Intellectual Poison

Check out Zap2it - TV 2004 - for a truly awful bunch of shows that are forgettable even before you've heard of them.

No really, try a show called DOTS, the secret world of meter maids (I'm not making this up), Plan B where a single gal juggles a career, motherhood, romance and feeling fat, some as yet untitled Jessica Simpson vehicle to dumb down the universe even more (oh, don't worry, Nick gets his own insipid little crappy show too), Blind Justice where, surprise, surprise, a cop loses his sight but goes back to work to solve crime, Method and Red, the adventures of Method Man and Redman in suburbia, ooh.

Do you need more or are you already puking your guts out? Oh yeah, there's also Joey, the Friends spin off that'll likely suck sweat goat nuts from the start but legions of drooling Friends fans will still tune in for lame ass little cameos from the other friends idiots.

There are a few decent looking prospects, like The Boondocks, an animated adaptation of comic strip that is raw and reasonably funny. American Dad, from the Family Guy people should be mildly humorous.

Along with the obligatory bunch of beach shows that pretend to be dramas when they're really just ultra soft porn. They still suck but put on some music, turn down the lights and get down with your bad self while watching slow motion titty bounce beach runs (it worked for Baywatch which was among the dumbest shows ever but still people watched just to see Pam's bodacious ta-tas go up and down every week).

The best thing about driving my truck, aside from the fact that it sounds like a big diesel, is that I give no quarter on the road. People want to try and force merge with me? Fuck 'em, they can hit me, I don't care.

Just this morning I had some knob in a Taurus basically try and force his way in front of me on the on-ramp. I held my ground and basically saw his force and met it with sublime indifference. You want in? Drive faster 'cause I'm not slowing down to let you by.

Its not like I'd even notice any new dents in the truck if they did hit me but I'm sure they'd notice my flaky blue paint all mashed into their pretty little bumpers.

Side Question:
Why do the morning news people warn commuters when the CHP is going to be cracking down on a stretch of highway? The other day it was Route 80 up near Santa Rose (I think) and today it was my stretch of highway. I only saw one cop pulled over behind a three wheeled van that used to have a fourth wheel but it was nowhere to be found. Still, it seems kind of nonsensical but in a thanks kind of way.

PS
Want more web traffic to your blog? Mention Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen a few times. The world is, apparently, fascinated by these two young women. I admit that they are far more interesting now than when they were on that horrendous show with Bob Saget and John Stamos (damn, I'm breaking out in hives just thinking about it).

It was one year ago today that ShrubCo declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. Apparently someone forgot to tell the insurgents, terrorists and other malcontents with AK-47's. But he sure did look purty in that Aviator's suit and the "spontaneous" celebration of his arrival. Bleh, even the thought of this shameless prick sickens me.

And for a little irreverent smacking masking serious questions, here's Mark Morford's 11 Questions for Bush.

Pinch Sulzberger Blames His Readers for Jayson Blair Scandal at New York Times because some of them knew about Blair's misdeeds and didn't call him at his home to let him know.

Notwithstanding the fact that his own editors had been expressing misgivings and concerns about Blair's relative ability to speak the truth.

If this doesn't cause a massive boycott of the New York Times then he deserves to keep his job. But he really doesn't. Blaming his readers for not checking the factuality of his "star" journalists is among the dumbest things I've heard in a long time.

And who names their kid, Pinch, anyway?

Damn it, I had an excellent post introducing Take Back the Media's "Bush Knew - An American Requiem" that I saw last night via One Girl's Life but one misclick and it was less than vapor. Oh well, I'll attempt to recapture it as best I can. I watched Bush Knew last night and it was terribly painful to relive those horrible moments as the World Trade Centers were hit and people began to die.

It is powerful, moving and infuriating to see, side by side, the events unfold at the World Trade Center and what George Bush did. He had the time and the sole authority to give the okay to shoot down passenger planes that refused to respond to radio calls to turn away. He could have and should have acted to stop further attacks. He did nothing. In fact, he did read a book to some elementary school kids about goats so I guess that is something. But it is far, far less than should be expected of the nation's leader.

Watch it all the way through and then decide if you still think Bush is worth your vote or your confidence.

It has made me thoroughly rethink my "war" with the neighbors and that we need to be united against our common enemy rather than squabble over a stupid dent and some lies and rudeness. We'll see how that sentiment looks by the end of the day but I am thinking that extending the olive branch of peace might be called for.

Also, came across UNELECTABLE-BUSH via One Girl's Life as well. I think I will be making another category of linked blogs, Blogs Against Bush and sites dedicated to honest reporting of the facts as well as exposing the farce that is Bush's re-election campaign.

This week's questions have been lifted from one of my new favorite blogs, Blown Fuse. She's funny, her book reviews are classic and she makes me laugh and cringe at the same time.

But enough about linky love, here's my Cheddar X for this week.

1. Name 3 things you absolutely love.
Sleeping in. Marinated skirt steak on the grill with fresh pineapple slices on top. My wife.

2. If you had to give 2 of them up which would they be (and why)?
I don't think I'm going to give up any of them. Sorry but I don't have to do anything except support my family. But if I absolutely had to then it'd have to be sleeping in and the skirt steak, duh!

3. What is your all time favorite memory EVER?
There are a few to choose from, 4th of July many years ago on top of the mountain in Vermont with all my friends, beating my brother at wrestling with a figure 4 across his chest and making him say uncle, graduating college, getting married on the beach. I think I'm going to go with a moment during a 3 month outdoor course I took when I actually realized that I could do anything I needed to or wanted to, if I only put my mind to it and worked hard. Its a good thing to learn about yourself.

4. What is the one thing that happened in high school that would make you avoid your class reunion?
Um, probably getting booted from private school. And lo and behold! Its worked, I've not gone back to any of those reunions even though they keep sending me requests for money.

5. What is your dream job, no matter how untrained you might be or unrealistic and bizarre it might be?
Lord God King of the Universe. Someone's gotta be in charge and it would be great fun to reign fire down upon the Vatican and make all those kid touching priests burst into flames.

6. What's one thing you think you're really good at?
Looking busy when I'm really not.

That's my Cheddar and I'm sticking to it. Go get yer own!

What kind of a pussy is George Bush? She can't meet with the 9/11 Commission unless she's got her big Dick with her? No transcripts, lawyers and big Dick right next to her. Oh wait, it gets better. They are meeting in the White House so they're on their home turf, they aren't even under oath to tell the truth and then they have the audacity to claim that they are cooperating completely?

Why are they speaking to the commission together? So they can collude to make sure that neither screws the other over by getting caught in a lie. The fact that they were allowed to appear together is utter bullshit. Why are they getting special treatment? Because they're in power or because they're guilty of misdeeds surrounding the tragedy. They couldn't even get their stories straight enough to meet separately.

Bush and Dick, a match made in heaven and then thrust upon us in hell.

The Boondocks comic strip from yesterday does an excellent job of summing up the Bush Presidency.

Oh yeah, Ralph Nader needs to bow the fuck out of the election before he hands the goddamned election over to the Resmuglican asshole party. Hey Ralph, you're smart enough to know that Bush is a cancer to this country. Step back and allow a man who's first priority ISN'T to spend more money more wrecklessly than ever before and then take more vacation days than any president in history.

Come on, Ralph, spread those legs, remove your head from your asshole and think about what's really good for the country.

Ryan wrote about this awful ad campaign a while ago and they've since rolled out a bunch of new and ever more irritating and truly horrific commercials featuring Mr. Typecast Boner Freak with the Joker Death-Face Smile stapled to his face.

Add in a grating and stupid whistle soundtrack and then double it because they always seem to show them back to back and I change the channel in a heartbeat. I don't give the first damn about Bob's new bigger, fuller and longer boner. I don't care that he can hit a golf ball better. I don't care that Bob's learning about wood. I care that the assholes who are the marketing team at Enzyte need to be taken into a field and shot.

And the stupid thing, because I'm writing about it here and now and because Ryan wrote about it before, those inbred bonerific morons think that this is a victory. Its not, its defeat of the worst kind. Any potential market you might have had with me has been flushed down the toilet (and yeah, who wouldn't mind bigger, fuller and longer, eh?).

Now, they need to die. Smilin' Bob needs to die painfully, maybe by mistaking Crazy Glue for KY, maybe by getting so horny he sticks his pecker in an electrical socket, maybe by taking a ball peen hammer to his ghoulish grinning mug, it doesn't matter, he's got to die. And I hope he takes the entire marketing team with him. Maybe a field trip that gets horribly out of control and their charter bus plunges over a fifty thousand foot cliff.

I don't care but Enzyte Guy MUST. DIE!

Or, I've gotta get a Tivo so I can fast forward through their atrocious commercials. Damn, I've just gotta get a Tivo regardless and some gold ended connector cables to allow the new HD TV to shine even better.

No, must remain focused. Enzyte Guy must DIE! Or find another line of work.

Is it just me or does Robert Downey Jr.'s soon to be ex-wife Deborah Falconer look like Kirstie Alley's brother?

To quote Austin Powers, "She's a man, baby!"

Strange that he was married to her for 12 years and never seemed to figure it out but then, he's had some pretty well publicized issues with drugs, eh?

From Yahoo News.

The quick update is that everything is perfect, the baby is an active and hard to keep the heart beat monitor doohickey on it. But we did get to hear its little swish-swish-swish heartbeat. The doctor was very pleased with P's progress.

And, we have reached a milestone date. Today, P and I weigh the same. I won't say what it is but I weighed myself a minute after she did and we are the exact same, down to the tenth of a pound. I've been somewhat sick and have had a crappy appetite for the last two weeks or so which is part of it but the other of it is that the baby is getting bigger and her belly is growing still.

That and we got to sit and spin the waiting room for almost 45 minutes because they were backed up. And its really no fun to feel like your entire lunch has been wasted sitting around reading about whether or not Mary Kate Olsen is anorexic or if Jen should be kissing Matt like that. And then I found a copy of Fine Gardening and I was alright.

But still, if you know you're backed up and people will have to stew for three quarters of an hour then wouldn't it just make sense to give some folks a call to let them know to come in a half hour later? Maybe that's just me.

Two weeks to the next appointment and then two more weeks to the next ultrasound!

Are you curious about the relative level of truth the ShrubCo's re-election campaign is delivering in their ugly smear campaign against John Kerry? Swing on by FactCheck.org to get the skinny on the pretty bold faced lies they are spreading. By the way, the site exposes the mistruths in Kerry's camp as well as Bush's so don't go thinking its just a Democratic "He Lied!" site. The About Us on the site gives more background on Brooks Jackson, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, PhD and Zaheed Mawani, the three main forces behind the site.

The latest ads (endorsed and approved by Shrub himself) that attack Kerry for voting against supplying our troops with adequate body armor? Um yeah, let's see, George Bush sent them over without that equipment. The attack on Kerry for voting against the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and other weapons needed to effectively wage Bush's oil war in Iraq? Yeah, those weren't individual votes, they were votes for Pentagon money bills. The site further states that Kerry's record over the last 19 years has been in support of "vital" weapons for the military.

And, even further, that Dick Cheney himself, Georgy's puppermaster, "told the House Armed Services Committee on Aug. 13, 1989 (when he was the secretary of defense): Cheney: The Army, as I indicated in my earlier testimony, recommended to me that we keep a robust Apache helicopter program going forward, AH-64; . . . I forced the Army to make choices. I said, "You can't have all three. We don't have the money for all three." So I recommended that we cancel the AH-64 program two years out. That would save $1.6 billion in procurement and $200 million in spares over the next five years."

