She must be, seeing as she's approaching the 100,000 visitor mark. Then again, that's according to Sitemeter which is notoriously bad at accurately counting visitors. My own unscientific studies show that it gets the numbers right about 40% of the time, making my estimate of Jen's actual visits somewhere near the quarter million mark.
A quarter million, y'all!
Wouldn't it be great to be the 250,000th visitor to Jen's site? You could be the unofficial quarter millionth visitor, as verified by the Sitemeter ticking off 100,000 in it's anemic style. Just think of the glory. The honor. Those little chocolate candies with the caramel in the middle. What are those called again? Oh, yeah - Rolos! I love Rolos. Not as much as Snickers of course, and they're a good distance behind Reese's Peanut Butter Cups but still - Rolos are pretty good.
Where was I? Track back here...Reese's...Snickers...boobs (hey, I don't write down everything I think of)...Rolos...anemia...oh, yeah - Jen's site. She's on pace to get her SiteMeterated official 100,000th visitor (actually around the 250,00th visitor) in a couple weeks but if everybody who reads this post goes to visit her she'll get there in an hour or two. Hehe. Just kidding. More like three hours.
So, to get you over there (those of you who aren't the mindless automatons who blindly obey my every command, damn I love those guys) I present:
Cool Stuff Jen Has Posted Recently*
Been a secret agent.
Interviewed shitloads of notable bloggers including me.
Posted a picture of herself without a stitch of clothing showing.
Identified the progressive stages of insanity.
Sent hope and joy throughout the world.
Out-googled J-Lo's ass.
And that's just the recent stuff. Go see for yourself. Hey, almost 100,000 to somewhere around 250,000 visitors can't all be wrong!
* Okay, the interviews aren't recent. So sue me.
Next week I'll be in Chicago. A business trip, can you believe it? The last time work sent me out of town was three years ago but that was to Atlanta. Since I live in the suburbs of Atlanta and was only there for eight hours I don't think it technically qualifies as a business trip. The last actual business trip I was on was almost a decade ago.
To Chicago.
I lived in Chicago when I was just a lad. In fact, I wrote about some of my Chicago memories a time or two. You can take the boy out of Chicago but apparently you can't stop sending his ass back there.
So anyway, advance notice that there won't be much happening here next week. Hmmm...maybe I should leave y'all with a comment party post. It might help mitigate the damage frustration caused by my absence if I can lock y'all up in a secluded location give you a place to play and commiserate with each other.
I really hate the after-effects of a good hurl. The pieces of vomit and goopy stomach acid that's stuck in your nose and sinuses. The reward for a stomach purge is two days of smelling puke with the occasional chunk of mucous and partially digested yesterday's dinner that works itself back into your throat or nose.
It's hard to look forward to shootin' the shoes when you know what's coming afterward. Makes me appreciate Mary-Kate's fortitude and commitment to bulimia, it does.
Plyorns has posted the missing item in the Atlanta driver's mandatory equipment list. Ooh, I gotta get me some.
Come up with a caption for this one. The person who submits the best one (as judged by a triumvirate of myself, a small child and a nutless canine) shall live in infamy get a handful of points. What they hey - another handful of points will be spread out amongst the losers winning-impaired.
Contest is open until Friday and you can submit multiple entries.
(with apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein)
Democracies flourish and terrorists frying;
Consumers with money and Arafat dying;
Third world nations removing their kings;
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the news blows,
When the web slows,
When I'm feeling mad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.
Moore getting fatter and Dan Rathers' firing;
Peterson busted and WalMart is hiring;
Cutting off deadbeats from our apron strings;
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the French speak,
When my bones creak,
When I'm feeling mad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.
Football on TV and boobs in our faces;
Kerry defeated and panties with laces;
Politicians in oceans without water wings;
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the car stalls,
When the roof falls,
When I'm feeling mad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.
...where do you get all this time during the day to post stuff? If I weren't on vacation, I would be WAY too busy to post....
I replied with this short answer:
It all rattles around in my brain and I just disgorge it here. The physical typing happens in the early AM, lunchtimes and sometimes in the late PM.
But my answer has been bothering me because it's really superficial. So now I will entrap you in welcome you into the frightening maelstrom depths of my mind in search of the complete answer.
Clancy sent me a note about a poll in yesterday's print edition of USA Today:
USA Today, print edition (I couldn't find it online, but I only looked for a few minutes) in the Life section - they have a mini-poll. Anyway, the results of the mini-poll say that 60% of the respondents don't hit the snooze button and thus have no idea what your blog is about...
I'm ever the optimist though. To me that says that 40% of respondents owe me fealty as well as numerous presents.
Of course a realist would just say that 100% of the respondents wasted several seconds of their life answering a meaningless poll but we'll ignore the realists but they'd no doubt have a similar comment about the people reading this post.
By the way, Clancy, your blog is looking as empty as Bill Clinton's bag of morals. 60% of your readers want some more stuff from GF. The other 40% are too busy taking polls to notice. ;-)
Maculatus tried to regain his feet but failed. The blow had sent him flying and the landing dazed him severely. He craned his head and looked about him. The scene he saw was vivid but meaningless through the cloud of fog that seemed to have overcome his mind.
