comedy

fuck yeah

devastating--

"ITHACA, N.Y. -- : Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, according to a nationwide poll. The survey conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims' civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious. Researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention to television news were more likely to fear terrorist attacks and support limiting the rights of Muslim Americans. " How long before "nearly half of all americans" becomes "just over half of all americans?" what will happen to this country then? perhaps i am needlessly worried, and it has already happened. What amazes me is how quickly people are willing to give up other people's civil liberties. are these rights something inteneded for us only in times where they are easily afforded? i think not. we are like two farmers who make a pact to share food, but when a shortage arises, the farmer with the food renegs on the deal. it is for just such a time that the pact was made. i'm reminded of a mark twain quote: "There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry."

my secret blog-

yes, well, you see, when i was taking a independent study i set up a hidden blog for me and the prof to use together because it was so hard to get him in person or on the phone, and we met weekly online for chats, so this seems like a good way to create a more permanent place we could visit anytime. Unfortunately he never used it. now that i've graduated, no thanks to anyone in that department except the gentleman who approved my petition, i can open up this secret blog to you. if you folks want, i can make it a public place for philosophic discussion. Anyone who wants the ability to make their own posts there can get it by replying to this blog post or emailing me. odds are this won't become the next vienna circle, but i'm throwing it out there. if it's used at all we can rename it "codependant study." that would be cute.

more ass-

idunno. it's just ann coulter and tucker carlson being obnoxious, but here it is. "the average canadian is busy dog sledding" wins as the most frustratingly asinine comment. CNN and FOX should be ashamed for giving these two any mainstream legitimacy.

jordan gets swag from SCEA-

sony sent me a sweet hoiday care package. 2 games (killzone and the new ratchet and clank), some essence of emeril (something i'd never buy but am glad to try), a teflon coated chef's apron with "playstation" embroidered on it, and a george foreman lean mean grilling machine. i'm pretty happy about it, both because it's some cool swag, and because its a first in my game producing career: some serious swag from a 1st party company... sony hearts me.

"The Disappearing Dollar"

"The privilege of being able to print the world's reserve currency, a privilege which is now at risk, allows America to borrow cheaply, and thus to spend much more than it earns, on far better terms than are available to others. Imagine you could write cheques that were accepted as payment but never cashed. That is what it amounts to. If you had been granted that ability, you might take care to hang on to it. America is taking no such care, and may come to regret it." --The Economist Not only can terrorists still enter the country with relative ease, but they get a great bargain when exchanging their money.

A Cold Day in Los Angeles

It was cold today. Below 10 centigrade at midday. Wet too. The weather reminded me of France, and I was overtaken by a profound nostalgia. The reality, however, is that the details of my time there are an effort for me to remember. There are names I should remember, but which I have forgotten, including almost all of my professors, and even a member of the family I lived with. There are innumerable locations i can't recall-- a fountain here, a monument there, a chapel over yonder. I can picture them, of course, but not recall their appellations.

Strange things those that do stick in the mind. There is a live recording of Sugar Mountain which takes me to a particular metro stop in the 16^th , where i can feel the brisk wind blow through the railway tube and over my upturned collar. “Under a Marquee Moon,” will remind me always, i hope, of my RER ride crosstown, listening those mingling guitars as lady liberty waved at me from the west, wishing me well.

I was taking this ride with a close family friend just before leaving Paris. He and my brother came out, and together we all traveled a bit, but that came later. While riding, a man walked through the isle leaving notes on the chairs. These notes let us know about his four hungry children who waiting for him at home while he had no job. The note asked the reader to please leave some change on the chair, which he would come and collect. The French prefer not to look you in the eye, or even speak with you, when they beg. This could be called a weakness of vanity, or evidence of a profound dignity, depending on your point of view. This note was only in French and English, but often they were in additional languages. Thinking about this man's misfortunes, my friend smartly left a condom instead of the usual pocket change.

This route, which I took daily to school, but rarely from it, in turn triggers the memory of the route i took to the house I boarded in. The side door that I would enter. The strangely suburbanite room that was mine. The kindness that the family showed me was remarkable. We sat around at dinner, drinking wine and eating a pie of potatoes and crème fraiche, or pasta tossed with bits of salmon and crème fraiche. We usually talked about movies and the days events. I was so bad at speaking, especially at the beginning. But they were always smiling and telling me about my improvement.

Well, it was cold today. Wet too. Though I didn't mind that at all.

sasha smith show tonight

dec 3rd @ hard rock cafe beverly hills be there or be someplace else seriously it'll be fun

employees are suing Electronic Arts

over 80 hour work weeks... pussies* actually, the law suit is a major event in the industry. i think many developers --and by that i mean the workers not the organizations-- have been waiting for this to happen. if the workers win, electronic arts will probably begin to follow some standard for overtime pay or comp time, and pretty much everyone will follow. It could truly transform this nascient industry. the article i've linked to above gets some things wrong though: "The uproar at Electronic Arts is a sign of yet another gut check for high-tech workers. We've come a long way from the dot-com boom days just a few years ago, when programmers and digital artists were celebrated for their tireless ability to work inhuman hours in pursuit of the start-up dream: creating something so new, so quickly it would make them all zillionaires. Back then, members of the high-tech labor force considered themselves a privileged elite, the backbone of the way new economy. Unions were for lefty wimps, antiquated relics of a bygone era, and Silicon Valley's ability to trounce all competition was what made it great. How quickly things have changed. Today, squeezed on the one side by outsourcing and low-priced foreign labor, and on the other by employers demanding more work for lower wages, programmers and designers are no longer keyboard-jockey heroes of the digital age. Instead, they are a new era's commodity workers, reduced to desperately suing to try to get paid for the hours they work or publicly embarrassing their employers into at least giving them a free weekend now and again. In the new standard operating procedure, crunch time is all the time. And there's little that anyone can do to help." The game industry should not be associated with the .com boom. EA, as the article notes, is highly profitable. The game industry as a whole is also in the black, and this alone is a huge distinction between it and silicon valley's pre-millenial dreamers. Also, the game industry isn't based in silicon valley. It is a worldwide industry, with important developers and publishers in LA, New York, Montreal, Paris, Tokyo, and so on. The author of the article also assumes that the absurd hours are part of designers and programmers becoming "commodity workers." Anyone in the industry knows this is false. Good game programmers are extremely hard to find. In fact, there some people make a handsome living headhunting programmers for developers. If I were to refer a lead programmer who was actually hired by my employer, I would get 20,000. This cash isn't payed for commodity workers. Something more complex is at play in the current industry practice of superhuman workweeks sans remuneration. What that is, i shall ponder another day. *this word was used for effect. women rock.