Sake/rocks/leather

My arms are so sore that I can barely move - I just peeled a banana ouch ouch ouch. We went rock climbing at Mt. Diablo on Saturday, which was fun but was a big painful reminder that I am a weakling. The downer downside: even though I spent my day in strenuous effort, nothing counts for that workout challenge. The upside: it was gorgeous, and the company was good.

One thing about this climbing trip was that those in attendance were primarily Greenpeacers. One perky chick who works for the Rainforest Action Network was there too, and she had an interesting story. In August, she was on the roof of the Chinese consulate helping another protester on ropes hang a Free Tibet-type banner. The officials cut the ropes, then beat this girl with lead pipes until the cops showed up. Then she was arrested.

You know what happens when you hang out with activists? You start to realize your job is for sissies.

Anyway, it was a really fun day, protest horror stories aside. Here is Mike belaying someone in a Super Tough manner.

This weekend also involved ice cream and Zeitgeist and football. OH, and the Folsom Street Fair, which I was not really prepared for. There were a lot of assless chaps - fine. But there was also bondage and whipping and fellatio on the streets. Who knew? Everyone but me, I guess. But it was also a good old fashioned street fair in other ways, with beer and bands and a lot of happy people in costume. Plus I got a nice "tan" (read: mild burn that will be tan for two days then disappear completely). I will put some photos up when I get a chance - you just can't wait, can you? My mother requested that I not send her photos of old man penis. Check.

Oh also, Thursday night we went for sushi and sake and I was a MESS on Friday. I don't know if it was food poisoning or the spontaneous hangover from hell, but I was nauseated to the point that I contemplated knocking myself unconscious just to avoid the misery for a bit. I took a lot of photos that I don't remember taking, but most are done with my iPhone and just look creepy and blurry. Like this one:

Cheers!

FW: Prayer can move mountains, why not Obama?

The power of gbrennan@gmail strikes again - what a lucky lady I am! Below I present a long crazy OMG Muslims Are Taking Over Screed that was erroneously forwarded to me. I've bolded my favorite parts, and added occasional annotations. I particularly like how they manage to imply Obama is Muslim (or at least a Muslim-lover) at the same time that they reference his "anti-white" pastor. Also, the subject line is bizarre - they want prayer to move Obama? Where? It seems like they've pretty much written him off here; I don't think they're counting on him moving to the right anytime soon.

I would also like to note that this hate-a-thon came to me from Gae Brennan, whoever he or she is (and what an unfortunate name for a crazy Christian), with no explanatory note but a . Shudder.

I feel for the lady who wrote this. She is clearly upset, and has become an irrational fear-monger. I'd like to make her a cup of tea, point out she can pray all that she wants but that her God might like it better if she was a little more understanding of her fellow man, and then tell her she shouldn't associate with people who use emoticons.

Let the nutjobbery begin:

This came to me from a dear friend and prayer warrior in Arizona - not only is she a strong Christian, but she has been involved in presidential campaigns back as far as Ronald Regan (maybe even before then - that's how long I have known her) - this is not some "internet circulating" email [gbrennan@gmail begs to differ] - it is from Elizabeth's own heart and well worth our heeding as Christians.

From: ELIZABETH ROHN-NELSON

Subject: Prayer can move mountains, why not Obama?

Being dismayed recently when a family member of mine said to me with great resignation that Obama will take the presidency. These words came from someone who in the past has been a great prayer warrior.

What is happening was my question??? Why are we Christians settling and not issuing a battle cry and falling to our knees and taking our country back?

We allow ourselves to be stripped of the right to pray at school functions and in school, we have the 10 commandments removed from government places and are told we cannot pray in school, all the while providing public prayer places for Muslims. [Forgive me if I'm wrong, but people can pray anywhere the hell they want, correct? Cathy Christian is free to do her thing, and no one's making her face Mecca five times a day.] What in the world is going on and why are we being apathetic?

Why aren't we praying? Our God is a mighty God who is waiting patiently for us to raise our voices to heaven to stop the tide of the anti-Christ actions in our world today.  Now we find we have a charismatic candidate for president who does not respect our flag and refuses to wear one on his lapel except when it becomes politically expedient and whose own wife and pastor that he loves profess to have strong anti-white feelings, and we sit back and say "it is a given, we can do nothing." 

