Intellectual Poison

watching the Yankees get utterly fucking trounced by the Indians, sixteen to nothing in the 7th inning.

[Update: And the final is even better, a beating unlike any I can remember! 22-0 Indians over Yankees! Yeah! Suck on that, Steinbrenner!]

So I was able to take six weeks off from work, supposedly with a percentage of my pay, to bond with my new baby son and take care of my wife as she recovered from surgery.

That was all well and good. The time off was awesome and I really loved being able to be with my family that much.

But the fucking Paid Family Leave department must be woefully understaffed because they suck donkey dick. Not only have they now not filed my claim twice, their phone system is too stuffed full of people already waiting on hold to even let me wait to speak with someone about this fucking ridiculousness. The system doesn't even have me registered in it!

And I've had damned little money coming in for the last two months. And bills need to get paid and shit is going to get late fees added to it because this fucking system blows so badly.

So I've now emailed them again because its the only avenue of interaction that doesn't slam shut in my face instantly. I'm incredibly fucking irritated with the program now but I've no choice but to wait for them to contact me. Goddamnit!

[Update: Well there's news and then some good news and then really good news. The news is that the PFL phone system is linked into the State Disability phone system only its not fully linked yet. So people with PFL claims can punch in their social security numbers and they get told that there is no claim associated with that number.

The stupidity of not mentioning that PFL claims aren't covered yet is beyond my comprehension.

Anyway, that's the news, the system sucks, the call in system is retarded and hangs up on me most of the time but the guy I finally ended up talking with was very, very helpful and cool.

The good news is that I do have a claim and it was processed today and they are cutting me a damned check in 1-2 business days. Coming from Sacramento means it'll be here this week and we can fully bounce from the whole being off work thing.

The really good news is that its all coming in one nice lumpy check.

So yeah, that'll help.]

Yahoo! News - Laura Bush Says Husband Leads with 'Strength'

Note that she doesn't say what kind of strength, he could lead with incredibly strong body odor or maybe she's trying to work that Bush-is-an-athlete angle bullshit again.

Maybe its the strength needed for a waffle to flip itself over and do the exact opposite of what it did the day before?

Its definitely not the strength of character to admit when he's fucked up because he should have and would have months ago and many dead soldiers ago.

Said our First Lady of Zombiefication: "[President Bush] led the United States with "strength and conviction" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and deserved re-election so he could finish the job of making America safer." Does she mean he led with strength and conviction before or after he finished reading the book about goats to the school kids while people fell to their deaths at the World Trade Center?

So, in four more years of poorly considered policies and further erosion of our civil rights, we'll be safe from them terrorists? BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT TO YOU BUSH AND MRS. BUSH! You are both fucking liar asswipes who care nothing about this country, nothing about security for this nation, you care solely about staying in power and will say and do damned near anything to do it.

Really, the only good thing about Bush are his twin daughters and really, they aren't all that interesting either.

Now there's an ever growing movement to change our electoral process to allow foreign born citizens to run for president. Am I the only one that thinks this is about the most dangerous slippery slope possible?

And just so we can a mono-syllabic Mr. Universe in the White House? Um hello, the guy's a woman hating son of a Nazi! Get your collective heads out of his muscular backside and do some thinking about this retarded bullshit.

Yeah, I posted this as an update below but I think its important enough to move up to the top of the list for a while.

Um yeah, who's the flip flopping barometer politician now? Bush Changes Mind, US Can Win War on Terror and what changed his mind? Oh the bleating screams of his constituents. And I'm sure they'll try to spin this and blame Bush's waffle on Kerry somehow.

Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer: "What today showed is that George Bush might be able to give a speech saying he can win the war on terror. But he's clearly got real doubts about his ability to do so and for good reason," Singer said.

From a news article about Nudists in Madrid
"Economic aid was given to two associations that promote nudism just as other groups have been subsidized, but this does not mean we are promoting it," the city spokesman said.

Um, how's that work? You gave them money but aren't promoting them? Huh?

Here a repressed and angry homophobe,
There an angry married gay representative
Here a governor in bed with a man
There a governor making gay sex phone calls.

Old McBushie had some stoolies who liked to sleep with men.......

What's up with the recent homosexual outings by the party that wanted to write a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting gay rights?

