Intellectual Poison

A target game based on one of my favorite shows? Oh boy!
Here comes the The Shield Shooting Range, it ran a little laggy on my computer, I don't know why but it was fun to play until it starting stutttering.

As it says, Go ahead, take a whack.

So I'm flipping through the channels this morning because I'm awake even though I'd rather be sleeping but with a baby and a puppy that just wasn't going to be happening. And yes, both of them are now asleep.

Anyway, I'm channel surfing and come across Rocky III, the one before Rocky saves the earth by boxing the alien grand champion. Its the scene were Paulie, drunk as usual, gets in a fight with the Rock. After a little while, they stop and Paulie gets to the meat of his reason for seeing Rocky, he wants a job. Rocky tells him that all he's gotta do is ask. And they're walking back to Rocky's car, a sweet looking Jaguar, I think. Paulie comments that its a nice car and Rocky says, "Yeah, cost a few bucks." And then Paulie gets the best line of the morning, "Got another one lying around?"

Gotta love shamelessness.

Had a good night last night, went to a really fun dinner party at some friend's house, took the hound, the baby and, of course, the wife and got to see the actual final end to Mike Tyson's career. It was a good fight and he looked sharp in the beginning but at 38, he was a stretch and once the fight got into the 4th round, the younger Brit boxer pretty well annihilated Tyson with a brutal barrage that cleaned Iron Mike's clock. He sat down against the ropes for most of the count and only towards the end could muster some motion back to his feet.

A good fight and it has to be the end of his career now.

And the dinner was awesome, four couples, two dogs and a baby. Lots of wine and beer and a hot tub and a hike up the hill behind the house with the mega searchlight (1.5 million rechargable candles in your hand, booya!) and even a Mango Cigar from Hawaii to go along with some of that famous and fabulous NorCal KGB.

My pal has a big fish tank that's he's been populating with caught fish from local areas, he's got three crayfish in there and one's been with him for about a year and a half and its well on its way to becoming a lobster, big sucker with big claws and a big tail to jet around with. Very cool and I love the tank. I need a bigger tank to let our fish spread out a bit.

The dessert was this amazing fruit tart with a scoop of blueberry sorbet on the side and it topped off a truly superb dinner that included marinated skirt steak (always guaranteed to get things off to a good start), grilled halibut with a bitchin' sauce, some shrimp, mushroom and asparagus pasta and what one guest, a gourmet in his own right, hailed as the best salad he's ever had, a baby spinach greens salad with candied pecans, fresh huge raspberries and, for some, gorgonzola cheese topped with either a raspberry vinagrette or another dressing that was awesome but my mind's a little blurry on it now.

A wonderful time was had by all and we didn't roll in until well after 1 this morning. Luckily the boy was a crash monkey almost through the night.

And it looks like Saturday is going to get off to a slow start and I am almost certainly napping later on today.

A new idea for this week's , a set of questions with the structure of Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. We'll see how it goes and if we do it again, I had also considered going with a single topic and then having the 5 W's and an H from that but maybe we'll try that next time.

1. Who always puts a smile on your face?
Always is a term I try to avoid because I dislike speaking in absolutes but I am almost invariably moved to a big ol' shit eatin' grin when I see my baby boy. But I'm usually the same way about my dog too, there's something about her full body tail wagging and grin that just make me smile knowing that she's so happy to see me. Then she jumps up and rubs her wet nose on me and the smile fades.

2. What was your most memorable first date?
I think my best first date was a blind date where we met at a Jimmy Buffett concert at the Shoreline. Not only was it my first Buffett show but we ended sitting in her car for like four hours talking after the show and dated for 5 years.

3. Where did you first feel bliss?
I loved Easy's response on this one and am tempted to say that my first truly blissful moment was when my son was born four weeks ago. But there have been other moments through the years like when I lived on the cabin in the woods. No power, no phone, no running water and a great big pond all to myself. I can recall spending many nights coming home from a long night at the bar and going skinny dipping in that pond, floating on my back and looking up at all the universe above me surrounded by nothing but the sounds of nature.

4. When did you realize that life really isn't fair, nor does it have to be?
Not early enough. I think I began to realize it when I'd grown to my full height and was still a good six inches shorter than my brother.

5. Why are so many people angry?
Working harder for less money in a world that seems increasingly unfair is bound to rub people wrong. Seeing some illiterate jackass who can barely string a sentence together get a record deal because he knows someone doesn't help either. Neither does knowing that pro athletes like A-Rod (that's Alex Rodriquez to those that aren't knowing) make more in a single at bat than I will make all year is just ridiculous. Yeah, he's good at what he does but the scale of compensation is far, far out of control. That and people drive like morons so its easy to get pissed off when you have to commute a half hour to work everyday.

