The shag van

Forget beach houses and plasma TVs, a real player needs this. Check out a few pics. I think the airburshed Star Wars mural is good, but the interior covered entirely in shag carpet is FUCKING AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


(If the Craiglist link goes dead, this was an actual custom van for sale on the Dallas CL.)

Sweet Audi action

I'm not really much of a "car guy," and I don't like the band Bush very much, but this video is still sooooo cool. It makes me wish I had a souped-up Audi Quattro Sport!

A Man Called White

There are some damn interesting people you never really learn about in history class.

Hangin' with poets

I've been finding myself surrounded by poets more and more lately. Didn't really see that coming, but they're swell folks as long as you don't mind berets, bongos and Gauloise cigarettes. Haha, I kid. You would never know they're poets by looking at them!

Anyway, I know absolutely nothing about formal poetry. Really the only poetry I know jack shit about is in hip-hop form. I know most poetry purists probably consider it artless, but I can't help but love shit like this:

"Get Down" by Nas

New York streets where killers walk like Pistol Pete
And Pappy Mason, gave the young boys admiration
Prince from Queens and Fritz from Harlem
Street legends, the drugs kept the hood from starvin
Pushin cars, Nicky Barnes was the 70's
But there's a long list of high-profile celebrities
Worldwide on the thorough side of things
Livest kings, some died, one guy, one time
One day grabs me, as I'm about to blast heat
40-side of Vernon, I turned well he asked me
"Whatchu up to, the cops gon' bust you"
I was a teen drunk off brew, stumbled I wondered
If God sent him, cause two squad cars entered the block
And looked at us, I ain't flinch when they watched
I took it upstairs, the bathroom mirror, brushed my hair
Starin at a young disciple, I almost gave my life to what the dice do
Yeah man, throwin them bones
Hopin my ace get his case thrown
His girl ain't wait for him, she in the world straight hoein
While he lookin at centerfolds of pretty girls
Showin they little cooch, gangstas don't die he's livin proof
The D.A. who tried him was lyin
A white dude, killed his mother durin the case
Hung jury, now the D.A. is bein replaced
Pre-trial hearin is over, it's real for the soldier
Walks in the courtroom, the look in his eyes is wild
Triple-homicide, I sit in the back aisle
I wanna crack a smile when I see him
Throw up a fist for black power, cause all we want is his freedom
He grabbed a court officer's gun and started squeezin
Then he grabbed the judge, screams out -- nobody leavin everybody

Some niggaz fuck they enemies in they ass when they catch 'em
Weird-ass niggaz are dangerous, so don't test 'em
They make you, disappear, this a year that I won't forget
Sold CD's double platinum, met mo' execs
Southern niggaz, independent label, real killers
Know the business, ran Tennessee for years, now they chillin
They had the coke game somethin crazy
Sold music out the trunk of they car, that shit amazed me
Put me onto heron blunts, sherm or somethin
Took a puff, what the fuck, I turned to punch them
Southern niggaz ain't slow, nigga tried to play me
I left from around them dudes, they cool but they crazy
Now I'm back around the old school that raised me
New York gangstas, we loungin, out in L.A. see
A dude wrote my dawg from Pelican Bay
The letter say, "Nas I got your back - the fools don't play"
I rolled with some Crips down to a Crenshaw funeral
Never saw so many men slaughtered and I knew the ho responsible
The nigga still alive in a hospital
Midnight they crept in his room and shot the doctor too
See my cousin's in the game, thuggin and things
He plugged me with a dame who was half-Mexicano
Gave the ass up, I'ma mack daddy Soprano
She passed me the indigo, but the imbecile
Shoulda never tippy-toed, thought my eyes were closed
Openin the hotel room do', to let her goons in
But I moved in a manner, on some Jet Li shit
I let the hammers blow, wet three kids
See honey thought I had somethin to do, with all the drama
Cause I was with a crew, that had her people killed
Called up my cousin, told him I ain't fuckin witchu
He responded cool, but told me out here this how motherfuckers

Get down, get down!

Left to right, not up and down

I'm starting to wonder if the next big trend in web publishing is to package content in a left-to-right, scrolling style, instead of the traditional scroll-down type display you normally see when reading stuff on the web. Here's a good example of that at CanopyCanopyCanopy. I've noticed that one of my favorite moto blogs, Hell for Leather, does something similar with certain of their features.

Trash Heaven!

This blog is some southern fried fun. Hell yeah!

Gang of Four, Live in 1981

I know I was all of three years old at the time, but this song just rocks in every way.

Sunday Sunday Sunday

Check out this tilt-shift video of a monster truck rally. Kind of a matchbox cars meets claymation vibe goin' on.

Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

My personality type?

This site claims that it can predict your Myers-Briggs personality type by analyzing your blog. I entered Tomorrow-land's URL into it and this is what came up:

ESTP - The Doers
The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Then I entered Dionne's blog into the analyzer:

ESFP - The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

Sounds about right to me!

