no, sony jim, this here is a bar

behold, the rare saturday morning blog post.  note the variant plumage...

 

our dvd player is fucked up.  no bother, we've got a playstation 2 that serves as a dvd player.  the playstation, however, has a child lock (hint: if you hit (x) five times in a row, you've figured out my code) which gives a level rating to each film you might attempt to watch.  it doesn't do this with video games, which i find a little odd, as modern video games are among the most disturbingly violent things i've ever seen (not that i'm complaining, just pointing out the fact).  anyway, out of nine, last night we put in "domino," which warrants a six.  it begins with "adult language" and a severed arm (we didn't get any farther than that, as siouxs! can't watch such graphic things around dinner time).  "can't buy me love" (i think, my eighties movie knowledge is lacking) which was rated pg-13 was an 8.  to the best of my recollection, there were no severed arms in "can't buy me love," not even so much as a finger.  there couldn't have been too much foul language, because pg-13 movies are only allowed one "fuck" per flick.  what evil, greater than maiming, shooting, and swearing gives this movie its high parental control level?  drinking.  drinking to the good people at sony, is worse than violence.  drinking may not be for everyone, sure, but chopping off people's arms is not for anyone.  booze is made to have a good time (though some people overuse the good time).  big fucking guns are made to put large holes in people (though some people never put big fucking holes in people).  which do you rate as more corrupting to our children?

 

fuck madd and the neo-prohibition movement, you killjoy bastards.

paradise city

this second post may prove to be a disappointment, as i've spent some of my writing juices on the re-instated company newsletter.

 

i've been listening to all the old 80's metal all afternoon, and man, is my neck sore.

 

so the dubai port management deal seems to have fallen through, but aren't the people who were trying so hard to push it through (ie darth and dubya) considered to be pretty good at shady business dealings (or at least wont to engage in them)?  and if not them, shouldn't someone they know be able to make the deal work through puppet companies and shadow corporations, and possibly some kind of shadow-puppet sorcery?

 

it's about seventy degrees out in st. louis, so i'll be getting outside now.

 

fuck bush.

quick updates

bootsy update: i'm not giving exact numbers so as not to influence the bootsygame, but we've got a big one on our hands, people. long-tall, like his/her old man. we're getting really close now. i'm sure i'll post pictures like a stupid new dad as soon as i can.

dubya's approval rating continues to drop... can we say impeachment? open revolt? ok, scratch that last. i don't need any more surveillance.

my home state is the latest in the fight against women (new south dakota state motto: back to the kitchen, gash). (wow, i even offended myself.)

according to statcounter, yesterday, gthedamned had its 1500th hit. thanks, all four of you readers, for coming back again and again.

perhaps i'll post again later. for now, fuck bush.

pained

last night was an exercise in pain.  i went for my first real run in months, and my back did not like me afterwards at all.  following, we went to eat wings and salads.  i opted for the hottest available sauce.  the first one was pretty hot, but easily bearable.  the second one was tough, but that was the one that wore my tastebuds out, so it was a blessing in disguise.  i ate the remaining ten wings without incident (other than my nose pouring like a faucet), but this morning, my innards aren't all that fond of me, and my back still hurts.

 

dubya's in nawlins.  would that he could feel guilt at all.  if only he could respond with some kind of genuine emotion and not that stupid smirk he modifies to show "deep thoughts."  can he meet some of the multitudes whose lives he's ruined?  how about someone who lost their home in katrina and their child in iraq?  surely there's one.  may the weight of thousands of american dead sit in his black heart forevermore (and countless more iraqi dead, but we know he doesn't think of them as human beings).

 

fuck bush

more republikkkan chicanery

i hate bullies.  look at this or this.

 

liddy dole, you bitch.  the people of this country actually respected you.

 

fuck dole (man, it feels good to say that again!)

elephant memories

i'm continuing to shout at the top of my cyberlungs about the domestic spying issue.  goddamned television, we have such short attention spans in this country.  if a scandal doesn't involve sex, we can't talk about it for more than a week or two before 95% of americans are bored and change the channel.

 

don't forget, america, that your president feels that he can spy on you without legal authority.

 

don't forget, america, that your president told you we were going to war to stop "terrorist-linked iraq" and their "weapons of mass destruction"

later downgraded to "weapons of mass destruction related program activities," which is easliy enough words to diffuse any real meaning.  oh, and there are terrorists in iraq.  at least there are now.  perhaps that was a prediction, not a statement of fact.

 

don't forget, america, that your vice president shot a man in the face, and didn't even apologize for days.

 

don't forget, america, that none of these bastards commanding our army and sending your children to war has ever been in harm's way serving their country.

 

don't forget, america, that both your president and vice president are making quite a tidy profit off of their own policies (between defense and oil, it's a good time to be unshamefully weathy).

 

don't forget, america, that the current administration reversed a budget surplus, turning it into the biggest budget deficit in american history, dooming our children to near perpetual recession.

this is due to a tax cut by and for, who else, the obscenely wealthy while simultaneously causing military spending to skyrocket (i would say defense spending, but we've actually cut spending on most things that can be considered actual defense of the country).

 

don't forget, america, that seventeen of nineteen september 11th hijackers were from saudi arabia, our best authoritarian regime friend in the middle east

 

and the other two were from the u.a.e., to whom we're selling control of our ports because they're such good friends (to our filthy oil baron president).

 

don't forget, america, that you've been lied to since the 2000 campaign trail.

republikkkans don't like you.  you're not wealthy enough.

 

don't forget, america, that it is we the people who make this country strong (and fight its wars), not the rich elite.

 

fuck bush.

thus sayeth the lord

i saw a link to a "christian news-source." they call us "pro-aborts." i'm not sure that even makes sense.

an apology to the people of iraq

how civil can a war be, anyway?  the iraqi people are finding out the hard way right about now that the answer is "not goddamned very."  and guess who's to blame?  that's right, it's us.  i'll personally shoulder my share of the responsibility.  when bush stole the white house in 2000, i didn't fight tooth and nail to stop the machinations of evil.  i mean, i railed against him, but i didn't do enough.  in 2002, when congress determined that the government can do pretty much whatever it wants to do, i didn't raise nearly enough hell.  oh, i'd like to think that i swayed the opinions of at least a very few people with my liberal rants, but we were all (myself included) still too stunned by september 11th to fight so hard, and the threat of more terrorist attacks seemed to dull the outrage at being scrutinized at every turn and all but stripsearched at every airport (for some reason, though i'm pretty pale with a whitebread last name, i used to be stopped at every "extra security" check in the airport.  i think they have a problem with goatees.).

when "operation iraqi freedom" began, i was incensed, but i didn't protest every day, or even most days.  i went to a few peace rallies, but, i didn't do enough.  i can see that now.  when that asshole gave his "mission accomplished" speech, i foamed at the mouth, but not in the right locale.  for the past two plus years, i have spoken out in conversations and in cyberspace about how evil and wrong this war is, but to no avail, because it wasn't enough.  at this point, i wonder if an armed insurrection would be enough.  sure, dubya's approval numbers are rapidly approaching single digits, but even with him out, that doesn't take care of the full problem.  there's still cheney, rove, rice, rumsfeld, gonzales, mcclellan, alito, frist, delay, boehner, blunt, hastert, bill o'reilly, chris matthews, sean hannity, ann coulter, rush limbaugh, and any number of other cockroaches ready to eat the bodies of their dead and take their place spewing invective and fooling the american people into thinking that xenophobia, homophobia, and a basic inherent all-pervading fear are patriotism.

 

i'm sorry, iraq.  i tried, but not hard enough.  please join me, as i'm sure you do every day, in a resounding fuck bush.

throw out the baby bell with the bathwater

i was compared to grizzly adams this morning for what i call my "devil-redneck" facial hair look and as yet unshorn locks.  in short, i have a lot of hair right now.  as perhaps i've blogged before, in lieu of a religion, i tend to make up superstitions, and then follow them until they bore me.  this time, shortly before siouxs! learned she was pregnant, i decided i wasn't going to cut my hair until we had a baby.  the extra facial hair is a recent addition that won't be summarily removed when the baby is born.  it will last until siouxs! can't stand the moustache anymore, and then perhaps another two days while i pretend "it's my face, and i'll do what i want."

 

south dakota, you bastards.  well, it's a fight now, isn't it?  seven out of nine justices on the supreme court vote republikkkan, but not every republican is a republikkkan, so i guess we'll see if any of them have the integrity to stand on the precedent rather than bow and scrape to the "conservative base" (after all, though it's a lifetime appointment for them, it's an election year for lots of their buddies...).

 

at&t was forced to split into many smaller companies, one of which (sbc, formerly southwestern bell) is all groweds-up and now is buying the old at&t remnant and name, making it as big as it was before.  who would have thought that an industry once chided for its monopoly might regain it under the bush "fuck the little guy" administration?  i smell bad things for the little guy.

