Not to Put Too Fine a Point on It...

So Much for the Recovery

I knew there was something suspicious about the Bush Administration's crowing about the ongoing economic recovery, and there was something equally suspicious about their nonchalance about the abysmally low exchange rate of the dollar. However, I am no economist, so I was unable to consider it past the questionable "yeah, but, the low dollar is GREAT for US exports!" (ignoring the fact that exports are up very little)

This month, the first two items in the Harper's Index are as follows:

Percentage change since March 2002 in total U.S. corporate profits, as valued in dollars : +39

Percentage change as valued in euros : -8

Interesting, isn't it? In other words, the only reason U.S. corporations have shown profits consistent with a "recovery" is that THE DOLLAR HAS FALLEN ENOUGH TO ALLOW IT.

We're all fucked. Goddamn I wish the Democrats weren't such fucking whores.

In Case I Didn't Make It Clear

How cool this book is, I just looked in it for hot drinks (because my house is fucking cold, as it happens, and although I could just make some tea, like a normal person, or, say, turn up the heat, like a rich person, I thought I'd make something hot to drink that had ALCOHOL in it, see? Two birds, one stone... never mind...) and I found this:

CAFÉ BRÛLOT

1 lemon
1 orange
1 ounce Triple Sec
1 ounce brandy
1 cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
1½ cups hot, strong coffee

Remove the lemon and orange peel in one continuous strip so that it forms a spiral. As you peel the fruit, hold it over a brûlot bowl (or fondue pot) so that any juices drop into the bowl. Place the lemon peel in the brûlot bowl and set it over a Sterno heater. Add the triple sec, brandy, and cinnamon stick. Stud the orange peel with the cloves and hold it over the brûlot bowl on a fork. Carefully ignite the brandy mixture and ladle the flaming liquid over the orange peel. Slowly pour the coffee into the bowl to extinguish the flames. Ladle the coffee into demitasse cups and sweeten to taste with fresh-squeezed juice from the peeled orange.

Sadly, I am fresh out of both citrus and Sterno, but you can bet your ass I'm going to be picking some up tomorrow. Alternatively, I could just go to New Orleans and get someone to make this for me (it is adapted from a recipe from Commander's Palace, which, for those of you as ignorant as the day is long, is where Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse made their names)... now that I mention it, I'm off to pack my bags... the dogs and cats can keep each other warm.

UPDATE: When the need arises, there is always the simplest expedient; heated rum. It's perhaps a bit nicer when it's 15-year-old Rhum Barbancourt.

UPDATE #2: Further research indicates that not only was there a brief mention of tea in yon book, and a recipe for a 'teatini' which involves orange-infused vodka (which I do not have) there is this:

Cocktail Name	Glass	Ingredients
Absinthe Drip Cocktail	(old-fashioned)	absinthe or Pernod, sugar or tea
Arrack Punch	(old-fashioned)	Batavia Arak, lemon juice, orange juice, sugar
Cool Colonel	(zombie glass)	tea, Bourbon, Southern Comfort, lemon juice, sugar
Double Derby	(double old-fashioned)	claret, tea, Bourbon, groseille syrup, orange juice, lime juice
English Cobbler	(highball)	Jamaican rum, tea, lemon juice, sugar
For Visiting Aunts	(zombie glass)	iced tea, rum
I.T. (italian Tea)	(punch cup)	Galliano, tea, lemon
Iced Rum Tea	(zombie glass)	white rum, lemon juice, falernum, 151 proof rum, sugar
Negrita Grog	(old-fashioned)	tea, Curaçao, white rum, brandy, sugar
Regent Punch	(zombie glass)	white wine, Madeira, white rum
Regent Punch #2	(zombie glass)	tea, Jamaican rum, lemon juice, Swedish Punch/Punsch, brandy, Curaçao, Angostura bitters
Rhine Wine Punch	(zombie glass)	tea, maraschino liqueur, brandy, sugar
Skier's Smoothie	(punch cup)	Galliano, tea
Tea Punch	(highball)	brandy, lemon juice, white rum, sugar

...from here. Of course, most of these sound fairly awful, but that doesn't mean I don't intend to try them at least once... beats turning up the heat! Also, I've always wanted to buy a bottle of Galliano...

Mildly Out of Sequence...

...but I know that at least 10% of my readership is dying to see the following photo:



Because I am a terrible, TERRIBLE friend*, this is the only other picture I took:



...which features a very handsome photo of the young man's father, which has been somewhat dramatically cropped, just in case he is hiding from the law (you never know).

