Happy Pants!

a real wizard

2006-05-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

I realize no one reads this blog anymore, but for the hapless few who stumble upon it, I want to point out a recent posting from my friend Lonnie Bruner's blog. A while back his wife, a designer, gave him a basic tutorial on photoshop and he's just run with it. His rant on the value of pennies and accompanying Newsweek cover he doctored with his own photo is about as good as comedy ever gets.

a worthless piece of shit

2006-05-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

After lunch today I was walking back to the office with a friend and passed a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk with a sign. There are MANY homeless people in our neighborhood so I really took no notice. But after we passed my friend said "That was the saddest thing I've ever seen." Turns out he was holding a sign that said "Money for a worthless piece of shit."

I haven't stopped laughing. I guess I'm just in a difficult place right now.

Anyway, it trumps the previous "best homeless person sign" I'd ever seen, also in my office neighborhood: "Nijas killed my family. Money for karate lessons."

i peed sand

2006-03-06T16:23:00.000-08:00

I finally had surgery to blast one of my kidney stones into oblivion. I couldn't figure out why they called it surgery because they don't actually cut you open. But having gone through it, I now understand. Completely.

First of all, they knock you with general anesthesia. It was my first time on that ride and if you've never experienced it before, let me tell you it's a real trip. The thing that sucked most was that they couldn't find a good vein to run a line in me, so they completely mangled my left hand. I count eight holes in the top of my hand and wrist. And when the juice finally hit me, it burned so bad I thought I was going to puke. Like my whole arm was on fire. I've heard that happens when they give you too much anesthesia too quickly. So that kind of pisses me off. But they were probably reacting to the fact that I was starting to lose my shit... I was strapped down to a table and couldn't move and they had all these wires stuck to my face and whanot, so I was getting pretty anxious and basically begged them to hurry the fuck up and get that line in.

But anyway, the general anesthesia itself... jesus that's some crazy stuff. It's such a bizarre feeling because it's sort of like they turn your brain off. It's almost instantaneous. I'd say within five seconds after that juice hit my arm, I was out. And when they woke me back up an hour or so later in a different room, it was like they simply turned my brain back on. Sudden, total darkness and silence. And then suddenly and totally awake with sight and sound. And zero memory. No dreams. No hazy recollections. Just turned off. Then turned back on. It was like I didn't exist for a while.

In the recovery room I noticed three things: first, my throat was really sore; second, my ass hurt; and third, my left hand was so swollen and puffy it looked like someone had inflated it with a hose. Turns out my throat was sore because they shoved some breathing tube down it. Ass was sore because they shoved a catheter up there and filled me with some sort of dye to create a little contrast in the xrays. Hand was f'ed up because of the whole problem with not being able to find a vein.

The good news is, the surgery was a success. After peeing blood for a couple of hours, I eventually peed what could only be described as sand. Little, tiny pebbles. Didn't feel a thing. But I could see it plain as day.

I go back in for a follow up in a couple of weeks, at which point we'll decide what to do about the other larger kidney stone. Joy!

i think i'm going to throw up

2006-02-21T12:04:00.000-08:00

This image from the Hubble telescope shows innumerable galaxies slowly spinning in deep space. If you could travel at the speed of light, it would take you 100-thousand years to go from one end of our own Milkyway galaxy to the other. And that's just one, relatively humble little galaxy. Look at all those fricking galaxies!! I can't get my mind around the vastness this image represents. Then again, I have a hard time not putting my underwear on backwards each morning.

i know how he feels

2006-02-21T11:32:00.000-08:00

Man Charged With Killing Roommate Over Toilet Tissue

MARION COUNTY, Fla. -- A man has been arrested for fatally beating his roommate with a sledgehammer and a claw hammer because there was no toilet tissue in the home, authorities said. Franklin Paul Crow, 56, has been charged Monday with homicide for the death of Kenneth Matthews, 58, according to the Marion County Sheriff's Office.

Crow told investigators that the men were fighting over the weekend about the toilet tissue when Matthews pulled out a rifle. Crow said he then began beating Matthews with the sledgehammer and claw hammer, according to an affidavit.

Capt. Thomas Bibb said Crow initially denied his involvement with the crime, but confessed when questioned.

Matthews was beaten so badly he had to be identified through his fingerprints, detectives said.
Crow was being held at the Marion County jail without bond. It was not immediately known whether he had an attorney.

not playing world of warcraft

2006-02-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, that's not entirely true. I am still playing a little bit. But my play time has plummeted these last couple of weeks. I was putting in a good hour or two a night. Now I'm going several days without booting it up at all. I've been really busy with work and getting home later, so I haven't had as much time for goofing off. I've also been spending a lot more time with my music.

Anyway, I say as much because I don't want my one or two readers to assume I'm not updating my blog because I'm too busy slaying ogres outside camp Arathi.

That said, I have to call bullshit on the latest issue of Vanity Fair and it's big "Tom Ford's Hollywood" spread. It's been getting a lot of attention because the cover features a totally naked Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley. Let me tell you, we have a subscription to VF and last night while watching Lost, I thumbed through the whole thing. It didn't take long. I think there were maybe 500 words in the whole issue. Just page after page of ads. I don't think I've ever seen so little actual content in something so hyped. The actual section on "Ford's Hollywood" is buried at the end of the magazine and doesn't offer much. If you've been wondering whether you should drop five bucks on a copy, save your money. You're not missing anything.

i hope my kidneys don't explode

2006-02-16T19:59:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went for my first run since discovering my kidneys are packed with stones. Actually, I felt great and had no problems.

Last week I saw a kidney stone specialist (notice how I don't say urologist). He said I had A LOT of stones in both kidneys and that I need shockwave lithotripsy to break them up. I'll have this done in a couple of weeks. After that he wants to do some tests to figure out why I'm getting stones because, he says, "a guy (my) age shouldn't have any." It does seem odd to have them so young. Then again, a friend of mine who's the same age had one a couple of years ago. So who knows?

I just hope they don't tell me I have to quit drinking coffe. It's on my short list of reasons to live.

i pissed blood

2006-02-09T16:46:00.000-08:00

Superbowl Sunday I went for a run. This was about two in the afternoon and I'd planned on using the little time I'd have left after my run to make some dip or something to take over to a friend's house for a party. But when I got back from my run, I went to the bathroom and pissed blood.

Let me tell you, that's an unsettling sight. Fortunately, thousands of dollars worth of therapy kicked in and I remained perfectly calm. I took a shower, got dressed, then drove myself to the emergency room where they gave me a CAT scan.

Turns out I have multiple kidney stones in both of my kidneys. Bilateral they call this. Tomorrow I get to see a kidney stone specialist who will tell me when to expect a sudden surge of crushing pain. I've been carrying around a bottle of percocet with me just in case.

On the underwear front, I'm happy to say the boxer switch I made is going very, very well. I threw out all my old underwear. Straight boxers now. I wonder how I ever lived without them before.

a big change in my life

2006-01-27T07:28:00.000-08:00

This morning I opened my underwear drawer and found it empty, except for a single pair of boxers. It's the only pair of boxers I own. I don't wear tighty-whities, but rather the hybrid kind (notice how carefully that model's man junk is curled out). I've never really liked the way boxers feel, all loose and whatnot. And to get comfortable with them you have to stuff them into your pants and make sure they're all smoothed out. But this morning it came down to wearing the "B" side of one of my hybrid pairs of underwear or wearing the boxers. I took a deep breath and reached for the boxers.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortably they were. Not at all what I remembered. I did have to go through the routine of getting them all smoothed out and positioned properly, but once I did, they were really nice. So nice, in fact, that after a day of wearing them, I've decided to go buy a bunch of pairs and throw out my old hybrids.

This is easily the biggest change in my life since around this time last year when I decided to start dressing like someone who cared about they way they look in public.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll want regular updates, so as soon as I make it to the clothing store and make the full switch, I'll let you know how it's going.

the end is near

2006-01-15T10:50:00.000-08:00

I sat down to pay some bills this morning and came across the monthly horror show that is our gas statement. I tore it open, unfolded the four or five pages explaining the charges and saw the bottom line: $353.18.

Our house is 11-hundred square feet, which is smaller than a lot of the mid-range apartments in DC. We keep our thermostat set at about 65. When the colder weather first set in, I sealed all the windows with plastic and put in new foam seals around the front door. We even drape a blanket over the front door for added protection. And it hasn't really even been that cold so far.

Still, the gas company thinks it's reasonable to charge us $353.18 to keep the house at a life-sustaining temperature. We can swing it. It hurts. But we can make it. But what about someone who's on a fixed income? How the shit are they supposed to suddenly come up with a few hundred extra dollars?? I'm not talking about poor people, which is another story all together. Just your average joe citizen who makes just enough money to pay rent, food, health care, clothes, etc.

I can't believe the leaders of this country haven't recognized the national energy crisis and demanded drastic, emergency and immediate steps to find alternative sources. Drilling more holes to find more of a resource we know is going to run out is not a solution. It's barely even a bandaid.

I'm certain there's a way to develop a sustainable, comprehensive energy supply from garbage and cow shit. But the man doesn't want us to have it, because that means all of Bush's oil-sucking friends might have to do with less.

Anyway... I must get back to my average life, doing my part, however small, to be responsible and make the world a better place. Today that involves several hours of WoW.

Samsonite Murders Well-Intentioned Pilgrims

2006-01-12T09:16:00.000-08:00

MINA, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Thousands of Muslim pilgrims rushing
to complete a symbolic stoning ritual during the hajj tripped over
luggage Thursday, causing a crush in which at least 345 people were
killed, the Interior Ministry said.

The stampede occurred as tens of thousands of pilgrims headed
toward al-Jamarat, a series of three pillars representing the devil
that the faithful pelt with stones to purge themselves of sin.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said 345
people were killed. More than 1,000 people were injured, said Dr.
Abbasi with the Saudi Red Crescent.

Footage from the scene showed lines of bodies laid out on
stretchers on the pavement and covered with sheets. Ahmed Mustafa,
an Egyptian pilgrim, said he saw bodies taken away in refrigerator
trucks.

today's top story

2006-01-05T07:28:00.000-08:00

With apologies to the miners, Ariel Sharon and the latest corruption scandals in American politics, THIS was the saddest story in today's paper:

Headmaster Is Decapitated By Extremists in Afghanistan

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Extremists broke into the home of a headmaster of an Afghan school and beheaded him while forcing his wife and eight children to watch, the latest in a spate of attacks blamed on the Taliban that have forced many schools to close.

The insurgents contend that educating girls defies the tenets of Islam, and they oppose government-funded schools for boys because they teach subjects besides religion. The Taliban militia was ousted from power in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Four armed men stabbed Malim Abdul Habib, 45, eight times before decapitating him in the courtyard of his home in the town of Qalat late Tuesday, according to a provincial government spokesman and a cousin of the victim.

Habib was headmaster and a teacher at a high school attended by 1,300 boys and girls in Zabol province, which borders Pakistan and is a hotbed of Taliban militancy.

the best music of 2005

2006-01-04T15:20:00.000-08:00

Better late than never. You can right-click or control-click to download any of these:

10. David Dondero: South of the South
Okay, honestly, this CD probably doesn't belong in the top ten. But David Donero is one of the greatest lyricists making music today and he's vastly under appreciated. Conner Oberst of Bright Eyes, who got WAY more attention this year, has said he stole everything he's got from David Dondero, including his voice and singing style. And Dondero's album was much better than the THREE Oberst put out last year. Listen to "South of the South", a strange little tale in verse.

09. Giant Drag: Hearts and Unicorns
With apologies to Sleater Kinney, THIS was the best chick rock album of 2005. Singer/guitarist/songwriter Annie Hardy is like, I don't know, fifteen or sixteen years old, cute as a button, and rocks out with her cock out. Listen to "Kevin is Gay"

08. The Go! Team: Thunder, Lightning, Strike
Surfer rock meets 1970s action hero theme songs meets cheerleading meets rap meets disco and more. It's an impressive album if only because someone was able to dream up all these combinations and make them work. Listen to "The Power is On"

07. Tender Forever: The Soft and the Hardcore
Thank god the chatty "high fidelity" clerk at the local record store passed this one on to me. I want to have her babies. Listen to "Well If I'm Weird I Want to Share"

06. Flotation Toy Warning: Blluffer’s Guid to the Flight Deck
I count myself among the lucky few who actually got to hear this CD. They're from London and their music is sort of psychedelic space rock dream pop something or other. It's a great album to listen to at around 4 in the morning after everyone's gone home or to bed. Listen to "Popstar Reaching Oblivion."