Not black vs. white, but urban vs. rural

Slate has a nice summary of demographic data vs. polling data. It turns out that my man Barry Hussein didn't really unite the two halves of America particularly well.... because it turns out real rural Americans basically hate his Muslim Kenyan ass. Oh well, just don't stop growing our food you uncultured rednecks!

Post-election goodies...

Newsweek has a few good post-election morsels of tasty political gossip today. Here are a few highlights:

• The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Michelle asked a top campaign aide.

• Palin launched her attack on Obama's association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue. McCain's advisers were working on a strategy that they hoped to unveil the following week, but McCain had not signed off on it, and top adviser Mark Salter was resisting.

• McCain also was reluctant to use Obama's incendiary pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as a campaign issue. The Republican had set firm boundaries: no Jeremiah Wright; no attacking Michelle Obama; no attacking Obama for not serving in the military. McCain balked at an ad using images of children that suggested that Obama might not protect them from terrorism. Schmidt vetoed ads suggesting that Obama was soft on crime (no Willie Hortons). And before word even got to McCain, Schmidt and Salter scuttled a "celebrity" ad of Obama dancing with talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres (the sight of a black man dancing with a lesbian was deemed too provocative).

• Obama was never inclined to choose Sen. Hillary Clinton as his running mate, not so much because she had been his sometime bitter rival on the campaign trail, but because of her husband. Still, as Hillary's name came up in veep discussions, and Obama's advisers gave all the reasons why she should be kept off the ticket, Obama would stop and ask, "Are we sure?" He needed to be convinced one more time that the Clintons would do more harm than good. McCain, on the other hand, was relieved to face Sen. Joe Biden as the veep choice, and not Hillary Clinton, whom the McCain camp had truly feared.

And then my personal favorite....

• At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys' club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. "I'll be just a minute," she said.

FINALLY!

WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Give a shout of joy, then go over here and watch idiot conservatives have a meltdown. Point and laugh at them like Nelson Muntz. Ha-ha.

Demo ride: Triumph Speed Triple

So I managed to go for a quick joy ride today and decided to stop by the local Triumph dealership, where they were having Triumph demo rides all weekend long. I pretty much had my choice of bikes today so I decided to test ride the Triumph Speed Triple. It's a "naked" sportbike with a 1050 cc triple-cylinder engine. First thing I noticed is that these things look absolutely SICK in person. Mine was a nice burnt orange color. The exhaust, cool black alloy wheels and exhaust are just sooooo cool looking. Then I got on and started revving it up. The Triumph people were very cool about and didn't mind at all. The sound from that engine was great... kind of a nice throaty rumble to it. So nice. We went on an 18-mile loop and got to rev the bikes up a bit. That Triumph engine just would not stop accelerating. In fact, I'd say I only tested maybe 25% of its true ability. Wow, what a sweet machine.

Elderly drivers....

I just want to point out that the guy who did this is a full two years younger than John McCain.

The world's most bad-ass Chevy Cavalier

Actually, I think this is the world's only bad-ass Chevy Cavalier.

Tin foil hat time

Obama is a terrorist bomber pedophile with a love child hidden away on a Caribbean island! I read it on a blog somewhere!

Here's a treasure trove of this year's great right-wing Obama conspiracies.

Obama Mural, BKLN

Obama Mural, BKLN, originally uploaded by Scorrigan Works.

Obama Mural

Obama Mural, originally uploaded by sabeth718.

obama mural venice beach california

obama mural venice beach california, originally uploaded by Name On Rice.com.

New Obama Mural on Hollywood Blvd.

New Obama Mural on Hollywood Blvd., originally uploaded by FROLAB.

Barack Obama Mural in Houston Texas (Houston Graffiti Art)

Day 55 - Barack Obama Mural in Houston Texas (Houston Graffiti Art), originally uploaded by Marco From Houston.

Greek squid

In moto terminology, a squid is a reckless wifebeater-and-flip-flops wearing young'un on a sportbike who rides stupid fast and usually hurts himself. You've probably seen them before. Here's a good squid vid....

Boogaloo 2

Unbelievable McCain Vs. Obama Dance-Off - Watch more free videos

The department of no self-awareness

Headline of the day!

CYA!

See how the wrinkly old shitbag Greenspan covers his ass after the fact!

Shit you don't want to eat

There's unhealthy food out there and then there's scary franken-food. Something tells me the Baskin-Robbins Heath® Shake should be avoided if you want to live past 25. It comes with 320% of your daily recommended allowance of saturated fat. Yum. Check out the ingredient list, too.

Shooting down deficit hawks

With the economy now firmly in the shitter, people like to talk a lot about "tightening belts." Tightening belts and reining in spending are good if you're managing your household budget, but don't believe the hype that cutting government spending during an economic downturn is necessary or good. It's not.

Check out Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman's op-ed today on the subject.

Gag me with an antique spoon

Why Walnuts McCain won't be our next president:


This ain't no photochop. It was actually taken by a Reuters photog during last night's debate.

