I am addicted to Wonkette.com, partly because the commenters make me laugh with their incisive wit and willingness to offend in the name of righteous snark. Today, though, is clearly going to be an emotional day for everyone, as evidenced by one commenter.
Okay, so I was doing fine. I drove to the polling place, found a spot to park, and got in the “A-L” line. There was about a half an hour wait, so I bought a cup of coffee from the kids who had ingeniously set up a refreshment table by the front doors of the elementary school. The couple in front of me had a very happy baby. It was all good.
When I finally got to the front of the line, I gave my address and received my ballot. I walked over to the voting table, picked up my Sharpie, and filled in the bubbles—just like on the S.A.T. At that point, I was almost home free. I walked to the back of the gym, put my ballot into the scantron machine, returned my privacy folder, and accepted, with thanks, my sticker.
Then it was out the door and down the hallway. The line was long—very long, especially for Connecticut, which is not a swing state by any stretch of the imagination. There were the doors. If I could just get through the doors and to my car…
Suddenly, a fifty-year-old African American woman merged next to me. She had just voted, too, and she had an “Obama/Biden” button on her jacket. I held the door open for her as we went outside. It was 6:33 A.M.
As we walked in step down the sidewalk in front of the school, she turned to me. “Thank the Lord,” she said. “The sun’s coming up!”
I got into my car and wept.
Yes we can. And, yes, I did.
What did you think about the Vice Presidential debate?
I think we may well be doomed.
See Matt Taibbi's article, Mad Dog Palin.
Hammel on Trial at the Cactus Cafe; February 14, 2006
Hammel was magnificent: a crazy, sweaty, foul-mouthed, 50-y.o. bald man. He kept addressing the crowd affectionately as "you fuckers." He stated that he was nostalgic for assassinations, that nobody got assassinated anymore, possibly due to a lack of 3-name individuals (John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman, etc.). To remedy this deficiency, he wondered aloud, perhaps David Lee Roth or Ronnie James Dio could be persuaded to join in. "Maybe if we armed Yo Yo Ma."
Continuing the assassination theme, later he sang a sold about Pat Robertson, the chorus of which was "With your brain on the cross behind you." He led the crowd in about 8 iterations of this chorus, with a massive grin on his face the whole time. "This is fucking great!" he exclaimed in between the fourth and fifth repetition. He sang a song about jerking off only to thoughts of his wife, as well as other romantic songs. Having a child has really mellowed him. He told many many funny stories, and my face hurt from laughing by the end of the 2 hours.
My friend the Mathemagician posited the following troubling development with an associate of his:
As the Mathemagician, I have lived my life under the assumption that the world operated under both the mathematical and philosophical principles of transitivity. You know the transitive property. Really, you do.
It's the property that says, "If A implies B, and B implies C, then A implies C". Here's an example:
A = It is raining
B = Water is on the ground
C = The ground is wetSo, if it is raining, then water is on the ground. If water is on the ground, then the ground is wet…And by the transitive property, we all know that if it is raining, then the ground is wet. A implies C. Makes sense, right?
Here's where the Mathemagician gets bamboozled. Let's assign new values to A, B, and C:
A = a habitually drunk guy who is disrespectful towards women and pees on things when he's drunk
B = a guy for whom no woman should have amorous intent
C = a guy who does not have a girlfriendOkay, let's verify this. Does A imply B? Yeah. Does B imply C? Uh huh. So, obviously, A implies C. It's a no-brainer! I mean, come on! Oh, wait. It doesn't. Nope, it doesn't. Huh? The Mathemagician is confused. I don't want her to get hurt.
I have Word Fu wisdom for you, Mathemagician.
Several additional characters, the alphabet apocrypha, exist between the letters B and C. You don't hear these letters in That Song, and you won't see these characters in elementary school rooms, as their deletion from the alphabet proper caused huge dissent and armed conflict in the alphabetic community back in the year [redacted]. You only learn about them in grad school, and only if you take Professor [redacted]'s class at [redacted] U.
The first character, [redacted], looks a great deal like the Batman symbol and signifies "but I'm sure all he needs is the love of a good woman, and I'm just that woman; he simply hasn't met anyone as special as me--he told me so." The reason for its original removal from the alphabet: a group of neutral parties called bullshit on that.
The second character, [redacted], bears no small resemblance to the Chuck E. Cheese logo and signifies “you know, he hurts. He drinks because he hurts. And because he’s passionate. And intense. He peed on my checkbook, cat, and favorite green cotton sweater because he’s so intensely passionate, and in pain. There’s something so tragic and romantic about a tortured genius—my tortured genius.” This letter was stricken from the alphabet because no one wanted to go over to its house because it smelled of stale beer, urine, feet, and last week’s King Ranch Casserole.
