August 29, 2005
The Family Research Council, a conservative Christian think tank in Washington, D.C., argues in its book Getting It Straight that finding people are born gay “would advance the idea that sexual orientation is an innate characteristic, like race; that homosexuals, like African-Americans, should be legally protected against ‘discrimination;’ and that disapproval of homosexuality should be as socially stigmatized as racism. However, it is not true.” — The Boston Globe, “What Makes People Gay?”
Got that? Even if it is scientifically proven that it’s true that people are born gay, it’s not true. Because the Family Research Council says so.
But then later, The FRC’s Peter Sprigg lets loose this mind-bending observation:
Even as he insists that no one is born gay, Peter Sprigg, the point person on homosexuality for the Family Research Council, says, “I don’t think that people choose their sexual attraction.”
Ok. So, people aren’t born gay. But they don’t choose their sexual attraction. But if they are gay, they should be celibate forever. Or only date people to whom they aren’t attracted.
The story’s coming apart at the seams. How much longer can religious conservatives keep up the charade of condemning gay behavior while claiming that gay people can’t choose their orientation? When they were honest and open about their hatred of gay people, at least their argument was consistent. Now that they’re covering their homophobia with a patina of acceptance and understanding, they just look like the biggest hypocrites in the world.
August 27, 2005
In the winter of 2004, I was really, really depressed. I had just moved back in with my parents, leaving my friends and adopted home of Savannah, Georgia due to a lack of job opportunities for graphic designers in the area. I was bitter, disappointed, questioning my chosen career path, and desperately looking to every dispatch from the SCAD JobWire in the hopes that it would advertise my salvation.
It never did, though. The vast majority of postings either had nothing to do with graphic design, or were for internships. Internships are a great way to gain experience before you’re out in the world as a full-time worker.
Then, some postings were just from people asking you to work for free. Not for charity. Not an internship. Not for a good cause. Just businesses that were too cheap to hire a real designer. These weren’t opportunities for professional growth. They weren’t a company offering to give you much needed real world experience. They were hucksters looking to save a buck by taking advantage of the desperation of design students and recent graduates.
This is all to say that, one day, I responded to one of those ads (both to the business and to SCAD’s Career Planning department) with the following—posted by request:
Mr. [Name redacted to spare the pathetic];
I received your request for design work via the SCAD JobWire.
I am not writing to offer my services, so much as I am offering my ass for you to kiss.
Asking designers for free work is like asking a chef at a restaurant for a free meal.
It’s like asking a hooker for a free blow job.
It’s like asking a contractor to build you a free house.
And it’s pathetic, wrong, lazy and immoral. Preying on desperate design students because you were too cheap to budget for design is about the lowest of the low. Fuck you. I hope your book is a flop.
Regards,
Matt Thomas
I suppose it probably wasn’t the right thing to do, but boy, I never got another email asking me to work for free again.
August 23, 2005
Something is afoot on A List Apart. A colleague just sent me an email professing how much he liked the “new design,” which I totally don’t see when I go to the site.
Then I found this.
Interesting blue logo there on the side, no?
Edit: MM sets me straight. If the link above’s not giving you the goods, try 69.93.55.164.
August 23, 2005
The series finale of Six Feet Under was, without a doubt, pure genius. Particularly amazing was the use of Sia’s Breathe Me in the show’s epilogue. Looks like iTunes patrons would agree.
August 20, 2005
So, the power is off at ye ole Sail Cloth Factory. But only sort of. My lights work, my refrigerator works, and my outlets on four of my walls work. My A/C, my washer and dryer, and the outlets in my bedroom don’t work. The lights in the hallways and stairways are out. The elevators, of course, are out.
I woke up this morning to the constant beeping of my UPS, which these days only has to power my phone and DSL modem. I managed to stop the beeping and it’s chugging along. We’ll see how long it takes a cordless phone and a modem to kill a battery backup. Looks like the neighbors wireless networks are going right along, though. There are some benefits to apartment buildings.
The Sail Cloth Factory, I think, is on a mission to kill its residents. This is the second time we’ve been left with pitch-black-dark stairwells as the only means to exit the building. Three weeks ago I came home to find my apartment pumped full of caustic chemicals, and management never returned my phone calls to let me know what the hell it was.
God, I want to move.
August 20, 2005
Just a quick post to say that if one happens to be in the vicinity of the Convention Center/Camden Yards area, you simply must walk, drive, or rail past the convention center this weekend. On my way to work this morning I saw a furry in person for the first time. It’s quite an experience.
There’s also lots of very young-looking Japanese girls giggling and carrying disturbing plush toys. The whole scene is just very strange.
August 13, 2005
After work today I made the grueling trek to D.C. to visit family that’s in town visiting. It was good to see them because they are some of the family members I genuinely like being around and also because they paid for my dinner, lest anyone forget just how shallow I really am.
Walking around D.C. for a while was nice, because the buildings are monumental and there’s a Starbucks on every corner and the Metro is clean and useful and there are certainly many nice things about the city. But when it was time for me to leave, I was most definitely ready to go.
Baltimore is growing on me like a mushroom on a turd. There’s so many things about this town that just make it nasty or depressing or just annoying, but as one does with love, you realize you’d rather be with the one that’s imperfect but fun rather than a beautiful bitch. I may, from time to time, enjoy a fleeting affair with Washington, but the devil I know is Baltimore. And, when I was driving over the horrible city roads of the BW Parkway through the disgusting ghetto into downtown Baltimore, I was actually happy to be home.
