6/2/09

      AND WE HEAR THAT AUSTRIAN-AMERICANS HAVE BIG MOUTHS
She’s either Puerto Rican, or the same thing as Cuban, I mean they are all very hot. They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it.
--California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, on California assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, the lone Latina Republican in the Legislature

      ...well, nice talking to you, DJ. He vanished. Well, his foster mom did say that he was "an explorer, he loves to hide."
      I set up his litter box, food and water, and he didn't reappear. Byron began scratching at the door almost immediately (his big, nonretractable claws make a much different sound than Killsy's tiny razors of death). After 20 minutes, I left with the carrier and put it on the floor for the kids to check out.
      Byron waltzed right in, sniffed around, and exited unperturbed. Kill Kill slowly slinked up, gave it a sniff and a loud hiss, then retreated to the living room to scowl at me. When Byron entered her field of vision, she hissed even more. "YOU brought another HIM in here, DIDN'T YOU!" I tried explaining to her that DJ was here to bother Byron, and take the pressure off of her.
      After a pause for DJ to reorient himself, I went back in the bedroom and found him

      ...relaxing on a pile of old clothes on the floor of the closet. Not scared, just chillin'. He had the Happy Cat Face with the squinting eyes. His foster mom also said "If you can catch him, he loves nothing more than a good pet, and he purrs his wee heart out!" I scratched his teeny head and he purred louder than any cat I've ever heard, and Byron's purr can be mistaken for a passing motorboat. I began to play with him using a piece of cord from some old cat toy, and a series of terribly-framed photos resulted.

      That, actually, would be the best of them. He kept purring as we played. I eventually coaxed him down to the floor

      YES that is cat litter on the carpet, and not from his new litter box. Also, a small host of old cat toys, which he played with in turn. While purring. Loudly, and continuously.

      "I find this particular scrap of crud on your filthy floor--fascinating!"

      Then we roughhoused a bit (he purred) and then he got a pet/belly rub on my legs. While purring. He discovered his food bowl, and began eating. WHILE PURRING. He purred without a break for FORTY SOLID MINUTES. Amazing. I've never known a cat to purr that much, and I know Jessica's happy man Majoriam.
      Then I put him on the bed to see what he'd do. He ran around a bit, then did what he did the first time: jumped off and disappeared. I haven't seen him since.
      Meanwhile, outside the door: When I first found him in the closet, Byron battered down the door after ripping the carpet up in an attempt to burrow in. Since he seemed only to want to check out the lil' guy, not moiderize him, I let him poke around. He immediately found his helpless prey, and ruthlessly pounced!...on the bowl of kitten food. It seemed like he was going to eat the whole damn thing, so out, damned splutcat!
      Killsy's mood moderated over the evening. Maybe she was thinking that DJ will never leave the bedroom, good riddance, or she recalled that life with Byron was actually better than it was without him. Right now, everything is normal, except for the bedroom door being shut. I still can't find DJ--I caught a glimpse when I opened the door once, but he bolted under the bed, so I'll just let him be until bedtime.
      DJ will stay inside the bedroom until Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, but I think everything is going to go smooth as silk, or as smooth as that cat fur that gets all over you when you pet them.

6/3

      LET’S LEARN FROM BASKETBALL PLAYERS!
Chemistry is a class you take in high school or college where you figure out 2+2=10 or something.
--basketball player Dennis Rodman

       He certainly has that legendary "I luvz evryonez!" OT personality. Most kittens won't offer their bellies up for rubs during the first few hours with their new human.
      I was planning on doing multiple things outside the house today, but decided against being gone too long, and so split them in 2. I went to BIG!Lots, prly for the last time. Not a single item of interest. Upon seeing the shelves and shelves of analog TV antennas--even if they were free, what good are they after next Tuesday?--I thought "that's the most useless thing I'll see here today." That was before I saw the multiple copies of a VHS tape titled "Y2K: The Millenium Bug." Blurb on back: "Is it a tempest in a teapot? Or the collapse of civilization?" If it was the latter, you came to the right place to stock up on bottled water and toilet paper--BIG!Lots brand toilet paper. Which made me think "Wow, they've invented half-ply TP."
      There's a Dollar Tree in the same plaza, so I looked for more Speed Racer Hot Wheels. Out of the 24, I now have 23. I bought an umbrella, which I'm sure won't last in the wind, but it can't be any worse than the last cheap one I bought, which will last forever as it can't be opened. And, as a joke for Jessica--

      That's not the one I got. Mine's worse.

      My parents had a big History of Art coffee table book, light on history but thick with pictures, and one of them was of a realistic painting of a pipe titled "This Is Not A Pipe." It made me mad! Of course it's a pipe! That's not art, that doesn't even make sense! It bothered me enough that later I went back to the book and saw that it was from a movement called "Dadaism." Looking that up in the family encyclopedia, I found out that it was a satire of art, and as a kid raised on MAD magazine, I immediately was intrigued. I looked at the picture that accompanied the article: a clothes iron with carpet tacks soldered to the base. It was titled "The Gift." And I laughed. I'd been given useless gifts like that myself! Like a belt buckle, with no belt attached. That's like giving a Jiffy Lube gift certificate to someone who doesn't own a car.
      I became a big fan of Dada. 20 years ago, there was a traveling exhibition of Dadaist works at the Hartford Atheneum, and I knew that I wasn't going to get a chance to see this stuff, for real and up close, ever again. I stood and stared at some of the first and most famous creations of Dada, such as the aforementioned Ceci n'est pas une Pipe (it's not a pipe, it's a painting of a pipe!) and Fountain, Duchamps "sculpture" of a urinal. It was art because he signed his name to it. That's hilarious.
      But was there another, unnoticed level to the joke?

The influence of Duchamp's readymades on 20th-century art is incalculable. Without Duchamp, would Jasper Johns have painted flags and targets? Would Andy Warhol have made his Brillo boxes? Would there be any Conceptual Art at all?
Well, take a deep breath and imagine art without the readymade. Last month, Art News reported that Rhonda Roland Shearer, an artist, had been trying for two years to prove that Duchamp's readymades are not really mass-produced objects. She thinks he altered or made them all, then cunningly covered up the evidence to create a time-release surprise.
To Ms. Shearer, this is like discovering that ''there was no historical Jesus."
...There is more: the bird cage is too squat for a real bird, the iron hooks in the photograph of the coat rack appear to bend in an impossible position, the French window opens the wrong way, the bottle rack has an asymmetrical arrangement of hooks and the urinal is too curvaceous to have come from the Mott Iron Works, where Duchamp said he bought it.

6/4

      SCI-FI DIALOGUE, QUITE A BIT SCINTILLATING
Miyamoto: Nothing beats a good hot bath! How did they know where to drill for water on the moon, Captain?
Captain Sano: This isn’t water, it’s man-made.
Miyamoto: What’s the difference?
Captain Sano: Quite a bit.
--The X From Outer Space (1967)

      DEAR ASK DJ:
      DJ, I am a kitten, newly adopted. The human lets me sleep in his bed, but I don't know the proper protocol! How should I act?--signed, Dewormed but not DeWorried

      Dear Deworried: If your person lets you sleep in the bed, he must really like you! So you just like him back! Sleep close to him! No, closer than that! CLOSER! You must feel bare skin on your fur!
      Have you ever heard a human say "Boy, that guy's feet smell!"? Obviously, if human feet can smell, then the feet must be where their noses are! Yes, I know it's strange, but they wear "clothes" and have "jobs," so anything is possible! So if the only bare skin you can find is his face, feel free to cover his mouth and nose-looking thing with your body! It may tickle him a bit, which is why by the end of the night, he'll end up almost falling off the other side of a king-sized bed.
      Humans do not know how to properly clean themselves. I have not seen this rumored "shower" that they take, so it must be a myth. Imagine you or me willingly going into WATER! Help them when they sleep by showing them how it's done properly. Lick them with your wonderfully raspy sandpaper tongue! The nose-like thing is good, as our tongues are excellent exfoiliants. Don't forget the lips! ESPECIALLY clean the lips! The tingle means it's working!--yours, DJ

      Tuesday, DJ would run every time I opened the bedroom door, until he was sure it was me. Wednesday he'd be waiting for me to come in and play with him. This morning, BANG, out he ran into the Outside World. As his foster mom told me, he's very fast and hard to catch. And it went over SWELL. Angry hissing and vicious growling from the others. I don't know whom I was more disappointed with; Byron, for acting like Killsy did when he was a kitten, while DJ acted like he did then, just wanting to be friends with the older cat, or Kill Kill, who, unsatisfied with hissing, walked right up and took a swing at the poor guy. Everytime I'd open the door, out he'd bolt out and the dramarama began anew. I hung my trenchcoat over the door knob to slow him down, put him on the far side of the bed, then ran for the door. Which wouldn't close! What a time for it get stuck! And stuck on, what? I looked down, and there was DJ, getting squished. (don't worry; he's fine)

      I did one of the things that I didn't do yesterday and went to Up. I saw something horrifying in the parking lot: 3 empty school buses. I made sure to ask before I bought my ticket, but no, they were about to leave (in retrospect I assume that they saw a special screening of Earth). I saw it in 3D--why not, as there were 4 times as many showings as the 2D. I got to spend $11.75 for a matinee (or not; I used a gift card I got on my birthday), and was treated to 10 minutes of ads. Ads for what? Got me, I've already forgotten! Nice waste of your money, cinema advertisers!
      The ads were followed by a preview for a pretty dire and unfunny-looking Eddie Murphy picture (wow--unfunny Eddie Murphy comedy, there's a surprise!) and then a bunch of 3D trailers. Maybe if they had made those ads in 3D, I would've remembered them. And save your money. 3D is a joke unless the whole movie is planned for 3D, as the trailer for Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was (what, there were mammals first, then dinosaurs? Is their target audience Creationists who view the Flintstones as a documentary?).
      Up was pretty good. But pretty good Pixar is better than 99% of movies, so I can live with that. The plot arc was no surprise, but it was fun and exciting, and even touching in the wordless montage near the beginning.
      You could wait until the DVD, but if you love you some Pixar, you might want to see it on the big screen. In 2D. If you see only one movie this year with a broadsword versus senior walker fight, let it be this one!

      When DJ purrs as he's eating (and he purrs no matter what he does), his last 3 swallows sound almost exactly like "yum yum yum!"

6/5

      FUNNY, WE WOULD HAVE PICKED MUSSOLINI
Radio host Richard Bacon: What artist had a blue period?
Contestant: Stalin?

6/6

      THE DONALD, GREAT GEOPOLITICAL INSIGHTS FROM
You know, the one thing I sorta liked was what they were saying about Iran. I believe you have to go in and strike Iran—not with soldiers. You know, it’s not a world of soldiers anymore. It’s a world of air. It’s a world of different kinds of, you know, we’ve changed.
--businessman Donald Trump, on a speech by President George W. Bush

      DJ was still wide awake after 4 hours of the World Outside the Bedroom last night, which is a long time for a kitten. I picked him up to bring him into the bedroom. He squirmed a bit, then rolled on his back in my arms, purring estactically.
      Did you ever have a day as a little kid that was the most fun imaginable? You ran and played and laughed and never wanted it to ever end, but eventually it had to. You kept talkling about it excitedly all the way home, your brain still racing ahead of your exhausted body. You protested going to bed, but you were asleep almost as soon as you were tucked in, and the last thing you said before sleep was "That was the best day ever!" and you said that because it was true?
      That was the look in DJ's eyes as I laid him down. He was off to Dreamland almost immediately.

      Today was the first full day of Outside. He'll go into the closed bedroom with me tonight, and will prly briefly go back when I go to the Farmer's Market tomorrow, but after that, no doors. He got hissed at a lot today. Less and less from Killsy, but just as much from Byron. His deafness is working against him again; he looks around for DJ, but always scans the floor, not hearing him as another cat would. And so he never knows when DJ will pop up right next to him. DJ spent all day approaching the cats with a complete "HEY YOU LOOK REALLY COOL I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND!!!" attitude, then retreating when they hissed. Or in Byron's case, gargrissed. His normal meow is the dreaded hi-decibel Byron Siren, so his deaf-cat hiss is a growl mixed with a hiss with a weird gargling noise at the end, like something out of a horror movie. DJ knows when to back off, but not when to stop. He's persistent, and persistence can win in the end.

      Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

6/7

      WE’RE NOT QUITE FOLLOWING THIS
That’s the first time I’ve seen a Haslam on a black Ducati since his father Ron rode a black Norton.
--racing commentator Barry Nutley

      You know the old saying: "Nature abhors a vacuum, yet strangely Nature never vacuums whores."
      Looking at that, maybe only half of that is an old saying. Maybe the rest came from that unfortunate incident when I was beaten with a Hoover by a hooker, I'm not sure.
      At any rate, where there is a need, someone will rush in and fill that need, or possibly throw an ElektrikBroom at it: You can move your Geocities site to a German free webhoster called JimDo. Nothing I would use, given that I pay for a site already. But the interface is "type your url and click send," so if your grandma or such has an old Geo site, it certainly looks like a viable option.

