Three outstanding things I've done alone since I got back to New York

So, when I lived in New York before, I worked at night and thus missed a lot of cool stuff. So upon moving back, I decreed that I would take any chance I had to see something cool, even if I had to go alone. So here are three things I've done, alone because everyone is too freaking busy. (and this is a paragraph where all the sentences start with "So". I'm such a 14 yr old girl).

1. Aleuchatistas - So I saw one of my favorite bands, Aleuchatistas, at the Cake Shop. There were only about 20 or so people there, so I got to talk to the band, who were really nice. Their music is pretty hard core progressive, lots of interesting time changes, and heavy on the 3/3, and of course I like that. Check em out if you hate pop music.

2. Deerhoof - I saw Deerhoof, one of the premiere, creative, fun bands on the indie scene, at Prospect Park, for free. Opening for them was the Metropolis Ensemble playing The Rite of Spring. They are progressive orchestra/electonic combo (i.e. real brass, percussion and string sections, and then guys w/ laptops). And then Deerhoof played an impressive set, mostly stuff from their last two albums.

3. Step-brothers (the good part) - So I saw an ad Myspace last week for a Sneak Preview of Step Brothers, the new movie with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. So I click on it and a week later I'm in line for an hour in 90 degree weather with a crabillion percent humidity. I'm also behind this guy who brought a date that was clearly not into him, and his moves resulted in her staring at the ground profusely. Like as hard as she could. Why didn't she leave? I think they were co-workers.
Anyway, the pretty MySpace girl give us free(!!!) passes, then they take our phones and cameras, and then we get in, and sit for a bit. I read about 10 pages of my current book. Wait, back up, I forgot about the part when I was cut by about 50 people because the a-hole in front of me walked like a 2 year-old, and I had an aisle seat way up in the third row. Which was awesome because a pretty MySpace girl went to the front and said, thanks for coming tonight, we have two special guests, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, and everyone goes ape-shit. They came down the stairs and went right by me, so I put my fist out and they both looked me in the eye and fist-bumped me, and Will Ferrell says "Haha, just like a terrorist!" John C. Reilly had a nice seersucker jacket i need to find. They both wore name-tags like they worked at the cinema. They did there how-do-you-dos, and then the movie came on and it was really really funny. I mean, Will Ferrell's nuts are involved prominently, and so is Chewbacca, so right there you know it'll be funny.

O'ahu: "Elba ain't got shit on me!"

Like Napoleon, I've triumphantly returned to the town from which I was not completely voluntarily expelled, New York City, from an isle far, far away, O'ahu. Unlike Napoleon, I hope to stay for more than 100 days.

I got a pretty great job that I won't talk about yet.

Also, I magically reappeared in my old room in Spanish Harlem, as if the year in Honolulu, Florida and Rhode Island were just a silly little transdimensional vortex. Same roommates, same furniture, but Frida the cat died :(.

I still can't believe I got my old room back.

New job + Old apartment = Easy move back for Mister Andrew

I'm pretty happy about it all

Clintonites: Nader redux?

Sure this is anecdotal, and I'm figuring this "Clinton voters not supporting Obama" stuff is just at the margins, but yikes, we really don't need to go through the whole "not gonna vote for the perfectly fine Dem and let another terrible Republican win" junk again. Why can't people sift out the emotion and logically pick the candidate most aligned with the views of the person they voted for in the primary? Vindictiveness just gets us more wars, more death, more job losses and more bad world-y stuff. Hopefully it's just being over-reported in the mainstream.

Like most races, this will be won and lost at the margins. But even at the margins, if this means the Dems lose a smaller, sensibly blue state, like New Hampshire or Connecticut, this will be catastrophic for Obama.

Remember, in 2000, if Gore had simply won New Hampshire (where Nader got 4%, leading to 48%-47% Bush win victory), Gore would have won, Florida would not have meant jack, and there would be no war in Iraq. (hey that rhymes! good times!) Here's hoping Clinton people don't make the Nader mistake. You see where that got us.

The Fly’s elegantly simple, wonderfully fair (and potentially unconstitutional) plan for full U.S. House representation for the District of Columbia

I’ll preface this by saying that I’ve never lived in D.C. and haven’t been there since I was seven, when, while gazing at a marching band during a parade, I walked smack into a telephone pole and cried until my uncle bought me a snow cone. Ahhh, unearthed repressed memories.

It's been on the back-burner since last year, but full House representation for 600,000 Americans without it should be a no-brainer. But since there are a number of competing factions, let's take this step by step.

