Stop! Monkey time. June's monkey: "Tell us about the monkeys on your back....those tasks or chores or one of these days items on your 'to do' list that you can never quite get to even though you feel like it's holding you back."
That's easy. Get my ass to the doctor for a check-up. It's been way too long. The last time I went, though, I had a lousy experience. The doctor looked at me for about ten minutes, then said "You need to lose fifty pounds." Now, not that I don't need to lose fifty pounds, but it was the way he said it. I felt like I had gone up to someone on the street and asked "Excuse me, do you have any suggestions on how I can improve my health and well-being?" He was totally flip, and seemingly put no thought or prior training into it at all. So I am reluctant to go back to the doctor when all they're probably going to do is tell me I'm fat again.
The corollary, of course, is lose some weight, you goddamned walrus. Lately the option has been work out, or see my family. Guess who wins? The upcoming move will cut my commute drastically, and give me back about 45 minutes a day that I've been spending in the car. Hopefully I can make some of that into workout time. And get a treadmill or somethin' to use in the basement of the new house.
There's smaller things that I've been meaning to do forever. Bang out a Christmas card mailing list database in Access. Sell a bunch of crap on eBay. Iron the brown tweedy pants that are all wrinkled an' shit. Someday it will all get done.
Check out this rumor from Kos on Dean as potential Veep nominee.
I like it, as you might expect. We need a little more energy in there. I disagree, however, with Kos' reservations related to Dean's "obvious presidential ambitions." Everything that I've read after Dean left the race said that he didn't want to be President, so much as he felt the country needed him, that he was called to it by his supporters. That's an important distinction--maybe if he were Veep through 2012, new contenders would emerge and Dean would be quite content to retire back to Vermont. Of course, the Republicans might still see it differently, but it's not like they're only going to try extra-hard to defeat Kerry only if Dean's on the ticket.
...someone putting "nospam@atlas-pharmacy.com" as their e-mail address while posting prescription drug ads in the comments.
Last night I read all three parts of a tale by an Italian pizza chef, recruited to teach a "class" in pizza-making in North Korea. Fascinating stuff.
Things you should read. Actually, things fence-sitters and Republicans who really ought to know better should read; since you're already here, you might get a kick out of them, but they're preaching to the choir.
Via Jeem, David Sirota reports on five Congressional votes that should have gotten more play in the press, but didn't. Similarly, the Slacktivist (who I should probably blogroll one of these days; his work on the Left Behind series is priceless) has an item on how bank overdraft charges that completely rip off the poor are A-OK with the Fed.
I think Ronald Reagan may have died this week. Not sure. Seriously, I haven't commented because I wasn't and am not a fan. I have no doubt that many, if not most, of the tributes and eulogies this week are sincere and heartfelt. I also believe that many of them are political grandstanding and propaganda. Why is Reagan considered such a popular President? Because the press tells us so, over and over and over, to the point that it's self-perpetuating. Atrios has a quick rundown of things people keep saying Reagan did, but he didn't. And Billmon points out that efforts to compare Bush to Reagan may backfire. It's like those Cadillac commercials--putting your new, inferior product next to your older, vastly superior product may not be such a good strategy.
Everybody's watched The Daily Show's take on Ashcroft's testimony, right? Oh snap!
There was a flap recently in which some Republican pundits went nuts over George Soros and his money supporting Democrats. Now see here, bitches: if you and your ilk are going to sit there and say "If Democrats take money from this guy, they're responsible for every single crazy thing he believes," I have two words for you: Reverend Moon. They gave this guy a freakin' crown. How come that didn't run on Fox News?
And on a lighter note, if you have the bandwidth, go watch some cool music videos. Boy, you remember when MTV actually played videos? Now MTV hardly ever plays videos anymore! Ha ha! How about that!
I am the proud owner of what is apparently the most famous picture of a taco in the world. Seems like every day, some message board or LiveJournal user has a discussion of tacos, and sooner or later, there's my picture. I don't generally mind; I don't generally come close to my monthly bandwidth limits, so whatever makes people happy. (I did have to hassle the guy who used it as the background on his LJ page. That's taking it too far.)