      I think tomorrow I may leave DJ with the other cats when I go to Kev's. It seems unlikely that they'll think "Human's been gone for over an hour! Byron, use your thumbs to open the window and we'll throw DJ out! "YEAH! And when the human's back, we'll just say that he was stolen by dingos!" "Dingos. On the third floor." "...Dingos...with jet packs?" "*sigh* Byron, it'd be best if I did the meowing, 'kay?"
      We'll prly see Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! finally. We'll either get pizza, or maybe Kev will make some barbecue chicken on his grill! If he does, I'll say "Hold the diapers."

6/8

      NO GO IN LIFT
NO MEAL IN LIFT
NO DRINKS IN LIFT
NO SPIT IN LIFT
WHEN DOOR CLOSE NO JUMP IN LIFT
DAMES BE CAREFUL GO IN LIFT ALONE
NO PRESS NO BUTTON ONLY FLOOR TO GO
--sign in a Spanish elevator

      I found out why the lava lamp was low on water (yes, I looked it up; it just has water in it, not radioactive cyanide e.coli vomit): the top is loose, so it was from evaporation. I didn't find this out by watching its insides turn to vapor. I found this out 2 hours after placing it on its side on the floor "for safety, so no cat knocks it over." Kevin used to brew his own beer, and has a bottler gadget, so it should be easy to fix.

      DJ purrs over everything, but he's been to the vet before and has had shots and blood tests, so when we went for his rabies shot today, I expected his happy demeanor to change. Nope! He purred so much that the vet couldn't hear his heartbeat. She apologized for what she was to do, then blew in his face to stop him. But he kept right on going. "Time for Plan B!" she said, and turned the faucet on. He only discovered the shower yesterday, but he certainly had a bath at some point, so he stopped. His heartbeat was fine, as I could attest from this morning, when in bed he laid on my left ear and purred for 5 minutes, then stopped, and I heard his little ticker lub-dubbing away. He really stopped purring when she gave him his dose of heartworm medicine. "It's banana flavored!" she said. No wonder he didn't like it. He may act like a crazy monkey, but that doesn't mean he eats like one. Try tuna flavor next time. He got it on his nose, his feet, and somehow the cat carrier, which he wasn't even in.
      He didn't get his rabies shot. This is because he has to be 12 weeks old, not 11 weeks, 5 days (no, seriously). He gets to go back next week, but they waived the office visit fee. He got a Free Parting Gift, a Science Diet starter pack. A 1-lb bag of dry kitten food, 2 cans of wet food, a spiral-bound book and a DVD, both of which will remain unused. It's kitten #3, I know the rules by now.
      When we got home, both Killsy and Byron hissed and growled in agitation. I think that they thought I'd brought him to Customer Service to demand a refund.
      I left for the state park for 45 minutes, the only time all 3 had been left alone. Everything was fine on my return. So when I go to Kev and Meg's tonight, he'll stay out. This is the only extended time I'll be gone before I go back to work, so this is the big test. I think we'll all pass.

6/9

      FANTASTIC, YES; PROBABLE, NO
Laura, you gotta meet Man-mo-han Singh from India. It’s a democracy with the largest Muslim population in the world, and you know what, there is not a single member of al-Qaeda among them. Isn’t that fantastic?
--President George W. Bush, after bumping into India’s prime minister at an official lunch in Moscow, as quoted in the Financial Times (thanks to Lorne Christensen)

      I'm surprized that I was able to eat as much as I could, given that a hour before I'd seen Unusual Canned Foods from Around the World. There's a few you may have seen before, like the cheeseburger-in-a-can that made the rounds a few years back, but almost all of these are new to me. An InExOb once mentioned the potential horror of whole canned chicken, and now you can see the horror made real. And I hope that's the "good" cholesterol in those canned pig brains.

      It only took 25 years of trying, but yesterday I saw Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! I can see why it's a cult classic. It's ludicrously over the top, with screaming sports cars, male characters that are either insane or wimps, and women with long histories of lower back pain:

      The dialogue is so overwrought that it almost seems like it's deliberate. IMDB has a page of quotes, but if they included every insane line that no human would ever utter, it'd just be the whole script. There's nobody in it who can't act, just nobody that should. It's a good thing that there's no scenery, as it would be completely chewed by the end of each shot. It's a cheap movie, so cheap that you expect that the close-ups of the "chickies" driving the cars to just be them sitting there while somebody shakes the motionless car. But there's enough shots of their hair blowing in the wind the exact wrong way that you have to wonder how intentional the unintentional humor is.
      It's trash, nobody behaves like anyone would in real life, and basically every character in it is no smarter than the next closest rock. But it is never boring. In fact, it's very entertaining, and that's the best thing that you can say about a movie. I'd say "See it! " but good luck unless you want to buy it. I'm lucky to know someone who can download these things. I may have waited a quarter century to see it, but I don't need to see it again.

      What., 3 days since a kitten pic? What's wrong with me!
      Before DJ arrived, Byron kindly ripped a hole in the shade I draw at night in the computer room. DJ has been most happy to enlarge it.

      I am not sure which end of the kitten is facing which way here.

      Unlike Killsy, who has long since learned to ignore the camera, or Byron, who never heard me using it, in the above pic DJ woke up from a silly position and made himself presentable. Dang it!
      This post took a long time to type! Not because of any deep thoughts, as it was mostly about me buying dinner, but because Mr DJ today discovered that I have a lap. Due to my anti-ergonomically designed pre-computer-era desk, my lap is where my mousepad is, on a book. And anyone with a cat knows that it is psychologically impossible to remove a sleeping feline from your lap without the house, and yourself, being on fire. Eventually he just went schlump to the side of the chair.

      He's currently sleeping on my foot. I may never be able to leave this chair again.

6/10

      PHEW, THAT’S A RELIEF
ATLANTIC COAST TO REMAIN
--headline in The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)

      Jörg Schwarz had recently said "I will die before I eat another turnip!" But that was the entirety of his current options. Another turnip, or death.
       He could butcher the 2 cows. That last chicken dinner was delicious, but now he missed the eggs. What would his family do without the milk? Or the cheese, he thought, if anyone had the time to wait for cheese. Maybe when it was finally over, there'd be time for cheese.
      He did not consider himself a simple man, although he was. He had no time for anything but the farm. And his family. And the pub, back then. He had the time to do this modern "voting" then, but it seemed like such a waste of time. And he must've been right. There was no voting, not since the current government had been voted in. He had saved time after all.
      Turnips were all that would grow, and that's all his family had left to eat. All the family he had left, now that Dietrich had died in Russia, Klaus in Africa, and Karl! Just 14 years old, and just drafted to fight someone somewhere. Jörg knew he'd be the next to be drafted. And what then of his wife Lotte, and tiny Rebekka? Eating turnips as I die, he thought bitterly. He was glad to be in the fields, not listening to the radio at home. He bought it to hear music, but for years it had been "The thieving Jews! The subhuman Reds! The race-traitors of the West!" He had believed it once.
      When the government changed, the markets became full again. Now--were they empty, or were they destroyed? The Americans destroyed any trains they saw, so maybe the food was left to those lucky enough to escape the bombings. At least I'm in the country, he thought. The British bomb the scheisse out of every city at night, too cowardly to bomb in the daylight. He'd seen warplanes just once, when he went to that party rally before the war. He pointed at a Heinkel bomber and cried to his wife, "Maybe that's the one our boy Wolf is on!" Wolf had died heroically, he was told, over England. He was still proud of him.
      But not so proud that he wouldn't rather have him here on the farm.
      He pulled up a turnip. We will survive another day, he thought. The bell on one of the cows began to ring, then the other. What was frightening them? A hum came from above, then became a rumble, then a scream.

      From the clouds tore a squadron of fighters. Americans! Jörg fell to the dirt, clutching the turnip. He wasn't sure whether his life or his turnip he valued more at the moment. And the planes, in a seemingly endless line, rushed in grim, remorseless determination eastward.
      Towards Berlin, he thought. He stood up as the endless line raced above, turnip in hand. The last plane in the line dipped its wings, and the young pilot waved and smiled. Jörg waved back, then caught himself and stopped. What if someone had seen him? Then he realized that in his mind, he'd been waving at Wolf, his eldest child so long dead. He watched the last plane until it disappeared, then listened until the roar of the engines was replaced by silence.
      He calmly walked to his house, his wife and daughter still hiding in the basement. He placed the turnip on the kitchen table. Then he pulled the plug of the radio from the wall.

      Umm, okay, I was just inspired a bit. It's really a picture of a hummingbird. I think my version is better.

      Byron suddenly decided that DJ was tolerable last night. Today, he actually played with him. Repeatedly. He even grabbed one of his old crow feathers while DJ was in my lap, played with it, looked at DJ, then left the room. And immediately came back and played some more, then left. He did this 2 more times, stopping only when DJ took the bait and followed him. No growling or hissing ensued. *whew!* And this my last day of vacation!
      Killlsy likes her tiny Heineken box. Killsy likes to sleep with her head smushed against the inside of the box. The box is green.

      So is Killsy's forehead.

6/11

      LIKE, NO KIDDING
There was just a study done actually, I saw it on Regis and Kelly. I can’t remember how many hours a year a person uses being in their car in L.A., but it’s, like, a lot of time.
--actress Kate Bosworth

6/12

      JOBS WE’D LOVE TO APPLY FOR
Physiotherapist required for orthopedic rehab clinic. $80,000/hour
--actual classified ad

      He's learning.

6/13

      RAT COMPLAINTS, BRIGHT SIDE OF
Rat complaints have gone up, but we look at that as a positive thing, because more people know how to contact us now.
--New York City complaints hotline bureaucrat

      I was sorting empty cans at work when I saw some guy, obviously from one of the plaza's restaurants due to his apron, pushing a wheelbarrow to the dumpster with two beyond-dead shrubs in it. They were so brown that if someone flicked a lit cigarette butt into one it'd be instant napalm, but with a refreshing pine scent.
      Since Saturday is always Redemption Day, 10 minutes later I was sorting more cans when I saw the same guy taking the bushes out of the dumpster and wheeling them back.
      I don't have a funny line about this, because I have no idea what the hell this meant. Maybe they were going to replant the bushes and hope for insurance money from arson.

6/14

      SAY THAT AGAIN, PLEASE?
People’s perception of a chairman’s job is not the same as they think it is.
--Dave Edwards, Radio 5 Live (UK)

      Beause I loves me the Dollar Tree, $25 at the Dollar Tree. Gets funnier as it goes along. Slime Egg, wow, what a great toy.
      (If the article inspires you to go to Dollar Tree, remember that I need a Hot Wheels Speed Racer Snake Oiler with Jump Jacks, and a Grey Ghost with Saw Blades. I'm willing to pay TWICE what you'll pay for each for them!)

      One of those sites you should read every week, but here's this week's if you don't: Stupid Comics asks "Did you ever wonder...?" Complete with Archie bukkake.

6/15

      THINGS WE SUSPECT MS. JOHNSON WOULDN’T WANT ANNOUNCED IN THE CHURCH BULLETIN
Ms. Johnson will be entering the hospital this week for testes.
--church bulletin listing

6/16

      STATEMENTS, SUPERFLUOUSLY STUPID
Willy Harris will bat for himself this inning.
--Red Sox announcer Jerry Remy (thanks to Dave Boudreaux)

      He's BOTH!
      Surprisingly, Byron watched him, them found some of his remaining nip and rolled in it. He did it again later, when he found DJ's stash. Killsy, of course, will have no truck with such juvenile antics, except to watch the silly ones embarass themselves. These kids today, she no doubt thinks.
      So, LTRoTD, you know Killsy and Byron's net-famous "cute kitten pictures" so well that I won't repeat them here. Is this DJ's?

6/17

      YES, I BE ONE
From Canaima, through the Sabana, the Jungle and the rivers Carrao & Churun, you’ll enjoy one of the biggets emotions of this life. All the facilities Camp. Guides as natives, all experts, will bring you trough troubles waters, just where a few have made it. Be you one of them.
--from a Venezuelan travel brochure

      I Regret Nothing has the worst product on TV. I left my reaction in the comments, but really, watch the ad first and decide for yourself.

      Oh, the vet said that the general rule for kitten weight is that they gain a pound a month. At 3 months, DJ is 4 pounds. Likelihood that he becomes a moose: pretty high.

6/18

      THAT’S WHY THEY PACK QUITE A PUNCH
Big Quiz host Gary King: What is the main ingredient of a Molotov cocktail?
Contestant: Vodka?

      Messed-Up Bible Stories. These are pretty funny, and get funnier as the episodes continue. For years I've been making the same remark about those who believe that Noah's Ark is literally true--how did they get the kangaroos?