There has never been a time in 2000 years that we can do nothing, never a time that we must sit back and allow the evil in men's and women's hearts to take over our world. We should be very afraid because our apathy is leading us to perdition.

It is time for all Christian Americans to raise the battle cry and take our nation back. Maybe McCain on his own cannot defeat Obama, but our God can and He will if we take to our knees in prayer and raise a mighty cry to the heavens to "Save us O Lord." We have the power to change the course of this election and to keep a man as suspect as Barak Obama from leading our country to who knows where with his message of "change" - a change which I fear will be away from our Christian ideals and away from Christ and further away from one nation under God.

We are great at passing stories and pictures around the internet, but whereare our prayers and prayer warriors praying to stop this tide of Barak Obama? God parted the red sea, Jesus raised himself from the dead, and we can bring our country back to its Christian roots and stop the move to the rise of Muslims in our country. We can stop our country from being "under Allah," but we must begin to pray, to pray as if our country and our lives depended on it, because they do. We can stop all these atrocities against God's commands that have taken root in our country through something as simple as sincere prayer, a call to God to deliver us, to forgive us our sins of apathy and to protect us from the evil that is upon us.

Okay prayer warriors, here is your challenge, start those prayer chains. Get the spiritual power working on our behalf and stop Barak Obama the proper way, by calling on our God to save us from the deception that charismatic preaching is using to lead us on the wrong path. Stop those who would take God out of our country and our government. Raise up good men to lead us and protect us.

George Bush is being buffeted because he has fought a holy war against the evils that attack us and we should not be surprised because a prophet is not honored in his own country. [Holy crap there are people who think GW is a prophet! That is just precious.] But we should not rest on our laurels and allow ourselves to be taken further off the path of Christianity and to have God removed from our presence in our schools, courts, government and businesses. Invite God into the fray. Ask that His power rest upon us and give us the victory. Ask him to raise up a mighty army to defend us and to protect our country as he did in days of old. Let us be victorious beginning NOW. The battle is His but we must call on Him without ceasing and unite our voices and hearts in prayer and fasting.

Please pass this around to all people of prayer that you know and maybe, just maybe a more eloquent person of prayer will write something better and more inspiring and even the rocks will shout that Jesus is Lord and our Mighty God is with us, bringing the victory for us and ultimately for Him.

"Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." I Thess 5:16-18

....Continuous Prayer is the answer to this attack on the USA....

Please pray the Will of God will prevail through our continuous prayers to HIM...

Remember Prayer Can... [gratuitous ellipsis ahhh] Move Mountains

Survivor

So I am doing this Survivor Challenge thing at work. I have four weeks to complete the following activities, at my own pace. Note that the second number below represents what I have actually done. Please don't laugh yet; this thing only started on Monday. You'll have time to mock me later.

Run: 15 miles. Actual: 4 miles.

Cycle: 45 miles. A: 0.

Row: 15,000 meters. A: 1000.

Stair climb: 300 floors. A: 0 (I am not counting real-life stair climbing; it has to cause maximum misery, and therefore be in the context of Exercise).

Wall sit: 25 minutes. A: 2.5.

Front plank: 15 minutes. A:2.

Push ups: 500. A: 20.

Superman: 15 minutes. A: 1. If you don't know what the Superman is, here is a diagram. If you picture the figure shaking and sweating, you have a good sense of what it is like when I do it.

In any case, as much as I enjoy discussing my unachievable goals, I lay all this out as an introduction to this Onion article, which made me laugh so much that my poor overworked abs cramped. It is my favorite Point/Counterpoint ever.

A note on the text: it is indeed about Sarah Palin, and I know there is some Palin fatigue out there (I'm looking at you, Drespel). But this is worth it, I promise. It is juvenile and it is cruel and I love it.

Sloth and gluttony

Here is what I want to say about my weekend: it was pretty great, but I did nothing productive for my mind, body or spirit. I just drank a lot.