05. Spoon: Gimme Fiction
I saw Spoon live last summer and it was one of the most boring shows I've ever seen. So flat, no stage presence. They just ran through one song after the other like they could give a shit. At the same time, this album is fucking awesome. Great, great songwriting. I think they're more of a studio band than a touring band. I don’t have a problem with that. I'd say next to the Shout Out Louds CD, Gimme Fiction spent more time in my stereo than any other album this year. Listen to "Mathematical Mind"

04. Bruce Springsteen: Devils and Dust
In the 1980s I had a short list of people I thought should suffer particularly long and violent deaths. The members of Wham were on that list. So was Boy George. Those fuckers! Bruce Springsteen was also on the list for "Born in the USA." Years later I was stopped dead in my tracks when I heard "Philadelphia" and "Dead Man Walking" and wondered how they could be from the same guy. Springsteen has since redeemed himself with other recordings like "The Ghost of Tom Joad." But in '05 he really blew me away with this collection of absolutely gorgeous, acoustic story songs called Devil's and Dust. I listened to a shitload of CDs last year and this one really stood out. He really is the boss... the kind of guy who will sit with you in a bar, listen to all your problems, then pull out a guitar and say "it's best if I break it down in a song..." Listen to the title track "Devils and Dust"

03. Kanye West: Late Registration
I'm not ashamed to admit I'm not the best person to judge hip-hop or rap music. I'm as white as the driven snow. But I think I know enough about music and what it takes to make truly inspired, original music to say this was easily one of the best albums of '05. The word "flawless" comes to mind. I expect to see it listed as number one on a lot of people's lists. The thing I think I like most about this album is that he shows rap can be introspective, critical and philosophical without having to use the word "bitch," "whore," or "mother fucker." Also, no cops die, no drugs change hands and no dicks are sucked. By bitches. Listen to "Gold Digger"

02. The Shout Out Louds: Howl Howl Gaff Gaff
This wasn't THE best CD of 2005, but it was damn close. It didn't leap out at me as an obvious choice, but by October or November, I began to realize I'd been playing it over and over and over again in my Car, on my iPod, and in my computer at work all year. I don't know what to call it... art college post indie rock lo-fi shoegaze dream pop or some such bullshit. All I know is the more I heard, the more I wanted to hear. I'm certain I listened to this CD way more than any other all year. Here's the opening cut, "Let's Call it the Comeback."

01. Sufjan Stevens: Illinois
By my math, if Sufjan Stevens actually goes through with his plan to record a separate CD for each of the 50 states and manages to release one a year (which is ridiculously ambitious), he'll be in his 80s before the last one rolls off the press. His latest CD, Illinois, makes me think he'll pull it off. He cranks out thoughtful, inspired songs so effortlessly. I really think the number one CD of the year, in this case, comes down to simple facts, not personal opinion. No other CD was anywhere near as ambitious or masterfully produced. Maybe it's a little like "Titanic." It wasn't the best film of the year by far. But given the scale of the production, James Cameron probably DID deserve best director simply for pulling it off. In this case, Stevens deserves number one just for pulling it off. But he also deserves it for crafting 22 amazing songs. And he did it in less than a year. Listen to "John Wayne Gacey", about one of Illinois' finest citizens. It'll haunt you.

happy new year?

2006-01-02T18:38:00.000-08:00

Christ. The clock just keeps ticking, doesn't it.

Well, I sat down to put together my top ten best and worst CDs of 2005 and the more I thought about it, the more I realized such lists are almost entirely meaningless. I have subscriptions to a half a dozen music magazines. I read numerous music blogs and music news Web sites. At work (I'm in show business), I get about 400 CDs in the mail each week, and while I don't listen to ALL of them, I listen to enough to make me probably one of the more informed listeners out there. Yet, every day someone tells me about an amazing CD by a band I've never heard of. It leaves me convinced that the "best-of" lists you read this time of year are unimaginably incomplete. It's my job to tell people what the best CDs are each year and the only thing I can think to say is, "who knows?"

That said, I AM narrowing down a list of the ones that got the most of my attention in '05 and will be posting shortly.

listen to my problems

2005-12-15T06:56:00.000-08:00

I was stunned and saddened to read this morning of a 14 year old girl in Haiti who had a 16 pound tumor growing on her face.

It got me to thinking about what my own problems are at the moment. Here are my top ten:

10. Button fell off new dress shirt
9. Dog chewed kennel/crate apart... need to get a new one!
8. Front right tire on the Camry has a slow leak and keeps deflating
7. Kenpo workout DVD scratched and won't play
6. Couldn't find my scarf or hat this morning and it's really cold outside
5. No peanut butter yesterday for my toast, had to use almond butter instead
4. Feeling a little fat these days
3. iPod crashed, lost my video of Tenacious D performing "Tribute Song."
2. Only two bottles of Ripassa Valpolicella left
1. Ran out of soul shards while storming Dun Garok Keep and had to sacrifice my Void Walker

how old are you, really?

2005-12-12T14:07:00.000-08:00

I like to keep this clock running on my desktop. It helps create an exhilirating sense of urgency that keeps my days from getting too dull.

How old are you?

So far I've lived through 13,346 sunrises. That seems like a lot when you consider my friend's newborn baby has only lived through about 30 and, I'm guessing, hasn't seen any of them.

it was 25 years ago today

2005-12-08T18:10:00.000-08:00

I was only eleven years old when Lennon was murdered, but I remember it vividly. I can so easily picture the graffiti spray painted on a bridge in my home town that said "Lennon 4 Ever" and "We love you John." And this was in Abilene, KS, a wee farm town in the middle of nowhere. Could he have known his music and life had reached people so remote from his own world? And, of course, there were all the images of weeping fans in New York at the spot where he was shot, just outside his apartment.

Lennon was a prick. He abandoned his first wife and son. He was an ego maniac. He bad mouthed the other Beatles as talentless hacks. He was also (arguably) the greatest rock and pop song writer of all time. The truth is, I usually still get teary eyed on this day each year, particularly if I hear the song "In My Life" as I did today on NPR. They played the entire track on All Things Considered. That may be a first. They're not a music show, so giving three and a half minutes of news time up just to play a whole song like that is unheard of. If you missed it, they've got it online:

"In My Life"

NPR also had a great clip from Lennon's 1971 appearance on the Dick Cavett show where he talks about how he imagined his life as an old man. He'd be 65 if he were still alive. Hardly old. I wish he were still here.

wow widows: a national crisis

2005-12-07T18:05:00.000-08:00

A Wow Widow is a woman who's lost her boyfriend or husband to the World of Warcraft game I mentioned in an earlier post. I know several Wow Widows and I don't think my own wife is one of them, though she might disagree. If she does feel neglected (and again, she really shouldn't), there are support groups where she can sort out her frustrations. This would be better than her talking with me about them since, frankly, I'm a little "distracted" right now.

There have also been a few stories on the game and the phenomenon of online gaming lately, including this one from NPR. Apparently people are auctioning off their higher level characters on sites like Ebay. So, basically, you play for however many weeks or months it takes you to elevate your character to an elite level, then sell that character to someone else so that they may "enjoy" the spoils of an advanced position. The going rate is about 200 bucks. So, really, me playing is an investment in our financial future.

This is my charcter. His name is Nathrath. If you guessed that his name comes from the spell Merlin casts in the film Excalibur, you'd be right. Ha ha ha ha!

Anyway, here's Nathrath riding a giant bat:

good christ

2005-11-21T17:35:00.000-08:00

I realize this photo represents a split second in time, frozen forever, but the leader of the most powerful nation on earth should never, under any circumstances, make a face like this... particularly when he's simply trying to open a door.

From the Washington Post.

a week's worth of groceries

2005-11-21T17:30:00.000-08:00

Today I found ten dollars on the street while walking to the metro. It was a well-worn sawbuck, kind of grimey, and lay folded just under the driver's side door of a parked car. I didn't miss a beat... bent down and scooped it up without stopping.

A few minutes later I started to feel a little guilty about it. I found the money in a poorer neighborhood and it likely meant a lot more to whoever lost it than it did to me. I thought about my moral and ethical obligations. I probably could have knocked on the door to the house the car was parked in front of... seen if someone was home watching tv, wondering where their ten dollars went. Ten dollars to them could probably buy enough wonder bread, bologne and kool aid to feed their family for a week. For me, all it bought was a turkey sandwich at the deli across the street from my office and a cup of coffee later in the day.

And some people say there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Speaking of a week's worth of groceries, I've been thinking maybe I should spend less on groceries. I drop about 600 a month. That's for two people. A friend of mine told me he and his wife could get by on 200 a month or less and not feel like they were skimping or sacrificing anything. Apparently she uses lots of coupons and buys stuff on sale and in bulk. She also shops at Safeway whereas I always shop at the organic store. But I'd rather make cuts in other areas... like... shoes? I spend less on shoes so I can spend more on groceries. Also, we keep our thermostat set on about 50 in the winter. Saves a lot on heating bills.

relax, we'll all be dead soon enough

2005-11-09T22:45:00.000-08:00

One of the thoughts that keeps me from shaving my head and shooting people from a tower is the notion that we're all in this together. Whenever some jackass cuts me off on my commute or I read about the greed and selfishness that swirls through this country, I remind myself to take a breath and understand we all want the same things in life and the only way we're going to survive is if we try to get along.

Last weekend I went with a couple of friends to Outback Steak House for the ultimate suburban, parking lot restaurant experience. It was really packed and the wait for a table was about an hour. I noticed there were four stools at the bar, so we decided to just sit there instead of holding out for a booth.

As we approached the bar, some guy sat down on one of the stools, right in the middle of the row, breaking up the three we needed together. Since he had JUST sat down and there was another stool available for him, I felt totally comfortable asking if he wouldn't mind moving one seat over. Here's the exchange we had:

ME: (In that high little voice we all assume when we're trying to be polite) Excuse me, sir. We were trying to get three stools together.

GUY: (Looking around, incredulous) Well, I don't know what you're going to do.

ME: Well, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind scooting one seat over.

GUY: (Getting pissed) So, what? I'm just supposed to get up and move!?

ME: Uh.... Well... you certainly don't have to do anyting you don't want to do. But I'm just asking you nicely. If it's too much trouble...

Guy lets out a big sigh, slowly pushes himself up and moves over one seat.

Then he ordered, I believe, a Scotch with ginger ale. Or maybe it was rum and milk. I can't remember, but it was f'ed up.

Anyway, this made for a really pleasant dining experience. I felt so relaxed and at ease while my friends and I enjoyed a fountain of carefree conversation.

I couldn't help but think it all had something to do with the fact that he was black and didn't want some whiny little white guy telling him what to do. Then again, maybe he was just a dick. Regardless, it was a real challenge to that guiding principle of mine.

Breathing in light and exhaling contagion, I remain Mr. Happy Pants.

sniff, they grow up so fast

2005-10-30T17:25:00.000-08:00

People have been asking how our little princess is doing and wondering how she's grown. Here's an updated photo.

Today I took the little angel on a two-hour walk at the lake. Such a beautiful day. She saw her first geese and swam for the first time. I'd heard dogs like her were bred for the water. So I checked her paws, and sure enough, they're webbed. That's pretty wild. How do you breed for webbed feet??

i would prefer not to

2005-10-30T17:17:00.000-08:00

I don't think it's possible for me to overstate how much I dislike yard work. This weekend I spent some time raking and mowing and bagging leaves. I don't think one second passed without me actively hating it. I don't get people who say they love to dig in the dirt and garden and work in the yard. I'd rather spend a weekend in solitary confinement at the county jail.

Five bags and a trash can filled with leaves, sticks, dirt and dog shit.

I was thinking afterward that maybe having a condo in the city wouldn't be so bad after all. Then again, I really like having a yard to hang out in. I'd just rather have someone else do the work to maintain it.

Is it really only five o'clock!? With this time change it feels more like nine. Sigh... here we go again.

it's a yp, not an mp

2005-10-26T20:09:00.000-07:00

Today I had coffee with a friend and when he asked me what was up in my life, the only thing I could think of worth mentioning was how much I was enjoying World of Warcraft.

