Happy Birthday, Rolfy!

Oooh, I guess I am late with the GMT birthday, huh? Hey, you should check out this group if you ever have time, being a dad & husband and all. Man, how times change. The DJ becomes the dad, the bachelor becomes the husband! Hope I'm not bringin' ya down, Rolfy, but you know my 30th is approaching. Which makes you -- thirtysomething is all I know.

English weenies, untie!

In doing a legitimate search for comma usage (does it go outside a single quoted word or inside the quote marks?) I found this (whatever this is). I love the internet! Check out the Little Red Riding Hood story to see what I deal with in class all day. I seriously hope this is not what I wind up doing when I grow up! p.s. Yes, that was the intended spelling in the heading.

New invention --

If only I could figure out a practical use for it. I am sure I can find a use for something that 'can transform images or drawings on my computer screen into real items made out of an amazing variety of materials… wood, plastic, fabric, paper, glass, leather, stone, ceramic, rubber… and it’s as easy to use as your printer.' And check this out as well. It will give you a taste of what my life is like. Yes, dogs talk to me. Just may not be English.

Remember the Hug Guy

from the DMB video 'Everyday'? Well, he is like the kid from REM's 'End of the World' video back in the day. He is real. Don't know if that's a good or bad thing. It really is amazing what you can find out when you're avoiding cleaning house to avoid studying. Oh, wait, I don't have all my books yet -- so I can go to the bookstore first. Whew!

I'm proud to be an Americun

Check this out on washingtonpost.com -- from Tom Shales, so you know what you're getting, but I still enjoyed it. I am sick of all the inappropriate pomp & circumstance for a leader who 1/4 of his subjects gave a vote of confidence; for a man who sees no problem spending $40 million of other people's money on his own party; for a leader who sees. . . god knows what when he looks in the mirror. At least Ron Reagan knew he was an actor. Dubyah isn't even aware that he is one, and a bad one at that. I say, good for you, protestors.

Something wonderful is coming:

If only I could figure out a practical use for it. I am sure I can find a use for something that 'can transform images or drawings on my computer screen into real items made out of an amazing variety of materials… wood, plastic, fabric, paper, glass, leather, stone, ceramic, rubber… and it’s as easy to use as your printer.' And check this out as well. It will give you a taste of what my life is like. Yes, dogs talk to me. Just may not be English.

Well, lookit this.

Apparently $300 million of your hard-earned dollars has just up & walked out of Iraq, without leaving a trace. This is my favorite part:

The $300 million deal appears to have been arranged outside the American-designed financial controls intended to help Iraq - which defaulted on its external debt in the 1990's - legally import goods. By most accounts here, there was no public bidding for the arms contracts, nor was the deal approved by the entire 33-member Iraqi cabinet.

Ya know, we're not the greatest choice to set up a functioning government, and it is hubris to think otherwise.

been out 2nite

urgh. much fun with birthday boy and newly single girlfriend. argh. happy end of month to you.

Happy Birthday, CBopp!

Time to. . . Take the Skinheads Bowling, for those of you lucky enough to have seen Camper Van Beethoven last weekend when they were at the New Daisy or at Cat's for FREE!

Go here.

Free Sol + Blues City = best hip-hop rock show since the one I arranged a year ago. (Yes, I do sound arrogant, don't I?) The fact is that it will be the best show I've attended since then. I don't get out much now that I am turning 30! Eeeeek!

We are not alone

So now apparently England is in on it. Have I been totally out of it the past week? And have these losers been out of it, to take photos of their prisoner abuse? What lewd or amoral acts have you photographed your friends doing lately? Seriously. This is our military, y'all. They can't think past the moment to not photograph themselves in compromising, even incrimintating circumstances. Do you really want them making decisions that will affect your children, grandchildren, and their children? This problem is going nowhere fast. Get the f*ck out of Iraq. Leave them be!

I am the 899th visitor to my own blog.

Welcome to my little world. I am sorry I've been away this week, but I swear I've been coming home to crawl in bed at the end of the day. I will bounce back soon. Meanwhile, ponder this.

So far = so good

For my concerned readers in webland, I wanted to update you on yesterday's event. All went well from start to finish, thankfully, and besides our keynote speaker being 15 mins. late (bah! politicians) it went off without a hitch. You always expect to have people telling you how great it was after it's all over, and I did, but I also felt on my own that it was a good & worthwhile event. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, my job as event coordinator has been leading up to this weekend's holiday service-oriented program for the past couple of months. We had an interactive educational forum followed by speeches (more like personal addresses than prepared talks) and a poetry reading. It was tha shiz-nit.

