Intellectual Poison

Isn't it interesting the form that vindication might take?

There's a guy who hangs out with my friends from time to time and he's not that awful a guy once you get past some his more overt faults (as in, she's NOT single, back the fuck off, dude). But he still rubs me like a cheese grater that sprays vinegar after each pass anyway.

And so it makes great sense that he would be working indirectly for the corporation that most embodies assholery in corporate form, WalMart. Nice.

It feels like I was just leaving this office on Friday evening and then, all of a sudden, I'm walking back in for another week.

Where'd my weekend slip away too?

The poker game ate into Saturday morning some but not too much. I guess not having enough sleep and then stumbling through the rest of the weekend will tend to do that.

Anyway, a thought or two for this sunny but cold morning. There's a reason they have an 8 or 9 or ten item limit in that express lane at the super market. So, when people are in a hurry they can get their things and go without having to wait for someone who's doing a whole week of shopping.

Apparently this pretty basic concept is lost on some people who just don't think the rules apply to them. Two lanes open at Safeway this morning, one regular checkout where the guy was buying huge stacks of pork loins. The other, the express lane, populated by a woman with a couple of things and then a jackass with at least 20 items piled on the belt. Thanks, asshole.

So when I bounced down to the other cashier, I got treated to one of the most politely rude people I've ever met. You could tell that she really just wanted to throttle everyone. Curt barely begins to illustrate her demeanor.

Oh well, it used to be my Safeway, then I moved to Watsonville so fuck it.

And this may warrant its own full post but I'm getting pretty close to swearing off using UPS from now on. They are an incredibly irritating company to deal with. They advertise that they are all about helping out small businesses and the consumer? Bullshit, they don't deliver on Saturdays or Sundays, when most people are home or more available. They don't even have the package centers open so you could go and pick up your packages. Nope, they do the stupid little three delivery attempts and then bounce your package back so they can collect shipping payments again. Stupid.

Anyone have any idea why they wouldn't deliver on Saturdays? That just seems incredibly dumb.

Its what all of the cool kids already did last week but some of us weren't paying attention so we're getting to it now.

"Smoke on the water" by Deep Purple
"What Does It Feel Like" by Felix da Housecat
"Don't Cry" by Eek-A-Mouse
"Electricity" by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
"Popular" by Nada Surf
"Yon Yonson" by Ralph's World
"Meeet Virginia" by Train
"Offspring" by Del Tha Funkee Homosapien
"Emotional Weather Report" by Tom Waits
"Nutshell" by Alice in Chains

So what does it all mean? Let's examine for patterns.
Smoke on the water, what does it feel like, don't cry, electricity, popular, yon yonson, meet virginia, offspring, emotional weather report, nutshell.

Interesting.
What does the smoke on the water feel like?
Don't cry. There's a charge in the air.
The buzz is the electricity.
Said the sauve and popular Yon Yonson
As he met Virginia and her brood of offspring.
Virginia confided her emotional weather report
but, in a nutshell, she felt chained.

Perhaps and perhaps not.

Sure, his numbers have been declining ever since the corking incident a couple of years ago and I'm sure the increased scrutiny of steroid use in baseball isn't helping him maintain those insane numbers he put up years ago but, but, but. All of that said, I am still very happy to hear that Slammin' Sammy is very likely to be joining the best third place team in the majors, my own Baltimore Orioles!

The American League East has been the shittiest division to be stuck in for anyone who's not the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. It's like going to school and being put in the class with the rich kids who drop $50 a day on lunch when you're on food stamps.

So, let's take a gander at the possible O's lineup, shall we?
Batting leadoff is going to be Brian Roberts now that they've moved Hairston off and that makes sense, both are very capable but I believe Roberts is the better defender and the O's will not be lacking offense.

Roberts, Mora (expect another excellent year from this stud, especially batting in front of this lineup!), Palmiero, Tejada, Sosa, Lopez (remember Javy? I do!), Gibbons (still improving and improving faster now with such top caliber hitsmen around him), Bigbie and maybe Newhan, Matos, Raines or Surhoff.