 

fuck bush.

non-golden shower

welcome back from the weekend, ladies and gentlemen.  siouxs! had her family-thrown baby shower yesterday, and we got a shit-ton of baby stuff, including infant sized cardinals gear.

we're at t-minus one month (roughly).  i'm still scared to death, though i'm also thrilled at the idea. 

i have way too many cases to unload today, so i'm cutting this short.  i'll try to post again later today.

fuck bush.

outsourcing: thinking bigger

ok, look.  i have nothing against india at all.  i like them, in fact.  however, i don't like the fact that they pursued and acquired nuclear weapons despite the world-wide non-proliferation treaty (i have the same beef with israel).  what i do want to know is what changed in our relations with india on this presidential visit.  let's see, they agreed to accept help with their non-military atomic energy programs, to change nothing at all about their nuclear weapons programs, and what else, exactly?

dubya also talked about india's role as a trade partner with the u.s., saying that some americans focus only on outsourcing.  my question to him isn't why are american companies (owned by billionaires) doing so much outsourcing, but rather, why aren't we doing more?  sure, tech support and manufacturing, those are the obvious jobs to send away, but what about upper management?  the average ceo in the states makes hundreds of times what the average employee makes... if we outsourced that job too, that could be merely a few grand!  think of the savings!

outsource our whole freakin' economy while you're at it.  eventually, you rich bastards will require enough servants to employ all of us who aren't in jail, right?

take me online to the ballgame

though it isn't regular season, baseball starts in twenty minutes.  today's first spring training game is against the mets, and i won't be able to do more than watch the score change online, because i'm not paying for a full season to hear one broadcast.  it's on xm, but i like my radio local.

 

so now there's video about the katrina response, and what do you want to bet the white house is going to spin bush's silence as something along the lines of "well, he wasn't actively causing problems to arise."

 

short post today.  i need to get ready for baseball.

 

fuck bush

rash wednesday

there are no catholics in my office, which is good, not because i don't like catholics, but because today is the day when i accidentally tell one of them "you've got some shit on your forehead" every year without fail. 

went to the downtown mardi gras parade last night, and was as usual disappointed in the float quality level, but had a good time nonetheless.  amazingly enough, i did not drink, though not from lack of desire.  it seems that the actual fat tuesday parade in the stl is the "family" version, with far less beer and boobs to enliven the festivities.  the kids are cute, but it's still just a six block parade.

i have and will always continue to be a skeptic about st louis's mardi gras.  since nawlins is something of an adopted home for me, i can't get over how uptight my current city of residence gets about everything.  the cops turn to complete dicks (not that there's that far for them to go), and the local businesses act as though the floods of fools are a burden rather than a revenue increase.  at least they lowered the fines for public urination this year...

 

why i can never run for public office (part one)

conservative opponent: the american people think that baby killing is wrong.

gthedamned for congress: duly noted, but what's their policy on me tearing your head off with my bare hands, drink the blood mixed with overproof rum from your head, and then vomit on your remains?  and a followup question, how's this evening look for you?

 

i just get too passionate about political things, but sometimes i really think i should run for something.  mind, i don't even know where i'd start.  my thought is, though, i'll lay my shit out there before they try to dig up too much dirt on me.  i drink.  i used to do drugs.  i'm something of a radical.  here's what i stand for, and if you don't like it, we can talk about it, but i may start screaming at you.  a kinder, gentler gthedamned, who looks to the future and hopes it doesn't have a bunch of neo-con assholes, otherwise, lock and load, it's revolution time.

laissez les bons temps goulet

translation: let the good times [robert] goulet

 

happy mardi gras.  we'll be attending the parade tonight, as it's going to be seventy fucking degrees in february, because there is no such thing as global warming.  (by the way, i do understand that global warming has nothing to do with individual day/location temperatures, but the average person doesn't, so i'll keep to the populist spirit with which this blog was founded.)

 

give me the motherfucking gun, trey.  or failing that, another phone call attempt.  just not tonight, because...

 

happy birthday, mom, who hopefully doesn't read this foul-mouthed blog

 

actually, it's not her real birthday, as she was born on leap year day, but, try not calling her this time of year for three years out of four, and see how she likes it (answer: not at all).

 

34% approval rating for baby dub, 18% for Darth Cheney... lets get those impeachment wheels a'turnin'!  can't anyone make a good effigy these days?  excuse me, a good american made effigy.  they're pretty good at it in all those countries that "hate freedom." 

 

speaking of hating freedom, when's the last time anyone heard anything about osama bin laden, huh?  i get the feeling we're going to see him on a vh1 "where are they now?" special before this administration gets around to catching that bastard.  i think they're using him as a potential political chip.  they have him located (within a four inch margin of error), and are going to break him out in 2008, right about the time the supreme court determines that the two term limit on the presidency is unconstitutional.

 

strike while the iron has low approval ratings, people!

fuck that remaining 34%/18%.

welcome to the lou, hurricane girl

skip and krobar, happy housewarming.  get back onto a normal sleep schedule before mardi gras.

on the topic of mardi gras, this year was the first in several that we didn't attend the festivities in soulard, and i really can't say i was disappointed.  while i do usually have fun when we go to "the country's second largest mardi gras celebration," i'm fairly certain that i would have a good time being drunk before noon any time of year, not just in the pre-lenten season.  i've been to nawlins' too many times to be all that impressed with soulard.  no offense, but midwesterners will never be able to throw that kind of bash, even if our cops weren't such tightasses about the whole thing.

i haven't posted anything about baseball yet, largely because it's not that kind of weblog, but for a little change of pace, here we go.  i am really looking forward to this year's baseball season.  my cardinals have been through a lot of turmoil through the offseason, but i feel the makings of a great year.  in fact, i see a good baseball year in general, for a lot of teams (and i see a few of them crashing and burning, like the overspending blue jays and the underspending marlins).  i am something of a recent convert to the redbird nation, having only paid them close attention for about three years, but baseball has long been my favorite sport to watch.  that said, i really didn't watch anything but the world series for several years.  that has changed, and now i watch as much baseball as i can without breaking down and getting cable (still holding strong ten years in!) and listen to the radio for those games i can't see.

go cards

fuck bush

a non-believer's prayer

still no word from those bastards on the supreme court (which is better than a regular court, because it's got pepperoni, sausage, green peppers, and mushrooms).

 

dear god i have trouble believing in, please give me the strength to push through these turbulent times we're living in.  if the rest of the country, nay, world is patient enough, those warmongering neo-cons are going to self destruct very soon.  i know it won't take away all of the problems that they will leave behind, but at least there's some chance they won't add to them too much.

in your infinite (and dubious to me personally) wisdom, i know you will be able to help the people of iraq out of a near certain civil war.  i know that you will watch over us (as much as a probably fictional entity can) to protect us from evildoers trying to ship weapons through our frighteningly under-prepared ports.  and someday, with your help and (purely hypothetical) guidance, we may see the light at the end of the tunnel.  my (doubting) prayer is that some time in the relatively near future, we can go back to arguing about big government vs little government or other saner (and safer) things to worry about, as opposed to arguing about whether gays should count as three-fifths of a person, and other such religion-beating folderol that does an excellent job of keeping the poor looking the other way while the rich fuck them (sorry about the language, but i assume you have bigger things to worry about).

and if it's not too much to ask, coming from a pretty serious agnostic, could you make sure siouxs! and bootsy are healthy while we're in the home stretch here?  i might just change my tune on the whole "is there a you" question once bootsy is born and we need some help.

thanks for reading my blog, and i guess the reason you don't show up on my statcounter is that you're bigger than the internet.

fuck bush.

amen

abort the red states

i've determined why it's hard to be a liberal from a conservative region.  i have all of these feelings of social responsibility, yet none of the abhorrence of violence that we left wingers are supposed to have.  while i myself am not that violent a person, i'd love to see the bush administration lawyer i heard on the radio this morning (dancing around the point that the executive branch could make any decision it wanted to in "wartime") have his throat ripped out by wild dogs.  or me.  whichever.

 

and south dakota, lovely state that it is, is doing everything it can to bring us back to the seventies.  while disco and godawful clothing might still be the rage up there, what they've really done is outlaw abortion, forcing the newly minted neocon supreme court to make a ruling on the laws constituionality.  can't we just give both of the dakotas to canada?  we'll give puerto rico and d.c. statehood, just to stay at an even fifty.

 

i would be all for this plan, but there are way too many states i would want to get rid of.  hell, i live in one of them.

 

for the record, i'm done with stupid baby class.  there's twelve plus hours i'll never get back, but at least it's over.

 

fuck south dakota.

just one more push

you know those "bulldozer" machines they have at some arcades?  they've got an ostensibly flat tray with a big pile of quarters being pushed toward the edge.  you drop your own quarter in at what you think is an appropriate time, and hopefully, some quarters drop and you get either a bunch of quarters (if it's cool) or a bunch of tickets (if it's lame).

that's what the neocons' situation feels like to me right now.  if we can just drop the right thing into the right place, it all comes tumbling down.  the fallout would be enormous, and those who've put themselves most on the line (ie bush, cheney, rove, rumsfeld, rice, mcclellan, etc.) will fall the hardest.

i got an urge this morning to run for some office on the "full disclosure" ticket.  i could be relatively immune to scandals if i air my own dirty laundry first, then point out that theirs' is still worse...

