Sigh.

When even a professionally written (and edited, dammit!) blog can fuck up the "it's" vs. "its" construction, is there any hope for the rest of us?

That, and it's wreaked havoc with my user interface habits.

Well, I had considered myself far too sophisticated for video games (except vintage ones, of course) and then I downloaded the Call of Duty demo for Mac. I surrender, and I ain't talking at the hands of the Germans, but at the hands of Activision and Aspyr. Who knew death and carnage could be so addictive?

Me being me, of course, I always wonder whether the Nazi officer I just shot had a family back home that loved him and waited for his safe return.

Still, looking at this game plus some of the on-line previews, I have to admit I've haven't given game animation a chance; I had always said to myself that I'd sooner starve than animate for video games. But if you look at this set of clips from the Stalingrad scenario (warning, huge download and non-standard codecs, but worth it), you have to ask yourself: sure, it's low-polygon, but is it not movie quality? Some of the Infocom games (and their descendants) proved there was such a thing as interactive fiction; could it be that the long awaited "interactive cinema" is already here?

"U.S. Acres I think is an abomination." -- Bill Watterson.

Since two of my favorite blogs have already linked to the Slate article about Garfield, the Movie, I figured I'd have to go my own way...

A dimension of mind.

I was once haranguing a friend. He listened to me describe my despondence regarding the inability to write, and my deep resentment of those who seemed to have success handed to them wherever they were. I went on and on, angry and bitter, and finally concluded, �But it�s all my own fault, of course; the problem is me, and that I don�t feel passionate about anything enough!�

�Really?� he said, archly. �You seem pretty passionate about this!�

He went on to explain that since I clearly had a lot of energy and so forth regarding this topic that perhaps I should think about channeling that energy into creative work, somehow.

Now, of course, I�ve decided that I�m just not a writer, so it doesn�t matter anyway, and I should be thankful that I don�t have those problems to worry about anymore.

But it doesn�t work that way, does it?

We went to the city pool yesterday. I don�t swim, so I grabbed my PowerBook, took up residence at a picnic table, and began writing an article about a high school teacher who also happens to be an alumnus of my college. It was in my head because of my ten-year college reunion, which was also his fiftieth. I was going to attend but I was sure he wasn�t. Naturally, I missed it, and I found out that he not only attended, but delivered a talk.

In any case, I thought an article about him, and about my failed, last-minute attempt to visit the campus and catch him, would make good reading, and maybe something which the alumni magazine would publish. So, I started writing.

The news wasn�t that I failed. The news was that I succeeded. Well, I succeeded in at least the first few paragraphs, and then suddenly it was time to leave. I was dumbfounded. I was writing again! Not only that, but I was writing at a picnic table with distractions all around me. I had gotten into the closed-off zone of a working writer, where nothing matters but the words on the page. I hadn�t been there since 1999. The furniture was a little dusty, but the inhabitants welcomed me.

Of course, they reminded me that I had, in fact, only written a few paragraphs, and they needed serious revision (which was always my weak point). But the journey was significant.

If I had to guess, I�d say there were three factors that allowed me to jump into the Writing Zone, however briefly. First of all, time: a block of time in which I had nothing to do but the will to write. Second of all, company: There wasn�t any. I was for all intents and purposes alone�no kids to look after, no wife to feel guilty about abandoning. Third, and maybe most important, place: I wasn�t at home, where chores and other distractions overwhelm me. I finally understood why so many writers choose to work in diners. They aren�t technically alone, but in essence it�s just them and their coffee.

So where does that leave me? Either I need to force a block of time in my life (if I want to write), or I need to wait until both my kids are in school, and walk down to the New Deal Caf� with my laptop on a regular basis.

Then I just have to hope they don�t have Wi-Fi, because we all know what the ultimate distraction is.

Euphemisms.

All right, I get incensed about silly things. But what the fuck, really: am I stupid, or is "form factor" a snotty, high-tech way to say "shape"?

Newses.

Whew! What a week to take a vacation, huh?

Naturally, we had told our neighbor, who was collecting our mail, that she was free to recycle the newspapers as they came in. After all, no one reads yesterday's papers, right?

Unless, of course, Reagan dies and there's a state funeral in your hometown, and your local paper breaks the story of White House memos which virtually legalize torture...

Ah well. At least we listened to NPR a lot.

Sayonara!

I'm on vacation 'til Friday June 11, visiting Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine (though not, alas, Colby), and Connecticut. If you need to reach me, please contact the liar.

Pants aflame.

Read this and combat the lies.

There was only one liar in the 2000 election, and it wasn't Al Gore. Now he's doing it again.

Last Monday in Little Rock, Vice President Cheney said Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry "has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all" and said the senator from Massachusetts "promised to repeal most of the Bush tax cuts within his first 100 days in office."

On Tuesday, President Bush's campaign began airing an ad saying Kerry would scrap wiretaps that are needed to hunt terrorists.

The same day, the Bush campaign charged in a memo sent to reporters and through surrogates that Kerry wants to raise the gasoline tax by 50 cents.

On Wednesday and Thursday, as Kerry campaigned in Seattle, he was greeted by another Bush ad alleging that Kerry now opposes education changes that he supported in 2001.

The charges were all tough, serious -- and wrong, or at least highly misleading. Kerry did not question the war on terrorism, has proposed repealing tax cuts only for those earning more than $200,000, supports wiretaps, has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years, and continues to support the education changes, albeit with modifications.

Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising.

Essential signing.

I just saw this petition linked from Medley. This is one of my personal causes, and I urge everyone to visit and sign the petition at the very least--and write personal letters to your Congresspersons and Senators, preferably.

We must act now to ensure that our voting systems produce accurate and verifiable results. Some states are planning to use machines that will not allow voters to verify their choices. This means that any flaws in the machine or software will never be caught -- and no recount will be possible.

And the head of the largest e-voting machine company -- who is a major contributor to George Bush and has promised to deliver Ohio to him -- asks that we just trust him.

Today we call on Congress and the states to require any electronic voting machine used in this election to produce a paper trail -- one that allows voters to verify their choices and officials to conduct recounts.

I have a special place in hell reserved for those who attempt to falsify electoral results, no matter what party. And, frankly, I just don't understand the strong Republican opposition to this demand for accountability; surely you realize the most patriotic thing an American can do is vote and expect his or her vote to be accurate. Beyond that, it just looks stupid politically to not demand accountability in the name of patriotism! After all, how long will it take for us lib'ruls to turn the tables and ask, "Why do you hate America?"

Lovely Rita, sitemeter maid!

Okay, I knew I was unpopular, but...


(s13rospice)

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I think, as I know of at least one visitor this week (me), that Site Meter is farked. (Oh, naturally, NOW it shows up... for the past two days it's been telling me "Service Unavailable.")