And I'm so happy that Dick Cheney has decided that he's now in favor of same-sex marriages. And those asshats have the nerve to call John Kerry a flip-flopper?

No wonder the GOP is so angry, they want to sleep with men but they can't because its wrong and a sin and oh so hot and sexy and why can't they stop dreaming about butts and dicks and hairy chests and man stink? I know, more churchin'! I know, more viagra, cialis and levitra. I know, just one trip by the gay sex club. Just one more trip. Ahh, fuck it.

GOP now stands for Gay Old Pricks.

By the way, I'm not anti-gay in anyway. I wholly and totally support the concept of the same rights for all civil unions and have not even the slightest issues with any gay people. Anything you think in this post of as gay-bashing means that you are wrong. Or I didn't type it properly.

Ah, but what's the catch, you say? Well, you've gotta be a CEO of a company (yes, Ryan, a company with employees and a product or revenue stream to show off to investors, damned nitpicker).

U.S. CEOs Who Outsource Get Bigger Pay Hike

CEO's make an average of 301 times the $26,899 earned by an average production worker. That used to be 42 times the average worker's income back in 1982.

Holy christ, Larry Ellison got a nice raise, not a decent 10% or anything reasonable like that though. Try a 103,974% (yes, percent) raise.

Forrester (and they're a really big and really impressive research company that KNOWS THESE THINGS! even if they do use alot of secondhand research) says that more than 3 million services jobs will side offshore by 2015, lots of those white collar, high tech or call center jobs going to India where we recently had a project done for a 20th the cost of the high US bid.

If minimum wage had risen as quickly as the average CEO's pay since 1990, it'd be $15.76, not $5.15. And then, of course, our entire economy would be out of fucking control because you can't have McJob's making $32K a year unless you charge $6 for a small fries and then employers must demand more and the whole universe spirals out of control and into a black hole.

And in that black hole, CEO's will still make far, far, far more than they are worth. Especially the rat fuck bastards that auger in companies and then bail with $300 million severance packages made up of pension funds and misbegotten life savings.

This week's took a wrong turn somewhere along the way and ended up on Olympic Ave.

But hey, so what, let's hit it and quit!

1. What's the cleverest word play you've read or made up?
I've always been partial to Weapon of Miss Destruction - (from New Words) a guy's wanger. Yeah, yeah, I know its not a single word but a phrase but this one made me laugh out loud and I just had to share it.
But then, I also like Anoracksia - the term for someone who's had breast implants and also has an eating disorder so that you end up with what looks like a skeleton with big boobs.

2. What's the most outrageous cover story you've ever tried to make up?
I'm sure the interviewer thought I was totally lying but once, on my way to a college interview at UVM, my car engine blew up. Literally. The oil pump failed and one of the pistons shot through the engine block. I was two hours late for the interview.

3. Did it work?
No, fuckers didn't let me in.

4. Favorite line from a song? (Eighteen double oh and a table dance).
Right now its that line in paratheses up there from Sprung Monkey's "Party Like a Rock Star" the verse goes Eighteen double oh and a table dance, because it's really kind of funny if you drop a little money how the ladies come a buzzing like a bee does to the honey. Life is short, son, better have some fun, party like a rock star and kick a little ass."
What's not to like?

5. What has been your favorite Olympic moment?
Watching the Italian and US volleyball teams trade fuck you's at the end of an early match.

6. What sport shouldn't be in the Olympics?
Speed walking is probably my pick to dump. It looks stupid even if they can walk faster than I can run. But that's why I ride bikes.

7. What sport should be in the Olympics?
I'm not sure, cricket comes to mind, rugby comes to mind, motorcross racing comes to mind. Lacrosse would be cool too.

8. What's wrong with the Olympics?
Aside from having pros play in them, which is, as we all know, just plain wrong and those professional athletes who compete in the Olympics should be fucking well ashamed of themselves.
The Olympics are too packed in. Its impossible to follow the sports you want to because there are like six things going on at once. Stretch the Olympics out to a month. That would be nice. But don't keep adding stupid shit sports.

And that's my Cheese for last week, next week's is already on the way.

The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million people to 35.8 million in 2003, according to the U.S. Census. It is the third straight year that poverty levels have increased.

The report also showed that the number of citizens without healthcare had risen by 1.4 million to 45 million in 2003. It is the third straight year that these levels have risen as well.

