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?
brought to you by Quizilla

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.

A New (Old?) Word to Add
I would guess that someone's already come up with this because its so simple but.....

enginerring - poorly thought out engineering that results in lots of mistakes and retries.

Don't Fuck with ME! I'm an Angry Drunk!
Yet another fine quiz from the most excellently humored folks over at the Rum and Monkey.


What Kind of Drunk Are You?

Damned Cool Music Searching
I've always had a hard time finding new music, I read blogs, I talk to pals, I download random tracks and sometimes come across new bands that I like but more often than not end up with some sophomoric screeching and wailing by guys who normally ask if I want fries with my burger.

Enter, musicplasma : the music visual search engine.

Punch in a band or artist that you know and like and voila, you'll be presented with a matrix of music that relates to your entered search string. Clickable, bendable, scrollable and pretty damned cool, my only gripe is that I think it slowed my machine down to a slow crawl but perhaps that's because I've got an average of fifteen browser tabs going at any one time in addition to Word, Excel, Goldmine, AIM and IE as well as Netscape.

Anyway, check it out if you're in need of a new way to find music that will likely jibe with your tastes. And tell them Uncle Johnny sent you.

DSL Purgatory and Move In Joy
Well, I'm finally back in the office, had to take yesterday off as the I'd run my body down so much during the move that I was pretty well pancaked yesterday morning.

The quick news, we're in the new house, its an utter mess, we have no phone, DSL or cable. But we do have a sweet new huge refridgerator that was just loads and loads of fun to load into my truck and drive home from San Leandro with last night. We also have a shiny new washer and its dryer twin is still waiting for a pickup in San Leandro, guess where I'm headed after work? Oh boy.

At least it'll be way easier to drive back with just the dryer and not the six foot tall behemoth fridge in the back.

Let's see, the move in day was Saturday and we had some friends come down and help out, Mandi and Jamie, you guys are the absolutely coolest pals ever! Especially after a low sleep night with a sick three year old and a newborn to care for. Just awesome! Paul also gets a big shout out thanks for coming down last night at 10 or so to help unload the truck and get the fridge into the house (which required us to remove not only the door into the kitchen but both doors on the fridge and even the hinge mechanisms too, but then it went in easily).

I made, I think, four trips with the truck, Jamie matched me with the van and we loaded from the apartment and unloaded into the house. Filling the garage and the living and kitchen with our stuff. But the best part is that its not stuffed full, and there's still the whole upstairs to spread the stuff around into. The new house has ALOT more room and the monster garage certainly has been awesome already. Right now its got about half the stuff, my truck's camper shell, all five bikes, a couple of tables, chairs and more stuff and there's still space to walk through. The slow process of unpacking has barely begun though and the next week or two will be a long process of opening boxes, assessing the contents and pushing it in the general direction of its intended destination.

But we are living there now, I'm commuting up Highway 1 to Santa Cruz now while P has a very short trip to work which is only fair because she'll be getting less and less mobile as the weeks and months stack up. But for now, she's happy, feeling pretty good most of the time but is a little tired.

I'm tired and sore from all the working and lifting and stressing about all the hassles and things to think about. But we have a house, we have a nice big comfortable and warm, my mantra from a few weeks ago about double pane windows is paying off nicely in a warmer and more efficient house. Its alot bigger but stays alot warmer because we don't bleed heat anywhere near as badly through the windows.

We've met some of our neighbors, nice folks with kids and a big rottie out back so there's no worries about me getting my dog aside from their dog getting into our yard and getting medieval on it. But I think that'll be an unlikely event as the Rot looks like he's got a few years and is more interested in kicking back than in kicking ass.

I will post some pics of the place when its been pulled together a bit more and we've decorated some. Its a little stark right now. And our list of improvement projects stands at 34 separate projects right now, with more being added all the time. Maybe I'll make another page for the site to track our progress through the list. And I'm going to actively start to sell my SV and get back on a Concours, I need the size and storage more than I need the sphincter clenching raw speed of the little twin.

With some luck we'll have a phone, cable and 'net access tonight so I can get the office space in shape and usable. But I'll be out on the road a good portion of the night anyway so it may make no difference either way.

But its good to be able to check the news and see what's up. Whodda thunk John Kerry would win Iowa? Damn, looks like maybe that second mortgage on his house to keep his campaign alive may have been money well spent and a risk worth taking. Did anything else happen while I was out?

And Now, I Shall Spend the Rest of the Day Talking Like a Badass Robot


Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?

Although I should note that RoboCop wasn't really a robot, he was a cyborg created when Officer Murphy was gunned by the bad guys. But he's totally badass if a little slow and he's certainly not colossal but he does kill oh so well.

via XSet.

Here Come De Cheddar
This week is a movie themed . Game rules are below, now have at it!

Choose your favorite actor and answer the questions below with movies they have been in. Best bet is to hit up a site like Reel or something like it to get a full list of your actor's movies. As before with the music themed version of this, you can opt to disclose the actor or not and allow readers to try and guess who it is. It may be too difficult to answer all the questions with a single actor's filmography so you can either skip some or split the list in two and use two different actors. Do whatever makes you happy.

I'm going with not telling but it should be pretty easily evident, I'd think.

1. What is your home life like?
The Negotiator

2. What is your first thought when you think about high school?
War Letters: Stories of Courage, Longing and Sacrifice

3. What is your strongest personality trait?
Iron Will

4. What's your work like?
Swimming with Sharks and A Bug's Life

5. What do you wish your job was?
Ordinary Decent Criminal

6. Describe your partner.
American Beauty

7. Describe yourself.
The Big Kahuna and (soon) Dad

8. What's some good advice?
Pay It Forward

9. Tell us about your childhood.
See No Evil, Hear No Evil and L.A. Confidential

10. What would you say to your ten year old self?
The Usual Suspects

And that is how we play the . Want to play? Then go and get some!

But There is GOOD News
The house recorded yesterday and that means that it is now officially in our possession. I'm meeting with the realtor after work today to get the keys and remote for the garage and drop off the first truck load of stuff.

Our living room is presently filled with boxes as the moving process begins to hit a higher gear.

The current plan is to mobilize up to four pickup trucks tomorrow to make a speedy caravan down for one trip and then I'll likely do a few more trips and get the body of our stuff down there. For a week or so we'll be straddling the two places as we ramp up there and ramp down here. And then we get to start showing this place to try and rent it for the next month as we break our lease.

This Sunday is also the end of the season football party for the local folks who've been playing the football pool. It promises to be an excellent time with lots of football, lots of food, drink and maybe a poker game tossed in for good measure.

And One Last Good Thing: The Prettiest Sim I've Ever Seen on the Palm OS
I was looking for a new game to load onto my Clie NX70 (a handheld that is quite a bit more powerful than my first desktop computer, by the way), and came across a new game I'd not heard of before, Warfare Incorporated. Interested I clicked through to the splash page and read some reviews. And then downloaded and installed it.

The game is phenomenal! Its along the same basic lines as Warcraft but is set in the future so the little dudes get machine guns and flame throwers and jeeps and other cool stuff. It is the best looking game I've ever seen on a handheld and I am looking forward to the next line I have to wait in so I can get some more game time in. If you're a gamer with a handheld then you must go and check this game out. Unreal! Keep your eye on the company that made this game, Spiffcode (a terrible name but an amazing product). They will continue to create wicked cool games and I will continue to buy them.

The Utter Lameness of Jacko Fans
I was just watching the morning news and am just thoroughly sickened by the assholes who are crowding around the Santa Barbara courthouse this morning in a truly misguided attempt to see the "King of Pop" or the "King of Kid Touching and Sleepovers".

