"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."--Adam Smith

Channeling the inner Hank Moody

So… the list of people who I know personally and have published books is short but distinguished. It now also includes Greg Gammer, who now has his novel The American Nightmare out in the world. Congratulations to Greg!

The book itself looks interesting, so this is not one of those half-hearted congrats posts – though (full disclosure) I haven’t read any of it while writing this post…. But I will as soon as he releases the Kindle version.

ObamaCare - the prequel

You can go to the doctor and get medicine for a plethora of ailments. You can get everything from anti-fungal cream to steroids to Viagra to cancer drugs to knee replacements to lobotomies to radiation treatment to allergy shots to a baboon liver installed instead of your real one. All from doctors and free-market pharmaceutical companies that develop this stuff.

But the one thing right now controlled by the government, H1N1 Piggy Flu vaccine - just try getting that. Nope. Some of you (read:me) don't qualify. Those that do (read:wife and kid) had to wait almost three hours in line - OUTSIDE. In the COLD. Where they could GET SICK. But government-run healthcare is BETTER, you see. It's better because EVERYONE was waiting in the cold. It's unfair if only some people are stuck outside.

Oh, and they may run out of vaccine. Again.

No pizza. How about some "F You" instead?

It used to be that when I got accosted by panhandlers it would be someone completely derelict - the kind of hobo you'd see on the street yelling at trees or fighting with ghosts, sporting a mangy beard that was half Taliban, half pubes. But now we live in the age of Obama, and with all this hope and change burrowing its way to our collective prostate, being a beggar is far less exclusive. Today I was stopped on the street by a guy. Well-dressed, clean-shaven, and other than wearing dark glasses at night he seemed "normal", whatever that means nowadays. He even carried a briefcase. I stopped because he threw a "dude!" At me as we passed each other - and I thought he recognized me. Not "Excuse me, sir." Not "Buddy can you spare a dime?" Dude.

Then, he reaches out to shake my hand! "Hey man, could you help me out?" Oh shit! Stranger danger, I thought. No handshakes from random stranger in swine-flu season, thanks. "What's up?" I throw back at him briskly. Or bruskly, whichever's the right vocabulary word.

He seemed affronted. "With all due respect - with ALL DUE RESPECT - I'm trying to get a slice of pizza..." He had to repeat "with all due respect" for me, because apparently that's like a secret code word for "buy me pizza". My toddler just uses "PIZZA! PIZZA!", I should teach him this trick.

Anyway, I high-tailed it outta there. I had to hurry to vote against Corzine (which in Russian translates loosely to "basket").

How about you? Do you buy pizza for strangers?

Hybrid Man-Eating Pythons

So I’ve previously ranted at length (http://freshmediocrity.blogspot.com/2009/07/pet-burmese-python-strangles-toddler-in.html) about the danger posed by pythons. I know, everyone thinks I’m over-blowing the python threat, like my rants about the “war on Xmas” (http://freshmediocrity.blogspot.com/2005/12/war-on-christmas-road-to-victory-part.html) over-blew the threat of Koala-loving drivers. But check this shit out. The CSM has this story (http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0915/p02s01-usgn.html) reassuringly-titled “HYBRID MAN-EATING PYTHONS? FLORIDA IS ON ALERT”.

In an [sic] case of real life imitating Hollywood, the US scientific
community is increasingly concerned that two nonnative python breeds currently
slithering free in south Florida could morph into a giant man-eating swamp coil.

The capture of five African rock pythons recently near an Everglades already teeming with the gentler Burmese pythons has scientists worried about so-called "hybrid vigor" – a phenomenon that occurs when interbreeding uncorks volatile recessive genes, passing traits such as aggression onto the offspring. Think Africanized bees.

The two species have interbred in captivity. While Burmese pythons aren't known to eat people in their native habitat, the African rock python, unfortunately, has been known to do just that (emphasis mine).

The “Africanized bees” of the python world! Great! It’s all fun and games until one of these things winds it’s way through a trailer park or clan rally or goat-rape (http://freshmediocrity.blogspot.com/2008/09/theres-no-justice-for-rednecks-victims.html) or whatever else they do down south. Then, when it coils around some fat, toothless, delicious redneck, and EATS THEM WHOLE, the goddam rednecks will somehow blame Obama.