 

fuck bush, cheney, rove, rumsfeld, rice, mcclellan, etc.

another cry for sanity

can someone please explain to me why we've been holding afghan "suspected terrorists" in guantanamo for years now (who are in reality probably only people who pissed off their neighbors) and torturing them, but now we're letting the united arab emirates, a country with more easily defined ties to terrorism, run our ports?  i mean, i guess we were only checking about one out of one hundred containers that came into the country anyway, so let's just let the u.a.e. and their billions in oil money jump right in there.

here's a thought... why don't we put iraq in charge of the ports?  i mean, the current iraqi administration is pretty friendly to us on the whole (wink, wink), and i bet we could weed out the insurgents with a careful applicant screening process (question 1: how many i.e.d.'s have you made in the last three years?).  it might also help them make some money to get out of the staggering debt they're in.

i've got another idea.  let's put the saudis in charge of our airlines!  17 of 19 hijackers agree that saudi extremists keep their heads under pressure better than other fundamentalists.

what about yemen for our merchant marines?

north korea for our border patrol?

 

outsourcing... the (oppressor's) wave of the future.

 

fuck bush.

 

let it all hang over and out

i woke up this morning still drunk.  this has got to stop happening.  my liver took the night off again, as it seems to do pretty frequently when i get into the rum.  i really, really like rum, but i'm afraid last night represented a kind of last hurrah for a while.  i don't want to get out of drinking shape, and it's not like i'm quitting, i just need to keep it within certain limits for a while, like for example sticking to beer.  rum is real good, though.

on a lighter note, i threatened to commit double homicide this morning because my two co-workers kept taunting me with thoughts of bacon.  i finally got to fill this hangover stomach, and i'm feeling better, but not great.

fuck bush.

geekdom complete?

siouxs! has pointed out to me that i'm gettign older, a fact of which i was delightfully unaware for far too long.  my hearing has been less than great for most of my life, and i'm too afraid to get a hearing aid and hear the loud ass world i've been missing.  i long ago resolved to be damned near deaf before i'd get a hearing aid.  i mean, my grandfather was always such a source of family comedy, how could i deprive my children and grandchildren of so much entertainment.

no, siouxs! is half deaf too.  it wasn't that.  we'll just continue to turn our movies up loud as hell and disturbing the neighbors.

what she pointed out to me was the i might need to have my eyes checked. 

i can't remember the first time she said as much, but it was only a few weeks ago.  the second time was more emphatic, and i can remember it a lot better.  last week at stupid baby class, i couldn't read something on the teacher's big flip pad.  in my defense, it was written in red marker, but she could read it just fine, so i conceded that i may at least need to go see what the professionals have to say.

now, don't think i have a problem with wearing glasses (and not contacts, unless i have to for an acting role i'm too lazy to audition for).  as a matter of fact, i wore glasses (with clear lenses) for a while because i thought they made me look smarter (jackass vanity, i know).  i just have a problem with needing glasses.  i would feel dependant on something.  anything.  i hate feeling dependant on anyone or anything, and have since i was a teenager.  wearing glasses to me is like constantly having to borrow money from my mom.  neither one is desireable.

whatever, i haven't even made the appointment yet.  i'll hold out while i can...

fuck bush.

a cool 40

i just chatted with my sister-in-law in boston while she was on break.  don't worry, i've already made fun of her for chatting with me on break when there should be any number of more interesting things to do.  she asked if i thought she should be drinking a 40 oz in the parking lot, which brought to mind one of my least favorite things about the stl: no forties.  for some inane reason (i.e. serious ignorance/racism running to the core), it is illegal to sell 40 oz. bottles of malt beverage in st. louis city or county.  when i need some mickey's or o.e. 800, i have to drive to illinois.  how am i supposed to get my buzz jump started without forty ounces of sweet, sweet malt liquor?  moreover, when i go to the doctor, i want to truthfully be able to say i usually have three or four drinks a night. 

 

fuck bush, but fuck francis slay, mayor of st. louis as well.

christmas in february

while i was home yesterday for the plumber and furnace guy, the mail came.  it included a present for siouxs! and bootsy, my modern drunkard magazine, and baseball tickets.  this means yesterday was the best the postal service has ever been to me in one day.

and on another uplifting note, the house should be back to a normal temperature by the time i get home today.  though we had a few fairly amusing moments with the space heaters and the circuit breakers, i prefer a more uniform warmth.

***************************************************

the asterisks represent my trip with the warehouse manager to an account, where he took our delivery van from our backup driver.  it seems his child has a fever, so he needed to get here to the hospital.  not that i'm doubting, but it does largely suck from everyone else's perspective.

 

fuck bush.

 

 

cheney shoots a guy directly, instead of sending in the armed forces

this is becoming laughable.

dubya is being raked over the coals by both sides of the pass the buck katrina debacle, and neither of his two appointees, brown or chertoff, is looking better for it either.

those abramhoff pictures are a real hoot, george.  way to convince people you don't know the guy at all.

demokkkrats and republikkkans alike are still asking questions about the domestic spying thing, and no one (including the public, who are sadly already bored with it) is satisfied with the "it's legal because we say it's legal" defense anymore.

dick "vader" cheney (thanks to liberal bloggers everywhere for that gem) told scooter to break the law and threaten national security by leaking about valerie.

and now he fucking shoots a guy.  this is great.  if we can't do something about these bozos now, we truly are too apathetic to deserve liberty.

 

on a more personal note, my pilot light is out on the furnace at the house, so it's cold as balls there.  the dogs will be fine, but it really needs to get fixed today.  my wife and fetus were freezing last night.

 

fuck bush, laclede gas, and my postman, who still hasn't brought my modern drunkard magazine. 

the return of sly

ok, i watched a few minutes of the grammys last night.  i had heard a rumor that sly stone was going to perform for the first time in years.  indeed, he did (for those who didn't see it), and it was amazing to see.  he was only on stage for a minute or two, though, and i for one, think it might have had something to do with the various jackasses butchering his music up until that point.  the man is a legend, and you put a bullshit american idol winner up there to do his music?  what was up with the black eyed peas frontman freestyling?  that was supposed to be a tribute, you shit.  the least he could've done was rhyme about sly stone.  anyway, i hope that isn't the last time we hear from sly.  seeing him on stage was spectacular.

 

tom delay has a new job on the appropriations committee.  great place for a guy with ethical deficiencies.  way to go, congress.

 

fuck bush.  and joe perry.

stupid baby class

we're in the home stretch regarding childbirth class (not exactly lamaze, but a close facsimile).  two more long fucking classes with sandra who i'm nt exactly fond of, but does at least provide a little unwitting comedy for us every class.  this week it was "booty-pressure," quickly translated to "butt pressure" for those of us who had never heard the term booty referring to anythining but pirate treasure before (ok, perhaps tetsuya and kaoru never had, but i can't be sure how much of the non-idiom english they're actually getting... thank god they have that pocket translator).  there was also the classic "ok, dads, you can be either in front of her or behind her for this one.  i prefer... either one."  it's good she specified, as i intended to try something wholly different, perhaps laying right on siouxs! and the baby-belly.

 

bootsy is laying sideways we think.  there's still plenty of time for turnin', but we're hoping sooner rather than later to lessen the number of things to worry about.  sandra says we can chase "him" around with frozen vegetables, but why set up pickiness so early in (pre-)life?

 

pitchers and catchers start spring training next friday.  i'm too excited for baseball again to even explain about it.

 

i know i've said it before, and then it didn't amount to much, but the republikkkans seem to be on the ropes, awaiting the knockout blow from whatever progressive willing to deliver it.  get in there, demokkkrats!  when you become the new conservative party, real liberals will stand a chance of forming a more effective party in your wake.

 

fuck alberto gonzales.

 

 

critter issues

yesterday, while standing in my kitchen, my dog elektra made a leap at the ceiling at what i assumed would turn out to be one of the two flies that have taken up winter residence in our house to provide the dogs with entertainment.  when i looked up at the stupid flourescent light in our stupid drop-tile ceiling, i saw the very distinct outline of a mouse scurrying across the light.

it wasn't in our food, so that's good.  however, i hate mice.  the revulsion i have towards mice is only marginally smaller than my problems with rats (which thankfully have never been inside of any house i lived in to my knowledge).  to see one over my head makes me think of the fact that one could fall on my head, and that's not a thought i can fully deal with.

mice outside are fine.  mice inside my space (especially the kitchen) not so much.

please, all you rodent lovers out there, this applies to gerbils, hamsters, and countless other foul little paddy-footed beasts people try to pass off as pets.  keep the little fuckers out of my house.

superbowl was fun, but some of the worst officiating i've seen in a game i had no personal stake in.

somehow, it was a republikkkan thing.  fuck them sons of bitches.

crisis averted

i received a message from a fellow member of the modern drunkard magazine message board yesterday.  it seems my questions for our fearless leader sparked  quite a conservative backlash from one person, which officially qualifies me as being "contraversial." 

 

i'd like to point out that i am happy to read any criticism or questions about the opinions expressed in this blog.  there's a link at the top of the page to e-mail me (questions?  comments?  death threats?).