6. How do you make the world a better place?
I brought a new life into the world, I grow plants, I contemplate my nature and the nature of the universe around me. I don't steal, I don't beat my dog, my wife or myself. I think about my actions and how they will impact the rest of the world before acting. Living an examined life makes life worth living. I'm also pretty good looking so I think that helps too.

Okay, there's my Cheese and I'm sticking to it. What's that you say? You want your own Cheese? Then go on over to the and get your own!

I saw a story on the news last night that let me know that we, as a species, are hitting new lows in the race to the bottom.

An old man, alone in the world save for his scruffy dog, paid a $10,000 ransom to some utter scumbags who kidnapped his dog.

Think about this for a second. This is the man's only companion, he's on a fixed income and some truly reprehensible scumfucks extorted him.

I can only hope they catch these shitbags and then I think the punishment should be letting some wild dogs tear them to frigging shreds. Or maybe it would be more humane to just put a .22 caliber bullet into their brains behind their ears and just put them out of their obvious misery.

I'm thoroughly sickened by the depths of human depravity reported in the news every night. The scumbag who drove his dead girlfriend's car around for several days with her dead body in it is just another in a long and never ending series of manifestations of our species circling the drain.

Were it not for puppy dogs and babies, I wouldn't be holding out much hope.

I'm sure everyone's read enough about spam in a million other places so hey, feel free to skip right on by.

But I've been noticing a new trend in spams, subject lines that talk about confirming reciept of payments with a random number. And yeah, I clicked on one because I shop on eBay regularly and get email from sellers that looks alot like spam.

And then, when I see its spam, I click the little spam button at the top of the screen and it disappears.

So, is this a successful spam? Or is it just another waste of time on all fronts? I mean, I see their pathetically badly put together marketing message for Mircosoft products (almost certainly pirated copies out of Hong Kong but so what, I wouldn't buy anything from Microsoft if it were free, its shit-ware and there are plenty of better alternatives). No, this spam fails just like every other bit of spam. Sure, I saw it but it gets deleted just like every other piece of shit from these bottom feeding losers.

That and the volume of spam purporting to be able to be online pharmacies is pretty disturbing, especially to think that there are some people out there who are actually buying products from these people. I mean, there must be someone biting on these offers or they would eventually have to disappear, wouldn't they? The law of supply and demand should kill spam off if they never get any responses but, since the volume continues to grow, there must be some fools being duped into buying from these cyber street corner drug peddlers.

Its not enough to have the largest payroll in the history of baseball, its not enough to superstack the lineup with more all stars than any other team in history, its not enough to treat the sport of baseball like a red headed step child. Nope, now they want Randy Johnson too.

Why?

Because George Steinbrenner is a win at any cost kind of asshole who cares not in the least for the sport, he just like those big shiny trophies and he hasn't gotten one in a couple of years.

The sport is being ruined by the Yankees.

The sport needs a salary cap or it will continue to become a disparate have and have not sport.

Or hey, here's an idea. Adjust win/lose records based on team salaries. Low end teams would get bumped up and asshole teams like the Yankees would see about a third of their wins turned into losses. No it wouldn't be fair but is fielding a team with a payroll four or five TIMES more than some of the other teams fair? No, its not and it bothers the holy hell out of me that Bud Selig is such a weak little bitch that he can't and won't stand up to the players union and Steinbrenner and force a salary cap on the damned sport.

And enforce the anti-drug policies for chrissake!

Am I the only one that is utterly befuddled by the new Citi commercials? The two I've seen make no sense whatsoever and my thinking is that that is the point, to confuse people and make them talk to other people about them (not unlike this post).

The first one has two full figured black women in a supermarket and one assumes the other is pregnant and asks the other when she's due. The other one, not pregnant and irritated by the implication that she's fat asks her what she means. The first one thinks for a moment and then says, "Thank you," and the other one melts and gives her a big hug.

And this makes sense how?

The other commercial is even dumber.

A couple is at dinner and the girl, in pure cliche mode, asks her guy if they are ever going to get married. Geeky, bespecacled guy looks anxious for a few seconds and then says, "Thank you," and the situation defuses.

What in the hell do either of these commercials mean? Its not like its going to get me to get another Citi card, they had shitty service and tried to charge me a higher interest rate than the mob charges (no shit, the mob charges 20%, they were coming at 23% so yeah, Citi can suck my nuts, they'll never see another penny of mine). But is this just confusion marketing or is there something else at work here that I just don't get?

PS I went out and baited some GOPheads tonight, offered them an opportunity to engage in a rational conversation and they went into pit bull mode and tried to lunge for my throat. A pity because I do enjoy conversating about politics, luckily I still have my friends at The Mint where Savage Henry is laying out his arguments for Bush in a clear manner, he even began with reasons he wouldn't vote for Bush. The level of discussion is polite but heated sometimes and I really appreciate the opportunity to learn from them and hope that they learn from me as well. My other pal on the other side of the political chasm, Rambling Rhodes has been engaging here lately and not so much on his own blog. The comments are interesting and the points are well made and I also appreciate hearing his point of view (even if he is wrong, just kidding, Ryan). But places like A Small Victory are just a waste of time to even attempt to comment unless you are agreeing with the concensus because they took their political lessons from the Bill O'Reilly school of shout them into submission because you can't hear their arguments if you're shouting at the top of your lungs. Seriously, the commenters over there are rabid morons with their collective heads jammed in their own rectums and they refuse to accept anything but their already concluded conclusions.