Cloud. Yes, that was a cloud there. A deadly cloud of poisonous gas that endangered his town and his beautiful queen. The queen he had been born to serve. Born and bred quite literally, as were all the warriors of Vespulica. The queen was in danger! The urgency of that thought banished the cobwebs from his mind and the last moments came back to him with frightening clarity and speed.
Anna explains her lengthy absense and prepares us for another one.
Anna, you've got my best wishes and hopes pulling for you. I hope you'll be back when things straighten out a bit. We just don't have enough California blondes with yards of golden tresses in the Blogosphere.
All seriousness aside...no, wait a sec...all joking aside, you'll be missed (again) and I'll be eagerly awaiting your return. You make me laugh and that makes the world a little bit brighter.
And don't shit where you drink either. The Georgia Supreme Court denied Gwinnett County's permit to dump 40 million gallons of sewage into Lake Lanier.
Sewage has been dumped there since before there was a lake. This permit was axed because it would allow Gwinnett to dump sewage that was less clean than they already have the capability to process and would allow them to avoid the per instance fines for violating the sewage quality requirements.
Lake Lanier is the main drinking water source for Atlanta and the sole source for the 700,000 residents in Gwinnett County. That number includes the five local members of the Peacock clan. Poop water, ewwwww. Thank god for Britta filters.
The holiday gluttony starts early in the blogosphere. Sate yourself with some crunchy appetizers at the 114th Carnival of the Vanities then pig out on the turkeys at the 73rd Bonfire.
What? No football?
They rape women and children, force people into prostitution, and run sex slave rings. It's all in a day's work for United Nations Peacekeepers.
The United Nations has dispatched two teams to investigate 150 charges of sexual exploitation and abuse by civilian and military personnel serving in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to a senior UN official.The allegations include criminal activity, paedophilia, rape and solicitation of prostitution, said Jane Holl Lute, an Assistant Secretary-General in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), at a press briefing Monday.
And people look to the UN as a proto-governing world body? It staggers the mind. That's like putting Clinton in charge of the secretary pool.
Now after these investigative teams come back with the results of their investigations the UN will issue recommendations. Yes, recommendations! They're not going to actually do anything about it at all. They're just going to go have a look-see and then say "Hey guys, please don't do that any more". Wanna know why? Because the UN has no authority over UN troops! Ain't that grand? There are 10,000 troops from fifty countries and each country is responsible for disciplining their own troops. If the boys from Stickitinmyassoslavia (that's a made up name, don't bother Googling it) don't have a problem with their troops raping kids and extorting sex from women then nothing at all happens.
Wow. Just...wow.
The Georgia legislature has made the Department of Motor Vehicles subservient to the Georgia public school system. Schools may now tell the DMV to suspend student licenses for up to a year. The idea behind it is to give the schools another stick to threaten truant and disruptive kids with. The reality is quite frightening, especially when you consider how existing school legislation, zero tolerance laws and zero tolerance policies aggravate and interact with each other.
Much more on this at Zero Intelligence.
SBD News Service (Atlanta) - American Medical Association researchers have made a remarkable discovery. It seems that some patients needing blood transfusions may benefit from receiving chicken blood rather than human blood. It tends to make the men cocky and the women lay better.
But Flibbertigibbet does. Rather, he needs people to take his survey. It's for one of his school projects. He's going to school for a business degree. If he does well here he will very quickly become one of those mover/shaker type business moguls, supporting and growing our economy by his very presence. So go take the poll. Do it for Flibby. Do it for the USA. Do it because it's just a couple questions and you've got nothing better to do anyway.
Getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren't we? The nominations for the 2004 Weblog Awards are open. Go and let Kevin and crew know what your favorite blogs are.
Incidentally, in case you were wondering, Snooze Button Dreams would be in the Best of the Top 500-1000 Blogs class for the Ecosystem ranking categories. You were wondering, weren't you?
What's cookin good lookin? Head over to Boudicca's Voice to find out. She's hosting the 14th Carnival of Recipes.
Don't mind me. I'm just going to sit here and salivate for a while.
Mmmmm...
Lovely Wife sent me this very cool link: The World Sunlight Map
No more excuses for calling people at 3 in the morning and we can finally tell when Pixy is supposed to be awake without using a calculator or logarithms.
Lovely Wife sent me some gorgeous photos of sunsets and I'm going to use one of them for my desktop here at work. Problem is, I can't decide which to use.
That's where you come in! You get to make my difficult decision for me. Hey, I'm one step from the VP now. I'm learning the secret of delegation.
Take a look at these three and vote for your favorite:
To the fellow in the Mazda this morning: The blinking yellow light means "proceed with caution". It does not mean "yield right of way to side street traffic". And just in case you decided to stop all of the traffic on the main road just to be nice to those folks making a left through their blinking red stop light please let me remind you that you are in Atlanta and during rush hour we are permitted to remove one of your appendages to discourage such displays of weakness.
