tasty

I rarely pass these things on, but I have to this time. It's likely not real, but its fun nonetheless.

Ben & Jerry created "Yes Pecan!" ice cream flavor for Obama. They then asked people to fill in the blank for the following:

For George W. they created "_________".

Here are some of their favorite responses:

Grape Depression
Abu Grape
Cluster Fudge
Nut'n Accomplished
Iraqi Road
Chock 'n Awe
WireTapioca
Impeach Cobbler
Guantanmallow
imPeachmint
Good Riddance You Lousy Motherfucker... Swirl
Heck of a Job, Brownie!
Neocon Politan
RockyRoad to Fascism
The Reese's-cession
Cookie D'oh!
The Housing Crunch
Nougalar Proliferation
Death by Chocolate... and Torture
Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
You're Shitting In My Mouth And Calling It A Sundae
Credit Crunch
Mission Pecanplished
Country Pumpkin
Chunky Monkey in Chief
George Bush Doesn't Care About Dark Chocolate
WMDelicious
Chocolate Chimp
Bloody Sundae
Caramel Preemptive? Stripe

Ouch

With regards to Oklahoma one COULD use the term "The less said about this the better" but that would be a cop out. The show was brutal. Cold, hot, dust, wind, wind, wind, more dust,tent damage...Ask me about it someday and I'll lay out some of the fun details in epic style.

But we made money. Not as much as I'd like to be frank, but its only a three day event. I'd go back. Rossana? I don't think I'll broach the subject for good 8 months.

The cherry on this cake was our return drive. After tear down and pack up we could only drive about 4-5 hours. We stayed at a motel that usually exists only in movies. Our room was entirely Elvis themed with posters, faux platinum records and purple satin sheets. Breakfast was at a diner that time forgot. Good food served by people who still believe Eisenhower is President.

But the charm of that bubble in time had worn off 13 hours later as we trudged up I-71. Somewhere south of Rt 250 Rossana hit a patch of black ice. I was asleep in the back but you wake up pretty fucking fast when the swerving and screaming starts. Three violent swerves in as many seconds and we struck the guard rail sending me across the van along with assorted luggage. There were two things that kept us from getting seriously messed up. Luck was one. There was an off ramp to the right of us when we started to loose traction. 20 feet more and we would have rolled over, Rossana's great driving was the other. By the time we hit the guard rail we were almost perfectly paralell to it. The impact mashed up the side of the van but didn't harm the wheels, doors or any windows. After making sure we were still cabable of driving we crawled home, getting in at about 4am. I seem to be the only one who took damage when I hit the door of the van. My right forearm hurts like hell. We also broke a mirror.

All in all, not the best weekend ever.

Day 3 - extra gritty

Blogging from a portajohn. It's the only place sheltered from the
winds an dust. Yesterday was ok but it won't get above 51 today and we
still have to tear down an pack up. Saw about a dozen tents damaged or
destroyed by wind this morning. We're still holding on but we've had
to use only half the wall pieces to keep wind drag down.

Sent from my iPhone

Misery

Arrived to 40 mph winds. Got partly set up when wind damages tent.
Lower tent, Lash everything down and decide to check in. Suprise! We
moved you! We unlash, move frame and come up with new proceedure for
high wind setup. We go for lunch and find a harbor freight. Awesome.
Get some super stakes and ratchet ties along with extra rope. Back on
site we manage to get tent up. There are bent poles and damage to some
corners. We use every stake we have to tie down. Can't risk setting up
walls or stock. We'll have to do it in the morning. Possibly the
hardest setup in my career. My face hurts still from the wind and cold.

Sent from my iPhone

Robots

Here are some pics of Robots at MegaCon.

WTF??

Back from MidsouthCon. Overall the event we pretty good. It was marred by 2 small distractions. First was our GPS sending us to a landscaper supply depot rather than our hotel. The actual hotel wan't far away but wasn't marked and kind of sucked. Second, someone stole our dolly. No, not a cute little doll with ribbons in its hair. Our loading dolly.

It the twenty something years I've been doing this I've never had something stolen from me at a show (that I could detect). Why a dolly? Why not just ask to borrow it? The pisser is that I JUST refurbed it the week before. Cleaned it up, painted it, reinflated the tired to spec. This thing takes a lot of abuse. And now? Gone. Swell.

