Cake Eater Chronicles

The Book of Lamentations

As told by one Tara Reid:

NEW YORK - Tara Reid wants to prove she's a great actress instead of a party girl. The actress says the media has unfairly represented her and that she just needs a good movie to break the stereotype.

"I think there must be a journalist school where students are taught how to kill Tara Reid," the 29-year-old actress says in a Steppin' Out magazine issue on newsstands Oct. 12.

"The one thing I want to say about American journalists is: why is partying and having a good time bad?" Reid says. "And how come when someone else gets messed up or is a junkie or gets DUI'd and goes to rehab and is considered a hero again?"

Reid says she doesn't plan to go that route because she'd be "admitting guilt for something I'm not guilty of." Instead, she has fired her publicist and hopes to find a good role because the 'wild girl' reputation is hurting her career.

"I need one more great movie role so they say, `Wow, she can act! She's a great actress.' Then I think they'll leave me alone."

She needs one more great movie role so they say "she's a great actress!" Sweetheart, you'd need to have at least one decent role TO BEGIN WITH before you can say you need one more. American Pie was a funny movie, but your role in it? Well, let's just say you weren't at band camp that summer, were ya? Nope. I loved the scene in AP where your character lost her virginity. A cabbage would have done a better acting job. The green leaves and folds just lend themselves to emoting, wouldn't you agree? Which is more than I can say for you: you looked mildly constipated. Until you actually go out and learn how to act---which I can only imagine will cut into your hangover recovery time---you will be unable to get those nasty paparazzi get off your back so you can snort coke/let your tit hang out/get drunk/screw boy toys with impunity.

A Brief Moment of Alias Related Bitching

I will put it after the jump so as not to spoil it for you Tivo viewers.

Ahem.

WHAT THE FUCK?

Do you people think you can fool us? Vaughn ain't dead. I am not believing it. Did you hear that, o' writers of Alias? I. AM. NOT. BELIEVING. IT.

You people have run us around the bend and back so many friggin' times that it's becoming apparent when you're pulling one over on us. Or at least you think you're pulling one over on us. No one dies on this show. Everyone's James Steinbeck---they can all fall out of planes at 50,000 feet without a parachute and somehow they will miraculously survive. Vaughn ain't dead. You wanna know how I know he's not dead? Sydney, weeper extraordinaire, wasn't crying.

And Daddy was there. He just popped up out of nowhere. Hmmmm. When Daddy shows up, stuff happens.

Vaughn ain't dead.

Presented With Minimal Commentary

Just damn.

Because Robbo Just Wouldn't Be Robbo

If he wasn't one serious fussbudget.

And Now For a Brief Message From the Cake Eater Sister

You all remember James, right? Well, his Mom---Christi---has a something she'd a like to say to you all.

Hi,

This is Christi (the Cake Eater sister), mom of James. We are finally getting our act together and thanking all of those out there in the blogosphere for helping us out this summer in trying to find a cure for Type I Diabetes. Many of you helped us not only reach, but surpass our goal of $4000. James' Jaywalkers in Omaha was able to raise $4400 this year! We have you to thank for that.

It is always amazing to us how generous our friends and family are when we send out our walk letter. But we are even more amazed when people we don't know are compelled to help us out, too. We so appreciate the sacrifice.

We had a fabulous time at the Diabetes Walk this year. We had wonderful weather (and that is rare in August in Nebraska). The kids had a ton of fun. And best of all, James had the feeling that he is not alone in this battle. He has so much support, from people he knows and people he doesn't know.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
Christi and James

She also passed along a photo of all those who walked that day, so you, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, could get the whole Walk to Cure Diabetes experience.

I will add my thanks to hers. You are a great group of people!

Ain't It The Truth?

Clicket on the image for a bigger, easier on the eyes size.

Cartoon by the brilliant Scott Kurtz of PvP Online.

Oh So Emotional

{Cue the kid from Poltergeist}

We're Baaaack. And by "we" I mean that the Demystifying Divas and the Marvy Men's Club are back from our hiatus two month tour of Europe, Scandinavia and the Subcontinent.* Did you miss us?

Let's keep the tears of gratitude and thankfulness to a minimum, ok? We know you missed us. There's no need to get all blubbery about our return, ok. Turn off the faucets already. We get the point... And there, my devoted Cake Eater readers, is my exceedingly clever segue into today's topic: just how emotional should a man be?

And the answer is... {insert drumroll here} it depends, and I believe it's a regional thing.

I'm sure if you were a woman and lived in, say, California, you would be much more used to guys who were in touch with their sensitive selves. Because everyone knows that California is where it's considered de rigeur for men to go out and hug redwoods and weep for all the times their fathers spent slurping martinis instead of playing catch on the front lawn with Junior. I'm sure the women out in Californiaaaay are used to this sort of thing and I daresay they appreciate the honesty. After all, it's what they're accustomed to. They, most likely, grew up in California. They were probably there at the beginning of the "me" movement so, undoubtedly, redwood hugging is nothing new in their book. They probably wonder why all men don't come out and commune with the redwoods to get in better touch with their feelings. I would assume they probably budget for therapy and the resulting anti-depressant prescriptions the way I budget for the electric bill.

I, however, live in the Midwest. I was born and raised here. This is where we repress our emotions until we melt into vast puddles of stressed-out goo. Because that's what our ancestors did and if it was good enough for them, well, damnit, it's good enough for us! They came out here and tamed this land and there was nary a blubberer amongst those brave pioneers. Yet, I will admit, Midwestern Man (tm) has evolved and has come into the twenty-first century. He is no longer the emotional troglodyte his ancestors were. He has become familiar with the ways of the kleenex, but for the love of GOD, he will never actually let anyone know about this familiarity, ya dig? That's just the way he is.

So, I will admit, I want a man who knows himself, who is in tune with what's going on in his head and his heart, but I do not want someone who is going to blubber about the state of fifth chakra every other day. I've got better things to deal with, thank you very much. Like the cuticle on my left thumb that needs trimming before it erupts into a hangnail.

Now run along and see what the other delightful demystifing divas have to say on the matter. Then, if you're hankering for a dose of testosterone, you can flip the coin and see what The Wiz, Stiggy, Phin and The Foreign Minister have to say on the topic. Jamesy has also joined up with the Men's Club this week, go and read what he has to say, as well.

*Bonus points to whomever gets the quote.

Netherwhat?

As in the Netherlands will shortly cease to exist if this sort of thing is a governmental priority over, you know, beating down homegrown Islamofascists.

On Grammar

At the back of every issue of Forbes is a collection of quotes on a certain topic. This week's topic is grammar. I thought I'd share a few because they're amusing.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

---F. Scott Fitzgerald

Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.

---E.B. White

You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country.

---Robert Frost

Bad spellers of the world, untie!

---Graffito

Save the gerund and screw the whale.

---Tom Stoppard

Waiting for the German verb is surely the ultimate thrill.

---Flann O'Brien

The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.

---Clifton Fadiman

I am the King of Rome, and above grammar.

---Emperor Sigismund

To be loose with grammar is to be loose with the worst woman in the world.

---Otis C. Edwards

I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.

---Carl Sandburg

I Do This Because I Love...

Sorry, kid, but we need to have a wee bit of a chat about this post.

You know, I just don't understand what all of the fuss is about regarding the mentioning of so-called Intelligent Design theories when discussions about Evolution arise in our nation's schools.

Yeah, yeah. I know that Evolution is the one with all the cool fossils to see and that there is no proof when it comes to Intelligent Design. I also know that some scientists feel that without proof and without any means of testing a theory, a theory is considered bunk. However, not so long ago, the best minds in the world were convinced that the earth was flat, so I'm thinking we should be a little more inclusive in our discussions.{...}

Phoenix then goes on to claim that her teachers tried more to "indoctrinate" rather than "educate," and says her father set her straight on more than one occasion when an educator gave out faulty/less than complete information. Due to this, she has learned critical thinking, which is good. I'm not knocking that. Critical thinking is always good. But then there's this whopper of a statement at the end of her post that, quite literally, made my jaw drop:

{...}So, I say, let our children decide for themselves. Perhaps Intelligent Design can't be proven or disproven now. Perhaps Evolution is the real deal. But what does it hurt to expose our children to the entire debate? Can we not trust them to come to their own conclusions? If I had to sit through 4 weeks in a world history class listening to extended discourse on Islam in the 8th grade, including the 5 tenets of Islam, why can't today's students hear about the beliefs of some Christians as it relates to this issue? Learning about Islam didn't turn me into a Muslim. Being exposed to the idea of Intelligent Design isn't going to throw your child to the lions.

What's the big deal? Can't we trust our kids to decide for themselves?{...}

Sweetheart. You really want to know what the big deal is? Ok, well,Was the 2nd Amendment the only thing you learned about when it came to the Constitution? Because, if it was, you should know we have this little thing called the Establishment Clause which, along with all the other subsequent case law that follows it, declares that no religion shall be taught in public schools. It's pretty simple stuff. This is why Intelligent Design shouldn't be taught in public schools---because, in a very small way, it's teaching religion.

To miss this point is to miss the big fat pink elephant that's plopped its fat ass down in your living room. That's what the "big deal" is. And there is a bit of a difference between teaching the Five Pillars of Islam in a historical context to being taught that, because some people don't believe in Darwinism and take offense at the notion they were descended from apes, there should be an entire section added to the science curriculum---a section that has nothing to do with science, but has everything to do with religion. Yet these people claim the teaching of ID is all about offering students "a choice." That's all well and good but one choice is based in science; the other is based in religion. And neither one can be proved.

