Intellectual Poison

New Word Madness
New Words for the lexicon.

Anoracksia - the term for someone who's had breast implants and also has an eating disorder so that you end up with what looks like a skeleton with big boobs.

Develoopment - the joyous cycle of development that ends in another round of "features" being added to the product resulting in a develoopment cycle between coders and executives.

Friends Don't Let Inbred Morons Become Superintendent of Schools in Georgia
In what might be laughable if they weren't serious, Georgia considers banning 'evolution', not the theory but the term. The fat, stupid moron of a superintendent says that evolution is too much of a buzzword and teachers want to continue teaching it but without using the term. They want to use 'change over time' instead of evolution regardless of the fact that that's what evolution means.

Apparently, parents in Georgia are about as smart as their superintendent. Or they just object to buzzwords or some bullshit. Whatever their justification, they're utter fools and should publicly ridiculed.
I'm sure its okay to teach about the whole eight day bullshit that creationism preaches as the gospel truth. But, you know it and I know it folks, creationism is a big, fat and stupid load of crap that ignores the entire body of scientific knowledge that says evolution is how we got here.

People who adhere to creationism are the equivalent of the ostrich with its head stuck in the sand thinking its invisible. Except they've got their heads in their asses and think they're getting some free chocolate. Hello? First order of business is to remove your head from your ass and quit banging your sister. Second order of business is to form some coherent argument for why you think creationism has ANY place in the school system. Points will be deducted for uh's, um's and nonsense words.

Seriously. People. Wake the fuck up! You are idiots. Do you want your children to share your same fate? Do you want to marry your sister and make some nice little banjo playing inbreds? Or better yet, go and get your tubes cut and your nads chopped off, America doesn't need your genes in the pool anymore, we've got plenty enough stupid fools already.

One more thing, Hey, is that a UFO? Oh no, just a plane. Hey, is THAT a UFO? No, dumbass, that's the same plane.

Quit sniffing modelling glue and try to pay attention. Georgia is now the new laughingstock of the nation. Good work, tardiepants!

Peeking Across the Political Divide
By chance I found myself wandering around in a sea of war blogs, gun blogs, political blogs and some hate blogs. All with the opposing opinions that I hold. Its strange to read the opposite of what you believe and then hard to not p'shaw it and laugh at its bad humor and deeply rooted disalignment with anything even vaguely democratic.

I don't disagree with them on everything and actually many of them were hoping for a change in leadership or an accounting by ShrubCo just like the rest of us. Even they are pissed off at the really pretty alarming rate that Bush is spending money.

I don't disagree with them on gun control. I like guns, sorry. I do. I like shooting, target shooting, skeet shooting, action shooting, slingshots, paintballs, darts, you name it, I like to target shoot with it. I don't like the thought of nobody anywhere but the police, military and government having firearms. Not necessarily for governmental overthrow, though that is one of the framers original intentions but also for home protection and entertainment. I don't go hunting, but if I did, it would be real and not some caged bloodlust massacre thing like Cheney did last week. Why didn't you use laser guided missiles, Dick? I mean, come on, if you're gonna waste money AND birds, why not do it with some style.

But my over riding sense is one of anger and smug confidence in reading the other blogs. The kick in the teeth and they spit on you too attitude. I know why they are like this, in part. Its the comfort of being armed, its stupid when you see it written there, but it is. Being armed means that you are capable of protecting your shit against most possible attacks. There is a smug confidence in thinking that the burglar who breaks into their house is going to get a very carefully selected 12 gauge load pointed at them and hopefully fired. There's a Vengeance-is-Mine-!-!-! feeling about the sites in their rabid fervor. I bet, if you polled them, more than 60% have bunkers of some sort in or near their houses. Comforting thought, eh?

They are also enjoying the holy hell out of the democratic nomination race and deride every candidate save Edwards. They laugh at Dean, they call Clark a gay fired general, Kerry an Atkins version of JFK and Lieberman an idiot Jew. Its angry stuff. Impotent male ready to kill because his dick's broke angry stuff. I don't know, its sometimes just too hard to not be as viciously nasty as they are. For some reason they are somewhat worried about Edwards and call him the only even potential threat to a Republican victory.

I do think Lieberman should just fade into the wallpaper, he's done and is nothing but dressing. I don't know enough about Clark or Kerry, although his membership in the Skull and Bones really does cast him in a very different and suspect light. Dean I know and still like, regardless of his growl or whatever it was. I guess this has been the best time to not have a television, I haven't seen it and don't care about it anyway. He's human, cut him some freaking slack, come on George senior puked on national and international television, PUKED! Want to see the pictures, I'm sure I can dig them up.

But it was educational reading and I did learn alot of things. One is that I've gotta case my houses alot more carefully so I don't get shot. Two, there is a left and right and I'm on one and they're on the other and its still not quite that simple. They are uniting against Bush as well as we are but they want to, obviously, replace him with another GOP lackey. Please, please, please, please God, if you do exist, do not let them, don't let them figure out some way to make it legal for Arnold to run for president. Ahhhh, I said it out loud. I thought it. Ahhhhh, I've gotta go get drunk and pass out and hope that, when I wake up, I won't remember any of this.

