Funniest Brain Fart Ever

Today I was talking to somebody about an Alabama Supreme Court case and I inadvertantly referred to the former Chief Justice as Rudy Ray Moore. I immediately corrected myself (its Roy Moore) but it sent me into a whirlwind of giggles at the idea of it. Herewith, some Rudy Ray Moore:

Black Hole for Your Soul

I hate Burning Man so much that I usually don't even write about it. But a guy committed suicide by hanging this week at Burning Man this week, and revelers below him didn't tell officials for two hours because they assumed that it was an art piece. That festival is such a complete vaccuum of humanity.

I realize that I am sounding more conservative with each post but the squandary* of energy and morality that is pwogwessive politics and culture these days irritates me beyond explanation.

Speaking of "Art", there's a group of artists who have a web project "which aims to buy Google with funds generated via Adsense." Now THAT'S Art.

*I made up this word.

What Else Can You Do?

I cannot imagine the frustration of being a bureaucrat in Berkeley. It is a town where protests are their own form of bureaucracy, something to be endured to obtain the public benefit of "enjoying" (if you can call it that) Berkeley.

Because of Berkeley protesters, I find myself hating causes with which I am otherwise sympathetic. For example, oak groves. I love them. They are great. Good for the environment, good for the children. Only jerks would want to raze them (grrrr) to build a sports stadium. Sports: BOOOOOOO!!!

But then a bunch of people decide to live in them, and enlist droves of other idiots to bring them food and water and High Times magazine, in order to stop the inevitable construction of said sports complex (the old one being probably seismically a fucking mess - which is another thing I hate: earthquakes).

In preparation for The Big Cal Game this weekend, university officials erected a fence around the tree sitters and are prohibiting access by the water-bearing minions. That's an 8-foot chain link fence. You might think that's overkill, but here's what the university is dealing with:

Ground crews supporting the tree sitters alternatively yelled at workers and peacefully strummed guitars as the crew worked.

Asked if the university's action amounts to a move to starve out the tree sitters, Assistant Chief Mitch Celaya — who was spray painted on his neck in the fray — said people can draw their own conclusions.

If I got spray-painted on the neck by a hippie harassing the hardhats and strumming a guitar, I would do more than erect a fence. But of course, Berkeley tried that 30 years ago and all it bought them was more of the same.

Anyway, if you are irate because I have sold out or something, consider this:

"We believe the protesters in the trees are sincere, but misguided," university spokesman Dan Mogulof said. "This is not an ancient grove. All but three of these trees are here because of a 1923 university landscaping project."

The Enduring Popularity of the Plastic Sweatsuit

I hit the gym this a.m. Mmm, invigorating. But if you'll indulge me a little rooney* here, what is up with people still wearing plastic garbage bag-style workout clothes? Wasn't this method of weight loss discredited in 1981? It conjures up such a gross scenario if you dwell for even one second on what is going on inside the bag.

Alright, enough.

* "rooney" = observational humor in the manner of Andy (not Asian stereotyping in the manner of Mickey)

Another Movie Review

M notes in a comment below that I would have known that drug dealers have submarines if I had watched the Miami Vice movie last year. Coincidentally, we watched it this weekend, and it was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I am not sure that I would have deduced that drug dealers have submarines, because that movie was the most opaque and boring piece of crap ever made.

When it came out, I remember reading that the budget of the movie exceeded the Miami Police Department budget by an outrageous amount. So. Stupid.

Don't forget the survey.

Don't Forget

the survey.

Stuff I Didn't Know

Drug cartels have submarines. Which suggests that street level busts ("rip and runs" in the parlance of The Wire) are probably not going to fix the problem of drugs.

Another thing I don't know: What you call the old cable boxes where you slid a thing along the numbers to change to channel. Here's why I was trying to figure that out yesterday.

In a comment to my post about Leona Helmsley, my sister said that she may have thought I was the Queen of Mean, but she could not remember if she said it out loud. Here's why she thought I was so mean:

I'm thinking of the hours I spent watching TV sitting next to it so I could
change the channel for you. Who needed a remote when you had a little sister?

In my own defense, we didn't have a remote. We had the aforementioned box (at least while we lived at my grandparents), and if we got caught watching MTV, or even the video show on Nickelodeon, we would get in trouble. So someone had to sit under the TV ready to change the channel in case my grandfather came in. At the time, it seemed obvious who that "someone" "had to" be.

Another Wicked Talented Cuz

I've already blogged about lovely and brilliant cousin Kate. Now you need to meet her also lovely and also brilliant sister Zoe. Zoe is the female in this duet, and, I believe, the choreographer.