But this one beats all. In the comments to this Atrios post, the infamous w00t posts "GIANT FUCKING TACO!" with a link to my picture.
273 hits yesterday, from an Atrios comment thread. The closest I've come to an actual link from the Big Kahuna of lefty bloggers.
Welcome, taco heads. Please have a look at the rest of the site while you're here.
Brooklyn Cheese Artist Makes Bed of Ham.
I am sad that there's no picture with this story. And just try telling me this would have worked with, say, smoked turkey.
UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive (thanks Tor).
I was sort of hoping to avoid hearing who won the World Series of Poker, so that when ESPN is done editing their footage and runs it, there will still be some amount of drama. Alas, it was not to be; poker news is everywhere these days, it seems.
I am a little miffed at this Slate article bemoaning the fact that, with 2500+ entrants this year, inevitably some doofuses you've never heard of ended up at the final table, and not the big stars of the game. To me, that's like being a hockey fan but saying you won't watch the Stanley Cup finals because the participants aren't marquee teams. Look, to win the WSOP or any other big tournament, you have to be good and lucky.
I haven't seen the footage, but I guarantee you that no one at the final table got there purely by luck, by playing 5-3 offsuit and flopping a straight or full house every hand. That's just the nature of the game.
Apparently there's talk of having next year's WSOP be even larger, six thousand players, and holding opening days at multiple sites. Ye gods. Someday, I will be there.
Heard today on the Belmont Stakes broadcast: "Smarty Jones is trying to become the twelfth horse to win the Visa Triple Crown."
No, he's trying to become the first horse to win the VISA Triple Crown. The twelfth to win the Triple Crown, sure, but Secretariat wasn't down with no Visa crap.
Poor Smarty Jones was doomed the moment the city of Philadelphia embraced him.
Bush says he was never mad at the French.
And he acts like he has little to no idea who Ahmed Chalabi is.
This crap is on the record. The press doesn't call him on it.
Yet Kerry's a flip-flopper. And Gore said something once that got twisted into "I invented the Internet," and therefore he was unfit to be President.
Argh.
We're having a primary Tuesday, to pick the Democratic candidate for Congress in the 8th District, Arlington-Alexandria-Falls Church etc. Long-time incumbent Jim Moran is, well, a long-time incumbent with a lot of connections, but also a record of saying some dopey things. His opponent, Andrew Rosenberg, is running on a campaign of "time for new leadership," and I like that to a point. However, anyone who's anyone in NoVa has endoresed Moran, and Moran's campaign has pointed out that Rosenberg voted in the Republican primary a few years ago. I haven't heard any explanation of that from Rosenberg's campaign--we have open primaries here in Virginia, so maybe he was just trying to mess with the GOP's minds. And I wasn't home when Rosenberg canvassed our neighborhood a few weeks ago, so I couldn't ask him myself.
Now Moran is accused of another anti-Semetic remark. But I'm not buying it without more details. The accuser, a former Moran campagin strategist, won't elaborate on the remark itself. Given that to some people think "Israel did something bad" is anti-Semetic (news flash: Israel is a country, not a religion), I just can't accept "Moran said an anti-semetic thing, but I can't tell you what it is, or tell you why I won't tell" as an automatic disqualifier.
Bottom line: I don't know who to vote for Tuesday. But in two weeks I'm moving to Tom Davis' district anyway, and he's a jackass.
It's the end of the week. Here's some STUFF.
Jeanne has a good post on what she thinks of Let America Be America Again. I still believe in what America has been and what it could be, but too many of us just take "America is the Greatest" as absolute truth, regardless of our actions. Respect must be earned and maintained, just like freedom.
In yet another commencement speech, Theodore Sorensen echoes the same sentiments.
And to end on an extremely disgusting note, is it soy sauce--or HAIR SAUCE? Eww eww ewwwwww.
So, you look out the window of your study and SecDef Donald Rumsfeld is hanging out drinking in your backyard. Walk into your living room, look out the window, and there is Senator Bill Frist, putting them down in your front yard.
