2 jokes I made recently that weren't big hits:

[someone had mentioned that the name Destiny sounded like a stripper's name]
Yeah, and Destiny's Child sounds like 3 strippers' names.

[On hearing about Hillary Clinton's choice of Celine Dion's "You and I" for her candidacy]
You know what Mike Gravel's song should be?
Gbolero.

Current Mood: weird

"Get a visit from the big dick fairy."

Current Mood: As in, creeped out.

On Monday I bought a pair of red Levi's 501 jeans.

Current Mood: amused

On my way to work last week, I was listening to a remix of Sarah McLachlan's "Steaming" on my recently acquired iPod shuffle. As I approached the corner of the building where I work, I heard a saxophonist, at the corner. I was about to pass him and turn toward the building entrance, but it dawned on me to stop and listen a bit longer. It was then I noticed: every note of his was in harmony, his tempo in sync, so that as a chord changed in the song playing through my earbuds, it sounded as though the saxophonist followed along. His eyelids were squeezed closed, and his eyebrows moved slightly up and down as he concentrated on the quality of his timbre.

I told a passerby, "His playing matches what I'm listening to," and he smiled.

I put a dollar in his jar and paused to look at the saxophonist, to speak to him of this moment. But he still played, eyes shut, adrift on the waves of his melody line. I walked away.

Current Mood: mellow

I do post long, thought-out items online. Really, I do.

I'm pretty happy with my exchange with others on TalkLeft, though, as usual, I was somewhat late to the story.

"Newsweek Catches Congressman Ney in Lie"

Current Mood: content

This is a must-read for those who might be wondering about the significance of the Downing Street Minutes and the Bush Administration's determination to invade Iraq as early as July 2002. Read on if you wish to know more about the behind-the-scenes lying and manipulation the Bush Administration performed in just one of the sections of the executive branch of the US government.

An interview with Lt. Col Karen Kwiatkowski, USAF (Ret.) [from DailyKos.com]

( Interview sample: )

Can you point to anything or anyone else who could help to prove that others actually "knew" Iraq had no WMD?

[Kwiatkowski]: Tommy Franks and the President must have known, because they sent the bulk of troops into Iraq without chem, bio or nuclear protection gear.

The choice isn't between mistakes and outright lies, it is between being sociopathic mass murderers of American soldiers and Marines or just outright liars. The administration knowingly manipulated what they had in the intelligence and lied about the rest to bring our country, the Congress and the other countries along.

Current Mood: pensive

I am in the process of uploading loads of photos to my Flickr account.

This is my permanent site: Aaron G. Stock's photos

Here are direct links to the sets I have up so far:
Broken Hipsters, NYC, June 2004
Hillside Music Festival, July 2004
The Gates, 2005-02-21

If you stumble upon your visage, let me know if you wish to have me remove or protect the photo. I'm not displaying all my photos publicly and am erring on the side of caution regarding which ones I show. Flickr is good at setting different levels of privileges, with passwords and such. [EDITED:] Flickr doesn't allow you to password-protect a set unless you create an account with Flickr. Once you have a Flickr account, we can be contacts. Once you're a contact, I can list you in either or both of only 2 categories: "Friends" and "Family." Well, if you don't want to make a Flickr account (and I can't blame ya), and if you think or know I have a photo you want, let me know and I can send you a copy via the regular channels. There. [END EDIT]

Also, If you want me to send you a hi-res photo, let me know.

( A brief update )

Current Mood: lethargic

Honest, I added more to my draft of the story, and I will have it out this week.

But until then, here's one of the things my counselor and I are working on to try and improve my life:

Courtesy of Achewood

Current Mood: Take care... and fuck you!

Spongebath is my favorite character in Achewood. And he's back today with his bud Emeril and Roast Beef. Yay!
First appearance here, and later, here and here.

(P.S. Trouble Man is high on my fave list, too.)

Oh, and I got robbed by two men² last night of $8-9 and my driver's license and my ATM card, and that tan fake-suede "Wichita" credit-card-sized wallet. I'm not injured at all, and I'm replacing everything today (that license was looking shabby anyway and is to expire in 6 months³). So, other than missing out on 700 Club dancing, I'm fine and out a few bucks and that sentimental-value piece (DAMMIT! *sniff* WHY did they have to TAKE the Wichita memento? WHY????).

Sometime in the next couple days, LiveJournal types will get my "protected" account of the story, anyone else reading this and interested can email me to get it.

EDITED 2005-01-03:
¹EDIT 1: The "Music" line apparently doesn't accept the HTML tag "strike".. should have appeared thus:
Music: "Some Enchanted Evening [in my pants head]
²EDIT 2: added # of men who jumped me
³ADDED NOTE: It turns out that I still need to renew my license in ~6 months (take new photo, etc.).

Current Mood: annoyed

Just because I said to barkalot that I would. I am not sure if folks will think this is worse than a real update.

I did 2 loads of laundry in Chinatown because I was slow to move today. On the way home, I picked up Pearl Noodles (with shrimp, pork, beef, vegetables) from Penang. They were pretty tasty. I am headed out for a bit of frivolity before sleeping and waking and heading to my parents' for Xmas and then Grammy's and the rest of the (Mom-side) family on Sunday.

Everybody dance now!

Current Mood: pleased

Danby Diplomat model. A little ringy, but it's in the kitchen and not in the living room!

Also, I saw Landlady Carrie today motion to the carpet on the stairs as though she were going to be replacing the carpet, too.. I sure hope so. The carpet spot where the old fridge was is nasty-looking, and I hope she saw how the carpet lifted off the corner while they lifted the old fridge. I wasn't there for the replacement, but I saw her before heading to work.