Cripes.

Why do I let this sort of thing get to me? I said something thoughtless at another blog, got raked over the coals for it, apologized, and got raked over the coals again. That, combined with loneliness (K's at a fish conference in Oklahoma), has made me very depressed, despite that it was a wonderful day in general.

I seem to be in another phase of ignoring Rooster Spice in favor of other pursuits. In addition to Duck Sauce (we didn't win the audience favorite award, by the way), I've been working on a small C program to convert Project Gutenberg etexts into Palm Markup Language files, to be used with the Palm Reader. Although I think it's been renamed to eReader. Gotta have an "e" or an "i" in all computer products these days! That's why I'm calling my little program iGute2Reader. Well, except the "i."

Now there's nothing left to watch but "Law and Order" spinoffs.

That was a worthy ending to a very good series. And like Illyria, I'm feeling grief.

And so the Universe ended.

Running Mac OS X on a PC? Yes! Holy shit.

New toy.

It arrived on Friday morning--a day sooner than expected. I should have bought a laptop years ago--what a convenience. Although I did feel somewhat ashamed when we had all three Macs on upstairs, all running Safari, tuned to three different web-pages. It's the twenty-first century equivalent to having three television sets in the same room, and it seems so wasteful. It's true, of course, that television is purely passive, not creative, but there's very little creativity in browsing Homestar Runner, Palm Digital Media, and the Apple Store.

Actually, I see now that you didn't have to read 48 Dead Horses to know that I was thinking about a PowerBook. Can you tell that I don't pay much attention to Rooster Spice anymore?

My wife, the free alternative to Photoshop.

This has been a wild week. K just had a foot operation, so I've been taking care of her and the kids pretty much by my lonesome. That wouldn't be too bad, if I hadn't gotten a thunderous head cold which has knocked me out for most of the past two days.

Fortunately, K has risen to the occasion, or at least hobbled to it. I love my wife. But man, I hate this cold.

Those of you who have been following the 48 Dead Horses know that I was thinking of getting a new PowerBook; well, I took the plunge, and it was shipped from Taiwan this morning. (For some reason, the FedEx tracking site keeps freezing Safari. I don't know why. Yes, I've been tracking it. Wouldn't you?) So I guess I really am a bourgeois with too much disposable income. And children in Africa are still making do with Commodore 64s!

Ah, disposable income. I'm indisposed.

Every once in a while I go crazy and BUY things.

It's coming up on that time again. What with the new project going on, I'm looking at buying:

• the upgrade to the latest version of my 3D software,
  
• the print-on-demand technical reference for said software,
  
• the new Apple 12-inch laptop, and
  
• an iPod mini, just because.

Well, that last one requires a bit of explanation. I ordered an iPod mini when they came out, but I ordered it from Target Direct with the understanding that it wouldn't ship 'til mid-April. Well, Target couldn't get any, so they canceled the order. But they still sent me the iPod mini Dock, because apparently that was available. So now I have a mini Dock, but no mini.

Which is like cream without coffee, salt without pepper, Bush without Cheney... well, maybe not that last one.

I completely missed Rooster Spice's second birthday. So, in its honor, you can read, in its entirety, the first post I ever wrote:

Why isn't this working?

Deathless prose... and prophetic to boot.

Like there isn't enough evidence he's a schmuck already?

A lot of people are saying that George W. Bush is (or at least was before September 11) President in name only, and Dick Cheney was the real President. Well, ya know, I'm not exactly a fan of Bush. But it strikes me that a lot of people are willing to theorize and speculate, without any evidence whatsoever, and attribute just about anything bad to Bush.

It was wrong when it was done to Clinton, and it's wrong now.

(thanks to Mike for the link)

I couldn't bounce any higher.

I just got one of the nicest compliments I ever recieved from an animator I respect greatly:

So I'm looking through the Space animation contest entries on the FTP page and I stumble upon one with a spaceman on the moon and a giant Shaggy. And I knew, immediately and with no hint from the gallery page that displays the artist' names, that [Squelch] made this clip. That's a great piece [Squelch], it's really cool you've gotten to the point people can look at your stuff and know it's you.

The piece in question is here (Quicktime 5 or later required, 4 MB, 1:05).

Lunar Lopes are tough.

I really hate George W. Bush's policies, and I'm not a big fan of the man, either.

But, darn it, I want to walk on the moon.

It musta been the tacos.

A minor setback is enough to make me give up all hope for the future. What is wrong with me? Maybe I'm bipolar...

I'm still here.

But mostly I'm here. I suppose this destroys my vaunted pseudonymity, but I worry less about readers of Rooster Spice finding out who I am than people who know who I am finding Rooster Spice.

The dirty little secret is that I don't yet know whether our team has been accepted. Shhh...

Daredevil.

Giant holes where the actors ought to be.

Blind fucking rage about nothing. Was that a Seinfeld blind rage? When I look back, will my life be a blind rage?

"All I know is
What I want most of all
Is to know what I want."
-- Into the Woods

It all comes down to one fucking choice. Except, of course, it doesn't, not really; because one choice is so inextricably bound up in the person you are (and were), and that choice, even if it were different, would have been cancelled out and rendered moot by all the other choices, and the result would have been virtually the same.

Unless, I suppose, one talks about the choice of one's parents to conceive and the choice of the chromosomes to stick together in just the specific way that created you. That's a choice that could have made a difference.

Why should we care? Seriously.

Motherfucking dickhead Christ-on-a-stick asshole bunghole Izusuhole crap shit moron. Go back to the Shadows.

Just fucking bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Leave me alone. Short people got no reason to live.

Fortunately, I don't own a copy of Mein Kampf.

My one-year-old daughter loves to read books, and she oftentimes grabs grown-up books just to leaf through them. The other day she grabbed my Little Red Book, and started calling my name: "Da, da, da, da..."

"Yes, honey?"

"Da, da, da, da--dialectical materialism!"

Bizarre phone conversations: a new sub-genre.

What's the proper response to "Hello, do you have a wife who's Oriental and drives a station wagon?"

All I could come up with was, "Uh, no."

In retrospect I probably should have said, "I have a wife who's Caucasian and takes public transit."

Upon watching The Two Towers, Diarrhea Edition.

I finally got it! I was wondering where the heck I had seen this performer before. Of course! I didn't even know he was an actor!

Marvelous, Holmes, marvelous!

"If you find a small portion of your front yard is wet, you may reasonably conclude that your neighbor's sprinkler was poorly adjusted. However, should you find that your trash can, car, and driveway are wet, you must not infer that your neighbor ran throughout your property with his or her garden hose; rather, you must conclude that it has rained."

I voted.

The person for whom I voted shall remain a secret, at least until I get bored. I urge anyone from the Super Tuesday states who can vote to do so.

