Hurley's World

So I've been having serious problems with the one bus that I normally take to get home from work in the evening. Pretty much at least once a week since I started this job in February, the Route 558 5:45 bus out of Riverside has been a no-show. So far this week, it's happened at least twice. Now, I'm actually fairly chill about it (well except for the time that two buses didn't show up during a snowstorm and freezing weather, but that's another story. Here is the timetable for that bus run:

According to their website, the bus is supposed to get to me around 6:15 or so. So normally I leave the office around 5:45, I have a two minute walk, so I'm at the bus stop by 5:50 at the latest. And I followed this pattern yesterday. But the 5:45 bus never passed me.

Of all the rooms I have spent time packing, the kitchen has to be among the worst. First, there is a lot of stuff in the kitchen, more than we tend to think about. The reason we don't think about it is the same reason that these rooms are the worst to pack, everything is pretty much put away in its place and is hidden. Whereas in other rooms you can really notice the progress you make, in the kitchen the progress is hidden, behind doors, in drawers, etc. But we are 3/4 of the way done with the kitchen so hurrah!

Pregnant student defies graduation ban[CNN - Education]

This really upsets me. Essentially a girl in a Catholic high school got pregnant and, because it's a Catholic school, she was not allowed to walk with her class on graduation day. While I find such a decision by the school distasteful, they are free to make rules relevant to their faith. But such rules at least should be applied fairly between the genders.

Sometimes I wonder if Jay Severin says what he does in an attempt to get more women to call into the show.

Massachusetts tackles spam gang - One of the world's biggest senders of spam is being sued by the Massachusetts attorney general. [BBC - Technology]

As far as I can tell, all I have to say to this is "thank God." I'm as tired of these emails as the rest of you are. Unfortunately, enforcing this order will probably be much harder than he thinks as not all foreign countries have the time or resources to pressure ISPs to shut down these sites.

Developers to play with BBC wares - The BBC opens up its content for outside web developers and designers to "create cool new things". [BBC - Technology]

With announcements such as the above increasing in frequency across the Internet, I wonder if perhaps we are about to enter the next phase of Internet growth. The first phase began when AOL (and probably some other companies) created the monthly rate plan which was well within the grasp of many Americans. Once AOL launched that product, URLs were popping up everywhere from print to TV. And while the Internet is awesome, there is only so far it could go with the old way of doing things. For many people, their bookmark lists are getting too long and it takes too long to check out every website of interest to see if the content has been updated and what has been added.

I am one of those strange people who can't really find a home in either political party, at least not right now. Or as Fred likes to say, I'm the first on the wall in the event of a revolution. I blame it on being a true, classical liberal and being a fan of the mixed economy. Even if I wanted to be a Democrat, I know for sure they would not want to have me. Numerous debates with Democrats, particularly Young Democrats, have convinced me of that. Yet, at the same time, the encroachment of the Religious Right on the Republican party just leaves me feeling sick and deeply disturbed.

It's actually the issue I have with most of the conservative talking heads present on TV and radio. Due to my evening commute, I mostly listen to Jay Severin and Laura Ingraham (a fellow Dartmouth graduate). Between the two I have to say that I agree with Jay more often than Laura, but that really isn't saying much. The problem I have with Jay, like many conservative talk show hosts, is that I agree with him usually on the first point, maybe even the second point, of his argument, and then he just goes crazy. For instance, he was recently talking about the North Korea issue and he was making some very good arguments and I was finding some common ground, and then he had to make the comment that he was saying this knowing full well that if North Korea were to successfully invade South Korea, fewer Korean women would make their way here. Jay, why did you have to go there? Overall, I find that (1) he often goes too far for my taste and (2) he too often refers to women in a sexual manner. Now, I realize that on the second point, he probably doesn't mean to do it as a way of making them seem or feel inferior, but given my own life experiences, it still pisses the heck out of me.

A. One at a time.

My dad would say this all the time when I was a kid. And as I prepare for our upcoming move, I can't help but be remind of it from time to time. So far, we've slain a couple of big ones, namely we found an apartment and we found a company willing to move us. We're slowly going through our current apartment and packing our stuff (and throwing out and donating a bunch too, I just don't think anyone would be interested in my chemistry notebook from high school). On the weekends, we've been taking some time to get used to the area to which we are moving, collecting menus, eating at different restaurants, etc.

US court kills anti-piracy 'flag' - An appeals court rejects broadcast regulations that try to impose anti-piracy technology on digital TVs. [BBC - Technology]

All I have to say is awesome. I'm totally ok with the enforcement of copyright law, but the proposed changes would be going to far. While I'm not a lawyer, my understanding is that I have the right to make copies of copyrighted material for personal use under the fair use provision.

So last night Fred and I signed the lease for a nice two bedroom apartment in Newton. I, for one, am really looking forward to moving although it will mean a ton of work over the next month. The biggest plus is that it is much closer to my job and my commute will be about half an hour or so. Of course, it increases Fred's commute by a pretty heft percentage (we currently live less than a mile from his job), but it would have been a hard thing to avoid. I'm just glad we were able to find a heated two bedroom in our price range.

Leases are often a pretty funny read. One of the parts of the lease concerned how we were not allowed to hang anything from the walls or doors but we were allowed to arrange our furniture however we wish. Another page of instructions/addendum said that we weren't allowed to smoke anywhere on the property but could smoke in our apartment (we don't smoke, but we have some friends and family who do).