Saturday, September 30, 2006

Canada here I come

Our government just keeps getting better and better.
I'm starting to think that Canada might not be so bad. I might even start liking the cold weather.

Legislating Violations of the Constitution

Here is the first paragraph:

"With little public attention or even notice, the House of Representatives has passed a bill that undermines enforcement of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. The Public Expression of Religion Act - H.R. 2679 - provides that attorneys who successfully challenge government actions as violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment shall not be entitled to recover attorneys fees. The bill has only one purpose: to prevent suits challenging unconstitutional government actions advancing religion."

Welcome to the United Christian States of America.

names...

The me that isn't me.

Occasionally I waste a few minutes googleing myself (come on, like you haven't) and I decided to see if there were any images of me floating around the net.
I came across this scary version of myself. This is my life if I had gone to business school:




James A. Nadeau
Regional Managing Director, Southern Region
"James Nadeau is based in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas and has more than 30 years of experience as a senior-level executive. Furthermore, he has been an executive search professional for more than 14 years. An authority in the manufacturing, distribution and services industries, Jim's proven expertise allows him to successfully advise EUI's clients on mid-level and senior-level interim managers as well as direct-hire executive search requirements.

Prior to joining Executives Unlimited, Jim served as Vice President-Southwest Region for IMCOR, a senior executive search firm in Dallas that was acquired by Spherion in 2000. Throughout his position at IMCOR, Jim was responsible for tripling the firm's executive placements. He has demonstrated his ability to excel as a high-level executive throughout his career and is a three-time award winner of the Performance Forum Award and received the Award of Excellence in both 2001 and 2002. In addition, he is President of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG). Jim graduated from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration."

I'd like to think that if given the opportunity I could be an authority in the manufacturing, distribution and services industries.

nah...

Friday, September 29, 2006

And so it begins

We are now securely on the road to fascism. With the passage of the new military trials bill habeas corpus is even closer to being removed from the legal process. As of right now it only pertains to foreigners and those holding green cards. It is a small step to using these powers against American citizens who simply disagree with what our government is doing. The Bush/Cheney regime will go down in history as the time when Americans lost most of their rights and freedoms all in the name of protection and fear.
Washington Post Article:
Many Rights in U.S. Legal System Absent in New Bill

A couple of quotes for you:
"Included in the bill, passed by Republican majorities in the Senate yesterday and the House on Wednesday, are unique rules that bar terrorism suspects from challenging their detention or treatment through traditional habeas corpus petitions. They allow prosecutors, under certain conditions, to use evidence collected through hearsay or coercion to seek criminal convictions."

"the bill empowers the executive branch to detain indefinitely anyone it determines to have "purposefully and materially" supported anti-U.S. hostilities."

"University of Texas constitutional law professor Sanford V. Levinson described the bill in an Internet posting as the mark of a "banana republic." Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh said that "the image of Congress rushing to strip jurisdiction from the courts in response to a politically created emergency is really quite shocking, and it's not clear that most of the members understand what they've done."

Most of congress didn't even read the bill. They simply passed it out of fear that they would seem "soft" on terrorism in an election year. Once again our politicians sell us out to the minority. Nice. Start looking for property outside of the US cause its one small step from hating and blaming foreigners to hating and blaming queers and people of color.

Andrew Sullivan posted a selection from Hillary Clinton's speech in response to this bill. It is amazing and I'm pasting it here:

"The light of our ideals shone dimly in those early dark days [of the Revolutionary War], years from an end to the conflict, years before our improbable triumph and the birth of our democracy. General Washington wasn't that far from where the Continental Congress had met and signed the Declaration of Independence. But it's easy to imagine how far that must have seemed. General Washington announced a decision unique in human history, sending the following order for handling prisoners:

Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their Treatment of our unfortunate brethren.

Therefore, George Washington, our commander-in-chief before he was our President, laid down the indelible marker of our nation's values even as we were struggling as a nation and his courageous act reminds us that America was born out of faith in certain basic principles. In fact, it is these principles that made and still make our country exceptional and allow us to serve as an example. We are not bound together as a nation by bloodlines. We are not bound by ancient history; our nation is a new nation. Above all, we are bound by our values.