Sarah Palin is..... 50 Cent?

This is just an awesome comparison. A. Serwer at Tapped says Palin reminds him of 50 Cent. Read on, it actually makes sense:

The conservative movement at this point basically reminds me of people who thought 50 Cent was going to be the greatest rapper ever because he had been shot nine times, not because he could actually flow. Let's face it, 50 is wack. He's wack like Sarah Palin is wack. But like Sarah Palin, he had a story that reflected the cultural values of realness and authenticity that hip-hop fans had come to place above actual rhyming ability. Most of these fans are not from the hood in the same sense that the folks at The Corner are not Real Americans(tm) from "flyover country," and they can't yet understand what the obsession with authenticity is doing to a movement they supposedly love.

Sarah Palin parking lot

Check out this recent parking lot action outside this Ku Klux Klan rally Sarah Palin rally in Ohio. The stupid! It hurts!

Where are the foreclosures happening

Here's a cool map of where the nation's foreclosures are concentrated. Florida, you're doomed!

Caribou Barbie's strange odyssey

Here's a bewildering look into the icey heart and addled mind of Wasilla's village idiot. Enjoy.

Walnuts is a little bitch-boy

Why don't you go cry to your mommy!

Seriously. What a jackass. Republicans made a huge mistake voting for stupid-ass Walnuts over Mittens or Huckabeez.

Moto photos

I finally got around to washing the bike and taking a few photos. Here ya go. In case you missed it, I got a 2001 BMW R1200C.


Rest assured, this isn't my typical riding gear. No flip-flops!

Greta Van Nosejob

She looks like she walked really fast into a wall. Yep, that's Greta Van Susteren, possibly the least qualified jackass on Fox News (Steve Doocey is a close second). Check out her interview with the "First Dude," and prepare to want to kill yourself.

Billy Badass

I must be on some kind of Billy Badass kick lately, because I'm getting a bike, got a fresh tat and am even considering growing a beard just for shits and giggles.

I've actualy wanted to get a tattoo for about a year or so, but could never decide what to get. It couldn't be something trivial, so I eventually decided to get my lovely wife's initials done up. Luckily my co-worker had a 70s-era graphic design book with tons of really cool stylized letters, so I chose one that captures not only Dionne's initials, but also what I call her on a daily basis -- Di (pronounced like "Dee," not the princess who got killed by the paparazzi).

I know it's probably not his most challenging piece of artwork ever, but I think I found a pretty damn good tattoo artist. Check him out my man Guzik here. I kinda want another one now!

2 Wheels

I have been seriously slacking on the blog this summer. I admit it. Hopefully you've been able to live your lives without me for a while.

There's one major thing that's been on my mind lately: I'm getting a motorcycle this weekend. It turns out, my old man bought a new BMW K1200GT for himself and decided to give me his 2001 BMW R1200c. To get an idea of what it looks like, check out this page.

Here's the plan: I'm flying up to Pittsburgh on Friday morning. Then we're going to ride south Friday and Saturday, eventually making it down to Asheville, N.C. Then Sunday morning I'm gonna do the last 200 miles or so by myself and pops will hoof it back to Morgantown. It should be a nice leisurely pace!

The Onion... or the real thing

Is this a joke or not? I can't tell. It really should be in The Onion.

ESPN might take itself too seriously

A real news flash, I know.

Check out "The Onion."

Walnuts and sex (you're welcome!)

You probably heard about John "Walnuts" McCain's latest gaffe involving his position on health insurance paying for contraceptives (and only tangentially related to Viagra, but the media picked that up and ran with it anyway). Well, here's an interview from last year in which the old bag of bones got thrown off by a question about AIDS. This man CANNOT seriously be running for preznit, right?

Reporter: “Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS?”

Mr. McCain: “Well I think it’s a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn. He believes – and I was just reading the thing he wrote– that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn’t succeed, than he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I’m not very wise on it.”

(Mr. McCain turns to take a question on Iraq, but a moment later looks back to the reporter who asked him about AIDS.)

Mr. McCain: “I haven’t thought about it. Before I give you an answer, let me think about. Let me think about it a little bit because I never got a question about it before. I don’t know if I would use taxpayers’ money for it.”

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”

The asshole of the South

Di and I travelled to South Carolina twice recently. Once to Charleston (a very fun little city) and once to a state park (where we camped and went to the beach).

Both places were nice enough, and the people in Charleston were pleasant, but the rubes who make up the rest of the state are downright fugly. I should have known this when they spent the entire weekend staring at us like space aliens. (For those who don't know, she's black and I'm a 'Nilla/cracker/Altoid/honky.)

So I wasn't surprised that a campaign to attract gay tourists to South Shithole is being criticized by rightwing fucknuts.

Here's state Republican Sen. David Thomas:

“South Carolina is a wonderful, family friendly destination not a Southern version of San Francisco. This campaign goes against our core values.”

Of course, one of the Wonkette commenters pointed out that South Shithole also regularly produces stories like this one.