6/19

      VIDEO GAME DIALOGUE, A MACING
Your Head a Splode!!!!!!!!!!!
--from the video game Homestar Runner, spoken upon player’s defeat (thanks to Cameron Williams)

Ralph Wiggum: Me fail English? That's unpossible!

6/20

      WARNINGS, EXCESSIVELY LOGICAL
Warning label on a bottle of aspirin:
DO NOT TAKE IF ALLERGIC TO ASPIRIN.

6/21

      FASCINATING INSIGHTS INTO FATHERHOOD
The best thing about being a father is my children.
--Britney Spears’s ex, Kevin Federline (thanks to Jon Fuller)

6/22

      JUST THE EVERYDAY NECESSITIES
HUSSEY’S
MAINE’S LARGEST GENERAL STORE
Guns, Bibles
Wedding Gowns
Cold Beer
--sign outside a store in Windsor, Maine

"After his resurrection by the Cosmic Cube, the Hate-Monger was now a being of pure energy that could take on any form he wished, and his H-Ray powers were now his own. He was able to regenerate from most wounds and could fire laser-like beams from his eyes.
"As Hitler, the Hate Monger was also a cunning strategist and a charismatic leader, and able to incite fanatical loyalty to him through his rhetoric and persuasive personality. He is a good hand-to-hand combatant, and has apparently received some training in physical combat. He also had some talent in painting."

      I Needed A Job, And Xenu Was Hiring

      I know that you really only came here in hope of another cat picture, so here's that photogenic boy again!

      Even DJ is thinking "DANG that's a big foots!"

6/23

      WEATHER FORECASTS, MILDLY CONFUSING
The Dallas Metroplex area may be experiencing some mild severe weather tomorrow.
--weatherman, NBC-TV, Dallas (thanks to Ethan Morning)

6/24

      WE’RE NOT QUITE FOLLOWING THIS
The only thing which isn’t up for grabs is no change and I think it’s fair to say, it’s all to play for, except for no change.
--Assembly Member Rhodri Morgan, First Minister for Wales

45s 99 cents
8 tracks 99 cents

6/25

      GOLF PLAYERS, PUNGENT
Tiger Woods has this aroma about him.
--golfer Ben Curtis, probably (hopefully!) meaning to say “aura” (thanks to Steven Suchy)

      Just because everyone loves kitten pics...

6/26

      SENIOR CITIZENS, GHOULISH
SENIORS TO TOUR MORGUE, EAT RIBS
--headline in the Birmingham (Michigan) Eccentric

6/27

      WOW, EBAY MEETS EVERYONE'S NEEDS
EXORCISER EQUIPMENT
--eBay auction for exercise equipment

What's the news coverage exchange rate on human life? How many dead Afghanis, Iraqis and Iranians does it take to equal one Ed McMahon?

Impossible. You can't compare the ineffable uniqueness of an individual white celebrity to the cookie-cutter, they-all-look-the-same-to-me-ness of brown people who never laughed at terrible jokes in front of millions, had their hinted-at nipple reproduced infinitely, or entirely changed the shape of their head music videos. After all, family-supporting has never been as important to the media as entertaining.

And don't try to say Michael Jackson wasn't white the last decade or so. Or that I'm not in a terrible mood that sees me living up to my name.

      Why Are We Here? Funny, but funnier if you've ever read a Jack Chick tract.

      The next wave of movies inspired by 1980s toys:

Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | More Video Clips

6/28

      THANKS, BUT NO THANKS
ATTENTION
BECAUSE WE DO NOT HAVE A TISSUE ALWAYS READY IN THIS RESTROOM, PLEASE BUY A USED ONE.
--sign in a restroom, Kyoto, Japan

6/29

      THAT’S A RELIEF!
Q: Have you had any injuries to your head?
A: None fatal.
--actual courtroom testimony between District Attorney Elvis Presley and witness Michael Jackson, the Honorable Judge Judy Loch Ness Monster nee Bigfoot presiding

6/30

      TAKING DIVERSIFICATION A LITTLE TOO FAR
REBEL LUBE SERVICE CENTER
Free Earwash with Lube & Oil Change Only
--ad in a newspaper

      A few words:
      One thing that I've always done for Killsy is to whisper "Shh! Don't let your brother know!" While Byron was sleeping (although he wouldn't hear me if I'd screamed the words. I wanted Kays to know that these words were for her) I'd let her sneak "outside" to the common hallway, or sneak her some treats.
      Both boys were snoozing in sunbeams in the living room, while Kill Kill was in the main room with me. "Shh! Want some treats? Don't let your brothers know!" I said in strictest confidence. I quietly pulled the treat bag from the cabinet, as DJ hears perfectly, and...she walked with determination into the center of the living room. DJ woke up, then Byron did, and only then did she turn to me for her treats. The boys got some too, of course.
      Houston, I believe we have paradigm shift!
      Also, after a month of his life with us, DJ clearly does not meow. He squeaks, creaks, chirps and brrrps? all the time though. When he jumps off something high, he hits the ground with a noise like old toy baby dolls once did. Eep!
      Now you should go back and look at that greatest cat picture EVER, and sing Sister Sledge's "We Are Family." "We are family! Byron, DJ, Killsy and me!"

7/1

      MAYORAL COMMENTS, UNTIMELY
I’m lost, but I’m making record time.
--Toronto mayor Allan Lamport

      The way to save money on groceries is to not impulse buy, and the way to not impulse buy is to make a shopping list and then only go to the aisles with the stuff on your list. I always have a mental list that I put together at work when things are slow. But things are never slow during the end-of-month buy-ins. I had a vague feeling that I'd forgotten something Monday when I shopped after work. As I was ringing myself up on the self-serv register, I noticed that someone had abandoned the coupons that the register prints out. I grabbed them; even if they were for something I wouldn't buy, at least they'd get recycled. Hey, $2 off of Purina One! I buy that! It wasn't until I got home and noticed that I'd forgotten to buy PURINA ONE CAT FOOD. It's the only kitten food Stop & Shop sells. It was the MAIN REASON I went there. Oh well, now I can save $2 when I have to go again!
      Today I had my new mental to-do list: drop off DJ's poopie sample at the vet, get a trial membership at BJ's warehouse, gas the car, get Purina One and a couple of other stuff at Stop & Shop, and...umm...park the car outside the garage so that I could put some power steering fluid and antifreeze into my leaky engine. Hmm, seems a step is missing there, don't remember what. Got home, parked and--GET ANTIFREEZE! Stop at AutoZone and get the damn antifreeze! The MAIN REASON that I parked outside! Why'd I only remember half? I'd like to blame it on being old, but I've always done this. Stupid brain of mine!
      Eh, who cares. I drive by the place every time I go to work, so I can get it tomorrow. Best of all, I have a happy family.

7/2

      BOOKS THAT PROBABLY WON’T MAKE THE BESTSELLER LIST
• Rhino Horn Stockpile Management: Minimum Standards and Best Practices from East and Southern Africa
• Ancient Starch Research
--actual book titles nominated for The Bookseller magazine’s oddest titles award

7/3

      TV SHOWS, LIBERAL
Seven Brides for Seven Sisters
--TV listing, ITV

She disappears forever: She’s sick of the spotlight. I highly doubt this; she hasn’t shut her moosetrap since the election ended. More likely, the skeletons in her closet are about to walk the earth as Palin-eating zombies, especially if there’s some lawyer-upping involved on her part.

If she disappears for a while and then comes back, it’s to try to become less obviously uninformed, possibly to actually read some of those “all of them” newspapers and magazines. And then:

Does the lecture circuit: She's begun fundraising. White House, here she comes! In her mind, anyway. "I solemnly swear to be the President until I totally get tired of it!" is a great campaign slogan.

Does the Sunday AM TV circuit: Wants to fill the vacuum left when Ann Coulter finally seemed too insane for general consumption. Unfortunately, she herself is a vacuum.

Does mainstream TV: Welcome the next Paula Abdul!

      I'm torn as to what I hope it is. Disappearing forever seems optimal for me right now, but her running in 2012 currently looks like it would be the most lopsided election since FDR vs Alf Landon, 1936.

7/4

      WE KINDA ALWAYS THOUGHT IT WAS A GIVEN
I’ve reminded the prime minister—the American people, Mr. Prime Minister—over the past months, that it was not always a given that the United States and America would have a close relationship.
--President George W. Bush

7/5

      WE THINK THAT’S BETWEEN DEUTERONOMY AND LEVITICUS
Kids Say the Darndest Things host Art Linkletter: What’s your favorite Bible story?
Young boy: Um—Humpty Dumpty.

7/6

      ATHLETIC ANALOGIES, VERMICULATE
He is the right player for them—he can open a can of worms.
--sports analyst Paul Merson

      Last week I got an email from the Coventry Farmer's Market titled "Blues and Brews." My first thought: Kev will want to go. Sure enough, his email was there, too. The first gorgeous day in a month, and FREE BEER! Who can resist?
      Me, in the future. 11AM is waaay too early to be drinking beer. Only about a full glass's worth, but it was all pretty potent. I wanted to get something to eat first, but was outvoted. One to three, by Cos, who later said that he regularly eats a lunch that includes 2 liters of beer (to Americans: half a gallon). Kev, Meg and me were a bit woozy afterwards. Good beer, though.
      After drinking, I beelined for the Indain booth and got a super-delicious veggie samosa, then we all went shopping. I bought the least. Some fine cheese, stuffed bread that looked like it would make 4 to 5 meals, that awesome garlic butter spread from Snooty Foods, some penuche-walnut fudge for the next time I get together with Jessica. That was all; farmer's market food is excellent, but expensive, so I eat it as slowly as possible, so I still have some slasa left over from last month. Everybody else bought a lot.
      Meg brought Penny, her Cavalier King Charles Toy Some Other Nouns Spaniel, who received lots of attention. "Was it wrong for me to give someone my [dog training] business card?" she asked me. HELL no! I said, get out there and network! I don't know if she'll get any business from it, but if she doesn't, all she's out is a card.
      We retired to Kevin's place for an hour, and I had to leave, as the beer was making my brain shut down. These losers banging on the liquor store doors for vodka at 8AM, how do they drink that early? Another hour, and I was asleep at 4PM for a 3-hour nap. As always, I awoke unrefreshed and dark-eyed and unbushy-tailed. I stumbled around for less than 3 more hours, then went asleep until GAHH! DJ attacking my face at dawn, out from the bedroom you GO, little scamp, so that I can sleep and GAAAAHHH! the fucking alarm already!
      I really enjoyed the trip, but next year, no beer.

      I realize that no one cares, but I managed to get 36.7MPG out of my dozen-year-old, 138,000-miles-plus Mercury Tracer this week. Put that in your overpriced, rollover-prone, no-resale-value SUV's tailpipe and smoke it.

7/7

      YES, WE OFTEN USE THE WORD “SPOI” (AND “PROH” FOR THAT MATTER)
The iTAP software combines your keypresses into common words and predicts each word as you enter it. For example, if you press [7] [7] [6] [4], your phone displays a list of suggestions for words such as prog, proh, and spoi.
--from a MOTOMANUAL, the instruction manual for a Motorola C139 GSM cell phone (thanks to Paul Brogger)

7/8

      NEWSPAPER CORRECTIONS, VITAL
Because of a telephone transcription error, an article yesterday about Mary Allison Graves, a lawyer, included an erroneous description. The first sentence should have begun, “Attorney Mary Allison Graves,” not “A tiny Mary Allison graves.”
Ms. Graves is 5 foot 7.

      "I am AGAINST recycling because--DAMN LIBERALS AND THEIR TREE HUGGING!"

      "Remember that "Turn off your lights for an hour" day? I turned all mine ON! I even ran the damn BLENDER for an hour! To prove that LIE-berals are GAY FAGS! Okay, all I really proved was how high I could drive up my electric bill in a single hour, but I was MAKING A VALID POINT! About, umm..."

      "THERE! DONE! NONE of this will be recycled! I'm going to throw it in my SUV and LITTER IT ALL! After SETTING IT ON FIRE! Again, I have proved...something important! TEA BAGS!"

      DJ, no! Please tell me that you're not a wingnut! You're sounding as crazy as Sarah Palin!

      "wink YOU BETCHA!"

7/9

      THANKS FOR EXPLAINING IT, DR.
Never let me slip, cause if I slip, then I’m slippin.
--rapper Dr. Dre (“Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang”)

7/10

      FUNNY, WE DON’T FEEL THAT SAFE
Fire! It is what we can doing we hope. No fear. Not ourselves. Say quietly to all people coming up down everywhere a prayer. Always is a clerk. He is assured of safety by expert men who are in the bar for telephone for the fighters of the fire come out.
--notice posted in the hallways of a Florence, Italy, hotel

7/11

      MOVIE EXECS, NOT SO PRESCIENT
Reagan doesn’t have that presidential look.
--United Artists executive, rejecting actor Ronald Reagan as the lead for the 1964 film The Best Man

7/12

      CLICHÉS, BIRD-BRAINED
He’ll give you the bird’s eye view straight from the horse’s mouth.
--radio host John McCauley (Clyde 2, UK)

      If you didn't click on the mission statement link, here's the truly awesome picture that accompanies it:

      A Roman legionary, a nun, a hooker, a bride, an alien, Queen Elizabeth II, the rainbow-wigged JOHN 3:16 guy, and--Neil Armstrong?!
      But where's Waldo?

