My sister helps destroy the Death Star.

Italian Robot Graphitti

Know Your Sea Urchin

We were having a lovely dinner at a sushi restaurant last week, (not naming names, but it rhymes with an instrument Stevie Wonder plays. Think "Fingertips"), and they had two kinds of "Uni", sea urchin, on the menu. The Japanese, described as "delightful and refreshing," and the Chilean, described as "Not like the Japanese, tastes like ocean."

We ordered the Japanese.

The Mystery Machine! Part Deux

Here it is. The color is a little muted because it was overcast, but there you have it. That's L____ and the twins over to the left. We're at on a berry-picking expedition. Yes, I too am not sure why menial labor is considered fun.

Derby Day!

Captain Morgan and I went to Providence to see the Rhode Island Riveters beat the Gotham Girls of NYC. Dang.

Deadly Australian Red Penguins

Connecticut Turnpike?

Out of town/Derby Weekend

No post today. Derby pictures tomorrow.

Who's that girl?

Pluto is no longer a planet.

Um, it's a sketch, I guess...

Java Time!

To the Mystery Machine!

My sister "S______" and brother-in-law "L________" bought a new lime-green minivan.

It's all-out war!

Please stand for the Croatian National Anthem

Politics again. Dammit.

I've got a new idea about Iraq. We've been told that our options are to "stay the course" or to "cut and run." But I think they are actually the same thing.

"Stay the course" is a metaphor. The army is not on a giant boat somewhere, what I assume is meant by "stay the course" is to follow the original plan. To not change horses in the middle of the stream. Alright then. We follow the original plan. Dance with the girl that brung ya.

So here's the thing. All of us lefties like to talk about the "Lies" that got us into the war. And by "Lies" I of course mean "Honestly believed information based on the best intelligence we had at the time, that happened to not turn out to be as accurate as we had hoped." But that's a little wordy so I'm just going to use the word "Lies" and you all will know what I mean.

The Lie that we most often hear about is the weapons of mass destruction. Because it's the obvious one; we haven't found any. It's simple. But we forget the other big Lie, that this would be easy, that we would be greeted as liberators, that all we had to do was drag Saddam out of his spider-hole and democracy would instantly fill the void. "We zip in, we zip out, nobody gets hurt. It'll be like going into Wisconsin!"

See where I'm going here? The original plan, as presented to We the People, was to go in quick and to get out quick. So yes, we should stay the course, follow the original plan and get out.

I know. We can't just up and leave. That would be rude. But let's not pretend we're "staying the course," because really, what the hell does that mean?

Weather report

Happy Birthday Dad!

or click here for uncomposited background picture.

From the Archives

Please don't let me Beamish understood.

The following is a description of the 12th episode of the first season of the TV show "Charlie's Angels"

It is taken from Charlie's Angels (an Episode Guide)

"The Séance"
"Grace Rodeheaver receives a phone call that apparently places her into a trance. She removes a valuable ring from a safe and leaves it in an outdoor location, where an unknown individual retrieves it. She cannot recall any of these events, and hires the Angels to find out who is responsible for the string of burglaries committed against her. Sabrina follows Mrs. Rodeheaver in her day-to-day routine. Kelly and Jill pose as an heiress to an oil fortune and her assistant in order to investigate Mrs. Rodeheaver's spiritual adviser, Madame Dorian. Her assistant, Terrence, hypnotizes Kelly. During a séance, she reverts to her childhood and has flashbacks about being abused by Beamish, the matron at the orphanage where she grew up. She refuses to discuss the incident, and becomes angry when Jill and Sabrina express concern for her well-being. Terrence places Kelly into a trance and gets her to come over to his house in the middle of the night in the hopes of pumping her for financial information. After she blows her cover, Terrence convinces her that Jill is actually Beamish in disguise. Terrence kills Madame Dorian after she learns about his robbery scheme and tries to call the police. He orders Kelly to kill Jill and herself by driving off a cliff. Jill gets her to snap out of it and slow down just in time. Terrence tries to rip off Mrs. Rodeheaver one last time before leaving town. Sabrina sees her go into the hypnotic state and switches the jewels with a couple of rocks. Terrence grabs Jill in a scuffle, but Kelly scares the hell out of him by pretending that she is in another trance and wants to kill him. After he releases Jill and confesses to all his crimes, she admits that she was only acting."

