Romanes Eunt Domus

Last Post

And so it ends. The writing's been on (or perhaps not on) the wall around here for a while. Somewhere along the line the ideas just dried up and I discovered I had other things to do. I understand that that happens to people.

I'm pretty sure I'm not done blogging - I'm just done blogging here. Maybe someday I'll do something fun, like an anime blog, wherein I defend anime as a valid and legitimate art form, and not just another thing that lonely middle aged men jerk off to once their wives have gone to bed.

I'm sure it'll be an abject failure,

So anyways - it's been fun, but now it's time to say goodbye.

Goodbye.

Yes, this would be twice in one week

All sorts of stuff happening today.

First – it’s our anniversary. I’d make a joke here about twelve years with She Who Must Be Obeyed, but everybody’s heard those, and they’re pretty lame. Also, She told me not to.

Second – I’m heading up into the wilds of Idaho with my daughter and a hundred other sixth graders for her end-of-the-year field trip. The adults are outnumbered by a large margin, but I doubt any of the children have read Lord Of The Flies yet, so we should be safe.

Anyways, I’m going to spending four days bereft of of the internet's the nurturing warmth, so please don’t invade Iran or impeach the President while I’m gone.

Third Weekend In May

If I had just one wish, I'd wish I were - wait, better use that one for world peace.

Okay, if I had two wishes, I'd wish I were - uhm, I might need that one for any future erectile problems.

So, if I had three wishes, I'd - nope, sorry, I'm saving that one for Feingold in '08.

Alright, maybe wishing isn't going to work. Perhaps I should say, if I were in the area, and had nothing better to do, I sure would like to be back home this weekend. It's Bucking Horse Sale weekend in Miles City, and, while I'm certain none of you have ever heard of it, I've been told that it's world famous.

So what's so cool about the sale? Well, I suppose the sale part is nice, though I've never been to it, and the parade is okay, if you're into parades, but the real draw for the less refined among us has always been the street dances on Friday and Saturday night, which was a great opportunity to get falling down drunk with four or five thousand of your closest friends. They've since lifted the open container laws, as long as you stay inside the four block long "corral", but back in the day everybody that wanted a beer (and everybody wants a beer, right?) were packed nuts to butts in one of the many bars on Main Street.

The best part, for those of us who were 'age-challenged", was the fact that the bartenders were so busy there was no time to check ID's. If you could force your way up to the bar, you'd get served. God help you fell down though - there were pools of urine several inches deep in some of the less savory establishments.

Doesn't it sound great?

Heck, I drank so much one year that I ended up married the next day...

Things to remember

I don't know how to explain this.

I could swear that the last time I looked, she was still sleeping in a basinet and we were trying to figure out where we were going with this whole "parent" thing. But I blinked or something, and now she's talking about boys and junior high and trying on make-up. Like I said, it's a mystery.

A dozen years, gone through my fingers like smoke.

happy birthday

PVR'ted

So it was supposed to be a fun little project - Compusa had a sale on a PVR card, and what could be simpler than installing MythTV? Linux Uber Alles, and all that. Shit, I'd have it all set up in time to watch the Superbowl, no problem.

So anyways, here we are, a little over a month later, and I've got everything almost done, really, except that I probably need to get better video card because the one I have won't record at 720x480 and therefore The Office looks bizarre when I dump it to DVD and it's louder than than I want it to be so I'll need a new "silent" power supply and a "quiet" cpu fan and well, at least I'm having fun right? Not like those poor bastards who just have to get by with using their tivos.

So that's why I haven't written anything since January - I've been busy, honest.

Well, that and I haven't really had anything to say. Nothing. Zip, nada, nichts. Empty. So empty of ideas and inspiration that the "blank white page" metaphor can't capture the enormity of it all - we've moved into the sort of emptyness that can only be described in comparison to Dick Cheney's soul.

I haven't even been able to muster the minimal effort required to mock Cal Thomas, and that's easier than clubbing baby seals, if not nearly as much fun.

And now, when it comes right down to it, I still don't have anything to say. Isn't that sad? All sorts of fucked up shit in the world and all I can do is shrug my shoulders and say "eh. oh well. In the long run we're all dead anyways."

I guess I'll see if there's anything to watch on the computer....

Yuck

Nothing sucks worse than having a disagreement in intestinal engineering over which pipe to route whatever bad shit you ate through. It's even worse when they say fuck it, let's use both.

Cal-gone

It's my weekly penance to read the Cal Thomas column in the paper. Sort of like fasting, except with my brain instead of my belly. I'll admit that every once in a great while the moons of Saturn align with the moons of Pluto and I find myself in agreement with Mr. Thomas. His column about the War On Christmas, for example, was almost sane.

But that was like, a month ago, and the real Cal's off the medication and back in the saddle. We were only three sentences into this week's column when we hit this:

Given the threats posed by foreign and domestic terrorists, Democrats risk exposing Kaine as an inexperienced lightweight who is not in the president's league of knowledge and experience.

Good Lord Cal, did those pants come with the kneepads sewn in, or is that something you had the wife help you with? We moved on, to give Cal some privacy to regain his dignity. A paragraph later we have:

Virginia has a surplus of $1 billion dollars, but Democrats think they never have enough of our money and so, like unsatisfied vampires, they are constantly looking for new sources of blood.

I guess "creature of the night" is a step up from "al-queada loving terrorist" so we'll let that one slide. Discussion on Gov. Kaine's impending highway boondogle follows, culminating with:

If Kaine were as smart as his supporters say he is, he would steal from what Republicans used to do when they resembled Republicans. He would cut spending.