There were very tasty canapes. I may've had more than my share. This should surprise no one. I was also mildly relieved that there was no uncomfortable run-in with the subject of this post, which would've been uncomfortable for two reasons only, which are that I am a fucking idiot, and there was alcohol. The last time I saw her, at the wedding of the parents semi-semi-photographed above, I was a much bigger fucking idiot, was still totally in love with subject of this post, despite being engaged to the subject of this post, and there was a lot more alcohol. Most of which was in me, yay open bar! (OK, fine, maybe it's also because I had a LOT more hair the last time she saw me. Whatever.)

Those of you who know me should also not be surprised that I've managed to turn a post about a shiny new baby into a bit of a whinge about my life. Look, it's my blog, and in ten years, 'bloggy' is going to be a widely-accepted synonym for 'self-indulgent'. So settle the hell down. Also, to distract you, here's a picture of my dog's nose:

* Although this is officially the third youngest child I've ever seen (that meant anything to me, that is) at 13 days old; my nephew was fresh out of the, um, oven, and the other one was this dude, who I saw on his Deity-Approved 8th day. And then, um, not for another two years. Did I mention I'm a terrible friend? Sigh.

Busted!

That's right, the lesson of "don't update yer blog at work" has been learned by me, or rather, should've been learned by me. Yes, one of my coworkers (the one that works part time at a sketchy bar I've always been a little afraid of, near the city line) is onto me. I can't imagine how he found it, after I pretty much told him how to, but it does gratify me somewhat that he is enough of a slacker to bother doing so while at work.

You see, he's one of my younger, un-beaten-down coworkers that makes it hard for those of us that've been doing this crap for the better part of a decade (christ, it's a decade in 3 months... I am sooooo old) to slack off to our full potential. No, he and the rest of those damn go-getters have to wear ties, and, like, do work, and so on... it's really very disheartening. The good news is that my redneck (ok, pretend redneck) cubemate and I have been doing our damnedest to bring the average achievement level down to a more acceptable level. I'll let you know how that goes.

On the other hand, he's one of my coworkers that is cool with enormous amounts of social drinking (and is hopefully unlike my other coworker, who downed three of Brewer's Art's highest A.B.V. beers along with me, and yet was completely unaffected except for losing control of his vocal volume, while I was pretty tanked). So that's nice.

Also, I feel the need to point out that while this dude was on of those at The Big MLK Day Pokerstravaganza, he was NOT one of the aforementioned Giant Pussies. Although I also feel the need to point out that my semi-redneck cubemate, who WAS one of the Giant Pussies, reportedly redeemed himself shortly after I left by rashly blowing his entire stack in a single hand and going out next. Good man.

Hidden Personality Test

So I'm watching Smallville*, right? And I can't help but notice that the music playing behind this particular scene (and apparently throughout the episode) is clearly an orchestration of the violin part from Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Scheherazade'.

The question is: what kind of person both watches Smallville AND viscerally recognizes a Rimsky-Korsakov leitmotif? The answer: JWERs truly.

I suppose it goes without saying that I've been drinking for hours...

UPDATE: Good LORD is this writing terrible. 'Buns of Steel'? Come ON.

*And no, I am not ashamed. No, not gay, either. Leave me alone.

Um.

While I feel genuinely terrible for the people that had to suffer the suicidal idiocy of the man that caused this, that does not excuse the dumbest man ever:

"It's an outrage that people coming to work on a very safe train system would have to face an outrage like this," said Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca.

"When some individual parks his vehicle on the train track knowing full well that a train is coming, this is cause for serious, serious alarm." he said.

Added Baca: "I am outraged, but part of me is alarmed. Seriously."

Good News for Anyone Who Loves Bad News

There WILL be a State of the Union address. And I WILL be annotating it, despite the horrible, horrible experience that will be. The things I do for you people, and not ONE of you has paid off my mortgage. Sheesh.

Yay!

At this very moment, as I dutifully "work from home" (although, let's be fair, at least I'm wearing pants now), several men of indeterminate ethnicity are creating a massive racket of banging and drilling and sawing and installing my aforementioned Exceptionally Expensive Windows.

It's going to be cold as shit in here in no time, although it's only dropped 1 degree (oops, make that 3 degrees) thus far here in the kitchen - I mean, productive office - but I don't even care. I will be soooo glad to see the back of what are, and I kid you not, the worst vinyl replacement windows in the history of time. I might actually have been able to manufacture better vinyl replacement windows in a saucepan on the stove, even if I was missing some ingredients and had to improvise. They suck, is what I'm saying.