There are thousands of people that have turned out to glimpse this man who is accused of a pretty shockingly nasty crime. And, as with Kobe Bryant's sexual molestation case, there are people that couldn't give a damn about the case against him, couldn't care less if he really did sodomize that kid with cancer, couldn't care less if he has buggered little kids for the last decade. All they care about is seeing their idol.

People sicken me.

Can Ben Stiller Play ANY Other Roles?
Is it me or has Ben Stiller been playing pretty much the same annoying loser character since "There's Something About Mary"? A neurotic loser who gets the girl anyway. Yawn.

Twenty Below and People Wonder Why I Left
Current weather conditions for Lyme, New Hampshire, where my mother lives now says its -8 degrees right now.
Last night it was -20. That's twenty degrees below zero, people! Need some cold weather info? Stop by Rambling Rhodes for a good breakdown on how to tell when it is freaking cold out.
My only addition is how to tell when its below freezing easily. Breathe in through your nose, did your boogers freeze? Yes, then the temp is below zero. If not then, oh boy, its cold enough so that you're wondering if its below zero!

My family laughs at me when I complain about a sub 40 degree morning.

I laugh at them when they tell me that its 20 degrees below zero outside and then I go for a bike ride down by the ocean and laugh alot more.

Why Its Better to Have a Driver
Streakers in restaurant watch as their car is stolen.

Um yeah, plan ahead boys and have some fourth person waiting in the car for you. And its hard to look cool when you're buck naked in the cold with a tiny little mushroom shaped and sized pepe.

Thanks for the connect, Hardy!

Random Thoughts on Selection, Natural Process and Sentience
Sentience is both a blessing and curse. We are able to plan and think and communicate on a greater level than any creatures before us and that has allowed us to be able to create vast and far reaching cultures. But the curse is that we can remember, we can be cursed to dwell on past events. Unlike a wildebeest that sees its brother get taken down and killed by a lion on the Serengeti and runs away and lives, it doesn't have the brain power to actually be able to dwell on his death and staying alive for another day and running away. That doesn't mean he doesn't register and mourn the loss, animals are easily capable of mourning but they are not afforded the time or brain cycles to overly dwell on the loss. If they did then they would be killed themselves and natural selection would weed them out of the gene pool. The process of life and living is a cold calculation, do this and live to live another day, do that and you're a lion's lunch.

It should be noted that the driving force of life is to continue that life. The most fundamental instinct any creature, plant or animal, is to live and make more. Everything else is secondary.

With the extra brain power to look forward and backward in time, humans exceed other creatures capabilities but it remains to be seen if it is an evolutionary advantage or disadvantage. The eyeblink of time we've been the dominant species on the planet isn't a compelling argument yet.

And Another New Word
A word to add to the lexicon.

Japanaise - a tasty but oily and yellowish bread spread made from Japanese tourists and whale blubber.

Baby News Update
Its time for a quick update on the ever growing belly of my lovely wife. We have passed the 15th week and things are really beginning to develop now.

From Baby Center: At around 4 inches long, crown to rump, and weighing in at 2 1/2 ounces, your baby's still small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. What's new this week? Light sensitivity, taste buds, and a bad case of the hiccups, which is a precursor to breathing. You can't feel or hear them, though, in part because the baby's trachea is filled with amniotic fluid rather than air.

P is feeling more energetic but is slowly being hindered by her growing belly. She has an awesome attitude and is dealing with each new change with grace. She will be an amazing mother, that's pretty easy to see though we are both still mildly to very worried about taking care of the baby when it does come. But we're both doing our research, reading up on the process, learning about the physical and emotional changes taking place in her body these days. She's likely to be forgetful and to be tired but is in great spirits and that's the good part.

She sent me the link to the Top 20 Baby Names last week and we're slowly finding names for boys that we like. Right now we're pretty happy with either Graydon or Grayson but there are other names that we're still considering as well. There's a pretty interesting baby naming page at Baby Center, Baby Name that allows you select for boys or girls names or both, ethnicity of the suggested names, what letter you want the name to begin and/or end with and, most strangely but its a cool addition, how many syllables in the name. The variety of names it kicks out is almost scary but it also gives a very short definition of what the name means and that's very helpful because who wants a child named after a fair flood (Gwenllian)?

I took the Dad to Be Quiz and didn't do quite as well as I'd hoped but I'll study up and take it again in a few months when we start to get closer and closer to the date. They have a whole bunch of info for Dads to be that's helpful too.

Next week should signal the first time that P will be able to feel the baby move though she swears she's felt it moving already. And the baby will begin to inhale and exhale amniotic fluid to start to build up lung strength for the outside world.

I should find out when the next appointment is because I think we're having another ultrasound then and we might be able to determine the sex of the little gummy bear at that time though P is still against knowing whereas I am all for knowing.

The one that does suck is that P has been having trouble sleeping lately. Having pressure on her bladder means she gets up to go to the bathroom often and that makes a good night's sleep somewhat hard to come by. But maybe that's nature's way of preparing us for midnight, 2 am, 4 am and 6 am feedings?

Anyway, we're doing well and looking forward to the continuation of the process. It'll be nice to have the house to expand into and I am looking forward to decorating our baby's room and filling it with baby stuff. Its all a bit surreal still but I'm digging it and so is P.

Is $500 Billion Enough to Distract America?
That's gotta be what ol' Shrubbie McShrubstein is thinking and hoping with his latest oral ejaculation, Bush envisions moon as test, jumping-off point for Mars mission. Let's see now? Illegal oil war in Iraq? Check. Open theft by cronies and drinking buddies? Check. The near destruction of any remaining good will the USA had with allies around the world? Check. Inducing whiplash cringes in advisors every time he opens his stupid face? Check. Economy struggling to right itself after record deficit spending? Check. People beginning to get suspicious about Bush's record as president and in need of something to point to as a success amid the carnage of his presidency? Check.

Here's my take on the conversation between Bush and Clancy, his imaginary talking rabbit friend.
Bush - Man, I'm bored. What good is it being president if the people always get their panties in a bunch when I attack and kick the holy shit out of some godforsaken dirty oil rich country way on the other side of the world? Don't they know its got foreigners living there?
Clancy - Its because Britney Spears is boring people. You should make that Hilary Duff girl do something really stupid and naked. Or the Olsen Twins, that'd keep a huge male demographic off your ass for a while. Look how well the Paris Hilton sex video did for you.
B - That's true. But it was your idea to film Paris with the NightStalker X5000 Mil-spec night vision gear, it combined my two favorite things. Young, vacant but beautiful blond twinks and military gear, the only thing that video needed was a few explosions and maybe a car chase, damn. I always think of the best stuff too late.
C - Don't worry, your wicked awesomeness. There is still plenty of time to have a car chase. Maybe you could arrange to have Scott Peterson transferred and turn THAT into a car chase?
B - Nah, though I can relate to the guy and his troubles, he's poison now. Going near him will make me look even worse. Besides, I hear he smells like pee.
C - Well, let's see then. You need a new idea, something big enough to distract a whole nation and expensive and something that demonstrates America's top dog position too?
B - Damn, this is harder than I thought. Maybe I should check in with Dick, he's always got swell ideas.
Transcription stops here as Bush breaks down into a ten minute giggling session.
C - Okay. Go and check with Dick.
Bush goes off down the hall to the special VP's crapper, Dick's "undisclosed secret location".
B - Hey Dick, can I ask you a question?
Dick - Well sure, Georgie. What's on your mind? Jello or cookies with lunch or what kind of Lunchable to have?
B - Oooh, damn, I hadn't gotten to lunch yet, now I'm gonna be distracted. But no, I was wondering what we could do to distract the country now that the Iraq thing is starting to bite us in the ass?
A grunt, a moan and loud plop and splash ensues.
D - Man, that cleared out some space. Um, what was that you said, Georgie?
B - That's it!
And Bush went skipping merrily back to his playroom where Clancy was punching random codes into the nuclear football in an attempt to destroy the world.
B - Clancy! You're not supposed to mess with that thing. Dick said so!
C - Ah, whatever, what'd he have to say anyway?
B - He mentioned something about space which made me think about travelling to space. Let's go to the moon, build a cool moon base and then rocket to Mars!
Clancy - That sounds like a great idea, your most smartest wonderstud master of all that is.

