Cake Eater Chronicles

Islamic hamhandedness in the workplace.

Islamic hamhandedness in the workplace. (Pun completely intended.)

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Central Florida woman was fired from her job after eating "unclean" meat and violating a reported company policy that pork and pork products are not permissible on company premises, according to Local 6 News. Lina Morales was hired as an administrative assistant at Rising Star -- a Central Florida telecommunications company with strong Muslim ties, Local 6 News reported. However, 10 months after being hired by Rising Star, religious differences led to her termination. Morales, who is Catholic, was warned about eating pizza with meat the Muslim faith considered "unclean," Local 6 News reported. She was then fired for eating a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, according to the report. "Are you telling me they fired you because you had something with ham on it?" Local 6 News reporter Mike Holfeld asked. "Yes," Morales said. Holfeld asked, "A pizza and a BLT sandwich?" " Yes," Morales said.

Unfortunately for Rising Star Communications, the no-pork-on-the-premises policy wasn't written. Usually, I'm a big one for letting a company set up its own corporate culture, and if that includes some sort of religious grounding, so be it. It's their company. As long as they're following the law and informing their employees of the rules and regulations---and the employees agree to it---I have no issues with it. The problem arises when everyone's not on the same page. Apparently, the boss-man at Rising Star was on one page; the employee on another and her rights to a discrimination-free workplace have been violated. I'm not a lawyer, but this just screams lawsuit. The world is a big place, and America is can be even bigger with its diversity. We have room for all sorts of people who have all sorts of beliefs. How they choose to express them is one thing, but if they choose to impose them on others, well, that's a problem. This chick had better sue the pants off these people. If for no other reason than to send a message that we will not put up with a woman being fired for eating a BLT in a lunchroom. {Mmmm. Bacon. MMMMMMMM.} {Hat Tip: Enlightened Cynic}

Recently, I've been reading Possession

Recently, I've been reading Possession
by A.S. Byatt. Now, I'm not one who generally goes in for "literary
fiction." And by "literary" I mean fiction that wins the National Book
Award here or the Booker over in England. I generally can't stand these
books because their authors are snobs, forever looking down their noses
at popular fiction. This is the same popular fiction whose proceeds
allow publishers to generously publish works of fiction which do not
sell---namely literary fiction. These authors regularly bite the hands
that feed them, and the world applauds---particularly the world that
reads The New York Times Book Review
every Sunday. I can't stand this sort of thing. On the whole, I find
literary authors to be a group of people who can't wait for the day
they're dead and their work is shoved down the gullets of unsuspecting
college freshmen.
No, I generally like there to be a plot to my books. Literary authors
focus on prose. Not plot. And it leads to some seriously boring books
that have, quite literally, lost the plot in beautiful wording and excessive description. Memorable case in point: Underworld
by Don DeLillo. At page seven hundred and two, I flung that Goliath
across my bedroom, where it crashed into the wall, and,
disappointingly, failed to cause any damage to the plaster or the spine
of the book. De Lillo got lost in his excessive description, and I lost
patience with waiting for him to get to the freakin' point. I've been
leery of literary fiction ever since, preferring to get lost in a story
that---ahem---goes somewhere. If that story happens to have great
words, all the better, but I'm not going to discriminate against an
author who uses the phrase "big shiny car" rather than "the excessively
large automobile brought to mind a kinder, gentler time, where my
father refrained from beating me. Ah, the halcyon days of the summer of
1954, when cars were Gilgamesh-sized beasts, which slurped petroleum
products like they were children sucking on sodas at the local
drugstore, twirling endlessly on their stools at the fountain, like
ants resting on revolving red vinyled covered toadstools. A time when
fathers had some kindness towards their sons, perhaps realizing that
beating them only brought out the worst..." BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, AD
NAUSEAUM. I think you get the point. While I don't mind some
description, a book full of that sort of thing gets to be quite
annoying. If Possession must be called "literary fiction," which I
suppose it must, having won the Booker Prize in 1990, then at least it
has the saving grace of having a plot. And some lovely poetry written
by Byatt on behalf of her fictional Victorian poets, around whom the
plot revolves. Here's a quickie synopsis: two modern day scholars
uncover a secret affair between these two Victorian poets---one married
and renowned for his presumed faithfulness to his wife, the other
presumed a lesbian---and rush around England and France looking for
evidence to prove this affair, which could change the conventional
thinking when it comes to both poets. In the midst of all this running
around, and fighting off departmental and collegial backstabbing, these
two scholars fall in love. Ahhh, romance. Anyhoo. I liked this poem and
I thought I'd share. Swammerdam was written by Byatt on behalf of the fictional Randolph Henry Ash. If you don't know who Swammerdam is go here and take a peek around.

SWAMMERDAM

Bend nearer, Brother, if you please. I fear
I trouble you. It will not be for long.
I thank you now, before my voice, or eyes,
Or weak wit fail, that you have sat with me
Here in this bare white cell, with the domed roof
As chalky-plain as any egg's inside.
I shall be hatched tonight. Into what clear
And empty space of quiet, she best knows,
The holy anchoress of Germany
Who charged you with my care, and speaks to God
For my poor soul, my small soul, briefly housed
In this shrunk shelly membrane that He sees,
Who holds, like any smiling Boy, this shell
In his bright palm, and with His instrument
Of Grace, pricks in his path, for infinite Light
To enter through his pinhole, and seek out
What must be sucked to him, an inchoate slop
Or embryonic Angel's fledgling wings.

I have not much to leave. Once I had much,
Or thought it much, but men thought otherwise.
Well-nigh three thousand winged or creeping things
Lively in death, injected by my Art,
Lovingly entered, opened and displayed---
The types of Nature's Bible, ranged in ranks
To show the secrets of her cunning hand.
No matter now. Write---if you please---I leave
My manuscripts and pens to my sole friend,
The Frenchman, the incomparable Thevenot,
Who values, like a true philosopher
The findings of a once courageous mind.
He should have had my microscopes and screws---
The copper helper with his rigid arms
We called Homunculus, who gripped the lens
Steadier than human hands, and offered up
Fragments of gauze, or drops of ichor, to
The piercing eyes of Men, who dared to probe
Secrets beyong their frame's unaided scope.
But these are gone, to buy the bread and milk
This curdled stomach can no longer ingest.
I must die in his debt. He is my friend
And will forgive me. Write that hope. Then write
For her, Antoinette de Bourignon
(Who spoke to me, when I despaired, of God's
Timeless and spaceless point of Infinite Love)
That, trusting her and Him, I turn my face
To the bare wall, and leave this world of things
For the No-thing she shewed me, when I came
Halting to Germany, to seek her out.
Now, sign it, Swammerdam, and write the date,
March, 1680, and then write my age
His forty-third year. His small time's end. His time---
Who saw Infinity through countless cracks
In the blank skin of things, and died of it.

Think you, a man's life grows a certain shape
As out of ant's egg antworm must proceed
And out of antworm wrapped in bands must come
The monstrous female or the winged drone
Or hurrying worker, each in its degree?
I am a small man, closed in a small space,
Expert in smallness, in the smallest things,
The inconsiderable and overlooked,
The curious and the emphemeral.
I like your cell, Brother. Poverty,
Whiteness, a window, water and your hand
Steadying the beaker at my cracking lips.
Thank you, it is enough.
Where I was born
Was a small space too, not like this, not bare,
A brilliant dusty hutch of mysteries,
A cabinet of curiosities.
What did my eyes first light on? There was scarce
Space for a crib between the treasure-chests,
The subtle-stoppered jars and hanging silks,
Feathers and bones and stones and empty gourds
Heaped pele-mele o'er the tables and the chairs.
A tray of moonstones spilled into a bowl
Of alien godlings winked from dusty shelves.
A mermaid swam in a heremetic jar
With bony fingers scraping her glass walls
And still hair streaming from her shrunked head.
Her dry brown breasts were like mahogany,
Her nether parts, coiled and confined, were dull,
Like ancient varnish, but her teeth were white.
And there was too a cockatrice's egg,
An ivory-coloured sphere, or almost sphere,
That balanced on a Roman drinking-cup
Jostling a mummy-cat, still wrapped around
With pitch-dark bandaged from head to foot,
Sand-dried, but not unlike the swaddling-bands
My infant limbs were held in, I assume.

And your hands, will the? presently will fold
This husk here in its shroud and close my eyes,
Weakened by so much straining over motes
And specks of living matter, eyes that oped
In innocent lustre on that teasing heap
Of prizes reaped round the terrestrial globe
By resolution captains fo the proud Dutch ships
That slip their anchors here in Amsterdam,
Sail out of the mist and squalls, ride with the wind
To burning lands beneath a copper sun
Or never-melted mountains of green ice
Or hot dark secret places in the steam
Of equatorial forests, where the sun
Strikes far above the canopy, where men
And other creatures never see her light
Save as a casual winking lance that runs
A silver shaft between green dark and dark.

I had a project, as a tiny boy
To make a catalogue of all this pelf,
Range it, create an order, render it,
You might say, human-sized, by typing it
According to the use we made of it
Or meanings we saw in it. I would part
Medicine from myth, for instance, amulets
Of dimunition or of magnitude,
Until I saw successive plans and links
Of dizzying order and complexity?
I could anatomise a mayfly's eye,
Could so arrange the cornea of a gnat
That I could peer through that at New Church Tower,
And see it upside down and multiplied,
Like many pinpoints, where no Angels danced.
A moth's wing scaly like a coat of mail,
The sharp hooked claws upon the legs of flies---
I saw a new world in this world of ours---
A world of miracle, a world of truth
Monstrous and swarming with unguessed-at life.

That glass of water you hold to my lips,
Had I my lenses, would reveal to us
Not limpid clarity as we suppose---
Pure water---but a seething, striving horde
Of animalcules lashing dragon-tails
Propelled by springs and coils and hairlike fronds
Like whales athwart the oceans of the globe.
The optic lens is like a slicing sword.
It multiplies the world, or it divides---
We see the many in the one, as here,
We see the segments of what once seemed smooth,
Rough pits and craters on a lady's skin,
Or fur and scales along her gleaming hair.

The more the Many were revealed to me
The more I pressed my hunt to find the One---
Prima Materia, Nature's shifting shape
Still constant in her metamorphoses.

