jessemoya

My lovely 1st Gen MacBook! With a Intel Core Duo, 2 GB DDR2 RAM, and a 320 GB HDD! I DROPPED HER!!

She can handle a two fool fall, but it was still traumatizing. Not nearly as bad as the time I dropped an actual infant, but still - this one was mine!

Have you ever had a discussion with a religious person where they tried to condemn "blind faith" (i.e. reason, rationality, and the scientific method) and promote their beliefs by calling themselves "skeptics"? It's ADORABLE. The first time I heard a Christian try this he said that he didn't have much faith. At first I felt bad for the guy - then I realized he meant that his faith in the Bible was "knowledge" and that the scientific method was based on "faith."

The American Family Association took this a step further and refered to ecology and meterorology as one "religion" that threatens Christianity.

Join us to see the next religion to threatening Christianity

Important free broadcast - Not Evil Just Wrong – Global Warming Science or Religion?
Who: Everyone, all skeptics are welcome.
Where:  AFA Action Alert Video webcast and AFR radio stations nationwide.
When: Tuesday November 17, 2009 7pm CDT or 8PM EDT

That was all copypasta from the AFA newsletter. I did not add any of the glaring grammatical errors or remove any of the punctuation that would help it make sense (save for the abuse of logic involved, of course).

Poor Christians. Looks like the sky is falling. :(

The AFA is incensed by The Gap's RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY. They had the nerve to put out a statement that said:

"Gap recognizes that many traditions are celebrated throughout this season and we feel it is important to display holiday signage that is inclusive to everyone."

Can you believe those prejudiced assholes? The nerve of trying to be inclusive to everyone! Don't they realize it's wrong not to be Christian? This nation wasn't founded on some fancy ideals that supported a freedom of relig- oh, wait, actually I think the AFA are the prejudiced assholes. Nevermind.

12:28am
Amber
tell me a story

12:29am
Jesse
Once upon a time there was a beautiful river.

This river was full of wildlife - fish, beavers, and birds of all sorts.

In this pristine land some French explorers set up a trading post.

It was a convenient place with water routes that went out to sea.

12:31am
Jesse
Through the messy system of global politics - the buying, the selling, the killing, the dying - this trade route formed a central depot.

Throughout time this beloved hub of commerce came to house several brilliant minds that changed the course of history.

Almost 200 years after the United States Revolution, Michigan was 1 of 8 States in America that collectively produced 36% of the world's GNP.

Detroit, a glorious and proud city, peaked.

12:33am
Amber
this is a sad story...

12:33am
Jesse
Race riots plagued the city, and the growing educational and economic disparity left the cultural center in a downward spiral.

Through time the city became as diverse as its own economy, which is to say very little indeed.

12:35am
Jesse
The Detroit I came to know and love had two major issues come election season: downtown needs to be revitalized via economic diversity,

and the police department needs to clean house and oust all corruption.

Pipe dreams that those in charge will never see through.

But still, there are those who love it.

There are those who know the city's heartache and hardships,

who knows the city's secrets: all those things that make Detroit a still beautiful city.

And she will rise again and realize her future glory as the ghosts of all of her sons and daughters smile on.

Your turn.

The American Family Association has their panties in a bunch. Still. This time it's 7/11 selling Playboy, but what's even sillier than being upset about that, it's the way they chose to email their members about it:

It has been a long time since 7 Eleven sold p*rn*graphic magazines such as PB and Penthouse. 7 Eleven has been known for many years to be free from selling such explicit materials. Many concerned families have patronized 7 Eleven stores in the past over other stores because of the company's position not to sell p*rn*graphic materials.
That could change unless enough concerned citizens like you send emails to encourage officials at 7 Eleven to reconsider their plans to sell p*rn again.

Firstly: you suck at writing if you can't get your point across by using real words. We get the modern word 'explative' from the idea that cuss words are empty and without meaning. If you can't communicate without swearing then you are not just classless, but also a moron.

What's worse than not knowing how else to communicate is not actually using the full word. When I see people write out things like 'sh!t' or 'a**hole' or 'f**k' I roll my eyes almost to the point of straining them. All that says is hey, I'm not trying to swear here, I'm just awful at expressing my half-cooked thoughts and don't know how else to say... whatever inanity I'm trying to write.

Turns out it's possible to use proper grammar and spelling, yet still come across as illiterate and phenominally ridiculous. It's taking a simple word like 'pornography' and demonize it. It's like saying He Who Shall Not Be Named instead of Voldemort. Except that character was a powerful wizard and pornography IS JUST A WORD THAT WON'T TURN YOU INTO SOME DEGENERATE PERVERT JUST BECAUSE YOU READ IT.

Seriously, what are they afraid of?

When I'm in traffic and trying to make a decision as to which lane to pick I usually try and keep track of who is in the spot I didn't pick and watch to see if they get ahead of me or not.

