Sawyer’s Internal Auditing: the Practice of Modern Internal Auditing, 5th ed. by Lawrence B. Sawyer, et al.  (I cannot praise too highly this book, and recommend each and every single one of its page to you, yes, all 1,446 of them)

Oil on the Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to your Tank by Lisa Margonnelli

Death’s Acre: Inside the Legendary ‘Body Farm’ by Bill Bass & John Jefferson

The Long Valley by John Steinbeck

Million Dollar Baby by F.X. O’Toole

Mala Noche by Walt Curtis

Gulag: a History by Anne Applebaum

So over the weekend I came into possession of a $15 iTunes gift card.  Browing through the offerings I looked for some of the more obscure albums I used to own but lost with most of my vinyl collection (entirely due to my own laziness).  One of them was We  Don’t Want Your Fucking War, a punk compilation from 1984.  Lo and behold it was on offer and I promptly bought it.  Apparently it was re-issued as a CD a few years ago and I guess that step of digitization ensured it would end up for sale at MP3 sites.  Anyway, I’m sure that the few tenths of a cent in royalties that accrue to the Soledad Brothers’ account for their song “Burn the Rich” will make up for the painful failure of the revolution in the intervening 25 years.

It is past time to repeal this nation’s counter-productive and repressive drug laws.  The erosion of civil liberties that have accompanied the last twenty years of drug policing should be reason enough, but the added benefit of taxing a legal product should add impetus for change.

The main danger with such a shift in policy is that po-faced assholes must then find some other project by which they can regulate our lives.

I was going to write about the frothing hysteria surrounding the retention bonuses at AIG, especially the preening idiocy on display by our political class, but too obviously the saliency of intent, contract, and outcome is not going to silence the braying.  So I will be lazy again and use Typealyzer to find out, yes, what Type I am:

The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.

Eh, could be.

Lazy, yeh, but I seen it on another bloke’s blog:

2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.

IF SOMEONE SAYS ‘ARE YOU OKAY’ YOU SAY?

“May This Be Love,” Jimi Hendrix

People quickly learn to avoid me

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF

“Overkill,” Motorhead
 
over and over agin

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?

“A Lesson in Violence,” Exodus

kinkay

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?

“As I Slither,” Kataklysm

the sexy slither of the female snake

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?

“Black is Black,” Jungle Brothers

Me and the brothers gonna work things out

WHAT’S YOUR MOTTO?

“Girls Turn 18 Every Day,” The Vandals

It is good to be optimistic

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?

“We Don’t Exist,” Meat Puppets

 Fuck ‘em

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?

“Sliver,” Nirvana

parents just don’t understand

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?

“Oh Shit,” The Pharcyde

 so true oh shit

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?

“By the Time You’re Twenty-Five,” Sleater-Kinney

See, it’s not just about turning 18

“Don’t Fall Asleep on the Subway,” Less Than Jake

hate this band

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

“Suckerpunch,” The Wildhearts

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?

“Leech,” The Melvins

fuck ‘em

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?

“Work,” Victims Family

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?

“Chaos B.C.,” Sepultura

also commies

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?

“In a Rut,” The Ruts

fairly obvious innit

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?

“Victims of a Bomb Raid (Anti-Cimex),” Napalm Death

to comfort them

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?

“Mine Are the Eyes of God,” Corrosion of Conformity

lovely people one and all

“Get Up On It Like This,” Chemical Brothers

how rude

How to be an anti-Semitic creep:

guyco Feb 24, 2009 4:36 PM GMT the case of Stanford story has been carefully selected by the Goldsteins to dilute the Madoff story and its cultural fallout.

What an asshole.

I wouldn’t walk past this parking lot except when I take the dogs for a walk in this particular area, hence the category.  I don’t think they peed on this while I took the picture:

Last year I deleted a bunch of files on my laptop because I was running out of hard drive memory. Among the apps deleted was whatever allowed the computer to recognize my camera, and hence download photos. So for months I’ve not been able to transfer pictures from my camera to my computer, but last week I got the hard drive upgraded and they also restored all the initial applications, including iPhoto. This is one of the pictures I retrieved.

This was taken the morning last August when we went to see the Women Impressionists: Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Marie Bracquemond exhibition at the Legion of Honor. We were early so we drove around the area for a bit and walked down to this area, China Beach.  I post the picture for two reasons; this is San Francisco in high summer and it was as chilly that morning as it looks, and also to wonder just what the value of that house is and what must it be like to live there with that view?

So Mrs The Fyd has a pet-sitting business called City of Noses.  Why mention this?  Well, in these uncertain economic times one must employ novel financial tactics, and I think charging my wife rent would be just the tactic required to ensure the mortgage gets paid.  I plan on raising the rent unpredictably and mercilessly, so she’ll need the business.  Go hire her.

Recent books read:

After Leaving Mr. McKenzie, Jean Rhys

Good Morning, Midnight, Jean Rhys

Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl, John Colapinto

Western Civilization: Volume 1: to 1715, Jackson J. Spielvogel

Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War, William Manchester

Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea, Christine Garwood