Thursday, June 30, 2005

Saturday night
Goshenites, I'm in town on Saturday for Steve Schrock and Darla Zehr's wedding. Hope I see some of you around.

Landon
posted by Landon @ 7:12 PM

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

damn it
dammit dammit dammit
posted by kate @ 6:34 AM

hmm
clue #1 this blog seems to be having the same trouble http://sdfix.blogspot.com/
i'd try a little harder but i have to get to work
posted by kate @ 6:14 AM

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

andrew, I really liked transventa and the audience one
would someone with some time on hand please redo the website.
posted by meg @ 6:03 PM

Good news / Bad news
We have finished filming Corduroy, which also means that I have finished bounding around outside in my tightie-whities.

And it looks like I got myself fired from Video Unltd. before I even started my first day of work.
posted by D-Bo @ 11:07 AM

Monday, June 27, 2005

Wilco and The Roots!
So last night me, kate, valerie, and julia went to go see the roots and wilco in concert here in good ol' DC (or thereabouts). The roots totally rocked. pretty awesome. but their half of the concert wasn't as well attended as the wilco half. for that half, the pavilion filled with rich high school kids, a fair-few 20 somethings and a good deal of 40-50 year olds. all white.

I liked the way that mr. tweedy barely talked, and when he did, he used words like "cavalcade" and "engendered."

we lost the keys to the car, called elise and adam, they drove back for us, but the keys turned up at the admin office. so thanks adam and elise. we were totally the last people there. rock on.

over all it was a fun concert. yep... I think I'll take up a career in review writing.

oh yeah, and the video TD sucked. -points
posted by meg @ 8:39 PM

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Biggest Critical Mass Ever
So yesterday I went on the absolutely largest critical mass ride that I've ever heard of. No one I talked to could remember anything larger anywhere. I'd say we had about 300 riders. It was a great time, just so many folks including a couple of zany bikes and children. It was part of bike fest here in the Iron City, which unfortunately ends tomorrow.

And afterwards we had a party at free ride, Pittsburgh's equivalent of Chain Reaction. The party involved bands, of which I heard two. The first played rock with a guitar, accordian, and drum set. Pretty awesome, though it was hard to hear the accordian. Hallie and I talked to the accordian player afterwards. He said that they're working on a CD and will be having a release party in late July. Awesome. Then next there was an instrumental metal band, who were pretty tight. I like metal about once a month, especially when accompanied by a good Huffy toss. Yep, there was a prize for the person who could throw a Huffy the farthest. Good times, good times.

And Tim, I would suggest that what's happening with SHAC isn't surprising from history. While I'll often argue that history isn't helpful for understanding today because every time and place is so different, I think that there is a definite pattern in history of young radicals moving to increased militance when they find themselves unable to attract mass support. It's easier to build bombs than talk to people who aren't like you. You can see this in India in the late 19th century, and the Weather Underground is a famous example. In the end of course all that it can accomplish is bringing on greater state repression.

I'm not actually addressing the question of defining terrorism here, as much as pointing out that whether SHAC is terrorist or not it's following a dead-end strategy. Not that the question of defining terrorism is unimportant.
posted by weiss @ 11:22 AM

CIA living in opulence while fighting the war on terror
So 13 CIA agents who kidnapped a alleged terrorist in Italy now have arrest warrants out for them. Aside from the exciting political implications this has, I find their hotel bill about as telling as anything. Turns out they managed to spend over £80,000 ($140,000) on five star hotels and food alone while hatching their plan. The agents were apparently also making constant calls back to Langley on their cell phones which were on all the time. So much for a low profile...

And what happened to the alleged terrorist? From the New York Times:

"Mr. Nasr was released from custody in Egypt 14 months later, in April 2004, and he phoned his wife in Milan and an associate to say he had been subjected to electric shock treatments, the investigators said. He also described the route that he was taken shortly after his kidnapping, providing an important clue to the Italian police. Besides complaining about hearing loss in one ear, Mr. Nasr also said he could barely walk.

Shortly after placing the calls, he was rearrested by the Egyptian police and has not been heard from again."

There you have it ladies and gentleman, a conclusion that's sure to bring a smile to every freedom loving American's face.

