River Blindness

My good friend Jon has taken an interest in my vision. So much so that he sent me the following test to see if my color-blindness has cleared up at all. Sadly, the answer is no. I (and Evan) are both just as color-blind as ever.

By the way, if you’re color-blind, and you’re at work, you might not want to leave this up on your screen while you try to figure out what it says. Chances are your boss can read it.

Progress and a cool website

I haven't been here much lately because I've been pretty busy at work for the past few days, but I stumbled a very cool site a few minutes ago. Joan Salge Blake has lots of cool stuff on her website, but the coolest by far is her Virtual Pizza Parlor, which lets you design your own pizza and see how many calories you're racking up. (I've been taxing my knowledge of geometry trying to decypher how many points are in a standard pizza.) Lose Weight in 52 Small Steps is another useful read for us fat boys. I've spent beaucoup time over there today. Check it out when you get a chance.

Oh, by the way, Saturday morning my home scale registered me at 199 lbs -- below 200 for the first time since the early 1990s. Now, I tend to be about 6.5 lbs heavier fully dressed at Weight Watchers, but still. That was a nice landmark to reach.

I can't be reading this right

I like Neal Boortz, a lot. I really like his view of employer/employee relations, especially now that hubby is self-employed and providing jobs for 6 or 7 other people. I like the FairTax. And as far as talk show hosts go, he's one of the few who's willing to call out his own side when they do something stupid. Most of the time. Having gotten all that out of the way...

You heard about the wreck in Florida yesterday that killed 7 kids. 15-year-old driving, six siblings in the car, stopped behind a school bus. A tractor trailer rear-ended them without touching his brakes. The car was pushed into the school bus, and all seven kids were killed.

Did Boortz really say that if the 15-year-old were not driving these seven children may well be alive today?? (Third item down). What, because someone else might have been there? Or maybe the truck would've hit the bus directly. I can't believe I'm reading that right, and I've triple-checked myself. That's a direct copy-and-paste from his website. To be fair, he also said:

...it is true that the driver of the car ... the 15-year-old driver of the car ... did not cause the accident. The blame for the accident goes to the dump truck driver who smashed into the car while the car was stopped behind a school bus. No skid marks. The dump truck never hit the brakes.

Come on, Boortz. Even your insensitivity isn't that advanced.

Update: I screwed up the "future" link yesterday. It's here now.

On tolerance

I haven’t posted for a couple of days now, not since Scott Slade brought me biscuits on Friday, and you all gave me hell about it. (BTW, the photo is supposed to be here, eventually. But it ain’t yet.) I’m having an attitude again, so maybe it’s time to drain the poison again. At least, it’s sorta feeling like poison again.

Nasty weather aside, we had a great time in Pigeon Forge this weekend. We got into town late on Friday, so we didn’t see any of our group that night. Saturday morning after breakfast, we loaded up a couple of cars and headed down the strip to race go-karts¹. Saturday afternoon, hubby and I hit the outlet malls where I bought my first pair of size 34 pants in over a decade. Then we drove through Gatlinburg and back to the hotel in time for dinner with our crew. And because Sevier County is mostly dry, Saturday night we picked up beer at a local convenience store and drank in our room while we watched Craig Jackson sell a 50-year-old bus for $4.1 million. Sunday morning, back in the Disco, across the mountain, through Cherokee, stopping at the Dillard House for lunch, and heading back to the house by mid-afternoon.

That’s the secular version of events. The sacred version is somewhat different.

I knew full-well going into this that Atlanta is a beacon of blue in a very red land². I also knew full-well that Pigeon Forge is a very conservative place, I knew the folks there take their religion very seriously, and that there was at least one religious conference going on this weekend³. And I knew that I was only a visitor there. If they like viewing the world through stained-glass glasses, then who am I to argue?

