34

I'm very much looking forward to seeing Petey and Banana (they of blogging fame ) this Saturday while they're in town for the holiday. And I can't help but think back to my favourite Thanksgiving of present memory, spent two years ago in London with Scotter come to visit and Miranda over and the training crew about. Good times, they were. The turkey came out fine after I plucked the remaining feathers--the Brits are savages. To add something approaching content that's interesting to my wider readership (erm, yeah...), here's the recipe for the pasta salad I'm bringing for Thanksgiving dinner this year: 1 package ditilini or maybe even elbow macaroni, depending on your couthosity 1 red onion (that's important) 2 bell peppers, perhaps of seasonal colour good olive oil white balsamic vinegar (I think I use Alessi ) groun pepper, dried basil and oregano Cook the pasta and let it cool. If you run it under cold water it's going to get hard, but hey, we live...

Because he's the last non-Blogger around, Dave has to resort to asking his cool-kid friends to blog things for him. I happily oblige, not the least because I do think the South must be fucked .

Maybe I'm just a cynical fuck, but I think it says something about the state of the world when I see the headline Utility Will Pay $7.2 Million in Woman's Electrocution and immediately assume that the death penalty is now courting corporate sponsorship.

Bronx needs a velodrome like it needs a sports arena with a banked oval track for bicycle and motorcycle racing. Which is to say, not at all.

Oooh, oooh, this is funny .

An anecdote about Mary Gordon and David O. Russell , related to me by her (Mary's) daughter: it turns out that he was one of her former students, and was quoted as saying that she had a great influence on him, and when the reporter called Mary for her reaction, her reaction was "Who?"

The best thing about Adam's new job is that we now have a Morgan Stanley Foreign Exchange Handbook stacked on top of all the Car & Driver s and Higher Performance Pontiac s in our bathroom.

Speaking of postmodern glee , it's going to be hard to top Thomas Pynchon guest voicing on tonight's Simpsons.

One of the funnier things from the presidential debates was Bush's reference to the "Internets." And then I read this , and start to think that maybe that was Bush misspeaking by giving away top-secret military plans rather than misspeaking by incorrectly pluralizing a computer network. Next thing you know Bush is going to reveal that his plans for overhauling Social Security include massive wood hand-outs rather than, you know, cash. A few of things to add to the article: it doesn't mention at all the fact that the, you know, current Internet started out as a military network meant to provide a redundant computing network that could survive a nuclear attack on any specific node. See Wikipedia for more info. What the military is currently planning on doing isn't revolutionary at all; every major corporation in the world has it's own private intranet right now that routes traffic between the computers on the company's private network, and contains only we...

Times (verbal) intercourse of the day (evening): "Can I take a picture?" one man at the rest stop asked. "Please do," Superintendent Bizzarro said.

I have been lax in a lot of things, but for whatever reason it's my lax concert reportage that I choose to address now. I saw Interpol at the Hammerstein Ballroom tonight. The show was extremely good. It would be hard for it not to be as they only have two albums and each song is just about as good as any other song, so we were guaranteed a sweet setlist. They didn't disappoint. As for last week's R.E.M. show–well, it wasn't as good as last year's . Because I'm lazy, I'm just copying the summary I sent to Chase: The show was underwhelming. There were six songs from the new album, though oddly not the good song from the new album. The rest was a mix of obvious choices (ItEotWaWKI, WtFK, LMR, MintM, to abbr. a few) with a few nice surprises. They played Sweetness Follows, which was awesome, as well as Electrolite, Drive, and Life and How to Live It. There weren't as many political songs as I'd thought there would be--they couldn't help but play Cuy...

Banana Gordon Cash Mirer did a lovely job on her mom's surprise website, and it is my honour to link to it. Thusly .

An exerpt from what clearly must be the Best Resignation Letter Ever : "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." I think it's even odds as to whether Bush will even replace Ashcroft; on the one hand, America has been secured from crime and terror so the position hardly seems necessary, but on the other hand, there are still a few civil liberties that haven't been taken away yet. This is going to require the type of divisive leadersheap that Bush is known for.

Because I link to everything I see about faxes. Adam's new job entails sending a lot of faxes using the software I wrote, which is kind of cool. He does other things too, but clearly faxes are the highlight.