Also, I am secretly hoping that the ridiculous sum of money that I am spending on these windows (which is, by the way, the only actual outlay of cash I've made to a professional in the entire time I've owned the house, which might explain why it's such a shithole three years in) will shame my neighbors into replacing some of their windows, or at least, I dunno, fixing their back fences for christ's sake. That, and I'm hoping that I can say, "and these top-of-the-line windows are BRAND NEW" when I sell the house and move into a nice little cardboard box in the country...

Ignorance and Bliss, Two Great Tastes That Go Great Together!

This rant is loosely inspired by this Reuters article, and by my general crankiness. Oh yeah, and by the central tenet which guides my life.

The current infestation of "conservatives" is destroying the moral fabric and essential character of our Nation. Bet you didn't expect that before 9 am on a Sunday, eh? Stay with me here (or don't, I'm going to go on for a while). Those of you who think religion (or "conservatism") is a good idea might want to go somewhere else, or at least bear in mind that I'm not likely to be very charitable to that which I consider to be the most destructive and divisive forces in the world today.

The TV news just blandly announced that science has discovered that religious people are happier than non-religious people, and that more religious people are happier than less religious people. Of course, now they're moving on to a shocking expose of how fattening Starbucks whipped cream and lard lattes are, but that's probably not something I'm going to touch on this morning.

As to the previous, NO SHIT. Let me boil that genius research down for you: everyone has problems that tend to make them unhappy. Everyone sees the state of the world today (although some are woefully uninformed due to sources like Fox and by their own incuriosity) and is made unhappy. Everyone is unsettled by serious challenges to their closely held beliefs. What is the person who values his or her own happiness to do? No one person can fix everything that's wrong with the world, and having the courage to try might lead to endless failure with very little to show with it.

Aside: they're actually making this Starbucks story out to be real news... for christ's sake... Q: do we really need to be told that massively sweetened ice tea has a lot of sugar in it? Are we that stupid as a nation? A: yes. Yes we are.

The answer is, you can try to learn as much about the world as you can, and you can try to see a way to make things better in the manner you conduct your life, in the topics you discuss, in the jobs you take, in the values you espouse. Alternatively, and far more likely to be successful, I might add, you can ignore it. Ignore it all! Blame someone else for your problems! You can shift the blame to outside agents, you can say that everything happens for an unknowable reason, you can say that it's all part of god's plan.

Yes, organized religion has done vast good in the world. If we set aside the way they were built, almost all of the finest buildings in the history of architecture have been built at least partly by the force of belief in something larger than ourselves, from the pyramids, built by decree and in honor of a divine pharaoh, to the great cathedrals of Europe, to the mosques of Iran and Mughal India, to the temples of China and Japan, to the Capitol building in Washington D.C. None of these buildings are practical, all of them are vastly overdone if intended to serve a simple purpose, and yet all of them lift the human spirit and place us in awe of what mankind can accomplish (again, ignoring the pesky slave labor issue, of course). What's more, many of humanity's greatest individual actors have been sustained by their belief in something larger than them, many of them by their religious faith.

This does not mean, however, that religious belief is not misguided. We cannot, it turns out, ignore the question of how these grand edifices were constructed. While it may help you to cope with the death of a loved one to believe that they are "in a better place", while it may help you to be less upset by human atrocities to believe that the perpetrators will suffer eternally in the afterlife, while it may calm your misgivings that you're in your 30's and yet have accomplished nothing of note if you believe that god has something in store for you, it's not honest.

What's more, religion is not content to tell you why you should rejoice, it also seeks to tell you how to convince others to see the light, and thus necessarily draws lines between the faithful and the heathens. Some religions teach that the faithless are merely ignorant (an amusing irony, were it not so damaging) while others teach that they are infidels. Even the gentlest form of Christianity can be easily construed to imply that non-believers are somehow inferior to believers, and the worst transform that ensuing pity into murderous hatred.

Why then is religion so popular? Life is hard. Finding the energy to do things, day after day, is difficult when you can't see any results, when you can't see any game plan. If you can convince yourself that the plan is not yours to see, isn't that going to make it easier to live your life? The alternative is scary: there is no plan. Life is not about you. You are an insignificant blurp of carbon compounds on a tiny ball of dirt hurtling through space for a finite amount of time before the sun explodes and consumes it (don't worry, you'll've been dead for billions of years by then). In brief: you don't matter.