I should have known that all these facts add up to a town full of people whose smiles drip with the most venomous fluid imaginable, such that when you pass one and she says “Good morning,” you’re fully aware that she considers you not only fuel for the hell-fire but also a very real threat to the spiritual welfare of her brood. But because she's a good southerner, she's in danger of suffering the same fate as your own wicked self if she doesn't acknowledge your presence.

Example: Saturday morning, I’m standing in the lobby waiting for hubby to come down, when I overhear the desk clerk giving directions to four young bible-carrying adults. (It caught my ear, because we got the same directions at check-in the night before, and it took us forever to find the elevator.) So they did the same thing we did: walk back through lobby, out the front door, and look around like lost puppies. And then they came back in and stood in front of the door, letting the cold air in. And then they proceeded to discuss whether they had the right directions. So assuming they were looking for the elevator, I did what all good southerners do: I offered to help.

“Excuse me, what are y’all looking for?”
The fat chick⁴ visibly recoiled, visibly sneered, said, “a finance class,” and turned back to her friends.

Maybe that set the tone for the rest of the weekend, but my tolerance level for religious freaks⁴ just dropped when that happened.

Over the course of the weekend, I saw more “Christian”-themed businesses and wayward scripture verses than I’ve encountered since bible school. I saw two different bible outlets and three other “Christian” bookstores – in a town of just over 5000 people. I watched some man block a friend of his from getting on an elevator because "This elevator is for Christians only!"⁵ And without trying to eavesdrop⁶ I heard – in separate conversations – I heard comments like “well, but he has lust in his heart,” and references to “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego”.⁷ And one lady, in describing her rapture at whatever seminar she’d just sat through:

Wasn’t that just wonderful? You know, Jerry’s hard of hearing, but I just prayed, “Lord, let⁸ his ears be opened so that he can hear this.” I just thought it was wonderful. I’ve never read much in The Song of Solomon⁹, but I can see I’m going to have to change that.

Actually, when I heard her, I thought, “Wow. Knowing how much gays hate evangelicals and evangelicals hate gays, I wonder how much good karma I could build up if I refrain from making fun of her behind her back?”¹⁰

So Sunday we stopped at The Dillard House for lunch, just in time to dine with all the church folks. And yesterday, I came back to the office hoping to leave all that behind for a little while. And I sat at my desk and listened to an allegedly private phone conversation¹¹ in which a co-worker extolled the virtues of whoever leads her bible study and how much he speaks Greek, so obviously he’s an expert.

At any rate, I tried to just let all of this go, hoping the poison would just sorta drain on its own. And a few minutes ago, when my lunch total came to $6.66 -- and I was actually surprised that the cashier didn’t comment on this obvious sign of the apocalypse – I realized I probably needed to lance the boil. So here it is. Try not to step in the puddle.

1Witness the beginning of my mid-life crisis, all ye who enter here.
2While the political implications of these colors certainly hold true here, I’m using them to describe the religious landscape.
3There were actually several, but I only knew of one of them ahead of time.
4Yeah, well, I was nice once.
5.It's humor! Get it?
6. Really, because I didn’t want to hear any more of it.
7.For the record, lest you think I don’t know what I’m talking about since I’ve obviously never had the opportunity to feel the grace of Our Lord Jesus ChristTM, I double-checked the spelling of these names. Looks like I spent enough time in churches that I remembered how to spell them.
8.Notice the way this is phrased like a command. Lady, didn’t your mama teach you to say please?
9.Of course it’s wonderful. Archeologists lost the first couple of verses that said, "Dear Penthouse, you'll never believe this, but..."
10.Obviously we’ll never know.
11.I didn't set out to set a new world's record for footnotes, but sometimes ya just gotta. I say "alleged private" because throughout the entire conversation, she talked at her normal speaking volume. Except once. When describing a certain restaurant's burritos, she dropped her voice to a stage whisper to say they gave her diarrhea.

The Can Monster

There's an annual competition called Canstruction which invites entrants to create sculptures entirely out of canned food. The seashell you see here won the 2005 award for structural integrity. I'm still trying to figure out how they did it.