I know there will be some response that the president isn't responsible for job creation or the economy but you what? That's crap. He's the final authority in the country. He's the one making the policies, he's the one signing the bills, he's the one that sits at the controls. Its not my fault if he doesn't understand how to work the controls, he's at them.

Bush is responsible for the growth of poverty, he's responsible for the massive increase in the budget deficit, he's responsible for doing nothing to provide healthcase to the nation, he's responsible for doing nothing to bring the crooks at Enron to justice (not that I'd want to have my best pals arrested either but come on, they stole billions of dollars!).

Maybe I'm talking out my butt here, not the first time and at least I don't post pictures, but yeah, the president is the guy who is, in the final, tally given credit for improving the economy and job creation and all that, why wouldn't it stand to reason to hold him accountable when the economy tanks and jobs keep fleeing overseas? If they take the credit then they also get to take the blame and Georgie, my boy, you also promised to create some massive number of new jobs every month. That's failed too.

So what have you done? Oh wait, what you have done legally? Oops, no wait, what have you done legally and morally? Where and what are your laurels that you seem so happy to rest upon?

[Update: Psst, hey Senor? How'd you like to hold these Google Bombs for me? Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and Most Liberal Senator courtesy of Public Defender Dude. Thanks man, I'll get them back later after we cross the border.]

[Update #2: Um yeah, who's the flip flopping barometer politician now? Bush Changes Mind, US Can Win War on Terror and what changed his mind? Oh the bleating screams of his constituents. And I'm sure they'll try to spin this and blame Bush's waffle on Kerry somehow. Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer: "What today showed is that George Bush might be able to give a speech saying he can win the war on terror. But he's clearly got real doubts about his ability to do so and for good reason," Singer said.]

Major news networks have said that the prevailing image of the
Republican convention will be President Bush with his arm around a fireman atop
the rubble of the twin towers, NYTimes RNC Imagery.

Only thing is that I distinctly remember George W. Bush promising that he wouldn't use the tragedy of 9/11 for his re-election campaign. In fact, he's been sued by widows of 9/11 for already using such imagery.

And why is he doing it? Because it tugs at the nation's heart strings and he's trying to use the terrorist attacks to sentimentalize himself back into the White House for four more years of internal terrorism.

George W. Bush, he's not above using your dead to stand on to get back into the White House so he can make his drinking buddies even more filthy rich than they are by robbing the national coffers blind. And burying lots and lots of good American boys sent to fight his incredibly poorly considered, planned and executed oil war in Iraq.

Here's a very appropriate quote from Intellectual Properties today, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
-- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945

Mr. Bush, I call on you to refuse your party's nomination for re-election. I call on you to step down and hand over the reins of power to someone who can actually do some good for the nation and the world. And, obviously, that ain't you.

Seeing as this is my first day back in several weeks, I'm a little slow to get my worktrain out of the station. So I thought I'd pass along some random thoughts from the morning.

One, my toothbrush makes me want to go to the bathroom.
Two, my son grunts loud enough, in his sleep, to wake both his parents up.
Three, local schools are back in session and the kids don't seem very pleased about it.
Four, I missed riding my motorcycle alot.
Five, it goes really, really fast.
Six, more than two cups of coffee means that I can no longer type until the afternoon as my fingers develop a will of their own.
Seven, it would be really nice if the Paid Family Leave check arrived today.
Eight, shaving last thing before walking out the door almost guarantees a few roque whiskers that will drive me nuts before 10 am unless I can clean them up.
Nine, we had another beheading in the office while I was gone. One of our sales guys got the axe which is a bummer because I liked him and he reminded me of my father.
Ten, I am waaaay overdue for a big time baby update. I expect to get a bunch of new pics loaded up and will update the world on how far our little trooper boy has come in just 8 short weeks.
Eleven, I'm irritated because my "before" pictures of the kitchen floor disappeared somehow so now all we have are the "after" pics. And I still need to finish the trim but the kitchen looks way better with the new floor, new gas range and dishwasher (though the dishwasher still needs to wired in, no simple plug and play on this one, we have raw power leads to hook up, oh boy!).
Twelve, its time to get our tickets back east for Thanksgiving. Anyone know of any super deals going right now? The cheapest we've found is around $300 each.

Come one, come all, come down to see the amazing Houndini, a dog so well versed in the mystic arts of escape and illusion that she will be able to disappear and then reappear before your very eyes.

