auto boulot dodo - left coast

sometimes it's cool to live somewhere that has so much exposure, that's famous and overexposed culturally. not too many bands/tv shows/books/films etc. based in grand rapids MI - it was interesting to me to reread the sue grafton mystery books (the alphabet series) and suddenly be able to relate to the geography - like oh wow that's a real place that exists, that i've been. apparently janet jackson eloped when she was 18 to grand rapids. seems awful far to elope for very little benefit but i guess her fiance had some relative there that married them.

anyways - i had vivid dreams again - i don't know whether it's better to have vivid dreams about real people or dreams like ben affleck working at my company. either way it's weird. the wierdest is when you have dreams about having sex with people and then you think about it when you see them next. and then sometimes other people tell you about how they had sex with you in their dreams - sometimes it's ok but sometimes it's just creepy.

apparently ben gibbard thinks i'm a freak - not really but he did joke about it with my brother. also he probably thinks i'm like 16. yay adderall and being productive. and getting music in the mail. i hope the other half of my insound order comes soon. i already have a whole huge list of more stuff i want - i'm so addicted.

listening to: afghan whigs - gentlemen, rilo kiley - the execution of all things

the dell people answered my pissed off customer comment threatening to become a very loyal customer of apple because they wouldn't sell me a laptop with linux preinstalled or with no OS. This should be a bigger deal it's a pretty obvious abuse of monopoly power by microsoft this is the response i got:

Please accept my apologies for the difficulties you encountered with our
service. I assure you that your situation is not indicative of the
quality of service Dell is capable of providing. We appreciate your
taking the time to share your experience with us. Your comments are
very important to us and will assist in making improvements where
necessary.

I have forwarded your message to management and I assure you they will
look into this issue and will work on making improvements based on your
feedback.

I truly regret any inconvenience or frustration this matter may have
caused. We value you as our customer and your satisfaction is very
important to us. If you have any further questions or concerns, please
do not hesitate to contact us.

Somehow i'm not too optimistic.

Finished the book on health care - the appendices seem not as extensive as i had envisioned but maybe there are other things that i can glean from this guy's website. I would definitely highly recommend the book to policy makers and other participants in setting public health care policy. He makes a lot of good points that based in some solid analysis and not ideology - there is a very appealing mix of market-based and government-based suggestions. To me that is the thing that is most overlooked in public policy debates - a deep understanding of what markets are good at, where they fail, and how government interventions actually affect the dynamics of the market. He gives a good example of how medicaid for pregnant women has fallen short of the ultimate benefit that was supposed to be realized by that initiative.

Lots of food for thought...

My doctor is awesome and i will have more adderall tonight!


listening to: Figurine

so much craziness. first *crazy* thing - i talked to ben gibbard on the phone. it's one of those bizarre situations that I really had no idea how to deal with - i really had a strong urge not to but when would i ever get another chance quite like that so i did the best i could. i think i didn't seem that retarded and i'm sure at least my brother said nice things about me. but how crazy is that - i'm so curious about my brother's experience. I was so riled up afterwards, thinking of things i could have said etc. that I cleaned my room which was badly needed because my mom is coming Friday! Agh!

my roommate is moving to NYC soon. this is good motivation to accelerate my moving plans. i'm really not sure what i'm going to do but the prospect of moving/more upheaval and change is daunting

then liz + boys came over and were hilarious. i felt kind of bad when they called my brother at 3 in the morning his time but then again what are younger brother's for - it's one of your rights as an older sister to obnoxiously have your friends call drunk at all hours of the night. even though he is older than both alex and dan heh. i was very amused.

i also managed to read a good chunk of the book i ordered about health care. i'll have to delve into the technical material on the guy's website. the author seems very remarkably sensible for a harvard prof. the writing is very clear, concise and straightforward as well which i find impressive. i was pleased with his discussion of incentives and the role they play in the type and amount of health care that is delivered as well as the cost and quality.

listening to: dcfc - you can play these songs with chords

At least this week doesn't seem like the purgatory of last week. There are some things that I can do to amuse myself at work (illicitly......)