The cool part was having diner with Nigel DeSade and a friend of his named Amul. Nigel is a character in every sense of the word and talking to him for any length of time will put a smile on your face.

Ok, I'm slightly freaked out.

At about 1:30 am the doorbell rings. Cautious, I grab one of the many swords kept about as decoration and cautiously open the front door. It's the police. I carefully put the sword down behind the door and ask how I can help them. They proceed to tell me a bizarre story.

Apparently 'a woman' went to a house down the road from us several times asking for 'help'. The occupant(s) of the house wouldn't let them in but offered to call the Sheriffs Office. When the police would arrive, the woman would be gone (Although we live only 4 miles from Wellington, we are apparently served by the Lorain County Sheriffs Department in Elyria) After the last plea, the occupants followed the woman who was in a silver car and it pulled into our driveway. According to the police, a man fitting my description was in the silver car at some point (they showed the woman my DMV photo).

None of this, of course, makes any sense. We don't know ANY of our neighbors accept Heidi across the street from us, who has taken care of our cats a few times. I try never to pull into peoples driveways. It pisses some people off. I tell the officers that we were out most of the evening, not getting in until about 10:30pm (the last request for help was made at about 9:30).

They ask if they can speak to my wife, and if they can come in. It's freezing out so I say of course. I go to wake up Rossana, who is sound asleep. There was no easy way to do it so I told her the police were here to make sure I hadn't killed her. That got her up.

We assured the officers that everything was fine. Then the phone rings. Who calls at 1:45am? The Sheriffs Department does!

"Are 2 sherifs deputies at your residence?" asks a concerned voice.

"Why yes they are."

"May I speak with them?"

It now dawns on me. Once the officers entered my home, they lost contact with their dispatcher. This sort of thing likely makes the other Sherifs deputies nervous. I quickly hand the phone to the Officers who inform dispatch that they in fact, have not been kidnapped. Disaster averted. The officers seem satisfied that we are not involved in some drunken domestic dispute and wish us a good night.

The officers were courteous and proffesional but the story they told me just makes no sense. If I hadn't been so gobsmacked I would have asked more questions...but I didn't.

Oddly, we have a pretty good alibi for tonight in that I got my first speeding ticket is YEARS at 10:05 way North of here. Should I call the Sherifs Office tomorrow and tell them this? Do I have some kind of crazy neighbor? Are they readying a strike team to burst in, guns blazing?

Rossana, seeing that there were no answers to be had at this time is off for bed. I am slightly jangled.

The Good News...

I returned to my doctor today to see if a month of clean(er) living (and some drugs) had improved me any. I was pleasantly surprised. First, I apparently lost 7 pounds. Horaaaay! Rossana gave me a dirty look.

"I hate you." she said, smiling.

Then we checked my blood pressure. 117 over 80, or as some people call it - Normal!

The doctor was pleased if somewhat surprised. He told me how some of his patients are on 6 different medications because they won't change their bad habits. He also warned me not to go back to my old ways.

For my part I was very happy to hear some good news about my health. The weight loss was a pleasant extra. So far the medication hasn't given me any big scares. I do sometimes feel a little light headed or dizzy, but nothing serious. I do pee more, but I already drank tons of fluids before so no big change. I also appreciated the comments people left. I also got an email from and old old friend of mine. He was a little more blunt with me. "Get your shit straight and stay with the program or so help me...."

I don't to know what "so help me" means and I don't want to find out. He works for the military-industrial complex and for all I know has satellites trained on me to make sure I don't stray. I can easily imagine getting a call after walking into a Burger King.

"Hello?"

"You better be there to only use the bathroom." the voice on the phone says.

Blogging from a small town - Albino Squirrels

I ran some errands in the "Big City" today. That means Oberlin. And as I crossed the town square I ran across one of Oberlin's more odd inhabitants. A white (or albino) squirrel.



Apparently these little guys are well known. Some people have traveled from foreign lands to see these guys. They are indeed white. It seems that due to feeding by locals a trait that would normally take these little guys out of the gene pool pretty quick has allowed them to thrive. There are still plenty of brown and grey squirrels. But I bet the white guys get hit by cars a lot less. Maybe that shows that they are evolving. Blending in with the environment is not as important as not being hit by cars. Hmmm..

Soooooooo freakin cool - A windmill

Check out this video and then try this for yourself here.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

More proof!