Is it something in the water?

I wonder, what happens when someone signs on to write a column for the NYT? Does the paper filter the list of candidates to make sure no one with any reasonable cognitive ability is dismissed? Do they only accept columnists from an approved Party list, in effect serving as the propaganda arm of the [use your imagination] Party, without having to consider the commercial, logical, ethical, or journalistic impact of their content? Or maybe they hire normal people, and through a hazing period of tiger cages, Clockwork Orange-style indoctrination, and massive doses of LSD turn them into barking lunatics?

For example, reading anything written by Paul Krugman SHOULD result in a reaction of "Paul, what the fuck is wrong with you?" But yet, he gets to keep devaluing the NYT, journalism, and the Nobel Prize with crap like this piece pining for Richard Nixon's economic policies. Nick Gillespie at Reason wrote a critique of Krug-nonsense here, but frankly a critique could be written weekly about Krugman's inane rambling. But he writes on.

Or this week, when "The World Is Flat" author Thomas L. Friedman, who also writes a column for the NYT, conjured up a screed about how China is better governed than America. Allow me to quote Matt Welch's piece from Reason's Hit & Run column:

The next time anyone tries to tell you that Thomas L. Friedman is a serious
thinker, or a tribune for global democracy, or even a good columnist, or
basically someone who isn't worth sending on the next slow boat to Shanghai,
please refer him to this despicable column from today, then ask: Do you, too, prefer Chinese governance to American democracy? No really, Friedman says that:

There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

Then there's the recurring fun and games of Maureen Dowd's convulsing gibberish, and Roger Cohen's "reporting" of how happy the Jews of Iran are.

I don't understand - who pays for all this nonsense?

A wise Latin woman once said...

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur - "what is asserted without reason may be denied without reason"

Pet Burmese Python Strangles Toddler in Bedroom - ABC News

So, you all thought it was hyperbole? You thought I was nuts for ranting about pythons eh? Well here you go.

Pet Burmese Python Strangles Toddler in Bedroom - ABC News

Shared via AddThis

Ignorance perpetuates itself

Wikiquote quote of the day:

Ignorance perpetuates itself just as knowledge does. Men write false documents, they preach false doctrine, and those beliefs survive to inspire wickedness in later generations. ... Conversely, some men write and teach about the truth, only to be declared heretic by the wicked.
In such cases evil has the advantage, for it will do anything to suppress truth, but the good man limits what he will do to suppress falsehood.

One might almost make a rule of it: "Whoever declares another heretic is himself a devil. Whoever places a relic or artifact above justice, kindness, mercy, or truth is himself a devil and the thing elevated is a work of evil magic."
--Sheri S. Tepper
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sheri_S._Tepper>

Wisdom from the "Velvet President"

Speaking on Iran:

"What is possible and what I would repeatedly warn against is the policy of
compromise and the notion that if we don't provoke evil, it will just go away by
itself," Havel said. "On the contrary, that would just make it stronger."

--Vaclav Havel

The rest here.

You are no Jedi

Buying a cup of coffee in Newark; there's a beggar next to me.

Beggar: would you buy me a soda, please?
Me: No!
Beggar: but I'm not a beggar though!
Me: whatever.
Beggar: I'm not! (Huffs away)
Coffee guy: effing beggars!

This is an Ex-Groundhog

So we have one - maybe two - groundhog(s) living on our property. We can't determine the exact number because, let's face it, groundhogs are fungible and we've never seen more than one at a time. Instead of shooting it, or calling animal control, my wife named him/them "Gilbert". My kid asks about Gilbert and points to "Gilbert's house" in the corner of the yard.

Yesterday, Gilbert appeared to be taking the dirt nap in the middle of our suburban street, most likely hit by a car or a stealth bomber or something. My kid said "Gilbert needs a band-aid". Sorry son, Gilbert's way past band-aids now.