Look, I don't see CAIR asking for an entire section on Islam to be taught in all World History classes, do you? The analogy Phoenix raises is faulty. When the tenets of Islam are being taught in a World History class it is because, to be sure, a good deal of the world's history was shaped by that religion, hence it's fair to make sure students know precisely why the Ottoman Empire was out there, raping and pillaging for Allah. It's the same when Christianity is taught in relation to the Crusades or the Holy Roman Empire, or how Hinduism is relevant to the rise of the British Empire in India. It's knowledge that is essential to the discussion. It's rote knowledge; it's knowledge that's matter of fact, taken for granted. I fail to see, however, where intelligent design is essential to the discussion of evolution---particularly when that discussion is taking place in a public school. It is an explanation of evolution that is, for the most part, based in religion, and as we've established, religion does not belong in public schools.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if anyone wants their kid to learn about creationism, they should send their kid to a parochial school. It's pretty simple stuff. Your kids will be taught the religion of your choice, without any messy and inconvenient facts to get in the way of things.

Obligatory Moment of Woe

No new House episodes until November!

Damn you, Major League Baseball! Damn you to hell and back!

Yeah, I know I'll get wrapped up in the playoffs like everyone else, but damn. I just got House back and now...just like that...poof. He's gone.

Which leads us to the obvious conclusion: House is Keyser Soze.

Just try and tell me otherwise.

A-Frickin'-Men!

Just go and read already.

{h/t: Doug}

Teh Funny

{Insert snort of glee here}

Silly Germans!

Don't scare the Italians by staging an impromptu pr0n shoot in their midst.

It's just not nice. They were your allies once upon a time; you people should have some respect for that.

A Little Help For a Friend

A request from Chrissy:

My mom and my best friend's (Susan's) mom are in DeRidder, Louisiana, a small town just above Lake Charles.

I have confirmed with the local electric company they will be out of power for two to three weeks.

Cameron and Lake Charles have been laid to waste.

I'm told by people there that DeRidder looks like a war zone.

My mom is freaking out a bit. While she has weathered many storms, none have come this close or caused this much damage. Then, there's that thing about being alone without my father (he died in December) standing over her to tell her what to do.

Susan's sister also lives in DeRidder and her house took a tree through the roof. Her mom took a tree to a shed.

Susan and I have been networking trying to figure out the next step. We need to get both of our moms out of the area until the power comes back on. There's still major power outages and gas shortages from Houston to Lafayette with roads also being closed through Houston, Beaumont, and Lake Charles.

If Susan's uncle from Tyler, a police officer, is not able to get enough gas to them in the next day or so, I will put together a truck with enough extra gas cans to take to the back roads to head that way. Both my mom's vehicles have gas we can syphon once I get there.

If anyone is between Houston and Lake Charles, please speak up and let me know what the gas situation is where you are.

If you have any information, go throw said information into the comments over at Fistful of Fortnights.

Required Reading

The Financial Times profiles Paul Wolfowitz, the new President of the World Bank.

A sampling:

{...}An important part of this agenda is a focus on what the bank can do to help empower women in developing countries. Education and healthcare will remain priorities for the bank, but Wolfowitz is likely to focus its efforts on girls and women. “The role of women is something that has hit me very hard pretty much since my time in Indonesia, where you have a reasonably liberated female population in a predominantly Muslim country. And you can see that the country as a whole is the better off for it... It seems to me that it is an almost arithmetic equation that if half of the population is held back, then your development is going to be held back.”

Bank insiders say his thinking on this issue may have been influenced by Shaha Riza, a bank employee, Middle East expert and specialist on gender issues, with whom the divorced Wolfowitz has had a relationship for the past couple of years. “I have sympathy for someone who says that the Swedish model or the American model of relatively far-advanced feminism is not necessarily something that even women of other countries want,” he says. “But there is a point at which it is more than just a cultural thing and that is a fundamental violation of human rights and a fundamental denial of equality of opportunity, and when you do deny equal opportunity you are trying to run a race with one leg tied, sort of. And often your best leg.”

In Pakistan, last month, Wolfowitz heard a better analogy: at a meeting in the Punjabi village of Dhok Tabarak, a woman told him that development is like a cart: it has two wheels, and if one of the wheels is not turning you will not get very far. Wolfowitz was so taken with the metaphor that during the rest of his visit to Pakistan he quoted the woman on 20 or more occasions. After the first few times, he added a horse to the story, to represent economic growth. “If the cart does not have something strong to pull it - the horse is growth - then it does not matter how fast the wheels can turn.”

Of the three full days Wolfowitz spent in India, one day was spent talking to assorted groups of rural women about bank-sponsored development programmes. Women were also notably present at all his meetings in Pakistan and India and when I asked him if this was a deliberate policy that he intended to continue, he said that it was. “We can empower people simply by meeting with them; I think there’s a tendency to think that if the World Bank president meets with people then they must be important.”

Wolfowitz told me one day that someone had just described him as a feminist. He laughed, and said: “It is the first time in my life I’ve been called that, I certainly don’t think of myself in that way. Look, we are not talking about a particular cultural way of male-female roles, but you can tell when women are denied equal rights or equal opportunities and that is not only unfair to them, it is unhelpful to the whole society.”

Such sentiments from the former Pentagon hawk might sound odd to some in Washington, but they went down well in Hyderabad, where Wolfowitz one day spoke to a hall packed with 300 women from self-help groups across the state of Andhra Pradesh. The groups help women lobby together for health and education, and gain access to micro credit loans. “Who wants to tell me how the self-help group has changed their life?” Wolfowitz asked. All hands in the audience went up. Twenty women started to talk at once, each struggling to speak longest.

There was a lot of laughter and not much translation, but the cheerful mood was killed when the state’s chief minister rose to give a 20-minute speech about his administration’s achievements. The women listened in silence, but perked up when Wolfowitz began to speak again, clapping every time he paused for the translator. The loudest applause came at the end as he told them: “The thing that has impressed me is not just the money you earn but the way it helps you to make your children’s lives better. When I see how well the women are doing here, I think you have to teach the men to walk faster.”

Later, the chief minister asked Praful Patel, the bank’s vice-president for south Asia, why Wolfowitz had received so much more applause than him. Patel said he thought the chief minister had talked at the women, while Wolfowitz had talked to them and asked questions, and that had made a difference.{...}

Go read the whole thing.

Who Woulda Thunk It?

A politician who kept an election promise!

Oh, Brother!

I do believe I mentioned that one of the Cake Eater brothers, Stephen, was in town the other night. Steve is the car dealer and when he got stuck here he was returning from getting his first look at his dealership in New Orleans. He was one of the business owners who was allowed to come back into town earlier in the week, to see what the situation was. Well, it wasn't pretty, to say the least. The dealership is, to put it bluntly, wrecked. If it wasn't nailed down, it was either picked up and thrown around due to the storm or someone tried to steal it. Any computers or electronics that didn't get flooded were looted. Cars were stolen, and in one memorable instance an air compressor was ripped off the little red wagon it had called home. If it was nailed down, well, then it was flooded with that murky concoction---and it was five feet deep. I saw the photos he took for insurance purposes and, well, yuck covers it quite well. Not only was all the office furniture, paneling, drywall, wallpaper---and fax machines, copiers, etc. covered in that muck, think about what a service bay at your car dealership looks like and then think of those big canisters of motor oil and anti-freeze and the like---and then imagine them turned over and leaking goo everywhere. I could go on, but I think you get the gist. It's just a mess and a half.

Steve was very tired when he got here, and he was a wee bit dazed, but he had a lot to say about what it was like in New Orleans, how surreal it all was, etc. Yet he neglected to mention that he'd hooked up with a reporter from the Billings Gazette who did a story on the death and dismemberment of the dealership due to Katrina. He never mentioned it, but that stands to reason: he's got bigger fish to fry right now.

I'm just glad I didn't know his GM was packing during their trip. Sheesh.

Silly Germans!

Sheesh. After taking the summer off, and being all serious for their election, it seems like they're getting stupid again.

Thank effin' God. I was beginning to wonder what the hell was happening over there.

Anyhooo....today we have the story of a flasher in Berlin. He apparently didn't get the reaction he was hoping for.

In Praise of Autumn Fridays

It is absolutely gorgeous in the Twin Cities today. It's currently sixty-two degrees, and the breeze that is blowing is, for the first time since spring, a wee bit on the crisp side. The sun is shining and the sky is that gorgeous shade of deep blue you only see when the smog clears out. The trees are beginning to turn every so slowly and little hints of red and yellow stand out amidst all the green. The squirrels that (over)populate my yard are scampering around said yard, gorging themselves on acorns from the six oak trees we have, in between battles with each other. Earlier this morning, on the branches of the tree right next to my office window, I was privileged to watch yet another squirrel reenactment of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as they chased each other, jumping from branch to branch. What this death match was about one can only guess, but I believe it has something to do with a female, following the rules laid down long ago by Mother Nature. The only difference between the squirrels and Chow Yun-Fat and Ziyi Zhang was that humans were much quieter. Squirrles are very noisy when they fight, filling the air with the quick crunching of claws meeting bark, as they scamper up the tree at lightning speed and then across the branches to meet their destiny.

I returned from Lake Harriet earlier and I was reminded of all the joys of a fall Friday when I walked past the local high school's football field. Apparently there is a game there tonight. I don't know who they're playing or what the team's chances for a victory are, but it's the first home game and I couldn't help but be a little excited for the people that were there: it's the first time they get to partake in the tradition. The cheerleaders were dressed in their school colors---purple and white---and were decorating all the entrances to the field with balloons and streamers. The marching band was on the field and it seems, after listening to them march around the neighborhood for the past two months, that they've finally got their stuff together. They were playing I Believe I Can Fly but they'd not only upped the tempo, they'd funked it up a bit as well. The tuba section was having fun on the field, and the drum line finally sounded as if they were one humongous drum, instead of fifteen poorly arranged snares and bass drums. It was a nice thing to watch. It reminded me of all the promise that beautiful autumn Fridays possessed in high school.

