Oh, and this too, from my Sister's (happy birthday brie!) former employer no less:

On a less heady note, here are two things to enjoy.

First a link to everyone's favorite lost rebel, the crackademic, who has a fucking brilliant gonzo account of his recent excursion to Copenhagen. Some choice quotes:

bq. I recruited some loafing street children to find me a place to eat. While this gave me fleeting delusions of gangsterdom, the children were ultimately unsuccessful.

bq. Ultimately when I meet a woman for the first time, and she can't stop talking about her sex life, it's a turn off. In my experience these women are usually batshit crazy.

bq. This scratches the surface of my subtle unease around all old Germans: Is that leather that Grandpa's wallet is made of? If I opened the Ark of the Covenant would his face melt off? You know what I mean.

There's more, including a 7-step recipe to 7/11-inspired charm, hot Brazilian girls into Corporate Social Responsibility, some vague hints at what our man in Germany is actually working on, and so on. He's a great writer, and the flow is worth appreciation. A they say, read the whole damn thing.

After that, all I have is a short video I dug out of my camera that shows some of the road I went 17 miles down last month to camp on a derelict mining claim. I post it because it communicates, I think, the reasons why I like doing that sort of thing:

Another short post with no image (I'm going to redesign this boogin' blog to support more like this... maybe some kind of sidebar again), but anyway I found this to be somewhat exciting:

http://www.communitycounts.us/debates/

At this point I think people are trying too hard to model themselves after the conventional notion of a debate moderator. But the notion being driven by CNN/YouTube, and the ability for Community Counts to mash it up seems like the inkling of something that could be really important and interesting and healthy for the country.

So, you know, you can get this off the internet the same way I get most of my video entertainment (savvy?), and I just watched it and it was really good. I don't go for Moore's coy, "gee mister, don't people in Cuba have to pay for healthcare" character, but his films can be quite thoughtful, and this is some of his best work. The assembled stores really speak for themselves.

One thing that stuck out for me was this bit from France, where they make sure that if you're poor and you need to take a cab home you can walk out with some cash. There's a line where the French doctor says, when asked about paying bills, something along the lines of, "the only qualification for walking out is that you're healthy enough and are going someplace safe."

That hit home for me, reminded me of the bike crash that got me wearing a helmet:

Actually, the stitches are not that much of a pain. There were a few woozy moments in the ER, but the real damage is muscular. I righteously pulled out my groin and jammed by elbow, both on the left side. Heading in I could walk and move pretty well. Walking out of the hospital took me a full five minutes gimping along, coming close to out and out crying on the ramp leading to the street. It’s a hell of a thing to be totally incapacitated.

In case you forgot.

The man and I went out last night to a birthday party for one of the principles at one of Chapter Three's first clients. Them being a high-end furniture operation and the place being a yuppie/hipster crossover bar we figured maybe we'd meet some girls. Turns out the old law-school posse was in attendance, which provided a nice diversion as neither of us really turned out to be in the mood to try and talk to strange women.

It's an interesting turn. I'd sort of hoped that being in the City would coax me back into action on that front, but the whole concept feels tiring, like work. That tells me for whatever reason that I'm just not ready, but I'm finding that to be annoying. It's, ahh, been a little while since there was any sexy zing in my life and while I don't feel hard-up or sexually frustrated per se, I do miss it; and in those "I'm getting old" moments I sometimes worry that it's all down hill from here.

Will there ever be guilt-free casual unhurried adult physical fun again? This makes me think: Keep hope alive!. Heh.

For now I'm just tired. After we'd done the crossover bar thing to death, we repaired to the Zeitgeist -- where some other clients were hanging, also coincidentally: SF is a big small-town -- and stayed until closing, yelling about the nature of the state, and my round of Powers and Pabsts at the end was probably unnecessary.

Some of these Onion video clips are fucking sharp, man.

John Stewart brought his A-Game against McCain, who does well in this format. They maintain an affable and friendly rapport, but Stewart's responses to McCain's talking points are something every Democrat who wants to have a voice on this issue should grok. This is how it's done.

McCain starts filibustering in the second segment -- probably because he realizes that his best chance is to not let Stewart talk -- which is a little annoying. Also, Stewart could have done a better job of returning to the issue of "metrics and timetables" when McCain started talking up the "new strategy," because even if you accept the proposition that the Surge really counts as a new strategy (most honest military observers contend that a 10% increase in troop strength will have little to no impact, which is what we are a seeing) you have to wonder when and how you'll know if it's working or not.

Still, this is something every Democratic contender should study.

Click To Play

This is one of the many reasons to go to conferences. You might end up at your nominal competition's rented beach-house, watching drupal 5.0 release maintainer Neil Drumm open beers with a cellphone.

All the way home.