And you know what I think about beliefs that are set in concrete, why bother even speaking with people who refuse to even consider any other point of view?

The day is well more than half over now and I've maintained my happy mood all day long without too much to trouble. And what there was has just slipped away.

And it didn't hurt that my lovely wife and baby boy came in to have lunch with me AND she took me out to lunch AND my meeting was rescheduled.

Yesterday was a tough day for the Huh? family. It started with a bad walk with Nande and ended with a little baby boy who refused to fall asleep and stay asleep and both P's and my nerves were a little frayed by bedtime, which had been moved up a couple of hours just to end the day and move on to today.

I should have known today would be a better and different day when I had a vivid dream just before waking up, ten minutes before the alarm thankyouverymuch!

The dream was bizarre but kind of funny. We were having a party in the house in Vermont that I grew up in but I didn't really know anyone and things went from strange to freakin' bizarre quickly. After touring the house a couple of times and realizing that I didn't know anyone in the house, I went to my room for a moment.

And I found a little old Japanese man laying on my bed with six or seven models draped around him, next to the wall were two teenagers having sex and all the people on the bed were buck naked. And the models? The models were drizzling chocolate sauce on the little Asian man. This was all happening on my bed and I had no idea who any of them were so I, naturally, freaked.

I threw them all out, although I did tell two of the models they could stay if they wanted to but they apparently belonged to the Asian man so they all went with him.

I went downstairs and happened to look into the mudroom/laundry and it was stuffed full of passed out naked people, some had even fallen asleep mid-coitus! I kicked them all out and then realized just how thoroughly trashed the house was, there was crap everywhere (no not really poo), even down the stairs into the basement.

Next thing I knew, my mother, as a teenager, was standing on those stairs and vacuuming the floor below with like a 16 foot extension on the vacuum. And then I woke up, sweaty and confused. And no, my mom wasn't naked, she was wearing a very nice little black party dress.

So yeah, that's how the day began. I got Nande and we headed out for a walk, hopefully better than yesterdays and I came up with a pretty good idea.

The walk, by the way, was superb. Nande behaved very well and we ran into one of our friends walking her dog so that made it all the better.

My idea for the today is to not allow yourself to become angry or irritated. Or at the very least, to not allow any outward sign of irritation. You get cut off in traffic, what-evah! You accidentally spill coffee in your lap, gee that's nice and warm! You ram your knee into your conference table? Hey, it could be worse, you could have no legs at all.

Taking a lesson from Zen Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hahn, if you don't like how you are seeing the world, change the channel. Its as simple as that.

And hey? How about some new pics to share to start the day even righter?
Happy Dad and Baby Boy
Happy Nande by Bed
Nande in Escape
Nande Pensive

DrudgeReport: Transcript of O'Reilly interviewing Michael Moore.

Can I ask again why anyone pays any attention to Bill O'Reilly?

Dental Shocker at The Smoking Gun by way of One Girl's Life details a dentist who was so fucked up in the head as to inject sperm into the mouths of some of his female patients.

It goes without saying that he wasn't thinking straight but dude, what the fuck WERE you thinking?

I hope they put him in a jail cell with the judge who was using a penis pump on himself on the bench during a trial.

Seriously though, what in the fuck is wrong with these freakin' nutjobs? They know they're going to get caught and yet they still break every ethical code they've sworn to uphold and molested their patients.

IHT: Kerry builds network to monitor vote because, as we all recall, the last presidential election was decided by the Supreme Court and not by the voters. So John Kerry is going to make it one helluva lot harder for the Bush camp to steal this one.

Think election fraud is beyond us now? Think again and read Down for the Count found via MetaFilter and damned if it doesn't paint a filthy picture of politics, old boy network, cronyism and fraud at all levels of the electoral process by the "champion" of electronic voting machines.

The electronic voting machines are far too easily hacked, adjusted and made to look as if nothing had been done to them, especially without a paper trail to back up the voting record. And the accused in the article was the one pushing them soooo hard, why? So she could adjust the totals so that her incumbent buddy would "win" another term. A commenter on the MeFi thread quoted Josef Stalin, "It doesn�t matter who votes. It only matters who counts the votes."

Because if Shrubya thinks it will happen again and the American people will sit idly by while he augers the nation into the ground for another four years and kills hundreds and hundreds more troops in his unplanned and ill thought out war, he's got another thing coming. I will personally march on the White House and demand his resignation and incarceration. And I would expect a few people would be willing to join me.

