WOO HOO!!

The Coen brothers' fictional Soggy Bottom Boys won a Grammy! And O Brother Where Art Thou? won even more than that! Best album! And They Might Be Giants won for "Best Song Written For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media" for Boss of Me!

So, I've been thinking of opinions I might have that make me seem at least a little bit less girly. I was watching TV tonight, and I think I struck gold. I was watching NBC's excellent Wednesday night programming, and out of nowhere comes this "feminine product" commercial, talking about leaks. Eww. I don't need to see that. If you're going to put that on TV, you should put it on Lifetime, because I don't watch that channel. Because it's for girls. The channel. And the commercial. And me: for girls, not girly.

I have come to an incredible realization. I need to find me a nice, kawaii, little Japanese girlfriend that is absolutely otaku over me. Like one of them J-Pop girls that wear all pink plastic clothing and two-foot tall platform shoes, and use twelve different bright colors at once in their makeup and hair dye. Su-su-SUGOI!! Only then will I find true happiness.

So, I'm looking through The Associated Press's "The Wire" news headlines, when I come across "Report: Actors, Agents Make Deal." And I ask myself, "Hey, Dave, doesn't that exact same thing happen like a thousand times a day?" And I reply, "Why yes, Dave, it does. Interesting that it should be a top headline. Maybe we should check it out." And so we did.

You know, I'm really starting to get annoyed with those quiz things that say what kind of something you are. Like which Muppet you are, or which animal you are, or how addicted to AIM you are, or which old school video game you are, etc. What makes it worse is that the people who take these things put the results on their websites and encourage others to take the quiz, thus validating them and increasing their spread. Please stop. I don't want to know what some bad computer algorithm thinks the kind of life I lead is. I have my own bad algorithm for that: my brain.

Maybe I'm just pissed that the Muppet one said I was the Swedish Chef. It's a lying bastard.

Hooray! My face is on the Internet in a semi-live fashion! I am like some kind of celebrity, for a website to agree to do something like this. Think about it. Would some important website like SomePoems.com want just anyone live on their site? No, they want people like me, with super-high coolness factors and beautiful faces and A-list celebrity values. I am so damn A-list now. The only thing left to secure my place is to call up Gwyneth Paltrow next week, and get her to be my girlfriend for about six months to a year. With my fame exploding like it is now, this should be no problem at all.

Winter Olympics: A Cold War?

If I didn't know better (and maybe I don't), I'd say that the Cold War was still going strong. That's right, those kooky Russians are at it again, but instead of threats of nuclear destruction, we get the threat of them pulling out of the Olympics. At first, I could see the point of some of their grievances, but their latest foolishness is just beyond me. But, in the spirit of objective judging, I think we should consider their points one by one.

1) The pairs figure skating. There was uproar when people found out the Canadians had lost, after putting in a universally-accepted better program than the Russians. The recourse was to give the Canadians the gold, while permitting the Russians to keep their gold. Seems fair enough to everybody.

2) Hockey judging. The Russians cite poor officiating in their quarterfinal game against the Czech Republic. A game that the Russians won 1-0. A game in which the Russians have still yet to produce a specific bad call by a ref. Bad calls happen. In this case, maybe imaginary bad calls happen too. They won the game, and they should get over it.

3) The 20-kilometer cross-country relay. Nine-time Olympic medalist Larissa Lazutina was disqualified for having high hemoglobin counts, indicative of doping. This knocked the Russians out of that competition, one they were favored to win. They are now doing urine tests on Lazutina, to see if she was indeed doped. If a mistake has been made, the race should obviously be run again.

4) Sarah Hughes and Irina Slutskaya. Sarah Hughes was amazing. No one expected her to win. No one wanted her to win. Not even the Americans. We love Michelle Kwan, as should be evident by now. Kwan and Slutskaya both screwed up and lost it for themselves. No one protested over Hughes's win. She obviously won. She was perfect. But now the Russians say that Slutskaya should get gold too. Why? Not because anyone thinks she was better. No, they say that she should get a medal because of the subjective nature of judging. This is a pathetic attempt for the Russians to cite more grievances, and make good on their promise to leave. Anyone can see that this is a childish ploy of a desperate nation.

The Russian parliament lower house passed a resolution 417-0 that their Olympic athletes should boycott the games unless the following actions were taken by the Olympic Committee: running the cross-country skiing over again, not permitting North American officials in hockey games involving the Russian team, and making a formal apology to the entire Russian team. So far, I have seen less that the Olympics should apologize over than the Russians need to. North American refs from the NHL have the most experience being impartial, and are thus going to be the most impartial with the NHL players that make up the Olympic teams. The cross-country should be redone, but only if fault is discovered.