Some Bitter Cheddar That Bites Back
And now for something a little different, Sarcastic .

1. What sucked today?
Waking up kind of sucked. Having to go to work kind of sucked. Knowing that some animal is sleeping on my pipes sucks.

2. How are ya doing?
Pretty damned fine overall except my back's acting up some at night now, I'm not sleeping enough and I think I'm getting another case of athlete's foot.

3. Got any plans for the weekend?
Super Bowl Sunday! Hell yeah, gonna get drunk before halftime and completely forget to watch the second half, just like every year with the exception of the Patriots Super Bowl a couple of years ago.

4. Hey, is that a new haircut?
No. Its an old haircut that I've carefully let grow out into a whole new look, I call it homeless-guy-finds-some-gel.

5. What's up?
The sky, dumbass. And taxes and the deficit and a big gnarled pole in Shrub's backside.

6. Spare some change?
Spare? No, I have some but I work for it to pay for food for my family. Not so you can sit on your ass all day, every day and do nothing but live off of other people's hard work.

7. What is it with kids today?
Its that damned rap music and MTV and Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears dumbing down kids and making them think that porn videos are good for publicity and that tattoos that seem cool now won't be in twenty years. Oh yeah, and the whole extreme sports thing, guys taking stairway rails in their nuts, good on you, lads, that'll help whittle down the stupid in the population.

Ahh, that felt good! Nothing like some palate cleansing Bitter Cheddar to wash out the day's joy!
Want some Cheddar X? Go get some and bite it!

I AM Part of the Problem, Apparently
I came back across Googlism and punched in Intellectual Poison to find out that:
intellectual poison is just as deadly as physical poison when it leads to decisions which inflict great economic hardship and even death upon many people
intellectual poison is steadily destroying our culture.

Damn, sorry about that.
What does your Googlism say about you or your site?

Easy Map of States I've Lived In
By way of Snooze Button Dreams, I found this cool map that can be made to represent all the states you've visited or have lived in. I've gone with the states I've lived in because I've been to almost all of them. They also have a version for visited countries and then an instant travel guide maker as well. States I've lived are in red, just in case that's unclear.



create your own visited states map (or lived in states map)
or write about it on the open travel guide.

More Thursday Fun!

First off, some new Fake Band Names - Quiver of Smut, Aunt Helen's Cherry, Dicky and the Wankers, Creampuff Surprise and, finally, Tastes Like Chicken.

Pron Lawsuit News
Booble, a porn search engine with a look based on Google, gets a cease and desist letter from Google according to Search Engine Journal. Can't we all just share the alphabet?

Also, Porn Sites Sue Credit Card Companies for aiding and abetting the payment for the theft of naked and sexually based content from sites that generate it.

Lots more today, I'm sure.
But I'll be busting out early today as we've got the ultrasound scheduled for early this afternoon. I am very much looking forward to it! I'll pass along pics and updates as I can. This time I'll try to be ready to catch some of the video action with my Clie or S400.

[Update: Musclement Fret about Chickenless Diet in Vietnam. The best line in the article? The guy's name is Duc (funny enough on its own) but the article ends with "Duc said his daily food bill has doubled. 'Now my wife has to spend 90,000 dong ($5.75) for 1 kg of beef,' he lamented." Who knew the Vietnamese currency was the dong? I didn't. Duc's wife spends 90,000 dong for just a little beef. Good thing there wasn't a typo in there like, Now my wife has to rub 90,000 dong for 1 kg of beef. Ah maybe its just me.]

Worst Arrest Pic Ever and Exploding Whale Carcasses
From
to
in the time it takes for his wife, who's 37 years younger than him, to get all up in his shit. By the way, no, I don't generally make light of domestic abuse cases because there really isn't anything in the least bit funny about one person beating their wife or husband but I think the facts in this case will show that it was just an argument that got a little out of hand.

I've had the most fun trying to figure out what he's thinking as they snap the pic with his mixture of looks going. I see the number crunching in his eyes, the Damn!-this-is-gonna-cost-me look. I see the tired grimace of a man who looks like he just wanted to get some sleep. And then there's the hair, the best 'do I've seen in an arrest photo since this guy.

And in Exploding Whale Carcass News
Sperm Whale Explodes During Transport (yes, there is a picture or, here's a shortcut, blowed up whale) and I really hope the terrorists don't hear about this. They'll start trying to hijack whales and run them into buildings.

A Victory in the Telemarketing Wars
Now they can no longer hide behind "Unknown Name, Unknown Number", New Rules: Telemarketers Must Display IDs. Funny thing is that more people will probably answer the phone if they can see who's calling. I almost always ignore unknown name, unknown number calls.

But this is a step in the right direction anyway.

Well Now, THAT Is Slick!
or Blinky Links for All
All Guinness has become the my patron saint. I ask, he delivers.
In response to something I'd mentioned a while ago, he linked up his blogs into a matrix of connections. Mouse over me and you get All Guiness, Anger Management, Everyday Stranger and Sedalina.
His first implementation was a box that lit up and was cool but a bit unwieldy. Now its just highlighted text and it works very nicely.

