Muskrat Fuzz

The Great Westminster Abbey Cookout 2008

2008-06-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

This ran in the New York Times today so I’m playing commentator:

Once a decade, hundreds of bishops of the international Anglican Communion meet in Canterbury, England, for the Lambeth Conference.

This summer, in the most tangible demonstration yet of the church’s division over homosexuality, hundreds of bishops are boycotting the Lambeth Conference and attending a rival meeting for conservative Anglicans in Jerusalem.

Setting the tone for their meeting, the conservatives released a strongly worded theological manifesto on Thursday in Jerusalem, declaring that they see no possibility for reconciliation with the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada, which have accepted a gay bishop and same-sex unions. The conservatives say that after years of emergency meetings and ultimatums, they have been “ignored,” “demonized” and “marginalized.”

“There is no longer any hope, therefore, for a unified Communion,” the document said.

After five years of hinting at the possibility of schism, this is the most explicit threat that some conservatives are prepared to break from the Anglican Communion, the world’s third largest affiliation of Christian churches, with 77 million members.

They say they see a “parallel between contemporary events and events in England in the sixteenth century,” when the Church of England broke from the Roman Catholic church.

“Now after five centuries, a new fork in the road is appearing,” said the document, which is published as a book titled, “The Way, the Truth and the Life.”

ME: The conservative Anglicans have published a book called the Way, the Truth and the Life? This really blows my mind. A religious organization is doing what RO’s do best and whoring under the name of Jesus. I know that sounds harsh, but they have published a political document (are we in agreement that this whole schism smacks of politics far more than of community?) and titled it “JESUS CHRIST”. Bold move, Anglicans.

But the document stops short of spelling out the next steps or declaring a new Reformation or a separate church. It is intended as a position paper for the conservatives, who are themselves not of one mind about the next steps, and it will be debated at their Jerusalem meeting.

About 280 bishops and 750 laypeople, including bishops’ spouses, are expected to meet in Jerusalem from June 22 to 29 for what they are calling the “Global Anglican Future Conference,” organizers said.

They include a majority of the bishops from Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, and parts of Tanzania, who plan to boycott the Lambeth Conference this year. The rest of those at the Jerusalem Conference are from England, the United States, Australia and some countries in Asia and Latin America.

The conservatives decided to hold their own meeting after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, announced last year that he would not send an invitation for the Lambeth Conference to a leading conservative leader, Bishop Martyn Minns, a rector in a Virginia church who was ordained a bishop in the Church of Nigeria. The role of Bishop Minns is to minister to conservatives alienated from the Episcopal Church, but his ordination was seen by the Archbishop of Canterbury as a violation of established boundaries.

In a recent interview, Bishop Minns said of his exclusion by the Archbishop: “I didn’t’ feel it was a well-informed political move. Instead of removing the distraction, as he claimed to do, he’s actually created a massive distraction.”

ME: At least Minns is acknowledging that we are fully in the realm of the political here. Interesting background: I’m coming from a religious organization background that is associated with this guy. Also, I’ve sat in his bleachers and heard him speak and I can’t say anything bad about him. As I’ve lived amongst Anglicans for the past couple of years, I’ve become very sad that people who do know the LORD are so wholeheartedly buying into their organization. People like Minns and other leaders of this conservative movement who I know personally are genuinely impressive people. It baffles me that they’re sticking with the broken system.

The Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, declared that if Bishop Minns could not attend the Lambeth Conference, then none of his bishops would attend.

The conservatives themselves are divided about boycotting the Lambeth Conference, and whether holding the Jerusalem conference is a good idea. Some have said conservatives would be more effective if they all showed up at Lambeth and tried to steer events or staged a walk-out.

About 10 percent of the bishops at the Jerusalem conference will also be going to the Lambeth Conference, however, Bishop Minns said.

The only other bishop not invited to Lambeth by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who issues the invitations, is Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, whose consecration by the Episcopal Church inflamed the conservatives because he lives openly with his gay partner.

This month, Bishop Robinson and his partner of 20 years, Mark Andrew, celebrated a private civil union ceremony at a church in New Hampshire.

Bishop Robinson plans to appear at events on the sidelines of the Lambeth Conference, even though he cannot attend the formal sessions.

At the last Lambeth Conference, in 1998, the bishops overwhelmingly passed a resolution saying that homosexuality was “incompatible with Scripture,” and that homosexuals should not be ordained. The vote revealed the growing strength of the conservative bishops from Africa and the developing world.

ME: This posting has nothing to do with the issue that is causing the schism – just FYI. I’m making no commentary on that.

To forestall conflict, the organizers of this year’s Lambeth Conference have planned for no resolutions, no proposals and no votes. Instead, the bishops will meet in small groups, on the theory that they will overcome their divisions by building personal relationships.

ME: Sadly, most of the time spent at these meetings, even when spent is small groups, will look more like an academic conference than a meeting of the Church. I like the idea of a meeting spent on conversations, but how can you possibly say you’re going to have a meeting of the Church of Jesus Christ, but limit admittance to those professing loyalty to the church of England? How about Rowan Williams fires up a grill outside Westminster and we invite the global church for a big meeting. We’ll share some food and then we can break it down into groups where we’ll spend a few days embracing each other and casting out the various religious spirits that have dug their talons into our hearts and brains for the past 1900 years or so? I would buy a ticket to England tomorrow for that meeting.

Still ME: The prevailing argument I’ve heard from the conservatives is that there comes a point when you see that your “church” is made up of people whose beliefs don’t even include some of the most basic tenets of your faith. At that point, they say, it makes sense to go your separate ways – not cursing the Episcopal church (in this case), but acknowledging that the fundamental differences mean that you aren’t worshipping the same thing. To be honest, this argument makes sense logically. Yet, it requires people to first form their religious organizations and then draw the lines along which they are going to parse out the church (either you’re inside or outside of my lines). My friend told a story last week of setting up a tent at a gay pride parade in hopes that some people might come in for prayer. They advertised their intention clearly (we only want to pray for you) and nobody in the tent was interested in recruiting people to a particular meeting or organization. That day, a drag queen prophesied words from the Lord to my friend. You can bet that if he had been drawing lines, that drag queen would have been on the outside. The guy probably didn’t profess the same beliefs and certainly wouldn’t have accepted the ‘morals’ of my friend as his own. Lots of organizations claim to welcome people who are coming from all sorts of places, but most will require an M.Div. or at least a good tithing record if you want to start spouting words from the Lord into the lives of the faithful. I’m starting to think that all of the line-drawing and theology debate wouldn’t really matter if we conducted ourselves in true community and everyone laid their souls bare when we got together. Those who did not love Jesus would probably hate this and choose to leave. Also, I’m guessing quite a few people who currently think they hate Jesus would LOVE this thing, and find that they actually love Jesus, whose voice is the one coming out of people’s mouths. Maybe you can chalk drag queen up as one of those (to be fair I don’t know anything about that person other than the story). Back to the New York Times:

The Rev. Dr. Ian T. Douglas, a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., who served on the design committee for Lambeth, said in a news conference last month, “It’s fundamentally about the encounter, about conversations among the leaders all oriented to: what is God calling the Anglican Communion and the bishops to be about in the wider world?”

Bishop Minns said of the Lambeth Conference, “It’s unfortunate, at a time the church needs clear and strong leadership, it gets two weeks of conversation.”

ME: Do you think he’s looking for a conference to provide leadership? If the church is the body of Jesus and we hear his voice by getting together and just seeing what comes out (and that’s what I think he said to us when he was here), then I think two weeks of conversation would be great. The voice of Jesus, who is supposedly the head of the Church, would probably be easier to hear in a big group of people listening for it. But two weeks of sermons, liturgies and presentations – if that is what “conversation” means… then I agree with the notion that it will do you Anglicans only harm. Here’s my inaudible voice calling for a real meeting.

A smattering of links

2008-04-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

This is a quiz. Each picture is either drawn from a secular organization's publicity materials or those of an American christian organization. You have to click the choice of your answer (no looking at the link destination when you mouse over it). If you are right, you will be taken to that organization's website. If not, you will see Jesus engaging the culture.

christian organization

secular organization

christian organization

secular organization

christian organization

secular organization

christian organization

secular organization

christian organization

secular organization

christian organization

secular organization

Official Euro Cyclists Code

2008-03-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

********* -THE OFFICIAL EURO CYCLIST CODE OF CONDUCT- *********

Created by Dom Guiver and Mike Flavell

1. Image and style shall be your primary concern. When suffering, one must focus first on maintaining a cool, even composure, and second on performance. Winning races is an added talent, and only counts if said euro cyclist wins with appropriate style.

2. Training is based solely on feel, while racing is to be guided by sensations and instinct. The Euro Cyclist will never accept tried or tested scientific training methods.

3. You shall NEVER, under any circumstances, wear plain black spandex bibs (shorts, regardless of colour are BANNED) or any team kit containing non-prominent Logo's. Shorts will extend 55-60% of the way down the upper leg. IN NO CONDITION shall it extend any further.

4. Legs will be SHAVED year-round. ABSOLUTELY NO EXCEPTIONS. Certain hair removal creams are endorsed only on a case-by-case basis. One shall never show up to a race (large or small) with ANY AMOUNT of stubble visible on legs.

5. A prominent line where your kit ends and where your tan begins is essential to your image. Artificial tanning is BANNED. The tan SHALL reflect the level of training commitment.

6. The Socks must extend no less than 2cm below the main bulge of your calf muscle, and shall never extend further than 1cm past the primary calf muscle bulge. All socks SHALL BE WHITE in colour with prominent logo placement.

7. Cycling shoes must contain at least 80% white!
The following exceptions apply…
i) Colours combinations such as world cup stripes, or Olympic gold where title has been EARNED.
ii) Shoes which are custom-made for specific riders by companies endorsed by this group. These shoes will be accessible to the particular cyclist only, and shall follow the preceding rules.

8. If white cycling shoes are not available where you reside, white booties with prominent logos shall always be worn. When booties are worn, socks should protrude approximately 7 centimetres above the ankle, and shall always protrude at least 1.5cm from any booties worn.

9. Your bike frame must contain 2-4 colours IN ADDITION TO WHITE. All colours are acceptable as long as they combine tastefully. In addition to this, wheel selection must also match frame and fork.

10. You shall race only on Bora’s or Lightweights. Fulcrum Racing One, Corima Aero+ or Zipp (404’s or 202’s) wheelsets are considered stylish enough to be used as training wheels ONLY. Regardless, Ceramic bearings shall be used at all times on both training and race bikes.

11. ALL wheels shall be equipped with tubulars, regardless of your ability in gluing them.

12. Ridiculously stylish eye wear (see endorsed products list) is to be worn at all time without exception.

13. Hair shall be kept neatly short, and matching helmet shall be worn (again with prominent logo placement). Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES shall a clashing helmet colour be worn with your euro kit.

14. In RARE cases, it has been deemed acceptable to have long hair. In this event, hair shall be neatly slicked back in maximum euro-styling, and helmet SHALL NOT be worn. It is IMPERATIVE rule 12 is followed in these special cases.

15. When riding, sans helmet (with short hair), a team issue cycling cap (white in colour), shall be worn. The bill shall remain in the downward position at all times. Cycling cap can be worn forwards or backwards to coincide with specifics of current hairstyle. During spring training, cycling toques WILL be worn at all time in place of caps.

16. Kits will always be freshly washed, and one shall ALWAYS have applied a subtle quantity of eau de toilette (cologne). It is, AT ALL TIMES, FORBIDDEN to ride in an unwashed kit, as it is extremely detrimental to your image.

17. Saddles shall be white in colour only and will be manufactured in Italy or France. Exceptions shall be made in the following cases…
i) Saddles containing WorldCup Stripes or Olympic Gold when EARNED
ii) Italian Flag colour combo when rider is ITALIAN (born in Italy)

18. Handlebar tape is required to be cork as well as being WHITE IN COLOUR. Bar tape will be kept in pristine white condition. This state shall be achieved either through daily cleansing or frequent replacement. These jobs will NEVER be performed by the cyclist as you must maintain your image.

19. All stems must be a minimum of 120mm and a rise of no higher than -10 degrees. Stems shall be positioned no more than 0.5cm above the top of the headtube. ALL stems shall ALWAYS be oversized, made out of ALUMINUM, and airbrushed in kit/frame colours.

20. A rider will ALWAYS have liniment applied to his legs before appearing in public.

21. Facial hair will be restricted to (at maximum) a goatee, and even this is discouraged. Moustaches, beards, or any combination thereof are EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED in all instances. Stubble is, however, advisable in virtually ALL euro-situations. It is important to note: this DOES NOT apply to the legs!

22. Campagnolo shall be THE ONLY acceptable componentry and is hereby deemed superior to ANY Shimano product in ALL circumstances. You are expected to have nothing less than an ENTIRE campy grouppo. Crank substitutions are NOT permitted. There is a case by case exception for SRAM RED.

23. You shall NEVER, under any circumstances, acknowledge the presence of a cyclist riding a bike costing less than €2000 in a public place. This could be severely detrimental to your image.

24. You shall NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, associate with triathletes. It is FORBIDDEN to have any number inked onto your body before a race.

25. Any physical activity, other than cycling, is STRONGLY FROWNED UPON. This includes any form of running or swimming and their derivatives (this includes walking). The ONLY TWO other sports with a recognized degree of euro are Cross Country skiing, and long track speed skating.

26. MTB gloves are FORBIDDEN in all instances. Cycling gloves will be slick, white (in accordance with kit), and have minimal padding. Padding will be beige or white in colour. Wearing NO GLOVES is entirely acceptable and encouraged. In the case where said euro cyclist is wearing a leader’s jersey, special gloves will be made to match the colour of the jersey while blending the team kit colours simultaneously.

27. In a circumstance where any cyclist (or triathlete) ever displays aggression or disrespect towards you, you are required to ride up uncomfortably close and slap them in the face with your team issue gloves.

28. In the event a motorist disturbs your ride, you shall proceed to ride up beside the car, form a clenched fist and bang the boot of the car while doing your best attempt to sound irritated in Italian. Wild arm/head movements are strongly encouraged to enhance the apparent rage.

29. you shall NEVER rearrange your package while riding. Adjustments regarding seating/hanging comfort are to be done in private in order to preserve image.

30. ABSOLUTELY NO FORM of seatbag, frame pump, mud guard or mirror shall come within 2 meters of your bike.

31. Gearing is restricted to a titanium Campy Record 11-23 cassette with a ABSOLUTE MINIMUM of 42-53 up front. You shall never be seen pedaling at a cadence over 90rpm in case it detracts from your calm/smooth factor. The use of 25t cog is acceptable in special training circumstances.

32. ALL BIKES shall feature personalized nameplates next to your home country’s flag located on the top-tube within 10 cm seat-tube ON ONE SIDE ONLY.

33. Pedals MUST be either Look or Time. No other pedals are to be considered. (as always, ANY form of Shimano product is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN).

34. Coffee is a necessity and as such must be consumed strong (ie. espresso) on a patio in Italy in full kit, it shall be drunk black. Sugar is STRONGLY FROWNED UPON. The only milk present shall appear frothed on top (if at all).

35. All podium shots (pictures) shall be taken while wearing your team kit and appropriately matching casual euro shoes (such as puma's). Socks shall remain within the guidelines above. You are expected to display an appropriate degree of bulge while receiving kisses/trophy.

36. All pre and post-race activity will be conducted under a gazebo (this includes massage, interviews, and looking fantastic) leaving you in reasonable distance of the Euro-sun to top up your enviable tanlines or pose for photo’s.

37. Post-race, you shall be tied to their mobile phone, receiving endless calls from your attractive euro-girlfriend or important ad executives concerning modeling contracts. This will be done under the protection of the post race gazebo.

38. Team bikes will be built up so that they violate the UCI weight limit, in order that weights might be attached to the frame to demonstrate its superiority and lightness.

39. Motivational music during training shall consist of late 90s house or deep-trance hard-style German techno hereby known as 'euro beats'. NO EXCEPTIONS.

40. Naked black ALL CARBON water bottle cages (manufactured by ELITE CAGES) will be used on ALL BIKES. Exceptions include….
i) Special edition 24k gold cages are acceptable in certain cases such as photo shoots, prologues or where colour coordination dictates. Ex. Gold Cage with Olympic Gold/white team kit.

41. Water Bottles shall be referred to solely as "Bidon's" and shall have a volume NOT EXCEEDING 500ml. Bidon's will always be matching of team/kit colours. It is NOT ACCEPTABLE in ANY CIRCUMSTANCE to leave bidon's on bike more than 10 minutes post ride OR while transporting bikes via bike rack.

42. A gold pendant on a very long, thin chain bearing some form of religious icon is STRONGLY recommended for mountain races.

43. While soloing in for a victory, you will ensure your jersey is FULLY ZIPPED and ALLIGNED, so all title sponsors are clearly visible. You shall then smile and flex your arms while pointing skywards. The projection of ones fatigue is EXPLICITLY FORBIDDEN IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES.

44. When appearing in a photo spread for sponsor’s products, you have the option of appearing fully nude, in your team kit, or in full Brioni 3 piece suits (nothing else). Smiling is prohibited in these instances.

45. When appearing in documentaries, you must be seen walking around the hotel in your kit at all times. It is also recommended that you constantly be eating something in front of the cameras.

46. When asked "how are you?" while riding you must proceed with one of the following...
-Complain about coming off a sickness.
- Explain you're peaking for bigger races later in the season
- Mention that this is a "recovery ride"
-That you are on the tail end of your daily 6 hour training ride

47. If you feel the urge to relieve yourself during a race, you shall gracefully meander to the back of the pack, seat yourself sideways on his saddle, and pee into the sunflowers. It is your duty to ensure that no camera crew catches the act, for it could be detrimental to your image. Under no circumstances shall you dismount from his bike to urinate.

48. When climbing anything with a gradient above 20% and lasting over 8 kilometers, you are required to fully unzip your jersey and let it flutter freely in the wind.

49. When dropping out of a race, you shall avoid the embarrassment of entering the official broomwagon and will instead wait for the team vehicle. When asked the reason for dropping out, you shall cite mechanical problems or oncoming sickness as the reason to avoid any bad speculation in relation to your fitness.

50. If in doubt, the euro cyclist shall mention in an interview that his pollen allergies are acting up, and that he’s not sure that he’ll win the Giro this year. In this situation, remember to note that the sensations are otherwise good, and that eventually you’ll win a beautiful stage.

51. Team-building motivational camps will be held annually in the off-season. These are to place team members in as ridiculous a setting as possible. Photos will be widely reproduced to demonstrate team cohesion.

52. During the pre-race medical checks, star riders of each team are STRONGLY ADVISED to play doctor with each other while shirtless. Photos taken must strive to be as HOMEROTIC AS POSSIBLE.