The Russians believe that, since they have been the Winter Olympics powerhouse, two things are true. The first is that the Olympics are indebted to the historically powerful Russian team. That without them, the Olympics would be a travesty. And they would probably be right, though this gives them no excuse to pose such threats. The other thing is that, since the Russians are such a wonderful, perfect team, the only reason they suck this year is because of American-biased judging. They are grossly mistaken on this point. Not only are the Americans beating the Russians this year, but so are the Germans, the Norwegians, and the Austrians. There is a boost in American rankings, sure, but attribute this to the same thing that won France the World Cup when they hosted it. It’s called home-field advantage. You get such an endorphin boost when you know that thousands of screaming fans out there are all rooting for you. You get flustered when those same fans are all cheering against you.

You know what, Russia? Pull out or stay in, but shut up. This is the worst kind of blackmail, from a sore-losing country. Attempting to judge certain events is obviously flawed from the start, but you signed up. In the spirit of fairness, then, maybe the Russians should try playing fair.

It turns out that I have whiny friends. Now watch as I whine over my whiny friends. There are the friends with no computer skills with resolutions too low to see my site properly. There are my friends with super nerdy computer addictions with resolutions so high that my site appears to be the size of a postage stamp. Then, there are my friends who use Netscape 4.x. :::shudders::: And there are my friends who just like to complain that my site isn't how they want a site to be.

I can't really do so much about the latter type of friends. They should make their own sites. And Netscape friends should either upgrade to version 6 or switch to IE. Sorry folks, but the browser war is over. Microsoft won. It sucks, but it happened. Not only that, but they support better technology. You three people out there still using Navigator 4 are not going to change the world. It's ok. We believe that you stick by your ideals by now. Now switch, dammit.

I guess that the other people need to be dealt with, though, because it probably indicates a greater trend of millions of people out there, people who either know too little or too much about the web to be enjoying themselves when visiting the glory that is my page. So, putting aside my artistic qualms with the issue, I have started working on resolution-specific versions of my page. Hopefully, all of this will be done sometime in March. Maybe before spring break, when I go with these same friends to Disney World, where you know they will not be complaining that Mickey's head is too big or Cinderella's castle is too small.

So, I made a new page. And I moved to a new server. And everything's Archie. :) And I want to thank the people who critiqued the new site before it launched. Thank you.

So, I'm getting very excited over those Olympics recently, what with the speed skating and the skeleton and the hockey. Though I do have a special place in my heart for the luge. When I was younger, my mom was always pressuring me to "find my sport," as if everyone has an innate ability in at least one internationally-recognized athletic event. When I went on a teen tour in the summer between tenth and eleventh grade, we stopped in Calgary. We went to the Olympic park still standing from 1988, I think (let it go already), and everyone got to ride the luge. And I beat every last one of those other teen tour kids. Plus, I was tenth on the mountain out of about 100 total that day. So when I got back, I told my mom I did indeed have a sport. And if she wanted to fund my expenses, I would take up luge. And she never bothered me about it again. The End.

Coke Commercial:

Crowd (with dozens of roses): Jacqueline! Jacqueline!
She skates up.
Jacqueline (to boy with Cokes): Bonjour.
Boy: Congratulations. (offers Coke)
Jacqueline: Merci. (drinks Coke) Congratulations to you, too.
Boy: What did I win?
Jacqueline: Mon coeur. (sub: My heart.) (skates off)
Boy (to crowd): Does anyone know what "mon coeur" means? Did she just ask me out?

Zut, I've got some Cokes! Where are les coeurs of the beautiful French skaters?? Or any coeurs for that matter?? Merde!

Last Saturday, I went over to the Olympics website, just to check out schedules and stuff. But I found out that there are actually tickets still available, and one can purchase these tickets right on the site. So, I decided to reserve some tickets. In fact, I reserved $7,020 worth of men's hockey tickets, 12 for a quarterfinal game this Wednesday, and 12 for the bronze medal game this Saturday. Nevermind that I don't have that kind of money. Nevermind that I have no way of getting to Salt Lake City. Last Saturday, for the 15 minutes that the ticketing computer holds unpaid reservations, I had 24 tickets to some nice hockey games. No one else could buy them. They were mine. And that makes me feel really good.

I just got two cute little Windows apps that let me post to Blogger without ever actually going to the Blogger website. Wow. A shortcut for a shortcut for a weblog. It's almost like The Onion article about the remote control for the remote control. Anyway, this is a test of one of them: blogBuddy.

Update: I just tried the other one, easyBlog, and I was less impressed. Whereas blogBuddy is a little standalone executable, easyBlog has this whole installation process, it anchors itself in your taskbar tray, and the primary language of whoever wrote it is not english. Not that I have problems with non-english speakers. I just can't understand them. Or their computer programs.

I've found that the major problem with both of these is that I can't edit previous posts, so I still have to visit blogger.com when I see a typo, or add to a post (ahem, like right now). Even so, in blogBuddy you can even edit your templates. Not sure if easyBlog had this feature, because I uninstalled it too quickly to find out.

