Half-baked opinions, served lukewarm.
By the way, if anyone is going to be in the Washington DC area in the next two weeks, I am in a show that opens tonight and runs the next two weekends.
Its a black box performance of a new play called “Symbolic of Love” by Lee Wilkinson.
Please feel free to email me for information, or call
202 333-2202
By the way, if anyone is going to be in the Washington DC area in the next two weeks, I am in a show that opens tonight and runs the next two weekends.
Its a black box performance of a new play called “Symbolic of Love” by Lee Wilkinson.
Please feel free to email me for information, or call 202 333-2202
Interesting statistics for your viewing pleasure:
Interesting statistics for your viewing pleasure:
Hope you enjoyed the list!
It’s that time in life when I need to pick up a new bad habit. Due to circumstances, nothing seems more appetizing than beginning a drug addicition. To date, I’ve never smoked a cigarette or taken an illegal drug. But it’s never too late to start destroying my life via a helpless, ugly relationship with small pills.
Since turning 30 I’ve realized life becomes more interesting because people are more interesting. Socializing and interacting wth people my age carries far more interest because older folks have responsibility and what I consider “contribution implications”. My friends are no longer talking about hot bars and latest flings but issues and social trend and grown-up stuff.
It’s that time in life when I need to pick up a new bad habit. Due to circumstances, nothing seems more appetizing than beginning a drug addicition. To date, I’ve never smoked a cigarette or taken an illegal drug. But it’s never too late to start destroying my life via a helpless, ugly relationship with small pills.
Since turning 30 I’ve realized life becomes more interesting because people are more interesting. Socializing and interacting wth people my age carries far more interest because older folks have responsibility and what I consider “contribution implications”. My friends are no longer talking about hot bars and latest flings but issues and social trend and grown-up stuff.
However, after months of doing the couples-nights and weekend social entertaining, I still feel stagnant and dull. I never walk from these gatherings feeling enlightened and challenged. Thus, I need to begin a terrifyingly addicting drug habit for two purposes:
1) Make other people more interesting 2) Make me more interesting to other people
I’m not into health and happiness. I’m into eccentricity.
Anybody got some good suggestions? Also, I need drugs that can be concocted at home. Ideas that fall in the “meth” vein are good. Basically, I don’t want to have to get sold-out by some flaky street pusher who’s looking to score snitch points by turning in Mr. Sammy G Suburban Whitey to the cops.
As I was reading the blog on the old, old Wayward Sun tapes, I figured it would be nice for Matt to know how I came to be a part of the Barnson.org family 🙂
Back in the day (fall ’91), I embarked on a journey to get a degree at UMBC. My degree was to be in intramural sports, however, due to a communications error, UMBC thought I was going for a Mathematics degree. The resulting snafu added 3 years to my undergraduate career.
So my freshman year, I meet this tall dude with a definite Jewish nose who I immediately disliked. He was loud and arrogant, had no respect for anyone who didn’t like the Redskins or Capitals, and carried his bass guitar around everywhere.
As I was reading the blog on the old, old Wayward Sun tapes, I figured it would be nice for Matt to know how I came to be a part of the Barnson.org family 🙂
Back in the day (fall ’91), I embarked on a journey to get a degree at UMBC. My degree was to be in intramural sports, however, due to a communications error, UMBC thought I was going for a Mathematics degree. The resulting snafu added 3 years to my undergraduate career.
So my freshman year, I meet this tall dude with a definite Jewish nose who I immediately disliked. He was loud and arrogant, had no respect for anyone who didn’t like the Redskins or Capitals, and carried his bass guitar around everywhere.
(Side note: All the parents out there familiar with The Wiggles…doesn’t Sam remind you of Murray Wiggle?)
