North Korea

I knew Kim Jong Il was nuts, but this is one interesting documentary. Fascinating, depressing and unsettling.

Tea Party Jesus

Putting the words of select brilliant conservatives in the mouth of Jesus. Because it's funny, that's why.


- Sen John Cornyn

- Rush Limbaugh

-GOP Candidate Glen Urquhart

-Sen Rick Santorum

Living in the Fast Lane

Literally. My apartment would likely be where the fast lane of the North Beach freeway would have been if the starry-eyed, crack-smoking developers had their way post-WWII. Yes, that's an 8-lane tunnel right through the poop chute of Russian Hill.

The danger and grace of training for a half-marathon

I like to think I jog at a pretty good clip - enough to slow down when I come to a blind corner on the sidewalk and avoid barreling over some poor old Chinese woman. I usually don't, however, run at about 20 mph with several tons of steal hanging around me on suspenders like a clown outfit. If I did, I'd probably take it a little easy rolling down blind alleyways, too. To each his own, I guess.
As I jogged up to the end of such a blind alleyway today, several tons of metal came rolling out at about 20 mph. What happened next, I'll always regret was not filmed. As the sound of rubber screeching on pavement shot down the alley, I subconsciously did a hand-plant-on-hood to ass-slide-across-hood combo and nailed the dismount about a foot in front of the license plate. It felt so fluid and choreographed, except for the mangled alternate universe me that was laid out in the street. I realized the usual reaction to something like this might be to yell at the driver or panic about what could have been. Somewhere between seeing the driver's horror through the windshield, though, and being incredibly impressed with myself, I jogged on. I should get a special medal or something on my race bib.

Get high now

Fun time-wasting site. My favorite is the Vomit Vectors - I actually felt queasy:

"What taxes? Just pay me! ;)" - Sincerely, our elected officials

Sonuva

But are you super DUPER sorry?!

Another smug, bulletproof CEO, another "grilling" from a panel of turkey-jowled, ill-dictioned politicians. Boy were they angry. They had just had it up to here (their jowls practically resting on it) and were not about to let this gilded meanie and his bully British accent get away without really dressing him down.

The mood was as palpably tense as one would expect for a grilling. Or maybe it was a flogging. Politico said it was a flogging. Though CNN referred to it as a "blasting". I would've expected more excitement for a blasting - maybe a soundtrack for the proceedings and costumes for the pitchfork-carrying panel. I'll stick with the turkey theme and call it a grilling.

These guys were pissed, and they brought their printed grilling questions and stapled them together on standardized office stationary to prove it.

One of them whetted his finger to lift the cover page - here we go! Get ready to be flog-blasted on the grill for all of your untold damages, CEO!

"When you became CEO you said you would have a laser target on safety," his jowl jiggling righteously in the still panel air. "Were you... you were... did you know about this... problem?"

"There was a team that oversaw this drilling and we will be making continued changes with any findings that we conclude," came the equally-scripted answer.

"You.." (fumbling of office stationary, rehearsed line of questioning shattered). "you don't seem like you're regretful of this. Are you?"

"I am truly, deeply regretful of this, of course."

"Are you really, though? It sure doesn't seem that way."

"Absolutely I am."

A wry, skeptical smirk on the panelist's face. Mission accomplished. He would be questioned about his regret's sincerity by several more panelists, as well as additional "laser" references and vague attempts at sounding like they know a single thing about the technical aspects of what they're talking about. Maybe next time don't mess with America, bitch.

Authorities issue warning for major earthquake in September

Full marathons are for wimps. Halves are where it's at.

I feel like I'm probably still grossly underestimating the challenge of running 13.1 miles through hills and over a gusty, golden landmark, but here goes. If you can, please visit my personal race page and consider a small donation to the American Cancer Society. Thanks!

Land of the dong-waving, doll-hating lost

Turns out the formerly-exiled king of Belgium and I probably would've made good drinking buddies. No surprise there, but I didn't realize it until coming across a story about a bizarre island in the Bengal Sea: on a tour of the Andaman Islands east of India in the 70s, his ship pulled near the notoriously-mysterious island of North Sentinal. They pulled close enough to coax the aggressively-isolationist natives out of the jungle to raise their bows and arrows, but just out of their range. I assume the king chuckled, maybe gave a few high fives and sailed off, "most satisfied with this adventure".