7/13

      NO NEED TO BE NASTY
GIRL COMPETES WITH HOGS AT FAIR
--headline in The (Kinston, N.C.) Free Press

7/14

      JUST WHERE ARE YOU?
After the first Update, I was so stressed. When it was over with, I thanked Lorne. I was like, “This is the coolest thing ever.” It’s such a rush, man. Because I’m wearing a suit, for God’s sake. I don’t have any suits! I don’t! I’ve got to wear suits now. So I wear suits and talk about the White House and all that stuff. It’s cool. Then De Niro came on. It’s just fun. It’s absolutely fun. I’m peaking soon. It’s got to peak, because otherwise I’ll go insane, and then where are you?
--comedian Jimmy Fallon, talking about his anchorman character on Saturday Night Live

7/15

      THERE’S A PROBLEM HERE
Oh, I’m 110% now, but I have a long way to go.
--North Carolina women’s basketball player Ivory Latta, after being asked how she was recovering from an injury (thanks to Dan Sherwood)

7/16

      THE PENTAGON HAS A WORD (OR TEN) FOR IT
water intrusion....flooding
combat replacement evacuator ...shovel
portable, hand-held communications inscriber....pencil
--Pentagon definitions

      Of course, I didn't slave away on the defunct page all the time. I still found time for 2 DVDs a week. I just looked over my old Netflix queue, and wow, I haven't mentioned movies for a while. So long that i've forgotten why I liked them or didn't. So I guess I'll just briefly mention this week's flicks.
      The Taking of Pelham One Two Three--no, not the needless remake and latest Travolta-bomb, but the original, that every negative review of the remake spoke of in terms aglow. I had a very, very vague memory of seeing the fucking TV edit of this fucking movie, where I assume that every other goddamn fucking word was "gosh," given the F-bombardment of the original. And worth its rep, as there wasn't a single dull second. And it was exciting and funny, while still always being plausible.
      While at BJ's Warehouse using my trial membership, all the big BluRay TVs showed some anime with lots of airplanes shooting at each other. That was all there was to the trailer, just aerial dogfights. I only knew it was anime because there'd be the brief shot of some mopey wide-eyed dude moping. "By the director of Ghost in the Shell: The Sky Crawlers" is what it was.
      And Crawl it fucking did. It looked like someone made 15 minutes of crazy plane-on-plane shooting action, and was told, "We'll buy your footage! Now turn 15 minutes of shooting up shit into a 2 hour movie. And be done by the end of the month."
      I have never seen a movie that consisted of so many scenes of people staring into space, or at walls, or at each other with unlit cigarettes dangling from their mouths, or into the sky at the clouds. I think that I've hit my personal limit on such films. Maybe cats would like it; they sure love staring at nothing. But just as I was about to turn it off, I went all "NO, Movie! You will not beat me! I will beat YOU, Movie!" and vowed to subject myself to some Deep Hurting.
      The "plot" would take more time to type about than actually occured in the movie. You have no idea what's going on until 90 minutes in--a LONG time to watch people stare at the drapes, mind you--and when they tell you the actual PLOT, then it's LOL timez naow! Apparently, giant corporations have started an endless war because--I may be misremembering the exact quote, because I was laughing so hard--"If there isn't endless war, no one can appreciate PEACE!" Who wrote this, Cheney and Rumsfeld after reading half a sentence of 1984? If the war is supposed to keep the populace satisifed in some way, why does everyone, the pilots fighting it and the public watching it on TV, not care? If they don't care, why should I? Why do characters get introduced continuously, then drop out the film after doing nothing but staring at each other? Why is the Deadly Enemy Ace even in the movie, as we learn nothing about him? "OH NO! It's DARTH VADER! He shot down that guy, and now he's going to...fly away. Okay. See ya, Vader!"
      The other Big Reveal--in the last TWENTY minutes of a 2 hour (very) long movie is that the pilots are "Kildren." Umm, they're always teenagers, they're clones (I guess), they can live forever but they remember nothing but they're born with the skillz of their last dead clone, but none of the personal memories, so they all become fighter pilots, except for the ones who don't. This is the type of thing I would've come up with at 14, when I'd just started reaing a lot of science fiction. Something that made no sense. Why would you build this massive infrastructure building and storing immrotal clones who know THIS part of their memory, but not THAT part, just so that they could be shot the fuck down by the Baron vader Richtoffen in his PROP PLANE? Why not invent the fucking JET ENGINE? Why not invent drones? Why not take your IMMORTAL tweeners and let them remember everything they've learned, and thus become the greaest sages and geniuses of the ages? Wow, Newton and Copernicus and Darwin and Einstein are still alive, listening to the music Mozart did in his latest collaboration with JS Bach and John Lennon! Hendrix on guitar, Paganini on violin!!
      NAH. Make 'em cannon fodder! But don't worry; these questions won't bother you, as you won't begin to think about them until the last 30 minutes. Three quarters of the movie you'll just be staring at a TV while the characters stare at walls and fold newspapers. Repeatedly fold newspapers. What, you think that's a joke?
      Tap, tap newspaper. Fold, fold newspaper. Crease, crease newspaper. Tap, tap newspaper. Repeatedly. Every second of newspaper folding action, carefully and meticulously shown. THREE DIFFERENT TIMES.
      I HOPE THAT WASN'T A SPOILER.

7/17

      NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY!
Chef: You can make this with any sort of nuts or mixture of nuts is really good as well, and they keep for ages. But I doubt if they’ll be around for long.
Female TV reporter: So while you go for the break, I’m going to have a nibble of Chris’s nuts.
--live spot on a nightly news show

7/18

      HAIRS, SPLITTING
CNN White House correspondent Ed Henry: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said dead or alive, we’re going to get him. Still don’t have him. I know you are saying there’s successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That’s a failure.--
Homeland Security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend: Well, I’m not sure —it’s a success that hasn’t occurred yet.

      SHAWT:
      Joann: Can I see your ID, please?
      (very young female turns away, silence)
      (question is repeated, girl looks at pimply-faced boy, question is repeated)
      BOY: Yeah, I’m me.
      Joann: Well, hi, how are you? Can I see your ID?
      (silence, question is repeated)
      BOY: I wouldn’ta come in here if I had no ID!
      WOW, you’ve completely found the ONLY FLAW in our system! Oh, let me buy your booze FOR you, to make it up! (QUESTION IS REPEATED)...
      He eventually showed ID, and was of age. After the douchebag left, Joann was still mad. To relieve the tension, I said “I would’ve told him ‘The only reason I’m carding you is because of your horrible acne there, Pizza Face.’ That would’ve defused the situation. Then I would’ve offered him a paper towel and said ‘You got some leakers going on, Volcano Range.’”
      I can say that because I had acne. In high school. And you can’t be all huffy about being carded when you have the skin of a 15 year old. And especially when you have the personality of a totally obnoxious asshole.
      If you card someone who is of age, you can always tell they are because they smile, and if they’re old enough, get positively excited. The surly assholes are the youngest ones. I once had someone do the same “Old enough to drink like an adult, nowhere near old enough to act like one” routine once. When she finally coughed her ID up (after I played my trump card, “I can’t sell to you then”), she barked “Don’t I LOOK 21?!” And she was 21. 21 and ten days old

7/19

      CHURCHES, NOT WARM AND FUZZY
The church will host an evening of fine dining, superb entertainment, and gracious hostility.
--church bulletin listing

      I had to go through a word verification yesterday, and the "word" was "haculculhu." That's the sound an Elder God's giant tentacled cat would make as it hacked up a hairball. A hairball made of human scalps, of course.

7/20

      LAWYERS, UNCONSCIOUS
At any period of time when you lost consciousness or don’t remember what happened, did you see the car change direction or speed?
--lawyer asking witness a question, in an actual courtroom transcript

      7/20/69 was the latest I'd ever been allowed to stay up--I think there might've been the promise to see in the New Year and watch the ball drop at Times Square more than once, but my parents promised that knowing their kids would be dead asleep by then, not just from the time but the flat-out boredom. But that night I outlasted all of my 3 younger sisters, because ASTRONAUTS in SPACE!!! That was second on my Best Things Ever list at age 10, falling just behind dinosaurs (and slightly above newspaper comic strips, especially Peanuts). The Eagle had landed!
      We watched it on CBS, with Walter Cronkite, because, sheesh, who else would you watch? I was told that I made it to about 1130 when they carried my sisters to bed, and I followed and kept saying in amazed disbelief, "There are PEOPLE on the MOON!"
      The next day I looked at the Moon and said the same thing to mysef, in a tone of awe and wonder. I did it every mission right up through Apollo 17, when I was otherwise a jaded teenager. People, up there, right now, on the Moon. That sense of wonder and awe has never left me. We live on a tiny speck of dust that random chance let form in an orbit at just the right point for us to evolve from cyanobacteria to something that can appreciate the near-endless Universe that lies beyond us, should we care to look.
      Not that dinosaurs aren't still cool, mind you.
      What Apollo means to me by the Bad Astronomer.

      Byron's looking out the back window now. Looking into space, with his siblings nearby. We'll have to see how his extravehicular activity last night has affected his new desire for solitude.

7/21

      WE’RE SORRY BUT IT WAS THE LARGE WE WERE INTERESTED IN
EACH SPECIAL COMES WITH SMALL DINK.
--ad for sandwich specials at a café in Vancouver, British Columbia

      I left as soon as I got home because I went over to Kev's to see the Watchmen: Director's Cut. I was...not as enthusiastic as one might expect. Even if I like a movie, I prefer to wait a year to see it again, so that I forget most of it, and I'd seen Watchmen just 3 months ago. And if it wasn't long enough, it had an extra half hour added!
      It did? Not that we could see. Maybe 12 minutes, tops. Was there an 18 minute blooper reel during the credits? The scenes that were added were all useless, except for the murder of a character, unseen in the theatrical version. Tellingly, I sorta liked it, Kev really hated it, so that was probably why it wasn't in the movie. But when your blockbuster movie doesn't make its money back, you have to sell it as best you can on DVD--maybe by getting its fans to buy it twice. The Indian food we had was good though.

7/22

      OH, COME ON, TRY US
Just to keep the record straight, it was the famous Whistler’s Mother, not Hitler’s, that was exhibited in the recent meeting of the Pleasantville Methodists. There is nothing to be gained in trying to explain how the error occurred.
--from The Titusville (Pennsylvania) Herald

7/23

      FRUIT ADVERTISING, PRETTY BAD
TODAY’S FEATURE: APPLES THE SIZE OF GARBANZO BEANS
--sign outside Jim’s Fruit and Produce, Belle Plaine, Minnesota (thanks to Craig Downey)

      I suppose that this joke has been LOLCatted before, but I did it anyway.

      YES!!

7/24

      I THINK WE’RE MISSING SOMETHING HERE
The wet nurse wants rock candy to decoct papayas.
--English subtitle in a Hong Kong kung-fu movie

7/25

      WHAT ABOUT THE PHILOSOPHER’S MUFFIN?
Of all those who sought for the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher’s Scone, few passed through the chain of disappointments that beset Count Bernard of Treviso.
--text on the website Sacredtexts.com (which should have read “Philosopher’s Stone”)

7/26

      IMPORTANT SPORTS DISTINCTIONS FROM RICH SOCIALITES
My recipe for raising kids: I encourage my children to try new things. As much as I tell them they can do anything, I don’t want them to engage in pastimes that have no future. The other day, Ivanka came to me and said she wanted to enroll one afternoon in field hockey. I said, “Ivanka, that’s a boy’s sport. There’s no future in it for you.” If Ivanka wanted to do karate, fine. Field hockey she doesn’t need. Golf, I think, is a perfect sport, but fencing? I’d say, “Kid, don’t waste your time.” Ice skating is great exercise and it’s social. You won’t get many phone calls to play field hockey, but ice skating you can do in New York at the beautiful Wollman Rink in Central Park, which their father and I rebuilt during our marriage.
--socialite Ivana Trump, in her book The Best Is Yet to Come

7/27

      POETIC CLIMAXES, TEPID
And from the British battleships
a fierce cannonade did boom,
And continued from six in the morning till two o’clock in the afternoon.
And by the 26th of July the guns of Fort Moro were destroyed
And the French and Spaniards were greatly annoyed.
--from “The Capture of Havana” by William McGonagall, often termed the world’s worst poet (as collected in the book Very Bad Poetry)

7/28

      MAYBE YOU SHOULD WORK IT OUT A LITTLE MORE
Big Quiz game show host Steve Wright: An isosceles triangle has how many sides of equal length? It’s not three or four. How many?
Contestant: Hang on. I’m just working it out. [Pause] Eight.

