Categories
local music

live local music

I’ve been getting the music bug. This weekend i had the pleasure of seeing Holly’s dad Tim, uncle Matt, and, er… “aunt” Sarah play a pretty darn good quasi-bluegrass set (including a great cover of Neil Young’s “I Am A Child” – Matt & Sarah sing amazing harmony, and Tim is a tasty dobro player) at the Stockyard’s Inn on Springfield Street in Dayton (which, incidentally, used to be a brothel and still has red velvet wallpaper), but also a fantastic musician named Dennis Rotterman, who is an amazing player and songwriter. I hope to see him around lots more. If you haven’t seen him, you’ve been missing out; and if you have seen him, you probably wonder, like me, why he isn’t, like, famous or something.

In case you’re wondering, i’m not into bluegrass. It’s ok, i guess, but so much of the songs are either religious (yuck!) or sad-assed backward-staring gave-up boo-hoos. There are simply far too many better things to do than cry into a glass of beer in between pretending that you’re filled with something called “the holy spirit”.

my god, it is far too late to be up. i have to be at work in 8 hours! enough for now.

Categories
web design

more cleaning

…and now the site passes XHTML validation (with some few per-post errors)! i moved a couple things, added a copyright, changed the lists on the sidebar very slightly, and generally cleaned house.

i swear to “Bob” i will also eventually put content up under the new links (up top).

Categories
creative web design

cleaning

cleaning up the layout a little bit. no more yucky slowdown in IE: i figured out that IE doesn’t like to repeat a background image, at least one with transparency, too many times; so instead of using the smallest possible denominator of pixels to show a grid, i simply repeated the pattern within the image itself a few times. in this case, i changed the grid to vertical lines; but where i might have liked to use, say, 2×1 pixels to repeat across the element, i used something like 2×75 to reduce the overall repeats. not sure why this strange behavior isn’t better known or more widely documented, but i may have to experiment with it more in the future.

also fixed a couple of positioning errors on my part. the sidebar isn’t the most consistent, because some of my sections there have heading elements within list tags, while others don’t, possibly owing to different plugins having been created for different versions of WordPress, or for different themes, and so on.

Categories
current events

and he’s a Democrat?!

Merrill Keiser Jr. is running for office, and he wants to kill gay people.

seriously: wtf? and what’s with the forfeiting of rights with the “belief” in evolution?

please… if you happen to support this man’s views: don’t vote. you’re an idiot. kill yourself now.

(thanks to the brilliant pope_guilty for the link)

Categories
current events

GWB approval hits new lows

George W. Bush is an idiot, and most of us are ready to acknowledge that now. Thanks to Aimercat for the quick post!

Categories
creative web design

some improvements

I’ve re-positioned some elements (see navbar on top) and re-colored some text and images. Hopefully it will make the site more functional and readable, although there are still a few little bugs that i’m none too happy about. But until browsers are 100% standards compliant, i’ll have to learn to live with at least some bit of rendering lousiness. Some of it i can clean up and tweak; as for now, it’s off to bed with me. I’m too tired to make any links at the moment, so good night, and i hope you like the layout a little bit better.

Categories
web design

…and done!

damn, WordPress is good!

Categories
web design

back in a few…

Upgrading to WordPress 2.0.2. I have a lot of hacks and plugins, so this might take a little tiny bit. If you see code errors, they will be fixed shortly.

Categories
uncategorized

student wearing Klan attire not found to be harassing (local)

Klanswear ok at Tecumseh Local Schools?

i just sent this letter to District Superintendent Jim Gay:

Mr. Gay,

Hello, i was just reading about the Civil Rights case at Olive Branch and wanted to know more information. Specifically, i would like to know by what methods it was determined that “no harassment took place.” It is very interesting to me that a kid could claim that another kid was wearing a Klan getup on school property, yet nothing found to be deserving of further inquiry. If the other student was not wearing Klan regalia, then what, exactly, were they found to be wearing? And if they were indeed wearing Klanswear, what action was taken, if any, and why was this sort of attire permitted (or was it instead encouraged)?

I understand freedom of expression is a precious and invaluable thing in our society, but likewise is freedom from harassment. I think you’ll agree that wearing a swastika to a synagogue would constitute a similarly grave social blunder, if not also break harassment and/or anti-hate crime laws.

I thank you for your time, and will greatly appreciate your response.

Regards,

x jeremy jarratt, POEE
1990 Senior Class President, Tecumseh High School

(of course, i plan on forwarding any “interesting” information received in return to local media.)

Categories
local

student wearing Klan attire not found to be harassing (local)

Klanswear ok at Tecumseh Local Schools?

i just sent this letter to District Superintendent Jim Gay:

Mr. Gay,

Hello, i was just reading about the Civil Rights case at Olive Branch and wanted to know more information. Specifically, i would like to know by what methods it was determined that “no harassment took place.” It is very interesting to me that a kid could claim that another kid was wearing a Klan getup on school property, yet nothing found to be deserving of further inquiry. If the other student was not wearing Klan regalia, then what, exactly, were they found to be wearing? And if they were indeed wearing Klanswear, what action was taken, if any, and why was this sort of attire permitted (or was it instead encouraged)?