Thirty-five years later, one could have the same experience the kind did in the 70s or, if you like, the same experience of the first "outsiders" to reach the island in 1867, who were promptly killed for being there.


By all accounts, the inhabitants of this tiny island (estimated at 50-400 people) live just as they did in the times of the earliest explorers and the first nomads. They use primitive weapons, think clothes are for suckers, and apparently haven't figured out how to make fire, relying on lightning strikes. They intend to keep every modern asshole, well-intentioned or not, the hell off their island, too. Aside from the poor shipwrecked crew in 1867, they slit the throat of an escaped convict who managed to swim to the shore a couple decades later. People apparently learned their lesson until the 1970s, when a couple of smartass anthropologists and National Geographic photographers thought they knew the trick: "gesture peacefully" and give them a toy doll. The natives replied with a barrage of arrows, hitting a photographer in the leg, all the while laughing and waving their dongs on the beach, burying the doll in the sand. Lastly, there was the Primrose freighter which ran aground near the island in 1981. The captain watched as the natives wandered out on the beach, then began trying to hit the ship with arrows. Just out of reach, he then watched in horror as they began trying to build boats to come out to kill them. The captain issued a panicked call for help, eventually being rescued by helicopter which the natives, of course, shot at.

There's something very cool that in 2010, there's still virtually untouched tribes like this in remote corners of the world. It's even cooler that they're pissed off at every single one of us.

We created a machine, flew it to Mars, commanded it to dig some trenches, snapped a picture and sent it back to earth. There was a time when we'd all be burned at the stake for this kind of insolence and ingenuity.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

California's Pipe Dream

Borrowed a few National Geographics from the local bibliotheque for reading material on the plane; I've found a new personal goldmine. I love the shots in the mag and normally there's an intriguing story or two, but there's no way I'm subscribing - I'm stingy these days. I found the local library's stash and cashed in.
An issue from the end of 09 about the state of the world's ever-growing population's dependence on an ever-stretched and evolving water supply was entirely fascinating and alarming. Amid all of the cool charts on how the world's cities acquire their water, how costly it is, and how that supply is running thin, was a story about California's intricate and imbalanced water system that has become almost exponentially perilous as the state's population swells and structures age.
Discovery Bay, just east of here. What a fun-filled water paradise - in the middle of a freaking desert. Pretty much a microcosm of entire Southern California.

The story touches on the dyslexic water system of the state, where the vast majority of water falls in the north but of course the vast majority of people live in the south. This in itself wouldn't be an issue, except for the shady water history behind LA's original growth, the fact that much of the state depends on now-crumbling structures built by 19th century Chinese laborers, and the southern areas' continued rapid growth despite an incredibly obvious but unaware lack of water. Desalinization offers a very pricey partial solution for an ass-broke government, but not much.

Also of note in the issue: that giant, enormous Three Gorges dam China is building? It is expected to be so heavy so as to move the earth's tilt by about an inch. Dam! Also, also of note in the issue: the farms that feed the country and big cities of the heartland like Denver? They depend heavily on a giant underground aquifer under the continent that is being drained much faster than it can be naturally replenished. What will happen when one of the country's main food baskets runs out of water? Mmm soylent green.
Thanks, China.

Thanks, heartland.

I govern pretty one day

Sometimes I swear I think my computer can hear my loud, sarcastic chiding and actually see my slow, exasperated head shake.
I mean, really. Really? In some ways, this is what it is. I tried to take a break from certain headlines recently because it only made me bitter, but there's just too many levels of juicy, tantalizing moron going on here. And to be real, I'm generally bitter, so what's there to lose?
Usually, there's an awkward but expected pause for response on current events while Sarah's directed what position to take. This one, though, was just another equivalent of letting your toddler drive the nation's history around an empty parking lot, crashing into a few shopping carts here, a few gosh darn facts there. What's the harm? By the time time you wrestle the steering wheel back, your sedan resembles the Pope-mobile, your toddler is staring at you with pursed lips and a taxidermy-like bliss, and Jesus and John Adams are tied up in the back with cloth balls stuffed in their mouths wearing Uncle Sam costumes.