It's so hot out. Steamy. Still crushing on inappropriate or far-away people. It's like a drug. Also when you don't see people very much its easier for them not to do uncrushworthy things. Also i'm terrified of committment.

tequila, smog, art and dj's

is this really funny or am i just delerious?

My brother's seeing Death Cab tonight!!! Have fun Joel! I'm jealous although actually it would be unbelievably irretreivably surreal/bizarre/terrible to see them at Calvin College in the same place where we had church potlucks with lots of Jello salad. What is it with the jello salad? and the church potlucks? I guess it's cheap. That must be it. I'm sure it will be fine for him - he is much more "well adjusted" than me.

I hope either my book or first shipment of the order from insound comes today. Although I really should study. Stochastic time series are sexy - maybe if i can convince myself of that i will be more motivated. Too bad there are no cute boys that i want to impress with my extensive knowledge of stochastic time series. That was totally the reason i did so well in high school was trying to impress boys with my superior math and physics skilz (the k really should be backwards). Ahh Greg and Max. They were such hotties.

i miss sarah and nabil ... they deserted me :( so sad. there totally need to be more controversial people here - they don't even have to be cool as long as they have something novel to say or some passion for something other than sports. jeez listening to people talk about sports is sooooooooo fucking boring unless they are all theoretical about it - i could kinda get into that - i was vaguely interested in the analysis of the superbowl teams playing styles etc. i think in general football is way more interesting than baseball or basketball. it's actually pretty complicated. but whatever. people are boring.

listening to : brendan benson - lapalco, tv on the radio - desperate youth, bloodthirsty babes

I've been so unproductive, tired, unmotivated. It's frustrating. Blah. Shopping cures all evils! for sure!

The news has been very interesting with Richard Clarke/9/11 commission, Pledge of Allegiance (i can understand if people think we should think about something else but i believe under god should be taken out and i hardly think this is a slipery slope issue or that christians are somehow persecuted in public schools. give me a break when schools have to treat creationism as a viable theory - i'm sure there are plenty of other instances where the christian majority marginalizes students of other faiths *especially* those who are atheists or pagans, wiccans etc. - i think it's dangerous to try to dismiss issues like this with the argument that it doesn't bother most people - there is no reason why those words should be in there and 6 year old children led by their teacher to say those words)

And Medicare fiasco. This is a disaster - and done in a pretty shady way - this country blows for electing so many republicans. They have no incentive to do anything about the country's real problems evidently just say you love jesus, hate gays, drugs, and "elites" whatever that means and you can get elected. Who cares about a consistent ideology? Conservativism - right that means no affirmative action except for rich white sons of yale alumns. Because clearly they earned it. And capitalism and free markets will solve all our problems because we say so - doesn't matter if we're misrepresenting modern economic theory if we say it enough it will be true.

Blech blech blech.

It's all *so* fucked up.

listening to: american analog set - the golden band

so yeah work ... it's pretty ok i guess.

Drop day pictures!




interview with Ryan Adams

Happy birthday Matt - being 24 is not so bad.

My insound order:

Spiderland - Slint
All Your Summer Songs - Saturday Looks Good To Me
the Golden River - Frog Eyes
Nowhere - Ride
I've Seen Everything - Trash Can Sinatras
I Am The Fun Blame Monster - Menomena

Only 3 were in stock to ship. That's ok - spread the fun!

I think I should use "school" as a verb more often. As in I'm going to school someone.