Bush then spent the rest of the afternoon roaring around the White House with his arms out making rocket engine sounds intersparsed with "otherworld" beeping noises until it was nap time.

Tech Assassin Pleasure
By the way, it is a strangely marvelous pleasure to watch pop ups get killed off by Pop-Up Stopper. Some sites still subscribe to the stupid idea that people want to have their web surfing slowed down by the addition of this stupid marketing. But they pop up, then they're killed and I see a circle with a line through it. Sooooo nice. Hahaha. Suck on that one, lazy marketers.

Finally
Folks, let this guy instruct you on what not to do when the country is in an Orange Level Terror Alert. Its stupid at any time but it is far dumber to drop a dime on your relatives accusing them of being Al Qaeda operatives.

Oops, I Lied, One more Thing, Some Adult Video Awards Skin
AVN Slide Show, more silicon and empty skulls than you could shake your stick at. And another link to balance out the skin flick awards, Giant Catfish.

Crazy Fact of the Day
There's little doubt that Apple's iPod is the far and away feel good story of the last year or so from Apple.

But, did you know just how good a story it was?

According to this article at the Motley Fool Apple sold 1.79 iPod's a minute for ALL of 2003. Now, that's 1.79 a minute times 60 minutes in an hour, times 24 hours in a day times 365 days in the year and that comes to 1.684 million iPods sold last year.

Now multiply that by somewhere between $250 and $300 and all those lurid tales of Apple's impending demise become just a little farcical.
I fully expect the price point on the iPod Mini to drop in about 6 months and then they'll sell millions of those as well.

Words Are Weapons
A post I began last night before beig so rudely interupted by a busted wireless connection (I really am looking forward to reconfiguring our computer arrangements as we begin the migration south to the new house). A re-install and reboot later, all is well but the post was vaporized in the melee.
I will attempt to recapture it and add in some of the latest news I've just learned.

Words are weapons. They're the balm by which the sting of insults can be soothed away. Words are power. Words evoke memories. They can be scathing and raw. Words can cut straight to the bone faster than any blade. Words can generate actions far beyond their power. Words are weapons but they can be either laser guided sniper bullets or they can be clumsy neighborhood levelling MOAB's (that's Bush speak for Mother of All Bombs, the Iraqi superstar shock and awe bombs). Words, when used precisely, can generate a clear picture, can lead a mind through a story and can resolve mysteries.

But too often, words are used without any guidance whatsoever. When people speak, they lay their words out end to end with little regard for the precision, the syntax of their thoughts. The thoughts are jumbld and unclear, the intent is blotted out, the meaning smeared and the image is blurry and without strong meaning.

When words are used properly, they convey everything that needs to be conveyed and leave out those parts that are inessential. Picking your words carefully does many things. Among them, it makes you a more clear speaker because you're measuring your responses, because you're working through a definite response. Precision in the use of words results in stronger arguments (not the kicking and screaming kind but the philosophical argument where two people engage in a discussion of the merits of two sides of a debate which does not, generally, entail kicking and screaming).

The addition that I've just found out this morning is the swan song for one of my newer and favorite blogs, illmatic. Kat is shutting the doors on this most excellent and often laugh out loud blog of hers. Her reasons are certainly valid, she's concerned about hurting people she knows and she's concerned about disclosing information that she would rather share with strangers than the involved parties. There is always that fear that a family member will stumble across the blog and find out all manner of terrible thing that their sibling or child has been up to. In some ways there is a similarity between illmatic's demise and what Sedalina did to her blog a few months ago, she sanitized it of distinquishing marks because she had a real fear that someone in her company would find the blog and ream her on it. Or, her housemates might find it and freak because they were regular features of her writing. Its a real fear and one that I've dealt with myself. But my family already knows about my blog, my wife read my blog before we ever met in person and my friends know and understand that this space is mine, for me. Getting upset with me about my blog is like getting angry with me because my eyes are green (or blue or hazel, depending on my mood), its fruitless. And sometimes, my blog has been a reason for my mom to write me an email to check in and make sure that things are okay.

So, Kat, you will be missed, hon. You were damned good and I fully expect you to use your superpowers to write the Great White Northern Novel. At the very least, you could do guest spots on all of your friend's blogs. That would be kind of cool, like a travelling circus almost.

And to the rest of the world, remember that your words are powerful. Use them with discretion. Carelessly formed sentences are like walking around blindly shooting a gun into the darkness, eventually you're gonna hit something you wish you hadn't. Use your words carefully and they'll be your strongest allies against the ever growing forces of darkness and evil.

Morning Drive Observation
There are people out there on the roads right now that believe that they are just too cool for words (the acronym is TCFW). One guy I saw this morning was too cool for stop signs. Anyone who's been to Santa Cruz knows the roads and knows that there are some pretty stupid and poorly designed intersections. One is on the far side of the bridge leading into downtown. I saw a latino dude in his Camaro or Firebird just drive right on through like it wasn't there. And its a good thing he was lucky enough to not hit a biker coming from a side street. The blatant disregard for the safety of others is reason enough to follow this idiot and report him to the cops. But, as I was going the other way, I will have to rely on the karmic and cosmic scales of justice to catch him. I just hope he doesn't kill anyone in the meantime.

Today's Health Tip from iWon
Tea and Sympathy
Here's the hot tip on how to lose weight without a heavy-duty program of diet and exercise.
Take a cup of green tea with hot pepper.

Two studies prove this theory.

In the first, done by the Physical Activity Sciences Laboratory of Laval University in Quebec, Canada, researchers found that eating a teaspoonful of hot pepper before meals reduced the amount people ate. And the hot pepper seemed to have an effect on the nervous system so that the people not only ate less, but also used more energy.

As for the green tea, the department of physiology at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, reported that if you drink three cups of green tea a day, you'll burn more fat.

Bad Web Sites
There's nothing that makes a website suck more than having a very poorly designed and executed search engine. Internet.com is a great site with awesome content but their search engine sucks ass. Search and sort by date and it starts with the oldest articles? WTF? Search for my company and it kicks back all kinds of articles that have neither term I was searching for in them? WTF? Why are they wasting my motha-fuckin' time?

Monday Afternoon Randomness
More tech lust, check out MobileBurn for CES reviews and the most amazing portable gadgets, well, ever.

Dash Toy Lovin' for illmatic
Finally, a copy that works (I think) though I wish it were in Quicktime so it didn't have to be downloaded to be viewed but whatever. I've spent far too much time messing around with this to give up now.
Dash Toy.avi 5 mb (warning, its loud but safe for work).

The Dilbert Weasel Poll Results are surprising and funny and a little eye opening (whodda thought the number 2 most weasely individual in America is Michael Moore, behind George Bush, of course? I would have given him top ten but not number 2). Anyway, interesting stuff and worth a peek. My favorite section? Gotta be this one

Weaseliest Behavior
18877 Blaming fast food restaurants for making you fat
5748 Religious extremism
4688 Creating computer worms/viruses because no one will date you
3997 Driving a Hummer
1487 Using cell phones in restaurants
1077 Using speaker phone in cubicle

Curious about what kind of a blogger you are? Maybe you should invest a half hour or so (its a long survey) and take the WebLog Author Survey to find out. I've not had a chance to work all the way through it yet but I'll get there eventually.