By their own twisted logic, Dick Cheney is just as "soft" on defense as Kerry even though neither is soft on defense at all. Dick Cheney's soft in many other places, jowls, fat rich white guy gut, between his ears, etc. but he's not soft on defense. By the way, why do they call it defense spending when we're the one's going to war in Iraq. Its hard to say its defensive when we're the one's doing the attacking.

Even John McCain, who's running Shrub's re-election campaign in his Arizona is quoted on the site. "Kerry's voting record on military spending was defended March 18 by Republican Sen. John McCain. He said on CBS's "The Early Show:" McCain: No, I do not believe that he is, quote, weak on defense. He's responsible for his voting record, as we are all responsible for our records, and he'll have to explain it. But, no, I do not believe that he is necessarily weak on defense."

The spewing of lies, the illegal use of government resources, the twisting of truths and I'm sure there are plenty of other shenanigans being done by this current regime that we'll never hear about, they all go to demonstrating the character of George Bush and Dick Cheney. These are evil men who will say and do anything to remain in power so they can bleed more of this great country of ours. They are leeches, they are ticks, they are mosquitos sucking the lifeblood from our country and they need to be sent packing as quickly as possible.

And there dealings need to be examined in great detail because I'm almost positive that they have committed crimes against our nation that they should be held accountable for.

Check out Fact Check for some straight dope.

Last week, P came home from work very upset and crying. My initial thought was that the neighbor's had been more overt pricks but no, it was work related. Apparently her company was going to have a party the next day, an all company party for everyone that works at her company only she wasn't able to go because it was during work hours and someone had to answer the phones. And yes, that's her job but they could have very, very easily brought in a temp for the last hour of the day, they could have made arrangements to rotate someone in so that she could take part in the event with her company.

As it was, they generated nothing but hurt feelings and ill will. Her attitude about her company went from one of really loving her job and the people there to one of considering looking for work elsewhere. What would you think if your company had a party and everyone BUT you could go? I'd be pissed off and would consider myself not a part of the company. It just makes sense to me. And yeah, I am adjusting my reaction to her being upset to account for being 7 1/2 months pregnant and maybe just a little emotionally unstable from time to time.

So she went in the next day and talked with her boss about it to let her know how her being excluded made her feel. Her boss, to her credit, made an effort to make sure that she could take part and that went a very long way to smoothing over any of her ruffled feathers. I hope her company learns from the bump in the road that this was, I hope that they realize that all employee events should really include all employees, not just the ones who can make it. They could have shut down the phone center early, they could have brought in a temp, they could have assigned someone to rotate in and out with her, they could have scheduled the party for after hours when there would be no need to answer the phones.

And P recognized that the party was just the straw that busted the camel's back really. She was more upset about an Excel training course that she'd wanted to get into but the only person who could cover the desk while she'd be in the class was already taking the class as well. So she felt like she was sort of being unfairly stuck in her position with out the means to improve her skillset to progress into more interesting and rewarding positions within the company.

I think things are okay now but we've made our own plans to get her a training course that she can do at home for Excel so that, when she returns from maternity leave, she'll be more able to move upward into the company.

Totally Unrelated Rule of Thumb
If a movie has one of the Carradine's in it, then it is bound to suck.

Nande came through the surgery just fine and I'll be heading over to pick her up in a couple of hours once the sedatives have worn off a bit more.

And Two More Pics from the Weekend
Highway Mirror Motos
Two Aviators Passing

Today Nande is 19 weeks old and to celebrate we're having her spayed, microchipped and she's also getting a rabies shot. I know this is a pretty standard procedure but I am still worried for her and just want the day to go by quickly so I can bring her home and let her rest and recuperate.

The thing that's been the hardest is that we haven't been allowed to feed her since 8 last night and then no water past midnight. Given that she usually gets a sip when she comes in from a potty break or will just slurp away in the morning, its hard to not give her what she wants even if it is for her own good.

Last night, when I got home and had Paul come over to help me load the tv so I could upgrade it before Circuit City's 30 day trade in/trade up deal ran out, Nande got so excited to see me that she headbutted me once and then accidentally bit my nose hard enough to make me bleed. I'm not worried about it but I thought it was kind of funny in a peculiar way, though I didn't, of course, let her know it was okay and she got reprimanded.

And the TV? Its better than the recently purchased one by a fair bit. Why? Two words, High Definition. The new box is HD capable and now all we have to do is wait until the cable company catches up. Though Playstation games and DVD's are supposed to be crystal clear on it but so far the quality has been restricted because of the cables connecting the two components to the box.

If you're out there and have some extra thoughts and good will to send along to my little Nande as she undergoes the most traumatic day of her young little life, send them on. What's that? You need some inspiration? Okay, try these on for size. Nande and the bone, Nande as Princess Leia and Nande the sleep beggar. Now send your positive thoughts her way!

Iraqi Oil via Ryano.net.

Need a better screensaver? Check out Holding Pattern, its a free screen saver that "turns your idle computer screen into an airplane window, complete with a moving aerial view." And yes, they have a Windows version too.

via MeFi.

Quick Shoutout to the Red Sox
Nice work Sox! Sweeping the most overpaid bunch of baseball players in history is cause for celebration. The only way it could have been better is if Steinbrenner exploded from rage.

Sure, the Giants and A's are struggling a bit right now but that's alright. All I have to do is look at the standings and see the New York Spankees in third behind the Red Sox and my Orioles. All I'd like to say is HA. HA. HA.

And Jeter sucks.

It was hot. Damned hot all day yesterday aside from the early morning when I was polyurethaning the planter box on the deck. But once the sun cleared the house to the left of ours, it got hot right quick in the backyard.

And I spent all day just trying to keep hydrated. I must have drunk a gallon of water, three or four sodas, a half a 2 liter bottle of lemonade and chewed on ice and still I was thirsy before I went to bed last night. It probably didn't help that I was sweating out in the sun for most of the afternoon but still, it was kind of wacky.

That and I've had a serious addiction for Cheetos lately.

That's all.

It was with gas saving joy that I found out that we have a local landfill, not four miles away from my house. Much, much closer than the one on the other side of Santa Cruz that I'd been planning on loading and taking all of the bush debris to this weekend. My chest and arms look like I was in a fight with a cat that had a knife, one good gash on my chest and another one on my arm and then hundreds of scratches all over both arms and my legs but it was worth it!

I'd loaded up the truck as much as I could yesterday, piling up branches until they were several feet above the cab of the truck, then climbing up on top of the pile and using my body weight to mash it down into a more managable size. I bungeed the tarp over the top (not knowing that I was avoiding a potentially $500 ticket) and parked it overnight before heading out to the dump this morning with Nande.

A quick drive up two exits on the highway and through some lush California countryside and I was entering the landfill. And the best part? Today was the last day of free drop offs for yard type waste like tree branches and big old ugly bushes! Sure, its not a winning lottery ticket but it was a nice surprise and made me for damned sure going to get the second load out there before they closed at 3:30.

I'm not sure what it is but I really like going to the dump. I like checking out the massive piles of twisted crap that people have given up on trying to repair, seeing the tv's with smashed in screens, the bikes with absolutely seized parts, the rust bubbling away from the steel, the vast wasteland of trash that's slowly pushed into massive piles.

I suppose I should be depressed by so much garbage that will do nothing but sit in the ground for a thousand years until it breaks down and returns to its elemental forms. I suppose I should note the wastefulness of our society in creating such an enormous pile of garbage. I suppose it should galvanize me into being more enviro-friendly and less wantonly wasteful (though I'm really not overly wasteful, I don't think)

But I enjoyed it, Nande enjoyed and I especially enjoyed the regaining of the back corner of my yard (even if I now have to put in a temporary fix for the gaping hole in the fence at the bottom corner so that Nande doesn't get into the asshole neighbor's yard so she can play with their big Rottie).

After the second dump run, Nande and I headed up into Santa Cruz to go and play on the beach with the volleyball crew. It was her first time in the sand and Modoc and Brady were there as well so she was instantly happy and they taught her that digging in the sand is fun. She also went for her first wade into the ocean, I didn't take her out swimming but let her play in the breaking surf so she starts to get used to the water. Next time I may bring her a little further out but I want her to take it at her own pace. But she loved it and really had a good time when the other two dogs came down to the water as well.

By the time we loaded back up into the truck, she was running on fumes and promptly passed out with her head in my lap all the way home. She was mellow all through last night but was still super cute, moving from room to room whereever P or I was hanging out. P, by the way, began and finished the construction of a cat condo so that the cat can have her own space and not worry about the hound hounding her so much. She really did a kickass job on it and now we get to spend the next week or so cutting and stapling carpet into the frame. It'll be really nice when its all together and I'm amazed that a woman almost seven and a half months pregnant was able to start and finish the construction yesterday. The workshop is paying off huge dividends.

Ever since any possible cordial and respectful relationship with our neighbors went out the window, I've been working on how to create more privacy between their deck and ours. Right now there's a light screen on their side but nowhere near enough to effect the kind of privacy I want from these jerks.

Anyway, the other day, after I saw the mother driving down Highway 1 in her shamefully damaged BMW (pretty easy to pick out because of her vanity plate and she had the top up on a gorgeous day), their son was hanging out in his car in the driveway and smiled and waved at me as I came in. No worries, I've got no issues with the kids, they aren't responsible for how stupid their parents are acting. A few minutes after I had gotten inside, the doorbell rang and I expected to have to deal with her yapping at me about some stupid crap or another. But it was the son, I introduced myself, met him and he asked to borrow my phone to call his mom as he had accidentally locked himself out. He's a nice kid, so are their other two kids.

The funny thing is that, unless one of the kids is present, P and I are invisible to the parents. Unless one of the kids waves or says hi they won't even glance over at our side of the driveway. Yes, they are that childish and stupid. My take is that neither went to college and so the highest level of social evolution they attained was high school, therefore, they act like hormonal and ridiculous teenagers when they feel an insult or attack.

But the sad thing is that, they got what they'd asked for. All we wanted out of the whole thing was for them to admit that they shared some of the responsibility for creating the possibility of the accident by parking the car in our driveway. No car there, no accident. Pretty straight forward.

So they are petulant little dickheads and, honestly, we're no worse for their antics. Sometimes its actually pretty funny watching him walk the opposite way around his truck just to avoid having to even come close to eye contact. Then again, the weed whacking at 8:30 this morning was pretty much a solid asshole move. But I got my measure of payback.

Which brings me to my current project. I'm building planter boxes to span the entire right end of our deck. My plan has morphed over time, guided by my changing desires and the fact that wood is damned expensive. It went from a single 8 foot long, 2 feet high and 1 foot wide planter box to three 2 feet long, 1 foot high and 8 inches wide boxes to two of those and one 4 foot by 1 foot by 1 foot box. The final configuration will be nice because the three containers can be moved alot more easily and more flexibly than one single huge container.

And its been really quite alot of fun working on the boxes. Using my power tools, hanging out in my garage workshop, playing loud music over the circular saw (and yes, my circular saw has a laser in it, its that cool), the mouse sander and the jig saw, selecting tasty sounding stains and high tech urethane finishes, working out issues as they crop up and ending up with something that I like looking at. The first box was kind of the proof of concept tester and it came out well enough but its not quite what I wanted to do. It has exposed hardware and I wanted to go with the whole secret frameup design.

The second and big box came out very nicely, has absolutely no holes on the outside and all of the connecting pieces are hidden inside. Sure, the wood isn't the best quality but that's alright, I'm still working out the kinks in the design. It'll be nice out on the deck with the Golden Pecan stain on it and filled with some fast growing and view obscuring and noise muffling bamboo growing out of it. Yep, bamboo that says in no uncertain terms to them that we will be having nothing to do with them. That and I like bamboo alot and have wanted to do this for a while anyway and I needed a project to get started on using my workshop to make. I will post a pic or two when they are all finished and put together.

