Yesterday I got around to adding one thing to my sidebar. I have a lot to do still. I put up my Currently Reading list via a script from allconsuming. Then today I put my top weekly artists from Last.fm in there. Will someone teach me how to take the data feed they give me (here: http://www.last.fm/onyoursite/datafeeds.php) in any format they offer and put it on my site? I want my recent tracks to show rather than last week’s top artists.

Other plans include getting rid of the default blogroll, changing the order of stuff, making my header an imagemap with only the “All Clear” button clickable to take one back home (help?), changing the Flash loop on the domain homepage, and actually changing around the homepage.

If anyone can teach me how to do small, cool things, I’d be happy.

Every time I drive on the freeway I get angry. Not about the other drivers on the road, most of them are just in the same position as me. I get upset about the bureaucracy that decided carpool lanes were a good idea.

It’s my strong opinion that carpool lanes are a completely unnecessary evil. They make far more things worse than better. I came up with a short list today of why carpool lanes should be abandoned.

1. We all pay taxes, we all should be able to use all the road. Every driver pays the same gasoline taxes that supposedly pay for our freeways, how can it be fair to favor a privileged few by giving them their very own lane?
2. Cars pollute more when sitting in gridlock. While carpool lanes were supposed to reward people with the foresight to try and help the environment, the probably cause more pollution by forcing more people to sit in polluting cars in non-moving traffic.
3. Stop and go traffic is much more dangerous than smoothly flowing traffic. That just kind of makes sense. When more cars are jammed into fewer lanes it gets more hazardous.
4. More merging cars. People coming onto the freeway who are carpooling furiously try and get over into the faster carpool lanes, unabashedly cutting anyone off. This furious left-merging could probably be avoided if all traffic was moving relatively the same and there was no incentive to change lanes so quickly. Also, how can changing lanes from almost stand-still traffic into a lane where cars are zooming by be very safe?
5. Road rage. It’s purely speculation, but maybe people wouldn’t get so angry when they drive if traffic was a bit lighter when everyone is truly in the same position in and everyone is moving along at a slightly faster pace.

My last point isn’t really a point, but more of a wondering about the law. Why is it that people driving around others who couldn’t possibly have a driver’s license, and thus be in a car taking up space on the road, get to use the carpool lane? Mothers driving around babies doesn’t really seem to me to be in line with the initial aim of giving people an incentive to share rides.

Another final observation. There wouldn’t be guys like me on the road writing down lists on a piece of paper while we are driving and taking snapshots with our phones if every driver was treated equally on the roads.

Started reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde today. Lent and recommended to me by Stacey. One of her favorites she says. I’m only about a dozen pages into it and I’ve found at least two quotes that struck me.

The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with the desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.

Maybe I’m twisted, but this is a brilliant way of looking at things. There are so many people (girls) I wish I could get thinking this way. Yeah, I guess I’m a pervert.

Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that a caprice lasts a little longer.

This one mostly struck me because of the similarity between it and a line in a Wilco song that says, “She says forever, to light a fuse…” I just enjoy it when more than one person makes the same observation and expresses it in a way that resonates with me.

I try to avert my eyes from the contents of the magazine racks at supermarket checkout stands because I inevitably learn something about the relationship status of a celebrity that I don’t even want to know. Although, the other day a Newsweek cover caught my eye because it asked a question that surprised me: “How much Power should they have?” I am so cynical lately about politics and the media that to see a major publication actually questioning the government gave me pause.

I finally got around to reading the article today and it’s fairly well done. To me it kind of tiptoes around the issues. They are trying to be “fair” I suppose. The authors did draw a connection that I think is important for Americans to understand. Presidents are power hungry. They will always run roughshod over the rights they are charged to protect.

Though the choice is rarely stated—or perhaps even conscious—a president will almost always choose to violate individual rights over the risk of losing a war. When the French threatened American sovereignty on the high seas in 1798, John Adams supported the Alien and Sedition Acts, blatantly punishing free speech as traitorous. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus (the rule giving citizens a right to take their grievances to court). During World War I, Woodrow Wilson allowed officials to prosecute anyone for criticizing the government. During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt allowed FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to promiscuously wiretap, and ordered Japanese-Americans placed in internment camps. As the Vietnam War dragged on and domestic dissent arose, Richard Nixon—citing his Demo-cratic predecessors FDR and Lyndon Johnson—authorized bugging and wiretapping against domestic “subversives.” None of these steps, it should be pointed out, made the nation appreciably safer. (emphasis mine)

One would think that presidents would understand this. They can not be complete idiots and they have scores of advisors and lawyers surrounding them. I think they just don’t care. But what can I do?

Fuckin’ Homerun Pies, Y’All originally uploaded by Malavagma.

And Home Run Pies.

Last Thursday I did nothing all day. When it was time to go out to popscene to see We Are Scientists with Jessica I was feeling weird. At the gas station while filling up, I glanced into the teenie tiny mini mart and saw a gigantic display of Home Run Pies. I love Home Run Pies.

At that moment I realized why I was feeling funny. I had not had any sugar all day. I am used to eating candy all the time. Eating a Home Run Pie would be perfect. I bought two: a chocolate and a cherry. I ate the cherry one immediately. It did the trick. I was in good spirits again.

So we adventured. We had dinner in Chinatown with Jessica’s friend Steve. Then we went and caught up with some other friends at a bar. The band was actually having drinks at that bar before the show too, that was kind of fun. Then Andy joined Jess and me for a little rocking out and ass shaking.

I ate the chocolate Home Run Pie on the drive home. I opened it with my teeth. Rawr.

As can be expected when changing one’s blogging tools, many of my old posts have broken things in them or they do not look pretty. I will be cleaning this stuff up as I come across it. Feel free to take the opportunity to point out flaws I could fix or improvements I could make by commenting on this post.

I have a new blog. Yippee! Thank you to Elea for coming over on New Year’s Eve and nerding it up with me. I’ll be messing around with some of the little details later. Enjoy for now.