However, this fellow and I had a common interest in sports, and we spent many a classtime battling over Sega NHL 91. Next thing, we’re playing hockey together, and we become friends. I remember a road trip to Towson with young Samuel to watch some high school girl in a marching band competition. Her name was Jennifer something or other and she was from Canoctin (sp?)…
So our Junior years (cronologically, not necessarily in credit years ;), we move up to the UMBC apartments with Sam’s friend Ben and some dude Mike. So we had 3 Jewish dudes and the poor Catholic boy (me) living together. I never managed to eat mahtza (sp?) ball soup that year…
Now Wayward Sun is playing gigs and having a good time. I tag along when I can ( apparently taking Justin’s place, although I was the short, stocky groupie ). Ben, Sam & I live together the next year as well, replacing Mike with Jason Smith, one of the manliest men ever to walk the planet. Captain of the rugby team, Special Forces medic, going for his masters in Mechanical Eng, and quite the ladies man. You can ask Sam about the J/K’s snafu one day. (I want my two dollars!!!) Alas, J/Ks is no more…
Not to brag, but that year we pulled off the best on-campus party UMBC has ever seen. It was the first weekend in February, it was snowing, so we threw a beach party. Put Tide on the walls and hung black lights (Try it). Had a mixed drink bar and a frozen drink bar. Put a bowl of Coppertone in front of a fan to get the aroma correct. We had one of Jason’s rugby friends as a bouncer. He was 5’9″, 350+, and in nothing but a grass skirt. Jimmy, Bob, and the Beach Boys were on the stereo.
We had a line to get into our apartment. We made over $240 that night, and only got wrote up for a fire code violation. All I remember is Jason’s brother trying to pay for drinks with a Ski Liberty card.
So after that year, Sam graduated, but we stayed friends. I still claim that “Wrong Words” is by far the best WS song ever, for it’s simplicity. Plus, Ws would have made it big if they would have incorporated a rapper into the mix, but they were down with that 😉
I actually found Barnson.org googling Wayward Sun, and found some of the old music here.
That’s how I became part of the Barnson Bunch! My $.02 Weed
I’ve relaxed restrictions on avatars to accept 110×110 .jpg or .gif images. Uploaded a pic of Sam as a demo.
Go wild.
This space intentionally left blank.
I’ve relaxed restrictions on avatars to accept 110×110 .jpg or .gif images. Uploaded a pic of Sam as a demo.
Go wild.
This space intentionally left blank.
There is an irony to being an adult, firmly placed in the late twenties – early thirties category. On one hand, you can afford almost any toy you would have wanted as a kid (Playstation, DVDs, Home Theatres), you can go anywhere you please, and you can stay up as late as you want!!
The irony is that you don’t have time to play with your toys, you don’t have time to go anywhere at all, and you end up going to bed earlier than High School because you are desperate for sleep almost all the time..
Let me know, AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO FEELS LIKE THIS??
As you know, I have been particularly absent from our little gang of late. I now spend most of my time in my car, driving between home, work, school, and a play that opens on thursday. While at home, I spend my time scheduling my work days, doing homework, and studying lines… its awful!!
There is an irony to being an adult, firmly placed in the late twenties – early thirties category. On one hand, you can afford almost any toy you would have wanted as a kid (Playstation, DVDs, Home Theatres), you can go anywhere you please, and you can stay up as late as you want!!
The irony is that you don’t have time to play with your toys, you don’t have time to go anywhere at all, and you end up going to bed earlier than High School because you are desperate for sleep almost all the time..
Let me know, AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO FEELS LIKE THIS??
As you know, I have been particularly absent from our little gang of late. I now spend most of my time in my car, driving between home, work, school, and a play that opens on thursday. While at home, I spend my time scheduling my work days, doing homework, and studying lines… its awful!!
The irony is that I have just added a cool new Cable system and a Playstation 2 to my home theatre.. and I played about 30 minutes of a game that I really want to play more.. and every day i say I’m going to take some time to do it… but every day, I just sink into the couch at the end of the night with my wife, we watch a rerun of “Highlander” and go to sleep.
So, today, once again, I am planning to spend some time playin with my wonderful toys.. and once again, I have already booked the whole day up until 11 tonight.
Grr.. Why do wish our whole lives to be adults, only to become adults and wish we were Kids?
I finally uploaded The Floogie. Mucho thanks to Justin and Teresa for resurrecting this old dog, and sending me an mp3 of this first Wayward Sun tune.
You can also stream the song using this link. Requires WinAmp or (for UNIX-like platforms), XMMS, and a high-bandwidth connection, because the song’s encoded at 160kbits/sec (a little fast for some streaming connections).
I apologize for the bad chunks of the song… it was on a well-worn tape.
Oh, Justin also threw me an original demo of us singing the Wayward Sun Theme Song; you can stream Wayward Sun’s theme song.
I finally uploaded The Floogie. Mucho thanks to Justin and Teresa for resurrecting this old dog, and sending me an mp3 of this first Wayward Sun tune.