Getting Full Use of Our Tam On

The lady and I decided to kick the city to the curb for a day to soak in some solidly sunny spring weather, hike what is considered to be one of the best trails in the Bay Area and climb 2,000 feet - so that we could gaze right back at the city we bailed on. Not our fault; the view from the top of Mt Tam is unmatched on a clear day. Full view of most of the bay, Mt Diablo, the Golden Gate, the ocean, and if not for a little haze, the Farallons and Sierras.

Manzanita bushes everywhere. I had no idea how smooth these babies are. I found myself stopping on the side of the trail to just stroke them for a few seconds, and yes, I realize how peculiar that must've looked.

We've got spirit.


I'd read online that there was wreckage from a plane that crashed into the hillside after mechanical failure on its way to Guam in WWII (kind of a bizarre story - boy scouts found the "scattered bodies" the next morning and the air force vaguely acknowledged it). It's definitely off the beaten path and unpublished, but we eventually found the twisted metal, wiring and even cloth from the crash a good 65 years later. Eight men died instantly here, which left its surreal impression even in the middle of the afternoon.

refund be damned

"Citizens for Tax Justice, a self-described non-partisan organization, released a report on Tuesday that read: "The 2009 economic stimulus bill actually reduced federal income taxes for tax year 2009 for 98 percent of all working families and individuals." This total includes the 95 percent of working families that will or have received tax credits in the range of $400 to $800.

The health care bill passed by the administration, meanwhile, includes a tax credit that could cover up to 35 percent of the premiums a small business pays to insure its workers. The Recovery Act, meanwhile, included such tax breaks as a $1,500 credit for home energy improvements, and an $8,000 credit for first-time home buyers.

It has been a buffet of tax breaks and credits offered by this administration (occasionally to the chagrin of progressive economists, who want more focus on stimulative federal spending).

Yet polling numbers indicate that Americans are barely aware of these developments. Indeed, a good chunk of the country believes it has been saddled by this administration with tax hikes. Back in mid-February, a full 24 percent of respondents to a CBS News/New York Times poll said that their taxes had increased under Obama. Fifty-three percent said they had stayed the same. Only 12 percent thought their taxes had gone down.

"Belief is triumphing over reality," explained Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. "Part of it is they watch the wrong television shows and believe it. Part of it is the tax cut that went to almost everybody, the making work pay credit, was dribbled out... people didn't get a check. They paid lower taxes and might not have noticed it.

"It is like arguing whether Jesus rose from the dead," McIntyre concluded. "If you believe it, you believe it." "

Tennis Ball Walkers and Rhythm Nation

A good chortle to one's self does wonders to put things into perspective. Similarly, living on the fringes of chinatown does wonders to provide chortles to one's self. There's the utter distrust of idling vehicles by the inhabitants, the belief that gradually stopping adjacent to a delivery truck with its hazards on to wait for... (?) and blocking traffic in both directions has absolutely no bearing on anyone beyond a circa 1998 minivan's radius. There's the emotionless old woman in her janet jackson rythm nation sports cap, god bless her, who eases out of an obscure door next to our go-to pizza place as sure as the sun rises, preceded by her walker with tennis ball nubs and accompanying daughter, whose fluorescent orange hat seems to have warped from the set of North Shore. They amble off around the block for a good hour's shuffle.
Today it was a senior Chinese woman who snuck out between a couple of parked cars, seemingly oblivious to my idling car just feet away. Her general wardrobe was nothing out of the ordinary: some new curtain-vest line on sale at the x-ray lead apron boutique. But she was stopping traffic over these babies:
and she was rocking them like she owned that shit.

Vague encounters of the likely perfectly explainable kind

I'd like to think it's not a coincidence that I'm always alone when these sorts of things happen. I'd also like to think that the Mayans didn't base their John Cusack blockbuster scenario on some funky Chinese calendar with math that computes to the lunar calendar year 2012 actually starting two months ago OMFG and when some drunk British guy on the sidewalk yells "we're being invaded!", the San Andreas Fault doesn't tear into a spectacular bottomless pit and aliens the likes of Babyfart Mcgeezax begin firing death rays upon us.