This morning, Gilbert was gone. I'm fairly certain he wasn't the promised messiah of groundhogs, who just sprung up from his death like the Narnia Jesus-lion. And since animal control/the roads department wasn't available to clean him up last night, I'm wondering if the turkey vultures "cleaned him up" during the course of the night. Do they work that fast? Does anyone know?

In any case he's gone. Nature is cruel. Hopefully there was only one, and if there were two the other one will be freaked out enough to leave.

In Pace Requiescat, Gilbert.

Religion is just Grand - part 4

You know what we need more of in America? Religion. All good things flow from religion, and faith in the almighty. Without it we wouldn’t have Jesus salt, beheadings, honor killings, boy-shagging, gay-bashing, or ignorance – in short, we wouldn’t have most of the horrible, evil, and oppressive elements of the human condition. And without evil, how can we be good? Got that? Amen.

Here’s a another great example from Africa again, through BBC News:

Stoning victim 'begged for mercy' (article here)

A young woman recently stoned to death in Somalia first pleaded for her life,
a witness has told the BBC.

"Don't kill me, don't kill me," she said, according to the man who wanted to remain anonymous. A few minutes later, more than 50 men threw stones.
Human rights group Amnesty International says the victim was a 13-year-old girl who had been raped. (emphasis mine)

Religion is just Grand - part 3

You know what we need more of in America? Religion. All good things flow from religion, and faith in the almighty. Without it we wouldn’t have Jesus salt, beheadings, honor killings, boy-shagging, gay-bashing, or ignorance – in short, we wouldn’t have most of the horrible, evil, and oppressive elements of the human condition. And without evil, how can we be good? Got that? Amen.

Here’s a another great example from across the pond (the UK) through the BBC:


Irish church knew abuse 'endemic' (article here)

An inquiry into child abuse at Catholic institutions in Ireland has found
church leaders knew that sexual abuse was "endemic" in boys'
institutions.

Ritual beatings

The report said that girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.
The five-volume study concluded that church officials encouraged ritual beatings and consistently shielded their orders' paedophiles from arrest amid a "culture of self-serving secrecy".
It also found that government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation. The commission said overwhelming, consistent testimony from still-traumatized men and women, now in their 50s to 80s, had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential.

Religion is just Grand - part 2

You know what we need more of in America? Religion. All good things flow from religion, and faith in the almighty. Without it we wouldn’t have Jesus salt, beheadings, honor killings, boy-shagging, gay-bashing, or ignorance – in short, we wouldn’t have most of the horrible, evil, and oppressive elements of the human condition. And without evil, how can we be good? Got that? Amen.

Here’s a great example from right here in the USA through the Newsweek:

Parents' Rights, Judges' Rules (article here)

Last week, Daniel Hauser sat quietly in a Minneapolis courtroom while adults
debated how to combat the Hodgkin's lymphoma that has invaded his body. Doctors
wanted the 13-year-old boy to undergo chemotherapy and radiation. His parents
were resisting: their religion advocated natural and homeopathic methods. The
judge ruled on Friday that Hauser's family must select an oncologist and that he
must receive chest X-rays to determine the extent of his cancer, the results of
which would help determine a new medical plan of action. By Tuesday, the boy and
his mother were missing, having skipped the scheduled chest X-ray appointment; a
warrant has been issued for the mother's arrest. (emphasis mine)

Religion is just Grand

You know what we need more of in America? Religion. All good things flow from religion, and faith in the almighty. Without it we wouldn’t have Jesus salt, beheadings, honor killings, boy-shagging, gay-bashing, or ignorance – in short, we wouldn’t have most of the horrible, evil, and oppressive elements of the human condition. And without evil, how can we be good? Got that? Amen.

Here’s a great example from Somalia through the BBC:

Somali justice - Islamist-style (article here)

The dusty streets of Kismayo in Somalia echoed to the sound of a vehicle with
loudspeakers summoning residents to a new form of public "entertainment" earlier
this month.
People were being invited to see a man have his hand chopped off
in a public park in the city.

