Required insurance plan through school must be waived or enrolled into by October 10, 2008. I get married November 15, 2008, at which point I switch over to future wife’s enormously better, cheaper, more convenient, and less arbitrarily-restricted insurance plan. Incoming students to mid-year quarters get pro-rates, but not current, hard-working, cherished students who’ve already been paying out of their asses for several years now.
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School policy is that once you pay, you’re in for the year. Future wife’s policy is that before you’re married, you’re out. Insurance plan’s customer service representatives’ (I’ve spoken to six) policy is to be as uncommunicative as possible, and to essentially end each sentence with, “so go screw yourself.”
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I will most likely be paying $1,845.00—the yearly going rate—for 75 days of insuredness.

No wait, that’s incorrect. 0 days of insuredness, since I’m too poor and the plan is too crappy to afford seeing a doctor.

Tony Sarabia during All Things Considered last week:

WBEZ is supported by listeners like you, and by…no one, because I don’t have the list of our sponsors in front of me. Again.

You might have noticed the new button I put over there on the right.

I started a new project that I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time. It’s a photoblog to display photographs I’ve taken with my old P&S and the new ones I’ll take with the camera I’ve been drooling over for several months.

Check it out. A new photo should hopefully be added every day (as long as I’m not out of photos to post) or, failing that, whenever I get around to adding new ones. For now, it’ll be populated with photos from my old photography page, so my apologies if you’re not seeing anything new quite yet.

NB: I don’t think it’s any secret that I support Obama, so I’m not ashamed to have turned this into a veritable McCain-bashing platform. I am as much for Obama as I am against McCain. Without further ado…

In all fairness, maybe he was taking a nap. Or, maybe he was already in bed for the night. Or, maybe he and Cindy were out shopping for Residence #6.

Emil Jones and Rod Blagojevich should have entries in Dickipedia by now. Anyone want to take a stab?

Despite not having a college degree, [retiring Illinois Senate President Emil Jones' son] was hired in April 2007 as an administrator for Gov. Blagojevich’s Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity — a job that pays $59,436 annually.

This is the epitome of politics in Illinois.

John Gruber posted a challenge on Twitter just now:

Contest: Describe “that Wal-Mart aroma”.

Don’t read too many of the responses too quickly, or you’ll fall over backward, hit your head on something, and die.

My favorites so far:

@gruber fetal alcohol syndrome and broken homes

and

@gruber Hobo vagina.

Holy hell. Here’s the schedule Abbie just sent me for this weekend’s festivities. Mind you, this isn’t even for the wedding; this is just for one of the damn showers.

Thursday:
Abbie picks [redacted] up at MegaBus Stop at 3:00. Union Station. Takes them to [redacted].
Abbie and Ben go to dinner at [redacted]…not sure who all will be there
We need to talk to Grandpa this night

Friday:
Abbie takes train to Aurora.
Borrows mom’s car to pick [redacted] up at airport
[redacted] and [redacted] drive to Aurora
Ben has hot party with lots of strippers

Saturday:
Abbie in Aurora for shower
Ben takes Charlie to [redacted]’s in the morning
Ben drives to Aurora and waits at Starbucks/[redacted]’s for Abbie to call
Ben makes appearance at shower (1:30ish)
Everyone goes back to [redacted]’s and spends rest of day there
BBQ with out of town guests and [redacted]’s friends at night
Everyone sleep over

Sunday:
Abbie and Ben take [redacted] to airport at noon
Abbie and Ben drive home, pick up Charlie from [redacted]’s
Abbie and Ben pick up [redacted] and drive to Hinsdale
Dinner with [redacted]s/[redacted]s
Drive [redacted] back to city.

Pass out.

And by “hot party with lots of strippers,” she means “possibly make mac & cheese if I feel like it, watch maybe 40 seconds of the Olympics, and pass out on the couch with my hand down my pants.”

I am drooling just thinking about it.

But more people voted for Gore in 2000 than for Bush. Gore should be finishing out his second term.

As if there weren’t a million already, this is reason enough for Obama to pick Gore as his running mate.

This is so awesome. If you haven’t been paying attention to the presidential race, this is pretty much all you need to know: Obama talks about himself, and McCain talks about…Obama. Word clouds are typically meaningless junk, but this is an extraordinarily meaningful application for them. ( via, via)

But these words are only taken from the posts on their blogs. Wouldn’t it be great if we could summarize what they’re actually saying?

Here are two more word clouds compiled from each Senators’ ten most recent speeches (in Obama’s case, the ten most recent that aren’t significantly similar to any other speeches he’s given). McCain’s is on the top, Obama’s on the bottom.

For your amusement, in his last ten speeches, McCain has said Obama’s name or some variation of it 48 times, compared to mentions of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan collectively at 63 times (a 1:1.3 ratio). (He uttered his own name zero times.) On the other hand, Obama has mentioned McCain’s name 43 times, versus the wars at 141 times (1:3.3). (He said his own name once.) McCain has mentioned the issue of offshore drilling for oil 30 times, while Obama has said oil-associated words 77 times.

All in all, it seems that McCain is doing a whole lot of talking about Obama and not a whole lot of talking about ISSUES.

This is blowing my mind. Watch the part at the end, too.

Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene from pro on Vimeo.