Whenever I talk with anyone about World of Warcraft I feel a little like an alcoholic trying to rationalize why it really isn't a problem. I explain how I'm still exercising four or five times a week and spending quality time with my wife and dog, getting dinner made, the house cleaned, etc. I'm still seeing friends and I show up to work on time. But I do think about the game pretty much ALL THE TIME.

Really, though, is it any worse than plopping your lazy ass in front of a TV and turning the brain off for a couple hours a night? I've got to believe your mind is more engaged playing a game that requires you to solve puzzles and plot strategies than it is watching America's Next Top Model.

Besides, I'm only playing about 45 mins to an hour a night and some nights not at all. That's the equivalent of having maybe one drink, to continue the alcoholic analogy.

Anyway, my friend at coffee today suggested another reality game I might like. It's apparently called "life." He says he's been playing for about 36 years now, which I think is a sign of serious addiction.

shit, and plenty of it

2005-10-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

Last night I got home from work around 7:30 and found my dog covered in her own feces. It's my fault and I felt terrible. I crated her before I left for work and didn't expect to get home as late as I did, so she was in her box for way too long.

The amazing thing was that she didn't just shit in her crate. She sprayed shit everywhere. It was all over the inside of the crate and had splattered out through the grating onto the floor. It was almost as though she used a shit hose or a shit gun. Kind of mind blowing, really.

It took a couple hours to clean it all up and give her a bath. The next thing I new it was 10:00. I plopped in a chair in our living room and thought about the horrible day I'd had at work and then the shit duty waiting for me at home.... and calculated that I'd made it to 10 o'clock at night without doing a single thing all day that I actually wanted to do.

I have a meter I keep running to guage how much happy time I'm getting. I don't like it to drop below 60 percent. I suggest you get one up and running in your own life. Take a reading at the end of the day. Ask yourself, "How much did I do today that I actually WANTED to do?" Or, "How many hours/minutes did I spend doing something I actually wanted to do?" It can be kind of shocking to see how much time you spend doing things you DON'T want to do.

Work obviously can take a huge bite. I actually have a really good job and I'm grateful to have it. But let's face it. It's still work. And I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to.

I'm really disappointed I didn't win the 340 million dollars lottery this week. I *really* felt good about my chances, too. I'd had a dream earlier in the week that I won it and was certain it'd come true.

my mind is becoming a vast wasteland

2005-10-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

I’m so ashamed of my weekend. Two precious little days a week to do whatever I want and I chose to stay inside playing the most addictive video game I think the world has ever seen: World of Warcraft. I bought the software for it on Thursday and just got around to loading it up and playing on Friday. I was glued to the computer for hours. When the computer was off, I kept thinking about it. I dreamed about it Friday and Saturday nights and woke up thinking about it.

If you’ve never heard of it, World of Warcraft is a game you play online with millions of other people all over the world. I never played Dungeons and Dragons when I was a kid, though I was the right age for it... frankly, I didn’t understand it... but I’m told World of Warcraft is essentially a video version of it. You’ve got a little character you guide through a make believe world. You can chat and interact with any of the other people who are playing the same time, solve puzzles and fight battles with them, etc. It’s kind of mind blowing.

A guy I work with has been addicted to the game for a long time and got me curious about it. What finally convinced me I should check it out was reading a news blurb about the comedian Dave Chappelle who said he had abandoned his popular TV show and devoted the bulk of his time to playing World of Warcraft. I need more addictive distractions in my life and this seemed like a good candidate.

So while much of the DC metro area enjoyed two of the most beautiful days in recent memory, I was searching the Crusader Camp near Deathknell to find and slay Meven Korgal so I could steal his map and take it to Zygand in Brill. Or something like that.

who are you, really?

2005-10-13T23:27:00.000-07:00

There's this quiz you can take online that will tell you what political/cultural label best fits you. For example, republican, communist, totalitarian etc. Apparently I'm a socialist who believes consenting adults should be allowed to fight to the death.

You can take the test at www.okcupid.com/politics. Be sure to look at all the cool little charts they have at the end placing you somewhere on the political spectrum. I was between Hillary Clinton and Ghandi.

the meaningless cycle of life

2005-10-13T22:40:00.000-07:00

My wife's grandmother died last week. Like so many people, she died from way too many birthdays (she had 98 of them). It seems like a bit of a rip off to get so close to 100 and not make it. At the same time, I figure anything after 80 is borrowed time. Or gravy depending on how you look at it. She died peacefully in her sleep, had no diseases or painful ailments of any kind, and (remarkably to me) she was only on one medication - thyroid medicine she'd been taking her whole life.

It's the closing of a chapter in my wife's life, and you never like to say goodbye to someone you're close to. But most in the tiny group that gathered for her funeral seemed pretty comfortable with the whole thing. I didn't know her very well and was spaced out for much of the service. But it did give me time to reflect on the whole death thing.

Over and over again the preacher and guests kept talking about how she was now in heaven with her husband who died THIRTY years ago. And what's more, she's waiting for the rest of us to join her. I couldn't make any sense of it. It's not that I don't believe in god or something beyond the grave. I just think death is or at least CAN be a good thing and even a beautiful thing and not something so horrible we have to convince ourselves it doesn't really happen.

Truth is, we live in a wholly relative world where one thing cannot exist without its exact opposite. There are no tops without bottoms. No good without bad. No up without down. And there certainly isn't life without death. Death makes life that much more "meaningful" (however you define meaningful). It's a very critical and, I think, spectacular piece in the arc of human life. As spectacular as birth. That's not to say I'm looking forward to it. And it's certainly tragic beyond all comprehension when, say, you lose a child or someone's life is cut short. But all stories must have an end and, as Hemingway said, every story that goes on long enough will eventually end in death.

Hey, speaking of death, did anyone watch LOST last night? The first couple episodes of the new season were so-so. There wasn't much pay-off. But leapin' jesus the last two were awesome. I particularly love the whole pushing-a-button thing without really knowing the point of it. And I really love the bizzaro survivor camp where everything is sort of the same but a lot creepier and evil. I can't wait for the chick who cold cocked Sawyer to bite it. She's out of control.

i'm so glad no one is butchering my family with machetes or torching my home

2005-10-11T22:14:00.000-07:00

So anyway, my first case of wine arrived today. I had it shipped to my office in DC because Maryland, where I live, doesn't allow alcohol sales over the Internet. Of course, I can BUY it over the Web from my home in Maryland, but I had to have it delivered to an approved area, which, thankfully, DC is.

I was shuffling some papers around and thinking of calling it a day when my intern walked up cradling the case of wine. He opens all my mail for me and can always tell when something special comes in that I'm going to want right away. I chalk that up to plain and simple good training.

On the way home I stopped off at the corner store and picked up some dark chocolate. Nothing goes better with a nice red wine like dark chocolate, both of which in reasonable doses are quite good for you. Took the dog for a walk, went for a run, ate dinner. Now I'm in my flannel jammies and ready for a glass of pure heaven with a few little squares of porcelana.

I don't know... maybe there's more.

fine wine, human suffering

2005-10-09T21:33:00.000-07:00

Tonight I spent a couple hundred dollars on wine at an online spirits shop. I highly recommend the Zenato Ripassa Valpolicella (deep ruby red in color with a complex nose of dried fruit and licorice) or O'Reily's pinot noir (nice nose, pleasant gris character fruit, and a clean finish that goes well with food). Believe me on these. They're amazing.

Not long after I logged off, my wife and I went to see 'The Constant Gardener' staring Ralph Fiennes and the lovely Rachel Weisz. For those who don't know, most of the film is set in Africa. The film pretends to be a thriller as Fiennes attempts to solve the complicated mystery surrounding his wife's apparent murder. But it's hard to pay much attention to the plot with all the images of human suffering in Africa to distract you. Filthy, disease-ravaged villages, starving children with bloated stomachs, bestial violence and other common colors in the pallet of human misery.

I was quiet on the car ride home. All I could think about was how the VAST majority of people on the planet live in poverty. Not a simple majority, but an overwhelming majority. It's easy to putter along in my Honda through our neighborhood - extremely modest by DC standards - and assume that this is par for the course as far as the rest of the world is concerned. But it's not. It's not even close. Our tiny little house with the well-fed labrador, 21-inch screen TV, queen-sized bed and assorted appliances is an anomaly in the world, not the norm. Five billion people on the planet and half are in Africa, India and China alone. Then you've got much of South and Central America, the South Pacific (Jesus) and the North Atlantic/Caribbean, home to Cuba and Haiti. Throw in everyone living in poverty in Canada, the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan - all countries of immense wealth - and you've got a shitload of human suffering.

We give to the International Rescue Committee and Heifer International, but so what? So we buy a few cows for families in the Congo or Sudan only to watch bandits raid the villages, kill everyone and steal the animals. What did the money we gave to help people recover from Hurricane Katrina do? People have given billions and no one seems to be any better off. I mean, you put someone up in a hotel for a few weeks and at the end of it all, they're still left with nothing.

I really think there's absolutely zero anyone can do to end poverty. As long as there's greed, there will be poverty. And greed is the most powerful force on earth. It's unstoppable.

Anyway, I expect my wine to get here in the next couple of days. Good wine makes me happy and helps me chill at the end of an exhausting day. If Mr. Happy Pants isn't happy, then he can't go into work and deal with the horseshit he has to put up with to make a comfortable living with a little money left over to give to the IRC, HI and other charitable groups trying in vain to make a difference in this wretched, cesspool of a world we live in. So, really, it was important for me to buy that wine online today. Everything's connected, isn't it?

the view from backstage

2005-09-29T22:43:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week the White Stripes blew through town for a concert at an outdoor stadium in Maryland and my high-paying, fast-paced job in show business afforded me a nice view of the show from backstage.

First off, let me say that the performance left me in awe. Jack White didn't always hit the right notes or even stay in key, and Meg White played the drums like a brain-dead gargoyle, alternately hunched over the kit with her shoulders pinched to her ears or stretched out in coy ecstacy. But they shook the stadium with some serious, ass-kicking rock and roll. Jack White may be the finest rock guitarist since Hendrix. He seems to make it scream and swagger with the same soul Hendrix had. And Meg's spare drumming is perfectly suited to their overall lo-fi sound.

A few things I noticed. One thing I thought was really cool is that Meg White stood just at stage left during the opening act, M. Ward, and watched the whole show. She certainly didn't have to. Jack wasn't there and none of the members of the second opening act, The Shins, bothered to watch. But Meg stood there chain smoking through every song. She was wearing a lovely sea-green dress and high heels. She really was stunning.

I was watching the show from a balcony backstage so I was looking down on them as they played. When Jack lost his top hat during a particularly aggressive solo, I noticed a very distinct bald spot forming on his crown that he was more or less hiding with a comb-over. I think it's only a matter of time before he's either getting plugs or shaving his whole head. I hope the latter.

That close to Jack, I could also see a pretty big bulge and it wasn't where rock stars normally like to have it. This bulge was drooping over the lip of his skin-tight, bright red pants. Dude's getting a gut!

I'd like to say I did a line of coke off Meg's ass, then high-fived Jack as he tossed me a beer later in their hotel room. Truth is, I didn't even meet either of them. I hung back, did my job and minded my own business. But it was a nice view from backstage.

When the show was over, it was particularly cool to see the look on their faces once their backs were to the audience and they headed off stage. Their stage faces dropped instantly; both sort of widened their eyes for a beat and let out deep breaths. They were exhausted and seemed utterly human for a moment. Kick ass show.

You can hear the whole concert online here.

happy pants: 3, neighbor's pit bull: 0

2005-09-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight I used my mace for the first time. I had just finished my run and was walking the last couple of blocks home to cool down when a pit bull (may have been a large boxer), came tearing around the corner of a house I'd just passed. It was making that slobbery growl that the rottweiler next door to us always makes when I walk by. The dog's owner, it turns out, was in the driveway by his SUV and I figured he'd call the dog back. But when he just stood there and watched, I yelled "Your dog's about to get a face full of mace." Owner just stood there; dog charged; I pulled out my mace and gave it one short squirt to the face. The owner stepped away from his SUV and put his hands on his hips, while the dog darted and ran around in a couple of little circles. I said, "It's illegal to have your dog off a leash." The owner muttered something I couldn't make out and the dog came charging at me again. So I squirted it again. Then I yelled "Call your FUCKING DOG BACK NOW!"

