It seems lately I’ve been able to reconnect with friends… that’s not to say I don’t try to keep in touch but I’m often a hermit.  From what I can tell, it started back around Thanksgiving when I spent a day out with my friend Lori and we had lunch, bummed around, and ended the night in The Library – talking crap and watching other people.

Then my college prof came down to the city a week later and we saw a few movies, hung out, and had a good weekend.  Now that Christmas and New Year’s is here-  I’ve talked to and seen a few friends from high school and it’s been great. Tomorrow I’m heading out to LI to see another friend from HS and her kids.

I have a tendency to become hermit-like and do my thing – which mainly is work, shiba rescue, daily household chores, and silly things with Jen. It’s a good routine and I’m happy with it but having these random and spaced out get-togethers with old friends is fun for me and really comforting.  I can go for years or months without seeing these people and we make plans to meet up with no worries of it being odd or having random bouts of silence. It all feels natural, normal, and like it’s not been so long.  We just catch up on new pets, random stories of dating, or other things and then just chill out.

Now I want to head upstate and see some of the college crew. In Jan I will be heading to NC for wedding and also seeing a few friends from college. It’ll be a fast visit and prob very limited in terms of the time I have to see Kim and Sarah.

These are the things that I think I need to keep me perked up.  It keeps me social and once I get into this pattern I want to keep it going. I want to see my friend Lori this week while we have the time – or I have the flexible schedule to meet up with her based on her schedule and also just play with my music gear and see what crappy/weird/silly thing I can come up with.

I’ve been uploading new songs to LastFM and my cousin has been trying to write songs since he’s learned how to play bass. We talked on Sat breifly about how to record onto the comp using garageband and what’s the best thing to use. I have a fasttrack usb thing that lets me plug in a guitar and mic – it’s easiest for me and cheap. I don’t have pro tools or any super complicated software and I’m not sure I’d know what to do if I did… so garageband and audacity are my things to work with. They are a small step up from a 4-track cassette recorder and do what I need nicely.  It’ll always sound like “basement tapes” and well, so be it.

Now I have to find time in Feb or March to head to CT for a weekend and see my friend Monica and her critters… I know some of her cats – but she has 2 doggies and I want to bug them and her.  Plus it does help my mood to keep this kind of socialization going… and Jen seems to be ok with meeting and hanging out with my friends and seems to enjoy it.  We both experience some anxiety but then when we’re with the people we’re ok.

I’ve been playing Spore over break and I’m in the space stage… it’s a tad bit harder than the other stages but a lot of fun and silly.  I wish I didn’t get lost traveling from galaxy to galaxy – I have no sense of direction and can never find the right freakin’ planet.

This week was fairly slow, which is a good thing, but also… sometimes… a dilemma for me – I can’t really go anywhere in case something does pop up and someone does call and I can’t take a nap or play video games in case I get too sucked and don’t hear the phone. So I have spent a lot of time catching up on news, techy things, and reading blogs and articles about PM (project management) and some podcasts.

Yesterday J stayed home and we were both working and I was dividing my time between work and reading when she turned to me and said, “There’s a snowball fight in Madison Sq Park at 3.” I asked if she really was going to go – she’s not a winter person. She said she was thinking about it. Around 1pm I heard her scurrying about finding layers of clothing to put on and zooming around. It was clear she was going. Then she told me I should come too. After a few min of trying to figure out if I should I decided “Yea ok.” I talked to my developer and let him know that I wasn’t going to be around after 2-ish because of #nycsnowball fight. He said he was prob going to shovel his driveway and take his dog out to play in the storm.

So J and I headed into Manhattan and were met by her co-workers immediately who wanted to get a jump start and create ammo. That didn’t last long because we just threw a bunch at each other and then got into a snowball fight with the crew at Shakeshack. They were pretty awesome and brought us hot chocolate… and then soon after disappeared to return to work.

A few highlights:

1: random people, not just folks on twitter and yelp who knew about the fight – seemed to join in. At one point I think a few college kids passing through tossed a few at us and then kept walking.

2: People kept walking through the line of fire and I think a few of them were hit – casualty of war.

3: I saw some kids walking through our battle ground and they were about 13 or 14 yrs old. I figured if they were walking through – they wanted to join in – or at least deserved to be beaned… so I hit one kid who then ran and screamed like he saw a mouse… no fun.

4: A guy walking his dog had this huge bubble like contraption on- like a scuba helmet but it was a curved umbrella… a few of us threw snowballs at him and he laughed.

Anyway here’s some photos people have posted on Flickr:

And here’s some videos:

Last night I wrote a letter to Obama and his team via change.gov and told him that on election night, when he won and gave his speech – he acknowledged minorities by race -  one being Asians, he acknowledged women, and he acknowledged the LGBT community… he acknowledge me. I can’t recall any other time a president has nodded towards me without some criticism about something – be it abortion, marriage, or anything…  Obama was positive and he does bring about some feelings of optimism and hope… but I also know that he’s not perfect and will make some mistakes…  He made one already… he chose Rick Warren.

So I told him that now I feel like I’m a second class citizen again even though I understand his move to try and be non-bi-partisan but it treads on the word hypocrite and seems… I don’t know…  shitty to be blunt.  Here’s the story from CNN. Today they were showing letters that people wrote to change.gov, links that people made to facebook, and twitters that contained keywords about this topic.  They stated that the online community is buzzing and speaking out. It was kinda cool to see CNN embracing the internet and noting that there are so many of us blogging, twittering, bookmarking issues that mean something to us.

(CNN) — Prominent liberal groups and gay rights proponents criticized President-elect Barack Obama Wednesday for choosing evangelical pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the presidential inauguration next month.