Some highlights:

- The victim's name is Tammy. (shocker!)
- The perp's name is Pooh Bear. (He also has two first names and is Tammy's son. Again, none of this should surprise us.)
- The perp supposedly urinated on his mother.
- Tammy then stabbed Pooh Bear six times. (This being S.C., Pooh is lucky he didn't get shot.)
- The following quote was uttered: "Why did you pee on me Pooh Bear? This was met with the reply from Pooh Bear of: "Mama you done stabbed me."
- The police didn't charge Tammy with assault

Google suggests some stereotypes

You've probably encountered Google Suggestions already, even if you don't realize it. It's the feature in the Google toolbar/Firefox search menu that automatically pulls up the most searched terms as soon as you start typing. Hence, if you type in "S," up pops the most common serach terms starting with "S."

So I happened to type in "stereotypical," and before I could complete the phrase, up popped the list of most stereotypical search for stereotypes:

- stereotypical gay
- stereotypical British phrases
- stereotypical Australian names
- stereotypical black foods
- stereotypical chinese song
- stereotypical college student
- stereotypical gay names
- stereotypical working class

Make of this what you will.

Walnuts misses the train

I'm going to keep harping on how out-of-touch, and behind-a-few-steps John "Walnuts" McCain is. Don't get it twisted, the "Maverick" is really just a half-senile old bag of bones without an ounce of forward thinking.

Here's a nice smackdown of his record on Amtrak and rail transit. Walnuts thinks we can engineer emissions-free cars sooner and more efficiently than we can improve transportation options. What planet is he from?

Rat rides on a cat riding on a dog

Yes, that's an actual CNN.com headline. Thankfully, someone has finally created WTF CNN, a blog devoted to screen caps of the site's most inane headlines. I also dig their logo.

John McCain is aware of the internet

I may have to rename this blog "The Walnuts Out-of-Touch Express" if this keeps up.

Here's Walnuts explaining how well he understands what everyday drivers are going through:

WICKSOL: When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?

MCCAIN: Oh, I don’t remember. Now there’s Secret Service protection. But I’ve done it for many, many years. I don’t recall and frankly, I don’t see how it matters.

I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of town hall meetings, many as short a time ago as yesterday. I communicate with the people and they communicate with me very effectively.

Why we're fat

I can't say I'm a regular reader of "divine caroline: Life in your words" (mmm, Lifetime-y!), but I did find this nifty article illustrating just why our collective asses are so collectively fat. In a nutshell (or perhaps a Pringles can): portion sizes.


OK. I just noticed this article on that same site. Consider me intrigued... and horrified.

Oh, Walnuts

Yes, John McCain's new nickname is Walnuts... or even better, WALNUTS!

He was actually born before the Crimean War and possibly the Treaty of Ghent. He rides one of those bicycles with the giant 6-foot front wheel. He remembers the Barbary Pirates. OK, you get the point.

Anyway, he also is apparently trying out this new Internet Googles thing! Here he is describing his search for a VP:

"You know, basically it's a Google," he said to laughter at a fund-raising luncheon when asked how the selection process was going. "What you can find out now on the Internet -- it's remarkable."

Basically it's a Google? Um, is he calling up Ted Stevens for tech support?

That's On Point: The Web Site: John Bullspit

Check out:
That's On Point: The Web Site: John Bullspit

That's On Point talks about today's England v. U.S.A. friendly at Wembley. There's some good stuff in there about how U.S. fans continue to fawn over England's football heritage, even though other countries have long since caught up to it and its national teams is perennially underperforming.

I agree. It is a problem. And it's exactly why the U.S. Soccer Federation should be turning in the direction of Latin America, rather than Europe. (Playing in the Copa America last year was a nice step). Hispanics are the fastest-growing ethnic group in America. They love footie. (I seem them every single day in the park in my neighborhood). Why not try to "Latin-ize" the American game with the kind of intensity that players and fans in Mexico and Argentina bring to the sport. For one, you could have started by hiring Jose Pekerman instead of Bob Bradley as U.S. manager.

Approaching the city

Here's a fantastic blog about public transportation, with a little urban planning and politics thrown in. Very nice....

Wolf Blitzer is E.B. Farnum

I've been watching a lot of CNN lately for some reason, and I finally today realized something about everyone's favorite news personality.

Wolf Blitzer is E.B. Farnum, the fictional mayor on HBO's "Deadwood."

Wolf:


and E.B. Farnum:

Jayne Mansfield's death car

Di and I are going to be in Florida this weekend (for a wedding). It's too bad the Tragedy in U.S. History Museum is no longer operating. I would love to see assorted random tchotkes associated with famous deaths.

(Hat tip to Don's blog Driving to Oahu. He mentioned having stumbled upon the museum, in St. Augustine, Fla. 20 years ago.)

Other stuff...

We know Hillary likes her pantsuits, but this is hilarious.

Also, Mrs. T-L posted this today. Yes, it's us on our somewhat recent trip to Charleston and Savannah.

