A few days ago - I'm eating some Trader Joe's version of peanut-butter Captain Crunch at my desk, watching my usual handful of vlogs through 'Democracy Player', when 45 seconds into the newest episode, from Arin & Susan over at 'Four Eyed Monsters', I see... me. I almost choked on my cereal I got so excited!

Flash Version   |   'Save As'   |  

So - funny story. Two days ago Amanda bought a few things from Target; among those things was a covered litter-box for Avocado. Lately he's been unable to cover up his "mess" without getting litter all over the bathroom floor.

He was a bit apprehensive about his new covered litter-box at first - but we were sure to leave it in the same place as his original box had been, as to make it as least confusing for him as possible. Later on I also stuck him inside just so he would know that there was indeed litter inside.

An entire day goes by and I guess Amanda and I didn't notice any out-of-the-ordinary bathroom habits from Avocado due to our taking care of the two baby kittens we rescued from the street. Angela came over around 4:30 to hang out and pick up Toulouse (one of the kittens) to take home with her - then Justin came by closer to 8 to watch 'Studio 60'.

Now what I can't seem to get over is this entire time - hour after hour, minute after minute, there was a familiar pressure building inside Avocado. A pressure he resisted for well over 24 hours. And during this time of uncomfortableness - he had wandered back and forth past his new covered litter-box dozens of times, a litter-box that he had even been inside of before, a litter-box that smelled like... litter.

And I can image not being comfortable with venturing inside the new and strange box maybe the first, oh, I don't know, 28 hours. I'll even say the first 30 hours. But to reach to point Avocado obviously did and not give in... is... just hilarious.

After 'Studio 60' finished, at 11, I walked into the bedroom just in time to see Avocado bolt from my desk chair in what can only be described as the kind of knee-jerk reflex when a parent bust their child masturbating. Sheer surprise and embarrassment. What I found next will disturb you.





It, "it" being piss, was everywhere. Splattered on the seat and back of my chair - overflowing onto the carpet - somehow also finding it's way up onto my desk, misting my phone, Netflix slip and work schedule. Even my iPod which was docked on-top of my Mac Mini behind a stack of blank DVDs. It must have been simply a near-explosive stream of cat urine.

I'm still curious why my desk? Was it both out of relief and revenge?

Amanda and I went to dinner the other night at the Olive Garden - afterwards we went back to Justin's to rescue the 2nd kitten, which turned out to be a very beautiful, healthy girl. When we finished cleaning her up and de-fleeing her, we drove into Hollywood to catch a 10:45 showing of 'Bobby' at the Arclight.

The two of us have been looking forward to this film for months - I was excited to see how Emilio Estevez executed this film that he both wrote and directed (and I shouldn't forget to mention that he also acts in the film).



'Bobby' was fantastic - even aside from it's subject it was very, very well written - very thoughtfully directed and it's cast all gave great performances. But it was more than simply an amazing movie - it was an important movie. One that took over seven years of Emilio's life to bring to the screen, a film that blatantly, in each scene, stands as a labor of love and not just a demographically-constructed money-making motion-picture.

I think one of the aspects that moved me the most were RFK's own words from the documentary footage & news reels used in the film - I'm now 25 years old, which is still very young, but 25 years is far too long for a person to live without the kind of political mindset that RFK seemed so committed to. To hear him talk about class-inequality, the effects of violence and war on the soul of a country, to see a politician so proudly run on a platform of peace, and love for one another... is... something I hope that my sister, Mandy, who is 15, will know from first-hand experience by the time she is the age I am now.

The speech from RFK I found most powerful in the film - was the speech he gave on April 5th, the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated, and only two months before he would be shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel after announcing his win of the California primary. This speech was titled 'On the Mindless Menace of Violence' and I can't seem to read it today without becoming extremely emotional.



I'm not sure if what saddens me the most is the thought of RFK shot and scared on the kitchen floor while these words play in my head - or if it's the longing for these words in today's political debate. Longing for a message of hope and strength from our government - I'm so tired and sickened by our current drum-beat of perpetual fear and ignorance.

Here is just a few paragraphs from that speech - I would strongly recommend following this link and reading it in it's entirety. And commit as much as possible to memory.