Happy Birthday, Bill!

Here is your horoscope. I hope you like it, although I did not make it myself. It's a gift from the heart. I wish I could build you a cake or something. (Closest thing I could find to that line, sorry.)

Still here. Why?

Yeah, I'm at home at 9:00 on a Friday night, what's it to you? Not that it's any of your business, but I have to be at work by 7:30am for a fabulous event I am putting on tomorrow. Jealous? Okay, that music has now become annoying. Go away, Napoleon!

How sad. . .

. . . is it that I just left the Napoleon Dynamite site up so I could groove to the smooth jams of it while I surf? Do yourself a favor today and find your favorite reason to believe in the poser, the grace, the awe that is Napoleon.

Excuses not to report for work

Okay, so how much do they pay these losers to write this sh#t? I mean, anyone I know can come up with a better, funnier & more inventive list than this. My dumbest friend is more creative than this "Kate Lorenz" -- pah!

Oooop, aaaack!

A tribute to Bill the Cat, long may he rest in peace. That is how I feel this evening. I just hope I don't look like him. At the same time that I love event planning, it is not for the weak of spirit. Working with artists, politicians and volunteers all fo r a single event -- exclusively working with artists, politicians and volunteers for that event -- is not something I would ever advise.

Brussel sprouts

Or is it Brussels sprouts? Either way, man are they yummy. I had this thing when I was growing up that I'd like veggies until I discovered my sister was not a fan of them. I would immediately develop a dislike for peas, squash, spinach, whatever, and it was honestly not faked. It just suddenly tasted different. When my sister moved out I'd try the same food again and, surprise! I liked it again. So it is with Brussel(s) sprouts. With cheese they do rock!

News around the world

News from the animal kingdom is good these days. It seems that recently a "120-year-old giant tortoise living in a Kenyan sanctuary has become inseparable from a baby hippo rescued by game wardens, officials say.

The year-old hippo calf christened Owen was rescued last month, suffering from dehydration after being separated from his herd in a river that drains into the Indian Ocean.

"When we released Owen into the enclosure, he lumbered to the tortoise which has a dark grey colour similar to grown up hippos," Sabine Baer, rehabilitation and ecosystems manager at the park, told Reuters on Thursday.

She said the hippo's chances of survival in another herd were very slim, predicting that a dominant male would have killed him.

However, Owen's relationship with the Aldabran tortoise named Mzee, Swahili for old man, may end soon. The sanctuary plans to place Owen with Cleo, a lonely female hippo. Now, how are they so cruel as to break up this budding friendship? There should be government intervention, the opposite of a restraining order or something.

It's your lucky day!

Interested to know which condoms are best? Well, today's your lucky day. Can't promise you'll get lucky, though. Sorry.

Got to get me sum o'them bracelets

Have you heard the sex bracelet thing? Okay, maybe I am over a year behind with this thing, but. . . you must admit it's still funny! My first question is not if it's true that middle-schoolers are giving sexual favors if someone damages their cheap-but-overpriced pseudo-Eighties jelly bracelets. My first question is rather, who cares? Seriously. If twelve-year-olds are having sex, even if it's with R. Kelly, I don't really want to know about it. There's no way I'd have f*cked anyone in my 8th grade, and I can't imagine anyone else's school (then or now) being much different. Most of them aren't even using deoderant every day, for chrissakes.

Weirdness at the daily paper

I find it quite ironic that the Commerical Appeal's (memphis daily for you foreigners) blogger for health & fitness looks neither very healthy nor fit. She is overweight, with double chins even!, puffy and greasy looking, as if she'd eaten a diet of donuts and fried chicken for a week before having this photo taken. Who chose this shot? Americans are used to being lied to by the media; they could have used a model's photo instead of Jennifer Biggs'. It's not as if she's famous and we are hooked on her as a health & fitness guru.

Don't even ask

but I found this on google under "sari vs. choli" -- is there some sort of battle out there in the Hindu fashion world to which most of us are oblivious? Also, apparently "choli" is a naughty word? Mystified.

Oooh, I s'pose I missed the big shindig, durn it!

I wonder what a $1250.00 party is like. I can only assume I will never know. I can tell you what it'd be like if I were throwing it, though!

Goodbye, Susan Sontag.

C'est la vie, la morte. Nice obit on Slate.