And then I think I may start thinking about some sort of privacy wall out front between our two driveways. Oh yeah, right where their basketball hoop is right now, only thing is that half of that sucker is in my driveway and guess what? It ain't staying. Fight childish behaviour with childish behaviour, I always say.

Potentially related news, some asshole stole my registration sticker off the back of my truck, it ripped in the process so they got nothing but now I've gotta go spend a morning waiting in line at the DMV to get another one. I would like to think it wasn't the assholes next door but there's a sneaking suspicion I've got that it was them. They seem that idiotic.

[Update: Sunday morning: Proof of the last line above. P just got back from an expedition to Orchard Supply and they are cleaning the BMW right now only they've turned the car around so that the damage is facing away from our house so that we won't know that they spent the insurance money on their bills instead of on getting the car repaired. They are truly stupid people who think that we're as dumb as they are. I looked out the bedroom window and laughed long and hard at their antics. I'll be heading to the bamboo place later on today, I think. After I've applied the first of two or three coats of the quick dry polyurethane. And I may also get some trim finish pieces at OSH too to clean up some of the edges on the planter box.]

Total tangent question, if dog's sense of smell is like a hundred times better than a human's then how can they stand their truly horrendous nose melting farts?

In this day and age of near daily exposes of religious shenanigans (and by shenanigans, I mean Father Humpsaboy and the codified coverup mandated by the Vatican), it is just a wee bit hypocritical and, well, stupid for the Pope to refuse communion to John Kerry for supporting a woman's right to govern her own body. Ethan posted No Communion for Pro-Choice Politicians in the comments and I had to post it here and on MetaFilter.

Overnight, according to SiteMeter, Intellectual Poison recieved its 80,000th visitor and 120,000th page view. Yeah, I know that's a good week at some blogs but hey, I'm still happy about it.

It is time for some hot, melted . Let's quit the jibber jabber and get into the questions.

1. What is the worst or best insult someone's said to you?
I think the one that I disliked the most and had to endure for a full weekend was the visiting brother of a friend (who also happened to bring four or five of his high school buddies to visit his little brother at college, yeah that type of guy) who decided that I looked like the monkey pal on the Speed Racer cartoon. I got to spend a weekend being called Chim-chim. Until he passed out one night and I stuck some poop in his open mouth and took pictures of him.

2. What's the lamest platitude you know?
Oh golly, there are so many stupid little cliches that people trot out when they don't have their own words for situations. I hate "It was probably for the best" because you know it wasn't. "You only live once" is another pretty stupid one. "Takes one to know one" is also logically inane. "Birds of a feather flock together", um yeah, unlike birds of a fur or birds of a scale who don't like to hang out with each other at all. Actually, I think part of the definition of a platitude is that they suck so I pretty much don't like any of them.
[Update: Heather over on In No Particular Order reminded me of my all time least favorite platitude, "We can still be friends," usually delivered by your about to be ex. If they were your friend then they wouldn't be ripping your heart out and stomping on it with golf spikes, would they? Besides, its just a booty call ploy anyway.]

3. Do you pick up hitchhikers? When was the last time you did?
I will if I've got the time and the space. The last hitchhiker I picked up was a girl at a bus stop, she put up a bit of a struggle but I got her into the trunk of my car and......no wait. No she was actually hitching to get to the hospital because her sister had been admitted overnight and she had the car. It was about a month and a half ago.

4. What's your favorite fruit and how do you like to eat it?
I think my all time favorite fruit is the basic Fuji apple but lately blood oranges have been moving up the charts. Best way to consume almost any fruit is raw I think.

5. What's your favorite drive or drives?
Skyline Drive or Highway 35 the runs the ridge between Santa Cruz and Palo Alto, it runs into La Honda where Alice's Restaurant is and , on a nice weekend, there'll be a couple of hundred bikers hanging out. Take Highway 9 out of Santa Cruz, which is great ride all on its own, up through Felton, Ben Lomond, Brookdale (yeah, where the haunted and muy cool Brookdale Lodge is) and through Boulder Creek. Hit Skyline, hang a left and enjoy a road that allows you to look left to the ocean (on a clear day) and look right down into Palo Alto and the Silicon Valley. It doesn't hurt that the road is well maintained and is the asphalt equivalent of crack for a motorcycle.

6. Which begs the question, what's your favorite hike or walk?
Probably West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz. You can walk up from the Boardwalk and enjoy ocean views, surfers at Steamers Lane, the occasional nekkid folk on It's (strangely its a sometimes nude beach within site of the road and one of two on West Cliff) and, if you go far enough, you end up at Natural Bridges State Park which is just beautiful.

And there ya go, that's my Cheddar for this week.
Want to get some cheese? Head on down and get some!

Some of you may have noticed that there's a new addition to Intellectual Poison. After initially being rejected by Google AdSense for not being cool enough, they reconsider or relaxed their requirements and I was invited to join the club of blogs with adverts on them.
I'm still playing around with the configuration and may end up even switching templates to better accomodate the additions. That and the site's ready for an update anyway.

So yeah, Intellectual Poison is now attempting to pay its own way and generate a little income via click throughs but I don't expect that the ads will be very obtrusive at all, if they become a distraction then I'll just opt out of the program, no biggie. This is a concept I think I want to import over to the Cheddar X (which'll have new questions up as soon as I'm done here) because that'll mean that it can support itself and that means its own domain and web space.

I'm still considering moving to a better blog engine but have my reservations about MuNu (sorry, Jim, I know you want us all to move over) and the spam bot attacks on Movable Type aren't especially appealling. We'll see, this is working decently for now but I'd love to integrate comments and a few other slick features that some of the other places have built in.

Yesterday, while playing around with Nande in the back yard and also checking on the progress of my little vegetable patch. The sugar snap peas are really starting to grow well and I'll need a larger frame for them to grow up into soon, the corn is starting to take off as well but is having some bug issues are something because some of the leaves are a bit ragged. Anyway, Nande kept digging at one corner of the little area and I assumed that she was trying to dig out the stake that was holding up that side of the lattice that keeps her out of the vegie patch.

But when I went to check out what she was digging on, I found the leathery end of an old rawhide bone that had been buried in the yard for at least a couple of years. It was nasty, covered in dirt, soft and just slightly moldy in a few spots. In other words, it was like puppy crack. Nande got ahold of it and ran away from me whenever I'd come near her for fear I was taking away her prize.

I knew it wasn't the best thing for her to nosh on but I also thought it was a good time to let her learn a little more about being selective in what she eats (yeah, I know, its not working and will likely never work). Because it was so old and soft, she pretty well chewed through it in about fifteen minutes and ate the whole thing.

Fast forward several hours. I took Nande out to go potty as I was getting ready for bed and P had been asleep for a little while already. She's really pretty excellent at peeing where she's supposed to now and she did her business and then came back up onto the lawn and laid down. She was absent mindedly eating grass and generally just looked somewhat unhappy with the state of affairs.

And before I knew it, she'd deposited a rather large portion of the contents of her stomach (which was most of her dinner and the nasty rawhide coils of that bone) on the lawn. A minute later she tossed the rest of her stomach's contents up leaving two large piles of dog puke on the lawn. And, because she's a nasty dog, she immediately wanted to eat it right back up. Yeah, nasty. I took her back into the house, gave her a little food to fill her stomach up again and went out to dispose of the thick messes. Luckily, they were firm enough to be scooped onto my shovel easily enough and then deposited into the trash can out by the fence. I'd forgotten that there no bags of trash in there so now we've got a puke lined trash can which, I'm sure, will get ripe in the next few days in the sun. Oh well.

Nande slept pretty well the rest of the night going from about 11:30 until just before 5 this morning without needing to go out and potty. And she was pretty thirsty by that time as well.

Man o man, I love it when people get their own bad karma coming back on them to sting and make their lives suck.

P stopped at home during a break today to spend a little time with Nande and saw an imminent disconnect notice on our door from the water company. Which would normally be a serious bummer, pain in the ass and time to scramble to find some cash to keep the water flowing. But, here comes the best part, it wasn't for us, it was for our asshole neighbors! Hahaha!

Sure, it goes to explain a lot more about why she was such a rabid bitch about getting the money to "repair" her car. She needed it cover their bills and they're still underwater (though soon they'll have no water at all, ha!).

Which is kind of funny because she should have been thanking us for hitting her car and generating some damned income for them. Instead they treat us like we're lepers that can spread the disease just by looking at us. What dinks.

I know its not really that great a personality trait to crow about other people's misfortunes but, for the amount of crap they've visited upon us, both P and I are pretty much laughing our asses off all day today. Its our hope that they have to downsize or whatever and they have to move away. It'd be awesome to get some people living next door that we actually like.

And that could also afford to repair or replace their half of the fence line that we share. As it is, they won't be able to do anything. But he sure does have a nice and shiny new truck.

Ain't karma a big ol' stinky bitch?

[Update: I've been wrestling with dropping this post as I do realize that its somewhat mean spirited to cheer someone else's troubles. But you know what? Screw it, they have still done nothing but behave like children so screw them. And we really wouldn't mind some new folks moving in next door anyway.]

Need a little slang in yo' life?
Gizzle your shizzle over to Snoop Dogg's Shizzolator and pizzimp your blizzog up some, fool!
Thizzanks go to Jizzay for the Lizzink.

Notwithstanding the fact that The Shield is a pretty violent and, I think they call it, hyper-realist show in and of itself. It is. Sometimes its really pretty shocking to watch.

But then they showed a short preview for a movie called Meltdown, they also showed a damned long preview for Denzel's new asskick movie Man of Fire but that's another post. Meltdown is the heart warming story of terrorists targeting and taking over one of America's 103 nuclear reactors. Yeah, whodda thought we had 103 of the buggers? So we are now forced to consider the possibility, and of course since it will be portrayed so well, the real possibility in our minds that terrorists are probably stalking the nuke plants right now and that people in this world really and truly do want to ruin and destroy America and kill as many of us as possible.

Wow, really that just kind of sucks to read in print. It sucks that the fear we are all immersed in every day has palpable reasons, look at Madrid, look at Indonesia, look at New York. Fear of terrorist attack, fear of the boss catching you looking at nudie pics when you should be working and you sneak peeks anyway, fear of the nimrod in the Monte Carlo who's just spun a hundred and eight degrees ON THE HIGHWAY who then proceeds to actually drive his car across the highway to get back heading south, fear of all the dangers my as yet unborn little kid faces that I will be powerless to protect him or her from.

The culture of fear lives on. Fear of the creeping suspicion that everyone everywhere BUT you are in on some kind of huge and bizarre conspiracy to confound and slow down your life while making money hand over fist that you'll never sniff a dollar of, fear that no matter what you do you'll never find true love or worse, fear that found true love and let it get away, fear that one day you will have to realize that you either settle or you grow old alone, fear that you really are nothing but a bag of wind and some false confidence, fear of attack in the night, fear of losing everything, fear of losing my family, fear of fearing too much.

Fear because the world is a dangerous and violent place ruled by fear that fuels anger and depression and all the other societal ills. No wonder the pharmco's are doing such a bang up business. People are scared of damned near everything and the fear manifests itself as anger and the anger is contagious. One pissed off dickweed in a commute can wreck about a hundred people's days and they may go on to wreck a hundred more. Who hasn't gotten to work one day and actually not done anything wrong but you still get reamed by your boss anyway? Bad days are contagious in a way that good ones just can't duplicate.

