October, 12, 2004 archives

this piece from wired about shunning the ipod’s standard ear buds to appear independent has to be one of the dumbest articles i’ve read in a while. here’s a particularly dumb quote:

"Most people I know are so in love with theirs that they spend weekends hanging out at the Apple store in SoHo stocking up on accessories," she said.

i knew someone in college who had that “can’t like things that other people like” mentality, which ultimately puts you under the same thumb as liking the things that other people like. i guess contrariness and independence are easily confused.

(the cord for my ear buds is splitting apart, and is currently taped. did you know you can’t buy replacement ear buds from apple? yes, i’m one of those oddballs who doesn’t mind them, and would rather not have completely in-ear headphones.)

• george w. and laura bush: 8.3%
• richard and lynne cheney: 25.3%
• john kerry (married filing separately): 11.1%
• john and elizabeth edwards: ? (schedule a not available, they claim 8.6% over the last decade)
• jim winstead jr.: 23.9%

the cheneys beat me out by donating almost all of the royalties from mrs. cheney’s books to charity. (data for everyone who is not me comes from tax history project.)

and yes, that 23.9% is pretty absurdly high. that’s the result of turning around and donating most of last year’s tax refund to charity, and donating my used car to the eff. i suspect i’ll be back below the teens again for 2004.

gawker went offline due to network solutions incompetence. i’d have a touch more sympathy if i could fathom a reason why anybody with two neurons firing would be a willing customer of network solutions. a bit of my respect for the gawker media crew has crawled into the corner to die.