“Why did I sign on to this proposal if I don’t understand what it does?”

Understanding how clueless, reckless and raped the presidency was under Bush would be enough to make me angry even if a deaf, orphaned amputee with a lazy eye managed to win office. I can't feel sorry for him, but I've come to personally feel an almost distinguishable tinge of something other than astonished animosity as I read the accounts of how the puppeteers absolutely had their way with him in fucking over the country for their gain. In some cases he seems truly helpless and unaware of how much unbelievable damage he allowed. It of course doesn't make him less culpable, just more bizarre and horrifying that this guy was seemingly all at once the most powerful man in the world while being used like the greasy-faced weakling in junior high who's forced to do the assertive kid's homework. Oh, and hand over his $700 billion in lunch money.

There's a good 15-minute read in an excerpt from one of Bush's speech writers in the final years. Read it with a shot of whiskey on the ready.

Ah, perspective

"Betty Lou Oliver was the elevator operator for the Empire State Building in the 1940's. She was working her last day on the job on the 80th story of the building on July 28, 1945. What Betty did not know was that a man named Colonel Smith was flying through heavy fog over New York in a B-25 and was heading straight for the building. The plane would crash into the 79th floor of the building. Betty was thrown from her post and badly burned in the accident though she survived while 14 others did not.
When rescuers got to her they decided to lower her via the elevators what the rescuers did not know is that the cables had been weakened to breaking point. Once the elevator doors closed the cables snapped and she plummeted 79 stories. Betty survived but again had to be rescued. She was later treated at the hospital for serious injuries."

demon sex crimes and deep cleaning

i form an opinion of most people near immediately. although it's more of a fault than anything, i do the same for people ive never actually met. it's what happened when i first read an entry or two of SFGate's columnist Mark Morford. while i thought his humor is a brand i would appreciate, ive found him to be more of a pompous word exhibitionist, finding some sort of pleasure from showing off to readers just how well he can encapsulate a point or witty comment by utilizing little-known words, forcing readers to keep dictionary.com open on a second tab behind his stupid column. a dictionary dick, of sorts.

as i sat in the dentist's chair the other day, i had to remember that i did tip my hat to him once for his equating of led zeppelin's sound to that of "demons fucking in a hurricane". now, led zeppelin may be the greatest rock band ever, so it was quite a feat to fully capture their full spectrum of badassedness in a handful of words.

the dentist told me i needed a "deep cleaning", lest the calcified pockets of bacteria under my gums begin eating away my jaw bone. this was not two minutes after she completed telling me a story about a recent patient who unknowingly had a giant cyst growing along his gums that wouldve snapped his jaw within days had he not taken the xrays that i subtly questioned earlier in the exam. so i came back for the cleaning, which was certainly deep, by all accounts. it did, in fact, sound as it must when demons take turns raping each other in a cement grinder, stopping briefly every 3 minutes to carve their initials into a concrete sidewalk with a rusty nail, before really getting back into it.

the aftermath? the sweat stains covering my shirt and pants as the dentist maternally blots my numb, sagging cheek with a cotton ball and makes some attempt at a joke about "sprayback". even through my blurry eyes i can tell the cotton ball is red. i go back next week for the other half of my mouth.



the moral to the story. FLOSS YOUR TEETH WITH A DOWNWARD, "ALMOST L SHAPE" TO THE BOTTOM OF YOUR GUMS UNTIL YOU HEAR THE SQUEAKING SOUND. THAT MEANS IT'S CLEAN PEOPLE. dear god, that means it's clean. tell your children: the squeaking means it's clean!

perseids

took a drive up north away from the city glow to watch the perseid meteor shower at its peak with jean the other night. this is some of the coolest stuff to me: watching debris, ancient in the truest form of the word, hurtle from the depths of our solar system towards earth at incredible speeds and plainly visible to the naked eye. "dust" from a comet that takes 130 years - generations - to orbit the sun enters the earth's shield of gases and ignites into a blaze. momentarily leaving a signature on the backdrop of a thousand visible stars and their respective non-visible planetary systems, with a smoke tail illuminated for an extra few seconds. at least to me, the idea of space seems so one-dimensional when we happen to look up at night. this makes it a bit more realistic to me, watching space violently throw itself toward us.

Behold, Centurion

Picked this little beauty up over the weekend. Yep, she's all mine. Some 23 odd years young and never owned. I've wanted a road bike for a while, and I've missed getting out on the long rides I used to do every weekend. This day had been a while in the making. As I got ready for her maiden ride, did a couple quick toe touches and looked in the mirror, all I could think of was how much of enormous dork I look like in a bike helmet.

Whatever - nothing cooler than safety, right? Giving a quick knock on the ol' helmet to check for cracks and rolling up my right pant leg to look like an official SF biker prick, I hopped on and headed around town on my new two wheels of radness and began pedaling around tourists and city buses with the grace and prowess suggestive of lance armstrong.

It's dicey as hell on a bike around here. Mostly because when it comes to concepts of inertia, direction, walking, common sense and eyesight, the average person leaves a lot to be desired.



Then there was the kid who fell behind his fanny pack-toting family to gaze at my new machine. I was stopped at a red light and assumed a badass pose by the curb so he could get the full effect. Probably a half-dozen double takes by the kid as he stared at my bike and the coolest dude ever riding it. Right before he walked directly into a bus stop pole.

Around town today

The joe in the workout shorts and shiny running shoes walking out of Costco with his brand new Wii Fit set under his arm and a look of accomplishment on his face.

The guy sitting on the steps at SF City College about two pages into "Math does NOT suck", all in bright pink lettering and in the same fonts used for the intro to Saved by the Bell.

The loser at the gym on the stationary bike. Sipping his latte while "reading" his novel. Ass.

The blind guy who was crossing Taylor this morning and couldn't tell I was half-way into the crosswalk until his walking stick slapped my bumper and confusion reigned for about 4 seconds until he found his revised path to the sidewalk. I tried to back up but the clown behind me wouldn't move! Sorry, if you're reading this. Oh, right..

The River Fun

As Meryl Streep is to:










,

So we were to:




































Thanks to an awesome birthday trip from Jean