To the punks using the second floor bathroom: That horizontal handle at the top left of the urinal? Yeah, go ahead and wiggle that sucker after you've taken a piss. We call this "flushing". It makes it much more pleasant for the next fellow plus keeps the urine reek in the bathroom to a minimum. And if you do it while Mr.Happy is still dangling free you'll get a delightful wash of cool air and a free spritzer. Try it, you'll like it.
'Cause that's where I'm going thanks to our viewing selection on the boob tube last night. It was an HBO documentary on dwarfs. Little people, that is. The vertically challenged. I think it was called "Natural Born Carnies" but I can't be sure.
Damn, there it is again. You saw that? That's at least six years in purgatory for that carnie crack. I was horrific through the entire show. I think I'll get a few pokes with the pointy fork for corrupting Lovely Wife as well. Hmmm...maybe I can earn some time off for good behavior if I apologize.
Okay, let's try that. Let's see if I can remember some of my worst offenses here...
Regarding the dwarf girl who had lengthening surgery I apologize for the "Stretch Armstrong" crack. That was terribly unkind.
Regarding the dwarf pediatric surgeon I fully realize that there is really no great chance of him being mistaken for his own patient and I apologize for making that inference. My observation regarding his height compatibility with his dog was likely over the line as well.
Regarding the little person gal marrying the pixie dude, I'm very sorry that my response to Lovely Wife's observation "I wonder if they'll try to have kids" was "Yeah, they'll have midget dwarfs". I'm equally sorry that my response to her query about their future sex life included a quip along the lines of "Oh yeah, you can do a lot of cool things with a dwarf". I'm especially sorry that I gave Lovely Wife a knowing wink after that one. I also apologize profusely for my quip about the gal not needing any kneepads. Hey, at least I didn't make any "flat head" comments. Do I get any points for that?
In my defense I can only say that I am a materialist and there was just too much material thrown at me to resist. Before anybody casts stones please remember that age old maxim "If making fun of midgets is outlawed, only outlaws will make fun of midgets".
The inestimable Anna has resurfaced, just as overloaded with estrogen and injected with testosterone as ever.
(Credit to Nick for the redwings thing. I never come up with stuff that clever.)
Rob is closing in on his 1000th comment, a milestone in the life of any blog. My money says that he'll get there today.
Go and proove me right! (There's a prize in it for one of you.)
UPDATE: Rob tripped his meter this morning. Yay! Now go harrass the Wetwired crew. They're closing in on 2,000 comments and Pylorns has promised to dance naked in front of the Savoy when they get there.
Nine-eye: A delay was caused by non-dog related issues. Nine-eye will be getting his shots next Saturday instead of the Saturday just past. Grooming planned for the Monday after the shots.
Kids: Bacon had the croup Thursday night through the start of the weekend. Thanks to our kick-ass neighbor we didn't have to buy a nebulizer or Albuterol. Burger got it Saturday and is still kicking it. Sleep was at a premium at our house over the weekend.
Pets: I've come to a conclusion regarding the relative evil of kittens and puppies. Specifically, why do kittens do so much more damage than puppies? I believe that both species have the same amount of total evil but because kittens are smaller their evil is much more concentrated. Incidentally when Stitch purrs it sounds like a warthog with asthma. She starts purring at midnight. Every night. Concentrated evil, I'm telling you.
International: Breaking news from the mid-east. Yassir Arafat is still dead! And there was much rejoicing. Yay!
Work: The new job is awesome. Totally and completely awesome. And busy. I'm currently working on four projects, heading two of them.
idiosyncrasy
Pronunciation: "i-dE-&-'si[ng]-kr&-sE
Function: noun
Etymology: "idio" from the French idiote meaning Belgian, "syncrasy" from the Russian synchronous meaning swimming in a group wearing stupid smiles and nose plugs
1 An oddity of manner or temperament : eccentricity : something that other people go "Ewww!" when they hear about it
2 An oddment that generally falls under the category of "too much information"
You know those lists of 100 things about me that are very popular with blogsters? Basically they're just a list of idiosyncrasies. But they are loooooong lists. Who came up with 100 for the goal anyway? Probably a fascist. Those lists must be a bitch to write and who really wants to read 100 things about somebody?
So you get three from me. Three is a number I can get a handle on. I mean, I can count that high with less than a handful of fingers. Plus it's mystical. The number three appears all over the place: the holy trinity, the Three Stooges, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, you get the picture.
1: I take my pants off when I poop. Comfort is king with me and I just don't feel comfortable with my ankles tied together while trying to squeeze out a stink pickle. Spread the legs wide on the seat and you'll be surprised how much better you flow. Trust me.
2: I sleep at the edge of the bed. Well, not right on the edge of the bed but at least touching it. If I don't have a hand or foot on an edge I can't sleep because I lose my orientation and position sense. Basically I have to be near the edge of the bed because if I'm in the middle of it I'm afraid I'll fall off.
3: If I ever get held up in classic style where the robber comes up behind and puts a gun to my head I will be dead. This is because I will totally freak the robber out when I am seized with paroxysms of laughter. The back of my head is so ticklish I will get tremors along my whole body when it is touched. Lovely Wife gets a kick out of this one.
4: I get a fierce enjoyment out of breaking rules, even my own.