Which means that they will have a very scary line up indeed!

Now if they'd only do something about their fairly anemic pitching roster. So far it looks like its still anchored by Ponson who could be a superstar if only he'd stop eating so many Carl's Jr. Superstars. He's a chubstar who could be far more effective if he came into camp trimmed and fit.

Next up will have to be the Giants and then the A's who actually have a chance on winning their divisions because they won't be competing against an asshole owner that spends more than any owner in the history of game. Thanks George!

By the way, why are my two least favorite people named George?

I'll let the title of the story speak for itself, Man peed way out of avalanche.
'Nuff said.
via.

I work in marketing and PR so I like to point out good and bad marketing when I see it. This time there are two things to discuss, one insulting and stupid, the other cool and unexpected.

Let's start with the insulting and stupid one....
There's an incredibly stupid BMW commercial on the radio right now and I'd just like to point out how stupid it is and how stupid they believe people listening to their commercial are.

The voice starts with, "If you win once, you're a champion, if you win four times then you're a dynasty. What do they call you if you win fourteen times in a row? A BMW."

Only BMW didn't win shit fourteen times in a row as the two previous statements seem to indicate. The voice continues to say that BMW has been one of the top ten cars for the last fourteen years. I call a top ten finisher, a runner up, not a winner, not a dynasty. Unless they were the #1 car in the world for fourteen years in a row, then the premises they set up their arguments with have no bearing on their conclusion, that the BMW is the best car ever.

Sorry, it just doesn't follow. Nice cars, sure, overpriced, yep. I'm still not gonna buy one and I'm less likely now that they insult my intelligence by this incredibly specious logic. Bite me, BMW.

And the second thing. Its a good thing.

West Marine is the world's largest boating catalog company. They have many business practices that I admire and make me want to consider working for them. They are boaters first with all that that entails (and you boaters out there know what I'm talking about) and businessmen second. Not a distant second but its obvious that there is a passion to the company.

Anyway, one of their many giveaways to visiting execs is a nicely made and finished travel mug. Its got the deep blue West Marine color on the outside and is polished stainless steel on the inside. As travel mugs go, its nice and I'd use it for that alone. Only this travel mug is cooler than other ones because of the clever little marketers at West Marine or whoever came up with the mugs.

By day, my mug is a discrete place to keep coffee warm and not spilling in my crotch while driving to work.

But by night, this innocuous looking travel mug switches tops and becomes an excellent and very capable cocktail shaker complete with strainer built into the top.

Clever, practical and cool without straining to be cool. I love it and I'm rolling it out tonight at the poker game!

Sometimes you do get shown the light in strange places, sometimes you come across someone who articulates what has been simmering underneat your consciousness, sometimes you come across another voice worth listening to.
I came across Night Light via Rox Populi and found specific and welcome insights in two posts in particular so far, Chamberlain Democrats and Moral Issue of our Generation.
But I've only read three posts so far. And, as a nice little bonus, some good news for SpongeBob.
Thank you, RJ Eskow, thank you very much.

Check out this video of Jean Carlos Chera, he's 9 years old and has been astonishing people since he was six and likely before. Its a Windows Media File link so be forewarned but damn, this kid is A-Maz-Zing!
via.

[Update: Yahoo's found him too!]

This post has been moved to IP Politik as well as More Cock-a-roaches on the GOP Teat.

Anheuser-Busch wants in on the herbal additives craze, so now they are going to produce B-to-the-E, beer to the extra,. Beer spiked with caffeine (just what we need, wideawake drunks!), fruit flavors and herbals like guarana and ginseng.

Um yeah, sounds positively revolting. But then, people drink beer mixed with tomato juice some I'm sure there's a market for this crap somewhere.

- Having your baby boy sleep all the way through the night.
- Coming home to a living NOT filled with runny dog poo.
- Enjoying some peace and quiet with your wife in the hot tub after another long and tiring day.
- Having your calves "thumped" into submission.
- Getting an email from a client just to let you know that they are totally on top of the materials you need.
- pending poker night!