It is a very neat trick.
But there was no way I was going to handcode it myself because, well, I don't know how to. So he whipped up an interface for it and now its almost automated with the "heavy lifting" done for you. After cutting and pasting links and names, you'll have to work through the matrix and set the connections.

With a little work you can now mouse over the top list of links under Regular Reads and it should light up like a Christmas tree with the interlinked blogs.
If this could get completely automated then it could become one of the coolest blog add-ons ever.

I wonder if I should wait a few days before posting it to Metafilter or just toss it up there now with some warning that I am involved (otherwise they will tend to attack like yipping punt dogs).
I'm not the first on the block to get the new toy but I can take solace in the fact that I am the second.
Thanks, Guiness!

A Fun Oh-By-The-Way
So I was talking with my father in law last night, going over some of the new news on the house, some issues the realtors are trying to pawn off on us, a warranty that's been paid for and they're trying to renegotiate on and many other things.

Among them, the disclosure that I have an animal living under the house that's bright enough to have crawled on top of the hot water pipes for warmth. Only problem is that said pipes are not built to be used as a bed and said pipes have achieved just wee bit of a reverse camber under the weight of the furry bugger.

So, among my other tasks for this weekend is to crawl under the house and repair the damage, repair the entrypoint for the animal and figure out some way to deter future sleepovers.

I think the easiest and least toxic means is going to be to sprinkle a can of ground black pepper around the area. I remember reading that its been used in gardens to help ward off vegetable poachers. Something about the noxiousness of the stuff. just sends them the other way to find another spot to squat.

So that'll be fun, actually it will be. I'm going to get dirty under my house and I can also inspect the little mold that's under there and see if it can be easily scrapped off or if I've gotta get a little more creative on its ass.

The unpacking moves ahead slowly, last night we painted at the old apartment and it is nearing completion on our end of the process. That should be nice. We've sent at least five good candidates to move into the place to the property management company so I think we'll end up not having to pay for February and we'll get most of our security deposit back as well which is good because that's parts and tools for the new house now.

I think a new toilet is pretty high up on the list, there's nothing like flushing your troubles down the drain only to have them come bobbing back to the bowl like boomerang poop or something. And I'm sure the wax ring sealing the toilet to the floor is far, far overdue for a change so that'll be good too.

Now, if only the print job I sent out yesterday comes back today looking as good as I hope it will, then we'll be in fine shape.

One Speed Racer House Post Moment
The last thing I did before going to bed last night was to check the front door. Not to see if it was locked but to see if the real estate agent had finally come by and gotten the stupid looking lock box off our door. A monster of a clanking thing that screamed squatter to me everytime I saw it.

Lo and behold, the bugger was gone! After occupying the house for a little over a week. That's speedy service!

It would mean so much more if you only knew how utterly incompetent the agent has been through the whole process. Oh wait, let's enumerate!
Times she said she'd be over to get the box taken off: 5
Times she came over but forgot the combination or something else: 2
Times she gave me the wrong keys to the house: 1
Times she didn't show up for meetings at or about the house: 3
Times she's not gotten around to returning phone calls: at least 6 times
Times she missed a hard deadline on the contracts: 2
Times she accused us of holding up the process: 3
Reason she got the job selling the house: 1% (as in, she underbid the neighbor, who's also an agent)
Reason she's successful at her job despite being incompetent: 8, as in, scale of 1-10 how attractive is she.

Kill and Be Killed? You're Damn Right!
When asked whether people support the death penalty on iWon's totally scientific survey, the overwhelming response is a loud "Damned straight!".
34% - Strongly support
37% - Support
9% - I'm neutral
9% - Oppose
6% - Strongly oppose
4% - I'm not sure
0% - I don't care
The majority though, still favor allowing executions of 16 and 17 year olds and 22% of people opposed the abolition of capital punishment for retarded people where 52% support the decision.

If you haven't guessed, I'm all for the death penalty. There are plenty of actions, in my mind, that are heinous enough to lose your right to life. And the deterrence argument works in my book. If someone's convicted of killing eight people in a brutal and premeditated fashion and then he's put to death for it, there's no way he's going to be killing anyone else. That's a deterrent. Do I think his death is a deterrent for others? Nah, probably not.

And yes, I know the whole deal with the lifetime imprisonment means he'll never kill again too argument but I don't buy it and I don't think they should be allowed to live out their natural life on the taxpayer's dime. If the capital punishment process is too expensive then reform it to make it less economically feasible to keep pedophile rapist murderers alive rather than put them down like the rabid dogs they are.

Making Your Mother Laugh, a Good Thing
I got an email from my mom the other day in response to the Moron House post. One line in there got her laughing and I wanted to repost it here because damned if I don't think its some fine wordsmithing.
Case in point, the master bathroom's low flow model needs to have its handle held down for a minimum of five seconds and usually for about ten seconds to flush decently well. And there's still the possibility of some dookie peekaboo, i.e. you flush it, all the goodies go away and then one pops back out to spin around the bowl again.

