Cake Eater Chronicles

Sin City

If this movie lives up to its trailer, well...wow.

For Queen and Country!

Shoot the crows or the monarchy will end!

{...} For the six ravens who roam one of Britain's landmark fortresses are under threat from up to 200 crows who have invaded their royal domain, spreading disease and stealing food.

So every Sunday at dawn, before the daily tourist invasion begins, Yeoman Warder Derrick Coyle roams The Tower with his .22 air rifle to cull the crows.

For the beefeater, it is a weighty responsibility securing a haven for the ravens. Legend has it that if the ravens leave, The Tower of London will fall and so will the monarchy.

The 17th century monarch Charles II decreed that there must always be six ravens in residence.

"Urban crows are on the increase and they are a growing problem for us," said a spokeswoman for Historic Royal Palaces, which runs the Tower of London.

"The ravenmaster has his own culling strategy. He goes out at dawn and looks for the crows that he knows are ill -- they have matted feathers and a mangy appearance," she told Reuters.

Rarely has a collective noun been more appropriate in English -- a gathering of crows is known as a murder of crows. {...}

I think the beefeater is going about it the wrong way. One does not need to be kind to crows and cull out the weak ones. You have to make an impression on the entire flock, or so a farm boy friend of mine told me a while back. "Crows," said he, with a malicious grin plastered across his face, "have a deep respect for a .22."

And, no, he wasn't referring to a .22 air rifle.

One has to think that they don't take the monarchy all that seriously if they won't deal with the crow threat with a real rifle.

Il Papabili

The Nihilist in Golf Pants is throwing himself in with the il papabili.

If he'll mandate that there should be absolutely, positively NO freakin' hand holding (or the equally annoying "offer it up" hand position which is becoming quite popular) during the "Our Father," he's got my vote.

You know, if I had a vote to give.

Alas, a bunch of red-beanied cardinals get that privilege. The Roman Catholic Church ain't a democracy, ya dig? And, I'm a woman, so it's not like the Vatican wants my opinion anyway, unless I've got some testimonial to throw out there on how all women should act more like the Virgin Mary. So, take The Cake Eater endorsement for what it's worth, y'all.

I still want a concession on the hand holding business, though. The dude can throw me a bone if he wants my tithe.

{Hat tip: Chad the Elder, who agrees with me on the hand holding business.)

Investigative Reporting

CAKE EATER EXCLUSIVE****MUST CREDIT THE CAKE EATER.

I've mentioned before that the husband enjoys surfing around on the web. Well, after reading this, he was inspired to do a lil' Woodward-style investigative digging.

And lookie what he found.

Well, I must say that explains a whole heck of a lot.

As does this.

"Why are we sitting around with bras on our heads?
"It's ceremonial."

I'd hate to see what they've worked their way up to.

Compensation

Gary, Doug and The Ringer would like you to know that they're not profiting from running whatever the hell their blog is called nowadays. (Guys? Can we get a name? Please?)

Although, I have to wonder if Kennedy was slipping The Ringer some Krispy Kreme's on the campaign bus. If so, do Krispy Kreme's count as a kickback?

Well, Did You Enjoy Yourself?

One would hope.

Were you hoping for a wrap-up? Well, lose that hope right now. I have absolutely nothing to add to what I already wrote. And that's just fine with me. If you've got a problem with it, well, might I suggest you go and bury your head in Barbra Streisand's cleavage?

Might be a comfy place to assuage your angst, no?

Anyway, that's the end of that.

Although, I still think Hilary Swank's dress was just freakin' awful.

Oscar Night: Snarkiness

--- Chris Rock??? Doing pretty well so far.

---Mr. H. "Do you think he's getting a Gap kickback?"

--- I have to give Rock props for being clever about bashing Bush.

That's about all I'll give him props for, though.

I like the take no prisoner's style, but I have to ask---who the hell do they think watches this stuff? Blue staters only?

--- What is this with all the nominees on stage? The Miss America pageant?

--- Renee Zellweger: my boobs are about to pop out. Great dress, though.

Mr H after Chris' Rock's introduction: Deacon Jones? No, she's going to play Star Jones.

--- Yay for Morgan Freeman. Classy man.

--- What the F@#$ is up with Robin Williams' pink shirt. UGH!

You are not a bougainvillea Robin. Have some pride, for fuck's sake!

--- How chintzy is it that they're not allowing the people who aren't actors to go near the stage.

It's like they're lepers.

--- Mr. H: Drew Barrymore's earrings look like my drapery sashes.

---Scarlett Johansson has quite the booty on her.

Pierce...I'll make you some tea, baby. You sound awful.

---Hey lookie! Troy got nominated for something!

---Wow. They let someone come on the stage who wasn't an actor! Woooooh.

---How much you wanna bet Tim Robbins thought Rock was joking about the "boring people about his politics bit?

---Adam Duritz's hair looks like a head of broccoli.

--- Ok, had to clean up the kitchen and clear away the food.

YAY! For Omaha Boy Alexander Payne. Well done, but I think that's it for the night, bub.

The husband just hoped for one of Sidney's Lumet's daughters that the, "bicycle pumps weren't too heavy." (if you're watching, you know the one I'm referring to)

--- Mr H about Andrew Lloyd Weber: "He's such a little troll."

Beyonce is wearing the GNP of a small third world country without an extradition treaty with the US around her neck, on her ears and wrists.

--- Jeremy Irons---who knew he has a sense of humor?

---"BLAME CANADA! BLAME CANADA!"

--- Ok, I would highly recommend flipping to the WE channel, if you've got it.
(Channel 260 on DirecTV if you've got it) Sandra Bernhard and some dude are being catty. Pretty enjoyable, on the whole. And they're on during the commercials.

They're the John Madden and Pat Summerall of the Oscars.

As far as who's who, I have no idea.

--- COMMIES AREN'T COOL!

Let me repeat: COMMIES AREN'T COOL!

---Oh My! Johnny Depp's girlfriend/wife/whateverthehellsheis has some horrible teeth!

--- Only in Hollywood would someone get a "Humanitarian Award" for film preservation.

---No way this thing is going to be over with by 10:30.

Bets anyone?

--- COMMIES AREN'T COOL!

--- Mr. H.: "Sean Penn: King of the bad haircut."
Personally, I think he needs to get a sense of humor. Still.

---Annette Bening: The Susan Lucci of the Oscars.

Oh, hillary that dress is just freakin' hideous!

--- Here's a question for you: if this is such a big honor, why do the recipients only get a thirty-seonds to say thank you to everyone who got them to that place in life?

Another question: why on earth would you thank your lawyers? Don't they get paid already? Same with the agents? Or do they get cranky and screw with your career if they don't?

--- The husband: Jamie Foxx's come a long way from being the ugly chick on In Living Color

--- Mr H. on Heather Locklear in the L'Oreal commercial: AGE, woman!

--- When Will Martin Scorsese get his Oscar? It's not like he sucks or something like that!

How cute is it that Dirty Harry brought his mom to the oscars?

---The husband on Barbra's dress: "That's two shoulder straps short of a muumuu."

---The husband: "Barbra, it's not your fucking show. Back the fuck up!"
Mr. H.: "And don't forget to go beep-beep-beep when you do.

Oscar Night: The Preshow Snark Report

And awaaaay we go with liveblogging!

I've decided that everyone in the apartment has access to the laptop this evening. If a comment is made by Mr. H. or the husband, they will identify themselves. Otherwise, just assume it's me. Wi-fi is a beautiful thing.

Currently we're watching E! Live From the Red Carpet. When we flip channels, we'll try to let you know.

Some observations gained whilst I was throwing together artichoke dip:

--- Star Jones is the worst interviewer ever. If she asks one more person "are they superstitious? Do they have a good luck charm?" I'll smack her. Which of course is only compounded by her fashion sense. What is up with that freakin' tiara? Who does she think she is? The Queen of England? Which leads to the obligatory cheap shot: What's the difference between QEII and Star Jones?

The Queen can afford her own jewelry.

--- Beyonce's earrings looked like overlarge diamond brooms.

--- Every time The Motorcycle Diaries is mentioned, the phrase COMMIES AREN'T COOL! Will be pulled out and bandied about.

--- Helen Mirren is having one of her off-fashion nights. Looks like a flapper.

--- Emily Rossum looks fantastic. Great dress.

UPDATE COMMIES AREN'T COOL! Che Guevara is not the look.

Ok. Star's asking the chick from Maria Full of Grace about her pet allergies. Hmmm.

She deserves to be mocked. Help.

--- I wasn't looking at the TV, but I heard some incompetent presenter tell director Mike Leigh (Vera Drake) that the script "compelled her"....

...?!?! compelled you to what??!! For crying out loud! How do these people keep their jobs as people who speak for a living when they don't understand the fucking language!!?? - The Husband

---Mr. H. has arrived.

Melanie Griffith got some new titties!

--- Clive Owen is hot.

--- Spike Lee is wearing a fez.

The husband just said, "I'm looking at him in that fez and those glasses and I'm seeing Ren Hoek."

--- Random fact: the husband remembers Morgan Freeman when he was on The Electric Company.

--- Everyone here is in agreement that they need to change the camera angle on Star Jones. You can how ill fitting her dress is from two different angles. Her boobs don't fill out her dress (????) and as the husband just said, "Oh, God, bovine back flab!"

I think liveblogging has raised the bar as far as snarkiness is concerned.

--- Sam Jackson always looks great, but I'm not sure about this jacket he's wearing.

Second noted fashion theme of the evening: bed head.

Comb the hair after you roll out of bed, Oprah!

The husband keeps putting his hand to his forehead, like he's got a migraine.

Mr. H: Oprah looks like she should be singing "It's been a long time since I've rock and rolled."

--- Ok, we've switched over to the official preshow on ABC.

I don't like Hilary Swank's dress, but the husband said it looks good.

He said she's too skinny to wear anything too revealing.

--- Annette Bening, god love her, is not aging well. Sorry, chica, but hell...you don't look that great.

---The men of the room just went silent when Halle came on.

They both like her. And think she's hot. Even the gay one.

--- Renee Zellweger according to Mr. H., has a Betty Boop thing going on.

Leonardo Di Caprio NEEDS TO SHAVE God, I hate that goatee. It's such a half-assed bit of facial hair. Eeeeew.

--- Let me repeat this for the people who might not have caught it earlier in the week:

I do not get what people like about Orlando Bloom. Bleh.

----Kirsten Dunst: too damn blonde.

Snark on Tap!

Over the past couple of years, I've hosted an Oscar party at the Cake Eater Pad for some friends. Generally, we get together to eat, drink and be snarky. Good fun all around. Well, this year, ML and the Doctor have the kids, so it's just going to be the husband, Mr. H. and myself. Mr. H. and I decided over coffee this morning that we're going to give live blogging the festivities a good, solid whack.

You are cordially invited to share in the cattiness that is a Cake Eater Oscar Party.

If this is your sort of thing, open a bottle of chardonnay, prepare some munchies, slap on your tiara and your feather boa, prepare your acceptance speech, and stop by this evening. I make no promises about quality content, but if snarkiness is your thing, and you enjoy lampooning Hollywood when it comes out to give itself a collective pat on the back, well...stop on by this evening!

Coverage starts with the pre-shows at 5pm. CST.

Housekeeping

Thanks to everyone for their kind words of support and for keeping their fingers crossed about the Cake Eater Pad situation.

I don't know what the hell is going to happen, but we'll find out soon enough. The husband and I decided yesterday we're going to ignore it until tomorrow. We didn't want our weekend wrecked because of all this crap, so until tomorrow we're officially delusional/in denial.

Second, The Cake Eater Chronicles has officially reached Large Mammal status in the ecosystem. How the hell that happened, I don't know, but it did. I suspect link whoring has something to do with it, but who the hell knows how that ecosystem thingy works. NZ Bear's algorithms are one of the few mysteries we have left to us. It's best left a mystery, if you ask me, but I'm sure some enterprising person will suss it out someday.

While I'm chuffed to be a large mammal, I will admit I'm pretty happy to be the smallest of the large mammals. I don't want to have to worry about being a large large mammal, as well. I have plenty on my plate as it is without worrying about if I look fat in this.

Well, Hell

Tweedledumb just called.

The Cake Eater Pad sold yesterday.

And the new owners want us out by the end of March.

As in they want our apartment to live in---because it's the nicer of the two---while they rent out the downstairs unit.

Fuck.

Pray for a miracle. Please.

UPDATE: Well, just got done chatting with the Cake Eater neighbors downstairs. Yesterday we got a call from them telling us that they'd put an offer in on the house. I wondered if their offer had been accepted, and they wanted our apartment to live in.

Turns out their offer was rejected. They hadn't been called by Tweedledumb yet. And they showed me their new six month lease they'd signed with the Great White Hunter landlord and there is a provision in it that if the house sells, well, the lease is terminated.

Which is a new one.

Not only wasn't that clause in our previous leases (we looked), but also Tweedledumb had promised us that any new lease we signed with the GWH would be honored. So we have duplicity on their part. Not like this counts for us, because they never sent us a new lease to sign---even though they'd promised they would, repeatedly--- so it looks like the downstairs neighbors are screwed as well. Even though they haven't gotten a phone call yet.

Sigh.

It's a Real Bunny Boiler

(Yeah, sorry. Couldn't quite help myself.)

Victorino over at the Galley Slaves has been ill this past week and has been catching up on a few oldie but goodie movies, like Fatal Attraction.

One choice quote that had me laughing:

{...}I first saw it when I was in high school and what resonated the most was the sturdiness of the kitchen sink. Moen. Buy it for looks. Buy it for sex.{...}

An old boyfriend in high school had the same idea. I must admit, though, he was more obsessed with the freight elevator. Not like he got anywhere with either inspiration, though.

Go read the whole thing. Also check out an addendum to yesterday's Kingdom of Heaven watch.