It seemed like an exercise in faith-based voting this year, with those shiny Diebold screens blinking at me and assuring "Your vote has been recorded" while offering no solid evidence that it had been. I want a printout, damn it.

I think it might be time to quit blogging again.

Tears.

There are two reasons I don't have the heart to write about Edwards. The first, as I've already mentioned, is my son's stomach virus (from which I'm still recovering). The second is that an acquaintance of ours died Friday night.

I say "acquaintance," but he was the brother of one of our best friends, so the word doesn't really do him justice. K and I shared an apartment with D--- (the best friend) when we first moved to Maryland, and his brother actually lived on our couch for a few months. So we knew him well. He had a little boy who is now ten or so.

The funeral was yesterday, and it was my first since my great-grandmother died in 1988 or so. D--- and his mother looked to be strong. But I suppose that's how everyone tries to look.

He was in his early thirties, and died of pneumonia.

An uncle--my father's twin brother, in fact--died last month. My father is sixty-five years old. I thought that was too young, too. It's sad to say, but D---'s brother's death actually affected me more. I have no memory whatsoever of my uncle; one half of the family didn't speak to him, and I never found a reason to get in touch.

After all, life is too short to talk to people you barely know.

Sort of as promised.

I know I said I would write about the John Edwards rally I went to last week. I intended to, really I did. Now, I can only say that the event was standing-room only, and that seemingly everyone in the room was interviewed but me, even though I was carrying my "cherubic" (so said someone wearing a Dean button) son and daughter along as eye candy. And, oh yes, I forgot my Dean sticker. Alas.

He was a great speaker. I still hope I can get to hear Kerry in person before Super Tuesday. I didn't make it when Dean came to speak at U. Maryland a few months back--a great regret.

I still don't know for whom I'll vote. I'm leaning toward Edwards, if only to keep the Kerry juggernaut from rolling him over. I could, I suppose, vote for Dean to ensure his delegates will have clout at the convention; but I doubt he'd hit the 15% needed to get delegates from Maryland.

Of course, according to the specimen ballot we got in the mail last week, I can actually vote both for a candidate and for the delegates themselves, three of whom are committed to Dean. So maybe I'll split my ticket, so to speak.

How can Cheney look his daughter in the face?

Words cannot express how angry I am at the President's endorsement of the Hate Amendment. Mostly, they can't because the words I said to my wife this morning are a federal offense.

Frankly, I find it extremely unlikely that the Constitution will be amended to enshrine bigotry. It is a difficult process, after all, as it should be.

But (to paraphrase what someone else said in a long-ago debate about the Second Amendment) if the Constitution is amended to state that same-sex marriages are unconstitutional, then I will work, for the rest of my life if neccessary, to make interracial marriages unconstitutional. Then I will work to make divorce unconstitutional. And finally, I will work to make pre-marital sex unconstitutional. Then I will move to Canada.

The sad thing is, there are probably some wing nuts out there who would applaud me for doing all this--except maybe the "move to Canada" part.

Today is Grey Tuesday.

EMI Records, which owns the recording to the Beatles' White Album, is seeking to ban DJ Danger Mouse's The Grey Album, a hip-hop remix which combines the White Album and Jay-Z's The Black Album. EMI has ordered the very few record stores which were stocking The Grey Album to destroy their copies, and has sent cease-and-desist letters to web sites which offered the songs for download.

I do not have the space to host the songs, so instead, I am joining in the protest by "going grey" for the day.

This is not neccessarily a protest against EMI asserting their copy right (and yes, I mean that to be two words), although I think their position is ridiculous, especially since they could have asked DJ Danger Mouse to pay royalties. Rather, the current copyright system is broken. It protects corporate rights for ridiculous amounts of time, and supresses new works like The Grey Album. Does anyone seriously believe that downloading this new work will discourage purchase of arguably one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever recorded?

For more information, visit GreyTuesday.org.

To download the songs, I recommend visiting Brian Flemming, to whom I am grateful for bringing this to my attention. (Incidentally, as someone who loves the Beatles and dislikes most hip-hop, I can say that this work is actually quite good.)

Today is also my sister's 21st birthday. Have a beer, A--!

Yesterday I was with my son at the emergency room 'til 4 A.M., so no Edwards report until I recover. (He's okay, just dehydration from a stomach virus.)

Talk that funky accent, white boy.

John Edwards is coming to Largo, MD this afternoon, and I plan to be there, although I'll be wearing a Dean sticker (thanks, Medley!). Watch this space for further details.

"Madam, they may have cancelled it, but BLEEEARGH" all over her evening gown.

Well, I complained in another place that I had missed the first 20 minutes of yesterday's Angel episode (I had set the VCR to the wrong channel). And so along comes the miracle of BitTorrent, wherein the episode is already available in VCD format!

I guess that means I'm a major criminal now, huh? But hey, straw man, how is this different from lending a VHS copy to a friend?

Serious thanks to Godfrey for the heads-up.

Hell with it.

Maybe you know, maybe you care, maybe you don't either one, but my son has some autistic tendencies. No one knows what to do about this, least of all me.

In general, he seems like a normal, if somewhat eccentric, kid; he is somewhat delayed developmentally, but in my admittedly subjective opinion, it's not incredibly worrisome--he's just behind the curve, but progressing along at the same rate as everyone else.

I suppose I'm trying to compensate for my own fears and parenting failures when I say this, but is it possible that all the worries about "social etiquette" and "developmental delays" are just fear of deviation from the norm? Isn't it okay for D. to be a little different from the kids around him?

He certainly seems all right with it.

Of course, at his age, and in his school, there really aren't any bullies yet. I suspect he'll be teased mercilessly when they appear. The only thing he may have going for him is that he's all-American-looking, unlike yours truly; I think I read somewhere that blond-eyed, blue-haired kids don't get teased as much. (If not, well, I just posted it on the Internet and that makes it true.)

When do bullies appear, anyway? I remember they were in full bloom at kindergarten, but I don't remember being made fun of in nursery school. What's the trigger? When do these kids get the Mean Gene?

Does anyone else feel like that kid who got pushed around and beaten up all the time? Or, conversely, if you were the kid who beat other people up, HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF, YOU SICK FUCK, AND I HOPE ALL THE PAIN YOU CAUSED ME FROM MIDDLE SCHOOL TO NINTH GRADE IS VISITED ON YOU THROUGH THE END OF YOUR PATHETIC LIFE, YEAH, I'M TALKING TO YOU, BILLY--ahem. Sorry. Got carried away there, but gosh, it felt good.

I used to imagine that at the very least they would have menial jobs and I could meet them later on and say, "Could you look under the Lexus' hood for me, Troy?" But, as has been well-documented in this space, I never had a career I was proud of even before I left the work force. So, so much for that.