53. In order to avoid the harsh European winter, you shall:
i)flee to the warmer climes of Mallorca/South Africa/Canary Islands/etc.
ii)“train the mind, body and soul” with Kreitler brand rollers

54. In the event of a crash, no matter how badly you have injured yourself, you shall proceed to mummify yourself with fishnet gauze. The act of gauzing oneself is looked upon with respect by other Euro Cyclists because it
is a statement of commitment and strength of character to continue racing when injured. White Gauze is the norm, but world cup striped gauze and or national colors may be worn on select occasions depending on the rider.

2008-01-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

Huckabee on Iran:

Asked whether the US commanders on the scene were right in not attacking the Iranian boats, Mr Huckabee said he backed their decisions, before warning Iran: "Be prepared, first, to put your sights on the American vessel. And then be prepared that the next thing you see will be the gates of Hell."

Baptist minister on the one hand, ready to blast people to hell on the other. Sadly, it makes very much sense.

Day Hike

2007-11-19T04:31:00.000-08:00

Cool Shots from Shenandoah with Amelia:

Took a lot of work to get there.

Matthews Arm Overlook

An Interview with a Child Star

2007-11-08T06:46:00.000-08:00

Today we have the rare privilege here at the Muskrat Fuzz of interviewing Spinach, who is now dealing with the struggles and conflicts associated with aging out of child stardom.

MF: Spinach, tell us a little bit about where you’ve been in your career.

Spinach: Well, as you know I was not a popular player in the early part of the previous century. The Popeye movement helped that to some degree but I often was reminded that mine was the only job in which getting canned was your best option. So I’d say my early development was difficult and that’s probably why I was so ready for the explosion into the vegetable mainstream that occurred during my so-called childhood.

MF: Walk us through those years…

S: Ok. It started in the early 90’s and took off rather quickly. Baby Spinach was a star. Forget the old steel can of stewed spinach and the heart stopping soufflé that your grandma used to make at Christmas; overnight I had moved from the geriatric wards of America into the Whole Foods locally grown organic shelves. It’s like the light just came on, and with that came a whole new group of friends. Candied yams and ham hock were replaced by applewood smoked bacon, bleu cheese and balsamic. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that bleu cheese isn’t a pretty cool wingman at the club, but I think that deep down I knew that, unlike cooked carrots, this new crowd was pretty fickle. Things just kept picking up steam for the next few years and, I’m not trying to glamorize anything here but… let’s just say there was more than one instance when I found myself doing lines next to Foie Gras at Studio 54. Things eventually reached a peak around 2005 though and I started to get funny looks when introducing myself. The wild nights had taken a toll, but any way you slice it, I seemed like the only one in the room who didn’t murmur at the notion that I was still Baby Spinach. I remember getting a call from Macaulay at that point and he said, “Listen Spinach (he made a point of that one you know – excluding the Baby. It felt strangely right to hear that.), you’re doing the same thing I did with The Good Son in 1993. There comes a time when you have to bow out – and the time is now for you. Don’t worry, the cameos in Frasier, Will and Grace and the occasional egg white breakfast omelet will pay the bills, but only if you get out while you still have something to offer. The path you’re on leads straight to Brian Forster, whose last gig was signing headshots for a group of screenwriters on strike at 5 bucks a pop.”

So, I took the former kid star’s advice and threw in the towel. No more wild nights with avocado-lime vinaigrette tickling my leaves; no more waking up lying on a juicy breast of duck. My salad had been tossed for the last time, and now I was just Spinach. I think the overwhelming sentiment I noticed following that decision was relief – people hate to see a child star trying to stretch it out longer than they should. Perhaps a bit more mature, I was willing to be placed on the shelves of your local big-box grocer now. I can’t say that it was all for naught though. I still occasionally get the invite when Basil and Gorgonzola are getting together for a sauté. There are those reminders of the good old days from time to time.

MF: Do you blame any of your decline on the E.Coli scare?

S: You had to go there huh? Ok. If that's how it has to be - then no. No. I don't blame anything on the fact that I got smeared with some poo somewhere along the production line, and now everyone who I talk to stands at a 7ft. distance and thinks of me as the Baby star who got shit on. Well, come to think of it, maybe I would accept that explanation. But it wasn't the E. Coli. It was the sommelier who started recommending arrugula as a good completement to summer Sauvignon Blanc. It was the hippy vegan parents who thought maybe their six month old was ready for me and were so repulsed the ensuing green mess that they never returned. It was the endless line of daytime television chefs who used me like the town bicycle and taught the soccer moms of middle america that they too could partake in what used to be high cuisine. I got commoditized and marginalized, but in the process I grew up. To call myself Baby Spinach after everything I went through would have been dishonest: the E. Coli was just the icing on that cake. The cake of dishonest Baby Spinach.

MF: Wow – a real glimpse into the rise and fall of a star. So what occupies your free time these days?

S: Good question. I’m really into sustainability nowadays, so I’ve taken a few others under my wing and am trying – in some cases with more success than others – to help out some who seem to be on a similar path to my own. Right now I’m meeting with a small group on Tuesday mornings. I’d call this group the ones I hope to save from many of the traps I fell into – you might say they’re still on the upswing. In confidence, I’ll tell you that among these guys are some pretty big names: Social Networking, Global Warming and White Tea, to name a few. There’s also a Thursday morning group that is more geared towards those who’ve already been burned. They’re feeling like yesterday’s child star and today’s garbage. I feel like I’ve got some experience there as well, so on Thursdays I get together with Subprime Mortgages, Reality TV, Republicans and Homestar Runner.

MF: Glad to hear that you’ve put your difficult experiences at the service of the larger community of fads, one-hit-wonders, and victims of the herd mentality. In closing, can you give us a bit of color on what we should expect from Spinach as an adult?

S: Sure. First and foremost, you’ll see a longer shelf life. As a baby, I really sort of got a sick pleasure out of the knowledge that if you didn’t eat me in a day or two, I was going to wilt on you like Grandpa when his Sildinafil Citrate prescription runs out. So I’m over the need to be had now or never, I guess. Also, you can probably see me looking to get back to my roots – soul food always did me right, and after 10 years of bumming around with Haut Cuisine, I appreciate that. I’ll still be there for you when you do feel like a truffled proscuitto salad, I just might be a little more complex… and, I’d like to hope, a bit easier to swallow (but not slimy – if I’m slimy send me right back to the kitchen because that’s just not right).

Society

2007-11-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

For anyone who has ever, like me, been to a Pearl Jam concert and heard Eddie Vedder break into his experimental materials and thought "wow, this is much better than Pearl Jam music", you should RUN to buy the Into The Wild soundtrack, which was fully composed by Eddie.

Society, by Eddie Vedder

It's a mystery to me, we have a greed with which we have agreed
You think you have to want more than you need until you have it all you won't be free

society, you're a crazy breed, I hope you're not lonely without me

When you want more than you have, you think you need
and when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed
I think I need to find a bigger place
'cos when you have more than you think, you need more space

society, you're a crazy breed, I hope you're not lonely without me
society, crazy and deep, I hope you're not lonely without me

there's those thinking more or less less is more
but if less is more how you're keeping score?
Means for every point you make, your level drops
kinda like its starting from the top, you can't do that...

society, you're a crazy breed, I hope you're not lonely without me
society, crazy and deep, I hope you're not lonely without me
society, have mercy on me, I hope you're not angry if I disagree
society, crazy and deep, I hope you're not lonely without me

Want it.

2007-10-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

My wife prevented this purchase at blockbuster. 1.87 is a fair price though, I would argue.

trip, part 2

2007-10-16T03:41:00.001-07:00

The second big trip I've been on was to visit my good friend Dave in Cabo San Jose, Baja California del Sur, Mexico. He drove me around some of the construction they are doing and it is amazing. Never before had I been in a 12 million dollar house that was actually worth that much due to its own merit (usually the ultra expensive mansions around DC have some historic value, escalating the price - these were new construction). Very cool to see that kind of thing. I only took pics on the last day, so here's what I got:

and the movie...

trip part 1

2007-10-16T03:26:00.000-07:00

I'm way behind on giving you trip summaries. So I'll start back in early September. Went backpacking with the guys - it was my job to print all the topo maps and put our route together. First, I didn't really consider that we had all spent our summer being relative couch potatoes, and the several thousand feet of elevation gain (with full packs) that I planned seemed fine, we're young right. Second, what I thought should be a 16 mile trip in two days somehow turned into 24. It was really hard actually. I felt a sense of accomplishment at the end, but I'm not sure that all of my compatriots will be back for round two. Also realized how much I enjoy backpacking and hope to get out 4-5 times next season after cycling is over.

Amelia wants me to tell how afraid I was of bears. We saw two black bears just a bit before dark and then we cooked, prepared bear bags and got ready for bed (after the obligatory whiskey drinking - though I had only brought about 3 ounces due to not wanting to carry anything heavier). As soon as we hit the rack, we start hearing sticks break and leaves crunch outside the tents. Spending a long while trying to convince ourselves that acorns were falling, someone finally worked up the courage to peek outside and see bunches of large mule deer just mulling around our campsite. They pretty much hung out all night, sending waves of bear-fear through me every time they brushed up against our tent. To be fair, the ranger's last words when we were pulling our permit were "oh, be careful, the bears are active right now".

Resumimos

2007-09-20T08:48:00.000-07:00

I believe I would like to resume occasionally writing in this page. I’ve de-linked myself from all of my social networks and I have no desire for you to link me into your sites. I may also not be nearly as creative or funny as in years past. But, there are interesting things going on that people might find… interesting? I am going to Mexico in a couple of weeks. I recently went backpacking in the Shenandoah. I recently resumed my cycling training and commuting and I believe I’m going to start carrying a camera with me. This is so that I can capture and document both the natural beauty of the mid-atlantic area and so that I can take pictures of the absurdities I see while riding in the area (such as the bike-path TTT teams that terrorize the neighborhood with their helmet mounted rear-view mirrors ablaze). I promise to photo anyone who sucks my wheel uninvited. I’m also contemplating a training trip to the bay area and a post-season trip to the northwest for some good old Vancouver/Portland/Seattle chill time. I recently snagged an old steel bike that I may document myself transforming. Who knows. Some of the above may find its way here.

So I make you no promises and I only expect you to visit when law school is too boring to handle. LOVE - Wunderkind

mavs predict

2007-05-03T05:14:00.000-07:00

I say that Mavs jump out front with a 15 point lead at the half and then Jet Terry opens the 3rd with a long three in which he Kobe-elbows Baron in the eye. Seeing this, Stephen Jackson gets the infamous "crazy eye" and marches cross-court to start a brawl. Well, Dampier finally decides that this would be a good time to show up on the court, and he is dispensed of in short order when Andris Biedrens reveals that he is actually a transformer and swallows Dampier whole. This provokes Dirk to pump his fists and sneer. Nellie sits on the sideline pumping his keg and, in an unexpected move sure to draw the ire of David Stern, greases a hog and releases said greased pig into the mix. Oakland fans erupt into mayhem and all appears to be lost when suddenly a trap door opens mid court and Joe Crawford ascends up through the pine in rockstar fashion, holding the severed head of Tim Duncan. David Stearn rolls his eyes but admits that a time like this was why he had only suspended, and not fired, Crawford. As previously threatened to Tim Duncan in the final real regular season game of the Mavs' season, Crawford is ready to fight. Unfortunately, being one of the NBA's premier officials generally corresponds with advanced age, and Crawford is placed into a half nelson by Nellie's son, Donn Nelson, who remains employed by the Dallas Mavericks. Following the game, owner Mark Cuban went on to note the irony behind Crawford's being placed into a "half nelson by a half-Nelson". "It's true", spouted the flamboyant owner, "Mrs. Nelson and I have a past and Donn is a product of that past. Why do you think I sent Nelson Sr. to Oakland but kept Junior around?" Nellie declined to comment on Cuban's remarks.

Back to the action on the court, Josh Howard looks capable of turning the melee in the Mavs' favor with a genuinely impressive ability to employ his mouthpiece as a weapon. Austin Croshere feels the opportunity arise for a big run and is seen cross court putting on an incredible display of marksmanship. As three players' lie dead on the court and the only official present was currently in a tussle with Mark Cuban's illegitimate son, these baskets were not counted. Following the game, Croshere quit the NBA forever and was heard muttering "this is my time... my time!". The crowd and players were brought under control after 13 minutes of gore, and the decision was made to play out the game. David Stearn agrees to serve as the official for the remainder of the game. Unfortunately, the only players who had not commited felonies in the past 780 seconds were Matt Barnes and Michael Pietrus for the Warriors, and Juan Jose Barrea, Dirk and Desagna Diop for the Mavericks. Upon close inspection, Dirk is mistakenly diagnosed by Stern to be ineligible due to a case of rabies. Dirk later explained that "Vat he vas finking vas dat I haz ze rabies, bit ze truse iz zat I haz not und upper lip und I vas wery excited, prodoocing und bitte snarly face". In an overtime bout of two on two, Harris and Diop conquer the Warriors and we're on to game 7. Diop, who did not score at all according to the official box score, was awarded game MVP as he repeatedly dunked Harris, who was holding the basketball and thus awarded the points. David Stern will be replaced by country music child prodigy Billy Gilman as commissioner for the remainder of the season due to a heart attack that ensued immediatly after Stearn attempted to jog up and down the court. He will be missed by all.

Office Urination

2007-04-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

for the love of click.

Lent

2007-04-12T16:42:00.000-07:00

Holy Click.

Atlas Shrugged

2007-04-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

Click it or ticket.

FYI

2007-04-06T10:04:00.001-07:00

There are 4 blogs in the pipeline, which means I am about to resume publishing to this blog. I vowed only to resume once I had enough material to permit regular publishing for several months. Give me a few more days, but look for something by Sunday.

6am in my house

2007-01-24T19:09:00.000-08:00

escalator

2007-01-24T18:59:00.000-08:00

click 'er

2007-01-11T17:03:00.000-08:00

hace clic!

happy new blog

2007-01-08T18:40:00.000-08:00

click it.

Grocery Theory

2006-11-08T16:45:00.000-08:00

I have realized a truth about humanity that I have to share with you. Deep within every man and woman, there is a calling that is unique to that person. This truth was revealed to me, like so many things, via the bonds of holy matrimony. You see, I started noticing that we had a massive amount of yellow mustard in the fridge - like four bottles. But it only hit me when I had to remove still more mustard from our shopping cart on the next trip to the grocery store. See, I think that everyone has one special item that they feel inexplicably compelled to purchase on near every grocery store visit. For my wife, that item is yellow mustard (store brand). For me, well, I have about six unopened bags of tortilla chips in the pantry right now. The pattern can be fought - for instance I'm sure the mrs. will read this and resist her natural urge for mustard for a few months - but give it six months and I'll be sitting on a mustard surplus once again. I think this can often go unnoticed when the special item is a frequently used one - like the person who feels compelled to buy sliced bread may never notice it if they eat enough sandwiches. But it's rare (and great) when the item is a rare one. You can spot these people because they have four jars of mareschino cherries or pickled artichoke hearts in their fridge.

What's your special item?

Bye Fund

2006-11-02T06:39:00.000-08:00

Some people write goodbye emails when they leave their place of work in which they go on and on about how thankful they have been to work with such a brilliant group of people for the past X years. I thought I would write a blog instead, because really I'm thankful that I've had the opportunity to blog, play fantasy sports, shop online and gain elite status at yahoo! pool over the past year and one half. I'm not so much thankful for having worked with brilliant people (although there have been a couple mixed in with the IM F'ers).

It's with some sadness that I leave a place where you can not show up for work for two weeks with zero consequences (my supervisor did it and they noticed that she wasn't in the office on day 7 of 10). Five weeks of vacation, 20 holidays and every other Friday off - I will miss you. A place where people protest when their employer threatens to stop paying for the college education of the employee's children. A place where, in response to the consulting firm that recommended certain pay cuts, the staff association stages a 9 to 5 walkout, where everyone leaves at 5pm on the dot to show the management how we all work countless hours of unpaid overtime and never complain. A place where this same walkout failed because employees all arrived between 10 and 11 "because we're going to have to stay until 5 today!"

So farewell you my place of employment. I'm headed for harder work, some grad school and accountability for the quality of the work that I produce. I'm leaving behind the best and worst gig I could have asked for.

Lube-a-cuke

2006-10-19T06:39:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I found myself in a boat that was on land being repaired. So, I was sitting inside of that boat (it was a big boat) and one of our friends was preparing a salad on the boat. Have you ever seen an English Cucumber? They're long and phallic. Here's one:

Anyways, she had one of these and was asked by another dude on the boat to wash it. It was funny because she was washing it with a grip much like the grip one would have on, say, a tennis racquet, and scrubbing this grip up and down the vegetable lengthwise. Am I painting a good picture of what was going on?

My wife and I were laughing ever so slightly and under our breath because nobody else thought this was funny. Then, in an unexplained move, our friend became unsatisfied with the traditional water only method of washing cucumbers. She decided to slather the cuke in dish soap. Effectively, she was lubing the cuke. I looked at my wife and, friends, we tried so hard. We were in a boat on land and everyone else was staring directly at a cucumber being lubed and vigorously scrubbed, and we were the only people who could not contain ourselves. So, we fell on the floor of the boat on land and split our sides. It was too much. Even the scrubber herself asked us, "what's going on", and all the while she was still schwanking away at the cucumber.

Cousin Ed: "What are they laughing at? Oh. That's inappropriate"

Fall Music Review

2006-10-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

Every quarter or so, I try to provide some list of music that I'm enjoying and that I don't think you are already hearing on the radio frequently. Forgive me for the RHCP inclusion, but I had to throw it in there. Otherwise, I suggest you check out some of the following:

1. The Automatic, By My Side – My good friend imported this cd for me for my birthday because you can only buy it in Wales or on Ebay from a Welshman. I do love The Automatic. Download if you like The Clash and related Brit Rock.

2. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dani California – I’m sure you’ve heard it on the radio, but this is the groove track on a funk CD. I downloaded the track but will hold off on the two disc collection (but I’ve heard the whole album is good).

3. Sufjan Stevens, To Be Alone With You – I think the new Seven Swans CD is one of his better efforts, coming in behind Michigan

4. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, Me and Mia – Kind of a less annoying pop rocker in the line of Franz Ferdinand?

5. What Made Milwaukee Famous, Trying to Never Catch Up – This band is a jewel and if you’re an indie rock fan mixed with an alt country fan, you should buy it post haste. The title track is good but the album is diverse, so sample a few songs.

6. Imogen Heap, Hide and Seek – I like this british girl singer, and I don’t usually like women singers. Hooray for vocal processors.

7. Ratatat, Wildcat – Sometimes you’re in the mood for an ambient electronica groove, and at that time you should plug in Wildcat.

8. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Over and Over Again – I feel like this should have been on the Vanilla Sky soundtrack. Sounds like that to me.

9. The White Stripes, The Nurse – With "Get behind me satan", the stripes won me over and I’m not looking back. I recommend this album in its totality, but this is one cool song.

10. Snow Patrol, Run – I like this better than chasing cars, the current hit.

11. The Mars Volta, Viscera Eyes – Sort of a psychadelic spanish whining jam that goes on for a long time and gets more and more interesting.