I did this on my way to a meet up for a group ride to an ice cream shop (side note: I had a $7 banana split for dinner last night with coffee almond fudge and chocolate walnut fudge ice cream and it was as delicious as it was enormous). I saw this sport bike in the left lane and decided to stay in the right. He got way in front of me, but at the next light I noticed that he had several more cars in front of him than me. I thought, "hm, bet he wishes he was in my spot." Then I saw that he was turning left and in my mind he gave me a "yeah, well, I don't want to be in your spot ANYWAYS!"

I was reminded of that guy on a bike a couple hours later when I was doing my best to look like I didn't notice a couple green light signals from a rather nice looking young lady. It wasn't an obvious thing, but it was textbook as anything and not mixed in the slightest. It's how a gal in a movie would act towards a chap she had a casual interest in, you could say.

I thought, man, if that was the direction I was headed in, I'd totally love to have caught this green light, but overall that's not where I want to go. I'm here to make a left.

( on a related note: I hung out with my new roomies last night )

I really almost got in a big fight last night with a drunk stranger.

At the time I was glad that I was able to stay in control and not escalate the situation to much. Really he was lucky that I was so exhausted, and I don't say that because I'm some big tough guy – I had a distinct advantage. Let me explain...

I'm moving out of my house. As per usual, it takes way longer than I plan. I had a reservation to pick up a moving truck at 4:00pm yesterday, so there I was at 12:30am taking things from my front stoop to the truck on parked on the street. It's about a 50ft walk, so I've got all my stuff piled just outside my front door, but kind of around a corner so that you can't quite see it from the street. Remember: it's after midnight, so it's dark.

I did this so that I could see the truck and not worry about leaving it open. I'm completely by myself and moving a bunch of heavy junk like furniture and books. I'd been doing this all day and was quite fatigued.

So I take some thing to the truck, and in the time it took me to walk 50 ft, turn around and walk back, some big, oafish prick had walked down the walkway to my house and had started PISSING ON THE WALL NEXT TO ALL OF MY STUFF.

I froze for an instant. I was behind him and my first thought was to punch him directly in the kidney, grab him by the throat and trow him backwards into a nearby hedge. But I couldn't think quick enough of a way to do this without him twisting so that he was pissing directly on my stuff. And guys, I was TIRED. I had been lifting and carrying stuff for HOURS.

"HEY! You're pissing on my shit."

No response.

"Could you TURN AWAY?"

"Oh, uh..." he says, as he turns. He stops. He zips up. He's just standing there, still not facing me.

"Get the fuck out of here!" I say, impatiently.

"Sorry," he says, really low and meekly, still looking at the ground. He says this as he turns and that's when I smell the alcohol. I barely see his face in the dark, and I realize that he has no idea what he's doing and is genuinely terrified.

I grabbed a dirty rag and wiped down my bookshelves. They got quite a bit of splatter on one side, but shielded everything else. I throw away the rag and spend the next hour thinking how if I'd grabbed this worthless piece of garbage from behind and gone to town on him, I could have probably gave him the ass-kicking of a lifetime and not gotten hurt. But at the expense of my entire night. A smaller part of why I let the guy go was because he was with a gal. She was waiting for him on the sidewalk, just out of sight. If she called the cops, that would have been my whole night. I wouldn't have been able to finish moving and it would have ruined my entire weekend. Also, the Cambridge Police are not known for being reasonable people.

So my choice was to take 3 minutes to clean up the small mess and then get over it, or take this overgrown fuckhead by surprise and spend the rest of my weekend dealing with the consequences. The ONE thing that makes me glad I chose the easy way of handling things is that this guy seemed legitimately scared and sorry for what he'd done. If he had given me any hint of attitude or disrespect I'd have probably lost control.

I casually mentioned to my boss that I was as yet homeless for the month of August. He told me that he's going to be gone for three weeks lecturing at his old medical school in India, that I may be able to house sit for him.

"I'll talk to the wife about having you house sit for us," he said just now as he was leaving for the day. "Of course," pointing to my hair, "if someone calls the cops on you, be nice to the officer..."

I just found out that John Updike passed away this year, back in January. I guess he was a member of an ELCA church. His son is a professor at one of the colleges here in town.

I FINALLY found a place to live for the next year*! I'm so excited!







*I have nowhere to live for the month of August. I'm trying to line up four friends who have a couch I can crash on for a week at a time. My backup options are much less fun.

My facebook wall asploded with news of a new poll from PayScale, "a site that collects data on salaries for different professions."

The quesiton is, do alumns from elite schools earn more? The data they collected seems to suggest so. Here's a graph:



The reason my facebook wall went crazy is because, well, I have a lot of facebook friends from Dartmouth. You'll notice that our school is top of that list.