In fond memory of Aaron Spelling. He provided more entertainment than any of us ever will.

Forbidden Video from Croatia

YouTube is now NEW and IMPROVED! The "play" button in the middle of the video is now more rectangular.

Today is Bear Day?

This is the Republican Bear:



This was my Halloween costume last year.

Here's one for my sister...

UPDATE: Apparently, they made YouTube take down the original video. Here's another one of the same thing, longer, until they take it down too...

Now in a theater near you...

One of the blogs near this one, "Momenger," (it's about two down, go to "I could not be less like Oprah"" and it's one of his links. Or click on "Next Blog" up in the upper right hand corner of this page about 40,000 times.) But don't click on "Momenger," because it's gone, it's a blank page, it got somehow deleted. Apparently she's started a new blog called "Beamish Town."



I've gone ahead and added a link over on the right side of this page. I've also added a link to "The Cake," who is also known as "Vampire Ann-Margret."

I don't change the links over to the right very often. You may be wondering, what are my criteria?

1. Blogs that post regularly.
2. Blogs that comment here alot.
3. Blogs that give me something to write about here.
4. Friends of Hoagy. (However, not actual Hoagy.)

Bestine!

Use for cleaning sticky things. I most recently used it to remove my old car registration sticker when I put on my new one.

No Coconut No More

The coconut in the window was absconded with by house painters. Who also woke me up earlier than I wanted.

And now a word from our sponsor...

Another Sombrero

This is a picture I took during the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. It was taken on the path that leads up to the Acropolis.

Uncle Sam w/Sombrero meets Vampire Ann-Margret

Pugs don't lie.

SUV with chairs on top

Here's what I'm reading now:

Dancing Chewbacca

I haven't done a "YouTube" link for a while...

Metal Cart, Where Thou Art?

Where I work, we have a grey cart that we use to move equipment around. We call it "The Fury." It's not actually made of metal, it's made of plastic, although we do have a metal cart as well.

"The Fury" won't go through revolving doors. Someone should make a pie-shaped cart that would go through revolving doors.

Royals Sweep Red Sox!

Ha!
I grew up in Kansas City. So I root for the Royals. But most of the time they suck. But not this week. They swept the Red Sox. Who are very good and I usually root for them as an alternative to the sucky Royals. But this week, it is they who are sucky.

So I taunt.

Ha!

Next week, I go back to eating soup.

Learn your carpenter's tools

Here's what I'm going to do:

Roller Derby in Rhode Island!

Yes!

As a spectator...

Put the lime in the coconut

Then put the coconut in the windowsill.

Where do you want to live?

The Dugout!

It's a hot dog, with instead of a bun two donuts with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.

Who's the lost person now?

Google maps rulez!

All the cool kids are doing it.

This blog will be on hiatus until tomorrow, August 9. However, there may be some interim posting.

Parking Etiquette

Leaving my apartment today, I passed a car parked with a note in the window that said "We use 1 space, not 2 on this block!" The car was, in fact, parked in the middle what seemed to be enough space for two cars. But on my block there are no lines painted, there are no defined spaces. You park starting at the crosswalk at the end, you can't park in front of the fire hydrant, and you squeeze in as best you can. Because of varying sizes of cars, (SUV-driving bastards!) the location of the spaces is fluid. Because my neighborhood has good public transportation, people tend to leave their cars for several days in a row. So it's possible that the car with the note was parked nicely between to cars with very little space to spare, and through the parking and un-parking of cars of different sizes around it, it came to appear to be taking up two spaces.

Either that, or whoever parked it is a giant douchebag.

Peril

The radio is about to fall in the bathtub.