 

i'd also like to point out that, though this person was toeing the republikkkan party line, i have no less respect for (i'll assume gender here) him.  it won't stop me from having a drink with anyone, i'll just refuse to talk politics with them.  my politics bring out my passions, and anytime i don't want to get into a screaming match, i try to keep them to myself (ex. the last time i talked politics with my aunt).  i don't kid myself into thinking i could ever run for office, because when confronted with neo-con dogma, the profanity that spews forth from me makes sailors and my aunt jerry blush.

 

that said, x, feel free to express your opinions to me again sometime, as i'll feel quite free to say fuck that bastard motherfucker bush and everyone in his administration whose name i know (and probably some i don't, but i'll wait to pass judgement until i hear them lie to me).

it's in their blood

rigging elections, that is.

 

http://rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/12015-1.html

 

the republican vote today for the new house majority leader didn't exactly go off without a hitch.  first go round, there were more votes than there were republikkkans present...

letter to the liberals and centrists in washington

dear liberals and centrists with some measure of political clout in washington

 

what were you thinking?  couldn't you do more to stop this arch-conservative idealogue from getting a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land?  now the only way to get him out will be for him to die or retire, which could take a few minutes/years/decades. 

centrists, this guy is pulling you away from your comfortable middle ground!  i promise you, this new court will not just be a backlash from the crazy liberal rehnquist/scalia run court.  we're going from conservative to neo-con, and those neo-cons are going to kill us all.

liberals, how have your heads not fucking exploded yet?  this guy should be like the devil walking around in the vatican.  reject him like a transplant gone horribly wrong.

 

it seems that everyone who isn't a republikkkan has become resigned to the fact that they just play politics better than everyone else.  they're a unified evil, and that helps.  however, recent events have exposed their hooves to the world.  it's up to us to pull off the rest of the disguise and show the arrow tails, goat legs, and horns far and wide.

 

and then, we should kill and eat them.

 

sincerely,

gtheoutraged

lunch beer

i can really go for a beer most days around eleven am.  i so rarely get to indulge this pleasure, but every few weeks or so, i go to lunch with the warehouse manager at a pretty good irish pub two minutes from the office.  i get two beers in, the tiniest buzz imaginable, and suddenly the next hour or two at work is better.

people in this country used to drink morning, noon, and night.  what's happened to us as a group?  between the evangelical assholes, the overly liberal wusses, and the culture of victimhood, no one can have any fun anymore.

 

saturday night will be poker night at our humble abode.  it may also see the (re)birth of outrageous sketch comedy in st. louis.

r.i.p. chris penn

footloose and reservoir dogs will from now on make me a little more teary eyed.

 

that bastard alito is going to be on the supreme court for life!  don't you idiots understand that?  (by "you idiots," i'm referring to the countless senators who read this blog).  vote that son of a bitch down, or we'll be back in 1853 before you know it.  that's right.  you heard it here first.  sam alito believes in slavery.  let the rumormongering begin!

 

assuming that one catches hold, i think condi rice eats babies.

 

fuck bush and all the bushies

2 many blog postings

2 posts in a day, 'cause i'm that fucking mad.

dubya told the anti-abortions contingent that he was doing what he could and that he was praying for roe v wade to be overturned, et cetera.  i think i have another question for him.

 

11: who's going to take care of all these unwanted childen you propose to save?  social services are being slashed left and right.  school districts are going bankrupt.  "no child left behind" is a dismal failure.

 

let's save the schiavo's and all the little fetuses.  let's guarantee a perpetual underclass.  if the bush twins got pregnant, bet there'd be abortions to be had.  (ok, i'll not make such a strong assumption.  let's presume the father was black, then go with the same theory...)

get thee to a press conference

stop the fucking presses. 

 

george dubya bush is going to take real live unscripted questions from people in his speeches.  somehow, this is front page news.

 

audience plants who look like "the common person" don't impress me.  if, by some outlandish stretch of the imagination, they actually let people off the street talk to the bastard, i have a few questions.

 

1: in what way is loading up your administration with your buddies good for the nation?

2: excepting the ones shooting at our troops on the ground in iraq, how are they a threat to us again?

2.1: are the iraqi citizens we're slaughtering on a massive scale (to be fair, the insurgents are killing plenty of iraqis too) still a danger to us, the most powerful nation on earth?

3: how can we continue to use our military muscle to bully places like n. korea considering how overextended we are in iraq?

4: how many terrorist attacks have your department of homeland security stopped?  4.1: how many did clinton's administration stop with the fbi, cia, and various other agencies already in place?

5: do you honestly believe that your economic policies are benefiting the majority of americans?

6: do you believe the neo-conservative talking points you spew, or is that just an easy way to snag a homophobic, xenophobic, and racist constituency that wouldn't be caught by your real agenda, namely to rob the poor and give to the rich?

7: why do all of the men going down in the jack abramhoff scandal seem to be friends of yours, rather than your seriously defamed political enemies?

8: why does karl rove still have a job?

9: do you understand the meaning of yellow journalism, and do you realize that it has nothing to do with the n. korean and chinese press badmouthing you every day?

10: do you think the country is better off than it was before you stole the highest office in the land, and why?  please phrase your answer in the form of a resignation.

 

fucking yahoo news must have been written by rove or mcclellan this morning.

just call me techno-file

using my rudimentary knowlege of computers, i have been transferring files the long way from my old laptop to this new and very powerful machine.  the process is going rather well, i'd say, and i have worked out quite a system.  unfortunately for me, i decided to set up the laptop downstairs, and the main box is upstairs.  at least i'm getting my exercise.

 

went to the atomic cowboy last night, a pretty swinging bar in the heart of the (primarily) gay/lesbian bar district.  we dig it very much; great ambiance, reasonably priced drinks, good (smelling) food, and most importantly for bootsy, no smoking indoors.  four thumbs up to anyone that finds themselves in the vicinity.

 

fuck bush

gumbeau

i'm making chicken/sausage/crawfish gumbo.  anyone i know in the st louis area today or tomorrow is welcome to some.  anyone not is missing out.

 

fuck bush

damn it, reid!

don't back down, demokkkrats!  sure, we're not always in the same camp on everything, but nonetheless, i got your back here.  get mean and stay mean!  they aren't human, so it's ok.  harry reid, don't apologize for a damned thing.  fight dirty if you must, and when they try to call you on it, remind them that you are the pot, and they are the black hole, from which not even light can escape.  that's right.  that's how much the republikkkans suck.

 

breastfeeding class was last night.  who knew tits were so complex?

free the odb! from the grave!

quick politics, then it'll be out of my system... fuck 'em up, hillary!  give 'em hell.  (oh, and my new political party when i run for something in twenty or so years will be pro-pro-lifer-death.)

 

weren't the critics saying reality tv was dead two years ago?  why is there going to be another survivor?  how are they still making fear factor?  sometimes i think the majority of people in this country need to be sterilized to save future generations. 

 

try to use the phrase "sweet zombie jesus" in the near future.  i think you'll enjoy it.

googling yourself sounds even dirtier

so now you can see a satellite photo of your house if you type your address into google.  at least for now, it's not up to the minute, but we're heading there.  time to work on a better tinfoil hat, people.

 

you'd think that the white house would be keeping its fat dirty mouth shut these days, what with the fact that republikkkan is about two thirds of the way to being wholly synonymous with "lying corrupt scumbag," but no, they're still on the attack, trying to make the rest of us lay down from the sheer amount of their gall.  if my respect was given out based on the size of one's figurative balls, i would be voting republikkkan myself.  instead, i am more outraged than ever.  the dirty trick of the moment is to discredit al gore, a job that would seem to have been completed sometime in 2000, by no less a body than the dirty dirty supreme court.  clinton/gore white house needs to bend the rules, they then go to congress, asking for a new interpretation of the rules, as the circumstances of the original ruling don't exactly apply.  bush/cheney white house needs to bend the rules, it says "fuck the rules, i'm the most powerful being in the universe" then follows with "as it was, as it ever shall be, now bend over."

 

those bastards

fuck 'em all, goddamnit, just fuck 'em all

baby school

saturday morning, siouxs! and i attended a three and a half hour class about infant care taught by what had to be the least popular nurse in neonatal.  she was a rambler, so we didn't get to the things that actually would have been most helpful, like the best way to bathe a baby.  we ran long, and she kept those of us who are planning to use cloth diapers for our children even longer to show us what we're probably never going to have to do, namely to use diaper pins without sticking the baby (not a hard concept, as my mom's quite the seamstress).

nonetheless, i'm glad we took the class.  we did learn a few things, i guess, and we had at least one good laugh at the nurse's expense (ask siouxs! about "sparse heads" sometime).  mostly, it was a good way to alleviate a little anxiety about the fact that we're only a few months away from having responsibility for another human being.

more baby classes are on the horizon.  should they warrant, i'll mention them.

 

that bastard alito is probably going to be put on the supreme court.  where did we go wrong?  they had the republikkkans on the ropes, and now they're just giving them a pass?  is this about the hobo-killing that starts every senate and house term of office?  i thought that was bipartisan!  you sons of bitches, what have i done?