Time to fire the fund manager

So the US Treasury is basically a big open-end mutual fund that is *mostly* a ponzi scheme. And all of us taxpayers are compelled to invest in this fund; its our patriotic duty! Nathaniel Hale, Patrick Henry, Ben Franklin and the other founders fought and died for our right to pay into the treasury.

I say "mostly" because even though all future earnings come from subsequent investment (read:taxes), which is the definition of Ponzi Scheme, the fund manager is actually doing some legitimate investment. The problem with this is that the fund manager is making some pretty awful investments. For example, he's about to invest our fund's assets into General Motors (NYSE:GM). Tell me, if your friendly local large-cap equity manager announced this trade, in fact announced taking a majority share of GM? Wouldn't you fire him or her? Or switch funds?

Since we can't switch our investment out of the "US Treasury Fund" - without moving out of the country - how do we fire the fund manager?

All over Oceania ... (#2)

There have been spontaneous demonstrations of party workers voicing their gratitude and joy.

From today's wsj.com's "Best of the web today":

***

Accountability Journalism

It's been more than three months, but the thrill still isn't gone for the Associated Press's Liz Sidoti:

It didn't take long for Barack Obama--for all his youth and inexperience--to get acclimated to his new role as the calming leader of a country in crisis. "I feel surprisingly comfortable in the job," the nation's 44th president said a mere two weeks after taking the helm. . . .Over nearly 100 days as president, Obama has applied the same "no drama" leadership and calculated approach to governing that he did to campaigning.

As an audacious candidate, Obama meticulously built a powerhouse organization and fundraising juggernaut to engineer his victory. As a fledgling president, he similarly has mapped out a big-risk agenda that he's methodically begun to execute, keeping to the discipline that has been a hallmark of his life.

Rookie jitters? Far from it.

Sidoti also reports that Obama is "confident almost to a fault," that he has "kept that focused attitude in the White House, while exhibiting few flashes of any off-putting, self-important tone," that he has "reached the pinnacle of his political ambition," and that he seems "has seemed extraordinarily at ease as president from the day that he took office."

Oh, also, he has "made a once skeptical electorate comfortable with the notion that a black, 47-year-old, first-term senator with limited experience could take over as the leader of the free world," he speaks in "firm, yet soothing tones," he uses "a just-folks approach to identify with economically struggling citizens" and displays "wonkish tendencies, too," all the while engaging in "witty banter" while striking "a statesmanlike stance."

OK, Liz, we'll bite: Is there anything you don't like about Obama?

Well, he "has steamed with anger" at AIG executives and "gone after lawmakers who refused to support the $787 billion economic stimulus package." He has also "shown contriteness" (which we'd think was a good quality, though we suppose it also suggests he has something to be contrite about) and "shown irritation at criticism." He "has let it be known he hasn't forgotten how politics works." And despite being "careful," he "has made a few errors."

But never fear: "So far, the public has liked what it's seen." "Most people in the U.S."--and Liz Sidoti herself is nothing if not a person in the U.S.--"consider their new president to be a strong, ethical leader who is working for change as he promised in his campaign." And "most people say he's on TV just the right amount."

"Overall," Sidoti sums up, "Obama seems unflappable."

And wouldn't lesser men wither under the kind of tough-minded coverage he's received from the likes of Liz Sidoti?

***

All over Oceania ...

There have been spontaneous demonstrations of party workers voicing their gratitude and joy.

AP Poll: Americans high on Obama, direction of US

By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers Ron Fournier And Trevor Tompson, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public's mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future.

Intensely worried about their personal finances and medical expenses, Americans nonetheless appear realistic about the time Obama might need to turn things around, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. It shows most Americans consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington. (...rest of story...)

I live here!

So this is kind of messed up. My kid was being bratty when I came home yesterday, and only wanted to sit on the couch with his mommy.

Me: move over buddy, let me sit with you.
Kid: NO daddy! You go HOME!
Me: we are home, buddy. This is where we live.
Kid: No, you go home! You go to your CAR!

I'm away from the house so much (at work), that my kid thinks I live somewhere else - in my car!