Also i will be very interested to read this book on the health care industry - not that i trust harvard economists - they seem like they would be a generally uninspired lot

listening to: the shins - chutes too narrow

ha - i'm jealous of people on spring break - all calling me up and leaving messages about how they were drunk etc. and frollicing damn how do you spell that word??? in the beautiful california beauty. I have cute spring break tee-shirts. they make my boobs look nice!!! anyways... work is boring. i'm not being very productive because i want to be having crazy adolescent fun and making out with cute boys and girls too i guess but mostly boys - emphasis on the *boy* part. AHGH my mom's coming to visit. It will be wierd because I have this whole life where i do what i want and am who i am and that will be wierd for her to be there, and i will be stressed probably because of this whole work thing. ahghgh drama. i feel both older and younger - way less jaded but more comfortable with being able to take care of myself. i was listening to that dog in the car and it was so appropriate for summer and having a crush and being insecure etc. but fun too. it reminds me of evanston and kelly my roommate and riding the El into Chicago and getting tipsy on cider. If i could have just held on to that feeling - somehow if that had been my life - maybe i could have escaped some of the crushing guilt and depression - had some sort of a normal non fucked up life. I feel like i'm finally back to that place with myself - but i haven't really moved passed it. Also I'm back to that size - that's fundamentally wierd. To be the same size as high school. Crazy

listening to: spring break!!!!!

I got my order!!! yay. The Ms. John Soda album I'm *loving* - I like it lots better than The Notwist album - it struck me as what i was wanting/expecting the postal service to be. The Ellen Allien album is a bit more challenging but i dig it too. So far not so hot on Coloma.

This is the ridiculous post I made on the barsuk message board. I was in a wierd mood and there do seem to be wierd connections between Blink and PS - Also i hear that KROQ is *still* playing the Postal Service song a lot - this boggles my mind as i have such a short music attention span and crave lots of variety. I suppose that's why I don't listen to radio although this new 103.1 station is pretty good. I don't get it at home or work or on the way to work so not much help really.

Hmm, Blink 182 used to be my fake favorite band. It was super wierd when Such Great Heights was one of the top songs on KROQ and it was playing along side Blink 182 stuff. Also I composed a (pretty poor) Postal Service ring tone in lieu of using "what's my age again" because I was feeling the "no one loves you when you're 23" sentiment. But now I'm 24 so it's all good. And my current fake favorite band is Linkin Park - I even have a T-shirt. I was going to wear it to the Rose Parade with a trucker hat to make some sort of ironic statement (or maybe just try to pick up cute 18 year old boys) but I was too hung over...

so my conclusion is there is some sort of cosmic synergy between Blink 182 and the Postal Service

this is a fucking hilarious interview with the unicorns!



listening to: tv on the radio

So - back at work - weekend was good times, beer, funk, crazy movie, talked to dee, watched the buffy musical.

the medicare actuary seems like a smart, ethical guy. at least some people in the government still tell it like it is.

yay! people not buying the whole diamond engagement ring concept. I've ranted about this before. It's nice to hear a variety of stories about how people deal with the issue. The whole concept of getting married is still something that I have very strong conflicted emotions/ideas about. Not that it's really on the radar for me right now but it freaks me out that i'm at an age where i will actually have to start making these decisions.

I bought 2 CDs this weekend - The National - Sad songs for dirty lovers (i really like the title) and TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (ditto)

I should be getting my order from forced exposure I'm excited
--- ---- ------ ----- ------ -----

1 x BPC 065 LP ALLIEN, ELLEN Berlinette 2LP

1 x MORR 031 LP MS. JOHN SODA no p. or d. LP

1 x WARE 11 CD COLOMA Finery CD

Haven't seen these in any stores. Yay more records. I listened to a bunch of my records yesterday while reading The Tortilla Curtain and pretending to study.



listening to: the stills - logic will break your heart

my friend's physics TA is possibly a criminal

Heh heh. Pretty dumb to send an email claiming responsibility. This part is the best though about the first guy they arrested for the crimes - "He doesn't even look like the image on the surveillance cameras I am much better looking, and my hair and beard are much shorter."


listening to: unicorns

yay command line! it's funny hearing my brother get all excited about the coolness of the linux command line. I remember when I was super vocal about how cool linux is!

blah back from georgia. it was not that fun. i'm glad to be back. i'm also happy about my raise!

i ingested too much media - i'm all fired up about politics. it inspired me to have a political kegger though.

listening to: clinic