Besides, maybe not all the high-school jerks, but certainly all the college jerks were jerks because they were rich and well-connected; so they're the ones with the Lexuses now. And probably the connections to the current administration, too (all the jerks were Republicans, though not all the Republicans were jerks).

I don't even want a Lexus, but it's the principle of the thing.

(Does anyone else think this blog has gotten boring since I went pseudonymous and stopped blogging about the bad times?)

(And why, even when I try to explore my feelings about my children, am I such a narcissist that I wind up whining about myself?)

As close as I'll get to the Frontier House.

I felt like getting back to nature, and enjoying the fresh, crisp feeling of air-dried clothes; that slight stiffness that tells me, "this shirt took time to get this way." In other words, the clothes dryer broke this weekend.

I don't know, I thought last season was great.

This pretty much sums up my feelings with regard to the Joss Whedon oeuvre. And here's what he had to say about it (according to a commenter on Fark):

Some of you may have heard the hilarious news. I thought this would be a good time to weigh in. To answer some obvious questions:

No, we had no idea this was coming.

Yes, we will finish out the season.

No, I don't think the WB is doing the right thing.

Yes, I'm grateful they did it early enough for my people to find other jobs.

Yes, my heart is breaking.

When Buffy ended, I was tapped out and ready to send it off. When Firefly got the axe, I went into a state of denial so huge it may very well cause a movie. But Angel... we really were starting to feel like we were on top, hitting our stride -- and then we strode right into the Pit of Snakes 'n' Lava. I'm so into these characters, these actors, the situations we're building... you wanna know how I feel? Watch the first act of [Buffy episode] The Body.

As far as TV movies or whatever, I'm not thinking that far ahead. I actually hope my actors and writers are all too busy. We always planned this season finale to be a great capper to the season and the show in general. (And a great platform for a new season, of course.) We'll proceed ahead as planned.

I've never made mainstream TV very well. I like surprises, and TV isn't about surprises, unless the surprise is who gets voted off of something. I've been lucky to sneak this strange, strange show over the airwaves for as long as I have. I don't FEEL lucky, but I understand that I am.

Thanks all for your support, your community, and your perfectly sane devotion. It's meant a lot. I regret nothing (except the string of grisly murders in the 80's -- what was THAT all about?) Remember the words of the poet:

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn."

Peak Popeye?

Hm, does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I'm inclined to be skeptical of any doomsday scenario, but a quick Google search hasn't given me any skeptic's pages. Of course, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; perhaps the argument hasn't really begun yet.

Interesting, in any case. But I'll wait for more information, please.

Oh well. The dream was nice. Now it's time to do some more research before March 2.

It was all about the money, for me... lots of people, like me, giving money to a man and a cause they believed in. Maybe I'm misjudging Kerry, but he seems like a $2000 a plate kind of guy.

And I'm not sure I can, in good conscience, vote for a half-term Senator. I mean, beating Bush is a great thing, to be sure, but so is experience.

Goddamn lyrics. . .

Misanthropy.

I hate Valentine's Day. Not because it's a fake Hallmark holiday, although it is; not because it's based in Christian lore, although it is. I hate it because it is a day of GUILT for men.

The GUILT began when K's mother sent the entire family and then some a digital photo of the "beautiful roses" her husband bought for her. Then there was more GUILT when K left me a Kit-Kat bar this morning after I had implored her to not get me anything.

Am I missing anything else? Well, I was going to write a song for her (and make it an Almost Daily Song for you wonderful folks). Unfortunately, this is the chorus I came up with:

When we're together, nothing is ever the same
And if they ask me why,
I just reply,
"Because of my dear... um... whatsername?"

I don't think that would go over well, although if anyone wants to use it to facilitate a divorce, it'd probably be quite effective.

A list of things to do.

In no particular order.

• Jump up and down.
• Break pieces of crockery over one's head.
• Do a handstand while--

No, I'm sorry, that was a list of things to do, but it was a list of things one could do; I don't plan on doing them. What I need to do is send a critique off to Clarence, write more songs, decide who I should invite into the paperback book chain letter. Write a song or two for Valentine's Day. And, of course, the ever-popular sleep.

Oh, and "Baby What You Want Me to Do" was written (?) by Jimmy Reed. There's a sample linked from here (Windows or Real Media only, argh).

I never should have endorsed Dean--after all, it was only after I did so that things started going south for him. And now we're just plain screwed; I'd love to believe Kerry could actually beat Bush, but frankly, W. is a charmer, and Kerry ain't. And charmers always win.

Today's Almost Daily Song.

A techno based on quotes from the old Match Game. MP3 format, 1.5 MB. Find it here, or here if you like context (or want to hear the other ones). You don't get my mellifluous voice in this one, just Gene Rayburn's. This may not be a bad thing.

Mature content to follow; not recommended for the very young or easy queasy.

This weekend was terrible, and I could, I suppose, go on and on about it. I probably should, in fact. But as a corollary to the horrible weekend, I'm really bloody tired.

Ah, what the hell. I don't think there's ever before been a time when all four family members were sick at the same time. There was the food poisoning episode, where D and the wife got sick emergency-room-style, but I escaped because of my strong, principled aversion to spinach-related foods. And since E was born, I hadn't gotten sick at all--new babies are wonderful incentives for continual hand-washing, and that, my friends, is better than Echinachea, Vitamin C, or whatever flavor of the month gets your cold gone in a week while the poor uninitiated have to suffer seven days. (I did get a nasty cough that stuck around for almost a month recently, but that was because E hacked the entire contents of Lake Michigan onto my bare shoulder while trying to sleep one night; and let's face it, there's not much you can do after that.)

The weekend, one could argue, began on Tuesday night (yes, a long weekend, six days of fun! fun! fun! 'til our daughter took the wellness away), when E woke up around 9:30 P.M. with vomit and diarrhea galore. Fortunately she was more stunned than upset, staring out into space, maybe wondering "Did I do that?" Yes, dear, you did. Several changes of sheets later, she finally stopped upchucking, and K and I settled down to bed, making plans as to what we'd do if she was still sick the next day. Fortunately, she was completely over it by Wednesday morning, laughing and enjoying her new-found superpower of Walking On The Dog's Tail. In fact, everything was great all day Wednesday.

On Thursday, the crap started to pass the fan in earnest for me. At first I thought, well, okay, last night's pizza didn't agree with me, and I didn't make a connection with E's bug because I wasn't throwing up. Also, it was manageable; I was able to drop Drew off at school and pick him up three hours later, but by the time I was done with that, I had to call K and demand that she come home. I had a stomachache, a headache, and muscle aches all over my body, and I still had to run for the toilet more often than I'd like.

K takes transit to work, so I was in for an hour and a half wait at least, so we watched the "making of" documentaries for Temple of Doom and Last Crusade, with strategic placement of hands over eyes during the scary bits.

