darn, it *IS* inconvenient!

So we finally watched An Inconvenient Truth and even for a jaded follower of the green movement, it was both extra scary and informative. I've read both positive and negative reviews on this movie and about global warming. I just can't understand why the naysayers just can't get past the FACT that polluting the environment is a BAD thing!

Whatever the politics, whatever the science, non science, hearsay, anecdotes, whatever you want to call it – spewing noxious fumes into the air just like dumping sewage into the ocean is not good for the planet and anything living on it and you don't need a scientist or years of studies to know something foul when you smell it. WHY oh WHY does there even need to be a film like this??? Let's just move forward and acknowledge that we all like to use energy, that there are much better ways of doing it, and that we should do it those better ways!

Speaking of which, if your energy provider is PG&E, go to their ClimateSmart page and please sign up for the program! It is a no-brainer way to help the environment by making the energy you use to be carbon neutral thanks to the offsets PG&E will fund through the program. Most people will see their bill go up less than $5 a month! (ours will be something like $2.75).

If you really want to put your money into carbon neutrality, go to Native Energy and buy carbon offsets for everything you do (drive, fly, fart, etc). I found that site through the Climate Crisis site that the movie endorses.

Think your contribution won't do enough? I say everything has to start somewhere, and if this planet melts into a big gooey mess, I want to have at least contributed something to fight it.

Want 100mpg plug-in hybrids? Go here!

honk if you think the Patriot Act is unconstitutional*

I had forgotten about the photos I posted to stock.xchng when I was contacted by Midori Nakamura (an editor for DivineCaroline) who wanted to use one. Good for Laura Sweeney who wrote a positive article about how the French and U.S. helped each other out during times of war and how we have much to celebrate this coming 4th and 14th of July (Independence Day and Bastille Day respectively). Right now I feel the world has had enough of the U.S. and I don't blame them! But feel good for a moment and remember that times were once tough but got good again by reading this nifty article.

*Read up on the Patriot Act

since when has my Google page become iGoogle?

Enough with adding the small "i" in front of things already!!! I don't even know what it means anymore! First it was "e" everything, now this... how about using the letter "f" in front of everything? THAT would be something I'd like to see... fBush, fMicrosoft, fExxon, fRepublicans...

mad world

So last night I was using Google maps to plot where to go in NYC and Italy and decided to take a gander at Afghanistan as well. I figured I'd come across some high resolution shots because of the conflict in the region. Sure enough, near an airport at what I'm guessing is Mazar-e Sharif were some incredibly detailed shots. Of course, what I found was more than I bargained for. I saw damaged planes on the runway and half the city looked like it had been erased poorly in photoshop. In Kabul, the airport is surrounded by what I'm assuming are US military facilities. Everything else beyond it looks destroyed.

It was all quite very sad and very much put in perspective what I've been complaining about recently. Just thinking about it makes me feel ill. George Bush and his administration can't leave soon enough, and when they all eventually die, I'm sure there will be a special place in hell for them right next to where Hitler and Slobodan Milošević are staying.

U-S-A! ... U-S-A! ... U-S-A! [repeat obnoxiously]

It feels like forever, but I finally got my passport application sent off via my local post office. So after a trip to the recorder office for my birth certificate, two trips to Costco to develop varying sizes of my own passport photo (on the second trip I noticed they offer passport photos for a mere $4.99 – d'oh!), three trips to the post office's passport room, a sworn statement (I had to raise my right hand and everything! Too bad there wasn't a Koran lying around, eh?), and two checks totaling $97.00, I have the pleasure of waiting at least 6 weeks for processing (that's only IF they don't find my huge cache of WMDs, enriched uranium, and cocaine which I hide underneath my global warming machine). Who knew leaving the country would be so involved? I actually would've preferred that they give me a Canadian passport all things considered. I wonder if I could convince the State Department to add a check box on the application...

On a completely unrelated but rant-lite note, I finally heard one of the more popular songs at the moment from some guy/band named Daughtry. Is it just me, or do we have enough bands that sound like Nickelback already?