The Galley Slaves: There's always something interesting going on.

That is, when they're not off sailing around the Caribbean and sucking up to Bill Kristol.

Or doing both at the same time.

I Can't Believe I'm About To Do This

Courtesy of Sadie. I posted over there, then, the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got.

Usually, I can be as snarky as the next blogger. Particularly when it comes to idiotic behavior on the part of showbiz denizens. I generally don't have an issue with this because a. if I can dish it out, I can also take it and b. if someone puts themselves out there they'd better be prepared to take it. Once you throw your hat into the ring---particularly when it comes to Hollywood's PR circus---you're fair game. You'd better be prepared to take it because I have no sympathy at all for people who want all that the PR can buy them, then whine about how "intrusive" it all is.

But this is just fucking mean.

Forgive us, Lord, for it is late in the day and we are so very, very weak. And realize that we are trying, for we spent the last ten minutes debating whether or not to go with the title above or, “Whoa! I know reverse peristalsis.”

Weak is right. At least he got that part right.

Note that Bunsen apparently had fewer qualms about actually posting the photo than he did about whether or not to use that particular headline.

Keanu isn't Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton. He pretty much keeps to himself unless he's got a film out, and even then he doesn't look too enthused to be out there flogging his product. I'm also sure this isn't something he did to try and get people to go see Constantine. It's probably the flu or food poisoning. But because he's an actor, it's fair game when he throws up in public.

I don't think so.

This is cheap. It's a sucker punch. Hence it's not really all that funny.

Rather, it's weak.

Still Huffin' and Puffin'

Just a friendly reminder to those who have attention spans the size of gnats...

Luckily?

I skim a lot when I read. Most of the time, I glean what information I need to know, then click away from the page, somewhat wiser about what's going on with the world. There are other times when I do the equivalent of a double-take, clicking away and then clicking back. I did that with this article.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - At one point in Yaron Zilberman's new documentary about a Jewish girls' swim team in Nazi-era Vienna, one of the team members tries to explain the trauma of starting a new life after fleeing Austria in the late 1930s.

"You have no idea. You have no idea," says Ann Marie Pisker, who is now in her 80s and lives in London. "You sink or you swim. And when you're young, you swim."

And, boy, did those girls swim. In the 1920s and '30s the girls of the Hakoah Vienna sports club dominated competitive swimming in Austria.

Hakoah is Hebrew for "the strength" and, as the flames of anti-Semitism were fanned in the 1930s, that's what the Hakoah girls needed to deal with the hatred directed at them by their pro-Nazi rivals, the First Viennese Sports Club.

"We're accustomed to courageous stories about men but these girls competed and faced all this hatred, and I found that really inspiring," says Zilberman during an interview in his apartment overlooking the Lincoln Center performing arts complex in Manhattan.

The Israeli-born filmmaker's new documentary, "Watermarks," recently began a theatrical run in New York and in the coming weeks will be expanding to other cities. {...}

If you're interested, you can find the trailer here.

So, I'm skimming along, nothing is really screaming "man bites dog" for me, and I'm ready to click away...and I do so. But then I click back, because something's just not right. Here's the offending passage:

{...}"This is the victory scene," Zilberman explains "This is the scene where they are victorious. I mean, Hitler died and the whole Nazi regime luckily disappeared and look at them.{...}

{my emphasis}

The reason why these women are now back to swimming at their old club is because Hitler died and the whole Nazi regime luckily disappeared?

Ummm. Hello? I believe a war was fought in the meantime. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers died fighting the lunatic ambitions of a small mustachioed Austrian and his cronies and all it was luck that these women can now swim at their old club? The director's statement implies that, to his thinking, Hitler just offed himself for the hell of it. As if Hitler's death would have been all that was needed to end the madness that was the Third Reich. Contrary to what the current conventional wisdom surrounding Wolfsschanze and the July 20 plot imparts, Hitler's death by no means guaranteed that the war would end.

While I'm as happy as the next person that these women are around to tell their story---and a fascinating story it looks to be, too---has the director completely forgotten who liberated Europe? Has he forgotten the sacrifices involved in completing that bloody and difficult job? Has he honestly chalked it all up to luck?

It's a Good Thing I Live Outside the Reach of the Long Arm of the Swiss Law

Because if I did this....

Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden
Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden Bin Laden

....I might get sued for trademark infringement.

Honesty

"It's like I have a shotgun in my mouth, my finger is on the trigger and I love the taste of the gunmetal."

---Robert Downey, Jr.

Nothing pisses me off more than talent wasted on drugs or booze. I hope Sizemore gets his shit sorted.

This CITIZEN OP-ED WRITER Dislikes Repeating Herself

I really don't. But for the benefit of those who would send me press releases to announce their runs for a congressional district I care nothing about, I would ask you--- FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY--- to please go and read this.

You've been warned.

Next time this happens I'll start mocking.

And I really don't think you want that, do you?

Is It A Little Warm In Here?

Salted herring is so damn hot.

So is Bowling.

Purrrrrrrrr, baby.

Oh My

In order to help him with his breathing, they're going to perform a tracheotomy on the Holy Father.

This does not bode well for his survival.

I've prayed more for this Pope than any other. Granted, I've only been alive for three different pontiffs, and one of those only lasted a month, but still. I remember the day he was shot quite clearly. I was in fifth grade and the school prinicpal came over the loudspeaker, asking us all to pray for the Holy Father as someone had just shot him. And we prayed right there and then, interrupting math class for good fifteen minutes. We hoped he would get better. Surprisingly, he did, too. He was a hale and hearty man...then.

I'm praying for a different option this time around. It feels odd, I will admit. But it's time.

The Catholic Church teaches its members that there is value in suffering. It's one of our central tenets. I believe John Paul II has done more to teach us about this than any other pope. He shouldn't have to still be teaching us about the value of suffering, though.

He's done his bit.

Pitchforks and Torches

I love it how certain folk in the UK berate the US about our "barbaric" use of the death penalty, when it's apparent they have their own issues dealing with so-called mob justice.

Who Was Shakespeare?

Bzzzzzzt.

He's none of those people. He was either this guy, this guy or this guy.

Marlowe's my personal favorite in this horse race, but that's just me.

{hat tip: Sully}

Will Ridley Get Off Scott Free?

Jonathan points the way to the trailer for the new Ridley Scott movie, Kingdom of Heaven and makes some predictions:

{...}In the past, Scott has been fairly unflinching in his depiction of certain enemies of Western civilization (see Black Hawk Down and G.I. Jane). It will be very, very interesting to see how the Kingdom of Heaven handles the crusades and how the CAIR-style backlash is manufactured leading up to the film's release (expect Time and Newsweek cover stories in April). Also of interest will be the European reaction to the movie. What happens to European anti-Americanism when Europe is cast in the role of America?{...}

(If, like myself, you're overwhemed in this acronym laden world, CAIR is the Council on American Islamic Relations.)

Interesting, but I think Ridley will indeed get off Scot free. I predict he will be laughing all the way to the bank. Unlike Oliver Stone, who laid the blame for Alexander's recent failure at the feet of uninterested American Bush-votin' fundamentalist homophobes, Scott doesn't go into a movie blatantly pushing an agenda. He goes into it to tell a story. There may be controversial aspects to that story, but Scott handles them deftly as they come along: they're simply a part of the story to him, not the story in itself. Stone also goes into filmmaking to tell a story, but he carries with him an agenda. He prefers to perform morality plays, wherein his message is the morality preached. Scott doesn't do that. I don't doubt that Scott does have an agenda to promote regarding Western Civilization, but he doesn't slam you over the head with it. He gives his audience credit for having a brain and allows them to come to conclusions themselves. If anything, he's the braver of the two, because he's not afraid of the audience. If the audience fails to laud Stone we're all stupid, as the above links show. The difference between the two men and their styles of storytelling is obvious.

For instance, Gladiator, if it had been made by Oliver Stone instead of Ridley Scott, would have been all about the evils of slavery. Stone, I'm fairly certain, would hammer this point home, with every character conundrum and plot point revolving around it. Scott's version, however, was about a general being sold into slavery by his enemies, and having the character to not only survive the perils of forced servitude, but to rise above it and to vanquish his foes. Was slavery any less evil in Scott's film, even though he didn't flog the dead horse of slavery every chance he got?

Any publicity this film gets along the lines of Jonathan's predictions will only be invalidated when the movie is released, and (I predict confidently) is critically acclaimed. It'll be a big non-starter. Alexander's failure to reap any critical acclaim and box office gives me hope in for this film. As for the Europeans, well... If they thought Alexander was good, do we really need to be consulting them for their opinion about films and their relevance to the ongoing debate of how best to combat Islamofascism?

Related side note: could someone tell me what the fascination with Orlando Bloom is? Bleh. I'm just not getting this one. He does absolutely nothing for me. He looks like an eager puppy, rather than a brave man. If this movie fails it will be because of him, I'm pretty certain, and not because of the message.

For The Men Out There

As an outflow of yesterdays' lingerie discussion, Feisty Christina has a question for the men out there.

Razor Blades

Courtesy o' the Llamas, we have Michelle Malkin on cutting:

Have you heard of "cutting"? If you're a parent, you'd better read up. "Cutting" refers to self-mutilation -- using knives, razor blades or even safety pins to deliberately harm one's own body -- and it's spreading to a school near you.

Actresses Angelina Jolie and Christina Ricci did it. So did Courtney Love and the late Princess Diana. On the Internet, there are scores of websites (with titles such as "Blood Red," "Razor Blade Kisses" and "The Cutting World") featuring "famous self-injurers," photos of teenagers' self-inflicted wounds and descriptions of their techniques. The destructive practice has been depicted in films targeting young girls and teens (such as "Thirteen"). There is even a new genre of music -- "emo" -- associated with promoting the cutting culture.

In Britain, health care researchers estimate that one in 10 teenagers engages in addictive self injury. According to psychiatrist Gary Litovitz, medical director of Dominion Hospital in Falls Church, Va., the growing trend here in America has alarmed school guidance counselors around the country.{...}

Go read the whole thing.

While Malkin is quick to lay the blame of this alarming practice at the feet on Hollywood, I, just like Robbo, think she's way off the mark. The girl referred to in the piece is a child of divorce and is no doubt seeking attention. Cutting is just the hip way to do this.

When I was that age, well, sleeping around or getting obnoxiously drunk on a regular basis was the way to garner the attention of one's parents. And yes, at age fourteen, people in my eighth grade class were sleeping around and getting loaded regularly. This was in in 1985. The phrase "bl0w j0b" had entered into my lexicon when I was twelve, two years earlier.

And I went to Catholic school.

Yet, since those are commonly accepted activities for teenagers nowadays and there is no stigma attached to them, well, the kids have to look elsewhere for outrageous things to do to make mommy and daddy pay attention. I never drank in high school or slept around: my parents would have killed me if I had done either. Never mind the peer pressure, or the fact I knew I wasn't ready for either activity, the main reason I never did those things was because I didn't want to have to sit and be yelled at by my father for days. And, wow, can my father ever bellow. You don't want to sit through it. Trust me on this one. That was enough to keep me in line.

What's surprising to me about this article is that Malkin took the cheap and easy way out. She pulls out her old battle ax once again and blames Hollywood for this new and disturbing trend. Well, ok, but it seems to me that she missed the greater opportunity to make some points about how society encourages parents to handle teenage rebellion today.

Teenagers are going to rebel. That's just a fact of life. I did it. I'm sure you did, too. There is a point in every adolescent's life where whatever yoke a teenager is burdened with, whether it be light or heavy, becomes a bit much to take. It seems to me they will find things to rebel against, no matter what. This is the time when a teenager is preparing themselves to enter the adult world. Rebelling against authority is part of the game. It is an age where you're figuring out your capabilities as a human being; where you test your limits. If you have no limits to test against, you're going to find new things to do, like cutting.

I'm sure you know what I'm talking about when I claim those limits have been removed. In an effort to lessen the damage of teenagedom, some parents try to make those years safe for their kids, like they were trying to childproof the cabinet under the kitchen sink. They're going to drink, lets buy the beer so they don't have to proposition someone at the 7-11. Let them drink at the house, so they're not out on the roads. They're going to have sex, let's get them set up for birth-control. Let's tell them about HIV/AIDS and STD's, so they'll use a condom. Let's let them use their bedrooms, so they're not doing it in the backseat of a car. And so on and so forth. The "they're going to do it anyway" reasoning has led to activities like cutting, in my humble, non-kid-owning opinion. When you're a teenager and you feel the need to rebel, and your parents take away the commonly accepted ways of showing that rebellion, well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the kids are going to find other ways to rebel.

Now, like I said above, I don't have kids. I could be way the hell off the mark here. This is just what I've observed with friends and family. I'm not saying that trying to keep your kids safe is a bad thing. It's a scary world out there and I can understand the desire to protect and defend. But I believe there is a point where plain old fashioned parental disapproval has to come into the equation if you want your children to become productive adults. After all, if your parents tell you that you can't go to a party without parental supervision and they're going to keep you in the house that night as a result, if you're a teenager you're going to stew about that, aren't you? You'll be pissed and frustrated, and you might think of all the things that you can't do because you're a teenager...and you can't wait until you grow up and move out of the house so you can do what you want to do. Right? That was my common complaint when I was a kid. I couldn't wait until I got out of there so I could start living my life. I wanted to grow up. I wanted to make my own decisions. I wanted to be an adult. My parents lived up to their end of the bargain. They disapproved and they showed it. I whined and complained, but I also grew up, too. Given the extended adolescence of some young adults today, you have to think that if only their parents had said 'no' once in a while, they'd be much more productive adults.

Malkin missed the bigger picture here. She laid it all on Christina Ricci's shoulders, because, I have to think, they were a convenient place to put her angst. If anything, good ol' Wednesday Addams has proved my point about teenagers finding new ways to test themselves. Her comments go a long ways toward showing exactly what the problem is.