The day would start off slowly, but it would hold promise. A blue sky, a hint of warmth would soon be found when the sun worked its way toward its zenith. The grass was still green, but it had been cool enough to kill off some of the more annoying varieties of insects that buzzed about, bothering you. You'd drag yourself through whatever class you were dreading that day. Was it a test in Chemistry? Or was a paper due in Sociology? Or was Sr. Rosaria on the war path once again because you flubbed the translation of the one sentence of Caesar's Gallic Wars she'd given you. It didn't matter. There was the hope of the evening hours to get you through the rest of the school day, which always seemed like such a waste. Surely being stuck in school on such a gorgeous day was an affront to God. But since that creative excuse wasn't going to fly with the principal, Itsy Bitsy Betsy, also known as Miss Kish---the world's shortest school prinicpal, EVER---you instead focused on other things. You chatted with your friends about your plans for the evening. There was, as always, a football game to go to. You had to go to the game if it was a home game. There was simply no choice about it. After the game there was a dance at a rotating selection of schools. You worked on sorting out the day's truly important business: whose parents were going to drive you where so you wouldn't miss anything. And it was important you shouldn't miss anything...because Friday nights were when you got to go and ogle the boys.

As I've mentioned before, I went to a Catholic all-girls high school. Obviously, we didn't have a football team; but we had the boys' school down the road---and they had a football team. This school is conveniently called Prep, which is short for Creighton Prepatory School. At that point in time, Prep didn't have its own football field, so their games were held at UNO's field. For a few Friday nights every fall, we'd work our way over to UNO to watch Prep pummel whichever opponent they were up against that week. We'd find seats in the large stadium and then we'd sit there and watch the boys, while pretending we were really watching the game. When you're a freshman, you actually believe that some cutie is going to come on over and talk to you and you wait with bated breath for it to happen. By the time you're a sophomore, however, you've been disabused of that notion. Junior year is when it finally happens and it doesn't seem as interesting as you'd thought it would be. By senior year, well, you're a bit beyond it, or so you'd like to think.

Then, when the football team was done with their pummelling, you'd go and find the car of whomever the lucky parent was who'd pulled the mid-shift chauffeuring stint, and you'd be off to some high school gym to gyrate madly for hours on end. Omaha's a pretty Catholic town: there are---counting on fingers---seven high schools (that I can think of---there are more now) and each of them would rotate hosting a dance or two. So, you'd go and you'd pay five bucks to get into some high school gym where either a garage-band-done-good or a DJ awaited you. My generation apparently didn't have any problems with dancing. This was not a situation where the boys lined the walls and the girls were the ones on the floor. Nosireebob. Everyone got out there and danced and the only time you saw anyone on the sidelines was when they were winded and needed to take a break. You might have snuck outside to get some air with your friends and some boys may have followed, hoping to chat you up. Or you might have met someone while you were waiting for a coke in the cafeteria. You may have even gotten friendly enough with one of them to find a place for a quick make-out session, or you might have been wholly annoyed with one of them because they wouldn't leave you the hell alone. You might have found a new crush, or you might have been crushed by the one you fancied. It was an adolescent soap opera and I have to think it was just as amusing as hell for the chaperones to watch. But, no matter, because as always, time is fleeting. These things were always over with by midnight, so you'd round up your friends, you'd walk into the now quite chilly, pitch black parking lot to find the unlucky parent who'd pulled the chauffeuring late shift and you'd work your way home.

Sometimes you'd be highly satisfied with the evening. Everything would have gone right and you would have actually worked up the courage to talk to the boy you liked---or they'd finally gotten the clue that you liked them. But those were far and few between. The night would, most likely, be unsatisfying. Someone would start a rumor about you and when you finally heard it, it would make your face flush with embarrassment and shame. Some boy might break your heart by ignoring you. You might get into a fight with one of your friends. It didn't really matter what happened, but the posters for the dance should have had the warning "potential adolescent hell" pasted all over them. Yet, surprisingly enough, the potential for it to be an awful night didn't really hit you until it was all over with. Somehow, you always hoped for the best when you started off the evening.

I have to wonder what Friday nights are like for today's teenagers. Are they similar to the ones I endured, even though fifteen years has passed? Or is the entire process different? What do they do after football games nowadays? Do they go to parties? Do high schools even host dances anymore? Or have they canned that activity because it's just a lawsuit waiting to happen? It's all very curious. I'm sure, however, the overall emotional experience is the same. They're probably looking forward to the evening, and they have their hopes and expectations as I did. Some of them will wind up on the positive side of the evening, and some will wind up on the negative, because that's just the way the world works. Ah, anyway...I wonder.

But they'll at least have a football game. Thankfully that much hasn't changed.

Making The Most of Living in a College Town

Fausta does it once again by attending a lecture given by Elie Weisel and reporting on it.

If The DaVinci Code Is To Be Believed

and Leonardo DaVinci had some insiders knowledge as to what Mary Magdalene actually looked like, then I think we can safely declare Jesus Christ to have been a breast man.

Hey Mom

Steve's here.

In the Twin Cities. At the Cake Eater Pad. They cancelled his flight to Billings last night, all the hotels were sold out and he crashed over here.

I'll be expecting the phone to ring shortly.

You see, I really can make a post out of just about anything. All I need is the inspriation to do so.

UPDATE: And now he's gone!

My Dear Watson

I'm the culprit. Or at least my author is...or might be since we're so very concerned about slandering dead authors.

{HT: Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve-o}

Can You Feel It?

Well, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, I know you've been waiting for this very exciting news, so I shall finally disclose it.

Ahem.

The Divas Are Back

Yes, that's right, kids. The delightful demystifying divas, fresh from our two month hiatus tour of Europe, Scandinavia and the Subcontinent, will be returning to answer all the very important questions regarding men and women on Thursday, September 29th.

Since Madame Chrissy has departed the blogging world, we were forced to find someone to fill Chrissy's shoes. Phoenix of Villains Vanquished has graciously agreed to slip her feet into Chrissy's Manolos and will be joining Sadie, Silk and myself every Thursday. As usual The Marvy Men's Club, comprised of The Wiz, Stigmata, Phin and The Naked Villains will be providing the male point of view.

Mark your calendars.

I Feel Dirty

...by linking to a Washington Times article, but because it's written by Susette Kelo and is sane, I don't feel that dirty.

{...}As I sat there in the U.S. Supreme Court back in February and listened to the justices hear my case, I was so disappointed their very first question and first concern was for the power of government rather than the rights of citizens.

In many ways, my neighbors and I are the victims of legislators, lawyers and judges who believe it is somehow a sign of intelligence to make language that clearly means one thing mean something exactly the opposite: "Public use" now means private use; judges don't judge but instead let legislators decide whether they're violating the Constitution. There is nothing intelligent about misusing language in this way to take away people's homes and their rights.

What is happening to me should not happen to anyone else. Congress and state legislatures need to send a message to local governments that this kind of abuse of power not only won't be funded, it won't be tolerated.

Special interests -- developers and governments that benefit from this use of power --are working to convince the public there is no problem, but I am living proof there is. {...}

Go read the whole thing.

{Hat tip: Fausta}

So You Think the World is Anti-American Now?

Just you wait until the Maximum Leader gets done.

Good Tee Vee Alert and Gratuitious Name Dropping

The season premiere of Nip/Tuck is on F/X tonight.

I love this show. It's so twisted and---what's the word I'm looking for here?---perverted. It's like watching a car wreck where the reason for the wreck is that people are getting it on in the car and aren't paying attention to their driving. It's just fun. If you haven't seen it, or have avoided it, you don't know what you're missing.

I also watch it because Kelly Carlson, who plays Kimber, was one of my regulars at the Bou, way back in the day, and I like to support her efforts because she's a good person. And I really mean that: she's a good person in real life. Not only did she give me a birthday card one year (would you do that for your barista?) and brought pictures in to share with me from when she snuck a camera into the Grammys (she knew one of the Barenakedladies and was his date that year), she got down on her hands and knees to help me once. One of the facets on my wedding ring came loose because I'd banged it on something and, as a result, one of the diamonds fell out. She was there at the time I noticed it and came around the corner, gave me a hug and told me to stop crying, and then she helped me look for it. She's a good person. She deserves success not just because she's willing to play Kimber.

And, of course, because I know some of you are a curious lot, yes, she is gorgeous in real life. Every single teenage boy I had working at the store was head over heels in love with her and, quite literally, fought with each other to wait on her. Kelly was embarrassed. I thought it was funny and teased her about it. She's come a long way from working at the MAC counter at the Southdale Daytons. Here's hoping she goes even further.

Who Knew?

That Esther was such a bitch?

Running the Catholic Church as a Business?

I often joked that when it comes to tithing, the Catholic Church is no different than the mafia: they want their percentage off the top and they want it now. And that's about the extent of my joking capabilities when it comes to the finances of the Catholic Church. Because you have to have knowledge to make a joke about something. An uninformed joke isn't funny. A Catholic might know about what's being done in their parish, but when the money starts going up the ladder, well, you just don't have a clue as to where it goes or how it's spent. Nor is it supposed to be any of your business.