USA Today Drops Noted Bitter Sludge Nugget and Anorexia Poster Child citing editorial differences over her first entirely over bitter and ugly little column about the Democratic National Convention. Want to read the rejected column that got her dumped before she even began? Head over to hate central at www.anncoulter.com and check it out, its among the worst and ugliest things I've read in a long time.

A taste of her piss and vinegar? "My pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons they call "women" at the Democratic National Convention." Hell, she starts the column with "Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston".

I posted it to MetaFilter and here's the ensuing comment thread.

I propose that we, America, as a collective unit take up a collection to export Ann Coulter to France where angry bitterness towards America and Americans is considered cool.

[Update: Here's USA Today's explanation as to why they dumped the maven of hate, Coulter column canceled after editing dispute. And a link to the problems that editors at USA Today had with her "column".]

Aside from people telling us time and again what a great looking dog Nande is, we consider ourselves all the luckier for who she is as well as how she looks.

As the last five or six months with her have progressed we've been treated to her puppy antics that literally make us fall over laughing. She's a sweet, naive and playful little dog that has no sense of self preservation at all and thinks that all dogs want to be her best friend.

She hasn't quite grasped the fact that some people raise their dogs to be mean and aggressive. The look of confusion on her face is pretty priceless when she sees a dog that's obviously more interested in fighting than playing. But most of the dogs she meets are more or less like her, curious about the new dog and generally open to a little sniffing of the butts and some playtime. Nande is usually a little too rambunctious (now there's a word that needs to get used more often!) for the other pup and they eventually go and hide behind their owner. In retrospect, perhaps it wasn't the best idea to get her used to playing with the two big boy dogs at such a young age.

But one of the most fun and funny aspects of Nande is her love of all things water. If it involves water then she is automatically good to go. If I'm taking a shower and the door is cracked, she'll try to push it open so she can jump in and join me. She also likes to lick our legs when we get out of the shower to get some water and because she's just a stone cold freak! She follows me around the house when I water the plants because she is pretty sure we're going outside to water out there as well.

And when the hose comes out, she goes crazy. As in, she'll sprint around the yard chasing the water until she can't stand anymore. Spray her in the face and she chomps her jaws while her tail wags. She leaps across the stream, barks at me when I don't give her the juice enough and generally just has a blast playing in the water. Its hilarious to watch her chase the jet stream of water coming out of the end and I might just shoot a little video of it sometime to share.

Contrast Nande with Modoc who is the polar opposite of Nande in terms of enjoyment of water. Modoc used to refuse to go outside when it was raining and, once or twice, wouldn't go out when it HAD been raining and the ground was wet. He cowers and runs away if you even pick up a hose when he's around. He'll play in the surf but only up to about two or three inches. To go swimming he has to be picked up and carried out past the breaking waves. And its apparent from how his little stumpy tail points straight down that he's not enjoying it much. But he does like to play in the surf if Nande and/or Brady and Cinder are around. He's fine if he's distracted by the other dogs. Brady's better but still doesn't care for the after-beach hose off session that Nande relishes with such obvious glee.

Heck, Nande has even come to love the after hose time rub down with the towel to dry her off some! But she's still a puppy, that much is easily apparent by watching her entertain herself with a black pot that had been emptied, she'll chase it around the yard only to bite it and then fling it away again. Or her mad charges around the living some nights when she's just got to get her ya-yas out! Sometimes its a little much, especially with the baby boy but most of the time, she makes us laugh and has a wonderful time too.

I'll try to get some new Nande pics posted as there have been some really nice ones lately. And I'm working on a Graydon gallery so that aunts and uncles and other friends can have an easy place to see all the pics of the beautiful little boy.

Kerry's war didn't end in the Mekong by Sid Blumenthal, former senior advisor President Clinton and Washington bureau chief of salon.com.

The final line speaks volumes about John Kerry, "He has experienced the abuse of justice; had his patriotism impugned; battled enemies foreign and domestic; tried to restore accountability; and fought on, down to today - which is why he is running for president."

I've said before and I'll say it again, Craigslist is one of the most consistently useful sites I go to.

Last week, on Friday, I posted an ad for my old beat up pick up truck. Within four hours, I had two highly motivated people interested in coming out to buy it almost sight unseen. The first email got first dibs and he rolled out at 10 on Saturday morning, checked it over a bit and gave me cash. Not all of what I was asking but I did sell the truck for more than I bought it for and that's almost always a good deal.

Craigslist doesn't work as well for more expensive cars because its less oriented towards those folks with lots of money. But is an excellent resource to parcel off smaller and less expensive items or older cars and trucks.

I also got rid of our old queen mattress set and futon, almost as easily. Gotta love it when you can post an ad and have someone come out and take away stuff you don't want anymore and they're happy to take it!

Let's get back to what's really important right now, the new baby, my wife during her recovery period and spending as much time with the both of them as possible.

