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Legal Aid Dispatch
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Mar. 20th, 2007 @ 06:36 pm
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Complaints from Legal Aid: I have been working at Legal Aid these last few weeks on their free income tax program for low and moderate income workers. Working for a nonprofit is, I'm sure, every Santa Cruz kids' ideal job, but I fell into it. It's not a difficult job, but it can be exhausting when the you're trying to help those who just do not want to cooperate. In particular, I've been stressed at work because we've been getting an steadily increasing load of crazies. I'm not being hyperbolic; unstable people need tax assistance too. This is in addition to the fact many of the people who are sound of mind are rude and ungrateful--who has the gall the complain about a free service anyway? I should say that most people are grateful, but, like always, they aren't the people that you're muttering under your breath about as you drive home at the end of the day.
At least when you finish with the less-sound-of-mind I feel a sense of relief. The ungrateful clients just leave me bitter. I'm sure this isn't out of line with anyone who has to deal with customer relations.
So I'll steal ghoulinita's meme to make myself feel better.
Ten musical artists you like, in no particular order. Do this before you read the rest of the meme.
1. Sleater-Kinney
2. Liz Phair
3. PJ Harvey
4. The Clash
5. Radiohead
6. Bjork
7. Patti Smith
8. Aimee Mann
9. Bob Dylan
10. Sonic Youth
( sadly, my musical taste is mostly post-80s. I need to expand on that )
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Patti Smith loves the kids
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Feb. 19th, 2007 @ 10:29 am
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Patti Smith seems to have weird relationships with the kids. There was this bit from Lollapolooza, but the amateur archivists populating YouTube have dug up an old interview she did in the mid-80s for "Kids Are People Too", some precursor to Nickelodeon I'm sure. It's beyond surreal, with the kids asking her questions like "what did you want to be when you grew up?" Her response: "First I wanted be a missionary...then I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I always wanted to be something special." She even sings "You Light Up My Life" for the kids.
It's strange to think that kids that age would have ever been that excited about Smith. But the kids are doing alright.
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Conservatives Prove Adept at Torture
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Feb. 19th, 2007 @ 09:58 am
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Fox News is going to be running The 1/2 Hour News Hour soon, a Daily Show for anyone nostalgic for the Confederacy. Some clips of the show have been posted on YouTube, and at first I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping for some frothing-at-the-mouth idiocy. Instead, I get this flaccid "comedy." We all know that conservatives aren't the sharpest satirists, but even when they hit on a good idea for a joke, they botch it. Case in point: 99.9% is just not a funny polling number.
But how I underestimated Fox! As this clip shows, they're going to be packing in the crazies. I can't wait!
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Cheese is Made From Milk
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Dec. 31st, 2006 @ 03:06 pm
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I'm two months late to the party, but I'll do my part to spread this bit of viral campaigning: here's David Lynch doing a for your consideration promotion for Laura Dern's performance in Inland Empire on the corner of La Brea and Hollywood Blvd. With a cow.
The man is profoundly weird. I desperately need to see Inland Empire.
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2006: The Essentials
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Dec. 31st, 2006 @ 12:29 pm
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I'm hesitant to make top ten lists this year, partially because I lost my film log in the great laptop fires, so I have no way of accounting for the films I've seen beyond my memory. Additionally, I just didn't get the theaters as much this year as in years past. I'll invoke similar excuses for the anemic music and games list. So consider these lists tentative and subject to revision. My top ten lists are in alphabetical order and take "ten" as a suggestion rather than a rule. Comments will come later, if I feel like it.
( The Essentials )
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| » I Love Top Ten Lists. |
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How's this for a year-end top ten list: Top ten civil liberties violations committed by the United States? I picked this up at Slate, and it's uniformly depressing. This year's honored entries include Guantanamo Bay ("the worst public relations fiasco since the Japanese internment camps"), NSA wiretapping, and extraordinary rendition (shipping suspects overseas for interrogation/torture.)
Most striking, however, was José Padilla's entry at number three. It seems that he "was either outright tortured or near-tortured," including "sensory and sleep deprivation, extreme cold, stress positions, threats of execution, and drugging with truth serum." Subsequently, he may not have the mentally competence to stand trial. This is just as well for the Bush administration, which is supporting Padilla's "motion for a mental competency assessment, in hopes that [it] will help prevent his torture claims from ever coming to trial, or, as Yale Law School's inimitable Jack Balkin put it: 'You can't believe Padilla when he says we tortured him because he's crazy from all the things we did to him.'"
Enjoy!
Dec. 31st, 2006 @ 10:16 am
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| » I lied |
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This will probably be the last post of the year. Or maybe I'm uncharacteristically ambitious tonight. Of the two I'd bet on me being a liar. Ambition hasn't been an appropriate adjective for a while, especially these last two weeks. Any task requiring effort is put on the backburner, and as a result I've gotten nothing done that I've wanted to do. Not that anything I wanted but didn't do is of consequence -- most of it is just cleaning and writing -- but I'm perturbed by my general listlessness. I should be thankful: I won't have the luxury of being able to be listless and lazy soon, which I suppose makes my complaints moot.
Unrelated: Go watch my blog's new namesake.