The operative terms were in the middle there, dookie peekaboo.

And my mom laughed at it. That's cool!

That is all.

Quick Randomness
Some cool Blog Tricks to make your previously untrained blog sit up and beg like a good little dog. And there are some very cool tricks in here.

And the Tivo/Dish Deal that Jay sent over the other day. Get a dish and a Tivo installed for $89 delivered. Sounds like a pretty decent deal to me. Especially because we've already a dish mounted and ready to roll.

A good rule of thumb for selecting a movie to watch. If it has any of the Carradines in it then it is pretty well assured to suck.

A new project I'm thinking of starting up: A Homeless Person's Guide to Winter Survival. Chapter One: Staying Warm. Be angry all the time, if you're furios then your body will stay hot and you'll be toasty. And people won't fuck with you if they think you're crazy and mad. Crazy alone and they might steal your empty plastic bags at night, crazy and mad, they wouldn't dare. That's about as far as I've gotten with it so far.

I was wondering about this a week or two ago. Is Star Wars racist? I'm sure there are sites out there exploring the connection between shitty characters like Jar Jar Binks and racial stereotypes. But it would seem, on the face of it that the series is pretty well steeped in racism. But since it happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away then I guess that makes it okay.

Following that thought, has anyone watched the old animated Disney Peter Pan lately? You want to talk about stereotyped behaviours and racism. Damn, I had to leave the room. Let's just say that old Walt was just a little bit of a misogynist and Nazi sympathizer, or at least that's what I see when I watch some of the older stuff. Pretty unsettling knowing that little kids grew up watching it.

A couple of quick shouts to my peeps in cyberspace. Slut School is going to be on Conan as Triumph the Insult Dog Comic hand puppet thing's translator. It remains to be seen if she wins the ten minutes of fame or the two minutes of shame. But it'll be cool to see her anyway.

Sedalina is in New York at a work function during the week she was supposed to get married to her girlfriend in Toronto. Can you say misgivings? Go and read her (like you don't already).

Ryan has realized that Axe deodarant smells like Lysol and that it gets really freakin' cold in Minnesota in the winter.

Helen is wrestling with a relationship that's breaking apart and a new job in a different country starting soon. And she's also really happy with her boobs. And today is the one year anniversary of her attempted suicide complete with suicide journals. As leblanc points out, reading such naked emotions makes it easy to see how good some of us do have it.

I'd go through my whole list of blogs I read regularly and love but I'm pressed for time and have more than a gajillion projects to crank through today. So I'll get to it later if I can.

Stranger in a 15 Miles South of Normal Land
We've been here for a little over a week now. Its been a far from normal week and its hard to base anything as large and encompassing as a new house in a new town in just a week's time. But so much of my life as changed that its hard to not draw some thoughts, some things to think about that I'd not had on my mind two weeks ago.

For the first time in my life, I checked crime stats for my neighborhood. I learned several reassuring things and then a few things that weren't so reassuring. The crime rates between here and Santa Cruz are roughly the same for the populations, that's fine and good. But I also was able to check the concentration of the crimes committed. Guess where we live?

Yeah, the moderate to high crime area of town. I know why its like that and know that the crime is almost all theft from the big stores across the huge road up the street. I know that the incidence of crime against people and property, with the exception of the guys who steal car stereos for a living, is really pretty low. The chances of something happening here are pretty slim.

And yet, I feel displaced. I feel like a fish out of water. I'm a minority here, there aren't a whole lot of white folks like me and my little wife. There are some, sure. But the predominance is Latino and it shows. And I feel it. Sometimes it bothers me. Sometimes it doesn't. Right now I want concentrate on making this house as good as it can be. I want to make my back yard something that people look at and envy. I want to take the raw dough of this house and make something better of it than when we moved in.

All of what the house represents, the rooms in it, the freedoms that exist here for us as a growing little family, as my side venture starts to take shape, as our child starts his or her life, as our puppy that we've not gotten yet begins to grow from floppy muppet to purposeful hound, as P's side projects blossom as well. The house is space, its a chance to explore what we can create with just a little breathing room. With some work, a half dozen separate company concepts could be run from this one place.

The irony is that the freedom expressed within the house is curtailed outside of it. Going to OSH, going to Nob Hill (no Safeway I've found that's close), drive through McYack's. I look around and feel like I'm in a different country. Dropped pink Civics with exhaust cans you could fit a grapefruit in. Lots of big, big SUVs, some laughably stupid ones like Expeditions on 18" lifters and monster tires. Other beater shit wagons that wild eyed teenagers drive, looking for someone to race, ready to thrash the engine like mad for some imagined victory.

Not that any of this is different from anywhere else. But its not what I've been used to for so long, the change is a bit abrupt. From a sleepy seaside neighborhood to a few blocks of bright and shiny monuments to mercantilism surrounded by wave after wave of settled migrant workers. A place where dust and dirt rule as many roads as asphalt. Where probably more fruit, garlic, avocados, artichokes and lots of other fruits and veggies are grown within 50 miles of here than maybe anywhere else on earth.