I feel a little lightheaded and wifty. I'm not really sure why. My sleep dep, my small sinus illness, the methylphenidate, the peanut butter Crunch bar I ate, all of that could be part of it.

Current Mood: weird

No fridge yet. I should probably set Friday, November 12 to BED-FRIDGE Day, for that is the day both Karin and I learned of our re-acquisition of bed/acquisition of fridge. She's sleeping on her new/old bed. My old fridge is still in the living room (but that's ok). So. Updated that.
Updating my hunger situation with pasta, of course. A little under weather. May curtail karaoke activity tonight. Also something going on at 7:30pm I want to remember... ah! Arcade Fire, First Unitarian... ok. Well, maybe. Maybe not. Sold out.

Current Mood: sick

Warning: many exclamation points to follow!

( 'Maybe it's the hum of changing opinion.' (Why not a Paul Simon/Philip Glass song reference while we're at it?) )

Karin got her bed back out of storage Friday and is no longer on a futon, so in the celebratory spirit:

I hereby proclaim November 12 Bed-Fridge Day. Let the festivities commence!

Current Mood: surprised

Every time I find one of her hairs, I try and give it a proper burial in the trash receptacle.


Damn, I want to call her.

Current Mood: sleepy

(Dylan lyrics)

I walked to work and looked into the faces of fellow pedestrians, and saw their flattened downturned mouths today, nary a smile. It was enough to make me want to shout (didn't), "Does everyone here agree we got screwed?"

Anyway, here are some links:

Ezra Klein of Pandagon with Post-election thoughts

The article to which Klein links, by Todd Gitlin (this article was written for the Washington Monthly well before the election, in a section entitled, "What If Bush Wins?")

For you codeheads inclined to find a site that speaks to you

Kos of Daily Kos on Democratic leadership reshuffling

Josh Marshall on the importance of keeping our progressive structures intact

From a great mind, Barack Obama, during the Democratic National Convention 2004

Harold Meyerson on the national prognosis for Democrats:"Democrats must find a way to do a little better on this polarized terrain, while working simultaneously to alter it fundamentally. Neither task will be at all easy, but they’re what the Democrats need to do."

I will have some comments later, too, along Meyerson's lines. I will try and make the audience for those comments a bit wider if possible.

Current Mood: aggravated

Not to put any words in their mouths, but I think part of it comes down to this:

"I Want You to Hurt Like I Do"
by Randy Newman
Lyrics
(The song's up for only a little while, until around next week (unless someone wants to host it, or honestly? You all have file-sharing programs, you can get it yerself if you miss out here eh?).)

Current Mood: annoyed

Just vote to make sure, but I KNOW all you folks are way on top of this [Australian readers excepted (you know who you are)].

They played "Beautiful Day" after the Kerry-Clinton rally on 10/25, and so I play it to make it out of the house this morning. For inspiration, here's a photo of the rally I took from the top of City Hall. Kerry was speaking at the time, around 1:38pm:



Go! Go! Go-go!

Current Mood: optimistic

just can't. Got some dishies done, got some veggie stromboli (a lot in fact) in my stomach, Eagles won, I am awake and alive and I am enjoying the Shuffle feature on the Winamp player. Got stuff to do and I will do it. So. There.

Current Mood: satisfied

I am having a hell of a time getting to bed at any decent hour. Tonight I will be doing ok with a 1:15am sleep I suppose. Better than usual by far, trust me.

On an unrelated note (it is, honest), Jessica and I are no longer together. She broke up with me by cellphone last night after I got out of the Jimmy Carter book signing at the Free Library. I didn't really get any good answer why except that she felt she and I were going different directions in our lives. She also mentioned how she didn't want me influencing her. I don't know how much detail I want to add or whether I can coherently. I did reply how you can't go through life without being influenced by someone (whatever that means). I'm concerned that she is becoming more religious of a more strict persuasion. Ah well. She was often so sunny when I knew her....

I managed to resist eating sweet things (besides some honey sesame cashews from Trader Joe's (OH MAN are they good)). I did not resist filling out my Talking Heads collection. I have Naked on vinyl; it's such a great record. Tower Records at Broad St. has a pretty good CD sale until 11/01. I picked up all the TH discs that were $8: Talking Heads '77, More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, and Remain in Light. Also, I picked up The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin for $8. Xtra tempting to get a few other things, like an The Alarm greatest hits collection ("Rain in the Summertime" has been fresh in my mind in the past couple of weeks).

Jimmy Carter, by the way, is looking pretty well for an 80 year-old, I suppose. His voice is about what you'd expect from one. Very pleasant. I said, "Thank you for all you've done," and he replied "What a very nice thing to say." I got his Living Faith book and An Hour Before Daylight: Memoirs of a Rural Boyhood. I'm not sure when I'll read them. I'm not even really religious, but I respect his faith and how he's lived his life.

[update, 3:38am: ok, so maybe not so much a stellar sleep-time achievement, ugh!]

Current Mood: disappointed and concerned

I came home from work on Wednesday and found my key didn't fit the lock. I looked and found the lock was changed. What the fuck? I walked around to the front of the buildings to look for any neighbors. Fortunately, I found one shooting the bull with a store owner, as usual. My neighbor let me in the courtyard and I was able to open the inner door as I thought I might. I said to him, "What sort of landlord changes your lock and doesn't even bother telling you?" Answer? An ex-landlord. It turns out that our apartment buildings (2 rowhouses "joined" by a common courtyard) have just been sold to a group of young siblings, possibly relatives of our former owner. I had my cell phone (wow, came in handy so soon) and, again with the neighbor's help (had the #), called my (ex-) landlord and asked him what was up?

( More meat after the cut )

Current Mood: nervous