Dec. 30th, 2006 @ 10:12 pm
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| » "Set and Forget" is now under new management |
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This will be the last post of the 2006, unless I get unusually ambitious tomorrow. I've been screwing around with this blog's color scheme and title. I've never been good with color schemes; while I don't fancy myself the creator of Myspace-esque catastrophes, I think that this blog looks flat. But I guess as far as blog color schemes go it's better to look boring than offensive to the senses.
Dec. 30th, 2006 @ 09:23 pm
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| » The Wii can do amazing things |
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I snagged this off of Kotaku, and it's a video of the dance mini-game in Wario Ware. From the post:My desire for Wario Ware Smooth Moves is like flame with the intensity of a million suns burning deep within my heart. This particular mini-game, which smacks wonderfully of both Space Channel 5 and Rhythm Tengoku, just adds more fuel to that raging video game lust. Yes, you must not only smack your ass in time with the beat, but you must also perform the intermediary dance moves or face scorn from your dance squad. I truly feel great pity for anyone who does not have the balls to play this game. Here's the link to what may possibly be the best thing ever to grace a video screen.
Dec. 16th, 2006 @ 01:15 am
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| » I think this is newsworthy |
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I kinda, sorta, possibly graduated. Imagine that.
Dec. 12th, 2006 @ 09:53 pm
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| » Welcome to Nancy's House |
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The House flipped, the Senate looks more than likely to flip, and Rumsfeld is gone. Today is looking quite bright.
Nov. 8th, 2006 @ 11:18 am
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| » Nasty, Wasty Scum |
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Seeing how retail stores are moving the Christmas season earlier and earlier each year -- I swear to God I saw some Holiday commercials mid-October -- I'd thought I'd comply with our corporate masters and show appropriate holiday cheer.
Actually, it's just an excuse to link to Aimee Mann's cover of "Mr. Grinch." I just like her singing "You're a nasty, wasty scum." She almost sounds like she is enjoying herself.
She's putting out a whole Christmas album, which is beyond perverse. She must be playing an elaborate joke that I can't wrap my head around. It's a season that doesn't suit her. Guy Fawkes Day would be better, perhaps. Not Christmas.
Nov. 2nd, 2006 @ 09:53 pm
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| » Meet Me Here On IRC |
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Someone finally went around and wrote the song of my dreams. Or maybe it was of my nightmares. I really don't remember. Either way, the song may destroy your pancreas.
Oct. 22nd, 2006 @ 12:33 am
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| » Hasta La Vista, Baby |
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Remember this? Well, it's part of a series, teaching you how to deal with all manners of unpleasent situations while toning your body. This one is apparently a how-to for dumping your boyfriend as well as a great upper-body workout.
Oct. 13th, 2006 @ 03:14 pm
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| » Did you expect anything more from her? |
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Oh Ann, don't ever change.
Oct. 5th, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
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| » Real Life Katamari Damacy |
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Travelers Life Insurance has put out this ad which pays homage everyone's favorite ball of junk. They deny that Katamari Damancy had anything to do with the ad, but it's a stretch of the imagination to think that everyone at Fallon, the ad agency that produced the ads, was unaware of the KD-phenomenon or the ad's uncanny similarity to the game. Plus, someone at the ad team surely knew that anything Katamari-related would get an extraordinary amount of internet-play. It's a canny bit of viral marketing, really.
Sep. 29th, 2006 @ 11:28 am
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| » GPS gaming |
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It's friday morning, I'm wide awake and I'm skipping class. In the meantime, take a look at this little ditty from Joystiq about Crossroads, a GPS-game-mobile phone concoction. Crossroads is a simple Risk-type domination game where you race to capture more intersections in New York City than your opponents. There is a bit more to Crossroads, which also includes something about a territory-flipping voodoo spirit, and the whole things sounds like a variation of a 1980s arcade game, except expanded to twelve city blocks. The game is part of the Good Life exhibition, an exihibition about public spaces and recreation. It sounds pretty awesome, and it reminds me of CollecTic , a puzzle game where you walk around town collecting WiFi accesspoint, from a couple months back. Is geographical gaming the wave of the future?
Sep. 29th, 2006 @ 10:30 am
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| » Planet Xena no more |
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With all the ink spilt about Pluto's demotion, this bit of planetary news might've been lost: 2003 UB313, or Planet Xena, has a name. Now called Eris, after the goddess of strife. Its moon also has a new moniker too: Dysnomia, who happens to be the goddess of lawlessness and the daughter of Eris. Yes, virginia, that is a pop reference you got in front of you.
Sep. 14th, 2006 @ 11:01 am
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| » Completely atomized. |
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You should click here if you want to watch a plane slam into a concrete wall at 500 MPH. It's all kinds of awesome. Added bonus: you can use this footage whenever some idiot shows you one of those stupid YTMND 9/11 conspiracy flash animations.
Sep. 3rd, 2006 @ 04:03 pm
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| » A Foul Mood |
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Moreso than outright conflict, it's the passive-aggressive comments that rile me the most. The way that these completely left-field jabs at my character are framed to end any further discussion and allow no course for redress leaves me far more resentful than any spat possibly could.
I'm well aware of my failures of character, thank you. I don't need anyone taking it upon themselves to remind me.
Sep. 3rd, 2006 @ 02:22 am
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