Hey Look!

It's Mickey's over in St. Paul!

In case you're wondering just what Mickey's is and what it looks like, well, go here! Great place for after-concert bacon and eggs. If I remember correctly, they sell beer, too.

Quite the Conundrum

Smallholder's got a problem.

Hmmmm.

I would have to go with the Maximum Leader's solution:

{...}In the style of your Maximum Leader: Shoot it. Drag it out and shoot it. Allow its body to bloat in the sun as an example to all other uppity racoons lest they get ideas.

In the style of Winston Churchill: Shoot it. But don't waste time. Just walk right up and shoot the bloody thing. Of course, don't be rude either. When killing a racoon it costs one nothing to be polite.

In the style of the Joseph Stalin: Shoot it. Walk up and POW! One round in the back of the head. Note to self: invoice the racoon's family for the bullet.{...}

Yep. The Max Leader is on to something, even if the Ny-Quil is keeping him from realizing it. The best solution here is for Smallholder to pretend he's someone else and then shoot it that way. In fact, Smallholder could adopt the Cake Eater animus toward racoons and it just might serve him well in getting through this gruesome task.

Raccoons are the bane of my existence in the summertime. The trash goes out on Sunday night for Monday morning pickup, even though the raccoons are quite capable of pulling the lids off all the cans, even when they're buckled down by the can handles. Wily little fuckers. Well, you say, why don't you just take the trash out on Monday morning, so you don't have to be woken by the little fuckers when they trip the motion-sensor light right under your bedroom window? Well, the trash is the one thing our downstairs neighbors take care of around here. They take it out Sunday night, and lest I discourage them from getting more involved (i.e. taking over some of the snow shoveling) I'm not going to say a damned thing.

Most of the time, the nasty Cake Eater neighbor leaves his cans wide open and they go munching in there. When they do come over here, however, they leave an unholy mess! Aieee. Garbage---nasty, nasty garbage---everywhere. Which, of course, we have to clean up. Bleh. My sister, who has her own raccoon problem, says that pouring liquid ammonia into the trash cans works quite well as a repellent. I haven't tried this yet, but I probably will.

In the meantime, however, Smallholder can feel free to access my angst and shoot the varmint.

Happy shooting!

The Mouse's House

Heheheheheheh.

Better you than me, Robbo.

Rent a laptop.

Puhleeeze?

The Best Part About Trackback...

...is finding someone else who is similarly obsessed with a particular topic.

Courtesy of Ilyka, I found that Ith at Absinthe and Cookies is also a big House fan! She's even got an email list. Wooooh. Impressive.

So, this is a good thing. More people chatting about this show means it won't disappear any time in the near future. Das ist gut. I'm afraid, however, that I still need to keep chatting about House. I'm sorry if this bores you to tears, but I'm terrified that the only reason it's doing well right now is because it's on right after American Idol. I'm afraid that when Idol disappears, its ratings will go back into the toity and that will be the end of that. I don't want to be able to see how that's possible, but unfortunately I can. There's been plenty o' quality television over the years that's done very, very well for a time in a good slot, and then has subsequently disappeared into the ether, like a spaceship on the X-Files, because its lead-in disappeared as well. It's times like this when I really, really wish Nielsen would give me one of those boxes so I can fuck with their heads about what is and isn't good tee-vee.

It's worrying.

Hugh Laurie should have this job for as long as he wants it. And if I have anything to say about it, that will be for a long, long, loooong time.

Roommate Wanted

What the hell does heteronormative mean?

What Is Sexy?

So, after the success of our leg shaving posts Fiesty, Silk, Sadie and myself decided to make every other Tuesday girly day in the blogosphere. We're calling it "Demystifying Divas." We've picked a topic for today, which will make itself known very shortly. You have to suffer through it. Enjoy!

Way back in the day, when I was in college, the gents that surrounded me (Iowa State had a 3-1 male/female ratio) would live for the day when the Victoria's Secret catalogs were delivered. I didn't get it. To me the catalog was full of a bunch of chicks with come-hither stares who not only needed to put some clothes on, but who also needed cheescake, STAT! But for the guys, well, it was heaven. Yet they would never explain to me what, precisely, was so sexy about a bunch of chicks modeling bras and panties when they were of the age that they could buy a Playboy at QuikTrip and not have to worry about their mothers finding it when they looked for laundry.

It made no sense. If you're at McDonalds and the full meal deal is available, and you're hungry, well, go for it. Don't restrict yourself to the salad because you think your diet counselor might be looking. But, like I said, they never explained it. They just smiled and walked away quickly.

I had to wait until I hooked up with the husband to get any sort of rational explanation as to why the Victoria's Secret catalog held any appeal other than that it was free. There is a reason it's known as The Poor Man's Playboy, after all. And he explained. It was about the mystery that lingerie presented. Imagination was needed, he said. Bras have hooks. What's the quickest way to get those undone? What's the skin feel like under the lace? etc. Playboy, said he, left very little to the imagination. The Victoria's Secret catalog, however, was all about mystery. You can imagine taking the underthings off, he said, whereas with a centerfold, well, the work's already been done. The whistle's been blown. It's quittin' time.

Hmmmm.

"So," I said, "it's all about the mystery?"
"Yep. That and the thought that someone would wear that for us," he replied.

AHA! The light dawned. And the heavenly hosts sang "Alleluia!"

Which is why, to this very day, I say it's pure and utter horseshit whenever a woman says she wears lingerie for herself. Pffft. I think not. You're wearing it for the person who gets to see you in your underpants and that, my friend, is that.

I'm sure some women will object to this. That's fine. If you enjoy wearing uncomfortable underwear that you alone will see, that's your business, but don't try to tell me the reason you're wearing it is for you, because it makes you feel sexy. It's not. If you're single, you're wearing it in the hopes that you'll hook up and you don't want to be caught wearing the comfy, white cotton, granny panties with the hole in the backside in case you do. If you're partnered up, it's obvious that you're trying to keep your mate happy. Any other reasoning is pure and utter denial of the truth of the situation, which is, no woman would voluntarily wear lingerie because it's goddamned uncomfortable!

Lace itches like a bad case of poison ivy. Merry Widows suck all the life out of you---literally. Not to mention how hard they are to put on, with their myriad hooks. Garters are a pain in the ass because they keep getting all twisted up, never mind how hard it is to find stockings that actually work with the stupid things. Spaghetti straps on "neato" nightgowns have a way of getting twisted up to the point where, when you awake in the morning, you very well might be able to amputate an arm if you pull really hard. Thongs, are, well, thongs. And if you want comfort silk teddies are nice, but they don't provide much support if you've got more going on in the breast region than just an 'A' cup. Same goes for camisoles. I'm not going to touch on the topic of tap pants and what that means for when it's that time of the month. {Insert the sound of men screaming as they click away from the page here} Lingerie is a pain. Why anyone would voluntarily choose to put themselves through that pain for themselves is, quite honestly, beyond me. If I was the only one who had to look at myself in my underwear, well, it'd be holy panties and bras all the way.

But I'm not the only one who has to look at me in my underwear.

I'm married. And he likes this sort of thing. So, I have nice girly jammies. I have nice bras and even a few pairs of patterned panties, even though it's against my religion to wear such things. There's even a g-string or two in my underwear lineup. (And actually, these aren't that bad, on the whole, but that's another story for another day) But I draw the line at Merry Widows, bustiers (even if they do lift and separate), lace panties and all that other crap that Victoria's Secret sells. I've found my comfort zone and there isn't a Merry Widow to be found anywhere in the vicinity. It must be simple, unadorned and lace free. I'm not selling anyone short with these requirements.

There is, indeed, mystery to be found in cotton.

So, I still wear this stuff for him, and he lives with my choices, because I can go back to holy cotton panties and live more easily with the repercussions---if you get my meaning---than he could.

UPDATE: The other Divas bent on Demystifying posted while I was sleeping. You can find what my partners in crime had to say on the topic here here and here. Hmmm. They seem to disagree with my premise. Hmmmm.

How Many Times Do I Have To Say This?

Christ, women!

Let me give you a clue.

{Kathy puts a cigarette in her mouth, fires zippo, lights the smoky treat, inhales deeply, then begins}

If you want revenge for a cheating boyfriend/husband/pet monkey, cutting off their naughty bits by means of a Ginsu is not the best way to go about making them pay. The Ginsu may slice and dice and even cut through a tin can, but it is not the best tool for the job. You may put him through a great deal of pain, but it will be temporary pain. He will eventually heal, and in best man fashion, he will do his absolute darndest to put the matter behind him. Because he will be able to put the matter behind him. Because they---ahem---always seem to find a way to reattach the offending item.

If you hadn't noticed, the vascular surgeons of the world are getting pretty darned good at hooking the wee beasties back up. I'm sure if you looked it up, there are any number of medical journals which have published many o' a study that detail the best way to do this. While there have been any number of these sorts of cases over the years, gender reassignment surgery has helped surgeons make huge leaps in this department. They've learned a lot, obviously. After all this guy's whatsit made its way through the sewer system and was reattached! They're freakin' miracle workers!

And if you're wondering if it would work, may I present to you, Exhibit A: John Wayne Bobbit. He works in the pr0n industry. One needs to have working parts for that sort of a job. This doesn't work. He won't reform his wicked ways, he'll just get a new and improved whatsitcalled (which, of course, he'll be enamored with) and---provided he doesn't bleed to death in the process---your ass will land in the pokey for two to five. What's the freakin' point of all that? Do you actually think he'll mind his manners in the future? Ha! I think not. First off, he won't have a damn thing to do with you, and second, well, I told you he'd be enamored of his new and improved whatsit. He will be raring to go and try it out. You will, in fact, have made him worse in this department and not better. So, I ask you again, what's the freakin' point?

It's time to think outside of the box, ladies. It's time to be proactive so the red haze of fury will never descend upon you at a bad time. If you're interested, read on after the jump.

The key is to keep your man from cheating in the first place.

And all you will need is one toothpick and a creative means of restraint.

To explain: men have wonderful imaginations. God love 'em, they're visceral creatures. The world is one big sensual buffet for them. While this works to their benefit most of the time, it also makes them incredibly vulnerable. Note the general reaction of men when they see a vicious kick to the crotch during a movie or a TV show. They cringe. They wince. They say, "Oh! That smarts!" If it's a particularly vicious hit, they might even reflexively grab their privates in a protective manner. Like I said, they have good imaginations.

Make that imagination work for you.

This is where the toothpick and the creative restraint come in. Early in your relationship, tie 'em up, play with 'em for a while, then bring up the topic of what you expect in terms of fidelity. Whip out the toothpick when it comes time to discuss what the consequences of such an action will be. Hint that a toothpick is good for things other than holding club sandwiches together. Particularly when used slowly.

It will be as if they saw that particularly vicious kick to the privates we were talking about earlier.

That should be enough to keep them in line.

DISCLAIMER: This is a joke, kids. Please do not fill up the inbox/comments with all sorts of junk about how I'm an evil, evil, man-hating woman. Because I'm not. I like men. A lot. And I like them better with all their parts attached. If I don't advocate stoning for women who are "convicted" of adultery, I most certainly do not advocate castration for men who are guilty of the same damn thing.

Laugh, damnit.

Because, not only is it wrong, it is really, really counterproductive in the long run.

Pathetic

As if gamers needed anything else to feed their obsessive compulsive behavior.

Heh.

(You can find Ctrl-Alt-Del Here every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Well, that bit about it being available every day and twice on Sundays really isn't true, but it should be. And I didn't lie about where you could find it, either. How's that for truthfulness?)

The Failure of The Hard Drive

Jeff Goldstein needs cold, hard cash or he won't put up any more Martha Stewart photoshops.

Go. Give.

Because we wouldn't want to have to suffer through our boring lives without wondering how Martha's getting along in prison.

SEE!?! I Told You!

Given these recent developments, I'm so prescient.

Sure it's all about beer and trivia now, but they're milling about and organizing. There are weekly meetings that serve a roughly sketched, "figuring it out as we go along" initiation purpose. There's even a blogroll so we know who is a member and who ain't.

Yes, kids. I think we all know where this is headed.

The MOB will soon be applying for a charter and requesting entry into the Panhellenic Council. It is, in short, turning into a Fraternity or a Sorority.

What's next? A reworking of the initiation ritual to something where we all have to bow down and pay homage to Lileks, Hewitt, NARN and the Powerline guys? Will ritualistic chanting be involved? Will we all be uttering shortly, "Thank you, sir! May I have another?" What else will be required? Candle passings? Serenades? Will we be ordering sweatshirts with 'MOB' scrawled across them? Will we be participating in Greek Week and the compulsory bed races? Will we be forced to whip out our trusty cordless screwdrivers to construct a homecoming lawn display? Will float building two weeks before finals be mandatory? Will we now have to perform intricate Rush dances on the front lawn of the MOB house? Or---holy of holies-- will the ghastly phrase, "Fire UP!" be repeatedly squeaked out by perky blondes for motivational purposes?

Heaven forfend!

Soon, I am pretty damn sure, I'll be drafted into licking envelopes. This is how it always starts.

Join up for the fun and tongue numbness will shortly follow.

A Friendly Reminder

For my fellow Minnesota residents who received an anti-trust settlement offer from Microsquash last fall: it has to be postmarked tomorrow or you lose out on all that cashola!

And the only reason I know this is because the husband just filled ours out.

Go forth and bask in the righteousness of the well-informed.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk?

I THINK NOT!

Is There a Practitioner of Rhinoplasty in the House?

Sadie, in response to an idiotic call for Brit Hume's resignation, points us to where the real problem at Fox News resides.

