Well this is her MO, she pulls other people into a situation until she gets me to blow up. And i did. I had enough, and a nice little fight broke out.

So here's where things get great. Mom complains all night to my father and my brother. Both of them are great people, and they both want exactly what i want. SILENCE. So when mom gets on a rant they are pushed to the edge too. My brother actually calls me and give me the heads up that my father is coming over to my house to bitch me out. So sure enough, the next day dad shows up. Jen opens the door, and he makes himself comfortable on my couch. The conversation starts out "DAVID, why can't you get along with your mother?!"... well i should have expected this. The goal of his trip was to bitch me out. And that's all he did. There was no conversation, there was just yelling in both directions. He's pissed cause he can't sleep, and i'm pissed cause mom can't fuckin respect my space. So he actually thought this would solve the problem. Sorry dad, not a fuckin chance. You blame me for the fight with mom, great, get the fuck out of my house.

Ok, now there is about 2 months of peace and quiet. Jen and I actually have some time away from them and we are able to pull our lives together. I've been a much better mood because i'm working again, and Jen and I have stopped fighting about money. But meanwhile events are conspiring to destroy all that.

What i do know now is that my mother has been talking to EVERYBODY. My dad, i can understand that, my brother too. My brother's girlfriend Vera, she's getting a earful of all of this. My mother even bumped into a friend of Jen's that teaches at her school. This is a girl whom my mother has met once. So, don't miss and opportunity, she drops all the shit on her too. Then finally my mother is calling Jen's mother Pat. Pat is the most polite person you can imagine. She would never say to my mom, "this is really awkward, i don't think we should be talking about this..." and so my mother drops all her baggage on her too.

Now what has all this talking done. Well first off, my brother got pissed that i was bloggin about all this. So i pulled everything from the blog. Then another round of this got my brother pissed off at me so much he wouldn't call me back on my birthday. My mother was telling him that behind his back Jen and I both talk shit about Vera and him. I've heard a few things from the homefront and i know that around this same point my father had been caught saying "i don't care if i never see him [me] again". But the real jewel is the conversations with Jen's mother.

Early on Jen's mother was told by my mother that "jen had chosen the wrong side", now i really have to give my mother credit for this one. This really fucked me up and pissed off most of the people in the Bermingham family. But what did i expect? Jen's parents during this time are actaully trying to invite them out to dinner and a play, but my parents decline. Then they invite my parents to a birthday party for jen's mother. My mom's response, "we will not come unless david gives his father an apology" This is a beautiful piece of work. Spoken like a true martyr. My mother never would expect an apology for herself, no that would be so.... OK fuck the sarcasm. They do expect an apology. AND before this, i actually thought things were calm enough that it would be a good thing to have them there. I told Jen's father that it's alright to invite them. I would be fine seeing them. Well this was before i heard the apology statement. But in his fatherly manner, good old dad sent me an email explaining that no apology was expected and they really wanted to see me.

i need to take two lines from this email cause they paint a picture so well of what is going on.

"Do you want to try to smooth things out by discussing the situation as adults?"

"Mom and I stand ready, in the interest of peace and understanding, to discuss this matter and hopefully bring about some kind of satisfactory resolution."

Now here's the funny part. I don't think my father ever knew about my mother's ultimatum. She usually doesn't tell him little things like that. So honestly i think my father is innocent and thinks this can be resolved without apology. My mother on the other hand actually pushes her weight around to try to get this apology, while attached to a birthday invitation.

So now the Berminghams are involved. They are no way involved in the dispute that is going between my mother and I, but they have now been involved. Jen is not happy, and i am not happy. For the first time in 3 months, my mother is being herself again. She's pushing for she wants. She does not care about anyone else that she involves. SO... i lost it.

I FUCKED UP BAD. I let her get to me last night. I had finally had enough of the ultimatum. She had called the Berminghams again in order to tell them that they were now in fact still coming to the birthday. She doesn't realize that her pressure is going to ruin the night and make a lot of people angry. I am over the egde. I finally call my mother and tell her that if they go to this party that we will not be there. THIS WAS THE FUCK UP. please take note of it, it is about to be used against me. So what does my mother do? She immediately calls Jen's mother and tells her that we won't be there. She actually pulls that shit. She puts it right in Jen's mother's face and makes her pick between her own daughter, or my parents. So remember i had told Jen's father that everything was going to be cool with my parents. Now he's pissed, and he calls Jen and basically says to her, the party has been cancelled and that we are not invited to anything that they are doing that night.

Now my in-laws are pissed at me, and my wife is crying. My mother has brought my life down around me. I lost control and as soon as i did she took advantage of it. I have nobody to blame but myself. I always get burned when i have any contact with my own mother.

Solution is simple. I just need to stay away from them.

Fuck i wish it was that simple. I now have jen screaming at me, and her parents are pissed at me. My parents are fuckin history, but does anybody have a solution that will get rid of them that's just shy of killing them?

Well all i could do to keep my mind off of the bullshit is build an application that auto grabs the image from my webcam and uploads it to my web server. I know the web cam does it automatically, but this way i can actually have a warning beep 5 seconds before it takes a shot. That gives me enough time to get my finger out of my nose.

todays playlist includes:
Waxtrax Black Box set, NIN, Ministry, KMFDM, Wumpscut, Aphex Twin, FSOL, Chemlab, Underworld, The Dust Brothers (fight club), Prodigy, Rammstein, Nitzer Ebb and Skinny Puppy.

I've been so pissed off i needed to listen to all the music that just reminds me of my youth.
Oh, i almost forgot, Fear Factory and Atari Teenage Riot.

Hack Al-Jazeera

Al-Jazeera has been kicked off the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. They've got a great reputation for showing footage without censorship, but i don't know if showing bloody dead people is going to get them much love from US hackers. This is becoming a war of information as much as that of military might.

Point Counterpoint

I am on the fence about many things about the war, but i know one thing for sure. There will be more people in the world that want to kill americans after this is all over.

Pictures to come later. Now i must get some sleep.

BTW the blogVOTE will be up soon. i gotta put the finishing touches on it and i'll start to beta.

I've been in a number of web companies. High tech companies that used to build really high tech shit. But you know in EVERY case, the upper management had NO FUCKIN CLUE about the technology. The US government is just the clueless upper management. They do their job, and usually have no idea what they are doing. Meanwhile they get paid WAY TOO MUCH and they pass down orders that are just unreasonable. I think we're one step away from congress demanding that all citizens of the US wear a little TV monitor with a 3D FUCKING SPINNING LOGO ON IT!