I understand freedom of expression is a precious and invaluable thing in our society, but likewise is freedom from harassment. I think you’ll agree that wearing a swastika to a synagogue would constitute a similarly grave social blunder, if not also break harassment and/or anti-hate crime laws.

I thank you for your time, and will greatly appreciate your response.

Regards,

x jeremy jarratt, POEE
1990 Senior Class President, Tecumseh High School

Categories
uncategorized

sexual orientation quiz results

no real surprises.

Klein Sexual Orientation Grid

I scored an average of 1.81

0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Heterosexual Bisexual Homosexual

Meaning

This result can also be related to the Kinsey Scale:

0 = exclusively heterosexual
1 = predominantly heterosexual, incidentally homosexual
2 = predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual
3 = equally heterosexual and homosexual
4 = predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5 = predominantly homosexual, incidentally heterosexual
6 = exclusively homosexual

Summary

The idea of this excercise is to understand exactly how dynamic a person’s sexual orientation can be, as well as how fluid it can be over a person’s lifespan. While a person’s number of actual homo/heterosexual encounters may be easy to categorize, their actual orientation may be completely different. Simple labels like “homosexual”, “heterosexual”, and “bisexual” need not be the only three options available to us.

Take the quiz

The Multidimensional Scale of Sexuality

According to my answers, it is likely that I identify as
Concurrent bisexual
or equally,
Sequential bisexual.

Complete set of results

Concurrent bisexual: 3
Sequential bisexual: 3
Heterosexual: 2
Heterosexual with some homosexuality: 1
Homosexual with some heterosexuality: 1
Asexual: 0
Homosexual: 0
Past heterosexual, currently homosexual: 0
Past homosexual, currently heterosexual: 0

Information

The Multidimensional Scale of Sexuality was devised by Larry Kurdek, B. Berkey and T. Perelman-Hall. It is an extension of the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid, recognising that sexual identities can change over time, people can identify with more than one sexual identity, and that asexuality is a valid sexual identity. The Multidimensional Scale of Sexuality was published in the “Journal of Homosexuality” in 1990.

Take the quiz

Categories
Speck

all that parental worryin’ over nothin’

Speck is the same as ever: a rambunctious, play-minded, feral little toymonger.

Just the way i like him.

Seriously, though, as teary-eyed and choked up as i got thinking about my little doggy-son, he probably had a ball hanging out with other dogs and yapping at them. He’s a very social little critter. He’s just as energetic and playful now as he was yesterday. You’d think he hadn’t even had so much as a shot, when in reality, he had a whole slew of those too! Kooky little mutt.
Kudos to the Bigger Road Veterinary Clinic and to Dr. Snyder for the kindest possible treatment of our little buddy.

Categories
uncategorized

poor little guy

i am totally pining for Speck right about now.

Categories
uncategorized

jeremy will be absent today as he has the blogsy.
signed,
my mom

i’ve been posting a bit more frequently at my own site lately. i still plan on using LJ for more community-oriented posts and my ruder moments; but for now, the cleanish and more or less presentable version of my life is there. there are various feeds (such as for i-swear-it’s-upcoming podcasts and work-related stuff) if you really want to keep track of me that freaking badly. (if you need help understanding syndication and feeds…)

and yes, i know the layout is horrible. i’m working on it.

Categories
Speck

Speck undergoes his first surgery

Today, my little man becomes a boy. I just came back from dropping off poor sweet shivering little Speck at the mean-ol’ nasty dockers office. I couldn’t help but get choked up on the ride home (and even now), thinking about how scared the poor sweet little guy probably is. “Where’s daddy?”, he’s probably asking all the doctors and staff.

poor little kid! *sniff*

SpeckSpeck

Categories
work

work

i moved desks today at work. luckily, i’m now on XP and Netscape Browser 8 is installed. i was surprised that NS8 now has built-in FF/IE rendering options out of the box. the downer is that i hate XP’s need to group taskbar buttons together, and i can’t change that. also, i am a very few inches farther away from my ex-girlfriend Lisa, but there’s no longer a cubicle wall to separate us. on the whole, though, i give the move a big thumbs up. big plus = no longer totally alone, sit much much closer to Holly!

Categories
Speck

no more balls

i have to get up in 3 hours to take Speck to the vet to get teeth out and balls chopped.

ugh!

Categories
uncategorized

Civ IV

Hatshepsut is upset that all i left her was an island...

Categories
uncategorized

am sick, have toys

i am now looking at you through a Samsung SyncMaster 730B, a mid-range LCD flatpanel monitor that i got on the cheap from Legend Micro. i’m now at 1280×1024 as well. mine eyes have seen, as they say, the glory.

we now have NetFlix as well.

movin’ on up.

been home from work with the flu the last coupla days. thankfully, i’m off tomorrow. i hope to be back on Thursday.

Categories
family friends life

Holly

Holly, sick, is taking such good care of me. thank you, sweetheart!

Holly at home