Meltdown, add this to your list of nightmares brought to you by Fear Unlimited. Fear's gotten us to where we are today. Fear makes you look at your neighbors and wonder if they've got bodies buried in their basements or if they're pedophiles. Fear makes you see yourself, in way over your head like you're drowning. Fear keeps you up at night watching bad tv and thinking about shotguns and closed circuit tv and security systems.

On an aside, this is supposed to be TV turnoff week.

Hey AOL, I heard you're losing money faster than a drunk millionaire in Vegas.

Thought I might pass along a bit of advice on how to not only save a bunch of money but how to also preserve whatever meager shred of good will you still have remaining in the marketplace.

How about you stop blanketing the entire country with your lame ass free AOL cd's? Stop inserting them into my magazines, stop peppering them all over the stores, stop mailing them to and making me wait in line to get my "package" from you morons?

Tally up the total cost of this incredibly stupid and wasteful campaign and then reconsider your tactics. Every single time I get one of your free CDs in the mail, I not only throw it away, I smash it so that no one else can use your crappy little Only-The-Internet-We-Decide-Is-Safe-For-You bullshit either. I haven't bothered to count how many of your lame promotional offers I've trashed but its gotta be more than a hundred by now. That's a hell of a lot of money for trash, isn't it?

Do us all a favor and reduce your extremely stupid and unproductive marketing campaign. The world will breath a sigh of relief and you might actually find that people are open to trying your shitty service again. I'm not one of those people but I'm sure there are some people out there that need to have their hand held while they surf about on the big bad Internet.

Just a thought.

First off, I'd like to let everybody know that today is Nande's 18th week birthday. She weighed in at a pretty whopping 39 pounds this week. Which means she's putting on weight rather quickly these days and now she's due to get spayed before she breaks 45 pounds so we're looking at later this week. Poor girl doesn't know what's coming at all but I think she'll be fine.

New Word
Based on one of the recent comment threads on Plain Layne, this one is all for Ryan.
Subverseve - attempting to overthrow or distract a person or power by the use of rhymes.

And In The Numbers Have Conspired News
Check out Number Spiral if you get into freaky number stuff. Its pretty amazing information and I've long suspected those pesky numbers of getting together and forming a conspiracy.

I almost forgot, today is 4/20. The day that all the stoner high schoolers ditch school to hang out and smoke dope and rebel against the man or something. Four twenty day came about because the police code for a marijuana violation is, surprise, surprise, a 420. Those wacky kids! [Update: The 420 police code thing is bunkum, Snopes: 420. Thanks to Intellectual Properties for busting me on that one.]

And out here in Santa Cruz land, the UCSC students usually gather in a field up above campus to debauch like mad monkeys. Only this year, it'll be a muddy stoner fest. Which isn't an issue for the same students that put on an annual parade of mud people where they strip naked, roll in mud and parade through downtown (and no, I'm not joking).

Anyway, peace all and smoke 'em if you got 'em unless someone's just freshly repaved your throat with hot lava, then its probably best to abstain this time around.

Another night passes, the cold/flu progresses but this time I had the firepower to knock this sucker into submission. At least for one night. P remembered that she still had some cough syrup with that magical substance, codeine, in it. Oooh yeah. codeine makes it all better or at least makes it so you just don't care about all the goo and shit quite so much.

I got to sleep pretty well last night, punctuated by one potty break for the puppy and then, later, she just wanted out of her crate but kept wandering the room so she got a few minutes out before I put her back in and she was quiet for another hour or so.

All in all, I'm starting to feel human again and the fog is breaking up slowly. Another day or two and I expect to be back to normal. Until then, I'll just watch the rain and be happy I was smart enough to buy my truck when I did because there's very little that sucks more than having to ride a motorcycle on the highway in the rain with a cold. Believe me on this one.

[Addendum: The good thing about feeling better? I have a desire to eat again. Before I had some potato soup for dinner last night, I'd had about a half cup of mushroom soup, five bites of Crunchy Pea salad (which is awesome stuff) and two Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts all day. I still didn't get enough to eat yesterday but I had no desire to try and sneak any food past the screaming pain that was the back of my throat. And coffee? Yeah, that was a bad idea.]

By the way, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it yet but P made some really excellent curtains for the bedroom and for the closet entrance. They have added immeasurably to the feel of the bedroom. The fabric for the closet curtain is really neat as its got both sheer and regular fabrics in it so that there are see through flame like elements in it. Very cool.

Now all we've got to do are the nursery curtains, the sliding glass door covering (I hate, hate, hate those stupid and easily breakable slat curtains), a few more windows and we'll be even further on the way to have a completed house.

Which also reminds me, congratulations go to Ryan on the purchase of his first home. And he's getting his task list ready as well. Lucky bastard has gorgeous hardwood floors under a hideous carpet.

In Another Road Sign on the Way to the Apocalypse News
Kill Mom But Don't Hurt the TV by way of Ethan. Depressing shitty news about the further shallowness of, well, everybody.

What sucks is trying to take some cold meds, those big honking orange DayQuil pills, trying to ease them past some extra enlarged large tonsils and into the right tube sucks.

And then it sucks about ten times more then one or both decides to try and get into your lungs instead of your stomach.
Gah! I hate being sick although I do rather enjoy the personal fogbank I'm in most of the time.

Well this has been loads of fun. A sore throat that climbed into my nose and trickled snot all the live long day. Not helped by the massive cleaning efforts in the house this weekend culminating in P's joyous purchase of a new vacuum with the dirt spinning bagless window thingy in the front that makes it look like fun to get sucked into it. But the amount of pet hair and dirt that this thing has inhaled has been pretty horrifying.

My nasal snot factory was also working overtime because I did some building this weekend. Put together the first of two or three planter boxes for the deck that will, eventually, erect a nice privacy wall of bamboo to give us back our deck when the neighbors happen to be out as well. And yes, they are still refusing to acknowledge that we still exist.

I'm guessing that they're social evolution halted the day they graduated from high school because they are exactly like a pair of petulant little teenagers. But hey, fuck 'em. Its all good. Saves us time coming in or leaving, not having to stop and chat with them.

So yeah, I'm still sick, feeling sick all over now instead of just in my throat and calves. But I've got far too much to do at work today to allow this to knock me down. Dayquil will be my salvation.

Cool news is that we're thinking about picking up one of these to replace my slappy, crappy but still good at keeping me dry old Toyota Pickup.

Let's see, what else has happened? Kim left for Nantucket with Sarah, they'll be back in three or four months leaving Paul and Ken in possession of bachelor pad even though neither are bachelors. I got some Republican propoganda thanking me for being a charter member of ShrubCo's California campaign which is pretty funny since monkeys with lasers on their heads and Harvard Law degrees would be shooting out my butt before I ever campaigned for Bush. Though I must say that I love the picture of Bush and his wooden wife, first lady, Laura, trying to look like good, honest folks contrasted with the new revelations that this crooked fool of a president had illegally re-allocated funds intended to fight terrorists in Afghanistan to his personal jihad against Iraq.

The walls will continue to crumble around Bush. I saw John Kerry on Meet the Press yesterday morning and he comes across as well polished, intelligent and a very, very serious threat to ShrubCo's regime of truly out of control spending. Kerry knocked n the RNC's concerted smear campaign to besmirch his name and record, he responded to the commercials that are lies, he responded to how he would attempt to fix Iraq, he shined a light on the farcical nature of this current government's inability to speak the truth, the locking out of the secretary of defense in making the decision to go to war and much, much more. He also looked like he'd had Botox or something because his previously prune inspired look of wrinkles with wrinkles in them has been replaced by a youthful shine.

By the way, P took the time to deface the pic nicely, changing Laura into bin Laden and Bush into Saddam complete with heavy eyebrows and mustache. Nice work!

By the way, I don't think enough is made of the fact that George Bush has taken four out of every ten days off as president of this country. Four out of every ten. That's five months out of every year he has not been working. And its not like the world's slowed down or anything, there are tremendous issues facing our country and the world at every turn. Yet he's taking four out of every ten days off. Utterly ridiculous and the only silver lining I can see is that those are four days he can't shaft more countries and more Americans.

The bell is tolling for thee, Mr. Bush. Try not to steal too much shit on your way out the door.

Two Quick Links and I'm in the Shower
Enneagram Institute: Enneagram Testing & Training for personality testing, where I'm either a 2 or a 7, stupid flu fog in my brain
and
Subservient Chicken, where you can make an idiot in a chicken suit do whatever you want, more or less. Can anyone explain why Burger King would fund this site?

How dare me for wanting to cross the street in a crosswalk and slow Mr. Jackass down from his mad buzzing in his piece of shit car.

And what unmitigated gall of me to actually ask him to not hit me with his car as he tries to speed through the intersection and crosswalk.

But thank goodness he got me back but good. After driving a hundred and fifty feet or so down the road he showed his courage by giving me the finger. Thank goodness that tough guy didn't stop and kick my ass for being a pedestrian in his car world.

The world's a big festering, sloppy asshole today. I'm ready for the work day to be done so I can hack my way through traffic and get home to my bed, my wife and my dog (and my asshole neighbors but that's another post).

By the Way, How Old is YOUR Inner Child?

My inner child is ten years old!

The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether
I'm off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost
in a good book, or giggling with my best
friend, I live in a world apart, one full of
adventure and wonder and other stuff adults
don't understand.


How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

via Special K.

Maybe the mold in the cheese will be like a penicillin to me and burn out this gnarly firethroat thing I've got going on for the last couple of days. Can anyone say Cepacol? Yeah, I knew you could.

Anyway, since they went up a couple of days ago, I should probably get around to posting my Cheddar X for this week.

1. What does party mean to you? (I.e. when you go and get your party on, what does that mean?)
Its meant many things over the years but I think the most likely is just to get together with friends, maybe a BBQ going, a dog or two running around, drinking some beers, cocktails and/or wine until the wee hours of the morning that might or might not include a skinny dipping romp in the bay. Once the little sprogger is born though, I think party will come to mean silly hats, noise makers, birthday cakes and at least crying jag per party.

2. What was the first thing you thought or said when you saw your significant other for the first time?
"She's got a great smile" and "Damn, she's smaller than I thought."

3. Do you talk to yourself? Why?
All the time, partly because I am alone a fair amount of the time and don't have music in my truck or on my motorcycle, partly because I like the sound of my own voice and partly because I firmly believe that words gain power by being spoken aloud. And the snob in me wants to say that, by speaking to myself, I'm gauranteed at least one good conversation a day.

4. What's been your biggest personal change in the last ten years?
Maturation from a prickish youth into a reasonable adult. In the last fifteen years it would have to be the addition of around 40 pounds of muscle after leaving high school and no, I haven't ever and will never juice up.

5. What are you most looking forward to?
Right now, getting home tonight and laying down again because my head is pounding and fire throat barely describes the pleasures involved with swallowing.
Down the road, gotta be the pending birth of our first child. That's a little bit of a no-brainer. But there are lots of other things I'm jacked for, like the backyard landscaping, replacing the fence, putting in skylights, Pergo-ing the kitchen and maybe the entire downstairs and all those other home projects that will make the house a better place to live.

There's my Cheddar for the week, I'd be wittier or just plain ol' funnier but its hard to be humorous when it feels like the jackhammer being used outside is being used on the side of my skull.

I would expect that this weekend will be a pretty lowkey one for me, at least until I feel a little more human again.

Not really because, on some levels, I can admire his desire to work through feeling like shit and horking up lung love.

But then there's the other side of the coin in which he came in just long enough to pass along the flu or whatever it was to everyone in the office. So it comes to pass that I woke up feeling like some hot asphalt has been poured down my throat and someone took my muscles out of my legs and back and replaced them with strips of crampy white fury.