 

fuck sam alito and john roberts

biz-(mark)ee-work

i consider myself to be reasonable proficient on the computer.  i can't program or anything like that, but at the very least, i can figure out most of what i need to do.  i'm by no means great at the damned things, but good enough for my purposes.  what's sad is that i'm the (second) best in my office.  when anyone has a computer problem, i'm the one they come to, and in the vast majority of cases, i have no idea what to tell them even though i could probably do what they need me to do. 

this is among the most pointless posts since the start of my blog, but that's only fitting, since i've had such a pointlessly busy few days.  yesterday, i got to go through a five year long list of "paperwork" on the computer and reprint it all.  today, i got to do the same thing for a totally unrelated reason.  i've put together report after report, and in the end, all for naught.

sorry to bitch

yesterday it was 65 and sunny.  now it's snowing.  got to love this st. louis weather.

 

fuck bush

bootsy's interbot presence

ok, i realize i'm a fucking geek in general.  i've spent hours of time on the internet looking up toys and cartoons from my childhood.  i'm a cryptozoology fan.  evolutionary biology and i are pals.

here's a new element to my geekdom.  join me, will you?  i have started an internet pool about the details of my unborn child's entrance into the world.  if you are interested in participating, go here and enter BootsyGame in the box on the top left.

 

bootsy's interbot presence

ok, i realize i'm a fucking geek in general.  i've spent hours of time on the internet looking up toys and cartoons from my childhood.  i'm a cryptozoology fan.  evolutionary biology and i are pals.

here's a new element to my geekdom.  join me, will you?  i have started an internet pool about the details of my unborn child's entrance into the world.  if you are interested in participating, go here and enter BootsyGame in the box on the top left.

 

tired ass monday

i was up way too late last night.  i should have gone to bed at least three beers before i actually did.  i'm paying for it today, though lunch certainly helped.

i have my statcounter working again, and it appears that someone did some serious catching up (30+ pageloads for 3 consecutive days).  that makes me feel better.

bootsy is kicking like crazy these days.  saturday morning, i had my arm over siouxs!'s belly, and along the whole length of it, i kept feeling little bumps.

it's still pretty amazing to me that i'm going to be a daddy, but i'm as ready as i ever will be.

burn 'em all down

i was so thrilled this morning to hear that abramhoff is going to name names.  can you imagine how beautiful this could be?  dubya and co will try to figure out how to bury it, but unless the republikkkans come with some fresh integrity, this could do irreparable damage (assuming a populace with a longer memory than a goldfish, which is a pretty big assumption).  i see a more balanced house after '06 elections, and perhaps even a shift in the senate.  ok, it's wishful thinking.  they're just better at this stuff than we liberals are.  they have fewer scruples.  less moral objection to get in the way of the dollar.

 

still, five or ten good scapegoats isn't asking too much, is it?

 

fuck bush.

happy arbitrary reset button

so, it's a new year, right?  that should mean, at least theoretically, that everyone gets a new lease on life, or at least the chance the renegotiate the terms of their existing lease.  resolutions are for the weak, but i have one anyway.  i vow to type "the" instead of "teh" more in the coming year.  i don't know how i'll be able to check on that, so i think i can already cross it off of my list. resolutions that leave you with a lower feeling of self worth are hte worst.

i have the day off, and other than playing games on the intermess, i plan to do very little.  oh, i may wash the dishes if the mood strikes me, or even finish the laundry.  what i won't do is start any new projects or anything else along those lines.  a day off is a day off, damn it.  i will call my mom, but that's not a big chore or anything.  i should scratch down a few things i've been meaning to tell her about.

this is a pointless blog post.  i hope 2006 doesn't prove to be a pointless post year.  (well, at least a few things might change come midterm elections, right?

fuck bush.

politics again

ok, apologies in advance for the rant.

 

regarding the domestic spying:  the secret court that has been in place to give you permission to do wiretaps is, on the whole, a rubber stamp to tap whatever wire you want, justice dept.  they have turned down all of one in the twenty seven year since it was first created.  statistically speaking, that is nothing.  did w and company know that htey would be turned down, or did they just need to demonstrate that they could thumb their noses at the law?  i'm freshly pissed about this because now they're trying to come down on whoever leaked the information about the secret illegal activities.  nixon went down for a similar offense.  the republikkkans would have broken bill clinton's face with a fireplace poker for something even half as heinous.  the sheer gall of this administration is frightening to me more than anything else.

fuck bush, and happy new year.  here's to you, nonexistant readers, and here's to putting bars on the white house to contain the criminals therein.

second attempt post-x-mas post

ok, so after yesterday's perfectly annoying post disappearance, here is today's feelings on my christmas holiday.

 

haven is spoiled utterly rotten, but is still cute as all hell

for the second year in a row, baseball tickets are part of the presents between me and siouxs! 

siouxs! and i bought ourselves a new computer last night.  it was expensive, and currently isn't working well.  we're pretty pissed.

i felt bootsy kick several times over the past weekend.  the whole thing is still kind of surreal to me, but amazing too.

i stopped and got some forties on the way back to make up for the lunatic anti 40oz laws here in st. louis.  i also picked up 4 22oz guinness extra stout (one of my favorites), which i drank last night.  i've been less than stellar today.

 

fuck bush

 

 

 

 

 

stupid launchcast

the goddamned launchcast crashed my internet, so the thoughtful post i had composed disappeared into the ether.  i will not be typing it all out again.  suffice to say that i hate the holidays.

dramarama-orama

friday night was "family game night" with the inlaws.  it was a pretty good time.  saturday, siouxs! went to some u-city dance concert.  i stayed home and polished off my fifth of bourbon (note to self: buy more bourbon).  spiderman was played, skip came over, siouxs! came home, a good time was had by all.  sunday morning, no hangover, but that empty-stomach feeling that sometimes comes with a long liquor drunk.  the inlaws "family christmas cookie exchange."  drove into the city.   drove to the farthest place that can be possibly considered in the "st. louis area."  a good time was had, by both cynic and listeners alike.  lunch wa good, everything was good, then, drama.  who needs the fucking drama?  i'll tell you who it isn't.  me.

 

conspiracy theory for you.  all of this talk about calling it a holiday tree instead of a christmas tree is a neo-con whisper campaign.  it smacks of karl rove.  what a great way to recharge the semi-christian masses, who don't go tu church, but do feel threatened when some atheist is accused of trying to do away with christmas.  how can the republikkkans lose this one?  once the accusation is in place, there's no taking it back, and the damage is done to atheists, church-and-state-seperatists, and non-christians alike.  (i'm sure paul wolfowitz won't mind)

 

fuck bush.

not stalgia

i was thinking about the snoopy sno-cone machine this morning.  i loved my snoopy sno-cone machine, but i have been thinking all day about it's many shortcomings.

 

"you put an ice cube in, and get a sno-cone out" which i remember distinctly from the jingle is nothing if not an oversimplification.  "you put an ice cube in, you put all of your seven-year-old weight into pushing down on the snoopy shaped plunger (but not the little rubber nipple like hat) while trying to simultaneously turn the impossibly flimsy crank which won''t move as long as you're putting all of your seven-year-old weight into the plunger, you eventually get a little shaved ice floating in the meltwater from your efforts of the first five minutes that in no way resembles a sno-cone" would have required a different jingle, i guess.

 

what was up with that little rubber nipple hat?  have you ever seen snoopy wear a hat in any other situation?  an aviator helmet, sure, but never a hat.  when it's cold, he always had a scarf, but no hat.  secondly, what was the big idea putting it right on top of the plunger?  how could you not squirt out your sno-cone flavoring all over the place?  with all of your seven-year-old weight going into the plunger? the thing only held two teaspoons or so of liquid anyway, which has never in my life been enough for even one sno-cone.

 

lastly, would it have killed them to put some kind of sturdier base on the things?  the whole rig was only about two inches deep, which falls over mighty easily when a fair amount of pressure is applied (as it would be to the plunger when all of your seven-year-old etc etc).  i remember conking my head on the counter on several occasions because the sno-cone machine collapsed under me.

 

it's rants like this that are the reason i'll never really amount to anything "important"

 

fuck bush

turkish hangover

i hope everyone had a pleasant turkish day.  ours was pretty good, and the four day weekend was most welcome in this the busy season for social drunks and therefore we in the vino slangin' business.  a few high and low points:

 

-turkish day was held at the home of siouxs!'s oldest brother and his not so popular wife.  they moved out to eureka, home of six flags over jesus christ.  the neighborhood is sterile and sickening, but is on one of the few large hills to be found in the greater st. louis area, so at least you can see the sameness for miles and miles.  the turkey was good, the high-life was better.

-walk the line... i recommend it.  there were a few times i couldn't stay in the moment, but on the whole, it was quite good.

-i seem to be a tony hawk's xxxxxxxx whichever ps2 game savant.  i'm not that good at other video games, but by god can i play that series

-friday was "buy nothing day," so that's what we did.  no after thanksgiving sales, no eating out, no filling up the tank.  it was a good day.

