My A/C adapter just broke (physically) and I might be away for a bit.  I’ll check email on my Kindle.  Otherwise, call me at 77-333-MCGEE.  I’ll be back as soon as possible.

• RT @tmaufer @tikitosca: If this doesn't put a smile on your face, Internet is just not for you. Put it down & walk away. http://bit.ly/T6zL7 #
• RT @greenchangeorg After winning Nobel Peace Prize, Obama met with war council about boosting troop levels in Afghan war http://bit.ly/TuJJa #

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Initiating rebranding sequence.  T minus three … two … one …

Enjoy!

OK, new tradition, monthly this time.  Fantasy portfolio: you are free of debt and have $10,000 to invest.  Make it as complicated or as simple as you like, using any instrument(s) you like.  Post it here.  We’ll figure out what you own at close of the New York markets on 15th October.  Then every 15th of the month, we’ll tot up what our portfolios are worth, and in exactly one year we’ll cover all our shorts and sell everything else, and compare the cash we have.  We’ll waive transaction fees.  With me?  This is only fun if multiple people play, so please play.

The standard mcgees.org prize is a banana through the U.S. mail.  This will be awarded to the virtually-richest person on 15th October 2010.

Also, I don’t really know what I’m talking about, so I will probably lose.

My proposed portfolio:

I’d put $10,000 on account at a broker.

I’d short:

$5,000 in gold [Edit: NYSE GLD]
$5,000 in Google (GOOG)

Then use the $10,000 to buy:

$3000 in a DOW Jones index fund (say, IYY)
$7000 in Iceland Kronur currency

This is possible, right?  As I said, I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Play.  S’il vous plait, or even if it doesn’t.  I don’t want to be the only one playing; I’ll be lonely.

• Tweeting from inside #GoogleWave.  Still poking around.  Interface is less intuitive than I expected. #
• The problem with #GoogleWave seems to be one of indexing: there is no letter before "Α". If we can wrap around, maybe this is an Ω release. #
• When #Christians engrave the #TenCommandments in stone, erect them in public places, and idolize them, does that count as a "Religion:FAIL"? #
• ♪Dissent's not treason but they act like it's the same♪ — sometimes I hate this country. If that==traitor, lock me up. http://bit.ly/21Twy2 #

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• ♪ And I can't believe I've spent so long living lies I knew were wrong inside.  I've just begun to see the light. ♪  — Geoff Tate #

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• RT @NathanFillion: Johnathan Frakes is directing. Yesterday, he called me Number One. My heart made a noise that sounded like awesome. #

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I am in a quagmire of depression today, and for the past couple.  A sucking swamp that is not just draining mood — that could be dealt with more easily — but the swamp doesn’t only suck.  It is also vomiting, projecting feelings of foolishness, betrayal, disgust, and embarrassment at being made a fool of, culminating in self-destructive impulses and a predilection for near-catatonia that my psychiatrist described yesterday as “a stressor-induced relapse”.  It is very hard to write right now — I’m not writing anything else, for instance — and the ritual of Vedder Tuesday is my crutch to type anything at all today.

In all fairness, to be topically accurate, the lyrics should be for Hail Hail.  But not tonight.  Maybe later, but anger is not what I’m feeling right now.  What I’m feeling is this:

Indifference

I will light a match this morning so I won’t be alone
Watch as she lies silent, for soon light will be gone
I will stand arms outstretched, pretend I’m free to roam
I will make my way through one more day in hell

How much difference does it make?
How much difference does it make?

I will hold the candle till it burns up my arm
I’ll keep taking punches until their will grows tired
I will stare the sun down until my eyes go blind
I won’t change direction, and I won’t change my mind

How much difference does it make?
How much difference does it make?
How much difference….?

I’ll swallow poison, until I grow immune
I will scream my lungs out till it fills this room

How much difference…?
How much difference…?
How much difference does it make?
How much difference does it make?

Amen.

All Vedder Tuesday

• "angry" — synonyms: antagonized; enraged; fuming; furious; hateful; indignant; outraged; sullen; vexed. Deep breaths forestall 'wrathful'. #
• New topic: #ClassAction. AGAINST. #MOTHERFUCKING. #BankOfAmerica. NOW. I'm working w/ a police sketch artist, describing the #BofA #logo. #
• I've found out, over more than a decade, that a higher #BloodAlcoholLevel IMPROVES my typing.  I need a switch to #disable writing/posting. #
• My weird sense of humor barely avoided destroying a burgeoning friendship. Smtmes I think I'm being hilarious, and others get scared. Drat. #