So its a day of bad tv and drifting states of consciousness for me, oh boy! At least I get to spend the day with Nande and that's almost never a bad thing (except when she's on superchew mode).

By the way, yesterday was random encounter day. From my stand-in physical therapist having also gotten one of the dogs from the same litter that Nande came from, to randomly running into an old friend down in Rio del Mar and there was one more but its escaping my brain (lucky for it because my head's throbbing pretty good right now, I think I'll go lay down some more).

The latest news about the security and intelligence failures around 9/11?

Yeah, Mr. More Vacations Than Any Other President in History (a whopping 40% of his "presidency" has been spent on vacation, would that we were all lucky enough to take nearly five months off every year).
Vacationing Bush Not Told of 9/11 Clue and no, this isn't a hard indictment of his failings but hey, it couldn't have hurt to have had a man who was actually in office while he's supposed to be "in office".

The "clue" was that a suspected Islamic fundamentalist had been taking flying lessons. Combine that with the previously known scenarios of hijacking planes and, whoa, the terrorists might be planning to hijack more planes, eh?

But then, that's probably giving him far too much credit. I mean, unless he reads it off a prepared statement, the guy couldn't positively tell you that one and one are two.

Its not enough that ShrubCo has raised more than $180 million for thier re-election campaign, now they are using taxpayer funds to pay for the campaign.

Outraged? Yeah so am I.
Want to do something about it? Sign here

Need more info?
- The Bush-Cheney campaign has used government employees to conduct opposition research on John Kerry. Even a former Republican Treasury official admitted that they had "stepped over the line." [Wall Street Journal, 3/31/04]
- The White House directed the Health and Human Services Department to run thinly disguised campaign ads that mislead seniors about Bush's Medicare plan which funnels billions of dollars to giant pharmaceutical companies. [Washington Post, 10/20/02]
- The House Resources Committee posted a diatribe against Kerry's "absurd" energy ideas on its taxpayer-funded Web site. [Associated Press, 4/6/04]

Come on, George, first you made a pathetically awful national speech last night and now you're making up the rules to re-election as you go along. Do you honestly think that the country is stupid and sheepish enough to just bow down to you and your Dicky master?

From Excite's Instant Poll

"Last night, President Bush held his third televised primetime news conference since taking office, during which he spoke about his administration's policies in Iraq. (AP)

Based on what you saw/read, how do you think he did?
Great 25% => 3390 votes
Good 18% => 2408 votes
So-so 11% => 1506 votes
Poor 29% => 3816 votes
I'm not sure/I didn't watch or read about it 14% => 1828 votes
I don't care 0% => 107 votes
Current number of voters: 13055"

I watched some of it but had to change the channel because he's just such a smarmy fucking prick, I can't stand to listen to him. Besides, its all propoganda and spin and bullshit.

Add that to the news that his own tax cuts saved him and Laura "The Invisible First Lady" more than $30,000 on income of more than $800,000 on their taxes for 2003. And Dicky? Yeah, he and his wife saved $11,000 and they made more than $1.2 million. Nice work, fellas. I wonder if George has income envy knowing that his second in command made about 50% more than he did in 2003. Nah, I'm sure there's millions hidden away from sight that we'll never know about.

Okay, first off, no one has ever mentioned the nastiness that is baby's first poo. A dark, tarlike substance that has been sitting, waiting and festering in the baby's digestion for months until it could get out into the real world and let loose the flood of thick, icky goo. And that's my job to take care of because, well, P will have just birthed the little guy or gal and its just my job.

So that's one.

We got to see some of the many ways that baby's can be slightly misshapen during the birth process, pictures of baby's with melons shaped like coneheads, baby's with dixie cup shaped and sized protrusions due to the vacuum lock baby turning equipment, baby's with a swollen heads where the mother bore down to try and vent the baby but instead was bashing it against their pelvic floor.

All of these conditions are short term, lasting at most a couple of weeks.

And there are others that I'm sure we won't need to know about until they happen to us. The class was more about being prepared for the baby to come out and not quite look like a baby yet. Our instructor, who loves to embarass her 20-something kids, told the tale of her daughter being born with a pretty thick coat of dark hair (she's Japanese) and a head squeezed into a bit of a conehead shape. She remembered asking the nurse if she was sure this was her daughter and that they weren't playing a trick on her and giving her a gorilla's baby.

But it all works out in the end. The baby's skull plates resettle into the round shape, whatever bruising happens will go away and the baby will look like a perfectly normal and wonderful little bundle of joy.

But that is, as you all well know, just the very tip of the iceberg. Babies take a little while to get used to breathing air and they'll sound a little funky while the fluid breaks up and is slowly kicked out of their lungs. They'll sneeze alot since they don't know how to cough, they'll gurgle, they'll sound like tiny little Darth Vader's, they'll pant like dogs (the returning mother in the class offered that one up) and they'll sound like they're choking. But its all part of the process although I'm not naive enough to think that we're not going to FREAK when this happens to us.

And there's more, the molting, the baby acne, diaper rash, splotching, stork bites and dozens of other things that will keep us awake at night worrying.

The class wasn't all bad by any means though. We learned all kinds of good stuff like how to wash the infant in the that first couple of weeks, products that aren't necessary like talc and baby lotion, how to bond with the baby, what happens when you expose a little boy's scrotum to cold air (hint, he looks alot like one of those fountains but with amazing distance).

Some of the lingering effects on little girls from their mother's hormones, such as the possibility of a mini-period and what used to be called witch's milk when the tiny baby's breasts can actually leak a substance akin to mother's milk because of those random and strong hormones still circulating in their systems. By the way, back during the Salem witch trial days, a baby with witch's milk leaking from her tiny breasts was called a witch and burned alive. And yes, the very concept of burning an infant alive makes my blood run cold too.

And we also learned how to cope with family and friends who want to help out. The general rule is to not turn down help but to meter it so that there's not too much help at one time and no help later. Also, the rule for dealing with parents, now grandparents, is a good one, if its my mom disrupting the flow (don't worry mom, I know you'll be perfectly fabulous as you've had the training three times with Andrew, Zola and Nic) then its up to me to take care of talking to her, likewise for P's parents.

The very best rule we learned last night is that, when the baby is resting, so is mommy. And that means, eyes closed, not laying in bed reading or watching tv, resting means trying to sleep. And that means that, if people come over to visit, they get to know that the two are resting and shouldn't be disturbed. Which is fine because that's been my rule so far anyway, when P needs to rest, she rests. She can sleep as much as she wants, whenever she wants (though her work seems to frown on her sleeping at her desk for some reason).

But that nasty 9 nine month in the making poo-tar stuff? Yeah, I'm not looking forward to that little bit of joy but hey, its part of the deal and there is a part of me that's truly thrilled to be doing all of this stuff.

There was one scene from the party on Saturday night that's stuck with me for its confused hilarity. I'm sure the alcohol didn't make a bit of difference in the humor. And so, on this, the anniversary of Nande's 17th week of life, I give you a little dog oriented fun.

Why are we so scandalized by a boy dog mounting up on a female dog and then so utterly entertained by a female dog putting the mount on the boy?

I don't really know but it came to pass Saturday evening or maybe it's better put as early Sunday morning, that Modoc got mounted upon by his neighbor, Cinder, a more slender Shepherd, to the drunken and stupid cheers of six or eight or maybe two people in the light of the glow from the dryer fire. The funniest part was that both dogs thought it was the best thing ever that all these people were clapping and cheering them on. And Modoc, sweet Modoc, was loving the attention even though he was the one being mounted upon. It was among the funniest moments of the whole evening.

We had our own dog pack the other night. And Nande was the little sister trying to tag along with the big kids all night long. At one point there were five dogs racing through the back yard, yards once the hole in the fence had been properly opened.

So yeah, eventually, after hours of the four dogs, since the Boxer was a short term stay punctuated primarily by gobs of bubbly white spittle he left everywhere, eventually the dogs started to poop out. Instead of wild rambunctious (a fabulous word if there ever was one) chasing, they were sort of padding around in a pack. Usually it was Modoc out front with a toy in his mouth and the other three dogs trying to get the toy from him. The other four dogs were great together. Nande, Modoc, Brady and now Cinder. Cinder's a girl too, and much closer to Modoc and Brady's ages than little Nande who's becoming not so little quite quickly as she is well within her first growth spurt. Last week she was 32.5 pounds, and this week I'd be surprised if she isn't over 35.

She's still sweet, cute and wonderful. But now she's also able to leap up on the bed in the mornings, she's tall enough to get things off the counter in the kitchen and her barks are becoming deeper and alot more powerful. And I'm not sure how common this is but I suspect that almost all dogs got this at one point or another, because she leads with her chin, its become a spot with a few scabs and cuts. When I get home in the evening, I've gotta be careful to redirect her, occasionally, bloody chin, as she likes to rub it against my legs and blood on pants is a bummer. I hope she grows out of this eventually if only for the reason that it probably hurts her some and the smeared blood on things is disconcerting.

Is this normal? Have any of you other dog owners had to deal with bloody chin-itis?

I'm all for protests and the right to make your point of view heard above the roar of daily living. But PETA's antics have lately done nothing but arouse much derision and irritation, not the mention outright hypocrisy.

I'd not known about it before but Penn and Teller have a show on Showtime called Bullshit that I happened to catch last week. They were discussing PETA and the bullshit they exist within.

They are completely against the unethical treatment of animals, that means no animal testing, no animals for food, no animals for fine Corinthian leather couches, no walking canes made from bull's pizzles (no lie, don't make me bust out the link) and possibly not even keeping animals as pets. And that's all well and good, I'm all for people holding opinions, however narrow and stupid and wrong and skewed they are. But I do have an issue with PETA on many fronts.

Apparently its okay that medical testing on animals has happened before because the founder of PETA is a diabetic and has to use insulin. Insulin that's a product of animal testing. But she says its okay because her taking insulin allows her to do greater good than the animal testing that had to be done to develop insulin.

So its okay for her to use animal products but not you, me or anyone else. Sorry lady but that's bullshit. You're not special and you are a hypocrit.

Next, PETA says that they are devoted to caring for and caring about all animals, yet they euthanized almost two thirds of the animals that passed through their doors in 2003. They KILLED the animals, they have a huge walk-in freezer that they had loaded with bodies. Sorry but that's not only hypocritical but its a lie. PETA isn't protecting animals, they are killing them.

Their tactics are far more about exposure and national attention than they are about protecting animal's rights. The Meat is Murder campaign, the spray painting of people wearing fur coats and then there are the truly dirty tactics they try to use, like talking to children and telling them that if they eat meat then they are killing Bambi and other Disney characters. I'm sorry but any organization that bases its message on lies and then tries to feed those lies to children should be charged with endangerment, fraud and whatever else they can be charged with.

And it doesn't end there, check out PETA�s Internet hypocrisy (yeah, its old but that just goes to show how long these "activists" have been hypocrits). Or

PETA still spewing bullshit where they discuss more crap from PETA like milk causes acne and protests against the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. Another article discusses PETA using Nazi Germany in an attempt to get people to stop eating meat, the campaign? "A Holocaust on your Plate".

PETA needs to become extinct. Even if I were a vegeterian I would have nothing to do with these rabid soccer moms and their misguided crusades and their truly appalling tactics. And they'd better stay the hell away from my children because I will have no problem beating their asses silly with a leg of lamb.

This character assassination is brought to you by the letters R, N and C, they stand for Rich Nasty Cocksuckers or Republican National Congress, they're interchangeable.
Kerry criticized for French connection

Okay, so now, because they've realized that he's a pretty decent human being, a smart and reasoned man, now they're going to attack his "Frenchness"?