-saturday was siouxs!'s ten year high school reunion.  i went to dinner with them.  the dinner was good, siouxs!'s friend kate was a nightmare.  she couldn't stop talking about how much money she'd donated to the school or the reunion committee, how much she loved living on the east coast and the culture boost that implied, and how hot all the boys found her.  had i not been under promise to not be deliberately mean to her, i would have had a much better story to tell here.

-i was supposed to have a forty drinking evening with the wife's sister's boyfriend, but it never materialized.

 

there was a bit more, but i'll get into it in a later post.

those bastards

we all knew it was happening, now some guy's written a book about it.  check it out

 

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/war_on_science.shtml

 

please, can we at least advance to being like the third most backwards nation?  must we be number one, dubya, huh?

monday morning cool

the ultrasound went well.  everything is normal with bootsy.  "he" is big; thirteen ounces at the moment when the average fetus is 10-12, and is about the size of my hand.  the nurse kept trying to get a good shot of "his" face, but bootsy kept "his" arms up in front the whole time.  perhaps we have a boxer in the making, though we'd prefer a baseball player.

the nurse kept shaking the ultrasound thingy around on siouxs! belly in an effort to make bootsy move "his" arms, but to no avail.  the shaking bugged me a little.  i guess she would know better than i, but why would that work in the first place?  "he" was squirming around a lot, but didn't move those little arms enough to get the good face picture.  in the next day or two, i'm going to upload an ultrasound photo, which i may or may not post (they don't mean that much unless you saw them in motion.

thanks for the good juju, sr. leab.  thanks also to emily, my friendly blog comment spammer, who feels certain that she has something of interest for me.  no thanks to statcounter, who has shown me a big zero for way too many days (not all af which can possibly be for true).

and a big fucking wad of meanfuckery to our dear friends and protectors the republikkkan party, for reminding us all that rich boys who got draft deferments know a lot more about patriotism and righteous causes for war than those who actually served their country in uniform.

friday morning nerves

for any number of reasons, i'm a little nervy today.  i'm at a sticking point at work, so there's not much i can do without getting into a huge project i won't have time to finish today.  they've been talking about hiring someone at work via an internet wine jobs posting, but haven't talked too much to me about it, which makes me wary of my own status.  third, and most nervewracking, today siouxs! has an ultrasound, so we can see that the baby is progressing nicely.  i have missed the first two this go round.  the last ultrasound i was present for (last year), we basically found out that we'd lost the baby, though it took a few more days for it all to seem final.  i know that there's no connection between the two, but there's also the fact that today is one year from the date last year when it was certain.  circumstances are wildly different this time, but i'm scared still.  i have to be the strong one for siouxs!, but times like this, it's pretty fucking hard to do.

pray (if you do that) or think about us.  it will be greatly appreciated.

monday morning bourbonsweating

last night, i made siouxs! and me a steak dinner, complete with baked potato, broccoli and bread (i skipped the red wine/bordelais sauce, because of the fetus, who for the sake of brevity and class will from now until the birth be known as bootsy).  afterwards, i was so full that a beer would make me burst, so instead, i had a double bourbon on the rocks.  that one was so good that i had another.  during the second double, skip came over and had a rum and coke, so i switched to that.  i had perhaps three of them.  then i switched again, this time to beer (as by now, i was not so full).  then i found myself on a magical journey to blackout island.  today, i woke up woozy, but no headache.  the only symptom so far has been the booze sweat, which i can feel more than smell.  i've heard not to switch liquors midstream, but it seems to have worked out ok for me (this time at least).

dubya is still smarting from his ass being burned many times over, so i feel no need to rail against him today.  i will however mention that he called critics of the iraq war "deeply irresponsible," which is a gut wrenching laugh if i've ever heard one.

fuckin' sons of bitches, when will they learn?

i forgot to mention in my last post that i spoke to my (step)brother on tuesday. he is doing well at camp pendleton, and i expect will make a really great marine. though i don't agree with how his government will use him, he will be quite good at whatever they put him to. i just hope he is capable of retaining his inherent kindness after he returns from "the sandbox" (his name, not mine), where it seems likely he will go, even with his amphibious vehicle training.
pentagon sons of bitches.
fuck bush.

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it would seem that the republikkkans are melting down.  with scandal after scandal, dollars for influence, and entrenched power being recognized to be something other than divinity, i get the feeling that we're about to see a paradigm shift.  i for one would love to see a less evil republikkkan party, with sane fiscal conservatives like john mccain in positions of leadership.  i still won't be voting for any of the bastards, but at least i won't have to hate the people who vote for them so much.  wouldn't it be sweet if the religious bastards got so pissed off they formed their own party, thus forever splitting the "conservative" vote?  perhaps this is a bit of a pipe dream, and wanting the religious right to organize more than they already are is like wanting your enemies to do marching drills so they form a more consolidated area at which to shoot. 

i don't know if i mentioned last post, but i had to go to kc for the last couple of days.  our driver/warehouse guy out there gave us one day notice on thursday (though from the state of the warehouse when i got there, he seems to have checked out well before that), so i had to drive there monday morning and back tuesday night.  in between those two four hour drives, i got to make deliveries and unload a container-load of wine.  i'm not trying to bitch to all three of my regular readers, i'm just saying that i had a hard start to my week.  tomorrow is the dreaded sales meeting (my favorite useless bitchfest of the week), so at least the weekend looms large on the horizon.  and to anyone that knows him, kingston says hi.

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ok, i'll speak to the alito nomination in another post.  right now, i'm more concerned with tax reform.  watch the bastards.  there seems to be a shift toward "taxing consumption" as opposed to taxing wealth.  while i have no doubt that the individual upper-class citizen would pay more in dollars were there a national sales tax, the percentage of their income would be virtually nothing in comparison to those in lower tax brackets (at least the proposals don't get rid of tax brackets).  this is a sneaky way of txing the poor and the middle class harder than before, since the poor and middle class are likely to have to spend a large percentage or even all of their income toward "consumption."  this means the wealthy, who have money that is sitting in a mutual fund somewhere not contributing to "consumption" (or trickling down, for those assholes who still think reaganomics might fucking work) are not being taxed.  one of the biggest problems with wealth in this country is that not enough of it makes it into the economic mill, and if these plans are put into place, it won't even be taxed to speak of. 

perhaps i need to take some economics classes.  i have only the most basic understanding of these things, but thank god for my mom the accountant.  oh yeah, simplifying the tax codes could also put as many as half of tax preparers out of work.

fuck bush

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the primary program that we use at work is housed on our server, which has been down since roughly ten this morning (it's now four).  i have officially done everything i can do around here without the use of said program or other server based files, so i have been thouroughly bored for god knows how many hours.  however, here i am (and maybe coming in tomorrow for a few hours...) so i'll post a little post for both my readers and the accidental finns who find my site.

 

libby down!  if we can get rove and (god willing) cheney, we will have effectively cut the head off the administration.  for those who believe, pray.  for those who don't, hope.  for those who don't hope, drink or smoke or something.

 

fuck bush

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i don't know what to think about the retracted miers nomination.  i'm worried that w's gonna break out some serious wack-job to appease the christian wrong-wing sons of bitches.  does no one understand that a supreme court nomination shouldn't go to anyone who might rule direct from the days talking points?  as if there aren't already enough ways to wave ones ass at justice, now we may just be lucky enough to have reverend justice evan jellical determining that masturbation is unconstitutional, while cheating an electorate is not.

on another note, i was glad to see alissa (and jamie, though i don't know you as well.  from all two or three encounters, you get the seal of approval) this past week.  i also saw two friends who actually live here in the stl, but whom i don't see much thanks to their law schooling.

i'm looking into finishing off my last few hours of wash u.  for those that didn't know, i ended my four years at wash u eleven hours shy of my b.a.  at the time, i was convinced that i was actually owed those hours anyway, so i would have no troubles getting my diploma in the next few months.  well, here it is, five plus years later, and i'm still degreeless.  i'm talking to some people, including my old advisor, with whom i had something of an adversarial relationship.  so, hat in hand, i go back to wash u to see if i can manage to keep my head in for a few classes a semester.  wish me luck.

fuck bush.

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it was a weekend of spend, spend, spend, little capitalists.  siouxs! and i did our parts for the economy all weekend long, and we'll not say that it's all done yet.  we still need a fix for the computer at home, but at least there's a new playstation to be utilized.  we also have a new swiss army knife (ok, i got a leatherman; more on that in a moment), new leashes and collars for the dogs, some tools, a bunch of books, and a flogging molly cd.

back to the leatherman... i don't think they could have chosen a worse name for such a product.  for those unfamiliar with the leatherman, it is basically like a swiss army knife with genuinely useful tools like pliers and screwdrivers on it.  for those unfamiliar with leathermen, they are homosexual men into wearing black leather as their sole form of clothing, popularized by one of the village people.  i'm not saying that no leathermen have a leatherman, but perhaps they're not the target market.  i'm just saying.

i'm going to continue not saying much about the bush administration.  they seem to be shooting themselves in the feet as it is, and i don't want to jinx it or anything.

however, i will say

fuck bush.