After the judging, all of the component cans are donated to local food banks. So if you never quite escaped the third-grade, you can now play with your food, donate to a charity, and maybe be recognized for your efforts in the process. Check out their website for photos of other winners.

Brokeback Vatican

Andrew Sullivan thinks Benni Sue might just be the Gayest. Pope. Ever.

You knew this was only a matter of time

Now you too can show your support for Ray Nagin and his confectionary vision for New Orleans. Shirts are available from... you got it! www.imnotchocolate.com

Better hurry if you want them in time for Mardi Gras, though. The overwhelming demand for these shirts means there's a 7 to 10 day backlog.

Red State Retreat

On Friday, we’re headed up to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, to spend a weekend with one of our car clubs: a group of Corvair enthusiasts called “Nader’s Raiders.” There’s no car show planned, just a weekend in the mountains. Dolly won’t be open this weekend, dammit, but if I see her, I’ll tell her you said hello.

Hubby’s parents (also Corvair owners) are going too. So on Monday, he tells me to decide whether we’re staying at the host hotel (a $68/night Holiday Inn) or in the hotel with his parents (who are saving a whopping $12/night at the independent Willow Brook Lodge across the street).

Folks, I might be a little slow sometimes, but even I know this is a no-win scenario.

So I check out their websites. Both look to be nice, spacious, clean, cheap for what you’re getting. Then I see it. There, on the banner for the Willow Brook Lodge, is a bible verse. 1 John 2:25. And this is the promise that he promosed us, even eternal life. Complete with misspelling and everything.

Now, I really try hard not to be a word snob, and this blog is riddled with misspellings. But they’re not in the banner for a business that I’m advertising. Besides, it’s not the misspelling that concerns me. It’s the bible verse that doesn’t really even offer any wisdom. I mean, if you have to put a bible verse on your site, try to pick one that says something more than, “Jesus is gonna kiss it and make it all better.”*

By the way, I also checked the Pigeon Forge chamber of commerce site to see what there is to do there. The big industry seems to be outlet shopping (good for boys who can’t fit into their fat clothes anymore), but there’s also another event taking place this weekend. Toby Dix and Be Real Ministries are gonna be having a "meltdown" at the Smoky Mountain Convention Center.

Hoo boy.

*Incidentally, when confronted with this information, Hubby picked the Holiday Inn.

De-ranged

For the former first lady: Strong Bad takes on Death Metal.

A new pogo stick

So if you checked out Jon’s blog this morning, you’ve already heard the news: I think we found a vehicle over the weekend. A 2003 Land Rover Discovery II. Yeah, we actually drove several smaller, more efficient cars on Saturday... and I was falling asleep by the time we got to lunch. This one I actually like.

• I loved my 1994 Jeep Cherokee, so we looked at the Jeep Liberty Friday night. Smaller, cute... and pretty much the same gas mileage as the Disco. Why bother?
• Out of curiosity, we drove a Hyundai Sonata (3.3-liter V6). Really not bad, especially for the price. They need a little more help with trim items. A little chrome would help. (I’m a gay man. What do you expect?)
• At hubby’s suggestion*, we actually drove a couple of VWs: a 1.9-liter TDI turbo diesel and a 2.0-liter GLI turbo 4-cylinder. The TDI was a little slower than I like but not bad**. And the GLI was pretty hot. But we had two complaints: the side bolsters on the seats were pretty tight, and the power steering was too power. There was too much disconnect. But we both actually liked the car. Yes, even hubby.
• We stopped by the Honda lot and found a 2001(?) Mercedes C-class Kompressor. Nice car. Good price. Long story behind why we didn’t buy it, but it had something to do with the dealer being sleezy. But if the Lexus sells, hubby may be in the market for one of these.

So we ended up back at the Land Rover dealer. I know these don’t have the best reputation for reliability, but it’s a certified pre-owned model with a 75,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty, and it looks to be in good shape. The dealer is making a couple of small repairs, and we’ve got to sign the paperwork. Hopefully we’ll pick it up by Wednesday or so.