I have an extremely hard time believing that anyone has ever voted for these fucking retards.
They have all the maturity of a 13 year old boy off his Ritalin.

Not only are they demonstrating just how weak their ability to assassinate his character is, they're demonstrating just what a bunch of racists idiots they really are. Its evil to be French? What? Oh wait, I get it. The French have been anti-Iraq so they're trying to make this daisy chain leap of anti-ness and make Kerry look like he's anti-Iraq because he can speak French, has a French cousin, probably once had French Fries (they are still called French Fries, right? Not that unspeakably stupid Freedom Fries crap), at least twice had French Toast and once, just once though, he French-kissed a girl, went out on a date with a girl that had French braids in her hair and slept in a house that had French doors.

Honestly, the RNC is a bunch of in-bred, over stuffed morons if this is the best they can do.

If we're going for character assassinations, then we'd have no trouble turning Shrub into a pile of mulch.
Hey RNC goons, stick to the real stuff, your candidate can't stand the scrutiny of daylight on his record so maybe its best to not go turning over stones on our side in the hopes of finding some dirt. We know your guy is dirtier than Pig Pen, do you really want to start a war of character?

Thanks to Ethan for the quality story link.

By the way, how utterly ridiculous the Bush camp's reaction has been to the whole 9/11 terrorism warnings and briefings. Um yeah, there were no warnings about when, where, what and how they were going to strike, just that they were an imminent threat and might hijack planes. Oh sorry, that isn't enough info. Don't those pesky terrorists know that ol' Shrub needs a goddamned road map to find his own ass?

Let's quote his idiotness, "There was nothing in there that said, you know, 'There is an imminent attack,'" Bush told reporters. "That wasn't what the report said. The report was kind of a history of Osama's (bin Laden's) intentions." Okay, a history of intentions? Um, does anyone know what that means? How about the fact that there were 70 different investigations into bin Laden at that time? No, not enough to warrant maybe reading more than the first paragraph of the briefings left by the outgoing Clinton regime? Oh sorry, they should have put more pictures in.

What a joke of a moron this guy is and yet, he has legions of idiots ready to do his bidding. It bothers me that so many of my fellow Americans are such sheep that they can't see this man for the moron he is.

People, the word is "Ask" not "Akss". Quit butchering the language. It ain't that friggin' hard to talk good, you maroons.

I do have to admit that George Bush does win one thing hands down. He's got the best looking first daughters that I can remember. Jenna and Laura Bush (Jenna, shown here on her way to Easter services or both of them) have grown up quite a bit in the last couple of years while their daddy's been wrecking the country. Compare them to Chelsea Clinton or Amy Carter or any of the other first kids of recent years. Yeah, it doesn't hurt that they're both party girls who thought they were slick enough to use a fake id to buy beer when their father was the president of the country. Um, looks like we know where they got their smarts from.

Good work, Jenna, thanks for raising the bar for first daughters. Now all you need to do is get really drunk and make a low budget sex video that'll spread faster than Paris Hilton's awful green tinted peep cam that made her a superstar even though she's got one facial expression and absolutely zero fashion sense.

So, hey, that's something, who says there's no middle ground between Republicans and Democrats?

Other News: Nande is a Tick Magnet
We have, in the last two weeks, pulled five ticks off of Nande after her morning walks along the slough down the street. We've got her on Revolution but I'm pretty sure the dosage is too low as she's gotten so much bigger than she had been.

I've got a write up in the works of the party on Saturday night where Nande was one of up to five dogs. What I can say now is that, during her shower/bath last night, the water ran brown! She was filthy!

And how about few new pics of the sweet and speedily growing little girl? Nande as Deano, Nande meets Sydney and Nande on guard.

Final News
We finally got the nursery painted last night. Its a very appealling and warm shade of a pastel yellow called Yellow Fizz, I think [Update: Sorry, the color is Lemon Fizz, thanks Mom!]. The room has far more character now, feels brighter and I think the baby will love being in there. Now we're going to start collecting baby art for the walls. The PaintStick paint roller totally and completely kicked ass though! Four fillings to cover almost the entire room while P took care of the corners and trim. The thing is awesome

The joy of a puppy's clipped claws against your naked back really isn't my favorite way to begin the weekend and that desire further shrinks when you consider that this was before 6:30 this morning. But its alright, plenty to get getting to this overcast morning. But first, a few links to share, a new word I came up with last night and a question for the masses.

We're taking the dryer fire back up to Santa Cruz, its going to take part in a going away party with drums, fire and firedancers. I will attempt to record some of it. My other project for the morning is to go and get, cut and try to get a bamboo container built for the end of our deck. The two quotes of the week are, "Good fences make good neighbors" and "An armed society is a polite society". The bamboo will obstruct the deck to deck view possible now and will, hopefully, return some sense of privacy to the deck. And then there's the house on the other side with two windows staring down at our back yard. Every so often I get pissed off at the idiot who designed this little installation of houses without any regard for some of the sightlines he was designing. But hey, its all good, a year and nine months or so and we'll be moving on, not that I'm counting or anything, really.

Random Links
Tatra Mac G4 - fastest Mac on the four wheels, $14 Steadycam and


:: how jedi are you? ::
via Jim, I think.

New Word
Returnity or retirnity - the length of time it takes from when you decide to return something and when you actually do return it or how long it takes to get through the return line.

I like this one alot.

And the Question
Is it possible to get Google to tell where sites rank for different searches automatically? Like a Google ranking widget or something.

Here's a quick primer for people who've never had to try and get a phone number from a voice mail. When you leave your phone number for someone to call you back on, its best to take your time when relaying your digits. I can't even begin to count how many editors I have who contact me and leave a buzz of numbers and an extension and expect me to be able to catch their number from it.

Here's how it comes out sounding, "Hi Johnny, this is Poppa Doc from Technology Pub X, I'm interested in the data I saw on your site about RFID and would like to speak with you about setting up a briefing with your analyst. Can you give me a call back at fourfoureightsixseveneightsix extension threetwentytwo? Thanks, click."

The one this morning didn't even give me her last name so I wasn't going to be able to find her on my online editor database. So, I listened to her message four times, each time adding one or two numbers to her slowly evolving phone number.

It takes almost no extra time to enunciate your phone number, folks. And remember that, just because you've got it memorized, it doesn't mean that everyone else in the whole world will automatically memorize it just by your speeding through it. Take your time and I'll be able to react in a much more timely manner to your inquiry.

Otherwise, sorry but I can't call you back without the proper number.

In life, as in blogging, there are very few things that don't taste better with a slathering of some tasty cheese on top. French fries? Yep. Chili? Yep. Strawberry jello? No.

Anyway, here's my response to my own questions from this week's . More themed weeks in the works but I'm going to keep the covers on them for now.

1. When was the last time you caught yourself before doing something really stupid? What was it?
I was juggling butcher knives the other day and I had to itch my nose but didn't feel like stopping juggling the three 12 inch razor sharp blades so I....... No wait, that was a dream I was having.
The last stupid thing I almost did was most likely having to do with our neighbor's and their acting like a pair of high school kids with their heads firmly planted in their asses over this whole car bullshit. But I held my tongue, took the higher ground and will let them be petulant little bitches. Its not like they were ever going to be good friends anyway, this just converves energy.

2. What was your last nightmare about?
I very rarely have nightmares but the last one I can remember had something to do with my wife, the unborn (though it was born in the dream), Nande and soem really persistent jerks in crappy cars. That's about all I can remember. The worst nightmare I ever had was ages ago, my father and I were being chased across rooftops by Nazis and, in the end, I was shot as I jumped across a roof. I fell into the river below and bled out. Very strange as I've never died in a dream before and that's probably why it sticks with me so well.

3. How do you entertain yourself in traffic?
I talk smack alot. About the big hair chickie who's gabbing on her cellphone while weaving from line to line or the teenager in his lowered Civic with the grapefruit sized tailpipe and enough bass coming out of his car to tell just how cool he thinks he is. If I'm on the motorcycle, I tend to sing to myself. Usually the last song I heard at work on the iPod but I can also default to one of my alltime favorite road tunes, "Where'd You Go" by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

4. Who inspires you?
My wife, for her never ending marvelous attitude throughout this pregnancy. She's also a caring and compassionate woman who married me despite everything.
My mother because she's been a pediatric social worker for a very long time, has dealt with those most difficult emotional times with a dying child or one that's in an abusive house and has to be removed. She does her job with amazing compassion, care and concern. There's no way I could walk a day in her shoes.
My father because he loved life, loved being, loved enjoying everything that life offered and because he was both a brilliant and humble man.
My brother because he has exceeded every expectation ever made of him (or least that's how it seems sometimes).
My sister because she's dealt with serious issues among her family that would have easily turned me into a puddle on the floor where she's demonstrated a truly astounding inner strength to hold herself and her family together.

5. What trait in the opposite sex makes you wonder most?
I think the easiest one is the fascination with shoes.

6. Which of the seven deadly sins is the worst? Why?
I had to remember all of them first and this page was quite useful (they've also got virtues as well). Pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth are the seven I'm working from.

First off, greed and gluttony are essentially the same thing and envy is another stop along that same train of thought.
But the worst of the bunch? Pride, I think. A prideful person becomes a serious pain in the ass because they think they're too good for things. Or their ego gets in the way of their decision making and they work from a sentimental place instead of a logical place.

7. Do you blog on the weekends much or at all?
Not often but sometimes. I usually try to avoid working on the computer too much over the weekend. I do it all week and its a good idea to break away for the weekend.

Alright, there's my Cheddar, now I've gotta get some work done before the office closes early for this Good Friday.
Want some cheese? Go and get yer own!

Following up this post from last October about a true example of what scum is, a man raped his 2 month old daughter and then appeared to be getting a slap on the wrist jail sentence of only 6 months because his daddy is the secretary of state corrections.

Well, things didn't go quite as his lawyers planned and I came across this site about Joseph Lehman Jr. last night that discusses his real sentence. He still got off light in consideration of the fact that he raped a 2 month old girl but four years is alot more than 6 months. He should be locked away forever because he's obviously scum. He even admitted to molesting another child before he got caught in flagrante by the child's mother.

Anyway, I'm glad he got more than he'd bargained for and, while some think its a twisted sort of justice, I hope he gets beaten every single day he's in prison and is killed a few weeks before his scheduled release. But then, I'm all about retribution and punitive justice. I don't think there's any use in trying to rehabilitate someone capable of such a craven and despicable crime.

I've got a spare tv now that we bought the new one this last weekend. The old tv works but is not in great shape and is nowhere near perfect. I posted it up to Craigslist on the Free forum. And, as always, there were a flood of responses in very, very short order. I go by who got to me first and have responded to all the others to let them know (and to establish the order in my Sent box in case I need to move down the list) where they are in the order.

One of the email requests said he'd only take the TV if it were in perfect condition. Which begs the question, why in the fucking hell would I be GIVING away a perfectly good and useful TV? Anything being given away for free is almost certainly going to have some issues. Setting such unreasonably high expectations for something you might get for free is just kind of rude.

That's all, just mildly irritating dealing with the dregs of intelligence.

[Update: Am I the only one who gets bothered by people adding religious blessings to their email? Just like I will never give money to a beggar with a sign saying God Bless on it, anyone who's narrow minded enough to think that religious blessings have any place in a business correspondence do nothing but gaurantee that I won't be doing business with them. Keep your damned, kid touching God to yourselves, I'll be hanging out over here with the athiests.]