To go one step further in blogswarming the apparent plastic surgery addiction at Fox News, I humbly present to you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, this:

Dearest Shep needs to cut back on the old Botox injections. I still find myself watching his broadcast, waiting for a random forehead line to pop up. Alas, it never happens. In fact, he doesn't seem to have a whole lot of facial expression, does he? Sure he can do stuff with his voice, but when it comes to expressing with his facial muscles, well....

I have this image of him being shot up every day, right before Studio B, when he's getting his makeup done. Does Fox keep a plastic surgeon on retainer?

Hmmmm. I smell an Area 51 conspiracy.

I'm assuming all my fellow CITIZEN JOURNALISTS will jump on this one now that I've proved there is a plastic surgery conspiracy occurring at Fox News.

Go forth and act all Mulderish in pursuit of the truth. And if you wind up singing the theme song to Shaft during your investigation, I want the video.

Where Does One Acquire...

...an avatar for their blog that screams, "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way"?

No, seriously.

I'm thinking the upper right hand corner of this pig is a little boring. What with all that blank space, there's room for something new and visually interesting.

UPDATE: And, no, I don't want Marie Antoinette up there.

UPDATE 2: She should be luscious and wearing glasses.

And be a brunette.

Because I am luscious, wear glasses and am a brunette.

Jimmy Hoffa's Grave

Over at the Fraters, St. Paul discusses the various privileges of union membership and makes some excellent points.

As far as the benefits of union membership, well, as far as I can see, there really don't seem to be any. But don't tell the unions that. You might just put Jimmy Hoffa Jr in his grave prematurely. And let's face it, if there's anyone who's probably really afraid of dying, it's him. It would be cruel to taunt him about such a thing. Really. (Don't think it'll stop me, though.) But I digress. Anything they might have been able to take credit for in the past is now legislated. What purpose do they serve nowadays, other than arguing about health insurance prices? I don't really see the need for them to be fighting THE MAN all the damn time. At least not here in the States.

On a related note, I would still like to know why the Teamsters can call itself an international organization if it only operates in the United States and Canada.

What? Don't workers in developing countries deserve to be represented by Jimmy Hoffa Jr. in their fight against THE MAN? I mean, if it's all about fighting THE MAN, you'd think they'd want to go someplace where they'd actually have to, you know, fight.

Or isn't five percent of a $14/week Mexican/Indonesian/Malaysian paycheck enough to sustain their activities?

Makes one wonder, doesn't it?

/sarcasm

Dream Teams

Jonathan asks us who our Law and Order dream team would be.

Hmmmmm.

This is a toughie for me mainly because I quit watching a while back, so my choices are bound to seem dated. I stopped watching because if I had to listen to the phrase "Ripped From the Headlines!!!!" one more time I was going to gag. It was one thing for the writers to use real cases as an inspiration for their plotlines and to examine them from that angle, but it was another thing entirely to advertise it. It was like going from subtle tap on the head that asked us, politely, to pay attention, to being knocked over with a sledgehammer. Highly annoying. One of my all-time favorite Law and Order episodes was the one where they fictionalized the Tawana Brawley incident. Richard Brooks' assistant AD Paul Robinette was stuck between the proverbial rock of being a black man and the hard place of defending the law. It was a brilliant performance and one that sticks out clearly in my mind, all these years later. Even thought the writers were fictionalizing a real-life case, they did it with class and grace and no viewpoint was left untended. But at no point did they advertise this episode as "Ripped From the Headlines!" It was what it was, and it was brilliant.

The urge to make a Law and Order franchise struck down the integrity of this show, in my humble opinion. That's why I stopped watching. Bringing on a Baywatch babe only sealed the deal for me.

That said, however, here's my dream team.

The law side:

Chris Noth (with Benjamin Bratt a close second)

Jerry Orbach

S. Epatha Merkerson

The order side:

Steven Hill (Dianne Wiest or Fred Thompson? Ha! I think not!)

Michael Moriarty (Sam Waterson is great. Don't get me wrong. I just get the feeling if I ever had to be around McCoy on the show, I'd be showered in spittle every time he decided to get righteous. Bleh.)

Jill Hennessy (With Richard Brooks a very close second. A very close second. In fact, I'd love to see them bring him back and put him in the Waterson/Moriarty slot. Claire's dead. (or so they say! I never saw a body!) I can't say the same for her.)

Lecturing

Well, not so much me lecturing you on anything, but rather Fausta attended a lecture given by Professor Viet Dinh, who helped to draft the Patriot Act. I've heard mention that Professor Dinh is on the short list for potential Supreme Court nominees.

Fausta's reporting is well worth a read.

Where's an Iridium Q-36 Space Modulator When You Need One?

I saw this one yesterday, but was too gobsmacked to comment on it.

Fortunately Michele saved me from my angst and said it all perfectly.

Whichever eedjit came up with this harebrained scheme deserves to be struck down by a Wagnerian lightning bolt.

But I'm pretty damn sure Elmer wouldn't weep over his/her remains.

No Surprises Here

Which Family Guy character are you?

"I say! Fetch me some clean linen to throw on before I call child services!"

{Hat tip: Doug at Bogus Gold}

As a Sorority Girl...

.... "You can bend over and kiss my lily white, Kappa Alpha Theta ass," is what I have to say to the Crack Young Staff of "The Hatemonger's Quarterly."

Your generalizations have dumped you neck-deep into the soup this time, Chip.

My World Has Tilted On Its Axis

Blaque Jacques has actually done something right for a change.

I feel a case of the vapors coming on.

The Long View

Peggy Noonan on Blogging in today's Opinion Journal. {registration required}

{...}When you hear name-calling like what we've been hearing from the elite media this week, you know someone must be doing something right. The hysterical edge makes you wonder if writers for newspapers and magazines and professors in J-schools don't have a serious case of freedom envy.

The bloggers have that freedom. They have the still pent-up energy of a liberated citizenry, too. The MSM doesn't. It has lost its old monopoly on information. It is angry.

But MSM criticism of the blogosphere misses the point, or rather points.

Blogging changes how business is done in American journalism. The MSM isn't over. It just can no longer pose as if it is The Guardian of Established Truth. The MSM is just another player now. A big one, but a player. {...}

Amen!

The information wants to be free. We're simply allowing for it.

Read also: Robbo.

{...}I'm glad she didn't focus exclusively on those bloggers going toe to toe with the MSM in the fields of news and politics, but also mentioned folks like Lileks and Terry Teachout. For every INDCent Bill or Dr. Rusty out there scalping Dan Rather or posting Jihadi snuff films, there's also someone blogging about their favorite music, changing the baby's diapers or when they ought to plant the spring bulbs. This is one of the major beauties of writing in the 'Sphere as opposed to the MSM. Not only do I not have to ask an editor if I can run another Eason Jordan story, I also don't have to ask if I can post about the daily harassment I suffer at the hands of my cat who, as soon as I get home, starts demanding loudly that I sit down in the library so he can jump into my lap.

Likewise, and equally importantly, readers of blogs aren't confined by the MSM's gatekeeping. If someone stumbles across our site, likes my cat-blogging for instance and is sufficiently impressed with the quality of our writing, why, they're free to come back any time. And to request more of the same. (We're always open to suggestions. That's what the TastyBits (TM) Mail Sack is all about.)

That, by the way, is why we Llamas like to think we have something pretty special going on around here. We get into the political debate now and again, but we also opine about whatever else crosses our crazed minds. As Steve-O likes to say, we cover the waterfront, gathering rats and toasting them on sticks so you don't have to. {...}

Interests vary from person to person. When you remove the control that says only this should be interesting, everyone wins. I'll say it again: the information wants to be free. If I can do someone a service by pointing them to an article that interests them, I will have served my purpose as a blogger. From there on in, no matter what I say about it, it's up to you, my devoted Cake Eater Reader, to, in the words of the Oracle, make up your own damn minds.

I, for one, think you're capable of it.

Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen

Poor Howie Kurtz.

Subjected to keeping track of what the blogosphere is saying for Judy Woodruff.
(scroll down on the transcript: about a third of the way)

A bona fide watchdog of a journalist watching the blogs watch journalists. And on and on. And this looks like it's going to be a daily Inside Politics feature, too.

It's like one big multimedia circle jerk.

Dear Howie,

Please end your association with CNN at once. The career you save might be your own. At the very least tell Judy to read the blogs on her own. You're a bit above this sort of thing.

Thanks!

Kathy Nelson
Cake Eater Chronicles

Greedy Hockey Players and NHL Owners Suck!

Bastards.

Complete, utter and incredibly greedy bastards.

When these people do get their acts together and there's a season in the offing, I would ask my fellow hockey fans to make them pay for their behavior. Don't buy your season tickets. Don't pay gobs of money to go to a game. Don't watch them on TV and deprive them of ratings-driven payola.

Both sides have shown they're all about the money---so much so that they're willing to completely abdicate their livelihoods to make a point about salary caps. Let's show them we're all about the hockey. They will undoubtedly get their acts together sometime before the next season is to begin. Sometime in late September/early October 2005 would be my bet. One season they could take. Two? I don't think so. Major League Baseball learned its lesson after its players strike: don't piss off the fans as they pay for all this largesse. Can we teach the NHL and its players the same thing? Yep. It could be even more satisfying than ignoring MLB, if you ask me, given the attendance levels at games, which would whoop MLB game attendance each and every time. Which says nothing of the ratings. Particularly during the playoffs. But attendance is the key, because I know the Wild has a sweetheart deal with the Xcel Energy Center and derives almost half of their revenue from ticket sales. How many other teams are the same, I wonder. Cut that off and you've got them.

I can go another year without hockey. What say you?

UPDATE Courtesy o' Michele: FREE STANLEY!

This is a great idea. The cup should be awarded this year---NHL or no NHL. Lord Stanley did hockey a great service by presenting the sport with this cup. And he never played hockey!. He was, however, a hockey parent. It was because of his sons' love of the sport that he commissioned the cup to present to the best amateur team in Canada. It was never meant to be held hostage by those greedy bastards in the NHL. The NHL doesn't deserve it.

FREE LORD STANLEY'S CUP!

Excitement in Cake Eater Land

So, I had to call the cops this morning.

This really isn't my favorite thing to do, but living on a busy street, where accidents have been known to happen, my fingers have done the walking more than a few times. I learned this morning that I can dial '911" without looking at the phone keypad. Woohoo for me, eh?

Fortunately, there hasn't been an accident, but rather some truck driver has decided to park his eighteen wheeler/semi/tractor trailer out on the main drag we live on. His engine is still running and he walked away from it.

Now, I don't know about you, but this makes me nervous. We live in a residential neighborhood. A residential neighborhood with a lot of traffic, I'll grant you, but eighteen wheelers generally do not use the streets around here as a truck stop. Which I'm pretty sure is what this guy is doing. I saw him get out of the truck and walk toward our little downtown area a little over a half hour ago and he hasn't returned.

Neither have the cops shown up. Which is irking me.

If I haven't explained the weirdness of our locality before, let me explain. We live in Cake Eater Land. Directly across the street, however, is the Minneapolis Province of the People's Republic of Minnesota. The boundary line between the two cities, apparently, is the divider line in the middle of the street. I call 911 and I am routed directly to Cake Eater City's Emergency Response Line. They listen to my schpiel and when they find out the truck is on the east side of the street, they immediately transfer me to Minneapolis. Where I have to repeat my story to a woman who, surprisingly, takes me more seriously than the Cake Eater City woman did, and promises to send a car out. (The Cake Eater City chick seemed disappointed when I told her there wasn't an accident involved.)

Forty-five minutes later....no cops.

And great, the truck just drove off. Fantastic.

This is the second time this guy has done this. It's the same rig. The first time was a week or two ago. The guy just parked his rig, left it running, and walked away. He's not delivering anything. He's just parking there for whatever reason. I'm high-strung, I know, but this makes me nervous. While I'm sure it's probably nothing, that the guy just wanted to get some breakfast or something, even if it's harmless, I don't want eighteen wheelers parking across the street from my house! They're stinky and they're loud. Besides, it's tacky as all get out.

The Cake Eater neighborhood has undergone a tremendous renovation since we moved here. A couple of blocks away, in the little suburban downtown area, there used to be a gas station and a little tobacco shop on one of the four main corners. They bulldozed these buildings and put in a little mini-mall/office building and ever since construction was completed, traffic has gone through the roof. It's jampacked every day during rush hour and during lunch. Backups galore. And that's when it's not snowing. It used to be quiet around here in the evenings. You could count on it. But no longer. It's noisy all day long and doesn't quiet down until well after ten p.m. Add to this the problem we have with speeders, because once they get through the nightmare that is the little downtown area, they jam on the gas and blow through this residential neighborhood at anywhere between forty and fifty miles per hour. Ever since that damn mini mall went up, well, traffic has become a bitch---including a huge increase in truck traffic---and because of our lovely little jurisdiction problem, there apparently isn't anything anyone can do about it, either.

I called the cops about the speeders this summer. Of course, I talked with someone over at the Cake Eater Cop Shop and he said there wasn't anything they could do about the speeders on the east side of the street. Because that's Minneapolis, and they've protested before, claiming the Cake Eater City Cops were poaching on their jurisdiction. The Cake Eater City cops, accordingly, don't bother with that side of the street. If I wanted to do something about that, he said, I had to call the Minneapolis Police Department. I also chatted with him about huge increase in truck traffic, and he said there wasn't anything he could do about that, either, because, technically speaking, the road is owned by Hennepin County and that's their jurisdiction.

AIEEEEEEEEEEE! It's turning into a nightmare. This used to be a quiet neighborhood. Now it's a throughway for commerce! While I'm a free trade kind of girl, this is annoying me. Furthermore, it seems as if I'm going to have to become one of those City Council meeting cranks if I want someone to do something about this, because, currently, no one cares.

Why Hollywood's Higher Ups Are Idiots

Courtesy o' Martini Boy, there's new DVD copy protection on the loose.