Plain White Towels

Plain white towels, never gave me no lovin',
Plain white towels, gonna put 'em in the oven.

Crayons Crying

In light of recent celebrity scandal news...

...we took Saturday off.

All Ones On My Odometer

That's eleven thousand, one hundred and eleven miles.

Apparently, Mel Gibson Hates Jews

I'm actually going to start of with a little bit of a defense of Mel Gibson. We don't know how long he was ranting at the deputies, he could have been going on and on about cops and don't you know who I am and all kinds of other acceptable drunken rantiness, with only a tiny bit of anti-semitism mixed in, and that's the only part we read about.

Recently, a kid in New York was convicted of smacking another kid in the head with a baseball bat. The jury found that he used racial slurs while doing it, so it was considered a "hate crime." So he gets a longer sentence, or sent to a special wing of the prison or something. I wonder, if and when Mel is sentenced for drunk driving, will he get the "hate crime" bonus?

The big question, of course, is does Mel really believe what he said about the Jews. I think that on one hand, he really doesn't want to believe it. Because it's not rational, and mostly, because saying it out loud can get him in an ass-load of trouble. Unfortunately, he also really does want to believe it. Because he wants to believe that his dad is a good guy. And in order to believe that his dad is a good guy, he has to rationalize like crazy all of his dad's jew-hating ranting. Nobody wants to believe he's the son of a lunatic so you adjust, you allow, you equivocate and you let some of it live in the back of your brain just so you can make it through Thanksgiving dinner without hurling. And it stays there and sneaks out at the most inopportune times. So that's my unqualified psychoanalysis of the Road Warrior.

I remain conflicted about whether I can still enjoy the "Lethal Weapon" movies. I read somewhere that Danny Glover loves the Jews, so I guess it's a wash.

Another question: What was it that sent Mel out on a bender in the first place? Is there more to the story? Is there something else that brought Mel's well hidden Jew-hating to the surface? Is he maybe having problems with his new movie about the Mayans? Maybe, despite the success of his last movie, he needs more money to finish it? Are the studios, or maybe an executive who's last name ends in "stein" or "witz" giving grief instead of extra editing time? Imagine you're Mel Gibson. Your last movie grossed about half a billion dollars, so you feel you've got carte blanche to do whatever you want in your next movie. So you make another subtitled epic that doesn't really look like a crowd pleaser on paper. It's got subtitles. There are no movie stars in it. The hero is tortured and killed at the end. (I don't know this for a fact, but consider his other movies. It's kind of his thing.) And you're filming in the jungle so it's costing a lot more than you expected.

So you need more money. And those Jew bastards at the studio won't give it to you. So you go out, fall off the wagon, get plastered, get in your car and head toward your unfortunate encounter with the sheriff. And you know your screwed. A drunk driving arrest is never good, especially when your trying to get financing. And whose fault is it? But of course.

Maybe that's what happened. And it's totally understandable.

And Mel has apologized. Profusely. Should we believe him? Does it matter? I think his apology is actually sincere, up to a point. Mel Gibson doesn't hate the Jews for starting all the world's wars. He doesn't hate the Jews for killing Christ. He doesn't hate the Jews for controlling the media and ruining his jungle movie. Mel Gibson is a Christian. So he Forgives the Jews for starting the wars; he Forgives them for being such tightwads, and most of all, he Forgives them for betraying Jesus. It was all part of God's plan, after all.

Special Suitcase

Only for pants.

I'm Mister Heat Miser

Here's what I'm wondering:

It's summer. It's hot. So we haven't got enough electricity. But really, if you think about it, that shouldn't be the case. Heat is energy. So we've got extra heat, we should have extra energy. In the winter, when it's cold, that's when we should run out of energy. I guess we do; heating oil costs more, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm thinking, an air conditioner makes it cold. And somehow, that takes electricity. Lots of electricity. But if you think about it, we should somehow be able to create a machine that sucks the heat out of the air and creates electricity.

Maybe all the scientists that don't have the funds to work on stem cells any more can work on this.

Sun at night

How hot is it?