Not many people encounter this problem in life, but somehow I managed to do it. Really. This past weekend saw Rummy's 50th college reunion, and Frist's 30th. I happen to live in the faculty apartment which is situated between the two quads where the '54s and '74s were partying it up for three days. My wife and I could wander into the two areas with impunity because of where we lived. So here's the question. Would you take advantage of this in order to give Rummy a piece of your mind, or should he be free to enjoy his 50th college reunion for a bit? I know he only ended up staying one night, and something tells me he wasn't crashing in the residence halls like many of his classmates. So what do you do? Make a poster? Rent a megaphone? Walk up to him and offer him a gin and tonic?
Scott: Yeah, I've lost 20 pounds.
Carl: How old is your kid now?
Scott: Two and a half.
Carl: OK, so I have a year and a half before I can have my life sufficiently in order to think about losing weight.
Ginger: What, now the guys are using the baby's age to judge their weight loss? What the hell! You co-opt everything good from us.
Carl: You bet. Next we're going to start going to Curves.
Kristin: And what are they going to call Curves for men?
Carl: "Rolls."
The LA Dodgers are thinking about adding a mascot.
Now, I'm a big a mascot fan as the next guy--in fact, probably a much bigger one. But I do like the fact that some teams don't need a mascot, because the game and their tradition carry the event on their own. The Dodgers are one such team.
But if they do get one, it had better be a big blue furry thing.
May's Monkey is late. Damn you, Blork. Damn you.
Anyway, this month's item is: When we are not ourselves: describe a time when you were "out of character."
I'm going to answer this a little differently than was probably intended. Rather than a situation where I had to pretend to be someone I'm not (I was having trouble thinking of an example), instead it's one where I was noticeably different from everyone else, without my "knapsack of privilege" as they say.
Some years ago, I was really into soccer. I went to nearly every DC United game, jumped up and down with the Screaming Eagles, and played with some of those same Screagles on the weekends. Soccer is ever growing in popularity in the US, but to see certain marquee events, soccer fans must still go to great lengths at times. On one such occasion, the US national team was playing a friendly in Bolivia. Two of United's best players were Bolivian, and two of my best friends from the fan club and our team were Bolivian, so we really wanted to see this game. It wasn't going to be anywhere near American TV, however; it was only being broadcast on some relatively obscure satellite channel. Jorge said he knew of a Bolivian grocery store and restaurant in Maryland that was showing it, so off we went.
They had cleared out the back half of the store (which served as the low-key restaurant) and had a few small TVs on top of the various beverage chillers. The space was probably twenty-five by twenty feet, and there were easily two hundred people packed in there; we violated every fire code in the book. There were, at most, three people working there. And it was wall-to-wall Bolivians. I was one of maybe three non-Spanish speaking people there. And unfortunately I ended up standing next to a fridge; people kept demanding that I get them beers and Inca Kolas, when I had no idea who they were going to pay for them.
At one point, a group on one side of the room wanted one of the TVs pushed to a better angle. A guy climbed up on top of the row of fridges and started pushing the TV. Suddenly everyone in the room points at me and starts shouting in Spanish. Turns out there was a tray of dishes on the fridge that he was about to knock on my head, but all I know is that two hundred people are pointing at me and hollering in a foreign language. It was all I could do to not go "AAAHH! AAAAAAAAAHHH! STOP IT!" and force my way out.
A valuable lesson: immigrants, and to a fair extent people of color of any sort, probably feel this way at some time or other every freakin' day.
Why didst thou come to bigfool.com? As always, the searcher's satisfaction is guaranteed or no money back!
Flute tabs for "moonlight shadow"
bubble gum blowing clips
steve balboni picture
pie graphs showing germany's imports and exports
mutant poetry
download basketball jones
topless waffle house in las vegas
i am the muffin man
what the freakin heck time is it in New Mexico at this minute
email address and guest book of pot making company in ARUBA
plexiglass dome
who the hell drank all my beer