Anyhow, K came home and I slept for a week. Or at least a few hours. I didn't feel much better and couldn't even watch the videotape of Angel from the previous night. I do remember that when I woke up at 11 after judicious use of Kaopectate, I almost felt back to normal. I also remember the reason I woke up at 11. D was sick all over his bed.

So, victim three; unlike his sister, D can communicate when he feels the need for bleah, so we placed a bucket by his bed and managed to only have to change the sheets once; but we still got up every few minutes with him, each time he did the deed.

Well, I did, anyway. Soon enough K was just reading in the bathroom. Yep; victim four. I think she may have got hit harder than the rest of us. She didn't go to work on Friday; nor did D go to school, although it had been cancelled due to weather anyway. By this time, the only one of us at 100% was E. I instructed her to take care of us, and I think she did her best, but it wasn't enough. I suppose I ought to cut her some slack, I mean, she is only 18. Months. I was better, but still sickly, full of pain, and witness to the occasional evacuatory need. But things seemed to be turning a corner, and at midnight, I had never been happier to have a constipation attack.

Saturday. (Yes, gentle reader, the actual weekend had finally begun!) This day was an anticlimax, with K and I feeling our way with caution, and D and E grabbing said caution and throwing it to the winds. We got through it mostly unscathed. Sunday was to be the real test; K had to go into the office to make up some of the work she missed, and just as this was about to happen I had a wave of exhaustion and dizziness. She still had to go, of course, even though she was starting to get a bad headache herself, so D took over my care, letting me know that I felt like I needed to throw up and handing me the bucket, just like we had done to him. He even patted me on the shoulder: "It's okay, Daddy, you can frow up in the pucket."

We settled down to watch The Muppet Movie, which my brother had given me for Christmas. I teared up at "The Rainbow Connection." Maybe it was because I saw the movie in theaters, and that would have been just before my parents' divorce; more likely, I was just experiencing my usual Coke-commercial sentimentality times ten. I felt better after drinking a lot of water and grabbing a little nap with the kids. When K came home from work, she saw us all napping and joined us for a half-hour (or so she said; I was deep asleep), and that, my friends, was the only good part of the weekend.

Over dinner I had a panic attack in anticipation of today, when I dropped the cat off for dental work, dropped D off at school, brought E to the doctor for a checkup, picked D up, took care of them alone for much longer than usual because K was in a major meeting (I had actually forgotten about the meeting during my panic attack; probably would have shot myself if I hadn't), made dinner, picked the cat up at the vet, and finally greeted K at home, and now here I am, blogging about it, when all I should do is

Oh, go away.

Support requested.

My body is telling me to not have that leftover pizza for lunch. I generally trust my body's instincts; however, it seems to be telling me to not have anything for lunch. Its instincts may be compromised.

No entries today, including the research on the original version of Baby What You Want Me to Do, becuase I am incredibly ill in the tummy. And that's as specific as I'll get.

A lot of left-leaning people (myself included) have wondered whether the Patriot Act and other erosions of civil liberties have a parallel in the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930. In order to give us all a little perspective, I recommend an article in today's Washington Post by Anne Applebaum. There are gas chambers in North Korea.

Sharpton and Bush?

Holy shit...

More Singin' Squelch!

Go here, scroll to the bottom, and listen to Johnny Cash spin in his grave.

V of VJ makes the best argument against the "If Kerry is nominated, I'm not voting for him" school:

If Kerry gets the nod we will have plenty of time to have this argument, but I disagree with many of you. The time for purity of heart and support of the most ideal candidate is now, with our money and time and energy.

If our guy doesn't get the nomination, in November it will be time for recognition of practical realities, namely that all the hundreds of appointments a President gets to make that don't make the headlines but affect people's lives should NOT have Republicans in them again for the next 4 years.

Kerry might well appoint some of the same people Dean would have, or at the least he won't be appointing cracked theologians like John Ashcroft.

Exactly. What are the chances that the next Supreme Court justice will be someone like David Souter--appointed by a Republican, but a closet moderate? (No, NOT a closet liberal. This country has gone so far rightward that all moderates are called liberals.)

I can't speak for John Kerry--but I doubt anyone, on either side, would agree today with Nader's 2000 contention that George W. Bush and Al Gore were the same politician.

A weird, non-Elvis version of "Baby What You Want Me to Do"? You mean, like, the original? Sigh...

Oh, well, I have to admit--it took me forever before I realized the Beatles didn't write Twist and Shout.

Mmmm... like butter.

Good Morning Good Morning.

In the bizarre coincidences department: The Post has a story in today's Style section about the Weekly World News (apparently its longtime editor just died), but I swear I wrote yesterday's entry before I found out.

And in the bizarre combinations department: one of the songs the Gonnas cover is "Come Sail Away," that high school anthem, and since the party on Saturday I've had that and another, lesser-known song in my head, which has resulted in an unholy lyric which only one of my readers will understand:

I thought that they were angels,
But to my surprise,
They climbed into their tiny car
And headed for the skies!
Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me...

SHOCKING!

My wife brought home the Weekly World News, from which I discovered that not only is there an all-nude town in New Hampshire (who do you suppose they voted for, I wonder?) and that Titanic survivors were found frozen, but alive, but that there's a new "Homeland Security Alert: Tiny Terrorists Disguised as Garden Gnomes!"

"Man," I said to her, "I wish I lived a life as exciting as this! I'd create a Weekly World Blog!"

"As exciting as what?" K asked, patting our son Bat-Boy on the head.

"As exciting as in the Weekly World News!" I paused to glance out the window at the flying saucer landing in our back yard. "Think of all I could write about!"

K shrugged, and our pet land shark bit her left arm off. "You'd just write about being depressed as usual."

"Yeah," I admitted, "I would," and spontaneously combusted.

"Our life is plenty exciting enough," K said as she spread Miracle Gro where her missing limb was.

My spirit possessed the Brie cheese in the refrigerator. "You can say that again!" I shouted (the fridge door was closed). "Remember the dead rat under the dishwasher?"

K nodded sagely. "And how it spoke the complete works of William Shakespeare?"

"Those were good times!" I had possessed the oranges by this time and amused myself by drawing the Virgin Mary on my husk.

K, meanwhile, was growing three new arms. The doorbell rang, and she used one of them to open the door. We recognized our neighbor immediately. "President Kennedy!" K said. "What a nice surprise! Need another cup of sugar?"

The former President nodded, and said, "Ask not what coffee is like without it!" We all laughed heartily, and a thousand tiny cameras recorded this information and transimitted it to the Illuminati. (I know because I was possessing one of them.)

After Jack had left, we settled down for a nice evening of reality television and mind control. Our dog barked, and when we asked him what was wrong, he seemed confused, and said, "I think it was Bigfoot, but it might have just been Joe Lieberman." We smiled--our superintelligent, genetically altered puppy was so cute.