Macrovision announced new technology today that it hopes will stop users from illegally copying DVD movies. The technology is called RipGuard DVD and it's going to make its way into DVDs starting with the new High Definition DVD films later this year.

The idea behind RipGuard is that it plugs the original security hole that was exposed by the DeCSS software back in 1999, which bypassed the CSS encryption program. This allowed even the average consumer to copy a complete DVD to their computer and distribute the DVD on file sharing networks.{...}

Now, this may seem like the logical choice for the Hollywood higher-ups, but it's not, particularly when there was a better encryption option out there. According to Forbes {registration required}, a gentleman by the name of Paul Kocher, who wrote part of the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), had a better and cheaper solution to the problem. One, I daresay, which might have actually worked. For a time, anyway.

{...}What Kocher is pushing is the concept of renewable security. Any attempt to erect a one-time, rigid barrier between thieves and content, he says, is useless, including the current method pushed through by the Japanese consumer electronics companies. "With very few exceptions, all the major security systems being used by the studios today are either broken and can't be fixed, or they're not deployed widely enough to be worth hacking," says Kocher.

Under the existing Content Scrambling System, electronics makers install the exact same encryption code into nearly every DVD player. But that was broken by European hackers in 1999 and the trick disseminated widely on the Internet. Even the least sophisticated user can now download a program that easily copies protected movies.

Kocher's alternative is to allow for constant change. His system, called self-protecting digital content, places the security on the disc instead of in the player. A software "recipe" running into the millions of steps is burned onto every new movie disc. Each DVD player would contain a small chip costing only a few extra cents that would follow the recipe faithfully. If the DVD player decides the disc is secure, it will decode it and play the movie. But each film could have a different recipe. So if a pirate breaks the code on Spider-Man 2, he wouldn't necessarily be able to break the code on Elf. The studios would always be one step ahead of the thieves; at the very least it would take pirates more time to break each film. Not a big deal: Studios make most of their money from DVDs in the first three months, anyway. {...}

Well, Hollywood didn't go for that option, which actually makes sense and would provide a relatively small wall against hackers and ther P2P-using ilk. But they didn't go for it. They went for the exceedingly dumb option instead.

At some point in time Hollywood has to realize that technology isn't only good for producing the latest and greatest special effects or the newest blockbuster from Pixar. It's not like I want them to get with the program. {cough, cough} I also derive a great deal of amusement from their idiotic efforts. It would, however, be nice to not have to hear them whine anymore.

Maybe if they weren't all using Macs, they might get an idea.

Ya think?

Uh-Oh

Was just perusing the TV listings for this evening's episode of House and am suddenly edgy.

If, at any point, during this very special detox episode, Dr. House finds his way to a twelve step meeting, I will give up this show. For good. And I won't watch again.

I might have more to say about this later on tonight. I sincerely hope I don't, though.

UPDATE: Yay! Good episode, too.

Speaking Ill of The Dead

Terry Teachout is not so much speaking ill of the dead, but rather gives an honest obituary when it comes to Arthur Miller.

Personally, the fact I went to an all-girl Catholic school saved me from much of Miller's work. We never read or presented "A Death of a Salesman" in high school because we didn't have any boys attending our school. Would have been a bit hard to cast, eh? We had enough trouble trying to find a Tevye and three suitors when we presented Fiddler on the Roof. But mainly I believe we were spared Miller not because we were a provincial school in Omaha, but rather because our English Department thought his work was overrated crap. (This is also the same English Department who made us read Macbeth instead of Romeo and Juliet because they didn't want to focus too much on Shakespeare. We spent more time on Chaucer and Beowulf in Brit Lit than we ever did on good ol' Will. Take what you will from that observation.)

So, having never been educated in the "joys" of Arthur Miller, but having heard quite a bit about him and his work, I was a bit surprised one night when I sat down and watched The Crucible. For someone who had been heralded as the playwright of our time, I was a wee bit surprised at how quickly and easily Miller pressed the "mass hysteria" button. It's his play and he was entitled to do whatever he wanted, but it seemed a cheap trick for one who was supposedly so talented. There was untouched ground in that play that could have been much more interesting and insightful, but Miller focused instead on slamming home his message about the dangers of witchhunts.

Ugh.

I came to the conclusion that the English Department at my old high school knew what they were talking about.

Oh, Gag, II

Bleech.

Oh, Gag

Wellstone Syndrome has gone national.

The Debate

As a blog junkie, I read a lot of posts from day to day. I like to see how people will argue a point. The style of the debates that ensue are just as interesting to me as the debate topic itself. For me, it's not only about what Picasso painted, but how he did it, what brushes and paints did he use, etc.

If this sort of thing interests you, first go here.

Then go here for one exceedingly well-argued point of view.

This is what the blogosphere is all about. This is why I love it so.

{hat tip: The Naked Villains}

Talking Back to Conversation Hearts, 2

{If bigger is your thing, click to enlarge}

I swear to God, if this yet another attempt to get me to read Penthouse Forum I will go and get the cast iron frying pan and I will smack you upside the head with it.

"Iowa" Means "Beautiful Land" in Some Native American Language That's Eluding Me Right Now

Courtesy of Cake Eater Pal, J., my newest (and probably my only) reader in Basel, Switzerland, we have this New York Times op-ed about Iowa's brain drain.

Lately the Iowa Legislature has been trying to find a way to solve a basic problem: how to keep young people from leaving the state. Right now, Iowa's "brain drain" is second only to North Dakota's. The Legislature is toying with a simple idea, getting rid of state income tax for everyone under 30. This proposal was front-page news in California, where most of Iowa moved in the 1960's. Let me translate the economics of this plan. The State Legislature proposes to offer every young tax-paying Iowan a large delivery pizza - or its cash equivalent, about $12 - every week of the year. But smart young Iowans know this is only an average figure. The more you earn, the more state income tax you save. {...}

Iowans are resolutely practical about such proposals. One state legislator, quoted in The Minneapolis Star Tribune, said: "Let's face it. Des Moines will never be Minneapolis." He might have added that Council Bluffs would never be Kansas City. Another Iowan, when asked what the state needed to keep its young people, said, "An ocean would help." This is the kind of big thinking Iowa has always been famous for.

But $600, the average yearly state income tax for Iowan 20-somethings, is not enough to undo decades of social erosion. The problems Iowa faces are the very solutions it chose two and three generations ago. The state's demographic dilemma wasn't caused by bad weather or high income taxes or the lack of a body of water larger than Rathbun Lake - an Army Corps of Engineers reservoir sometimes known as "Iowa's ocean." It was caused by the state's wholehearted, uncritical embrace of industrial agriculture, which has depopulated the countryside, destroyed the economic and social texture of small towns, and made certain that ordinary Iowans are defenseless against the pollution of factory farming.

These days, all the entry-level jobs in agriculture - the state's biggest industry - happen to be down at the local slaughterhouse, and most of those jobs were filled by the governor's incentive, a few years ago, to bring 100,000 immigrant workers into the state.

Business leaders all across Iowa have been racking their brains to think of ways to spur economic development. But nearly every idea leaves industrial agriculture intact. That means a few families living amid vast tracts of genetically modified soybeans and corn, with here and there a hog confinement site or a cattle feedlot to break the monotony. {...}

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Iowa's brain drain is all big agriculture's fault. If you're failing to follow the logic on this one because you don't come from an ag state, well, it goes something like this: family farms go belly up because of one crisis or another. Agribusiness (seed, pesticide, fertilizer companies, just to name a few) moves in, provides jobs and paychecks in a part of the country where no one else wants to live or do business because they think it's a backwater type of place where they can't get Guinness on tap. Because of Agribusiness' decision to do business in a place where, ahem, people know something about agriculture, of course it's responsible for shutting every other type of opportunity out. Hence there's a brain drain in the state. Because young graduates who did not graduate with a B.S. in AgBus go elsewhere. And it's all because of the loss of the family farm!

Pffft.

I think not. While I'm generally not a fan of agribusiness, it is nonetheless the future of agriculture. We can only bemoan the loss of the family farm as if it were a Norman Rockwell painting that was destroyed in a fire for so fucking long, people. At some point in time responsibility will have to be taken, and I can't freakin' wait for it to happen. The government, if it actually wants the family farm to survive, needs to end subsidies to farmers and work toward a free market solution. Quite simply, this will get farmers the decent prices on crops that they've wanted---and have been bitching about---for years. Family farmers, however, are not blameless here either. For years, farmers borrowed money for $100,000 tractors and land buys on crops they had yet to plant, let alone sell. When the market price of those crops collapsed, they went belly-up or were bailed out by the government. When the "Freedom to Farm Act" was passed through Congress as a way to relieve debt levels of family farmers, the running joke in Des Moines was that it wasn't the "Freedom to Farm Act," but rather the "Freedom to Buy a New Truck Act", because farmers used the money to reconsolidate the debt they already had, getting a bit of cash in the meantime and a new truck or new tractor, rather than strictly paying off the old debt, as the Act intended. It's been my observation---as someone who has lived in the Midwest all her life and whose ex-banker father gave out a lot of those aforementioned loans---that some family farmers work the system in such a way that they don't want to go off the government dole, no matter how much they bitch to the contrary.

Case in point: my friend from college, D.'s father's farm was roughly around two-thousand acres large. Now, that's a lot of land for your average, solo family farmer. Most farms are around five hundred acres or so. D . was regularly called home every May and every September/October to help with the planting and harvesting, respectively. I once asked him why, if his Dad's farm was so large, and his Dad couldn't handle it all by himself, didn't his Dad hire out some help? D. laughed. "He only plants about five hundred acres. The rest he's paid to keep fallow." Not only was D.'s dad pretty smart about working the government for subsidies, he also managed to get a fair amount of his debt worked off courtesy of the government as well. With the proceeds from his farming, he was able to buy even more land to let lie fallow. Now, considering this is precisely what agribusiness does---buying up land, applying for subsidies, etc.---how can anyone say that agribusiness is not the way of the future when it comes to farming? It just is. While some family farmers have been able to make their traditional methods work, most family farmers have coopted agribusiness' wicked ways to survive. Agribusiness does not just mean the likes of Archer-Daniel-Midlands or Monsanto, but also Joe Schmoe who farms outside of Pella.

This is the way the business of agriculture is going here in the United States. Yes, Iowa has focused greatly on encouraging agribusiness over the years, but that's because it's what they had to work with. Now they're working on the tech sector. And you know this how?? you're undoubtedly wondering. Well, I can't tell you how many pieces of mail we've received---as Iowa State Graduates who live outstate---advertising how great a place Iowa is to live, and asking us, rather politely I always think, to take another look at moving back. These mailers come from the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce, the Iowa City Chamber of Commerce, the Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce. You name a major metropolitan area in Iowa and we've gotten a request from their Chamber of Commerce to move back to a state we haven't lived in for eight years. Because, as these mailers always say, there are jobs here! We need people to take them! These mailers also advertise the low cost of living, the good schools, the family friendly environment and, in some cases, tax incentives.

As far as addressing the true reason for the brain drain, while I will not deny that a lack of non-agricultural jobs was once a major issue, the op-ed author only hints at the real reason: people leave Iowa, on the whole, to experience something of the worldliness that Iowa does not have. While it is a good place to live, it's not exactly ground zero for the sort of excitement recent college graduates seek. Culture is lacking. Currently, if you want a good time, you go to the bar and get drunk. Iowa, however, is a good place to raise a family, as those targeted mailings we receive at least once every two months love to point out. Iowa, for the most part, is not a place overly friendly to young adults who want a little worldliness along with their State Fair butter sculptures. Which is why I think this tax-free business until you're thirty is ridiculous. People leave Iowa. If they don't do it when they're young, they will do it later on in life, when they're less likely to make the move back because of family constraints. I'm sure it sounds horrible, but it's just the way of things in states like Nebraska and Iowa. Some people do stay and are happy there. A lot do not, however. Yet, of that number, a lot of people move back when they have families, as a number of my college chums who bugged out for Chicago or Minneapolis or Kansas City when they graduated have proved when they moved back.

If anything, it's the State of Iowa's failure to accept this trend completely and to work with it that's the problem. Die hard Iowans love their state: they don't see why anyone would want to live anywhere else, and this is an attitude that's incredibly pervasive amongst politicians. Apprarently, they've never gotten used to the idea that someone wouldn't perhaps want to be born, live and die on the same spot of land. This doesn't work, however, when the plot of land the average Iowan owns nowadays doesn't have acreage attached. They keep coming back to this one concept, as this move proves, and it's frustrating because it ignores the reality of the situation.

Focus on the people with families to raise, as Iowa and her various Chambers of Commerce have been doing, and they might just see some results. There is no reason here to bemoan, once again, the loss of the family farm because there is opportunity in the offing. The economy will thrive because these potential Iowa residents will enter Iowa's workforce at a higher pay rate, their cost of living will be much, much less than, say, Minneapolis' and, as a result, will have money to spend. This will lead to an economic boom, and it will trickle down to establishing a culture for its young people that includes more than just getting drunk. Perhaps more than a few of those young people will want to stick around.

Iowa's currently on the right track. I don't know why they don't see it, but it will eventually work out.

One Day...

...in the future, I will be in New York, attending a book launch party held in a swanky hotel ballroom. It will be somewhere Dorothy Parker and her Algonquin Round Table slurped many martinis once upon a time, when the Art Deco theme of the ballroom was considered so yesterday. I will be dressed in a sensible, yet low-cut black cocktail dress, and will be chatting with some earnest young student, who's crashed the party and who has been cheeky enough to wonder aloud at my reasoning for being in attendance.

And I will be able to tell them that I knew Rich way back when.

Well...

I suppose that's the sort of thing that happens when you give your husband password access to your blog.

Sigh.