It's hard not being a member of a political party. Hard and inefficient. When people talk politics they first establish their stances. This is very easy for a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green or Communist. When you know what party they support you immediately have a general idea of their political beliefs. You have an established starting point.
Now it's true that next to nobody embraces all of the party line but when you have that known starting point it is very easy to clarify your positions. "I'm a Republican but I support freedom of choice" or "I'm a Democrat but I think socialized medical care is the wrong way to go" or even "I'm a Libertarian but I have a sneaking suspicion that the complete elimination of government would be a bad move".
For those of us who can't identify enough with a party to claim membership it is very difficult to even get to a conversational starting point. Before our debate can begin we need to essentially outline our complete political viewpoint. How do you feel about abortion? How do you feel about welfare? How do you feel about progressive taxation? How do you feel about government subsidies, social security, proactive national defense, deficit spending, etceteras, etceteras, etceteras. It can take fifteen minutes of this before you're even at a point where you can start discussing issues.
On the commute home today I was pleasantly surprised to hear the radio announcer say "This traffic report is being brought to you by the Island of Aruba".
Can you imagine that? Atlanta traffic is so bad that they've heard about it in Aruba! Not only have they heard about it but the Island (the whole freaking island!) cares enough to sponsor traffic reports for us.
Wow. Just wow. I am so touched I can't adequately put my gratitude into words.
Thank you, Aruba. Thank you so much.
Wishes of a happy Veterans Day to all of the men and women who have protected this great country in past and present. (Lovely wife says thanks too.)
I served in the Navy myself. Eight years as a Hospital Corpsman in the Reserves. A bit over two years of that was spent on active duty.
In the beginning I didn't have a specialty so was basically just a nurse's aide with EMT training. My unit became the foundation for a Mobile Fleet Hospital unit (like M*A*S*H except we didn't have dirt floors) so I was then trained as a Marine. Military logic, don't ask for an explanation please. During Desert Storm I was activated and sent to Oakland (motto: The New Jersey of the west coast) to become an Operating Room Technician. That's the guy who hands the surgeon the sponges and clamps and needles and blades and stuff. After eight years in medicine with some of the most expensive surgical training you could ask for I promptly got into computers.
All of that is a huge non-sequitir to the story I'm going to tell you today: How Jim Ended Up As A Corpsman
Part of the process of joining the military is taking the ASVAB test. That stands for Armed Service Vocational Aptitude Battery. They put you in a field and shoot cannons at you. If you dodge enough of them they let you join.
I jest. It's actually a fill-in-the-oval test like the SATs and is designed to determine what military billet you could eventually fill. Lots of math and geometry, physics principles, word comprehension, mechanical aptitude stuff, and at least ten or eleven questions that amount to "The answer is A. Darken the oval next to the letter A. No, you dumbass! The one next to that!" Being a math wiz who spent his formative years helping Dad fix cars and planes and only rarely being a dumbass this test was pretty much designed for me to make it my bitch.
And I did. It is an hour-plus timed test. I finished it in fifteen minutes or so and was too bored to double check my answers so I took a nap. My score was in the 98th percentile. Pretty awesome, right? I'd have my pick of billets, right? I could go and do just about anything I wanted to, right?
Dopple-G here, everyone. I'm the source of much of Jim's inanity, but today I bring you a political rant all my own.
For the many who claimed that they were leaving the country if the challenger didn’t win the presidential election, I’d like to extend this opportunity to encourage them to follow through with that promise.
Ilyka has an absolutely fantastic treatise on what it's like being in the middle between the big political parties. That's the Republicans and Democrats, for those of you playing along at home.
As good as that post is I must guiltily admit that the biggest kick I got out of it was her handling of a jackass commenter.
SHORT'NIN! SHORT'NIN! SHORT'NIN!
Go read, you'll thank me when you're done. Seriously - I expect all of you to come back here and thank me. I'll be quite distraught if you don't.
I've been seriously remiss with my blogroll lately. One of the things about using an RSS reader is that I don't use my own blogroll as a surfing point any longer. I add and subtract blogs in the reader, think "hey, I should update my blogroll" and then get distracted by something shiny.
I've finally taken a couple of minutes to make the blogroll actually match the blogs that I read. The list is a lot shorter than it used to be. The reasons why I trimmed blogs out are varied. Some had closed shop. Some had moved or modified and are there under their new guises. Some had changed considerably since I first started reading them and they just didn't peak my interest any longer. Some were just too profligate and I simply didn't have the time to invest in reading them any longer.
The saddest ones by far were the ones that were warped out of the zone of readability by politics. Blogs that I had picked up because they were informative and pointed became echo chambers of partisan rhetoric. Very, very harsh rhetoric. At a certain point I just couldn't read any more about how Bushitler is jackbooting all over the world or that Kerry was Sonny Bono reincarnate (only not as good looking and unable to carry a tune in a bucket with a Ziploc lid). I still followed those blogs for some time, judging by post titles whether I'd read the individual entries or not. Eventually it got to the point where I wasn't reading any of the posts so I removed the blogs from my aggregator.