In Other News

Animal rights activists made the front page of the Guardian by firebombing the house of a man who worked for a law firm that once raised money for a pharmaceutical company that formerly was a client of Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Aside from absurdity of their target, I've also decided that I think it's important to recognize this action for what it is: terrorism. I've started reading Loving Without Giving In: Christian Responses to Terrorism and Tyranny by Ron Mock from George Fox. He starts out the book by laying out a clear definition of terrorism which includes five things: violent, lawless, politically motivated, civilians as intented targets and operating through fear.

The first four are fairly obvious, but the fifth item is the one that is most striking in this case. The statements of SHAC and ALF activists make it clear that the goal is to strike fear into the hearts of anyone who does business with Hutingdon Life Sciences.

I think it's important for those of us on the left to be clear on our definition of terrorism, especially as we're criticizing the "war on terror." We can't just ignore those who are using terror just because they may be broadly "on our side."

So there's my news rant for the morning. Hope you all have a fabulous weekend.

P.S. Lanny, I don't think it was you who messed up the blog, because I temporarily unpublished your posts and it didn't fix anything. Unfortunately, I don't have the energy to review our ginormous template to figure out what the problem is...
posted by Unknown @ 5:25 AM

Do you have eight dollars to spare? If so, you should seriously consider going out and buying this month's issue of The Believer before the month is over and it's too late. There's a pretty cool mix CD attached, and the articles are clever. Also, there are some nifty illustrations that I won't spoil for you.

For those of you in Pittsburgh, there's some fun stuff going on this Friday and Saturday night with bikefest.
posted by weiss @ 9:40 PM

Not sure if you guys have read up on this... I saw it today via AOL news...

banning your right to burn the flag.
posted by Erini CS @ 6:27 PM

Goats and boats
Yay! It is Bounty all glammed up (and renamed the Edinburgh)with a motor boat of annoying set dressers and A.D.s fussing over her! If you look closely there is also a guy on a horse being motored around. Bounty was like a homing device for animals. There was this goat that we had to pretend to load on and off the boat with a tackle system (ropes and pulleys). The A.D. would yell, "background action," and Captain would yell, "Haul on the goat tackle!! Haul the goat line!!" and this goat would begin to furiously kick and butt as his little goat body was slowly hauled into the air. Strangely enough, once all his limbs cleared the ground and he was truly airborne, an odd sense of calm would over take this goat, and he would go completely limp. Maybe this was because he knew that the majority of airplane crashes only occur during the takeoff/landing phase.
We also attracted droves of chickens. We would watch them enviously as the set dressers misted them with ice water between takes while we smoldered in our costumes.
But why are you reading my babbling about displaced barnyard animals? Go! Gaze at Johnny!!

posted by Teresa @ 11:05 AM

posted by meg @ 11:02 PM

whoa
i'm dumb
here's a radio conversation between me and 88 yesterday:
Jeff: "53, what's yer 20?"
Kate: "1728 I"
J: "H, as in Harry?"
K: "No, I, as in eyeball"
heh heh, der.

and here's a another good one from when i did a pick a a house of a client:
Me: "Hello, I'm here for a pick up?"
Lady: "Quick Messenger?"
M: "yup"
L: "wow, yer awfully pretty for a Quick Messenger!"
M: "thanks"

oh man, i love my job! here's some pictures from that race i went to. it's a flash site, so go to the photo galleries and then click on the bragging rights link, i'm the one with the yellow bag. http://www.demoncats.com

also, guess what's cooler than this:
http://www.eugene-and-louise.be/AT_A_GLANCE.mov

this:
http://www.pilobolus.com/, we saw it for free tonight at wolf trap. the only thing cooler was the bus ride back to the metro, crazy driver
posted by kate @ 7:28 AM

new pretentious attitude

So at work I've been studying the history of the Nepali Maoist movement. It's blindingly bizarre at times with so many splits and unifications that are worse than those in Anabaptist history. Every Maoist and his mom seems to have something added parenthetically for the purposes of distinction -- i.e. Communist Party Nepal (The Real Commies) -- because they all start out as Communists, but then needed to purge themselves of the less pure Communists, etc. At least the Mennonites, Mennonite Brethren, Brethen-in-Christ, Beechy Amish, Amish, Your Mama's Amish, Conservative Mennonites, and others in the Anabaptist family didn't do that.