7/29

      WE’LL DO MCDONALD’S TONIGHT INSTEAD
CABBAGES & CONDOMS RESTAURANT
--eatery in Khorat, Thailand

      DJ caught a housefly on the second attack! Previous kittens have tried, but Killsy could only regularly get those tiny white moths. Byron caught (and et, eww!) a housefly, that most elusive of prey, but it took him hours.
      And the kids are fine. Still some grumbling over DJ's sometimes clueless playtimes, including me at 5AM, but things are going good. I want to hook up my new printer, but Byron has decided it makes a fine bed, so I won't disturb him.
      Pictures may result soon, as I bought a battery to replace the now-dead one the camera's had since...(checks)...oh, I got it almost exactly 7 years ago. I guess that justifes the $10 the new one cost.

      Remember Nora The Piano Cat™? Well, here's the inevitable: someone wrote a classical concerto based around her (edited) solos. As a classical fan, I have to say that they did a very good job. Although it's unlikely to enter the repertoire.

      I know that there weren't any fans of my series UpChuck, and I've joined them. Sure, the guy's just gotten crazier (prove it to yourself!), but he's become crazy enough that he's become that guy at work who never ask about even the weather anymore. Because then he might start insisting that Obama isn't a mere "Socialist," whatever that word even means to that guy anymore, he's a Communist. Then he might rail against health care while pretending that insurance companies never use "pre-existing conditions" to exclude people from health care, only Democrats in their as-yet-unenacted health plan. In fact, he may actually claim that nobody should get health insurance at all:

      I read this one maybe 5 times over 3 weeks, and that's the only possible message I can get from it. Chuck's mad that Wal-Mart gives its employees too many benefits, a claim I've never heard from anybody outside of the Walton family before, and is horrified that he may be paying a few extra pennies on his Chinese-prison made shit to keep some stupid lower class person's children dying from the whooping cough, or whatever it is that peons die from these days. BIG GOV'T INSURANCE: Bad! CORPORATE INSURANCE: Bad! What does THAT leave? Rich people insurance?

      Yep, pretty much! This is another of Chuckles' themes of late. He's always done the "Will no one think of the RICH?!" before, but it's just become a weekly feature of his. He sure loves him the Upper 1% of the Economic Bracket. I really wonder how many papers outside of Scroogetopia run his cartoon. I imagine it runs in the Goldman-Sachs house organ.
      (Also: note how that Bush's bank bailout has, as I predicted, magically become something the DEMON-RATS did)
      Most bizarrely, Chuck has apparently decided that he's the President's "Science Czar"! Seriously, who else could that be writhing on the floor, speaking in tongues and ranting about shit only insane, super-fringe racist fundamentalists ever think are important, or even rational, or even exist, outside of their basement bunkers?

      Who thinks about "FORCED ABORTIONS" and "EUGENICS" and "WEED CONTROL PLANS" (??) outside of the guys who still think our water has flouride only because Stalin and his Jew Masters put it in there?
      UpChuck's like one cartoon away from showing Muslim Terrorist Obama's "birth certificate" being forged by the Elders of Zion.

      "BASEY say YEH! John Birch/Jack Chick for President in 2012!"

7/30

      SPEECHES, STIRRING CHURCHILLIAN
There are people who have spoken of this moment in history as if it were the 30s, and there are some parallels, I fear, there. People say the war in Iraq is comparable to the Spanish Civil War, and the war in Iraq, to the larger war against Islamist terrorism, comparable to the Spanish Civil War, to the Second World War, the late 30s and the failure to grasp the growing threat of fascism in Europe until it was almost too late. The painful irony of this moment in our history is that while in some senses it is comparable to the 1930s, it’s also already 1942. Because Pearl Harbor [9/11], in this war, has already happened.
--Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut) in a speech

      Just replace the first skulker with "COMMUNISTS" and the third with "JUDEN" and leave the middle skulker exactly the same, and you'd have a cartoon print-ready for the Völkischer Beobachter, circa 1936.
      Seriously--ACORN? Seriously, Chucklehead? Are they stealing your thoughts with their magic brain machines, and feeding them to their radio Frankenstein monster gods, to sell them to unsuspecting Christian children as pudding?
      Seriously, Chuck--when was the last time you left your house? Or the basement bunker?
      UpChuck's right, though--this would be a very different country if the press had done its job during the Iraq War runup, or the 2004 Diebold-won election, or treated climate change as anything but a joke, had cared about the bank bailout, or about a thousand other things, including the ones they still are ignoring in the now-disappeared years of 2001-2008...Very different, and so much better. Too bad they blew their investigative wads on Monica and all the other non-scandals of the Clinton years, so that they were so tired that they could only tongue Dubya's asshole for 8 years.
      And if that doesn't scare you...
      ...ACORN! BOO!

7/31

      NO, NO ONE PROBABLY DOES
Nobody wants to be in my pants right now.
--Twins pitcher Ivan Bincon, after giving up four runs in one inning in a loss to the Yankees in Game 4 of the American League Division Series

8/1

      THANKS, BUT NO THANKS
BELLANTYNE AUDITORIUM
Rectal is open to the public.
FREE Admission!

8/2

      AND GOD REALLY LOVED BAYWATCH TOO
I do have a great relationship with God....He helped me when I had a drinking problem. He helped me through my divorce. He helped me through big decisions about the Knight Rider TV series.
--actor David Hasselhoff

8/3

      IS THIS IRONIC OR IS IT JUST US?
MADE IN MEXICO
--label in U.S. Border Patrol uniforms

      And there is, all a-snooze yesterday. I'm glad that the old minifridge gets some use.

      I haven't posted much, well, nothing really to post about. What do you want, the menu from my dinner with my mother yesterday?

      Things are improving with the old kids and the new one.

      Caught between the influences of Thanos and Lenin, of course he's become known as the Creamsicle Terror. Here he lies in repose, plotting either the siezure of Petrograd, or blowing up the Universe with the Infinity Gauntlet. It's hard to tell, given that his pupils seem to have disappeared. Maybe he's just rolling his eyes at me, and the Damn Camera again.

      And he dreams. "ZZZZ...Must...kill...ZZZZ...Silver Surfer...and the Tsar...TZZZZaaarrr..."

      Only Killsy remained awake. Mayhap she pondered the multitudinous minutiae that led to a serendipitous synchronicity that placed her in personal proximity with such bumptious brothers. Or maybe she just wishes that her eye boogers didn't make her look like she has a catnip hangover.

      So anyway. I went to dinner at my mom's, and really, stop reading; there are no more cat pics.
      I have a few carrots and a yogurt at work, some hummus and crackers when I get home, then I have a main meal of Meat. Poultry, usually. I take after my Mom, i.e. we're both short and skinny and don't need to eat a lot, but Mom always cooks like she expects a surprise visit from the Green Bay Packers. Her meals have, get this, courses! And vegetables! Yes, crazy, I know. We started off with an appetizer of her handmade crabcakes, utterly delicious. At first I thought she served them with tartar sauce, but quickly realized, no, she made the sauce by hand, too. It would be quicker for me to just list what she didn't make from scratch--the couscous and the pie crust. Yes, she apologized for only making the pie's filling. We also had pan-cooked herbed salmon and local corn on the cob. Okay, so she didn't handmake the salmon and corn by genetically altering some plywood in her own DNA Recombinizer & Deliciousizer.
      There were 2 meals worth of food left over (3 if I just eat pie), and I saved the salmon skin, because what feline wouldn't want that? Apparently not the old fogeys. DJ gobbled all 3 portions while the oldsters grumbled about the Kids Today and their weird food, wearing all the time their parachute pants and playing the "boom box" too loud with that "Whitesnake" and "Jem and the Holograms" noise they so like. Then they waste their allowance on the Space Invaders at the arcade! Those kids will grow up to be no good, I'm sure of that.
      Mom also gave me some granola. Guess who made it!

      And since I don't even have good links anymore, here's a good link.

8/4

      COMPUTER SALESMEN, TYPICAL
Customer: Now what does this 512MB of RAM mean on this PC?
Salesman: Umm ... RAM is what slows down your PC, see it rams into your processing power, causing slowdowns. That’s why it’s called RAM.
Customer: Are you sure?
Salesman: Who’s the expert here?
--conversation at a national computer chain store

8/5

      GREAT MOMENTS IN LIVE BROADCASTING, INTERNATIONAL DIVISION
Radio 5 Live: What’s it like in Athens tonight, Roger?
Gold medalist Roger Black: Actually, I’m not in Athens, but in the front room of a friend’s house in Guildford. I’ve been dropped from the BBC team in Athens.
---Radio 5 Live (UK) interview on the Athens Olympics

      This actually started a month ago, but I waited until all 4 parts were done:The Most Incredible E-mail Ever. The link is to the last part, as it's the only one with links to all 4. Click on Part 1 and start reading, because it won't make sense otherwise. I mean, at no point will it make ANY sense, but start from the beginning.

8/6

      SWIMMERS, BIOLOGICALLY PECULIAR

8/7

      GEE, THANKS FOR THE WARNING!
DO NOT USE THE DIVING BOARD
WHEN THE SWIMMING POOL IS EMPTY.
--sign at a Sri Lankan swimming pool

      WOW, a true miracle! UpChuck actually spares a thought for the poor people he so normally hates, loathes and despises while spitting on them, rather than fawn over the mega-rich--oh, wait, a rich dude would get a tax break when he dumped his old (last year's) Hummer on the SalvArmy, whereas a middle-class person trading in their decade-old minivan will get money off of--ugh!--a fuel-efficient car that will make less money for the oil companies! And you thought that it was about "helping the least of us," as that SOCIALIST Jesus guy said. Fuck that commie fag, with his long hair and beard!
      This is also the fault of climate change, but in a bad way, because it makes people get cars that lead to less climate cha--I mean, a GOOD way, because Chuck doesn't think that there's such a thing as clima--Umm. Okay, I think I'll stop figuring out exactly what this madman means, and just wonder how a car's going to fit into that little pot.
      Chuckles, in his ever-shrinking span of sanity, instead pulls this from the talking points the insurance companies and Big Pharma pay him to drool and babble about:

      SOYLENT CHUCK IS CRAZY!

      A Cracked article sure to drive Chuck insane(r) if he read it: Bill Clinton’s Badass Equivalent: Bond or McClane?

8/8

      AND THE GALLERY IS VERY RELIEVED
He’s taken care of No. 1 and he’s in control of No. 2.
--Golf Channel commentator Kelly Tilghman, on Tiger Woods’s progress in a match-play tournament (thanks to Cliff Barr)

8/9

      THANKS, BUT I’LL MAKE MY OWN DECISIONS
YOU ARE AVAILABLE
AT THE NEXT TICKET OFFICE.
--sign at a passenger window in a train station, Japan

8/10

      LORD OF THE DUMMIES
As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else. It’s being drawn to Iraq and it’s not being drawn to the U.S. You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don’t want the Eye to come back here to the United States.
--Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania)

      I do think it's a good look for Byron.

8/11

      THOSE ENTREPRENEURIAL NAZIS
Weakest Link host Anne Robinson: In catering, a famous chain of tea shops and so-called “corner houses” was opened in London in 1894 by Joseph who?
Contestant: Goebbels.
--The correct answer was Joseph Lyons.

8/12

      SIGNS, CONTRADICTORY
OPEN 24 HOURS
EXCEPT 2 AM TO 8 AM
--sign at a pizzeria

      Today's biggest challenge: The VET! But it was with Killsy, so the challenging part was getting her into the carrier. When it's Byron's turn, the challenging part is coming out alive.
      "It's time to weigh you, Kill Kill," said the vet as he hefted her to the scale, "and I bet it won't be good news!" Then he was enthusiastic. She'd lost over 2 pounds! Then he was concerned. "Is there a reason for this weight loss?"
      I said "Kitten."
      Yes, she may hate DJ's constant attention, but she's benefitting from it. And she's eating fatty kitten food! She got her rabies shot and got a very thumbs-up physical. Which is good. She is the center of our little universe, and I need her around for a long time. She is the Sun around which we others are lucky to orbit.
      After she got home and calmed down, she (and the bumptious brothers) had wet food. She doesn't know that she'll get TUNA before long. She's certainly earned it.