Happiness Isn't....
Being able to see your vehicle from your office and then seeing the nice big ol' splat and drip of the inside of a passing sea gull's digestive system.

Damn! But at least I topped up the cleaning fluid over the weekend so I won't have to stare out at the world through sea gull poo.

Good News/ Bad News
The good news? Your suicide attempt was unsuccessful.
The bad news? Its illegal to try and kill yourself in Dar Es Salaam.
The worse news? Your wife saved you from killing yourself after she caught you knocking boots with another woman.

The story is, How Many Wives Would Do This?

It Can't Be Monday Already!
I need another four hours of sleep, I need to pack things up, I need to cross off another half dozen errands on the list. I need more time, damnit!

Oh well, further proof there's no God, an omnibeneficient God would stretch Sunday night out by another four or five hours so people could catch up on sleep or get to those projects that were supposed to be done over the weekend.

Nothing got moved in, nothing was done in any way whatsoever with the house. Some snafus with the paperwork and we're looking at a 5 day holding pattern. Oh boy! We did go to Home Depot and checked out materials, power tools (P was quite crestfallen when she realized that nailguns are almost always pneumatic and we don't have a compressor yet), astroturf, appliances and paint swatches.

Saturday night was alot of fun. We had a going away party for a good friend who's moving to Colorado for a while. The hour or so that P and I promised we'd spend wound up being well after midnight by the time we did head for home. P has seen the far side of midnight only a couple of times since we've been together so this was an unusual event.

Next weekend will be the third weekend in a row that we've had a party at Paul and Kim's house with the divisional championship games and the ceremonial end of the season party for our football pool. Another good excuse to hang out, drink, eat barbecued meat and play with the dog. And maybe by next week, I'll have my own dog to play with as well.

One very good thing that came out of the party is that we're planning a Texas Hold 'Em Poker Tournament. The World Series of Poker has been being replayed alot lately and now they're doing Celebrity Poker (side note question, if you've never heard of them then how can they be called a celebrity?) alot on Bravo too. So we're putting together our own tourney. Figure a five or six hour day into night with drinks and a slowly dwindling supply of believers.

Oh yeah, how about a new word?

geniass - someone who's smart and is a prick about it or thinks they're the only ones with brains.

In Ironic News
Did you know that today is Howard Stern's 50th birthday? Maybe you did but were you also aware that its Mr. Pill Popper Drug Users Are Evil Himself, Rush Limbaugh's 53rd as well? Irony by thy name. By the way, for the record, I think Howard Stern is about 98% prick and 2% funny. Only on the rare occasion does he do something that merits a laugh and I almost always get irritated with him and turn it off. Anybody who treats his staff as poorly as he does really doesn't deserve my attention. And Rush? The guy's such a cackling moron its hard to believe that so many people across this country allow him to make all of their decisions for them. I can't take him seriously because he spews mistruth as often as spittle.

Last Bit of News Before Work Begins
Our postal carrier is a petty little twat bitch. Sorry, check that, our postal carrier is still a petty little twat bitch.
Some of you may remember our hassles with this prick last summer when he put a package on our front door and it was subsequently stolen, the contents removed and the box thrown into our bushes out front. The Post Office didn't do a damn thing about that and they refused to reprimand this asshole. So he's continued his tiny little bitch campaign.
We had a package sent out to us on the 2nd of January. We got a notice that it was waiting at the post office on the 10th. This fuckhead has been sitting on it for more than a week! The first notice we got of it was 8 days after it had gotten into Santa Cruz. And this whiny little fuck refuses to do his job properly, refuses to deliver anything and is basically a fuck. Anyway, I went to the PO this morning and picked it up, very, very happy in the fact that, in a couple of weeks, he won't matter anymore and I'll never have to deal with him again.
I've been wondering about people who give presents to their postal carriers. He should have gotten a nice bottle of wine filled with piss for all the hassles he's caused this year.

Anyway, Arnold (the carrier), I hope you slip and fall in the shower and get your own foot jammed in your backside, you pathetic loser crank. Grow up and move on, moron.

For All My Apple Lovin' Peeps!
Two quickies that trumpet the Apple horn. First up is the VirginiaTech Mac G5 Supercomputer video and the backup story, Apple Supercomputer: Give Me a Big Mac.

And then there's this trial move in with a, gasp, PC maker to sell iPods! Hewlett-Packard To Resell Apple iPod. Can it be? Can Apple be going mainstream?
Let's hear from Carly Fiorina, chairman and chief executive officer of HP, "We explored a range of alternatives to deliver a great digital music experience and concluded Apple's iPod music player and iTunes music service were the best by far."

I Am an Easy Riding Mother Teresa




What Classic Movie Are You? and What Famous Leader Are You?

via Xset.

The Cheddar is Here! The Cheddar is Here!
The first of 2004! But let's not tarry, let's get to that plate of cheese.

From Snooze Button Dreams
1. Do you have a pet name for your significant other? If so, how did it come about?
Not really, mostly its just Hon or Honey. She sometimes calls me HoneyBee even though she knows I don't particularly care for it but its alright.

The rest came from me.
2. What was your favorite cartoon growing up? What's your favorite cartoon now?
Growing up it had to be Thundar the Barbarian and now I've been a big fan of the Justice League (a retake on the old Superfriends but a lot sharper edge and the stories are much better done for the most part). But then there's also Futurama and the Simpsons which have to be mentioned. Ryan also reminded me about South Park, yes I still watch it and find myself laughing out loud.

3. What is your best way to save money?
By not spening any. No wait, that's not really fair. I save money by doing my best to not impulse buy or by not shopping when I'm hungry, I tend to get more than I need and things I don't need but want. I also steal alot (just kidding).

4. What was your most frivolous purchase in the last couple of months?
One person's necessity is another's frivolity. Some might say my Raytek MT4 infrared thermometer is a frivilous purchase but I would disagree, its been incredibly useful to me. Maybe I should ask P for what she thinks is my most frivilous buy of late.

5. What word would you like to see banished from use forever?
Easy, I thoroughly hate the word "Zany". Anything that is labeled zany is guaranteed to pretty well suck. Its a bad word and its evil too.

6. What is the strangest thing about someone that has attracted you? (I.e. the way someone walked, the way they chewed, along those lines)
There was a girl I met when I first moved to Santa Cruz who worked out at the gym where I worked. She was cute, smart and I got along well with her. But the most attractive thing about her was how she stood. Hard to explain but it was a very appealling stance for some reason, open but not too open, inviting but not wanton or dirty. Just appealling. We went on a couple of dates before realizing that we weren't destined for each other but I will sometimes see someone in the same kind of stance and remember her.

7. What was your most memorable New Year's Eve? Why?
A few years ago I had two dates for New Year's, one for each arm and they even went to the trouble of dressing the same for me. It was also one of the last years that the neighborhood had alot of cohesion, everyone knew and liked pretty much everyone else (with a few notable exceptions, of course). There were at least three parties within a block and we wandered between them all until late, late at night when there was a massive excursion down to the beach for some drunken skinny dipping.

And the first Cheddar X MadLibs, for this first one the word list is available here and my results are below. This is an excerpt from The Catcher in the Rye with just a few changes.

If you really want to stink about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was grunted, and what my slippery childhood was like, and how my shrubs were occupied and all before they had me, and all that Dubya kind of smegma, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to smell the rectum. In the first place, that stuff offers me, and in the second place, my shrubs would have about 4 cinderblock enemas apiece if I told anything pretty confusing about them. They're quite obnoxious about anything like that, especially my lucky bamboo.