I found her Law in the successive Forms
Of ant and butterfly, beetle and bee.
I first discerned the pattern of growth
From egg to simple grub, from grub encased,
Shrinking in part, in other putting forth
New organs in its sleep, until it stir,
Split and disgorge the tattered silk, which fast
Trembles and stiffens and then takes the air
Unfurled in splendour, tawny, sapphire blue,
Eveyd like the peacock, tiger-barred, or marked
Between its wings with dark death's eyeless head.

Within the crystal circle of the lens
My horny thumbs were elephantine pads.
I fashioned me a surgeon's armory---
Skewers and swords, scalpels and teasing hooks---
Not out of steel, but softest ivory,
Sharpened and turned beyond our vision's range,
Lances and lancets, that the naked eye
Could not discern, beneath the lens' stare.
With these I probed the creatures' very life
And source of life, of generation.
Their commonwealths are not as we supposed.
Lay ou the ant-hill's Lord, the beehive's King
The centre of the patterns that they weave
Fetching and carrying, hurrying to feed,
Construct and guard their world, the pinnacle
Or apex of the social hierarchy---
Lay out this creature on the optic disk,
Lay bare the seat of generation
The organs where the new lives lie and grow,
Where the eggs take their form. She is no King
But a vast Mother, on whose monstrous flanks
Climb smaller sisters, hurrying to tend
Her progeny, to help with her travail,
Carry her nectar and give up their lives
If needs be, to save hers, for she is Queen,
The necessary Centre of the Brood.

It was these eyes first saw the Ovaries,
These hands that drew them, and this fading mind
Discerned the law of Metamorphosis
And wrote it down to show indifferent men.
I had no honour of it. Not at home---
My father cast me bankrupt in the street---
Nor 'mongst my peers in Medicine. When, by Want
Driven to sell my library of slides,
My demonstrations and my experiments,
I found no Buyer, nor no man of Science,
Philosopher or Doctor, who would take
My images of Truth, my elegant
Visions of life, and give them hope to last.
And so I came to penury and beg
For sops of bread and milk and scraps of meat
Scattered with maggots of the self-same flies
I marked the breeding of.

Great Galileo with his optic tube
A century ago, displaced this Earth
From apprehension's Centre, and made out
The planets' swimming circles and the Sun
And beyond that, motion of infinite space
Sphere upon sphere, in whihc our spinning world
Green grass and yellow desert, mountains white
And whelming depths of bluest sea, is but
A speck in a kind of star-broth, rightly seen.
They would have burned him for his saying so,
Save that the sage, in fear of God and strong
In hope of life, gainsaid his own surmise,
Submitted him to doctors of the Church
Who deal in other truths and mysteries.

It was one step, I say, to displace Man
From the just centre of the sum of things---
But quite another to step to strike at God
Who made us as we are, so fearfully
And wonderfully made our intellects,
Our tireless quest to know, but also made
Our finitude, within His Mystery,
His soft, dark, infinite space, wherein we rest
When all our questions finish and our brain
Dies into weeping, as my own taxed mind
Died in dissecting the Ephemera.
I found their forms, those dancing specks of life,
The one-day flies, I gave my years to them,
Who live one day's space, never know the night.

I ask myself, did Galileo know
Fear, when he saw the gleaming globes in space,
Like unto mine, whose lens revealed to me---
Not the chill glory of Heaven's Infinite---
But all the swarming, all the seething motes
The basilisks, the armoured cockatrice,
We cannot see, but are in their degrees---
Why not?---to their own apprehension---
I dare not speak it---why not microcosms
As much as Man, poor man, whose ruffled pride
Cannot abide the Infinite's questioning
From smallest as from greatest?

{Desunt cetera}

So, I'm browsing through the

So, I'm browsing through the referral logs today and what to my
wandering eyes should appear...
...a hit from the usdoj.gov. That would be the United States Department
of Justice for the acronym unenlightened.
The place where Ashcroft holds his Black Masses, carves '666' into the
foreheads of unsuspecting regulatory attorneys, drinks the blood of
newborns, ritualistically sacrifices virgins, blah, blah, blah. {YAWN}
I think you get the picture. Anyway, I was more than a wee bit worried,
wondering what the hell could I have done to piss off the government,
until I realized it was Robbo o' El Llamabutchers just
checking in from his new job as a slayer of whatever/whomever he's now
going after since he quit his megabucks regulatory lawyering job.
But despite the fact he's joined the up with the Dark Lord Sauron, he's
still having problems with the Wraith Rabbits.
Apparently, Ashcroft isn't as evil as he's cracked up to be. You'd
think that by aligning himself with the dark forces, Robert wouldn't
have a rabbit problem anymore, but this isn't the case. I've told him. Does he listen? Nope.

Sully's back to blogging. Didn't

Sully's back to blogging.

Didn't miss him. Hmmmph. That's interesting in itself.

Think I need to eject him from my bookmarks/blogroll?

I'm not the only one

I'm not the only one who imagines press conferences where public officials verbally bitchslap the press.

Press: “Mr. Ridge, how do you respond to charges that this security alert is really a scare tactic being used for political purposes by the Bush administration?” Ridge: “Christ almighty, what is it with you people? You’ve spent a couple of years asking why we didn’t prevent 9/11, calling for an investigation, asking ‘how much did Bush know and when did he know it?’ You blamed us for something we failed to prevent after eight months in office, and yet to this day you give the Clinton admin a free pass, even though he had eight years—eight fucking years, people—to do something about al Qaeda and didn’t do one goddamned thing. “You finally get your investigation, the results of which confirm most of what we’d been saying all along, but you don’t want to hear that any more than you wanted to hear about the fact that one of the Democrat commissioners, Jamie Gorelick, was responsible for the so-called “wall of separation” prohibiting information-sharing between the FBI and CIA, which nearly everyone now acknowledges was one of the biggest problems preventing any effective defense against terrorist networks. You do deign to acknowledge that problem, but the part you originally claimed to be most interested in—who was responsible—is suddenly not so interesting anymore the moment you realized you couldn’t reasonably blame us for it. “You insist that Condi and Bush must testify publicly to the commission (even though Condi had already testified once), but it doesn’t seem to bother you when Clinton gets to testify behind closed doors. You laud Richard Clarke’s and Joe Wilson’s credibility, but when it’s clearly shown that they’re liars you don’t seem to want to bring it up anymore. You hint at all sorts of sinister skullduggery on our part, but when Sandy Berger openly admits to stealing classified documents for God only knows what reason, you couldn’t care less.

Go read the whole thing.

Man, that was more satisfying than a ciggie after sex.

(Hat Tip: Jeff "I'm Having Issues With My Levis" Goldstein.)

So, this weekend is the

So, this weekend is the big weekend. What's going on this weekend to make it so big?

Why, it's the weekend of The Walk To Cure Diabetes! of course.

In case you might not know about my nephew James, go here.
My sister informs me that James' Jaywalkers are about $500 shy of their
original goal of $3000 and she was wondering if all of you kind people
out there in the blogosphere could help to raise the much needed cash.
Some facts that might sway you into slapping down your credit card:
1. 85% of the money raised by JDRF goes toward research---not
administrative costs.
2. It's TAX DEDUCTIBLE, meaning more cashola in your wallet come next April 15th

If for no other reason do it because you know
that every time you bite into a snickers bar it's a lovely experience.
Yet, there are kids all over the world with Type I Diabetes who have
never known that wonderful pleasure simply because their bodies can't
process that sugar into energy. Share the chocolate, kids---make magic
happen and make diabetes disappear!
To get straight to the giving because you're magnanimous that way, go here. All major credit cards are accepted and no donation is too small.

Once again, in the words of Bartles and James, I thank you for your support!

UPDATE! And it's an exciting update to boot.

Thanks to the very kind Michele Catalano at A Small Victory, we've made $95.00 already today!

WOOHOO
So, thanks to everyone who's donated. You are truly making making magic
happen! James and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts! But...
{you knew it was coming, didn't you?) ...we still have a ways to go.
Please consider giving, and if you can't (hey, budgets are tight
everywhere. we all understand.), well then sending some happy thoughts
our way on Saturday would be equally appreciated.
Thanks again and if you can, please help James make diabetes disappear!
UPDATE II. Ok, well. Hmmph. Once again, I am out of the loop as
far as information-sharing. Just got off the phone with Christi and she
said there were a few last minute mail donations that have shot them
over the $3000 goal! YAY! With today's donations added to her total,
we're currently at $3145!
Thank you everyone for being so very generous! We appreciate it. If
you're still interested in giving, we would enthusiastically welcome
your support and thank you for helping us blow the roof off of our
expectations. It's truly a great thing!
UPDATE III Another hundred dollars! $3245 total! THANK YOU!

Does the US Press know

Does the US Press know we're at war?

Ummmm....no.

{hat tip: seldom sober}

"I've never been arrested or

"I've never been arrested or anything like that and I get arrested for taking a dump..."

{chuckle}

Two Russian airliners. One crashed,

Two Russian airliners. One crashed, the other went missing and then crashed.

Scary.

UPDATE: It appears to be terrorism.

Two Russian airliners carrying a total of more than 100 people crashed almost simultaneously south of Moscow (search), the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Tuesday. There was no word on survivors.

{emphasis mine}

This doesn't look good.

UPDATE II: The second plane's hijacking signal was activated.

{...}Witnesses reported seeing an explosion before the first plane crashed about 125 miles south of Moscow, and suspicions of terrorist involvement were compounded by the reports that the Tu-154 airliner that went missing in southern Russia's Rostov region issued a signal indicating the plane was being seized. Citing an unidentified source in Russia's government, Interfax said the signal came at 11:04 p.m., shortly before the plane disappeared from radar screens. Emergency and Interior Ministry sources in southern Russia, speaking on condition of anonymity, also told AP that a distress signal had been activated{...} {...}In Washington, a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity Tuesday evening, said it was the understanding of American officials that the two Russian planes disappeared within four minutes of each other, which "in and of itself is suspicious."