*Really. Yeah, I nearly dropped when that happened.
**Until the salesman pointed out that the fuel mileage was 36 city/41 highway. Then it was just lovely.

How I'm gonna die

"While drunk with friends, you fall down a flight of stairs and break your neck. Thinking you've simply passed out, your friends ignore your lifeless body for hours."

So sayeth the oracle over at The Death Psychic. Like that's never happened to me before.

Untitled

So... my car is gone. Or I guess it’s not my car anymore. Phil’s meeting the new owner today to drop off the car and pick up the check, so I guess I’ve seen the last of it. I’m trying to cancel the XM radio subscription for it, but our internet connection is down at work. And I tried calling 1-800-XM-RADIO, but they’ve got one of those stupid automated attendants that requires you to announce everything you want to do... but my office is silent right now, and I don’t feel like doing that. I’ll try later.

Anyway, I went out to the car this morning to get the XM serial number so I could cancel the service. Phil asked if I was going out to say goodbye. And I wasn’t, really. I mean, I loved the car (did love? Still love?), but it never excited me so much that it took on a persona of its own. Even with a voice like Nancy, the teutonic hausfrau who kept insisting that I needed to make a u-turn. It was a great car. The Bluetooth worked great, the XM worked great (so much that I never listened to CDs anymore), the memory seats were flawless. It didn’t feel so much like a car as a bionic extension of my personality, and I’m sure I’m going to miss that. But it didn’t feel like an old friend.

I’ve only ever really had trouble saying goodbye to one car: my first. A 1971 VW squareback in Twinkie Yellow. I felt odd parting with the 91 Jetta and the 94 Cherokee (totaled in a wreck), but I didn’t feel the need to say goodbye. And I didn’t really say goodbye to my 530 either, mainly because I imagined it all-grown-up into the 740. Maybe that was a defense mechanism. Maybe I’ll miss the 740 in a week or two, when I keep looking out the window expecting to see it in the driveway.

I’m sure I’ll miss my Triumph whenever it goes. That car took on a name (“Trevor”) that just fit perfectly, and it assumed the personality to boot. He’s a lot of fun. That one’s gonna be tough.

So yeah. I’m OK (at least for now), and I don’t know what the new car is going to be. Maybe just an automotive appliance. Stay tuned to see what happens next.

Um. Yeah. That's it.

Andrew Sullivan linked to a very cool time-waster today. When you get a chance, stroll over to myheritage.com and try the beta version of their face-recognition software. The site lets you upload a photo of yourself and search their database to see who you allegedly look like.

So because I can't pass a button without pressing it, I uploaded that photo of The Old Man and The Sea from my profile. And guess who I'm supposed to look like?

• James Donovan (63% match)
• Diego Maradona (57%)
• Mick Jagger (56%)
• Arthur Ashe (56%)
• Bruce Willis (55%)
• Tom Hanks (55%)
• Oliver Kahn (52%)
• Tom Selleck (52%)
• Leonard Nimoy (52%)
• George W. Bush (51%)

Yun-huh. Then I tried another photo, from last summer in Berlin. That one's even funnier. And more insulting:

• Roman Abramovich (62%)

• Italo Calvino (58%)
• Luis Figo (51%)
• Theo van Gogh (49%)
• Gerry Adams (45%)
• Gordon Cooper (45%)
• Buzz Aldrin (45%)
• Billy Bob Thornton (45%)
• L. Ron Hubbard (44%)
• Burt Lancaster (43%)

Theo van Gogh? Buzz Aldrin? Leonard Nimoy??? OK, that's enough of that.

Can somebody tell me how this constitutes On Schedule?

I'm all out of hope

So I finally got around to seeing that Billy Idol flick last night. Oh, sidebar in case you're not following...