So it was with great curiosity that I read this article in Forbes, (Registration required) because not only does it get down to the nitty gritty of the money matters, it also highlights how this is yet another extension of the heterodoxy v. orthodoxy battle that is taking place within the Church currently.

{...}What would a turnaround artist do with an $8.6 billion (sales) organization with 133,000 employees, falling market share and a mountain of multimillion-dollar lawsuits?

You can't break it up into pieces or sell off the whole shebang. This, after all, is the American Roman Catholic Church. But Geoffrey T. Boisi, a veteran Wall Streeter and devout Catholic, has an answer: Rationalize the assets and look for a better return, just as you would in any business. First, says Boisi, 58, "we're recommending a rigorous analysis of how all parishes and dioceses in this country are being managed. The laity is now offering up its expertise to help the Church through a very difficult time." But ultimately, he concedes, "we have to face the realities that some parishes will have to go. Some schools will need to be shut down. There is no other way."

A pitched battle is shaping up between reformers and traditionalists within the U.S. Catholic Church. On the one side are businesspeople like Boisi and former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent. They have few if any disagreements with the Pope on matters of dogma. But they are openly defiant of the Church authorities on matters of money. The rebels argue that better financial management by an informed laity is the only way to reinvigorate the fallen-away faithful. "How could anyone in Rome argue it wouldn't be better if the Church were run more efficiently?" asks Vincent.

On the other side of the aisle are powerful organizations like Opus Dei, which has a direct line to the Vatican, and large donors like Domino's Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan. They see any change as a direct threat to the long-established order of things. "You don't need modern management techniques," says William Donohue, president of the Catholic League. "You need a return to orthodoxy." This is a struggle over authority and money--and the outcome will change forever the lives of the 65 million Catholics in the U.S.

No one denies the American Church is in trouble. Over the past four decades regular attendance at Mass has collapsed from 75% of those who professed to be Catholic to 40% today. Nearly one in five churches doesn't have a resident priest. In those that do, parishioners are increasingly likely to hear Mass said in thickly accented English by a prelate from Nigeria or the Philippines. Many parishioners are still furious about the sex-abuse scandals--as well as the coverups and sizable payouts that followed--comparing their impact to the shock of Sept. 11. "Once that blew up, Catholics realized just how little say they had in their churches, and they were incensed about it," says Robert Beloin, the Catholic chaplain of Yale University.{...}

Forget about the laity having any say about Church teachings, certain orthodox Catholics wouldn't want the laity to help with the money problems, even when it's apparent that the Church could use some financial guidance because they've got income troubles, big time.

They have expressed their rage with their pocketbooks. On a household basis, Catholics, who are now just as well-educated and upwardly mobile as Protestants, donate less than half as much to their parishes: $550 a year, compared with $1,300 for the typical Protestant. Since the pedophilia cases broke in 2002, annual giving at the parish level has inched up an average 4.6% a year to an estimated $6 billion. But bishops have been hit much harder. In Boston, giving to the archdiocese dropped 43% from $14 million in 2002 to $8 million in 2003. The Spokane, Wash. archdiocese, saddled with a reported $77 million in sex-abuse settlement claims, saw donations to its annual appeal plunge from $1.9 million in 2002 to $45,000 a year later. In the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y., the bishop's take fell 28% to $7.3 million after a 2003 grand jury report found the diocese protected abusive priests by shuffling them from parish to parish. {...}

So, one would think that the fact a bunch of Catholic big wigs who know how to run businesses want to help the Church with this problem would be a Godsend, right? Nope.

{...}He has drawn an impressive following. Among his acolytes: William P. Frank, senior partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Frederick Gluck, former managing director of McKinsey & Co.; Thomas J. Healey, onetime partner at Goldman Sachs and Assistant Treasury Secretary in the Reagan Administration; Jonathan O'Herron, partner at Lazard Frères; Gerard Roche, chairman of Heidrick & Struggles International; and Richard Syron, chief executive of Freddie Mac.

What do these guys want? A reorganization of how the American Church is run, from requiring annual reports and five-year strategic plans in each parish to SWAT teams of lay accountants, lawyers, psychologists and consultants to deal with crises and other management problems. Among the goals:

• Establish better recruitment and training of the nation's 31,000 lay ministers--80% of whom are women--as well as annual performance reviews.
• Encourage more lay involvement in parish finance committees, whose decisions would carry weight with priests and bishops.
• Streamline dioceses, which control parishes, even if it means closing redundant churches, seminaries and schools.
• Cut costs by, for example, buying Bibles, paper towels, candles and clerical garments in bulk.
• Introduce "best-practices" programs, like those of the Chicago archdiocese, to achieve accountability in the other dioceses.

There's really nothing revolutionary there. All these guys are saying is that there is benefit to running the Church like a business. You have a lot of money coming in, and even more of that money in some dioceses is going out---the books are unbalanced and here are some ways you could straighten this problem out. But just the fact these guys are speaking up, well, that's troublesome for some of the more orthodox members of the Church. These men have been labeled as "liberals and dissenters." They're actually anything but, but you'd never know that to listen to the orthodox members whine:

{...}For an organization as hierarchical as the Church, run by a man who is (according to doctrine since 1870) infallible, the talk about "customers" borders on heresy. "The Church is not a business, and Catholics in the pews shouldn't be considered customers," insists Denis Coleman, onetime chairman of Covenant House and a former director at Bear Stearns. He says he's not against transparency. But, "if you follow Boisi's logic, then Catholics ultimately can choose who becomes a cardinal--or even the Pope." Other powerful conservative Catholics are lining up on Coleman's side. Among them is Father C. John McCloskey, a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch who is a leading cleric in Opus Dei, and Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb. The call for reform, they fear, is really a Trojan horse to subvert the authority of the Church. "If Boisi and his group are anything like Voice of the Faithful,"says a prominent member of Opus Dei, referring to a group calling for more financial disclosure and lay involvement in running the Church, "that would be a sign of their intent for a putsch, a takeover." Voice of the Faithful, whose motto is "Keep the faith, change the Church," denies that characterization.{...}

Now, I put that quote in bold print for a reason. The "prominent member of Opus Dei" used the word "If". As in "If Boisi and his group are anything like..." then this "prominent member" goes on to compare this group to another "liberal" group, well of course they're intent on a "putsch." (Which is a nice word choice, eh? I think we've all heard that one before and it's generally a term associated with Adolf Hitler.) But that "If" is very curious, isn't it? If these guys are anything like this group, well, of course they're intent on taking over. Like, duh. Yet the use of the word "if" signals that this prominent member doesn't know that they're like the Voice of the Faithful. The "prominent member" is just assuming they are because they're not toeing the orthodoxy line.

Do you think that if I said to a member of Opus Dei, "Well, geez. From what I've heard you guys sacrifice goats under the full moon. So you should be locked up because you're a bunch of nuts!" they wouldn't have a problem with that? That they wouldn't call me "uninformed" and "uneducated" about what their mission and their practices are? Of course they would. And they'd have every right to do so. But apparently prominent members of Opus Dei are willing to vilify those who would disagree with them simply by comparing them to their enemies. Which is baloney. I'm sure your mother told you that to "assume" is to make an "ass" out of "u" and "me." I know mine did. It doesn't seem as if that message filters down from the Opus Dei moms, though, does it?

There is so little faith going on in this organization designed to promote faith it's just baffling.

Something in the Water

Preggers. With pictures!

They're registered, too. You can find it here.

And don't give me any guff about posting the link to the registry, either.

You looked at the kid's ultrasound. You made that "awwwwwww" noise and went all gooey. You are now obliged to go and buy the kid stuff.

Now, shoo.

Girls Having a Ball

It's Cotillion Tuesday, so swing your way over to these fine sites for the female perspective.

Yet Another "I'm Still Quitting Smoking" Update

Just in case you were wondering, the shipment of patches I was expecting did show up in the mail on Saturday.

I would just like to tell the people at Quit Plan that they should be glad the postal service saved their collective fat ass on this one. If they hadn't arrived, I would have hounded them to death with phone calls. Oh sure, they're all about taking calls and being cheery and supportive, but I'm pretty damn sure they wouldn't have wanted to listen to me open up a can of bitchcraft. I'm sure it's not a surprise for everyone to learn that I am quite handy with a can opener when it comes to getting the can of bitchcraft open. I don't mean to brag or anything, but I've got it down to 2.5 seconds or less in some instances.

I'm sure they're happy that the US Postal Service spared them.

The Clickety Clack of the Keyboard

...could, conceivably, get you into trouble.

{...}Sounds from typing on computer keyboards are distinctive enough to be decoded, allowing security breaches caused by "acoustic snooping," University of California, Berkeley researchers said on Wednesday.

The researchers said they were able to feed sound recordings of typing on keyboards into a computer and use an algorithm to recover up to 96 percent of the keyboard characters entered by typists.

"It's a form of acoustical spying that should raise red flags among computer security and privacy experts," said Doug Tygar, a Berkeley professor of computer science and information management.

"If we were able to figure this out, it's likely that people with less honorable intentions can -- or have -- as well," Tygar said.{...}

96% of recovered keystrokes isn't all that impressive, however, when you take into account the odds of recovering the missing four percent. After all, you need a password in its entirety---96% of it isn't going to magically open anything. While I will admit it's easier for a hacker to brute force the remaining keystrokes, you'd still have to know precisely what you were doing to get anything.

No, I'm not worried about this. I think this is a much more dazzling weakness as far as computer security is concerned.

{HT: Jonathan}

Is That a Bit of Lint I See There?

Oh, yes, thank God for the mainstream media!

/sarcasm

On Farming Subsidies

Smallholder v. Phoenix.