George Washington understood that how you treat enemy combatants could reverberate around the world. We must convict and punish the guilty in a way that reinforces their guilt before the world and does not undermine our constitutional values.

Now these values, George Washington's values, the values of our founding are at stake. We are debating far-reaching legislation that would fundamentally alter our nation's conduct in the world and the rights of Americans here at home. And we are debating it too hastily in a debate too steeped in electoral politics.

The Senate, under the authority of the Republican Majority and with the blessing and encouragement of the Bush-Cheney Administration, is doing a great disservice to our history, our principles, our citizens, and our soldiers. The deliberative process is being broken under the pressure of partisanship and the policy that results is a travesty," - Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton.

It's about she got her shit together and talked the talk. Too bad it won't do any good. What was that about those ignorant of history being doomed to repeat it? Will we look back at the internet boom nineties like we look back on the Weimar period? Good times that gave way to demagogues and fascists?

Be afraid people, be very afraid.

Monday, September 25, 2006

What to read, what to read, darling?


I cannot help but follow in Mike's footsteps.
Thus I am tagged:
1. One book that changed your life: Chronicles of Narnia. Cheesy as it sounds, these books appeared in my life at just the right moment. I got them as a box set for my birthday in the midst of one of my families many movements around the globe and they became my travel companions across the oceans and continents. I remember that no matter where I was I always had Narnia. Seems cheesy now but as an eight year old dragged from airplane to island to airplane to some strange land they gave me continuity. And the Chonicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. A series about an orphan in search of his history and the meaning of his life. Crazy books that meant a lot to me.

2. One book that you've read more than once: Way too many to name. I am currently in my third read of Asimov's Foundation books. Plus the fifth or sixth time with Raymond Feist's Midkemia series. And I have read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged too many times to count.


3. One book you'd want on a desert island: The Fountainhead. I'd be inspired to figure out a way to either make myself king of the island or escape it!

4. One book that made you laugh: Robert Aspirin's Myth books. These are the funniest fucking fantasy books ever written. Good Omens takes a second place.

5. One book that made you cry: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch A book that everyone must read. I made my high school students read it. tragic, true and unforgetable. A heart wrenching read.

6. One book that you wish had been written: The absolutely true story of human existance without christianity.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: I gotta agree with Mikey. All stories must be told, even the ones we disagree with.

8. One book you're currently reading: Four of them to varying degrees: Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed; David Leavitt's The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer; Horkheimer & Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment; Asimov's Foundation's Edge.

9. One book you've been meaning to read: I've had Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge sitting on my nightstand for some time now. Got to get to that one.

10. Now tag five people: Tagging is soooo tacky darling. Besides I don't think that that many people even read this thing.

names out...

Sunday, September 24, 2006

The further adventures of action-temping-man!

The temping chronicles continues.
I have now moved from here:


to here.

I apologize for the shitty picture of the Hancock tower. I meant to bring my camera to work on Friday for the purpose of taking a picture for this post. But I forgot and so there you go.
I am now working for the Mercer Management Consulting company. I am temping in their recruiting division. I am entering thousands of applications into a database. 98% of these people will be rejected. Its kinda satisfying (in a sick way that makes me feel really good) to know that all of these kids with their Ivy league degrees will experience their first rejection and I will have had some small part in that. Its pretty amazing to read through their resumes and see these incredible experiences and know that most of them will not make it into the high-paying, high stress world of consulting. It actually makes me feel better about getting rejected from McKinsey. I quickly realised that I soooo don't want to go into consulting. Sure, the money is great but the soul crushing work pace and huge amounts of assholes you have to deal with kinda soured the deal for me.
One frustrating thing this week was that they started recruiting at MIT. They have NEVER recruited there. Now that my ass is sitting in a chair entering these fuckin resumes into the database they decide to open it up to MIT. I was sorely tempted to submit my resume and see what happens. The reason for this is that my supervisor has no idea of my background. The agency doesn't send my resume over for little jobs like this. So everyone around me thinks of me as just another idiot temp (an impressions I sometimes encourage because then people will leave me alone). I don't want to get sucked in though. I don't want to consult!! Never. ever.

