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“I Did Not Have Financial Relations With Halliburton”

Vice President Dick Cheney told the nation last week that he has severed all his ties with Halliburton. Yet the Vice President still receives a salary from Halliburton and will continue to do so until 2005. As the op/ed piece spells out, why is this lie about a conflict of interest that may very well have cost 300 American’s their lives not as big a deal as President Clinton’s lie about an extra marital affair with an intern that really only cost him and his wife some degree of trustworthiness. Have we as a society reached the point that now the banner yell is “military invasions don’t kill people – blow jobs kill people.” ??

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Friday Fives

Friday Fives

1. Who is your favorite singer/musician? Why?
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. There is a spirit and an energy of the common man and a thread that is woven through his music. As he matured from his first album in 1973 through to his most recent album in 2003, I feel as a listener that I too have matured, I too have conquered my fears and faced my dreams. And I don’t care what naysaying roommates and friends have said in the past – he is a good singer – expressing the drama and agnst in his songs as no other. Plus the man can play a wicked electric guitar. He is Rock and Roll. A review a few years back said once that Bruce never wanted to be the biggest star in the world, he just wanted to win the battle of the bands contest, night after night after night – and that about sums it up best.

2. What one singer/musician can you not stand? Why?I think at present anyway it would be Jim Morrison and the Doors. They are so overplayed and I just don’t get it. Sure it is kinda cool that they didn’t have a bass guitar, but really, there isn’t much there when you give them a listen. Maybe it is the imbalance between the deep over poetic lyrics of Morrison against the pop beat organ sound of Mazerak, but it just rarely works for me.
I am not a big ColdPlay fan, but in all honesty, I only know two of their songs and haven’t given them much of a critical ear. I just know that when the latest Coldplay hit song hits, I tend to change the radio station.

3. If your favorite singer wasn’t in the music business, do you think you would still like him/her as a person?
Yeah. In fact, to quote from an other VH1 source, during the Warren Zevon documentary made to accompany his last album he described Springsteen as being exactly the kind of person that you would have wanted him to be. That is pretty high praise and perhaps a lofty goal for all of us to aspire to – to be the kind of person that people would want us to be.

4. Have you been to any concerts? If yes, who put on the best show?
And yes, you all expect me to give yet another accolade to Bruce (seven days until he plays Invesco!!) but I will instead give this honor to Slim Cessna and his Auto Club, a local Denver Cowboy Punk band that for many years has set Denver audiences on fire with a rocking, idosyncratic stage act the ignites the passions and majesty of rock and roll – plus a few songs about the Devil and redemption thrown in for good measure.

5. What are your thoughts on downloading free music online vs. purchasing albums? Do you feel the RIAA is right in its pursuit to stop people from dowloading free music?
I have downloaded a ton of music in the past and from time to time still dig around on the P2P networks to find a live acoustic version of a song that I may not have heard before. And that is the major plus to the downloading P2P movement – giving listeners a quick and easy access to little heard before acts and songs. The RIAA and the music industry missed the boat on digital music and the power and presence of the internet. And instead of reacting to the new demands of music consumers, they remain hell bent on legislating their business model into law rather than reacting to naturally progressing market changes.

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Summer Reading Redux    

I have picked up David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest again. After a discussion with a college friend and rabid Wallace fan, and a work chat with some co worker’s defending the book, I realized I kind of missed the massive tome and am digging in. I have updated myself on the rules of Eschaton. I have reviewed the Infinite Jest notes and speculation at Howling Fantods and the scene by scene analysis . I haven’t gone out and purchased the official reader’s guide. Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t like something by Pynchon that is so deep you can’t fathom it. It is mostly a funny look at American Society, an impending war with Canada in the near future and a pack of rabid paraplegic terrorists. And it is unlike anything read before. Wallace has tossed out most rules for plot. Don’t look for the traditional story arch of exposition, conflict, denoument and conclusion. It isn’t in there. And don’t look for many of the sub plots to ever come together. That is not what it is about. It is about entertaining and addiction and you become addicted when reading the book and are entertained along the way, always looking for more, not unlike the characters looking for a new wonder drug.
And it is long.
900 + pages plus 200+ pages of endnotes. (hysterical and insightful endnotes, might I add.)
I figure three or four months on this book. I read most of it before but never did finish it – in all honesty, it wasn’t the books fault that I didn’t finish the feat.
So, wish me luck, I am going back into the deep water.

I just finished the 800+ page book on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but this isn’t even in the same library as Infinite Jest. Hold on to your horses.

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Johnny Cash 26 February 1932 – 12 September 2003

“I love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God.”