Side Note
I just came across this article, Media today: Be afraid � be very afraid that talks about the cultural drive for recognition, the need to make a splash. Its the make-a-mark-and-be-set-for-life mentality. If you can just get your mug on the national stage for a few minutes, then you should be set. Look at William Hung, a guy who can't sing or dance and he was rejected (rightly) from American Idol but has since become a cartoon character (some say he's being used as an updated version of the Asian stereotype of Mr. Yunioshi, Mickey Rooney's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's) with a best selling album, it was number 4 on Amazon the other day.

It seems that we, as a nation, are desperate for attention, even if that attention comes in the form of criminal scrutiny (as in the article's example of Audrey Seiler, the Wisconsin student who claimed to be abducted). And yes, I fully recognize that this blog is about recognition as well. I crave attention and validation as much as anyone else. And hey, if someone wants to make me into an after school special then that's fine too, just make sure I get my big fat paycheck. I'm not saying I'm better than other people, I'm just pointing at the problem and know that I am part of it as much as anyone else.

With a very, very distinct emphasis on the "Testy" in testimony.

I don't really see why people are so ga-ga over Condeleeza Rice. She got into a school yard shoving match with Bob Kerry as they were both trying to jockey for the floor. She was evasive, indifferent, indignant and, in my eyes, came off as the perfect shill for ShrubCo. Casting aspersions on the character of others, playing down the briefings given by the outgoing Clinton administration and denied any reasonable culpability for the breakdown of the intelligence systems leading up to 9/11.

In short, she was the perfect political knob. She got to talk, said very little and gave the commision nothing to work with. Perfect. And the obfuscation of the facts and reality that led to the successful execution of the attacks continues unabated.

It has devolved into a He Said-She Said bullshit argument when its far more than that. There was willful ignorance, stupid adherence to an antiquated assault scenario and, in my mind, criminal egoism, that prevented the safe transfer of power from Clinton to Bush.

And, like kids on a schoolyard, none of them will own up to the fact that the ball was dropped, someone screwed up and not everything that could have been done was done to prevent the attacks. The smug attitudes did very little to save the lives of all those people in the World Trade Centers and at the Pentagon and all the victims on the planes.

As a counter point, I saw a short clip with John Kerry on one of the talking head news shows. He was asked how he would do things differently in Iraq. And his response was excellent. He said that he wouldn't be in the position we're in now because he wouldn't have acted almost entirely alone. He would have recruited more support from the world body (of course that means the UN and we all know that the UN is about as effective as a baseball bat made out of jello). He mentioned that the diplomatic efforts to deal with Iraq were pathetic and the main reason that we're in such a tough place with Iraq now is because of the breakdown of the diplomatic machinery. I don't really think I'm representing his response as clearly as he said it.

He also dismantled the recent job growth numbers by breaking them out. A hundred thousand workers went back to work because of the end of a strike, that had nothing to do with Bush's stewardship. That a large number of those jobs were seasonal pickups in the trucking industry. The good numbers and the good news from the economy don't really have much to do with Bush but he's more than happy to take credit for the good news. He needs whatever good hooks he can get right now, whatwith Iraq turning into a slowly evolving disaster with ever more US deaths piling up.

He did help solidify my belief that he is not only a better candidate to lead this country of ours but he's also a more reasoned and reasonable man that George Bush is. John Kerry comes across as thoughtful, considerate and benevolent. He does not come across as a warhawk, he does not come across as a charlatan, he does not come across as smarmy better-than-thou prick (and yes, I'm very well aware that he has all kinds of people coaching him on what to do, how to sit, how to speak, how to gesture with his hands and everything else, so did every other presidential candidate).

In fact, I just went and became a Volunteer for John Kerry. I would encourage anyone else out there who's ready for constructive change in this country. A way to get ourselves out of this nightmare parallel universe created by ShrubCo and the GOP agenda.

Also, note the tone of the campaigns ads from both camps. Kerry's are forward looking and based on substance. Bush's are rearward (which makes sense because his head's been up his ass for years) and based on rhetoric and slander. Don't think Democrat and Republican, think about the person each of these men are. One served his country in Vietnam, the other served himself another beer from the keg while he was AWOL from the National Guard. One had the courage and conviction to speak out against the war he'd just fought in, the other had the courage to go and hide behind his daddy's power so he didn't have to fight. One speaks about helping America, the other speaks about why the other guy is the wrong man for the job. One is trying to return some international dignity and respect to our country, the other is acting in a near unilateral fashion against a global threat without regard to the international community.

The choice is pretty easy. Bush is as crooked as Lombard Street and Kerry, while not my ideal, is a far, far better choice for America, for all of America.

The Dada Supreme 2004 wins the award for truly the most stupid cross product hybridization ever. You know those really stupid looking hubs on trucks with dumbasses inside them that spin when they come to a stop? Yeah, well some glue sniffing idiot thought that basketball shoes needed the same stupidity applied to them.

And you get shoes with a spinning disk in them for some really, really dumb reason. Unless they're really fans that blow cool air on your feet then this is among the dumbest ideas I've seen in a long, long time.

via Jay

CNN.com - California voters say 'no' to Wal-Mart and yes, the link has been added to my WalMart is Pure Evil page.

Spread the word, its time to kill off the undercutting mega-giant local money removing corporate vaccuum from our society!

Don't shop at WalMart, don't use products from WalMart, spread the word about how the work and what they do to their employees, how they weasel the system to unload as much of their costs on the taxpayers as possible and the basic fact that they pretty well sell landfill bound crap.

The Jewel Eye, the latest stupid trend in fashion entails implanting an ornament underneath the cornea (yeah, in your eye).

Check out the pic. Is this of any interest to anyone?

We started infant care classes last night and spent the evening learning about the differences between disposable, biodegradable disposable, cloth and some other diaper types. The problem with the biodegradabe diapers? They biodegrade in sunlight but diapers don't get to bake in the sun, they get tossed into a landfill and then they take just as long to break down as the other kinds. From some accounts that's about 500 years.

Anyway, a large variety of people there, a couple of lesbian couples, some younger but most of the class were a couple of years older than P and me. All had interesting stories, interesting jobs and there was a fairly high percentage of people who worked in child services of some kind or another. One other person in PR, the Director from Alladin Systems which is right up the street from P's work.

The instructor was funny, had been teaching the course for 24 years and loved sharing horror stories about "blasting out" of diapers in inopportune places and times. In fact, "blasting out" was a general theme of the class. Get used to it, it will happen, no diaper is proof against a fecal explosion of Biblical magnitude. It will happen. It will happen. Get over it. Be prepared, clean the baby up and move on.

But it was fun in a I-could-be-doing-something-else-with-my-time-way but it was also something we needed to get started on. We've got birthing classes coming up too and I'm sure the reality will continue to set in. Not that I haven't been on board the baby train all the way along. Its just that there are these incremental moments where the baby in P's belly becomes more and more real, like when its moving around and she puts my hand on her belly to feel its little pushes that will soon grow into full blown kicks.

And we learned that safety pins are archaic and unnecessarily dangerous. If that little Cabbage Patch doll had been a real baby, it would have bled out by now (though maybe that would have helped wipe the incredibly creepy expression off its face?). No, no, I think we're going to be going te velcro route. Velcro closure cloth diapers for the most part, I think. Disposables when we're away from home.

The PR Director and her husband were returning students as she had given birth a week ago on the 2nd when her due date had been the 28th. The little boy was healthy if a little small but he didn't have to stay in the hospital longer than his mom and he was very sweetly sleeping through the whole class.

It was, on the whole, a good time and we both learned an awful lot. Two more Tuesday nights of this and then a short break before we break into the six birthing classes.

Oh yeah, the numbing agent in the cortisone in my shoulder wore off by about 9:30 last night and it took some getting used to, having the fiery shoulder. But it was alright in the end and I have greater range of motion now though I was cautioned against over doing it on the shoulder. No tennis, no volleyball, no throwing, no heavy lifting with the upper body. And no wiping out on my bikes either. I'll have to work on that last one.

And, final thought of the morning's post, anyone who watched The Shield last night is probably just as shocked as I was. A pretty dark and twisted turn of the story involving a police captain getting captured by two lowlifes and being forced to fellate one while the other took a picture of the money shot. Damn, and this was on cable tv? I bet the show's writer is having an absolute blast writing the storylines out on this one. The show continues to push the boundaries in all directions. A few shows ago, the protagonist forced a prostitute to take his gun in her mouth like a penis to save her life. Its a very whacked show but its also very, very good.

Well, it couldn't have ended better for both of my Bay Area baseball teams. Both the Giants and the A's had come from behind wins to start the season out right, both scores also ended at 5-4 and the fireworks began in the 8th inning. Bonds with a 3 run jack to lift the Giants and Eric Byrnes with a pinch hit two run double to overtake the Rangers for the A's.

Good stuff and it was all the nicer to have been at the A's game, some great seats about 18 rows back, I almost caught a foul ball but it was just out of reach. And I came away with lots of observations to share.

One, people in cars behave like assholes. The nightmare of getting to the Coliseum anytime near game time is an abject reminder that, if you can imagine it, some asshole is going to do it. Like the idiot bitch in a left turn only lane, racing us to force her way back into the not left turn only lane. She needed to be slapped. Or the jerks who pretend to not see you as two lanes merge and they don't allow the one car from each lane fair means of integrating the two lanes. Many other examples but hey, let's get to the ball game.

By what gross justification do stadium owners and sports franchise owners decide that its okay to charge four to five times regular market rates for goods solely because you happen to be buying them at the ball park? A small bag of peanuts for $4.50? A 20 ounce soda for $3.50? A big soda in a keeper cup for $4.50? Its kind of more than a little rude to basically just keep charging people through the nose for the entire experience. The cost of the tickets, the cost of parking, the cost of snacks and the cost of team memorabilia all adds up to one hell of an expense just to get out to the park for a ballgame.

And then there are the lines. Lines for everything. Lines off the highway to get into the parking lot, lines to have your bags searched, lines to have them take your ticket, lines to get to your seat, lines at the food stands, lines in the bathrooms. If there were a single expression of the experience then it would have to be: Wait. Oh, you need some napkins? The line starts over there. The packed-like-lemmings-into-shiny-metal-boxes crap was kind of a pain to deal with but I learned a nice workaround. Just go up to the second deck and walk along the walk way there, you get to see the game, there's almost nobody there and you can get where you need to go much, much faster.

And just forget all about getting any garlic fries if you have any interest in watching the game. The lines at the garlic fries stand were insane, literally about a hundred people all waiting for garlicky spuds.

All in all, it was a nice outing. Nande got to play with Modoc for the evening and got pooped out but good by the hyper Weimerauner. It was a late night but that was to be expected and we've got our first baby class tonight so there is no rest for the weary.

Shoulder Rehab Update
Just got back from a check up on my ailing right shoulder (I wiped out on my bike a few months ago and mostly have partially torn my rotator cuff, we're still waiting to see if I'm going to have to have surgery to fix it).
Apparently someone's been working on making a less painful needle. I got a cortisone shot to help it heal up some and not hurt so much and I barely felt the needle go in, the only mildly uncomfortable part was feeling the pressure of the fluid going in. Though it is supposed to be sore later on tonight when the temporary numbing stuff wears off.

But we'll see. If I end up with a usable shoulder again then I'll be a happy camper. The icing and work outs are strengthening it but they also make it more sore too.

College Student Allegedly Kills Newborn

Words fail me. No, they don't but I'm just so thoroughly disgusted that nothing I write here would mean anything.

Actually, a few words do come to mind. Like, hey, California is one of the few states in the country with a strange but good law. The law allows a new mother with a baby under three days of age to give it to a hospital, no questions asked, no names taken, no nothing. Its put in place precisely for people like this who can't have a baby in their lives now but were too lazy, stupid, drunk, etc. to take proper precautions.

