Gah! Is it just me, or does Bush seem like just an angry, bitter man? Also I don’t believe he’s a “good steward of the environment”. Overall I think Kerry came across as calmer and more composed and Bush seemed angry and flustered for most of the time. Anyway, this NPR article has a link to the audio and a link to the full transcript a little further down. The text transcript is pretty complete (and faster to read) but doesn’t give you the tone of voice. (I listened to the whole thing and I think I got a feeling for the voices, emotions, sincerity, etc… but I didn’t see the video so I have no idea who was walking around or what facial expressions were made. My opinions and interpretations follow. 1. To Kerry, are you or aren’t you wishy washy? Strong and direct answer from Kerry. Laundry list from Bush about the same supposed inconsistencies, along with some rhetorical questions that sound like accusations but technically aren’t, like “I don’t see how you can lead this country in a time of war, in a time of uncertainty if you change your mind because of politics.”

I find it ironic that a large number of people who voted for Bush over Gore did so because Something was Wrong in the White House if Clinton could lie about having shagged someone and not get impeached for it. Now Bush is found to have basically lied about reasons for going to war and sending 1000+ soldiers to their death and arranging for 22,000+ to be wounded badly enough to be airlifted out of Iraq to US or European hospitals. ...

I spent a number of hours this weekend creating a mysql / perl / cgi script, to accept abuse reports and file them into a database. This is part of a (hopefully) ongoing project which users can feed spam into and get customized blacklists out of. The prototype is at http://abusetrack.nekodojo.org/test if you want to check it out, though it doesn’t really work quite at all yet. Create user Paste spam in Sign the report (doesn’t actually check pgp yet) ...

CNN has a transcript of the debate but it wasn’t complete yet. However, this one by NPR seems to be complete. NPR Transcript of Presidential Debate One of the questions asked of W was What criteria would you use to determine when to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq? His answer is interesting because it sets out specific goals that need to be met before we can pull troops out. What I find even more interesting is whether the same measure of success and completion applies in Afghanistan. ...

Thursday: At this point in time, pretty much all the books were packed, but nothing else was. mistyshadows helped to pack some more boxes of books and CDs, DVDs, and other trinkets in the entertainment center. We bought sushi for ourselves and ate it at home. Friday: Escaped from work a bit early. Made food and continued packing. mistyshadows came to help some more. mistyshadows is wonderful. We got some more stuff packed from the closets and bathrooms. ...

Please take my Satellite TV poll if you have Satellite TV or have had it recently. If you don’t have Satellite TV but you want to see the results, just click No and Submit Poll. (You must be logged in to LJ - though if you are not logged in you may still leave comments)

1. Buy new house 2. Get organized 3. Fix up old condo 3a. AC needs plywood surrounding it. Handyman - Ken Dembewski (408) 406-8445 Called Ken, he can meet us this week. Fix leak in kitchen sink at old condo 4. Fix up bathrooms in old condo 4a. Install vinyl in 1st bathroom 4b. Replace toilet in 1st bathroom 4a. Replace vinyl where it is funky 4c. Replace toilet in 2nd bathroom ...

Friday- There was a party thing at work, so I stayed until about 5:30 or so. On the way home, got a call from D asking if we want to come for dinner. We did so, and had a good time. Dinner was grilled tri-tip, sausages and asparagus. Asparagus turned out pretty good- we laid like 8-10 of them in a row and then skewered them together with a short skewer perpendicular to the stems at about the 1/3 and 2/3 positions. Brushed them with a little olive oil and shook on salt and pepper, then grilled for like 4 min. The only problem we had was that the asparagus spears were really thin and tender so they kept breaking, but mostly they held together OK… this would have been a bit easier if the spears were a little on the chunky side. ...

I got woke up by a call on my cell, from someone who didn’t leave a message, but whose number is 408-275-8379. (If this is your number, let me know and I’ll remove it :) It was 6:43 and I decided to get a little more sleep, knowing my alarm was set for 7:20. Well. I woke up a couple more times, the first time I thought, “I’m still a little tired, I wonder how much longer I have before the alarm goes off.” The second time I thought, “Hmm, that’s strange, it should have gone off by now, I really should…” Then the third time I thought “OK, I am less tired than I expected to be this morning, something is definitely wrong.” That was at 9:51. ...

Pictures of our new townhouse. M and I will be moving about August 14 or so.