Now my blogroll matches my actual blog reading and the horrible rent in space-time caused by that disparity is healing itself. When you don't get sucked into a parallel dimension tonight you can all thank me.
(I just realized that getting "sucked into a parallel dimension" could also be taken as a sexual metaphor, in which case it would be a very good thing and I hope it happens to you tonight.)
Ilyka is exploring the age old question of what makes a person decide to be a Republican. For me it was pretty simple. When I was a young idealist (making no money) I was very much a Democrat, and proud of it. I thought that it was absolutely wonderful that the Democrats wanted to take care of all of my problems and fix all of the ills of the world. That was a concept I could really get behind!
But as I started to make more money I realized something. First, the Democrats didn't take care of my problems. Not a one. Zilch. Zero. Nada. I did it by myself. I realized something else. They didn't fix all of the ills of the world either. They really weren't fixing any of the world's ills.
But the government was taking my money. In larger and larger amounts. And the Democrats wanted to take even more to fund all of these wonderful problems that never helped me or mine and these other huge programs that never fixed the world's ills.
The more I made, the more they took. But no matter how much of my money they took they still weren't taking care of me and they still weren't fixing the world's ills.
I got pissed. I got Republican. They had loads of bogus promises too but the big one was that they didn't want to keep taking more and more of my money. They wanted a smaller government without so many useless programs that required less money out of my pocket to throw into the great bureaucratic black hole of incompetence. That rocked!
I've toned back quite a bit since then. By this time in my life I'm more of a lower case "l" libertarian than anything else. Perhaps a good description would be "moderate disestablishmentarianist". If the government was completely scaled back to the point where they didn't screw with my life at all unless I was in the process of screwing with somebody else, and vice versa, I'd be perfectly happy.
So long as they stopped taking my money of course.
Everybody has seen the map of America with the red states and the blue states and it makes it look like the coasts versus everybody else. Get a bit more granular and a whole different picture emerges. We're all just shades of purple.
(Hat tip to Dopple-G)
While waiting for the elevator in the front lobby I overheard this conversation:
Old (very old) Lady: ...but he's NOT on the side of good. He's on the side of EVIL!Security Guard: But he's...
Old (very old) Lady: (Interrupting) He's evil! You can't support something that's evil!
Security Guard: I don't think...
Old (very old) Lady: (Interrupting) I don't care if he did win the election. He'll never be my president!
Security Guard: It's not like you have a whole lot of choice at this point.
Old (very old) Lady: The hell I don't! I'm fighting for the side of good. I'll fight everything he does! And so will every other good Democrat!
Security Guard: (mutters)
I don't know what the muttering was but I can guess that it was along the lines of "Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of, you crazy old bat."
Thankfully this isn't a person I work with. From the looks of her she wandered in for a captive ear, knowing that the security guard couldn't leave the front desk area. My elevator got there at this point so I don't know how the security guard managed to end the conversation. They are armed with tasers and batons though so we can always hope...
(Credit for "Overheard" theme goes to Flibby. Here's a recent example of his handiwork in the arena.)
Lovely Wife has it over here but it bears repeating. Thank you, thank you, thank you! The response to the Save Nine-eye fund drive has been outstanding. Special thanks to Boudicca, Jen, Susie, Ed Flinn and Dave Ferrell. They've all contributed to the Save Nine-eye fund either directly, through spreading the message or both. Thanks to y'all we've raised enough to get Nine-eye set up and legal. Yay!
But wait, there's more.
We turned a big corner this weekend with Nine-eye. He's letting us really pet him now. He let Lovely Wife put a slip lead on him, let me put a collar on him (A very studly leather collar. That's studly, not studded. He doesn't go that way, not that there's anything wrong with that.) and walked with Lovely Wife on a leash. That was Nine-eye on the leash, not Lovely Wife, just to clarify my syntax.
We've got a coupon for a very good local vet so we can get his shots, a full physical, worm check, the works. We should also have enough left over (since we don't need a trap after all) to get him groomed. Boy does he need some grooming. This guy's got long thick fur and there is some serious nastiness hiding out in there.
Nine-eye's legalization visit will be this Saturday. Hopefully the groomer as well. Since we can pet him now it would be nice to do that without worrying about just what that is that we're touching underneath that fur coat.
We'll keep you posted and thank you again!
Lovely Wife and I have embarked on an ambitious project. We're going to help rehabilitate a homeless person. Well, okay, he's not precisely a person. He's a dog. I guess he's not exactly homeless either since he's welcome at our house and others in the neighborhood. He is in danger though and we want to make him safe.
Lovely Wife and I both recently wrote about Nine-eye, our neighborhood vagabond. Her post is here and mine is here. (She has more pictures than I do.) Our great worry is that Animal Control will get a hold of him and take him away. Following some great advice from Boudicca and Simon we went out and got some information and some help. As it stands now he would be gone forever if AC caught him. However, if we get him tagged and legal with his immunizations they would return him to us if he got picked up.
So that's what we're going to do - take him to the vet for shots and a check-up, get him some tags and make him AC proof. The problem we have is money. As you know we're sort of up against the wall with that at the moment. We're going to try to drum up some donations from the neighborhood. We're pretty sure that at least one family (the ones who keep a bed for him) will help. For our contribution we've got...um...well, we've got you.