She's very awesome to watch. Catch her before its $5463 to get a ticket to her shows. (I hear that's the going rate for dance performances these days).

NFL Players and Pigeon Poop

Whew, I have a lot to say today.

First of all, I read this article which sent me a mini-bender, so much so that I sent a letter to Howard Bryant, the columnist. Here's what I said:

Mr. Bryant: A friend forwarded your column to me today, wondering what I thought. I am an attorney representing unions, but not the NFL Players Association. Here’s what I said:

He’s wrong:

“The responsibility of a union is to defend its membership -- every time, all the time, if for no other reasons than to send a dissenting vote to management that its membership always will be protected by a strong union and to alert the commissioner that his powers always will be checked by an advocate for the players. The union's message should be that a commissioner cannot simply do whatever he wants.”

The union represents all of its members, not just individuals. Without a union, a worker, including a football player, is an at-will employee. With a union, a worker is not guaranteed absolute job security. The restriction on the employer is that disciplinary action will be taken “for just cause” and not out of favoritism, personal animosity or discriminatorily. But “just cause” has some meaning, and in the context of the NFL, the employer may have decided that Vick’s actions are so abhorrent that they warrant termination for just cause. Criminal behavior certainly hits that mark. The decision then rests with the union whether to grieve that disciplinary action or not. The union’s duty is a duty of fair representation, which means that their decision cannot be arbitrary, discriminatory or in bad faith. This is a low standard that gives a union a great deal of discretion about which issues they wish to pursue on behalf of their members as a whole. Clearly the union can agree not fight a losing battle, in the interest of protecting a good and open relationship with an employer (which is in fact a goal of mature labor relations) and in the interest of protecting their other members. NFL players have a lot of impunity, rarely being called to task for their criminal conduct, but that could change, in the media, in culture on a hot dime. By staking a position that there is some behavior which is too terrible to protect, the union softens the blow for other players who are under scrutiny for “lesser” offenses (putting aside how many of these “lesser” offenses involve domestic violence), and lets the union defend them without a public outcry.

Not exactly Mencken, I know. Maybe I will put this over at The Union Lawyer so no one will have to read it.

In other news, pigeon shit may be a contributing factor in the Minneapolis bridge collapse. There is SO MUCH to worry about in this world.

Navel-Gazing 2.0

Sorry that I have been acting like I just discovered the internets with all my dumb and slightly annoying links. Before you stop reading, can you take my survey?

Please take my Blog Reader Project survey.

Thanks. I will keep posting a link to it for as long as I can stand not having the survey results. Like say two days.

Supercrack

This is brilliant. The Red Cross has a new ad campaign to raise awareness about earthquake preparedness, because 83% of Bay Area residents have no plan and no supplies in case of The Big One.

Earthquake preparedness nags at me. Its the thing I worry about after I have exhausted the following topics: L's obsession with dinosaurs, the amount of sleep/fresh fruit that Mr. Scobie doesn't get/eat, my work, my grandmother, my student loans (not necessarily in that order).

Anyway, the other day I was going to order some extra food and water because I was having the groceries delivered, and I figured it would save me a lot of hassle. And then I just forgot to do it. But I also thought: well, we have some cans of soup, I don't really need to get food. How dumb is that? We have possibly two cans of soup. We have lots of breakfast bars too. That's basically it. Neither flashlight has good batteries, and the embarrassment of batteries in the fridge aren't the right size for the flashlights. Meeting plan? Not there yet.

So I will move earthquake worrying to higher on the list. What meager supplies have you laid in, or what other self-justification have you indulged in?

UPDATE: In an attempt to make some use of my utter procrastination, I did a bit of on-line shopping for our earthquake preparedness kit. Ten gallons of water, cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli, Ramen, peanut butter, canned fruit cocktail, Jolly Ranchers. If it weren't for the canned peas and condensed milk, I would be psyched for the earthquake, just so I could eat all that gross stuff.

Don't Call It A Comeback

Don't forget to check in on Ryan.

Also, I am making a half-hearted stab to keep The Union Lawyer current-ish again. This urge may pass once I get something interesting to do.

And speaking of current-ish, Executive Orc House has some excellent movie reviews today. Since I don't actually get to see new movies, I am glad to live vicariously.

Good Night, Your Majesty

With Tammy Fay Bakker and Leona Helmsley dying within weeks of eachother, I strangely feel like my childhood is over.

Granted, my childhood has been over for a long time, but those two were my anti-role models or something.