That hurts, boy. I'll remember this when it's time to decide whether or not to gamble away your college fund...

"In 3 Weeks I Will Be Put to My Death"

Wait a minute! Didn't someone tell these people that Bush isn't president any more? I though he was the source of all the extremism, violence, and "cultural misunderstanding".

Check out this little gem from the Toronto Sun. My favorite (most alarming?) part of the article: "The practice does take place but it is rare," Patel said. "It is more of a cultural occurrence than a religious practice."

However, about 10,000 women die yearly from honour killings in Pakistan, according to statistics. (emphasis mine)

A Mississauga woman says she'll be the victim of an honour killing by her estranged husband, a Muslim extremist, when she's deported to Pakistan at the end of the month.

read more | digg story

Wake Up Your Cat, Take A Picture Of It

Though I do hate cats (they're little bastards, admit it!) this is stupid enough to be humorous...

read more | digg story

Like herpes, Spitzer just won't go away

Whenever you feel like things are settling down, that life is starting to make sense again, and that some balance has been restored to the natural order of things, some kind of stupid bullshit will throw it off again. For me, today, just as I was feeling there was a bit of justice and normalcy creeping back into our collective lives (no real reason btw that I felt that, maybe it was just gas) I see this headline in Slate (pic above).

Shouldn’t this guy be in prison for corruption and whore-banging? And didn’t he, in very large part, help cause the AIG debacle? Does anyone have any memory at all left, or are we al living in Memento world?

A pillar of (kosher) salt

Oh my god. No, I mean “OH MY GOD”. Not in the devout religionist sort of way, but in the “OH MY GOD MY BRAIN IS OOZING OUT OF MY EARS TO ESCAPE THE STUPIDITY THAT MY EYES FORCED IT TO INGEST”. What the F is wrong with people? It’s clear that generally, to be religious, one needs some degree of ignorance and gullibility. The degree varies, but has to be more than 0. For example, Huckabee and Mullah Omar would be on the way more than 0 side. What is unclear, however, is how that ignorance and gullibility (while usually repelling initiative and free thought) seems to sometimes bring on violent dry-heaves of ingenuity. For example, while most religionists are too lazy to do anything other than penetrate small boys or stone women to death, Mel Gibson goes through a lot of effort to make his jesusfilms.

Another example, and the one that set me off this morning, is jesussalt. It’s not called jesussalt but it should be. It’s called Blessed Christian Salt. OUCH my brain just sizzled a bit more from typing the words. Let me explain. You see, there’s an ignorant jackass named Joe Godlewski. Joe has devoted his life to doing three things, and doing them well.

First, Joe loves himself some hot, fresh Jesus.
Second, Joe hates Jews.
Third, Joe loves to cut hair. Or he did until he retired.

And here in lies Joe’s conundrum. How can he stay true to his ideals of loving Jesus and hating Jews (the hair thing I guess is immaterial) while every day, some innocent Christian child can turn on that godless box called a TV, and be subjected to some TV chef talking about KOSHER SALT? Get it? Kosher salt is clearly not jesussalt, it’s jewsalt. What if the kid sees Emeril sprinkling some Kosher salt on a cod or spider monkey or whatever? The kid may try the salt himself and then PRESTO! Eternal Damnation.

So Joe becomes proactive to solve the conundrum. He doesn’t call for banning kosher salt, or censoring TV chefs. No sir! Not Joe the Barber! He goes out and created his very own BLESSED CHRISTIAN SALT. No, it’s not made of blessed Christians! It’s salt. Blessed. By a Christian. See how that works?

Here’s the article from slashfood (http://www.slashfood.com/2009/03/04/christian-izing-salt-is-just-not-kosher/), which also links to the examiner.com story that brought us this wonderfulness.

I really hope this is just an internet hoax that I’ve been duped by. But it seems jesusy and stupid enough that it could be real. People make stupid Jesus products all the time.

Twitterification?

Hey twitterers (tweeple?): when you set your twitter to automatically update your facebook status, aren't you forcing your facebook friend to follow your tweets?

And if so, do you have an ethical problem with that?