You can also stream the song using this link. Requires WinAmp or (for UNIX-like platforms), XMMS, and a high-bandwidth connection, because the song’s encoded at 160kbits/sec (a little fast for some streaming connections).
I apologize for the bad chunks of the song… it was on a well-worn tape.
Oh, Justin also threw me an original demo of us singing the Wayward Sun Theme Song; you can stream Wayward Sun’s theme song.
Here’s the story from KSL TV:
Doctors warned a woman to have a caesarian section to save her baby, she refused, the baby died, and now the mother is charged with murder. It’s a case that’s already making national headlines and sparking a heated debate over ethics, fairness and the right to life.
Here’s the story from KSL TV:
Doctors warned a woman to have a caesarian section to save her baby, she refused, the baby died, and now the mother is charged with murder. It’s a case that’s already making national headlines and sparking a heated debate over ethics, fairness and the right to life.
We’ve heard cases before where an expectant mother has been putting her fetus at risk by drinking, or using drugs, or other dangerous behavior. This one has a different twist– it wasn’t what she was doing, it was what she didn’t do.
In custody tonight, charged with murder, is 29-year old Melissa Ann Rowland. She was arrested nearly two months after the stillborn death of her child.
It’s a complicated story involving several local hospitals, doctors and nurses who continually advised that Rowland needed medical attention in order to save her baby’s life. The Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office says Rowland’s lack of action violates the law.
Kent Morgan, District Attorney’s Office: “…the conduct was that she omitted her duty to take care of her child and get affirmative treatment. That’s what makes this case so egregious.”
It started on Christmas Day at LDS hospital.
Rowland — carrying twins — told a nurse that she hadn’t felt them move. The nurse advised her to go to either Jordan Valley or Pioneer Valley Hospital. According to the charging documents, Rowland replied: “she’d rather have both her babies die before she’d go to those hospitals…”
January 2nd, she saw a doctor at LDS Hospital.
Kent Morgan, District Attorney’s Office: “She went and saw a doctor and he indicated that there were very severe medical problems at that time, and that she should immediately have a cesaerian section.”
According to the charges, the doctor told police: “She refused to have the c-section and left.” This despite being warned that lack of treatment could result in the death or severe injury of her babies.
A few blocks away she told a nurse at Salt Lake Regional Hospital that a doctor wanted to cut her “from breast bone to pubic bone”, and that would “ruin her life”. The nurse says Rowland made a comment to the effect that she’d rather “lose one of the babies than be cut like that.”
January 9th, Rowland went to Pioneer Valley Hospital to verify that her babies were still alive. Once again she left and refused treatment after warnings that her babies are in danger.
January 13th she went back to Pioneer Valley and delivered her twins. One was dead; the autopsy shows the boy had died two days earlier.
Kent Morgan, District Attorney’s Office: “There wasn’t a lack of resources. Any one of these hospitals could have taken care of the needs and saved this child.”
Rowland is charged with murder and bail is set at $250,000. We’re told that she has other children and is married. She’ll make her first court appearance in the next day or two.
I listened to “Family Values Talk Radio”, 570 KNRS on the way home. Bob Lonsberry, ultra-conservative, was hosting the show. His opinion? That she deserves the murder charge, and one to fifteen years in prison. The vast majority of callers agreed with his assessment, though several thought she was guilty of stupidity, and not murder.
Is failing to have a medical procedure a crime? Is choosing to give birth vaginally tantamount to murder? Are we now a community that incarcerates nursing mothers because they chose to disregard their doctor’s advice?
Some few callers into Lonsberry’s show attempted to turn this around to the abortion debate: we (society at large) have a (debatable, but) definite point at which we consider a baby to be viable human life. If I recall correctly, that point is somewhere around 27 weeks (correct me if I’m wrong). Could this be considered a late-term abortion on her part? What if she was not insured, and the cost of a C-section was prohibitive? Is lack of funds, and a desire to avoid bankruptcy, a defense for allowing an unborn fetus to die?
I’m not sure about all the rationales going on, but in my mind, one thing is certain: sending a mother to jail for up to fifteen years because one of her unborn twins was born stillborn is just plain stupid. It just serves no purpose. With that in mind, the murder charge itself appears ridiculous on the face of it — yet, one person, through her inaction, allowed another human being, albeit a small one, to die.