So, how about a new pic to share?



By the way, big time congratulations to Mike and Tammy on their little baby girl, Chloe Blair. She was born on July 22nd, nice and early in the morning, a healthy 7.5 pounds and a tired mom and a freaking out dad!

Mike, it'll pass and you'll just be blissing out for weeks on end.

Penn & Teller's Bullshit! makes watching TV fun and entertaining again. Its whimsical, irreverent, spot-on, well timed and informative in a way that makes Michael Moore's message look like a note scrawled with a crayon on construction paper.

And really, the message Penn & Teller are sending is no less incendiary, no less bomb dropping, finger pointing, conspiracy uncovering, its all of the things Moore is but done with panache.

Its much more a question of how its delivered than what is delivered. I would love to see a Penn & Teller take on Bowling for Columbine or Fahrenheit 9/11 (though since I haven't seen it yet I don't really feel like I can say that with any conviction). Done without the boorish voiceovers and smug satisfaction of mocking an old screen hero.

Alot of my current irritation with PETA stems from watching their program and then paying closer attention to what PETA does and how they do it. The message they seem to want to send is not an awful one if it were done with some finesse instead of this militant and abrasive Meat exploitation is evil and any means necessary to end meat exploitation are acceptable.

Anyway, Penn & Teller do it right, important and interesting messages cloaked in slick and clever and, occasionally, naked imagery. Moore does the same thing but is ham handed and allows his ego to overshadow his message. Its still important, he conveys important and relevant and necessary information but he could take lessons from Penn & Teller in learning how to do it with style. It would be so much harder to knock it down and so much more entertaining to listen to what he's got to say without overdoing the message.

But watch the show if you get the chance, it'll make you laugh and think and that's usually a good thing.

Also check out BIG on Discovery. More fun there. Same thing for Monster House but I think I've had my fill of uber-cool Jesse James and his Monster Garage for a while, he's so cool he kinds of bothers me. (I had to update this as "e" thought I was confused about hosts, I like Steve, the Monster House host alot, Jesse James, in my humble opinion, has been just over marketed.0

Ah, sweet Monday awaits and a return to work and massive piles of todos to wade through. Oh boy! Hope the boy sleeps some tonight.

I've been thinking about PETA alot lately, I posted about them the other day for their campaign to raise awareness that vegetarians make better lovers by having pretty people making out on a mattress in public in very little clothing.

An interesting marketing concept but I feel that the message, that meat is bad, is lost in the hoopla.

Anyway, PETA is the liberal corrolary of the NRA. They are single issue, single minded, intolerant, shout-the-opposition-down, hypocrits who have lost any capability to reason, compromise or discuss in anything but absolutes, their desires.

And what does PETA desire? Well, the easy one is that no one ever eat meat again. Um, good luck with that. The second and less well known aim of PETA is to "liberate" all of the animals being kept as pets. Read that again slowly to let it sink in, PETA wants you to set your pets free. Regardless of whether your cats, dogs, rats, ferrets or snakes WANT to be free, PETA wants you to release them into the wild.

Which is a pretty ridiculous thing to consider or do and is, upon closer examination, incredibly arrogant and stupid. What good would come of turning out millions of pets into the wilderness? We would have an incredible spike in the predatory population as all those domesticated pets would be killed and eaten. What a great solution, PETA. Just have all the pets killed, that'll solve the animal exploitation in the universe.

Oh yeah, the NRA has Wayne LaPierre as their leader, a ham handed nimrod who comes across like one of those people that stroke their rifle barrels in a mock mastubatory fashion (ala Full Metal Jacket). PETA has Ingrid Newkirk, a woman who would be DEAD without insulin, developed by experimentation on animals, but shrugs that fact off as her living and fighting for animals rights is more important any little hypocrisy on her part.

Here are two quotes from her: "Recognize meat for what it really is: the antibiotic- and pesticide-laden corpse of a tortured animal."

"When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy."

Let's take each in turn. Meat isn't the antibiotic and pesticide-laden corpse that she makes it out to be. It would be easy to say the same thing of a parnsip or a cucumber, it has been farmed for the sole purpose of being eaten, how is that not torture, how is using pesticides on vegetables somehow better than trying to bring the healthiest meat product to market? Tortured animal is a subjective term, it can be argued that existence is torture so that we are all tortured. But it can also be reasoned that a cow living a decent life safe from predators, able to reproduce, able to eat grass and live a reasonably fulfilling life for a cow isn't torture at all. I think I'll recognize Ingrid for what she is: an angry single issue hater who intends to impose her views on the world, regardless of their merit and consequences. I will recognize Ingrid Newkirk as a tortured and hate filled hypocrit who has found her stage for international attention.