This is great an all, and it makes me feel like I made the right choice, but it leaves me with one question: Harvey Mudd college? I'm sorry, but BEST NAME FOR A SCHOOL EVAR. My new goal in life is to become famous enough to be invited to speak there simply because I want an honorary degree!

Also, I notice that Columbia is absent from the list. Hm. My first choice school, which was the only one that turned me down. What a shame.

I got an IM from a friend saying she is loving all the links I've been posting on my facebook wall. I guess I've turned my attention away from my previously-cool blag here. For the curious, here's the schtuff I've been paying attention to recently:

Harvard scholar arrested on his own front porch for being a black man in a white neighborhood
I can understand having the neighbors call the cops when you and another guy are trying to force open your own front door, but things went a little too far this time. I'm inclined to agree with this guy that race was a factor here.

Nirvana/Rick Astley Mash-Up
It sounds like an awful idea, but IT WORKS. I genuinly wanted to applaud when I saw this.

My job was to rape Iranian girls before their execution
Ugh. This is one the most depressing things I may have ever read. Systematic rape and torture is always something that knocks around my understanding of humanity.

Police send armed helicopter force and riot team to break up a 15-person BBQ. WTF.
So this guy puts up a facebook message inviting people to his 30th birthday party, saying it's going to be an all night party. WELL. We can't have that, now can we? Police in the UK swiftly put an end to all those delicious cheeseburgers.

Also, I just went to an awesome wedding. Pics on facebook. Now my life is full of apartment hunting which is NOT FUN OMG HOLY CRAP.

I've heard some more rumors about Omnia Creative Consultancy, or more specifically, a small internet community and their response to the story that I posted yesterday.

Um, this small community may be joined by a much larger community. One that has done such great things as pranking Time Magazine and getting them to print a not-so-secretive obscene message due to internet poll rigging. They get press when they want it.

So, if you want to be able to say "I helped with that!" before the inevitable BBC report, you should do this soon. Just post <a href="http://ominousdubai.blogspot.com/2009/06/burned-in-dubai.html" target=_blank>Omnia Creative Consultancy</a> in your blag, and it will turn into a link that looks like this: Omnia Creative Consultancy. It's that simple!

Have you guys ever heard of Omnia Creative Consultancy? Apparantly they're a company full of walking dicks with ties on. A friend of a friend was offered a job and all but stranded in Dubai penniless because the company is run by a sociopathic sadist. Not like, oh, this was a horrible boss, etc., but literally this guy is a sociopath and laughs, jokes about, and generally enjoys hiring people just to fire them and screw them over as best as he can. And does it in a country that doesn't mind one bit.

Seriously, it's a terrifying tale. I've heard horror stories about Dubai and it pushes me closer to being a Dawkins fan every time (not all religious people are monsters, not all religious people are monsters, not all religious people are monsters...).

Anyway, this friend of a friend wrote up a story about it. You can read it here: Omnia Creative Consultancy. And, if you want to help the guy out, you can post a small link on your own blag. Um, the link should look exactly this this: Omnia Creative Consultancy. Here's a bit of code you can cut and paste: <a href="http://ominousdubai.blogspot.com/2009/06/burned-in-dubai.html" target=_blank>Omnia Creative Consultancy</a>

I was in NYC for Memorial Day and lost my wallet. It was a pain to have to replace credit cards, my subway pass, picture of my motorcycle, etc. By far the biggest pain was getting a duplicate license.

So the DMV isn't open for hours that are convenient to me. Whatever. What's "great" is that you can simply give them your credit card number and order one through their website.*




*Unless you have a middle name.

You know who's really super hot? Donna, from West Wing. IMDB says her name is Janel Moloney.

My girlfriend has the cutest pet names for me.

Begin forwarded message:
From: The Girlfriend
Date: July 7, 2009 2:25:11 PM EDT
To: Jesse Moya

Let's play it by ear, ass crack.

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Jesse Moya wrote:

  That's up to you. If you really want to get home we can wait. It would be one less thing for me to do if we went and got it before going to my place.


On Jul 7, 2009, at 2:21 PM, The Girlfriend wrote:

Well if it's easier for you to pick it up today, we can.  Or we could always get it before our date on Saturday.


On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Jesse Moya wrote:

  If I'm not going to Bike Night tomorrow then I won't need it until Sunday. They won't mind holding it. The scumbags.


On Jul 7, 2009, at 2:10 PM, The Girlfriend wrote:

You don't need to go pick up your motorcycle?

Google released new stuff today. I had been beta testing out some of their apps and I have to say, I'm glad I can finally talk about it!

Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Talk

For those who don't know what beta testing is: software is written, and a sort of rough draft is released to a select few users to test. They use it as though it's ready for a public release and report any crashes or bugs. The idea is that the developers get a sense for exactly how people are going to actually use it, and will tweak anything they didn't anticipate.