Why? Well, no one really seems to know much right now, but despite their lack of aviation terrorism, the Chechyn rebels have the early lead in the perpetrator race. Presidential elections are being held in Chechnya on Sunday. Given the evidence, it would appear that they're trying to influence the elections via terrorism. I hate to say it---and I may not be right---but it appears the People of Spain with their governmental switcheroo in March sent over a hundred Russians to a horrible death. The People of Spain caved, sent the wrong message, and people died as a result. Good Job! I hope you're proud of yourselves! Or maybe it won't matter to them because it didn't happen in Spain. After all, this wouldn't be a global War on Terrorism, would it? Nope. Not according to them. They think they can wrap themselves up in a blanket and all the hobgoblins will go away. I'll be very interested to see what the Spanish newspapers have to say about this.

A new blog has come

A new blog has come across my ever-shrinking radar screen, courtesy of Instapundit. Written by the Weekly Standard editor who called me out about my review of his review of Saved!, and a couple of other Weekly Standard
writers, it looks to be good. (And no, I'm not going trolling through
the archives to find that post so I can link myself. Pffft. It was
sometime in late May, early June. Go and look for yourself.)
Anyhoo, Go and check it out.
Although, I am hurt I did not recieve a link-whoring email from these
guys. I can send...what...something like five readers or so over there?
{Sniffle. Waaaah. No one likes me anymore!}

Just kidding. Yet, I suppose they'll find out that, much like Kerry and the DNC Convention, no one ever gets a lasting bounce from an Instalanche.

Although, I have to wonder, is Bill Kristol stifling dissent over at the Weekly Standard? I mean, why else
would three writers for the same magazine join forces to create a
blogspot (Gott in Himmel!)blog? Hmmmmm. Inquiring minds want to know.
Welcome to the blogosphere, guys. It's a pretty friendly place as long
as people don't bother linking you. Less controversy that way. {wink,
wink}

It's installed. I'm blogging from

It's installed.

I'm blogging from the living room.

Life is good.

Good for her. If I'd

Good for her.
If I'd just received a divorce from a man who'd slapped me around I'd
wanna party like it was 1999, too. Although, when it comes to Saudi
Arabia and women it's more like 1599, but hey...progress is progress.
Take it where you can get it.

For the love of all

For the love of all that is good and holy, make up your friggin' mind already.
My father always used to tell us that, "It's a woman's perogative to
change her mind." This was always said in jest, but at times there was
a wee bit of frustration and desperation added in. I personally think
this was his way of making it easier to bend to the whims of his five
females. It's not like he was outnumbered---the man has four sons---or
outvoiced. He's was just going with the path of least resistance. With
this firmly in mind, I have to wonder if Al-Sadr has realized how much
he's acting like a woman with this
"IwantatruceIwillspilleverylastdropofmybloodforAllahIwantatruce...
IwillmartyrmyselfforAllahIwantatruce" business?
I can't imagine that he'd find the comparison flattering. UPDATE: like I said--- make up your friggin' mind already

Courtesy of the husband, the

Courtesy of the husband, the Aquatic Center/Water Cube for the Beijing 2008 Olympics (it's a video...takes some time, but it's worth it) and then go and read
about how they solved the earthquake-prone zone problems. It'll
probably be built with slave labor, but damn...that's cool.

Because I'm likely to hurt

Because I'm likely to hurt myself if I do say something.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present The Great American Shout-Out.

I'm going to lay down and take a nap now.

The. Compulsion. Has. Struck. AGAIN!

The. Compulsion. Has. Struck. AGAIN!

Feel free to skip on by if you so choose.

1. Your name spelled backwards. Noslen Neelhtak

2. Where were your parents born? Dad: Tarnov, NE (pop. 83) Mom: Omaha

3. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer? The husband "downloaded" Photoshop for me. Does that count?

4. What’s your favorite restaurant? The French Laundry,
Yountville, CA. I only pray I get the opportunity to go back there some
day with the Gourmand Dining Circle. Oh, the trouble we'd get into. Mmmmmmmm.

5. Last time you swam in a pool? Last summer I could have said, "today." Now I'm having a hard time remembering.

6. Have you ever been in a school play? Yep. A villager in Fiddler on the Roof The rest of the time I was on crew.

7. How many kids do you want? Three.

8. Type of music you dislike most? Gangsta rap. And by that I
mean rap where people talk about offing other people and how damn cool
that sort of activity is. I do, however, like other forms of rap. 9. Are you registered to vote? Yessireebob.

10. Do you have cable? DirecTV baby!

11. Have you ever ridden on a moped? Yep. When I was fifteen and stupid.

12. Ever prank call anybody? Nope. I was the one who was prank called.

13. Ever get a parking ticket? I owned a legal courier company and knowing that lawyers always
procrastinate with getting their filings ready to go, what do you think
the answer to that question is? However, they did start getting their
acts together when I threatened to bill them for any tickets I might
receive. There's an important lesson in there somewhere, if you're
willing to look for it.
14. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving? I'm alive, thank you ever so very much. I don't need to feel alive by trying to kill myself.

15. Farthest place you ever traveled. London.

16. Do you have a garden? Yep. Hostas and lilies. My annual fetish was cut back severely by budget limitations this year.

17. What’s your favorite comic strip? Calvin and Hobbes. Bloom County, back when it wasn't hackneyed.

18. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem? Yep. Choir auditions. Enough said.

19. Bath or Shower, morning or night? late morning shower (hey, I work from home. I can shower whenever I want to blow the stink off. I'm not on a schedule.)

20. Best movie you’ve seen in the past month? Spidey 2. The Bourne Supremacy wasn't half bad, either.

21. Favorite pizza topping? Pepperoni and sausage.

22. Chips or popcorn? Popcorn.

23. What color lipstick do you usually wear? For day, I line my
lips with MAC "spice" lip liner then fill in the rest with their "lust"
lip gloss. For evening, Estee Lauder in "polished bronze." Lipstick is good.

24. Have you ever smoked peanut shells? ????

25. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant? Nope. But I got all
the tips on how to keep a swimsuit from crawling up your butt from a
friend who was. Vaseline has interesting uses as well.
26. Orange Juice or apple? Orange.

27. Who was the last person you went out to dinner with and where did you dine? The husband. The neigborhood wine bar---Beaujo's.

28. Favorite type chocolate bar? Do Reese's peanut butter cups count as a candy bar? If not, 100,000 Grand

29. When was the last time you voted at the polls? Last fall.
There was a property tax referendum on the ballot and I voted "NO" on
behalf of the Great White Hunter landlord who already charges us a
small fortune in rent. 30. Last time you ate a homegrown tomato? When we were in Omaha. Then I converted about a thousand of them into tomato sauce last week.

31. Have you ever won a trophy? Nope. But I won a medal in Synchronized Swimming from the country club when I was eleven? Does that count?

32. Are you a good cook? HELL YES!

33. Do you know how to pump your own gas? Yep. But my mother doesn't.

34. Ever order an article from an infomercial? Good God, no.

35. Sprite or 7-up? 7-up

36. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to work? Sigh. Yes.
Twice. Food service in college, which was a white T-shirt and jeans,
and when I worked for Caribou. A shirt emblazoned with their logo and
jeans. As far as uniforms are concerned, neither one was too
humiliating.
37. Last thing you bought at a pharmacy? An anniversary card and smoky treats.

38. Ever throw up in public? Ummmm...

39. Would you prefer being a millionaire or find true love? I've got the true love, I'll take the million bucks, please.

40. Do you believe in love at first sight? Yep.

41. Ever call a 1-900 number? Nope. But I've shared a phone bill with people who have.

42. Can ex’s be friends? Not in my world they can't.

43. Who was the last person you visited in a hospital? The husband's Grandma Nelson. Fantastic lady. We miss her a lot.

44. Did you have a lot of hair when you were a baby? Not really. In my baby pictures you can see the sharply defined corners on my head quite well.

45. What message is on your answering machine? "You've reached
952... We're not available at the moment. Please leave your name and
number after the tone and we'll get back to you. Have a good day." Or
something like that. Recorded in my very professional phone sex voice.
Er, that didn't come out quite right... 46. What’s your all time favorite Saturday Night Live Character? Why, Mr. Robinson, of course.

47. What was the name of your first pet? When I actually get my
first pet, I'll let you know. I'm leaning towards "Pavlov" if we ever
get a dog, because you know, payback's a bitch. 48. What is in your purse? Wallet. Cinnamon Hoof Mints. Spare
pair of glasses in case of catastrophe, along with sunglass clips. The
husband's anniversary present, his card, lipsticks, powder, and various
other female stuff that makes men go eeeeeew.

49. Favorite thing to do before bedtime? Not answering.

50. What is one thing you are grateful for today? My husband. More so than usual. See below.

Tilex Mildew Remover smells a

Tilex Mildew Remover smells a wee bit too much like baby pee for my comfort.

Tilex Soap Scum Remover is

Tilex Soap Scum Remover is the shit.

...and Fausta's not going to

...and Fausta's not going to take it anymore. I haven't said anything
much about the McGreevey business in NJ because I have no horse in that
race. I find it interesting how the media tried to spin it that he was
resigning because he was gay and how quickly a claim of "bullshit" was
called on it, but that's beside the point. I don't reside in NJ, and
while I have a lot of sympathy for the residents of that fair state, I
don't have much pull.
Fausta, however, would like residents to get involved. Go over to The Bad Hair Blog and
read what she has to say. Just keep scrolling. She's got the arguments
all laid out as to not only why you should want McGreevey gone toute
suite, but how to help join in and get it done. Lefties aren't the only
ones who know how to organize. If you're a blogger, link the woman.
Things are bad in the Garden State and she needs help to make it
better.

So, providing that you're an

So, providing that you're an uncoordinated klutz like myself, do you
bang into things one day, completely forget all about it because this
is something that happens all the damn time and then, a few days later,
wonder what the hell you did to earn a bruise the size of Texas on your
shin?
Just wondering.

Particularly on a gorgeous day

Particularly on a gorgeous day like today. Unfortunately, however, Lileks got
me thinking this morning and the lovely breeze floating in through the
window hasn't knocked the meanderings loose. And it was one freakin'
sentence that got me going, too. Could it be that all the glorious
psuedo-back-to-school mental activities will be back up and running
soon? I dunno. We'll have to see. As far as the sentence is concerned,
well, here it is:

There’s a scene towards the end in which Veronica Lake
prods Raven to consider that there are bigger dramas playing out in the
world. It’s everyone’s war, she says. Stop thinking about yourself.
“If I don’t, who will,” Raven replies.

