This Blog Is A Lie

Mail Goggles

2008-10-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

From the are-you-sure-it's-not-April-1st-? Department:

Gmail engineers today announced a new experimental Gmail feature that they're calling "Mail Goggles":

"Hopefully Mail Goggles will prevent many of you out there from sending messages you wish you hadn't. Like that late night memo -- I mean mission statement -- to the entire firm."

It works by stopping you from sending messages and forcing you to go through a few steps to make sure you really really mean it. The steps? Math problems! I guess the logic is that if you're too, ahem, impaired to figure out what 2 times 5 equals, you probably ought not be sending emails, either. Interesting thought. :)

To enable this, log into your Gmail account. Click on 'Settings' at the top, then the 'Labs' tab. Scroll about 3/4 of the way down the Labs features until you see Mail Goggles. Click the 'Enable' button next to it, and then the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the page. Now, if only I could get such an embarrassment-saving feature on my cell phone...

While you've got that Labs page open, I highly recommend enabling the "Forgotten Attachment Detector" as well. This one will also stop you from sending a message, but only if you've mentioned attaching a file but not actually done so. It pops up a little reminder to let you know that there's nothing attached, and gives you the chance to take care of it. This is where the "Save Changes" button comes in handy... I thought I had enabled the Forgotten Attachment Detector when I first heard about it, two weeks ago, but apparently I forgot to click "Save Changes"... and so I sent my cover letter with no resume attached! D'oh!

Dream

2008-10-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

I dreamed... that I lived in an old, run-down castle, and to feed myself and the others there, I would buy eggs for a penny apiece from the children who collected them from the chickens who minded the cannons. I specified that I would only buy unbroken eggs, as, invariably, any with bits of shell missing had four or five visible hungry chicks inside.

Not particularly weird, as far as dreams go, but I think the idea of chickens minding cannons is pretty funny. :)

Knock Knock

2008-10-06T10:34:00.000-07:00

"Hi, my name's Janette. I'm with the Barack Obama campaign, we're going around this morning to make sure everybody is registered to vote."

I said that line 64 times yesterday. My canvassing partner and I spent the morning and early afternoon walking through a 4-by-4 block neighborhood in South Philly, knocking on doors of people whom the campaign had identified as undecided or 'sporadic' voters. Our job was to, firstly, ensure that those people we met were registered to vote, and secondly, to ask how they intended to vote. Nearly everyone was registered - unsurprising, as our list came from voter registration records. And, even better, those who chose to share their voting intent with us largely answered that they supported Senator Obama.

That wasn't always the result, though. Before we set out, I told my partner that while I often traveled through the neighborhood to which we were assigned, I couldn't begin to guess at the ethnic makeup of it. As it turned out, the makeup was, as far as we saw, entirely white, and Italian / Irish. I admit to being surprised at that. This is a big city, and I can't imagine that so large an area could be so homogenous. Did the whiteness shown by our list reflect the true balance of the neighborhood? Did it show a huge disparity in the racial makeup of voter registrations? I don't know the answer, but the reactions to our visit from a couple of households may provide a clue.

Early in the day, we knocked on the door of a house, and a teenage boy answered. I introduced myself, told him what I was doing, and asked if his parents were home. He called upstairs to his father, who came down the stairs to meet me. "Who is it?", he called. "Obama!", answered his son. "Obama? Nobama! Nobama!", I heard from the staircase. "We're not buying!", the father, a 50-something man in a white sleeveless T-shirt, shouted as he came into view. "You're doing this in an Italian neighborhood? Get outta here! Nobama!". I did as he asked, and moved to the next building down where my partner was, while the man stood at his door and continued to shout at me.

My second telling experience came towards the very end of the day, at the fifth-from-last house on my list. Again, I knocked, and introduced myself through the screen door, this time to an elderly woman. She told me that they were registered, but not voting for Obama. I said 'Thank you', and marked that down on my clipboard. As I was writing, I heard a heavily Italian-accented man's voice from inside ask "Who's that?" The woman at the door answered that I was with the Obama campaign, and the man began screaming at me. I honestly couldn't understand most of what he was yelling, but as he repeated specific things, I was able to figure them out. "Have you no shame? Have you no shame?" was the first thing that I caught. "That bastard motherfucker!" was the second. I said "Goodbye." and walked away.

Now, I've obviously picked the two most extreme examples of people's reactions to us. Those two anecdotes were counterbalanced by some very positive ones - "Hey, I'm Local 98, bro!", "I'm on board!" "Signed, sealed, delivered!", "I'm definitely voting for him", - positive, enthusiastic responses. And yet, the good feeling I got from those who were on our side somehow doesn't come close to erasing the shame and dismay I felt at the overt, agressive racism hurled at us by that vocal minority.

What will certainly help dispel those negative feelings, however, will be an Obama victory in November. And toward that end, I'll be going back out and knocking on as many doors and talking to as many people as possible between now and then. If that means I get shouted at by a few more sad old men, so be it. In the course of his career and his campaign, Barack Obama has certainly been subjected to far worse, and shown nothing but grace, elegance, and perseverance. My hope is that his example will take hold in the houses in South Philly and across America where fear and ignorance now rule, and we can truly become, once again, the greatest country in the world.

Money Money Money

2008-09-30T08:57:00.000-07:00

I guess there is a shiny side to being broke-ass poor. Wall Street troubles? They don't trouble me. Banks failing? Pff, if my bank disappeared completely, I'd lose roughly the price of a pizza. My industry is fairly turmoil-resistant, and there's always work to be had (my particular lack of having any being my own damn fault).

There's even something of an advantage to be had here, in that stocks, in general, are cheaper than they have been at any time in the past few years. I'm around (okay, past) the age where I need to start thinking and planning for an eventual retirement - nevermind the fact that I can barely conceive of ever possibly being that old - and putting any money I can into a retirement fund now will certainly end up growing as the market and economy inevitably recover. It's going to be a troubled next couple of months, sure, but in the long-view, a few months are a blip in a retirement account.

If I were at all the kind of person who liked to make a point, I guess it would be this - don't panic.

2008-09-28T14:04:00.000-07:00

And I'm lucky to be here

with someone I like

who maketh my spirit to shine

Lessons in American Civics From a Scotsman

2008-09-25T04:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Craig,

Regarding last night's (Wednesday) show: Fucking bravo, sir. That was absolutely some of the ballsiest and most inspiring television I've seen in a good while. And that was just the Shirley Manson segment!

I salute you, and thank you for saying things that most would consider to be outside the purview of the late-night talk show schtick. You are absolutely right to be angry and vocal about it, and I hope that every single person who had the good fortune to be watching last night is today talking about what you said, and spreading even just a small bit of the passion, courage, and common sense that I witnessed.

I've been a fan of you and the show for a long time now, and I want you to know I shall most certainly continue watching.

What did we learn on the show tonight, Craig? I guess we learned that when the journalists, politicians, and tycoons are too afraid to call bullshit, that maybe it falls to the comedians to be democracy's last hope.

Regret is a shitty thing.

2008-09-20T23:11:00.000-07:00

For a long time, I've known that I need to better recognize moments while they're happening, not some minutes, days, or weeks afterward. Once it's passed, it's gone. "I think you're missing an opportunity", she said.

I don't want to miss this one.

2008-09-20T23:09:00.001-07:00

The previous post is a lie in that John McCain is not Abe Simpson, and Sarah Palin is not Maude Flanders. That's all I have to say for now.

2008-09-14T00:43:00.001-07:00

Here it is -

2008-09-13T22:04:00.001-07:00

First lie.