Yes, folks, Houndini is a contortionist, illusionist and champion face licker all in one furry tail wagging package.

Her latest trick? Escaping from a closed bedroom while we are sleeping in the room with her.

But I am going to reveal her secret technique since this one is classic and involved some coaching to get out.

We have a new bed that sits about six inches up off the ground on its frame. Apparently six inches space is plenty enough for a nearly 70 pound dog to squirm in on her side. She slept, literally, right underneath me, below a mattress and a box spring but there she was.

Only thing is that she couldn't get her head around how to back up and get out. So yes, my dog got herself stuck under the bed.

But I think we'll look at it from the other positive side, maybe she was having a dream that she was back in Nazi Germany and needed to hide? Maybe she just wanted to be closer to me but knew she'd get in trouble for jumping up on the bed (momma won't budge on that one) so she squirmed under it.

And boy oh boy was she a happy girl when she got up and could say good morning to us! My regret is that I didn't get my camera before getting her out.

And, oh yeah, she's still working on her escape artist status. She does great in yards when she wants to get out but she's still having trouble with her up close technical skills. In fact, there may be a jail break in the works but I'm not at liberty to discuss it yet.

I saw an ad on TV for this site advertising something called eyeQ that purports to speed up your reading speed and comprehension.

A seven minute run through demo is offered and it was pretty interesting. The pretest set me at 436 wpm which I thought was pretty decent. After five minutes of kind of tiring little short exercises my word per minute count jumped to 720! A 65% increase in seven minutes. Not bad at all. I wonder what would happen if I did the test again?

I wonder what it would do for someone like my mom, who can devour books like bon-bons?

The next in the series of Grand Theft Auto games is getting set to roll out soon and there is now a link to GTA: San Andreas Trailer, careful though, its 56.6 megs.

Not sure how the game will improve on Vice City which was a good step beyond GTA III. This will be fun and interesting and I hope highly entertaining. Rockstar Games has a damned high bar to attain.

Almost done downloading the trailer, I'll watch and report momentarily.

Ahh, lots more gang violence with a good soundtrack to back it up. More of the same gameplay, probably some new vehicles, maybe some new stunts that can be pulled (I'd like to be able to backflip on a sportbike over the rivers, is that too much to ask?), it looks great.

October, huh? Okay. I can wait, I guess. Stupid Def Jam Vendetta.

The new Old Spice deodarant commercials are great. Smart, clever, funny and they cast a very appealling girlfriend. Nicely done!

I'd recommend sitting down in front of the tv until you see it.

AIDS Activists stage naked protest outside Madison Square Garden.

But I can clearly see several articles of clothing on the protesters. I especially like the third from the right handbag on shoulder protester. And the big black guy's got his shorts around his ankles like he was recruited from the bathroom.

But hey, why not? If you're going to protest and get in the way, be naked and make it worth people's whiles. I wonder if they made fun of the ones who didn't get full on bare assed later on when they were having pizza and talking about showing their goodies to RNC lieutenants.

Repubs pick a fight about Vietnam while Bush ruins America right now? Is the nation drunk?

The Republicans are trying to supress any UN election oversight. Why? What could they possibly have to hide?

Vietnam, Cambodia, Texas National Guard, what the fuck ever. It happened before I knew not to shit in my pants. What matters is what's being done now and how its being done.

Stretch your mind, open your eyes, see what's been happening, see how our government has been governing itself. Read the Bush Resume, overlook the stupid misdirection ads by Bush, look at what he has done, what he hasn't done, the laws he's broken flagrantly, the treaties he's broken, the damage to our national reputation, the danger we now face from our own government rivals the danger we faced from thoroughly fanatical asshat terrorists hell bent on annihilating our country.

Electoral oversight is not a request from the American people, it is a goddamned demand! I demand that my vote be counted properly, I demand that other people's votes be tallied properly and may the man who gets the most votes win. That doesn't mean illegally adding or removing names from voter rosters, that doesn't mean a ridiculous international debate about hanging chads.

It means that I demand my government stand up and either win its position by the rules laid down by our founding fathers or they get the fuck out of the way so we can get a man who wants to lead the country, not just get a bunch of already rich greasy scumjackers more rich.

Election oversight now! Where do I sign?

[Update: Ryan has called foul on the concept of UN election oversight in the comments. I felt compelled to reply to him and then repost it here....

The oversight doesn't have to be by the UN, it can be by some other third party. I don't care.

You're not attacking the concept of oversight, just the administrators of that oversight? Why call it bull shit then? What's wrong with the idea of someone making sure that one side doesn't rig things to deny some people their right to vote while granting it to others who just happen to be sympathetic to the current regime?

Fucking insult? Its a fucking insult to want to have an honest and fair election? Its a fucking insult to not want another ridiculous presidential decision made by our Supreme Court instead of the will of the people?

Sorry, Ryan, its a fucking insult to not want to expose any discrepancies or illegal actions surrounding the elections. Fuck the UN, I don't care about them doing it, I care about SOMEONE doing it.

Attack the message, not the messenger.]

It would be an honor for some fans to have their vehicle coated in the excrement of their favorite band.

From that bastion of hot breaking news with a thumpity house beat, MTV News -
Dave Matthews Band May Face Criminal Charges Over Bus Stink

Bus stink? Yeah, someone opened the poop tank while they were driving and they flooded some tourist boat while crossed under a bridge. Why that's Dave Matthews' fault, I'm not sure. Unless they were all really drunk or stoned and thought it would be a good prank.

In which case, they just became my favorite band of all time.

The powerlifter from Armenia, the guy who just failed his third straight attempt at snatching 441 pounds. Yeah, he also had a super heavy weight bronze medal taken away from him for using some 'roid or another.

And guess what? He's testing clean but, here's the catch, he's no longer as strong as he used to be when he was juicing.

People seem surprised when previous cheaters are made to play fair (or fairer) and they don't do as well. Duh! If they could do that well without the drugs then why would they be using them?

Of course they're not going to be as strong without the juice. Only nobody's talking about it. They talk around it but never actually go at it straight on.

One other nice thing about the Olympics and all the scandals for doping and cheating, its giving guys like Barry Bonds a little much needed break from the media scrutiny.

Then again, seeing an enormous Bulgarian go after 457 pounds is pretty damned cool. Especially when he rips it too.

I need more power rods on the Bowflex.

Forwarded on by Jay and also posted where it truly belongs over on Sarcasm Incorporated here's an excerpt to whet the appetite.

GEORGE W. BUSH
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20520

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

Law Enforcement:
I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been "lost" and is not available.

Military:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

College:
I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was a cheerleader.

More at Sarcasm Inc.

Growing up there was an easy demarcation between two sides of the family, there were those that pronounced the word tomato like tom-A-toe (with the A as in neighbor or weigh) and then there were those that called them tom-AH-toes (with an AH as in why yes, Ah'd love a mint julep or ah don't know what's wrong with my slaves these days). You can guess which side of the divide I was on.

Anyway, there's a stupid little song that grew out of it. It goes something like this, "You say tom-A-toe, I say you're stupid, you say tom-AH-toe, I still say you're stupid."

Read More.

During my high school years there was a guy who would later become a good close friend. He had his own cabin in the woods that he'd built during the previous couple of years. And I'm not talking about a ramshackle shack with stolen corragated roofing. This was a full on log cabin with two stories, a built in wood stove, a great front porch area leading to a huge private pond that was shallow enough to get super warm in the summer.

Much of the early history of the cabin had to do with late night drunken stumbles up through the woods to this cabin where we could do literally anything we wanted to. Kind of cool for a high school kid to have that kind of place to get away too.

The cabin was up a ways from the road. The "driveway" usually became impassable at some point in the winter and I can recall one winter going up there to see Jeff's Suburban almost perfectly wedged between two trees as it had slid off the icy road. They had to bring in a construction crane to pull it out.

Another time, Jeff made the mistake of parking his sister's new truck on the pond. The ice wasn't quite hard enough or thick enough and the truck went through. Ooops.

Over the many years of living in northern New England I spent a fair amount of time out at the cabin and even came to spend the tail end of a summer and beginning of one winter there. No telephone, no running water, no electricity for a summer.

Anyway, all of this is to set up a question.

I have, in my possession, the journal that was kept at that cabin way back in very late 1987. The first entry is from Christmas Eve 1987 and goes until September 1991. Many of the entries are by random drunk people during parties and are occasionally accompanied by pictures (usually of stick figure women with HUGE boobs). The journal is sometimes laugh out loud funny.