It got me thinking about the purpose of incarceration. What’s the reason we send someone to jail, anyway? Is it to “rehabilitate” them, in hopes of preventing them from making similar mistakes? Is it to punish them by depriving them of freedom for a while? Is it to protect society from their evil by preventing them from having the choice available to hurt other people?
Perhaps the time has come for us to make certain “unusual” punishments for unusual crimes. If she’s guilty of negligent homicide, incarcerating her in this circumstance seems to serve absolutely no purpose except to perpetrate the revenge of an outraged community.
What if, for reproductive stupidity, we (society) simply removed reproductive capacity? For men, a simple surgical procedure, and they are sterile (reversibly so). For women, an Intra-Uterine device prevents pregnancy for up to a decade, and is also surgically removable.
But then we’re back into state-mandated surgical procedures, which started this whole rant of mine. If successful, I wonder what kind of barrel of monkeys this prosecution will open up?
Realize I’m just kind of writing aloud at the moment; I haven’t fully decided what to think of this yet. But it’s definitely another “fuzzy gray area” of the law that will almost certainly have major consequences on the state of judicial legislation if allowed to proceed.
As a side note, did the police beat her up on the way in or something? She looks completely miserable in the photo.
Last aside, I promise: I feel for the people of Spain today. At least 192 dead and thousands injured in a terrorist attack on trains around Madrid. I’m appalled at news coverage, however: had this happened in the U.S., a disaster like this, with more wounded than the Oklahoma City bombing, would have massive coverage. Not a single talk radio station was even discussing it today, other than a brief blurb in the on-the-hour news from most stations. I guess it’s not a big deal because it’s in Europe or something. Grr.
Go to Starsky & Hutch 2004 reviewed. You know, when I read this review, I’m forcibly reminded that, sans a few details, this particular style of review could be the review for any of a number of action movies…
My favorite lines:
Go to Starsky & Hutch 2004 reviewed. You know, when I read this review, I’m forcibly reminded that, sans a few details, this particular style of review could be the review for any of a number of action movies…
My favorite lines:
“A man shoots at two police officers, they shoot back, and he races away in a car.” Hmm, sounds like Beverly Hills Cop. No, wait, no, umm, that one with Jackie Chan and Chris Farrell. Or, wait…
“Two men in a car race off the end of a pier hoping to land on a yacht but crash into the water.” FREAKING SPOILER!!! AUUUGGGHHH!!!
“Cheerleaders dance with suggestive moves, and they’re wearing tiny outfits that reveal cleavage, bare abdomens, bare thighs and parts of their bare buttocks as two men look on with interest.” Sounds like I’m back in high school. Oh, wait, I was the cheerleader.
So at my company of about 100 people, we implemented a new anti-SPAM email policy today. Basically, we created a whitelist of people allowed to email us. If you’re not on the whitelist, you get a notification directing you to a web page where you can add yourself to the whitelist.
The whitelist is working fine, but the president of our company got confused, received an email with a virus attachment, thought the attachment was another email message, and opened it.
Now my phone is ringing off the hook because everyone is getting emails with viruses attached to them. I go to the pres’ office, kill the virus process, run the removal tool, check everything out, and it’s all good.
So at my company of about 100 people, we implemented a new anti-SPAM email policy today. Basically, we created a whitelist of people allowed to email us. If you’re not on the whitelist, you get a notification directing you to a web page where you can add yourself to the whitelist.
The whitelist is working fine, but the president of our company got confused, received an email with a virus attachment, thought the attachment was another email message, and opened it.
Now my phone is ringing off the hook because everyone is getting emails with viruses attached to them. I go to the pres’ office, kill the virus process, run the removal tool, check everything out, and it’s all good.
My boss asks me why we don’t just strip out executable attachments in emails anyway. We tell him we were going to implement that with the whitelist, but he pulled us off before we could to work on a urgent-need project. He says, “Oh”
So then, I get an email from a guy at one of our remote offices stating that he received an email from another employee that has a .pif attachment, but he couldn’t get the attachment, so could I help him get the attachment? This is after I’ve sent a gazillion emails about how spammers can spoof the From: address, so you never know who it’s really from. And I’ve sent a gazillion and one emails about never opening .pif, .scr, .exe, .vbs., .com, etc files because they’re executables and can harm your system.
And you know what’s wierd…99% of the viruses out there are relatively harmless. They may clog up email, but they don’t do any real damage. You know how easy it would be to write a virus that really messes up a computer? Not hard at all. And that’s the scary thing…