But the land doesn't stare at you at stoplights. And then I remember that, in reality, I live in a pretty small place. Under 50,000, near my adopted home town and all of my friends for the last decade. I can drive there in fifteen minutes, do drive there every morning during the week and look at this time here in this house as a testing ground and, really, a long term rental. And that makes it easier to get around and get by.

I wonder if, when I look back, I'll be thinking more about the security aspects of home ownership or the security aspects of moving to an unknown neighborhood in a neighboring town? Or even the security aspect of having a wife and child to look after protecting. I remember reading that its not unusual for expecting fathers to stock up on weapons during a pregnancy. I can relate to the mindset. Cover your shit.

In Fifth Month Pregnancy News
P is in her fifth month now. She is definitely starting to show some bulge but is doing phenomenally well. The extra weight is throwing her off a bit but she's dealing. I let her rest whenever she wants to and am happy to run errands for her or try to take as much of her workload around the house as possible. Its hard but I figure I'm still getting the better end of the deal, she's carrying our child in her belly so I've no problem running downstairs for something for her to drink.

I think we've got an ultrasound this week which'll be exciting as the baby is much, much larger now and the sex has been determined even though P doesn't want to know and I do and will likely be scanning the ultrasound for evidence one way or the other.

But I'll likely be posting some pics and maybe a mini-vid later on this week.

Simply Too Funny to Not Post
Based on the old Zork games, this article, IKEA Walkthrough parodies a trip to IKEA.

Damned funny stuff for anyone who's ever gotten lost in one of their huge stores.

More on the House not Moron House and Showing the Apartment
Well, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a moron house. Its got its share of shortcomings but its also got quite alot of potential that we're only just beginning to explore.

I have come up with some new Cheddar X questions as a result of my drive in to work this morning. Is it better to lead with bad news so that the final thought is on a positive note or is it better to lead with good to soften the bad news blow?

I think I lean more towards leaving it on a sweet note and going bad news first.

The bad news? Our toilets suck, the sightlines for the house are not especially good, the windows are somewhat badly located and its pretty apparent that the previous owners repaired or replaced things only when they absolutely had to. I can't understand how they could have even used the dryer with all that impacted lint stuck in there. The toilets are all a little different and the real problem is that they don't suck hard enough.

Case in point, the master bathroom's low flow model needs to have its handle held down for a minimum of five seconds and usually for about ten seconds to flush decently well. And there's still the possibility of some dookie peekaboo, i.e. you flush it, all the goodies go away and then one pops back out to spin around the bowl again. Let me be one of the many who've said it, low flow toilets are a fucking waste of money. Having to flush the same thing three times to get it cleared isn't saving ANY water at all. Oh yeah, and all the toilet seats are the slumpy kind, you know, when you sit on them they slump to one side? Great fun.

The sightlines from the windows are poorly thought out. My office window looks directly at the front entryway of my neighbor when it would have made far more sense to have it facing the backyard. There are only two windows looking towards the driveway, one in our bedroom and one by the front door. There is no window or door in the garage at all. There is no natural light in two of the three bathrooms and the stairway is postively claustrophobic.

The upkeep from the previous owners is all but non-existent. If it wasn't on fire then they didn't do a damned thing. Anybody who could put up with a toilet seat that "settles" to one side when sit on it, could likely put up with alot of hassle. The dryer vent thing is amazing to me. It took me all of a half hour to clean it out so that it works well again. A few minutes with the new shop vac, the plumbing snake and a new vent cap and it works very well now. But they didn't even invest the minimum amount of time in doing that.

And I'm positive that there will be more instances of poor maintenance as we get deeper and deeper into the house. And yet, I'm still having fun, still enjoying the home ownership, still liking the freedom that comes with the lack of a landlord, still liking the freedom to do what we want with the space.

[Update: One more bit of bad news. My big old TV has about given up the ghost. I accidentally tore the cable in off the back and the screen's gone a little wonky in the move. The good news is that now we get to get a new TV too!]

So what's the good news? There's plenty really. We are operational with the washer and dryer which means we've started to dig into the huge pile of dirty clothes. I didn't know it at the time we bought them but we got some damned nice equipment. They're the Maytag Neptune washer and dryer. The washer is all but silent when it's running and doesn't abuse clothes like a washer with an agitator does. The touch controls are super cool and the front loading is just plain handy. Washer and dryer are a huge, huge, huge good news item. No more quarter scrambling, no more hassles of washing one place and drying at the laundromat. All in one place, easy cheesy!

Other good news, the huge bush in the back yard will succumb to my saw blade and hatchet easily. I thought it was going to be a nightmare to get under this monster but nope, I can walk between the bush and the fence and chop it down without even getting down on the ground. Ha! Sucker bush will disappear soon and I may even let it dry so I can burn it on the spot where it once stood! Oh yes, the dryer fire is at the house and awaiting a location from which to operate. Ought to be interesting to see how the neighbors take to that!