Sister who is reading this: Did you used to call me Leona Helmsley?

New World Order

FINALLY, someone has put all the pieces together. Jonathon Lee Riches has identified what must surely be a comprehensive list of all the Major Players in The New World Order. I can breathe a little easier knowing that Jessica Alba, Skittles Candy, Nobel Peace Prize, Ken Jennings, Planet of Pluto, POW-MIA, Gangs in Hong Kong, "VERN MINNI ME", Ming Dynasty, Wu Tang Clan, Nordic Gods, Medieval Times, Eglin Air Force Base, Elizabeth Smart, Meals on Wheels, Fruit of A-Loom, and Tsunami Victims* are finally being called to account for their crimes against humanity.

In less interesting news, but in keeping with my mass market children's sci-fi interest, I am reading the final Harry Potter book right now. I am about 500 pages in, and I have this to say: It sucks. It may be casting a pall over the whole series, which I have liked. This book is too long and yet Nothing happens. Most other books/series of this ilk involve A Journey or A Quest, and things move along at a decent pace. In this one, Our Heroes sit inside a tent decorated like a penthouse, and wait for the stuff they need to show up outside the door. Mostly they argue or make really bad decisions. Its derivative of good books (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Chronicles of Narnia) and unique in how much irritating bickering and brooding there is. I suspect Ron Weasley will be the ultimate hero of this one, because he, at least, leaves rather than navel-gazes, and then has actual epiphanies and emotional growth.

Maybe it picks up in the last 60000 pages.

* I am not even sure that I picked the funniest ones.

Meet Leonidas the Gibbon

Or just kill some time. I am nerdy enough to be psyched for The Golden Compass movie (even though it stars, gag me, Nicole Kidman), so go ahead and see if you can change my Daemon for me.

Yes, I do work.

Buh-bye

When was the last time you saw a man-hug that was this awkward?

McKinley's Thumb

Our office has a case in Crescent City, CA next week with which we've all played a bit of Hot Potato/Not It/(juvenile avoidance game of your choice). My excuses for not doing this case have run the gamut from "I have a case in San Ho the next day" to "I'm still nursing". Those are legit excuses, except the San Ho thing got pushed back til October. So then I thought, When will I be at Pelican Bay again? Why not take the family?

Actually, I want to go to National Redwood Park and its surroundings, and I figure we could kill two birds with one long-ass drive north. So, I was researching things that my hubs would find interesting enough to buy this crazy idea, and lo! I learned that Arcata's statue of William McKinley is missing its thumb. Apparently, "pinheads" stole it. It was eventually recovered, with the mayor making this criticism:

I just think it was a stupid, selfish, unjustifiable act. It's public property. I don't care if you don't think it was art. Get drunk and pierce your nose, but leave McKinley's statue alone.

True THAT.

Props

A friend sent me this website. Apparently weight loss blogs are all the rage, but when you actually see a good one, it makes you want to run out and, well, run. Ryan is pretty inspiring.

And now, a couple of corrections:

To say that Fran Boyd spirals into drug addiction in The Corner is almost totally inaccurate, because Fran Boyd, at the beginning of the book and mini-series, is already deep in the throes of addiction. The spiralling is over and she's in the rabbit hole. ("Deep in the hole, in the hole, in the hole....").

Second, I understand that technically one cannot "quaff" a lobster. And yet I cannot think of a more descriptive term for when you basically inhale a pound-and-a-half insect's innards from its butt and arms.

Clumsy

In an attempt to do I don't recall what I accidentally flagged my own blog for objectionable content, so if I disappear from the World Wide Web then wander over to Smile Rockridge to find me. That's where I will be camping out, waiting for the Blogger Police to come find me.

Speaking of Po-leese, somehow I found the comsummate Wire website. It might get me through to Season 5.

And speaking of The Wire (come on, its been a few weeks), check up on the inspiration for Omar Little and a woman whose spiral into drug addiction is the basis of The Corner. Very sweet.

Home Again Home Again

We got home last night and while there's lots to tell, I am too tired to start with the anecdotes. The long ones, at least. Two shorties: At one point in the car, L requested The Smiths, which both warmed the cockles of my heart and chilled me to the bone, if I can mix metaphors. And between last Saturday and this past Thursday (6 days), I had lobster five times. Mmm good. I took lots of photos, too.

Here's L driving a boat. (Good idea?)




Q relishing his birthday celebration (or at least the card):



And the quaffing of the final lobster (I didn't eat them all) at MIL's birthday dinner: