Posted by
upendra on
24 May 2010, 5:34 pm
Fifth try’s the charm. I bet I’ll forget it by tomorrow morning…
Password:
Warning: Your password has expired, please change it now.
New Password:
sshd-kbdint: The password must contain at least 2 uppercase alpha character(s).
New Password:
sshd-kbdint: Password too short – must be at least 8 characters.
New Password:
sshd-kbdint: The password must contain at least 1 special character(s).
New Password:
sshd-kbdint: The first 256 characters of the old and new passwords must differ by at least 7 positions.
New Password:
Re-enter new Password:
sshd-kbdint: password successfully changed for xxxxxxxx
Posted by
upendra on
23 March 2010, 12:22 pm
I won two passes to see an advanced screening of Hot Tub Time Machine at the Silver Spring Majestic on Thursday. This is the fifth time I’ve won a Washington City Paper contest. Apparently so few people enter them that it’s easy enough to win five times in a five or so year span. I’ve won concert tickets, movie and theater passes, tickets to the Vintage Virginia Wine Festival, and the soundtrack album to The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
Give me some competition. Enter yourself here.
(Who wants to come with me to Hot Tub Time Machine?)
Posted by
upendra on
11 March 2010, 12:29 pm
I went and saw Title Tracks at the Backstage of Black Cat last night, which, for those who’ve never been, is a venue that is approximately the size of a large closet. After several weeks of straight touring, they were focused and tight. I’ve seen them half a dozen times or so live now, and they generally put on a great show. I especially enjoy how they often close with a rousing cover of Otis Redding’s “Security.”
Unrelated: I want to be one of those people who can sit at a bar and read a book or the newspaper and not feel self-conscious about it. Apparently the Black Cat is the place to do this.
Title Tracks – “Piles of Paper”
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Otis Redding – “Security”
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Posted by
upendra on
28 February 2010, 4:08 pm
I’ve been reading a lot lately (more on that later), so I’ve been frequenting the Prince George’s County Memorial Library in Hyattsville, Md. I fondly remember going to the C. Burr Artz Public Library in Frederick with my parents and brother as a kid at least monthly. I’m not sure that I read even half of what I checked out, but I really enjoyed the outing more than anything: the sad librarians who had given up on their dreams and settled as bookpushers, the homeless who would crowd the seating areas and sleep under the day’s News-Post, the discirculated books that sold for 10 cents–I loved it all.
Anyway I wanted a way to keep track of what I’m reading, and there’s this handy “Activate Reading History” button on my online account page. I went to click it, and the following ominous dialog box came up:
Thanks, Patriot Act. I guess I could just do it anyway, but be sure not to read any books that are terrorism how-tos or about subverting the government. But that’s not much of a compromise.
I decided to do some Internet research. Here’s a 2005 congressional report (PDF) on the efficacy of the Patriot Act’s library records provision. (As of the time of its writing, there hadn’t been a single use of it, but it was finally used at least once after the report came out.) Also back in 2005, the House bipartisanly voted to curb this specific provision, but it was never enacted into law. Fast forward to the present: On Friday a democrat-controlled Congress voted to extend the library provision (and other civil liberties-squeezing surveillance measures) until 2011, and Obama signed it into law yesterday. Dude, c’mon.
Posted by
upendra on
23 February 2010, 7:22 pm
The Washington Post reported today that Tony Kornheiser was suspended from the air by ESPN for making unflattering comments about his colleague Hannah Storm’s wardrobe. (I consider myself unqualified to make such a sartorial criticism.) Lately I have gotten into the habit of watching him and Michael Wilbon on PTI each evening, so I find the story amusing. More interesting than his comments is his apparent history of lashing out against any negative comments directed at him.
In the hopes of scoring my own personal reprimand from Kornheiser, I present the following diatribe. Tony Kornheiser is an ancient, bald, orange, sweater vest-wearing oaf with a countenance suitable only for the medium of radio. He isn’t worthy of trimming Dan Le Betard’s pubescent goatee and moustache, let alone sharing a studio with real sports journalists.
Your move, Tony.
Posted by
upendra on
15 February 2010, 1:35 pm
If nothing else I am known as a man with umpteen pet peeves. One of them is CAPTCHA. (It’s an acronym–I won’t provide the full expansion here for fear of barfing on my keyboard out of its sheer inanity.) I guess it’s great that it reduces comment spam and mass bot purchasing on Ticketmaster, but, damn, it’s annoying.
I’m not sure if Blogger uses CAPTCHA, but its verification words are consistently amusing. Getting a smirk-worthy word is its one redeeming quality. (Unrelated: I don’t get why there’s a wheelchair icon next to the entry box.)
Henceforth, I will boycott any site that uses CAPTCHA. I do this for the same reason that I refuse to show my receipt to the friendly septuagenarians at my local Walmart upon exit. I don’t appreciate the assumption that I have nefarious intentions, e.g., spamming, theft, until I prove otherwise. It allows me to both protest and be lazy. Win-win!
Posted by
upendra on
12 February 2010, 10:27 am
My roommates and I hosted a party on Saturday night. The attendance was zero. Being the irrepressible scamps that we are, we partied by ourselves and took pictures anyway. Here’s a poorly Photoshopped one of me regaling me with a rather ribald anecdote that cannot be repeated here due to my intractable sense of public decency.
In the past week I’ve left the house three times: I went to the Maryland-UNC basketball game on Sunday, saw the National Gallery’s From Impressionism to Modernism exhibit on Tuesday, and helped my roommates build a hardly anthropomorphized snowman in the backyard yesterday. Needless to say, I’m getting a little nutty from all my indoors time (and might be developing rickets.)
Time to return to the outside world…
Posted by
upendra on
6 February 2010, 9:13 am
From last month’s Washington Post:
“Metro Transit Police say they have a new unit working to deter terrorists from targeting the transit system.”
Deter is from the Latin de (from) + terrere (to frighten), which is also the origin of terrorist.
They used two words in a row that share a common derivation of a Latin root. How embarrassing! It reminds me of the time I wrote, “The Civil Rights Movement moved a nation,” in a history essay in fourth grade. Classic mistake, Post.