As it is, this girl is going to spend the rest of her best years in prison for murdering her own baby. What a waste of two lives.

Contrast that with this news, Mexican Woman Performs Own Caesarean to Save Baby.

Today is one of those days that I look forward to almost as soon as the final out in the World Series is recorded. Today is Opening Day for the 2004 Major League Baseball season! Yes, there were some games in Japan and yes, the official kick off was last night's beating of the Red Sox by my old home town Orioles with their new power line up of Tejada, Palmiero and Lopez doing major damage aganist Pedro Martinez.

Yeah, it didn't hurt that my old home town team has the best record in baseball right now but that's only because there have only been three games and the first two were split by the Yankees and the Devil Rays.

Anyway, we're headed up to the Coliseum tonight to see the A's and Rangers play. One interesting sidenote, the young surfer girl who got her arm bitten off last summer (I think it was last summer) is going to be throwing out the first pitch. Pretty inspiration story really. From what I've heard, one of the first things she said after being treated was to ask how soon she could get out and go surfing again.

Oh yes, my own personal medical triumph, the splinter, that nasty splinter in the tip of my index finger, has finally worked its way to the surface and was extracted over the weekend. Just in time to pinch the pad of the finger between the new, massive tv and the stand, resulting in a little blood blister and some torn skin. I don't think my finger is ever going to be allowed to heal.

The next step is to get some Giants tickets as well. I'm looking forward to playing around with the WLAN they've got at SBC Park now. Although, really, these days. I'm easily just as content to be working in the yard and listening to the game on the radio. There's something timeless and wholesome about it. Damn, that's another thing I need P to get from home before we go up tonight, my portable TV to tune in the Giants game on the way up.

We'd planned on getting a crew together for sushi and maybe a little dryer fire burnin' action but the crew had some alternate ideas and boy did they end up being fun.

First off, there was the Ultimate Fighting Championships on that night. We got to see perenial badboy Tito Ortiz get his bell rung by Chuck Lidell who used to bartend in a place that P used to frequent in her wilder years down in San Luis Obispo. A pretty amazing fight because I've seen Ortiz utterly pummel the stuffing out of every other guy I've seen him face. And Liddell took it to him and dropped him. Awesome. There were several other really good fights as well but I've no idea who they were.

And besides, I was spending most of the time running interference for Nande among the hulking Brady and Modoc. Both dogs in the 70 pound plus range and Nande at less than half their weights at around 30. Oh yeah, they're both boys and she's a girl too and yes, I did knock Modoc off her later as he tried to literally make her his bitch (fruitlessly because Modoc's got the gun but no bullets) but that was much later.

In the beginning, all three dogs just ran, ran and ran some more out on our friend's deck. There were enough places that Nande could duck out of harm's way when she needed to. For the most part they all went at each pretty equally but it's kind of tough when both of the big dogs were chasing Nande. But there were no growls and no real bites through the entire night. Brady didn't even seem to mind all that much when Nande invaded his den and chewed up his bones and toys.

Anyway, Nande crashed out for a while and I went outside to play with the big guys for a little bit. The deck is long enough to get about five or six good running steps before having to stop. And the two dogs would go skidding by me every time. Back and forth, six feet, eight feet of sliding and they were having a blast. Then John came to look out and I showed him what I'd been doing and, just as I started coming back from the far end, Brady got right in behind me and caught my thigh midupstroke as he was coming down. His was the cleaned clock. Totally unintentional and he was dazed for a little bit. Felt bad for the guy.

Overall, Nande held her own pretty well, she'll get bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger so I'm thinking she'll dominate the two of them.

Oh yeah, here are some new pics Nande imitating Ryan, Nande with floating ball, Nande getting hosed and, finally, Nande wild action ball, which is my favorite of the bunch.

P came up with a new word yesterday,
lethartic - a nice stress relieving exercise that's not very active.

By the way, what happens when you buy a 19 inch tv and a 13 inch tv on the same day? A few weeks later you end up with a 32 inch tv. By the way, its damned heavy.

The Intellectual Poison Lexicon continues its rapid expansion with two new words today and more on the way.

Popography - anything found in the space occupied by popular culture or any meta level examination of the trappings of pop culture.

Ashhole - one of those smoking pricks who walk around blowing smoke like their the only person in existence. Getting stuck behind them on a sidewalk is the same as taking a few puffs on their cancer sticks. The same term can be applied to people that flick their ashes out the window of their car without even considering the fact that there might be a motorcycle behind them who might not want some ashes flying into their face.

Also, I had an idea yesterday that might be kind of fun to do (I think Jim would get a good kick out of it because he likes playing games with his surfers). Its using a secret blog word of the week, every week or month or whenever, start working a secret word in to the blog. Whoever figures it out first would get some points or something. And it would have to be a great word like deleterious or sanctimonious or chunder humper (yes, I'll define that one as well).

Chunder humper - one of those horny drunk guys who will still bang a girl after she's puked. Or vice versa since Intellectual Poison is an equal opportunity word smith.

The gloves have come off already. Our neighbor that P hit this last weekend has effectively forced us to burn any good will between our two houses. Why? Because she expected us to jump right on getting her car repaired. And six days is just far too long. And she doesn't have the time to run all over town getting estimates for the damage and the first one she gave us is where she has all her work done. And blah, blah, blah.

Basically, she talks to us like we're ten years old and just got caught smoking cigarettes behind the barn. Which, as anyone who knows me, is a really, really bad tactic to take with me. Talk down to me then you had better damn well better be ready to reap what you sow. I can't stand anyone who is condescending, either to me or to others. The people that assume a position of superiority for some unknown reason. I'm not a child, I'm an adult with a full time job, my wife is an adult with a full time job and an ever growing baby in her belly.

Getting her car fixed was pretty damned low on the priority list. Especially since we told her that we are going to need more than just the one estimate. And she didn't appreciate the fact that she was having to follow up with us rather than us chasing her down to give her $800. Um yeah, I always look forward to kicking down decently large sums of cash for bullshit.

She's let us know more than once that she can't be seen driving around in a car looking like hers does now. Notwithstanding the simple fact that its all but unnoticable and the car's almost ten years old anyway. And she also just got it back from being repaired after she rear ended someone (which I wished I'd reminded her about when she was bitching about not having the time to run around getting estimates, neither did the person she collided with but they did it anyway because they had to).

I did take the time to let her know that she needed to assume some of the responsibility since her vehicle was parked in my driveway when it got hit. It was parked in such a way that P couldn't see it at all. Not in her mirrors or over her shoulder when she began to back up. She couldn't even see it when she'd hit the damned car.

So, as of this morning, after I told her the car was parked in our driveway and shouldn't have been, she got all pissy and said we'd just let the insurance companies deal with it. Which is what should have happened in the first place. My insurance company, USAA, has already dealt with it and continues to prove that they are a superior company. Their customer service is second to none and their prices undercut any other insurance company by at least half. No deductible because it counts as property damage and not an collision because the other car was stationary.

The skinny is that she was a bitch throughout this mini-ordeal and we, P and I, no longer have any interest in maintaining any sort of relations with them in any way shape or form. They can fuck off for all we care. And I will continue to count down the months, weeks and days until we can take our equity and move back to Santa Cruz.

[Update: Oh yeah, its now officially official. They hate us now, oh boy! Whatever, they can go fuck themselves for all I care. Keep your shit off my property, don't park your cars in my driveway, whatever. Fuck off and be tiny minded dickheads. Now I need to wonder if I'm compelled to inform them before setting fire to the dryer fire? Probably but its awfully tempting not to. I think I will attempt to take the high road and act as if nothing's wrong and let them be the petulant little bitches.]

There's a mildly cute and clever commercial on the box these days of a guy who is repeatedly checking himself into a hotel but each time he's redder and redder and redder.

And then they show him standing in a pool all day long and checking off one little radio box on a check sheet. The message is that Hotels.com is very thorough in how they check out the hotels they book for. And that's all well and good but I'm left with several deleterious (now THAT's a word I wish I'd coined, what a gorgeous construct!) conclusions from the ad.

The first conclusion I draw from this ad is that employees of Hotels.com are too stupid to put on sunscreen or are masochists, neither of which is good.

The second conclusion is that it really shouldn't be taking long enough to get a sunburn to check that the hotel has a pool. Its apparently taking the guy several hours of standing in the pool to conclude that they really do have a pool so he check that box on his clipboard. Which tells me that Hotels.com is incredibly incompetent and inefficient and, further conclusion, they don't deserve to be seeing a penny of mine.

They would have been far better served sticking with the tape measure ads showing Hotels.com figuring out how far it is from the hotel to interesting sites in the city.

By the way, the Patrick Stewart voice over commercial for Lipitor where he rhymes throughout the commercial and ends with a really, really, really stupid "bye, bye" should be pulled off the air immediately. Or at least pay a little extra for the real poet and not some underpaid college intern.

And, last marketing smackdown of the day, the further adventures of Smilin' Bob, the ghoulish grinning Enztye shillman, is doing nothing to entice me to look into the product. In fact, the guy just downright creeps me right the fuck out. And the guy playing Smilin' Bob will never find work in television again (as Mr. Rhodes astutely pointed out several weeks ago though I'm too lazy to go and track it down).

Okay, that's it for me on the marketing smacks. I just wish companies would consider the message they are conveying instead of going for the shallow goofs and poor messaging. But hey, they could hire me and I'd help them out happily, for a bunch of big money, of course.

Because I had such a good time with the word association Cheddar from a couple of weeks ago, I felt like doing another round of Word Associations but with a twist. This time its Double Word Associations, I'm going to go through the list of words below and then go back through and word associate on the new words. Make sense? No? That's okay.

Mel Gibson - Mad Max - Braveheart
Pot belly - fat dopeheads - high school
Pork - al pastor - Tacos Morenos
New York Yankees - All-Star Wankers - The New Pork Wankees
March Madness - April gladness - BASEBALL!
Iraq - not where Osama is/was or will be - caged rats
Google - ruler of cyberspace - digital tape measures
April Fool's Day - trickery on the gullible - fun with tards!
Sweet - Nande - go back to sleep, damnit!
Career - like a freaking rocket ship - to the womb
Economy - personal is good - privates are better
Forest - trees - peas
Jessica Simpson - better seen than heard - Janet Jackson and the Amazing Nasty Nipple
Enzyte Smiley Guy - career suicide - smiling bob blowjobs for $5
Opening Day - hot damn! - we've got tickets!
Motorcycle - commute king - center lane fever
Highway Patrol - commute sand - teenagers in Escalades
Meth lab - blowed up fools - Darwin in action
Medicinal Marijuana - about time - say Doc......
Fat America - makes me look thin - mid 30's pooch
Fast food - like crack you eat - makes the ass crack grow
Coffee - smells like heaven, tastes like ass - magic mushrooms
Commercial flight - BCC (body cavity check) - hello Bob!
Patriotism - Thoreau - civil disobedience
Treason - Bush - pants on fire
Sedition - cynical patriotism - anarchy
Final Solution - California secedes from USA - Emperor Gropinator

There's this week's ! Go get some!

Today is April Fool's Day, it doesn't feel any different from any other day. It feels like my goverment has been presuming that I'm a fool every since Bush took office and began his "stewardship" of the nation.

I'd like to see April Fool's Day changed to Honesty Day or something useful, make it a crime to lie today. And watch every politician in America spend an entire day with their hands clamped over their mouths.

Like Governator Arnold "I will Not Raise Taxes" Gropinator who's just this morning said that he might have to raise taxes as he realizes that California's fiscal crisis is a bit more severe than he thought or could cope with. Um yeah.

Honesty Day, it would be like a huge joke because no one would be able to believe the truth since we're so used to the lies.