-- J. Cash; 1996; liner notes to Unchained American Recordings

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Friday Fives

Friday Fives

1. Is the name you have now the same name that’s on your birth certificate? If not, what’s changed?
Yup. And nothing to add really, either. Just Roy. Not short for anything. No nicknames.

2. If you could change your name (first, middle and/or last), what would it be?
I have made peace with my name. Kind of old school and usually the only Roy in the room. And a neat bit of historical-familial symmetry with it. I have my great-grandfather’s middle name and my grandfather’s middle name. It fits together nicely.

3. Why were you named what you were? (Is there a story behind it? Who specifically was responsible for naming you?)It started with my grandmother. And if you have spent anytime with me at all, you know that most of my stories begin with the sentence “It all started with my grandmother . . . “ Mom wanted to name me Ian Allen Nall. Simple, three letters and the initials spelled the first name. And I would have had great hair and been better looking and all those dreamy things that happen to you when you have a soap opera name to carry through life. But, you see, my birth was surgical. And while mom was sleeping, my grandmother named me, vetoing any votes put forth by mom and dad. (see above )

4. Are there any names you really hate or love? What are they and why?
Names are such a personal thing. But I do have a hard time with some of the biblical names. I mean, really, who would want to be named Uriah? That is a name that just doesn’t roll off the tongue. Some of the ethnic names, the names from the hood probably need some work. I remember a pregnant girl who worked for me once. She was thumbing through a book of baby names wondering what to call her daughter. I suggested Propecia. And then had to spend another 20 minutes talking her out of it, since a girl really doesn’t want to go through life named after a male-pattern baldness medication. And can we talk for just a second about nicknames -you don’t get to give yourself your own nickname!

5. Is the analysis of your name at kabalarians.com / triggur.org / astroexpert accurate? How or how isn’t it? From
kabalarians.com: Your first name of Roy has given you a practical, logical, analytical approach to life and a great deal of patience. You enjoy working at anything of a mechanical or technical nature, and believe that what is worth doing is worth doing well. When you are interested in a project, you concentrate all your thoughts on it and do not appreciate being interrupted. This name creates a deliberate and methodical way of thinking and speaking; it takes you time to learn but, once you have mastered a subject, you do not forget it. You are very systematic in all you do and do not like to see things out of order; however, there is a tendency for you to be too fussy. There is a seriousness to your nature which could cause you to worry over your responsibilities, especially when confronted with change and uncertainty. This is close, although I am not that deliberate and methodical – I am more a polyphasiac in my approach to life.

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GOP Calls For Dough – From India

I can’t believe this ill-thought-out bit of GOP mismanagement has not made the papers and isn’t what everyone is talking about. I am still stunned when I think about it. As the economy slugs along at stagnation levels equal or worse to those of 1990 – 1991 and as unemployment levels hang steady at 6%, the majority party of our nation is using outsourced telemarketers from New Delhi to raise money for the party. Now fundraising for a political party is no big surprise, nor is the fact that telemarketers are being used. But for the pro-America-all-patriotic-all-the-time-we-are-fixing-the -economy-and-going-to-create-jobs! party to send its fundraising tasks offshore and then have the gaul to call up those very Americans who are out of work and ask them to write them a check seems to be in extremely bad taste. My only answer as to why no one is making bigger hay out of this is probably because the Democrats are doing it to. I just can’t find a source to prove it.

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Friday Fives

Friday Fives

1. What housekeeping chore(s) do you hate doing the most?
I hate folding laundry. It is a huge mental hurdle that causes me to be weeks behind in laundry chores.

2. Are there any that you like or don’t mind doing?
I don’t mind doing the dishes and tidying up the kitchen.

3. Do you have a routine throughout the week or just clean as it’s needed?
I try to do a chore a day so that the house isn’t a total pit. But my roommate and dear sister and myself both seem to inherited a sloth gene from our father. (Our mother is Martha Stewart meets Betty Crocker, an immaculate housekeeper). So sometimes the pit of clutter just takes over. Alas.

4. Do you have any odd cleaning/housekeeping quirks or rules?
I tend to follow most of the mom rules but have recently cast out the mop the floor on your hands and knees rules that mom lives by. Time to move on from that. My step sister Laurel subscribes to a website/email list called Flylady.com. It has a whole method of housekeeping, focusing on a task a day and a zone in the house a week. I am contemplating using it to keep ahead of house cleaning.

5. What was the last thing you cleaned?
The cat box. Alas. My kingdom for a self cleaning, self regulating cat box. It would make the cat the perfect, maintenance free pet.