We're not talking about a huge amount of cash. A trap to catch him is a $25 rental. The vet is $100. We've already got a high quality leather collar that was too big for Kota and the tags are something like $5. $130, less whatever we can scrounge from the neighbors isn't a whole lot to pay to keep our neighborhood mascot safe. Hell, just the piece of mind that it gives Lovely Wife would make it worthwhile for me.
So pardon be buddy, can you spare a dime?
The PayPal button in the sidebar there will be dedicated to the Save Nine-eye Fund until we've raised enough for his entry into polite society. Hit it. Or tell somebody else to hit it. Or both?
A huge thanks to Simon and Rob who've both donated funds to help us with our mortgage problem. You guys rock. Hard. And don't worry - that money is completely dedicated to the mortgage, it won't be used in the Nine-eye fund.
Also, anything we get beyond what we need to make Nine-eye legal will go to wards making up that mortgage payment, so all y'all don't have to be afraid to give too much.
Thank you, spread the word, and go hug your furry four footed friend for me. (Hopefully that will be an animal but for some of my regular readers I'm not too sure.)
So, the world's oldest terrorist lies in a coma and the world is waiting for him to breath his last. Anybody else thinking of this as an early Christmas present?
Don't get the wrong idea here. I'm not the sort that goes about wishing that people die or wishing bad things on anybody. Doing things like that tends to warp you. But that doesn't mean I can't be just as relieved as the next guy when the right person buys the farm.
Does that make me inhumane? Cold? Twisted? No, I don't think so. Look, if you have cancer do you cry when the surgeon excises it? If you've got a tick on your arm do you feel sorry for the tick when you're putting the lit match up against its shell and it pops like the world's smallest firecracker? Of course not.
Arafat is a parasite, just like that tick. Nobody got through to him with a lit match over the past decades but we can be just as happy when the bloated blood sucker dies naturally.
Israel and the Palestinians have serious problems. One of the worst of them is going away. For that I am very, very happy.
Side note: Anybody else notice that once again the French military is trying to keep an Arab dictator in power? Humanitarian aid, my ass.
This is Nine-Eye. He's our neighborhood mascot. Lovely Wife wrote about him yesterday. She's got more pictures in her post (I stole this one from her).
He's got a bit of urban legend about him. About a year ago the father of a teen down the street committed suicide. The next day Nine-Eye showed up. Animal control was called but he wouldn't let them near him. He's made his home in our neighborhood ever since.
He's an older dog with white showing up on his muzzle but he's still spry enough to play with the pups on our street, even our psychotic lab Kota. He is the low dog on the totem pole, deferring even to the mutant sausage dog from the end of the block. He's so timid that we're pretty sure he was seriously abused by his owners before escaping or being abandoned.
Several families in the neighborhood have adopted him. Some people feed him, others have set up sleeping areas in flower beds, everybody greets him with happy faces and kind words. In fact, I'm pretty sure that a couple of houses (including ours) feed him on a regular basis. He just goes from one to the next at each specific supper time.
When the kids are out playing Nine-Eye is there, a cautious distance apart but ready and willing to put himself between them and anybody dangerous. When the dogs are out he follows them around, plays and runs with them. When Lovely Wife and I go outside at night for some quiet and to enjoy the beautiful fall weather he's there, excited and happy to greet us. Early in the morning he waits with the kids at the bus stop next door and then he comes back to see me off to work.
I mentioned how shy he is but let me describe in greater detail. He won't eat near people or the other dogs. When you put food down he waits patiently until you walk well away from the bowl. It took quite a while but he'll now take a treat from my hand. He's incredibly gentle and if I don't release it right away he won't take it by force. Even on a successful transfer he walks well away before eating the treat. He's to the point where I can give him a little scratch or rub as he walks away and he won't run but that's the most contact that he'll allow.
Yesterday morning was special. I went outside with my coffee and my PDA to check my email and enjoy a beautifully warm, wet morning. He'd spent the night in our carport to stay dry and when I sat down he walked over and put his head on my leg. I scratched him behind the ears for a few seconds before he walked off. He sat down a short distance away (much closer than typical) and we spent the time in companionable silence. It was a great start to the day.
What's in the future for Nine-Eye? He seems to be in excellent health. He's mobile and active and has his own little niche in our community. Many of us welcome his presence, some don't, at least one neighbor is actively set against him. Will Animal Control get him one day? Are we making that more likely by teaching him to trust us?
There's no way to know what the future holds but I hope he's with us for a long time, and hopefully with ever increasing trust.
NOTE: There is a long line of people ready to kick the shit out of the person who beat this phobic timidity into this dog. Lovely Wife and I are at the front of the line.
"We are not going to give up until the last vote is counted."
"We give up."
Okay, it was a cheap shot but I couldn't resist. Kerry could have protracted things and extended the exceptional division that has marked this election. After some time to look things over and examine the options and probable repercussions he chose not to do so. Now lets see if they can put those thousands of lawyers back into Pandora's box.