Now let's say you're the dog owner. At this point, what do you say? Do you tell me to fuck off? Do you run after the dog and apologize profusely? Or do you do what the owner in this case did... which is absolutely nothing. He strolled down the driveway, all the while his dog is barking and lunging at me. That asshole didn't say a word! I gave the dog one more squirt and it finally ran back to the owner.

Back home I got to thinking. I suppose I could have gotten down to the dog's level and tried to be nice to it. Maybe it was actually a very friendly pit bull. And maybe I shouldn't have been so harsh with the owner. But then I thought, no. I ought to be able to take a walk or jog through my own goddamn neighborhood without having to worry about some asshole's dog chasing after me. And if it had been me and my dog charging after a pedestrian, I would have run after her, yelled at her to come back, grabbed her if possible and apologized profusely to the person.

I'm thinking of getting all public citizen on these people and writing a letter to our local paper or calling the police to tell them to enforce the leash laws. I mean, my dog is a two month-old puppy and I never let her outside of the house without a leash.

Anyway, I'm happy to report that the mace worked. But I was a little disappointed in the reach (I think the stream was maybe only a few feet) and I was surprised the dog didn't whimper and run away. Granted it was a big dog. But it mostly just shook it's head as though it had just smelled something really bad.

didn't i say something earlier about the world being a hate-filled cesspool?

2005-09-22T22:22:00.000-07:00

We're all for finding creative ways to support the troops in Iraq. Bringing them home, sooner rather than later, sits right up at the top of our list. But as Andrew Sullivan notes, the folks at a Web site called Now That's Fucked Up have another idea: They're offering U.S. troops free access to amateur porn in exchange for soldiers' photos from the war.

We checked out the site this morning. Some of the photos we saw there were about what you'd expect to see: Soldiers goofing off and looking tough with their guns; troops hanging out poolside at the former home of Uday Hussein; a soldier standing with an Iraqi kid.

But then there was the section called "gory." It's not the only place on the Web to see gruesome images from Iraq; a lot of sites offer pictures posted by soldiers, and Salon itself recently ran a gallery of grim shots from photojournalists in Iraq. The photographs in that gallery were graphic and disturbing, but -- in our minds, at least -- categorically different from the close-up, gore-for-gore's-sake photos of body parts posted at Now That's Fucked Up. And Salon ran the photos alongside an essay on the ways in which the government has kept the horrors of war hidden from its citizens. NTFU offers a picture depicting what's left of the head of a man shot with a .50-caliber weapon next to the words "I'm just here to masturbate" and above an ad for a Web site offering video of a mother and her daughter in a three-way sex act.

You can see that one here, if you must, but you ought to think twice before clicking through. There are simply no words adequate to describe the awfulness of what you'd see.

Even some of the site's customers seem to have qualms about what's going on there. When a poster on one of the site's message boards asked soldiers to contribute pictures of some "fresh kills," he was upbraided by his fellow posters and ultimately apologized, saying he had thought that calling for some "sand Nazi" blood would help boost the morale of the troops. But that sort of dialogue is in short supply at Now That's Fucked Up. More common are exclamations of support for the troops, juvenile jokes about dead people and name-that-body-part contests.

Is the Pentagon concerned about sites like Now That's Fucked Up? To an extent. In a memorandum -- a copy of which is posted on the site -- Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker warned last month that soldiers compromise "opsec," or operational security, when they post photos from Iraq on the Web. But Schoomaker's memo was aimed at pictures that show "weapon system vulnerabilities and tactics, techniques and procedures." The memo didn't say anything about photos showing bits and pieces of dead human beings -- or the propriety of trading them for the chance to see naked pictures of somebody else's former girlfriend.

(from Salon.com)

drag the president around like a rag doll

2005-09-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

I don't know much at all about Dan except that he has a blog, he likes Motley Crue and he's apparently very talented... assuming he made this.

don't piss on your neighbor's dog

2005-09-19T21:27:00.000-07:00

An alcoholic lives next door to us. This isn't the house with the morbidly obese woman and the Jamaican who beats his rottweiler. This is the other side. The guy there whose name I've never known is always drunk and smells like beer. I feel for him. He's always nice when I see him and he has two very sweet dogs he seems to love very much. He's just got this problem. Anyway, one of his dogs is a huge husky named Max. Whenever I take our precious little angel straight from heaven on a walk, I stop by the fence that holds Max and let the two of them touch noses. But tonight when I stopped by, Max promptly turned and took a steaming piss on my dog. Like a fire hose. Just shot it right through the fence and it splattered over my dog's head. What's up with that? I pulled her away just as the first drops hit her snout, but Max still got a pretty good shot.

Speaking of the other neighbors, this morning I noticed that their backyard was cleaned up and no longer smelled like shit. And while I was eating my breakfast, the Jamaican guy came out and played fetch with the rottweiler for a few minutes before going to work. I guess complaints from the neighborhood made them clean up their act. I couldn't believe it.

boston: don't believe the hype

2005-09-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

Everyone I know who's been to Boston says it's a city filled with Massholes... rude, arrogant, pricks who believe they're the center of the universe. This past week I went to Boston for the first time and have to say it's a damn fine city with good people. Incredible restaurants, beautiful cityscapes, bike and pedestrian friendly and everyone was so laid back and down to earth. One big difference I noted between it and DC is what money seems to have done to the community. In DC, particularly in Georgetown, there's something a bit disgusting and pretentious about all the wealth. It seems to have spawned a class of people wholey disconnected from the rest of the world. But in Boston and Cambridge, where there's just as much or more money, the people came off like a bunch of hippies. Of course everyone knows how progressive (liberal, give it a name) Mass. is. But it was still an interesting difference that got me wondering why things are the way they are.

Here we are enjoying an amazing dinner at a place called "Elephant Walk."

We couldn't find a pet sitter, so we took our little princess with us. She was so well behaved... in no small part because we kept her busy with this bone.

i wish i'd thought of this

2005-09-13T21:52:00.000-07:00

Brilliant. Hilarious. Is that Andy Dick in the video or just someone who looks and sounds just like him?

Bush's Speech Writer

a crisis in the neighborhood

2005-09-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

Tonight the neighbor with the rottweiler called. This is actually the 400-plus pound woman who lives next door with the dog, not the Jamaican guy she lives with who whipped it with a cane. (The two misfits are getting married next month). Anyway, she called tonight and said the neighbor on the other side of her fence had been complaining about the rottweiler and wanted to know if I agreed with any of the complaints: 1) The dog is intimidating; 2) The dog repeatedly attempts to climb over the fence while growling and barking; and 3) The yard reeks of shit. I had to admit I agreed on all counts. But I added that what the dog really needs is A LOT of attention. She said she'd look into adding a nice coil of razor wire to the top of the fence and try to be better about cleaning up the shit. But with a sigh she added, "It's not even my dog." She said they tried keeping it in a crate in the house but it chewed its way out then destroyed the house while they were all gone. Apparently it also had diarrhea and left some liquid bombs in various rooms.

What a fucked up little plot their place is. I can't imagine having to spend more than a few seconds in it. Although I did spend about an hour one night trying to help the 300-plus pound mother of the 400-pound plus woman stand back up after she'd fallen down. They called for my help. I couldn't budge her. We had to call the paramedics. It took six of us to lift her off the ground into a chair.

i'm rethinking everything

2005-09-12T22:14:00.000-07:00

Twice now in as many days, I've seen my neighbor whip his rottweiler with some sort of cane. Both times I was sitting out on our back porch reading when I heard a loud SWISH, WHACK! followed by the dog yelping. When I looked up, I saw the owner standing over the fence with a switch or something in his hand looking down at the rottweiler... this huge, vicious looking animal with his tail stuck between its legs and its ears back. From what I could tell, the dog had made the mistake of standing up at the fence to greet its owner, draping his floppy paws over the fence with its aligator jaw hanging open. The owner yelled "Get back there!" Whack! What a fucker.

I admit, when they first go this rottweiler, I imagined any number of inappropriate schemes to get rid of it. Now I feel incredibly sorry for it. They never play with him. He just sits there in a shit-filled, dirt yard with chewed up plastic jugs and other broken junk all around him all day and night. I never really bought the whole "there are no bad dogs, only bad owners" line before. But I can really see it now.

give that reporter an emmy!

2005-09-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

Best follow up question from a reporter I've ever heard:

"Go fuck yourself Mr. Cheney."

one more commentary on hurricane

2005-09-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

I know you're probably over the whole hurricane cluster fuck by now, but this video commentary is really worth watching.

i know, i know, no more hurricane whining

2005-09-06T22:19:00.000-07:00

I opened the Post this morning and saw this photo of a man lying dead in a gas station parking lot with his dog waiting... and waiting by his side. I explained to Gertie that I expect nothing less from her. Minutes later I was dragging her away from a pile of her own shit, which she was frantically trying to eat.

puppy update

2005-09-05T22:57:00.000-07:00

I'm now calling the puppy shitting on our obnoxiously expensive rug a blessing in disguise. Over the weekend I decided to try to salvage it, dragged it back inside and gave it a thorough steam cleaning. The buckets of dirty water I got out of it were horrifying. Just filthy, black water. It obviously needed cleaning anyway. I'm so lucky to have such a good do that can teach me valuable lessons in home sanitation.

After I was done cleaning it, I let her back in. She immediately trotted into the living room and squatted on the rug to take another steaming piss. This time I screamed "NOOOOooo!" and she stopped before any real damage could be done. Then I wrapped her in duct tape, stuck her in a box with some holes punched in it and slid her into a closet with some other junk. I'll get her out and unpack her when it's convenient for me.

humans are shit: select hurricane clips

2005-09-04T16:45:00.000-07:00

(Reuters) "We found a young girl raped and killed in the bathroom," one National Guard soldier told Reuters in the Superdome. "Then the crowd got the man and they beat him to death."

(AP) Sunday morning, a woman's body remained lying at the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street — a business area in the lower Garden District with antique shops on the edge of blighted housing. The body had been there since at least Wednesday.

(Retuers) Women spoke of the terror they felt as gangs of thieves and rapists roamed the streets and temporary shelters night after night, plucking victims -- some of them children -- at whim and with no fear of police intervention.

(AP) An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered with a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.

(AP) John Henry picked up a pair of hiking shoes, a pair of tennis shoes that looked unworn, packs of cigarettes and a variety of spirits, including bottles of cognac and Jack Daniels. "We're looting the people who were looting," he said, cackling. "I love it. I have to admit it."

(Retuers) At New Orleans airport, which was transformed into a holding pen for the elderly and infirm as well as a gateway for the departing, dozens of people from nursing homes and hospitals lay dying on stretchers on the floor. "Their organs are shutting down. They are septic." said chaplain Mark Reeves, 43, from the federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team. "We've already had 25 die here."

(Retuers) "There were bodies floating everywhere. Lots of them. Some had bullets in them," said Michael Davis.

(Retuers) James Tilghman said he had been appalled by the violence in New Orleans and was concerned that some of it might spill over into his community with the arrival of more survivors. "I'm totally against guns, but I bought one this week," he said.

thank god for women

2005-09-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

My friend LB was on this ages ago, but I was so moved to tears when I saw it, I had to put it up here as well. I've always said men are basically feral, shit-eating beasts. After browsing this gallery, I'm more convinced of that than ever.

my cashectomy at the vet today

2005-09-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

My little angel straight from heaven had a surprise, 300-dollar visit to the vet this morning. I'm pretty new to the dog world, so when it comes to taking care of them, I really only know what I've read and what other people have told me. One thing is that if they're less than four or five months old, you can't expect them to hold it in for more than a few hours. So I've been getting up at five in the morning all this week to let her out to unload on our back yard. This morning when I let her out, she started hacking. It sounded a lot like a cat trying to cough up a hairball. I thought she was choking on something, but couldn't find anything. It settled down and I sat out with her and dozed off. When I woke up a couple hours later, she was hacking again. That, along with the streaming-shooting-shit and obsessive licking between the legs and wimpering freaked me out. So I took her to what is generally a pretty posh vet's office in DC. They saved our cat's life last fall, albeit for a price, so while they're expensive, I trust them. They told me our dog is just freaked out about being in a new home and that the stress of it compromised her whole body and made her susceptible to bugs and viruses, so she probably just has a cold and some sort of infection. They gave her some antibiotics and sent me on my way. Ka-ching!

Anyway, the little princess seems to be doing better already. No hacking at all tonight. She did, however, eat a pile of her own shit before I could intervene. Jesus god. That can NOT be good for you.

bush, what a tool

2005-09-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

Waiting for a Leader

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.