12. Serena Maneesh, Drain Cosmetics – I can hear Guns and Roses but I can also hear The Cure. My Bloody Valentine is the band most similar according to Billboard. Fuzzy and psychadelic.

Government

2006-10-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

Here are some quips that relate some of the more colorful actions of our legislators in the 109th. Can we get some of these folks out of there in November please?

Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT)
Burns, Jack Abramoff"s favorite Senate bag man, raked in a cool $137,000 in tribal casino money for his political action committee, a congressional record. In exchange, he pushed through a $3 million earmark on behalf of the Saginaw Chippewas in the form of an education grant the wealthy tribe neither wanted nor needed. But in his current re-election campaign against Montana State Sen. John Tester, Burns reminded Big Sky voters why he was a civic embarrassment long before Abramoff came courting. One favorite was his reference, in an immigration speech, to the "nice little Guatemalan man" who does yardwork around his estate (the long-suffering Burns press office was forced to issue a follow-up statement clarifying the cute little brown fella's legal status).
Casting his myopic gaze toward terrorism this summer, Burns offered a helpful clue to law enforcement officials: Be wary of "faceless" Arabs who "drive taxicabs by day and kill at night." But this minor bit of sociological skylarking actually represents progress, of sorts, considering his 1999 outburst blaming "ragheads" for rising gas prices and additional episodes in 1994 in which he delivered a casual joke from the podium about "niggers" and told another audience that living in Washington with so many blacks "is quite a challenge."
But he saved some scorn for the working class, too. This summer, Burns incautiously told a team of firefighters who had been battling a raging Montana wildfire that they did a "piss poor job" and that one in particular "hadn't done a goddamned thing." He then wrote a public letter to governor Brian Schweitzer requesting that he declare a state of emergency. Schweitzer had done so 45 days earlier.

Representative Donald Young (R-AK)
The scene: Fairbanks, Alaska, 1994. Congressman Don Young, already in office for 20 years, is on the stump preaching the virtues of Newt Gingrich's Republican revolution to a group of high school students. Just look at all the wasteful things the federal government does with taxpayers' money, he tells them. The National Endowment for the Arts, for example, funds art involving "people doing offensive things ... things that are absolutely ridiculous." One student asks, "Like what?"
"Buttfucking," replies the great scourge of obscenity and instructor of youth.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Then there are Bab's manglings of diction and logic, such as this chestnut: "Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, 'Thank God I'm still alive.' But of course those who died, their lives will never be the same again." Boxer's most egregious crimes against language are on florid display in her self-infatuated novel A Time to Run, which features a California senator embarking on a bold, maverick crusade to protect children from violence. One passage describes "a magical time when the three of them caught the rainbow, found the pot of gold beneath it, and managed to forget how easily and swiftly that fairy gold could slip away." And then there's the ghastly way Boxer envisions a lustful courtship: "Her skirt was very short, and Josh found himself mesmerized by her perfectly shaped, silken legs with kneecaps that reminded him of golden apples—he couldn't remember having been captivated by kneecaps before—and her lustrous thighs."

Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)
With her famously bad hair and even worse manners, Cynthia McKinney has long cut a slightly ridiculous figure on Capitol Hill. But this year she went to new extremes. First there was her notorious encounter with a Capitol Hill police officer who dared to ask her for ID. After brazenly ignoring several polite requests, the caterwauling congresswoman responded by walloping the officer in the chest. During the ensuing fracas she complained that she was persecuted for "being in Congress while black." But what really cemented her position at No. 7 was her frivolous threat to sue the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for defamation over an editorial that decried her light record of legislative achievement. "She doesn't have the power or prestige to pass a resolution in favor of sweetened iced tea," the paper opined. McKinney fought back by proudly producing a survey that ranked her as the 277th most effective legislator in the House. In fact the survey, by congress.org, placed her at 408/
The embarrassing incident didn't end her absurd fatwa against the paper. When the Journal-Constitution published a poll showing her opponent in this year's primary with a commanding lead, McKinney went ballistic again. "We have notified them of their libelist [sic] writing," she said, darkly. A few days later she lost by 20 points. Now she's preparing another lawsuit charging that Johnson's runaway victory was the result of compromised voting machines.
Among the many constituencies that will welcome McKinney's departure are Atlanta's Jews: Her fractious relationship with the community dates back to 1992, when her father denounced her then opponent as a "racist Jew." Two years later, she refused to denounce the anti-Semitic rantings of a Farrakhan aide, and, in 2001, one of her own aides was forced to resign after calling congress an "Israel-occupied territory." When Rudy Giuliani returned a $10 million 9/11 donation from Saudi Prince Al-Waweed bin Talal, who blamed the attack on the U.S. relationship with Israel, McKinney took it upon herself to write a letter of apology to the prince.

Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-RI)
Despite a cameo appearance in the Palm Beach date-rape allegation that landed his cousin William in the tabloids, Kennedy handily won a House seat in 1994. So he had a few years to warm up for the Lewinsky hearings, which he likened to "pulling a fire alarm in a crowded room." He was ably prepared to comment, having developed a close familiarity with the Constitution: "I myself have educated myself about the severity of the Articles of Impeachment, and I want to share with my colleagues and the American people some of the thoughts that I have learned."

Representative Katherine Harris(R-FL)
If dumb Congress members were the X-Men, Harris would be their Wolverine—a mutant possessing fearsome skills the product of a demented government experiment gone horribly wrong.
Back in 2000, the then-Florida secretary of state thrust herself into the national spotlight by peremptorily calling the state for George W. Bush. Of course, the longtime crony of Bush's brother Jeb was also Florida's GOP campaign chair. Two years later, after she won her seat in the House, Harris wasted no time becoming a by-the-numbers culture warrior. But she really hit her stride on the campaign trail. Running for re-election in 2004, she told voters in Venice, Florida, that a "Middle Eastern" man had been arrested for trying to blow up the power grid of Carmel, Indiana. Neither the mayor of Carmel nor the governor of Indiana—nor anyone else acquainted with reality—had any idea what Harris was talking about.
Florida Republicans responded with sound skepticism when Harris put herself forward to face off against Democratic Senate incumbent Bill Nelson in 2006. But Harris was undaunted, allegedly telling campaign consultant Ed Rollins that God had asked her to run for Senate.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Being seems to have other plans for Florida Republicans—and especially for Harris's campaign team. Team Harris has hemorrhaged more than 25 senior staff and consultants, Rollins among them, over the past year. They rush for the exits every time there's a fresh report on Harris's shady dealing: her $2,800 dinner with MZM defense contractor (and Duke Cunningham's lubricator in chief) Mitchell Wade, who reportedly vowed to kick in $200,000 for a Harris fundraiser; her withdrawal of $100,000 from her campaign coffers to pay for repairs to her house; news that the FBI is collecting her campaign e-mails for review; and her decision to conceal from her lead staffer a federal subpoena concerning the abuses.
Need more? There was the surreal appearance on Hannity & Colmes during which Harris stood in profile for the entirety of her interview, seemingly intending to showcase her pronounced dé colletage to Fox News viewers. There was Harris's whisper campaign after the increasingly desperate state GOP reportedly approached former congressman and cable-host Joe Scarborough to run against her. Mainly, though, there's her Stalin-esque management style, which includes attacking staffers for such trespasses as procuring the wrong kind of candy, or for screwing up her Starbuck's order (extra-hot low-foam nonfat venti triple lattes with one packet of Sweet-n-Low). It's the sort of unhinged megalomania that makes us giddy. At one point, Harris's battered staffers tested her by submitting a two-month old speech she had written herself: She pronounced it "terrible."

Take me home country roads

2006-10-02T07:26:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the Kairos retreat at the Falls Church, which was being held at Camp Varsity outside of Madison, Virginia. Madison is at the foot of the Shennendoah Mountains and is really close to a whole slew of great mountain roads. Also, my wife has a very challenging set of medical school exams starting on Tuesday. Finally, I had last Friday off of work. As I looked at these circumstances, it seemed to me that the planets were alligned for an excellent day of motorcycling before joining some friends at Camp Varsity for the weekend. The route was planned like so (starting in Culpepper, Virginia about 70 miles outside of DC):

Things began well and I was on the road and making good time. At first check, I got 62 mpg out of a tank of gas - which is even better than I realized I could get with this bike. I had a close call in Culpepper and almost got run over by a guy running a red light. Disaster narrowly avoided. The first fun part of this ride was up 211, which is probably one of the best motorcycle roads in Virginia and certainly the most famous. Unfortunately, it is also riddled with police who will give you a ticket for looking at them wrong. I know many riders who have been pulled over for a spot inspection of their equipment (they weren't doing anything wrong). The cops then told them, "get out of here, we don't want you on our road and we'll find a way to ticket you if we see you again today". I was glad to make it up and over the moutain without incident. Next I turned onto Skyline drive and took that part of the Blue Ridge Parkway for 40 miles. Here are some shots from the first overlook:

Life was good. Partly cloudy skies, dry roads that had been washed the night before by a thunderstorm and new tires. At this point I was able to do what I thought was a pretty good clip on skyline. Traffic was minimal too. Then I took 33 down the mountain and through the city of Harrisonberg, where I stopped at the goodwill store to buy some women's tights and a long john shirt - the only things I could find that would fit under my gear. I was getting pretty cold at the tops of the mountains and I thought better to be safe than sorry. Then, I sampled the new Wendy's deli sandwich :shrug: and got back on the road. At this point I was starting to realize that getting back to Madison by 6pm when I had planned was going to be a challenge. Still not worried about it though. Here is a place I stopped off of 33 in West Virginia:

At this point I was suposed to turn west on 28 and then South on 250. I was legitimately cold at this point and the temp had dropped to the high 40's. Mostly it was my hands that were starting to hurt. The intersection at 250, however, was weird and to go south you actually had to turn North (twisty mountain road... so it was just intersected by 28 at a twist). I went the wrong way. I went over another mountain range in West Virginia and I thought this was a long way to get back to the Virginia state line. Somewhere in that mountain range it started to rain really hard, and now the temp was more like 42 degrees. Problems in the universe. I pulled over to ask how much farther I had to go to get to the state line and the lady there said,

"Which state line are you looking for?". This was not the answer I was looking for.

"Virginia... I should be close right?"

"Haha, son, you're almost a hundred miles from Virginia. Only way back is back over those mountains."

Here is where it sunk in that I now had four mountain ranges between me and Madison, it was getting dark in a few hours, and I couldn't feel my hands at all. To top it off, I was in West Virginia, where I feared for my life and my sexual integrity if I were to have a breakdown. All along the highway were shanty towns - one-room shacks with no windows or doors, just openings, that had fires built inside. Some had rusted out cars scattered among the settlements. One shack had a confederate flag and a noose hanging outside. This was poverty on the level that I have only seen outside of the US before then. I was in the heart of Appalachia, and I was thinking about the movie Deliverance.

So, I started back the way I came over the first mountain range. I was too cold to hang off the bike on the turns now and I wasn't sure how much grip I had in the rain, so I was going really slow. There were deer all over the place too. Things had gone from couldn't be better to couldn't be worse. I actually had the thought, "if I have to sleep in the woods, should I wear my helmet? It might keep me warmer, but I might have guests inside of it overnight." I got over the first mountain range somehow and pulled over to try and warm up at a convinience store. I talked to the lady there:

"Do you think I can get over to Staunton before dark?"

"No. Maybe if you're really moving... but I doubt it"

"Hmm... well I think I'm going to try."

"Boy are you ok? You look pretty bad right now. "

"Yeah, I might stay here for a second and warm up if that's ok with you."

"no problem"

(I leave a few minutes later and she says I'm crazy but to try and be safe)

Now I go to start my bike back up and I can't get the key in the ignition - my hands are still too cold. Here is when I realized I would be spending the night in this town since it was the only place I'd seen with a motel for miles. I walked across the street to the motel and the lady was at the desk with her daughter. They rented me this for the night:

It was bad. The whole place, sheets, ceilings and floors, was stained with stains of unknown origins. The owner thought I was on crack because I started shaking worse and worse during the ten minutes or so that she spent at the desk with me. However, the nasty shower was one of the best of my life. Despite the fact that the lady's husband had to come in and fix the heat (because the heat was broken when I came into the room), the hot water was working and I was feeling like I might just survive the weekend. Major bummer about missing the first night of the retreat though. This also ends the photographic endeavors for the weekend because I spent the next day trying to get there asap. I ate that night at a place called "Restaurant", which was a room in someone's house. When I walked in I got the crazy eye from a table full of hunters who were clear regulars, and despite being uncomfortable to be there, I had a great mushroom swiss burger with baked sweet potato for three dollars. Good enough.

I spent the rest of the night calling my wife every few minutes because I was bored (who knew that you can have cell reception in a place that has nothing but a house/restaurant, a motel and a gas station?). I also watched a marathon of "Going Tribal" on The Discovery Channel. I can highly recommend this show.

Woke up the next morning and, wouldn't you know, it's pouring rain and not supposed to get above 45 for the day. I waited until 9:45 and just decided to try and get to the next town, figuring I'd have to take it town by town stopping and warming up at each place. I wrapped my hands in plastic bags underneath my gloves to keep warm. One thing I didn't mention is that because I had planned to arrive at the retreat that night, I had sent all my stuff with my brother in law who was going to be there as well. So I had the clothes on my back, my wallet, ipod, camera, a book and some granola bars. No dry clothes for me.

I thought that the ride would be about two hours, and I told Amelia when I left so she expected to hear of my safe arrival two hours later. The trip turned out to be more like four hours. The good news is that once I got over the first mountain range (leave two more between Madison and I), the weather warmed up significantly and dried up. By the time I got back to skyline drive it was 60 and sunny. The speed limit was 35 on skyline. I did the 40 mile section of the drive in 35 minutes. So, I was hurrying. I also got the bird from 8 men who were driving their generic SUV/minivans full of their families.

The trip ended with my arrival at Camp Varsity, which involved 1.5 miles of rock roads. This part may have been the most hazardous of the entire trip. But in the end I made it safe and sound. I was rewarded for my valiant journey with a bordered nametag.What was planned as a 350 mile weekend ended up at about 620. Next time I'm bringing rain gear and more clothes. But there will be a next time...

Birthday Party

2006-10-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

I'm giving you the photos from my birthday festivities, 2006.

Mona, Amelia, Nate and Rick

Rick stealing cake

Judd L. Robertson, self portrait

Deanna, Rick, and the Dodens.

Matt, Celine and I

Aaron, Sheena and Caleb (view obstructed)

Me, my wife and a Carrot Cake

Catie Draper with Ken Kraper

Houston

2006-09-25T06:53:00.000-07:00

This guy needs to go. He was the first draft pick back when Houston was a new team and he's got all the potential in the world, but he is the greyhound who has already found out that the rabbit is fake - a broken player. David Carr needs to be traded away for someone's backup quarterback, a player with half the skill and ten times the confidence. And the sad thing is, he's probably the second best player on the team.

Next, Houston should use Mario Williams (for the love of football please quit saying that you made the right pick - have you seen Reggie Bush running lately?) to get themselves an entirely new crop of linemen. Their line looks like a bunch of college kids. It's a tragedy.

Andre Johnson and Moulds are certainly worth their salt as receivers, but they need a line that gives the quarterback time to throw the ball, and a quarterback who doesn't fumble three snaps a game.

Watching the not-very-good Redskins beat up on the Texans was so frustrating yesterday.

Death by Frozen Meats

2006-09-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

Trader Joe’s

As an intro for my southern dwelling readership who do not know anything about Trader Joe’s, it is a grocery store here on the east coast and it’s also on the west coast. Maybe Chicago too, I don’t know. They are clever there, because they open stores near to whole foods stores, sell the same items, and charge less than half of the price. It’s a great deal for really great food. I love it and most of my monthly grocery budget goes there. Right now I’m eating dried white peaces from there and I paid only 1.50 for a giant bag of them. All natural too.

So I’m in TJ’s and I have like a hundred bucks worth of groceries on me – my entire supply for the month – and I go to check out. I’ve got frozen fishes, meats and I’ve also got my veggie burgers, tofu, etc. The hippie checker lady says “it’s funny that you’ve got all this meat and you’re buying tofu”.

I didn’t know what to say? “Yes, I did this as a joke for you, here, let me put the flesh back on the shelf so some asshole barbarian can eat it”.

Instead of that, I said, “is it?”

And I thought it would end there, me implicitly pointing out that I wasn’t going to be victimized or made to feel guilty just because finding enough non-animal-based proteins to survive had to be at the top of this girl’s daily to-do list, and her finishing the checking out process. But this chick (and I’ll give her a thumbs up for having the awkwardness tolerance to square up with me even though I think she will die young if she doesn’t lighten up) looks at me – no, glares at me - and says, “Yes, it is.”

I was baffled because I thought funny things were things that draw laughter... or at least some sign of levity. She was telling me that this was funny, but she was glaring at me. I started to wonder if this was funny like...here’s an illustration from the 1998 film, Dark Harbor:

Young Man: It's funny. Your worst nightmare always seems so far away. Then, all of a sudden, there it is, like a monstrous tidal wave. You try to escape, but you can't. You struggle and you struggle and you struggle, your desperate cries unheard. Then, something strange happens, you stop struggling. Your cries take flight. You forget you're drowning.

Friends, I escaped my worst nightmare – being killed with a frozen leg of lamb (which I plan to enjoy this weekend, incidentaly) by a vengeful vegetarian – but in the future, you may want to consider making your hipster purchases like vegetarian burgers sepearately from your meat purchases.

Muskrat Fuzz Book Club

2006-09-21T07:50:00.000-07:00

Real magazine from Germany.

Concert Review

2006-09-11T05:57:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night I rallied a group of friends and we went to see one of my favorite bands from Austin play some music. The venue was The Red and The Black in Northeast and it was a dive to say the least. The show was upstairs in a room that would comfortably fit about 7 people, and we were just stuffed in there. It could have been miserable.

The opening band was called Florez and they hail from Nashville. Check them out here. They put on a great show, and Mr. Florez was outright impressive. Their attitude was, "yes, we're in a closet up here, none of us expected this and some of you may have feared for your lives as you walked from your car to the club, but now we're here. We're all sweating on stage and I hope you're sweating out there, because we're going to play a rock and roll show and it's going to be fun." And the man didn't lie, they played great and I'll be there next time they come to town.

Then they finished and Wideawake came on to the stage. You can see them here. I was a bit hesitant to go to the show - the band is a bit bubblegum for my tastes these days, but they are great at what they do and I wanted to go if only for old times' sake. There were several problems to start with. The sound sucked for Wideawake. I'm not sure why this was because Florez's mix was spot on, but we couldn't really hear anything but mud for the first song that Wideawake played. They got things mostly sorted out by the third song but Scott, the frontman, continually reminded us that the venue sucked. Only Eddie the lead guitar and Scott stood - everyone else sat on their amp. Zero energy. They very clearly let us know that they were better than this venue and that the whole thing was below them. After that vibe became really clear, the music didn't matter. I tried to enjoy what I could, and then the set ended after seven songs. It was the worst thing they could have done - they come to a town where they aren't known and play a show that says "you people suck" and then leave after seven songs, and everyone feels like they didn't get their money's worth. I was on their "street team" and brought a bunch of people to the show too - people whom I apologized to for the piss poor performance. So, Wideawake, you guys aren't professionals and I can't see how you'll ever make it outside of Austin. OFF!