But, for once, I'm sighing in a good, moony grade-school girl sort of way. As In, if I had a notebook, I'd be scribbling Michael all over it right now as a sign of pure and true infatuation.

To My Bride

After over 10 years, I'm amazed every day; ...at your strength, at your intelligence, at your wit, at your integrity, at your beauty. I truly don't know how I got so lucky.
Happy Valentine's Day, My Bride.

News Flash

It's currently raining.

In February.

In Minnesota.

I do believe this is the one of the signs that the world is about to end. I think it's somewhere in Revelations. Between the blood-red moon and everything in the seas dying.

You could look it up.

UPDATE: The rain turned into snow around sixish. The world, it seems, will not end after all. We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Heh

Courtesy of the husband, a fellow World of Warcraft player, who explains the lingo: "When playing a game, it is said that we have "aggro" when a "mob" (mobile enemy) has turned aggressive and attacks."

Chuckle.

{You can find more Ctrl-Alt-Del here.}

For the Love of All That Is Good and Holy

It's pretty obvious that I'm a Minnesota blogger. Locals will have been tipped off by the phrase "Cake Eater" in the title. Non-locals will have read my various scribblings about what it's like to live in the Twin Cities. People know where I live. Recently, however, some of my very nice fellow Minnesota bloggers have added me onto their blogrolls as a member of the "Minnesota Organization of Bloggers." This is a facetious titling to lump all of us who live around here into a barely coherent group. Short form: I moseyed to a bar in downtown and met a bunch of fellow bloggers who were nice enough to blogroll me. This pleases me and I'm proud to be one of the chosen few. (And I will be reciprocating shortly. I've just been lazy.)

Pleasure aside, though, because of said lumping into Minnesota Organization of Bloggers (aka The Journey to Keegan's), well, I got an interesting email yesterday. From a state level politician who's running for one of the biggie state level offices. I don't want to out the guy until he announces his intentions publicly, so he will remain nameless. I don't mean to diss his campaign manager, either, because he's just doing his job by getting the word out, but... I have to wonder what the hell were they thinking by sending me an email full of paragraphs like this one?

"{...}recognizes the key role that bloggers, and especially Minnesota bloggers, have begun to play on the forefront of the new media revolution. As 'journalists', in both the original and traditional meanings of the word, Minnesota bloggers are increasingly becoming opinion leaders and sources for original information...wants to acknowledge that vital role in public policy discussion by including bloggers as part of 'the media' as they release information.

While I think it's good that campaigns are bringing bloggers into the fold and I applaud their efforts, my main reaction is what the fuck are these people thinking? I ask you, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, when did The Cake Eater Chronicles turn into blog where the author actually gave a rat's ass about Minnesota politics?

I spend very little, if any, time writing about Minnesota politics. And anyone who actually read my blog would know this. There are many reasons I avoid it, but the main reason would be I abhor state-level politics. It bores me. I know other people love this sort of thing but I don't. Yet all is not lost. The beauty that is the blogosphere dictates that if something doesn't interest you, well you don't have to write about it because many, many other people will. But because it was a bulk email thrown out to many people, it's obvious I've been lumped into the CITIZEN JOURNALIST* blog category.

Bleh

Note to campaign managers everywhere: this is my personal op-ed page. I am not a CITIZEN JOURNALIST. I am a citizen op-ed writer. There's a difference. Good luck with everything. I wish you well, but save yourself time and effort in the long run and don't bother me.

Choices, Choices

Taking a cue from John over at Texas Best Grok, the ever magnificent Sadie has posted a most interesting poll.

Which sci-fi babe (male) would you like to have rescue you from a soon-to-explode spaceship?

Or at least that's what I think she was talking about. I was too, er, uhm, distracted to see what her criteria actually was other than hunkiness.

My vote? Keanu. Definitely Keanu. He is fine. It's just my opinion and I might be seeing things, but, just from my observations, he looks like he's a really good kisser. If you're going to be saved, you must have a good kisser doing the rescuing. It's a must. No one wants to have a slobber monster rescue them from a near-death situation.

He can also talk to me all he wants, too. I'm one of the few people who doesn't think he's automatically stupid just because he sounds like one of the McKenzie brothers. Canuck accent does not equal stupidity.

And just for the record I never saw either of Bill and Ted's most excellent adventures.

What He Said

Martini Boy on hockey season being officially over:

The last time the NHL failed to award Lord Stanley's Cup, it was due to a global flu epidemic that killed 20 million people. This time, millionaire owners and millionaire players can't agree on a few contractural issue.

Now my stomach is really upset.

Mine too.

There Is A Reason...

...why they call Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, "Red Ken."

LONDON (Reuters) - London's outspoken Mayor Ken Livingstone has refused to apologise for calling a Jewish newspaper reporter a war criminal and concentration camp guard, despite complaints from Britain's main Jewish group.

"Are you a German war criminal?" Livingstone was heard saying on a tape recording of the exchange with the Evening Standard journalist at a event to mark the 20th anniversary of former cabinet member Chris Smith announcing he is gay.

When the journalist said he was Jewish and was offended by the mayor's remarks, Livingstone replied: "Actually you are just like a concentration camp guard."{...}

But wait, there's more...

{...} A statement from the mayor's office blamed the paper for harassing guests and provoking the mayor. His office said the mayor would not comment further.{...}

Catch that one? Livingstone was the one who was harrassed and provoked. Not the reporter who was compared to a concentration camp guard.

Using Livingstone's own standards for acceptable rhetoric, I believe a comeback including the phrases, "Uncle Joe," "Purges" and "Wanker Mayor not having the necessary skills available to survive them," would have been appropriate under the circumstances.

UPDATE: The husband challenged me in the comments. Here is the transcript of the conversation. Further developments can be found here.

Livingstone is a wanker.

Henry VIII's Spinning in His Grave

...and is probably as jealous as hell. While Chuck is a distant relative (and I'm not all that sure that's even true. When they started poaching from the German Houses for future Kings and Queens of England, the family tree starts getting a wee bit fuzzy.) you have to think that Henry's as pissed off as all get out that this wimp is the one who finally gets things the way he wants them and doesn't have to take any guff over it. That and the fact Chuck actually produced some sons and secured the line has got to be causing some chapping.

Unlike some, I'm not a royalist. But I have to take issue with one thing Robbo said about the House of Windsor's purpose:

{...}But in a constitutional system where the Royals serve in a strictly ceremonial capacity, it's all the more important that they set an example, presenting an absolutely unimpeachable face to the public. {...}

That's just bull. Good behavior is one thing. While it should be commended when and where it is found, but it's entirely another to say that they have to present an "absolutely unimpeachable face to the public" when absolutely nothing is at risk if they don't.

They're glorfied ribbon cutters. Why does anyone care what they do/whom they sleep with, etc. It's not like the future of the country hangs on it. We've come a damn long way from the days when the English monarchy actually ruled the country---and the better part of the Earth. In terms of wielding power, it's not really that big of deal to be King anymore, is it? Poor William (and Chuck) are being asked to devote all of their time and effort to make the country feel good about itself and are getting not a whole lot, in terms of job satisfaction, in return. No wonder they goof off as often as they do. Who in their right mind would want, to be a prince nowadays? Other than Blackadder, that is?

If you want better behavior out of the Royals, well, far be it from me to suggest it, but actually give them a job where they have to work and their reputation means something and they just might surprise you. Elizabeth's kids are no better than, well, children. Nothing great is expected of them, so why shouldn't they goof off as much as possible? There's no "with great power comes great responsibility" going on with the modern English monarchy. They cut ribbons. They open hospitals. They don't formulate policies. They don't wage war. They don't do a damn thing other than provide good PR for the monarchy they would like to keep intact.

Local Tee Vee Lurves The Blogosphere

Or at least they love the Powerline guys. The rest of us can go hang, apparently.

The local NBC affiliate, Kare 11, did a piece on blogging last night.

Nothing really new here, other than I think that the Powerline guys have hired a PR person.

They're everywhere.

Comments

As the traffic has gone up a bit lately and we've got a few new people commenting, I would like to revisit my comments policy. I laid it all out on the old blogspot home, but failed to bring it along with me when I moved. My bad.

Since the archives are goofed up on the old blog, and there are numerous entries about this, I'm going to cut and paste, ok? That work for everyone? Ok, good. Here we go.

First:

Anyway, let me just outline the Comments Policy quickly so you can get back to surfing pr0n.

1. Abusive comments will be deleted---just as soon as I figure out how to do that. What qualifies as abusive? Well, if you tell another commenter (or me) that they should go and do certain things with a donkey, your post will be deleted. It's really quite simple. See #2 for guidelines on how not to have your comments deleted.

2. My mother reads my blog and the woman has no shortage of opinions, so you might be hearing from her. Like mother, like daughter. However, since my mom is reading this thing, and knowing that she believes in the "it's takes a village" concept, know that she will smack you down if you get out of line. And I'll let her. She's my mother---she owns me. I have no choice in this regard. So, it would seem that the best rule of thumb for commenting here would be---ahem---if you wouldn't want your mother reading what you wrote, don't post it for my mom to read.

And second:

While we're on the subject of comments, it seems Blogger wants you to log in if you leave one. Which we all know is so conducive to cooperation. (I wouldn't log in to leave a comment---are you kidding? Way too much work.) But it does give you the handy-dandy option of posting anonymously! (Note to the Blogger People: WOW! Way to invite the trolls in, kids!) If you choose the option to post anonymously to save yourself the time and hassle of logging in, that's fine with me...AS LONG AS YOU LEAVE A HANDLE IN THE TEXT SECTION. That's all I ask. I'm not asking for an email address or a weblink. Just leave a name to go with the opinion. That's not a whole hell of a lot in the scheme of things, so please do it.

So, as you might be able to deduce, I first had Haloscan comments, then switched over to Blogger's variant. But now I have the primo commenting system: Movable Type's commenting system rocks. It's non-intrusive and while I realize our benevolent dictator has had some issues in recent days with DOS attacks on trackbacks and comments, it's still the best thing around. It's the most user-friendly system out there. While these posts don't cover everything, they should give you a clear understanding of what I do and do not like when it comes to what gets posted on my space. No to anonymity (unless I say it's ok on certain posts.) and respect for the sensibilities of others. That's not too much to ask, really.

Sooooo, I can understand about spoofing your email address to prevent spam because nasty bots do spider this site occasionally. No issues with that. Yet, I don't really see why anyone would have issues coming up with some sort of unique, recognizable handle to use when they post a comment. For the edification of someone who posted a comment this morning: a pronoun is not a handle. While I love the fact that people come here and want to discuss things and would never do anything to prevent that, I would simply ask that if you're going to comment, leave a handle by which I---and my readers---will be able to identify you. That's it. Again, I don't think that's too much to ask.

Any ?'s--email me and I'll try and explain it. I'm just trying to be fair. I don't want to delete comments, but I have a serious thing about anonymous comments. Accountability in words is a big thing for me. If you're afraid to post your name---or even a handle you've come up with that, you believe, serves the purpose of anonymity---the general rule of thumb is that you shouldn't be posting. While I like to respect privacy, your anonymity is not fair to my readers or to me, and in the future, now that the policy is laid out, I WILL start hitting the delete button. Even if they're worthwhile, respectful comments, they will go. I've been reading other people's blogs long enough to know this is where the road to Troll Town starts, and quite frankly, I just don't want to go there. I haven't had to delete anyone's comments so far, and I want it to stay that way.

I thank you all in advance for your consideration.

As Mom Always Says...

...40 is when life starts to get really fun.

Go on over and wish Margi a very happy birthday!

Hot Damn!

Courtesy o' Fraters Libertas: Senator Mark Dayton, the dillettante of the Senate, has had the good sense not to run for re-election next year

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., said today that he will not run for re-election in 2006.

Dayton made the announcement this afternoon in a telephone conference call with reporters.

"I do not believe that I am the best candidate to lead the DFL Party to victory next year,'' Dayton said.

The senator made a brief statement and took no questions.

He called it ''a tremendous honor to serve Minnesota in the past four years.’’ He said he wanted to keep the seat in Democratic hands and said he cannot do the necessary fundraising to run an effective campaign.{...}

Dayton didn't have enough coin to run for reelection. After blowing $12m of his own money getting elected, he is 'po. And because he never had to actually fundraise the first time around, he's got no clue as to how to do it this time. Of course Wellstone died, so he lost his moral compass. And then, to top it off, he bugged out of the Capitol building last fall because it was "too dangerous." The puss.

As far as a replacement? Mike Hatch, the AG, is probably so excited about this turn of events he's undoubtedly peeing his pants right now. I wouldn't put it past Mike Ciresi to run, either. Time will tell as to whom the DFL'ers pick to run, but, in my humble opinion, their stable is not only poorly kept, but scantily occupied as well. After all, they picked Mondale to take over Wellstone's campaign after he died, and look how well that went for them.

My wingman has yet to start weeping in his Boddington's. In fact, he seems to have received a nice offer already.

Hold thy head up high, Gary. You did your job so well you scared a candidate out of the race! You'll sort it out and we will anxiously await new content wherever you decide to hang your hat.

Of Suburban Sidewalks

The past couple of days, as you might have sussed due to a dearth of posts, I've had errands to run. Now, since we here in the Cake Eater household are automobile-less for the time being, this means, on occasion, riding the bus to get places we cannot walk to. On Monday, I had to hop the bus to the library. Yesterday, I had to go down to the area around Southdale. I have to tell ya, I've had it with the sidewalks, or rather the lack thereof, in either place.