I've been on the fringes of agriculture all my life, living where I do. I can see both sides of this story, so I don't know who wins this argument. I'm loathe to subsidize Archer-Daniels-Midland and Monsanto, and on the whole I don't think subsidies help anyone in the long run, but I can see where Phoenix does have a point.

Hot Girl on Girl Action

Via Dearest Jonathan we have this post from The American Scene the CDC's sexual behavior data. The relevant bit:

{...}But it's a significant phenomenon nonetheless - and if you broke it out by age and class, I'm sure that bisexuality would be even more common (and increasingly so) among upper-middle-class young people. If the experience of human history shows anything, it's that a large percentage of any given population will experiment with opportunistic homosexuality if the taboos against it are lifted - and at least in our country's more exclusive circles, the lesbian-experimentation taboo is dead and the gay-experimentation taboo is weakening. Ancient Greece, here we come . . .{...}

To which Jonathan adds:

I don't have anything to add to serious discussions about human sexuality, although comments like this one make me wonder if the trend is liberation, or just another instance of women going out of their way to attract male attention by any means:

Ashley, 20, a student at Northern Arizona University, agrees. "It's become this totally hot thing," she says. "And the reason why is that it promises this sexual experimentation to guys. They think, 'She'll kiss another girl; she's gotta be pretty wild.'"

Ashley hasn't made out with that many girls: "I've only done it like a dozen times." It's been fun, she says, but mostly because of the titillation: "There's people watching it, and that makes me feel good. The first time I did it at a party, I thought, 'So this is what it takes to get the guys' attention.'"

You decide if this is benign or a case of women desperate for male affection. (You know you're old when you read Ashley's quote and instead of thinking, Hot!, you worry that she didn't have a capable, present father while she was growing up and hope that she'll spend some time working on her sense of self-confidence and self-worth.)

In any case, what interests me most is the proximate causes of what destroyed the "taboo" against LUGiness in the first place.{...}

{Ed. LUG=Lesbian until graduation. Amazingly enough during college I lived in an all-girls dorm and a sorority and I never saw anyone getting it on with their best friend or their roommate. It never happened. Really and truly. And if something like that WAS going on, believe you me, everyone would have known about it because a. girls are catty creatures and b. close quarters means gossip spreads like wildfire. So, I will admit I believe this whole LUG thing is an urban myth perpetrated by pr0n writers and men who really would like to think that living in a sorority house is all pillow fights and sapphic experimentation.}

Jonathan ultimately places the blame on Friends with Monica and Rachel making out in front of Chandler and Joey to get their apartment back. I think Jonathan's partially correct: Friends showed two women making out. What he misses, however, is that these two female characters were making out not because they were hot for one another but because they were trying to get what they wanted (their apartment) from men. That's when the taboo died: when it became cool to use said bisexuality to lure men into handing over what women wanted. Female bisexuality became a tool to manipulate men. Everyone knows that hetero men adore it when women get busy with one another. There's nothing new in that bit of information. What is interesting in all of this, however, is the lengths women feel they need to go to to get what they want. If making out with a woman will get them something, well, they'll do that.

The thing I find curious about the CDC's results is that, apparently, they did not take into account "The Threesome Factor" when asking women about their relations with other women. They did not ask how that coupling came about or if it took place with another partner present---in this example, a man who'd actually worked up the nerve and asked, "Would you consider being with another woman for me?" I'd be curious to know if this overall trend toward female bisexuality is the result of women actually wanting to love women or if it's just women trying to please their men.

I'd wager it's the latter.

Spot On

Just go and read it already.

Sheila, This One's For You

A certain chubby cheeked actress that Sheila hates is filing for an annulment. From a certain country singer that Sheila likes. A lot.

In her court filing, the chubby cheeker listed "fraud" as the reason she would like an annullment.

I'm sure Sheila would say that the fraud was on the part of the chubby cheeker. In fact, I know she will and I will update when she does.

I love making someone's day.

Is It Thursday Already?

I've got bupkiss for you. It's been a very busy week around here, and it's not over with yet. Perhaps I'll get around to posting something tomorrow. You, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, will just have to tune in tomorrow to see. Anyway, until then, I'm going to dish out the linky love to keep everyone happy.

• You know how the Germans are crazy about David Hasselhoff? Well, the Belgians apparently feel the same way about Doug.
• Ever considered digging a hole to China? Take a looksee at this and see if you'll actually end up in China. I ended up somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean---so I won't be digging anywhere, thank you ever so much.
• In case you weren't aware, Goldstein is on a roll lately. Just keep scrolling, and then when you can scroll no more, go into the archives and keep scrolling.
• Our Maximum Leader had a, uh, religious experience on his commute in to Dee Cee the other day.
• Random Pensees has a question for the ladies
• Sadie's waxing rhapsodic over Steff. Yes, that man was fine. I actually wanted Molly Ringwald's Andie to reform him in Pretty in Pink rather than dealing with the mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy Lane.

  But that's just me.

Ok, that's enough from me. I've been so busy the past couple of days that it's obvious I'm behind on things. And since I've got more to do today---laundry, cocktail parties, dealing with a whopper head cold that one of my sister's offspring gave me as a parting gift---I need your help, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, to keep things interesting around here.

If you've got a link you'd like to promote, throw it into the comments. If you've read something interesting over the past few days and believe it could use a wee bit more publicity, go and throw it into the comments. I would only ask that you keep it clean and to please use hyperlinks. If you behave yourselves perhaps we can do this again sometime in the future.

God and head cold willing, I'll be back tomorrow.

Just In Case You Weren't Aware

The season premiere of House is tonight.

I'm taping it because, of course, the one night I want to be home my sister needs me to babysit her kids. I'm being a nice person, so nobody should post any spoilers in the comments, either, until I've watched it. Got it? Good. Otherwise you'll find yourself on the wrong end of my banning finger.

And, no, I'm not fucking about on this one.

Grab a Bottle of Scotch, a Pack of Rothman's

...and sit down and listen to Hitch debate Gorgeous George Galloway.

Who do you think's going to win this one?

{...}Galloway's preferred style is that of vulgar ad hominem insult, usually uttered while a rather gaunt crew of minders stands around him. I have a thick skin and a broad back and no bodyguards. He says that I am an ex-Trotskyist (true), a "popinjay" (true enough, since its original Webster's definition means a target for arrows and shots), and that I cannot hold a drink (here I must protest). In a recent interview he made opprobrious remarks about the state of my midriff, which I will confess has—as P.G. Wodehouse himself once phrased it—"slipped down to the mezzanine floor." In reply I do not wish to stoop. Those of us who revere the vagina are committed to defend it against the very idea that it is a mouth or has teeth. Study the photographs of Galloway from Syrian state television, however, and you will see how unwise and incautious it is for such a hideous person to resort to personal remarks. Unkind nature, which could have made a perfectly good butt out of his face, has spoiled the whole effect by taking an asshole and studding it with ill-brushed fangs.{...}

Tune in tomorrow, September 14, 2005, 7 pm EDT for the ultimate smackdown!

{Hat Tip: Martini Boy}

A "I'm Still Quitting Smoking" Update

Yeah. I'm still off the devil weed.

A few observations.

• The Quit Plan people are a bunch of freakin' idiots. You're gonna love this one. I'm using their program to get help for quitting, right? I'm dependent upon them for my patches. So, I talk to them a couple of weeks ago to get my last shipment of patches. It's an eight week program, but they only send you the first five weeks worth---working under the assumption that most people start smoking again well before then and they don't want to waste postage/patches if they don't have to. They'd called me a few times during my first few weeks to see how I was doing, etc., but I'd missed their calls. So, when I finally got around to calling them, it was because they'd sent me a letter saying I needed to talk to them or they wouldn't send out the last batch of patches. I called, I chatted with this chick for a half hour, I told her I was fine with everything, that I haven't slipped because the patches had been so effective so send out the last batch, please. She agreed that they would and all was hunky dory.

  Problem is, I haven't received the patches and if they don't arrive before Monday, Kathy's going cold turkey. So, I called them today, wondering why I hadn't received the shipment of nicotine-y goodness. Turns out the chick I chatted with forgot to do one simple little thing. After this half-hour "we really want to help you quit!" phone call, she forgot to click on the "send patches" button on her screen. To my mind that's the equivalent of a doctor working at freakin' methadone clinic forgetting to give someone their methadone. Talk about being surrounded by the obvious, yet somehow managing to forget the goddamn basics.

  Pretty funny, eh? But wait, it gets better...

  During today's phone call, the person who answered the phone had a thick Spanish accent, which I suppose is multicuturally wonderful and all that, but for someone who has trouble with accents because her ears aren't top notch, and who consistently forgets how much she uses lip reading to make up for her shoddy ears, well, it's not all that great a situation over the phone, eh? Yet she just answers the phone; she's not a counselor, so I'm not going to get too worked up over it. She tries to transfer me over to one, but apparently none are available. Is it all right if she sends them an email telling them they need to call me? No, it's not all right, I say, put me on hold. She apparently has some trouble with this, but manages it after about four minutes of goofing around and pressing buttons. After a ten minute wait, I am transferred to a counselor who makes me give her all my information again because it didn't pop up on her screen. Then, when I inquired as to where my patches were, she told me the information above: that the chickie-babe I talked to before never hit the "send patches" button on her screen. She apologized, clicked the "send patches" button and after apologizing briefly, told me that she hoped they'd make it to me before I ran out on this coming Monday. But if they didn't, well, she hated to advocate this, but I wasn't supposed to smoke more than ten cigarettes per day. She was really adamant about this one. Absolutely no more than ten cigarettes because that was the equivalent of the patch I'm currently on.

