Gay But Not Narrow

A top-two primary with only two candidates is somehow even weirder than an uncontested election. I can vote for either Amy Walen or Cindi Bright, but both will certainly appear on the ballot again in November, so . . .

(And both of them are from the same party, namely the Democrats. But I can't decide if that makes it less weird, or more.)

I went to Chabad this morning to say a mi shebeirach, and as I came in, I saw a sign that said it was Ran's bar mitzvah.

And lo, it was so.

Ran is not a very common name; I've met a few other Rans online, but I'm not sure if I'd ever met one in person before. (Technically I guess I still haven't, but eh, close enough. I had the third aliyah and he had (and read) the fourth, so we were within a foot of each other at one point.)

In his dvar torah (= sermon), the Rabbi said I'd read very well, that I was a good boy who was growing up well, and that I'd given a very nice speech last night. I don't remember that speech, but I'll take his word for it. :-)

Oh, and I was pelted with candy, by virtue of still being on the bima at the end of the bar-mitzvah Ran's aliyah. So I really got the bar mitzvah experience.


(Incidentally, I wonder if the bar-mitzvah Ran had a moment of panic when I was called up to do the third aliyah? After all, there was no sign warning him of my existence!)

I went to San Francisco last weekend to visit Funty, who's on the verge of moving back to Boston. It was fun!

Highlights: ( Read more...Collapse )

New personal policy: no full meals at Jack in the Box.

It seems like the electoral college has two options tomorrow, both of which are bad for our democracy:

1. choose Trump
2. choose anyone other than Trump

Setting aside the question of whether #2 has any actual chance at all . . . much as I want it, and much as I think it's the right and Constitutionally-appropriate choice given Trump's unapologetic corruption, it's really just the lesser of two evils. I mean, we complain about Republicans' gross departures from democratic norms and values, but the electoral college anointing someone other than Trump? Not democratic, and not normal. (It's appropriate under the Constitution, but only because the Constitution is not really all that democratic.) And if the college chooses anyone sane, I don't imagine Trump voters just rolling over and accepting that; they will rightly feel that elites have stolen the election from them.

I think it will take a long time for the country to heal either way.

What are y'all's thoughts?

Today I learned that a Fire TV is not a TV.

Two things I've learned recently:

- the Washington Redskins are from the other Washington
- stocking stuffers are not necessarily literally stuffed into stockings

I just watched Zootopia. It turned out to be exactly the right dose of escapism. Thanks, Disney!

Apparently they're making a movie based on Louann Brizendine's pop-pseudoscience book The Female Brain?

I'm starting to suspect that Hollywood simply doesn't care about quality science. :-/

My laptop died the other week. Quoting from my Facebook post at the time:

> My computer died the other day, not without warning. (It had been having serious problems for months.) I've decided I don't want to deal with the new version of Windows -- all the fearmongering has worked on me -- but I also don't want to deal with getting Linux working, and I have no desire to learn how to use a Mac.
>
> So, I've ordered a laptop from System76 with Linux, specifically Ubuntu, preinstalled. I feel so decadent. :-P
>
> Wish me luck!

The new one finally arrived today:

> My new laptop arrived today, finally. I had some initial frustrations -- for example, connecting to my home Wi-Fi network caused the wireless card to crash, and it took me forever to figure out what happened -- but now that it's set up, I'm really liking it!

So, since I'd been LiveJournal-less for more than a week and a half, I thought it would take me forever to catch up on my friends page. It did not. I guess LiveJournal is not as hopping as it used to be. :-(