What I got to wondering about is this
what our problem is nowadays? With the War on Terror. That we're too
bloody selfish to realize that even if we're not making the immediate,
front line sacrifices, that we pretend there aren't any to begin with?
That there isn't a war to begin with? Are we, here in the U.S. and
elsewhere, that spoiled?
I have to think we are. What other reason could there be for ignoring
the fact that almost three thousand people died on 9/11, that we were
forced to change our foriegn policy, and people are still harping on about how BUSHLIED! There weren't any WMD's in Iraq!
It's bothering, to say the least. I made the mistake of watching the
local news last night and they were running a story on the new overtime
rules that go into effect today. Who else would they go to for
reaction---here in the People's Republic of Minnesota---than the local
president of the AFL-CIO? Never mind the fact that this guy wasn't out
there pounding the pavement promoting bread lines for the impoverished
workers of the state. No bread lines are needed: chances are, if you're
a Teamster, you're making pretty good coin. Never mind that the footage
of the AFL-CIO building, which they showed him walking into, had a nice
fat (and oh so cheap vehicle of the people!) Harley-Davidson parked
right in front of it. Never mind the working people he claims to
represent, his main objection to these new overtime rules---which
Congress approved---are a bad idea because Bush proposed them. "There weren't any WMD's in Iraq."
That's what the guy said. He didn't bother to comment on the worthiness
of the new regulations. He said there weren't any WMD's in Iraq---and
that was it. Of course, it was said with a knowing smirk that
reportedly explained it all. I kept wondering what, precisely, to WMD's
have to do with overtime rules? Explain that one to me, O' Local Swami
of the Hoffas.
When I read Lileks it struck me that we are in a very different world
nowadays. Here you have a movie made in 1942, where a fedoraed, Lucky
Strike smoking writer inserted a line like, "It's everyone's war" into
a movie script and probably thought nothing of it. It's everyone's war. Stop thinking about yourself.
Back then a writer was probably encouraged to write that line to
perform a little morale building. To remind people of what their
sacrifices were for. Can you imagine a writer inserting a line like
that nowadays?
I can't. Nowadays we'd get a movie where the hero would be encouraged
to be selfish. That fighting for something greater than oneself is a bad
thing because the very concept of the "greater good" inherently ignores
the individual. It's hard to find the greater good when you have a
society filled with people who are encouraged at every turn to think of
nothing but "memememememegoddamnME!" I worry. Because people don't see
the big picture. That's the sacrifice our government has asked of us:
they asked us to see the big picture and some people are flat-out
refusing to gaze upon it. It's selfish. It takes for granted everything
the people who fought the last war, the last time people found the will
to fight for the greater good and succeeded, made possible. If someone
can't put down their cheez doodles for a long enough period of time to
understand that---ahem---these people want to kill us, that if we're
not vigiliant---ahem---they will,
then we're doomed. And they will deserve whatever befalls our great
country. Because they didn't bother to learn the lessons of the
Athenians, where the very idea of democracy sprang forth and, some time
later, inspired Jefferson. To skip through the history lesson quickly:
the Athenians got lazy and bickered their democracy to death. Sound
familiar? Of course, democracy is what makes all this lovely freedom of
speech possible. But people today, for some strange reason, don't think
that they could ever kill their democracy. They just don't think that's
a possibility, so they rally. They protest. They shoot their mouths
off. Then when the truth doesn't change minds, they start to lie, and
in those lies they breed mistrust. Then the other side gets involved
and the same thing happens all over again. Soon all you have are people
bickering at one another and nothing consequential and worthy happens.
I'll ask you again, does this sound familiar?
I worry. I worry that we'll be attacked again. I worry that the only
response the country will be able to muster is to bicker and wonder
what could be done to prevent such a thing. I worry that in the midst
of all this democracy
our freedom to live and do as we please, the best part of America, the
part all of our ancestors found so very appealing that they left
everything that they knew behind to come here and drink from the
fountain of liberty, will be gone. That hundreds of years from now
America will be a footnote in a history book and nothing more. I don't
know where I'm going with all of this. Like I said in the title,
thinking is bad for you, but man! When are people going to get it? Is
it going to take another series of attacks---God Forbid---before they
do, or will they only see what they want to see even then? When are we
all going to get on the same page?

For Llama-ette #1. Verb: Your

For Llama-ette #1.

Verb:

Your father is very chappy when it comes to Emma Woodhouse.

Adjective:

He seems to think that being chappy in regards to Miss Woodhouse is
the only way he'll ever convince anyone that she's the best Jane Austen
character.

Adverb:

Your dad chappily tried to convince me that Emma was better than Elizabeth, and he failed miserably.

Excellent descriptor, Llama-ette#1. Well done.

*noun/pun

Hey. I've been doing this

Hey.

I've been doing this for a year.

Wow.

For someone with the attention span of a gnat, that's gotta be some kind of record.

{patting self on back for a short yawn-filled moment}

Ok, back to the crap!

..."After U2 announced the release

..."After U2 announced the release date for their latest album and
most of the hubbub had died down, The Edge announced that he had a few
words to say to one of his devoted fans. "Kathy," he began in his usual
quiet manner, a surprisingly soft and lovelorn look on his face, "yes,
it's true that I really do love you. While you may love my hips and the
way that I move them in the "With or Without You" video, I love yours
even more. They're really lovely. And I wish I could see them everyday.
So here's my email address and a brand spanking new digital camera.
Send me hip updates on a regular basis, please?"
At this point, Edge grew somewhat silent and wore a bemused expression
on his oh-so-handsome countenance. "And you need to call me, Kath. We
have to discuss that baby-making business." He winked at the camera,
then continued, "It's a positive development, I assure you." The press
conference, understandably, erupted into a barroom blitz, with
reporters demanding to know who the mysterious "Kathy" was and how she
had gained his love, despite the fact The Edge is reportedly happily
married. He only nodded at the blistering melee of anxious reporters
and photographers, then left the room, his security personnel closing
in around him. His mobile phone rang just as he was leaving the hotel
ballroom, where the press conference had been held, and he smiled
widely when he heard who was on the line... {hat hip: Mr. H.}

Martini Boy has it right.

Martini Boy has it right.

At the Olympics? Surely you

At the Olympics? Surely you jest.

There are simply too many compromises, too many rules, and too many possible circumstances for reforms to eliminate fresh controversies. But there is one solution that, while not perfect, is better than all the others. Let's call it "The Goose Gossage Rule." In 1983, Gossage, pitching in relief for the New York Yankees, gave up a key home run to Kansas City's George Brett in what would become one of the most famous rules disputes in baseball history. The "Pine Tar Incident" erupted when Yankees manager Billy Martin invoked an obscure rule when he saw that Brett's bat was illegally smeared with pine tar. (Pine tar is sometimes used to cover incisions in bats that have been corked, though there was no charge that Brett's bat was corked.) The league subsequently invalidated Brett's home run and ruled him out on the play. (In the bizarre aftermath, the two teams later met to finish the meaningless game in front of a handful of amused spectators.) Gossage, when interviewed in the postgame locker room, had a more direct and sensible solution that no one paid any attention to: "Do-overs. You know, like when you were kids and you argued about some game you were playing in the street. The best compromise was always just to do it over. It was the only compromise that everyone would agree on." "Do-overs" would not be an entirely satisfactory solution to the Hamm-Yang controversy but nothing else would either. A do-over, at the very least, offers the possibility of a solution that wouldn't be made by lawyers or a rules committee. What athlete worth a medal wouldn't prefer to settle things on a field, on a court or in a gym? Would the sponsors and the television network be happy with do-overs? Are you serious? Ticket sales and ratings would soar to an all-time high. And finally, what of the fans? Isn't the thrill of meaningful competition precisely what the Olympics is all about?

My question would be, why should Hamm have to do it over? It wasn't his fault that the judges goofed with their math. It was, dare I even suggest it, the judges' fault. God, I am so freakin' sick and tired of stupid suggestions like this, not to mention false controversies that arise out of a perceived need in the media for such controversies, you know, to make things more interesting. Does anyone actually think the USOC would have involved itself in trying to negotiate a "resolution" with the Koreans if the press hadn't jumped all over this story? I don't. Hamm shouldn't have to "do over" what he didn't goof in the first place. Nor should he have to hand over his gold medal and "do the right thing." Man, this pisses me off, and I feel sorry for poor Paul Hamm. He's being cast as the bad guy because the perception is that he benefited from the error, when that actually has yet to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. But he won, there were goofs, he's American so obviously there's something to it. What happened here? It's pretty simple: the Koreans dropped the proverbial ball. They didn't notice during the rotation that Yang's routine had had an incorrect starting level attached to it. Yes the judges goofed, but it was their responsibility to a. notice it and b. to contest the result within the rotation. They didn't do this. In fact, we didn't hear anything about it until a few days after the competition. The Koreans then chose to whine. Yet, the FIG said they couldn't do anything about it, while simultaneously having a few choice words with their judges. Nor could the IOC couldn't do anything about it. This was, in essence, no big deal and everyone knew it. There's a procedure for dealing with this sort of thing, the Koreans didn't avail themselves of it and Yang lost out on the Gold as a result. Who's fault is that? Not Paul Hamm's and if everyone had stayed on the same page, this would have blown over eventually. But not now. The real brouhaha began when the USOC got involved. They're trying to "find a resolution" to the problem. Now everyone and their brother seems to have an opinion on this because the general assumption seems to be that there must be a problem if the USOC is involved. Well, far be it from me to point this out, but there is no conflict, hence no need for a resolution. This is sour grapes writ large. Sour grapes that could be loaded with the tannin of anti-American fervor. And God only knows we can't have anyone hating Americans. That would be bad. So, what does the USOC do? They negotiate with the Koreans to find a resolution, an act which gives legitimacy to their gripes. Now everyone has to take it seriously. It appears to me that the USOC would rather appease other countries than stick up for one of their own. They've essentially abandoned their own because they have no collective spine. What's worse is that it wasn't necessary to try and douse the flames. The fire hadn't even really started up, yet the USOC poured kerosene on it and revived it. Personally, for all the hype about how anti-American these games were supposed to be, I haven't seen it. If it was there, I'm sure NBC would have pointed it out. The commentators for other worldwide media outlets may say something different, but I prefer to go by crowd reactions and I simply haven't seen anything close to what the media was predicting. Case in point: Gary Hall, Jr. On Saturday night, he walked out to his lane at the pool wearing a Rocky-esque satin robe and shorts, the entire ensemble emblazoned with the stars and stripes, and I didn't hear any boos from the crowd. If there was a situation that was rife with the potential for other people from other countries to be pissed off, that was the time for it. But it didn't happen. While I thought it was tacky, it was obvious the guy was proud that he was representing his country. Yes, he was a bit belligerent about it, yet no one rose to the bait. They realized he was a bit of a zealot and waved it off. They realized he had a right to wear such a tacky ensemble, and from his interview it was obvious that he didn't have a problem with anyone thinking it was tacky. It was a classic example of live and let live. As far as the games as a whole, sure there have been some jeers and boos, but when haven't there been? Not everyone loves Americans. That's always been the case when it comes to the Olympics---always. We know this. It's nothing new. But with the current political climate at hand, the USOC apparently thinks differently and would appease the least likely claimant to make sure nothing comes of it. Only, in the process they poured kerosene on a fire that had yet to spark. And Paul Hamm has to pay for it. He's right at the center of the fire, being offered up on a stake for the appeasement of the Koreans, lest anyone think badly of Americans. It's a crying shame. If Hamm had profited from blatant favoritsm, it would be one thing, and in that case, yeah, he should give the medal back. But that isn't the case here: the Koreans goofed and he's being offered up as a sacrifice to prevent more anti-American backlash and it's just wrong. What good is it to represent your country in the Olympics when the representatives from your own country's Olympic Committee don't want to represent you?