On a good note I did get a callback on one of my resume drops. It is for a media and entertainment analyst at a company called the Yankee Group. I was to have an interview with the HR rep on Friday but she had to back out due to being double booked. Not a good sign. But then again HR usually doesn't attract the brightest bulbs. Who majors in HR management? People who found Communications Studies too hard that's who!
Anyway, the interview is now on Tuesday. I would be sooooo psyched to get this job. Hopefully I would be in the gaming and video division. But I would be happy with entertainment technology since that is what I analyse.

I am sitting here procrastinating once again over my writing. Sherry continues to harrass me about her essay. I got to get this shit done! but I am so over that fucking essay. Just publish it already! Leave me alone.
Weekend report:
C has been playing Lego Star Wars for-ever! I played Sim City yesterday for about 4 hours straight and ended up with total neck strain from hunching over my laptop.
Watched Fantastic Four last night. Not too bad. Acting was lame but couldn't tell if it was simply bad material or bad direction. The director clearly hasn't found out how to direct action sequences. What do you expect when you hire the director of Barbershop? Who was the fuckin wizard that hired him? Regardless Chris Evans' hotness and frequent shirtlessness more then made up for the films inadequacies. I could see why the film was so popular as well. It was simply cinema candy. It was like a bag of starburst. Full of flavour but ultimately empty. There were lots of "music video" aspects too it. It will be interesting to see if they rise above or tank with the sequel.

Okay...back to writing.

names out.

Monday, September 18, 2006

John Travolta isn't gay, He's European!

Another in the lastest series of "don't get caught being gay in public or people will think you are gay" stories.
John Travolta caught kissing another man
Pics spark more whispers about star's sexuality

The money line is:
"Travolta’s lawyer Jay Lavely told the New York Daily News: 'Travolta is a happily married man, which proves he isn’t gay.'"
Because married men don't have sex with other men and aren't gay. They're down low.
While I do think that people should be free to expose (or not) their own proclivities aren't we living in a time where being gay (or not) really isn't an issue? And seriously how could it endanger John travolta's career? He hasn't been worthy of tabloid mention since Pulp Fiction and how long ago was that? And how much hollywood capital does he have anymore? Its not like he is Tom Cruise and actually has a career.
Perhaps he will follow in the footsteps of Lance Bass and come straight "out" with his love of man flesh?

His lawyer issued this statement regarding the photo:
"As a manner of customary greeting and saying farewell, Mr. Travolta kisses both women and men whom he considers to be extremely close friends. People who are close to Mr. Travolta are aware of his customary, non-romantic gesture."

So he's one of those people...the kissy, kissy type.
names...

Sounds like someones got a case of the Mondays!

Oh dear, back to the grind. I don't know how long it takes to grow accustomed to this whole up early and off to work schedule but my body is really resisting. Granted it's been 10 years (if not ever) that I have had to maintain this schedule this consistently. I would do it during the summers while temping but that was only for the summers! I would gleefully return to my normal sleeping schedule come labour day! But it isn't stopping. There is no more school for me. No more MFA job that allowed me to stroll in at the comfortable hour of ten. NADA! Over, finished. The "real" world has intruded upon my life of leisure. For some reason they frown upon tardiness here. I get all of my day's work done in two hours and then spend the rest of the time farting around the internet. That is time I could be spending at home, sleeping, playing video games, all kinds of things.
damn it.

Speaking of games C bought the new Star Wars Lego game yesterday and spent much of the evening glued to his xbox. It is safe to assume that that will be standard behaviour for him for the rest of the week.
I on the other hand have been getting harrassed by people who seem intent on publishing my writing. I have two essays coming out in books this fall/spring and for some reason the editors seem to think that it is my job to re-work them! Isn't that why they are known as "editors?" One is a paper for crazy woman Sherry Turkle and the other is for a local arts group that has gotten funding to put together a book. I will be contributing the paper I gave at Duke in June.

Fuckin eh. Monday's suck. My head hurts and I hardly even drank any beers last night. it is worse than Sat morning and I drank a hell of a lot more on Friday.
Friday nights drink list:
four Guinness
Three PBR
Two Margarita
Two bud lights.
= fubar. cab ride home + pass out = good times.

There might have been more but that is all I can remember.
We got up Sat morning and made the left over mexican food for breakfast! Es muy bueno!
oooh! it is almost lunch time. I have to decide what I am going to have today. It's pretty sad that this is a barometer of how my day is progressing.

names...