The two current leaders of the maoist movement, Baburam Batterai and Prachanda (which the media loves to point out means "Fierce One", despite that it's a self-selected name) who are both currently a part of CPN (Maoists), but had originally been a part of CPN (Marxist-Lenonist), which eventually became CPN (United Marxist-Lenonist), but was too mainstream for the Maoist leaders who formed a group, CPN (Masal), but one of them split, forming CPN (Mashal)--at which point even the Nepali authors always comment, "Seriously, WTF?" Eventually, though, they came together to form CPN (Maoist) and have waged a brutal war against the state and civilians for the last nine years. All this to say that I've become sufficiently bored with "Landon" and have decided to spice up my blogging with a new, parenthetically-garnished, nom de guerre. It is below.
posted by Landon @ 10:17 PM

oh my god!
How did you find that? I'm at a loss for words.
posted by Landon @ 10:09 PM

Quick Quiz
www.cummingfirst.com - Porn site or not? Find out!
posted by weiss @ 9:50 PM

So today Celeste and I played Yellowstone, this game I loved as a kid where you play different kinds of herd animals. It's more fun with four players because then you can try to block each other and stuff. But I think Scrabble will still be the official game of the summer.

My sister hit a deer. She's okay. The car's radiator was smashed up. I asked her if she had saved any venison. She told me that despite having hit the thing at a pretty high rate of speed and having looked around afterwards she couldn't find anything. She says she saw intestines flying. I'm kind of annoyed that hundreds of dollars of damage was done to the car, and still no venison. If any of you have relatives of the deer-hunting persuasion tell them that I would be glad to chip in for a haunch come fall.

And Kate, congrats!
posted by weiss @ 9:17 PM

sweet
guess who just won a free registration to the cycle messengering world championships? it was me, hell yeah. i may have been the only eligible female riding, but still, score, i had fun!
posted by kate @ 12:25 AM

Exquisite Corpse and Dirty Mennonites
My first exquisite corpose just finished. It's called punk island sunset/the fortress/giraffes associate/left standing. I did the first 200 pixels. The other artists each saw 15 pixels worth of the preceding artists works. The results are spookily surreal.

Also, are you a dirty Mennonite? Find out with this entertaining survey.
posted by Unknown @ 4:32 AM

My first sighting....


I came out of the elevator after attending a meeting and there were a couple of security guards ushering people away, but when I turned around after walking past the bank of elevators, there was Kofi giving a TV interview. A guy next to me said quietly, "Such a beautiful man," and calmly walked away with his head bowed.
posted by Landon @ 4:41 PM

New e-mail address
My AOL address is about to be defunct.

If you wish to send me personal e-mails please send them to derekb27@gmail.com.

(Thanks for inviting me, Alisa.)

And starting July 1, I will be living with Phoebe. Feel free to visit whenever. I'm really looking forward to this. We're going to be the best housemates ever! We'll be eating good food and partying all of the time!
posted by D-Bo @ 2:58 PM

posted by meg @ 5:07 PM

Tearing at the Seams!
June 11, 2005, 8 p.m. at Market 5 Gallery,
Eastern Market SE (7th St. SE and North Carolina, SE ) Washington DC
$7-$10 donation to benefit Different Avenues
MISSION STATEMENT

Tearing at the Seams is a collaborative project that aims to celebrate beauty and sexiness in all its forms and to thus deconstruct confining and marginalizing notions of beauty. This production is a space for designers, artists, performers, models, stylists and artistic production crew who get little exposure in mainstream media to have the opportunity to showcase their talents and their own ideas of beauty and style. It is very important to us to create a space for communities that are underrepresented to represent themselves.

Hope to see you there!

For more information: www.tearingattheseams.org
posted by kate @ 9:39 AM

cool word of the day: amalgam

'Seinfeld' Episode 169

Kramer: What do I need to talk for.. ha! , For to blab to the neighbors about George has a new fem-Jerry friend or to tell everybody at the coffee shop ho George is all mixed up in a perverse sexual amalgam of some girl and his best friend.

Also, two new movies coming out 'Bewitched' and 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith'
I'm sure you've heard of them
so the original Samantha was played by Elizabeth Montgomery who's dad, Robert Montgomery was in the original Mr. & Mrs. Smith (different plot), as Mr. Smith.

Coincidentally, the first person cast for the part of Mrs. Smith (now Angelina Jolie) in the 2005 version of 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' was Nicole Kidman who is starring in the 2005 version of 'Bewitched'.

craziness
posted by meg @ 10:59 PM

rock rockin' it
So today I crashed the last meeting of this year's Washington Health Policy Institute at George Mason University, where a whole bunch of interesting and passionate nurses get together and talk about how hard health policy blows and how to change it. We heard great speeches from ultra-cool Sheila Burke, who was chief of staff under Bob Dole, and long-term care/evidence-based research advocate Robyn Stone. Both have had fascinating and varied lives, and show the power that nurses' practical experience can have in shaping realistic and coherent healthcare policy. It was pretty inspiring stuff.