What's your "Happiness Is...."?

S.F. board votes to ban smoking in city's parks, Only golf courses would be exempt. What does this mean? It means that SF officials have finally realized that secondhand smoke doesn't magically disappear when someone happens to be smoking outside.

"People are under the misconception that if they are outside, they are not being exposed," Dr. Mitch Katz said. "If you can smell the smoke, your body is inhaling the toxic chemicals in the smoke."

Makes sense, eh? You smell smoke because the poisons are in the air, therefore you're ingesting those poisons. The golf course exemption is bound to piss people off because it smacks of elitism but they have some pretty valid reasons for continuing to allow smoking on public golf courses in San Francisco.

I am all for a cleaner outside as well as a cleaner inside. I can't stand going to bars and restaurants outside of California and having to deal with the thick and disgusting smoke. Though I bet this will mean that more smokers will resort to smoking in their cars which is disgusting because its like bathing in the smoke, those people stink and kid themselves that they do not.

There's no reason that smoking should still be legal. They recall cars if five people die because of some defect in their construction. Five people died from smoking in the time it took me to write this sentence and yet smoking is still legal?

West Marine has been a smoke free company for a few years now, you can not smoke and work their. If you smoke and are caught then you are giving the chance to quit or you are fired. And they're not the only ones, Weyco Fires Four for Smoking, its a trend that I expect to increase.

But if this smoking aspect is used to deny employment for involuntary behaviours then it is a very, very dangerous precedent to set. As leblanc and the MeFi thread aptly point out.

Haters drive Ford F150's apparently, go and check out this post at CaptainNormal and tell me that you wouldn't like to see this guy airlifted and then dropped into the middle of Iraq with all those filthy and hateful bumper stickers stuck on his own fat and oozing carcass.

Just wow.

Its making the rounds, first at Ryan's, then Amy's and Rick's and then now here, yep, its the Better Personality Quiz

My scores:
Wackiness: 44/100
Rationality: 56/100
Constructiveness: 72/100
Leadership: 68/100

Which makes me: You are a SRCL--Sober Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you a Ayn Rand ideal.

Further insights: Taggart? Roark? Galt? You are all of these. You were born to lead. You may not be particularly exciting, but you have a strange charisma--born of intellect and personal drive--that people begin to notice when they have been around you a while. You don't like to compromise, but you recognize when you have to.

You care absolutely nothing what other people think, and this somehow attracts people to you. Treat them well, use them wisely, and ascend to your rightful rank.

Of the 81277 people who have taken this quiz since tracking began (8/17/2004), 5.5 % are this type.

Born to lead? Yep.
Not particularly exciting? WTF? I am the damned epitome of excitement!
Strange charisma? Is this why dogs and children like me?
Ascending to my rightful rank? What if that actually entails a demotion? Nah, my place is on the throne saying fun things like, "Off with his head!" and "That's the way I plays it, biyatch!".

I wonder what would happen if I took the quiz drunk? Would it call me a sober something or other or would it be able to figure out that my brain's hot-tubbing in liquor?

I love my blogging pals, I love that they are passionate about their causes and that many of those causes are my own as well.

I swung by David Grenier's this morning and his top post was regarding the WalMart Fact Checker site which gives great information about WalMart's local, national and international impact. And they have more info to share.

Important bits of info to note, like "Wal-Mart sales clerks made an average of $8.23 an hour�or $13,861 a year�in 2001. That's nearly $800 below the federal poverty line for a family of three." or "Reliance on public assistance programs in California by Wal-Mart workers costs the state's taxpayers an estimated $86 million annually."

Fight the power, with knowledge.

Check out PostSecret, the premise is that postcards are handed out at public events. Those postcards are supposed to be sent back in to the blog admins who will scan it in and post it. The content of the postcards are supposed to be secrets that you've never told anyone else.

Its a pretty neat site. via #1.

I don't think I'd mess with this truck or this, the coolest dog in town.

Shame he was hanging out at the jerko neighbor's place. And this morning? Now they are taking to parking so their cars overflow into my driveway. I think we'll be having a short talk with the asshat in charge over there.

Think your day sucked?

Imagine coming home to a living room of steaming proof that your dog has some kind of a messed up digestive tract. Not one, not two, not three, no sir, not even four. And I know, I know what you're thinking, it's gotta be five, there's no way, no way it could be six. But yes sirs and madams, six steamers a'soakin' into the carpet when I arrived upon my doorstep this drizzly January eve.

Six hound dog land mines in varying states of spread, in varying states of cooling off, in varying states of chunkiness.

Honestly, I was speechless for a good twenty seconds.

It wasn't really a fun coming home from work moment and the fact that my sweet pup was scared that I was going to go insane made it all the sadder. I put her in the back yard, let her know I loved her and returned inside to let my lovely wife know the news.

So this evening's festivities included dropping $50 at Long's to get a Rug Doctor to suck the devil dookie right out of our carpet. And suck it did. Sucked like a sucker should suck during a suck contest.

We reclaimed the carpet, though are now committed to ripping it out and replacing it with more of the wood laminate as in the kitchen, and Nande now sleeps on a blanket laid down in the office where I used the steamer to suck some the impacted dirt out of the upstairs carpets as well.

[Update: I should note that I am not sharing as much of the story as I could because, well, I don't want my readers to throw up all over their computers. Perhaps I'll put the rest of the story in the comments. And yes, its disgusting and yes, you may think you want to know but really, you don't.
Okay, okay. The rest of the story is that only a couple of the landmines were created via Nande's rear exhaust vent. A couple of the mines were generated by my poor dog licking up the dookie, getting sick and puking it out, licking it up again (she may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer) and then puking it out again. There, are you happy now? Strangely, I am.
P thinks she was actually trying to clean up the mess by licking it up. I'm not sure I buy that but damn, just thinking about it makes my skin crawl.
Why do dogs like poop? Sometimes even their own?]

So very NSFW it isn't funny. File this under Those-Wacky-Japanese, Sailor Moon Goatse photo-op via FreeQuonsar. And yeah, I would have totally posed for a picture, likely with an indelicate expression.

By the way, I would like to take this moment to introduce a new acronym to my personal universe. Its along the same lines as NSFW, not safe for work, but is NSFM, not safe for mom. Specifically, not safe for my mom to click on. Or, rather, not safe for my mom to see because then she'll look at me funny some more.

I'm feeling inverted today. Like I'm still asleep but dreaming that I'm awake and carrying out my day. But I know I'm not asleep because I had a stupid rock in my shoe most of the morning and I just don't see myself dreaming a rock into my shoe.

And my stomach's been upset most of the morning.

And I still feel like I've slept about five minutes in the last week. Graydon really, really needs one or two of those teeth to break through, we all really need for those teeth to break through. The good thing is that he doesn't have an ear infection like we thought he did, he's just been interested in his ears lately.

Some neat milestones to note.
On Sunday morning, Graydon got his first real and official crawl on. He has been a bit of a sidewinder with his movement, using the roll technique to get around, but now he's added a new movement and its sort of a modified crawl. It may not be the Socratic Form of Crawling but it works and my little guy can now pursue toys that have the audacity to roll away from him.

And we have it on video!

But for now, I'm going to get back to swimming towards what I hope is the surface. But it might just be a shiny mirror on the bottom of the sea.

Latest fashion rage from Japan: KeyChain Bonsai, so cute and I'm sure it makes them forget all about their small penises.

What's that? You weren't aware that its Inappropriate Monday? Pissa, fool.

Shall we follow it up with a link to a crass radio station that's pushing an mp3 that mocks the victims of the tsunami and then levels racial epithets at them as well? How about one that denigrates Muslims too? I'm sure they're out there and I actually could easily link to the offensive mp3. But the world's got plenty of narrow, intolerant hate in it already.

So how about we wrap up the weekend's festivities instead?

Yesterday was a long, long day filled with much football, much flame caressed and deeply marinated meat products, much fine Anchor Steam and lots of four legged furry fury. Yesterday was the annual neigborhood pool football party, an event that has grown over the last couple of years until it culminated in the funfest of yesterday.

There were an average of about 30 to 40 people there for most of the day, it was the regathering of our old neighborhood crew that's spread across town in the last couple of years and some have even moved to LA (blasphemy!) but most people try to get back for this party. Its the neighborhood equivalent of Thanksgiving.

And it doesn't hurt that the expense for the party has already been well covered during the course of the season.

After the sad dismantling of the Steelers by the Patriots, it was time to get down and play some cards. So we moved from football on to poker and a rather large game ensued with up to 9 players in a hand. I lost nearly every hand but won two and covered all of the rest of my losses for the day.

That and Nande is still absolutely beat. There were no frenzied requests for a walk at quarter to seven this morning. And she's still sleeping downstairs right now.

One of the best parts about the whole evening was coming home, taking care of my business in getting the house turned down and then slipping out on the deck and having myself a nice, long, luxurious soak under the nearly full moon in the hot tub.

Damn, right.

First off, sadness upon hearing of Johnny Carson's passing this morning.

And now back on to the fun stuff.
I offer the Coolest Dog in Town.

And then, the reason that I'm no longer allowed to get overly streesed about the world, here's the Hot tub closed and then the Hot tub opening and, finallu, the Hot tub wide open.

It took 36 hours to come up to temp but damn was it a nice way to start this morning in the chilly foggy air by soaking in the tub. Oh yeah! I will also shoot some pics at night so you can see how cool it is with the light. And if you want to buy one, let me know and I'll refer you to sales guy and get some kickdown!

And then I talked to my sister in Maine where the blizzard is in full effect and her husband and oldest son had to stay an extra day in Aruba, the poor guys! Enjoy the peace!

Check out the IFILM - Television: Fair and Balanced Inauguration in which Judy Bacharach from Vanity Fair puts voice to what a lot of people have been feeling about this gaudy festival of egoism that is the Inauguration.

It is well, well worth the time to watch it. Some of the points might be made stronger but her points are well made anyway.

It is inappropriate to have so many parties to celebrate a second term when soldiers fighting in his poorly planned war are lacking some basic materials to safeguard themselves.

Its just wrong and stupid and ugly and demonstrative of exactly why I couldn't ever support George W. Bush. His lack of understanding of the ramifications of his action or lack of caring about the impact of his actions is damning.

Found while enriching my mind at Oliver Willis

I've now got a few subscribers to Intellectual Poison on a couple of different feed portals and I'm wondering which ones are working better than the others.

I just added the link as I'm finding that I prefer hitting up one site to quickly catch up on all of the blogs that I like to read.

If you don't have a feed (you know who I'm looking at, yeah you too, Rhodes) then it is that much harder to keep up on your posts.

NotifyList seems to forget my information everytime I do anything and I even subscribed and have never gotten an update. And they're customer service was fast on the first email but has, so far, ignored my followup emails.

Bloglet kept grabbing drafts of posts and sending those along with published posts and emails for help went completely unanswered. So I'm leaning towards Bloglines because it seems to work and that's about the best differentiator between the three.

Let me know if you're experience has been different though.

Originally written this morning but Blogger wasn't cooperating so I mailed it to myself, and Yahoo put it in the junkmail folder, did I mention it was from me? Hmm, I'm trying not to take it personally.

Yesterday was many things to many people. To people who voted for Bush, it was a chance to party and pretend like the world loves us and we're doing good.

To the rest of us, the entire inauguration was a long and protracted "FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK YYYYOOOOOOOUUUUU".

Bush said some of the right words about unity and freedom and other happy slappy bullshit but that's all it was. He's got no intentions of uniting the country, his position is stronger with the nationn so divided. His supporters have to be rabid supporters to stay on his side and they won't jump now, that would mean they made a huge mistake in backing a corrupt and stupid horse.

So, I made it through most of the entire day yesterday without contributing to the economy. But, come lunchtime, I was not going to be satisfied with the meager collection of stuff from home. So I spent $5.62 at Trader Joe's for a salad and a Mango Anti-oxidant. Not bad but I do kind of wish I'd gone the whole day not spending anything.

But now we get to look forward to the mindnumbing cluster fuck that will be the Iraqi elections and the massive run up of car bombs and terrorist threats to derail the event.

Rush Limbaugh seeks return of medical records so that they can't bust him for seeking multiple prescriptions from multiple doctors so he could bliss out and not have to worry about those dirty "Libruls".

Not that he hasn't excoriated drug addicts on dozens of occasions on his grotesque radio show, not that he hasn't called for all drug addicts to be thrown in prison forever. Nope, because Rush is above the law, he IS the law and fuck you for even thinking the laws of this country actually apply to his fetid and boil-ridden carcass.

Because, come on now, the law shouldn't have to apply to such fine upstanding asshats like Rush or O'Reilly. They are above the law because they are soooooo important to the nation, they provide such insight and wit and wisdom that what should we care if they pop pills and sexually harass their interns?

Its time for a little prognistication in regards to this weekend's big Conference Championships.

I'm going to go with Atlanta over Philly because I think Michael Vick's playing at the top of his game right now and he's just too damned hard to defend against when he can pretty well outrun any other player (and that might not be true but he is DAMNED fast).

And it blows my mind that the Steelers, having won their last 16 games in a row, are the underdogs in this contest. But it makes sense given the Patriots domination of the post season in recent years. That plus Tom Brady, two time Super Bowl MVP, against Big Ben Roethlisburger, the winningiest rookie ever favors experience over youth. But I'm taking the Steelers anyway because I think they want it alot more and for guys like Bettis and Ward, this may be one of their last chances to get to the big game. It will be a superb game though!

Underdogs all the way!

50 Most Loathsome People of 2004

Good reading and spot on in many, many places. Though how the terminally vacuous Paris Hilton escaped the list is beyond me, especially since her little sidekick, Nicole Ritchie, made it and she's far, far less annoying and loathsome.

But lots of the rest of them are perfect. I like #50 Ann Coulter, #41 Everyone who got together watch the last Friends, #29 Michael Savage (an utterly reprehensible loser attention hole), #20 Anna Nicole Smith, #13 Joan Rivers (die already you freakin' zombie!), #9 Jessica Simpson (they call her the gleaming flagship of the return of bimboism, spot on!), #7 Donald Trump (bad businessman, ridiculous haircut and incredibly irritating mannerisms = feed him to the chipper/shredder) and #6 George "God Speaks To Me" Bush (no surprise) but I disagree with Colin Quinn being on the list at all, he's just not much of a celebrity, not very interesting and really just comes across like a perpetually shitfaced permanent fratdink.

The commentary is pretty funny too.

Woman gives birth to 16.7 lb. baby. From the story, "Obviously the baby was born by Caesarean section".

To put that in perspective, Graydon will be 7 months old in a couple of weeks and he weighs around 18 pounds.

This baby is enormous!

Disclaimer: Stream of consciousness post ahead, badly warped by extreme sinus impaction and a generally fairly bitter and cynical view of US politics in the wake of the debacle that was the last election.

I just figured out in the last minute, as I was writing the title to this post. That's why my head has been utterly stuffed full of snot for the last two days, first it was just the right side of my head. Now its the whole thing, right and left, Republican and Democrat.

They are united now in Washington, all lined up to give Georgy some of that hot non-gay humjob action he won with his mandate setting election victory last November over the Senator who found a pair of nuts today in voting against Condi Rice for Sec. of State. Shame you couldn't find those a few months ago when it mattered, John. Sorry but you deflated so quickly after the election that I'm really just not sure what to make of you anymore. Yes, better than Bush but I'm not so sure by how much anymore.