Some drunk Brit did yell "we're being invaded!" a couple of nights ago, but he stumbled off laughing with his fellow red coats and I was left standing there with a drunk homeless couple who had sauntered out of their storefront hotel for the night, the three of us staring up in the sky. I promptly pulled my video camera phone out and aimed it towards the four silent, independent, orange globes flying in formation over downtown. Only seemingly about three times the height of the tallest office building, they flew about the speed of a two-seater but without the typical flashing lights. Three of the four disappeared about the time they reached the water, and as the fourth flew off past the city line, I pressed the button to stop recording, and it began to record. Of course. By this time, a couple dozen passersby had gathered but no one dared overreact, so we all went on our way.

I've shared this experience a couple of times since, and I imagine the response I've received must be similar to when someone tells an acquaintance that their 5 year old has been murdering squirrels with sticks in the backyard "and isn't that the darndest thing?!"

I'm sure it was nothing. Maybe four weather balloons all got tangled in a cross breeze, creating friction that generated electricity and attracted a phantom lightning bolt, igniting each balloon in a hellacious blaze before gracefully coasting over downtown. That's probably what it was.

friday space nerd dump

mars was the closest to earth last night that it will be until 2012. 2012! OMS! i would've given many things to have had a powerful telescope and be up on my roof staring at the red planet with some chex party mix and a glass of scotch for an hour. alas, all i have at the time is a pair of binoculars with a dead fly in one lens and a pretty vivid imagination. you know, they now think mars used to be a "second earth" at one time? ah well, another post.
living in a city with a lot of lights in a winter with a lot of clouds, it's pretty easy to forget what's up there every night. on a dark hill down in santa cruz the other night, it stopped me in my tracks as i walked to the car. it's been a good while since the sight was so bright and spectral that it was distracting. i got all hypothetically weepy and adamant again about finding a telescope to get a bit closer to all of it - and make me look particularly interesting and intelligent when it's parked in my living room. the dirty binoculars just make me look like a run-of-the-mill pervert.
then there was an article today revisiting barry's decision to not include funding for a manned return to the moon by the US in the budget. while i think there will always be tremendous value in funding particular efforts of NASA, i still feel it's pretty much common sense that we have more pressing needs with our tax dollars than to fund a trip back to the moon.
still, while it's a speculative quote from one man - albeit an astronaut - there remains sizable intrigue and prospects up there:

"Extracting helium-3 from the Moon and returning it to Earth would, of course, be difficult, but the potential rewards would be staggering for those who embarked upon this venture. Helium-3 could help free the United States -- and the world -- from dependence on fossil fuels," Schmitt writes.

For a very good time, click on the image to the right, size it all the way up and scroll down.

Your Eagle is Due Back Now, Please

According to our records, you checked the bald eagle out of the national library of symbols for use in your... let's see what he have here... oh right, "campaign to stop the America-hating, nobama hussein-loving socialists from taking over my body". According to the ticker, these very America-haters have indeed succeeded in taking over your body and will do god knows what with it. In the meantime, we will need you to return the eagle. We also have you down as having checked out "image of American flag fiercely fluttering in the wind", also due back.

We thank you for using the national library, proudly loaning these symbols out to the worked up, misinformed masses for the past 14 years. Frankly, bravo on the execution of weaving these two images into countless vehement, albeit contradictory and endearingly ignorant posters, pickets and trucker hats. While we're on endearingly ignorant, someone here believes they saw you smuggle out a "colonial patriot, adult XXL" costume, complete with tri-corner hat - also due back. The "I (heart) Teabaggers" bumper sticker is not ours and is yours to keep.

We've had a hell of a time tracking you down, seeing as how you signed for these items under a "Joe R. McCarthy", who we've found has been deceased for over 50 years. After doing some cross-checking, we also can't seem to find our painfully witty image of President Obama with a Stalin mustache - a fold-up poster included in the book Socialism for Dummies, and Why You're Already Embracing it in Your Everyday American Lives, 5th ed.

One more thing: as you are well aware, we here have quite a pleasant working relationship with God. He called and asked that when we reach you, we relay that he's considering filing a cease and desist on using his brand. Apparently you've been grossly misinterpreting his son? Just don't mention him at all, I think is what he was getting at, since he actually voted for the evil body snatchers. I know, crazy huh?