We will, of course, endure, and the city of New Orleans must come back. But looking at the pictures on television yesterday of a place abandoned to the forces of flood, fire and looting, it was hard not to wonder exactly how that is going to come to pass. Right now, hundreds of thousands of American refugees need our national concern and care. Thousands of people still need to be rescued from imminent peril. Public health threats must be controlled in New Orleans and throughout southern Mississippi. Drivers must be given confidence that gasoline will be available, and profiteering must be brought under control at a moment when television has been showing long lines at some pumps and spot prices approaching $4 a gallon have been reported.

Sacrifices may be necessary to make sure that all these things happen in an orderly, efficient way. But this administration has never been one to counsel sacrifice. And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.

While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast's most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans's levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?

It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America "will be a stronger place" for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won't acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.

(NY Times)

what i'd tell my readers

2005-08-31T22:25:00.000-07:00

So some of you may be wondering what happened to Mr. Happy Pants. I mean, here it's been a month or so and he hasn't posted a damn thing. Maybe he fell down and hit his head, or maybe he has a debilitating infection. Or maybe he woke one morning to find himself imobiliized by the realization that his life has become a meaningless charade and that the thought of sharing this charade with others online was shameful.

No. The truth is. I've just been a little busy.

If I'd been making regular posts, I would have told you how I finally finished the renovation work on the second floor of our house... and on the screened-in back porch... and on the front porch, which I rebuilt... and all the landscaping. I would have shared these before and after photos with you:

1. Before - After
2. Before - After
3. Before - After
4. Before - After
5. Before - After
6. Before - After

I would have bragged about doing all the work myself and how it took me almost a year to finish it. I would have talked about tiling the back porch in my underwear because it was so goddamn hot and I was sweating so much that it was splattering on the ground and I felt like I was working in the rain.

On another post I would have complained about the fact that someone stole my f***ing ladder. I would have told you that it was a 200 dollar ladder and that I loved that ladder. I would have described how pissed I was when I went to the shed to retreive it so I could string a phone cable up to the second floor only to find the ladder was gone. I also would have blamed the theft (as I did to everyone who found themselves stuck in a conversation with me) on a drifter who came by one day when I was gone and asked my wife if he could clean our gutters for 30 bucks. She said sure only to discover he had no ladder and needed to borrow ours. A couple days later he came by and asked my wife for 50 dollars and promised to pay her back. She said no, of course. But I'm guessing he came back later and stole my f***ing ladder because he figured he could use it to get other work cleaning other people's gutters. I hate this drifter. I want my ladder back.

If I had nothing better to say, I probably would have told you about the street solicitor who approached me on my lunch break the other day, trying to be all buddy-buddy, shootin' the shit with me before hitting me up for money, and how I cut him off before he could get started by saying "I can tell you right now this isn't going to go anywhere" and how he stood there dumfounded until he thought to say, "Well godbless you." And how that kind of made me feel guilty, but at the same time empowered.

I know for a fact that I would have told you how I've done what many would have thought impossible and got a dog. I'd tell you how madly in love I am with her and how she is, without a doubt, the most perfectly adorable little creature that ever walked the earth.

Later I would have told you how I came home one day after work only to find this adorable creature had wriggled through the cat door that leads to the back porch where we'd been keeping her while we're gone. I would have told you how I opened the front door to find her standing in the living room wagging her tail, standing next to two enormous piles of liquid shit on my 600 dollar pottery barn rug. Then I'd blow your mind by telling you how cool I was about the whole thing, put her back in the back room and gave her a treat and apologized for being such a bad owner because I put her in a position where she felt she really needed to shit on and ruin my 600 dollar pottery barn rug. Later we played fetch for a half an hour before I fed her the boiled chicken and brown rice I'd cooked for her. I'm a very patient person.

There have been many songs I would have shared with you. Songs my wife has in her head every morning and sings to me while I spoon my cereal and sip my coffee over the morning paper. There was the morning she sang one line from "Spinning Wheel" over and over and over. There was the other morning she pinched her nose and hummed to imitate a trumpet, bleeting out "Feels So Good" by Chuck Mangione. That one lasted for a couple of hours. All through breakfast. The shower. Shaving. Ironing my clothes. The drive into work.

Oh my. There really have been so many things I would have shared with you. But frankly, I've just been a little "distracted." I'm not saying I'm proud of this. Life is what it is. It's been a long, horrible hot and wretched summer. But with fall rapidly, blissfully approaching, I feel ready to get back on the horse here and I hope you'll find it in your cold, black, lifeless hearts to join me.

And one thing you can be sure: Jim's Journal will return... he's starting the fall semester of his sophomore year now.

So strap yourselves in! Or... don't. Either way.

mornings with melinda: 07-22-2005

2005-07-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

Good lord. Where do they come from?

a glimpse into my life

2005-07-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

My wife wakes up almost every morning with some wretched song stuck in her head. I don't know where they come from or why, but she always sings the one line or word she remembers from these songs to me over and over while I go quietly through my routine... coffee, the paper, a bowl of cereal. Some mornings her brain is on idle and she's song-less. But more often than not, I can count on her to at least hum a few bars from some tune I haven't thought of in years.

I thought, time permitting, I'd start sharing some of these songs with you. Here's the one she had stuck in her head this morning:

Mornings With Melinda: 07-21-2005

impress me

2005-07-17T22:03:00.000-07:00

After years of marveling at the can opener, I've decided to be disappointed in the progress of technology. I've heard we've made more advances as a civilization in the last 100 years than in all the other centuries combined, which is probably true. But tonight I was listening to the news and there was this story about some students who built an engine that runs, in part, on garbage. It got me thinking that while it's true we've made a tremendous amount of progress to get to this point, I feel like we've sort of dug in our heels. It seems like for the past 30 years or so, we've been fighting further progress. Business interests are likely behind this. And fear. But as far as I can tell, there's no reason why we shouldn't have the following by now:

1. Cars that run on feces
2. Laser guns
3. The ability to control the weather
4. Cure for the common cold (I believe there is one and companies like tylenol are fighting to keep it from becoming available)
5. Plastic fuck dolls. Oh wait. We've got those.

one can assume random libertarian gives himself regular tongue baths

2005-07-15T20:33:00.000-07:00

Random Libertarian here with a guest post to the Happy Pants internet cyber web blog.

The following events are absolutely true and unfolded this past week. Several times per year, Random Libertarian finds that he has a small, solid piece of phlegm stuck in his throat, approximately three millimeters by three millimeters in size, and all attempts to dislodge it prove futile. Normally, RL simply ignores said irritating obstruction, and eventually, usually after a day or less, it works its way out of RL's life on its own.

This week, however, RL found he had just such a phlegmatic spherule pestering his esophagus, and no amount of time was sufficient to convince the bastard to leave of his own accord. After the fourth day, being able to stand this inconvenience no longer, he attempted to dislodge the intruder with his finger, then with his electric toothbrush; both tries failed. Shining a flashlight into the mirror, he was able to clearly view the dark yellow beast, which mocked him from the deepest recesses of his own oral cavity.

What to do? Random Libertarian thought and thought, and then he hit upon a plan. It sounded crazy at first -- so crazy, it just might work, as was once said of time travel, before it became commonplace.

RL headed up to his local CVS, where he braved the untrained sales clerks to purchase a small water pistol. Returning to his home, RL loaded said pistol with a generous sum of tap water, aimed it into his mouth, and fired. Repeatedly. With extreme prejudice.

After ten seconds of this aquatic barrage, followed by three seconds of frenzied hacking, the ball of phlegm surrendered. It lay in the sink, defeated, mocking its host no more. And Random Libertarian was able to return, no longer irritated, to his two true callings in life: eating pate, and seeking to reduce the size of the federal government.

the world is a hate-filled cesspool

2005-07-15T15:43:00.000-07:00

I've decided to offer periodic reminders of what a wretched, wretched world this is. Here are two to get us started:

UNIONTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Pennsylvania police say a youth tee-ball coach paid one of his players 25 dollars to throw a baseball at the head of a mentally disabled eight-year-old teammate.

They say witnesses told them that the coach, Mark Downs, didn't want the mentally disabled boy to play in the game because of his disability.

The player he allegedly paid hit the boy in both the head and the groin.

Downs was arraigned today on a number of charges, including criminal solicitation to commit aggravated asault and corruption of minors.

BARTLESVILLE, Okla. (AP) - An Oklahoma woman who allegedly drank so much that she gave birth to a drunk baby is charged with child neglect.

A police affidavit says Melissa Tanner had a blood alcohol content of point-two-nine percent when she gave birth June 30th. Police say the baby girl was at point-two-one percent.

Hospital staff had to use an oxygen bag to help the baby start breathing and gave her medication to counteract any narcotics.

Police say Tanner told them she and another person had just polished off a case of beer -- and that she regularly drank during pregnancy.

A sheriff's investigator says the baby has fetal alcohol syndrome.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists the syndrome as the leading preventable cause of mental retardation and physical deformity. The severity of the girl's disability won't be known until she is older.

okay okay! here's an update

2005-07-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

There remains this enormous and wicked sociocultural myth. It is this:
Hard work is all there is.

Work hard and the world respects you. Work hard and you can have anything you want. Work really extra super hard and do nothing else but work and ignore your family and spend 14 hours a day at the office and make 300 grand a year that you never have time to spend, sublimate your soul to the corporate machine and enjoy a profound drinking problem and sporadic impotence and a nice 8BR mini-mansion you never spend any time in, and you and your shiny BMW 740i will get into heaven.

This is the American Puritan work ethos, still alive and screaming and sucking the world dry. Work is the answer. Work is also the question. Work is the one thing really worth doing and if you're not working you're either a slacker or a leech, unless you're a victim of BushCo's budget-reamed America and you've been laid off, and therefore it's OK because that means you're out there every day pounding the pavement looking for work and honing your resume and if you're not, well, what the hell is wrong with you?

Call it "the cafe question." Any given weekday you can stroll by any given coffee shop in the city and see dozens of people milling about, casually sipping and eating and reading and it's freakin' noon on a Tuesday and you're like, wait, don't these people work? Don't they have jobs? They can't all be students and trust-fund babies and cocktail waitresses and drummers in struggling rock bands who live at home with their moms.

Of course, they're not. Not all of them, anyway. Some are creative types. Some are corporate rejects. Some are recovering cube slaves now dedicated full time to working on their paintings. Some are world travelers who left their well-paying gigs months ago to cruise around Vietnam on a motorcycle before returning to start an import-export business in rare hookahs. And we look at them and go, What is wrong with these people?

It's a bitter duality: We scowl at those who decide to chuck it all and who choose to explore something radical and new and independent, something more attuned with their passions, even as we secretly envy them and even as our inner voices scream and applaud and throw confetti.

Our culture allows almost no room for creative breaks. There is little tolerance for seeking out a different kind of "work" that doesn't somehow involve cubicles and widening butts and sour middle managers monitoring your e-mail and checking your Web site logs to see if you've wasted a precious 37 seconds of company time browsing blowfish.com or reading up on the gay marriage apocalypse.

We are at once infuriated by and enamored with the idea that some people can just up and quit their jobs or take a leave of absence or take out a loan to go back to school, how they can give up certain "mandatory" lifestyle accoutrements in order to dive back into some seemingly random creative/emotional/spiritual endeavor that has nothing to do with paying taxes or the buying of products or the boosting of the GNP. It just seems so ... un-American. But it is so, so needed.

Case in point No. 1: I have this sister. She is deep in medical school right now, studying to be a naturopathic doctor at Bastyr University just outside Seattle, the toughest school of its kind in the nation, and the most difficult to get into, especially if you've had no formal medical training beforehand, as my sister hadn't.

She got in. She bucked all expectation and thwarted the temptation to quit and take a well-paying corporate job and she endured the incredibly brutal first year and rose to the top of her class. Oh and by the way, she did it all when she was over 40. With almost no money. While going through an ugly, debt-ridden divorce.

Oh you're so lucky that you have the means to do that, we think. I'd love to do that but I can't because I have too many a) bills b) babies c)doubts, we insist. We always think such lives are for others and never for ourselves, something people with huge chunks of cash reserves or huge hunks of time or huge gobs of wildly ambitious talent can do. It is never for us.

And truly, this mind-set is the national plague, a fate worse than death.