That'll slay the vampire! Just cut spending! I'm sure there's plenty of dollars to be squeezed out of Virginia's poor people that could stay with the people that the system gave them to in the first place. We then get some examples of government waste from the 2003 legislative session, when the previous Governor was in charge.

We continue with a portrait in courage:

Faced with budget problems, Sanford formed a commission in 2003 that identified wasteful spending. Adopting the commission's recommendations produced $225 million in immediate savings, with further annual savings of $300 million. Last year, he proposed a budget without a tax increase.

Hey, isn't that what Howard Dean managed to do in Vermont? Cal's about out of steam by this point, but he does manage one final swipe:

That virtually his first act as governor was to announce plans for another round of tax hikes with nothing said about spending reductions marks him as an old Democrat, not a new one.

And there we have it. We'd like new Democrats that run just slightly right of center and destroy the party, instead of old Democrats who got shit done for everyday Americans. Only with fewer hummers please. That's Cal's job.

In the post

Fragments, like pictures drawn in sand:

We gave you a ride every day at noon; we dropped you off and picked you up, and we drove that loop along the dike and smoked cigarettes until we’d had enough to make it through our afternoon classes.

You let him take you to the prom, (after that other girl told him no) just as friends of course and then he fell in the 4B’s parking lot and everybody started calling him “Mad Dog”.

Waiting at your friend’s house for the two of you to get back and you never came and we all wondered where you were. You showed up and told us that she’d finally said yes to dating and we all thought “Thank God” since it was all you would talk about since spring.

When I stopped over at your house and the door was locked and you wouldn’t answer even though I knew you were home because the truck your dad was letting you use was parked on the street. You finally opened the door, your shirt was undone and you pushed me down the steps (or did I fall because I was laughing so hard?) because you were close damn it, so goddamned close to finally getting laid.

That first date when I asked your friend if she wanted to go out and he thought we should all go together and he told me what to wear so I didn’t screw it all up. We went out in his mom’s car and you made the buyer (everybody had a buyer back then right?) sit in the back with us, and your friend was so nervous that she told him she had a boyfriend in the state pen, and two kids at home with her parents. We all went down by the waterfall and made out in the moonlight and the crickets.

When we went up to the big city to get our tuxes for senior prom, and spent the day at the mall. I spent every last penny that I had on a pair of shoes that hurt my feet, and on the way back we kicked you guys out of the car and you had to stand outside in the rain while we were busy in the back seat.

We were in my girlfriend’s basement, about to watch Animal House when we got the call that they’d found the body, and we knew that that desk would always be empty.

That apartment that we shared when your parents were first splitting up and she was always around and you’d get pissed at me because I’d eat all of your food.

The time you came to Family Housing, wearing a suit (a suit!) and tried to interest us in an exciting business opportunity.

A letter in the mail, just the other day, telling us you were divorced now, but still friends.

The surf will come and wash those memories away I suppose, and someday the beach will be smooth when the tide runs out, but in the meantime, I still dream of you both.

Did you hear the one...

About the blond nymphomaniac with a speech impediment and poor eyesight? Well, neither have I, but if blonde jokes are your thing, then you might like this...

I like mine rare

I had to go to the dentist this morning for a cleaning. I'm not going to say I've got bad oral hygiene, but if you're going to pay for it, you might as well make them earn their money. It's the same reason I always a pack an extra set of handcuffs and a fresh trout when I visit the Bunny Ranch. I know they're professionals, but I like to make them prove it all the same.

Anyways, they've got some new-fangled flat screen monitors mounted above the chairs in the dentist's office, so a person can focus on something other than the blood and the screaming. This morning I got to watch something called CNN Live, and I think I've managed to recover with only minor scarring.

The greatest assault on the public good was the "Baby Noor" story. Apparently, this is major news, though I'm at a loss to explain why. But, but, but, you say - Isn't this a wonderful feel-good story? Doesn't it make you just tear up to watch the baby with the great big eyes get a new back? Doesn't it make you want to run out and get one of those yellow ribbon stickers for you car when you watch our brave soldiers rescuing this child with one hand while they paint schools and build soccer fields with the other? Doesn't it -

No, No, No, and absofuckinglutely not. It's phony compassion that sells ad time and exculpates some of our sins but that's about it. If we'd dropped a bomb on her or shot her at a checkpoint that would have been tough titties for all involved - but since her problems are an "act of God" (and for the sake of this discussion we'll sweep the effects of the sanctions and use of depleted uranium ordinance under the rhetorical rug) we can raise her up as The Child Who Lived, the redeemer of sins acknowledged or (mostly) not, and weep big weepy tears about how wonderful we are as a people to bring this lucky child out of Babylon and give unto her another chance at life. Then we'll send her home with some samples from Merck or Pfizer and wish her the best of luck in the coming civil war. Hey, maybe Saxby Chambliss can get himself a two-fer out of this, and put a rose or something on her coffin if (God Forbid) the worst should happen. Probably not - that damned trick knee and all.

Maybe I shouldn't be so cynical. Maybe I should rejoice in the candle that gets to shine even as the rest of the world grows dimmer. Maybe.
I'll leave you with a quote from another story I saw today: The Cow That Lived. The workers at the slaughterhouse have all voted for clemency (for those of you who hold the highest elected office in Texas or California, that's pronounced "mur-see"), even as (I assume) they still run the bolt-gun and the bone-saws on the rest of the herd.

"If they want to take up a collection to pay someone to keep the cow alive, I'd be more than happy to contribute," Garde said. "I probably won't become a vegetarian because of it, but it probably deserves to live. When one breaks out of the pack, it's so touching."

It certainly is. Now who's up for a steak?