From my friend Wm:

One can only wonder what manner of holy terror is being rained down on
anyone stupid enough to be publicly critical of our current
administration, to make them backpedal so quickly and violently:

1. Congressman NICK SMITH (R-MC):

BEFORE - November 24, 2003
"Members [of Congress] and groups made offers of extensive financial
campaign support and endorsements for my son, Brad, who is running for
my seat. They also made threats of working against Brad if I voted no
[on Bush's Prescription Drug plan]."
http://www.ourfuture.org/issues_and_campaigns/medicare/
apsmith11_24_03.cfm

AFTER - December 4, 2003
"I want to make clear that no member of Congress made an offer of
financial assistance for my son's campaign in exchange for my vote on
the Medicare bill. I was told that my vote could result in interested
groups giving substantial and aggressive campaign 'support' and
'endorsements.' No specific reference was made to money."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?
pagename=article&node=&contentId=A37128-2003Dec4&notFound=true

2. Former Faith-Based and Community Initiatives director JOHN DiIULIO:

BEFORE - October 24, 2002
"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on
in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is
everything - and I mean everything - being run by the political arm.
It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?
res=F50913FB355C0C718CDDAB0994DA404482

AFTER - December 17, 2002
"My criticisms were groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words
and examples. I sincerely apologize and I am deeply remorseful. I will
not be offering any further comment, or speaking or writing further on
any aspect of my limited and unrepresentative White House experience or
any matters or persons related thereto. I regret any and all
misimpressions."
http://www.davidcogswell.com/Political/DilulioAffair.html

3. Former Treasury Secretary PAUL O'NEILL:

BEFORE - January 8, 2004
"When you have people with a strong ideological position and you only
hear from one side, you can pretty much predict the outcome. ... The
only way I can describe it is that, well, the president is like a blind
man in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discernible connection."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/12/timep.oneill.tm/

AFTER - January 12, 2004
"It was not my intention to be personally critical of the president or
anybody else. If I could take it back, I would take it back."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1122654,00.html

As of yesterday, the Bush administration still hadn't found the source of the White House leak that outed a woman as a CIA operative.

To recap, here are the things President Bush can't find:

• The source of the leak,
• weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,
• Saddam Hussein,
• Osama bin Laden,
• the link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden
• the guy who sent the anthrax through the mail,
• and his butt with two hands and a flash light.

--Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update

Neil Gaiman is in town and I missed his reading last night. Today he's at the university bookstore, tomorrow at the SF bookstore. I saw him in 2000, also in the stockholm SF bookstore, and there was no opportunity to chat, I imagine it would be the same.

Too bad, I'd love to speak to the guy.

We stayed home this evening and watched movies. Tomorrow I'll go to the SF bookstore, see Gaiman, then head over to Henrik's.

Sleep: 10 hours
Food: 1 small meal, 1 extra large, 1 snack.
Exercise: 1 km walk

Today is a big day:

Got another birthday DVD (from last week when we bought it, but it was still a surprise: Seven Samurai by Kurosawa. Daijobuyo!)

But that's not why it's a big day. Today I'm heading over to Henrik's to jam! this means I'll be practising chord voicings all day so I don't react too slow to play. I'll also be cooking up a spaghetti sauce since I've agreed to make dinner for the band.

Also, Thomas and I will be talking about possible teaching jobs at his school.

So I better get going.

--

Okay I'm back. It's 1:30 am. Oskar drove me back. Nice guy. I did better than I'd thought.

Jammin was fun. I didn't really expect to be at the center, but I was.

It was better when Henrik played keyboards.

Oskar told me about his change in lifestyle -- he spent August slowing down and doing less. I think I've spent August, September and October doing that.

Bedtime.

Sleep: 1:15 to 12pm, 10.75 hours
Food: Two meals, 2 small snacks, one large snack.
Exercise: walk/scooter 2 km.

Well, let's see how long Slashdot will pay for me to keep a personal journal on their permanent servers.

Today we picked out my birthday presents for my upcoming birthday, and I got them early -- a book on Jazz Piano (excellent), a standards fake book (great), and a DVD (the Whole Nine Yards) from the bargain bin. I spent an hour or two learning chord progressions and voicings. I'm hoping I can really start to comp from chords again, it's been so long I am really slow now.

Also went to Musslan (a slick seafood place) for dinner with some ex-goyada folks. Good to see them, caught up on gossip. Didn't eat, since the food was not my favorite and was double the price I wanted to pay.

Tried to play "Take Five" with and without the CD. I am too slow to play with the CD, even with the chords in front of me. That's a definite loss since 10 years ago, let's track and see how it improves.

P.S. R.B. aka geekgirl is fascinating. Just met her yesterday online.

It's 1:25 am and I'm just now getting tired. Bedtime.

Programming in C is like renting a car and being told you have to install the brakes yourself before you can drive it.

If you ask why you can't have the brakes pre-installed, they'll tell you that you can't really trust anyone but yourself with important things like brakes...

Of course, you know that all the other guys on the road had to install their own brakes too!

In C++ they give you a power torque wrench to install the brakes, but otherwise it's the same.

Professional C programmers get so good with a lug wrench that they forget that they've spent more time fixing brakes than actually driving where they want to go!

In Java the brakes come in simple installable modules that are hard to f*ck up.

But so do all the other parts of the car! And most of the parts, like headlights and windshields, come as optional add-on modules.

And so does the road! In fact, before you can drive a Java car, you need to go get a Java Virtual Road to drive it on. You can drive anywhere, but the transmission won't go above first gear.

Java engineers compensate for this by buying REALLY REALLY big engines and then pointing out that even in first gear, they can go as fast as a C car.