Les Yeux Sans Visage means "Eyes Without a Face." And if you listen to the background chick in the song, she's singing "les yeux sans visage" during the chorus. Oh, another sidebar for a funny story...

Back in 1991, in a little bar on 6th street in Austin, I heard this song performed by a cover band that was actually surprisingly good. My only nitpick with their entire performance is that the back-up singer for this band (the drummer, I think) made his best stab at the lyrics... and got them wrong. He sang, "pleasure's always ours." Which, as you can see, isn't correct.

So now, we return you to your regularly scheduled sidebar.

So, the lyrics don't have much to do with the movie, except for lines like Don't call me on the phone to tell me you're alone. Or I'm all out of hope. Or Got no human grace. You're eyes without a face.

On second thought, maybe they do. Anyway, we return you to your regularly scheduled post.

So, at Molly's suggestion, I saw the movie last night. What a freak-ass flick. The blurbage inside the Criterion edition of the DVD says:

There is a moment in Eyes Without a Face -- you'll know it when you see it -- when, according to L'Express, "the spectators dropped like flies." At the Edinburgh Film Festival, seven viewers actually fainted...

"Really honestly fainted? Hmph. I wonder if I'll know it when I see it?"

Oh yeah. I did.

1959 black-and-white French horror flick. It's just as creepy as the name implies, and quite graphic for its time. Funky sort of dysfunctional-haunted-carnival music by Maurice Jarre (father of Jean Michel). Costumes by Givenchy... at least Christiane's gowns were. Re-dubbed in English and released as The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus.

Considering that it had nothing at all to do with Faust, I can't imagine that was a good idea.

And this is the second French flick I've seen in a row that prominantly featured a Citroen. Except this one featured two: a 2CV and a SM. Or DS. Or S&M. Or whichever model they made that looked like a squatting catfish. Apparently the Genassiers were a Citroen kinda family.

Anyway... WOW. Just wow. I'm gonna have to have a movie night for you local folks and see what you think.

Dang

OK, it took a moment for this one to sink in. But when it does, you'll realize it's a very, very cool pic.

A Real Adjustment

Well, the automotive total at my house has dropped now from 1,957 to 1,217. And I just put gas in it, too.

Only a mother could love

Hubby was online this weekend looking for a used car. The conversation went something like this.

Hey, what color is Alpaca?
Sort of a dirty off-white, I guess. Why?
Oh, this car has an Alpaca interior with dark piping.
Ah. Haven't you ever seen an Alpaca?
Don't think so.

So I sent him a picture.

Now he wants to known why Alpacas in the wild don't come with piping.

My two cents worth

There's a restaurant near my house that has a wall-hanging* displaying a sheet of postage stamps that were released for the 1996 Olympics** in Atlanta. 10 years ago, a first-class stamp was 32 cents. In ten years, that cost has gone up nearly 22 percent.

I've got a letter in my car that needs to be mailed. It's a bill, actually, for my DirecTV service. I put a 37-cent*** stamp on it and didn't get it in the mail by Sunday, so now I have to acquire one of those elusive 2-cent stamps.

Monday morning, I stop by the post office on my way to work. The "postal store" is closed. The automated stamp dispenser is sold out of 2-cent stamps. The over-engineered postal meter machine computer thing won't deal with postage below $1.00. Can't be bothered. Yes, I'm serious.

Today at lunch I try again, at a USPS distribution facility near my office. Their automat doesn't even have 2-cent stamps. And their "postal store" is backed up with a dozen disgruntled customers watching dead lice drop off of the "postal consultants."

When are those people finally gonna go out of business?

*Well, you can't really call it art.
**Yes, I said it... the "O" word. Sue me too.
***And where exactly did the cent symbol get to on modern computer keyboards? Was this some government plot to force us into accepting inflation or something?

The tightest ship in the shipping business

See that screen cap? That's alleged proof-positive that I can drop off a Fedex package at 1140 Hammond Drive as late as 8:30 pm. So after driving 12 miles over there from Hubby's shop last night, and searching for the drop box in the dark, and getting there at 8:25, I see the sign on the front of the dropbox. The latest pickup at this box is at 7:00 pm. It has occurred.