WELL. I was invited to use Google's apps while they were still in the beta stage! NOW that they've given up on trying to be clever and redefine the term moved their stuff out of beta, the rest of you normal people can use it!

UPDATE: For any self-described nerds to read this thing, you should note that July 7th will now be famous as the day that Google dropped the Beta tag AND VLC 1.0.0 was released! OMG.

I wear an armored jacket when I ride my motorcycle, but it can get a bit hot when standing still in the sun. I was looking for something a little cooler (and maybe leather) when I ran across this:

ebay auction for "cooler" leather biker armor

I'm seriously considering it. It might mean not buying an iPhone in a couple months. I don't know which I'd prefer to buy.

UPDATE: also, the same people are selling the World's Manliest Fanny Pack

7:48AM - I leave Boston about an hour behind schedule.

8:21AM - Stop for a bite at McDonalds at a reast stop. OMFG I love McDonald's breakfast.

10:29AM - I've been speeding a little bit to make up for the lost hour. WAIT, FUCK FUCK FUCK THERE IS A COP CAR BEHIND ME WITH LIGHTS BLARING. Did I just speed past a cop? WHAT?? THERE'S TWO OF THEM?? Oh, whew! They went speeding past me on some other business. Maybe I should slow down.

11:50AM - TRAFFIC.

12:20PM - OK, I just sat in traffic to cross the Tapan Zee bridge, found out I was going the wrong way, and had to cross it again. $5.00 in tolls. Also, how did I cross this bridge twice, but now I'm in NYC??

6:10PM - I hate New Jersey. I just hate it. This is me, after trying to get away from the jam-packed turnpike, stopping at a Panera to look up the weather. Time to go back to the turnpike, because these are the skies I'm riding into.



8:00PM - I made it to the Jersey Turnpike. I recorded some video to show you what a marvelous idea this was. (the audio is several seconds behind the video for some reason)



Also you might be interested to know that a bus full of some Christian youth group from the South just pulled up. So this place is packed with 100 middle school kids praying over their Roy Rogers fast food.

12:20AM-1:30AM - GOD IN HEAVEN, WHERE IS THIS HOTEL??

2:00A - Ok, wow. All those ads for "oh, book an unbelievably nice hotel for pennies at Hotels.com"? $60 bucks for one of the single nicest hotel rooms I've ever been inside of. I think each hour of sleep is going to count double because of how comfy this place is!

8:39AM - Nope. Each hour just counted as one.

I got a shitty LSAT score.

I was aiming for the 95th percentile and was consistently testing above the 90th. I got the 86th.

Major frowny face. :(

The AFA calls itself a Christian organization, yet somehow they hate the idea of Obama's "socialized healthcare package." Let's hypothesize for a moment that Obama is pushing for socialized healthcare and then ask why a Christian would oppose such an idea.

Um, there's quite a bit in the Bible about tithing and caring for the sick at all costs. I'd like to remind these self-described Christians about the Beatitudes, spoken by the Christ. There's also a little something in there about "what you do to the least of these you do to me," meaning these guys should probably be the biggest supporters of greater access to healthcare for the working class.

But then, you'll never see me assume that conservatives or Christians are concerned about the well-being of others. It's examples like this that suggest quite strongly that "Christian" – when applied to organizations – is merely a moniker to protect untenable political positions. If it had any meaning or sanctity you would think that there would be outrage at its abuse by churches and individuals. But alas, look at the many churches and individuals preaching as though there were 1,000 different canonical Bibles.

Via B3ta:

I was at the Leeds Fest riots in 2005. The Foo Fighters had just headlined the mainstage, and we were making our way back to the campsite totally shattered looking forward to a good nights sleep. As we got to the campsite however, it looked like downtown Baghdad. There were huge fires all over the place, with the sound of gas cannisters blowing up every few minutes. People were knocking down telegraph poles, and destroying tents. As I walked back I spotted the biggest looking fire poking up from behind a hill over in orange camp. I decided that would be where the best view would be and where if anything really interesting was to happen, it would happen.

I seated myself at the top of the hill looking down on the most tribal primitive and yet awesome site I had ever seen. There in the clearing were hundreds of people running and dancing around a huge fire made of what was once the cider tent, carling tent and a telegraph pole. One guy was playing the drums using two tent poles and the upturned kettel drum bins while everyone danced around the fire with glowsticks. There were people juggling fire, practising poi, and generally having a really good time. A Carling truck that was nearby had been broken into and was in the process of being relieved of all its goods. It looked like the apocolypse had come.

And yet...there in the middle of all of this chaos, we rioting Brits had formed an orderly queue to pillage the Carling truck. Even in the middle of a riot we had formed a queue as one guy grabbed 24 pack after 24 pack, and offloaded them to the waiting 'soon to be' drunks