I'm sure you know what I'm talking about if you've ever ridden the bus to the suburbs of your fair city: sidewalks made for drivers, not walkers. Any sidewalks that might be around are added strictly as an afterhtought so drivers do not have to risk life and limb walking through an unwieldy parking lot, rather than for walkers/mass transport riders who don't have cars. After being dropped off at the central hub that is the mall, these mass transport users/walkers find themselves walking across great swathes of parking lot to get where they need to go, because the fastest way from Point A to Point B is, indeed, a straight line. At other times, they find themselves having to walk through and then practically halfway around a mall because some landscape designer/urban planner/mall designer dude thought the parking lot would look better from the air if they designed the parking lot in a circle. They find themselves having to dodge traffic because there are no crosswalks and when there are crosswalks, well, the drivers are so surprised to see someone actually walking they forget how to brake. They find themselves, as in my case, hopping off the bus at the library and having to walk from the bus stop and all the way around this huge wrought iron fence and into the parking lot, where the cars enter, because no one thought that it would be necessary to include a break in the fence, let alone lay down seven feet of sidewalk, for someone who had----GASP---taken the bus to the library.

And I'm not even going to get into how the few sidewalks that are meant for pedestrians disappear when it snows because that's where the plows put the snow they clear from the roads.

I am sick and tired of hearing from the Met Council how fabulous the Twin Cities' public transportation system is. I am sick of having to pay increased taxes for the mucho fabulouso 11.5 mile long light rail line that doesn't serve anyone other than the Mall of Gomorrah, the airport and the east side of Minneapolis. I am sick and tired of listening to the bus drivers whine about their pay and benefits. I am sick of service cutbacks and schedule rearrangements. But mostly, I am sick and fucking tired of being told what a great alternative mass transit is compared to driving a car and then having to walk extra because of modern transportation logistics and sidewalks that are designed for drivers rather than walkers! If I have to go downtown or to uptown, I have no issues with riding the bus. Why? Not only is it quicker than driving, but also mainly because there are plenty of sidewalks to accomodate pedestrian traffic. In the suburbs, however, I have yet to see that they even think of pedestrians when they design sidewalks. This is why no one in their right mind wants to ride the bus out in the hinterlands. And this is what the Met Council fails to appreciate. This is what everyone fails to appreciate.

Honestly. Designers don't even think about the fact that people will take the bus places in the suburbs. It does not cross their minds. Case in point: the Edina Branch of the Hennepin County Library. This building is less than two-years old, its former location having been appropriated for the new City Hall/Cop Shop. They put in a bus stop right across the street from the library. Did they perhaps think that someone would take the bus to the library? No, hence no sidewalk through the massive wrought iron fence. This is bureaucratic blindness at its finest. Oh, we have to make sure people have acccess to the library, so we'll make sure the bus stops there, but most people drive and the biggest complaint we had at the old location was that there wasn't enough parking, so we'll must make sure to add more parking! And honestly, that's as far as their thought processes go.

While this is a pain and a half for me, what about other people who ride the bus? The elderly shouldn't have to walk for ages through a non-crosswalked street or climb a snowbank to get to the safety of the sidewalk. And then you have the handicapped. Because no one ever looked at the situation outside of a driver's perspective someone who takes the bus and who is in a wheelchair would have to dodge traffic to get to either end of this library parking lot where they could enter. They wouldn't even have the option of getting onto the sidewalk because cars park on the street, and that's only if there isn't a snowbank the size of Pike's Peak blocking the sidewalk. While there are special buses for the handicapped that do drop them at the door, the regular street buses are enabled for handicapped riders, too. How is someone who is handicapped to handle this? They'd better have a motorized wheelchair, because the library is at the top of a hill, too, and if they had to manually push their way to safety it would take some time. The City of Edina, in an inspired act of idiocy, has just make wheelchair riders more vulnerable to being hit by a car because they didn't think!

Pathetic

MSNBC's officially scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Yeah. That'll get your ratings out of the ninth level of hell.

Interesting Interview

Neal Stephenson in Reason.

I realize the guy just churned out three, thousand-page books, but as I have officially hit junkie status where his work is concerned, I have only one thing to say to the man: "WRITE, MAN! WRITE!" Don't waste your time email chatting with Reason. Put some characters on a page and tell me a story!

(By the way, I did finish Cryptonomicon. It rocks. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. Very funny, very geeky, and very interesting simultaneously. Besides, in one of the funniest passages in the book, Randy (his character) explains how to eat Cap'n Crunch without ripping apart the roof of your mouth. He does this in a very scientific way as well, so while I have yet to try it, it seems to me like it would work. How can you not adore a writer like that?)

Life's Hard Knocks

Boy, it must really suck to work for the Weekly Standard.

It Slices, It Dices!

There comes a time in every young girl's life when the pressure of her peers becomes too much to handle. Yet before this momentous failing of will power can occur, for a brief period of time, she manages holds out. She thinks, No, I won't cave. She has many reasons for not caving. First, she would like to think that it's not really all that important to fit in. She knows this. She's seen examples of other people not caving, sticking up for what they believe in, and she knows if she's really adamant and brave, she will survive the heckles of her peers. Second, and more importantly, she knows her mother will kill her if she caves. After all, Mom said not to do this. Mom said that when and if she ever felt the urge to do this, she was to come to Mom and Mom would help. Mom meant well. Mom was just trying to spare her agony and pain, after all. That's what moms do. But it was a little weird, what her mom was asking her to do, or at least that's how she felt anyway, so one day, nigh in that twelfth year of life, when the pressure became too much, when she'd taken one too many comments about how animal-like she looked....

...she caved and shaved her legs. Without her mother's help and advice.

And sliced herself to ribbons.

See, there is a reason to listen to Mom, after all. It saves you pints of blood over the long run.

It seems many, many people have been chiming in about shaving over the past week or so. Not surprisingly, though, they've all been men. Now, I have a husband. I know what a pain in the face shaving can be for him. However, the majority of his problems with this chore have gone the way of the Dodo ever since he bought a Mach 3 razor and started washing his face WITH SOAP AND CLEAN WATER once he was done shaving. (If you have problems with ingrown hairs, gents, this little tip will save you from breaking out. I read about it in a magazine. The husband doesn't slice himself up nearly as badly as he used to. Besides, think about it: you're dragging that razor through hair, shaving cream and you're simply rinsing it off with water, or, even worse, you're dipping it into a big puddle of bacteria-laden water and then transferring it onto your face. No wonder your pores get infected!) I also understand how ungodly expensive razors can be, as I'm generally the one who purchases them for the husband. I understand just about everything associated with men scraping their faces: what I don't understand is why they whine about it so freakin' much.

Waaaaaaaaah. Suck it up, dudes. You've got it easy.

Think I'm being sarcastic about this one? Think I don't have any empirical evidence to back up my case? Hmmm? Well, I do. Let's do the math.

Now, I'm not the tallest person known to man. I'm 5'6". While I will grudgingly admit I do not have a set of legs that would make Tina Turner shriek loudly in a fit of jealousy, I don't think they're half bad. They're just not as long as they could be because the Gene Fairy decided to bless me with a long torso instead. So, if I'm remembering my grade school math properly, The formula to figure the surface area of a parallelogram (which is the closest geometric shape when we're talking about legs) is A=1/2H(B1 + B2). We will do this in inches, because I'm American and homey don't play the metric system. Also, given this is the internet, I'm sure you'll all understand if I don't show you the math.

Anyway...

I do have two legs, so doubling that means I'm shaving---approximately---1,023 square inches every damn day of my life. Because I have dark hair. So I have to shave every day.

Are you men shaving 1,023 square inches every time you scrape your face with a razor? I didn't think so.

Add into this joy the fact that, while I'm in the shower, I cannot wear my glasses. Hence, I am shaving while blind. I must use my sense of touch by passing my left hand along my leg after the razor to ascertain where the razor has been successful and where it has not. This gets tricky when maneuvering my three-bladed Venus around the various bumpy joint surfaces of my knees and ankles. And, believe you me, there is no place you can run a razor across a face that will ever issue as much blood as when you slice through the skin covering your Achilles tendon. It, quite simply, gushes blood. There's a vein there. I've cut it often enough over my twenty-two years of shaving to know.

And of course, none of this counts for the other areas we women shave and men do not. Because that's a whole 'nother story entirely.

I'm sure my partners in crime would agree with me when I say to you, o' men o' the world, "Shhhhh."

Last Call

Well, not really.

LONDON - Pubs, clubs and other drinking venues in England and Wales can apply to stay open 24 hours a day under new laws that come into effect Monday.

Currently, many British drinkers imbibe as much as they can as quickly as they can before pubs shut at 11 p.m. Then heavy drinkers all stumble into the streets at the same time, often leading to fights and other drunken misbehavior. The government says the new laws will help curb the problem because people will drink in a more relaxed manner and leave at different times.

Although establishments can apply for the extended licenses starting Monday, the new hours won't come into effect in England and Wales until November. Scotland is conducting its own review of licensing laws.{...}

It's about time.

Drinking in England is an adventure. Arrive at the pub at nine, drink the better part of a bottle of wine in a two hours, walk home with half a glass of wine in your hand. Which is odd. You can't buy liquor in a bar after 11, but you can buy it before last call and then then walk home with it because there aren't any open-container laws. Never mind about the glassware: while I was visiting, my friend Mel simply told the barkeep she'd bring the glasses back and he said that was ok.

This is a good thing, because while I haven't checked this out, this means Tube hours of operation will probably expand to accomodate said drinkers. Taxi drivers might get a little less fussy about picking up drinkers if it means a late night fare. (Currently, if they even suspect you might have imbibed, they won't pick you up.) But most of all it means the day and age of slamming down drinks before closing time will have ended!

Yay for my liver!

When I visited London in 2000, Mel took me out to the pub for a night of drinking with her friends. They were really nice people and they wanted to make me, the visitor to their fair city, feel welcome. There were eight of us at the table. Every single person bought a round for the entire table in my honor. It was apparent, as the drinks just kept on coming, they would have thought it rude of me to refuse. When in Rome, I thought with a sigh and started pounding, ever aware that the damn bar would close soon.

I have yet to repeat that hangover because, five years later, it still stands out clearly in my mind as a cautionary tale that deserves attention.

Closing time in England, as it currently stands, is simply too early. While I'm not sure going to a twenty-four hour system was the best way to go, it will at least allieviate the idea that some hold about having to slam as much as they can before the pub closes. Taking away the rush factor might, indeed, help.

Lord, Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes-Benz?

My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends...

Janis may have been a hippy, but she had good taste in cars. She didn't take any guff over her choices, either.

One wonders what she would have thought about this move by Mercedes?

Slash and Burn

Isn't it amazing how taking .7% off domestic spending qualifies as "sweeping cuts" ?

Damnit.

I've been waiting four years for the Prez to get his act in gear on cutting spending and this is the best he could do?

Lame.

I told the husband when Bush was elected in 2000 that, as I saw it, because of how contentious the election was, the Prez wasn't going to be able to get much done as far as cutting spending. Tax cuts? Sure. They're always golden. Cutting spending, however? Nope. He just didn't have the oomph to get it through. But, I told the husband, just you wait. This guy, I'm sure, will turn into a budgetary slasher and burner if he gets reelected.

And this is what we've got. Cuts in education, medicare, defense programs, even missile defense looks like it's up on the chopping block. Some of these are good cuts to make. There is a lot of room for improvement, fiscally speaking, within the chosen areas, yet these are also cuts that are going to make conservative members of Congress very, very happy. Meaning the Prez is pandering to certain factions within the party. I hardly need to write this, but these cuts are also going to be highly contentious. Cuts in Education? Cuts in early literacy programs? The Democrats are going to have a freakin' media field day with all of this. This budget fight, to put it mildly, is going to be ugly.

He could have avoided this massive headache if he'd just vetoed one bill where a lot of pork was attached. One simple veto would have sent the message to Congress that they'd better watch what they were doing. The President fired no such warning shot.

But, and I have to admit, this would be the shortsighted view of things.

I'm going to make a large leap of the imagination and assume there's a method behind this madness. Call it Rovian if you want. If the Prez doesn't get what he wants on this one, well, doesn't that set him up to veto the next pork laden bill that hits his desk, without him facing too many party-related ramifications?

I dunno. Let your imagination wander from there. I have very little faith that this Prez will live up to my slash and burn picture of him, but there's still a possibility that it could happen. Slight though it may be.

Logic Smackdown

Smallholder has some fun with logic.

Lots of "therefore"'s and "furthermore"'s are engaged in battle to beat back stupid, absolutist statements made by someone who apparently thinks a. no conservative can support gay marriage b. animals, indeed, do have rights, and c. those rights are more worthy of notice and legislative action than any rights that might be granted to gay couples.

Go over and read.

Collaborators

Courtesy of Boing Boing, we have this story.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish spies may be in danger after a list of names from communist-era files was leaked onto the Internet earlier in the week, Prime Minister Marek Belka says.

The directory of 240,000 names includes informers, spies and people questioned by the secret police under communist rule. The archives are held by the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) but the names were copied by a journalist and published.{...}

While this seemed sensational, it has the potential for greater repercussions:

{...}Investigations into links between politicians and the former communist leadership is becoming a major election issue in this year's parliamentary and presidential polls

All Polish politicians have to reveal any links to communist special services and if they are found to have lied by a special tribunal, they face a ban from public office.{...}

Now, this list was never meant to be made public in its entirety. Special access to it was granted only to historians, journalists and the like, but no one was supposed to copy the list and publish it. Oops. It's caused quite the sensation in Poland. According to Boing Boing:

{...}"The list instantly cropped up on many web sites, p2p networks, became available via BitTorrent, while the the term 'lista Wildsteina' (Wildstein's list) became a super-popular query at all Polish search engines. At one (onet.pl, the second most popular after google), people searched for it around 300,000 times a day comparing to just only 9,000 searches for 'sex', the former top query."

While the Poles have made a tremendously succesful conversion to democracy and a market economy, whilst forging many new alliances in the meantime, they still have serious issues with their communist past and the injustice of the era. This could be very, very big. Given the prevailing attitude toward those who collaborated, well, let's just say that I don't think the words "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" will hold much sway with voters. A whiff of this scandal would be enough to kill many a candidates hopes---forever. Even if they were proven innocent of collaboration later on in the game.