We got married. Holy

We got married. Holy Cow has the time flown by!
So, this is what the husband looked like ten years ago. You know, just
in case you were interested. We haven't aged too badly, it appears,
although I did think those glasses were cool...at the time. Now I see
that I looked like a dork. Before you start worrying about my
self-esteem realize that I know I was a gorgeous
dork, but still a dork nonethleless. Glasses will do that to you when
you're wearing a dress like that. It's just a fact of life.
I'm much more hip nowadays. Or so I'd like to delude myself into
thinking. I can't quite believe it's been ten years. It's only been
recently that I've started thinking in geezer-mode, which means,well, fifteen years ago it was really different....
Until you get to a certain age, you just don't have the life experience
to think in geezer mode. Then it suddenly occurs to you that you, at
age thirty-three, are now a geezer. You can think like that because
you've been married for ten years.
Not that I'd trade-in any of those ten years. Well, ok, a few of them
could go because they were godawful, but not because our marriage was
in trouble. Ok, well, that's a slight fib, but, never fear there are
benefits to geezer mode. One of them being that you can now see how
those hard times challenged you and how things are all the more sweet
now because you made it through. And things are sweet. It's all been
worth it and when I write "all" realize that there's a goodly amount of
meaning we could attach to that word that would make most people's hair
do a Don King. We've survived and we're better for it. Our marriage is
better for it. So, to the husband, happy anniversary, darling. I know
you can't believe it's been that long a period of time, either. Here's
what I propose we do to celebrate above and beyond what we've already
planned. Tonight when we sit down to dinner, we will propose a toast to
Father John (the priest who almost didn't marry us and then who kept
asking family members long after the fact if we were divorced...yet)
because we've proven him wrong. Then we'll toast to us. Because we
deserve it. Whatever happens after that, we'll take it and we'll be
grateful for it because we can make it through anything. You're still
my wonder of life. And I still am exceedingly grateful for the
knowledge.

I feel really sorry for

I feel really sorry for people who have to take their drapes out to be
drycleaned.
What a burden life must be for you poor folks. Me? Well, I just take my
drapes down and throw them in the washer. And then into the dryer. And
then I hang them back up. No need to iron.
It really must suck being you, eh?

The Elsa Klensch of the

The Elsa Klensch of the Blogosphere leaves
no detail behind when he describes what he'll be wearing to the RNC
Convention in Manhattan. I believe even the most demanding of French
couturiers would say his garb is as honest a declaration of intentions
as they've ever seen and, despite being so patently Americain, even perhaps is quite chic, no?

A regular, yet choosing to

A regular, yet choosing to remain anonymous to y'all, Cake Eater reader
has gone out and started her own blog! Can you believe it?
I know. It is wacky, but I'll take it where I can get it.

So, go and check out Phoenix at Villains Vanquished and
welcome her to the blogosphere. She's a new and worthy voice to add to
the raucous cacophony we already have going on. Which I consider to be
excellent. I like it loud.

We're going wireless today. Hot

We're going wireless today. Hot Damn!
This will be awesome later on today, when it's up and running and I can
blog from the front lawn with a frosty beverage in the cupholder on my
lawn chair. But until then, it's a minor pain in the ass. It's like I
stopped myself from sitting on a cactus a minute before major pain
ensued: I've got a sticker or two in my butt: easily remedied, but a
bit annoying and slightly painful in the meantime.
About a week ago, the husband contacted Qwest, our DSL provider, and
chatted with them about upgrading our modem. He's been having issues
for about a month now with our network. Every time I click on a
webpage, his
mouse locks up. Knowing how much I surf on a daily basis, well, let's
just say that the husband was close to spontaneously combusting a few
times. He couldn't figure out what was causing this. The guru had a
virus hit his computer at the end of June (something which only rarely
happens---like once every four years) and he took it perhaps a little
too personally. He wound up cleaning too much off his machine.
Included in the lost items was a small command that kept his mouse from
freezing whenever I instructed wee bastard to go out into the vast
wasteland that is the internet and return with a web page. The only
solution his techie buddies could give him was to buy a wireless router
and start over. So, the husband decides that to do this, he needs to
get a new modem. That was fine with the husband, though, because he
wanted to upgrade the DSL service, too. More bang for the buck. Qwest
has a habit of annoying us in this regard: we don't want caller-id, but
they keep trying to sell us that function. We do want faster DSL, but
did they call us and let us know about their new offer of 1.5megs of
bandwidth for ten bucks cheaper than what we're currently paying?
Nooooooooo. Fortunately, the husband made the call, got us the better
deal, but it's only saving us seven bucks a month---because we're
"leasing" our new modem for two years at the bargain basement price of
$3 a month. Woooo. The new modem arrived a couple of days ago, and low
and behold, what should make the husband's eyes pop out of his head but
the fact that the modem also doubles as a wireless router! This means,
in the scheme of things, that all he now has to do is buy a wireless
PCMCIA card for wee bastard, I will be mobile and the upgraded
networking of the office will be complete. Well, for the time being,
anyways. He has to purchase a wireless PCMCIA card for his
laptop, too, but that ain't in the budget right now. He will have to
forgo the ability to surf from two computers simultaneously for a month
or so. He's hitting CompUSA after he goes to a meeting this afternoon.
Why is this annoying in the meantime? you ask. Well, I'm currently
using Gandalf, the husband's computer, to write this post. I have no
internet to Wee Bastard because Qwest cut off our old DSL connection to
insall the new one. This means that our old networking no longer works,
hence no internet to Wee Bastard until the husband gets home with the
new wireless networking card. I have no email, because msn is slammed
today and when I go to the hotmail site, it won't pull anything new.
But there are also other, pettier annoyances. The husband's computer
has an old-fashioned keyboard, which is driving me NUTS as every other
word of this post has had a typo in it, and hence had to be corrected.
He's also using Mozilla/Firefox as his browser and all of the webpages
I visit daily are rendering in odd ways. The main complaint, as you
might have guessed, is that this computer isn't mine,
and that bothers me. Despite the trouble Wee Bastard has given me over
the years, he's still mine. For better or worse, I love that prickly
wee bastard and using another computer with a different keyboard,
accessing webpages that don't come up correctly is making me feel like
I'm cheating on him and the problems are my reward for getting a little
somthing on the side. I'm an adulteress of the computer kind. Replete
with guilty conscience and a prayer offered up that I will never, ever
cheat again. I swear.
Anyhoo, I'll be wireless by the end of the day, providing the husband
buys the proper stuff at CompUSA and doesn't have to run back to the
store a few times to get things right. Yet, other than surfing from
whereever, the best part about this is that I will finally be equal
with my mother in terms of computing mobility. The woman's been
wireless since January, which in the overall scheme of things---I'm her
daughter, I'm younger, and am supposed to be the hip one in this
relationship---just isn't right. Things will go back to normal this
afternoon, and that will allow me to breathe a sigh of relief that I'm
no longer a lame-o. Anyway, there's your post for the day. You might
get something later. You might now. I'm fickle that way.

What is it about this

What is it about this painting that inspires thievery?

I'm having a hard time understanding this one.

People have stolen versions of this painting not once, but twice. My question is...why?
What? Are these thieves into existential angst nowadays? Do they find
this painting interesting? Is it just because it's relatively famous,
but not in a "yet another Monet" sort of way? What is it, exactly, that
makes this painting worth stealing?
Twice. Most recently at gunpoint. In a country that's supposedly great
with gun control.
"The Scream" is an interesting painting. I'll give it that much,
despite the fact the guy doing the primordial screaming reminds me a
wee bit too much of Mr. Bill from "Saturday Night Live." While it's not
my favorite, it does what all good art is supposed to do: pull
something out of you. Whatever pain the guy is howling at, you can
relate to it, it resonates with the individual, whether they might be
cultured or casual, and it makes them think. The wierd sky dictates
that, yes indeedy, the world does look strange when you're in pain.
It's a good piece of work. And that's fine. I may get the Mr. Bill vibe
whenever I see this painting, but other people might really like it.
Given the number of times I saw posters of this particular piece of
work hanging on dorm room walls in college, logic dictates it must be
popular with some people. But to like it enough to steal it? Because someone had
to like this painting to want to steal it because of what happened last
time. Money isn't the motive here. (Unless they were a pack of dolts
who hadn't read a newspaper in the past ten years, which, I suppose is
always possible.) It can't possibly be. That someone would like this
painting enough to risk stealing it is the only reason I can come up
with for the taking of such a prominent piece of work. Did they steal
it for some collector, who's been greedily rubbing his hands together
while whispering, "oh, yes, you will be mine, my pretty," for
years and will now hang it on the wall of his impenetrable vault? Or,
romanticism aside, is it like the guy at Scotland Yard said and that
the thieves were looking for a trophy and now have no idea what the
hell to do with it? I don't know. Hmmmm. But it's fun to speculate, no?