Mood:

2006-09-07T13:28:00.000-07:00

I hate to kill the riveting discussion below.

Anyways, I signed up for a sort of networking event here in DC through my university's DC alum contingent. I don't feel the need to network, but I do want to hear what they have to say about the political and business climate in Latin America, so I'm bringing the wife and showing up. As instructed I sent an email to Mr. Organizer that had subject line "YES 9/14". I didn't like using all caps, but WHAT THE HEY? It's what the instructions said.

I got this email back and I'm going to purpot a guess that my all caps reply instructions were no accident:

Mark and Amelia: Good to see both of you registered. Our guest looks forward to your ideas. NOW: Think of questions for us, and SEND them to me. (I ask everyone for these.) We circulate ALL questions – no attributions – BEFORE the event, so please offer yours ASAP.

As you can probably tell (maybe you can even feel it too as you read?), I feel like I was being slapped in the back of the head at "NOW, SEND, ALL and BEFORE". I have grace for ASAP (shouldn't we all?) because it is an acronymn. It's going to take me some strength to attend this event after having been so profoundly beaten down with the caps lock. Maybe it should have said this:

Mark and Amelia: Good to see both of you registered. Our guest looks forward to your ideas. (Hey dipshits, look at the computer screen, I'm about to give you instructions that must absolutely be carried out immediatly. You will obey me and I know this because you replied with a big y-e-s in all capital letters.): Think of questions for us, and (that's right, send them. If your questions are bad, I will personally expose your ignorance to a quorum of your ivy league elders and we will beat you with a live salmon) them to me. (I ask everyone for these.) We circulate (hello, I'm a giant coldwater fish, and I'm going to land smack dab on your forehead if your questions suck.) questions – no attributions – (You should try sending me your questions after the event is over. That would be really funny huh? Yeah, and then I'd be at your doorstep with a lynch mob, waiting to throw you in the creek to see if you float!!! Enough with the grabassin'. Send me the questions now, which would be before) the event, so please offer yours ASAP.

Political Musings

2006-08-30T06:09:00.000-07:00

I've been increasingly frustrated with the current administration, like most of the people in the country, and I was (shouldn't have been...but was) even shocked to hear that the good folks back home in Texas are still supporting this president en masse. Yesterday, Donald Rumsfeld made some comments that I'm having particular trouble grasping. From the post today:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld warned yesterday that "moral and intellectual confusion" over the Iraq war and the broader anti-terrorism effort could sap American willpower and divide the country, and he urged renewed resolve to confront extremists waging "a new type of fascism."

Drawing parallels to efforts by some nations to appease Adolf Hitler before World War II, Rumsfeld said it would be "folly" for the United States to ignore the rising dangers posed by a new enemy that he called "serious, lethal and relentless."

Rumsfeld stressed that it is misguided for Americans to fall into self-blame and to "return to the destructive view that America -- not the enemy -- is the real source of the world's trouble." He blamed the U.S. media for spreading "myths and distortions . . . about our troops and about our country."

So, the media's job is to support the agenda of the administration and by questioning the logic behind our creation of foreign wars, the media is endangering our great nation, and freedom in general. Rumsfeld's speech was delivered as a scolding to the opponents of Bush and it was timed intentionally. There is a current push to shore up the President's image in time for the fifth aniversary of September 11. Bet on it, fellow Americans, that you will hear an increased level of fear mongering from the machine in the coming two weeks - it has been the only successful tactic thus far for this Presidency. Do your part to resist the Rumsfelds out there. Turn off the Fox news, cancel your subscription to the Washington Times and let the media know that you're OK with knowing about opinions, facts and reports that don't bolster Mr. Bush's presentation of the state of global affairs.

Condoleezza Rice: "we cannot fall prey to pessimism about how this will all come out, the really devastating problem for the world would be if America loses its will."

No, you missed it, this wouldn't be the really devastating problem for the world. America's "will" has caused a great deal of suffering recently. Can we start entering our will into the collective global will and asking ourselves "why" when that will is contrary to the will of our allies and peers? Maybe America's will needs a bit of breaking?

Playlist time

2006-08-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

Do you need a Tuesday playlist? I thought so. To my friends whose musical palatte is more developed than mine, all I can say is that I'm on my way to the place where you are. To my friends who have been digging on "stars are blind" this summer, please, have a listen to some of these fine songs!

1. Punch-In Punch-out, Seven Mary Three
2. Self-Righteous, Third Eye Blind
3. So Long So Long, Dashboard Confessional
4. Bleeding Heart Show, The New Pornographers
5. Good Man, Third Eye Blind
6. Un Annee Sans Lumierre, Arcade Fire
7. Save Me, Aimee Mann
8. Bucket of Girls, David Mead
9. A Distorted Reality is Now a Necessity, Elliot Smith
10. Ain’t no sunshine, Woven Hand
11. Abraham, Sufjan Stevens
12. Gather, Jay Farrar
13. Monday Night, Ryan Adams
14. The Transfiguration, Sufjan Stevens
15. No Kinda Dancer, Robert Earl Keen

Get rich with no money down!

2006-08-22T06:12:00.000-07:00

So, I'm throwing this to the readership: I am an entrepreneurial sort and I haven't found the right venture yet. This is frustrating because I have so much free time here at the IMF (efficiency is not really their cup of tea). I would love to have my little upstart on the burner while I'm here so that it has time to mature while I'm drawing a steady paycheck. Bringing me to the point. If the fuzz' readers can generate the idea that turns into the business, I'm offering your choice of a) a plush toy b) a free dinner at Smith and Wollensky's with my wife and I or c) a 2% stake in the company, no matter how big or small that turns out to be. Here's some background on myself - I like working in jeans and a tshirt, must deal with people regularly, like real estate investing, enjoy swinging a hammer occasionally, enjoy writing and marketing, but hate "selling" in the cold-call sense, enjoy travelling and running around alot during the day (again, hate sitting in my office for 9 hours a day). Ok, run with that, let me know what you come up with.

Renegade Pigs

2006-08-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I decided to strike out alone for a bit of a ride out to the Virginia / West Virginia border where the roads get nice and twisty. These are fun and popular with motorcyclists of all sorts. So I'm riding and I came to a four way intersection and there was big pack of harley guys coming at me and we both wanted to turn down the same road (I was going to turn right and they were going to turn left). About half of them made the turn without regard to myself (par the course for your average harley who encounters a sportbiker), but, to my surprise, some of them stopped and acknowledged my right-of-way. I figured they were just two separate groups but as it turned out they were all together. More than just together for this individual ride, they were together, joined in a pact of american motorcycle love and leather bound vests. Yes, friends, I had unwittingly ridden myself into the middle of a RENEGADE PIGS motorcycle rally. This distraught me. I look sort of like this when I ride:

Always with the leathers, helmet, flashy mirror face shield, race boots and race gloves.

Now, they looked like this:

After I got over the fear that I would start hearing banjo music and be diverted off the road and into the trees with Bubba Pig, I called my wife and told her that I was riding with the pigs now and there's nothing that nobody can do about it.

(see? they're real!)

Travels and Tales

2006-08-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long silent stint friends, but here is a photo essay of our trip. Maybe I'll have more for you in the way of words later on.

smoggy santiago...

This is pope John Paul and a pidgeon who we named Pope-on-a-rope (how's that for a vintage hamster mash citation?)

Dave Matthews pointed out: "I love the kid who is contemplating why San Martin's horse has no genitals in the background".

the view atop Cerro San Lucia

Also the view atop cerro san lucia

fish market!

Franciscan Cathedral... I love the guy on the bike.

ascending on the funicular, ferociously

A view of the harbor in Valparaiso

We skiied for a day too...

In the andes...

Now on to Buenos Aires:

Hostel Sleep, a rare photo of the author in hibernation

La Casa Rosada

Streets of La Boca

El Torre Ingles

Yes, I am feeding a freaking giraffe (ridiculous!)

And this is a camel with myself.

At the zoo...

This is the world's widest road, take it in, 16 lanes one way.

The famous recoleta cemetary

At the opera

Me in a big sculpture installation

For now, I will let these photos soak in.

The Last NBA post this year

2006-06-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

It’s been a good season friends and with this draft wrap-up, I’m leaving you free of basketball commentary until next season.

My NBA Draft Summary:

Bargnani goes to Toronto as the number one overall pick. Good for Toronto but I hope they don’t do to him what Minnesota has done to Garnett (massively talented player surrounded by awful team leads to player’s mediocritization) – this guy could be better than Dirk (check, generic euro comparison) if he’s developed properly. His time in the Itau leagues probably will mean that he’s a bit more mature than our own Deutscheman was when he came to town.

Adam Morrison, the ugly zag, went third overall to Charlotte. I’m calling it now: this man will not be an NBA star. Larry Bird is the only ugly white man to have achieved superstardom in the NBA without some sort of edge (like the Scrappy Nash hair-behind-ear-tuck ™). Good pick on paper, but I say the he will join the likes of Jason Kidd and Jim Jackson as a huge disappointment for the first 6-8 years in the league (Jason Kidd pulled out of the slump eventually though, so maybe Michal Jordan is going to be more patient than Don Nelson was).

Number five was Sheldon Williams going to the ATL. Terrible pick, it’s like the guy was having an affair with coach Mike Woodson, because they promised the kid that they would draft him fifth when he should have gone 15th.
http://espn.go.com/media/ncb/2006/0323/photo/a_williams_195.jpg
Houston took Gay so that they could get Battier, which I think was a bad choice. So now you’ve got Yao, T-Mac and Battier to build your team around? I understand that they didn’t need Gay, but Battier is looking like a less than stellar prospect to me.

Gay went to Memphis as I said, and Memphis made out like bandits in this draft. They got three players who could start for them next year, and you might argue that they did the best job of anyone in this draft. Kyle Lowry was the other first round pick out of Villanova and he should be a contributor, maybe a starter, next season.

Orlando take JJ Redick, a good pick as far as I can tell. The boy was arrested recently for driving drunk, but he wasn’t THAT drunk (pa-shaw!). His back is a bigger concern but for the kind of shootin that he’s capable of, I say it’s a calculated risk that’s worth taking.

My hometown team the Wizards picked a couple of internationals who will likely play abroad for at least one more year each before coming to the USA, Olexsiy Pecherov and Vladimir Veremeenko. Boring boring boring for me.

The ever present first round and out team in the West, the Kings, chose poorly this year taking the same player they’ve taken for the past three drafts, a long, skinny two guard who can shoot and score the ball. When it doesn’t work out, you have to adjust, and they haven’t so far learned that. Tell me though, dosen’t Quincy Douby look like one of the Olsen twins? He’ll fit in with those King for sure.

Dallas, those wonderful Mavs, made a prudent decision that I think we can all be ok with. They chose this man:

to hopefully replace this man (who by the way DID behave as I predicted and come up big in game 6 of the finals, but that is neither here nor there, send him packing!):

Cool pick of the first round was Joel Freeland, a kid from England who has only played organized basketball for 3 years and is now playing in the NBA. He’s not very good for an NBA player, but he’s got potential and I love the Blazers for going out on a limb.

Phoenix decided to draft NOBODY because they are out of money. That’s what you get for trying to pay Scrappy what he’s worth!

Isaiah Thomas will be fired in 8 months. His draft picks don’t speak well to his ability to turn the Knicks around “in one year or he’s fired”.

Denver chose nobody as well and continue on with one person who is good at playing basketball. But the weather is great in Denver!

Big Winners: Portland, Toronto, Memphis
Big Losers: Houston, Seattle, Sacramento, New York, Phoenix, Atlanta, Denver

Halftime report

2006-06-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

The game is 2-1 Ghana, it seals the deal, I don't care who wins, I give up on soccer.

1. The 2-1 is due to a free goal given to Ghana on a penalty kick. A penalty kick, 90% of the time, is a goal. There was no penalty, that cannot be disputed. But, there are no replays in soccer, which is why every year, at least one world cup ref is found to have been paid money to throw a game. Sport? no, not a sport.

2. Soccer players are absolute pussies. Get off the grass and quit crying. Ours and theirs.

3. See previous post... this is where your NBA is headed America, be warned.

2006-06-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

Worldcup06 17.6. Italy - United States of America 1-1

Here is the video of the Mastroeni tackle.

Same Game

2006-06-21T06:38:00.000-07:00

What you're seeing here is an American soccer player just after he got his face broken by an itallian fairy, who acted shocked to get a red card. The guy full on rared back and elbowed our player in the face. By the time that the american came back to the ground, he was bleeding profusely. Good call, red card, throw him out.

After the above occurred, the refs decided it wasn't fair for italy to play a man down, so they decided the US needed to get a red card as well. The video in a post that I hope will appear somewhere near this one shows the tackle, which was a foul, POSSIBLY a yellow card, but never never a red. I love the US announcer's opionion that the ref should be banned from soccer forever. Oh, and something that people don't mention is that this ref WAS banned from the last world cup for "irregularities", and many suggest that he is on the payroll of several European countries. So, FIFA, what do you do? INVITE HIM TO OFFICIATE THIS WORLD CUP!

I don't even have to talk about the acting skills required to be a player in the World Cup. Multiple times I saw people get lightly touched in such a way that they thought they could draw a foul, so they (very much after the fact) fell to the ground and grabbed their leg and started screaming. The acting is a team affair, however, because then the trainers come running onto the field and STRAP THE PLAYER TO A STRECTHER!!! But wait, when they are halfway off of the field, someone remembers, "we haven't tried the magic spray!". Every single time, they take out an aerosol can, spray the players legs down, and the player is instantly healed and goes bolting down the field to continue play for the next hour. To me, this is enough to disqualify soccer from the terrain of "sport".

Now we turn to the NBA, which has been infiltrated by the international community in recent years. Sometimes this has been a good thing:

and sometimes it has been a bad thing:

But I'm afraid that the South Americans and euros that are joining the NBA are really doing a bad thing to our sport. They are turning it into soccer. I have never seen so many people falling on their backs, pushing off the hardwood and sliding 5-10 feet after being lightly brushed by a driving point guard. We are even starting to do what the soccer players do and fake like we're injured for a while. Manu Ginobli is the king of this crap, but he's Argentine so you'd expect it. Last night I saw this behavior from Antoine Walker, Marquis Daniels, D-wade, Jet Terry and Udonis Haslem. No excuses.

The bigger problem, however, lies with the officials who decided, much like ABC's announcers, who would win this series. Wade WAS NOT TOUCHED on the foul that gave him two shots at the end of game five. The Mavs should have won that game. Again, wade wasn't touched with 10 seconds left in game six, but he drew the foul. I hope that Cuban, Avery, et al don't take the "moral high ground" and say "well we were just outplayed fair and square", because that is a lie. Maybe we would have won, maybe not, but the officiating was absurd and I am left wondering if the NBA is becoming FIFA. It's bad for the NBA. David Stern is bad for sports in the world and will ruin basketball if we let him.

Same Guy

2006-06-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

Can't Stop the Diesel

2006-06-12T06:14:00.000-07:00

DALLAS -- Miami Heat center Shaquille O'Neal was fined $10,000, and the team an additional $25,000, after he did not make himself available for interviews Sunday night after Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

O'Neal had a career playoff-low five points on 2-for-5 shooting in the 99-85 loss to the Dallas Mavericks. The Heat trail 2-0 heading to Tuesday's Game 3 in South Florida.

The NBA announced the fines about an hour after the game ended.

A photo essay put together by the fuzz for the big man himself:

I think he'll let his play speak for itself tonight friends....

Almost Got Mad

2006-05-31T11:35:00.000-07:00

My wife and I were at a barbeque and the plan was to go to Summer's Sports bar to catch the last quarter of the Mavs game before going home. We got about 10 feet from the front door of the bar and noticed the score through the window. We silently turned around, went home, and went to bed. I agree with Ronnie that the pain of a loss far outweighs the joy of a victory.

For my mavs:

and for me:

NBA

2006-05-24T05:39:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of the playoffs, I'm assembling two teams of my own. The good guys and the bad guys. More than with any other sport, I harbor intense dislike for the PEOPLE (not the jersey, Mark Cuban) that I cheer against in basketball games. I'm working through this (sort of). First, the first team good guys 2006:

Forward:

Representing Deutschland, who else could it be? Let me heeya say wvat?

Forward:

I like this guy and I think he came into his own in 06, LJ, you're on the team.

Center:

Pickins are slim in today's NBA, but Pau Gasol is one of the few non abrasive people in the league at the big man position. Plus he doesn't like to hump Yao Ming (see below).

Guard:

This was a given. Steve Nash's wife will always have a spot on the team. Wait a second... nevermind, that his Steve, not his wife. Go scrappy!

Guard:

I grew fond of him with those big headed commercials where he dunks on Derek Jeter.

And on the bench...

One of the few good things about the pistons.

They had to hire a likeable player to counter the bad karma brought by Kidd.

AND, the most hated of 2006, the nightmare team of the Muskrat Fuzz...

Forward:

He goes from potential best of nominee to worst of the worst in one season. Muppet Baby.

Forward:

Alternatively frightening and funky, but never loved by the Fuzz.

Guard:

Manu actually coats his ass in vaseline so that he can slide a full court's length after flopping down on the hardwood.

Guard:

I don't love the cabbage patch babies.

Center:

Yao suffering from Duncan's influence.

on the bench:

Will Eric Dampier come down with this board? No, and he'll apologize for trying.

If you're ever playing against my team, Steve Javie is a great guy to have on the court. Sometimes Javie, you can't decide who wins. Go mavs.

At least I can say this, the big men on this team get along VERY well:

New Car

2006-05-24T05:37:00.000-07:00

My brother in law just bought one of these on ebay, it's like a super-tuned Saab and tonight I get to drive it!

2006-05-23T17:18:00.000-07:00

I wish I could slowly publish the ENTIRE book from which I am going to provide a snippet tonight. But, I can't. I don't like typing that much. We were given a book at our wedding time about how to set up a loving home environment. This book was copyrighted in the year 1965 and is entitled, "Happy Living! A Guide for Brides". It is basically filled with the most heinous collection of decorating and wife related tips that I have ever seen. But, there is a chapter for the groom as well. In a book of 275 pages, there is ONE dedicated to the groom. It reads as follows:

For Bridgrooms Only

Getting settled in a new apartment is a task that's big enough for two. IT will take a lot of hammering, painting and puttering before your home acquires the lived-in look that your bride longs to see.

Today, with so much attention being focused on the walls as a source of extra storage space as well as decorative beauty, a man who knows how to weild a few simple tools is really something to boast about. On the next page, you'll find a chart to help you cope with the intricacies of hanging all sorts of objects, from towl bars to heavy furniture.