  I had to laugh at that point, because I found that really funny. Because of the bureaucratic incompetence of a program designed to help people quit smoking, I'd be right back where I started---smoking.

  Furthermore, she informed me that if I'd managed to go cold turkey for three days, and then the patches arrived, well, I wasn't supposed to use the patches then, because all the nicotine would be out of my system and I'd make myself sick.

  For the love of God, etc. ad nauseam, ad infinitum.

  The only reason I contacted these people in the first place was to get free patches, because I knew I wasn't going to be able to quit by going cold turkey and I sure as hell wasn't going to pay for them, not when the taxpayer could fund my largesse. If I'd quit cold turkey, no one would be able to stand the bitchiness. I would have found myself on the street because the husband would have kicked my ass to the curb within twenty-four hours of quitting.

  But now it looks like, unless there's some miracle in the shipping world---it takes seven to ten days for the patches to arrive---I'll be doing precisely that.

  It'll be fun, no?

• I've been on the 21mg patch for twenty-eight days. I jumped down to the 14mg patch yesterday and I'm freakin' tired.

  Yesterday I spent the day with Christi and the kiddies, roaming around downtown, seeing what the skywalks are all about (kids love those things for whatever reason) and playing video games at this place (which was a lot of fun and earned me the eternal gratitude of my nephews and niece.), swimming in the pool at their hotel and, just in general, hanging out. I meandered my way home around four and I was freakin' exhausted when I actually got there. And I mean tired, like I'd been digging ditches for the entire day. Of course hanging out with kids is exhausting, particularly when you're not used to it, but this was above and beyond tired. It didn't occur to me until after dinner that it was probably the patch---and the lack of energy boosting nicotine---that was to blame.

  Since we're babysitting tonight, I decided to stay home today and take a nice long nap to fortify myself for the evening.

• Eating hard candy to deal with the oral fixation will result in zits if you overdo it. Even if you're thirty-four-years-old and well past puberty, you will have a pizza face. Trust me on this one.
• I have yet to see any benefit from quitting. My lung function has not increased. I don't feel any healthier. I never had a smoker's cough to begin with, so accordingly I haven't lost one. I can't suddenly run a marathon. My sense of taste hasn't improved. Neither has my sense of smell. My palate was pretty darn good while I smoked and in some cases it's turning out that the smoking made things more flavorful.

  Honestly, all I have to recommend quitting is a bunch of zits. Whoop-de-freakin'-doo.

• I have to say, I miss smoke breaks. Just taking a step away from everyone and everything and going and communing with the nicotine was a beautiful thing. I'm going to miss that.

And that's all there is folks. And no, still no comments allowed on these posts.

Just Rewards

Now, I don't pay too much attention to Cricket because, well, I don't understand the sport. I've tried many times to understand why the scores are something like 258-4. I've tried to figure out why they break for tea, and why their matches are called "tests" and last for several days. I don't get what a wicket is. I have no idea why they wear all that freaking padding when they're batting, because for all the crap the English give us over how much padding American football players wear, you'd think they'd mind their tongues, eh? No fewer than four Brits and one really cute New Zealander have attempted to explain this game to me, but I still don't get how the game works.

Yet, for all I don't understand about Cricket, well, I do understand how this would be a great reward for winning the Ashes series against Australia.

{...}After partying all night, Flintoff admitted tongue-in-cheek "What is most exciting about winning the Ashes is it means I'll be awarded the freedom of Preston, my hometown.

"That means I can drive a flock of sheep through the town centre, drink for free in no less than 64 pubs and get a lift home with the police when I become inebriated. What more could you want?"{...}

The man's spot on. What more could you want?

Put On Your Dancing Shoes

...and shuffle right over to these fine sites that are hosting this week's Cotillion Ball.

Good News From Katrina III

Fausta has yet more good news.

A Cake Eater Alert

The Cake Eater Sister, Christi, her husband, and their three kids are in town for the better part of the week.

Posting shall be light until further notice.

Huck the Fawks

Huck, huck the fawks!

While he was spot on with the line on Notre Dame, it's nonetheless apparent that the Nihilist does not have a future in bookmaking.

Good News From Katrina II

Fausta's got more for you.

Citizen Photojournalist Shoots Some Amazing Stuff

A New Orleans resident's photo account of Katrina---before, during and after.

It's long but it's well worth your time.

(Mom, you're definitely going to want to see this)

{Hat Tip: Ith}

The Ultimate in Dorkdom

The husband let out a girly shriek of pure and utter delight when he saw this.

Sigh.

That Goes Where, Part Deux

"Chip's" adventures in Bikram Yoga conclude.

Convenient

Robbo is saved from much teeth scraping and poking.

{Insert commitment of this to memory, lest the husband try it on for size when we have kids}

Good News From Katrina

Fausta's got it for you.

Well, My Afternoon's Been Freed Up

I was working out a reply to this bit of bullshit, but Jeff Goldstein took care of it for me.

Thanks, Jeff. I think I'm going to go and give myself a pedicure.

Required Viewing

I saw this on Fox last night, but it deserves WIDE play, so I'm going to link it---just like everyone else in the blogosphere is doing.

If this turns out to be true---and I don't see why it wouldn't be verified---Kathleen Blanco deserves a horrible fate in life.

And I'm not talking politically here, kids.

UPDATE: Verification (hat tip: martini boy's bartender)

Random Question(s)for the Day

Have I missed a fashion trend lately wherein it's now cool to wear a little black choker around your neck---with a Masterlock padlock attached to it?

Or is this just what I think it is?

{Insert much blatant winking here}

Because, I have to tell ya, I just saw a lady over at the lake with this little ensemble attached to her neck and it was, well, interesting. She looked like your ordinary suburban housewife out for a run with her kid in a jogging stroller. She even had a matching jogging outfit on. All was well and normal except for the padlock attached to her throat.

If this is the latest thing from Versace or Tom Ford, would please someone clue me in?

And, no, Mom, I'm not explaining this to you.

That Goes Where?

One of the crack young staff of The Hatemonger's Quarterly---let's just call him "Chip"---discovers the joys of Bikram yoga.

I'm Nervous

Just from reading this.

I haven't auditioned for anything since high school, but still...{insert shudder of horror here}.

Acting class was much easier. They just assigned stuff to you. It was easier that way. Although, it did bite when your partner for class was a pom pom girl and you were assigned The Lion in Winter for your final piece of the semester. Of course the pom pom girl gets to play Eleanor of Aquitaine and you're stuck playing stupid, naive, homewrecking---did I already write stupid?---Alais.

Kings, queens, knights everywhere you look and I'm the only pawn. I haven't got a thing to lose - that makes me dangerous.

No, bitch. It means you're the most vulnerable piece on the board because you can't defend yourself. Like, duh.

No, really. I'm not still bitter about it. I shouldn't even really be bitter. I got an 'A.'

Anyway, excuse my digression and go read Sheila's post. It's good stuff, Maynard.

Hurricane Schmurricane

Sez the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Neither an official state funeral nor the devastating aftermath of a cataclysmic storm will stop the music this morning in Washington. There's always time for showbiz on Capitol Hill.

While Washington buries Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist in a solemn ceremony stretching from the Supreme Court to Arlington National Cemetery, Desmond Child will be laying on a little Livin' La Vida Loca in a House office building.

As congressional committees scramble to focus on a federal response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Gloria Estefan, Jimmy Jam and Dave Koz will be headlining a Power of Music show promoted by the folks who bring you the Grammys.

Last week, China President Hu Jintao postponed his trip to Washington to give the White House and Congress more time for disaster-recovery efforts. Not Hollywood.

For the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, it's the first-ever Recording Arts Day on Capitol Hill and, of course, the show must go on, good timing or not. Besides, there'll be an awards event packed with stars and lawmakers alike jostling for photo ops.

According to the academy, the point of the event is to not only stress the power of music but to also "raise the profile of recording arts during meetings with legislators."

Desmond, Gloria, Jimmy and Dave have issues, although no one on Tuesday afternoon could recall quite what they might be.

"The entire music industry is coming together on common issues," said Daryl Friedman, vice president of advocacy and government relations for the academy, after a long day of dealing with star-struck media inquiries on the nature of Estefan's dress. "We want to build a top-line relationship [with Congress]."

The coalition put together by the Grammy Awards producers includes performing artists, songwriters, music labels, distributors and retailers, groups whose best interests often conflict with each other.

"They don't always agree," Friedman said. "But they do agree on the big issues." {...}

Should I go for the cheap shot, here? I mean, really it's almost too easy. I don't suppose it will be worth it in the long run, but the urge is so strong, I can't really help myself.

Are you ready for it? You are? Okedokey. Here goes.

Apparently Gloria Estefan only cares about the survivors of hurricanes when they live in Miami and she can host a PR grubbing concert without having to travel anywhere.

Was that good for you, too? I hope so.

{Hat Tip: Mike at Tech Dirt}

Excellent News

Roy Hallums, a contractor who was kidnapped last November, has been freed in Iraq.

Dr. Rusty is, of course, thrilled with this news. As well he should be: he not only broke the story, but kept it alive and running when the mainstream media lost interest. Go and share in his happiness!

Funnier Than Hell

If you're in need of a little levity in these dark times, I present you, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, with "The Disaster Pr0n Stars of Cable News."

Part I and Part II .

{Hat Tip: Robbo}

Insert Chuckle Here

The husband gets rave reviews. (scroll down to the 9/5 entry)

Or maybe it was just the Cuervo talking.

Heh.

(I'm just screwing with you, Katie.)