Lady Astor once called Savannah a “beautiful woman with a dirty face,” and I loved that description because it fit Savannah so perfectly. Baltimore is a crack whore with a great sense of humor, and she’s seducing me more every day.
August 8, 2005
Does anyone know where I can find a chalkboard scoreboard, like with “Home” and “Visitor” columns? I don’t even know what to Google for. Or, alternatively, where I can find a place that can do vinyl adhesive laser cuts from a PDF file here in Baltimore. The print shop where I used to work did it, so I know it’s not that out there.
Yes, I know this is obscure.
August 7, 2005
Dear TiVo,
I loved you once. We had a great relationship that began when we got DirecTV along with a DirecTiVo at my parents house. I came to the point that I couldn’t live without you. When I listened to the radio, I’d find myself reaching for an “Instant Replay.” Sometimes it’d even happen during conversations in real life. Not paying attention? Instant Replay. I told everyone how great you are.
When I moved into my apartment, I couldn’t get DirecTV anymore. So, I bought myself a standalone TiVo to go with my cable service. I even cancelled my digital cable, because it didn’t work well with my TiVo and I thought the TiVo was more important.
Then, I bought my high def TV. But my TiVo couldn’t do HDTV. I was sad, because I knew I’d have to use Comcast’s shitty DVR. But, I’m afraid, it was worth it. It does the same basic things that TiVo does, but it doesn’t do them as nicely. Still, I knew I had to call and cancel.
I know its your employess’ job to try to keep me from cancelling. However, when your web site says this:
TiVo® boxes are designed to support standard definition television broadcasts. They will not support High Definition broadcasts… the DVR will only record programs from standard definition channels, and all recordings will be displayed in standard definition.
then your employees shouldn’t ask me, “Well, have you even tried hooking it up?” or when I say that the TiVo doesn’t support the high definition signal, tell me “that’s so not true, HD programs just require more hard drive space. You can get a higher capacity TiVo.” When I explain that after paying a boatload of cash for a HDTV set, I don’t want to cram everything down into standard def just so I can keep using TiVo, your employees shouldn’t sigh audibly and mumble “whatever,” as though I’ve affronted them personally.
I still like you, TiVo. I hope your little deal with Comcast works out so I can use the brilliant TiVo service again. I hope you get off your lazy asses and build a HD TiVo. But until that happens, it’s going to be just a little bit easier to live without TiVo after dealing with your assholes in customer support.
August 5, 2005
My friend Noah and I met when he was living on Tybee Island, a student at SCAD. It was the summer after I’d moved away from Tybee, but still visiting as often as I could. As fate would have it, Noah is from Annapolis, just a short half-hour drive from my new home in Baltimore. So, while he’s home for the summer, we kept saying that we’d have to meet up.
So, eventually we did—we went to the Baltimore Eagle. And let me tell you, you haven’t lived ‘til you’ve been there. I’ve been to some interesting bars before, but if there were a prize for “sleaziest whiskey joint,” this place would take the gold.
I knew it would be weird, because I knew the clientele it caters to and I knew its reputation. People had invited me to the Eagle before but I just hadn’t found myself interested enough to actually make the trip. But, with Noah, I knew I’d have no problem telling him if I thought it sucked—what are friends for, after all?
So we ventured up, up, and out of downtown, past the bright lights and the rainbow flags of Mt. Vernon and across the JFX to the corner of Charles and 21st, where the mighty Baltimore Eagle squats on its filthy perch. After entering the side-door adorned with the smallest sign in the world labeled “Eagle” you’re first confronted not with the sights and sounds of a Den of Iniquity as you’d expect, but a fluorescent-lit lobby adorned with cigarette and snack machines. I suppose you can do worse. Rounding the corner, you find what you were expecting—a pitch-black, low-ceilinged room with a well-lit-but-completely-empty bar at the very front. We ordered drinks—cash only—and as our eyes adjusted, we ventured into the darkness.
The Eagle, I realized quickly, becomes increasingly more populated yet less social the further back you venture. The bartender in the front was welcoming—and clothed—and there were a few friends, sitting around and chatting. As you walk into the darkness, you feel not unlike a small rodent being watched by owls in a thick forest. Your eyes still haven’t adjusted, so you can’t see anything. But the men sitting in the dark can see you just fine. You feel their eyes burning into the back of your head and just when you think you’re about to freak out, you’ve made it to the middle bar. It’s lighter at the middle bar, something I welcomed until I noticed that the sole source of light was that of the multiple televisions playing a gay leather porn. I looked around and noticed that every single person in the bar was sitting or standing, mouths agape, eyes affixed to the screen like drones in the Apple “1984” tv commercial.
We kept walking, past the middle bar and to the very back, the hot, stuffy back bar where the bartenders eschew traditional forms of attire and no one speaks a word. No barstools here, it was standing-room-only as most everyone there seemed to want to occupy the same hundred square feet of space. I attributed the feeling of people brushing up against me on the crowdedness, until I began looking behind me and realized that my ass was virtually on stage, and that people weren’t so much brushing up against me as they were copping a feel by walking wayyy closer to me than they had to.
Frankly, I had to appreciate the attention.
But between the porn, the attention my ass was receiving, the generally grodyness of the place and mostly, the fact that there really wasn’t much of anything going on, I decided that after my first drink I pretty much had my fill of the Eagle. Noah stopped to say goodbye to some friends he’d run into—go figure—and then we made our way back to my regular watering hole. It might not have the porn, the pervs or the personality, but I guess I’m just not cut out for the fabulous life at the Eagle.