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• Hard drive crash lost me 500 #CDs.  I wish I knew of good #P2P #MusicSharing services to download what I own already. Don't wanna rip again! #
• String theory and atomic theory are interesting insofar as they have testable predictions. Or at least pretty math. IMO Xianity has neither. #
• And I don't have faith in FMC. It is obviously flawed. As you guessed, I know your allegories, but inscrutability is a bug, not a feature. #
• #Theology 140 chars at a time.  Fun!  That being said: a #religion desiring to be falsified would never have capitalized "#faith". #
• Sorry for the barrage.  Those last three were supposed to be atted to a debate partner.  (Learn Twitter, clanmackay, it's not hard.) #

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• That last tweet was number 500!  In celebration, I prostitute my website: http://mcgees.org.  (Yes, I am *sure* you care.) #
• #FF  @denyreligion  @whisky2dot0  @greenchangeorg  @afterdarkfilms  @p2info  @narq  @bennettoons  @MumblingNerd #
• RT @DangerousTalk Christian group to give away free copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species – http://shar.es/1vNZY  [There's a catch, of course.] #
• #Hitchens's debate #snark: "Anyone who says they know #God's mind … had better not mind looking a bit foolish, which you obviously don't." #

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When the World-Wide web arrived on the scene, one wrote webpages by hand.  Summer of 1995, I read the HTML spec straight through and then coded a site I liked.  In DOS “EDIT”.  When I saw something I liked, I looked at the source, then coded it manually.

Then HTML-writing tools came.  They eventually had a suite of nice stuff, such as templates, auto-completion of tags, syntax checking, WYSIWIG editors, and built-in FTP.

Then there was Blogger.  You could use it as an online journaling platform.  You used templates (or, if you were inspired) created your own, then the site would publish onto your own server.

Then Blogger started hosting blogs.  You didn’t need your own site, but you needed some knowledge.

Then LiveJournal and all their insipid ilk, where everything except your usually-short observations were provided, and they did all the stuff with accounts and friends.  I think.

I skipped MySpace.

Then Facebook, miniblogging with tight maximum-post-size limits.  Super short mini-Christmas-letters.  People could “me too!” with a thumbs-up button, and post constrained responses.

Then Twitter, 140-characters microblogging.  Your thoughts are supposed to fit into those 30-or-whatever words, or they will not be seen by your readers.

Next, presumably, a social site at which you give a thumbs-rating of your state, and can thumbs-up or thumbs-down someone else’s thumb state.

Soon, you just decide where on the Web you are going, and if you like it and haveth not your own site, you can tell your friends, and you’re back to 1995.

Then, the Web will be provided for you as a stream, and you can simply switch streams, and we’re back to TV.

Then, all you can do is choose to turn on your computer or not, and we’re back to church.

Finally, we won’t get to decide whether we turn on our computers or not, and we’re back to school.

And all of that because losers couldn’t figure out how to write in HTML.  If the information age fizzles, it’s their fault.

• Oh, that sound was the gardeners pouring all my different #recycling bins together so they could use the bins for yard trash.  Fuck. #
• Please read my personal health care reform story and RT.  #hc09 http://bit.ly/44Cmm9 #
• Please read my personal health care reform story and RT.  http://bit.ly/44Cmm9 #hc09 #hcr #hcr09 #
• All my #college friends on #Facebook look like grown-ups now.  What happened?! #
• Fellow #atheist-s: Do you, #Google-ing religion topics, click on religious ads just to cost the advertisers money? No? Oh then, me neither. #

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I was talking to someone today who had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia.  She seemed lucid, and then:

“I read one site,” she said, “that explained that in nineteen — well, in fifteen-whatever — when God destroyed the world with fire? — that he took the disease and put it in people so they would not forget.  And I asked, ‘What did I do so that the Dear Lord would make me suffer like this?!’”

Me: [blink.  blink.  blink.]

“Don’t go on the computer,” she implored.  “That shit will jack your mind.  For real.”

Me, internally: Oh, OK.  Let’s go with that.

• Happy #BlasphemyDay!  If I had prepared, I'd have a "Kill Christ for a Commie" badge ready.  http://www.blasphemyday.com/ #atheism #humor #
• RT @DJGrothe: Ideas don't need rights, people do. If you agree, retweet.  #BlasphemyDay09 #BlasphemyDay (And submit your best quippy ideas!) #
• I'd like to note with wry humor that I listened to #Nickelback when they were underground.  Really.  http://bit.ly/1mzXiS #
• I'm watching #TheInternational, and thinking every few minutes that I maybe have seen this already.  Either way, not a good sign for movie. #
• A nurse having difficulty drawing blood asked me if I had ever done IV drugs.  No, asshole, you just suck at your job. #

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