This is depressing. A readymade framework that tells you that you DO matter, that someone you will never see or meet, but who is all-powerful, loves you and cares about what you do, is going to be immensely preferable, and lo! Enormously popular. But just because something feels good doesn't make it right (also, God can see you doing that, and he is not happy. Also, you'll go blind).

And now back to how the "conservatives" are destroying the country. Bet you didn't think I was ever getting back to that, did you? The current crop of Republicans espouse a Christian, Dominion, Manifest Destiny approach to life, and they have "won" (as far as you know) the two most recent Presidential elections, and hosts of national and state elections. They're everywhere, and the non-critical thinker can be expected to see them as the Winning Team. Clearly, what they are doing must, in some way, be Right. How do I get me some of that? says the American populace as one.

Those who were already Republicans can simply chortle with glee and keep driving giant SUVs, living in artificial suburbs that consume more water than most New England towns, eating meat with nary a qualm about how the animals were treated, looking down upon the developing world as quaint savages that need to be led to the Right way of thinking. Those who are not Republicans, or those who are made uneasy by the Administration's sheer incompetence and wanton evil, are faced with a more difficult choice.

How could we have lost? How can we be living our lives "correctly" and yet still be unhappy? Maybe we're WRONG. Maybe short-sightedly pursuing your own interests at the expense of everyone and everything around you IS the right way to live your life. It's certainly easier to go on if you don't have to worry about why there are so many dead animals on the highways, if you don't have to worry about what happens to the TV you threw out when you bought your 60" plasma, if you don't have to question your very belief structure.

Those that cannot see that your happiness is all that matters are wrong. You don't want them around! Those that tell you that your lifestyle is unsupportable, those that beg you to act more responsibly, those that simply lead a more modest and socially conscious life, those people need to be stopped!

And here's where religion and "conservatism" mesh so very, very nicely. By denying that there are problems, by believing that it is not ours to know, or even QUESTION, the plan, by believing that those who do not share our beliefs are trying to harm us and our happy happy way of life, we can maintain our happiness that much longer.

I know many previously content couples who are suddenly struggling to keep it together, because neither of them is happy, and neither of them knows why. They look for answers, and they may even figure out that their slavish devotion to consumer culture, their purchase of bigger and newer houses, their SUVs do NOT make them happy. Woe betide the one that points this out, though; he or she is now the reason, because he or she threatens something that is not easily exited, something that is not easily excused. Much easier to reject that person, and to blame them for all the faults in the status quo; this is especially easy in a relationship since the partner is probably complicit in every single one of your crappy joint choices. All you have to do is convince yourself that THEY were the deciding factor, and you were but an innocent actor duped into these terrible choices.

But what do you do, once you've gotten rid of that person who's keeping you from being happy, once you've converted yourself into a "conservative", once you've gone to church weekly for a year, what do you do if you're still not happy? What do you do when oil prices rise to the point that Walmart has to stop expanding? That your daily commute costs you $12 in gas? Where do you turn then?

I don't know how this is going to play out; it's a lot easier to predict the course of history if there's a precedent for genocide, if both sides are armed beyond their capacity for diplomacy. It's a lot easier to end an argument by killing your opponent than it is to convince him, and if your opponent is part of a hated minority... that's not likely to happen in America, not right now, but how much, or how little, would have to change for it to become possible? We're on our way. Best not to think about it. There, don't you feel better?

Speaking of "Behind Schedule"...

While I wait patiently for the booze, I mean, physician-approved painkillers, to kick in so I can go reinjure myself, I will begin the enblogulation of all the million things that I have neglected to commit to ether. Surely the perspective offered by not blogging about this stuff for weeks will enrich the experience mightily. Or not. Anyhoo...

On December 4th, way back in 2004, I went over to my friends' new* house for the very first time, and saw this guy:



...for the first time in, um, two years. Wow, am I a great friend. Yeah, last time I saw him, he was eight days old, and having something unfortunate (and yet, Deity-Approved) done to his tiny undiscovered best friend. Somehow, despite this early trauma, he is pretty much the best-behaved kid ever. He rules.

Actually, though, this guy's dad is officially my second oldest (chronologically) friend (my first oldest being my friend stationed in Iraq, who was the Class President when I was a freshman in high school in New Hampshire; I moved to the DC suburbs in the late 80's and met my second oldest friend there). We were best friends in high school, and probably spent an embarrassing amount of time together, and then we went to colleges in sufficiently distant towns (ie: Baltimore and Manhattan) that our contact was limited by our mutual laziness and lack of communication... this was before email, if you can cast your mind back that far.