And while it must be acknowledged that there are plenty who are in such dire financial or emotional circumstances that they simply cannot bring change, no matter how much they might wish it, you still always gotta ask: How much is legit, and how much is an excuse born of fear?

The powers that be absolutely rely on our lethargy, our rampant doubts, the attitude that says that it's just too difficult or too impracticable to break away. After all, to quit a bland but stable job, to follow your own path implies breaking the rules and asking hard questions and dissing the status quo. And they absolutely cannot have that.

Case in point No. 2: I have a young and rather brilliant S.O., a specialist in goddesses and mystics and world religions, who is right now working on a book, a raw funky spirituality "anti-guide" for younger women. She took a six-month leave of absence from a very decent, reliable, friendly administrative job so as to focus on the creation of this project.

And while she has no trust fund, she does have the "luxury" of small parental loans to help her through, though it hardly matters: Giving up her respectable gig was insanely stressful and wracked with doubt. Leave a honest job? Give up paid health care? Have no reliable source of income for months on end? Trade calm stability for risk and random chance? No way, most people say. And of course, it was the absolute best choice she could've made. Time instantly became more fluid and meaningful. Mental clutter vanished. Possibility grinned.

Case in point No. 3: Not long ago, the CEO of one of the largest and most powerful international real estate firms in the nation quit his job. Stepped down. Not, as you might imagine, for retirement and not to play more golf and not to travel the world staying only in Four Seasons suites, but to work on rebuilding his relationship with his estranged wife.

My insider source tells me it was one of the most touching, and unexpected, and incredibly rare corporate memos they had ever seen. No one -- I mean no one in this culture is supposed to quit a job like that just for, what again? Love? Relationship? It's simply not done. But of course, it absolutely should be.

We are designed, weaned, trained from Day 1 to be productive members of society. And we are heavily guilted into believing that must involve some sort of droning repetitive pod-like dress-coded work for a larger corporate cause, a consumerist mechanism, a nice happy conglomerate.

But the truth is, God, the divine true spirit loves nothing more than to see you unhinge and take risk and invite regular, messy, dangerous upheaval. This is exactly the energy that thwarts the demons of stagnation and conservative rot and violent sanctimonious bloody Mel Gibson-y religion, one that would have all our work be aimed at continuously patching up our incessant potholes of ugly congenital guilt, as opposed to contributing to the ongoing orgiastic evolution of spirit.

It is not for everyone. It implies incredibly difficult choices and arranging your life in certain ways and giving up certain luxuries and many, many people seemed locked down and immovable and all done with exploring new options in life, far too deeply entrenched in debts and family obligations and work to ever see such unique light again. Maybe you know such people. Maybe you are such people.

But then again, maybe not. This is the other huge truism we so easily forget: There is always room. There are always choices we can begin to make, changes we can begin to invite, rules we can work to upset, angles of penetration we can try to explore. And if that's not worth trying, well, what is?

- Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

my new favorite band

2005-06-29T23:40:00.000-07:00

They've got one of those overly-clever names plucked randomly from the pages of a dictionary or an owners manual to some outdated power tool, which really annoys the shit out of me. But I love their music. Their name is: Flotation Toy Warning and they're debut album is Bluffer's Guide to the Flight Deck.

I haven't been able to find out much about them, but here's a song from their CD. It's called "Fire Engine on Fire, Pt. 1"

why would you ever get in the water??

2005-06-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Is swimming and riding a boogie board so much fun that you're willing to risk being eaten alive? Personally, no.

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - A teenage boy was bitten and critically injured Monday in the second shark attack in three days along the Florida Panhandle.

The boy, whose age and name were not released, was taken to Bay Medical Center in Panama City. The nature of his injuries was not immediately released.

He was attacked off Cape San Blas, a popular vacation destination about 80 miles southeast of the Destin area, where 14-year-old Jamie Marie Daigle of Gonzales, La., was killed by a shark on Saturday.

Daigle had been swimming on a boogie board with a friend about 100 yards from shore when a shark tore away the flesh on one leg from her hip to her knee.

Erich Ritter of the Shark Attack Institute said the girl was probably attacked by a 6-foot bull shark, based on measurements of the bite wound. He said it was unlikely the same shark was responsible for Monday's attack.

After Saturday's attack, a 20-mile stretch of shore was closed to swimmers, but beaches reopened Sunday with a double staff of sheriff's beach patrol officers.

Florida averaged more than 30 shark attacks a year from 2000 to 2003, but there were only 12 attacks off the state's coast last year, according to figures compiled by the American Elasmobranch
Society and the Florida Museum of Natural History.

mother of god

2005-06-26T22:26:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post did a profile of this Baltimore guy today. He's so obese that he can't lay on his back because the rolls of fat would lay against his wind pipe and suffocate him. He hasn't been able to stand up since 1998. He was evicted from his apartment (you can't really work in this condition) so fire fighters had to remove the windows to his living room and hoist him out with a crane normally used to transport whales.

That's his wife giving him a hug. He's now in a nursing home where he's dropped from about 800 pounds down to about 650, all from simply eating better. He still can't sit up straight or stand. Exercise is out of the question. Someone has to wipe his ass for him when he shits the bed.

How is it that his heart is able to keep beating with such a mass of fat pressing against it? Imagine taking your own heart and plunging it into a large vat filled with lard. I just don't see how it could keep working. And his blood must be the consistency of crisco.

I feel sorry for him. Someone should tell him about the P-90 X workout from Beach Body.

midwesterners: spooky smart

2005-06-23T22:46:00.000-07:00

I was reminded today how people from the midwest have an almost supernatural sense of direction. A coworker was telling me how she'd like to plant a garden in her backyard and needed to figure out what direction her house faces. Though I've only been to her place once, I could easily tell her it faces south and that the longest part of her yard runs east to west. I don't think this is that big of a deal. But the amazement she expressed is not at all uncommon for people on the east coast. I've gotten the jaw hanging open from others here as well.

When my wife (also from the midwest) and I talk about our own house, we say things like "the east bedroom" or the "west window in the south room," not the left window in the back room or some such thing, which really wouldn't make any sense to us anyway. And no matter where we are - at someone's house, an elevator, a new town, driving around, etc. - we always know where north is. My other friends from the plains states are the same way.

Nobody on the east coast seems to posess the same sense of direction and the only explanation I can think of is that we grew up on a grid with huge, open spaces and big skies. On the east coast, where all the cities are much, much older, and the roads wind all over the place in the most senseless patterns, people are just thoroughly confused. They also grew up in the shadow of office buildings and were likely not as aware of the sun passing across the sky each day.

Facing east in the west bedroom, I remain: Mr. Happy Pants

where the action is

2005-06-20T21:23:00.000-07:00

My friend Lonnie B. is kicking some serious ass with his blog these days. I highly recommend his latest post on the shark tournament. You might have to scroll down the page. The pictures are amazing.

best begging line ever

2005-06-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

I just saw a guy on the street holding a sign that said "Ninjas killed my family. Please give money for karate lessons."

man-breasts: pandemic

2005-06-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Forecast for the Summer: Steamy!

One of the biggest drawbacks to Summer is the widespread and shameless display of man breasts. I was on my way to Home Depot this past weekend and saw this kid on the street, shirtless, with the largest man tits I've ever seen, wagging back and forth as he waddled up the sidewalk. I nearly drove off the road. I really wish I'd had my camera. I tried to recreate it with a pencil drawing, but it really doesn't do it justice:

i'm so ashamed

2005-06-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

Happy Pants would like to apologize for failing to update this page. He's just been so very, very busy lately with his fast-paced show business career. He doesn't expect you to understand. But he very much appreciates the loyalty of those who continue to come to this site hoping against hope for something, anything.

What does hoping against hope mean, anyway? Something against something... Hm. Sleeping against sleep? Thinking against thought? What the hell does that mean?

Anyway... I'll try to be better.

sharks are amazing

2005-06-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

Objects found inside various shark stomachs: A cuckoo clock, a fur cape, license plates, lobster traps, a buffalo head, an entire reindeer and a man dressed in a full suit of armor.

From "The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Survival and obsession Among America's Great White Sharks" by Susan Casey.

why i still like howard dean

2005-06-08T17:03:00.000-07:00

Here's the lead sentence of an AP story that just came down the wire:

"When Howard Dean opens his mouth, Democrats cringe - and Republicans pounce."

I don't think that's really true. I actually rather enjoy it when Dean makes some wildly inappropriate, politically incorrect and wreckless comment like, "The GOP is pretty much a white Christian party," with many who "never made an honest living in their life." Or when he said house majority leader Tom Delay should go back to Houston to serve jail time.

I mean, really... those are pretty tame. I would have said: the GOP is largely a party of bloodless, money-grubbing freaks. Or: the GOP is brimming with hate-filled, morally-compromised nutbags. And Tom Delay? His body should be raked open and fed to vultures.

Anyway, did you see that new Star Wars movie? It's awesome!

urgent breaking news

2005-06-08T16:54:00.000-07:00

LINDSAY Lohan is still upset at Ashlee Simpson for "stealing" her ex-boyfriend, Wilmer Valderrama, last year.

When Ashlee arrived with her sister, Jessica, Saturday night for Lohan's party at the Standard in L.A. after the MTV Movie Awards, there was almost "a catfight," sources say.

Jessica and Ashlee pulled up, and as hotel employees were clearing a table for them at Lindsay's party, Lindsay supposedly found out and said, 'No way — they are not coming to my party.' And the guy at the door told the Simpsons that [Lohan] said to go away," our spywitness said.

The Simpson sisters then went to Jimmy Fallon's party at the Argyle Hotel, where Jessica was heard ranting, "That [bleep]. If she comes here, I will kick her ass!"

Sure enough, an hour later, Lohan ended up at the Argyle, where Jessica "went ballistic," spies said. "She was screaming how she was going to kick her butt, and had to be separated from Lindsay. Ashlee wasn't so upset, but Jessica was furious because she says she is a star and should be let in everywhere."

The trio ended up making up after Lohan "explained it was a mistake that they were not let into her party."

A rep for Lohan said, "Maybe their names got misplaced on the list."
A rep for Ashlee said, "Ashlee and Jessica had a great time at Jimmy's party, which was the hottest one of the night."

shoot me now

2005-06-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally happened. A soul-killing blanket of brutal heat and humidity has descended on the city. And so begins a three-month stint of non-stop whining on my part.

I know it's not cool to complain. But there are extenuating circumstances. I've got the pale blue bunny eyes, ultra-fair skin and big snout for warming the arctic air that I'm biologically built for. My people were never meant to habitate swamps like DC.

Last night the ceiling fan in our bedroom quit working. I guess it just wore out. I cried, flipping the power switch up and down frantically. I guess I know what I'll be replacing this weekend.

star wars update

2005-06-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

I've seen the new film three times now and will probably see it again. I've seen it with eight different people and every one of them said they thought it was the best of all six. I concur.

Actually, there were a couple of jaded, hyper-cynical college students in one of the groups I went with who laughed through much of the film and mocked it as we were leaving the theater. Cynicism is so exhausting. I just don't have the energy for it anymore.

People who hated "Revenge of the Sith" need to lighten up and remember that Star Wars has ALWAYS been about eye candy, framed in a hokey fairy tale. And as far as hokey fairy tales and eye candy go, you can't do better than the new film.

you've got to be f***ing kidding

2005-05-27T10:40:00.000-07:00

JAKARTA, Indonesia, May 27 - A drug smuggling case that has created anger across Australia came to a climax today when a 27-year-old Australian woman was found guilty of trying to bring nine pounds of marijuana into Bali and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The reading of the verdict, to a packed courtroom in Bali, was carried live on Australian television and radio. The three judges who heard the case could have sentenced the defendant, Schapelle Corby, to be executed, a fate met by many foreigners convicted of drug offenses in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries.

Ms. Corby claims the marijuana, which customs officials found in her luggage when she landed in Denpassar last October, had been put there by baggage handlers during her flight, which began in Brisbane and transited through Sydney.

Southeast Asian countries have strict drug laws, and airport signs, arrival cards and announcements by airlines, warn travelers about the consequences of being caught with drugs; trials of foreigners on drug charges are routine, and the imposition of death sentences for the convicted are not exceptional.

Ms. Corby's supporters included the Australian government, which paid part of her defense, leading to accusations that Australia was interfering in the Indonesian judicial system in a way that Australians would never tolerate another country doing in their own country.