Menawhile, the job of furnishing a home awaits both of you. If you are one of those men who has never bought anything but sports jackets and fishing rods, here are some suggestions:
1. Take an active part in preliminary budget sessions on home equipment buying. As the head of the household, it isn't fair to leave all these decisions to your wife.
2. Speak your mind about what you want or expect in your new environement. If you must have a desk for doing sales reports or a place to display your gun collection, now is the time to plan for it.
3. If you have an aversion to a particular color or style, don't suffer in silence because you feel this isn't a male perogative. A married couple's home should reflect the tastes and personalities of two people.
4. You may be color blind, but it's nice to have you along when buying furniture. While women are influenced by style and color, men usually consider comfort and practicality first.
5. Be observant as you shop. Read labels, ask questions and study the differences in workmanship and quality of merchandise in different price categories. Two heads are better than one, and with both of you able to make intelligent appraisals, you will get more for your money.
6. Grumble all you want. It is a man's perogative to show disdain for shopping, even though he may secretly enjoy it.

Ok friends, that is it. This page is followed by a chart that tells you what kind of nails to use in drywall, mortar, hardwood, etc. That's all the husband needs to know in preparation for his marriage. I'm tempted to publish more, and we may revisit this one (things like "there are few luxuries in life equal to that of sinking ankle deep into a lush shag carpet"), but for now let us learn how to be better men.

New Law

2006-04-20T12:59:00.000-07:00

A New Law

don’t teach me about politics and government
just tell me who to vote for
don’t teach me about truth and beauty
just label my music

don’t teach me how to live like a free man
just give me a new law

i don’t wanna know if the answers aren’t easy
so just bring it down from the mountain to me

i want a new law
i want a new law
gimme that new law

don’t teach me about moderation and liberty
i prefer a shot of grape juice

don’t teach me about loving my enemies

don’t teach me how to listen to the Spirit
just give me a new law

what’s the use in trading a law you can never keep
for one you can that cannot get you anything
do not be afraid

Hey Everybody, it's Tuesday!

2006-04-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

Sister I

2006-04-12T12:53:00.000-07:00

This chick is coming to town starting tonight. She's only been here once for the fabled red-and-white-better-than-the-MOL-nation-red-and-white party, so it's a big time in her life. We're going to ride around on the motorcycle, visit museams, have dinner (gracias to our Mother for sending money cause otherwise it would have been ground chuck all weekend long!), go hiking at some waterfalls, excercise and throw eggs at Mucky's house together. Unlike her last visit when we hosted 8 (!) overnight guests in our 1 bedroom apartment, she will not be sharing a bed with my wife and several other hot babes while I sleep on the carpet of my study, she will be sleeping on the sofa. ((...shrug...))

Right Now

2006-04-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

As I type, this man is about 75 feet away from me.

The new high fashion

2006-04-12T07:52:00.000-07:00

I briefly went through a stage in life when I felt that 200 dollars could be well spent on a single pair of jeans and that 120 was a great deal for a good shirt. Those were bargain basement prices for the fashionable stuff I was buying. Well, I guess I've come full circle (and it hasn't been that long) because now I sort of take pleasure in shooting the holy and righteous bird to the boys (and girls) who indulge in such nonsense. Is that much better? No. It's like talking about how unloving and choked by money the megachurch people are - these acts are probably just as opposite of the truth as the thing you're railing against, but it feels a lot better to exact some vengence on the people who claim to be flying your flag but who act so differently than you think you can permit. Point is, in my life, the new high fashion is low fashion, but not in the Seattle grunge sense of just not caring. Now I take pride in my 25 dollar jeans and staple the tax dedutible receipt from my charitable contributions to the rear right butt pocket (sure, figuratively), proudly advertising that I wouldn't be so reckless with the gospel as to spend 100 dollars on pants (tee hee, pants!). So, maybe I trade pride for pride. If I'm ever to move beyond "us and them" ways of thinking, I think it will have to disappear from my assesment of people who say they're part of the church just as much as my distinguishing "us and them" in terms of whether folks are down with Jesus or not. Part of that would be to love and accept the Jesus follower who drives a Lexus just as much as I would the one who drives a civic and works for a non-profit. Funny that the things that I find most intolerable are the places that I've already been (and I'm not claiming to have "emerged" completelly from these things) - loving money and things, feel-good homogenous churches (or we might call them..."homochurches"...bwah!), unloving political views and the unquestioning towing of the party line. I've done all those up reeeel good.

Liberalism

2006-04-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

Motivated by Matty P and his new blog, I'm going to write a bit about liberalism and why I've abandoned the conservative camp. We'll define the word as dictionary.com does - "a political orientation that favors progress and reform ". We'll also define christian ans anyone who identifies themselves as such.

Here's the skinny: I've tried to write this blog several times about why I'm out of the conservative camp, and every time it just sounds like a rant. Instead, let's do it like this: I'm going to list several points here and you can feel free to stamp those with your approval or, in classic neoliberal form, sign on while taking exception to several points. And I give you the post-conservative emerging manifesto:

1. In a time when there are more conservatives, a large majority of those who would identify themselves as christians, in Washington DC than ever before, things have gotten worse. The US has bombed out one country, invaded another, access to health care has declined, the trade deficit is not sustainable, the poverty gap has increased, and we have abandoned multilateral approaches to foreign policy. Even Abortion, a hot button issue for the conservatives, remains quite popular. While many christians in the US would assert that what we need is to get some christians into influential positions, it has been those politicians and leaders who identify themselves with christendom who have been perhaps the most detrimental to the nation in the past four years. Please, stop sending conservative christians to this city until you figure out why they are incapable of simultaneously being honest and adept at thier jobs.

2. Conservative christians are not in the minority in the United States, and I would ask them to please stop pretending that they are an oppressed people. They are in the majority. The aforementioned blog talks at length about the "War on Christians" conference that was recently held in DC. I wish it was true, maybe if we the church behaved a bit more like Christ said we should than we'd also be getting the persecution that he promised. But as it sits, there is no persecution of christianity in the United States. There is often persecution of stupidity (example: much of what the right presented as "persecution" during the intelligent design debates/court cases), but there is rarely an example of persecution of jesus-following. Additionally, there are many examples of christians persecuting other individuals in the US, occasionally with violence and/or abuse.

3. There is a great danger as americans wake up to the reality of the politics of conservative christianity that they will swing to the left and "react". The proper action is not a reaction to those who are currently in office and leadership but rather a look at policies that will take into account those who have been ignored in the past (namely the poor and the non-americans). This apporach will allow people to accept that the conservatives got it very right in some places, and those areas shouldn't be changed. In fact, conservatives should be rewarded for those successes and kept on board as we move forward. A reaction apporach will never be correct because it demands that everything in the old regime be replaced with something different - as much for the symbolic value as for any hope of improving the state of affairs. There is also a danger in liberalism that we would become content with the status quo, which means we've become conservatives of a different breed. This, I argue, is where most of the "liberals" in this town have gotten stuck (I'm talking to you Ted Kennedy, for example). A liberal perspective demands that we acknowledge the constant necessity for change - as the world changes so must we. Conservativism works well for a cryogenically frozen universe.

4. Fighting for a moral cultural climate doesn't make any sense if you believe that people are subject to sin. Imposing morals leads to embitterment and it is likely to spark a war against your impositions by people who rightly realize that your moralizing makes no sense. Until christians can begin to express love and the person of Christ in their policital and policy decisions, they should keep their noses out of other people's moral behaviours, because there is a much greater tragedy occuring when a professed Christ-follower has no idea how to love than when two men are legally recognized as a married couple.

These are all I've got right now.

Hey Dallas

2006-04-05T13:32:00.000-07:00

Guess what city of my birth? You're all suburb and you need to quit trying to fool people. I knew this when I lived in your bosom. I have walked your downtown at lunch hour on a weekday, I know that it's a lonely place to be. You don't produce any urban music of quality, you produce alt-country and alt-rock. You offer gigantic houses for the price of a one-bedroom condo, but you don't have hills or any large bodies of water. You have the best sports teams (overall) in the United States and everybody likes to eat out (something that can be done cheaply and well with you). Your youth drive luxury cars and don't know it because their parents drive cars one notch above luxury.

All in all, you have alot going for you. I won't say that you're without character either, you've got it coming out of your ears. But what I must say is that you're a suburb of yourself. There is no non-suburban Dallas. To those who challenge me, you're part of the problem! You think you're urban chic but you're not, you don't live in an urban environment, just a less nice part of the suburbs. Sorry. As I flew over you a couple weeks ago I looked down and saw your rows of large houses. East Dallas, I'm calling you out - you're the main perpetrator of this crime. North Dallas - you've pretty much accepted that you're what you are so no qualms here. South Dallas, you were under water that weekend, but I don't have any reason to believe that you're any different. EVEN YOUR CLUB DISTRICT IS A PITHY, PLANNED OUT STRIP, DALLAS.

So accept your fate, all you who enter. You do live in the suburbs. People who live in Frisco live in the Suburbs too. But I don't care if you live in the latest high rise studio renovation fake urban compound to be erected in the shadow of the west end, you're still in the suburbs because the whole place is a suburb. Stick to being the HQ of the conservative right and be good at that, because you're just not anything else.

(ps, feel free to interchange the word atlanta with the word dallas in this blog if you want)

Take a moment...

2006-03-28T10:48:00.000-08:00

...and visit this website.

There you will find the story of little Thomas Bickle, who is currently fighting cancer. Looks to me like he's doing pretty well at it too, but his dad had to quit work to take care of him and now they need some money help. I know that most of you who read this give money away, and I would say "send them some!". I don't have much either, but if we all give a small amount (skip the lattes for a week and you'll have like 10 bucks), it will add up to a significant help to this young couple and Thomas. The Bickles are friends of a friend and I've never met them, but at least you should know that they're only once removed from the Muskrat Fuzz.

As for the Fuzz, I've been sick for most of two weeks and I've been working my tail off due to a recent grad-school related epiphany, so I haven't posted. Expect more soon.

Thanks to all for helping Thomas. Here he is:

WOXY

2006-03-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

If you read this blog, there is a good chance that you're down with the latest tunes that the kids will enjoy. So, I point you to an excellent source of those tunes: WOXY. It is internet radio and can be had free or you can support them by signing up and paying 10 bucks a month for it. Good thing is that you can listen from the bowels of your respective office places, where a radio perhaps may not receive signal. The music is killer and is far from standard fare radio fodder. Indie Indie Indie!

solo un favorcito

2006-03-16T11:00:00.000-08:00

Ring ring

Me: Hi this is Mark
Random IMF course participant: Hello...Mark? My-a name is-a Jorge Ramon Gonzalez and-a you-a speak-a Spanish no?
M: Sure...si...como esta?
RIMFCP: (the rest of this is translated for our non spanish speaking blog readers) Yeah I'm trying to do something here and I can't get it to work on the computers in the Fund.
M: What's the problem
RIMFCP: I'm trying to record a cd
M: So you're making a data disk and it's not working, ok, which computer are you using?
RIMFCP: No, not a data disk, it is a music cd.
M: Oh. Well that's not really going to work on our computers, you need to do that kind of thing on your own computer.
RIMFCP: Do you have a cd recorder at home? I will tell you what songs to put on it for me.
M: What? I can't really help you with this. Call the course administrator if you have a problem.
RIMFCP: I see, you can't help me. I just thought you could do me a little favor.
M: That's right, music cd's aren't really a part of the course, I don't know much about that kind of thing.

Let me say, I was tempted to burn the man a disc with the latest and greatest on it. When he asked for three six mafia and christina aguilera, I could have handed him slobbberbone, guillemots and arcade fire. That might have been funny.

Hark! Th' Lenten Season Doth Dawn!

2006-03-09T11:37:00.000-08:00

I certainly hope you've all given up something that you really like for Lent. I'm sure that if you're abstaining from something that you really really like, you'll fare better than me in the end right? Anyways, here is a list of the things that I am considering giving up for Lent. If you think it's too late, talk to my wife - she knows more than me about the ethics of getting into this one late in the game.

Throughout the Lenten season, I will refrain from all of the following forms of jovial expression: polka, jazzercise, jumping jacks, hearty laughter, high kicks, hula hoop, skip-it®, and twizzlers.

I will only patronize the businesses of irish catholics for the next month.

I will give all of the money donated to this blog to help bono and Jesus fight poverty.

On Wednesday evenings, you won't find any red meat at our dinner table - only fish. The exception is towards the end of the month when we are out of fish, at which point we will switch to RED MEAT.

I will seek out the monastic experience in the midst of my everyday comings and goings. I will chant, go commando (or with burlap underware), grow peas so that I may observe their gentic characteristics and listen only to indie rock.

I will go on a mol jr style diet, where I make a set of rules about foods that I would be willing to eat and I change those rules at random (also I break them if I want to) and I refuse to admit that the rules only exist to generate humorous blog fodder. I will do the same by creating a similar lenten list.

I will not fart in bed until my wife is already asleep.

I will do my part - daily - to stop the spread of avian flu, which is scheduled to arrive in the United States on July 14th, 2006.

I will seek to understand my coworkers by using a tie knot three to four times the size of what an american would tie. I will also drink a very, very small cup of coffee every day after lunch. I will work 35 hour weeks (what's new right?) and I will join in protests when my company considers withholding benefits such as paying for all my children's college educations. I will consider kissing a man on the cheek when I see him for the first time.

I will represent the German engineering tip yawll, Vee Dubbbbb, vwat?

I will stop making fun of the gangsters from Qatar who hang out at my apartment building and think of new awesome phrases that involve the word Qatar yet still fit within the letter limits of a vanity license plate.

An Evening With Burt

2006-03-08T05:57:00.000-08:00

Hi and thanks for tuning in this evening. Tonight on "Could Always be Worse", we have a special guest - Mr. Burt Reynolds. Burt's heyday came in the early 1980's, when chest hair, scrunchies, slap bracelts and aquanet defined chic. As the years came and went, Mr. Reynolds found himself losing... himself. While Sean Connery had taken over the suave old man market, Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked Burt out of the hairy-as-hell-but-we-don't-care limelight. He turned to chemicals, plastic and mature women, but tonight he's here to tell all. Let's join reporter Connie Chung as she delves into Burt's misery.

CC: Thanks for spending some time with me Burt. My first question - when did things begin to devolve for you? Take us through that experience.
BR: I wish I could say it was when Norm MacDonald made me look like a fool in a game of Jeopardy. Truth is, Connie, I don't even play Jeopardy. Hell, I wish I could say it was when I did that naked spread eagle for cosmo magazine with nothing but my daughter's teddy bear covering my hoo-hoo. But anyone who knows me knows that the long slide downhill started in 1951 when I was a teenager in Tequesta, Florida at Vasco de Gama Highschool. Connie, I have to tell you, I don't remember what the question was.
CC: Well, let's fast forward a few years. There was one point during the late 70s and early 80s when some would have called you one of America's most popular men. What was that like Burt?
BR: I'll break it down like this, and then I'd ask that we move on to the next question please. There was this one moment in my career, summer of 77, and I had just finished the film Semi-tough and I thought to myself "Burt, are you really just semi-tough?" After that epi...well yeah, epiphany, because that's what it was Connie... it was trans am cars, lots of john cougar and I don't think I've buttoned a shirt past my nipple line since.
CC: So what changed?
BR: Oh God, everyone in Hollywood has an answer to that question. Personally I would guess that I just have a talent for bad timing. With Stroker Ace I was into the whole NASCAR thing before that was cool. I decided to grow a beard on the same day that all of my hairs turned gray, and then I swabbed up my 'stash with some Just for Men and went to the Golden Globes looking like a two toned marmot. Once I took off my pants at an Alabama concert. You know, just bad timing after bad timing. My publicist said that the attempt at popularizing ass hair as a sign of Burt-like manliness was a bad choice. I dunno. Let me say this: Sean Connery is a fruitcake.
CC: Talk to me a little more about the past five years, what have you been up to now that things have, er, slowed down?
BR: Connie, I've been to Mongolia seven times for plastic surgery and a bit of falconing, but that's no secret. I'd like to take the chance to plug my latest project, BurtReynolds.com, which has all of the news of what I've been up to lately.
Seriously though, this is like the only good question you've asked so far.
Let's see...
My first reaction is to just say, "I've been kickin' some ass".
If you asked me to spell it out - you know, 'what does that mean Burt?', the answer would be this: I've opened two starbucks franchises - one in Plano, Texas and the other in Pensacola, Florida.
CC: I see. Any major disappointments in 2005?
BR: You're on a roll Connie. There have been a few. First I'd like to say to Ang Lee that Heath Ledger was the wrong choice. Maybe you don't read Cosmopolitan, but I am the only cowboy left in this town, I ain't scared of controversy, and I'm glad that the academy recognized that recently (so kind of a disappointment with some vindication I guess). Secondly, I feel bad about being the real reason behind the whole Nick and Jessica thing. But hey, dog will hunt you know? Third, what the stink is up with all these college kids on the Chuck Norris kick? That...that could just as easily have swung my way. Again, bad timing and missed opportunities seem to be the soup de jour for Burt.
CC: Ok Burt, thanks for your time. Back to you, narrator voice.

That's all for now, tune in next week for a live phone interview with Willard Scott who was recently bumped off of the network slot with CBS and now lives with his widow's cat in eastern Montana and pre-records his classic "happy 100 year birthday" wishes for airing on the local public access television station. Good night, and remember, it could always be worse.

Renovations

2006-03-03T05:45:00.000-08:00

To all the fans of the fuzz - there has been a strange thing happening in teh blogosphere of late. Every blog I have read in the past two weeks or so, with the exception of Kevin's wife identifying him by his farts, has not been funny or particularly insightful. Something heavy this way comes. I think it's best to hunker down and wait for it to pass.

In the meantime, I'll issue you some snippets of life. I am working a half day today, putting my total for the week at three and a half days (which I think is E-Nuff!). I have a new favorite song which made me cry on the metro bus yesterday. I will put the words below. I know it wasn't written in this direction, but I sort of hear an old friend of mine talking to God in this song...like a conversation. Is that allowed? The jury is no longer out on Elliot Smith, I like it. I'm coming to Dallas this month. I forgot to thaw out the pork tenderloin for tonight so who knows what we'll be having for dinner?

P's yall.

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Tell you i set you apart

Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start
Running in circles, coming up tails
Heads on a silence apart

Nobody said it was easy, it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard
Oh take me back to the start

I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling your puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart

Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing our tails
Coming back as we are

Nobody said it was easy, Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be so hard

I'm going back to the start

Time to Unpimp ze Auto...Vwat?

2006-02-28T05:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.leftlanenews.com/2006/02/22/vw-strikes-again-un-pimp-my-ride-videos/

In light of our earlier VW post, these are hilarious.