Warren, one of the most influential religious leaders in the nation, has championed issues such as a reduction of global poverty, human rights abuses and the AIDS epidemic.

But the founder of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, has also adhered to socially conservative stances — including his opposition to gay marriage and abortion rights that puts him at odds with many in the Democratic Party, especially the party’s most liberal wing.

“[It's] shrewd politics, but if anyone is under any illusion that Obama is interested in advancing gay equality, they should probably sober up now,” Andrew Sullivan wrote on the Atlantic Web site Wednesday.

People for the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert told CNN she is “deeply disappointed” with the choice of Warren and said the powerful platform at the inauguration should instead have been given to someone who has “consistent mainstream American values.” iReport.com: What do you think of the pick?

“There is no substantive difference between Rick Warren and James Dobson,” Kolbert said. “The only difference is tone. His tone is moderate, but his ideas are radical.”

Dobson, a social conservative leader, is founder and chairman of Focus on the Family.

Linda Douglass, a spokeswoman for Obama, defended the choice of Warren, saying, “This is going to be the most inclusive, open, accessible inauguration in American history.”

“The president-elect certainly disagrees with him on [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] issues,” Douglass said. “But it has always been his goal to find common ground with people with whom you may disagree on some issues.”

Douglass also noted that Obama and Warren agree on several issues, including advocating on behalf of the poor, the disadvantaged and people who suffer from HIV/AIDS. Watch CNN’s Anderson Cooper and his panel discuss the selection »

Warren’s support of California’s Proposition 8, a measure that outlaws same-sex marriage in the state, sparked the ire of many gay rights proponents earlier this fall.

Warren, who has made it a practice not to endorse candidates or political parties, wrote in October that the issue of gay marriage is not a political issue, but instead “a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about.”

“For 5,000 years, every culture and every religion — not just Christianity — has defined marriage as a contract between men and women,” Warren wrote in a newsletter to his congregation. “There is no reason to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population.”

Warren also stirred controversy earlier this week when he told Beliefnet.com his grounds for opposing same-sex marriage lay primarily on his right of free speech.

“There were all kinds of threats that if [Proposition 8] did not pass, then any pastor could be considered doing hate speech if he shared his views that he didn’t think homosexuality was the most natural way for relationships, and that would be hate speech.”

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights campaign, said Wednesday he feels a “deep level of disrespect” over the choice of Warren and is calling on Obama to reconsider the move.

“By inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table,” Solmonese said in an open letter to Obama that was released by his organization.

In his recent interview with Beliefnet, Warren also sparked outrage among supporters of abortion rights for criticizing those who have said abortion would be “safe and rare.”

“Don’t tell me it should be rare,” he said in the interview. “That’s like saying on the Holocaust, ‘Well, maybe we could save 20 percent of the Jewish people in Poland and Germany and get them out and we should be satisfied with that — I’m not satisfied with that. I want the Holocaust ended.”

But Warren, whose church attracts more than 20,000 people a week, has widely been recognized for his attempts to expand the evangelical movement beyond socially conservative issues.

In the 2008 election, Warren hosted Obama and Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, at a candidate forum held in his church.

His book “The Purpose Driven Life” has sold more than 20 million copies since it was first published five years ago, and Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in 2005.

“Many believe that Warren … is the successor to the [Rev. Billy Graham] for the role of America’s minister,” Time wrote in 2005.

I tend to not buy clothes in “hipster” stores that often but there was a time this fall that I needed some new clothes and Urban Outfitters is a 15 min walk from my house and has some fun tee shirts… they also have some of the worst and ugliest shit I’ve ever seen. However, they are cheaper than Brooklyn Industries and have little amusing things like mints in a tin that look likes an old Nintendo controller and whatever else appeals to an 80s child.

They also seemed to be left-ish in their political stances… I never looked into who owned Urban Outfitters and I have, in recent years, somewhat given up and accepted that to an extent it’s very difficult to “get away” from buying things that in one way or another contradict my own political beliefs like buying a pair of shoes or sweater that was probably made in a sweatshop or buying a drink who’s owner is a right-wing nutjob.

Anway, this week Urban Outfitters got into trouble with their hipster audience when they pulled a shirt made by Tara Littman – A shirt that openly states support for gay marriage. Apparently, in my digging around today – they pulled it right before Prop 8 went to the polls in CA and their website… and to be honest, I don’t recall seeing it in the store window of the Urban Outfitters here in Bklyn or in the one I pass by in the village on a weekly basis.

Here’s a good blog post about the issue:
http://www.bradwalsh.com/2008/12/i-support-support-shirts/

Here’s an article:
http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2008/12/urban_outfitters_responds_to_y.html

Here’s Tara Littman’s website – buy it direct from the artist:
Support Shirts

I’m calling for a boycott – and I know this blog doesn’t get much publicity but this is ridiculous –
we’re all lulled into this sense of living in fear, stereotypes, and then we’re “tricked” by some company who appeals to our socio-political standards and yet… the fucker is giving money to a Senator who would like “his” America to have a law that could allow anyone to fire, evict, and jail someone who engages in homosexual actions. Gee… thanks… I was already feeling like half a citizen for most of my life… and now it just reinforces that.

Stonewall 2.0… that’s an interesting name. I saw Milk on Sat and it’s always shocking just HOW cyclical history is and how fucking obvious it can be at times. I asked my friend if the movie had come out in Oct would it had made a difference? She at first said yes, then wasn’t sure…

I don’t think it would have, the people against such rights would not have gone to see it and may have lit an even bigger fire under their asses. However, is the movie important? YES. So go scrounge up 11 bucks and drag yourself to your nearest theater showing MILK.