No matter how good either one is, though, I am now officially the laziest person in the world.

So, I just got this wonderful program that makes me very happy. Well, actually two programs. Or more. I've been doing some downloading, and I finally updated some of my many programs in desperate need of new versions. I got HomeSite 5.0 to replace 4.5, Dreamweaver 4 to replace 3, Fireworks 4 to replace 3. Wonderful... now there are even more features in these programs that I have no idea how to utilize.

In fact, the only reason I started downloading anything is because I needed a new version of a password recovery tool, because the old one doesn't work in WinXP. I ended up also getting a copy of every program on that website (iOpus.com), including this neat little Internet Explorer plug-in that runs macros for you, for common web tasks. I set it up so I just press one button to log into my First Union account. Now, I know what you're saying: "Stupidhead! That's not secure!" But seriously, who is really going to be on my computer? My roommate? Even if some Baltimore crack fiend breaks in lookig for some drug money, he's not going to be able to figure it out. Hell, I didn't even know such a program existed a few hours ago!

If anyone actually noticed, there have been a few minor changes around here. There's now a links section, so my friends will stop hating me. And I've changed the name of the "pikachu" section to "pikachurs." (Pictures, get it? I'm so funny and smart. Yay!) And I posted some pics I've taken at the Museum of Modern Art in New Yawk, New Yawk, over the years (in the summers of 1999 and 2000, specifically). Those are just a few of a larger set, so they should change or grow more numerous at some point. And I'm working on posting more pictures of myself (me so vain). And some poetry. And other updates that I need. But will this ever get done? Such is the drama of this site, and the main reason to tune in again, same SomePoems time, same SomePoems channel.

My AIM away message for the day goes something like this:
"Who knows what day it is? A day sure to be filled with more love than almost any other in the year... that's right, it's my half birthday! Six months from now, I will officially be a grown-up, and get into clubs (theoretically), and stop hitting up my roommate for alcohol. Hooray!"

Yes, approximately twenty and one half years ago, I was exiled from my native land of Womb, never to return. During that time, I have wandered the earth, searching out new adventures and, needless to say, falling in love more than once. Wonderful tale, no? Happy Valentine's Day to all, and Happy Half-Birthday to me!

I've always enjoyed the guilty nerdy pleasure of late night website editing. Like, when you know you should go to sleep because you'll just be wrecked tomorrow, or wake up at 4PM, or something like that, but you just keep stressing over how many pixels wide some table should be, because you need it to look just so. Damn! Too wide! ... edit ... Damn! Too narrow! ... edit ... And then I’m thinking about the three bears, and not paying attention, and it’s too wide again. And so on. Being a selective perfectionist is interesting, really. You can stress over insignificant details without worrying that your life is going to hell as a consequence.

The point of this was to say that an update’s on the way, maybe this weekend, if I can wake up later this morning. What could it be? Maybe some pictures, maybe a new section, maybe just another blog entry. Who can really tell at this point?

I was watching TV tonight (a stretch, I know, but "must-see TV" implies my obligation), and I noticed that all the NBC shows had the Valentine's Day theme. But, thought I, wouldn't it've been easier to have the V-Day shows actually on V-Day, a Thursday this year and, thus, must-see compatible? No, said the wise NBC, we feel the spirit of love and romance can best be served by a bunch of sweaty athletes from rival countries fighting for symbolic representations of wealth and power. Oh, ok.

So, last night I went home to New Jersey in order to get up at 4:30 AM to appear in court in Willingboro (Rt. 295 Exit 45A, near Trenton and Philadelphia). See, I got pulled over for speeding on the Turnpike during one of my many Maryland-Jersey commutes. I was actually speeding away from this menacing tailgating car, so I thought I deserved a lesser (read: no points on my license) offense. I am happy to say that I was able to plead guilty to an amended charge (same fine, no points) plus about $30 in court costs. I had originally entered a not guilty plea, but I spoke with the cop who stopped me before my turn came up, and we worked out a little deal. It's a good thing too, because the judge was something out of a very bad dream, complete with grandstanding orations and a booming, wrathful scream. I was nervous to the point of literally shaking and, of course, a horrible stomachache. I was in sort of a daze the whole ride back to Baltimore, took four pills, and crashed into my bed for a few hours, still in my tie, et al. I eventually woke up, loosened my tie and collar, untucked my shirt, looked at myself in the mirror, and decided I had never looked worse. So I had my roommate take a few pictures, to immortalize the wonderful moment. But I won. No points for me. I am a wreck, but curiously very content. Here, look:

Oh, I forgot to mention... I wore special boxers to court... they're Joe Boxers, with little pairs of handcuffs all over them. Aren't I just adorable?