Anyway, we see here that you've already requested to check these items out again for a... "Keep your Stalin Hands off my Tax Dollars and the Financial CEOs Spending Them" campaign? I'll go ahead and get our creative department started on an Obama/Mr Monopoly caricature.

sweeeeet

mapping democracy

or that's the jist, i guess. still a pretty interesting idea, even if/when it fails miserably

an about-face... book

i hate facebook. i know, i know - just shut up. i know i'm on it. signing up was sort of like going streaking through downtown at 3pm on a Tuesday - it seemed like a good enough idea after a few drinks, but then you realize that you're standing on the corner of 3rd and market with your tommy johnsons right there for the world to see. what are you supposed to do, break down crying and fumble around for a few sf weeklies to drape around your trembling body, sloppily explaining to passersby through tears and spittle that you're not supposed to be there? no, you stand there like it's perfectly normal until people forget that you're there at all - which is exactly what i did. i pretended like i was not standing on the corner of "friend me st" and "i forgot that i knew you even for a moment in my life blvd".

six degrees of separation being forced and crammed down to one or two has its occasional benefits though, apparently. the father-in-law of jean's cousin has been missing in portland since sunday. having met the man only once, i know him really only through hanging out with his son several times and that's been enough to know he's a really remarkable man. it remains to be seen if and when he will be located, but there is currently an army of thousands in the northwest aware of his disappearance, due in large part to the viral spread on fb. the group established to raise awareness swelled to well over 400 people within a day and that kind of movement would have been incredibly difficult otherwise.

in the end, the family will know the effort to find their dad has been shared by many, many people.

Greatest show (and collective naiveness) on earth!

Sometimes the natural order of things makes a point better than any words could

already bought my ticket

A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever -- powered by Cracked.com

answer: the poor man's hasselhoff

who is alex trebek?
i could stop at this picture alone. does anyone know why he ever posed topless, or why he looks like he knows a very perverted secret? i don't, and that's points right off the bat.
others would say his allure was shaved away with his "what is a mustache?" no, trebek's real genius lies in his unique ability to be a complete and utter asshole on national tv and be garnered with adoration for it. nightly, he treats jeopardy's contestants like tipsy sorority girls that wandered into the national spelling bee. he doesn't simply note incorrect answers, he takes explicit time to demoralize the contestant and most likely throw in a jab ("no. we were looking for giorgio abetti. not johannes kepler. johannes kepler would be 16th century. we're looking for nineteenth century astronomers...?") the inflection of a question at the end of his jab should not be underestimated; it is the quintessential prick move. he then leaves a second or two for the effect to settle in - the effect of some pat sayjack who supposedly knows every fact about everything and if you don't, well, what the fuck are you doing on my game show? also, don't even think about not making it a true daily double... "$500 only, huh? $1,200 would put you in the lead, but $500 it is..."

also: what?

life for the living

i've walked across that exact square of sidewalk countless times. now he was 3 floors up, staring down at that square in the open afternoon air.

i'd always move past the excited tourists in their neon "san francisco, ca" t-shirts, queued around the cable-car turnaround like a giant human question mark. thinking to myself why they didn't bother walking up a couple of blocks to the next stop and save 45 minutes of waiting. now they were all turned towards him on the ledge only in turquoise underwear. young and old couples, friends, families. one could hear the crowds' pleading from there - the urging, even laughing, but he doesnt.

i'd walk quickly past the diseased and deformed pigeons and panhandlers. he shuffles toward the edge, then back. leaning forward then back again.

my thoughts would be on that afternoon's worthless team meetings and client visits, maybe weekend plans. his thoughts are too much for him.

they have been for some time. i'd sit in ridiculous department morale meetings and so would he - maybe right in front of me. i always paid more attention to the dandruff peppering the shoulders of the person seated in front of me than what was actually happening in the meeting. i would've noticed that i would be paying attention that day. he always dressed sharply, so im told. we both took the same elevator and probably crossed paths by the copier or the coffee counter many times.

many of us heard a folklore tale and laughed it off as an easy blockbuster target. he heard the same tale and took it deeply to heart and mind. he quit to make the most of his remaining time.

i'd make it down the one block back to work and head to my team meeting to discuss how much ad space costs now. one could hear the sirens closing in from there, but i doubt he can. probably doesn't notice the city employee hurrying in through the entrance only about two dozen feet down.

