Ask Madden

what up. new obsessions with gawker and the retarded amount of writing i do for cmj have pushed me to try and post more. here's the first weekly friday shortlist-of-stuff-you-should-read-and-hear:

1. the new yorker has a short story by george saunders who is satirical and absurd, so if you don't usually read the fiction, nows a good starting point.

2. great video.

3. download (preferably buy, but i'm not getting on any high horses about this) the pains of being pure at heart. great new band, really jangly and shoegaze type stuff.


feel free to holla back and add to the list; mine is not the only opinion. arguably the best dressed, though. what?

first mass transit show is most likely on thursday, 3/12. mark your schedules.

I just realized today that I pay 13.5% in sales tax. 4% state, 4% county, 5.5% city. That's absolutely ridiculous.

yo yo...so i was very happy to hear that now states will be able to have their own emission laws without having the EPA involved, which is great, seeing as how who killed the electric car focused around this. Car companies are opposed to this, and at first i was like screw you this is great. But now im not sure how i feel, because i can see their side of it. What happens if they create a car and everything is fine and then one rogue state sets an unrealistic standard in an unrealistic time frame, a car company cant just sell the car in 49 states. i think its a tricky situation and im not sure how i feel about it. if you say that one entity has to approve their stricter standards that basically leaves us to where we were before.

I'm giving a presentation tomorrow. I should be going to sleep now, but instead I'm watching tennis. I love tennis. My presentation is supposed to be 20 minutes with a 10 minute period for questioning. My presentation is 29 minutes if I talk really quickly. Oh well. I don't care. I had the best presentation last semester. That's why I have to go first this semester. Fuck that. This feels like stream-of-consciousness blogging. Either that, or I have ADD. Both are possibilities.

Lately (thanks to tennis) I've been setting my nightly bed time based on when the tennis match ends. This really gives me much more pleasure than it probably should. But having a set bedtime that isn't at a predetermined time is very exciting. I wish I had something to watch every night that ended at a reasonable hour in the near future, but not at a predictable time. It would make my life happier, I think. Oooh! a Disney commercial. I love Disney!

yo yo....yesterday in obamas press conference he talked about how there wouldnt be any more secrecy in government(which i liked, karen). it would be awesome if they actually made NO secrets, like if area 51 became open to the public. im waiting for someone to try to walk into area 51 and shout "obama president n...." as they get shot in the face

I always wondered what was in all those black SUVs that are part of the President's motorcade. I mean, I know some of them carry people, but there are so many of them. This video sheds some light on the issue: AWESOME!

Now, I'm not the biggest fan of G.W. Bush. And I don't agree with much of what he did. But I think it's rather juvenile and certainly a little nearsighted to call him "the worst" or even "one of the worst" Presidents in our history. He made some pretty stupid decisions, sure, but the world didn't come to an end. We're all still here; we're all still relatively well-off. So, from someone who doesn't really care for the man personally, lay off Dubya.

However, in the spirit of laughs, this Onion piece is fun!

After reading this article this morning on MSNBC, I can't help but thinking "oh shut up already and quit complaining". It just may be the tipping stone that drives me crazy about this whole economy thing. Yes. The economy is bad. No. It's not the worst it's ever been, and it will likely get worse (and even then still not be the worst it's ever been). I feel like the people who complain the most are the ones who, for some reason or another, have a certain sense of entitlement - they feel that they have the right to have a job. Well guess what? You don't. Shut up and stop complaining. Collect unemployment and be thankful that that is there for you. And know that no matter how much you think your life sucks, there is someone whose life sucks a lot more than yours.

In other news, Governor Patterson's latest budget cuts remove greater than 50% of the funding from New York zoos and aquariums. As a result, the Bronx Zoo (among others) will have to make numerous cutbacks and possibly even send animals they can no longer afford to other zoos. Please take the time to go here and fill out the information to send a petition to various officials. Thanks.

yo yo...i really hate the fact that Oprah's weight struggles get any news at all. People are losing their jobs(i cant believe i used that phrase) and we're supposed to feel sorry for a billionaire who is overindulging? Then they had her personal trainer on Larry King(doesn't her getting fat make him look bad?) and biggest loser winners(who are now fat). I really find it funny that the more "mainstream" a diet is (Oprah seems to always advocate some silly diet with a fancy name, that of course my mom will try) the more complicated it actually is. Its kinda funny, professionals diets (bodybuilders, fitness models, figure competitors, athletes,anyone whose job it is to lose fat) are SO much simpler if you take a few minutes to learn why your eating things and what actually matters. Instead they make people like my mom buy these prepackaged weight watchers meal(i will never understand the point concept...points only take into account calories and not composition) and then when something isn't in a prepackaged point system they implode.
Bromance? a shot at love? rock of love? these shows are absolutely ridiculous. i can't believe Bromance is real.

there was something else i thought of today that made me wanna blog that i cant remember so i'll edit when i remember