There is also ample space for my plants on the deck and in the back yard. The climate is better too and we've got a better exposure to the sun so everybody back there will be able to grow stronger and more full. I will be putting my bonsai rack back together tonight to get my bonsai back in their places. Other stuff will have to be figured out as we move forward. But I've got some cool ideas and plans for the backyard that will be cool if I can get them approved by P and get the time to do them. The fence is an early priority though. Until that's done, there's no way I'm getting a puppy knowing that the neighbor's big old Rottie can come over and make a snack of the pup. No sirree!

By the way, I did have a kind of peculiar moment the other night when I had to go out to my truck after midnight. I walked around the corner of the garage and saw a large doggish shape in the driveway. The rottie was going for a midnight walk. Bear in mind that this dog's gotta be more than a hundred pounds and I've not been properly introduced yet. But it walked back its yard and that was that.

With some luck we'll be getting TV back this week. Jay turned me on to a sweet deal on a dish with a Tivo that we're thinking about. And we might even be able to have some people over later on this week.

And I wonder if the kids who's parents were away this weekend got busted for having several hundred of their best friends over on Friday night. It was kind of funny and kind of annoying but there were kids all over the neighborhood with lowered Hondas racing up and down our street until 11 or so.

Apartment Showing
We had our apartment showing yesterday afternoon and used it as an excuse to really start busting it out and doing the final cleanup on the house. As of right now, the two bathrooms and the bedroom are "done". Kitchen and living room remain to be cleaned and then the backyard needs a good spray down. Some spackling and painting and the place is finished and ready for its next occupants. We had a few people come by to check it out. One excellent prospect was there early, had already been by before and was very interested in it. It would be a perfect spot for her too. And I got another email this morning from someone with an interest so we should be able to rent it out and not have to pay February rent which would be groovy by us!

Another day or two and we should be finished up there entirely. And we'll be getting all of our security deposit back! And if that doesn't work then I've got an ace up my sleeve to play if I need to. I hope I don't have to but I will if they start dicking with me. I do know they basically nickel and dimed one of the other recent people who've moved out. We will not allow that to happen quietly and will fight them for our money.

Funny side note, the signs we put up sparked two of our neighbors up pretty good. One has finally decided to move out as well because the owners told her that her sliding glass door that's been broken for a long time is no longer a door but a big window and she should stop trying to get them to fix it. The other neighbor was pissed off because he's been there for five years and was paying the same rent as we were and he gets alot less sun.

That's all for now. Life's busy but we're having fun with it. And my favorite store now? Orchard Supply Hardware! They kick ass!

I Am Architecture

You are Architecture.
You are the most functional art form and rarely do
anything without some practical purpose.
Although you are capable of easilly outstaging
the other arts, you usually prefer to go
unnoticed.


What form of art are you?
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Welcome to the Mickey Mouse House
And not as in, The Happiest Place on Earth, in its Mickey-ness. The new house is the Mickey Mouse House because, while it looks good on the surface, there are some issues lurking just beneath the surface.

Witness the fun of getting the dryer hooked up and running. Partially my own neophyte-ism in the process but also partly the house fighting me while trying to get it into functioning order.

I honestly can't say how the last family lived here. It must have taken at least three hours to dry a load of clothes because the exhaust vent had not been cleaned in at least a few years. The dishwasher drain pipes have some serious blockage so any water backfills into one of the sinks. The furnace works like a champ and keeps the upstairs hot and the downstairs kind of chilly. The cabinets in the kitchen were designed by munchkin elves who didn't ever have dishware or food that was taller than 10 inches. And the windows and sightlines for the house are pretty well ridiculous.

It is extreme understatement to say that we've got a bit of work to do.

My punch board list is at 35 projects and rising.

But we're off to the other apartment to get it cleaned up for an open house so we can re-rent it and not have to pay rent there for February. Because we could really use that cash for home improvements.

My new bible is the Black and Decker Home Improvement book. Its got lots of pictures!

In Soul Sucking Baby News
Eleven Year Old Ukranian Gives Birth to healthy baby boy.

Read that again slowly, an 11 year old girl gave birth to a baby. Yes, its a record, yes, its pretty well kind of sickening. The father is a 26 year old moron who fled because he faced a whopping three year sentence for knocking up an 11 year old.

And a shit heel asshole like Bill Janklow gets off with a 30 day stay in the pokey for running over a motorcyclist. Justice? We don't need no stinkin' Justice!

A Plate of Cheese, Please
This week's Cheddar X. Next week's theme is Biting Sarcasm so, if you want to vent some vinegar, then hie thee over to the X and add some pithiness to the Zonk Board!

1. Do you read more male or female bloggers? Why do you suppose that is?
I think I tend to read more female blogs overall but its not as disparate as I thought it was when I thought up the question. Because there's no huge disparity I can't really say why I lean towards lady blogs. But I do like the one's I read alot.

2. Does politicizing a blog send you packing if the blogger's beliefs are opposed to your own? Or, do you only read opinions that you agree with?
Not necessarily. If someone is spewing hate, lies and stupidity then I'm likely to pass it by. But if someone is putting together coherent arguments then I will read them just to get an idea of what the other side is thinking. I should also note that I'm not an overly politically sensitive guy in that I don't snoop blogs looking for political leanings.