[...] For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers. [...]

i'm sitting on the bathroom floor. my butt is numb. and my lap is purring. about 28 hrs ago, mike and i brought home the dirtiest, scariest kitten i'd ever seen. with a little digging around behind a dumpster and some help from our friend justin (shout out to jeanspants.blogspot.com) and his broom, we caught one of two 6-week old kittens born to a stray, who's been hanging around justin's apartment.

i first saw them monday night while we were there watching studio 60 and i knew right away that we must help them. strays can sometimes be hard to domesticate and take-in but kittens are a whole other story and usually very easy to find homes for. i'd had a few drinks and kept insisting to justin that he must catch them and put a "free to good home" ad up on craig's list. by the next day i'd already found homes for both of them (even better than Craig's list, i'd found trustworthy friends who were more than eager to open their homes).

so last night, as soon as i was out of work, mike and i headed over with a cat carrier, flashlight, and loads of food and treats. it was not an easy task, those little guys were fast! and scared and... scary! i must've jumped a mile the first time i tried to catch one and he hissed and threw up his claws at me. you would've thought a lion was attacking. anyway.. since we ended up needing the box (carrier) to catch the first one in, we didn't really have a good way to catch the second one and we also couldn't find him. so we took the one we had and headed home. we are hoping to go back again tomorrow to search for the 2nd (surely you didn't think we'd give up that easy).

when we got this little guy home he was in pretty rough shape. his hair was matted and filthy. mike gave him a bath and the fleas went crazy. there were literally hundreds of them. our hands were covered (it was actually pretty gross) as we rubbed flea shampoo on him and combed his long hair and picked out what fleas we could with tweezers. after the bath i wrapped him in a towel, dried him off and held him while my sister's boyfriend (stan the cat expert) picked off the remaining 30 fleas the shampoo had forced to his head and face. then stan cleaned out his very gross and dirty ears.



i couldn't believe how docile the little guy was.. just lying there, limp, letting us poke and prod him. he felt much better after he was all cleaned up and got some much needed rest for the night (confined to the bathroom, of course). and again all through out the day, as we were off doing festive holiday things.



and now, just over one day later, he is not even the same cat. he's done with all the hissing and is extremely cuddly and friendly (just wants to curl up and sleep in your lap, bless his little heart). we've seen him use his litter properly and he's started eating and drinking... and playing!



tomorrow he'll be checked out by the vet. he'll need shots, a de-worming, de-fleaing, ear drops and maybe treatment for a possible bladder infection. then it's off to a nice and wonderful long life of cuddling with angela in her soft warm bed... and lots of reading over her shoulder, i'm sure.

this makes me happy.

Flash Version   |   'Save As'   |  

Flash Version   |   'Save As'   |  

Warning: This video file is rather large [160 MBs], if your connection is anything short of smoking-fast I highly recommend following the 'Flash Version' link.

Please! Spread this video! It's super easy. Just select the text within the box below - then cut & paste it into your own blog, a bulletin, your profile, your myspace or facebook page... really it can go almost anywhere.


The three R's: re-edit, re-distribute & resources! This documentary is open-source. What does that mean? It means anyone can burn it to a DVD, or put it on their iPod and show it to their friends, even put it on tv! It means that anyone can take it and alter it... add their own clips to it, scrap 90% of it and start over, whatever you want. Do you think it's too long? Then download the source-files from Four Eyed Monsters and cut a shorter version. Think it's not long enough? You get the idea. There are countless clips out there on net neutrality - search YouTube, Google, Blip.tv, or make your own, etc - take those and help this documentary evolve. Help it stay current, help it speak to as many people as possible.

Seriously - I hope to see this video (or different versions of it) popping up all over on my favorite sites. Anyone who is reading this post right now has a stake in this - you have something to loose. What will the internet look like in 10 years? Well that all depends...

Important Update! If you've re-edited, embedded or linked to this project please, please, please take a second to add your name & website to this wiki! Thanks!

View other blogger's reactions...

I recieved an email this morning from NowPublic, a participatory news network, asking for permission to use two of my flickr pics tagged with 'chocolate' for an artical titled: 'Chocoholics do big favor for scientists'. Honestly... I'm not sure why, our of the 1,000s & 1,000s of photos, our made the best fit. But I'm not complaining.



I snapped a screenshot of NowPublic's frontpage - that's Justin lighting up in the upper-left corner. Today - the frontpage of NowPublic, tomorrow - the cover of Time.