Well alright, alright, alright, that's the first for 2004 and I had a good time with it.

Want to play? Then go and get some!

A National Pity Party for Pete Rose
Everybody all together now, Awwwwww, poor Pete Rose, he's come clean and people won't drop the whole I've-been-lying-to-everyone-for-almost-15-years thing. He also had the continued poor taste to try and steal the spotlight from Dennis Eckersley and Paul Molitor's first ballot admission to the Hall of Fame. Oh yeah, and the fact that he's only come clean for financial gain and not out of any desire to clear his name. Poor Pete Rose, I feel about as bad for him as I feel for the asshole who murdered much of his in-laws, kidnapped his kids and then shot himself when he knew he was going to get caught. Or maybe I feel as bad as I do about poor Jacko getting booked for molesting another kid and having to be subjected to the indignity of a police body search. You poor deluded asshole.

Rose Craves Unconditional Forgiveness

Every interview I see with Pete Rose, I'm struck by what kind of a completely self absorbed prick he comes off as. I don't think he has had a shred of empathy for anyone or anything else in his entire life. He's not contrite, he's aggressive, he's not trying to repent, he's trying to cash in and sell his stupid book and get Hall of Fame fluff money. He's not doing any of this for anyone but himself, as evinced by his timing.

Pete Rose deserves nothing more anymore than to be forgotten, to be ignored by the media and the public.

And then there's that friggin' haircut......

All New Tech Lust and Two Wheel Madness
Scorpio Alarms has the bitchinest looking remote and motorcycle alarm system I've ever seen. Just look at it and tell me you don't kind of want one before you even really know what it does.


Go and check out what it does though, its pretty impressive.

What's that? You want more motorcycle madness?
Okay, go and check out BigToe, a monster truck inspired motorcycle (which I think is dumb enough to be cool) but remember that there are also incredibly bad products on the motorcycle market too, like BikerBallz (an idea so unutterably stupid that I'm just going to grunt for a minute).

Here's a guy I used to work for but he liked to burp alot and paid crap, no benefits at all and it was a commute.

But the next two wheel change in my life will be to move from this back to one of these. Bigger power and a more comfortable position with hard bags attachable make for a far better commute bike. And I'm alot less likely to have to try and out run this guy.

Okay that's it, I'm going to bed, tomorrow's Friday and its gonna be a freaking busy weekend.

Happy Birthday King!
I'm not an Elvis fanatic but I like the guy's music, like his style (well, not the whole glittery jumpsuit thing or the overweight freak phase either but more his persona) and wonder where we'd be if he was still alive. I also wonder how huge he'd be by now too.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Elvis! He'd be 69 years old today.

Super Doh!
Apparently the latest issue of Us Magazine (a trashy page turner to only be read while waiting for a haircut) on page 72 there's an unintended feature. There's a photo of a redheaded model standing above a blond man model down on one knee. Someone should have caught it but I guess his schlong is showing. Methinks somebody will be losing their cushy position over this, you just can't go publishing pictures of penises without repercusions.

Late Night TV Fueled Desire
I've decided that I want one of those Digi Draw dealies that they advertise on late night tv (during the newly time slotted full hour of Justice League, far and away the best cartoon on TV right now).

From what I can tell, it uses reflection and background colors to make it pretty easy to trace over a picture from one side to the other. I'm sure its nowhere near as easy as they make it look but hey, when they start throwing in the magic color changing pens too then I'm sold. For only $19.95 (plus shipping and handling of course) you can get one too. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who's seen or used one of these.

Bloggers Unite! An Offline Meetup!
There's a local bloggers meetup scheduled for the 20th in Cupertino that I'm going to try and attend. If you're a local blogger and you're interested in going too, drop me a line or get in touch with the Geeky Chick to find out particulars.

Too Cool to Not Link to and Publicize
PowerLabs is just amazing. Its a site put together a brilliant Brazilian guy who's involved in a whole bunch of super cool scientific experiments like: railguns, microwave guns, ball lightning and a whole crapload more. Fascinating stuff to read through although it might make you feel kind of stupid at times. There were whole sentences where I really had not the faintest idea what he was talking about but it was good reading anyway.


The Cheddar is Coming! The Cheddar is Coming!
Hide the women and children, its almost time for some new Cheddar X! I will try to get the MadLibs short story added this week but no promises. Keep those questions coming, I can use all the help I can get. Email (drop the nospam from the address though) them to me or leave them as comments on the ZonkBoard.

Darwin Award in Hand
I filled up my new old truck with gas yesterday morning and spent the time wiping cobwebs off the camper shell I put on the night before last. As I moved around the truck, I happened to notice a guy waiting for the bus about five feet away. He was smoking a cigarette, utterly oblivious to the fact that gas vapors are, um, explosive. Stupidly puffing away on the cigarette and basically risking an explosion because he was dumb enough to not even consider the danger he posed to himself and to me.

But, he didn't ignite a fiery blaze, he just got on his bus and went on his way. But damn, he's asking for a nice big fresh Darwin Award for behaving in a manner completely opposite of life preserving. Almost as stupid as the guy who used a lighter to check how much gas was in his lawnmower.

Political Newsflash: Lieberman HAS an Opinion!
Joe Lieberman, a guy with less of a chance of getting elected than I do, has publicly criticized Howard Dean as being as much of a polarizing element as Bush.
The Reuters article is, Lieberman Lumps Democrat Rival Dean in with Bush.

Basically, the chinless punching bag of a candidate says he's the right guy because Dean will lead the country down the wrong path of extremes, just like George Bush.

Guess what, Joe? No one really gives a damn what you think, you simpering wimp. You look like Jenna Bush could knock your sorry ass out. You have as much personality as a dead fish. Sure, you may have reasonably decent ideas and policies but so what, you've no chance of winning the nomination, you've less than no chance of ever becoming president so just go on back to Connecticut and get drunk at your country club again and make lame passes at the waitstaff.

Sports Post and two New Words
A couple of quick news bits from the sports world and a little commentary. Well okay, just one bit of good news from the sports world and then some commentary.

Joe Gibbs Returns to Coach Redskins!

All of the current excitement over Pete Rose finally admitting that he bet on baseball has goaded me to comment on the situation. First off, Pete Rose shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame. He broke the rules and bet on the game. Pretty clear cut rule. Pretty clear he broke it. Second, the guy's not motivated by anything but greed, he doesn't give a damn about the fans or the game, he cares about being a hall of famer because he'll be able to charge more for autographs and appearances. Third, he's a prick who's been lying and lying about lying ever since he was forced out of the game.

Pete Rose shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame, he shouldn't be involved in baseball. A lifetime ban is a lifetime ban, come on Selig, go buy yourself a set of nuts and be a man.

The New Words
Distrance - the mind numbing that happens when you make long distance drives at night and you have to fight for consciousness.

Tediocracy - when the basic act of participating in government is a tedious pain in the ass that accomplishes nothing as the idiots in charge push a full throttle augering in of the nation, that's living in a tediocracy.

Morford on Brand Name Babies
And This Is My Other Daughter, Tampax
Some popular designer names for children taken from the Social Security Administration's database of baby names in the year 2000:
Girls
Lexus: 353 (Japanese luxury car)
Armani: 298 (Italian fashion house)
Chanel: 269 (French fashion house)
Infiniti: 25 (Japanese luxury car)
Loreal: 21 (French cosmetics company)

Boys
Armani: 273 (Italian fashion house)
Cartier: 22 (French jeweler)
Dior: 7 (French fashion house)
Timberland: 6 (American boot and apparel company)
Guinness: 5 (Irish beer)

Why Is Creationism Still an Issue?
I'm not sure why we continue to have this debate about creationism versus evolution? Is it because there are those people in the class that just refuse to listen to reason, refuse to observe and accept the tremendous body of scientific knowledge that has utterly disproved creationism and, while not completely "proving" evolution, it has been backed up by so much scientific discourse that it is all but proof of evolution.

