Author: theazureshadow

Okay, I\’m properly ashamed. Sarah asked me where the McCain video was from, wondering what the audience was. I had watched a carefully-cut-together video that was obviously meant to be critical of McCain, without finding the original source and looking at the context. Even if the cut-together version fairly represented his statements, it still is…

First watch this video that Aaron Brown posted: Apparently John McCain has some really strange brain-thoughts. Or spatters. Or fizzlings. He thinks that America is the political manifestation of Christ\’s teachings. Does anyone else find that hard to swallow? Especially Christians, I would think. Why does he think that his faith is \”of better spiritual…

I don\’t know whether anyone except Ann will truly understand this, but there\’s something wonderful about making yourself a birthday dinner. I marinated the pork this morning in soy sauce, sesame oil, balsamic vinegar, bird\’s-eye chili peppers and garlic. I fried the pork with baby corn, water chestnuts, bean sprouts, ginger and more garlic. I…

I\’m in a weird musical mood right now. I have songs floating around in my head. I\’ll hear one song for a few seconds, then switch to another, and another, and I can\’t seem to decide on anything to listen to. They can\’t keep my interest long enough. Sultans of Swing, Lay Down Your Weary…

The adjectives apply to my last test and myself, respectively. I\’m completely done with the semester. Actually, I was finished yesterday at 4:40, but I didn\’t tell you. I may be around more for a few days. My family arrives on the 10th, and we start traveling around Europe on the 13th (Friday, incidentally). I…

Ever since I started keeping track of the books I read, I\’ve counted every month to see how many I read. I have averaged between 10 and 11 since I started in April 2006. But each month I feel pushed to read more, simply because of my books page. So this month I got to…

Joan Baez was interviewed for Martin Scorsese\’s Bob Dylan documentary. She also played Dylan\’s song \”Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word\”. The best parts are at 0:59 and 2:41, when Baez lapses into a playful Dylan impression. That touch of amusement that surfaces here and there. And her expression at the end, the raised eyebrows…

I just finished watching Martin Scorsese\’s Dylan documentary, No Direction Home. It would suck immensely to be that popular. I don\’t know how someone can survive being turned inside out like that, but Dylan seems to have done relatively well. I absolutely love Dylan. His acoustic, electric, his ragged voice and Guthrie twang. It wasn\’t…

Okay, I appreciate the photography. The format is brilliant. The writing is pretty good. But in general, the content of A Softer World just hits me as over-the-top emo. Apologies to those people to whom it speaks and is meaningful — nothing wrong with that — I just can\’t palate it most of the time.…

Charles Stross asks: What would you do for the cost of the Iraq war? Colonize Mars? Meet Kyoto single-handed? The classic economic reminder. That number, 500 – 6000 billion dollars (depending on how you count it and how conservative you are), isn\’t the point. It\’s the opportunities we\’ve lost.