[Drum roll] Ladies and gentlemen... welcome to the 1st 2006 who-knows-how-annual Vlogger Match! You are about to bear witness... Okay, cut the drum roll, I wouldn't want to build this up too much for anyone. The clip below is a prime example of what happens when 3 vloggers [Angela, Justin & myself] get together on a Monday night after eating a lot of chocolate-chocolate cake. Pure sugar-induced craziness [all caught on tape].

Flash Version   |   'Save As'   |  

Flash Version   |   'Save As'   |  

I always give a thorough comb-over on the 'sample ballots' they mail out just before the elections. I take the time to fill out my choices so I have a nice cheat-sheet when I go to the polls.



Today, I voted around 1'ish - Amanda wasn't able to vote until just a half-an-hour ago, 7'ish, and when she did, she noticed something very deliberately confusing. Everything, short of the propositions, was swapped around. All the State candidates, all the US Senators, the US representatives, the State Assembly, the Supreme Court Justices - etc.

So, as an example, for the Judge of Superior Court, I wanted my vote to go to Bob Henry (#132) and not Deborah L. Sanchez (#133), but on the actually ballot, these two people had swapped spots but not numbers!

Amanda accidently voted for Debrah L. Sanchez before she noticed what had happened. And now, since it's been almost 8 hours since I voted, I really don't remember if I was looking at the names when I voted, or the numbers by the names. But I'm guessing I fell for it and, in the process, screwed up my votes. I know for sure I voted correctly on the State candidates, because I specifically remember looking at the names and party. But still, it pisses me off.

One day to make a difference. To cauterize this wound. We finally, tomorrow, can demand that, before we can solve the problems facing our country and constitution, we have to stop digging ourselves deeper into this ditch.

I'd like to bring to people's attention that several times in the last week, John Boehner, the 2nd House Majority Leader, has said, with a straight face, "that Rumsfeld is the best thing to happen to this military in 25 years". That just a few days ago Bush told a crowd that Rumsfeld stays (for the last 2 years). That legislation just passed had a paragraph snuck in, after the two houses had looked at it, that shut down the only existing oversight office on spending in Iraq.

What do these three things have in common - that tomorrow is, above all, an opportunity for change. These people have made it undeniably crystal clear, they have every intention of not changing a thing. Everything is great - and if you don't think so - you're just unpatriotic, you're a blame-America-first liberal, you're just plain wrong [and according to Rumsfeld, "you just ought to back off"].


Also - I have a question - on a scale of 1 to 10, how much contempt does this administration have for the people? Do they, for a second, think that we are so stupid as to forget the last three years like that [snap], just because they tried Saddam - on the day before the elections! What are we five? Do we have the attention span of a goldfish? Don't get me wrong - great, they tried Saddam, yippie, how does that change a damn thing on the ground? It makes me sick - sick that we are ruled by a government that would so blatantly, right to our faces, treat us like rabid dogs foaming at the mouth for a piece of steak.

Back to a more positive note - I hope everyone goes out and votes tomorrow. Here are a few numbers you should program into your phones incase you have any problems at your polls (people asking you for your ID, saying your registration is incorrect, etc...): 1-866-OUR-VOTE, 1-866-MY-VOTE-1, 1-888-VOTE-TIP, 1-888-SAV-VOTE...

Good-luck.

Last night, at the Vloggie Awards, I missed a moving speech written by Josh Wolf, who was not able to accept his awards in person... being that he's been sitting in jail for months. "He is now the longest jailed journalist - longer than New York Times' Judith Miller". His mom transcribed his acceptance speech, I thought it was worth sharing:

It seems like mere moments ago that I was here in this venue for blogger con. I remember telling my story about how the federal government was trying to send me to prison for refusing to turn over my unpublished material and testify in front of a grand jury for asserting that I am a journalist, and for refusing to be an agent for the government by providing intelligence to aid in an anarchist witch hunt. Some were shocked by my story, others were not surprised that the government would go to such lengths, and still others maintained disbelief, preferring to think of me as the boy who cried wolf, rather than opening themselves up to the idea that their government would do such a thing.

That weekend at vlogger con was one of the best in my life. It was euphoric getting to hang out and party with so many stellar individuals, and I am disheartened that I can only join you in sprit to tonight. I've always heard that the best part of award shows are the after parties and I'm sure that it will be a rocking good time. I'll be there for the next one.