Friday we went to a free screening of "Battle in Seattle", which is an exciting protest movie, but terrible in all other regards. Important context: Mike got tickets through Greenpeace, which is one of several activist groups that the movie's promoters are courting. With three friends in tow, we went to a pre-party at the Westin, where many activists were chowing down on an unbelievable array of sushi, cheese, and fruit tartlets. It was like being at prom with all your high school's hacky sackers. Oh, and there was on open bar. Score!

What this meant for the movie itself was that it had to suffer the scrutiny of people who were at the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999, who have been teargassed, and who have managed to spend some time in jail without ever having a heartfelt reconciliation with the cop who beat the shit out of them. There was a lot of jeering and snickering and "yeah, right"-ing. One old guy very forcefully told the theater that pretty much any scene that had character interaction, particularly during incarceration, was "totally unbelievable". And not in a good way.

I came out of the theater all fired up, though, and ready to do something. The best and easiest idea was to donate to kiva.org. That almost turned into something productive, but I couldn't decide if I wanted to give to the cell phone lady in Africa or the jewelry lady in Honduras, and so have not donated anything yet. But I will.

Saturday we shopped on Haight Street, watched football and drank beer, and went to a party. It was really nice having Hilary here, even if she did have 8000 pounds of law books with her. On Sunday I watched more football. And yesterday, you guessed it, I watched even more football.

Now if my huge new HD TV only got reception, and I could watch this football in the comfort of my own home. To cable or not to cable, that is the question.

Or maybe it should be: how shallow is this post, and how much of a dilettante am I? Wait, don't answer that.

Ahhhhh Maureen Dowd I take back anything bad I ever said about you!

Because you had Aaron Sorkin write a conversation between Obama and Bartlet (my prez 4 eva)!

OMG

From the @Google team:

"The creators of ICanHasCheezburger.com will be giving a talk on campus. And while Googlers are known to be a dog-friendly bunch, we thought it'd be fun to show LOLcats from Googlers on the big screen during the talk. If you have any LOLcats you're willing to share, send them on over to [redacted, oh snap]@gmail.com!"

This is like getting to meet KNOTB in their prime and showing them your dance moves, or being 11 and telling Judy Blume about your bust-enhancement techniques.

OMG, I need a clever caption for a photo of Ezzie, stat.

How Canadians are like Cylons

I just spent 24 hours in Vancouver, and I have learned that Canadians are like Cylons. Why? Because they look like us now! You don't even have to do them and see if their spine glows red - you just have to figure out a way to get them to say "about". 

"Eh," by the way, is not as common as the Barenaked Ladies would have you believe.

There is something very eerie about being someplace that is similar to where you live, but only a little bit off, a tiny bit foreign. This didn't happen in Montreal or Toronto because of all the French, but Vancouver is like Bizarro America. I was walking down the street, feeling pretty comfortable with my woman-alone-on-a-business-trip self, until I saw an ATM that was not a BOA or a WaMu or even a California credit union. No, it was a Canadian ATM, and I did not like it one bit.

Other things I saw that at first appeared normal, but then proved themselves to be Canadian: a post office, clothing stores that looked like American Eagle but were actually Roots, my cell phone signal provider. Rogers Wireless, bah - you charged me $400 last time I used you. (Thank god for corporate cell phones.) I am used to foreign countries where people drive on the wrong side of the road, speak other languages or at least pronounce English in an unintelligible way, and never ever get anywhere on time. At least they are upfront about their foreignness, and I can adjust accordingly.

I know it is a cliche, but the weirdest thing about Vancouver was that everything was nice and orderly. They have all these glassy high rises that look like Restoration Hardwares stacked on top of one another. The taxis were Prii (Prius in the plural, right?), the streets were clean, and everyone was very friendly. (Except for the guy from Barcelona who followed me down the street asking me out, but if I'm going to run with stereotypes here, I'm just going to say he was a typically libidinous Spaniard.) There was the occasional homeless person, but I just looked at them dubiously, like, Sir, don't you have socialized healthcare? And isn't it prohibitively cold here in the winter? Do you have a Canadian accent? Because if you do, that would be weird to me.