Now, if you can just

Now, if you can just imagine Issac Hayes' voice coming at you with that
thar title, we'll all be on the same page.
Had a great weekend in Omaha. I had the details all written out, went
to post it and poof!
blogger had some sort of internal server error and my post disappeared.
Hell if I know what the problem is but I'll be damed if I'm going to
type that whole thing all out again. Pffft. Can't be bothered. Seems as
if I missed some good stuff over the weekend, namely the opportunity to
bash that skank-extraordinaire Washingtonienne. Damn. I leave town for
one flippin' weekend and all this good stuff happens. It's just not
fair. So, even though this story has cycled through completely, I might
muster up something later in the day, because you know, its not
everyday you get to bash a skank so I really shouldn't let the
opportunity go to waste, right? Skank bashing aside for the moment, I
need to inform you all that the Butcher's Shop has FINALLY moved! The
little bastards. {grumble, groan} How dare they force me to upgrade my
links and bookmarks. They're just creating more work for ME in their efforts to hang out with the cool kids.
It's such a phony little social climbing ploy that I suspect, in the
nature of all good dramas, will have a nice little backlash moment
wherein they will regret their departure from blogspot. At least one
can hope. Anyway, the meat cases have been upgraded, expanded and
relocated to this spot on
that vast wasteland of the mind called the internet.
Blogging will continue later on this afternoon. I have four HUGE bags
full of homegrown tomatoes, fresh from the parentals' garden, that need
to be converted into sauce for freezing.

Thank You to all those

Thank You to all those who donated to support James' Jaywalkers in the Walk To Cure Diabetes!.

You can find her thanks here.

I would like to add my own so here's a big THANK YOU! to all those people who want to help James' end his shots! You're all wonderful people worthy of being worshipped.

I also need to add a big shout out to all of the wonderful bloggers who helped me spread the word. Many thanks to Miss Apropos, seldom sober, The Llamabutchers, The Bad Hair Blog, Uptown Girl, Always Victoria and A Small Victory for
generously posting about James' and adding their own words to get
people to donate. After reading and commenting on so many people's
stupidity and selfishness, it's easy to get down on the world and the
people in it. However, it's always a refershing reminder that there are
people out there who care and more importantly who do something about it. It may sound trite and more than a little bit corny, but it is
possible to change the world, even if it something as small as making a
donation to a walk to cure diabtetes. Thanks so much for your
donations, and the help you all offered, even if it was in the form of
words, but I would really like to thank all of you for having the
vision to try and make the world a better place for
everyone---including James. You're great people.

Could the media possibly be

Could the media possibly be more biased?

Yeah, I'm Learning To Pshop.

Yeah, I'm Learning To Pshop. Most sincere and fervent apologies to the Gorilla.

Robert's latest entry into the

Robert's latest entry into the long running saga of Sauron's Wraith Rabbits.

I have a suggestion. And I quote:

Some enterprising rabbit had dug its way under the stakes of my garden again. One voracious rabbit could eat a cabbage down to the roots, and from the looks of things, he'd brought friends. I sighed and squatted to repair the damage. The loss of Ian was a constant ache; at such moments as this, I missed his horrible dog as well. I had brought a large collection of cuttings and seeds from River Run, most of which had survived the journey. It was mid-June, still time---barely---to put in a fresh crop of carrots. The small patch of potato vines was all right, so were the peanut bushes; rabbits wouldn't touch those, and didn't care for the aromatic herbs either, except the fennel, which they gobbled like licorice. I wanted cabbages, though, to preserve as sauerkraut; come midwinter, we would want food with some taste to it, as well as some Vitamin C. I had enough seed left, and could raise a couple of decent crops before the weather turned cold, if I could keep the bloody rabbits off. I drummed my fingers on the handle of my basket, thinking. The Indians scattered clippings of their hair around the edges of the fields, but that was more protection against deer than rabbits. Jamie was the best repellant, I decided. Nayawenne had told me that the scent of carnivore urine would keep rabbits away---and a man who ate meat was nearly as good as a mountain lion, to say nothing of being more biddable. Yes, that would do; he'd shot a deer only two days ago; it was still hanging. I should brew a fresh bucket of spruce beer to go with the roast venison, though...

Obviously that's from a work of fiction. Drums of Autumn
to be precise. By Diana Gabaldon, Copyright 1997, All Rights Reserved.
Claire is the narrator. She's a doctor from the twentieth century who
has time traveled back in time to the eighteenth century, hence all the
bleating about Vitamin C: she finds a typical eighteenth century diet
to be apalling in its lack of nutrition. Jamie is her Scots husband,
who has taken her to America where they have settled in the mountains
of western North Carolina. Nawayenne is an Indian medicine woman. Drums is the fourth in a series of 1000+ page novels about Jamie and Claire and their adventures. (The first in the series is Outlander
and it's fantastically fun reading. Give it a whirl.)
Now, normally, I wouldn't take the word of an author of fiction about
the efficacy of a man relieving himself around the borders of a garden
to keep the rabbits out. I write fiction. I know about inventing stuff and making it sound like the real deal. But I also happen to have met Diana and chatted with her. You see, Diana is a PhD in Ecology
and part of her process is to research widely about the period of time
and location central to her plot and to incorporate bits and pieces of
that research into her writing. She's an academic at heart: she loves
to look around and see what's out there. Specifically, if she finds
something that history has forgotten about, she will, invariably,
choose to write about it just to add it to the register of things she's
informed her audience of (some of which would be the difference between
passive and active immunity, the joys of antibiotics, germs, blood
typing, bloodletting, herbal remedies, fertility, Eistein's theory of
relativity, amputation, how women dealt with their time of the month
way back when, etc.). This, of course, makes her novels go long, but
when Jamie's around, who honestly cares how long these books get? I
digress, but I think you get the point: a goodly portion of her books
are interesting simply because you get Claire's scientific hindsight
explaining why things were done in a certain way. The rest of her books
are interesting because of Jamie, but hey, I think I already went
there. Long story short: I trust her. I'm fairly sure this is true.
Further research would probably indicate that this, indeed, works to
rid one's garden of rabbits, but I've got a bunch of website content to
write today and haven't the time to go and check it out. Soooooo...the
question(s) of the day would seem to be: after having eaten a steak for
supper, is Robert desperate enough to try taking a midnight trip to his
garden,? Is he brave enough to risk the wrath of any Gladys Kravitz
neighbors he might have living next door? But most
importantly---ahem---does anyone live near to him and have a digital
camera?

Never mind that this coming

Never mind that this coming Thursday is September 2, 2004. On my calendar it's actually June 6, 1944.

That would make the Cake Eater Apartment Normandy. My in-laws and the grandparent
in-laws are playing the role of the Americans, British, Free French and
Canadians and we'll be playing the role of the Nazis... ...wait a
minute. That didn't come out quite as I intended. Hmmmm. {insert
wracking of brain to come up with another historical invasion example,
particularly one in which we play the role of the good guys...hmmmmm.
How about the Huns sacking Rome? Does that work? Hmmmm. William the
Conqueror invading England?} Whatever. You get the gist. Anyhoo, people
we don't want to resemble aside, we're being invaded.
Here's the story. Despite a late July visit to the People's Republic of
Minnesota from the mother-in-law, she's back in town. And this time she
brought the father-in-law and, as an extra bonus, her parents are also
visiting. Whooeeee. Enough fun for you, kids? Well hold on to your
horses, it has yet to get interesting. They actually arrived this past
Tuesday. The mother-in-law called us that afternoon and I made the
massive faux pas of asking, "Are you ready to fly up here?"
"We're here," she responded, in a somewhat annoyed-somewhat confused
tone of voice. "Oops," I shot out. "I got my days confused. I didn't
think you were leaving until tomorrow." So, I'm an idiot. But if I'm an
idiot, the husband is one as well, because, despite a detailed
itinerary from his father and various inkings made on the calendar a
month ago, he got it wrong, too. Anyway, the plan is as such: they
arrived last week, then drove down to Illinois to drop the grandparents
off for their high school reunion and to stay with friends. The in-laws
then shot over to various points in Iowa to see friends and family and
are now on their way back to Illinois to pick up the grandparents. On
Wednesday, they will return to the People's Republic. They have a hotel
near the sister-in-law's house picked out and they will be camping out
at her house during the days and sleeping at the hotel at night. Why do
they stay over by the sister-in-law's house instead of near yours? you
ask. Well, she's reproduced. We haven't. Enough said. They will spend
the next week in various states of ecstasy, confusion, grouchiness and
flat-out escape-mode, depending upon which of the four visitors we're
talking about. The mother-in-law will love to see her grandkids, so she'll be
in ecstasy. Grandpa will be grouchy, because that's just the way he is,
and this is too much moving around for his tastes. Grandma, well, I'm
very sad to say, will be the confused one because she's having some
neurological issues. We know she's been diagnosed with Parkinsons, but
it appears to us that she's afflicted with Alzheimers as well. Or the
Parkinsons has just gotten out of hand. We don't know and we're unlikey
to ever know as Grandpa apparently refuses to pay out-of-pocket
for a visit with a neurologist---and then is also refusing to drive
Grandma to any more doctors appointments than what he's already dealing
with. By process of elimination, it should be apparent that it's my
father-in-law who wants to escape all this nuttiness.
This trip is what the husband has termed "Grandma's Farewell Tour."
Grandma and Grandpa wanted to fly up for their high school reunion and
since Minnesota is a hop, skip and a jump from Illinois, well, why not
stop in and see the grandkids (the husband and his sister...confused
yet?)while they were in the neighborhood? When the grandparents
disclosed this, the mother-in-law started fretting about how fragile
Grandma is right now, and how oblivious Grandpa seems to be about it,
and how travel wasn't a particularly good idea. Grandpa refused to hear
the mother-in-law, so the father-in-law, master mediator that he is,
suggested that they travel with the grandparents to make sure
everything went according to plan and that nothing horrible happened to
his in-laws.
The man is a saint. To understand this, you have to know that my
father-in-law despises his wife's parents. Well, maybe despise is too rough a word. Dislike
probably works, but I don't know if it captures the occasional intense
loathing he feels for them. He's been married to the mother-in-law for
close to thirty-five years and he's never warmed up to them. It's not
for lack of effort, because the mother-in-law is, shall we say, attached to her parents. Seriously
attached. To skip around the niceties, the cord has never been cut. Now
that her kids live halfway across the country, and there's obviously a
need for her services, she's devoting a great deal of her time to her
parents. So much so that it's disconcerting the father-in-law. Even
though they live two hours away, she goes to Tuscon at least once a
week to take the grandparents to doctor appointments and the like. This
of course, is in spite of the fact that she has two brothers that live
within minutes of the grandparents and could handle these various
problems easily, with little inconvenience to themselves. They're
worthless and the mother-in-law refuses to stand up to them. Or her
parents. So the upshot of all this family business is that the
father-in-law is stuck between the rock and the hard place---and is
forced to deal more than he would like with people he simply doesn't
like. Most of this wouldn't bother him if he indeed liked his
in-laws. He doesn't. Grandma knows how to yank the mother-in-law's
strings. While he doesn't like it, he can nonetheless deal with it.
It's Grandpa who really drives him nuts. Grandpa, as I've mentioned, is
grouchy. Cantankerous might be a better descriptor, gauging from the
husband's tales. But he's also a provacateur.
He likes shooting his mouth off in the company of people he knows won't
shoot back. He's got age on his side, and he expects people to simply
agree with him because he's their elder. He's also a devout Democrat.
So, he'll shoot his mouth off about this that or the other, and my
father-in-law---an equally devout Republican---will try to come back at
him in a respectful way. That he would have the gall to respond in the
first place, of course, incenses Grandpa and causes him to further
entrench his position. When it comes to Grandpa it's very much a
situation where who can listen to what anyone else has to say when the
ditch digging is so damn noisy---if he bothered to listen to
the argument in the first place, which is doubtful. The father-in-law
has been calling his son a great deal over the past week, seeking
support from the only person he knows is on his side. He made
the joke over the weekend that his lip was still intact---meaning he
hadn't bit it off in an attempt to keep from telling Grandpa off during
the five hour car ride from the Twin Cities to Moline.
But he realized the next day, that while he'd made a joke, he actually had chewed the inside of his cheek enough to make a wound.