And, yes, the husband does indeed look like Russell Crowe. Or rather Russell Crowe looks like the husband. Because I'm loyal that way. Same body type, same hair color, same eye color, same facial shape. They could be brothers. And, no I'm not joking.

Brilliance

I wish I'd written this.

A small sampling:

{...}Much has been said regarding how much more massive an event Katrina is relative to lower Manhattan. But the fact remains that firemen went up the stairs when people were coming down, and one ordinary group of people on an ordinary flight on an ordinary day defeated the very best that the global terror network could put together. Our ladies junior varsity squad whipped the living shit out of their Super Bowl A-team over Pennsylvania that day, and they did it because for one brief shining moment enough passengers on that airplane went Grey.

And in Louisiana last week the governor cried and the mayor blamed everyone but himself, and half the country bought every single stinking Pink lie about global warming and missing National Guard units and blamed the sheepdogs while the wolves raped and pillaged and looted everything in sight.

Hundreds of New York firemen and policemen never came home, never came home, but New Orleans Police Chief P. Edwin Compass III said, of his men, “If I put you out on the street and made you get into gun battles all day with no place to urinate and no place to defecate, I don’t think you’d be too happy either… Our vehicles can’t get any gas. The water in the street is contaminated. My officers are walking around in wet shoes.”

Well, Chief, I’m sorry your men’s feet are wet, but getting their feet wet is part of their fucking job. New York’s Finest aren’t complaining about wet feet or places to pee because they died doing their jobs. They were sheepdogs.

{...}So, on one hand, we have a very blue city – New York – confronted, out of the clear morning of a perfect fall day, with no warning – with a terror attack, and they march toward the sounds of screams and falling bodies and die by the hundreds. One the other hand, we have New Orleans law enforcement – also blue – whining about wet shoes and helping themselves to the happy period of lawlessness that followed an event that had been expected for no less than seventy-two hours.

In New York, we had a governor who got every available resource on the ground as fast as it could get there, and in Louisiana we have a governor who...cried. Governor, your job is to not cry. Your job is to be strong. We have plenty of civilians crying. You want to cry, cry in the car on the way home like everybody else did four years ago. Crying Governors, race-baiting mayors and looting police do not a Finest Hour make.

In New Orleans we have a mayor who left some 400-500 buses sitting fueled and underwater in the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool saying that evil white conservative America was selling out his people within 24 hours of the catastrophe, from a safe and dry and adequately toileted location, while four years ago we had a Mayor who ran to the site of the disaster so quickly it is a full-blown miracle he was not killed when a building collapsed literally on top of his magnificent, combed-over head.

Now, much has been made of the fact that Ray Nagin is an incompetent, race-baiting black man, and Rudy Giuliani, who was neither, is white. Also, feminists are upset that people dare attack Governor Blanco because she is incompetent, weak, indecisive, and also a woman. And no doubt there are salivating long-haired, short-cortexed idiots just waiting for this to be over so they can sail into the comments section and tell me what a racist and misogynist I am.

Well, here’s the news flash: Nagin isn’t incompetent because he’s black. He’s incompetent because he’s incompetent. Condoleeza Rice is black. Colin Powell is black. Ted Kennedy, a man well-acquainted with rising water crises is as white as they come. Kennedy is incompetent; Rice and Powell are two of the most competent people on the planet.

This is about tribes, all right: not black and white tribes, but rather a battle between the capable and the culpable. {...}

Go read the whole thing. It's long, but it's well worth your time.

Random Question(s) For the Day

What the hell is the matter with Technorati? I can't get the Cake Eater search page to come up...and haven't been able to for the past two or three weeks! We're experiencing a large volume of traffic right now. Check back later. You know what, dude? I HAVE been checking back later and the stupid thing still doesn't work then, either. It's so highly annoying.

I realize they're trying to expand their business into other realms, but for the love of God, don't screw with the thing every blogger uses, eh? I'd like to know who is linking me if they don't have trackback. It's not that hard. Buy some more servers or something.

Stop the Presses!

Grab the smelling salts now and keep them handy. I have some news for you, my devoted Cake Eater Readers.

Ahem.

I had a social life this weekend!

I know. Pretty unusual, eh? Tell me about it. But it was nice to actually have not one, but two parties to go to before it starts getting cold and no one leaves their house again until next summer. (Yes. That really is the way things work here in the frozen tundra. Unless you're into ice fishing or somesuch winter sporty crap. Then you probably get out and about regularly. But those of us who despise winter, well...to put it bluntly,we're fucked, thank you ever so bloody much.) On Labor Day, we had an alley barbeque with the neighbors and that was nice, but it was really nothing to write home about. But Sunday night, well, last night was the MOB (Minnesota Organization of Blogs) Bash, which was held at the Town Hall Brewery near the U in downtown Minneapolis. Feeling festive, I threw on some nice strappy black high heels and, with the husband in tow, scooted off to meet some more bloggers!

I'm REALLY bad with faces and names, so I was pretty happy when I recognized Noodles from the last MOB event and he and his lovely wife, Susie, allowed me to latch onto them while I got my bearings. I chatted briefly with Ringer and met Andy from Residual Forces, yet another member of the Kennedy v. The Machine Gang of Four. Another KvM crew member, and a blogger whom I read regularly, Doug from Bogus Gold appeared and it was really nice to finally get to know him. Doug also squired me around and introduced me to many people, for which I'm grateful, because if he hadn't kept asking me "Do you want to meet some more people?" I probably would have sat at our table all night long, waiting for people to come to me. Which wasn't really going to happen as I am not the Queen of the MOB. Nevertheless a few people did come to our table and included in their number was Sandy from M.A.W.B Squad, who is one super duper cool chick, Ben from Hammerswing75 who was smoking clove cigarettes (mmmm) Steve from Giggle Pundit, the Night Writer, and the social butterfly of the evening: Mr. Mitch Berg, who was the host with the most, flitting from table to table, catching what I'm sure was the best of all the conversations taking place.

When we actually got up and started meandering, we were introduced to Dan, the Northern Alliance Wannabe; I had a brief chat with David Strom, who was happy to open up his portable humidor and let me take a peek inside. I was also happy to meet the Nihilist in Golf Pants, who did not have a copy of Sartre's Being and Nothingness sticking out of his plaid pants pocket because---ahem---wasn't wearing golf pants. Now, forcibly DRAG your minds out of the gutter and realize that the reason he wasn't wearing golf pants was because he was sporting an attractive socks and loafer look with a pair of shorts (which were not plaid), hence I believe he left the Sartre at home as it wasn't "summery" enough. I also briefly met Learned Foot and Pinkmonkeybird---who was sporting a hat with his URL on it, which, through the haze of chardonnay, made it really easy to figure out who he was. Thanks, Dude!

Unfortunately, for all the people I did get to meet and chat with, I did not have the chance to chat with any of the Fraters or {insert drumroll here} Lileks, who I am still scared of meeting because I know I will suffer from the worst case of verbal incontinence ever recorded if that meeting should ever occur.

I'm sure I've forgotten someone in this long listing, so if I have it's my fault, not yours and you can verbally abuse me in the comments.

I did have a nice time and I'm definitely thinking I'll have to shoot down to Keegan's one Thursday night in the not so distant future to hang out again with these guys. I heard a rumor of trivia; I shall have to investigate to see if it's true.

Good People II

That's wonderful.

Baby Hoops

Shaq needs to look up this kid and---ahem---learn from him.

(You'll need to download/install Google's video player to watch, but it's painless, so you really don't have an excuse.)

Flood Waters Have a Way of Harshing His Buzz

Sean Penn's cluelessness gallantry on display in New Orleans

It's good to know Sean can still do comedy, eh?

{Hat tip: LMC}

Good People

While there's been some great news about fundraising via the web, there's also been some bad news about phishers, scammers, etc., trying to take advantage of people's suffering via the world wide web. So, it's really nice to have one more good story to add to the lot. The domain Katrina.com has been owned by a web designer named Katrina for years. She's been offered thousands of dollars by not-so-wholesome people over the past couple of days for the domain. She has refused ALL of these offers and instead has set up boards so people can locate the missing, relief information, etc. on her site to help the victims of Katrina. Katrina.com has become a roundup of valuable information because one woman is good.

That's nice to hear.

{Hat Tip: Tech Dirt}

What's a "Vascular Accident"?

Blaque Jacques Shellac Chirac had a "vascular accident" last night.

Politics aside for the moment, one has to wonder what happens when one has a "vascular accident." Did his red blood cells crash into the white cells? Did a vein protest a ticket along the roadside of Blaque Jacques' aterial system, thereby causing a crash? Did his arteries collapse, like a freeway that's structurally unsound?

The possibilities are endless.

But, quite seriously, I think this means Blaque Jacques hasn't been imbibing the red wine in "moderation." Fausta wondes what this means for EU/French politics. I'm wondering what this means for the French whine wine industry.

The consequences could be quite severe.

Washing Away The Sin

Oy.

{...}Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina -- but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.

The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as "Southern Decadence" -- an annual six-day "gay pride" event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week -- God's judgment would be felt.

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

How much do you want to bet that good ol' Pastor Shanks prefers an Old Testament God to the touchy-feely-happy-go-lucky God of the New Testament?

Five bucks? Ten? Twenty?

The New Orleans pastor is adamant. Christians, he says, need to confront sin. "It's time for us to stand up against wickedness so that God won't have to deal with that wickedness," he says.

Believers, he says, are God's "authorized representatives on the face of the Earth" and should say they "don't want unrighteous men in office," for example. In addition, he says Christians should not hesitate to voice their opinions about such things as abortion, prayer, and homosexual marriage. "We don't want a Supreme Court that is going to say it's all right to kill little boys and girls, ... it's all right to take prayer out of schools, and it's all right to legalize sodomy, opening the door for same-sex marriage and all of that.”