      23 Badly Placed Internet Ads. They should've cut it down to 20, or ideally 15, as there are that many not-so-funny ones.

8/13

      STATEMENTS, DRAMATICAL BUT UNGRAMMATICAL
Hottie is very, very dramatical. She tried to hypmotize me.
--rapper Flavor Flav, on VH1

8/14

      SAY WHAT?
Q: Did you tell the Subler doctor the same thing as you told the Smith Transfer doctor as you told the Subler doctor the first time when you had your second Subler physical?
A: Did I tell him what?
--actual courtroom testimony

8/15

      IT’S NOT THE RIGHT ANALOGY EITHER
He’s got a heart and lungs of steel if that’s the right anachronism.
--commentator, BBC

8/16

      IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING
CHILD BE A PUBLIC SERVANT.
THE BEST BALANCE OF MUSIC
AND TECHNOLOGY
WITHIN A VAGUELY.
--slogan on a T-shirt for sale in a market in Hong Kong

      What is with me and the discretionary spending lately? Today I went to the farmer's market (where a cop placed a lit highway flare on the road, the type used at night near accident scenes. Then drove away. Why? No idea, there was nothing there besides the sputtering flare. He's a cop who plays by his own rules!) and I dropped 24 dollars in less than that many minutes. Cheese, garlic butter spread, a big loaf of stuffed bread, a vegetable samosa. So all on food, so I guess there's some benefit. That stuffed bread will be 4 big, filling meals at only $2.50 a serving. But I'd also recently bought at Amazon (all used, as I'm not stupid) a couple of CDs (Brian Eno's Apollo, which I ordered on the 40th anniversary of something, and Purrfectly Classical, which is about a certain type of mammal, as you may have guessed from the cringeworthy title), and a couple of books. Fiasco is about huge-budget Hollywood flops, and the book I just finished, My Tank is Fight!, by Zach Parsons of somethingawful.com.
      It's about "Deranged Inventions of World War II," something I know about. The missiles designed to hit New York City from Berlin? The Christie flying tank? The aircraft carrier made of sawdust and an iceberg? Every schoolchild knows about those! But the bulk of the book was crazy weapons even a WWII geek like myself was unaware of. The cross between a U-boat and a tank that had the worst features of both? The helicopter in a backpack? The Nazi space plane? The Nazi space station?!
      None of them got past the prototype phase, and most were ridiculously impractical, and some (like the space station) were simply impossible.
      Almost all of them were thought up by the Nazis. This is because they were desperate, and they were nuts. As the book points out, it's really too bad some of these Nazi "superweapons" were never built. There's the Ratte, which was a battleship turret on a tank. A tank three stories high and the size of a football field. For every one of these Hitler built, there would've been at least a hundred regular tanks that couldn't be, shortening the war by weeks or months.
      (Thing I'm surprised the book didn't mention: America built 50,000 versions of the Sherman tank during the war. It wasn't a very good tank. And the Germans built 5,000...tanks. Total, including the ones they stole from occupied countries. And except for the Panther, a handfull of Tigers, and the late-model Panzer IVs, they were shit tanks. Even if America somehow lost 9 Shermans for every 1 German tank, there would still be another Sherman rumbling up to blow that Nazi away. And it wasn't the only tank we built! Oh, and the Russians had the best overall tank of the war, the T-34, and they built 50,000 versions of those, too--and just those; they also built thousands of other tanks)
      It's a strange book. The descriptions of these unlikely weapons are made fun of in a tamer version of the SA style. Then each chapter ends with an alternate-universe version where all of them were somehow built (even the damn space station), and "What Fight Have Been." This is a brief bit of fiction with recurring characters about the imaginary weapons being used in combat, and done seriously. Real war is no laughing matter. And these are the best parts of the book.
      If you're a WWII geek who likes alternate history with intelligence, snark, combat action, but also heart, this is the book for me! Because I doubt anybody else falls into that incredibly narrow category.

8/17

      LOVING GIRLFRIENDS
Film director Michael Winner was in intensive care last night after a heart scare.... [He] was put under 24-observation by cardiac doctors, fearing he might suffer dangerous internal bleeding. Winner’s girlfriend Geraldine Lynton-Edwards said: “We are all very happy about it.”
--article in the (UK) Daily Mirror (Winner recovered.)

"Thank you, General, and thanks to all of you who have been doing our bidding at the townhalls. I won't offer you anything of value in return--that would violate my most basic beliefs. But I can offer you the satisfaction of knowing that you have achieved a momentary blip in the thoughts of a very grateful economic elite. You are engaged in the greatest of all civic actions, the defense of our profit margins. For that we thank you..."

8/18

      ISN’T THAT THE POINT, KINDA?
The trouble with officials is they just don’t care who wins.
--basketball coach Tommy Canterbury

8/19

      WE HOPE THERE’S A BETTER WAY OF PHRASING THIS
The best way to defeat the totalitarian of hate is with an ideology of hope—an ideology of hate—excuse me—with an ideology of hope.
--President George W. Bush

8/20

      BUT CAN YOU REGISTER YOUR CHINA PATTERN FOR A BATH?Contestant: I don’t think she had any. She takes baths. She doesn’t like showers.

8/21

      HEADLINES, INTRIGUING
SEX-CUM-EXTORTION CRIMES
ON THE RISE
BY EUNUCHS
--headline in the Hindustan Times, India

      I usually put the air conditioner in the window during my vacation in early June. But throughout June, the nighttime lows ranged from the 40s to the 50s. I closed the windows at night. July was much cooler than usual, with record rainfall. August was like a normal late June. Until it became--
      THE MOUTH OF HELL!
      Assuming that when you go to hell, all you have to do is turn on a fan, take your shirt off and drink fluids.
      Hot'n'humid. I thought about putting the AC in the window, more for the cats' benefit than mine. But I always take the AC out during my mid-September vacation, and why struggle to fit the heavy bastard into the window and bug-proof the sides from insect invasion, just to take it out again? Sure, if the humidity lasted a month, I'd do it. But it's going to end in 2 days!
      Which is what the freakin' weather forecast has claimed would happen for the last TWO WEEKS. Every day we're told that it'll end in 2 days. The next day, it'll end in two days. And the day after that, they say...
      It's interesting that the older cats sleep in the open window overlooking the condo courtyard, always the coolest place in the house. But Kitten DJ, just like Kitten Kill Kill and Kitten Byron before him, always goes and lays down in the tub. Of course, it has no breeze, but humid days usually don't. Why do kittens go to the tub, but older and more learned cats don't? It really is cooler in a bathroom. Go in yours and try it out. It's all the tile and ceramic and the lack of big windows, or any.
      A thing Kitten Killsy figured out immediately: Much cooler in the REFRIGERATOR! She climbed in repeatedly during her first dose of hot weather. I tired of dragging her out, so one day I let her climb in and settle down. And I shut the door.
      Of course, after about 2 minutes I could only imagine her gasping for breath and turning blue while frost formed on her dying body, so I opened the door. And she casually sauntered out. And lost all interest in the dark, cold place.
      DJ has also figured out "It's Quite Comfy In There!" Every time I've opened the fridge for a week, DJ has been trying to use head as a doorstop. I finally gave up today when he jumped in. And I shut the door. Then I made dinner, and while this probably makes me the winner of the Cat Negligent Mother of the Day, remembered he was in there about 6 to 8 minutes later. And he casually sauntered out, saying "Inside of Fridge not so Grate Acksually." And he's lost all interest in it since.
      And Byron? When he was 6 weeks old (and I had him at work before officially adopting him), I took him into the beer cooler while I did an order. He screamed, and was shivering when I took him out just 2 minutes later--and I don't think it was from cold. It was fear. A foundling at 2 weeks, before kittens can even eat by themselves, and he was now in a cold, dark space, just like he was the night before he was rescued...He continued to shake for a while after I took him out. Unlike my other kittens, cold and dark and very, very alone were things that he'd experienced in a different context, and for far longer. The Cold Dark Alone is a place he's been happy to never visit again.

8/22

      ARE WE MISSING SOMETHING HERE?
News commentator George Stephanopoulos: Are you against civil unions for gay couples?
Senator John McCain: No, I’m not.
Stephanopoulos: So you’re for civil unions?
McCain: No.

8/23

      FOOT BANGING, ESSENTIAL
He banged a ball off his foot. That shows you how competitive he is. This guy’s going to be a good player, if he isn’t already.
--Philadelphia Phillies announcer Chris Wheeler, on the Washington Nationals’ third baseman Ryan Zimmerman (thanks to Kipp Gilmore-Clough)

      Last week Kirk's site site caused my browser to crash. My browser's still Firefox 2, as I love the "Restore Last Session" feature: leave it on the 4 windows that I want it to open on tomorrow, and when I turn the computer back on tomorrow, there they are. FF3 didn't have that. Some of his commentrs suggested Opera. Opera looks great and loads fast, but it imported my precisely-arranged bookmarks in a weird fashion (alphabetically by url). It would take me a long time to get them in the order I wanted, so I held off on Opera.
      But today AdBlocker stopped working. Given that it was the first day of the week, I assume that "support for FF2" ended today. Looking at the FF3 download page, it assured that they now DO have "Restore Last Session," and I downloaded it, and it imported my bookmarks.
      My bookmarks from over a year ago. Seriously--WHY? Where did it find them? So I went to my trusty bookmarks CD and downloaded them from there. Too bad it didn't work. I tried again, it still didn't work. I tried again and again, hoping to figure out what I was doing wrong. Finally I discovered that I wasn't. Unlike FF2, FF3 was importing the bookmarks below the old ones, not replacing them. And after much looking, the only way that I could find to delete the 3 million extra links was one...at...a...time. Great fun, great, tedious fun.
      And "Restore Last Session"? NO THEY DON'T HAVE IT, BIG LIARS FIREFOX!

      Sane Science: a too-brief article on How We Support Our False Beliefs: "The findings may illuminate reasons why some people form false beliefs about the pros and cons of health-care reform or regarding President Obama's citizenship, for example."

8/24

      NATIVES, HIP
Real crazy. These footprints go in a circle. Maybe the natives here are getting on this rock ’n’ roll kick.
--hip guy (Victor Sen Yung), when he and his buddies discover sinister footprints on the desert island they’re stranded on in She Demons (1958)

      Excitement is Tomorrow! DJ, poor guy, goes to the vet for his denutting. Poor everybody! He gets no food after 8PM, and neither do Killsy and Byron. It's that or trap him in a room overnight, which will only increase his stress level. The plan is to let the food run out, then in the AM when he expects wet food, to scoop him up, place him in the bedroom, feed the elder cats and fill the food bowl, and when the door opens and he rushes out to feast upon the bounty, scoop again snicker-snack and put him in the carrier.
      All kittens consider the vet an Exciting Adventure--until The Overnight Time. Then they hate it. Will DJ end up a scaredy inert block like Killsy, or a Tazmanian Devil whirlwind trying to kill all in reach like Byron? Prediction: he'll be himself, however that plays out.
      He will return Weds morning, most likely to literal catcalls from the angry elders ("We thought you were returning him!"), but he will be given a can of wet food all for him. I'd pick out his favorite flavor, but that's "All of them."

8/25

      TESTIMONY, HOT
WITNESS GRILLED BY COOK AT TRIAL
--headline in the Belleville (Illinois) News-Democrat (thanks to Louise Morgan)

      Why Sleep? Snoozing May Be Strategy To Increase Efficiency, Minimize Risk. My question back is: Why NOT sleep? I do it 9 to 12 hours a day. SLEEP IS AWESOME! The best part about having a conscious mind is that you can regularly turn the conscious part off.

8/26

      WE’LL TAKE THE MONEY, BUT THEY CAN KEEP THE PLAGUE
This year the DGFA will be giving prizes for The Best Entree and The Best Dessert. The general public will vote the night of the taste. The winners will receive a $250.00 check and a plague.
--a flyer from the Dowtown Great Falls (Montana) Association, promoting the annual Taste of Great Falls celebration (thanks to Pete Rysted)

      I had a productive day. Brought DJ home---oh, his paperwork had his weight. On the "pound a month" scale, he should weigh 5.5 pounds. He weighs eight. I should've named him Bullwinkle, as he's clearly going to be a moose.
      I did the laundry, called the hospital to preregister for my colonoscopy, wrote my state rep and senator telling them to vote against Sunday openings for liquor stores (stores have volunteered to have our permit fees doubled, giving the state a gauranteed instant $15 million--think we'd offer to do that if we didn't already know that Sunday openings will lose us money?), and got Firefox to act like it should. That's thanks to the inestimably wondrous Kitsplut, splutted be her name. She found a way to make "restore last session" work. It's unobvious, but it's: Go to Options, then Main, then Startup, where there's a dropdown for "Show my windows and tabs from last time." It actually works better than the FF2 version. It loads automatically when you open FF, and doesn't just bring you to the window, it brings you to the last spot on the window. You don't even have to scroll down. Awesome is as awesome does, Kitty!
      I also fixed the other big annoyance. When you bookmark a page, FF3.5 givs you the option of saving it to Bookmarks, which are unsorted, or Unsorted Bookmarks, and I have no idea where that last one even goes; there's no folder I can see. Every browser I've used since the turn of the millenium lets you stick it in a pre-existing folder. There's an add-on called "Old Bookmarks Sidebar" that...WTF? It only works on a page you've already bookmarked? WTF! That's useless! It's 1999 again!