So, he's already declared that on Thursday he'll be over at our
house, attending to the needs of his digital camera. Never mind that we
heard this from the sister-in-law, that he never bothered informing us.
He'll be here. The man is desperate to get away. We understand his need
for a safe haven, so, he'll spend the afternoon chatting with his son,
smoking cigars and, in general, getting a breather from being besieged
by his in-laws. Then everyone save the sister-in-law and her family (the Cake Eater apartment just isn't that big, folks. I can't have them all
over at the same time. Besides the sister-in-law could use a night
off.) will be over for dinner on Friday night. Despite the fact they've
been my relatives, too, for ten years, I've never had to cook for the
Grandparents. Here are the various conundrums associated with this
dinner. So far. 1. Grandma is having trouble eating hard foods. Dinner
will have to be of the mushy variety. No pork chops. No steak. No
chicken. None of the foods that we'd normally feed them are options. I
recommended sushi and while the husband nearly ruptured himself
laughing at the idea of his grandparents and parents eating sushi, he
ultimately decided this wouldn't be a good idea. We're thinking baked
fish, but that might change.
2. These are people who grew up on the farm. There will have to be loads of food on the table, just because they eat that way. How I'm going to do this when we're serving fish
as the main course, I don't know. Loads of mashed potatoes? Will salad
be an option? Hmmmmm. I dunno. Of course this also means that the
phrase "nothing fancy" will be in full use. 3. Grandpa DEMANDS that
there be some sort of bread on the table. And jelly. Of course there must be jelly to go with his bread. Never mind that we'll probably be serving salmon or some other sort of good fish. My table will be sullied with jelly for Grandpa's bread. The horror of it. {shudder}

4. There will be dessert of course. Or as Grandpa likes to say deeesert.
Last year when the in-laws arrived, the husband asked me if I could use
my considerable baking skills and produce a red-velvet cake. This is
the father-in-law's favorite. It came out perfectly and has been
requested again. No hassles there and God only knows that the poor man
deserves a thrown bone at this stage of the game. Now, I think this will work with Grandma's "soft food" requirements, but will Grandpa object, simply because deeesert
isn't being tailored around what he likes? And if he does object, do I
have to hold my tongue or can I tell him that if he doesn't like it he doesn't have to eat it?
5. No one, other than myself, drinks. Seriously. It's going to be tense
from beginning to end. Everyone will be on tenterhooks, holding their
breath that nothing will happen to upset anyone. So, unless I come up
with some great conversational gambit in the next five days, it's going
to be a dinner full of the polite sort of chit-chat that bores me to
tears. I could
get stinking drunk and amuse them all with my antics. But what's the
point in that when they wouldn't find it amusing to watch me play in vino veritas.
6. I have a general rule that politics and religion are not topics for
the dinner table. This rarely holds with the in-laws, because we're all
on the same side when it comes to politics, but the no religion rule
holds fast, for the most part, because I don't want to have to listen
to "fish eater" jokes from my protestant father-in-law. (I'm already in
cringe-preparedness-mode for when he hears we're having Fish!!! on a FRIDAY!)
But when democrats---any democrats, friends included---come to dinner
we just don't go there. Grandpa might not like this rule, and again I
wonder just how far I can go and if it's possible to tell him to shove
it?
7. Will the mother-in-law keep using my bathroom?

Sigh. It's going to be a long week full of cleaning, cooking and dodging the various pitfalls that could befall Grandma's Farewell Tour.

I'm really looking forward to having seldom sober
arrive next Sunday. That'll be a piece o' cake in comparison. And I
don't even have to clean the house twice! Hot damn! I do still have to
stock the liquor cabinet, though.

{Nodding head} Mmmmhmmm. Right on

{Nodding head} Mmmmhmmm. Right on the money.

Today would be one of

Today would be one of those days.
That last little post about Jeff G.'s attempts at entering the ranks of
the fashionistas was written Saturday afternoon. I tried to publish it
then and it completely disappeared. *Poof* Gone. Ghandi. Frustrated yet
again with the patent goofiness of Blogspot, I just gave up on blogging
for the rest of the weekend. Not really a tough choice given the
situation, but still it was one that was chosen because Blogger was
being goofy. So, I log in this morning, and what should await me in the
"published" column? A post that made the dubious claim it had been
published but hadn't been in actuality.
Grrrrr.
This has been happening quite frequently of late.
Grrrrr...again.
So, the gist of this post would be to warn all of my readers that if I
don't post anything today, it's not because I didn't try, but because
Blogger kept waving its magic wand, whispering presto chango over the proverbial hat causing my posts to disappear.

Which, of course, is a useless warning if this post doesn't make it through.

It's fiction, people. Mary Magdalene

It's fiction, people.

Mary Magdalene is not "The Holy Grail." She's not buried under the pyramid in the Louvre. Sauniere was not murdered in the musuem and he did not
leave clues all over the museum to identify his killers. The Priory of
Sion was probably a club of big thinkers who were afraid of the Church
declaring they were heretics, and not some secret society devoted to
keeping the information about Mary Magdalene shrouded in mystery to
protect her legacy. Opus Dei, while truly full of nutjobs, is
nonetheless full of harmless nutjobs that anyone with the least bit of sense would see as such. The portrait of John in The Last Supper is, indeed, probably John, not Mary Magdalene. Loose robes aside, there aren't any boobs to indicate otherwise.

Get over yourselves.

While I'm excited that people are reading, for the love of God, realize that The DaVinci Code is a work of fiction.
Nothing more. Nothing less. A yarn spun so that you could be
entertained as you sat on your sofa and scarfed bon-bons and read it.
Just because it's been published does not make The DaVinci Code the Bible. Dare I mention the fact that it's fiction and it isn't required to be accurate? If you like the ideas presented, by all means explore the ideas,
but don't take a freakin' tour through Paris looking to see how
accurate Brown is with the facts, from whence you feel you may judge
the validity of the ideas presented. Just don't. You look like a bunch
of desperate stalkers searching for a target.
And yes I am a wee bit biased about this book. Quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing about this business.
I just don't give a rat's ass about it. And I'm undoubtedly going to
hear more about it this week. I heard more about it last month when the
sister-in-law called me to tell me "Primetime" was airing a special
about "all of the fallacies in the book," like an hour-long special on
ABC was going to change my mind about this sort of thing. But she had
ABC to back her up. My reply: "Have you read the book...yet?
"No. I'm reading..." Grrrrr. At least these people have actually read
the book. That's fine and dandy but for the love of God I wish people
would get over this thing already.

Ok, so between reducing tomato

Ok, so between reducing tomato sauce, fixing dinner and watching the Olympics, I finally got the opportunity to read The Skank Report.

Wow.

Ladies and Gentlemen, in preparation for landing, we would
appreciate it if you could return your seats and tray tables to their
locked, upright positions and that your seatbelts are securely
fastened. We should be on the ground at Skank Central in just a few
moments. Thank you for flying with us today...