When it comes to House representation for the District, there are really four major parties, all with a stake in fairness, and they can be sorted into two pairs: States v. the District, and Democrats v. Republicans. (Really, we shouldn’t even consider the wants of the parties, but that would be a pipe-dream, so we’ll conveniently forget about not considering them.)

Now, according to the plan that was voted down in Congress last year, they wanted to give the District one representative (presumably Democrat) and balance that out politically with another seat in Utah (presumably Republican), which currently has three but would get a fourth. I think this is blatantly unconstitutional, seeing as Utah would be treated differently from all other states, basically receiving a seat due to politically bargaining and not apportionment. This would set a horrible precedent. Any other state want a new seat? Just find another place that could use one, get some backing from other Congressionals, and presto, new seat for your state. It’s a small step to imagine one party having a large majority in the both houses, and adding seats where their party is stronger.

Also, I don’t think Utah, already with three seats in the house, should get tantamount to a bonus seat when seven other states (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming) only have one.

Since we need to throw a bone to the states, and should maybe help out a few states, how about we declare a minimum of two representatives per state? I’m not sure if this has ever been proposed, but I’d be surprised if it hasn’t. This would have minimal effect on 43 states but give additional and perhaps needed representation to some pretty poor states. Also, the five states with two representatives (including my home state of Rhode Island, plus Hawaii, Maine, Vermont and Idaho) might in the future be pretty close to the cut-line between having one representative and two representatives, so that would allay fears of losing a seat in those states as well.

Since, in the House, the District would be treated as a state, they would also get two seats.

This would also conveniently appease the parties. Five of these states (AK, MT, ND, SD, WY) are staunch Republican states, and the other two (DE, VT) are decidedly Democratic. All would receive a second representative. That would be five new seats in Republican states, which would almost be balanced out by the two new seats in the Democrat states and the two new seats for the District, which normally votes Democratic. Nine new seats: five Republican and four Democrat. This would raise the number of voting seats in the House from 435 to 444.

It also guarantees that every state has more Electoral College votes (4) than D.C. (3), at least until the D.C. population necessitates an additional seat. Currently these seven states have the same number of electoral votes as D.C.

I’m not sure if a two-representative guarantee would need a constitutional amendment or just the passage of a bill into law. Since both parties would likely get something (Reps.: extra seat, Dems.: votes that count in DC), neither would probably bring it to the Supreme Court.

States might have an issue, but I don’t think any state would bring it up to the Supreme Court since we are just raising the floor and not reducing the size any state’s delegation. Each state involved gets a new seat and Electoral vote. This plan would modestly reduce each representative’s voting percentage in the House from 1/435 to 1/444, less than a 2% reduction per representative.

(Personally, I also think it’d be nice for the District to get a Senate seat too, just to get the Senate to an odd number of seats and avoid ties, but that’ll never happen as long as there is a vice-president.)

Assassination Procrastination

With Hillary taking the "anything can happen" stance as reason for staying in the race, and interesting question is raised. Let's say Hillary pulls out of the race now, and then anything does happen to Obama. Sex scandal, assassination, alien abduction, botulism, whatever.

Who do you think Democrats would pick as their nominee? Perhaps the other person in the race with tens of millions of votes? So basically, whether she stays in the race or not, Hillary would of course be the nominee if something happens to Obama. So what's the real reason for staying in the race? Might it have something to do with the $11.4 mil she's indebted to herself?

Ironman

Many reasons why Ironman was good, well paced, good acting (save Jeff Bridges), and stupifyingly realistic special effects. My theory is that metal is pretty easy to simulate, which is why racing video games look realistic and RPGs still look cartoony.

I'm a little afraid that if this movie does well, Robert Downey Jr. will fall off the wagon, thereby killing a sequel.

BoltBus

I'm on the BoltBus right now, from Boston to New York. Wifi and electrical outlets, it's pretty nice. There are other routes as well, DC, Philly, mostly NE. $15 each way.

It's kinda awesome in a very regular way. This should have been around like five years ago.
Oddly, it's run by Greyhound. It might be au revoir to the Fung Wah for Andrew

1GAY UNITED write-up in NY Times

Young Artists Find a Private Space, Only Without the Privacy

These Lofts Have a Downside

My buddy John calls me up and says, the New York Times is at my house, taking photos, apparently they are doing a story on my house. My friend's have lived in these lofts for the past couple years. I've crashed there I don't know how many times. I took some friends there to a Candy/Neon DayGlow birthday party, and one of them found the love of her life. And they have an awesome dog, Kirby

Crazy Obama Music Video By TISA

I particular dig the Al Green sample, previously used by Ice Cube in "It was a good day"