      Awesome homeless guys signs. Mine will read "Will work for Firefox 3 that also works."

8/27

      MENUS WITH A HOOK
VEAL VOLDOSTANA
sauteed veal topped with prostitute, asparagus, mozzarella, and Swiss cheese in a white wine sauce
--menu item as printed in “Pass the Menu,” a section in the Connecticut Post (thanks to Mike Tomarelli)

      I've been reading Fiasco, about big-budget Hollywood flops. Very interesting, in a shake your head and wonder "What were they thinking?" way. It starts chronologically with Cleopatra, a film that isn't unwatchable, just boring. All I remember from my attempt at watching it was the parade. There was a parade when Cleopatra, authentically played by Liz Taylor as the ancient Egyptian monarch with violet eyes and a fresh tracheotomy scar on her neck, arrived in Rome. It went on for 10 minutes. Think about how boring parades are in real life. Imagine sitting there watching a filmed one. And really, the only other thing I remember was the CLIMATIC NAVAL BATTLE. This movie cost the modern equivalent of a third of a billion dollars to make, and yet so much money was blown on building the sets, then tearing and building them again, then tearing them down and building them again, and then the insane demands of the "big stars," that they used lil' toy ships in a swimming pool. Toho had better production values in 1962.
      Yeah, Cleopatra vs Godzilla, that I would've liked.
      The next movie was The Chase, a Marlon Brando movie that I've never heard of. Both chapters on those bombs mentioned another years-in-the-making, way-over-budget movie that actually was a big hit, The Longest Day. Oh yeah, I said, that fact-based D-Day movie. I should rent that.
      An interesting thing about Fiasco's chronology is that you see how Hollywood changed in a decade, with the arrival of TV and the end of the studio system at the start of the 1960s, and the damn hippies taking over at the end. The Longest Day was released in 1962, near the end of a way that movies had been made since the invention of sound 30 years earlier. They had STARS! Not, you know, actors. "Here I am! I'm John Wayne! My character in this movie will be me, John Wayne! Here's one of my many costars, Roddy MacDowell, playing Roddy MacDowell! Here's Peter Lawford, pretending to be an actual British officer who put his life on the line on D-Day! Peter will just act like himself! Here's Richard Burton, being Richard Burton, except drunk! Wait, is there a difference there?"
      It's actually a very good movie. It's just that every time the "big name stars" totter onto the groaning boards, the bored just groan and you get taken out of the movie. John Wayne, playing General John Wayne, is a paratrooper who gets a compound fracture of the ankle when landing. Y'know, it just might make his character's story more interesting if he actually acted like he did have bones ripping through his ankle and then walked on it. But no, "LACE MY BOOTS UP TIGHT, DOC!" and he struts around like--well, if he was on morphine, maybe, and I suppose the original D-Day commander he was "playing" probably did. Except, no! Wayne doesn't act at any moment ike he's in any kind of pain. Well, he doesn't act, period.
      But those are in the English-speaking scenes. Producer Darryl Zanuck was a shrewd bastard (accent on the bastard), and made sure that his giant, expensive movie would play well in America, Britain, France and even Germany (via German characters who want to more effectively kill the Allied soldiers--well, in war, that's your job--but der Fuhrer's taken a sleeping pill and can't be awakened for some potential Allied invasion, making them at least sympathetic as soldiers who don't like Hitler). The movie's best when it's just battle scenes, and that's most of the movie. Then it's amazing. You can always tell what's going on, despite the chaos of war. And it''s not "Hooray for us!" as there are several disasters for both sides. And if you're a WWII geek, the details are spot on. Hey, that tank's a Sherman Firefly, complete with folded-up flotation pontoons and the added-on exhaust ports! You know who got that besides me? Guys who were there. That's an impressive level of detail.
      Crimeny, it's 3 hours long! But there wasn't a boring minute, ex-cept when The-Duke...was e-moting. Back then, you needed Big Stars to draw people to your movies, not actors. At least that's what they thought. And Hollywood continued to change, leaving one class of star behind, while moving on to the ones who could act.
      Side point: I remembered this movie as having a theme song that was won an Oscar or something. The opening titles had no music at all. Most of the movie just had military snare drums to briefly open scenes. One scene, in a bar (with Richard Burton, probably demanding multiple takes just to get another drink), had someone plink out a few notes of it on a piano. For almost all of the movie, the theme turned up in bits and pieces, and didn't kick in fully until the very last scene, and then it played over the end titles, for the first time in its entirety. Clever, really--it's a triumphal theme, and why play it until the longest day has ended, and the end of the war is finally in sight?
      And then it's sung by the MITCH MILLER SINGERS! Oh gourd, my GRANDPARENTS had those records! And they were sing-along records! Yes, the dead of D-Day deserve no tribute as grand as the 1962 version of karaoke!

8/28

      POLITICAL NOVELISTS, GREAT LINES WRITTEN BY
He could feel her heart beneath his hands. He moved his hands slowly lower still and she arched her back to help him and her lower leg came against his. He held her breasts in his hands. Oddly, he thought, the lower one might be larger.
--excerpt from convicted White House aide Scooter Libbey’s novel The Apprentice

8/29

      TECHNICALLY CORRECT, BUT MISSING THE POINT HERE
Family Fortunes host: Name the capital of France.
Contestant: F.
--(thanks to Colin Griggs)

8/30

      MUSCLEBRAINS
Have you ever talked to your muscles? As you work out, bring up the two dumbbells to your body and say, “Grow.”
--actor Sylvester Stallone, in his book Sly Moves

"The protagonist in this film is life, and the antagonists are time and change. Nor is it that simple, because to be alive, you must come to terms with both of those opponents."

8/31

      SHORT STOPS, FATAL
Descending on the Seljestad side, the bus will make a short stop at the Latefoss waterfall, tumbling down the mountainside in a double avalanche and gently spraying the road.
--from Fodor’s Scandinavia travel guidebook

      I admit to knowing very little about Delgo, a recent CG animated feature, beyond the fact that it bombed. But so did The Iron Giant, and I count that as one of my top five movies of all time. It bombed because it was a cartoon that wasn't made by Disney. Was Delgo ignored because it was that bad a movie, or because it wasn't from Pixar?
      It wasn't that bad a movie. It was worse. This is the only movie I've realized that I should turn off 5 minutes into. I knew how the entire plot was going to play out. Evil, one-dimensional villain plots a war between 2 rival nations to exact REVENGE!! or something, as she had no motivation beyond "I am Evil." The hero, a young dreamer, and the heroine, a young princess, are star-crossed lovers. In fact, they're from seperate species on some faraway planet. Why that setting? Got me, as they talked like suburban American mall rats from 2008. Notably, IMDB does not have a Quotes page for this movie. I saw it only yesterday, yet can't think of any myself. However, let me ask you if this brings you deeper into a fully realized fantasy world:

      FRODO, at the edge of Mount Doom: "I can't throw the Ring in! No way, Jose! My bad!"
      GOLLUM bursts in and tackles him: "You snooze you lose, lame-o!"
      FRODO: "Give up the Ring? AS IF, fish-breath!"
      (They struggle, Gollum bites the Ring off of Frodo's hand; Gollum falls into the lava)
      SAM: "Mister Frodo, you sure gave him--THE FINGER!"
      FRODO: "D'OH!" (They both laugh, Frodo holds up his hand) "Hey, Sam! HIGH FOUR!"

      Oh, now is when it makes me poop. Maybe it's just me, but aesthetically I find ecru to not be a good shit color, you know?

9/1

      WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
SUNNY GARDEN
BE STICKY ABOUT NATURE
I TOUCHED A TINY NATURE.

9/2

      CLICHÉS, PAINFUL
That last guy hit the nose right on the head.
--caller to Colin Cowherd’s ESPN radio talk show The Herd (thanks to Dave Boudreaux)

9/3

      I SHOULD SAY NOT
PLEASE DO NOT INVADE MADAME’S PRIVATE PARTS.
--sign posted in a French chateau that rented rooms to tourists—intending to warn against trespassing in the owners’ private rooms

9/4

      THAT’S NO FUN!
Miss Rumson has been appointed supervisor of Work Area Six, not (as stated in our August issue) Work Area Sex.
--newspaper correction

9/4

      COVER LETTERS, WERY UNUSUAL
Hi; I’m from Ukraine, and wery interested about profi advertisment. I have some interesting and absolutely new ideas (for example about car brands) but in our fuking (sorry) country its unread to do own bussiness. May be you want to work with us? Its will be really good.
--from an actual cover letter sent by a job applicant to Chicago advertising agency Killian & Company

      As predicted, insanely busy holiday weekend. Every one of those dozens of reserved kegs got picked up, except for one pair. I really hope that 24 kegs a weekend doesn't become the standard for the college year. I don't need half the beer cooler blocked off every weekend, and college kids are notorious for waiting until the literal last minute to pick up kegs, even though it takes over 10 minutes to ring up each keg, due to the legally required paperwork. You walk in at 8:50PM, we won't sell you a keg.
      Liquor stores here close at 9, but that means "out the door already paid for by 8:59:59PM." People seem to think that we're like other retail businesses, and so long they're "in the door" by 9 we have to sell to them. No, and it's obvious why, if you think about it: stores could stay open forever otherwise, by claiming "Yes, officer, it's after midnight, but the people in my store started shopping at 8:58." In fact, my store locks the door at 5 of 9, to make sure everyone's legally out the door and we don't get fined and shut down for 3 days. Yes, the state takes it that seriously. Sell beyond a certain point after closing, and you get charged with bootlegging. Yeah, all Roaring Twenties Al Capone with cement overshoes and Tommy guns-like.
      So the phone rings at 8:57:30 (I checked my watch out of complete disdain for anybody shopping at that time), and Vic answered. The conversation went like this: " (long pause as other person speaks)...Well, it doesn't matter, because we're closed...Sorry, we're closed...No, the store is closed...No, the store is closed...No, the-store-is-closed...The store is closed!...What difference does it make who this is? The store is closed!...It's VIC, and the store is closed!...(ME, in background: "Say 'Goodbye' and hang up!")...THE. STORE. IS. CLOSED. (Vic, to the rest of us) He wants a keg, NOW!" (everyone else laughs derisively)
      It went on until it was after 9. And while this happened, 3 other retards banged on the door, after 9, arguing about it. When we finally left, 2 more cars pulled up, their gasters utterly flabbered that, no, we can't sell after we're legally required to close. Another one raced to the door as I was leaving the parking lot, obviously using that belief that "If you speed, time runs BACKWARDS!"
      In their defense, Connecticut only allows them a mere 13 hours to do their shopping. But if we were open 23 hours and closed only from 4Am to 5AM, we'd still have idiots mad that we we wouldn't sell to them at 4:05.
      Remember those 2 kegs that never got picked up? The guy on the phone was that guy. He said "A guy's on the way to pick them up!" Well, he's not IN THE STORE, so maybe you should've sent him sometime in the TWELVE HOURS FORTY SEVEN MINUTES THIRTY SECONDS PREVIOUS. Because a minute or two later than that, and we still would've refused to ring him up. And as stated earlier, I think this actually explains a lot...

      Oops, forgot to mention: Siskel & Ebert's "At the Movies" show starts being once again hosted by actual film critics rather than "Television Personalities" this weekend. I assume that the show will be available online midweek right about here. Smart people telling you what movies to see not based on the box office receipts, but the film's actual quality? Fuck you, time-traveling jerks! Explain THAT!
      (I particularly like the picture for " Meet The New Hosts." They look like they're asking you "Do you know where those loser old hosts went? Us, neither. Hey, whose bags of cement are those by the riverside? They seem to have the fingerprints of the old hosts aaalll over them. Suicide, we guess. And right by the part of the river the police can't dredge. Tsk, tsk. Hey, are these their cut-off fingers on the river bank? Weird. Well, going now, got movies to review. Review like critics.")

9/6

      MARRIAGE SITES, RATHER UNPLEASANT
The priest married John and Susan in the Rectum of the church.
--in a church bulletin

      Cracked's Guide to David Lynch. It's the movie at the end that makes it.

9/7

      CONSERVATISM, NOT-SO-COMPASSIONATE
Why don’t [American workers] get new jobs if they’re unhappy, or go on Prozac?
--Susan Sheybani, assistant to the Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt, during a discussion of low-quality jobs for American workers

9/8

      WEB ADDRESSES, UNFORTUNATE
www.huntersexpo.com—web address for an outdoorsmen’s market
www.molestationnursery.com—web address for the Mole Station Native Nursery
--actual domain names

9/9/9

      QUARTERBACKS, FRACTION PROBLEMS AND
Half is not enough protection, half is my fault, and half is them just doing a good job.
--St. Louis Rams quarterback Marc Bulger

9/10

      CONTESTANTS WITH BASIC LIFE-FORM UNDERSTANDING PROBLEMS
Family Fortunes host: Name a nonliving object which has feet.
Contestant: Plant.