Torino

2006-02-23T07:06:00.000-08:00

My wife had a genius idea to top all genius ideas. We've been watching the olympics here and there and you know how you sort of wonder about some sports - like if they are really hard or not? We all can agree that if you put joe schmoe out on the ice and asked him to skate the 5000m speed skating race, he would likely be measuring his time in hours, not minutes. But I don't think that most people are so sure about, say, curling. So here's the genius idea: every Winter Olympic event should include one individual or team from the audience - a person who does not practice that event on a regular basis. This way, we can see how hard they are. I think the Olympic Comittee is afraid to do this because they know that Toni Italliano from the skijumping audience has a VERY good chance of jumping farther than the guys who came to Italy to compete in that event (largely due to the fact that Toni is on his fifth Birra Peroni and being drunk actually makes you ski jump farther). So I call on you Olympic Committee - subject yourselves to this public scrutiny, don't shy from advancement and transparency.

The best part of this idea is trying to decide which sports the citizen competitor would have a fair chance at. I'm not putting any money on the late entry in the figure skating, cross country ski, short track speed skating (my newest obsession), or aerial ski stunting. However, I'm thinking that the Pi Kappa Alpha frat boys might be able to win a silver in curling. And I submit luge as also being up in the air. This is also a good idea because if the competitor doesn't have a chance (like if we put them in the snowboard half-pipe) there would still be great entertainment as they destroy themselves. I really don't think you'd have trouble finding people willing to volunteer, even for the most dangerous sports. If the games were in Japan or something, maybe, but in Italy I think there would be copious drunk Itallians lining up to destroy themselves in the super g on international television.

Ducati 2

2006-02-22T06:01:00.000-08:00

For those interested, bike number 2 is arriving at my home next week. It has been away getting new brakes and other goodies for the past month or so, but it's ready to return. What you've got there is a 2001 Ducati Sport 750. It is an L-Twin Desmodue two valve engine, air cooled. I've recently installed dual 320mm front brembo rotors so that it should stop on a dime. K&N Air filter and a cut airbox for better breathing, carbon fiber hugger heelguards and chain gaurd, custom made carbon belly pan, new windshield (clear...not the ugly blue that you see here), two brothers carbon fiber exhaust system (sucka is loud), and a fresh set of michelin pilot power tires.

A Scent for all Seasons

2006-02-22T05:06:00.000-08:00

This deoderandt post will not rival my best post ever.
I realized this morning as I was applying my deoderandt that I have five tubes of Old Spice peppered throughout my small apartment. Don't ask me how I came to own five tubes. But now I'm exprimenting with the notion that the Old Spice scent of the day has some sort of subliminal, yet profound, effect on my persona. The flavors are Invisible Solid: Classic Scent, Pacific Surge, High Endurance: Pure Sport, Red Zone: After Hours, and Fresh.

Far as I can tell, here is what happens when I apply these:

Invisible Solid: Classic Scent

Pacific Surge (male nipple coverage provided courtesy of muskrat fuzz)

High Endurance: Pure Sport

Red Zone: After Hours

Fresh

And....Discuss:

2006-02-21T08:45:00.000-08:00

Cabrio Support, Inc.

2006-02-17T05:16:00.000-08:00

This coming thursday evening will be the first official meeting of Cabriolet: Not Gay!

CarTalk.com's results on the Volkswagen Cabriolet:

"All teen-age girls classify them as cute. 'Nuff said."

"Anything by Volkswagen is a chick car. VW realized this years ago and joined forces with another company to sell guy cars--they called that company Porsche."

We are a support group designed for those men in the Washington DC area who have married into, inherited, purchased on the cheap, or otherwise acquired Volkswagen Cabriolet vehicles, yet are not gay. Have you ever felt the eyes of the world as you drive to the bar with a buddy? Yep. I know what they're thinking: two dudes + cabriolet = fabulous! Well, as you and I know, that isn't always true. The support group will meet for six weeks and cover the topics listed below. To all our homosexual readers, we don't want you to abandon the Cabrio, but you will please oblige us in the propagation of a straight cabrio driver's club (the world just isn't as open minded as we thought and we need some support! You wouldn't understand.)

Week 1: The reason that we're here is because we came across a car for almost free or free - and that's never so bad
Week 2: Don't be afraid to show some cabrio pride, the aftermarket is bursting with pimp products
Week 3: Now that you've decked your cabrio with aftermarket products, be ready for increased scrutiny, but hold your head high
Week 4: Alabama, Waco, and other places to never drive your cabrio, regardless of how ok you are with your cabrio driving self.
Week 5: I've got heated leather, a five speed, sport suspension and a neuspeed exhaust - what YOU got?
Week 6: Using the socratic method and other techniques for silencing the critics.

Quote for the week (for when you need some strength to go on):

"Take your hands off my ipod and adjust your Buddy Holly glasses, be sure that your western shirt is perfectly frumpled, climb in your VOLKSWAGEN, and go throw your own party, where you and your generic ironic default indie rock hipster friends can watch High Fidelity and whine about the chicks who will not sleep with you and discuss in length how you used to like Death Cab before they sold out and went on the OC."
~Mol Junior

See, this quote was meant as an insult, but being an indie rock hipster is a somewhat respectable alternative to being gay. If it makes you more comfortable - put down the top, throw on some elliott smith and just let everyone assume this of you. Especially helpful if you do find yourself in one of the forbidden zones. that and getting one of these:

note: this post is purely meant as humor and is not to be taken as insult to our gay friends or to my beautiful wife who I love and whose car I am more than happy to call my own now. Just trying to entertain, so please enjoy in a similar spirit.

2006-02-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

What is Banana Republic thinking? Bringing back the banded collar is a bad idea. Are you with me?

Out of the snow arose a magnificent member

2006-02-16T05:25:00.000-08:00

Starting about an hour or two before our party and going into the next day, it snowed on the East Coast. Here is what we did after waking up, having waffles and getting bundled:

Dave just came back from Italy, where the snow phalus, road phalus, and other public phaluses (phali?) are commonplace, so please don't think of this as strange (ps, click for larger view!):

The Festival of Red and White, Part I

2006-02-15T05:50:00.000-08:00

The red and white party that some of you attended was brilliant. Here is a photo essay of the evening that takes you from the preparation of the first cupcakes to the final showing of St. Valentine's underwear. A nod goes out to the Texas compatriots with whom we were simutaneously partying. For a summary of their red and white evening, visit this site.

The evening began with the ladies slaving over the oven whilst Dave and I attempted to decorate cupcakes. Here you'll see the intensity which we found was necessary to create an amperstand sign on a cupcake en route to a series of cupcakes that would spell "RED & WHITE".

After decorating cupcakes and some sugar cookies (the really big one was passed around the room and everyone was invited to partake, so long as they were in good standing wtih their local religious organization), the table was prepared and the stage was set for a rip roaring party.

The weatherman was also calling for 12-16 inches of snow to fall, starting around noon, so Dave and I made a run to the Home Depot to get the necessary red lightbulb for the den of red and white love that was to be constructed for the evening and the girls stayed home. When we returned, it was time to begin the pregame show. Being the crazy guys we are, we pregamed until it was time to change clothes and drank all of two beers between us. The next photos are a compilation of the shots taken while I was preparing my outfit and Mr. Holland was trying to find himself.

Meanwhile Jaquan and Mikaela had arrived and brought some civility to our pre party nervousness. And there we sat at 8:15. The only guests were those who had come from afar.

Notice that dave is no longer visible at the party and has been replaced by toga-clad St. Valentine. Genius?

Mikaela and Jaquan preparing to get their money's worth after driving four hours through a blizzard.

But soon enough the doorbell rang, bringing these first in-town partygoers. The following is a hodgepodge of action from the party that includes, but is not limited to, ladies in the red light district of the party, saint valentine issuing blessings and then later in the night attempting to urinate in the corner of the kitchen, and other such hottness.

The table was looking nice, and I just noticed that if you look close you can see that Stevie was with us.

Cupcake MOL was the first victim of the party (of course).

Joe was clearly too cool for school with no red or white...

Here we have Saint Valentine in all his glory...

...and in all his shame

Issuing a Valentine's blessing to one happy couple

Your Hosts

My Sister

Attempting to signal "rock on", Erin appropriatly signs "I love you" due to an untucked thumb

Me with the girls

The Women of The Meridian...Phase 2

Mona won best dressed honors

Hot red light room action shot

An Open Letter to the Elderly

2006-02-15T05:21:00.000-08:00

An Open Letter to the Residents of the Lincoln Arms Apartments:

Friends and neighbors, my wife and I decided to host a gathering of coworkers this past Saturday evening. This gathering was scheduled to end at half past ten, but people decided to stay and visit until just before midnight. Our gathering was abruptly ended by the arrival of the Arlington Police Department, which one of you had phoned to complain about the noise level of said gathering. The police were somewhat baffled upon their arrival as it was clear that this was far from wheels off. In Fact, it was a tame and generally non-threatening gathering. But you, whoever you are, were not a good neighbor on Saturday evening. You did not have the common courtesy to inform us that you might call the police if we didn't pipe down. We may have laughed at you if you had come upstairs to tell us about your plans, but we would have also poured you a whiskey sour and told you a few jokes.

Japaneese Emperor Hirohito did not warn the United States of his coming attack on the island of Pearl Harbor, he did his dastardly deed in stealth. In the end, he came to see that this was not the best form of diplomacy as there was a bomb got dropped on his ass.

I'm just saying, let's live as neighbors. My wife and I have been trying to forgive you for your old-person antics, but it's not easy. So do us all a favor and either come into community or stock up on the canned goods so that you can make it through the winter without venturing into the real world. There's people out here, it might be threatening.

PS - next time I hear you struggling as you so often do in the facilities (the air ducts carry everything), I'm calling the fuzz... we just can't have that kind of haggard utterance in the building.

Brokeback Mount Him

2006-02-13T16:34:00.000-08:00

(title trademark of Jiff)

I saw this movie this weekend with Dave. We arrived, appropriately, in my cabrio, ready for Brokeback movie action.

Here's my thoughts: I agree with most of my friends that this movie is a really important and generally beneficial moviegoing experience - particularly for those who find themselves surrounded by people who are outraged by the fact that the movie exists. The emphasis is not on gay sex or rampant immorality. It's been said over and over, but the emphasis of the film is on forbidden love. Romeo and Juliet. Something that you can't have.
A secondary theme is how very unfulfilling sin can be. One of the more telling lines from the film was Jack to Ennis - "this has got to be the most unfulfilling son of a bitch ever". The guys aren't satisfied with what they have.
You do ask yourself, "would they have been better off to run away together from the beginning?". I think that the answer is probably yes, but I will spare you the reasoning because it has to do with the movie's ending, and I don't want to give that away.
Going to see this film doesn't mean that you endorse homosexuality as not a sin. Following Jesus doesn't mean that you think it is a sin either (it's true, followers of Christ differ on this and it doesn't mean that one or the other group is all hellbound fakes). Did you see any movie with sexual content or violence this year? If yes, then shut up about not wanting to see Brokeback because you don't want to support a movie about sin. I posit that you just aren't forced to deal with the homosexuality question to benefit from the good that this movie has to offer. If you're straight, you'll feel uncomfortable at points, but that's ok.
My thinking was somewhat influenced by the following two reviews, which I found to contain some level of genius:
http://rahabsandgomers.blogspot.com/2006/01/if-you-cant-fix-it-you-gotta-stand-it.html
http://genslay.blogspot.com/2006/01/brokeback-mountain.html
Those say the important stuff much more eloquently than I can right now.

Party Preview

2006-02-13T11:09:00.000-08:00

Our party was epic. We had attendees who travelled from seven different states to attend. All 33 of them were treated to the best playlist ever created, a variety of red and white food and drink, blessings from the Saint Valentine, a fantastic door prize giveaway, a party that ran 2 hours past the expected ending time and was brought to a premature ending by the Arlington Police Department (later this week I will post an open letter to my fellow residents of the Lincoln Arms Apartment complex concerning this). There will be many photos to follow once we find Mia's digital camera cable.

Nighthound

2006-02-09T05:17:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last night that I was walking around in the streets of Spain (a place I have never visited) and I had my dog with me, but in real life I have no dog. The dog looked like this:

So I needed to drop off some dry cleaning and purchase some diamonds while I was out and I didn't know WHAT to do with my dog friend. I saw a dog walker going by and I just looped said doggie's leash over her arm and figured she would take care of him while I went inside the store. I took care of my business inside and when I came back I guess I was really suprised that the lady with my dog had left. At that point, Chris Dogg Jones came by and so did Dope and we started to scour the neighborhood for my dog. We were busting into abandoned buildings and even into some lady's apartment, all shouts and stuff "Donde esta el pinche perro?". We didn't find said doggie and that is why I post, if you've seen her, she's very friendly and, though large, very gentle. She's generally only in existence while I'm asleep so don't waste your time at the moment. Thank you.

PS - I'm not sure if that dog walker was armed or not, so be careful. Also, the last song I heard yesterday was Gimme back my Dog by Slobberbone.

Slow News Day

2006-02-08T04:54:00.000-08:00

The above image graces the FRONT PAGE OF THE WASHINGTON POST as the lead story. Scientists have found a new frog. Oh, and if you turn to page 17f you'll see that the muslim world is up in arms and burning embassies to the ground, but hey, the frog is what the people want to read about I guess...

Music Review

2006-02-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

I haven't been filled with beautiful blog ideas lately (expect a jewel about my bathroom appliances later this week) so here's a mid-week music review that you should take notes on:

Fall Out Boy is a slightly less juvenile version of the punk pop that I enjoyed so as a young'un. If you come by the disc, turn on Grand Theft Autumn, roll your windows down and drive recklessly.

Brothers and Sisters is a little EP released by Coldplay prior to their fame, if you like the song Spies, I think you'll like this. Plus you'll be glad to have a Coldplay song that hasn't been ruined by overzealous disc jockey types.

From my current (limited) experience with this album(Silent Alarm by Bloc Party), I can say that it strikes me as having much of the techno-emo appeal of a band like soul coughing without the overuse of droning monotony to get their point across. I like This Modern Love, Blue Light and So Here We Are the best. I disdain Price of Gas. Any way you cut it, you must not try this CD out without giving a full, straight through listen. If I try to cut it up into singles, I get annoyed with it quickly.

Funeral by Arcade Fire is pure genius. The "wall of sound" that is Wake Up is one of those that I can listen to on repeat several times before moving on. Their songs have an epic quality that I think is hard to find in an indie alt rock group. Check 'em out and you'll be glad you did! The whole thing is written and recorded by Win and his wife. I would recommend a visit to their website (http://www.arcadefire.com) especially for my graphic design friends out there. Worthwhile.

This My Morning Jacket cd called "The Tennessee Fire", is an alt rock cd recorded in a grain silo! I will be there when you die and I think I'm going to Hell are the essentials. Crazy as you may think me, I hear Maria McKee in this dude's songwriting.

Also, I'm just going to say that I'm jumping on the bandwagon with the alt-country these days. Albums that I have spent considerable time with (and recommend) include those pictured below by the following artists - slobberbone, the old 97's and ryan adams. I also dig on David Mead's cd Indiana. The jury is VERY MUCH still out on Elliott Smith. Finally, I'm wholly sold on Sufjan Stevens, especially his Christmas songs.

Fashion Police

2006-02-02T09:47:00.000-08:00

Did you hear that Cindy Sheehan was removed from the state of the union address because she was wearing a t-shirt that said "2,245 dead, how many more?". Also, Beverly Young, the wife of a US Congressman, wore a t shirt that said "support our troops" and was removed. Young was less hostile and was therefore not booked - Sheehan went to jail. Now everyone is rushing to apologize for this "error in judgement".

Here's the real deal folks - neither of them were removed for their political protests. My good and nameless friend was the person who tipped the police off to the presence of, not a protestor, but a t-shirt in the chamber. He says that nobody but nobody wears a t-shirt or a sweatshirt into a chamber of the Capitol. Doing so was an insult to all involved and they should have been asked to leave simply for that reason. I agree, and I say to Beverly Young (who called the DC police cheif "an idiot" for his actions) that your words more appropriatly describe yourself. Sheehan and Young were not interested in expressing a political message with their actions, if that had been their goal they would have engaged those concerned in an appropriate manner (they both have LOTS of voice, politically). What they wanted to do was cause a stink. To fling the proverbial poo at those who would oppose them that evening. Boo for you both.

Here's a great article, btw, on supporting our troops. Only in the LA Times can the word "wussiest" be used in an article.
Click Here

Just short

2006-02-01T06:04:00.000-08:00

Friends, we got SO CLOSE to one thousand hits in our first month of counter use. With a bit of effort, we'll get there next month. Fight the good fight.

Tony's Coarse Language Post

2006-01-30T12:16:00.000-08:00

Tony wanted me to share my thoughts on "Christians and coarse language". Since this is something I've thought about lately, I'll oblige.

The executive summary is this: I don't think that we should be worried about the language that people use - it is up to them to decide how they speak and certainly isn't a big deal. Getting our feathers in a ruffle over someone using a word that we were taught is a naughty word is silly, aren't we beyond that at this point?

There are a few things about certain ways of expressing oneself that bug me, and I’ll get into that here. The two most common reasons that I will discard language that is wrought cusswords are these: the speaker is being destructive in their language and they have told me that they are not about destruction or the speaker sounds stupid and is grasping at some last effort to be noticed with what they’re saying. Option one is basically hypocrisy and it is where I think many of the fuck you’s fall that I hear around the cussing Christian circles. If you’re going to claim to be a follower of Jesus and in that claim you’re saying that you think your life is supposed to be about restoration of things, peacemaking and love, then you shouldn’t go around trying to destroy people, even people who seem to deserve destruction. While I can’t think of a good argument in the world for why one word or another is “bad” or “sinful”, I do think that the attitude behind some “coarse” phrases is one that says “I’m looking for the strongest expression of hate or disdain that my language affords me and I’m going to heap that on you”. This type of destructive attitude isn’t limited to language – anywhere where people who say they’re about the business of spreading peace are going out of their way to destroy others is equally hypocritical and anti-Jesus. It doesn’t bother me at all though when destructive language is employed because someone says that they’re all about destructiveness and the like. Well, it bothers me because I think it’s a really difficult place to be in for that person, but the language doesn’t offend me and I certainly can’t call them hypocritical for using it.

Option two: much of the time when people insist on peppering their language with “coarseness”, it comes out much less clear, concise, and poignant that it would be without the extraneous inclusions. This one is pretty easy to spot. If the language isn’t included to add something worthwhile or at least impacting (could be sentiments like those described) then why include it? The principle here is easy – don’t make yourself sound stupid because you want to include some cusswords in your vocabulary.

I read Romans 14 yesterday and I think it is very applicable to this debate. If you use language that really distresses a christian friend of yours, that’s not very mature of you and it doesn’t serve any purpose in building that person up. It may be that you can speak a certain way and you’re fine with it – I think that’s fine – but I think we’d all be wise to apply the principles in Romans 14 to this issue.