That's kind of funny if you think about it. It's blasphemy to equate yourself with God and to put yourself on par with Jesus Christ. The good reverend here thinks that believers are "God's authorized representatives on Earth." That, technically speaking, is blasphemy. Which, of course, leads to the next question: what sort of natural disaster is going to wipe out the reverend's sin for equating himself with God?

{Hat Tip: Andy, who got it from Radley Balko}

Where There Is a Will There Is a Way

When I was a kid, I had this bad habit of putting other people's rings on my fingers. If you left a ring lying around, well, one way or another it would find its way onto my finger, just because I didn't have any rings of my own and I was fascinated with the stupid things. So, I'd slip this ring that didn't belong to me on my finger, stare at it for a while admiringly and then...well, that's where the trouble would begin.

My stomach would drop through the floor as I would struggle to get the ring back off my finger. I would get panicked. The anxiety would rise and I would start to get sweaty and my stomach would come back up from where it dropped to settle somewhere in my throat. This is when I would have to calm myself. I had managed to get other rings off my fingers. I just had to calm down and to do this, I would remind myself that where there is a will, there is a way. Meaning, if I could get the ring on, and if I wanted it off, I could do so: I just had to figure out how. This of course usually meant a frantic licking of my finger to loosen the ring, but it generally worked out.

This thought has been running around in my brain since I read this post by RP earlier. RP is concerned and I can understand why he is. I am as well. But, for one brief moment, while we worry about what we can't do, let's look at a few things the human race has achieved to remind ourselves of our capabilities. Let's take a look at all the things the human race has achieved to remind ourselves of the truth of "where there is a will, there is a way."

We built this

And this

and this

and this

and this

and this

A genius believed this form was just lying in wait in a slab of marble and that it was up to him to reveal it.

A man spent years painting an image with little tiny daubs of paint, only to show us how images are truly formed in the first place.

We eradicated this disease and we're working on eradicating this one. We found a way to treat infections in mold spores.

We have walked here

And because we're curious creatures and going to our own satellite wasn't enough, we regularly send probes here

If we can do all of these things we can rebuild New Orleans. Because there is a will to do so. And there is a will, no matter what the freaks over at Kos and Denny Hastert have to say. Hence we will find a way.

A Good Reminder

Go and read this.

Anarchy

One of the first things they teach you when you're a political science student is that the opposite of law and order is anarchy. People, on the whole, don't like anarchy, so they are prepared to give up a bit of their own autonomy for the safety that comes in numbers. If government cannot provide law and order, people will turn to whomever can. This is why the mafia still rules the roost in Sicily. This is why gangs flourish all over the world. People will ally themselves with whomever can lead them to the solution to their problems.

New Orleans is in anarchy right now. No one can honestly argue the opposite. There's no law. There's no order. And all is chaos. Who is going to lead the people of New Orleans now that their government has failed them? The better question is where are they going to be led?

It just breaks my heart to read this.

NEW ORLEANS - New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out, cops turned in their badges and the governor declared war on looters who have made the city a menacing landscape of disorder and fear.

"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said of 300 National Guard troops who landed in New Orleans fresh from duty in
Iraq. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."

Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the fear, anger and violence mounted Thursday.

"I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive," said Canadian tourist Larry Mitzel, who handed a reporter his business card in case he goes missing. "I'm scared of riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get caught in the crossfire."

The chaos deepened despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, plans for a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.

New Orleans' top emergency management official called that effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly lawless city.

About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans convention center grew ever more hostile after waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead. Police Chief Eddie Compass said there was such a crush around a squad of 88 officers that they retreated when they went in to check out reports of assaults.

"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."

Col. Henry Whitehorn, chief of the Louisiana State Police, said he heard of numerous instances of New Orleans police officers — many of whom from flooded areas — turning in their badges.

"They indicated that they had lost everything and didn't feel that it was worth them going back to take fire from looters and losing their lives," Whitehorn said.

A military helicopter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away.

In hopes of defusing the situation at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they could find. But the bedlam made that difficult.

"This is a desperate SOS," Nagin said in a statement. "Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses."

At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center, a makeshift staging area for those rescued from rooftops, attics and highways. The sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.{...}

New Orleans is in absolute and complete anarchy. There is no law and order. Women and children are being raped. The elderly and infants are dying. People are acting like jackasses and shooting off weapons for, what it seems, is the hell of it because no one is there to tell them not to. And, of course, you have the looting. Who are the people, the victims, to turn to when their own government lets them down? Because you know they won't trust the government now, after all the delays. And, honestly, I can't blame them. All would have been fine had the levees not broken. But they did and the situation that was tolerable turned intolerable quite quickly.

I mentioned in this post that my brother, Steve, is co-owner of a Chrysler-Jeep dealership on Canal Street. Initially we were worried about flooding. To see what the dealership looks like, go here. They, conveniently, have a showroom on the second floor of the building. They put all the used cars up on the second floor because, for some reason that I don't know about, those cars are uninsured. The new cars were on the first level, because they were insured. Steve said that if the water goes higher than the dashboard on any of them, they're done for. Last I heard the water was six feet deep at the dealership.

Now, given the anarchy, I have to wonder if the dealership even exists anymore.

This just saddens and worries me so much. I adore New Orleans. The trip my mom, dad and I took when I was a senior in high school was amazing. I was really hot on the place because I'd just read Interview With the Vampire and was completely in love with Louis. I made my sister in law go and visit the French Quarter's graveyard and I had to hide my smile because she was freaking out. I remember trolling down Bourbon Street and wanting to gag because it smelled like booze and puke. But the architecture is wonderful and the place just drips with history and charm. I had a great Nikon 35mm camera at the time because I was on the yearbook staff and I had swiped a load of film from the stash in the journalism lab to take loads of pictures with while I was in New Orleans. I didn't take hardly any shots, though, because it was so gorgeous there that I couldn't decide what I wanted to photograph and I didn't think I had enough talent at that stage of my photography career, as it were, to get it right. Does that make any sense? I hope it does. I just didn't feel I could do the city justice with my limited photography skills and I didn't want crap pictures of New Orleans, so I didn't bother. And, until now, I didn't regret it. But I have to wonder if I will. With everything that's going on, it's hard to believe New Orleans will ever get back to normal. I know it probably will, and yes, it will probably be a tourist haven once again, but still...it's kind of hard to imagine right now.

This is one of the few pictures I have of my trip to New Orleans. My mom took it. That's my Dad and I outside of St. Louis Cathedral, where we'd just gone to Palm Sunday Mass. I'd never been to a Palm Sunday Mass before where they could have gone outside to get the palm branches.

I sincerely hope that one day, sometime in the future, I can take another picture in front of the Cathedral on a sunny Palm Sunday.

Grrrrrl Power!

Ummmm, if you're a mugger, I'd recommend staying away from this chick.

Just Damn.

Hurricane Relief

{this post will stay at the top of the page all day Thursday, September 1, 2005}

So, there's a bit of a blogburst going on today to help raise awareness and CASH MONEY for charities that are assisting in the relief efforts needed because of Hurricane Katrina.

You can either go to Instapundit or to NZ Bear to see all who's participating and who is recommending what charities. I'm choosing the American Red Cross because, let's face it, they're the big dog when it comes to natural disaster relief. I want the money to go to people who know what they're doing and who are going to get the biggest bang out of the bucks donated.

Clicket on that image and it will take you directly to the American Red Cross' donation page. Do what you can, kids.

It also bears mentioning that the American Red Cross is always hurting for blood donations. If you are perhaps a wee bit strapped for cash and would like to help out in some way, but lack the cash, it's time for you to go to your local chapter of the Red Cross and donate a pint. You'll be helping an organization that's helping those in need---it's just as good as giving cash. And, really, it's doesn't hurt that much. I promise. Plus you get a donut and juice when you're done! What more could you ask for?

I know some people will balk at the idea of sending money to the Red Cross given the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent's anti-American bias. But as Fausta reminds us: "A quick reminder that the American Red Cross has nothing to do with the policies of the International Committee of the Red Cross and has in fact withheld funds from the ICRC to protest its blatantly biased agenda." Don't let the ICRC stop you from donating to the American Red Cross.

In case you'd like a little somethin' somethin' in return, Phin and Sadie---the fabulous owners of Apothegm Designs---are auctioning off a custom blog design to the highest bidder, with all proceeds going to the American Red Cross. Go on over and start going crazy!

Technorati Tags: Hurricane Katrina, flood aid

(And if you're a blogger and the Red Cross is your charity of choice, feel free to swipe the image and use it on your own site.)

Your Helpful Cake Eater Household Tip for the Day

If you've got miniblinds in your house and you have no idea how to get them clean here's a tip for you: take them down, remove the plastic stick thingy, dump them in the bathtub, fill bathtub halfway with hot water and add a dose of Tide laundry detergent. Let soak for ten minutes, rinse and dry with a towel.

You don't have to scrub your blinds this way! It's FREAKIN' AMAZING!

And lest you think I'm exaggerating, know that as a former smoker my blinds were supposed to be a light beige color but were, in actuality, a sort of brownish-yellow. If you're a non-smoker you should know that smoke sticks to stuff. It leaves a sticky, yellow-ish film on EVERYTHING. Glass, walls, clothes---you name it, if you smoke in your home, it's got this film on it. Including your blinds. But, thanks to this handy tip, my blinds are now completely clean and I did not have to scrub them.

WOO-FREAKIN'-HOO!