Just curious, as a guy who doesn't tweet nor follow, yet sees a constant stream of twitterjunk in my facebook feed.

Discuss amongst (our)selves.

To put it in perspective

Sure, you may be having a rough day. I know I have been, like for the last 1072 days. But to put it in perspective, things could always be worse. For example some fucknut could plow their car through your front door. This is exactly what happened to my favorite chicken joint (Cluck U chicken). They've had to put up plywood walls and a fake front door as if they're Katrina victims.

Ouch! My ass! Stop it Barack!

So I was busy all day, and hadn't had. Chance to look at the market today. Until now, after a beer on the train.



My first reaction was WTF!



My second reaction was FML.



I know he hasn't been president for very long, but does it seem that - despite his "eloquence" - every time Obama opens his mouth the markets crash? I mean is today's rout (S&P below 790!) somehow Bush's fault?



When he promised "change" is this what he meant?

Octuplets could be costly for taxpayers

To be clear, I think this woman is a pretty horrible person with a poor grasp of reality. She's horrible because she's condemning these 14 kids to a life of hardship. Planning on supporting them by landing a reality-show gig is akin to planning to support them by hitting the lotto, or becoming a rock star. And yet, despite my seething disgust for this selfish imbecile, the main thing i keep thinking is "those poor kids". It's really the kids who will suffer, for both material things and for attention and emotional nourishment. I don't care how loving you think you are, there's only 24 hours in a day, and 14 babies. You just - physically - can't care for each of them in a day. How'd you like to be kid #9 of 14, growing up on foodstamps and seeing mom for 20 minutes a day? Plus now the taxpayers have to foot the bill!

Oh wait, she's going into the lucrative profession of "counseling".

Octuplets could be costly for taxpayers

As a single parent with no income, Nadya Suleman could receive thousands of dollars a month in government assistance. And the Medi-Cal bill for her newborns is mounting.

read more digg story

Proof: Country, Vodka and Sour Cream

I'm drawn to any mention of pelmeni and vodka in media. This article from the NYT has both.

An emigre from St. Petersburg in search of authentic Russian drinking finds
himself in the cafes of Brighton Beach, where vodka and food are
inseparable.

read more digg story

'Vampire' arrested for threatening teenage 'slayer'

A self-described "vampire" and former fringe political candidate is facing charges for threatening a teenage girl who tried to break off their online relationship by telling him she was a vampire hunter.

read more | digg story

More glory for the god-fearing state of Kansas

Are you kidding me? No really, are you fucking kidding?? Hey Kansas people, while you're out there trying to strip science out of schools to teach more Jesus and sticking yourselves to crappers, maybe you can also teach people that ass-fucking a pooch to death is not a nice thing to do. What happened, did Pastor Ted tell the flock that bashing gays isn't enough, and that y'all have to one-up the Catholics - who only fuck boys in the ass - by sodomizing a doggy?

From kansascity.com
Posted on Fri, Feb. 06, 2009 02:45 PM
*Man accused of sodomizing, killing dog*
A 19-year-old Lawrence man has a first court appearance scheduled this afternoon on charges of animal cruelty and sodomy related to a fatal attack on a dog, police said.

A maintenance crew called police Wednesday after finding blood in an apartment on the 2100 block of Heatherwood Drive, and police arrested the man that day after an investigation, they said. That investigation continues and may involve other animals, they said.
Check www.kansascity.com later for more details. | Joe Lambe

The solution to the financial crisis

Wow, am I relieved. After a harrowing 2008, when it seemed nobody knew how to even approach the financial crisis, relief is here! We've finally figured it out, through the combined efforts of the brightest minds in finance, government, academia, and meth production.

For months, our leaders were chasing the problem down dead ends, but now they know where to look. The global financial crisis is apparently caused by... JOHN THAIN'S RUG! That's right dear reader, you were probably fooled, as I was, as our government was, into thinking the problem was in fact the Citi corporate jet. But in hindsight it's so lucid! A jet couldn't cause banks to fail! Only an $80k rug can do that!