I drive 12 miles back to the Fedex distribution center near my house. Their latest pickup is at 6:00 pm. Which makes perfect sense, because we wouldn't want to make them drive all the way out to the corner of their own building to collect these packages.

I stop by my local Kinko's, which has now been assimilated by Fedex. Their latest pickup is 8:00, which doesn't surprise me. But I want to know if they can point me toward a late-late-night drop box. It's by the airport.

I drive another 30 miles to the address they give me, and I can't find it anywhere. I find a huge freakin' Fedex distribution facility. I ask for directions from several people in the area, to no avail. I find a lot of hotels. I share the highway with jumbo jets. I make a wrong turn and end up at the north terminal passenger pickup for Hartsfield International*. I give up and go home. I guess I was mistaken when I thought it absolutely positively had to be there overnight.

*I don't care what Jabba did or did not do for the airport. It was every bit negated when his family chose to take a building that was named after another Atlantan and add his name to it. And I refuse to recognize their intrusion on its name.

Exciting news from the frozen north

XM radio recently started broadcasting through Canada, in addition to the lower 48 states. Normally this wouldn’t mean much to me, because I don’t often find myself with an excuse to drive my car into Canada. However, in an effort to tailor their programs for their subscribers (what a concept), XM has made some changes to their channel lineup. First of all, they added a hockey channel (well, duh) and a channel for unsigned Canadian bands. That’s in addition to their channel for unsigned bands in the US.

But they’ve also dropped two world channels in favor of a couple of music channels broadcast in French. (Don't worry. You can still get the pot channel.) And they’ve added some new talk channels as well, also broadcast in French. Maybe I’ll find sports less boring if I can’t understand what they’re saying.

Nah, I doubt it.

Thinning the herd

So a few weeks ago we realized that we’ve got, like, a billion cars in the stable, even though our household only contains four critters – and two of those don’t drive real well. That’s because while we’ve mastered the skill of acquiring cars for the collection, we haven’t yet learned how to let go. So we decided to sell a car or two in an effort to free up some space and also some cash flow. Maybe we’ll retire some debt. Maybe we’ll start working toward building the bigass garage that we want.

Our goal for the new year was to put three cars up for sale and see which one goes first:

• My daily driver (2000 BMW 740i sport). Because I can drive a much cheaper car to work every day.


• Hubby’s daily driver (2006 Lexus GS300, aka Charlie McGee). Because he’s been hanging around Chris too long, and this is to be expected, I guess. Oh, and because he can drive a much cheaper car to work every day, too.


• Fiver (a 1998 BMW 535i). Because I don’t know why. I mean, it’s a cool car.

So that was the plan, except that Hubby’s still painting Fiver. (I think this is a fully conscious attempt to keep from selling that car.)

So last Wednesday, we listed the two newer cars on Autotrader. And guess who got a nibble.

Yup. Some guy looked at my car on Saturday, and he seems to be very interested. I’m taking the car to his mechanic today for the full exam.

So what do we do now that the sale of my car seem imminent? Drive the older BMW? Drive the Triumph? Drive Hubby’s truck?

Nope. Go car shopping, of course.

So we trooped through several used car lots in the area to find a less expensive replacement. And of all the places we stopped, exactly one car really, truly appealed to my redneck heritage. And I think it surprised Hubby.

Available in two colors: Top Banana (shown) or the cleverly named Go ManGo!.

An educational opportunity

When I moved to Atlanta lo these many years ago, Fernbank was a small brick science center on the edge of Decatur that offered presumably boring educational experiences to grade-school kids. And thus it remained for quite some time, an extension of your 7th-grade science class.