I've been thinking about either posting sections here, in the chronological timeline, or creating yet another new blog dedicated to just the journal entries.

It wouldn't be too hard to scan the entire book and post actual pages along with the typed up posts for legibility since some of the entries are really just wild scrawling.

What makes more sense? Separate blog or post it here?

Oh wait, you'd like a little sample of the journal's contents to make sure that its worth the time and effort?


The cover has a few scrawls upon it, the best of which reads "White supremizy". The ironic comedy gold is everywhere in the journal and the funniest part is that I don't think much of it was meant like that.

[Update: There's yet another new blog in town, Stump Pond Journal has been kicked into life and will slowly develop as time and interest permits.]

Jenna Jameson is being interviewed on my news program this morning, looking nothing like a porn star and more looking like that hot chick in your bio class you'd like to study with.

She revealed how she got into porn originally and she's realized that a good portion of her impetus was to get back at a boyfriend of her's who had been cheating on her.

So I'd like to be among the first to say, Thanks nameless loser who's dumb enough to cheat on Jenna Jameson, thanks for getting her into porn. The world really IS a better place because of your inability to keep your schlong in your pants.

Here it comes, my lowered expectations with a new set of questions fast on this one's heels.

1. Who or what was the last thing you were really looking forward to that ended up not being at all what you'd expected or hoped for?
I get all kinds of jazzed up for new baby stuff and am inevitably disappointed because they're made for like newborns and not 419 month olds like me. Although I have to say that the kickin' piano P got yesterday is pretty cool.

2. Who have you lost respect for recently? Why?
Here's a short list, the Olympics, George Steinbrenner, George Bush (oh wait, you have respect them originally to not respect them as much now, scratch him).

3. What or who disappointed you lately?
The guy at the drive thru was supposed to score me some super good jalapeno/lim infused carrot slices, instead he gave me three or four huge honking jalapenos that I sniffed and the smell burned all the hair out of my nose.

4. How have you disappointed someone close to you?
P and I seem to think that the other has become pyschic and we are continually disappointed that we didn't do what the other expected us to do but didn't say anything.

5. What chore would you most like your significant other to do or finish?
Painting in the nursery so we can get the ladder and paint table out of there, I mean, the boy is almost seven weeks old now.

6. What is your biggest self-inflicted danger to your health?
Cheetos. Damned orangey cheese like goodness.

And there lies my late and lowered expectation Cheese. Gee whiz, that was fun. Let's do it again!

Its kind of neat, its kind of creepy, its inter - Face.

From the hallowed (and still mostly empty) halls of Sarcasm Incorporated comes a new installment of just made words.

Hey yeah, I just invited a nice new term, the first in a good long while too (although, to be honest, I have invented a bunch of new words but forget to write them down and they slip back into the muck before being recorded).

Snarcasm - alternate spelling Snarkasm - when your response to another's comments drip with sarcasm meant to insult or play insult the other.

And, of course, it begets many other lovely terms.

Snarktastic - the orgy of joy that a snarkalicious snarkster gets after a well constructed snark slam.
Snargasm - see above, physical manifestation.
Snorgasm - actually an unrelated term that sounds simliar. A snorgasm is when your partner finally, finally gets around to finishing up so you can get to sleep. Or sex so boring you fall asleep.
Smarmalade - the bitter spread mean people put on their superior toast in the morning.

And I've got some new blog or fake band names to roll out with as well. Let me just go and dig them up. Oh yeah, the first one's not a dig up at all.

Dark Side of my Id - a self exploration into the darker motivations

And the others....

Whizzing on the Walls of the Internet - posts, rants and pissing in the wind, oh my!

With a Strap On Dildo - an homage to a dead blog that I'm not allowed to talk about anymore

Why Would Wendy Want Winnie? - or Why Would William Want Walter? doesn't matter, the gist is there.

All the Opinions that are Fit to Beat Out of Me - a self deprecating blog.

Parking Lot Voyeur - a life is passing me by blog.

Lonely Guy Peepshow - another self deprecating blog about life passing him by, poor guy.

Aberrant Intelligentsia - my favorite of the bunch and I actually hesitated posting it because I really do like this one alot. It would be a good blog name and a cool band name too.