Why do I care? What brought this up today?
Yesterday's instant survey on iWon (yeah, yeah, I go to iWon in the vain hope that maybe I'll win a couple of million bucks from them someday, sue me) was titled Creationism vs. Evolution and the results are just a little bit unsettling.

To the first question of which is believed in, 32% believe in creationism, 16% in evolution and 46% believe in a combination of the two.
Okay, that's twice as many people adhering to creationism in spite of the vast body of knowledge refuting it. And almost half of people believe in some freakish combo plate of Creationism and Evolution, how can the two co-exist and still make any sense? Its just stupid to think that we both evolved and were put here by some higher being. If anyone can rationally and reasonably explain this rather stupid point of view then please do.

By the way, 1% didn't believe in either, 4% weren't sure and another 1% just didn't care (which, of course, begs the question as to why they were taking the survey in the first place).

The second question was: Do you think evolution should be taught in our nation's public schools?
Thankfully 67% of respondents said yes, a good sign. 20% said no, 12% weren't sure and 2% didn't care.

The scary third question was: Do you think creationism should be taught in our nation's public schools?
More than 3 in 5, 61% said that creationism should be taught in schools. To which I say to them, should we also be teaching that the earth is flat, that the universe revolves around the earth, that thunder is god on a bad day, that maybe we should be teaching voodoo as well?
Anyway, 23% said no, creationism shouldn't be taught in schools. 14% weren't sure and 2% didn't care (which continues to beg the question as to why they were bothering to take the survey in the first place).

The final question was: Do you believe in a higher power?
A whopping 86% said yes they do which could go to explain the dogged adherence to an outmoded and discredited theory such as creationism, held onto for sentimental and theological reasons. Only 5% said that they do not believe in a higher power, but still 1 in 20 being atheist is a very high number when carried out across the nation. 8% weren't sure and only 1% didn't care this time around.

There are lots of inherent mistakes in this sort of survey process and the fact that iWon doesn't post the number of participants just adds to the muddying of the waters. But the findings are still significant because they illustrate the basic fact that people believe in a false theory. And worse, a wholly theologically based theory that cannot be proven but can only be disproven, a theory held in faith in spite of the facts, a sentimental opinion based on hope and Sabbath brainwashings.

Creationism isn't a theory, its a nice concept from a fairy tale book and religion. Its got no basis in fact, its got no basis in reality, its an abstract fleece throw intended to keep you warm at night secure in the false knowledge that you are not related to monkeys, that all life didn't evolve from simple organisms over millennia, that life isn't a progression, that humans are not the reason for life on this planet, that we have the capacity to evolve into something more, something better than we are now.

Creationism is bullshit and anyone who holds it as fact is a fool. If you refuse to accept the facts then you are regressionist and stupid. The groups trying to force schools to teach an obviously false and unscientific theory in a school's classroom are only attempting to push their theology on others under the guise of instruction. Creationism has as much place in a school classroom as do hoaxes like Piltdown Man or other anthropological farces intended to discredit evolution. They should be taught but they should be taught as they really are, false and discarded theories. Anything else is like trying to tell kids that 2 plus 2 equals 5 or, worse, 2 plus 2 equals chair.

[Update: Final tallies.
33% believe in creationism, 15% in evolution and 46% in a combo. 1% believe in neither, 4% weren't sure and 1% didn't care.
66% thought evolution should be taught in schools, 20% thought not, 12% weren't sure and 2% didn't care.
61% thought creationism should be taught in schools, 23% thought not (good work people!), 14% weren't sure and 2% didn't care.
86% believe in a higher powere, 5% don't, 8% weren't sure and 1% were too cool to care.]

Subliminal Messaging with Paychecks
The paycheck is a sacred thing. It is, in many cases, the goal of our employment, making the dollar to provide shelter, food and the occasional widget or night out. The paycheck is not something that any employer with a wish to retain talent should mess with.

I had a boss once who's paychecks were so rubbery that the staff would literally sprint for the bank to cash them before they bounced. It was not unusual for a few of the staff to get their pay and a few others to not quite get it and have to suffer bounce fees.

In my current job, I am scheduled to get paid on the 5th and 20th via direct deposit into my account. The only problem is that the paycheck didn't make it in there on Monday the 5th or Tuesday the 6th. It finally wandered in this morning.

And I have an awful lot of money riding on top of this check. I bought the truck this weekend with cash from my account and wrote a check to P for the other half on the expectation that my paycheck would we smiling patiently and waiting for me to crack it open on Monday morning. But it wasn't there. And then it wasn't there again.

If it hadn't shown up today then I would have to raise holy hell and find out where the trouble was.

But its here today and I can breathe a sigh of relief mostly. The message a late paycheck sends to an employee is the get-your-resume-tuned-up message which is kind of crazy because the PR side of the company is going freaking gangbusters right now. Six days into the new year and we are well ahead of last year's coverage pace. Good stuff but there's always the sneaking suspicion that the "sales" interview the other day wasn't for sales but for PR. I read the want ads looking for the ad to replace me alot more often when there are hiccups in the flow like the last couple of days. But all's mostly well now with the not so minor exception of my stupid health provider continuing to take a LARGE chunk of my income to cover P when she's been removed from the policy so that's gotta be dealt with post haste. Think more than 10% of my take home pay going to cover her, think its been cancelled and I still had to pay the second payment last month and now they want to steal another chunk of my money? Oh no, those fuckers are gonna get a wake up call. Steal my money at your own peril and they would be lucky if they don't have an office within driving distance because I am one of those people that will go into the office to get the shit taken care of. Bad mojo to take Johnny Huh's money, Johnny be packing heat.

But for now, I'm safer and securer until something else comes along and I have to scramble to cover my assets.

Pics from Mars

More Bad Fashion
Anyone who decides to wear their baseball hat sideways, on purpose, and keeps it that way for longer than it take to tell a joke should be deported to the island that fashion forgot immediately.

Friends don't let friends wear sideways baseball hats.

And strangers shouldn't let other strangers wear sideways baseball hats either.

More New Words to Shake Sticks At
Via The Mommy Blog comes The Mercury News New Words with amazing new words like diberal, nonosecond and downloafing. Some are better than others, some are just plain kind of stupid. But some are decent words that may end up making my own personal and growing lexicon.

My personal favorite of the bunch is tediocrity - Overexposure to mediocrity.

Other News: Cheaper iPods for the Masses!
Jobs Unveils Cheaper iPods called iPod Minis in five colors and with the buttons in the old places (far more intuitive than the row of buttons in the newer generation) but are now under the scroll wheel to save space and to be even cooler than before. At 2 inches wide by 3.6 inches tall, these are small devices (think business card sized) and they hold 1,000 songs and work with Macs and Windows machines.

Not bad for a mere $249.
When Apple introduces the 20 gig Mini model then I might just have to pick one up. Or a 30 if my collection has grown substantially by then.

Apple has also introduced what could be a very cool new application called Garage Band that will bear much investigation. It is billed as an all in one music making and composition software to record and produce your own music. Nice work, Apple!

Where Does the Line to Marry Britney Start?
In a move that probably surprised no one and made a few cynics yawn uncontrollably, Britney Spears' Marriage Lasts 55 Hours and, to the profound relief of dirty old men everywhere, she's single again.
Spears' desire to something wild and crazy quickly turned into a desire to make it all go away and to not be the butt of bad joke after bad joke after bad joke. Come on now, Letterman, Leno, Kimmel and all the other late night hacks are having a ball with this pretty stupid and lame news story.

