Gayest. Crime Story. Ever.
HW ‘s Book Reviews: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The Moreno Valley: Junkyard of OC Dreams
The Moreno Valley is now the poster child for American housing gone wrong, and the New York Times weighed in with one of their stock magisterial pieces, the kinds that read purty but don’t say jack shit about reality. The Orange County connection is that two of the homeowners profiled in the piece moved to the MV because they couldn’t afford apartments in OC, which should clue the rest of the nation into how stupid they were to buy into Moreno Valley. Reporter Jennifer Steinhauer doesn’t note that even people in Colton ridicule Moreno Valley residents for living there. It’s not an area “filled with people priced out of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, or looking to escape louder, less-safe cities,” as the Times notes; it’s a place for fools who weren’t smart enough to buy a house in Calimesa. Shit, even Beaumont is better than Moreno Valley, and Beamount is sketchy.
[The New York Times piece is here.]
Twitter: 2009-08-23
- @ReporterHaley Love the food at Lucille's. And they make a very good mint julep… in reply to ReporterHaley #
- RT @capricecrane: I was trying to make exercising fun but apparently after a certain age its no longer "appropriate" to play Ding Dong Ditch #
The Death of Ivan Ilych
It occurred to him that what had seemed perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending. There was nothing to defend.
“But if that is so,” he said to himself, “and I am leaving this life with the consciousness that I have lost all that was given me and it is impossible to rectify it — what then?”
Magic Johnson at USC Scrimmage
White House Adds $2 Trillion to Deficit Forecasts
The nation would be forced to borrow more than $9 trillion over the next decade under President Obama’s policies, the White House acknowledged late Friday, bringing their long-term budget forecast in line with independent estimates.
The new projections add approximately $2 trillion to budget deficits through 2019. Earlier this year, the administration had predicted that Obama’s policies would require the government to spend $7.108 trillion more than it collects in tax revenue over the next decade.
An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the report will not be formally released until Tuesday, said the change is due primarily to updated projections of economic growth that are far less rosy than data used when the White House released its first long-term budget outlook in February.
I think I’d be way more upset about this if the numbers weren’t beyond human comprehension . . .
Famous Quotes Revisited
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase. — Martin Luther King Jr.
The staircase?! That doesn’t make sense. Why can’t I see the staircase? Am I drunk?
HW ‘s Presentation Tips: Get to the Fucking Point
Here’s a simple presentation tip that would help a lot of people: Get to the fucking point.
At a meeting this morning, the company sick time policy was explained to 100 people over the course of 30 minutes time via two PowerPoint presentations by two different people.
I’ll summarize it here:
If you’re well enough to work, you should come to work. If not, stay home. BUT — if you stay home too much, it may negatively affect your annual performance review.
That’s the policy. Let’s open it up for questions.
Don’t take 15 minutes to say something you can say in 15 seconds. Don’t feel like you have to include a historical introduction to the topic, charts, graphs, trends, industry comparisons.
Other people are not in love with the sound of your voice the way you are . . .
Reduce Your Worries
Pug Photos on Flickr
Originally uploaded by Kerbear…NYC bound…..
Originally uploaded by Madness Rivera
Originally uploaded by wombatarama
Originally uploaded by geraldbrazell
Still want more? Here’s a bonus set.
Twitter: 2009-08-21
- Want to buy a customized Michael Vick Eagles jersey for your dog? http://tinyurl.com/la3o36 #
- Obama: "We are God's partners in matters of life and death." Good mission statement for the death panels! #
- RT @diablocody: Obsolete memory: pushing card catalog drawers in and out at the library. Also, the tangy smell of the old cards. #
We Apologize to Jackasses for the Unintended Insult
TV listings: The Prime-Time TV grid in Thursday’s Calendar section mistakenly listed MTV’s “Jackass” show on the MSNBC cable schedule at 7 and 10 p.m. where instead MSNBC’s “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” should have been listed.
Twitter: 2009-08-20
- Orange County Superior Court case search — more addictive than crack! http://tinyurl.com/ypkfqn #
Twitter: 2009-08-20
- Orange County Superior Court case search — more addictive than crack! http://tinyurl.com/ypkfqn #
There Are Good Places to Hike Right Here in America
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Iran confirmed Tuesday the arrest of three American hikers who crossed into the country from neighboring Iraq and said they have been charged with “illegal entry,” a semi-official news agency reported.
When you hear about people doing something pointless and stupid — and not just pointless and stupid but elaborately pointless and stupid — like traveling halfway around the world to take a frigging hike along the border of a totalitarian regime that hates Americans, don’t you secretly hope that something bad will happen to them?
So do I . . .
Twitter: 2009-08-18
An Obstacle Course
Pretend that your project is an obstacle course and you want to get the biggest obstacles over with in the beginning. Here are some strategies for being on time or early:
- You want to know what all the obstacles are as soon as possible.
- You want to deal with the biggest, hardest obstacles first.
- You want to complete every obstacle as soon as possible, rather than “on schedule.”
- If you can go around an obstacle or skip it, do that.
- Your team has to stay on the same course. You don’t want part of your team on a different course.
- Getting your team aligned about the blocks and how to deal with them using the entire team IQ is much more efficient than “working hard” or pounding away at the problem. Look for the big ideas.
- Make sure team members aren’t going over obstacles that don’t exist.
- What’s the biggest obstacle? Get that done. What’s the next biggest? Get that done. Repeat.
Twitter: 2009-08-17
Family Happiness
I was reading a Tolstoy story called “Family Happiness” in bed last night. It was close to midnight when I finished it.
“Good story,” I announced to my wife, although she was 90 percent asleep by that time.
Without opening her eyes, she asked, “What was it about?”
“A man and a woman fall in love and get married. They’re very happy for a while but then the marriage starts to come apart.”
“Because the husband spends too much time on Facebook?” she asked.
“No, they didn’t have Facebook in 1860. What I didn’t see coming though is that the story turns out to have a happy ending after all.”
“Perfect,” she said. “What did you learn from it?”
“The past is gone, but you can still find a new life and a different kind of happiness.”
“With the same wife?”
“Yes.”
“Perfect,” she said.
Twitter: 2009-08-16
- There's always plenty of time, right up until there's no more time… #