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Killing time till five o'clock

So I snagged this from TK. I sit here bored at work. Figure I'll give it a shot.

NAME SIX THINGS YOU ARE ADDICTED TO:
1. Beer
2. Sim City
3. French Fries
4. The B Side
5. porn
6. Weed

NAME SIX THINGS THAT YOU ARE SCARED OF:
1. Failure
2. Debt
3. Sobriety
4. Open closet doors at night
5. My government
6. Old people

NAME SIX WORDS THAT YOU THINK SOUND FUNNY:
1. Mantaquilla (spanish for butter)
2. Cuidado (spanish for careful or lookout!)
3. cocksucker
4. Moist
5. fecal
6. Ho

NAME YOUR SIX FAVORITE PLACES TO SHOP:
1. Newbury Comics
2. New England Comics
3. Crate & Barrel
4. Saks
5. Harvard Book Store
6. Brooks Brothers

NAME YOUR SIX FAVORITE RESTAURANTS:
1. The Forest
2. Jae's in the South End
3. Ginza - Chinatown
4. The Palm
5. Davio's
6. Cheesecake Depository

NAME SIX THINGS YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEARN HOW TO DO:
1. Manage my finances
2. Speak French
3. Speak better German
4. Control my anger
5. Play guitar better
6. Fly a plane

NAME SIX SCENTS YOU LOVE THE SMELL OF:
1. Killer Bud
2. coffee
3. Gasoline
4. Red Door perfume by Elisabeth Arden (mom's perfume of choice)
5. Burning wood
6. Rain

NAME YOUR SIX FAVORITE OFFICE SUPPLIES:
1. Post its
2. Hole puncher
3. Power staplers
4. Gel pens
5. Binders
6. Giant binder clips

NAME SIX PROFESSIONS YOU WOULD SUCK AT:
1. Sales
2. Clothes retail
3. Athlete
4. Politician
5. Teacher
6. Admin

NAME SIX FAMOUS PEOPLE…THAT SOMETIMES…YOU WISH YOU COULD JUST PUNCH IN THE NOSE:

1. George Bush
2. Dick Cheney
3. Bill O'Reiley
4. Mitt Romney
5. Ann Coulter
6. About everyone I am forced to ride the T with in the morning.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Monday Monkey lives for the weekend



On Friday I began my seventh gig at Putnam. It lasts for ten days.
I am going to jam a sharp object into my brain -sort of a self made labotomy- to dull the pain. This one is slightly more interesting than the last one. I do have things to do. Reports to run, trades to monitor, stuff like that. It takes me about two hours. then nothing...
In honour of Sept 11 I am posting a couple of fireworks piz from the 4th of July. These were taken from our friends W & J's roomtop deck on Beacon Hill. It seems appropriate. In the late 18th century terrorists, I mean revolutionaries, decided to overthrow an authoritarian government. Sounds kinda familiar.
There is quite a bit online about conspiracy theorists centering on 9/11. A great deal of it sounds kooky and slightly insane but others make me go hmmmmmm in an Arsenio Hall kinda way.

This weekend was fun. We had aforementioned W & J over for dinner on Sat in celebration of W's birthday. We were to go out and have dinner in Harvard Sq. but realised that Harvard students returned this weekend. Yikes! So we stayed in and I cooked. A little stressful as I hadn't planned on it. But it turned out okay. W is a vegetarian so cooking for him is a bit of a challenge being the hardcore carnivore that I am. Food turned out okay and we all got hammered. Good times!
It's nice to have had this weekend since I am starting my diet today.
off to the salt mines!

names...

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Nothing really worth commenting on.

So I am no longer employed in the PRM division of Putnam. They finally realised that I had nothing to do and informed me on Wednesday that Friday was to be my last day. Nice.
I'm starting to get a little annoyed with my temp agency. Just as I get settled and caught up (somewhat) financially I get the shaft. I have to spend the next couple of weeks broke. I am not happy.
This situation is further complicated by the fact that C is quitting smoking. This is a good thing. But not an easy thing for either of us. It looks to be a long painful (and rainy) labour day weekend.
That's really all I got.