The Spec server seems to have come back to life. I'm going to transition things over again and do nightly backups... in the meantime, here's the lost cooking post. It's been a while since I had a real dinner party, but I've been accumulating glasses from the new Fish Eddy on Montague St., and I've got to use them sometime, no? So I had Scott and Rachel and Meitav over last night. I liked the meal. I got the "paper tomatoes" at the greenmarket by the courthouse; they're really baby tomatillos , as far as I can tell, and they're very sweet. Cucumber and Paper Tomato Salad one bunchette of paper tomatoes two seedless cucumbers good olive oil and acid (I used lemon juice, and white balsamic and rice wine vinegars) ground pepper and fresh dill and mint if you have Husk the paper tomatoes and put them in a bowl. Peel and chop the cucumber and put that into a bowl (preferably the same bowl as before). Mix up the oil, acid, and seasonings, and then pour in...

In a move that I welcome with pure postmodern glee, 34 has recently been spam-commented with Cialis adverts. Bam , and bam (at the bottom). I can't think of a more fitting denouement to a discussion of metaphysical truths. Speaking of which, Dave, you've still got some explaining to do.

This map borders on being facile, but then again, so did the eleciton.

Rounding up my election/music posts, here's the Minus 5 with "I'm Not Bitter": When someone wants me to listen, I can't If I'm supposed to do something, I won't It's hard to tell if I can get along But I'm not bitter I'm not bitter Not at all Just a lot I walk around the block to avoid you And that's when I'm in a social mood It's just my head that hurts me right now But I'm not bitter I'm not bitter Not at all Just a lot I try to think back on the happiness and fun It doesn't make much sense to blame you For the wreck my life's become Bitterness is reserved for stupid people Not for someone intelligent like me I don't have time to feel that way I do things backwards when I say That I'm not bitter I'm not bitter I'm not bitter I'm not bitter Not at all Just a lot

I know I'm supposed to be pissed about the election (and believe me, I am) but I can't help but be excited about the apartment that my roommate and I just saw and are trying to sign for. Pictures are here and here . It's Cobble Hill one block from Smith St., closer to work than before, around the corner from the F train and walking distance to the same trains as before, working fireplace, and exclusive access to the backyard. Move in would be 1 December, so we'd have a month overlap to haul our stuff from the old place to new.

The election, in Grandaddy song titles: Broken Household Appliance National Forest Collective Dreamwish of Upper Class Elegance E. Knievel Interlude (The Perils Of Keeping It Real) Everything Beautiful Is Far Away Go Progress Chrome He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot Laughing Stock Nonphenomenal Lineage O.K. With My Decay Saddest Vacant Lot In All The World The Group Who Couldn't Say Under The Western Freeway Underneath The Weeping Willow Why Took Your Advice

I went to be last night at 2am-ish hoping that I wouldn't wake up to a Bush presidency, and I didn't quite. It's more than a little discouraging to know that I personally disagree with more than half the country on such serious issues. It's easy to write some of it off as political manipulation by Rove, et al. , but I'm sure most of it is deeper than that. Fuck you, David Brooks. But we're right and I'll be more than happy to argue with anyone over the next four years to convince them of that.

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio. Gotta get down to it Soldiers are gunning us down Should have been done long ago. What if you knew her And found her dead on the ground How can you run when you know? Gotta get down to it Soldiers are gunning us down Should have been done long ago. What if you knew her And found her dead on the ground How can you run when you know? Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio.

Let's put our heads together and start a new country up Our father's father's father tried erased the parts he didn't like Let's try to fill it in bank the quarry river swim We knee skinned it you and me we knee skinned that river red This is where we walked this is where we swam Take a picture here take a souvenir This land is the land of ours this river runs red over it We knee skinned it you and me, we knee-skinned that river red And we gathered up our friends, bank the quarry river, swim We knee-skinned it you and me, underneath the river bed This is where we walked, this is where we swam Take a picture here, take a souvenir Cuyahoga Cuyahoga, gone Let's put our heads together, start a new country up, Underneath the river bed we burned the river down. This is where they walked, swam, hunted, danced and sang, Take a picture here, take a souvenir Cuyahoga Cuyahoga, gone Rewrite the book and rule the pages, saving face, secured in faith Bury, burn the waste beh...

My election prediction: civil war. And not just because Get Your War On (last strip) says so. I am only 34% or so joking here. At the very least, I'd imagine it will be December before we know who wins. Regardless of for whom Fox News calls it.

Well, it didn't work last time with Steak Cheval , but perhaps linking to FREE-FLOATING HOSTILITY will be enough to topple Google.