We are the angry mob

We are the angry mob
we read the papers everyday
we like who we like, we hate who we hate
but we're oh so easily swayed

The demented Spartan child

It's been a horrible season for Barcelona. They broke down and humiliated themselves, particularly as Real Madrid found themselves hoisting the hardware.

There has been one bright spot, however, the emerging greatness of Lionel Messi. Here is Phil Ball, the best English-language writer covering La Liga today (I know, I know), eloquently telling us why he named Messi to his Best XI:

Left midfield: Leo Messi (Barcelona)
He was picked for this spot last season, and although it's not strictly his position it's difficult to say exactly what Messi is - a phrase often used to describe the greats. Well - we know he's the best player in the world, with apologies to Ronaldo lovers, but he's not here for that reason. What has been most impressive about Messi this season has been his sheer will to win, his never-say-die attitude and the silent example he has provided to all around him, many of whom have seemed less than committed to the cause. At times he has run down cul-de-sacs, it's true, but only because there has been a lack of intelligent support. He's hardly had a bad game, and even when he came back from a serious injury, he was immediately running at players again like some sort of demented Spartan child, unacquainted with fear. Sorry to mix the metaphors, but he's also worked like a Trojan. Nice little bloke too, modest and without pretensions. You get the impression that he appreciates the privilege of being a professional footballer, particularly after what he went though as a child. He deserved better this season.

Middlebrow horseshit

I've been seriously digging Matt Taibbi's writing lately. Here's his bananas book review of "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman.

Things happen when you wear Eleganza

Eleganza has to be the greatest name for a clothing line I've ever heard. Check out these 1970s fashion ads from Ebony Magazine. It's pimpalicious.

The ghetto formerly known as the suburbs

I'm going keep blogging about this until I'm blue in the fingers... people no longer want to live in the suburbs. The truth is that, due to longer and longer commuting times, higher gas prices and less of a desire for whites to get away from minority neighbors, all the demand growth for housing is currently in cities.

And lo and behold, look at today's U.S. home construction report:

The U.S. Commerce Department is reporting construction rose by 8.2 percent in April, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.03 million units. However, the growth came from a big jump in apartment construction. Building of single-family homes continued to weaken.

Photoshopping gone horribly wrong

Check out this little Photoshop fuck-up, courtesy of The Problem With Caring, a nifty little blog.

We're falling behind yet again

If I told you that some country was building a "carbon-neutral" city where people rode in solar-powered personal rapid-transit vehicles, turned waste into energy and recycle its water, where would you think this was?

No, not the U.S., silly. We're way behind! How about, of all places, Abu Dhabi.

Get your Democratic Convention Credentials

This is the most awesome thing ever.

(Courtesy of this blogger.)

From the Dept. of Get a Brain Morans

Wright and Obama

I know, I know. You're probably sick of the Rev. Wright fiasco, but my former co-worker Don has a nice little post about it here. (You have to scroll down a bit. For some reason his adsense is in an odd spot, at least on my firefox.)

Die Newspaper. Die Die!!!

Everyone point and laugh at newspapers! Ha ha.

Our cat only kills time (napping)

My wife's family used to have a few outdoor cats when she was growing up. According to her, at least one of them felt he was particularly gifted at killing things and dragging them home to show off to his owners.

Apparently, Jeff has a similar talent, which is why there's a whole blog devoted to What Jeff Killed.

The leader they deserve

The Onion once described American politicians as "The leaders American deserve" -- meaning most voters are about half a chromosome away from bonobos. We claim to hate politicians, but we've seen the enemy... and it is us.

We're a hodgepodge of crackpots, liars, inveterate racists and wide-eyed cultists. We disdain science and foreigners. In short, we're a nation of people like Brenda Spreitzer, 42, of Indiana. Here's what Brenda told Newsweek when asked why she wouldn't vote for Obama:

"I think Barack's viewpoints and his past is too flamboyant. It's more radical than I want to go … I'm just not comfortable," she said, adding that she is concerned about Obama's practice of generally not wearing an American flag pin. (None of the candidates wear flag pins.) She has been researching Obama on the Internet and discovered that he wants to tear out the bowling alley in the White House (Obama has kiddingly said he wants to replace it with a basketball court). "That freaked me out because no matter if he bowls or not, it's a historic thing that should never be changed."

The random blog button

When I first started using Blogger I messed around with the "next blog" button (which takes you to a random blog), but mostly found junk: unused pages, spam, totally unusable sites built by Japanese teenagers.

Today I hit the button and stumbled upon Art Inconnu, which is actually a very impressive blog about long forgotten painters. I would post a few favorites here, but they're too big for my layout.

Old Lady at the Club

My wife isn't even close to being an old lady. I don't know why she calls herself that. It might have to do with the fact that she was recently up in da club... despite being married. Now, I have no problem with it, but I guess that's why she feels that way.

Check out a picture or two at her blog here.