Alright, my sponge of creative excess has been wrung dry, more to come, I'm sure but let me go and recharge with my hound and baby boy.

So I had kind of a cool moment this afternoon. While getting warmed up for a workout, I felt better than usual, stronger. So I did a pretty heavy set on the bench, about 200 pounds, to see how it made my chest feel.

Without a complaint in sight I thumped out a good full set without even really working too hard.

So I added the two 30's and pushed the weight up to 260. I played some music and sat down to quickly rep out at 260. I had started with sets of 12 at 160 and 200 and then a set of 8 at 260.

And I could barely even feel it when I got back up. So I thought I'd just go about as far as I could. My machine tops out at 310 pounds. I put on 300, got amped up and sat down to push out four good reps. The last, and only other, time I broke 300 pounds was about 12 years ago.

Maybe it was partly from watching the Olympics and seeing those little people doubling their weights. Maybe it was just the confluence of body and mind. Who knows but I felt like I could have kept on going up. It would have been cool to finally double my body weight but I'll have to go to a gym for that. What changed was how I approached the weight, instead of thinking how heavy it was, I just never really considered it at all. I just sat, got set and pushed the weight out. I did grunt when I pushed the 300 out though. It is a damned lot of weight.

Now, I know some people will question the accuracy of weights as represented by bent carbon fiber rods. But, having worked out with regular weights for years both personally and professionally, I can say that the Bowflex is harder, i.e. heavier, than regular iron weights. I don't know by how much and I don't know about it at the top end. I do know that 200 pounds pushes alot more like 225 in real iron. I don't think that means I pressed 340 by any means. If anything, I'd say it was right on at about 300.

Ought to be interesting to see how sore I am tomorrow. And Tuesday.

I've never lived in a neighborhood that is so persistently and irritatingly "serviced" by a crappy jingle tinklin' ice cream truck hawking crappy frozen treats day in and day out. All summer long.

There was one point today where that damned truck was parked down the street, with the jingle a'jinglin' away, for the better part of an hour and a half. It finally headed up the street and off to other neighborhoods to pester and not five minutes passed before another truck pulled it. It was from a different ice cream place but it played the exact same tune. Again and again and again.

I don't know if it bothers other people or if they even notice it. But I do. I can hear that truck now, in my head, at 1 in the morning. I know it will be back tomorrow. I know that it will take hours for it to crawl through my neighborhood and I'll be treated to its gay little tune cheerfully announcing its presence.

Yeah! Oh boy, frozen confections made with corn syrup and artificial colors and flavors. A scene repeated every day for an entire summer, a classic and never ending scene of child or children asking parent or parents for money to go and buy from the ice cream truck. Dads slowly driven to insanity by that tinkling tune that is driven into their skulls like a musical spike. Moms lobotomized over a summer of the numbing mindless jingle being forced over and over upon a populance that is powerless in its relentless indominability.

As it is, I see that bastard truck roll slowly, ever so slowly by, and I think just how easy it would be hit it with an RPG.

Then maybe we'd have a quiet Sunday afternoon.

Its not that things have been boring, not at all. Its just that I am, overall, pretty contented and happy these days.

Sure there are momentary hassles, like running out of cream for morning coffee or not having enough Cheetos to make it through an evening. But overall, we're a happy little family unit. A wet or dirty diaper may occasionally intrude into the peace but we're really pretty happy.

The weather's been crap lately so maybe I'll bitch about that. But it is hard to really be unhappy especially when my baby boy is slumped over on my chest and making his faint snoring sounds.

I think I'll watch Katie Couric try to be hip at the Olympics and hey, there's Al Roker pretending to be an athlete, that's only mildly stupid but he really should get a no-shirts-off-ever clause in his next contract. I don't know, is the coverage better this time around? What's up with the mostly empty stadiums for the games? I'm watching events and I can see entire sections of the stands totally empty.

Is it because the world's economy is on the downlow right now or are people scared of the terrorist threat or scared of the Greek security response? Where are all the people? I don't think Greece is going to see that billion dollar injection into its economy but I'm sure they'll do just fine.

Now we've just gotta catch China again, they keep getting ahead of the US in the medal counts and we all know that that is just not right!

Its been a little while since we've gotten all of the dogs together for some good old fashioned romping and yesterday presented a perfect opportunity to do so.