Let's keep poking the giant and see what happens :D

Apparently China has successfully tested a space weapon by firing an ASAT (anti-satellite) missle and taking down one of their old weather satellites. They're still trying to confirm exactly what they did and when they did it (you can read the whole story here). Unsurprisingly, this event is most likely a response to George W. Bush's revamped policies for what basically amounts to the possibility (and thereby probability) for the militarization of space by the United States. Thanks a lot, jackass!!!

Of course, I don't have the all the facts (just the article). But still, if China develops a space death-ray, I hope they vaporize him first.

Stompin' in my Air Force Ones

Ah, it's that time again. When bright lights are hung from the rafters, mistle toe hung over doors, green and red themed everything, and the holiday push to consume. I'm not talking about Decmeber though. All the xmas crap was in the stores before the Halloween candy sold out. I remember when consumerism was the big rallying point against all that's evil with our society. Interesting how times change, isn't it? Now we have honest to goodness evil incarnate as elected leader of our nation. Oh how I long for the days of SDI, Iran Contra, and weapons for hostages! Them were the good ol' days indeed.

Ha ha, sorry. I don't know where that came from. I guess I'm feeling all political again (although I promise to remain apathetic – sorry). In the meantime, enjoy this phallic image of a really cool building in SF. I took this image while drunk out of my mind from drinking an entire crystal geyser bottle of Vodka flavored with something sweet tasting (I think). Ah, good times!

Kentucky is the lubricant state

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since we were wandering around the edges of the Mission when I came across these things. When I first saw the road sign, I couldn't believe it was for real! Ha ha. Those DOT folks have a sense of humor after all (considering that it took them a decade long study or something to figure out the new typeface to use for traffic signs). Perhaps they could put the sign up on the corner of Polk and Leavenworth to advertise fast service as well as promote safe driving speeds.

The lion was in the display window at a taxidermy shop. Get this, the door had a "no pictures" sign posted on it (oops, I saw the giant lion in the big window before reading the sign on the door). Apparently, it's okay to kill an animal, gut its insides, replace those insides with stuffing, treat its remaining outer shell with chemicals, and then display its corpse in a storefront, but whatever you do, DON'T TAKE A PICTURE OF IT!

It's not that I have a problem with killing things. I really don't. It's that people have a fucked up view of what's okay to be killed and what's not. I say, if you've ever killed anything, anything; an ant, a spider, a squirrel under you car tire, you're fucking fair game for the rest of the world. I'm not promoting excessive random killing mind you. I just think some goddamn motherfucking respect is in fucking order. I'm including myself in the mix of course – if I get eaten by a bear, it's my own fucking fault. Getting eaten would certainly suck as all get out, but don't shoot the bear because I was walking around with hoho's in my pocket while eating beef jerky and poking her cub with a stick. Fucking tourists.

Ahhh… that rant felt pretty good. For my money, birth and death are insignificant unto themselves, it's what happens in between that give either any meaning.

*For those of you interested in/need to know Kentucky's sodomy laws, click here to see why they did right by their state abbreviation (some free advice: skip the legal mumbo jumbo crap and read the last paragraph like I did with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Formally Known As Prince).

All that and a bag of chips

Mmmmm… San Francisco Sourdough Snacks, one of the saltiest, crunchiest, tastiest snacks ever created! This photo was taken during my last Tahoe trip in February 2005. I love how the flash reflected off of everything inside the foil bag.

So I stayed up late again but this time I was muy productive. I all but finished the design on my new business site, so in the coming days wjdesign.com will finally look like a designer lives there.

I was up until about 6am so I got to watch Bush come out to talk about the Katrina disaster. Every time words come out of that dude's mouth, he just personifies the phrase "uninspired leadership". At this point, I think our election in 2008 should be decided by finding a "CONGRATULATIONS!! YOU ARE NOW THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" sticker in a Cracker Jack Box. Seriously, we'd be better off!

I saw Kofi imploring other nations to help us as we have always been there for them. I can't believe he said that with a straight face! Ha ha ha!!! I wonder if he realizes that the US is like soda. Tastes great, looks great, feels great, but rots your teeth, makes you fat, and bombs your country if you have strategic value but do not share it's ideals (okay, it's almost like soda). Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this country. Just refer to my previous blog about kicking repeatedly in the crotch and then launching certain persons into the Sun.