zen.org Communal Weblog

The Iowa caucuses are a wee bit less then a year away.

Wikipedia currently displays nine candidates for the Democratic nomination for president. Little Green party member me thinks there are one of two of them I might vote for in the general election even if there is a Green party candidate, and I’m not only talking about Mr. Kucinich!

Wikipedia displays ten Republicans. I liked Mr. McCain in the 2000 primaries, and I remember thinking a year ago that he could get my vote in 2008. If loose lips sink ships, his lips have been very loose. None of the other people I know would ever get my vote, but I don’t know most of them.

If 2004 and 2000 are any indicator, both parties will elect the worst candidate from the list and the USA will all suck picking the better of two evils again. I’m already jaded by the 2008 elections. I plan on trying to grow brussels sprouts this spring, I wonder when I should get the seedlings started.

It what has got to be a sign of Ragnarök, Evangelicals, Scientists Join on Warming. In other weather related news, for the first time this year I had to scrape frost off my car window!

I now, again, get extended basic cable on my cable box.  I surfed a little to far up the channel list and there they where.  Comcast is just wishy-washy sometimes.

I telecommuted yesterday, an advocation I had I had not undertook for some time. For a portion of this time I left MSNBC playing in the background, the only twenty-four hour news station limited basic cable allows me. The entire hour, or so, I heard: Blå blå blå blå blå Bush. Blå blå blå blå, Bush. Blå de blå, blå blå, Condoleezza. Blå, blå blå blå blå blå, Bush. Blå blå, blå blå blå blå blå, blå Beckham. Blå blå blå blå, Bush. Blå de blå blå, Condoleezza. Bush, blå.

I started wondering, while I struggled getting the Princeton VPN to work, why did Ms. Rice always get des in her blås when Mr. Bush and Mr. Beckham didn’t? Then I pondered what Mr. Beckham had to do with Iraq. Now, after some snooping on the Internet, I just think Mr. Adu is going to kick Mr. Beckham’s ass.

It’s 71°F today. Daffodil and crocus leaves are sticking up. Our chickweed is taking over! A Pennsylvania ski lodge is resorting to polytheism! We ate lunch outside this morning.

Thanks to my Weeds of the Northeast book for helping me identify my Stellaria media.

/. linked to the IMDB entry for it.

Sometimes the Chinese are just genus: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6178659.stm

At work I subscribe to about 60, mostly music, podcasts. Some of which probably don’t actually produce shows anymore, but I don’t often notice it. Usually I just let them play in the order they download. For weeks, nay months, all has been well. I pop on the ear phones and away I go, but today I’m running out of shows. Even though Trance Tuesday in three hours long, it’s going to run out soon. Sure tomorrow there will be more shows, but enough for most of a work day?

I guess in the mean time I’ll to run a sort of best of in my head tomorrow.  So No me gusta la Coke, No me gusta la Coke. That you Quiero Club.

This year, for the first time, thanksgiving is at my house!  I got everything all sorted out, apart from the dressing.  I look it up on the web, and most things have more stuff in them then everything else I have to get combined!  Humph.

I was agonizing about getting a new computer, so Daphne made some command decisions, she used her employee discount, and got a Dell. She got a Dell Dimension C521 with Windows XP Media Center Edition. Though I don’t think she will admit it, she loves it, it works as a great television in the kitchen, it’s even got a remote control! Plus it gets all those extended basic cable channels we don’t pay for. Hello Dr. Who!

I was agonizing because I wanted to get a computer that I would not have to fight with the hardware to run Linux. Daphne wanted a television in the kitchen. I wanted Linux to play audio files, and a video podcast or two. Daphne wanted a television in the kitchen. I wanted to stand up for my libertarian rights to have no corporate software on my computer. Daphne wanted a television in the kitchen. So Daphne won three votes to two. Zoë just wants to be able to visit Elmo’s web site. To be honest, I’m not giving 余艾蕾 full credit, but this is my post not hers.

Zoë happened to be sick the day the system was going to show up so my Father came over while I tried to get some work done. In came the new Dell, I was going to leave it until the evening but my father wanted to see the TV card working. After the set up, and two or three reboots to get all the security updates installed, Zoë and Papap where happily watching Fox News.

Then came Linux! That will have to be a post for another day, as it’s time to get some work done.