Words I Like

There a bunch of writers (mostly journalists, but a few fiction writers, too) whom I reguarly seek out. One of my recent favorites is Matt Taibbi, sort of new wave gonzo journalist who now writes for Rolling Stone. Check out this article, called "Jesus Made Me Puke," about how goes undercover at a cultish evangelical retreat in Texas. Each participant is required to tell the group about his or her awful childhood, so Taibbi makes up a story about how his father was an abusive circus clown. Genius!

Pennsylvania can go die in a ditch

The bitter, pasty gun-and-religion-clingers of rural Pennsyltucky couldn't be tricked into voting for Barry Hussein Obama last night. That's why we hate them. (Or at least 54.8 percent of their democratic voters.)

We have other reasons for ridiculing South Carolina, however.

Make your pet man again!

I think it's actually biologically impossible not laugh at this product.

Also... the best. endorsement. ever.

"My terrier, Ruckus, is soon to have his 9th birthday, and his Neuticles will have their anniversary shortly thereafter. We've never regretted the small additional expense of Neuticles when his original equipment was removed.

Thanks... nine years later."
Jack Anderson - Los Angeles, CA

Leave the New York Times aloooooooone

OK. I've seriously got to stop picking apart the NY Times before I go completely nuts and start muttering to myself in public about tin foil hats and conspiracies involving the Sulzberger family. Ahem. Then I read this article about googlegangers, the people you see on Google with the same name as you.

Di, my lovely wife, periodically updates me on the life progress of a certain other Di who happens to be some kind of chemistry professor in Germany(!) This sort of serendipitous story could have made for a ton 'o fun if the Times wasn't such a bastion of soul-killing rectitude. Instead of just having fun with the story, they weigh it down with a few tons of quotes from social psychologists and communications theorists about What It All Means.

Also, I'm quite possibly the only person on the planet with my name. Should that make me feel superior on account of specialness or jealous like an only child? I can't decide.

Why more financial aid isn't the answer

We talk about the rising cost of healthcare, but almost as serious an issue as that is the rising cost of college tuition. I believe the average tuition at a 4-year college is now $25,000 per year, which is a huge step up from even 10 years ago when I was in school. (I'm glad I'm not there now!)

Everyone seems to thin the answer to the problem is to increase the size and number of federal student loans. The problem is that such a policy just encourages state university systems to increase spending on "amenities" for students and pushing public universities into competition with private ones.

Just yesterday the NYT ran a ridiculous story about how colleges must now offer students gourmet dining options such as pho, lobster, mineral water and brick-oven pizza if they want to attract students. (The reality, of course, is that they'll still attract good students, but that free market competition between universities is forcing them to add on deluxe features like better food, huge new workout gyms with rock climbing walls and mega basketball arenas.)

Obama was asked about the tuition issue yesterday on the campaign trail:

Obama, a Democrat, said students today put more expectations on nonacademic features such as on-campus health clubs, state-of-the-art cafeterias and dazzling student social centers, features that drive up the cost of higher education.

"I have to tell you, when I went to school, we knew the food was going to be bad," Obama joked with a supportive crowd of about 2,000 people gathered at Great Valley High School. "We knew the gymnasium wasn't going to have all the state-of-the-art nautilus equipment. …

"The point is, you didn't expect first-rate facilities at college because you were there to learn."

He's almost competely right on this issue, but I would say that instead of blaming individual students, the blame lies with federal policy of subsidizing a competitive educational market that encourages universities to spend billions on extraneous facilities and services. And why are we even allowing private university systems to benefit from federal student loans? France, Britain and Canada all do just fine without substantial private systems. I can tell you first-hand that the French university system is much, much, much less plush than our own... but students don't mind because they pay no tuition!

Liberals, can we riot now???

I love this picture!

The annoying headlines of the NYT

Ever check out the homepage of the New York Times and try to figure out what the stories are about? Well, you'd never know by looking at the headlines. You see, NYT readers are sophisticated enough that they don't need to know exactly what the stories are about... the mere impression will suffice.

Check out today's list of "most e-mailed stories":

1. Findings: And Behind Door No. 1, a Fatal Flaw
2. A Disease That Allowed Torrents of Creativity
3. Vanished: A Pueblo Mystery
4. Well: Keeping Priorities Straight, Even at the End
5. In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined
6. Asian Inflation Begins to Sting U.S. Shoppers
7. Growing Pains for a Deep-Sea Home Built of Subway Cars
8. Equestrians’ Deaths Spread Unease in Sport
9. There’s Gas in Those Hills
10. Young Obama Backers Twist Parents’ Arms

Of those 10, the only ones that make any friggin sense at all are numbers 6 and 8. I especially love the number 1 headline. What is this about door no. 1? What is "Findings"? And what's this about some kind of underwater subway car house? ARRRRRRGH. JUST TELL ME WHAT THE FUCKING STORY IS ABOUT BEFORE I STAB SOMEBODY IN THE FACE!!!!

