Terrible news in Washington today. I hope this doesn’t translate into more lenient gun laws in Chicago (or anywhere else). I also hope idiotic, 100% preventable stuff like this doesn’t happen more often in DC now, either.

It’s not terribly surprising though, given that, according to Wikipedia, “Seven of the current justices of the court were appointed by Republican presidents, while two were appointed by a Democratic president. It is popularly accepted that Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito compose the Court’s conservative wing. Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer are generally thought of as the Court’s liberal wing. Justice Kennedy, generally thought of as a conservative leaning moderate, is considered most likely to be the swing vote that determines the outcome of certain close cases.”

Pretty much dead on. This is the epitome of “voting along party lines,” although I hope that’s not what it boiled down to ( like it has in the past?).

Update: Daley’s response. I’ve probably never appreciated Mayor Daley more. (Maybe because he’s never been more coherent less incoherent.)

Brief note for anyone who will ride the #4 at any point in the future: Never, ever forget your headphones.

Here’s what we had today.

A man, probably schizophrenic or at least otherwise severely psychotic, talking for the entire duration of my 30-minute ride, right behind me. An excerpt of his conversation, which was remarkable in that he single-handedly completed the cycle so tantalizingly advertised during the trailers to The 5th Wheel: “Where strangers become friends, friends become lovers, and lovers become bitter, suicidal exes all in one show…”:

Darlin’, my name is Good Lookin’ Bill! I don’t work and I never will! I’m a babymaker! I know John Bonham! You’re A LOT— You’re NOT A LOT— She takes me to the White House, fucka! I feel good lookin’! My kind of town! [in a high-pitched voice:] Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Ohh, I don’t know about you anymore.

Constantly. Make a recording of yourself reading this out loud, loop it 486 times, turn up the volume to 11, and voilà! You have the backing track to my morning #4 ride. It would not have been more annoying if he were also punching me in the back of the head; my resulting crossword success would not have changed much.

Another woman had a young baby that would not stop crying. It wouldn’t have been a problem except for the older woman at the opposite end of the bus, literally screaming, “Gi’ dat child some ASPIN!! Gi’ dat mofo chi’ some ASSSSPIIIIIINNNN!! He teething! Can’t yo dumb ass see dat? Dat all he needs!! Put some whiskey in it!” Then she walked down the aisle and tried to convince the mother to hand over the baby for some burping time. Mother and child got off at the next stop, which is one of the best parenting decisions I have ever witnessed.

A different woman wanted to get off the bus at one point—a fairly reasonable desire voiced in an entirely unreasonable way: “LET ME OFF THIS FUCKING BUS! I’LL KILL YOU MUTH-AH FUCK-AH!” followed by some thrashing of the door handles, slamming the windows with the bases of her wrists as if to break their window-noses, and then a loud buzzing sound indicating that the bus was having a seizure. (Bus designers must not anticipate such behavior from their target audience, but if I ever become a bus designer, there are a whole lot of things I’d need to take into consideration based on my personal history with the #4 that one wouldn’t normally expect to have to take.) This was entirely in lieu of pulling the cord conveniently placed within reach of every single seat of the bus and also happened while the bus was moving. This made the request even more unreasonable than it would have been on its own. Prior to this, she was also doing the crossword, silently, and generally acting like a normal bus occupant, if, on the #4, there is such a thing.

Seeing this and clearly seizing a potential opportunity for casual sex given their newfound proximity, Good Lookin’ Bill decided that it might be nice to serenade her—or maybe it was the invisible lady behind her—with a song, but it was more babble than actual words or even melody. It’s the thought that counts, I think, assuming it was a well-meaning, genitalia-wooing song.

I’ve been waiting for to talk to a human post-”cancel services” option on RCN’s customer service line for the last 20 minutes. Bad sign? Mass exodus?

Amazing talk by Chris Jordan at TED, just posted this month. An especially powerful note on the relative tolerance of smoking here:

More than 400,000 people die in the United States every year from smoking cigarettes…It’s a strange thing to think about, that on 9/11, when that tragedy happened, 3,000 Americans died. And do you remember the response? It reverberated around the world and will continue to reverberate through time. It’ll be something that we talk about in 100 years. And—and yet on that same day, 1,100 Americans died from smoking. And the day after that, another 1,100 Americans died from smoking, and every single day since then, 1,100 Americans have died, and today, 1,100 Americans are dying from cigarette smoking, and we aren’t talking about it.

Skip to around 3:30 for the quote, but only if you must skip.

Steve Mirsky was discussing The Happening, M. Night Shyamalan’s new movie that touches loosely on “acts of nature” that are thought not understandable by science, on the most recent Science Talk podcast. He was talking with George Musser about the plot:

George Musser: The idea is that plants emit some kind of neurotoxin that causes people to stop walking, become paralyzed and confused, and then to kill themselves. So there’s something in the environment that causes us to take our own lives.
Steve Mirsky: Actually, I think that plant exists—it’s called TOBACCO.

I ordered a watch through Amazon (from Watch Grabber—which doesn’t deserve a link) over three weeks ago now, and I’m still dealing with them to get me the damn watch. If your ultimate goal is to piss off your customers as much as possible, here are some tips to get started:

1. Ship a watch with a huge, plainly visible scratch across its face.
2. Make the process of finding your phone number as difficult as possible, and definitely don’t include it on any email correspondence. Too easy to get in contact with you that way.
3. Take three or more days to reply to emails, or, you know, don’t.
4. Don’t include a return shipping label with the original item. Also, don’t include any other information that might be helpful either. That would only make people content (or even happy), and that would be terrible.
5. Wait at least a week after receiving the item to be exchanged to even begin to think about processing it. People just can’t handle being shipped the same watch twice within a month. Too many shipments. Swimming in watches. So, slow it down a bit. No need to rush.
6. Take three or more days each to reply to second and third emails wondering whether you received the first email. Also, don’t, unless you really feel like it, which should only happen for a few minutes per day at most.
7. When you do finally get around to replying, refer as vaguely as possible to its ongoing “processing.” Also, compose the response to appear as if you just woke up from a midday nap and aren’t quite lucid yet.
8. When the customer miraculously finds your phone number somewhere in the bowels of Teh Internets and ends up calling you out of frustration and/or wondering whether your company still exists, answer the phone using the classic, “Hello.” Not “Hello, Watch Grabber, where we ship you crappy watches, this is Dan, how may I help you?” Not “This is Dan with Watch Grabber, I don’t care about what you’re calling about but go ahead anyway…” Not “Hello, Watch Grabber.” Not even “Hello?” Just “Hello.” More of a statement of fact, really, as if you were reading stock prices as banally as possible or…answering phones at a watch company.
9. Later in the call, assuming the customer hasn’t yet ended the call after realizing almost immediately that leisurely email conversations are less obnoxious than this, put the customer on hold for two minutes before even asking for the order number, much less any other identifying information that would force you to put them on hold while you “look some stuff up.” After getting this information, ask the customer to “hang on,” and then put them on hold for another few minutes, or as long as you think anyone would be willing to wait with a silent phone held up to their ear before hanging amid a fit of profanity.

Follow these nine easy steps and you’ll be well on your way to bankruptcy and lawsuits in no time.

Download Firefox.

Because, sometimes, even adults can’t work the damn things properly. Then, people die. Also, sometimes, when they can work them properly, people die then too.

Closing on the new place in about 3 hours. Moving tomorrow. FINALLY.

Email from the madre tonight:

Why are these things on my webmail now?

This is from the woman who emails me to ask for my email address and leaves me her phone number with most voicemails.