Sometimes humor calls for cusswords and frankly this doesn’t bother me at all. Sometimes the strength of an “illicit” word adds to art or expression or music, and I think that this is fine too. If we could just follow the previous paragraph’s advice I think people wouldn’t squabble about this nearly as much. Seek to be restoring people and the world around you with the way you speak just as much as you seek to shrug the bondage of legalism that has always told us all that certain words made God angry and we’ll all be better off.

Christians who find "coarse language" very offensive, can you tell me what bugs you about it?

update

2006-01-27T12:25:00.000-08:00

"I'm aware of the made up declarations about me that have recently begun to appear on the Internet and in emails as "Chuck Norris facts." I've seen some of them. Some are funny. Some are pretty far out. Being more a student of the Wild West than the wild world of the Internet, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. It's quite surprising. I do know that boys will be boys, and I neither take offense nor take these things too seriously. Who knows, maybe these made up one-liners will prompt young people to seek out the real facts as found in my recent autobiographical book, "Against All Odds?" They may even be interested enough to check out my novels set in the Old West, "The Justice Riders," released this month. I'm very proud of these literary efforts."
~ Chuck Norris

(pause)

BWAhhahahahahah

I have been sort of tagged...

2006-01-27T11:44:00.000-08:00

4 jobs i've had

1. Operating room tech at presbyterian hospital of dallas
2. Bicycle salesperson at wheels in motion
3. immigrant rights defendor with the TX attorney general
4. translator for the woodrow wilson policy school at princeton

4 movies i'd watched on repeat

1. Vanilla Sky
2. Y tu mama tambien
3. Pulp Fiction
4. The Life Aquatic

4 TV shows i like

1. Mavericks basketball games (sadly I get about 2 a year up here)
2. Lost
3. King of the Hill
4. Southpark

4 Vacation spots I would like to visit regularly

1. Banff National Park, Alberta
2. Breckenridge
3. Buenos Aires
4. Big Sur
*unplanned that they all are B's

4 websites besides blogs i visit daily

1. Marketocracy.com
2. Washingtonpost.com
3. dcsportbikes.net
4. Craigslist.org

4 Foods I lust after:
1. Changos Burritos
2. Argentine Chorizo
3. Maguire's Burgers
4. Edy's peanut butter cup ice cream

4 Changes to my house I would make, if possible:

1. A bathroom sink that matches my bathroom (photos forthcoming)
2. Turn my carport into a garage with room for two motorcycles and a car so i can buy a race bike
3. Recording studio with a steinway piano inside for Mia to play
4. Hardwood floors

4 beers i love and people i would drink them with:

1. Guiness with my wife
2. Shiner Bock with Chris and Dave (and stevie, if he's thirsty)
3. Triumph Brewery Sampler - Rick and Tony
4. Stella - Alistair, Elliot, and Jon, my racing buddies

4 things that should have been lists

1. 4 most-played songs in my itunes this year
2. 4 best names for a weiner dog
3. 4 reasons why Yale sucks, but not as much as Harvard
4. 4 vehicles i have owned/driven regularly

4 Tags

1. Mol Jr. (still trying)
2. My sister
3. BedeliaP
4. Andy House

Op-Ed by Kofi

2006-01-27T05:02:00.000-08:00

Appeared in the post a couple days ago and is of enough importance to re-post here. How often to you find the secretary general of the UN writing op-eds?

Darfur Descending
No Time for Apathy on Sudan
By Kofi A. Annan

When I visited Darfur last May, I felt hopeful. Today I am pessimistic, unless a major new international effort is mustered in the coming weeks.
I visited a village whose people had returned after fleeing from violence and were living in relative safety, thanks to the presence of troops from the African Union (A.U.). True, this was only a beginning. Much of the vast region was prey to sporadic violence, with more than a million people living in camps. But thanks to a massive relief operation led by the United Nations, the number dying from hunger or disease was falling dramatically. A cease-fire, admittedly flawed, was in place. Peace talks between the Sudanese government and the rebel movements, ably mediated by A.U. representatives, were proceeding in Abuja, Nigeria. It was hoped that agreement could be reached by the end of the year.
There were other positive signs. The U.N. Security Council had referred the situation to the International Criminal Court and had decided in principle to apply targeted sanctions to individuals who could be identified as responsible for the atrocities of the past two years.
I wish I could report that all these efforts had borne fruit -- that Darfur was at peace and on the road to recovery. Alas, the opposite is true. People in many parts of Darfur continue to be killed, raped and driven from their homes by the thousands. The number displaced has reached 2 million, while 3 million (half the total population of Darfur) are dependent on international relief for food and other basics. Many parts of Darfur are becoming too dangerous for relief workers to reach. The peace talks are far from reaching a conclusion. And fighting now threatens to spread into neighboring Chad, which has accused Sudan of arming rebels on its territory.
Despite a chronic funding crisis, A.U. troops in Darfur are doing a valiant job. People feel safer when the troops are present. But there are too few of them -- a protection force of only 5,000, with an additional 2,000 police and military observers, to cover a territory the size of Texas. They have neither the equipment nor the broad mandate they would need to protect the people under threat or to enforce a cease-fire routinely broken by the rebels, as well as by the Janjaweed militia and Sudanese government forces.
On Jan. 12, the African Union decided to renew the mission's mandate until March 31, while expressing support, in principle, for a transition to a U.N. operation this year. The timing of this transition is still being discussed, including at this week's A.U. summit in Khartoum. This puts the Security Council on the spot. The U.N. Charter gives the council primary responsibility for international peace and security. And in September, in a historic first, U.N. members unanimously accepted the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity, pledging to take action through the Security Council when national authorities fail.
The transition from the A.U. force to a U.N. peace operation in Darfur is now inevitable. A firm decision by the Security Council is needed, and soon, for an effective transition to take place.
But let no one imagine that this crisis can be solved simply by giving the present A.U. mission a "U.N. hat." Any new mission will need a strong and clear mandate, allowing it to protect those under threat, by force if necessary, as well as the means to do so. That means it will need to be larger, more mobile and much better equipped than the current African Union mission. Those countries that have the required military assets must be ready to deploy them.
Such a force would take the United Nations months to deploy. In the meantime, the A.U. mission must be maintained and strengthened. We cannot afford any gaps or any weakening of the force in place. Last May the African Union and the United Nations organized a donor conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to raise money and logistical support for the A.U. force. A follow-up conference is planned for Feb. 20. At the same time, the massive relief operation must continue, and be fully funded, so that Darfur's people continue to receive clean water, food and other vital supplies.
Finally, and above all, much stronger pressure must be brought on all parties -- the rebels as well as the government -- to observe the cease-fire and commit themselves to the Abuja peace talks with a sense of urgency. The current delays are inexcusable; they cost lives every day. Those negotiating must be reminded of their personal responsibility.
One thing is clear: Whatever external force is sent to Darfur can provide at best only temporary security to the people there. Only a political agreement among their leaders can secure their future and the return of 2 million of them to their homes.

The writer is secretary general of the United Nations.

Motivate Me Part 2

2006-01-26T08:53:00.000-08:00

If we march enough, abortion will go away

2006-01-26T05:59:00.000-08:00

On Monday I had the day off and Mia had an exam in the morning, which meant that she had the afternoon off. So we decided to go to the Smithsonian for some free and educational fun. This past Monday was also the March for Life, an abortion protest where everyone marches on the capital lawn in opposition to abortion. We decided to walk among the protestors, just to see what they were saying and doing.

Let me say, I'm a pro-life person. I think that if there's even a chance that abortion is taking a life (mabye it is, maybe not), we shouldn't do it. But, I don't think that those who are pro-choice are monsters or murderers. I also think people have every right to demonstrate for their beliefs no matter how crazy those beliefs are. So, since I don't even think this is a crazy belief, I have no scorn for the idea of protesting against legal abortion in a peaceful and intelligent way.

Here is what got me: probably 40-50% of the "protestors" were under the age of 14. I remember when I was about 12 I had to go stand on the sidewalk in Richardson with a sign that said something like "Choose Life, Not Abortion" for a whole afternoon. I felt noble and thought I should scowl at the people who gave us the finger, but I took some solace in the knowledge that they were the infidels and WE were expanding the kingdom. Looking back I can only borrow a phrase for the whole experience (off!). I do not think that the pro-lifers (or the pro-choicers) should be taking thier kids to these events. I saw MANY young'uns thrusting their signs about chanting "babies babies babies". I gave them a high five because I thought that was sort of funny, but the point is that to them it was a game, not a serious political expression. The stupid "God is Good....All the time" chanting just reinforces the stereotypes about those who support the illegalization of abortion. And the use of children who did not understand the implications of what they were doing - who don't understand the good arguments on both sides of the matter - rubs me the wrong way.

If you want my opinion, we should stop the protesting and start educating people about the matter. I gaurantee you that 95% of the folks holding "Roe must Go!" signs did not know why the Roe v. Wade decsion was not sound. As long as the main thrust of the abortion opposition is "because God is against abortion", we'll get nowhere. Last I checked we don't live in a theocracy. If people really want to do some good, they should start by educating themselves. Take a constitutional law course at your local community college (hopefully there will be people on both sides of the coin in such a setting). There is a very tight argument to be made against abortion that requires neither scientific nor religious appeals. If future supreme court justice and friend of Muskrat Fuzz Tony reads this and provides that argument, I will post it in the future.

In other pro-life news, I saw this on Dobson's website, "South Dakota Considers Outlawing Abortion ". It was an article about how South Dakota is considering outlawing abortion (I don't think that sentence was necessary but whatever). I thought that it was a funny thing to consider. Sort of like how Alabama can consider reinstating slavery all they want, but it ain't going to happen because it's not legal to make such decisions. So, Dobson, onward with the propaganda. Makes me think of the first story in this delightful little narrative.

Motivation for the Masses

2006-01-25T08:07:00.000-08:00

You Emergent Kids

2006-01-25T06:10:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: I try hard to avoid journaling on my blog because it is not cool at all and nobody cares about the daily mundane unless it is funny or profound, but this entry approaches a journaling excercise because I think it sheds light on previous and future posts. So, sorry if you don't like it.

I first discovered "The Emerging Church" back when I saw that Moljer was saying fuck to some fundamentalist on his website because the fundamentalist was telling people that when a guy in Texas died (who was a friend to several people I know from home), that it was God's punishment for the heresy in the emergent movement. Interested, I asked him what emergent meant and I think I got some explanation, but I went and read Brian McLaren's book that contains a bunch of the ideas that many of those who would consider themselves a part of the emerging church hold. I also was told by Jeff - the pastor of emergent worship at some church in Colorado - that the word emergent doesn't mean anything at all anymore because there are so many people who are flying that flag that it can't really be used to define much (not a bad thing, just something to be aware of when you hear of emergent).

I'm not interested in providing a summary of emergent ideas here - but I'll say that many of those ideas have been really big on my mind in the past two months. At first it sort of felt like a crisis of faith or something - and a couple weeks before you get married is not the best time for a crisis of faith. But it wasn't that, it was actually just permission to ask questions that I hadn't felt free to ask before. Some of those questions aren't really important to my life at all, but the freedom that says "yeah, ask that question and don't worry about what would happen if you answer it differently than the christ followers before you have answered", that freedom is really important and good for the Christ follower and non-Christ follower alike.

So here's my conclusions, or where I'm at now:
*I have completelly compartmentalized people into the christians and the not christians. When I've met a new person, I decide which group they belong in and I behave accordingly towards them. This is gross. There is MUCH value in relationships, loving people, and knowing people. I was raised to think that we need to make sure we're staying friends with some not christian people so that we can be "witnessing" to them. I'm done with that and I'm trying to be done with all forms of compartmentalizing people. Beyond just throwing out the christian-speak, I think this means that there is a change in why I would even want to be in relationship with a person.
*I'm trying to step back and figure out where I'm doing things because that is what "christians are supposed to do". I'm NOT saying that I'm going to interpret the entire scriptures for myself and become some island of spirituality because I think there's value in the thoughts and opinions that have come before me and been reaffirmed over and over. But, I do think that religion as we see it in the world (as opposed to the caring for orphans and widows type) is mostly garbage and fetters. So I'd like to see that stuff dropped from my life. This has implications for pretty much every area of life.
*Conversely, I'm trying to figure out what I've ignored because my religion hasn't told me that I have to be concerned about them. Things that come to mind - the environment, the way I eat, the way I spend my money, the way that I impact the world economically and politically, being at peace with people who are different....lots of things. If I think that salvation is about the redemption and restoration of things and not about people staying out of hell, than why would I not seek to be redemptive in all sorts of ways that we the church have previously ignored?
*Love is most important.
*You don't have to call yourself a part of my christian club to experience God and hear from God - for me to say that people who agree with me on x,y and z are the only ones who can hear from God would be arrogant. Right now, we the church seem to say to people "you have to first read the four spiritual laws and agree with them in your mind (God will reveal them to your heart blah blah...we're saying you should agree with them and pray the prayer at the end of the tract) and THEN you can start telling me what you're hearing from God, before that I just can't imagine that you're actually hearing from God because I'm sorry but you're cut off!". So, I don't think that is really the way it works right now.
*I also want to be sure that I'm not saying "everyone is right". Some people are, in my opinion, wrong. I think they're wrong about life choices or religion or whatever. If we get rid of people's freedom to call others wrong (but still be respectful, loving, open minded etc.), all discussion and realness devolves into fake tippy toeing around and is equally gross to bigotry and myopia.

Literacy and Lord of War

2006-01-20T13:08:00.000-08:00

I saw the Nicholas Cage movie, Lord of War, last night with Mia and Judd and it made me think about the international system. I’ve spoken about the African plight in the past and I wrote an email last week that has also made me think about Africa a bit more than usual. The movie is the supposedly based-on-a-true-story tale of an arms dealer who doesn’t care much about the ramifications of his line of work, his philosophy being “it’s none of our business who kills who with my guns, I just sell them”. Africa is a focal point of the movie because most of the weapons purchased by non-government forces are purchased in Africa at the moment.

Although I’m not heartless like many of my capitalist brethren, I do think that economics is a science and can generally describe the forces behind such phenomenon as arms dealing quite well. So I decided to run the numbers on who is importing and exporting arms, what factors seem to have the biggest impact on those behaviors, and what implications these numbers have on outside issues that seem to accompany weapons trade. If you’re bored by world politics, stop reading now, but some of what I found was quite surprising.

Here’s the method – take all of the countries in the world and get the following data: poverty rate (% of the population living under 2 dollars per day), literacy rate (average over the period 1991-2003), percentage of the population living outside of the country as refugees, aids rate, monetary aid per capita, unemployment rate, arms imports divided by gross domestic product, arms exports divided by gdp, and remittances over gdp (money that people send back to the country while they are away, divided by gdp). Then I made a couple of groups so that we can partition off certain countries and look at them together apart from the larger sample. One group was industrial countries (basically EU countries, the US and Canada) and the other was a group we’ll call war-torn countries, which is almost all of Africa, much of Eastern Europe and several other countries that have either contained a war zone or undergone some sort of weapons buildup in the period 1991-2003. Then, in layman’s terms, we see how all of those variables affect a country’s propensity to import arms and export arms, and we also look at how the variables are correlated to each other so that we don’t assume the variables in question are causing something to happen when it is really being caused by some other outside (but related to one of the variables) force.

Results:

For the sake of being brief, I’m only going to talk about our two groups. Since industrial countries don’t import arms in the same way as, say, African countries, I only look at the arms exports of those countries. Similarly, war torn countries don’t export arms (except immediately after the cold war as you see in the movie) so I only looked at what causes them to increase or decrease their arms imports.

War Torn Countries:
The obvious assumptions are by in large true: increased poverty rates and unemployment among war torn countries increases the amount of arms imports to that country. It is important to note that this is not because it makes them more likely to go to war because we’re already dealing with the “war countries” sample. Increased literacy decreases the propensity to import arms for a war torn country. Sadly, aid – such as the cash grants and loans from the World Bank, IMF and from individual countries – increases the chance that a country will import more arms. It would be interesting to see a calculation of how much aid money goes to the purchase of arms, but that would take much longer to do. The biggest factor in this calculation is the refugee population – if you start sending droves of people out of your country as refugees, it’s probably because you’re conducting some sort of war. When you see an exodus of refugees, you should expect to see a sharp increase in arms imports in a country. Countries that receive a large portion of remittances are less likely to buy lots of arms. My guess on this is that some of those countries were war torn countries that sent out a big refugee population and now the war has been over long enough that the refugees are sending money home from their jobs abroad, but that is just a guess. As a country’s AIDS rate increases, its propensity to import arms decreases. I didn’t expect that either.

Industrial Countries:
The movie had an ending that sort of jabbed at the big 5 industrial countries saying that the US, China, France, Britain, and Germany were the biggest arms dealers in the world. That is true, but they’re also the biggest dealers of pretty much everything. I’m certainly not one to defend the US, but the data shows that among industrial countries, those countries with lower gdp’s are actually spending more of their money on weapons to export. So, the industrial countries that are the smaller players are the ones more likely to manufacture weapons to send them off to Burundi or Sierra Leone. While the 5 security council members mentioned above are producing more, they’re spending a considerably smaller percentage of their resources on weapons for exporting purposes. Along with this is the fact that as unemployment increases in industrial countries, so do weapons exports.

I think the most interesting part of the story is in the correlations between different variables. For example, a higher AIDS rate is positively correlated with the propensity to go to war. So if you have more prevalence of AIDS, you’re more likely to go to war. However, as we see from the regression results above, you’re less likely to import weapons if you’re a war torn country with a high AIDS rate (still more likely to import than a non war torn country, however).

Literacy rates have a much bigger impact on societies than I would have guessed. The literacy curve doesn’t seem to be linear with regards to weapons exports and imports. It works like this: as the literacy rate increases, the propensity to import weapons decreases. Then, at some point, you begin to start exporting weapons if the literacy rate gets very high. Only when it approaches 100% does your propensity to export weapons begin to decline (because then you’re in that US/France/China/Germany/Britain category). So if you’re really uneducated, you’re in the danger zone for being a weapons importing (and war will follow) country. Then, as people begin to become educated that goes away and they will eventually be smart enough to make their own weapons and export those.

Literacy also is negatively correlated with AIDS rates. Literacy decreases unemployment, which in turn decreases the likelihood that a country will go to war. As unemployment goes down, so do arms imports. You would have to do an entirely new set of regressions to know this conclusively, but it seems that literacy may have a very big impact on AIDS prevention. How many Human Rights organizations have gone to Africa to teach sex education and pass out condoms or even lobbied in the US for less expensive AIDS medications to send to Africa? Perhaps a much simpler solution would be to send reading teachers over and start to strike the roots of this problem. Teaching reading in war torn countries may be the most cost-effective (and the most effective regardless of cost) method to fight arms imports, AIDS, war, and unemployment in the group of 45 war torn countries in this dataset.

Parting the Red Sea

2006-01-18T05:49:00.000-08:00

I think that there are many lines in society along which people are split. Frank's or Tabasco, Sugar or sweetener, Gay or Not Gay, Sox or Yanks, whatever, etc. etc.