my life went on like any other day - with plans, errands to do, optimism, a girlfriend, friends to see, nephews to eventually talk life and women with, supposed to rain this weekend, the giants should have a chance this year, all that.

he hears the employee reach the top floor just in time to discover the door is locked. and he steps off.



a friend of mine saw the scene and reiterated the adage that "life is for the living". sometimes i'd probly think that sounds a touch callous, but it served for a dose of optimistic reality. for a few reasons i think this has sort of haunted me from half a city away for a couple of days. i knew him hardly enough to be considered acquaintances but it's a ghostly, almost tangible eeriness.

tubular

also, "out of this world!" nerdiness knows no bounds, especially when it comes to space. this is one reason why i might as well have taken a small hit of prozac when these images were released from nasa's new infrared telescope. they're of our nearest galaxy (1.5 million light years away) and nearest galaxy cluster - 60 million light years away. i mean, come on - that's f'ing amazing.

by request only

all-time album art

peekaboo research

fox says it's cold, tells gore to suck it

Most. Obvious. Metaphor. Ever.

In the off-chance that we weren't really grasping the almost comically flagrant whoring of the US government and our tax dollars by elected officials to private companies since the start of the iraq war... comes this report from the NYT providing a literal analogy for us.

The new economic hitmen, so to speak

too easy

the human mind

watched a pbs special on human emotions tonight. it really is very interesting and disconcerting how our very own brains can be so empowering or detrimental to our lives. whether we choose to listen to our doubts or don't make a concerted effort to overcome our own subconscious, we can really screw ourselves over. here's a couple of the more interesting points that stood out:

anger: the frontal lobe, where reason comes from, is a "new" part of the brain - developed much longer after the primitive emotions. for some reason, emotions are quickly and easily sent directly to the frontal lobe, but it is much more complicated and difficult for the lobe to send "reason" messages back to shut off or override the emotion. this gives me good medical grounding for why i feel full of rage when watching the new chase credit card ski lift commercial and the customer service "massage dare" only to realize minutes later that i just hate horrible marketing ideas.

depression: strong physical evidence continues to emerge that in addition to its emotional effects, depression has significant physical corollaries/causes/effects. in addition to a spike in "stress molecules" found in the saliva of those with depression, they have found that depressed individuals tend to have a significantly smaller hypothalamus than healthy people and that it can continue to shrink if untreated. the hypothalamus contributes to stress sensory and reaction and is usually about the size of an almond (which is really kind of a sick description i think. can't they compare it to a non-edible? maybe something not brown and wrinkly with a milkish taste? sick). most recently, they have found a couple of treatments that can not only treat the shrinkage (not that kind), but reverse it and grow new neurons: anti-depressants and shock therapy. yea, like randle mcmurphie in cuckoo's nest.

takes one to know one

wait, that's not right

The difference between Sarah Palin's reaction to Rahm Emanuel's ill-advised use of the word "retarded" (directed at liberals), and Rush Limbaugh's use of the word (directed at advocates for the mentally handicapped) speaks volumes. When it was reported that Emanuel used the word in a private meeting -- one time -- Palin quickly took to Facebook and, mentioning Emanuel by name, called on President Obama to fire him. When Limbaugh repeatedly used the term on his radio show, Palin did nothing. Then, after being goaded by commentators, she had her spokesperson offer a generic criticism of "demeaning name calling," never mentioning Limbaugh by name -- and even had her spokesperson phone Rush to assure him she hadn't used his name. Then, in an interview with Fox that aired this morning, Palin defended Limbaugh's use of "retards" as "satire." Which it wasn't -- unless I'm missing the humor in calling a meeting of advocates for the mentally handicapped "a retard summit."

couldn't this all be resolved if more people accepted use of the term "artarted"?

FML

a wolfe in sheeps loafers

this campaign video is so amazing, it doesn't even know it

charlie brown in training

whatever happened to predicatability

the milkman, the paperboy and evening tv aa-ah, aa-ahhhhh

one night walking

walking out on to the sidewalk felt like being reborn from a birth canal of moldy coasters and painfully mundane smalltalk.