As we settled into bed (in my case, literally--although I had to be satisfied with possessing only the box spring), I thought I saw a movement out the window. I checked the front yard. For a second, I thought our garden gnome moved--but it was only my imagination, surely.

Are you feeling lucky... punk?

Nemo Dory Sharpton?

Howard Kurtz, reporting on an exit poll produced by the major networks and others:

... on one of the two questionnaires being used, there's this zinger: "Regardless of how you voted today, do you think Howard Dean has the temperament to serve effectively as president?"

That, of course, raises the possibility that he might not, and the results could be cited endlessly in the primary coverage.

No other question asks for voters' views on Kerry, Edwards, Clark or any other candidate.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe the press does have it in for Dean.

Close harmonies.

Saturday night my band, the Gonnas, played a party--our first performance since April or something. We had played at the same party last year, but with bongos instead of a drum kit. This year we did the whole lineup: drums, guitars, all that.

And again, it was like we were rock stars (well, except we didn't screw groupies or shoot heroin. Only one of us is single, and none of us use drugs). What a feeling.

My favorite was the third set, where we threw the script to the wind and just made music. I sang "Twist and Shout" and "I Saw Her Standing There" (usually I only sing "Peggy Sue" and Rex takes lead vocal on everything else), and I dueted with an audience member on "Respect." I may not sound like Aretha, but she did. We even improvised a song about the party's hostess.

I have got to get a solid-body electric that stays in tune, though. My current Les Paul knockoff cost me $50, plus about $100 or so in repairs. So maybe I'm not surprised that I had to switch to my acoustic-electric after the third song. Usually, since I'm a dues-paying member of the No Solo Society, that's not a problem, but we do have one song where I love to let rip with an approximation of a screaming solo. Unfortunately, we (or we should) close with that song, though, so there's no way in halibut I could keep the Les Paul in tune that long.

I love my acoustic, don't get me wrong. But sometimes, you just need that chunky Les Paul sound. (I've never played a Strat.) Even my first guitar, which resembled what George Harrison used circa '64, didn't really keep tune. (But then I never should have sold it. Sigh...)

That's all there is to say, except that if there had been parties that good back in college, I would have gone to a lot more of them.

And of course, after Iowa, even a second-place finish in New Hampshire would be a win for Dean. That's the great thing about being declared dead while your heart is still beating.

Who's more presidential?

Brian Flemming gets it.

Value Judgment gets it.

And thank goodness Idiom Studio got it.

Let's spread this meme all over the web and get the truth out.

[Edit: To clarify, Value Judgment is mirroring the Idiom Studio video, but Brian Flemming has created a new work based upon it. It could be considered inflammatory, but it does get its point across.]

I've just made my second donation for Dean. Have you?

Perhaps it's a kind of queue.

Molly Ivins gets it:

The pundits all thought [Senator John] Kerry was a lead-pipe cinch when this started. . . . But he's got no Elvis. You can't win without Elvis. . . . A guy whose life Kerry had saved in Vietnam -- for which he got the Bronze Star -- turned up two days before the Iowa caucuses and, of course, burst into tears after endorsing Kerry. Who could make up stuff that good? All that bio, and Kerry still comes across as a tall Dukakis.

And in the Post, we have this rather odd sentence in an article about Gen. Wesley Clark:

Next week -- at least as Clark has planned it -- the general will prove to the country that, as a southerner and a military man, he has a special appeal among voters below the gnat line, where so many elections are decided.

The gnat line? What the hell is a gnat line?

This was 'primal'?

I don't watch TV news generally, and I don't have cable specifically, so all the fuss and bother over the Dean Scream hasn't affected me directly, except, of course, in that I'm depressed that my candidate has no chance to win whatsoever, now that the entire country has selected its delegates.

Hm? What? One state?

Get real, people! This hasn't even started yet! (And Bill Clinton didn't win Iowa in '92. Or New Hampshire.)

In any case, I visited c-span.org to watch the clip in question--the whole speech, not the thirty second clip of The Scream. And guess what? It was a (gasp) political event! People were cheering! He was working the crowd! And perhaps most importantly, he was trying to get his supporters jazzed again! He wasn't angry, for crying out loud. Watch the whole speech--he was proud.

If you can't find it in yourself to watch the whole thing, just go to Idiom Studio, who taped the event from the crowd. It doesn't give as much context as C-Span, but it certainly gives a sense of the atmosphere in the actual moment.

These assholes--and I'm sorry to speak so strongly, but I'm a little ticked off--who are calling this moment a self-immolation, a meltdown, a tantrum are full of it. If this does burn Dean, make no mistake: he didn't burn himself. The coverage did.

(Man! Have these people ever been to a political rally? I've screamed louder. Give me a break!)

Today an emissary arrived, and a reply is on the way.

Squelch sings!

And if you want to hear him, click here and scroll down 'til you see "Squelch7." But don't stop there, the others are excellent.

Coat one: done. Interestingly, the new bathroom color resembles the Rooster Spice background color. I think that's just a coincidence.

For that matter, what if the meter reader broke down your door?

Tomorrow I paint the bathroom. Woo hoo.

The other day I had a dream that I read a pamphlet titled: "Your Local Police Department: Now Operated by Pepco [the electric company]!" Which sounds like a great idea for a skit (or maybe an AudioEdit):

Operator: 911 Emergency, how may I direct your call?
Victim: There's a man in my house!
Operator: Hold please.
(Muzak...)
Handsome Man: Welcome to the Metropolitan Police Department Emergency Response Unwanted Intruder System. To continue in English, press or say "One." Para continuar en español, prensa o habla "Dos." Pour--
Victim: One!
Handsome Man: This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes. If your unwanted intruder is white, press or say "One." If your intruder is African-American, press or say "Two." For all other races, colors, or creeds, or if you are not sure, press or say "Three."
Victim: Three!
Handsome Man: Please press or say your five-digit Zip code.
Victim: He's coming up the stairs!
Handsome Man: I'm sorry, I didn't understand that. Could you try again? Please press or say your five-digit Zip code.
Victim: Two Oh Seven Seven One!
Handsome Man: Please hold.
(Muzak...)
Happy Female: Thank you for holding! Your call is very important to us.
Victim: HE'S IN MY HALLWAY! PLEASE, SOMEONE ANSWER!
Happy Female: Did you know that law enforcement begins at home? Ask your local policeman how proper insulation can reduce the crime meter in your neighborhood. Or visit our website at--
(Muzak stops.)
Handsome Man: The law enforcement in your area has been deregulated, and calls should be directed to
Nasal Man: Greenbelt Family Security.
Handsome Man: at
Nasal Man: 1-888-555-8574.
Handsome Man: Thank you for choosing the Metropolitan Police Department for your emergency needs! Goodbye.
(Click.)

