Quick Roundup 409

I made my appointment yesterday and my flight! I went to look at an apartment late, realizing that the leasing agent probably had lots of cancellations. And at Logan, Cleveland and Houston were the only two Continental destinations that hadn't been cancelled. The guy taking luggage correctly guessed I was headed to Houston, probably because I stripped off and packed all my winter gear as soon as I got inside. But he joked that I didn't have that "wholesome, Midwestern look." "Ah! So I look like a conniving Southerner!" I joked back.

The TSA guys didn't have much to do, either, so I got a security trifecta: The usual asinine unpacking and scans plus a trip through the air-puff machine and some sort of scan of my computer. Still, with no lines, it was quick.

This all entailed taking my garment and computer bags with me via subway and on foot in snow. Mostly, I could roll, but crossing the newly-plowed (and very filthy) streets meant carrying everything. That was a decent workout! Blue Line to Logan was nice. Winter boots made this all possible without me getting wet and dirty.

Yeah. I've been a Texan since 1985 and it took a trip to Boston in the winter to get me into boots!

Hsieh on the Tea Party Protests

If you haven't read it by now, read what Paul Hsieh has to say about the wave of "tea parties" taking place across the country. Here's the first half of the money quote:

If Americans wish to save America, we must couple our outrage at the government bailouts with a positive vision of a properly limited government.

Read the whole thing to get the second half. This is exactly what needed to be said, and will need to be said the more Obama and his cronies put the screws on the economy and our freedom.

Partly from my having a very full plate, and partly from viewing these protests through too jaundiced an eye, I did not see this opportunity to improve the public debate.

For cultural activists, file this one under "leadership by example." That's what I'm doing.

Ranking the Five Founders

Head over to Powell History Recommends for the first grouping of American Presidents Scott Powell will rank. I'm not sure which subgroup he plans to tackle next, but he has divided the rest of them as follows:

• Group 2: Unforgivables -- Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Eisenhower, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton
• Group 3: The Punters -- JQ Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, and Polk, Taylor,
• Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan
• Group 4: Lincoln
• Group 5: The Long Twentieth Century -- Subgroup 5a: Reconstruction presidents: Johnson, Grant; Subgroup 5b: The "Mixed Bag:" Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland (again), McKinley, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Truman, JFK, Ford, Reagan, and "W"

Whether you're a die-hard fan of John Adams, and want to ask why Powell ranked him fifth, or you wonder why Dubya was a mixed bag, stop by there to leave your two cents' worth.

My Band

People who know me will understand what the real answer to that question is!

I like the answer (i.e., the album cover at right) generated by the following meme (HT: Ian Hamet) and the Gimp better, though.

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit "random," or click here. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. [I got Beacon Theatres v. Westover.]

2 - Go to "Random quotations" or click here. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. OR, if quotationspage.com is down, try going to Brainy Quotes and use the Quote of the Moment as your quote. I got this Samuel Butler quote.]

3 - Go to flickr and click on "explore the last seven days" or click here. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. [I got this as my third, but vastly prefer the first, so I used it, instead.

4 - Use Photoshop (or similar) to put it all together.

As usual, I skipped the tagging bit, which had been step five.

How else are you going to convince everyone they've been walking wrong all along?

Damn! Should've used yellow for the title....

Words to Live By

I think this post, which I found through Damon Payne's blog, is applicable to life generally. This is also a note to myself to stick the feed of Seth's Blog into my feed reader tomorrow morning.

-- CAV