Graphic design hell

Ever wonder exactly why foreign soccer logos tend to look so much cooler than American sports team designs? Take for instance, Gretna F.C., a small Scottish soccer club:


This design isn't necessarily "pretty" or cutting edge in any way. But it is just so tough and intimidating and cool looking. I'd be proud to be fan of that team.

Now compare that to the Atlanta Thrashers, an NHL hockey team:

It's cartoonish and corporate! It looks like it was designed without any input from fans and is about as generic a team logo as you could ever come up with. I'm sure there's some graphic designer who puts this on his resume ever day, but I can't help but prefer Gretna's logo, even if it's not cutting edge in any way. I wonder how many other sports fans would agree with me.

Why David Brooks makes me want to puke

I really hate when liberals claim they like David Brooks, on the grounds that he's a "thinking man's conservative." He's truly no different than any of the other reactionaries in the media who relentlessly bash any kind of class-based change in America.

Today's column on the days leading up to the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. is a good example. He constantly equates angry, violent poor people with the angry, violent racists in power as if there is some moral equivalence between battered, dispossessed people standing up for their rights and the reactionary, fascists elements of society that formed a bulwark against change.

Around him in the front were the sanitation workers, with their concrete demands. But in the back of the crowd there were more radical and anarchic elements.

The looting and the rioting began almost immediately. King was whisked away. Hundreds were bloodied. One was killed. The authorities were driven both by the desire to restore order and by their own racist demons.

That march was a pivot. In both the white and black communities, the forces of order and reform vied with the forces of hatred and anarchy. The latter grabbed the upper hand.

Might doesn't make right, but when people have no other recourse, of course they're going to be violent if it means overthrowing an oppressor. To say otherwise is to take the side of the club-wielding fascists who were fighting against those changes. Not everyone was equally wrong!

World's Best Dad

I would like to nominate Keith Macdonald for that honor/honour.

Pretty much everywhere, it's gonna be hot

Watch this short clip. And then repeat numerous times. It only gets funnier.

Throw McCain under the train

According to this two week-old story about John McCain on the campaign trail, the old coot "travels Amtrak like everyone else."

"Nice to see you, nice to see you," McCain said to workers and passengers who greeted him on the 8 a.m. high-speed Acela Express train.

So while he's enjoying the convenience and service of inter-city train travel, he's also the one who nearly killed funding for improving the system and has positioned himself as a political enemy of Amtrak.

But Hutchison and pro-Amtrak Democrats Max Cleland of Georgia and John Kerry of Massachusetts had to settle for supporting roles Tuesday as McCain offered an unflattering history lesson about Amtrak, which runs two routes that cross Arizona. (Link)

Here's more on McCain's history of being anti-rail. Maybe next time Amtrak employees (or riders, for that matter) see him on the Acela they should remind him where he is.

Polar bear is a publicity-addicted psycho

You've gotta love the British tabloids. They're even trashier than American ones. But what they do excel at, really, is at turning absurd news items into dry humor. Exhibit A is the Daily Mail's rehashing of a story about a "psychotic" polar bear at the Berlin Zoo.

I especially enjoyed the useful graphic and cutline:

Then and now: Left, Knut as a cuddly baby before his adoring fans, and right, as a grown-up 'publicity-addicted psycho'

Comcast promises to play nice

The world's worst corporation, Comcast, promised it would stop throttling BitTorrent. It complains that 50% of the world's web traffic is tied up in torrents. Maybe so, but since when do ISPs have the right to play traffic cop?

Deep fried craziness

As nutty as Georgia can be sometimes, it often seems like Tennessee, the current home state of my parents in law, also has its share of wide-eyed psychobillies.

Check out this wikipedia page for "Low Tax Looper," one of the most bizarre political characters I've ever heard of.

Charleston and Savannah

Di and I went on vacation last week (it was her school's spring break), so we decided to take another of our famed road trips -- this time through the good ol' cities of Savannah and Charleston.

The trip was great. We stayed in nice places in both cities and really relaxed. We saw a bunch of great stuff: mansions, art galleries, Paula Deen's restaurant, a man with two hooks for hands, some of the best karaoke singers ever, some of the worst karaoke singers ever, enough fried chicken to kill a man, mint juleps, she-crab soup, a pirate, a slave market, a rooftop bar, cobblestone streets and most of the South Carolina countryside (on the drive home we took the straightest route back to Atlanta, which meant 80 straight miles of two-lane roads).

My brother (who turned 28 yesterday) gave me a tiny Flip camera for Christmas, which we made full use of. Here's some video. The first scenes are in Savannah, but the rest of it is us visiting the Aiken-Rhett House in Charleston and then wandering the streets.

For the undecided voters

Here's a little help decided whether you want to vote for either Barack "Barry Hussein" Obama or Hillary "Angry school librarian" Clinton.

Um, no he wasn't.

For the last few years now you've seen the occasional commercial pop up with some dead celebrity endorsing it. (I believe Fred Astaire, for example, was in a Dirt Devil vacuum commercial). That's bad enough. Even worse is twisting someone's legacy into the opposite of what his life actually was.