One of the more obvious lines along which we find ourselves split is this: some will run with a backpack and some will not. I will not run with a backpack on, not even with one strap on so it looks less absurd and espeicially not with both straps so my whole pack full of supplies bangs into me with every stride. I don't care how late to class or how long until the next bus comes, I'm walking so long as I have a backpack. My wife will run with a backpack. Will you?

Two Steps to Peace with Mark

2006-01-17T08:45:00.000-08:00

Sharon, the lady from Taiwan who runs the dry cleaning store by my house, is treading on thin ice these days. I began using her when I moved to my current address and she's pretty nice and gets things done on time and for a price I consider reasonable. Also, she's got a big tract-distributing display by the cash register with booklets in English and Chineese called "five steps to peace with God". I wouldn't go so far as to assume that I have any common beliefs with this woman about God and stuff (actually tracts kind of turn me off due to the kinds of people who I've seen distributing them and the way in which they are sometimes distributed, but lately some friends have told me that receiveing a tract was the begining of their conversation with God and they were really thankful to recieve the little piece of paper, so I say nothing bad about these in and of themselves), but it is interesting to me that she's so out there with these beliefs of hers. So I've enjoyed patronizing her store until about a week ago when two things occurred. Number one, my collar button was broken off during her dry cleaning service and she said she'd fix it on the next wash and at this point it has been dry cleaned twice and she hasn't fixed it yet despite my friendly reminders (I generally don't wear that one with a tie so it hasn't brought my relationship with that shirt to a full stop). Two, and more agregious in my opinion, she charges me 4 dollars to dry clean my wife's shirts, which I have examined and found to be identical to my shirts in almost every way. They do not require any more attention than my shirts, which are cleaned for one dollar. It is injustice to charge me more for a shirt purely because it is worn by a beautiful woman in between dry cleanings. I'm going to talk to Sharon about this in the coming week and I just might be looking for a new dry cleaning service in the near future. Does anyone have special knowledge or experience that I should consider before burning this particular bridge?

Movie Rentals

2006-01-17T06:40:00.000-08:00

I just signed up for Blockbuster's version of netflix and I think it is awesome. I get two coupons a month for going to the store and picking up movies (in case we want to pick one out right then) and I also get two movies in my home via mail at all times. I think you should all stop renting movies because we rent three a month from hollywood video and we end up paying this 15 dollars that we're currently paying to blockbuster for many less movies than we can get if we do the netflix style rental. This post is purely informational - if you demand laughs and/or insights, go away.

Amendment - here is some more info that is useful to me and maybe to you too. You can buy good, fresh whole bean coffee at Target for much cheaper than any grocery store. I got a bag for 3.50 today, and I'm not talking about folgers crap here, good coffee. That is all for now.

Sometimes corn needs to get the hell down

2006-01-13T10:25:00.000-08:00

When I was a child my mother purchased 24 Chuck Norris action figures at a garage sale and I recieved all 24 as a birthday gift in lieu of the ninja turtles action figures that I was asking for that year. Every single Chuck had the same head and they were dressed differently, although I guess they only made 12 Chucks because I had duplicates of every single Chuck. I would have been happy with two ninja turtles, but I somehow felt jilted by the 24 Chuck Norrises. I know I was a fool, but that was before I had ANY idea how badass Chuck Norris was and is today. I needed action figures back then because I liked to bang them together while I sat on the toilet. My habits have changed, but Chuck hasn't, so I'm giving you a list today:

Top Chuck Norris Facts

* Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. But he is so badass, he has never cried. Ever.

* Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

* Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

* The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.

* If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris, you may be only seconds away from death.

* Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.

* Chuck Norris is 1/8th Cherokee. This has nothing to do with ancestry, the man ate an Indian.

* Crop circles are Chuck Norris' way of telling the world that sometimes corn needs to lie the hell down.

* The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out.

* If you ask Chuck Norris what time it is, he always says, "Two seconds 'til." After you ask, "Two seconds 'til what?" he roundhouse kicks you in the face.

* There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.

* When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes ever.

* Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse... horses are hung like Chuck Norris

* When Chuck Norris falls in water, Chuck Norris doesn't get wet. Water gets Chuck Norris.

* Chuck Norris doesnt shave; he kicks himself in the face. The only thing that can cut Chuck Norris is Chuck Norris.

* Chuck Norris invented black. In fact, he invented the entire spectrum of visible light. Except pink. Tom Cruise invented pink.

* Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.

* If you Google search "Chuck Norris getting his ass kicked" you will generate zero results. It just doesn't happen.

* When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the Earth down.

* When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail, his family does not die from cholera or dysentery, but rather, roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axels, and buffalo meat on his back. He always makes it to Oregon before you.

* Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.

Federline Yo

2006-01-11T05:03:00.000-08:00

I look like I might stink....but I don't.

And now...Mitochondrial Bottleneck!!!!!!!!

2006-01-10T15:20:00.000-08:00

Because Mia is studying to be a doctor (I paid my first medical school bill the other day and I have to say that I didn't really feel any pain...very good investment there), I have been reading her textbooks for fun and I realized that medical textbooks are an incredible fount of totally dope band names. My theory is this: take any two words that appear in any medical textbook, excluding the articles of speech, and you will have a rock and roll band name right there. Sometimes you can use many words and still be within the realm of the altogether sweet.

Examples and the genre they would fit most closely:
Lymosomal Inclusions - emo for sure
The Ragged Red Fibers - hippie music would suit the fibers
Familial Cancers - this would fit an east coast punk band
Phenotype Rescue - I think techno/trance....but if you include the entire line of text on page 94 -
Phenotype Rescue of Mutant Defective Protein - then you get metal hardcore
Autosomal Dominance - German industrial
Wai-Yee Chan - (well...this is the name of one of the authors but it still rocks)

So look for me under the lights, I'll be rocking out under the banner that reads Chromosomal Mosaicism.

My Soundtrack 2005

2006-01-06T05:45:00.000-08:00

MOL Junior told about his traddition of making a CD at the end of every year of the songs that were important to him that year. Being a person who, like him, finds music to be a very good way to bring back memories, I'm going to start doing this too because it sounds like a great idea. If this post's unoriginal roots bother you, please move along. Here's my year in musical review:

1. The Format - The first Single, a CD given to me by my sister's ex-boyfriend, this song rocks and the whole cd is a great mix of the emo I want and the riffs that I need.
2. Bob Schneider - God is my friend, I like the lyrics and the music. Also, I listened to this CD quite a bit while I was digging into the Blue Like Jazz & Company books, so I associate this music with a time in life that was full of fresh perspective.
3. Dashboard Confessional - Screaming Infidelities, This was the only CD that was in my house in Dallas on my last long visit there so I listened to it repeatedly in my mom's Toyota. This song is my favorite of the bunch, and the "your hair is everywhere, screaming infidelities" line also makes me think of my wife who has decorated our home with her sheddings (though they do not scream infidelities to me).
4. Robert Earl Keen - Furnace Fan, I got to see Robert Keen twice last year. I love his music and it makes me miss home. Best line in this song, "Uncle Joe he lives out there in Phoenix Arizona, he wears a cap that spells it out, 'I am Uncle Joe'".
5. Coldplay - Fix You, IMHO this is the best album of 2005 that I was exposed to enough to make that kind of judgement. I didn't really like coldplay before this year, and I think this song is great.
6. Matt King - Shantytown, I haven't ever heard anyone play an acoustic guitar like Matt King. He's sort of a cowboy with full body tattoo coverage and he plays the music I would play if I were talented enough to be a career musician...like punk bluegrass. This song goes very well with a bottle of Jack Daniels.
7. Jason Morant - Love Song, This is the old worship song "I love you lord" redone. I think a theme this year has been that I generally do not have any taste for canned worship music (live or recorded) but I love this song. Jason Morant has a great voice and, to me, it seems like he's so far avoided the Nashville Christian music disease.
8. Red House Painters - Have you forgotten, find it on the Vanilla Sky soundtrack, this song is great. I need to get out there and hear the rest of their stuff, but this song is in the raw category and I really dig it.
9. Waterdeep - 18 Bullet Holes, I posted about this band recently and I can't get enough. This song is very representative of the qualities I praised in my waterdeep post, and it has some words that choke me up and make me think of a friend.
10. Wyclef Jean - Rwanda, Hard to find song not on the Hotel Rwanda soundtrack but I listened to it a whole bunch last spring. Is Wyclef really concerned about the Rwandan plight? I don't know, but I did go through an anti-genocide activist phase where Rwanda and, more importantly at the moment, Darfur, were on my mind. This song popped up on the playlist regularly during that time. I would love to talk to you about what is going on in Africa right now if you'd listen to me.
11. Third Eye Blind - Faster, this song comes from one of my favorite bands of all time and reminds me of a sort of frustrating part of 2005. The song is about frustration and I think that Mr. Jenkins does a great job capturing that with sounds. I don't know why it is that when I'm going through frustration I listen to music about frustration and when I'm dealing with anger I turn on the Pantera, but it has been true of me in the past.
12. Elis Regina - Aguas de Marco, This is a Brazillian singer and a cool song. I listened to it often while trying to learn Portuguese, which were my favorite classes during my time at Princeton. Being a Senior in a class full of freshmen (b/c it was a beginner language course) was so much fun. My wife also likes this song and does not speak Portuguese and I love to hear her singing along with it using creative lyrics.
13. U2 - Van Damien's Land, Alistair Lesnops Sponsel reminded me of this song last year while we were travelling the country racing bicycles and I got onto a U2 kick for a few weeks.
14. Wideawake - Stay, the single off of this band's third album is catchy and I really like them. I went to quite a few shows in Austin last year and my wife and I heard them play this just hours before we got engaged, so it's full of good memories. I also got to chat up the guitarist Eddie who seems like a really nice guy. Yes, it is pop music plain and simple, but I can get behind it.
15. Five for Fighting - NYC Weather Report, my most vivid memory of this song is listening to it a few times at Dartmouth while it is 35 degrees and pouring outside and I knew that I was going to have to get out of the van and race in the awfulness of the New Hampshire weather.
16. Paolo Conti - Wonderful, this catchy little track is a must-download and you should listen to it when you're cooking. It's in Itallian so I'm not sure what it's about. Good luck my baby.
17. Enrique Iglesias - Escapar, I was riding to Conti's for a pizza with four dudes and we had been listening to escapar for about 15 minutes on repeat. When I asked John if he had anything else, he said, "yeah...I've got something you'll like". Then he played escapar. Ever since Enrique has provided the soundtrack to our semi-regular reunions at Conti's.
18. Pearl Jam - Nothingman, I just love the song. I wasn't a fan until going to see the PJ show when it came to Dallas in the summer of 2004, but now I am and it wasn't until 2005 that I found this jewel.

Bonus! I went back and did a 2004 CD. You only get the titles and artists though:

1. Modest Mouse - Satin in a Coffin
2. Rentals - Getting By
3. Bethany Dillon - Revolutionaries
4. Switchfoot - Meant to live
5. Owen Temple - Dry Creek
6. Jason Upton - First Language
7. Mana - Mis ojos no han parado de llover
8. Modest Mouse - The View
9. Reckless Kelly - Nobody's girl
10. Bruce Hornsby - Changes
11. Dave Matthews - The Christmas Song
12. Rich Mullins - The color green
13. Lyle Lovett - If I had a boat
14. Wideawake - Just want to be with you
15. Damien Rice - Cannonball
16. Less than Jake - The Science of Selling Yourself Short
17. Gotan Project - Vuelvo al Sur
18. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Road Trippin'

Bonus Bonus! High school soundtrack...best I can remember:

1. Third Eye Blind - God of Wine
2. Steven Manuel - What is love like
3. Nirvana - Man Who sold the World
4. Homegrown - Face in the Crowd
5. NIN - Terrible Lie
6. Sponge - Rotting Pinata
7. Red Hot Chili Peppers - My Friends
8. Stabbing Westward - Save Yourself
9. Bouncing Souls - Ole
10. Marcys Playground - Sex and Candy
11. The Offspring - I Choose
12. Sublime - Waiting on my Ruca
13. Our Lady Peace - Superman's Dead
14. Fuel - Shimmer
15. Blink 182 - M&M's
16. Vertical Horizon - Grey Sky Morning
17. Nelly - Country Grammar (what? I didn't spend all my summer savings on subwoofers so that I could listen to Kurt Cobain did I?)
18. Jagged Edge - Where the party at?
19. Stevie Ray Vaughn - Little Sister
20. Kenny Wayne Shepherd - While we cry

Go Princeton!

2006-01-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

I'm glad that the Longhorns pulled it off last night because I hadn't much loyalty to either team and the dudes in white are from Austin, which I can support, but let me say that this man almost swayed my allegiance at the game's onset:

Matthew McConaughey, you are a loser.
When compared to the pre-game thespian brillance shown by this man:

...well, there is no comparison. So Longhorns, take a hint and abandon the frat boy mascot. Personally, I would have liked to see UT alum Kay Bailey Hutchinson doing comic battle with Ferrell in the pre-game.

Adolescent Bat Out of Hell

2006-01-05T06:01:00.000-08:00

My brother in law told me the story, last night, of his most awkward moment ever on the dance floor. It happened in middle school, a time when Judd was a pioneering sort and mustered the courage to ask "a girl...I don't really have any idea who it was" to dance. Surrounded by his midwestern friends who did not defy the stereotype about white men and dancing, Judd took young nameless lady and began to sway, straight-armed and at an appropriate distance, to the music.

Then, to Judd's horror, he recognized the song that he had chosen for this forray. 'Twas "I would do anything for love", by Meatloaf. The funniest thing I have heard in a long time was his memory of how this song starts out slow and easy and gradually accelerates into an awkward medium-paced thing before breaking into all out power ballad (at which point Judd says "we both looked away and sort of moved apart and then left the dancefloor in opposite directions without speaking"). Then he tried to show me what the medium paced dance looked like, but he was sitting in an old butterfly chair so he couldn't really move. Thanks Mr. Loaf for the memories.

Cherrydale Sweet Cherrydale

2006-01-03T12:48:00.000-08:00

Here are pictures of where I live...I wish I had the before shots but I've done lots of work so just trust me on this. The best two wouldn't load so they'll be forthcoming.

Lua de Mel

2006-01-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

Here is some pictures from my honeymoon. This is the "what we did and saw" post. My newlywed thoughts on being married will follow eventually.

Here you see the hammock that was hung in our balcony, ideally located for watching the sun set over the gulf and for drinking our "welcome to your honeymoon" champagne. Most days saw at least some hammock time and I think you could have fit 12 people into this thing, it was big.

This is a window in our place where you can see the nice view that we had.

And this is a good image for my first Christmas with Mia. So funny this little light up nativity scene. Amelia was moved to join the magi.

Right here is a very classic beach photo from the resort. Like I said before, we hung out there most of our time. The swimming wasn't so great but it was a nice place to sit and get sunburned, and they bring you all the drinks you can drink without asking you to pay them! Nice!

Here is our last dinner on the honeymoon. You'll notice that our baked alaskan dessert has "Happy Honey Moon" written in chocolate. This dinner was on the beach and we were treated well since we were honeymooning. You can bet I got lucky just moments after this photo was taken.

Music Review 2 and Final

2005-12-30T07:15:00.000-08:00

NOBODY is at work this week so I'm having the time to play around a bit and I was at the waterdeep website to read some of their poems and I found that you can download their albums for 7.50 and they keep them online for you so if you want, you can listen to them and put them on any computer that you want once you buy them. I bought the Don Chaffer new CD and the Lori Chaffer new CD and I can't say that they are anything less than great. Here's why. I told my wife that I love these folks because I can hear, occasionally, that they possess more technical skills than they choose to employ in most of the music they make. I think that both of these folks could make really "good" standard sounding music. But,they're not making songs that sound as pretty as possible, they're using their voices to sing the song that they've got - sometimes it is a beautiful one and sometimes it is almost abrasive (vocally and/or lyrically). I first knew about this band when I went to see them live and I walked out the door because I thought they sucked. Now, seven years later, I am a gigantic fan and their songs often make me cry. Gracias, Lori and Don, for not sounding like a CCM Christian industry canned overprocessed and overproducded cliche package. I like the raw sound and I would gladly hand this music to people who think about life very differently than I do, and I think they'd like it. So if that's you, I hand you http://www.waterdeep.com, with free sample clips.

Speaking in tongues

2005-12-29T07:26:00.000-08:00

I know I owe you a wedding/honeymoon post but I'm not motivated in that direction today so I'm putting up a morsel of music wisdom instead, and know that the other post will come sometime this weekend.

I love Audioslave. It is the guys from Rage Against the Machine (of which Tom Morello is the driving force) and Chris Cornell, ex-singer for the alt-metal group Soundgarden. I loved Soundgarden, but Kim Thayill played the guitars for that band and he was scary:

So Soundgarden split up peacefully and Rage did some self-examining and realized that Zach de la Rocha was very angry about nothing at all so they kicked him to the curb and Cornell joined his very unique voice to Morello's innovation (the guy is a Harvard alum...very genious in spite of this). Their first album was good but Out of Exile, the new disc, is SO much better. They seem to have realized what they are capable of and come into their own in this sophomore attempt. Now, being a megaband, this is hardly a "find", but I don't think many of you listen to them and I think lots of you who usually are afraid of distorted guitars would like the stuff, so give it a whirl. Start with the tune "Doesn't Remind Me", it's got it all. Morello actually plays the guitar solos instead of what he did in Rage (scratching on strings and stuff...innovative? maybe, but not so fun after the first time). And Cornell has the best voice ever for a rock/metal lead singer. I know it's bold, but I've studied the masters and I'm willing to back that statement.

wrythe

2005-12-28T12:38:00.000-08:00

So, I'm married now. I extended the wrong hand for Amelia to ring during the ceremony, but it was otherwise without a hitch.

We had a honeymoon (pictures will be coming) and it was good. Due to the mixed company nature of the blog, I'm going to have to provide you some of the details in person, but it was nice. We went to Playa del Carmen and hung out on the beach for a while. I vote yes for the all-inclusive resort as a good honeymoon option. In most other situations I vote no for the all inclusive resort (or resorts in general), but this time it hit the spot nicely. We went on a snorkeling trip for a half day and we spent one day in the city of Playa del Carmen. Otherwise we didn't really leave the hotel - I'm not being scandelous either (though we probably enjoyed whatever it is that you thought I was alluding to). There was just just no need to leave the place for entertaining ourselves - 8 restaurants, 12 bars, 24 hour room service, ping pong, pool, 7 swimming pools, spa facility, beach volleyball, bicycles, tennis, hammocks in every room, daily towel animal creations, free range iguanas and much more. I'll give you the real update when I have some pics to post.

On the last morning, we ordered room service and we heard him coming up the stairs and then we heard his entire tray fall down the stairs to the first floor (from the third) in a massive breaking dishes crash. It was TOTALLY worth the extra time because it was such an awesome smash up. Nothing like when a plate gets dropped in applebee's.

What a random thing to put at the end of this post?