ATTENTION STALKERS: now's your chance! if you can figure out who this guy is from his tricksy online alias, and can figure out where we might've gone to school in the late '80s, and can figure out who his best friend was, and are still reading this, it's but a short step to my front door! Have at!

Ahem. Anyway, he has since married, gotten a series of incredibly respectable jobs that make me feel even more like I'm squandering my life, and has moved back to the area, which should theoretically mean we see a lot more of each other. The reality, however, is that I went to his wedding, met his lovely wife, they moved back to the area, I visited them a couple of times, I completely spaced the correct weekend of the above little fellow's first birthday (I'm pretty sure I'm in for an unpleasant after-life for that alone; that, and my atheism... I hear the Big Imaginary Dude Upstairs frowns on that) and have pretty much not seen them since.

I am such a complete fucking slacker. Granted, I've had my share of personal turmoil in the intervening months, but still. Anyway, their new house is near enough where I used to live that I mostly recognized the route. The catch is, I had never actually driven it... I've been driven on 90% of it, I've biked it, I've walked it (that really sucked, although I was quite proud that I could cover 11 miles in 2:45) but never actually driven it. Also, this was the first complex trip I would be taking in my new PracticalMobile (I had taken a much longer trip with many many fewer turns at Thanksgiving) and it's possible that I was still insisting on driving it as if it were in fact a sturdy German car. It ain't, as previously noted.

So there were some exciting moments, mostly brought on by the fact that 95 was a complete clusterfuck, so being as I was late, and being as I am the clever soul I am, I decided to bypass the Beltway and take a circuitous route over local roads. All of which looked not-quite-the-same as they did in 1992. Fuck. The first exciting moment was when I almost rolled the car taking a sharp turn, um, about 40 mph too fast, and there were several more that involved me not recognizing roads I had spent years of my life on at the last moment. It was dandy. Eventually, however, I made it to their "new" house, which shames me greatly, since it's beautiful and finished and awesome. I think they believe that there is work that needs to be done, but that is because they are insane (although I'd still be totally up for helping you work on it, especially if it meant I could shirk my own housal duties). I was totally late, and was called upon to mix some beverages according to my Winter Holiday present. I have thanked them for it, but let me take this moment to wank on excessively about how ridiculously cool this book is. Disclaimer: I am a giant booze geek; while I am perfectly willing to get plowed on vats of crappy American rice beer, I much prefer the goofy bartending rituals and arcane techniques of making obscure drinks... this was the perfect present for me, in other words. Allow me to elaborate (alternatively, now's your chance to go read something interesting):

• the History of Cocktails; I have some of this in other books, but not in this depth (49 pages!!!) and not this well-written.


• the Theory of Mixology; this is where the author goes on at length about why you put the bottles where you do on a rail, why you shake or stir, what the specific gravities of various liqueurs are (this is for layering... did I mention I'm a geek?)


• Foundations of the Bar; in this section, he has RECIPES FOR BITTERS! Am I the only one who thinks this is cool? Yeah? Sigh.


• Drink Families; this is where it's all at... once you realize that there're only really about 25 different types of drinks, then it's just a matter of remembering which non-shared ingredient results in which member of the family, ie: a martini is a gibson with olive instead of onion; swap the vermouth and olive/onion for Rose's Lime and a lime wedge, it's a gimlet. So cool.


• The Recipes. Nuff, in fact, said.

Anyway, I was overcome. I've read very little of it, which is great, because otherwise I'd feel compelled to restock my sadly deflated bar (the third floor, where is the bar was and shall be again, is having some... issues) and my liver would've needed to be replaced at least twice. Instead, I have purchased a retaliatory Winter Holiday gift, which they will no doubt have bought or received by the time I get around to giving it to them (hint: the floor might be done first; also, it might be 2010), and have made do with drinking Tanqueray Malacca straight. Smoooooth!

At any rate, after I very twitchily made us some Manhattans, we had an excellent dinner and spent some quality time with the above little dude, then put him to bed and talked until we all turned into pumpkins. I crashed in their swanky guest room (although I was a little disappointed in the lack of a mint on the pillow, you know, just a note for next time), then had a completely uneventful ride home the next day.

Good times. See you in two more years!