Then I took a nap on the Mall and went to hear some cracked-out Indian music. Great day! Also: T-Mo might visit tomorrow, Jodi B. comes on Monday and my new job starts Wednesday. Rockin'!

Sorry I couldn't make the Nats game, Julez. Somebody (whose name rhymes with Bedekopp) has been having cell problems, etc. and didn't hear the message until way later. Thanks for the invite, though, and glad you had a good time. I was making quiche and watching The Life Aquatic. Hey, speaking of rockin', do you want to go hear this next week? Could be great...
posted by sasha @ 10:27 PM

I just can't get enough of this story

it's' soooo cool!

So there is this guy I know from the marina who lives on a house boat. And on monday we had this magnificent storm with thunder and lightning rip through the area in the evening. Anyway, this dude was sitting in his boat and he noticed that the lightning was striking inside the marina, and he was like, Dude, I have to get to land or I'm going to get electrocuted. So he waited for a lull in the lightning and started running for the marina office. So he's, like, sprinting across the docks and lightning hits the dock and he totally gets knocked unconscious. this is at, like, 9:00 at night. anyway, he wakes up with the sun the next morning. his arms and legs were all sore and he was soaking wet. he had been laying on the dock unconscious for the entire night through the storm. so he called his mom and decided that he was ok. oh man, that's a story to tell your kids about. apparently he's been electrocuted before. I think once he was trying to install a water heater into his house boat and he got electrocuted. that was funny too. but too long of a story.
posted by meg @ 8:28 PM

$5 beer
woo, julia scored 4 free tickets to the A's vs Nationals game! it was a thriller
posted by kate @ 6:41 AM

sold soul
i've sold my soul to the devil again this summer for $8/hour. and yes, it's 5:30 in the morning.
posted by eric @ 5:34 AM

being all you can be
actually weiss, I think the matter-of-factness with which you responded probably made a more significant impression on the recruiter. If you were too assertive, he could just write you off as an asshole or something. of course, there's always something to be said for boldness as well.
posted by Landon @ 10:20 PM

Often I have regrets afterwards, feeling I should have been more assertive, but today when an army recruiter approached me at the bus stop I felt that the conversation went just fine.

"Hey, you know anybody looking to join the army?" "I'm not joining the army." "Yeah, but do you know anybody?" "If I did I wouldn't tell you." "Fair enough."
posted by weiss @ 8:10 PM

So thanks to the Three Rivers Arts Festival there is now music outside my window every day from noon to one. Unfortunately, my lunch hour is more like one to two, so I can't really appreciate it. Monday was an R&B band. I don't know enough R&B to know if they were playing all covers, but I recognized quite a few. Today was a lame hard rock band. But yesterday, man, Seven Color Sky were pretty cool. Songs The Cure would have written, basically. I might even try to catch them live sometime this summer.

And sorry I can't make it to Delaware. I love Delaware, but at least we have lake Erie up here. I think I might try to get there some weekend soon. It's hot enough.

In the best news for today, Judge J. Robin Hunt would like to interview me for a clerkship position for after graduation. Tacoma could be cool.
posted by weiss @ 5:59 PM

Rich country, poor country
I thought y'all might be interested to read a new report that provides some extremely helpful insight into the development/aid lending debate. I think it's always difficult to have precise facts, but this deals in specifics on how much rich countries give to poor ones and how effective it is.

It's published by ActionAid, which is a respected humanitarian NGO. It's a PDF so it might take a little bit to open up.
posted by Landon @ 11:22 AM

ouch
i got a nasty email from my father out of law but i still haven't found a job that pays a decent wage.

i do live next to alisa, but she didn't mention me in her post so i wont mention her in mine.
posted by eric @ 11:07 AM

Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.
Anne Bancroft, 1931-2005.
posted by D-Bo @ 9:50 AM

Shoup included in Anabaptist Aggregator
So now, every time you post something to Shoup, it will also show up on Leaving Münster's Anabaptist Aggregator!