Now that we know the culprit, we can get to work. The other problems will sort themselves out; Andy Cuomo will "get back" the compensation from the financial industry, Obama will give a speech condemning greed and profits (check), Republicans will make sure everything's still ok with Jesus (who keeps a close eye on finance), and Joe Biden will keep doing...whatever it is that he does for a living.

Meanwhile, Ken Lewis will destroy the evil rug by burning it in effigy on the White House lawn. There will be spontaneous demonstrations of party workers voicing their gratitude and joy. Then POOF! Crisis solved! Oh and somehow Pelosi will work free birth control into this - I'm not sure how but it seems to be the right thing to do.

Hope is here!

NYT: The Bacon Explosion

I'm actually sitting here thinking of an intro to this (along the lines of "sweet christ!") But nothing really seems appropriate. This is the NYT article re the Bacon Explosion. This is exactly what america needs!

Hopefully the mobile link works on your computer, but you can search NYT for "bacon explosion".

update: I've replaced the non-working mobile link with this http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/dining/28bacon.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink working link...

Be the "change" you want to see

So the country has made a call for change, and the supposed change should've started this week after inagurationpalooza. Change means many things to different people. I, for example, this about the "hard working Americans" I interact with daily, and wish change on many of them.

Specifically, I wish the guy who drives the shuttle bus from the train to my car - who decided he was going to call it a night early and go drinking - would "change". He's not being beaten with a highway cone, and I'd like that to change. He's not being anally deflowered by a rabid shetland pony, and I'd like that to change. He's not getting a full body poison ivy wrap before being tied in a sack, and I'd like that to change.

Frankly he's not doing his job very well and I'd love for that to change too. While the odometer says its only 1.5 miles (which I walked in 20 minutes) it still sucked. It was late, I'd had some drinks, my foot hurts, and oh by the way it's January so it was f'ng cold. Marching a mile in the cold and dark is something reserved for soldiers in training or POWs or homeless people.

Plus my blackberry died so I had to wait hours to post this rant.

D-bags abound

I used to think that duchebags were deserving of sympathy. But now I think that duchebags, while sad, lonely, creepy people, are to blame for their own conditions. Its a vicious spiral. The same things that cause them to be duchebaggy and lonely are the things they turn to to alleviate that sad lonely creepyness.

For example, the duchebag in the seat on front of me on the trains is a tool. He's got long hair and looks like he hasn't showered since the election. Smells pretty bad too. This all (almost assuredly) adds up to him being a lonely loser. So what does he do to help the situation? He's sitting there playing with a doll.

Yes, a little anime character doll, a girl with a sword an maybe some demon wings. It has a little stand attached so that he could presumably find just the right pose, and display her proudly. He's practicing poses right now. I have no way of knowing but I suspect this is not greasy-boy's first anime doll. Do I feel sorry for this duchebag? No, because he chose to exacerbate his duchey condition by publicly playing with a creepy doll.

And yes he looks like one of the Trenchcoat Mafia from Columbine. This is what my fellow commuters are subjected to.

Recurring themes

I just realized I have a limited repertoire of punchlines for jokes. They all seem to be using prison, the crystal meth diet, animal husbandry, and heroin as themes. I need to branch out.

Play 60

This summer I spent an awesome day with Eli Manning! He taught us how to hold the ball, catch, even run a "fade route"! The other 4th graders and I picked him off twice and held him to a QB rating below 35. Punk.

(Not) Light on my feet

So I have to get physical therapy for an inflamed tendon in my foot. My wife wanted me to ask the doctor if this "is caused by me being too fat".

When I asked him, he laughed, but then said "well, if you were lighter it would probably make it hurt less". This coming from a guy definitely above 250 and wearing a hawaiian shirt in January. Then we talked about meatballs.

Oh and apparently I stand duck-footed, and everyone knew this but me. Thanks for not telling me, especially since I make fun of duck-footed people and animals (except actual ducks, they can't help it).

PS today someone told me they "love coming home and reading about my problems". I hadn't realized my problems were prolific enough to entertain on a recurring basis, but when I read some of my own blog posts... Yeah I'm kind of an unintentional freakshow.