Author: Aaron Weber

Register and Vote

Americans, please vote this time. Are you registered? Voter registration forms are online here. Print ’em and mail ’em. One vote per person, please. There are a number of important non-presidential contests going on as well, so be sure to check Vote-Smart to read up on who’s running for what in your area.

Boston-area voters should know that the Suffolk County Sherriff’s election is really tight right now. That Tuesday the 14th is the Democratic Primary election aroud here and that Sciortino is probably a better choice over Rep. Vincent Ciampa in the Somerville and Medford area. Incumbent Ciampa is anti-gay-marriage, but Somerville has a big gay population so this is a good chance to tilt Beacon Hill toward justice. You could do worse than to look at the virulent bigot’s guide to anti-judicial-review candidates, and vote the opposite of what they suggest.

Also, it’s not too late to donate to the MoveOn Voter Fund or the MoveOn PAC.

Non-Obscure Objects of Desire

Consumer picks of the moment: t-shirts at threadless.com and a funny political one at goats.com. Graduated from Urban Outfitters but not quite to the Crate and Barrell level of bourgeois conformity? Try CB2, the hipper, cheaper version.

I recently bought a copy of Cargo, the boy’s version of Lucky, which is to say, a consumer’s guide without the boring objectivity or ratings of Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports may tell you if a car is safe and reliable, and may even offer notes on whether it looks good and handles well, but only Cargo will give you a two-page spread about the various iPod cases on the market.

Yes, this is obviously the shirt for me. Mmmm, brains and money.

News of the Obvious

Every year they publish another story about how college kids drink too much. Wow. Were these study-conducting people never in college? I suppose they were, but weren’t at the parties, because they were in the library doing statistics homework that has enabled them to go back years later and conduct studies measuring the average number of drinks a partying college boy can toss back in an evening.

I know I was holed up in my room, periodically calling security at 2am because someone was setting off fireworks in the parking lot or throwing up in the bushes. But I also know that kids drank to excess. Most of them at one point or another. Five drinks in a sitting? Five drinks (a.k.a. five twelve ounce cups of watery beer) is a baseline, although it was more than I could do by about two drinks. Ten is what the men would drink. Then there’s shots of Jaeger, throwing up, and more beer. The trick is to throw up before you get too drunk, apparently, to breathe.

The ultimate goal is inebriation sufficient to forget that you’re in a position of absolute irrelevance in the world, that you’re wasting your parents’ money and more importantly your life and privilege and youth.

Music Pick O The Moment

Sample MP3 CocoRosie: Good Friday from Touch and Go Records. Check additional samples at Insound and CocoRosie reviews at Pitchfork.

The music has an off-kilter sweetness to it that I can’t quite describe. There are definite processing effects on the acoustic guitars and seductive, almost reedy vocals. But on the other hand it seems a little lo-fi… anyway, really good. Reminds me of Sparklehorse, some of the tracks from Tom Waits’ “Mule Variations,” and of September 67.

Starship…

I have a profound and growing distaste for the phrase “… in the enterprise,” used to mean “in big businesses.” Just say “in large business environments” or something like that. There’s a million ways to say it.

Besides, “enterprise,” like “professional” is suffering from inflation. Last weekend I saw a review of a giant multifunction remote control which comes in two editions, basic and “Pro.” Do they really mean to suggest that this is a remote control suitable for professional channel surfers? That it is aimed at the lucrative professional television reviewer or censor? Same with the Roomba, which comes in a “Pro” edition. No professional cleaning outfit would use a roomba. Call it deluxe, max, super, extra, ultra, plus, elite, or even (ugh) extreme, but what you have there is very much a device for the consumer market and calling it “professional” will only confuse your marketing and that of everyone carrying anything that actually is aimed at the professional space.

Think before you name a product ,folks. What does this word MEAN?

Decline and Fall of Real Estate Industry

At the movies the other day, one of the preview/ads was for realtors in general, as in, the professional association of property promoters. It’s quite the field to be in. As the NYT notes, it’s getting more crowded by the day:

More than 350 people take the state real estate exam at 9:30 a.m. every Tuesday at 123 William Street in New York. According to the New York Department of State, 13,609 people took the sales license test between Jan. 1 and June 25, up from 9,680 for the corresponding period in 2002. There are so many newcomers in the field that another test time has been added to accommodate the overflow.

Too many sellers may mean that the service fees have to drop. As is, I’ve already decided that I’m going through ZipRealty or Isoldmyhouse.com if and when I buy. I mean, realtors have inherent ethical conflicts, plus you could really replace several hundred of them with a competent DBA and a half-dozen data-entry temps– if only the main association didn’t have such a lock on the damn database.

Misnomer

Rightists in and outside of the party claim Kerry is an “out of touch ultraliberal from Taxachussets.” Facts: Massachussets is actually about 26th in overall tax burden, right in the middle. Housing is expensive and that makes property taxes burdensome, but the fact is, “Taxachussets” is a big lie.

While we’re at it, have I mentioned that Dennis Hastert may be a pedophile cultist? We don’t know that he isn’t, anyway. He has never discussed membership in a child-molesting cult, nor has he disavowed the molestation of children and attendance of cult rituals involving human sacrifice and the Reverend Moon.

We can’t prove that he’s not a serial killer, but we do have very strong evidence that he is a lying sack of shit and that he is also the Speaker of the House. Oh, and he’s fat and ugly. So there.

(Why do people make fun of Michael Moore’s looks, anyway? I mean, he won’t win any beauty pageants, but he’s not exactly running in any either– he’s a filmmaker, not a model. His weight isn’t the issue.)