This Boy Elroy

Hindsight

Looks like everyone, even Katie Couric, all of a sudden has decided to have a spine and has begun to ask questions about the war....five years too late.

Couric's Interview with McClellan

Couric: While you were press secretary, you were famous for denying access to reporters who asked tough questions. And now you're criticizing the press for not being tough enough. So isn't that the height of hypocrisy.

McClellan: Well in the buildup to the war, and … in the national press corps as a whole, there could have been more done to ask the tough questions. What happened, this is again, how the press becomes complicit enablers in this permanent campaign culture by focusing on the march to war rather than the necessity of war, that's where the emphasis and focus was and I think the emphasis and focus should have been more on finding out the truth. And, you know, I talk a lot about that in the book.

Katie Couric: Weren't you the ultimate complicit enabler, though? I asked a tough question before the Iraq War and you personally called an executive at NBC News and you threatened to deny access to us.

McClellan: I did?

Couric: Yes, you did, once the war began.

McClellan: Me personally? I don't, I don't remember that.

Couric: But did you strong-arm people into not questioning the administration?

McClellan: My style usually wasn't that way.

Couric: Well, it was you who made the call.

Okay for Katie this is pretty good so I'll give her some credit for it. HOWEVER! I'd like to ask Katie this question:

Why wasn't McClellan's threat to deny you access after you asked a tough question about the war a news story itself? There had been plenty of talk about the administration muzzling the press but why didn't the press make a story about it? Weren't you, and other members of the press who didn't speak out about the muzzling, as much an "ultimate complicit enabler" as McClellan?

The Kingdom of My Crystal Ass

Standing next to the Hulk I realize that I have a long way to go yet before I will satisfied with how I look. Sigh.

We saw the new Indiana Jones movie. It is my firm belief that George Lucas be banned from making any more movies, Spielberg as well. Lucas has pretty soiled his second great franchise with it's latest installment. I love the first three Indy movies and I am aware that one must employ a certain suspension of disbelief when watching them, but The Crystal Skull really pushed me to my limit. Nobody, I don't care who you are, survives in a refrigerator that's been tossed god knows how many miles across the desert because of a nuclear explosion, and then emerges from said refrigerator to view the mushroom cloud and is somehow completely immune to the fallout. Do George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have ANY respect for the audience? I liked John Hurt though, he always pleases me with his performances.

In other news, the movers were great and took better care of our stuff than we would have. They completely cocooned our furniture in moving blankets and shrink wrap. When we moved ourselves in the past we just put the furniture in the truck and hoped for the best when we got to our destination. The professionals are much more precise, not to mention nice to look at. The driver of the truck was pretty sexy, I didn't mind watching him work one bit. In any case our stuff is en route to SF and thanks to the interwebs we're able to track our stuff on Mayflower's site. As of the time of composing this blog post our stuff is in Guadalupe, AZ, a suburb of Phoenix. After a couple of stops in LA the truck will make it's way up to SF and deliver our stuff, and we'll be there waiting for it! Huzzah!

Progress, not perfection.

We're getting there.

Brad and I are so tired of eating out. I don't know what I'm looking forward to more, moving to San Francisco or being able to make a home cooked meal again. Over dinner tonight I expressed to Brad that I've officially reached a state of flux, I feel like I'm a person without a residence. I forgot how weird relocating can feel.

Last Dance

Today was my last day to my job in Dallas. I didn't want any long lunch or anything but my colleagues had an impromptu brekkie in my honor. This was the first time I had ever tried Chik Fil A's chicken minis. One of my colleagues brought them in and they were...different. The non-Americans were as puzzled as I was, fried chicken nugget in a tiny biscuit. The pigs in the blanket were good though, I managed to eat one in spite of the giant smoothie I had on the way to work.

I cleared out my desk yesterday and not a moment afterwards the new tenant arrived, a grad student who was desperately in need of a desk. I'm quite pleased that she moved in, she's a lesbian - it's only fitting that the space pass to another family member. She's a better 'mo than I am too I tell ya, she's got photos of her and girlfriend on her desk.

My mac has been moved to Dorothée's desk as she will be using it do the work I was doing now. For posterity I took one last photo in photobooth with the Mac at work.

Classy.

I've created a photoset of all the photos I've taken with PhotoBooth at work here. Good times.

AI Thoughts

Twitter is down and I'm watching American Idol and I've got something to say.

The id of this show is to fear originality, blend in, be as mediocre and ordinary as possible so you can appeal to as many people as possible. That's basically the opposite of me.

I'm almost certain that if David Bowie, Janis Joplin, Freddie Mercury, Iggy Pop, or Lou Reed were to have auditioned for this show they would have been rejected and been shown in the "aren't these people weird" montage of rejects.

When the final twelve ( sang songs by George Michael all I could think of was all the Bar Mitzvahs I've been to and how sorry I felt for the bands that played at them.

OMG George Michael is old. Troy put it best when he said in a tweet that "he looks like a Jewish grandmother."

David Archuleta is clearly an android sent to American Idol by "The Company." If you cut open his body there will be milky white goo and tubes.

Did not need or want to see David Cook in his briefs playing Guitar Hero.

I should change the channel but schadenfreude is a beautiful thing.

My, my could it be that Simon got a talking to from the producers? Why the apology?

David Archuletta is so getting the belt tonight from his dad for not winning.

Why is Cameron Manheim Steamroller always in the audience at AI?

That's all. /snark

Bay to Breakers

I love cunnilingus
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes.

I was perusing flickr for photos of this years Bay to Breakers. This photo, more than any other, amused me the most. Sculpture is, by far, my favorite art form.

Popcorn for everyone!

I love the movie "Real Genius." Val Kilmer was brilliant and when I was a kid I wanted so badly to go to college and live in a dorm with science nerds, coating the floors of our dorm in dry ice, and riding super-secret roller-coaster like elevators to cavernous computer rooms where brilliant burnouts of yesteryear ruminated.

Well it turns out that reality has caught up with fiction and the laser technology featured in the movie has come to fruition. We're making progress people. Popcorn for everyone!

Pieces

I started reading Walden last night. While reading the first chapter, "Economy," I couldn't help but wonder if republicans go out of their way to prevent their children from ever reading the book. Imagine the ideas they would get! More than one hundred years after it was written it's incredibly relevant, I'm quite impressed.

Finished Uncharted: Drake's Fortune on the PS3. This is a standout game with incredible attention paid to detail and amazing gameplay. Even for someone like me who has never been a great fan of first person shooters, this game was a blast!

As a reward for finishing previous said game I treated myself to Pixel Junk Monsters, love it.

While pumping gas this weekend a swarm of bees flew over my head. I quickly darted into my car and started it with the gas still pumping so I could roll up the windows and take refuge from the bees. By the time I got the windows up the swarm had already past. Afterwards I felt foolish. Clearly the swarm had no interest in me, human narcissism led me to believe otherwise.

It's my last week of work in Dallas before we move, w00t!

Green Snark

Me: I'm gonna stay in the car, leave it running.

Brad: Okay, but it's bad for the environment.

Me: This is Dallas, there is no environment.

Oh, shit!

Reminds me of the end of a porn my friend Heather's mom made us watch, The Devil in Miss Jones.