The two pills

*** Notice! Explicit Language Ahead! ***

I visited the doctor a few weeks ago. I wasn't feeling bad when I walked in his door. No sir. I was feeling like crap a week earlier but I was fine when they actually got around to seeing me. I explained how I somehow threw out my back doing NOTHING. The pain was so bad I took some pain killers my wife got for dental surgery. This deadened the pain but I suddenly developed a screaming headache and a dull but persistent testicular pain. That's right, it was like a little man had taken up residence in my underwear and decided that he needed to squeeze one of testicles constantly to punnish it for some perceived wrong it had commited.

It was a fun 7 days.

The doctor listened to my symptoms and then, I kid you not, said "Well, you're feeling better now aren't you? SO I guess it wasn't serious."

Really? I spent a week freaked out, sleepless and panicked about taking pain killers that caused a four day headache and wondering why the hell one of my fracking BALLS was turning EVIL. This is your wizened medical opinion? Awesome.

Since there was nothing for him to look at he decided to check my blood pressure and schedule a physical. I got my blood tested and a chest x-ray. Then I got poked and prodded, and yes, that included our favorite the D.R.E. (Moooooooooon Riveeeeeeerr....) Too obscure?

The doctor reviews the various numbers and tells me that many things are just fine. Great. I like things being fine. But one number isn't fine. My blood pressure. He's taken readings like 20 times and seems confident that it's "Slightly high". Hmmm. He goes on to explain that HBP is "The Silent Killer".

I thought that Ninja's were the silent killers. But tests have shown that HBP kills significantly more people than Ninja's (these days). Then he writes a prescription and hands it to me. That was a slap. I have rarely been prescribed anything. And now there are not one but two pills that I am supposed to take every morning. I guess 'Slightly High' was high enough to warrant drugs.

I hit wikipedia and the side effects scare me. Having a heart attack scares me more. I take the pills and really don't feel them doing anything even after 2 weeks. The doctor has said that I have to cut down on the sodium as well as the shitty foods. Get more exercise etc etc blahblahblah no more fun...

Then we go on the road to Florida. To work. To do what we do for a living. Let me tell you that the road is not kind to someone looking to "cut back". There is almost nothing available in a gas station or fast food restaurant that isn't packed to the gills with evil. Real evil. Do they really need to use babies slathered in lard to make a Wendy's double? It's bad food. I've always known this. I am not naive. But once you start reading those packages, desperate for something to eat, you cannot help but get discouraged. That's why I used to ignore those labels. So that I may live in blissful ignorance. I tried ordering off IHOP's 'Healthy Menu'. and even without bacon or sausage or anythin obviously bad it STILL had 1,100 mg of sodium. Just so you know, a low sodium diet should be under 2,000mg per DAY. In the end we found a grocery store and bought some tuna, bread and sugar free cookies. Can't use lunchmeat, too much frickin sodium.

That actually worked out pretty well. Convention food is brutally expensive as well as super evil. I'm happy to save some money, it's just hard to find time to make a sandwich. When we got back home we went shopping at WalMart. I found plain chicken breast was filled with more sodium than I could have imagined. I had to get the "Super Healthy Cuts" . These didn't have the extra crap and yet they cost more. That is a swell racket.

I know that making these changes will improve my health. I also know that I have very little willpower. Give up wings forever? Ha! But I suppose I can cut back. It's strange but I think I can actually taste the extra salt now in regular foods now when I eat them. Am I crazy?

And another thing? Rossana's blood pressure is actually too LOW. She needs more salt dammit! I'm thinking of getting her a salt lick.

I hope I can stick with this. Our work schedule and travel has meant that we've slipped in our eating habits. Rossana has always been good, but even she has slipped and it's my fault. I have stuck with one healthier choice so far. A couple months ago I cut way back on diet cola (caffine). I switched to water or diet 7 up and I'm actually less twitchy. Maybe if I stick with this I'll loose a few pounds and feel better as a result. We shall see...

The Cult of Done Manifesto

From here:

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

I have a lot of projects that I am constantly thinking about or working on. But I sometimes get stuck because I don't have the right part, or the right tool or the right materials. I need to stop procrastinating on these things. The list above is a good set of guidelines. Although I disagree with abandoning a project if you haven't started on a project in a week.

Remember this guy?