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good god am i bored at work today.  i have done virtually nothing taxing of my brain, ond only a very little taxing of anything else.  this is the sort of time squandering that i so desperately need a few minutes of a day, but when stretched into several hours, it becomes a awfully depressing enterprise.

tom delay seems terribly confident in his chances of being acquited, and perhaps with good reasin.  i mean, we are currently living under the most corrupt/corruptable administration of the last fifty years (including nixon!), so who's to say that the new judge put into place by republicking cronys won't just throw the case out?  scooter and rove seem to be a little stickier, but will probably end up cheating justice as well.  clinton lied about sex, and nearly got impeached.  dubya and the boys (yes, condi, that means you too) have lied about everything from the economy to the war, and appointee credentials to national security, and yet will probably be remembered fondly by "the history books."

i'm scared of the economy, people.  it isn't going to get better the way we're going, let me assure you.

fuck bush

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well, the baseball is over.  i suppose i can say go white sox still, but it's just too depressing.  by the time there is baseball again in st. louis, siouxs! and i will have other things on our mind (the baby is due at the beginning of april).  until then, there's always winter league ball, various offseason trades and developments, and such.  and since we're going into the busy season at work, i'll have less time to obsess over the baseball.

i hope i'm convincing you, because i sure as hell ain't buying it.

 

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once again, i have worked on the weekend.  there was a time in my life that i would have preferred to forcibly remove puppy ears than work for even a moment on my weekend (as opposed to "the weekend, " meaning friday evening through sunday night).  now, they didn't even ask me to, i just came in saturday because i needed to catch up and sunday because there was a truck coming in.  ok, to be fair, i came in saturday in the hopes that the truck would come in, and then stayed because i was up, and the dogs were walked, and what else was i going to do?  then i came in on sunday to show my trucking company i mean business when i say i need that product yesterday.  the whole thing was primarily so i wouldn't have to go pour wine with a businessy jerk at the st. louis wine festival.  in that, it was a success.  in watching every second of the cardinals astros came, it was a miserable failure.  the truck arrived at game time, so i didn't get back to the house until the fourth inning or so.  and then we fucking lost, at least somewhat due to bad umpiring.

since everyone seems to pretty much agree with my feelings on bush (approval rating in the mid thirties!), i think i'll give him a slight break. 

dry hump bush.

fuck with all violence and filth and a louisville slugger (nlcs game 4 home plate umpire) cuzzi.

went to game 2 of the nlcs last night... a bit disappointing to say the least, but fun nonetheless.
if i bust my ass this morning, i can get back to zero in the office. i'm roughly four hours of work behnd, not including the extra stuff being piled on me at all times. since i haven't totally finalized my desktop filing system, it's still a big fucking mess, but i'm trying here.
but who cares about that stuff.
the baby still consumes let's say thirty percent of my thoughts. in some ways, i can't wait, but in others, i'm a little bit worried. most of these worries are selfish, but i have no problem admitting to some selfishness (i don't think it's my defining personality characteristic or anything). i suppose most new parents with an adult level of maturity discover that they are capable of more selflessness than they thought they would be. i hope i can at least come close.

fuck bush

another one (mostly) down

i announced to the sales team today about the baby.  they seemed unable to care, though the sales rep i would be least able to handle were we not co-workers told me he thought i'd be good at raising them.  my mom was thrilled (presumably still is) and most of siouxs!'s family was too, but i think after the occurance last year, everyone is still a litte tentative.  to put minds at ease, everything is going well.  siouxs! rented a doppler thing to check the fetal heartbeat, for which i made fun of her, but nonetheless, you should have seen the grin on my face when i heard it for the first time (i have been forced to miss a few of her doctor appointments for work).

i'd like to hope that i won't be losing my edge as a comedian as most seem to after their children are born (think denis leary or chris rock).  my theory is that since they hit before the kids and then continued after, they were perceived as getting softer.  since i have never hit big (or small, for that matter), there will be no basis for comparison.  plus, i fully intend to corrupt this kid pretty early, so i won't have to watch my language around the house as much, adn that's got to help...

i'm going to be someone's dad.  (peals of maniacal laughter)

fuck bush.

well, the office is moved, the warehouse is moved, and within the month, i suppose things will be as back to normal as is possible. some pros and cons

pro: i have "my own" office
con: it's only "my own" when our new hire is in the warehouse
pro: i won't have to be in the warehouse so much, including my back's least favorite, loading the truck
con: i can't escape to the warehouse so much
pro: i can listen to music while i work now
con: i'm guessing it can't be "offensive"
pro: i'm five minutes away from home
con: i'm only five minutes away from work
pro: i have a nice sexy new computer
con: it still doesn't work on our network, so i have to use the dumpy old computer for virtually everything.

ok, this list is long enough for now. perhaps i will add more later. i am much more capable of posting during my workday now, so there may be more posts. or maybe not. we'll just have to see.

fuck bush.

this weekend is the big office move, so i apologize for the lack of posts.

however, i have one announcement that needs to be made.

as of april 4th (according to the cardboard wheel) gthedamned will officially be gthedaddy. mommy-to-be-siouxs! is doing well, and we're both fucking psyched to have the rugrat. more to come as events warrant.

first of all, a storm is a force of nature, and therefore can be neither cruel nor wasteful which both imply intent. secondly, i'm amazed that anyone still believes you, dubya, considering the amount of lip service you've paid to so many things, from helping in africa to finding the terrorists resposible fr september eleventh. lastly, tax breaks to the companies that help with the rebuilding effort is a great way to continue lining the pockets of your cronies while not actually changing an economically depressed area in any lasting way.
all in all, i'd say that the neatly thirty minute address to the nation, well tailored to dovetail with the regularly scheduled broadcast was a success, assuming that the goal was to pacify those with no connection to the gulf region other than having seen it on tv these past few weeks. bra-fucking-vo.
fuck bush

our computer, that lovely frankensteinian machine that sits atop our computer room has turned to a thousand dollar paperweight, at least for the time being. i think i can make the fucker work again, if only i can figure out how to make a boot disk so as to get past the disc read error at startup. i'm not exactly computer saavy, so i really wish i had someone in town who knew enough about computers to just come fix it for me. i can do minor repairs to a pretty high percentage of things around the house and office, but serious repairs to none.
it's a real bitch to be a rennaissance man in this age of specialists. i have just enough skills to always find work, but never get paid truly well for it.

the roberts confirmation hearings today should be an impeachment trial, and yet, look at this buffonistry. (yes, i think i made that word up.)

fuck john roberts and alberto gonzalez.

well, dubya's approval rating has dipped below 40%. i think they need to measure that a little more accurately than asking people on the phone if they approve or disapprove. if they factored in my negative approval rating, he'd be down in the twenties (let's just say i don't stop at -100%).

the move is ever more stressful at work. every time it seems like we've almost got everything ready, something new comes up. the latest is that the fire marshall determined that since we don't have sprinklers in our warehouse, we need a firewall rated for two hours of burn time. this amounts to slapping some drywall up, but it's still an annoying expense. not my expense, but every little annoyance has a trickle-down effect, so that we can all be closer through sharing.

has anyone seen or heard from the big red dog?

fuck bush.

two days in a row of warehouse work... good god i'm beat. to think, i used to do this every day, and even made it through a holiday season at faster than this pace...

i do so certainly hope that everyone is having a pleasant and work free labor day. to those who have to work, my condolences. i personally have accomplished making dinner (it is only right now one o'clock, but chili needs at least a few hours) and grocery shopping. siouxs! is spending one last day at the pool with her sister. labor day is the last chance for laziness of the season for me, as the next month is the busy preparation to the busiest time of the year. due to our overly capitalist society, it is also the busy time of year for virtually everyone else nationwide. we even manage to export our holiday rush to other countries who have adopted our harried way of life. even formerly relaxed europe is starting to do things our way, if only for the sake of competition with us and the other third world countries using wage-slave labor to create things (and non-things).

dubya must be stopped. he's using a tragedy he couldn't care less about (*except inasmuch as the other republikkkans might disown him quick) to take attentions away from the evil things the government is working on for us right now. john roberts has been resubmitted for the supreme court as the chief justice to replace rehnquist, so now he's going to find some preacher's wife abortion-picketing mother of a combat veteran to fill o'connor's spot. the war is still going on unchecked and more violently than it was even six month ago. karl rove still has a job.
don't believe the bastards... watch your television (i hate to advocate it, but turn the sound off).
if our nation were in shock from "earthquake katrina" that ripped through orange county with a vengeance, causing billions of dollars worth of damages to upwards of three houses, dubya and co. would have been there seconds after to survey the chaos, like the pool being out of water and the china cabinet being scratched.

