12.25.04
Posted in political gibberish at 10:59 pm by shawnz
I found this little nugget on CNN today:
Comair, which flies an average of 30,000 people per day, called off all 1,160 daily flights for both Saturday and Sunday. It will resume a limited schedule Monday, Comair spokesman Don Bornhorst said.
The computer system Comair uses to book pilots for flights broke down, he said.
Comair could not pinpoint a reason for the computer crash and could not say why there was no backup system.
Needless to say, you are insane if you know this knowledge and still choose to fly with Comair/Delta. No backup system for their pilot booking system? Its a damn shame at how poorly these airlines operate in such a profitable space. Go Jet Blue, Frontier, Southwest, etc. It will be fun watching this government subsidied oligarchy that we call the airline industry crumble in a miserable pile of poop.
If you are spending the night at some airport in the midwest this Christmas, I feel for you.
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12.15.04
Posted in muzak at 11:50 pm by shawnz
We live on a mountain
Right at the top
There’s a beautiful view
From the top of the mountain
Every morning I walk towards the edge
And throw little things off
Like:
Car parts, bottles and cutlery
Or whatever I find lying around
It’s become a habit
A way
To start the day
I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you
It’s early morning
No one is awake
I’m back at my cliff
Still throwing things off
I listen to the sounds they make
On their way down
I follow with my eyes ’til they crash
Imagine what my body would sound like
Slamming against those rocks
When it lands
Will my eyes
Be closed or open?
I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you
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12.08.04
Posted in books at 7:19 pm by shawnz
Consolation could always be found in the immortal words of Jack Straus. “If the Lord had wanted you to hold on to your money, he’d have made it with handles on.” One of my oldest friends among the top pros, and a popular world champion in 1982, Jack had stunned us all the previous August by dropping dead of a heart attack, at the age of only fifty-eight, in the middle of a high-stakes poker game in California. He had often said, as they all do, that he would like to die at the table — but only Jack could have added that he hoped he’d be losing at the time.
The word heart carries a particular meaning in the poker player’s vocabulary. Fiendishly hard to define, but a lot more than mere grace under pressure, it has to dow ith courage and ingenuity, nerve and self-possession. “Heart” is what you ned to take your life in your hands, to back your own instincts against the whims of fate, in the toughest, coldest, most fearless company. Jack Straus himself defined it as “intestinal fortitude.” Heart, to me, was what defined Jack, both as a man and a player. After so many years displaying such vast quantities of the stuff, and putting such pressure on his own, it was really no surprise that it finally registerd the ultimate protest.”
-Anthony Holden, in Big Deal: A Year as Professional Poker Player
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12.06.04
Posted in shawn update at 1:05 am by shawnz
Whats wrong wtih this picture? Why is it colder in LA (well, Van Nuys) than in St. Louis? Fortunately I got my furnace pilot light lit yesterday (harder than you think, and it involved pretending I had an ‘emergency’ just to make the gas company come out at all).
In other news, I have finished the final draft of my senior research project, which can be downloaded in PDF here. With this, I will probably never update that research blog again.
As P Diddy put it in this speech on “Big in ‘04″, “I’d like to thank my mom for having me.” I am truly impressed at Diddy’s ability to display his huge ego while thanking someone else. Impressive indeed.
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12.01.04
Posted in shawn update at 12:12 am by shawnz
I was in San Diego for thxgiving…
It was neat. Its a much smaller city than I originally thought. UCSD has a beautiful campus and I want to go there to study.
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