"yea, bud light lime. you know, bud's making a hef now these days. well, it's a wheat bear anyways." PUSSSHHH!

and there i was, right back outside. in a placenta of cold, refreshing winter bay air. it can get a little old come july, but damn it feels nice. i looked around deciding which direction to hike back up the hill towards home. regardless of circumstances, no one enjoys walking uphill. i didnt really have a choice, so i began trudging up the first block and thinking about how much i hate carrying small talk and how much bud light lime tastes like cheap expired laundry powder detergent.

a younger couple was stumbling down the sidewalk, the guy regretfully holding his unfamiliar date up while staring vacantly up at the trees. "i tend to find humor in thingssss........," she slurred. his expression seemed to read, "i wonder if she'll leave in the morning." if only he could've read mine: "doubt it."

i once overheard part of a conversation on a sidewalk downtown: "... and then they locked me in a cage with a tiger!..." i thought i'd learned to eavesdrop a bit more effectively since then, but there aren't enough people on the sidewalks in this neighborhood to be conspicuous enough to find out exactly what things this obviously profound girl found humor in. i trudged on.

up the top of the hill, past my former dry cleaner. she'd always demanded that i sign for my pick ups even though she recognized me. her untrusting chinese gaze, her rotund little index finger and the way she'd flop it down onto the "name" line like an overcooked weenie that escaped a backyard 4th of july barbecue but still demanded a signature for picking up two work shirts. that's not even why she's a "former" dry cleaner. she seemed to find sadistic pleasure in ironing over collar-stays and apparently operated a dress shirt button black market racket downstairs.

it's incredible how quiet this block can be at 10pm while the bars are packed 100 yards away. the breakfast joint with the always pretentious line of hipsters waiting an hour for a ho-hum meal. the empty park. the feeling of being alone while in the midst of thousands. good time of day to take in the city.

up the last block in a good pace. two overweight italians sauntering by, "and there was piss all over my carpet..." again, the unlearned eavesdropping lesson. around the last corner past the painful garage bands performing tired covers, past the desperate girls with a few unfortunate hours still ahead of them, and past the homeless man urinating 10 feet from the stoop he's slept in for the last 3 months.

i dig my neighborhood

death cult dwarves

Satellite image of north and south korea at night. An excerpt from a story on the north's closed society, where citizens average 6 inches shorter than the south:

Unlike previous racist dictatorships, the North Korean one has actually succeeded in producing a sort of new species. Starving and stunted dwarves, living in the dark, kept in perpetual ignorance and fear, brainwashed into the hatred of others, regimented and coerced and inculcated with a death cult: This horror show is in our future, and is so ghastly that our own darling leaders dare not face it and can only peep through their fingers at what is coming.

sucks

From the toronto-ist site. I wish i had the cojones (also, necessary spare time and materials) to have done this many times whilst jean lived in a neighborhood not known for easy parking.
There would always be so many damn restrictions and cones up that on any given day, perhaps 40% of the parking spots were available.
"Sorry," the parking authority probably would say to a new request, "we already have three construction teams, a movie shoot, a crime scene, an eternally parked winnebago and 6 bus stops on that block alone. You'll have to wait until at least tomorrow."
"Aw, come on."
[a half smirk]
[a raised eyebrow]
"What the hell, they're adults - they'll figure it out. Granted!"
[evil laughing and vigorous hand shaking]

a real beaut on the bay

class is in session

Your request is being pr

"So effective was the president that Fox News cut away from the broadcast 20 minutes before it ended."

Barry accepted the republicans' invitation to their house retreat and without teleprompters or ideologue rhetoric let the audience reflect themselves. Really, if you have an hour in the day to watch this, it's something to see. Not only because of the blatant mismatch in agenda and tact but also because i think it's very unique to watch a sitting president attend the opposite party's house retreat and perform like i would expect a president to: knowledgeable on the issues and pragmatic.

Healthcare is asked about at about 30 min in, and "rep. jeb from texas" gets schooled at about 55 min.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

no such thing as patriotic beer goggles

just watched the state of the union. nobody can say the man is not a good orator. the address if of course usually largely rhetoric, but it's always nice to hear pettiness being admonished.
still, one would be blacked out after 10 minutes had they played the state of the union drinking game on nancy's seal clapping alone. she really is hard on the eyes, god bless her. they could probably dig up mary todd lincoln's corpse, prop her up against a yard stick and rig her hands with some fishing line for clapping and no one would be the wiser.


unrelated story: link