3. Do you read other Cheddar X answers before writing your own?
No, which makes for numerous "Doh!" moments.

4. What was the last utterly ridiculous thing someone said to you?
It wasn't said, it was written but the dumbest thing I've read in the last day is an idiot on this Metafilter thread blaming the motorcyclist that Bill Janklow struck and killed while blazing straight through a stop sign in South Dakota. A crime for which he received a slap on the wrist sentence of 100 days and 3 years probation. He'll spend a total of 30 days in prison for killing someone with his car. Not because he's the ex-governor or ex-Congressional rep for South Dakota, I'm sure. No, that'd be wrong and we all know our judicial system is fair and equal for everyone.

5. What world record would you most like to hold?
Well, there are some damned interesting ones here like indoor cricket spitting, most scorpions eaten, loudest burp and farthest ear slingshot but I think I'm going to have to go with furthest card throwing although I do have to say that farthest nasal ejection (the farmer blow) is pretty darned tempting too.

6. What types of blog posts make you want to comment more often than not?
It will depend. Sometimes I comment if I agree, sometimes if I disagree. I am very likely to comment if someone has a logical fallacy in their argument (i.e. using their conclusion to support a premise to support their conclusion in the God exists because everything exists therefore God exists vein). I am also very likely to comment if someone makes me laugh (usually this is Ryan or the newly accredited and sensational Slut School.

7. Does your significant other have a beloved article of clothing that you hate? Have you contemplated "accidentally" destroying it?
Yep. But she's got her own sense of style and I love her all the more for sticking to it. Though there is one shirt of hers that I just don't care for all that much.

And there's this week's , go and get some!

My Rising Fury Against Asshole Pet Owners
Its no secret that I've been in the market for a dog ever since I found out we were buying a house with some space. And its no secret that I love animals so it should come as no surprise that I harbor a deep and intense hatred of any asshole human who mistreats their animal.

I've been reading pet adoption sites for several weeks now and the gamut of stories is sickening. People treat living, breathing animals that were parts of their family like furniture when they move and can't take the dog with them. One site had a story about some lowlife owner who shot his dog in the head before abandoning it at the pound. What the fuck is wrong with people?

The same goes for people that get dogs to raise them as mean, aggressive attack dogs when they live in residential neighborhoods. There's nothing less fun than watching some moron with an 80 pound pitbull that's looking at you and your dog like a midday snack.

All of these realizations have led me to a few conclusions.

One, anytime I go for a walk with my dog, I'll be carrying mace and an expandable baton.
Two, I will never suffer an animal abuser's "company" and will tell them to leave my house or I will remove myself from their company. Anyone who's craven enough to attack an animal is not someone I have any interest in being associated with (not to mention the pending karmic backlash, I don't want to be around them when that piano falls on their head).
Three, an untrained dog is the same as leaving a loaded gun laying around. They are a danger to themselves and a danger to their families. Training is a good thing.

Any scumbag out there who uses his dog as a punching bag should be jailed and treated like the coward they are. Animals are not furniture, animals are not disposable, animals are not your property, they are part of your family. Treat them as such (and if you abuse your family then do everyone a favor and drown yourself).

Positive Movement Through the Debris
Last night was the first night we've had to really start plowing through the piles of boxes that are strewn throughout the downstairs. The first night to start to make some order out of the chaos. The first of the fishtanks came in last night, the smaller of the two, and another small load of stuff from the other apartment as the percent of completeness gets ever closer to 100. One more fish tank, some curtains, some other things and our wedding oil and everything off the patio and its a done deal!

After some initial hassles with the DSL and phone idiots who are trying to charge us for a service call in which they did nothing and P ended up wiring up the phones and getting them operational after the technician failed for the second time. So, yes, we have phone service to the house. Now we get to wait a day or two more to find out about the DSL hook up. No word on cable yet either but it'll likely be into next week given their history.

I organized my office space upstairs. The room now contains both computers and my Bowflex, all set up so that I can get workouts in while downloading music or chatting online or whatever. Next step is to see if I can slip a bike in there so I can get it on the trainer and have the entire space worked out. P wants her computer put into the closet because she hasn't been using it much lately and that'll free up more floor space and still give her access to it.

I emptied something like fifteen boxes of stuff all over the house, many boxes in the kitchen, which has been all but unusable up until now. Now we have a stove and cook top, counters that are starting to be cleared off and floor space to manuveur in. The living room is still a disaster area without much organization but I'll get on that tonight even though I think we need another couch or one of those one and a half chairs that I can't find a picture of right now, they're in between a loveseat and an oversized stuffed chair.

But my first task upon arriving at home is to get the washer and dryer hooked up and running. We've got some seriously dangerous piles of laundry awaiting a cleaning and don't even ask about what I'm doing for socks right now, its just too gross to discuss. It shouldn't be too hard to do and I went to OSH last night and got a nice level to make them all plumb. Side note, I saw and listened to one of the most assholish customers I've seen in a long time, he berated a worker for about twenty minutes and then took his bitch to the store manager, all the while proclaiming that he was writing a letter to corporate. I wanted to tell the guy to lighten the fuck up but just got my shit and went. I also picked up a cool saw to assault the way oversized bush in the backyard. I'll snap pics of before and after because I think it will be drastic. And fun.