* ummm... would you believe "new to me"? They've been there for months and months...

Mysteriously Productive

Despite my slackness of the last two days, it is still barely possible that I will get the damn floor completely laid by tomorrow, as semi-plausibly scheduled, because I've been stuck inside all day thanks to the mildly impressive snowfall (it's really hard to top last year's one-day total).

Events working against this happy outcome:

- I just whacked myself in the shin with a sledgehammer
- I have begun drinking
- did I mention I'm really lazy?
- my BO is beginning to offend me

To recap: drinky stinky lazy. Wish me luck.

This Just In...

...It has begun snowing, fully 1 hour and 10 minutes ahead of WBAL's cavalier prediction of when it was going to start snowing in PHILADELPHIA, mind you.

Clearly, we're all doomed. If only I'd bought more milk, eggs, bread, and toilet paper when I had the chance, I could be eating all the French Toast I would've made whilst parked on the toilet (I'm all about efficiency, which is why I'm having a cooktop installed in the bathroom for these Baltimore Snow Emergencies)!

Instead, I'll die here, scant hours from now, victim of a wayward avalanche, here in my endless DIY project of a house (I just read Heather Armstrong's account of her kitchen remodel, which strongly implies that a geek and a pregnant woman completely remodeled an entire kitchen in 4 weeks with very little outside help... I hate them), with no French Toast to eat on the can.

Clearly, this is the most suffering a human being has ever undergone.

Alternatively, I might finish my floor.

Wow, This Is The Biggest Snow Ever!!!

It's not clear why, exactly, I'm awake before noon on a Saturday... I will take this opportunity to note that wow, this is an impressive snowfall we got here.

Yes, I know, it's really supposed to start at 10, and then we're supposed to get 8-16" whatever the hell that means in Baltimore-Weather-Panic-speak, but it is worth noting that they've already moved from the standard "AAHHH!!! SNOW!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!" story to the "boy, kinda sucks for the Eagles game, huh?" story.

Also, it sounds like that 10 am start was for Philadelphia. Who knows if it's ever going to snow here, WBAL seems to think it's more important to tell me about fucking Trump and his fucking stupid 15 carat wedding ring.... CHRIST who cares about that asshole? I mean, really, couldn't we all have joined together and emphatically NOT watched the Apprentice? The story actually included the line "This is Trump's third wedding, but it's Marla McGoldDigger's* FIRST"... hey, thanks, that's Real Journalism! Of course it's her first, you assholes! She's 15!

Wait wait, here's some news... or IS IT? Maybe the meteorologist will give us the story. If I live that long. Ugh. Their Snow Patrol will be out and about all weekend, they say! If only there were some Snow to Patrol!

Mr Collins reports that it is "TRYING to snow in Baltimore". Meanwhile, apparently the snow is expected to get heavy this afternoon. And the story's over! It's been 30 seconds! Back to The Donald! FUCK! This item just contained the observation, "can you imagine he might get so nervous that he'll say 'You're Fired' instead of 'I Do'"?

And then I shot myself.

No, I haven't had any coffee yet, why do you ask?

* I honestly don't care what the hell her name is. I might just start calling her Ivana III, since the last time I gave even the tiniest constipated shit about The Fuckstick was in the late 80's.

Mark Your Calendars

I know you all have been positively champing at the bit in giddy expectation of my annual lazy yet incisive annotation of the President's State of the Union address, and never fear, I plan to do it this year as well... the trouble is, although the SOTU is apparently "traditionally the last Tuesday in January", that might not be the case in an inauguration year, and I am slightly too lethargic to actually figure that out.

The good news, though, is that this year, I'm just posting the bastard online here, rather than swamping everyone's inboxes with it.

That is all. Continue swimming naked...

Predictable Failure

Everyone should be filled with a genuine sense of bafflement that I have ALREADY fallen behind my finished-in-five-days schedule for the floor... this is partly because I had to watch Alias last night (that's right, HAD TO, and yes, there was someone with a gun to my head commanding me to watch, because otherwise I might not've, because it was an exceptionally lame episode, and should definitely get JJ Abrams sued by Kurt Vonnegut) and partly because I had to call my father to tell him that some schmo in Pennsylvania was unloading a banged-up Mercedes 280E that I really felt we should park in my parents' yard to antagonize my mother, I mean, to combine with the other two banged-up 280E's in their yard in hopes of producing one functional car, sure, that's what I meant.