Nearly four years later, the foundation behind Fernbank opened Fernbank Museum of Natural History, which was considerably cooler than Fernbank Science Center... mainly because it had dinosaurs. A few years later came the first IMAX theatre in the area. In a stroke of marketing genius, that was followed by Martinis and IMAX^(R), a hip place for young adults to spend Friday evenings sipping $10 martinis, making a meal of appetizers, listening to live music, and visiting all sorts of exotic places against a soundtrack by Sting or The Moody Blues.¹

Well, I've just seen an ad for their upcoming exhibit on chocolate, arriving on 2/11 and sticking around 'til August. If my weight is up this week², I'm blaming it on the billboard I just passed.

No word if they'll hand out free Hershey bars at the end of the tour.

¹One would think the camera movements would induce copious amounts of audience members to lose possession of the martinis they've already consumed, but I can tell you that it hasn't happened while I'm there. Then again, I tend towards the early shows when I go
²It was down again last week. Yay, me!

Fallen comrades

Dang! Must be something in the water this morning. In my department of 13 people, 6 are out sick today. My manager fell during Christmas; she broke one ankle and sprained the other one. Actually, she tripped over her flip-flops. It's OK. She's laughing about it too.

Four other co-workers are out with something nasty... and we all happened to be here discussing it when the fifth one showed up sniffling. We sent her home before she ever got her door unlocked.

Poor Karen. She looked so shell-shocked.

The world's tiniest violin

...or, "Why it would be a good idea if we all woke up one morning and discovered that all the gay people in the world had inexplicably turned purple overnight."

Professional courtesy

I'm interrupting my regularly scheduled perusal of comics and columns to bring you this tidbit, so you know it caught my attention in a big way. Hat tip, Andrew Sullivan.

Marion Barry, D.C. councilman and former mayor, was robbed at gunpoint last night. Apparently the robbers helped him carry his groceris from his car up to his apartment, then pointed a gun in his face and stole his wallet. But the real news here is this quote:

"There is a sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and the hustlers and these other guys, that I am their friend," Barry said at an afternoon news conference in which he described the robbery in detail. "I don't advocate what they do. I advocate conditions to change what they do. I was a little hurt that this betrayal did happen."

Apparently this man really is sleazier than Bill Campbell. I didn't think that was possible.

Best mugshot ever

Props to thesmokinggun.com

Lost in translation

This is incredibly cool, if you happen to be one of other six linguistic dorks in the world. Apparently some say pop, some say soda, and some say coke.

Confessions of a Trailerboy

So it appears that when I follow Jon over the cliff, Chris will be just a few steps behind us. Ladies and gentlemen, the friend-formerly-known-as-MDHL has started a blog*. All hail the automotive terror that is Trailerboy.

For real, if he follows through on his threat to chronicle all of his cars, there won't be enough bits left on the intarweb to feed the rest of our blogs.

*Which raises a question. With all this peer pressure, can the new MDHL be far behind?

Southern Comfort

I can't understand why folks like this don't learn from their mistakes. First Tinky-Winky, then SpongeBob... now a "Christian conservative group" has decided that Barbie is pushing a transgendered agenda. OK, not even these fruitcakes could possibly think that little girls who like Barbie have any desire to be anything but girls. Apparently they're concerned that little boys who visit the website want to grow up to be 7-foot-tall, 110-lb drag queens with a 38-inch bust.

Babe. If your little boy is on the Barbie website...

Tally Town

I've been telling my friends about this for years, but I don't think any of them ever get down to Tallahassee, so they probaby haven't seen it. But I get up this morning and turn on Fark, and wah-LA*. A photograph of the incredibly phallic state legislature of Florida, as seen from Apalacheecola Parkway.

Those "domes" sit over the state house and senate. BTW, the building in the foreground is the old legislature building.

From where the photographer is standing, Governor's Square mall is on your right. And on your left is Hartsfield Elementary School where I used to work. On a street called Chowkeebin Nene**.

*See? My French is coming along nicely, thank you.
**Pronounced Nay Nay, like Shane'ne'.