We're going to have an open house at the other apartment this weekend while we're there cleaning it out. If we can refill the place then we'll save about $600 and that's plenty of incentive to get it going. And there's the nice juicy security deposit we're looking at as well. Which is, yet another fringe benefit about buying a house, there are no more security deposits!

An African Spam Question
The volume continues to go up on the emails with the stupid subject lines like "MY GOOD FRIEND", "IN UTMOST CONFIDANCE" and "URGENT REPLY REQUIRED" from folks with cool sounding names like Marcal Savimbi or Ms. John Mumberle. I don't see them going away anytime soon even though you would have to among the densest idiots on the planet to fall for this stupid scam spam.

But what I have been noticing is that almost every single one of these spams is different. They all have a different story to tell, some different link to a dead governmental official, some spin on why they need you, some tragic tale of woe. How can they do this? How can they continually crank out new story after new scam? And why would they? I'm sure the same stupid one is just as ineffective as sending out a thousand different scam spams.

Either way, I'm tired of them, tired of false urgency they intend to elicit, tired of the lies they propogate, tired of the garbage language they use because of their fragile understanding of the English language.

Has anyone ever fallen for this stupidity? Has anyone ever given them any reason to think that someone will fall for it and provide them with their bank account information? Is there any possible reason they continue to bombard the world with this stupid shit? And if there is someone dumb enough to fall for it, they should be kicked off the internet permanently for encouraging these idiot pricks to keep sending the garbage.

At last count, I got fifteen different spams this morning in my work in-box and another 12 or so in my personal in-box. All different, all the same, all stupid and all transparent attempts to steal my account information. Maybe I'll send them my old account info to see what they try to do with it?

The Marriage Chasm
Sadly, it would appear that about two thirds of the nation is against the idea of marriage between two men or two women.
The poll is completely unscientific and statistically invalid but when asked to respond to the statement: A marriage should be between a man and a woman. Fifty-nine percent strongly agreed with the statement and another 7% somewhat agreed. Only 18% either somewhat disagreed or strongly disagreed.

It would seem that the nation is against the idea of Sedalina being legally allowed to marry her girlfriend and enjoy the benefits afforded by the union.

I don't understand why though. Marriage is based on mutual love, why should that be restricted to hetero couples? How are people threatened by two men marrying or two women marrying? IS there such a deep homophobia that people can't see that a marriage based on love is stronger than one based on Joe Redneck getting his teenage girlfriend pregnant and HAVING to marry her?

The Omnipotence of the Now
Some thoughts on now, the past and the future.

Animals in the natural state are very much creatures of now, right now, this moment, and the next, and the next. Bring present in the now is highly beneficial when you're stalking game or being hunted or if you're thirsty. Being in the now is hard wired into most animals on the planet, animals that are in the ten seconds ago get eaten usually and animals in the thirty seconds from now are similarly frozen and eaten as well.

Its not too hard to bear in mind that we humans are just bright apes, or monkeys really. That we're creatures with a hard wired now in us as well, but that our sentience allows us to transcend the now and consider the then both future and past. Its an easier transformation for some than for others, enlightenment is a difficult event to measure. The now is why we can understand crimes of passion, why that fucker who just cut you off for no reason makes you want to push his car off the road, why sometimes moments pass like centuries. The now is the needle on the phonograph, it is the shining instant in the ever unfolding history of time and space. Being now is both simple and highly complex. Enough so that Zen philosophers have educated, or maybe reeducated, people in how to exist now.

But also to recognize that there is no real reason why your now in ten seconds has to be like your now right now. If you are furious, you can change your now, click, change, different now, different universe. The unending nature of change in the universe can be harnessed for you by simply rolling with it for a second, let change wash over you, let your fury wash away, let the now become the then and find a new now. Decide what you wish your new now to be like, mold it into the right size and shape, it is your now, do with it what you will.

House News Update
We drove back to San Leandro last night, got to sit in stupid go nowhere Bay Area traffic, loaded up the dryer and rolled back home again. Now we have all of our first round of major appliances in, I'm hooking up the washer and dryer tonight and we'll be just about ready to start tackling the unpacking.

The fridge is huge, the washer and dryer are gorgeous front loading monsters that will make both of our lives so much simpler and better and it'll be just freakin' awesome. No more stealing quarters from the beer steins, no more running out to the laundry room to pull wet clothes out to stack for a trip to the laundromat to dry them all at once. It will be very, very nice! And everyone knows that gas dryers work better than electric.

Now we're waiting for the phone to finally work so that we have phone and dsl going. Cable takes up to two weeks to get started for some really, really stupid reason. I guess they don't really give a damn about customers who have moved and want cable in the new place. But whatever, we can definitely live with tv because there is plenty of other stuff to mash through.

And I still can't find my keys. <