Also, once I blew the schedule, I could relax and do whatever the hell I wanted. Eh... if it gets done it gets done. Can you tell I've worked in the government?

Meanwhile, today in Washington, the Worst Administration Ever (not necessarily in deeds, although that's certainly a valid contention; inarguably in competence, though, I think you'll find) is being re-inaugurated, and wasting gigantic sums of our money on bullshit parties for plutocrats to congratulate themselves on achieving mediocrity by leveraging the inertia of giant piles of money. Good work, boys!

In that spirit, I present to you:

Smart Answers to Stupid Questions About Social Security

Let's make an effort to actually win this one, shall we?

Oh Dear God

Some thoughts on the eve of the Inauguration (This time, less obviously fraudulent!)... I weep for our nation, and I tremble at this quote from a story about Incurious George:

Bush said it's important to celebrate a "peaceful transfer of power" and that he suspects inauguration guests have been generous in donating to tsunami victims. "You can be equally concerned about our troops in Iraq and those who suffered at the tsunamis with celebrating democracy," he said.

Transfer of power, eh? Um. Yeah, that was last time, Emperor Chimpy. Unless...?

I'm sorry, there are only two possibilities here; either he's so fucking stupid that he can't tie his own shoes without a near-death experience, or he's ominously referring to the fact that the Cheneybot will finally shed its humanoid skin and rule openly for generations with an alloy fist.

I Scoff in Your General Direction!

Because it's my blog, and because I'm not sure you've really fully understood my car's awesomeness, and also because I took another picture:



Also, and this is the scoffing part, I spit in the face of the Blog Overlords and post a picture of a cat ON A DAY THAT IS NOT FRIDAY:



This is Gigi, Lady of the Manor. Do not fuck with Gigi. You have been warned.

Splinters Aplenty

So after some sort of completely unprecedented wave of productivity and/or stick-to-it-iveness, I seem to have completed 3/4 of the laying of my aforementioned hardwood floor (in a more characteristic display of laziness, I won't be linking to the aforemention; scroll down, for christ's sake!).

After careful calculation (read, I measured with my feet), this means, if this streak continues, I should be done with the floor (the laying, that is) in a mere five days.

I would like to advocate not holding your breath.

After less careful calculation, it's also slightly more plausible that I will come nowhere near this goal, because I should have critically impaired all my digits, both feet, and probably an elbow or three by then, with the aid of my trusty splintery helpmates, whose job it is to make me swear, bleed, and perform repeated semi-successful microsurgeries with various not-terribly-sterile pointy objects.

That, and I might buy more beer before then.

A Lesson for Us All

When you think something is broken, or wrong, and should be different, there's a pretty damned good chance that someone else feels exactly the same way, and is less lazy than you are, and has thus fixed it. I give you:

Microsoft VB6 Mouse Scrollwheel Fix

This has annoyed the living shit out of me for months and months; I am marginally gratified that this fix was only posted in October of last year. I will steadfastly refuse to look for or acknowledge any fix that existed years earlier, because going without this for three months is more than adequately frustrating.

What, you thought this would be something you cared about? Do you know me AT ALL?

Poker? But I Barely Know Her...

So in honor of one of the greatest men that ever lived, I decided the best way to show my respect would be to attempt to take some money from my coworkers.

To that end, I drove up to scenic Carney and spent a pleasant several hours in one of my coworker's basements... there was some beer, and an exceptionally tasty sub from a local Italian place.

The poker (of the Texas Hold'em flavor) was entertaining, except that, since we were playing for actual money, two of my coworkers decided to play in a style that I will call "Giant Pussy" style... they'd fold before the ante if they didn't have a pair or suited cards, they'd fold after the flop if they didn't have a decent hand, they'd bet if they had a great hand, and they'd fold if someone else seemed to have a great hand. There was no bluffing, there was no excitement, there was no FUN, dammit. I played a couple of hands with some of my rasher coworkers in which the betting was exciting, and they won some, I won some, and it was fun. Did I mention the fun?

Sadly, after a couple of hands that really sucked for me, luck-wise (the worst being the one in which the betting got a little silly between me and this one guy, and it turned out that we both had three eights, my kicker was a king, and his was an ace, d'oh!), I became the third to get forced out. Then ensued an incredibly boring, endless wasteland of play in which the two Giant Pussies folded or bet as required, and the other two guys played silly risky poker in which they swapped the same stack of chips back and forth hand after hand. Every now and again, they'd both lose to one of the Giant Pussies, who had cemented their places as 1st and 2nd several hours earlier, and obviously had no intention of ever giving any ground. Bleh.