Especially when there's so much better stuff like China going on a civet cat killing rampage to try and contain SARS even though the World Health Organization says there's no link between SARS and the wild cats but China's not taking any chances. In related news, the price of Mushu "Chicken" dropped very sharply in the affected region.

Or Steve Irwin's allegedly reckless endangerment of his very, very young son by exposing him to a crocodile during a feeding session. Folks, the kid was safe, the Croc Hunter's loopy but not stupid or negligent and these are his own kids we're talking about. The remedy here is simple, open legs, remove head from ass and get on with your life.

There's this whole Mad Cow nuttiness. An epidemic and economic ruin to cattlemen because they cut corners and used diseased cow brains to feed other cows with. Um hello, quit feeding cow brains to your stock and there will be no mad cow disease. How hard is that to realize? And just to be safe, I'm not eating chicken anymore either, I remember the story saying they found BGH (bovine growth hormone) in some chicken nuggets so screw that noise, I'm killing stray dogs for meat now.

There's this week's new story about Princess Diana being worried about Prince Charles having her killed in a car accident ten months before she did, in fact, die in a car accident. Will the scandals never cease? Nah, probably not. Oh yeah, Prince Charles? Yeah, he's gay, who knew?

In lighter news, there's this whole furor over the stupid BCS rankings, The BCS fails - - again. The BCS is a wankity computer that decides which college teams are the best in the nation and who gets to meet in the Rose Bowl for the championship game. Only problem is that the system blows partially chewed monkey chunks.

But nope, Britney Spears and her stupid little two and a half day marriage are the news lead for the day. In future watch news, Christina Aquilera is planning on humping some dead chickens in support of the Mad Cow scare and then marrying a middle school janitor so she can annul the marriage in 54 hours to burn Britney and prove she's a bigger and dumber skank.

Happy Tuesdaying to you all.

The Intellectual Poison Guide to Fashion
Having immersed myself in such quality programming as Clean Sweep and What Not to Wear and for living in Santa Cruz, the town that fashion forgot, and for being an overly opinionated wanker, I would like to present a few fashion do's and fashion don'ts.

Do wear form fitting clothes and belly shirts but only if you've actually got a figure that someone would have any interest in viewing. If you've got a roll or two of fat spilling over the tops of your Sassoon jeans then perhaps you should reconsider.

Do wear clothes that make you comfortable. Do not wear clothes that either look like they were made or were made from curtains (no, this is not a joke and no, its not a slight against the von Trapp family either).

Do pull up your damned pants and quit showing off your boxer shorts by having your pants halfway down your thighs. Whatever message you are attempting to send with the half pulled pants isn't getting through and people just think you're a moron.

Don't ever wear socks with sandals unless you particularly enjoy the ridicule of, well, everyone.

Do highlight your best features. But you might want to check with an honest friend to identify what those features are. If you're five feet two and weigh 160 pounds then it is almost certainly not going to be your waist or belly.

A good rule to keep in mind is: Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Apply this rule to everything. Just because you can wear a beret doesn't mean you should. Just because you can stuff your fat ass into a pair of jeans three sizes too small doesn't mean you should, for your health and ours.

Don't ever wear a deliberately shredded t-shirt, the week that that hideous fashion was in style was more than 20 years ago now and its time to burn these fugly shirts and move on.

Do wear clean clothes. Don't wear clothes that were cleaned by osmosis on your floor, it just doesn't work. Do wash your body before putting on clean clothes, clean clothes cannot mask up your body stank but they can create a olfactory feedback loop that will cause people to recoil in confused disgust at the combination of sunshine fresh and three day old BO.

Don't go to great lengths to show off your g-strong undies. Interested parties will sneak a peek on their own and its far more fun. Don't wear exposed thongs if you're older than 40, wear what you want but don't let the world see it, its just unseemly and kind of sad.

There are plenty more but they should hopefully be more self evident. Like, don't wear a speedo to the beach, ever. Don't assume that coveralls cover all of you, if you're a girl then you should probably still be wearing a shirt underneath unless you don't mind the free boob look and stares. Unless you're Stevie Nicks, stay away from flowy clothes, the kind that make you look like you're a ghost. You'll thank me when you don't knock over your coffee with the excess material.

This is by no means comprehensive, though it could be better if Blogger's stupid draft setting was working but its not so what are you gonna do? I may update the post as the day goes on and my mind slowly churns up more chum but we'll stick a fork in it for now.

Web Finds

While I was looking around on Limewire for some new african stylee music I came across the term, africando, for a style of music that's both latin and african. Very cool drum beats combined with upbeat Latin rhythms and you get africando. Good stuff and I will try to post an example or two. I can see Sedalina looking for some electronica africando and I'm sure there's some out there.

A cool idea to really see how much money you're really saving.
Coupon savings - take the money you save from using coupons and put that cash into its own account. You'll very quickly accumulate a substantial savings account.

And a good site for gardening supplies that I've been meaning to order a watering system from for a while but, since we're moving to a place with a yard I won't be needing the small patio watering system. Gardener's Web

And major apologies to Kat for not getting the dashboard critter video posted today. I tried to get it loaded up last night but had some issues with the connection between Clie and laptop. I have a back up plan but it'll take until this evening to implement. I hope it will end up being worth the run up. If not then you can come to Santa Cruz and yell at me until we get drunk.

Can Someone Please Explain?
I just got back from a ridiculously long line at the post office, a line filled with some of Santa Cruz's stinkiest, craziest or (the two-fer-one special) both. And yeah, that's fine, I understand that I live in a bathing optional town where people think patchouli is a reasonable substitute for a shower (though its not and smells like shit anyway).

My question is what is signified by someone piercing thier septum in their nose with a hoop that makes them look like a bull?

Is it a virility thing? Are they some submissive monkey bitch who wears a collar and is lead around by their nose at home? Are they just stupid morons who try to do anything to look cool (even if it means looking really, really, really stupid)? I just don't get it and maybe that's really the point, its not something I can understand and I'm not supposed to so therefore I do not.

But damn, the guy looked like a goddamned idiot.

A Party Observation
It is very hard to be cool when you have a big old chunk of dogshit hanging off the side of your shoe.

Believe me, I know this by experience.

Closing the House
It is almost as official as it could be. We get the keys to our house on Wednesday! The current owners are moving all this week and we should be able to start moving in over the next weekend and then over the course of the next month.

My beater truck (which is presently staring down at me from the third floor railing of the parking garage) will prove invaluable in transporting loads from the apartment to the house. Once the process has begun, I envision taking a single trip down each night to unload another truckload of stuff into the garage. We'll likely still live at the apartment through most of the process (or until the DSL connection moves south) but it'll be super cool to get settled into the new house.

Still far too much to do there to even think about getting really settled but the move will keep us busy enough, and then the painting and then the renovations and repairs. We'll probably have about a year in there before we've gotten to most of our projects. But that's alright, we've got at least a two year window to deal with and probably closer to three.

But the new year is starting off with a bang at my work. My first press release of the year has already made an enormous splash and we are getting lots and lots of hits for it! Never a bad way to start a new work week and a new year. Shame our phones have been out since last week although they finally did get them up and running a few minutes ago.

And, with some luck, I'll be adding the lumber rack and camper shell to my truck later on today after work to complete the acquisition of a servicable vehicle. Now all it will need are some cool tall tires, a paint job and a sprayed in Rhino liner for the bed and it'll look pretty damned good again. Oh yeah, it needs a stereo very badly because there's nothing, not even a crappy am radio, in there right now.

