Day 3 of ULTAMITE ANARCHY 4EVA

I've heard we're getting one to four inches. (Insert crude joke about sex here. Huh huh, I said "insert.")

Anyway, I'm ready for it. We've got plenty of apple cider, sufficient food, and I've got my old phone charged to take pictures tomorrow. So tomorrow I'll probably post up a bunch of those. Pictures right after snowfall look so great, before the snow's been disturbed. I've taken several sets, both here and in Portland.

In other news, Richard flew out for Colorado yesterday. With him out, and Nate fucked off to Oregon, I believe that makes me the guy running the station for the time being. Weird.

More Minecraft tonight. I'm told there's no way to show off my creations directly; I'll have to take pictures or somehow upload video. I'll figure out how to do that. I've got this underground Babylon thing that's kinda awesome.

Day 2 of ULTAMITE ANARCHY 4EVA

The Republican establishment is scrambling to figure out a way to both placate their right-wing base and to re-fund the government. Their latest idea is to cancel the healthcare coverage they and their staffers get and put them on Obamacare as well. This would be fairly pointless - their healthcare coverage is relatively equal to that under Obamacare as it is, and their overworked, underpaid staffers (seriously, it's true - staffing levels have precipitously declined over the decades, leading to shittier legislation) get really good healthcare in lieu of better pay. And whatever pay they do make, remember they have to spend it in the DC-Maryland-Northern Virginia megasuburb. Having lived there for three years, I can tell you it's incredicostly and they're already suffering enough.

But the point is that the GOP needs something to save face, and if they have to throw their own staffers under the bus to do so, they don't care. Let me reiterate that: they give so little damn about people that they made their own underlings, people they see and work with every day, people that probably get their Christmas cards, research the best and most efficient way to take away one of their few worthwhile benefits. And this is the establishment, that part of the GOP that's supposed to be moderate and responsible. If that's the loving, caring, RINO face of the party, then that makes the Tea Party Norman Bates.

Thunderstorms on the horizon. Also Minecraft.

I'll have a picture for you all once I get to work. (EDIT: And now I do.)

It's a fitting metaphor. I was up until 5:00 AM playing Minecraft for the very first time. The game's addictiveness was not why. It was a decent way to pass the time while my lungs threw a hissyfit, saying "IF WE CAN'T SLEEP THEN NOBODY SLEEPS." So that's fun. Asthma is one of the few things about myself that I genuinely hate.

Note to myself.

Go to Burkheiser 210 at 11:00 AM next Tuesday. You're on Grad Council now.

Just got a call from Dr. Hyer about it. And I've had Dr. Knight talk to me about it as well. I was on the fence for a while - I didn't want to make a commitment and then walk it back, but with the easing up of my schedule lately I think I'll be able to do this.

So I'm now a part of student government. I have no idea what this means. I know Aaron Prestwich (the guy who had a Vewy Sewious Talk with Nate when he wrote about how bad the campus wifi was) went all banana republic and dissolved the Student Finance Committee last year, which was unfortunate, undemocratic, and possibly even unconstitutional in a literal sense, under state law.

The most bitchy possible way to fulfill a legal obligation ever.

Samsung just paid Apple their $1 billion settlement in nickels.

They rented 30 trucks for the purpose, loading them down with 20 billion nickels.

The trucks probably cost tens of thousands of dollars to rent, the drivers probably weren't cheap either. But flipping a massive bird to a company that's somehow managed to trademark round edges? Priceless.

What I'm listening to this afternoon.

BT's album "These Hopeful Machines." The playlist above has a lot of the songs, but not most of them, off of the 2-CD album. It's techno in its very best iteration - it's not the trite loops and incongruous sayings that litter the songs of other techno groups. It's a complete whole, and each song is an immersive emotional experience lasting for 5-10 minutes.

I was turned on to these guys by my friend Joel, one of my longest-standing internet friends. I wouldn't say BT's my favorite band, but it's definitely gonna help me get through this, my longest day of the week.

Day 1 of ULTAMITE ANARCHY 4EVA

Went to my desk job funded by the state government without incident. Discovered the pork burritos at the Grill are delicious but overpriced. Withdrew $20 from the ATM to pay for it; the international banking system failed to collapse overnight.

I saw a couple zombies already though, they were cheering on the shutdown with the rest of the Young Republicans. I hope they find some brains soon.

I saw a fedora'd gentleman on my way in. He had grey hair, though, so he is probably wearing the fedora he bought back in the days when it was genuinely classy.

I just got a stack of quizzes to grade. I better hop off this thing and get that done.