We at the Flying Pig party would like to thank all of our supporters for the hard work they did during this exciting presidential campaign. It was a good run, hard fought, and dearly paid for.
The contest was close but our analysts tell us that it is statistically impossible for us to pull in Ohio. To avoid the trials and tribulations of a protracted and divisive struggle we are conceding the Presidential race. We will not contest ballots in heavily Piggish districts nor will we file lawsuit after lawsuit in a pathetic attempt to escape the inevitable.
This is a time for healing the self-inflicted wounds that split our country during this highly charged election. A time to make rational thought and cooperation our goals. A time to erase the tri-partisan nature of our politics and make our government simply partisan.
Don't lose heart my friends. The Flying Pig party is still strong and dedicated. We will be back again in 2008 when next these elections come around. In the meantime we fully intend to support President Nader in any way possible and encourage all Piggies to do the same.
Thank you for your support,
Jim Peacock
Former Vice Presidential Candidate, Flying Pig Party
Waiting time to vote this morning was close to two hours. Later in the day it was still an hour plus. I left work at 4:30 and got to my polling location at 5:15 (did I tell you that I'm a commuter now? Yay).
No line. None. I was in and out in just a couple of minutes. The handful of people there with me were laughing and joking, their fear of a lengthy wait dissipated and leaving them lighthearted and lightheaded.
I'm assuming there was a lot of lightheadedness in the 4th Congressional district where they elected the shame of Georgia Cynthia McKinney again.
The moral of the story? Procrastination pays.
Got a minute? Why not stop by the Flying Space Monkey's totally unscientific but still relatively impartial exit poll?
Halloween was a blast this year. We made it a three day affair. On Friday we had a party and the kids dressed up in costume and pigged out on hot dogs and candy. Our boys were a trio of deadly pirates. Or maybe they were buccaneers. I never could tell the difference. Either way, they had a blast whacking each other and anything that did or didn't move with their cutlasses. The muskets were a bit of a disappointment, firing their rubber suction cup darts with almost enough force to stick on a glass window provided the barrel was no more than two inches from the target and the target was coated in tree sap. Then again, seeing what they managed to do with plastic swords this may have been a good thing.
After the kids were bounced to bed high on mountains of kiddie crack the grown-ups sat about the smoldering barrel fire (hey, I can't help it that we burned off all of the good wood over the past couple months - the massive log that served as the fire base smoked away slowly for three days) and talked shop. We all came to the conclusion that Tuesday couldn't come fast enough and we'd never seen an election with such incredible acrimony.
Cool spot of the evening - Trey's pumpkins. Holy cow, I've never seen pumpkins carved like that. They were a cow and a cowboy and they were built onto RC trucks so you could drive them around and have the cowboy chase the cow. Interactive pumpkins. Sweet.
Saturday we went to dinner at Trey's and took the kids trick-or-treating in his neighborhood. Secondary outfits were used for this official candy grabbing event. We had a Pikachu, a ninja and a Buzz Lightyear. Shut up, they were incredibly cute.
The jingle has changed a bit since my days of a youth:
Trick-or-treat smell my feet,
give me something good to eat.
If you don't I don't care,
I'll pull down your underwear.
We didn't have that second verse when I was a lad. It must be because we're a kinder, gentler nation now. We never used to give warnings of what we were going to do to the villains that provided improper or insufficient treats.
After trick-or-treating we retired to Trey's house where the kids hopped themselves up on sugary goodness and we grown-ups discussed the not-so-subtle undertones in GQ magazine. The ads (of which the magazine is 80% comprised) basically fall into two categories: flaming and smoldering. What happened to this magazine? I remember years ago you were almost guaranteed to get a couple decent boob shots per issue. Now you get male models in underwear and handcuffs being manhandled (I used that word on purpose - my subtlety is returning in spades) by the po-po. It was like opening up a Playboy and seeing two guys playing wang tag. Well, it differed in degree but the sense of betrayal was the same.
Sunday marked the closing of ceremonies for the holiday, capped off with another round of trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood. The neighbor kids came with us and we had an escort from the neighborhood stray. What a great dog - I'll have to tell you all about him in another post.
Little legs were failing by the time we finished our neighborhood but spirits were still high so we trucked over to the neighborhood behind us. This was a madhouse. Kids all over. Big kids. Kids who should not be trick-or-treating. I think it should be a rule that once you get your driver's license you should not go begging for candy. We saw one high school aged kid with no costume using a backpack for his goody bag just biking from house to house. If I ever get one of those at my place he's getting the hose.
We aborted that neighborhood and finished up with our own next door neighbors. For the third day the kids indulged in sugarfest. The choclavores were relentless in their consumption. After a suitably gluttonous period we removed the stimulants and enjoyed the show. Actual conversation snippet:
Bacon: I'm not hungry! I like chocolate! Hey! I think I'll go climb that tree!
When their buzz wore off sufficiently we packed them into bed. Being the responsible parent that I am, I was concerned about the amount of candy they had been eating over the past couple days. Having only my children's wellbeing in mind I filtered their pumpkins for the most dangerous candy - Snickers bars and M&Ms - and put them in a place where the poor lads wouldn't be tempted by them. Out of sight, out of mind, and in Daddy's desk drawer. Heh.