Anyway, the Inauguration is tomorrow. The swearing in Shrubya for another four years of mayhem and corruption and being embarrassed to be Americans and then being worried to have other people know you're American abroad. Four more years of blatant douchebaggery in Washington and "pundits" across the nation sieg heiling themselves into conniptions.

Tomorrow is buy nothing day. Damn, that means I've gotta bring my lunch and lucky I've got plenty of gas. Hope Graydon doesn't need anything, I'd hate for him to suffer for a silly and mostly ineffective silent political protest. And of course I'm kidding, if my boy needed something, I'd get it for him without hesitation.

Ahhh, where was I going. Damn, stupid cotton stuffed brain makes it hard to follow the lines. I keep veering off into the underbrush. Inauguration Day. How much is this fucking tard fest costing me and you? Sixty million dollars or some insanity? So Bush can shake his false mandate toting cowboy bumfuck ass with a bunch of other fat white pricks who wish they had rhythm and didn't have to take pills to bang their mistresses. So tomorrow night is like Christmas for DC prostitutes, I'd imagine.

None of the calls to tone down the celebration could possibly be heeded though. Of course not, to diminish the celebration in the light of what those brave soldiers are enduring for false premises that our new Secretary of State still won't admit were wrong, no, no, no, to reduce the party in anyway would be to give in to terrorism itself! No, the party must go on and it must be enormous and stupid and demonstrate to the entire world what real asshats are in charge in the US right now.

How I wish that this were just some wacky episode of The Love Boat where the monkeys from the nightclub act get loose and take over the ship. Man, that would be sweet.

Tomorrow is protest the fuck out of this corrupt asshole in charge day. Turn your back on his victory lap of shame, don't spend a dime, write to your reps and let them know that Bush's actions do NOT represent your wishes. Ride your bike to work naked with Buck Fush painted on your back. Do fucking something.

Maybe I'll go and give some money to Howard Dean.

Brought to my attention by my cousin, Search underway for six who may pose terrorist threat to Boston.

If its not an attack then it just be a testing of our response times and the general hysteria that arises from these events. Or maybe this is the first in a long series of false warnings to lull us into a false sense of security. I don't know but I'm hoping that this is just an over imaginative person and we're not looking at a dirty bomb being detonated in Boston.

There's been some interesting events in the political arena recently that I wanted to touch on.

I moved the rest over here to keep the front page a little tidier.

There are already 2000+ things that WD40 can be used for but now there's a new use for WD40, keeping bar patrons from snorting coke off of bar toilet seats.

Yeah, whodda thought people would inhale anything that had touched a bar's toilet but apparently its a real problem. But one light spraying of WD40 and that nice and expensive nose candy becomes a gooey and useless mess. And that's just fine by me.

Also, more stuff from the WD40 site. Pro Tips: WD40, the virtual tour and FAQs, surprisingly comprehensive too.

All in all, its a good site. A little slow at times but there's lots of information, tips to be had and even a fan club to sign up for.

Kind of a neat cross confluence or something but Poison Ivy and Acupuncture details a very limited test case where patients underwent short acupuncture treatments to relieve the itching and speed the healing from the outbreak.

Kind of neat stuff. If you aren't already immune to poison ivy like me.

One's a spoof and the other's real. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which, not that it'll be very hard to do but its decently done and funny.

Jobs at the White House - Career Opportunities and Jobs in the US Government.

Shame that CiC job hasn't opened up yet since we've got a president who has no concept of the legal requirement to seperate church and state and has even gone so far as to say his "handbook" is the Bible and not the Constitution. Sorry but that's just friggin' insane.

The Hasselhoff Recursion be forewarned, its David Hasselhoff in a speedo, FOREVAH!

I went through a period in my youth where I pretty well devoured anything and everything that had been published by J. D. Salinger. At the time, much of his writing was not released or had been released through some select vertical magazines and they got very little attention.

Not anymore, now there's J. D. Salinger. Uncollected Writings for your enjoyment. Lots of stories that I'd not seen or heard of before. Some dogs amid the gems and joys though.

One of these days I'll have to do a full collection of all those classics I grew up reading and loving.