Now, I could go on for days
about how this chick irritates the holy hell out of me. The material
practically reaches the neverending stage with Miss Cutler. I could
take the Malkin route and blather on about what kind of example she's
set with her limited success for those who come after her. I could
blather on about how she needs SERIOUS therapy, because it
seems as if the only place she finds validation in her life is in bed.
I could take the Goldstein route and tell her please to stay away from
the gourds. I could even bitch and moan about the fact that she fucked
around, got paid for it, and scored a six-figure book deal as a result
of her promiscuity. But it's all been done...
...except for this. Man, do I ever feel sorry for men nowadays. A
friend of mine, Matt, back when he was single, bemoaned how rough being
a single guy was and how tough it was to find the right girl. In one of his more bitter moments, out sprang some words of truth. And I quote: What
do women need men around for anyway? You've got your own money. You
don't need us for protection. And children? Well, you can just mosey on
down to the local sperm bank. He had a point.
In theory.
The sexual revolution has been hard on men. And for the most part,
considering most guys do not like change (at least the men in my life
don't), they've adapted pretty well. For the most part. Sure you will
still have chauvinistic assholes out there, who will do anything and
everything to make sure their playground stays same-sex, but for the
most part, I'd like to think that, outside of the Islamic world,
they've done pretty well at beating back millions of years of instinct
in a fifty year span of time. Of course there are assholes out there.
Men who turn the relatively new rules of sexual behavior to their
advantage and take what is freely offered---and who have no
crisis of conscience about doing so, either. They're not plagued with
guilt trips for using someone. They don't secretly hope that their bed
partner of the night before will suddenly think them a wonderful
person, worthy of a second, non-bedroom eyed look. But women do. They
think something miraculous will come out of a one night stand. Matt had
a point about women being independent enough to not need men. But, like
I said, that was simply theory. In reality, for the most part, we
expect something, even when we say we don't. If something's offered to
a woman, she thinks about all the angles of what it means, what it
could mean and how things will change if she accepts. Men aren't that
complicated. If something's offered to them, they'll take it at face
value and that will be the end of that in their minds. Yet, if they're
smart, they'll make sure not to poison the well from which they drink.
They'll take care, and the good ones, even if they're simply not
looking for a wife, will at least offer up some respect to their
partner for the night. The problem with this Cutler bitch is that she
says she expects nothing except for sex yet in reality what she expects
is rather a lot. When she inevitably gets it, she acts like it's her
due, thank you ever so much, and do you wanna go again? I think I can fit you in next Wednesday.
How is that respecting your partner? These men, misguided though they
were, offered her gifts, money and dinners out because they thought
they needed to show some respect; that she was a worthwhile person;
that this is the way things were done if they wanted to get laid. They
didn't just say bend over, bitch, and let's get this over and done with.
What, exactly did they get out of Jessica Cutler other than momentary
satisfaction? Better question is, was the momentary satisfaction so
great it overwhelms the humiliation they must be feeling right about
now? I don't live in Washington, but I'm sure that even though no names
were named that people there know exactly
whom she was bragging about bagging. I feel sorry for these guys. I
can't bang out the "turnabout is fair play" song because what if they
honestly got involved with her because they liked her? What about the
boyfriend who let her live rent-free and whom she cheated on
repeatedly? What about the guy she met in the office that she gushed
over? How has she repaid their respect for her? What's the quid pro quo
in Jessica's world?
She blogged about them. Not to tell the world, she claims, but to keep
her friends in the loop about what was going on in her love life. It
was too time consuming to email everyone. Apparently, for someone with
a 140 IQ, she hadn't learned how to group email yet.
It was all about her. Her choices. Her decisions. Her actions. They
didn't even come into the equation, apparently, other than to provide
fodder for her vagina. And they'll be bitter about it. Men can hold
grudges, too, and they'll pay Cutler back through the next woman they
get involved with. In her much heralded "I'm going to act just like a
man when it comes to sex" act she's hurt other women who, perhaps,
would like to be, you know, a woman.
Women who don't put out like she does will pay the price for her
promiscuity and bitterness-creating ways. Life is just grown-up high
school at times, and this would be one of them. This thing is getting
longwinded and I'm not sure it's even making any sense at this point,
but I will post a few final wishes for Miss Cutler, because she
apparently reads all the bad things that are said about her on the web.
So, Jessica, if you've found your way here, here's what I wish for you.
First, I hope I find your book in the clearance aisle at Barnes and
Noble sometime in the near future and that your publisher sues to get
their advance back. Second, I hope the nice guys that you shat on
manage to have nice, successful relationships now that you're out of
their lives and that you wind up alone and shriveled. Third, I hope you
realize that the reason no real nice guy will ever have anything to do
with you is because you're a skank. And, fourth and finally, that by
writing that you're a skank, I'm not a right-wing puritan, even though
by my simple act of criticism you would lump me in with that lot, but
am instead telling the truth as I see it.

Tee hee. Apparently, Dave cares

Tee hee.

Apparently, Dave cares enough about the environment to tour for it,
but not enough to instruct the driver of his big, stinky tour bus to
not to dump eight hundred pounds of human waste onto a tour barge and
into the Chicago River.
Way to go, Dave! We know how much you really care now, don't we!

ELECTION FREE ZONE RULE OFF

ELECTION FREE ZONE RULE OFF
Ok, interesting anecdote from today that I had to share. The husband
and I went to lunch at a nice little place here in the neighborhood. As
it happens, they have outdoor seating so we sat and ate our lunches in
the shade, and watched a few Cake Eaters who don't have
weekender-flee-the-city-cabins walk by. Nothing really too exciting for
the most part. Until a guy in a red t-shirt shows up and sets up shop
about thirty-feet away. He's probably about as tall as I am and is what
Rose Chasseur would not-so-charitably call "husky." He's dressed in
navy shorts, which set off his red t-shirt nicely, sneakers, and is
wearing what I thought was a really stupid-looking, navy sun visor. The
guy shows up with a friend, similarly dressed, who then disappears.
Paying no notice of these people, the husband points them out to me.
"Oh, the DNC guys are back."
"Huh?"
"Yeah. They're registering people to vote. I ran into them a couple of
days ago on the way to the store."
"Hmmph," I reply, more interested in my lunch than party flacks. I'd
just read the Strib, after all. I really didn't need more politics on
my Sunday afternoon. We finish our lunch, and our sole errand of the
afternoon was to go and purchase milk and other tasty comestibles at
the local grocery store. The path to the grocery store takes us right
by this guy. Of course, with there not being anyone else around, when
we approach him, he makes his pitch. "Are you interested in finding out how to remove George W. Bush from the White House?"
The dude doesn't even bother smiling or saying "hello." Up close, he
reeks of all the righteous fervor of someone who just got back from an
Amway convention and is just dying to sell me floor cleaner because
it's simply the best product for the money!.
It's all about the product, in other words, not about how you sell it.
This is no-frills pitch-making, after all. It ups the righteousness
factor. "Absolutely not." I reply---loudly---as we keep on walking. He
yelled something out at us, but honestly neither the husband nor I can
remember what it was. I just remember something about it being the
usual "Bush is bad" crap. We laughed and commented and continued on our
merry way. A block later we ran into his missing compadre, who looked
like he needed to wash his hair, standing outside the local Starbucks
and was saying the same thing to departing customers. "Are you interested in finding out how to remove George W. Bush from the White House?"
People ignorned him for the most part, although he had a few takers,
and the people sitting at the tables looked annoyed with this
proselytizer.
On the way back, however, is when it got interesting. For a brief
second or two. An older gentleman, around fifty or so, looking like he
was straight out of church, was leaving Starbucks, the guy gives his
line, and the older gentleman says "No, I'm not." Then he decides to go
further as he walks toward a parking lot loaded with Beemers, Benzs,
Lexus' and Volvos: "You know, I don't care who people are, salespeople,
religious, whatever. I don't appreciate being approached on the street
for things I have no need for." I applaud. Loudly. As we keep on
walking. "Oh," the greasy guy replies from the distance, "So you don't
think I should be exercising my First Amendment Rights?" The husband
says with a chuckle: "Oops. Tactical mistake." We laugh and keep on
walking. They keep on talking. The conversation fades into the
background. Kinda funny, eh? And interesting, too. Their pitch wasn't
"Vote For Kerry and we'll show you how to get registered." Their pitch
was a continuation of the all pervasive theme of the DNC Convention:
"Anyone but Bush. And here's our guy. He's not Bush."
Even at the local level this is where they choose to focus their
efforts. If this is their grand strategy, their master plan for world
domination, well, then they're going to get creamed come November. It's
Wellstone's memorial service all over again. ELECTION FREE ZONE RULE FIRMLY BACK IN PLACE NOW THAT ALL OF THIS CONVENTION NONSENSE IS OVER WITH.

Fausta seems to be taking

Fausta seems to be taking after good ol' George Washington and wants to March on Trenton.

I have a feeling the Hessians will be ejected from Trenton in short order.

To the person who got

To the person who got here by Googling the phrase "semper ubi sub ubi
definiton" you should know it's a joke. A latin play on words.
I couldn't tell you what the literal meaning is, but "semper ubi sub
ubi" means to "always wear underwear"
My work here is done.

We're off to the land

We're off to the land of my birth tomorrow morning. A grueling
six hour drive, which considering if I flew, even though it's less than
an hour flight, I'd spend half that time just dealing with the
post-9/11 travel vagaries, isn't really all that grueling. I can deal
with it. We're packed. I have to make some sandwiches for lunch and
then I have to pick up the car at the rental place first thing in the
morning. (Yeah, that's right...Nellie hasn't been replaced yet.
Patience, grashopper.) If past experiences with this particular rental
company branch are any indication, we'll probably get upgraded. It's
kinda like the lottery: I reserve one car, but around and around the
wheel goes, where it stops nobody knows. Particularly the guys who run
this branch office. They've got a high turnover rate---never the same
person twice and they generally don't attract what one would call a
"quality hire." Generally speaking, they never have the car I've
reserved available, so they have to upgrade me. Poor me. Two years ago
at Christmas, this meant we got to drive a Cadillac STS to Omaha---at
the price of Standard. Good deal, no? I think there's only been one
time when we haven't been bumped up a notch or two. We'll have to see
if it happens this time around. Keep your fingers crossed that it's
something good. Anyway, we've got a full schedule whilst we're down in
the land o' my birth, but the main reason we're going is, as I might
have mentioned, to participate in the Walk to Cure Diabetes. I want to
say THANK YOU
again to all the wonderful people who contributed. You've made this
year's effort an outstanding success and we're all really pumped about
the outcome! The final tally {insert drum roll here} $3285,
$365 of which was raised via The Cake Eater Chronicles! You guys are
GREAT! Thank you so very much again for making James' cause your own
and contributing so generously. I'm so very thankful!
I'll be taking pictures at the walk on Saturday and I'll post them when
I get a chance. Have a great weekend and I'll see you sometime on
Tuesday, if not before.