Underlying the "hysteria" and "Indonesia-bashing," words used by The Australian in a recent editorial, was a tinge of racism, and a disdainful view of Indonesia as a country of corrupt politicians and Islamic terrorists.

Responding to public pressure, the Australian government, under Prime Minister John Howard, sent a letter to the court saying that the government was investigating corrupt baggage handlers. The opposition leader, Kim Beazley, also made statements suggesting Ms. Corby was innocent.

In response, The Sydney Morning Herald said in an editorial that Mr. Howard and Mr. Beazley "are pandering to Australian public opinion."

If the Indonesian public and officials acted in a similar manner were an Indonesia on trial in Australia, Australians "would be insulated and angry - no, outraged," the editorial said.

Based on the evidence presented, a Melbourne law professor, Tim Lindsey, said he thought the judges reached the right decision.

"The evidence we've seen isn't particularly strong in favor of her innocence," Mr. Lindsey, director of the Asia Law Center, at the University of Melbourne, told the Channel Nine television station.

Both sides said they would appeal. The prosecution can seek an increase in the length of the sentence.

The Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, announced that the government would send lawyers to help Ms. Corby with her appeal. He also said the government was discussing a prisoner swap with Indonesia, which would allow Ms. Corby to serve her sentence in Australia.

happy pants back... again

2005-05-25T23:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Pants has been in Kansas visiting family. I'm back now. Lots to write about, but it'll have to wait... hopefully tomorrow I'll have some time.

Real quick, though... I got together with friends tonight and watched LOST. It was bitchin'. (BTW, I've decided to single handedly bring the word 'bitchin' back in vogue). I think they gave us just the right amount of info to keep us satisfied but dying for the next season.

I want to give a special shout out to a woman I watched it with. We'll call her Rachel (her real name). Rachel, you make watching TV a bloodsport. Full-on contact, thrill-a-second fun. You clearly have something very special to offer the world... a rare and beautiful gift. Don't give it away to just anyone.

And to all you other slobs I watched it with, goddammit, I love you too.

BTW, Rachel... the guy I asked you if you knew (the idiot school teacher who blows himself up), is played by Daniel Roebuck. He was in 'The River's Edge' way back when. That's probably what I remember him from.

holy sith!!

2005-05-19T23:27:00.000-07:00

Just saw the new Star Wars movie and I have to say it was, hands down, the best of ALL SIX movies. Now, I saw the first three when I was in elementary and middle school and they were magical for me. Even remembering them through the lens of a mesmerized child, I feel very comfortable saying this new film is better than any of the original three.

There was a brilliantly-written, hilarious and scathing review in the New Yorker of the latest Star Wars film. Anthony Lane is one of my favorite reviewers. Also sharp, always funny. In this case he crafted a review that was good for some laughs and cheap shots (and thoroughly entertaining) but ultimately waaaaaay off the mark. Anthony, did you actually see the same movie I did? I find it hard to believe.

One thing to keep in mind is that Lane didn't like ANY of the Star Wars movies, finding them much too souless. I'm not sure you can trust someone who didn't even like the original Star Wars films to give a fair assessment of the latest. Just trust me. If you had any affinity for the original films, go see the new one and I'm sure you'll agree it's a masterpiece surpassing all the others. Just amazing.

When I got home this evening there was a message on my answering machine from Darth Vader. He wanted to know if I'd be interested in switching from my current DSL provider to Verizon DSL. I guess he's got to eat, too. But it's sad to picture him in a cubicle somewhere cold-calling people.

I think I'll go see it again tomorrow. Who's with me??

wallet update

2005-05-17T23:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I give day one with the new wallet a "C" to maybe a "C plus." I *really* didn't like carrying it around. It felt like someone had parked a car in my front pocket. But I have to admit it was awfully neat and tidy and it felt pretty cool when I opened it up and easily found the right bills to pay for lunch and whatnot without making a complete mess. This morning when I got off the metro and walked by the coffee shop, I intentionally stopped in just so I could try using the wallet for the first time. After I placed my order (a simple cup of coffee, none of that double decaf grande skim frappe latte nonsense for me), I produced the new wallet and the whole shop went quiet. I noticed a few people in line behind me craning their necks to see. When I unfolded it and removed two dollars, there were several gasps. I dropped the money on the counter, snapped the wallet closed and parked it back in my front pocket. I kept my cool. On the way out, coffee in hand, a few people patted me on the back. I smiled smugly. But, admittedly, once the shop door jingled shut and I was back on the street, my hands were shaking. I couldn't believe I'd pulled it off.

monumental change in my life

2005-05-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this for a number of weeks, now. Really, years if you think about it. But only in recent weeks did I start giving it some serious, concentrated thought. Then, tonight, after I got home from work, I finally decided to go ahead and take that big step that I knew would change my life forever. I bought a wallet.

I can honestly say I've never owned a wallet in my entire life. This is because I hate having things in my pockets, and I particularly hate having things in my back pocket, where most jackasses put their wallets. So I've always just stuck my cash in my pocket with my driver's license and debit card, without the fancy carrying case. This was low-impact enough that I could take it. I've never gotten the appeal of having a big ass, fat wallet stuffed with all kinds of cards and whatnot. Who are these people and what do they get out of it??

That said, the downside to my method is that your debit card gets pretty chewed up and the magnetic strip on the back gets worn off so it frequently won't work when you try to swipe it somewhere. Also, your bills are always a complete mess. I always have to pull the whole wad out when I'm in line at a store and sort through it, dropping bills here and there and unfolding and inspecting everything while trying to find the right amount, all the while the people waiting behind me are getting pissed for having to wait on me to get my shit together.

So tonight I threw in the towel. My nobel experiment of living without a wallet had a good long run and I have no regrets. Here's to the future. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. I figure I won't really know how it's working until that first moment when I have to fish it out of my FRONT pocket, unfold it and pull some bills out to pay for parking or lunch tomorrow. I'm a little nervous.

no jim's journal?

2005-05-16T22:40:00.000-07:00

I'm so torn. I really wanted my Jim's Journal postings to more or less match up with a real academic calendar. But as you know, he's been on his Summer break, even though Summer hasn't even started yet. And I just checked and I've already blown through the Summer strips and now, in "I Went To College And It Was Okay" he's starting his sophomore year. What do I do? Do I take a break from Jim's Journal and pick it back up in a few weeks or months, or do I just forget about the whole calendar thing and keep running them regardless?

This may be the hardest decision I've ever made.

mmmmmmm.... hair

2005-05-16T22:32:00.000-07:00

hairball300
Originally uploaded by happypants.

This hairball was surgically removed from the stomach of a 12-year-old girl. From age 6, she had suffered from trichophagia, an emotional disorder causing young girls to eat their hair.

Read more about this and other medical oddities from the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, DC.

die '80s die

2005-05-12T21:48:00.000-07:00

If you know me at all, you surely know how much I loathed the '80s. The music, fashion, film, politics, just about everything really, was utter shit.

By now it's also no secret to anyone paying attention that the 20-year cycle for such things has come around and much of what made the '80s so awful is starting to reappear. I was recently thumbing through a magazine and saw an ad for Polo that featured some idiots with FEATHERED HAIR wearing TWO PINK AND GREEN POLO SHIRTS, one inside the other, with THE COLLARS UP!! I felt my fingers tighten on the magazine when I turned to that page. Jesus tap dancing Christ I hated that when I had to see all the morons in high school wearing them and it's even more irritating now. So far I haven't seen anyone in person out and about wearing two polo shirts with the collars up. But fair warning to anyone who's thinking of doing it: if I see you, I will stomp on your foot.

jim's journal for 05-12-2005

2005-05-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Got home late from work, exhausted. Ate half a peanut butter sandwich and stared blankly at the wall with each bite.

Here's today's edition of Jim's Journal.

YESTERDAY on lost

2005-05-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

Wow. I was so spent after watching LOST yesterday I really just didn't have it in me to turn on the computer and pore over everything. I got a good night's sleep though and dreamed I was on the island hunting boar with Locke. I'm much better now.

I feel sorry for those of you who don't watch LOST. What sad, pathetic, empty lives you must lead. Every Thursday morning I sit in a coworker's office and we deconstruct the previous evening's episode, both of us entirely certain of the rich, rewarding experience we're sharing.

For those of you wise enough to care, here's an easily-digestible look at what the next two weeks might bring in the three-hour season finale. Unfortunately, it looks like it won't include any full frontal nudity involving everyone's favorite felon Evangeline Lilly.

As for me, I honestly have no theories about what the hatch leads to, whether the raft will get them off the island, who the 'others' are, whether the kid has supernatural powers, and so on. Nothing I can imagine seems good enough. I'd seriously hate to be a writer for that show.

One of my coworker's theories: The whole island is manufactured and run by a madman.

jim's journal for 05-10-2005

2005-05-10T23:21:00.000-07:00

I was thinking today that if I had to live with only one utensil for the rest of my life, it'd be the spoon. It's the most perfectly designed utensil... next to maybe the spork. But a spork is really sort of an adulterated spoon and shouldn't really count. I mean, once you go there, you might as well start counting the leatherman. And who wants to eat with a leatherman for the rest of their life? No. Give me the spoon.

I think I'll start carrying one around with me everywhere I go.

Here's today's edition of Jim's Journal.

the amazing race

2005-05-10T23:13:00.000-07:00

Just watched my first-ever episode of The Amazing Race tonight. It was the season finale. I knew a couple of people in my office were really looking forward to it and since it was the last episode, I figured I'd tune in. Really, given two hours to get to know the remaining contestants, I don't see that I needed to watch any of the other shows. I got the idea pretty quickly. It was pretty impressive in that the couple that was in last place at one point and waaaaaaay behind everyone else ended up winning the whole thing. And they were the nicest of the bunch. Whereas the conniving, shit-eating couple once in first place ended up coming in last after repeated efforts to screw everyone else. What's the moral of our tale? Don't bother watching any of these shows unless it's the season finale.

I've only seen Survivor once and I believe it's still on. But the one episode I saw was the season finale of the first year when that once-fat guy won it all. That was enough for me.

Ah godbless TV. I probably only see one or two hours a week but I'm glad it's there.

what a few dollars will get you

2005-05-09T23:12:00.000-07:00

I couldn't tell you the last time I saw my mother on mother's day. It's been many years. Probably close to 15 or so. This year, like most years, I sent her flowers and gave her a call. On the phone she said the flowers had come all the way from Columbia. Via a flower shop in California... which fed-exed them to her in Kansas. Stop and think about how unbelievable that is. I placed the order from DC on the Internet with a shop in California. The shop got the flowers from Columbia. Then they sent them Fed Ex... which means the flowers first went to the Fed Ex distribution center in Tennessee, before heading back west to be handed to my mother in a very small town in central Kansas. That blows my mind.

People complain about postal service, but I'm always astonished that it works at all. When I lived in Japan, for 60 cents someone would take my letter, fly it 9,000 miles to the other side of the globe and hand deliver it to whomever I wanted. Sixty cents! If had done it myself, it would have cost about 15-hundred dollars.

jim's journal for 05-09-2005

2005-05-09T16:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been so lame about posting lately. I was really sick all last week. I didn't really start to feel better 'til the weekend.

Here's today's edition of Jim's Journal.

i'm convinced

2005-05-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

When the Portland indie pop/rock group The Decemberists released their most recent album, Picaresque, earlier this year, a friend of mine whose tastes in music I usually respect told me he thought it was a brilliant work of art. I gave it a listen and thought it was fine, but nothing too special. Really, I thought my friend was pretty off the mark. Then this past weekend I saw The Decemberists in concert at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC and they absolutely blew me away. About halfway through the show I realized I was witnessing something pretty amazing. Actually, I was put on notice the moment they took the stage and blasted some sort of medieval horn like a battle cry and kicked into their opening number. It just erupted after that, each song better than the last.

Listen to the whole show online.

jim's journal for 05-09-2005

2005-05-09T13:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been so lame about posting lately. I was really sick all last week. I didn't really start to feel better 'til the weekend.

Here's today's edition of Jim's Journal.

jim's journal for 05-04-2005

2005-05-04T21:29:00.000-07:00

We're definitely getting the real deal with Spring this year. So chilly at night and it's not getting above 60 degrees or so during the day. My kind of weather, even with my cold. Walking to work this morning I took special care to look up at all the trees in bloom and listen to the birds flit about.