We then retired to the comfy chairs for a relaxing adult beverage and some blessed solitude. Halloween was over. At least until Tuesday...
I'll get some pictures in here too, as soon as I snag 'em from Lovely Wife's computer. The ones of the kids will need to include a uterine flutter warning - they really are that cute.
EPILOGUE
The kids learned several very important lessons this Halloween:
1) Signs that say "take one" on the abandoned bowl of candy at unattended houses are meant as a suggestion.
2) Sucky candy can be quickly disposed of by either trading it, giving it to the parents as no-cost presents or by licking it once and cleverly discarding it when throwing out the wrapper.
3) Halloween comes once a year but if properly exploited it can keep you in candy all the way to Easter.
I was just a few weeks too late getting back to work. The book says we're short by about one mortgage payment. I contacted the lender and they've extended the pay date to the end of the month, which would help shitloads if there was magic money coming in before that. Drat.
The part that really sucks is that we'd be just fine if I had been able to collect unemployment for the time that I was unemployed. Y'all probably think that this is a reasonable thought. Once upon a time I was as deluded as you are. You see, unemployment is not based on being unemployed. It's based on being unpaid. Since my severance from my former job was parsed out instead of being paid as a lump sum I was disqualified from collecting unemployment for the entire time that I was receiving my severance.
Speaking about unemployment, I have a couple of bones to pick with them. First, what's with all of the jumping through hoops? I PAID for this. I gave many thousands of dollars over the past twenty years so I would have a cushion in case my job situation went bad. When I finally need it I find out that my pillow is one of those display models with a styrofoam core. Mandatory re-education classes? No benefits if I refuse any job? No benefits if I make $350 from any and all sources in any particular week? No benefits if I'm physically unable to work in any particular week? And if I do meet all of the criteria and jump when you tell me to you will reward me with a whopping $300 that I'm supposed to use to feed my family and pay my utilities, car and mortgage with?
Gee, color me unimpressed.
Privatize unemployment insurance. If I'd been paying into even a low-yield bond instead of into the black hole of bureaucratic inefficiency I would have had no problems whatsoever and would still have been problem free for quite a few more months. Unemployment insurance as it stands now is a joke, just another government handout program paid for by the working class but next to useless to the vast majority of people paying for it.
If I had my druthers I'd be sending my unemployment insurance premiums to Monster.com. It was their networking service that got my headhunter into contact with me and yielded a fantastic job.
Fuck unemployment insurance and fuck the Department of Labor.
[/rant]
Anyway (sheepish grin), if anyone would like to hit that button in the sidebar I wouldn't mind. Hell, screw that - you'd have my undying gratitude. I might even send you a picture of my hairy nipples. Or not, depending on your preference and tolerance.
UPDATE:
Wow, I'm a dumbass. I just looked back in the archives and realized I've been seriously remiss in some thank-yous. First off a bunch of folks hit my PayPal button when I first got the pink slip. They all had my personal thanks but they deserve some public love too. Many thanks to Harvey, Ilyka, Susie, Simon and Ed Flinn.
Secondly, thank you to all of you. Every single one of you. All of you who commented, emailed, cheered me on, commiserated with me, helped with my resume and cover letter, helped keep me focused or just helped keep me sane. The amount of support I got from you, my very extended, disparate and somewhat dysfunctional family, was absolutely unbelievable. You helped more than I can adequately relate to you now.
Thirdly, a special thankyou to Dopple-G. Cousin, friend, loanshark, bookmobile. Dopple-G came through when I needed to buy a new suit for the interview that landed this job. He also rocks on general purposes.
Lastly, but most importantly, thank you my Lovely Wife. You never lost faith in me, you supported me when I needed it, you kicked my ass when I needed that and you kept me believing in me. I love you my Sweetie.
It's a complicated question. Actually, it's a simple question. I mean just look at it - six little words, maybe seven if you don't use the contraction. Can't get a whole lot simpler than that and still impart meaning. What I meant is that the answer is complicated. In fact, here it is:
A) Because his ass got fired and he wasn't in the mood any more.
B) Because his ass got fired and the time he used to spend on blogs was put towards finding a new job.
C) Because his ass got fired and he no longer car pools to work with his number one source of blog inspiration.
D) Because he had some nasty freaking serious health problems and had physical problems sitting in a chair.
E) Because the drugs he's on for the health problems have taken his inner muse, tied her up and put a ball gag on her.
So as you can see the simple question has a complicated answer. So what can we do here? How do we fix it? Well, getting a new job has corrected A and B. There's no way to fix C but I can try to substitute for Dopple-G with people at the new job as I meet them. D is way better than it was, to the point where I'm getting rid of E. I'm in the taper off phase and I can already feel my writing bug returning. Hell, I'm writing this now, aren't I?
As I get back into a morning routine for work I should be able to get back to the blog. Stay tuned for the entertaining and thought provoking commentary you've been missing, things like what condiments work best for masturbation and similar offerings.
And thank you to the 300 people a day who kept coming back even though the blog was sucking harder than a neophyte puffer. Y'all rock.