Oh yeah, and some Christmas presents that still need to be sent out to my family back on the east coast but since most of them are still out of the country I think I'm okay for now. Not like I've been sitting around doing nothing anyway. And I think that about brings the world up to date on all things Johnny Huh? I've got a Cooking Stories post I'm working on and this week's set of questions for the Cheddar X and a few chapter ideas percolating for IP Free Write as well as some offline work I've got to do. Its going to be a busy January. If I get ambitious then maybe I'll draft up the floor plan for the house and post that sometime as well.

I can't wait to start tearing apart that back yard! So much to do, maybe we should make up a punch board to knock off jobs as they come up, get worked on and completed. Maybe we just need the Monster House folks to get in touch with us so we can let them have at the house and turn it into an something super cool?

Where's My Gun Rack?
Well, we've moved ahead on several fronts and now we're looking at starting the moving process this coming weekend. To that end I bought a beater truck yesterday (and because we seem to be having some pretty torrential rain days and that makes for a pain in the ass getting to work).

Some good news? We get to populate the house with nice shiny new appliances and not really have to pay for them. I can't explain it but its a cool deal and I'm excited for our own washer and dryer and a nice dishwasher.

And we've been having good fun with the Macy's gift cards, yesterday we got two packs of cool smelly candles for like $8 or something and that was damned cool. I'm heading back today to try and land some pants that don't have a bulge in front. And I'm buying some truck accessories as well as arranging a time to pick up the lumber rack and camper shell too, the truck was a bargain even if it is ugly but that's alright by me, its got a very, very cool dash toy that Kat would probably kill me for if she knew I had it.

Maybe I'll have to shoot a short video and post it.

Last night, we had a surprise birthday party for a very good friend at Paul's new house, which is very nicely decorated and looks great with the purple walls and red kitchen. I just wish it hadn't been so freakin' cold last night! There was frost on everything on our way home! And the words that keep repeating themselves in my ear magically? Double pane windows. Double pane windows. Because the new house has double pane windows and they really do make all the difference in the world.

And my feelings aren't to hurt by people thinking I'm a geek because of my James Bond style Raytek MT4 infrared thermometer with laser sight. Its half toy and half tool and all fun to play with. They just don't know what they are missing.

Oh yeah, I gave my first homemade pint of ice cream away last night as a birthday present with some super good root beer so my pal can make gourmet root beer floats. I've got to expand my ice cream horizons soon and will likely venture into strawberry land soon.

Detroiters are Fattest Americans, Chicagoans are Killinest Americans, Whoopee!

Detroit named fattest city and Chicago topped nation in homicides in 2003.

Thank Thee for This Bountiful Cheddar X!
Starting the new year off right, let's dig into a fresh plate of the !

1. How do you organize your music?
Cd's are stacked in racks and then stashed in the closet. Very little organization there, sometimes bands are grouped together and sometimes all of a band's cd's will be put together but that's about it.
On the laptop, they are stored in album folders and then each band is listed alphabetically. And the best part is that its all automated thanks to iTunes being a kickass program (though it should be easily skinnable, come on Stevie!).

2. Do you have more online or more hard copy music?
Hard to say anymore. I don't know how many CD's I've got. Between P and I we're in the 500 or so range, It think. But I've got about 20 gigs of music on my laptop now (yes, I DO need a new iPod!). I've got alot more fresh music in mp3 form, that's for sure.

3. What are your three most favorite bands you found or heard of online?
Papas Fritas has gotta be one because the song that Sedalina posted, "Way You Walk" is excellent and I listen to it at least once an hour.
Dispatch is excellent as well for "The General" and a few others. And the last of the top three? Hard to say because there are so many new bands I've come across online (thanks to all the bloggers who list their favorite artists! makes it so much easier to find new music!). I think that I will have to go with Lovage for "Strangers on a Train", "Stroker Ace" and other songs (also, being a band based on sexuality and sexiness doesn't hurt either). Honorable mentions go to Blackalicious, Ladytron, The Roots and The Faint.

And now some obvious questions.
4. What are your New Year's resolutions, if any?
A better committment to my workouts.
Providing a safe and secure home for my wife and pending child as well as the puppy that's coming too.
Upgrading and improving much of the new house including: stairway, backyard, back fence, skylights, secret doors and secret rooms (you wish I was kidding but I'm not) and lots more.
Putting in more time on the slow novel project, a few chapters every few months should be alright.
Putting thoughts to action and starting the process of opening my own communications company.
Take a vacation outside the USA, likely to Mexico or the Caribbean.
Working on becoming a better worker, improving my PR skills and expanding my skillset.
There are more but they're not for sharing, eh?

5. How did you do on your last year's resolutions?
Missed most but made good progress on a few and progress is the important thing to keep in mind. Its progress, its movement in a positive direction.

And that's it, my first Cheddar X responses of 2004! Want some? Go and get some !

The Irrepressible Optimism of the African Spammer
It will probably never stop altogether and since we are stuck with spam as a part of our lives, at least we get the humorous spams from the African continent. The ones from Mr. Dr. Kawaze Umfayao that respectfully ask for assistance with a staggering sum that's been forgotten about. Or the widow of the Director of the national railroad of Zaire. Or the esteemed barrister. Or whatever other damned tree they think barking up will elicit the reaction they want, that is, you being stupid enough to supply them with your bank account information so they can help themselves to the riches contained within.

What I can't fathom is the wisdom of adding some scrambled letters to any subject line. How can a spammer think that those letters won't be a tip off that its spam? How can they think that people will open the spam to read it knowing that its spam by those stupid assortments of letters? The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that spammers are easily the dumbest sector of society. Nothing else makes as much sense.

That can be the only reason why Mr. Senator Ofoyo has thought that if one spam was good then three or four is much, MUCH better.

Oh well. Happy 2004, there's still spam, there's still a Bush in the White House and Governor Gropinator in California and the war effort in Iraq, terrorist hunting in all of the Middle East, corruption at the highest levels of American business, mad cow disease (which is effectively caused by farmers being cheap dirtbags by feeding diseased brains of other cows to live cows, um cows aren't supposed to eat brains, that's zombies!), an economy still tailspinning from years of nimrodification (yes, that IS a new word, thankyouverymuch) and we still have beady and soulless fools like Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and Cheney to deal with.

Some Good Thoughts for 2004
From "Jumpstart Your Life: 52 Ways to Make This Your Best Year Ever" in Men's Health, some things you might like to try and do to add some life to your life instead of watching it on Discovery.

- Let go of all the things you keep saying you're going to do, if you can't devote 15 minutes a day to it then drop it.
- When you go to the gym next, flip your workout and start with what you normally end with, the inversion can help you push past plateaus and boredom.
- Start giving breakfast the attention it deserves, skipping breakfast results in higher BMI and less energy. Best recommended breakfast is a whole grain bagel with a slice of tomato and smoked salmon
- Get all that crap off of your desk. That includes toys, cards and other stuff that doesn't produce or motivate. I think I'll be keeping my George Bush Bobblehead though, thank you very much.
- Give up TV for two weeks.
- Bring a tennis ball to work. When reading documents, squeeze the ball in your right hand to stimulate the left side of your brain which is the where words are processed. If you are looking at diagrams, blueprints or graphical stuff then switch to your left to hand to stimulate the right side of your brain that processes spatial relationships.
- When you get to work tomorrow, come up with 25 ideas in ten minutes. Don't edit, don't judge. Just come up with ideas. And don't forget to write them down.
- Update your resume to help remember what you like and what you want.
- Plan vacations for the next three years.
And last but not least,
- Buy new underwear.