Thanks for the awards guys. It feels good to know that I've been able to stir up a bit of controversy in the blogosphere and I'm touched by being awarded best male blogger I'd like to thank everyone who has blogged or vlogged about my situation, whether you are in agreement with what I'm doing or not, and I'd also like to thank everyone who has supported me throughout this endeavor, whether its through sending me books or letters, donating money to my legal fund or helping out with my blog, wiki or the various projects I've been involved with. Thank you all and have fun tonight I'll be out soon enough.

If you want to know a little more - here's an interview with Josh from 'Amanda Across America'.

(AP) -- Nearly 11,000 sex offenders, gang members and other fugitives were swept up in what the Justice Department on Thursday called a sting targeting the "worst of the worst" criminals on the run.

In all, Gonzales said officials caught 10,733 fugitives -- including 1,659 sex offenders, 364 gang members and thousands of others sought on kidnapping, robbery, burglary, carjacking and weapons charges. More than 230 weapons were seized.

Does this CNN headline strike anyone else as odd? Almost 11,000 people arrested in only a few days... what reason would our government have in sitting on such a massive number of criminals? This sweep of arrest was code named, by Gonzales, Falcon III, there have been, obviously, two prior and similar sweeps of arrest in the last two years.

One reason, I can think of, they might have done this is as a PR stunt days before the elections - to look tough on crime. But it seems so open to ridicule because of their waiting for several months to arrest hundreds upon hundreds of suspected murderers. You would think the public would have a problem with this style of tactic.

So is there another reason besides PR? What other reason would our government have in practicing/ executing mass nationwide sweeps? Was it a dry run? Is the Falcon project no different than Rex 84? For those of you who don't recognize Rex 84 - it's full name is 'Readiness Exercise 1984 and it [from Wikipedia:] "was a plan by the US federal government to test their ability to detain large numbers of American citizens in case of massive civil unrest or national emergency."

I am not claiming that our government is preparing to arrest 5,000... 10,000... 15,000 people they deem "subversive" on a moments notice. But I am asking what other reasons can you think of for Falcon's existence?

I think it's worth putting this in perspective with the fact that our current administration has included text in acts, such as, the more well-known, Patriot Act that allow Bush to declare martial law in the US. I wonder how many thousands would take to the streets in protest? I wonder if our government would be prepared to, overnight, snuff out the leaders of such protest. Am I loosing it here? Please someone find me a third and less-concerning reason for arresting, at once, 11,000 criminals.

I know there are some of you out there who might still be under the impression that the past two elections were not stolen, or perhaps you simply haven't seen evidence and don't want to jump to any conclusions - that is understandable.

There are 5 days left until the mid-term elections and I am posting this preemptively in hopes of it raising people's awareness and political-drive. The video I am linking to is a short [3:38] scene from a testimony, under oath, in Ohio's U.S. House of Judiciary Members by Clinton Eugene Curtis, an American computer programmer hired in 2004 by Republican Congressman, Tom Feeney.

Hired to do what? Well - you should watch the video to find that out.

Now it's interesting to note that Feeney is a representative in Florida, not in Ohio, strange - what possible interest does a Florida Congressman have in stealing the election as far away as Ohio? It's also interesting to note that in '94 he was Jeb Bush's running mate.


Some of you might have watched the video and afterwards felt hopeless - might have wondered "what's the point of voting at all if they can, by their own admission, steal an election with the flip of a switch?" It is important to overwhelm the polls - the more people that show up, that are politically-active in the next week, then the harder it is for them to cover their tracks. Spread the word.

My inflow of new music is about one new band every three days - I usually keep up to speed on indie artist through 3hive, Last.fm and poking around MySpace. But today I stumbled across the greatest... thing... ever. Note the "..." to add dramatic pause.

If you use iTunes to listen to music then you should download the iLike sidebar - when you start listening to a song in your library, iLike instantly brings up 3 or 4 similar artist (from the iTunes store), that in and of itself would be pretty cool - but on top of this, it also displays several similar indie artist that you can download for free with a single click.



All the suggestions displayed can be previewed right in iTunes (and it auto-pauses the song you were currently listening to while it previews suggestions). It's fan-tas-tic. It also has a friends tab that let's you see (real-time) what their listening to and gives compatibility details.

Note: If any of you out there actually try this out (and in case you're wondering, yes, it's free) then be sure to add me as a contact. Just search for mike1630 [at] gmail [dot] com.

Flash Version   |   'Save As'   |