The third character, [redacted], technically had no pronunciation, although many refer to it as Prince, and signifies, simply, “overwhelmingly hot sex.” According to a Dr. Roger Nelson, a scholar who served as Secretary to the Great Alphabetic Conclave of [redacted], this character’s fate was already hanging in the balance on the fateful day it refused to attend the Conclave to speak on its own behalf. In his seminal work on alphabet apocrypha—It’s As Simple as A, B, [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], C—he relates that he called the character on that day to remind him of Conclave: “It just picked up the phone, dropped it on the floor, [redacted] [redacted], was all I heard.”
The existence of these invisible characters explains the breakdown in transitive logic. Because these rogue alphabandits work unseen and outside the linear, causal systems on which logic relies, their effect is all the more sinister. Mathemagicians would be wise to include these incalculable effects in their calculations, or find themselves, as they say, bamboozled.
HTH! J
The kid and I made, at long last, a pilgramage to Hey Cupcake!, a cupcake vendor working out of the very shiniest AirStream trailer on South Congress. I read about Hey Cupcake! in the paper a few months ago; it's a new business that began selling to students on the UT campus on weekday mornings but is now doing brisk business in a much larger trailer down south. I try to avoid South Congress these days, since we lost our apartment in that area and I'm still sad about that. Still...there were cupcakes involved and we had some extra time today, so off we went.
I took some photos as we stood in line:
Shiny! Also, to have a successful business in Austin, you must have a plexi- or fiberglass representation of your business atop the establishment. Hey Cupcake! takes no chances:
We were not, as a point of fact, underwater at the time. Today was cloudy and my camera phone was confused and shivering, because this is April and why is it 63 degrees out? Crazy cold front. Anyway, the menu is equally simple and compelling:
The kid opted for the Whipper Snapper treatment, in which a shot of whip cream is injected into the center of the cupcake (for free!). These people do NOT fuck around. I had a Vanilla Dream, which I dispatched rapidly to pastry heaven, while the kid had a Double Dose (chocolate/chocolate icing) that was so rich she couldn't even finish it. And I couldn't even finish it for her, so rich was it. Unheard of! So, yeah, we spent $5 on 2 cupcakes (with tip) but damn, they were some intense pastries. The Michael Jackson, by the way, is one of the upper tier, $2.50 cupcakes, with cream cheese on top, chocolate on the bottom. Here's the kid in the midst of her initial attack upon the whipper-snappered Double Dose:
Not missing a trick, even the napkin dispensers are included in the branding (pictured here with both of our cupcakes):
In honor of coming off Effexor (so far, so good), this month's IMP mix has prescription Rx theme. And I cannot BELIEVE I forgot to include Ween's tribute to Zoloft. Sadly, I have already put the mix in the mail. Ah well, I'll include it here to soothe my completionist heart.
1. (These Are The) Good Old Days Socalled 5:17
2. Antidepressant Lloyd Cole 2:40
3. Sold! Enon 2:22
4. Don't Buy the Realistic Spoon 3:55
5. Fixing My Brain Brad Sucks 3:58
6. Fluoxetine The Arts And Sciences 3:38
7. Giving Up Windsor For The Derby 6:53
8. Lithium The Polyphonic Spree 5:24
9. Mother's Little Helper The Rolling Stones 2:48
10. My Little Heart The Postmarks 1:30
11. None Shall Pass Aesop Rock 4:03
12. Pablo Picasso Citizen Cope 3:43
13. Pink Champagne Venus Hum 4:49
14. A Rent Boy Goes Down Apostle Of Hustle 4:08
15. The Same Boy You've Always Known The White Stripes 3:10
16. Scatterbrain (As Dead As Leaves) Radiohead 3:22
17. So Long, Serotonin Tyler Jakes 4:19
18. Wake Up! Les Savy Fav 3:22
I took the last Effexor capsule on Sunday morning. I'd starting taking the granules out 2 at a time a couple of weeks ago, which speeded things up quite a bit. I think there was 1 granule in the capsule. I'm feeling pretty good, clearer than ever. Hope I can keep the monkey off my back for good this time.Still taking 25mg of Trazodone most nights, mostly out of fear of insomnia than actual insomnia. Well, we'll see how this goes. Congratulations, me.
Oh, this song reminds me: I got the greatest auto-email ever from CDBaby.com, from whom I bought this fabulous Tyler Jakes CD. So great, I want to buy every CD I'll ever need from them. It went like this:
Thanks for your order with CD Baby!