So instead, I watched Animal House on VH1 with the host's 20something daughter and drank watery beer.

Happy Birthday, Reverend King!

A Deep Sigh of Relief...

...was breathed after this was taken care of (and before the check was deposited; that resulted in more of a sudden gasping for breath).



Let this be a lesson for you all: tractor trailers are bigger than cars. Also, when they idle into your doors when you cut them off, like a jackass, they're unlikely to notice until well after the first thousand dollars of damage has been done... in fact, if you want to be nitpicky, they probably won't notice until a little over $1800 worth of damage has been done. Also, while the fact that you're driving a 31-year old Panzer of a car might keep you from, like, dying, it will only make the doors that much more ridiculously expensive to replace.



Also please note the awesome alloy wheels and new tires. NOTE THEM, I SAID!!!

And because I have an unholy love of my car, here is one more gratuitous picture of its awesomeness (the twilight really hides the rampant bird shit):



Thank you, and good night.

Progress Thus Far

Progress Thus Far
Originally uploaded by jwer.

And this is a fine fine image of the half that took me over a month (note the semi-painted radiator; that weren't there when the floor went down, nor indeed when the plywood subfloor went down, nor indeed when the plywood subfloor was partly down and I put my big stupid foot through the ceiling) as compared to the half that I put down in the last week. Yeeha. And also: ow. And now, back to my tumbler of Scotch and handful of Advil.

Slightly less of a milestone...

Brazilian Cherry Sealed
Originally uploaded by jwer.

This would be what one-half of the floor looks like after copious sanding and two coats of polyurethane, inexpertly applied. When I finish the other half, I will put two coats on the other half, sand the whole goddamn thing, then put down one final coat and immediately sell the house. Look for the sale in 2008.

A Milestone of Sorts

Brazilian Cherry Unsealed
Originally uploaded by jwer.

This is a test of my first photo ever... what we got here is a photo of the floor I'm verrry verrry slowly installing in the front bedroom... this is what it looks like 'afore it's been sealed.

Well.

Now that no less that Campbell, that paragon of 2-week vacationers, has abjured me to post, I guess I have no choice...

Allow me to excuse myself with a vague account of the last several weeks:

1. myriad social engagements, almost all involving large quantities of drink


2. myriad family engagements, all involving large but insufficient quantities of drink


3. blisteringly rapid progress on the half-finished hardwood floor in the front bedroom (I've completed a whopping 20 sq ft (ie: 5 rows) each night I've worked on it (which is to say, tonight and a couple of days ago; at this pace, I might be done in a couple weeks)


4. feeble attempts to catch up on my Netflix queue (note to self: hey, asshole, why don't you select some movies that AREN'T 2-hour long, 30-year old Japanese movies?)


5. the successful completion of not one, but TWO super-complicated 8th-grade shop project coat racks (OK, only one has actually been sealed, but that didn't stop me from pressing the other one into service)


6. Solo drinking, yeeha!


7. absolutely zero work on the Mercedes; coughing up $2K just to park it for the winter was mildly demoralizing


8. exceptionally feeble efforts towards learning something about just what it is I'm supposed to be doing at work, preferably before they find out just exactly how much of a slacker I am


9. Project X


10. the best yet: arranging boxes and boxes of CDs in little white envelopes into piles by artist first letter, with the intention of adding all of them to a database before the cats knock all the piles into a big-ass heap that sends me straight back to #6 (actually, I need no impetus for this)


11. surely I've been doing SOMETHING productive... no? Hello?

Anyway, there are a million things I've been fully intending to blog about for weeks, some of them hopelessly overdue, to the point that I am going to go ahead and ignore the unwritten rules of blogging, and blog about them anyway, someday. Y'all stay tuned now, y'hear? Perhaps, though, and I'm not trying to foreshadow anything here, but, just maybe, you shouldn't be holding your breath at this time...

Also, congratulations to those of my friends who have recently spawned, bringing forth yet another little tiny person for me to repeatedly forget the birthday of. No, really!

(PS: it'd be great if I could post some pictures of any of these things, especially since I have officially been shamed by Seadragon into investigating the million free image hosts out there, but my digital camera seems to have decided never to zoom or, for that matter, un-zoom again... bastard.)

UPDATE: Frabjous day, my crappy camera seems to have mysteriously started working again, pictures forthcoming, in, um, March? How's April sound?