so i'm sitting at home at eight thirty in the morning, not faking sick, not really sick, not on a holiday or a scheduled day off, but rather to wait for a pair of appointments i have at our new building at nine and nine-thirty. i find it odd to be on the receiving end of an appointment. appointments were always something i made (or rather, that someone else made for me) in order to see a professional. i would hardly consider myself a professional at my business (i certainly don't dress like one), and the only thing i'm willing to call myself a pro at is comedy, which i haven't done professionally for over a year.
man, we gotta get a show together...
(poor) fuck(ing) bush (had to stop his month-long vacation two days early and come back to show some measure of leadership, the poor widdle baby)

the insanity is all around...
first and foremost, here's hoping that my surrogate family in la place, louisiana, is safe. ti, if you see this, let me know, otherwise, i'll be in touch soon.
second, congratulations to tomatohead and j-me on their who-knows-how-distant nuptuals. i know it's craziness that i was the first of my closest friends to get married, but if i were to guess at the second, it wouldn't be jah. don't know why, he just always seemed like the "living in sin" type than the "make an honest woman out of her" type. (not that i buy into either of those terms, but they sure are convenient right now.)
third, my neighbors up the street have installed a eight foot long stream in their back yard. now, it isn't as though an eight foot stream can ever look natural no matter what, but this is the same couple who have a dozen or so lawn ornaments scattered about, mostly tasteful, but not all. yesterday, when we passed by on our dog walk, they had a concrete pelican sitting by the stream. i find this fucking hilarious. every time i pass this little man-made natural wonder, i will picture a pelican diving into a stream and busting his beak (what can i say, i'm twisted like that).
fourth, and finally, james, the big red dog called my house last night at two am. i haven't heard from him in several years, and now the asshole drunkdials me during the work week. i'm glad to hear from him, but i got back to sleep a lot easier than siouxs! did, so she's not exactly thrilled about the whole thing. on the off chance that you read this, james, please don't call after midnight unless it's a freaking emergency. that said, i hope to talk to you soon.
ass.
fuck bush.

drinkin 

logo by Howlermonkey 

the wine business is far too stressful. i never thoguht that having someone else do my job would add to my daily hassles, but when it is taken away before i even have a chance to get to it, and then i am fed a guilt trip for not doing it sooner, i become slightly pissed off. perhaps i need to get into the beer biz, but even that seems overly businessy and frequently corporate.
what i really want to do is make people laugh for a living. in what capacity, i cannot say. i still get a charge from performing, and "yeah, i guess it's obvious, i also like to write. all you had to do was give humpty a chance..." and now it doesn't matter because i still can't dance. all tangents aside, how would i go about getting into the comedy or comedy writing business? do i send portfolio stuff, or a tape, or what, and to whom?
if anyone knows anything, i doubt i'll hear anything (thanks to ml for at least reading the blog and occasionally writing back), but just for the hell of it, here's the gthedamned call for ideas. to whom do i pitch? how do i put together a comedy resume? what should i try to do? what the hell else do i need to know?
a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar, fuck bush.

i guess pat robertson heard all of the wild and outlandish things that other arch-conservatives were spouting, like "ending the war in iraq would weaken america" or "karl rove is not a criminal." upon hearing such things, he must have thought the door was wide open. he found out quickly that such unchristian statements as "we oughtta assasinate so and so" are not to be touched with a ten foot pole, particularly in times when any number of political assasinations are in the works. here is my list of likely possibilities.
1) tony blair - he had to bend a little too left to get in last election. he has lost sight of the goal. take him out.
2) castro - that guy has been a thorn in our sides for too long. keeping him around as "the guy who confounded kennedy" is no longer amusing.
3) jacques chirac - his war record really wasn't all that distinguished. also, doesn't he look french?
4) gerhard schroeder - as long as were cleaning house in "old europe"
5) ted kennedy - how did this guy slip under the radar for so many years? i thought we killed all the kennedys. what do you mean, he's a vocal member of the opposition referenced any number of times in the last election to make john kerry seem more liberal by association? are you sure we missed a kennedy?
6) roh moo-hyun (s. korean president) - just to show kim jong il we aren't fucking around
7) vincente fox - shouldn't his name be vincente zorro? i don't trust him.

the army has announced that it wants to prepare for four more years in iraq at the present troop levels. there is a pro-bush pro-war rally going on in crawford in an attempt to combat/provoke the anti-war protests there. dubya is going on a five day push to explain to the nation why we need to continue the war in iraq.
escape is not an option. i feel something enormous coming on. i will be here in middle america for the showdown. we're split in this country roughly 50/50, but when it came down to it, who do you think could muster more shock troops, the red or the blue? i think we all know who has more people willing to make it a shootout.
i'm afraid of where our country is headed. i was never afraid of terrorism until bush the junior painted the target on all of our heads. now i just hope that i am not automatically grouped with them for being an american. sometimes i'm simultaneously proud and ashamed of my nation.
stop the madness, dubya, please.

this past weekend, i was lucky enough to fulfill the roles of both chef and jetski mechanic at the annual sister-in-law's-parents-in-laws' lake house spectacular. highlights included three child injuries, lots of drinking, fair amounts of underage drinking, more terrible jokes than any one person should have to bear, and fucking up an in-law-in-law's jetski by running it for an hour with the oil light on. but hey, what're you going to do?

since my actual birthday was spent sitting in traffic, i hope to have my birthday dinner tonight. we'll see if there are any takers.

i haven't been vigiling. though fiery political rhetoric may spew forth from this blog on a regular basis, i'm just not a vigil type guy. perhaps if my people held molotov vigils, then i could get into it. though i'm personally a pacifist, that doesn't mean i don't see the logic in kicking the occasional ass. it also doesn't mean that i prefer peaceful protest. i like loud protest that makes everyone look and actually have to think about what i'm protesting. i'm glad there are those like cindy sheehan out there for the other kind.

as acting technically saavy dude in my less than high tech workplace, i should probably get back to evaluating these phone system proposals, so until next time, junior revolutionaries, fuck bushrovecheneyhalliburtonrumsfeldboltongeneralelectric-ricewolfowitzlimbaughscaliabushandroveagainjustforgoodmeasure.

I understand scissors cut paper… that is pretty much standard, and certainly the primary use of scissors. To a lesser extent, I even get paper covers rock; it’s a little unorthodox (and hardly a victory for paper, if you think about it), but nonetheless, not out of the question. The easiest leg of this little triumvirate to pull out, however, is this; what troglodyte breaks scissors with a rock (or [showing a minimal amount more intellect] tries to cut a rock with scissors)?

will someone please shoot karl rove? i know i keep harping on this, but it seems everyone else has forgotten about how mixed up he is in a little thing called treason. at the very least, he has broken the law this time, and i would be inclined to go that next step that calls him a traitor to his country. every time i scream and rant and rail against the current administration, i am doing my duty to my country. i am keeping it strong through opposition. a country that is based on a single ideology is inherently flawed, because every ideology (even my own, however precious i may hold it) has blind spots you could walk an elephant through. it's just the nature of the beast (the ideology beast, not elephants). mr. rove, on the other hand, has no problem with simply silencing all opposition in the never ending quest for more power. he wouldn't be bothered in the least if people like me were imprisoned or even killed, as long as we were no longer in his way.
i too am capable of thinking of people as "the masses" rather than individual people with loved ones and such. most people are; it's one of the ways we are able to live with the attrocities going on in the world that aren't taking place in our own neighborhoods. however, i have never felt that my own ends (or worse yet, my own convenience) were worth the lives of anyone, even those people i don't know that i don't know.
if we took out rove, the rest of the world might have a fighting chance. that's all i'm saying.
for a change of pace, fuck karl rove. with a sledgehammer.

the republikkkans are doing so many horrible things at once, it's all i can do to stay angry. it's a right confusing series of events. two recess appointments (the second one was just to make it look like this sort of thing happens all the time), karl rove still has a job, the radical right is way too happy about the latest judicial aaa call-up, several other things i can't even remember for the time being, and to top it all off, dubya has the balls to dedicate the continuation of an unwinnable to war to the memories of those (u.s. corpses only) who have recently died in it!
siouxs! and i have been catsitting (watch the master of the segue work, bitches) for her sister. in my humble opinion, the primary reason to have a cat in the first place is so that you don't have to worry about it when you go out of town. sure, they're good for your blood pressure, but as long as you scold it for doing things it isn't supposed to occasionally, and possibly throw it across the room from time to time, te best thing abou cats is that they take care of their own business (i don't think most cats would say "bidnes" if they could talk. just a feeling i get. stuck up little furballs.). anyway, siouxs! has to spend the night in elsah, illinois. i stayed there with her last night, but we have (less than wonderfully trained) dogs, which is kind of like having toddlers who become criminally insane when you aren't at home. so, on the fourth day sans-nicotin, i am writing a blog entry in the evening for lack of the company of my loving wife. i realize it's pathetic that i do miss her (it's only one night), but if nothing else, i'm coming up with a joke a minute that only she would laugh at, and i like to make her laugh.
the baseball... ah yes, the baseball. i don't know how, but the cardinals have been doing rather well lately considering that they have only two regular position players who started the year as such. i realize that i am clinging to an antiquated sport, a reminiscence of pastoral days amusement, a game that is woefully molasses-like while played in what is usually the hot summer sun (when no one is looking, baseball concession stand workers from st louis and all points south press their skin against the hot dog rolling machine to cool off). nonetheless, though i played baseball, soccer, playground ultimate frisbee, and ran track and cross country, the only thing i can really watch of those sports is baseball, and i stuck with that the shortest amount of time. well, perhaps if they had playground ultimate frisbee on network television, i might be able to watch that.
this is now officially my longest post in a long freaking time.