And is it also worrisome that I've been OBSESSED WITH CAPITAL LETTERS lately?

Am I the LAST PERSON ON THE PLANET who didn't know that mp3.com is no more? I never even ordered my own damned CD!

Taken in by them.

I remember very well one night near Philadelphia--this was back in 2002, I think--when I went to hear my brother's band (now ex-band). He was the bass player, and had just started writing songs; they did two of his, but most of the songs were by their lead singer and guitarist, a truly gifted fellow.

By this time, they had a pretty loyal following in the colleges and bars around the area. You might even call it a fan base. Anyway, they played some songs that we knew, and then closed with a new (for then) song which I had never heard before.

It was magnificent.

We couldn't help but dance. Admittedly we were an appreciative audience, but still, the reaction to this song was incredible. I've never, before or since, had such a visceral reaction to a song I had never heard before. It was all I could talk about on the way home.

I was listening to one of their CDs (the last one on which my brother played) after a Gonnas rehearsal tonight, and I remembered that moment as the song came on. That's the kind of song I would love to write; one that makes the audience love it upon the first hearing and demand more. Where is that song?

Blog for the District!

Alright, folks. We won the D.C. primary. NOW WRITE ABOUT IT.

It just doesn't make sense to not say something. I realize the current focus is, as it should be, on Iowa and New Hampshire. But not even a mention?

Come on, damn it. Show D.C. you're better than the bastards who took their names off the primary ballot.

[Edit: they have mentioned it, although it's buried in the Morning News Roundup.]

And, by the way, if you're in D.C., be sure to vote today--oh. Shit.

Be sure to HAVE VOTED today.

Curse you, UPS!

Where is the justice when the package you've been awaiting arrives while you're at a piano lesson, leaving you no time when you get home to tear into the box and ogle the merchandise?

I mean, who the hell delivers things at 7:00 PM anyway? It's like I just wrote to someone else: shipping companies are in the pocket of the Illuminati.

Small victories.

Am I wrong to be proud of doing a task--say, calling the public works department for special trash pickup--before my wife asks if I've done it?

Am I pathetic to seek validation through mentioning that I already did it?

Worst of all, is doing so my most notable accomplishment?

Allow yourself 10 minutes for each question. Write your answers in black or blue-black ink. Answers will not be accepted after the close of class. Don't forget to write your code number in the top-left corner of your booklet. Begin.

Clarence!

I thought you might have been peeking in. Glad you liked the present--wait 'til you see what I've got for your birthday. Best of luck come April--that all sounds fabulous! (How did you score a rec. from Rick? I heard he was notoriously difficult about that sort of thing.) And no, your hair doesn't make you look like a turnip, though you do look oddly like George Harrison. I'm still happy to read your writings, by the way, and I will even not critique them if that's what you prefer. Oh, and now that you've come out of the Rooster Spice closet, I expect to see the occasional comment out of you. (I'm such a whore, but you knew that.) Anyway, best wishes, and do let me know if you find yourself in the area.

No, I haven't been writing, but you knew that, too. (Jealousy...)

Bored, sad.

No explanation.

A true story from 32 years ago.

The mother's in the delivery room, and as was the custom of the time, the father's in the waiting room.

The mother wears a false set of front teeth, because of a car accident in college; at the doctor's insistence, the teeth have been removed, to the mother's chagrin. It's her first child, so there's a good deal of nervousness in the room.

The baby arrives--a fine healthy baby boy with lots of dark hair. The doctor slaps his butt to remove the mucous and hands him to the mother.

"Well, Mrs. -----, how do you feel?" the doctor asks.

The mother stares at him, and intones, "I'll tell you how I feel if you give me my fucking teeth back."

Senseless?

Not so much beautiful as... ineffable. That thing you always reached for but never quite got.

Or, worse, that thing you never even saw, but just imagined. And the wondering--the "what if?"--never goes away, does it?

Eyes in a mirror, a smile... a turn of phrase.

Yet all gone. No, not gone--never was. A dream, possibly (or definitely) eclipsed by the joy of reality. And never knowing whether you were dreamed of, too.

And the worry: is wondering a form of betrayal--or worse, rape?







(In other news, tomorrow is my birthday.)

Hundred thirty pound weakling.

Having a contractor in your house--even, or perhaps especially, one who is a good friend--is a continual exercise in emasculation.

While he's cutting and measuring drywall, I'm dressing the kids. While he's installing a new plywood floor base (and removing the toilet to do so), I'm taking out the garbage. While he's laying tile, I'm trying to keep myself awake and get the kids to sleep.

During my blogging hiatus last year, I installed recessed lighting in the bathroom--well, finished doing so, anyway, as I had started sometime in 2000. As part of the process, I slathered drywall mud on the ceiling to hide the old stucco that some idiot homeowner had placed there before. It looks okay now that it's been sanded down, but it's, y'know, amateur work, and Rex offered to smooth it out a bit for me.

"Rex," I said, hurt, "please! You've put up new walls, removed water damage, and made my wife swoon with your tile prowess! Leave me the tiniest sliver of manhood!"

Not the Shire yet.

My friend Rex, lead singer of the Gonnas, is a building contractor when he's not lead singing, which is most of the time. He's remodeling our bathroom this week, and doing a bang-up job. That is to say, he's doing a lot of banging and kicking up dust.

Nah, he's great. But our house is giving him a run for his money. The water damage on the drywall behind the original tub surround was incredible--picture the slums of Mordor™ times two. We're talking holes in the wall, mold, poorly cut plaster, the whole shebang. All the old drywall has been replaced with concrete board.

The area under the toilet was destroyed, too--the water damage turned the original plywood to sponge, so that had to be replaced before the tile floor could go down. So, we spent last night in a Holiday Inn.

Have you ever gotten a one and a half year old to sleep in a hotel-issue crib? If you have, can we borrow your one and a half year old, 'cause ours is clearly defective. E only slept when in our bed, between us. D, who is four, had an entire double bed to himself and slept like a baby. (Well, given our "baby" experiences, perhaps the phrase needs revision.)

Speaking of babies, I found out today that a friend from high school had his first kid--a little girl. May he and his wife have even more fun with theirs than K and I have had with ours.

OUCH!

One of WETA's sponsors is a law firm with the most unfortunate name ever, which I am not making up: Harness, Dickey, and Pierce.

Can Barbra juggle?

Television listing in today's Washington Post:

Steve Harvey's Big Time. Guests include people who juggle people (Channel 50 at 8).

They're the luckiest people in the world.

Self-santafication.

Well, I did it; I bought the Mbox, and got a new pair of headphones to boot (for free). So now I have a new toy to play with for a week and ignore. We never grow up, do we?