The second quote is even easier to break apart. Rats, pigs and dogs are not children, they are not human, they are animals, they don't possess the capacity to fear the future, they don't possess the capacity to remember the vast majority of the past, they don't argue and debate for their freedom, they live, they eat (other animals when they can, is that wrong, Ingrid?), they die, sometimes we eat them. Humans are a part of the animal kingdom, humans are a part of the food chain, humans rose up amid the other animals precisely BECAUSE we were able to hunt and eat meat which is a highly concentrated energy source. Look at our dentition, look at our bodies, look at our ancestors, look at the sum of human history. WE EAT MEAT. Ingrid and PETA wants to overturn millions of years of evolution, they want to overturn the very reason our species ascended because it offends their morals. Those morals that they wouldn't have and our species wouldn't be who and what we are today without that meat in our diets.

At least the NRA has the second amendment to point at as a reason for their arguments. Sure, the 2nd Amendment has been interpreted by different people for their own ends. But at least they have something to base their stand on. PETA's stand is based on personal decisions to not eat meat and then finding a justification for imposing those beliefs on others. Sorry Ingrid, but you don't get to tell me how to live, just like I don't get to tell you how to live. You may be completely and utterly convinced of the rightness of your argument but that doesn't, in and of itself, make it right.

Because, if that were the case, then abortion would be illegal and we'd all be whatever religion our current president is. And guess what? That ain't my America and anytime someone TELLS me how to live is the easiest way to get me to do the opposite.

Impose not your issues upon me.

....the best thing ever.
....proof of mankind's goodness.
....crying, pooping, peeing, eating and sleeping machines.
....harder to deal with alone.
....sometimes just going to cry and there's not a damned thing you can do about it.
....going to cry when they need to tell you something.
....the most rewarding sleep deprivation mechanism of all time.
....better asleep. For now.

Came across this pic and article about PETA's Makeout Tour in which they have pretty people set up a bed on some sidewalk somewhere and let them mack on each other.

Why? Because PETA wants to show that people that don't eat meat are better lovers. Which is a pretty bold and unprovable statement and just goes to show how utterly detached and fucking retarded PETA really is.

I've lost pretty much every bit of respect I had for PETA over the last couple of years for their attack tactics and incredibly obtuse position over animal rights. It wasn't helped by watching Penn & Teller's BULLSHIT on Showtime about PETA killing more than 2/3 of the animals brought to them. THEY KILLED ANIMALS BROUGHT TO THEM FOR SANCTUARY!

And now people are supposed to get a complex message by watching two pretty idiots kissing on a mattress on the sidewalk?

Seriously, PETA, I think you need to get some help with that crack problem because it has seriously warped your perspective to beyond understanding.

Besides, I eat meat and won't ever be stopping because of your stupid tactics and paradoxical beliefs (its wrong to use animals for medical testing yet the director must have insulin to keep living which was developed by testing on animals, defend that, oh wait, you can't).

So hey, gawk at the hot bodies rolling around on each other but don't try to decipher the message, its been garbled beyond recognition.

There's nothing quite like having sat down and written out a list of food stuffs to pick up at the Nob Hill up the street, heading out to the Nob Hill and starting the shopping trip only to realize that I'd left the stupid list at home on the kitchen table.

I faked my way through the trip, got most of the essentials and a few treats (because shopping would suck without treats!). But still, now that useless list now sits on the end of the table and mocks me with its uncrossed off items. I think I'm going to cross the items off now just to spite that list!

My for this week. Not overly inspired but sleep deprivation can tend to quell creativity, no?

1. What did you do on your summer vacation?
Made a baby, ripped up crabgrass, played with my dog on the beach, bought an SUV but I still plan to win the lottery, buy a block of apartments in Santa Cruz, buy a fleet of Hummers to use as drunk taxis and I want to open up a carnitas taco bar outside the hot spots to take advantage of drunk people with the munchies.

2. If you could stop time, what would you do?
I would definitely have a good time switching people's clothes on them. Put their shoes on the wrong feet, change a husband and wife's clothing, put people in compromising positions, get a really cool stereo and home theatre system, be a 15 year old boy and ogle hot chicks, add lots of hot sauce to people's food, switch salt for sugar, you know. Typical jack ass type stuff.

3. What is your hidden talent?
The first one that comes to mind is being able to whistle on both the exhale and inhale of breath, therefore, I can whistle continuously.

4. What's your dream house like?
It doesn't share a wall with an asshole who's main form of communication is yelling at everyone. It does have an atrium, a greenhouse, a covered deck area with a hot tub, a yard that doesn't slope and isn't succumbing to crabgrass, a bathroom with a nice big party tub as well as one of those cool porn style big glass enclosed showers, maybe even the kind with a fireplace that can be seen from the bathroom as well as the master bedroom, a view overlooking water, preferably the ocean but lakes and rivers can still apply, at least one wall of natural rock or a fireplace wall that can double as a climbing wall, lots of decks too, secret passages, hidden rooms, an attic, a basement, a walk in freezer as well as a restaurant style kitchen space, big garden areas out back, a barn and an underground hanger for my planes, boats and spaceships.