Case in Point: These fine t-shirts proclaiming "Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican."

The Worst Hotel in the World

I love tripadvisor, I really do. The site gives you reviews mostly of hotels and resorts from everyday travelers who might or might not be sane human beings. (Usually, they're reasonable but sometimes you end up taking some of the reviewers with a grain of salt.)

Well anyway, Mrs. T-L and I are taking our first real vacation together in a while next week. We are gonna be spending a few days in Savannah, Charleston and at Hunting Island State Park (where we're gonna do some camping). I think we're staying in some really nice places.

Well at least we're not staying in what I think might be the official World's Worst Hotel, the President Inn in Washington, D.C. Here are a few excerpts from the traveler reviews:

• More Like The President Crack Den
• upon my departure I noticed small red bumps all over my body
• It was so bad, that I actually want to see the building getting bulldozed.
• I have backpacked around the world, ranging from South America to Asia and this was by far the worst place ever.
• he receptionists are nice, but at night time they are protected behind bullet proof glass (while you're left to fend for yourself).
• The lobby entrance has thick bullet resistant plexiglass surrounding the reception area.
• a variety of interesting stains of unknown origin thoroughout the room
• There is razor wire around the property. It is across from a run-down liquor store and next to four railroad tracks.

Great science fair pictures

This collection of great science fair pictures is hilarious. Kind of cruel, but also kind of endearing, I suppose.

Why Star Wars is purely fantasy

I do admit to occasionally liking science fiction. It's fun to transport our current world to some foreign universe full of interplanetary empires and alliances. Here's a sci-fi writer's explanation for why we shouldn't hold our breath if we expect humans to colonize other planets. Good, geeky stuff!

Awful NY Times trend story of the week

Pointing out the hopelessly bourgeois/sloppily "researched" trend stories of the NY Times would really be regular feature of this blog if I weren't such a lazy lima bean. Anywho, check out this trend story on how rich DINKs are discovering that their high-design lifestyles conflict with their delayed acceptance of babymaking.

Life is hard for the rich when they have to give up things like sharp-edged custom coffee tables!

When the twins became mobile, the couple realized that they would need to create a designated play space in their prewar Park Avenue apartment. Still, the room they sacrificed — the formal dining room — was tough.

Heavily armed Floridiots

Ahhh, Florida. The State Where Everyone Gets a Second Chance.

Well, not any more. There will be no second chances if you find yourselves lined up in the laser sight of a .499 caliber Alexander Arms Beowulf Elephant Gun. Apparently a sheriff department in the Orlando area is stocking up.

Some choice excerpts from this Only in Florida story:

Essentially an assault rifle on steroids, the $800 weapon has "the power to kill anything that walks, swims or crawls!" according to a 2003 product review by gunblast.com. "Everyone who shot the gun was grinning like an idiot, and muttering phrases like, 'I gotta get me one of these.'"

and

In the 1960s, an elephant escaped from a circus in Winter Park. It rampaged along Cady Way into Winter Park Pines, leaving large mementos of its presence along the street, until it was subdued and recaptured.

and last but not least

Orange County's toughest neighborhoods may not have elephants, but the deputies who work there are getting a shipment of 25-shot machine pistols.

"Matching firepower," said sheriff's spokesman Capt. Mark Strobridge, when asked why.

"Our tactical squads that are getting the weapons are dealing with the worst of the worst and those types of neighborhoods," Strobridge said of the new semiautomatic, .45-caliber Heckler & Koch machine pistols. "They're more accurate than their [regular] pistols, and they can stand back further from the bad guys."

Hot bitches!

Check out Deadspin's "coverage" of the Westminster Dog Show. Yes, the freaks from "Best in Show" actually exist.

My favorite emu band

Some hick town in Georgia that no one's ever heard of now finds itself on the veritable internet freak show map: Appling, Ga., we love you!

Emu gets lost in road.

Tucker said Thursday that a man from Wilkes County said he was coming to see if the emu was his, but he had not arrived. "We're hopeful," she said. "Emus are a difficult animal. After four more days, we will put him up for adoption."

No one knows who owns the emu. Emu gets put up for adoption.... Emu ends up on trailer park Thanksgiving table?

CNN, the pride of Atlanta

Ever notice how completely crazy the headlines on CNN.com are? I sometimes notice them and wonder if CNN's editors or viewers are more sick, vile and twisted. I attribute it to some bizarre obsession with news about child molestation, kiddie death and random animal attacks. Check out this hilarious collection of CNN screen grabs. The one below is my personal favorite. I guess your choice of video tells just how mentally fucked you are.

Legalize human meat

I don't know about you, but I'm casting my ballot for Vermin Supreme, a third party candidate on the presidential ballot. He likes to wear a boot on his head and his platform includes mandatory toothbrushing and zombie preparedness.
Find out his positions here.

Not the "prison type"

If you're ever on the lam from the police, make sure you're dressed for the occasion when the police knock on your mother's front door.