I bought some new Kenneth Cole shoes. Normally I wear a size 8 or 8 and a half. But these are 7 and a halfs. Yet, they still felt a little big and my feet slid a bit in them as I tootled to work. Usually "hip" designers like KC run their sizes smaller, not larger. So this was very odd to me.

And what's up with all the pointy shoes? These shoes look like they were designed for clowns with lots of money to spend. When will this nonsense end? Seriously. They do NOT look good. On anyone. Especially not men.

Anyway... here's today's edition of Jim's Journal.

happypants sick, nation weeps

2005-05-04T21:08:00.000-07:00

What I originally thought was allergies turned into a wicked cold. I'm still very much under the weather, but managed to find the strength to turn on the television set tonight. Iiiieeeerrrruugghhh... click.

Just watched the first new episode of LOST in about three weeks. Looks like one more new episode next week and then the season finale. I won't tell you anything about what happened, but I will say it was... well, how can I put this into words? Awesome? No. No, it wasn't awesome. Did it mark the pinnacle of Western civilization? Yes. Was it proof of higher forces at work in the universe converging at one point for the greater good of all humanity? Definitely. Was it the single greatest achievement in human history? No, but I expect that to come in the season finale.

Anyway, I still feel like ass. Hopefully by this weekend I'll be better.

man oh man

2005-04-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

Tonight on LOST, they spent the whole hour playing catch up for people who've never seen the show before. It was just one jump cut after the other as they blew through snippets of 20 episodes. I didn't bother watching the whole thing but I did catch the end when they showed a nice long preview of next week's all-new episode. I don't want to make too big a deal of it, but let's just say I'll be keeping a rather substantial chubby between now and then just thinking about it.

jim's journal for 04-27-2005

2005-04-27T21:58:00.000-07:00

I'm certain anyone living in the DC area would agree with me that today was quite possibly the most beautiful spring day in the history of spring days. Just the perfect temperature. Sunny. A gentle breeze.

I drove into work this morning, but it was so nice this evening that I left my car there and walked home.

Wife called from Guatemala this evening to tell me she'd left her credit card in a book store there. Well done. The high I had from a beautiful day quickly disappeared with each passing minute I spent on the phone with the bank trying to convince them to let ME cancel the credit card instead of my wife... who is, did I mention, IN GUATEMALA! I feel a rant coming on, so I'll stop there and say, here is today's edition of Jim's Journal.

world's greatest poem

2005-04-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

EXCALIBUR
By David Brent

I froze your tears and made a dagger
And stabbed it in my cock forever.
It stays there like Excalibur.
Are you my Arthur?
Say you are.
Take this cold, dark steely blade,
Steal it, sheath it
In your lake;
I drown with you to be together.
Must you breathe?
'Cause I need Heaven.

Watch David Brent dance.

jim's journal for 04-26-2005

2005-04-26T23:26:00.000-07:00

Here's today's edition of Jim's Journal.

people are so stupid it hurts

2005-04-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

Here's my favorite quote from Thomas Frank's book 'What's the Matter With Kansas':

"Rural America is pissed" (said one voter)... Explaining why he and his neighbors voted for George Bush, he said: "These people are tired of moral decay. They're tired of everything being wonderful on Wall Street and terrible on Main Street." Let me repeat that: they're voting Republican in order to get even with Wall Street.

This is basically the overall theme of Frank's book: that the new breed of "moral" conservatives we've all become much too familiar with are in power because people keep voting against their best interests. They vote to put people in power who will ultimately destroy their way of life. The struggling poor are voting for the elite rich to protest the elite rich. Why they're doing this is the grand mystery, though some could dismiss it by saying they're simply voting on issues like abortion and gay marriage instead of the economy or health care.

None of this is really new to anyone who's paying attention. But I really like Frank's perspective and his way with words. Some people have a way with words and others... oh... NOT have way, I guess you'd say.

jim's journal for 04-25-2005

2005-04-25T22:29:00.000-07:00

My feet are cold.

Here's today's edition of Jim's Journal.

file under 'no thank you'

2005-04-25T22:17:00.000-07:00

The Australian
March 23, 20005

HEARD of sphincter bleaching? Beauticians are billing it as the new Brazilian wax.

"In the last couple of months I've had a lot of requests, so I've started some experiments," says Sydney beautician Anna Marsiano from The Bees' Knees salon.

"I've got one client who's a divorced woman with a couple of kids. She was looking at a Playboy magazine with her new boyfriend and he was making some comments about how clean and light the women looked. My client started to get a little paranoid."

Marsiano says she uses a herbal brand popular in the Philippines as a facial whitener. It is applied to the dark pigmentation around women's rectums as well as to their vaginal areas. Marsiano says the product does not damage the skin and has "rejuvenating" properties.

But another Sydney beautician, asked about her anal lightening equipment, produces a completely different product altogether. It's a cream that clearly states it is designed to be used on hair. This beautician has treated sex workers and strippers for years, but says mainstream demand has risen sharply over the past six months. She acknowledges that her long-term clients (many of whom come in for treatments every six weeks) suffer serious skin problems. "I explain that it will give them eczema and so on, but they want it anyway," she says.

Hard-line feminists will no doubt respond with an outraged "What will the misogynist patriarchy do to us next?" (possibly staging some sort of "reclaim the date" march). The cosmetic entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are bound to capitalise on the controversy by selling DIY backdoor bleaching kits (possibly along the lines of the personalised mouth moulds provided for teeth whitening).

As with all debates about society's relentless pursuit of beauty, however, the answer to "how much is too much?" is hard to ascertain.

Critics should not be so quick to write off glamour-seekers as witless victims. Beauty is currency, with studies showing that spunks of both sexes do better in jobs, schools, relationships and the courts. Devoting time and resources to keeping yourself nice could therefore be viewed as a worthwhile investment.

But making a rational decision about whether to undergo an extreme upgrade such as a labial reduction, a navel reconstruction or an arse implant requires consideration of a tricky cost and reward equation: in short, will X amount of pain, money and risk of disfigurement or death equal Y amount of increased happiness? If it was possible to come up with a definite "yes" to this question, signing up for surgery would make perfect sense.

Unfortunately it is impossible to get enough facts to make an informed decision. Experts describe cosmetic medicine in Australia as "cowboy country". There's no uniform system of accreditation and no easy way to track down the success rate of a particular procedure or practitioner. Financial interest also makes it hard to trust the advice of the scalpel and acid wielders.

The other big unknown is the amount of extra happiness you're likely to feel post procedure. How can you be sure when there are so many variables? And wouldn't it be safer to try a less risky course of action first? On the Insight program on SBS television next week, Victorian Health Services Commissioner Beth Wilson says she's seen cosmetic surgery patients who've had "terrible scarring, numbness, palsy, where the face just hangs down" – an awful price to pay if the happiness gamble doesn't go your way.

The good news on sphincter bleaching is that it's safer than anything involving general anaesthetics or fat-vacuuming gizmos. The bad news is that you could be in for a lifetime of skid marks. The chairwoman of the Australian Medical Association's ethics committee, Rosanna Capolingua, says the use of harsh bleaching substances could cause anal burning and scarring. This, in turn, could lead to anal incontinence or an inability to pass stools at all.

Sound attractive? If the figures in the cost and reward equation don't add up, perhaps it's worth giving the bleach a miss and locating a lover who doesn't expect your bum to look like Barbie's.

jim's journal for 04-24-2005

2005-04-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't had any new Jim's Journals up for a few days. Takes a little while to scan them and all.

So chilly in DC now. Only 40 degrees. I hear there's snow north of here. Weather like this really plays with the brain. Having a few warm days followed by a cold spell like this makes it feel more like the coming fall than the remnants of the last winter.

Anyway, here's today's edition of Jim's Journal.

no one can stop me now

2005-04-24T22:27:00.000-07:00

Worked on the second floor today (major renovation project that refuses to end). After smashing my thumb for god knows how many times and fumbling with awkward angles and panels, I screamed FUCK as loud and long as I could. If it were a movie, the camera would have cut to a high aerial shot over the house, then the whole neighborhood as flocks of birds burst from the trees, then the city as distracted drivers slammed their cars into one another, then the continent shifting on its plates, then the earth from outterspace with my voice echoing over the various shots. (I felt better after) Then I marched downstairs, drove to Home Depot and bought myself a badass nail gun. It was the happiest moment of my life. What used to take me probably five to ten minutes (or a half hour or more when I hit awkward angles and couldn't get a hammer in) now takes a few seconds. BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!!! I can't believe I waited this long to get one.

Six gallon pancake compressor with 16 gauge finishing nail gun: 300 dollars.

Keeping my thumbs attached and finishing the job without a homicidal outburst: priceless

murder, suicide up again in u.s.

2005-04-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

I'm very relieved to know that murder and suicide rates are on the rise again in this great nation. I suppose I'd be a radical, tree-hugging, conspiracy theorist LIBERAL if I deigned to suggest there was a connection between these figures and all the shit-eating republicans currently holding the white house and congress hostage. I mean, there was an IDENTICAL trend reported during the last republican administration... a trend that reversed itself during the Clinton years and now returns for Bush round Two. But... then, I'm just a whiney liberal. In fact, I'm sure the gay, feminist liberals are wholey to blame.

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Murder rates are on the rise, according to a federal study that bolsters indications the nation as a whole may be experiencing its first significant jump in violent deaths in more than a decade.

The finding, published on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was based on data from the first six states to take part in the federal agency's national violent-death reporting system.

The overall murder rate in these states -- Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina and Virginia -- jumped 6 percent between 2000 and 2002 and another 4 percent between 2002 and 2003, to 5.49 per 100,000 people, the CDC said.

The rising murder rates were fueled by a jump in homicides among males under the age of 25, mimicking the trend of the 1980s and early 1990s, when U.S. murder rates also increased.

The suicide rate was stable in the six states between 2000 and 2002, but it rose 5 percent between 2002 and 2003, to 9.37 per 100,000. The increase was largely due to rises in self-inflicted deaths among women of all ages.

Some sociologists have tied rising murder and suicide rates to changes in the economy as well as a greater availability of drugs and guns. The U.S. economy grew robustly for much of the 1990s, but fell into recession in March 2001 and the job market was sluggish even after the recession ended in November of that year.

The Atlanta-based CDC said it was not certain what had caused the rising rates of violent deaths and did not say whether it believed that they foreshadowed a similar trend for the rest of the nation.

But it noted that its findings were "consistent with final data from law enforcement reports compiled by the FBI, which indicate an increase in the national homicide rate in 2003."

The six states, which accounted for 11 percent of the murders and 10 percent of suicides in 2002, were in step with the rest of the nation between 1993 and 2000, when national homicide and suicide rates fell sharply.

The CDC said it hoped that its report would lead to a better understanding of personal and social risk factors for violence and help spur development of prevention programs.

machine gun fetus

2005-04-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

I've just discovered this AMAZING company online where you can buy all kinds of ultra conservative merchandise, including (and I'm not making this up) a Christmas tree ornament of a FETUS holding a MACHINE GUN. I'm quoting from the site, "What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship?" Just brilliant!!

Actually, I think this may be the best band name ever. Machine Gun Fetus. Consider it taken.

The main Web site has a bunch of other great right-wing nutbag paraphernalia like a picture of Jesus with a Kalashnikov.

I really, really love this country.

jim's journal for 04-20-2005

2005-04-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful day in DC. I don't think anyone can argue that we haven't had a real, live spring this year instead of going from frigid ass cold to broiling humidity.

Here's today's edition of Jim's Journal.

pan seared revisited

2005-04-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

Jesus god I just pan seared a couple of amazing tuna steaks. It's just worth reporting again that there's no greater way to cook something. I'm a little surprised it's not illegal to eat food this good. And so easy, too.

Two days ago I did a huge ass steak the same way. I never thought I'd say this, but the tuna steaks were actually better. Add a nice glob of sauteed spinach on the side and a little wine. Well shitman, that's just good living.

Cast iron skillet. A dab of canola oil. Salt. Pepper. BAM!

jim's journal for 04-18-2005

2005-04-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

Here's today's edition of Jim's Journal.

if your will to live is shaky right now, you might not want to read this

2005-04-18T19:47:00.000-07:00

Still, I haven't stopped laughing since I came across this article in the Onion archives. It was originally published in 1999, but its themes, I think everyone would agree, are timeless.

Read part one

Read part two