5. What's your favorite hand or arm gesture?
One I learned decades ago now from an old boyfriend of my mother's, remember Pat Colt, mom? Its called Bullshit and consists of folding your arms across each other with one end higher than the other. The high end has the index and pinky finger stuck out and the low end is flicking all the fingers open at once as if expelling something. No one ever gets it but it makes me laugh everytime I do it to someone when I think they're talking shit.

Actually, I rather enjoyed this nice small Cheddar X. Bite size isn't so bad after all!

Ding Dong, went the doorbell and I came downstairs to Nande barking her head off and jumping around at the door.

It was an attractive young lady selling something. She launched into her spiel, handed me a history of the world book and I flipped it over. On the back, it had a list of questions. The very first of which was something like, What did God intend for man to do? Maybe not that but something with God in it. And I stopped her in her spiel, luckily she didn't slip.

I asked her who was the publisher and she showed me some address with a Christian Ministries somewhere or other above it. Ah yes, the skewed and utterly stupid bullshit history of the world as interpreted through narrow scripture. I think they probably had to use an awful lot of "God works in mysterious ways" and "God willed it so"'s.

While I appreciate the fact that she was going door to door hawking her religion's mis-take on history and attempted brainwashing of humanity away from reality and into some pathetic little theological construct where a lifetime of toil and hardship and sacrifice magically qualifies you for an eternity of bliss. Um yeah, sure. Oh wait, you can't even begin to imagine the bliss until you're dead so you'll just have to take their word for it.

Oh no, wait a second, I don't really appreciate people trying to foist their bullshit revisionist histories on me. I appreciate the fact that she was earnest in her beliefs and I hope she might be able to appreciate the fact that I didn't engage her beliefs and see if I could rattle her loose. I might have done so before but I just don't see the point in it now. Instead, I handed her back her book and explained to her that I was an athiest instead of opening the door with my agnosticism or cynical agnosticism as my mood may indicate.

As any good salesperson will attempt to do, she took my reply and tried to use it against me by engaging my athiesm. She asked if I'd always been one and I replied that I had studied philosophy and theology in college and had concluded for myself that they were all pretty much dookie. More so, the people running religious groups seem to turn out to be kid-touching S&M monkey jabbing freakoids.

I let her go without attempting to harm her beliefs because I've no right to inflict my belief system on you and I'm likely to give you one free pass on you selling me before I respond with an assault on how you convince yourself to believe in an unbelievable world view out of sentiment and not from a position of rational consideration.

Instead, I gave her back her pamphlet and went back to my Unreal Tournament deathmatch while my wife and baby boy slept peacefully in the living room.

So the new 9/11 Commission Report has been released this morning and the story has barely changed. Intelligence agencies were acting like high school kids, following their own agendas that didn't necessarily have anything to do with national security and instead had to do with not sharing important information between agencies.

Congress screwed up, I saw Ellen Tauscher on Mornings on 2 this morning taking responsibility for her own failings in dealing with the lead up and aftermath of the attacks. And she, like me, wants the White House to own up to its own failings.

But they won't. They can't admit that they screwed up becuase that just might cause the whole house of cards to tumble down around them. How did Bush and Company screw things up? Not taking the handover briefings to heart was a bad start, the Texas shoot out mentality of let's just start killing and sort out who did what to us later was another stupid step, invading Iraq on the flimsiest of pretexts was a colossally stupid step for American-kind (with a nod to Neil Armstrong) and not capturing the planners of the attacks is yet another big fuck up.

Committing US soldiers to about ten years of occupying Iraq while we stabilize the country after feeding it through a bloody shredder may just be the act that undoes ShrubCo.

The utter incapability for owning up to screw ups is probably the most aggravating regime flaw right now, aside from spending money as absolutely as fast as possible, not even bothering to cover up the old boy crony network with the rebuilding Iraq contracts and Bush/Cheney's deep financial ties to Halliburton, the Bush family's ties to the Saudi royal family and the bin Ladens and then let's turn an eye back to the USA. How has BushCo run his re-election campaign? Like the most filthy smear-happy steaming pile it is. He knows he can't get re-elected on his own merits so let's try to show how utterly incompetent the other guy is and see if we can trick a nation again. Only problem is that even a retarded chimpanzee with an obsessive nose picking and ass sticking disorder looks more competent than these blowhard assfuck morons in control now.

And yeah, that is a rant and I stand by it. If the GOP wants to spew hate and bile and divide (while promising to unite, what a pissing crock of shit!) and fatten up their friends while raping the country, then fuck them, let's take the gloves off. I'll go up against some fat fuckknob Resmuglican asshole and kick his damned freshly whitened teeth in. And then I'll go and key his new Benz, scratch the face on his Rolex and feel up his mistress.