Worth looking at: America for Sale. The first anti-Bush site I've seen that offers extensive citations (from reputable sources) rather than uncorroborated assertions.

(link courtesy Brian Flemming)

Right now, I'm in a weird twilight between years, unwilling to admit that there are just some things I wanted to do that I'm going to have to say I didn't get finished in '03. (I won't say what those things were publicly, of course -- public websites are not really the place to air negatives or deep life thoughts. If you want more in-depth conversations, you have to call or email!!)

Amateur.

Not a sexual metaphor.

The devil is dangling his carrot. Will I resist? Will I succumb? Will I just buy the upgrade to Final Cut Express 2 instead? Will I stop asking silly questions?

Hey, Devil: now that you're reading, I get to be envious of you again.

No, seriously, regular readers: what's your opinion of software copying, and why?* Personally, I would love for the entire world to go with the GPL; but in the real world, I know people need to make a living.

I tend to draw the line at companies that seem like mom 'n' pop stores, or at least offer a good product at a good price. If someone shares software from a faceless behemoth, I tend to not worry about it.

That said, never in my life (well, at least since I got a second iMac) have I worried about the part of the software license agreement that states, "You may only use the Software on one computer at a time." Even if the same person owns and uses both computers? Give me a frickin' break.

And I will say this: it's absolutely immoral, hateful, and just plain uncool to make it impossible (whether through copy-protection or legislation) to exercise one's fair use rights.

*YES, I'm trolling for comments. So sue me.

And many more!

In this day and age, the people who design DVD packaging should not be allowed to include "interactive menus" and "scene selections" in a list of special features.

Green (little men) for America.

I always suspected Mars was a Democratic stronghold.

Ah, sweet nectar of sound!

Godfrey has made me jealous, so I've been hinting that I want new music production hardware and software for my birthday. I love Pro Tools Free, but it doesn't work on Mac OS X; and the amount of software currently bundled with Digidesign's products is just insane.

Now I just have to figure out why I bought that multitrack recorder, instead of a laptop and the Mbox. (Well, besides the money, anyway.)

K has set me an ultimatum: "Do you want this and nothing else, or do you want to be surprised again?" Ahhhh, the guilt....

Incidentally, as long as we're talking about the Musician's Friend catalog, which a different Jeffrey turned me on to, do you know they sell a keychain which is a callus builder? How insane! I mean, who would use this thing? Someone who doesn't have time to build calluses through, y'know, practicing?

Hey, wait...

"Hey Bertram--want to go skiing?"

"I... have no legs."

Let the record reflect!

"Peggy Sue" is in the key of A.

Now selling Deanie beanies.

Well, I finally did it--I gave my hard-earned money to Howard Dean's campaign. (Well, technically, it's my wife's hard-earned money, since I don't have a paying job.) What pushed me over the edge? A statement Governor Dean made about Liberia back in July. A quote:

Saddam Hussein's was an extraordinarily brutal regime.� The Iraqi people and the world are better off without him.� But that was not the justification the Bush administration presented for the invasion of Iraq.� We based the war on the argument that we faced an imminent threat to our interests from weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi support for Al-Qaeda neither of which have been proven to date.� The world community did not buy our rationale for war or the evidence we presented and it looks like their skepticism was justified.

I stated clearly at the time that our approach to Iraq needed to be multilateral and based on humanitarian grounds.� If we had done so, the entire situation might have played out differently and today we might have the broad international backing we need for the nationbuilding efforts that are now failing.

I opposed the war in Iraq because it was the wrong war at the wrong time, not because I believe American force should never be used.

(Emphasis mine.) I guess I just needed to hear, from the man's own lips, that he was anti- this war, not anti- any war. I don't know about anyone else, but hearing a candidate continually labeled as "antiwar" makes me think he doesn't ever favor military action. Believe me, I wish we lived in a world where that was a realistic viewpoint--but we don't.

So, what happens now? I'm told that when you've found Howard, rather like when you've found Jesus, there are some side effects. Urges to place bumper stickers on cars are commonplace, as is the need to witness for Dean at every opportunity. A total loss of sense of humor is possible, especially if a Bush supporter is the one telling the jokes. Finally, there's the inability to comprehend the fallibility of Governor Dean. But that last one is written off easily, since he's infallible.

Wait! It's happening already! No, no... Governor, I will hew to the One True Path... Put your stethoscope away... AAAAAAaaaaaaarrrgh....

Time-waster of the day: The Urban Legends Reference pages, found because of this in my mailbox.

(Applause, laughter.)

Pyotr, Pwyll, and Murray once sang:

Where's my sense of humor gone?
Long wind passing...

When I started this blog nigh a year and a half ago, I really wanted to just make people laugh--not the side-splitting, gut-curdling humor of Dave Barry, but a gentle, Mao Tse-tung's Little Red Book kind of chuckling. And for a while, I succeeded, or so I'd say, but with each and every good bit, there was a crushingly depressive corrollary.

So how does my humor return? Well, I could try political jokes:

Governor Schwarzenegger! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Or maybe, I could emulate the Farrelly Brothers' style:

Drew peed on my sleeve today! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

Or maybe just rely on Zippy-the-Pinhead-style dadaism:

There's a monkey in my pants, and it's breaking its wig over the crimping tool! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...

(Things are always funnier with monkeys.)

Perhaps it's a yin and yang thing. Since starting to blog again after my hiatus, I've avoided the extreme suicidal posts; you can tell when I'm feeling bad because that's when I don't post. But could it be that the humor only appears in relation to the despair?

Or could it be, horror of horrors, that I was never that funny to begin with? Don't answer that.

If I had a stalker, I'd stalk her in the morning...

Happy New Year! And, oh: whoever my regular visitor is from verizon.net (the one whose referral is always "unknown"), please say hello, eh? Or did my former fan from snet.net just get a new ISP? Curious, but not yellow.

Holy thuddawwwappppp, Batman!

As mentioned earlier, I tend to think in the style of whatever book I'm reading, and as also mentioned earlier, I'm currently reading a lot of graphic novels...

...so lately, I've been picturing my life as a series of panels, featuring me and mine at interestingly askew angles, with thought and speech balloons which feature random words boldfaced and italicized...

Spin your primary, do si do...

I suppose I might be looking at what I linked to in the last entry in the wrong way; after all, Dean never said that he was the "atheist candidate," but I guess I was hoping he would be different than other candidates in bowing to the Obligatory Jesus Reference.

But, perhaps, his acknowledgement that he will be talkin' 'bout Jebus while in South Carolina proves that he is what all the conservatives have been gleefully asserting he isn't--a savvy politician.

After all, if emphasizing your religion in the South while downplaying it in the North isn't the tactic of someone who knows what they need to do to be elected--then what is?

It's really sad when a patently false move makes me more confident in a candidate, not less... because it makes him seem more "electable."