If the gravity of this isn't getting to you, let's propose a hypothetical: how do you think the French would react to someone, say Blacques Jacques Chirac for example, having been revealed as a Nazi collaborator? Do you think that might hurt his chances of staying in power, given today's media coverage and the worldwide condemnation that would ring forth?

Fancy Schmancy

Ok, wee bastard is officially upgraded.

The husband spent the better part of today tweaking el laptopola and it's running smoothly. He also managed to add winamp and because we're networked, I now have access to our entire music collection, which resides on his machine. All music, all the time, and no loss from my wee bittie 11 Gig memory stash! Hot damn! He's good.

And, no, I will not insert any prophecies of doom and gloom here.

The only thing that's goofing me currently is Mozilla. It's just different. I will adapt, improvise and overcome. Eventually. I'm a Luddite when it comes to these things. I despise change.

Yet, I feel the need to mention I have yet to have a page not load because some random ad tried to sneak a cookie onto my machine and Spybot went all Medieval on it. So it's got that going for it. And that's saying quite a bit considering how many pages I couldn't get to load with IE.

Y'all might want to think about switching over if you haven't already.

Housekeeping

Sorry for the light posting the past couple of days. It's been extraordinarily gorgeous weatherwise. Highs in the low 50's, which is unheard of for the first week in February in Minnesota. The husband and I have been taking advantage of it and have been taking walks during prime blogging time, so, I'll say I'm sorry, but you all will know that I don't really mean it and you won't hold it against me.

Furthermore, the husband is going to be rebuilding Wee Bastard sometime soon. Like this weekend. Probably not today, but I would think tomorrow during the Super Bowl (which neither of us gives a rat's ass about and won't even watch for the commercials now that we can find them online the next day) would be a good time for this to happen. Nothing's wrong with el laptopola, per se, it's just that there's some work that could be done to increase performance and I've officially had it with Internet Explorer and the crap it lets through. Maintenence and upgrades will be done and Mozilla will be installed. It would take me ages to do this on my own, and he actually enjoys it so why not let him? Provided he doesn't goof things up too badly, I'll probably be back to full posting speed come Monday.

Finally, can someone---anyone---please tell me why Europeans (and some Canadians) keep entering "Jessica Cutler Gorilla Sex" into their local Google image search? Since the archives from the old blogspot home have yet to be transferred onto this site, my sitemeter is active on both blogs. I'm getting anywhere from ten to fifty direct hits a day on this, and have been for close to a month. And when I mean direct hits, I mean people type in the exact same phrase every single time. Has Jessica Cutler aka the Washingtonienne invaded Europe? Is there some email campaign going on? Did someone mention it on the web and I didn't see the link? WHAT'S THE FREAKIN' DEAL HERE? While I don't mind the traffic (yes, I'm bad that way. I know this.) as the person who came up with that image, I would simply like to know what the deal is.

I know some of you people find your way over here. Can you please explain this one to me? I hope you find it humorous and enjoy your time here, but honestly, I would like to know about the trail of breadcrumbs.

Making The Big Time

Fausta was quoted by the New York Sun today. Go over and read all about it.

Way to go, girl!

UPDATE: Bill at INDC Journal, also mentioned in the article, damns Fausta with faint praise:

"And someone beat my commenter to the Paris Hilton analogy!"

C'mon, Bill. Get with the program and give credit where credit is due. Her name's right up there in the article. You can't hardly miss it. While I consider them to be above average, INDC Journal's commenters aren't the only people in the world who can come up with witty ripostes.

You can find the Bad Hair Blog right here.

The Sensible French

While it might be a bit much to take this early in the morning, I really do mean that.

There's two sides to this story: the nonsensical and the sensible.

First for the nonsensical:

A schoolteacher in France has been fined 10,200 euros (£7,033) for illegally swapping hundreds of music albums on the internet. The 28-year-old man must pay the money to copyright companies, in a decision aimed at deterring others.

Officials said he was one of the worst offenders for sharing music online, making available up to 10,000 songs.

{...}He also had his computer confiscated and was ordered to take out newspaper advertisements announcing the verdict and punishment.

Poor guy.

Now for the sensible part.

{...}The court case came as 70 musicians, academics and politicians signed a petition calling for a halt to legal action against people who download music for their own use.

"Like at least eight million other French people, we have also downloaded music online and are thus part of a growing number of 'criminals'. We ask that these absurd lawsuits stop," the petition published in the Nouvel Observateur states. {...}

As Mike from TechDirt says,

{...}Either way, as more musicians seem to be recognizing that unauthorized distribution is actually good for them, the claims from the recording industry that they're doing this to protect musicians is looking increasingly weak.

Now if only Metallica, et.al. would jump on that bus.

Sheesh. As If.

Jonathan Last, head Galley Slave, extolls the virtues of Wonderfalls, some show that was on Fox and was axed before I even knew it was out there. Yeah, ok, whatever. I'm not a big fan of watching TV series on DVD, but I suppose there is an audience for something like that, given the way DVD's of 24 and Alias clutter the shelves at the local Blockbuster.

However, dear Jonathan goes a wee bit too far in his praise.

{...}The 13 episodes have an arc and a satisfying conclusion and it plays like the greatest maxi-series ever broadcast on television (apologies to the BBC's Pride and Prejudice).

Yeah, you'd better apologize to Pride and Prejudice, bub. In fact, here's Mr. Darcy now.

Jonathan, my friend, you might want to have a wee bit of a chat with the man, wherein you extend your most sincere and heartfelt apologies.

Quickly.

You might also want to take back that bit about Wonderfalls "...play{ing} like the greatest maxi-series ever broadcast on television."

Just ask Mr. Wickham about what happens to men who don't apologize to Mr. Darcy. You might find yourself being forced to marry the incessantly twitty Lydia in Wickham's stead. And I can't think that you'd enjoy that. Really. Just say you're sorry and all will be well.

Hmmmmm?

It's Bash Tara Reid Day!

Yesterday Sadie invited me to join her in throwing a few rotten tomatoes at Tara Reid.

After looking forward to this, I find my sails have been completely deflated. I have got absolutely nothing to add to her treatise.

It's not like I'm minding all that much, either.

Talking Back To Conversation Hearts

No, you call me, you lazy bastard. Don't you know how to pick up the phone? Are your metacarpals somehow incapacitated, hence you can't dial the damn thing, monkey boy? Are you missing opposable digits and the damn thing keeps falling out of your hands? What's your problem? Search under the stacks of empty, grease-stained pizza boxes and see if you can find the phone and then you call me. Not the other way around.

Because that's just the way God intended it.

Sincere apologies extended to Jeff G. for stealing his schtick and for doing it so poorly, too. Honestly, all I wanted was to see if I could scan a conversation heart. I don't know where the rest came from. I swear.

Knit One, Purl Two, Er, Something Three...Throw!

My sister has recently turned into one of those knitting gurus. Ever since she taught herself how to do this, she constantly has a ball of yarn in her lap and keeps her needles clicking and clacking. The wedding season in Omaha was a bit slow last year so she had to turn those crafty instincts of hers elsewhere. On the whole, it's been a good thing. I got a sweet cashmere blend scarf for my birthday.

She's always looking for new projects. I don't think this one will pass muster, though.

Yep. You saw that right. That's a grenade purse. Helpfully, The Guardian has given you the instructions on how to make your very own grenade purse in this article!

But why would someone want to make one in the first place? you ask.

{...}An exhibition at the Crafts Council Gallery in London next month will show that knitting - long belittled as the preserve of elderly ladies declining towards senility - has become a politically engaged, radical artform.

One artist constructs intricate, two-metre-high knitted panels based on prostitutes' calling cards. Another knits balaclavas and photographs people wearing them around New York. There is even a group of activists that stages knit-ins on the London Underground, occupying a carriage and knitting around the Circle line.

The exhibition comes as knitting enjoys a fashionable resurgence, with celebrities from Madonna to Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe extolling its virtues as a creative outlet and a stress reliever.

Katie Bevan, one of the exhibition's curators, believes that the roots of the trend are deeper. "There's a sort of zeitgeist: a make-do-and-mend spirit during this war on terror or whatever it is. Everyone just wants to go home and knit socks."

For many of the artists in the show, the act of knitting is itself political. Shane Waltener, who is making a site-specific, web-like piece embedded with a text from the French semiotician Roland Barthes, says knitting has been "long underrated because it is 'women's work'". Part of the point for him is "going public as a guy doing knitting ... I had to teach myself to knit and crochet, because 'boys don't'."

For many political knitters, the craft represents an act of rebellion. Waltener says: "On the one hand I am celebrating this tradition that I really believe in. On the other it is about self-sufficiency. By knitting you are resisting capitalism and consumerism. You are not responding to the fashion industry; you are making your own decisions."{...}

Yes. That's right. Knitting is a political statement. These folks want to be self-sufficient. They don't want the fashion industry telling them what to wear! They're rejecting capitalism. They're resisting consumerism. So, of course, their knitting project of choice would be a grenade handbag.

{Insert sound of head repeatedly slamming against desk ala Don Music here}

Methinks someone should hand these people one of the real things and have them knit a cozy for it. If we're lucky, the pin will fall out during the measuring stage and we will be spared more of this sanctimonious, self-righteous, and utterly meaningless crap in the future.

{hat tip: Adrianne}

Do You Get It?

{...}One of Iraq's leading democracy and human rights advocates is Safia Taleb al-Suhail. She says of her country, "We were occupied for 35 years by Saddam Hussein. That was the real occupation. Thank you to the American people who paid the cost, but most of all to the soldiers."

Eleven years ago, Safia's father was assassinated by Saddam's intelligence service. Three days ago in Baghdad, Safia was finally able to vote for the leaders of her country. And we are honored that she is with us tonight. {...}

{...}And we have said farewell to some very good men and women, who died for our freedom and whose memory this nation will honor forever. One name we honor is Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood of Pflugerville, Texas, who was killed during the assault on Fallujah. His mom, Janet, sent me a letter and told me how much Byron loved being a Marine and how proud he was to be on the front line against terror. She wrote, "When Byron was home the last time, I said that I wanted to protect him, like I had since he was born. He just hugged me and said, 'You've done your job, Mom. Now it is my turn to protect you.'"

Ladies and gentlemen, with grateful hearts, we honor freedom's defenders and our military families, represented here this evening by Sergeant Norwood's mom and dad, Janet and Bill Norwood. {...}

One woman gives her son so another now has the opportunity to have a say in the way her country is run. That's precisely what this has been all about. It's called freedom. One protects and defends so another has the opportunity to live a life heretofore unimagined. It's called liberty.

If you don't get it now, you never will.

That's The End of That

Well, the hockey season's over with.

I know it's not official, but nothing's going to get these bums to come to an agreement this season.

Bastards.

Paris, You Ignorant Slut!

One wishes Dan Akroyd would make a journey to the NBC Studios this Saturday night to deliver that line.

She'd probably think it was a compliment, though, so it's probably a waste of time.

Sigh.

And people wonder why I don't bother watching SNL anymore.

Elvis Agamemnon Is Not His Name

...but rather Quentin Walker (Llamabutcher)! Woohoo! Thank Goodness Steve-o had some sense pounded into him.

Go on over and say congratulations!

Bad Blogger, Good Haus Frau

So, I took yesterday off.

I had a few things to do around here, the least of which was spot cleaning the office carpet. For some strange reason, the spot right where the husband's feet rest whilst he surfs the computer was positively filthy. As in it was two shades darker than the usual beige. Gross. We rarely wear shoes in the house, so I don't know why it was so filthy, but I have my suspicions. I think it might have something to do with his pipe ash. That stuff is positively toxic.

Smoking a pipe is a high maintenance event: it takes a lot to keep one going, and then there's the added fun of cleaning out the bowl, when ash will scatter, no matter how careful you are. The husband is very careful: the man is anal-retentive, so I know he tries his darndest to keep things nice and neat. It's just that the pipe defeats him. I smoke and ocassionally a bit of ciggie ash will flitter down to the carpet, but the vacuum always takes care of it. Pipe ash, however, is a whole different story. If a biggish chunk of ash hits the carpet, well, it melts the stuff. And, no, I'm not kidding. I have a feeling, though, that the occasional flitter of ash adds up to one big stain on the carpet.

After many shots at it with the Resolve Carpet Cleaner, it's now back to normal, but it was yucky.

I also managed to clean the sofa upholstery without ruining it, so I've got that going for me. Hand me a can of Woolite Upholstery and Fabric cleaner and, apparently, I'm your girl. Laundry was also done, so that pretty much knocked out the entire day.

Anyway, as soon as I get caught up, something will inevitably set me en fuego and there will be new posts for your enjoyment. However, until then, GET THY ASSES TO THIS POST AND GIVE ME SOME RECOMMENDATIONS, PEOPLE! Don't let Goldstein walk away with the Literary God award. Make him work for it.

Brilliant!

My devoted Cake Eater Readers, I present to you...Spamalot

Ahem.

Austin, Minn. (Nov. 29, 2004) – In honor of SPAMALOT, a new musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” Hormel Foods is introducing a limited edition flavor, SPAM™ golden honey grail in a “SPAMALOT collector’s edition” can.

The SPAM™ golden honey grail will be available, in limited quantities as of February 2005 at select New York City retailers, including Broadway merchandise stores and the Shubert Theatre merchandise kiosks. The can features SPAMALOT graphics and characters from the new musical and instructions in “SPAMALOT-ese” on how to “cooketh” SPAM®.{...}

So, what I want to know is this: who lives in New York City and can score me a can?

{hat tip: Enlightened Cynic. Who thinks it's "bloody brilliant!"}