I guess this means we've arrived or something. I gotta wonder how long we'll stay there though...
posted by Unknown @ 8:22 AM

B**ch'n!!
So our b**ch'n day has changed. Because of predicted thunderstorms, we decided we should probably hit up the b**ch on Thursday (the 16th) instead of Wednesday (the 15th). When I called Delaware State Park reservation service to change the date, the lady made sure to let me know that usually they charge a fee for any changes and I was only getting this "gifty" because she liked me. Then she proceeded to sing a little song about it: "Gifty, gifty, la la la!" Then she said "You probably wouldn't think that we're all old people working here the way we go around like 4 year olds yelling 'Gifty! Gifty!'" My new plan for retirement is the work for the Delaware Park Service. It sounds like fun to me.

So those who are interested may join us at the Delaware Seashore State Park the evening of Wednesday, June 15th for a great tenty night and a wonderful following day at the b**ch. We can provide tent space for up to 4 extra people and the camp site wouldn't cost you anything besides the extra $2/person fee that they charge. Unfortunately, you have to find your own transportation and sleeping bags. Or you can also just make it a day trip and join up on the Thursday the 16th. Oh, please RSVP.
posted by julia @ 7:50 AM

fucking warm day
hell yeah summer is here! so is sasha! it got up to the nineties today with like sixty percent humidity. just before a big storm was supposed to hit, i was whizzing down pennsylvania ave behind two busses during the peak of rush hour, damn i could not breath. hell yes, summer is here!

So y'all should come to rohobeth with us next wednesday. we're camping, so bring a sleeping-bag. me and julia are biking there, you can too, just not with us, sucka! iz gonna be hella fun!

AND caroline and teresa are [almost] back from the tall ship bounty! caroline has something wrong with her pancreas or something, hopefully they'll find out soon so she can eat again, we got to hang all saturday! YAY! AND teresa is flying into reagan tomorrow night. i'm not exactly sure what she's been doing since abandoning ship in the caribbean a bunch of weeks ago, but i know it involves a volcano and hitchhiking on shady boats! YAY!

also, today i was in the basement of 1912 N st. NW [native american foundation, or something like that] waiting around for a pick-up. their printer was going super slow, so i got to chatting with the lady and asked her if she know some one named curtis berkey. his mom went to our church in hburg and he was also good friends with mine and celeste's parents. he live in dc up untill like 10 years ago, we liked him as a kid cause he was one of those bachelor guys who ate Trix cereal and we got to go to UNO's for pizza when we went to vist. anyway, she knew the guy pretty well, she also thought he was kinda hot. well he's married now and has a dog, who knew, small world.
posted by kate @ 6:19 PM

REGATTA

So! today I found two four-leaf clovers. One at the Balitimore boat house and one at the Anacostia boat house!

Speaking of boat houses: today I coxed my first regatta! and my boats won two out of three of the races (the one we didn't win was a dirty race, peh) I walked away with two tee shirts (rowers wager in shirts)!
posted by meg @ 7:35 PM

I am so fucking jealous
posted by meg @ 6:01 PM

awesomest experience ever!
 +  = 
posted by sasha @ 4:27 PM

Podcasts!
Nick, my boss, a big name in the coffee world, started a blog modeled after our dearly beloved shoup blog! he liked the idea of a group blog and made one for top roasters and baristsas. meet the portafilter.net blog and podcast.
posted by meg @ 10:29 AM

Finally replied "no" to my high-school reunion. Basically the reason is that Christina is not going. Of the three people I graduated with whom I would have interest in seeing she is the only one I imagined might attend. I called her, but no she'll be gone at that time. Margo is presumably still in Germany, and Geordi just isn't the type to go to this sort of thing. Unless he would go for ironic value, but I doubt he'd go alone. So no.

I'm going to my little sister's graduation this weekend, though. We'll see what that's like. I'm very proud of her, and I think she'll have a great time at Goshen. I always recommend it to people. Somehow, I still have a great deal of faith in it.

Been listening to The Woods and like Mike I think it's fabulous. And like Carrie I think that it's something you have to listen more than once. I've got a long drive to and from Lancaster this weekend, so I'll have plenty of time.

Oh, and my parents just received word that the tenants who have been living in the house where I grew up are planning on moving out on July 31, so they've decided to move back as part of Abigail's move to Goshen. I'm pleased, I guess, but my pleasure with the decision is limited by an inability to identify good reasons upon which to base a sentiment with respect to the subject.
posted by weiss @ 9:53 PM