Anyway, it went as smoothly as a quick trip like that can, and I didn't even embarrass myself during my speaking spot. I could actually see myself living in Vancouver - it has mountains and a densely populated downtown and lots of restaurants and bars - but it would take some time to get over being subtly thrown off my game.

I still think Canadians are like Cylons, though, except that they are probably not planning to wipe out human existence. But they could if they wanted to.

Weird-o-matic

I do not really know anything about Weirdomatic.com, but it apparently has a page with tons of creepy ads. I like these because advertisers work so hard to be convincing and manipulative, but then, 40 or 50 years later, their work just seems silly or offensive. Sometimes ads seem offensive at the time, too - remember the ad that ran during the Super Bowl, with the panda with the "Asian" accent? That was kind of comically offensive, but these are pretty much just comical.

I feel a lot of affection for this guy. I would be that proper if I were a carrot, too.

I am pretty grossed out by this one. I mean, yes. Obviously.

And I do not even know what to say about this one. In case you cannot see it well, it is suggesting that your husband will feel more fulfilled if you flush out your lady parts WITH LYSOL.

There are also people made out of PBR ribbons, lots of drug-your-children-and-senile-parents ads, and my favorite, The Creepiest Girl in the World.

 I think she is not craving jelly on bread, but rather human flesh.

Little Teeth

I have a favorite San Francisco band of which my boyfriend is not a member, and that band is Little Teeth. They had a CD launch party last Sunday, and it was sublime. If you like shrieking, drums and banjos, and singers who strap percussion instruments to their legs and stomp around, you should really look at their MySpace page. They are about to go on tour, and it would be well worth your while to attend their show if you live in Portland, Boston, New York, or one of the other places they are playing.

I'm looking at you, Ms. Snowdon. PA's Lounge!

Little Teeth sound like muppets on hard drugs let loose in a music store. And that is why I love them.

Hihihi

The one and only Hilary Jaffe is in town this weekend! If you would like to see her face, let me know, because we will be out and about.

First stop: free tickets to "Battle in Seattle" tonight. And open bar!

Mr. Bernanke is making history.

I mean, duh. But who knew, when he was our superintendent and neighbor, that he'd be spearheading some of the most drastic governmental financial interventions in U.S. history? There's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being nationalized, there's Lehman Brothers with their record-setting bankruptcy filing, and there's the AIG loan.

From the (you guessed it) NYT:

"The Fed has the option to purchase up to 80 percent of the shares of A.I.G., is replacing A.I.G.’s management, and is nearly wiping out A.I.G.’s existing shareholders. A.I.G. is to be wound down by selling its assets over the next two years...The Fed has never asserted its authority to intervene on this scale, in this form, or in a firm so far removed from its own supervisory authority."

Way to go, Ben!

Or, in ten years, pick the correct final sentence:

A) Way to go, Ben! (genuine)

B) Way to go, Ben! (sarcastic)

An article not by Gail Collins!

I understand if you don't want to read an article that both starts and ends with Coldplay quotes, but there is one interesting nugget in this NYT piece by Roger Cohen: a call to support a bank that aims "to use public and private capital to give coherence to a vast program of public works". 

Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky? If we're going to resurrect the W.P.A., shouldn't it be to support renewable energy research? Infrastructure + jobs + the industry of the future = happy Estadounidenses.

And despite the fact that I know it's a copout: if you want us to go into public service, Real Grownups, how about you stop saddling us with terrifying amounts of college loans? Debt isn't really a great motivator to dedicate one's life to low-paying but good-feeling jobs.

Couldn't help myself.

Search showdown

Maybe other people knew about it, but a Canadian book marketer had to tell me about Google Insights for Search, which shows (and compares) search volume for any terms you set.

I just settled the bear vs shark debate. Bear totally won.

If I weren't so tall, it wouldn't be a big deal.

I just thought I'd lost my glasses, but they were nestled in the bottom of my jacket pocket. I am less concerned about my forgetfulness than that my head is the width of my pocket.

I knew my head was tiny, but that is just ridiculous.

Me in a nutshell

I am a Meyers-Briggs ENTP, apparently. Now I get to spend the rest of the day finding out what that means. My 15 coworkers are already arguing over which personality type is coolest.