9/11

      THIS IS THE SORT OF FASCINATING STORY WE WANT TO SEE MORE OF!
WOMAN FREQUENTLY COOKS RICE
--headline in The Telegraph (Nashua, New Hampshire)

      Madonna kills 15 Bulgarians. And not by stabbing them with her pointy bra, but with a decapitated head!

9/12

      SO WHAT DO YOU DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME ... KICK PUPPIES?
Our main goal is to raise money to fight cancer research.
--interview subject on a local Detroit radio station (thanks to Lance Rosol)

9/13

      GEOGRAPHY, A FEW PROBLEMS WITH
I’ve never really wanted to go to Japan simply because I don’t really like eating fish, and I know that’s very popular out there in Africa.
--singer Britney Spears

9/14

      AND THURSDAY WILL BE DOUGLAS AND HOT
TOMORROW: Gary and Cool
--weather forecast shown on NY1 (New York City)

      What, you don't schedule out your vacations too?
      VF means Valley Falls, the state park up the road. PG means Page, meaning me trying to recreate the old Geocities page. I have so little enthusiasm for this project. I have a feeling it'll just be the old News, because that's easy to do, and the Sisto Files, which was the only thing anybody looked at it for anyway. Assuming it gets done at all. It didn't even get touched today. I'm truly incapable of slacking off for even a minute when I'm getting paid, and therefore it's almost impossible for me to motivate myself when I'm off duty. I should've just written "PLAY CIVILIZATION 2 ALL WEEK" on it.

      Although I did manage to force myself to the park, and since I've eaten only Indian food this week, to get pizza. Chicken tikke pizza! I got to the pizza place a bit early, and they were 10 minutes late finishing it, even though I was clearly the only customer. It was hand-delivered to me after the manager wandered off, and then the guy walked away. Wait, I thought, he thinks I've already paid! Free pizza! I raced right up to the counter, and said "I haven't paid for this yet!" Because I really am by no means a badass, or an asshole. I like to keep a clean karmic balance. On the short drive home it hit that it wouldn't have just been wrong to steal it...it would also have been stupid, as they had my phone number. I think I gain a point for not thinking that until after I did the right thing.

      Seen: 7 Up, the BBC series that looked at some kids, age 7, then went back every 7 years. I figured that it was a good choice for vacation, as all but the first disc are available on Netflix online. The first was confusing, given that there are 14 children in only 45 minutes, and the maze of English school types. I knew public schools don't admit the public, and the private schools aren't, but there were 2 more mutated varieties. And, being the UK, it's all about what class you're born into.
      it started in 1964, with kids as disparate as the only "coloured" child, to 3 future Upper Class Twits of the Year in a "pre-prep school," where they sing Waltzing Matilda in Latin, and whose smarmy faces you want to kick in. The kids were asked their opinions on a wide variety of topics. The rich kids all had their entire scholastic paths planned out, from pre-prep to public to post-public to Eton and Cambridge (at age 7), while the poorer kids had goals both vaguer and more like you'd expect a child to have (being the mid-1960s, most of the boys wanted to be astronauts). It really became fascinating during 7 Plus 7, filmed when they were 14. Only one mentioned the fame they know doubt had from the first film (one of the rich kids; Daddy was quite cross when Junior got one word of the name of one of his future schools wrong), although you wonder if it affected the others. The outgoing lad from a tiny Yorkshire village becomes too withdrawn to even make eye contact ( the kid in his village closest to his age at 14 is 5), as does the spoiled princess (age 7: "I've never met a coloured person, and I certainly hope that I never do!" Age 14: ditto). Of the 3 pre-preps, one is showing signs of disgust with the automatic deference the others of his class expect from the world, while another is even more obnoxiously "I'm special, you aren't" and wants to go into right wing politics. He's like a combination of Draco Malfoy and a young Dick Cheney and some sort of Jagger-lipped reptile.
      But is he? What of the kid I was sure would turn out to be a bully, but at 14 was training to be a jockey? Will the coloured kid, already feeling the wieght of prejudice at 7 and being crushed by it at 14, fight it off or sink beneath it? And really, British people do have those teeth?
      I hate Reality TV. Okay, I assume that I hate it, never having seen any. It seems fake. This is reality. I've got 21 Up ready to watch online right after I post this.

      (Same list, but with kitten)

9/15

      LEGAL POINTS, FASCINATING
Those who enter the country illegally violate the law.
--President George W. Bush

      I hope no one raced out and rented the 7 Up series based on my review yesterday. 21 Up was longer than both of the first films, and while I will finish it, I needed to stop at the halfway point. Unlike the first films, this one focuses on each now-adult in turn, rather than flit about like the gnat my attention span sometimes...ooh, shiny! What? Wait, what?
      I didn't mean "BJ" THAT way!
      The painfully shy and poor country boy learned from his experience in 7 Plus 7, and worked on his it. He's now a hunky guy at Cambridge or Oxford (the fact tat CT has a rich prep school called "Cambridge-Oxford" makes me unremember details like that). Snooty rich "Don't want to meet any coloureds" girl now seems clinically depressed. Much is made of the fact that she, like 3 of the other kids, had parents who divorced between 1971 and 1978. I remember that time period in America. Divorce was a huge scandal at the start of the 70s, then much more common by the end of the decade, and the divorces always started at the top of the economic pyramid.
      Rich twit Malfoy's horrible Jolie-esque lips seemed to have retracted over 7 years, with all their fat going straight to his even more "I-am-such-a-prick" privileged right wing Tory head, while the Slightly Rebellious Rich Boy is Slightly Rebellious. (Maybe I should make LOL7Ups?)
      Oh, wait, I'm doing that thing I hate when other people do it! Not review a movie, just describe what happens! You either watch these or don't--the later chapters, and soon all of it, will be on Netflix online viewing for free. It doesn't cost anything over your present membership, so you can do what I did, and stop halfway. Tonight I think I need a bit of a breather, and will online watch Woody Allen's proto-MST3K classic, What's Up, Tiger Lily? "Russian snake! Roman cow!..."

      A couple of short Star Wars related joke videos, both of which you'll "get" quickly, but are worth watching:
      Via Kirk, The Death Star: A Year Later, and Vader's first job.

9/16

      WHOLE FOODS OFFERINGS, HALF-ASSED
TUNA AVOCADO ROLL 5.99
--SUSHI-CHEF’S ASS 10.50
--sign at a Whole Foods Market, in Washington, DC

      The Great Uncle Wong's Food Court Incident

      If you were wondering why my vacation to-do list had "just kidding" scheduled for today, it's not that J/K. I emailed both Jessica and Kevin about my vacation week, and they both picked today as the day to get together--Jess in the morning, Kev at night, so, perfect.
      I left the answering machine on all night, just in case Jess had a setback in her battle with narcolepsy. But she made it to Sturbridge, MA, the exact halfway point between our homes and most importantly, also at the half-hour limit to her driving. Her condition's become so bad that if it gets worse, she may not be able to drive, period.
      We went to the Cracker Barrel for a big breakfast, as we have the "skinny person who can eat a lot and not gain a pound" metabolism, and talked and exchanged gifts. Mine were the cheesier ones, some Dollar Tree toy bling, handmade penuchi fudge (but not made by my hands, from the farmer's market) and some Cream of Wheat I got as a free sample but will never eat but she has all the time. She gave me a set of Cat Butts Magnets, which are what they sound like, different breeds of cats as seen from the south while walking north (one little magnet was a hairball), a little "robot with a big heart" pin (she's a lifetime Disney fan, and does this "pin-trading" that she says is some big thing. The robot wasn't Disney--if it was, I'd be unlikely to wear it--but it's cute), and her other latest thing, Dunnys, which I know less about the more I try to find out about them. I guess you can get big prepainted ones, or tiny blank figures you can paint yourself. She did the latter. I tried taking a picture of the one she gave me, but DJ is going berserk all over me and could just see him knocking her artwork to the floor and eating it. Yes, eating, because when I say "tiny," I mean 1 and 3/4s inches. And yet she painted incredible detail on it--was her paintbrush like 1 horsehair?
      Then we just ran through our usual haunts, the antique store where she bought, of course, some pins, and me, of course, fridge magnets (an early 70s bottle opener magnet for "Not Your Average Drug Store FAY'S" and a pin/magnet "Chemistry: Solutions for the Future" Why I buy? Went to college in late 70s, majored in chemistry, recreational). As always, we got what we liked and spent very little.
      We went to the Worst Store on Earth, a huge gift shoppe that's racks of shit in front of racks of shit in front of shelves of shit that go to the ceiling. We both forgot our cameras, which is sad because there is no way to explain this claustrophobe's nightmare. Whoever buys for this place is either insanely rich or just fucking insane. They're one of those hoarders, the kind you hear about when their corpses are found 6 months after being buried under 3 tons of newspapers they've stolen from their neighbor''s recycling bins. Every aisle had stuff that could not be reached, not just because you'd need a ladder, but because you'd need snow shovels to get the crap out of the way before you could place a ladder down. There was merchandise piled 5 feet in front of one corner, and it was 3 feet deep! If it was "personalized," they bought it--rack after rack of jeez, so many I don't even remember anymore. Keychains, magnets, mugs, tiny faux license plates, "A Guardian Angels Looks After...", keychains shaped like Crocs because there's no way people will never stop buying Crocs. And 3 huge racks of calendars. 2009 calendars. Clocks with single hands, little bric-a-brac with broken bits galore, rows of greeting cards including several 2000 N'Sync ones. Why buy 1 case of Garlic EZ Peelers for your store when you can buy 4?
      I live in a little condo crammed with crap, but man was I happy to get out of that fucker. The entire front lawn was covered in crap that wouldn't fit inside! "Hey, I wonder what's on the second story--" then I stopped and pointed at the windows up there. Covered in boxes, floor to ceiling.
      Something only 2 retail vets like we would think: Jess kept shaking her head and saying "How do they take inventory here?!" I said "Well, I guess that they just don't." But amongst the piles of junk on the lawn was a sign: "SITE AND BUSINESS FOR SALE." If anybody is crazy enough to buy the place, they'll have to inventory it. Have fun with that, and bring about a dozen industrial dumpsters.
      We had to walk to the Bates Motel. It was once down a creepy, tree-thick dirt road, straight out of an 80s horror movie. Then all the trees died when a brook backed up behind a drain. This made it not creepy at all. This time there was a DEP sign on a tree. The Department of Environmental Protection was on it, and put a culvert to divert the brook underground. The forest that became a dead tree pond was now a dead tree meadow. The motel was now refurbished and open. In 10 years, the forest will be back. And I hope that we'll walk down the path again.

      I went to Kev and Megs with 3 pints of Schneider-Weisse hefeweissen (8.2% ABV!). We got some take-out from Panda Palace, as we are lucky enough to live across the street from the county's most award-winning Chinese restaurant, chatted for a while, then settled in to watch The Hurt Locker.
      It's about a bomb disposal unit in Iraq. But it's just set in Iraq, and as it says in the opening credits, "War is a drug." More specifically, adrenalin is a drug.
      It's not political at all. I don't know what it's like to be in Iraq, but I'm sure this movie is pretty close. Every fucking second you could die, every fucking Iraqi may be trying to make you die, every fucking piece of trash on the road could be attached to a 155mm shell and a cell phone. It becomes an exercise in dread, playing out days of waiting to be killed by anything from anywhere, while hoping you live long enough to get rotated out. Unless all you want is that adrenalin rush.
      Then we talked about how great the movie was, then screamed about how we hate Republicans and the end of health care and I think I used up a week's worth of blood pressure meds.
      I've been up all day and no can type more. Time for to go to sleeps. Sorry about any typos, fix tmw, kthx luv ya bye

9/17

      OVERTURNING
I lost the last four times to Justine, so everything I did in those games I had to turn 360 degrees and do the opposite.
--tennis player Maria Sharapova, during her 2006 U.S. Open victory speech, after defeating Justine Henin-Hardenne (thanks to David Rekker)

9/18

      JUST WHAT WAS JOSE DOING?
He [Jose Mourinho] pulls up his trousers as if to say “a job well done.”
--commentator on BBC1

9/19

      BUT WHERE DO THEY BOARD THE PRIESTS AND MINISTERS?
The Willow Pet Hotel ... currently accommodates 180 to 200 pets, including birds, rabbis, ferrets, guinea pigs, dogs, and cats, which are boarded in the “Kitty City” section.
--from (Long Island, New York) Newsday (thanks to Dennis Reilly)

"16. The Da Vinci Code, chapter 4: A voice spoke, chillingly close. "Do not move." On his hands and knees, the curator froze, turning his head slowly. Only fifteen feet away, outside the sealed gate, the mountainous silhouette of his attacker stared through the iron bars. He was broad and tall, with ghost-pale skin and thinning white hair. His irises were pink with dark red pupils.
      A silhouette with white hair and pink irises stood chillingly close but 15 feet away. What’s wrong with this picture?"