Oh yeah, not like anyone with a 'Net connection, a pulse and even a mote of political interest hasn't already seen this but hey, let's post it anyway! Jib Jab: This Land in which they mock both Bush and Kerry. Well done, good stuff and only mildly disturbing.

Macaque walks on her hind legs after a stomach problem almost killed her.

Oh yeah, and Bay Area Free Wi-Fi for all of your free from expense and wires internet surfing needs.

I am usually not bothered all that much by my wife's chosen lifestyle of abstaining from land and air meat, she'll eat water meat but that's about it.

It means that I get all the bbq'ed meat, she may want to try the marinated skirt steak but I will end up eating every last bit of it. Or she may like the smell and look of a well done smoked pork chop with crisped shallots but she will balk at eating some. And that is usually fine. But tonight I came up with something different and good and it would be nice to share it with her.

Start with some thin sliced steaks, put them into a ziploc baggie, add your flavors, tonight I had a teriyaki, lime, horseradish mustard and Chalulah hot sauce. Some salt, pepper and Spike and it was churnin' time.

A nice trick I've only recently learned is to let the steak come up to room temperature before cooking it. Its less of a shock to the meat and you'll end up with a more tender steak.

Anyway, let the flavors soak into the thin meat while letting it all warm up to temp. Get your grill going, these days I'm using a Weber Q Grill and love it. I could have gotten a regular full size grill but I like the portability aspect of this thing and love the thought of pulling it out at a camp site.

Anyway, get the grill up to speed and lay the steaks out, I like to start hot and then pretty quickly turn the heat down to low. Get a little sear on and then let them take their time cooking all the way through. Another good steak tip is to let it rest for a couple of minutes before cutting into it. The rest period allows the meat to set itself so that all the juice won't come rushing out when you slice into it.

I had the steak with some easy cook asian rice noodles and just wish I had a little roughage to go with the other two parts.

It would have been nice to share tonight's new flavor with her and my boy is far too young but he'll grow up and soon, soon he'll be my partner in meat!

On a side note, a benefit of living with a pesceterian is that I have learned what kind of fish I really like and how to cook it well. The salmon we got from Nob Hill the other day (Alaskan, not Bay Area since mercury isn't a seasoning I want to use) and wrapped in foil before grilling for 20 minutes, was excellent. Really, the best I've had in a very long time and I'm torn between thinking it was the cooking method and the salmon. Either way, it was fabulous and the little Weber that could made it all easy! The shrimp and vegie kabobs a night or two before were pretty excellent too although the onions were a bit much.

And the best part about cooking over an open fire? Little, if any cleanup! Yee-freakin'-ha!

And for desert? Some made just last night Hazelnut ice cream with hot fudge over it. The ice cream was a proof of concept batch using Hazelnut Half & Half along with a regular ice cream base. It is excellent and makes me wonder how Kahlua ice cream might go?

Another one I want to try is a frozen Mojito slushie in the ice cream maker. Which reminds me, we're going to experiment with spearmint and peppermint mojitos to see which one is better. I will report in with our findings and method so the experiment can be duplicated elsewhere.

A couple of immediate thoughts come to me when I think about Tom Cruise's War-is-hell epic with an Asian twist.

Yeah, its actually quite alot more than that but I couldn't help but think about how much Cruise enjoyed playing the shamed soldier and then all that sword play. Oh yeah. Anyway, I rather liked this movie. It had elements of many movies in it but told its own story and an interesting and compelling story it was.

Tom Cruise is a good actor. He's too good looking to be a great actor but he is a good actor (unlike David Caruso who I had the misfortune to watch a few minutes of him on CSI Miami, the guy simply cannot act) and the movie had a good plot.

But the story also suffered for Cruise's acting or rather, the plot stumbled a bit during those sequences where we're supposed to understand everything that's happening in Cruise's character by the arch and angle of his eye brows and Joel-Get-Off-the-Babysitter-expression. The other thing that made the movie hard to really get into was the lack of understanding for why the character is the way he is, he looks shell shocked in every scene except when he's killing people by pistol, rifle or sword.

It was far better than Club Dread and lots better than most of the other movies Cruise has been pumping out. But it suffered from a slow pace, plot threads carried by eyebrow and mysterious motivations. Its a thumbs up but not by a whole lot.

Lots of stuff accumulates during an online experience, places to revisit, stories to read, pictures to look at again and again, programs to unstuff and load up, music to listen to and organize for the iPod.

Anyway, here's a few of those things I've been carrying around for a little while, Found Magazine, Something Awful - The Internet Makes You Stupid, Modernseed, modern furniture for children, syrick and Yugo Art, this and Found above are both via Mark, who would blog but is too cool for it and too busy anyway.

And that'll cover things for now.

Yep, this post isn't about the baby at all, this one's all about me and whatever poisoned piece of crap I ate last night that had to, had to come back out at 5 this morning.

I'm guessing it