=== Shipped Items ===
** Shipped on 2008-04-03: **
1 of TYLER JAKES: Lo-Fi Matter ($10.00 each)Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Thursday, April 3rd.
I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Sigh...
---
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little store with the best new independent music
http://cdbaby.com
I am on the mailing list of Yes We Can Has (Cheesburgers), a pro-Obama LOLcats site. Here is a stirring call to action, and a warning, I received the earlier this week:
Pennsylvania's primary is upon us and we can exceed expectations and win the primary with kittehs + cheezburgers. Ask your friends to join our Facebook group and visit our website: http://www.yeswecanhas.com
As a public service message, here are the signs that your cat is supporting Hillary.
• Sits on your newspaper in the morning and carefully reads the coded message that Howard Wolfson puts in Get Fuzzy every day.
• Used to sleep on top of TV but now she monitors MSNBC 24 hours a day for Obama bias.
• Autopsy of the last mouse left on your doormat reveals that the mouse is actually Vince Foster.
• Constantly going into heat when Bill Clinton is on TV.
• Kitty Chow spilled on the floor spells out ELITISM.
• Has recently been acting like a victim of the dog.
• Judging from the kitchen, she seems to be working on some kind of "pantsuit defuzzing" technology.
• Kitty is forgoing Sheba and taking shots of whiskey, followed by a beer chaser.
• What your cat lacks in charisma and good looks is made up for with her awesome duck hunting skills.
G'Obama!
Saturday, September 23, 2006
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My kid frigging rules
So, I'm driving the babysitter home today and the monkey is in the back sit nattering on about this and that. We start talking about ear piercings, and I tell the babysitter the story of my first ear piercing--the story that made my most recent ear piercer, a piercing professional at Body Adorned, flinch. When I was growing up, my mom was an OR nurse and so she had access to all kinds of medical devices and materials. In sixth grade, I told her I was ready to get my ears pierced and she told me she'd do me like she did my older sisters. After perfunctorily attempting to numb my lobes with an ice cube, she pressed a catheter gun to each hapless lobe and shot a stiff, spaghetti-sized catheter right through. Then she trimmed the catheter down so she could slide each stud's post through my ear and whip out the tiny catheter segment. Allez-oop! So, I'm telling the babysitter this story and the kiddo is listening in and she offers the following consolation: "Just think if she was aiming from across the room. That'd really be bad." And she kept on going from there, but I was laughing so hard I couldn't really take it all in. The sitter and I laughed from Matt's El Rancho to the South Congress Magnolia. It was the best. On a side/sad note, my kid is currently watching Scooby Doo 2. You may believe you've seen the worst atrocity ever commited to film. Maybe you saw Blair Witch 2 or Police Academy 59. You are wrong. Scooby Doo 2 is so offensively, bottomlessly, terrifyingly bad that no bad can even think of touching the hem of this movie's wretched, stinking, toxic badness. I'm not at all surprised that Freddie Prinze is in it, but the chick from Freaks and Geeks is in too--she's Velma. That makes me so sad. Too bad I quit drinking or I'd be weeping into bottle of Tito's right now from the horror and the tragedy of it all. Shit. |
happy So, I jotted down these thoughts about Cat Scientist when I felt the need to articulate the aspects of a CS show that make them so much fun.
First, the music: they are their own sound but they are flavored with B52s and Adrian-Belew-era King Crimson and Latin beats and so much else. Their songs are layered and delightfully syncopated and call-and-responsive. They are smart and sonic and fresh. The female vocalist mugs and shimmies like she means it, and they're all having such a great time making their sounds.
Second, their look: the front line of the band--bass, guitar, fem vocalist/keyboardist, male vocalist/keyboardist--look like demented librarians making their booty-shaking music after lights out in the periodicals section. The drummer is blonde and lanky and looks innocent.
Aside: at this particular show, the drummer stood up and danced for a while. Then he came out from behind his kit and was playing keyboards, and at one point he was harmonizing into a mike while the fem vocalist sat down in the audience to belt out a tune. I mean, who ever heard of a drummer *doing* something? I was amazed.
Third, their audience: this is smart music; this is geek music. No one in the audience was ever popular in high school, not for a moment. Their most devoted fans dance insistently and gracelessly to every bar, even those passages that resist dancing because of their slow tempo or challenging rhythms. The band's sound is independent in but no snidely impassive indie rockers mar the vibe. You can't watch this band and not grin hugely, and so everyone in the audience is happy. I love this band.