I brought Nande, Paul brough Modoc, John brought Brady and Mike brought Cinder down to one of our local wonders, an enormous stretch of gorgeous beach where dogs can roam a bit. John showed up a few minutes after I got there and it was good fun to watch our two dogs race up to each other, get an obligatory sniff in and then start chasing each other all over the beach.

Now, these aren't small dogs and they're not perfectly well trained and we had more than a handful of episodes of them racing off down the beach after another dog or to see if they could knock down an ambulating kid (no, they were unsuccessful on that one). People walk up and down the beach with their hounds and we had a steady stream of new dogs coming by that would rile up Nande and Brady every couple of minutes.

And when there weren't new dogs or joggers cruising by, we'd run out into the surf to see how far the dogs would come with us. Nande continues to impress me in the water. She doesn't really care to be in water she has to swim in but she's starting to broadside waves and really have fun in the surf, she even body surfed back in once or twice!

A little later, Paul and Mike showed up with the other two dogs and the thrill of the chase was rejoined with great enthusiasm. Four dogs chasing each other in and out of the surf, up and down the beach, occasionally racing over to some of our sand neighbors (oh bad dogs, don't go and spray sand on those pretty ladies in their bikinis, bad dogs! bad! hehehe).

Cinder got top water honors, when Mike went out to swim around a bit, Cinder was right there with him, no questions asked. She swum with him and then came back in with him. Nande will go out until she's mostly submerged but will head back in to avoid being washed by a wave. Brady will go up to his knees (about 8 inches at best) but will swim when John carries him out into the surf. And Modoc? Modoc's still a little uncomfortable with the water in his water bowl much less ocean surf. He hung out well clear of the surf but would occasionally go chasing down into the very edge. Our guess is that he was traumatized as a pup and is pretty securely hydrophobic.

So we hung out, talking, playing with the dogs, drinking illegal beers (who decided that it is wrong to drink beer on the beach? nothing better than a cold beer in the sand!). And, as people came by with their dogs, our wolf pack would go running out to greet, sniff and romp with the new dogs. At one point there were six or seven dogs all chasing each other all over the place, sometimes charging straight at us en masse, and remember that we're probably talking about close to 500 pounds of dogs, only to veer off at the last instant. Sometimes one wouldn't be able to veer and there would be a heavy thump as furry dog body impacted with human.

By the time we left the beach, there was a swath of sand in front of our spot that was completely churned up by the dogs. It was probably two hundred feet long and about fifty feet wide and there wasn't a spec of smooth sand in there. And the dogs were as docile as exhaustion makes them. They were happy to lay down next to us and couldn't even muster the energy to chase each other as we headed off the beach.

It was, all in all, a fabulous afternoon. Nande slept like a champ all night, my feet and legs are incredibly sore today from all the running in the sand but it was well worth it. Nande and I both needed to get out and blow off some steam and it is harder to do that when P and Graydon are with me.

There is some pending sadness though as Modoc's mom is coming back out to get him later this month. Its a long story but she went back east, couldn't take him at the time and is, more or less, killing the relationship with Paul. It sucks and we're currently working on ways to "lose" Modoc while she's here so she can't take him. We don't know what will happen but there's a chance we will keep him and that would be great because he's a great dog and one of my dog's best friends. But we'll just have to see how it all shakes out.

[Update: Here's photo proof of what happened to Nande when we got home, Nande sacked.

Its with a touch of humor and concern that I read the short article and pic of the curious story, Canadian Spectator Joins Synchronised Diving Event.

Why did he do it?

Because Golden Palace.com paid him to get up on the board with their web address written on his chest.

Should he be punished, undoubtedly.
Should Golden Palace be punished, most certainly.
Should the security at the games be re-examined? Hell yes!

Would he have done it without the financial incentive offered by Golden Palace? Probably not.

His fine should be somewhere around double what he got paid by Golden Palace. And Golden Palace's fine should be a huge multiple above that.

Ah, the Olympic spirit is alive and well. Make money even if you're not in the games themselves.

Aside from some of the real stories coming out of the games, the Olympics pretty well suck now. Slave to the almighty buck.

I've been living in kid's musicland for a while now and was wondering what other people's favorite kid's tunes are.

I've been using musicplasma to find other artists in the same realm as folks like Laurie Berkner and Cat Stevens.

What do you like?