Joe the plumber. I first heard about him during the Presidential debates. A seeming everyman. A hardworking average American just trying to get ahead is a tough world. Both sides tripped over themselves to garner his vote. To show who would help Joe out more. In the end, Joe ignored the fact the Obama's tax plan would save him more money and he sided with McCain.

I can understand that. Ones choice of President isn't always motivated my self interest. Joe might have supported McCain's foreign policy plans, or worried that Obama lacked executive experience. But then we started to learn who Joe was. And Joe turned out to be A) A bit dim and B) A bit of a dick.

But that didn't stop him . No sir. He went on the campaign trail with McCain, even though he eventually said he didn't like McCain at all. He did like Palin. A LOT. And that right there pretty much ruined ANY shred of credibility the man had. He was no longer an everyman. He was a moron. He railed against the government and how it could do nothing right, despite the fact that he has enjoyed protections provided by immunizations, fire departments, police and our national army. He drives on safe roads, eats (mostly) untainted foods can go to public libraries and enjoy the benefits of Social Security when he gets old and yet this tax delinquent squeels about how our country is going Socialist.

Undaunted by reality, he worked hard to extend his 15 minutes. He went to the Middle East and bemoaned the fact that we can't outright censor the media. Whines how he would punch out other elected officials if he himself were elected to office. And then....he wrote a book.

Here's picture of his signing:


He sold, I believe, 5 copies. Your 15 minutes sir, are up. But if you want to experience a little more schadenfreude check out the reviews over at Amazon.com. Priceless:

RINO spinmeisters, aided and abetted by the liberal media, have promoted Joe the Plumber as being an everyman, the archetypical "average American." This book shatters that image.

Joe the Plumber is not the "average American." He's the "average conservative," and I thank God for that.

Last year, the "average American" elected an Harvard educated constitutional law professor to the presidency. Average conservatives knew better. They rallied behind Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin, people like ourselves; people I proudly call "mediocre Americans."

And that's why Joe is still so immensely popular. He's angry, vicious, ignorant, and intellectually incurious. He's one of us, and like us, he didn't learn about public policy and international relations at a university or from books or journals; he learned everything he needed to know by tuning into Rush, Hannity, Savage, and Ingraham.

This is a great book, one every true conservative should buy, and more importantly, read. Yes, I know that sounds like a tall order, but it's an easy read. Joe uses one and two syllable words (many of them, written forms of various grunts) almost exclusively. If I have one complaint, it's that the publisher, Pearlgate, printed it in ink rather than crayon like the original manuscript. Other than that, I think it truly is the perfect book for the average conservative.

Chicago...Chicago...

Capricon was this weekend. A new one for us and a chance to try out our new Garmin Nuvi 760 GPS. We've had a GPS for several years (we call it "The Oracle") and it has some nice features like a huge touchscreen. But the girl was showing her age. So we handed it over to our new Minion and made the plunge on a new one. The 760 was on sale and had most of the features I wanted.

First and most uselessly- it has several different voices. We have settled on "Daniel". I was perfectly happy with the default "Helen" since men are by nature trained to obey a commanding female voices, but Rossana likes "Daniel" even though he uses the work "Slip road" instead of "Exit".

The unit took us to Chicago and then promptly told us to get off the highway and travel through Chinatown. It apparently receives traffic updates from a spirit guide and was trying to keep us out of danger. All in all I give it a B+ for the trip out.

For some reason setup took forever. What made it worse was the total lack of any moisture in the hotel or its environs. It was seriously uncomfortable. Our throats were parched despite glass after glass of water, our lips started to chap, the skin on our hands peeled. I've spent time in the actual Sahara and this was by far more uncomfortable. We did okay sales but Rossana was saddled with a lerger than normal number of annoying people. I mean REALLY annoying people. We deal with people all the time, so imagine what it takes to get under our skin. But there were some cool people as well. People who were getting into steampunk. Enthusiastic people. We were begged to come to WindyCon in November and we agreed.

We had to stay an extra day in the windy (and sub-zero) city so that we could stop by the Turkish consulate to get our travel visas. There is a company that does this for you for a fee, but it involves mailing your passwort to them, and Rossana just could not let her passport go somewhere without her. Daniel got us to the area and we quickly learned that Chicago was raped and beaten by a white van as a child. That's the only explanation I can think of for the way our vehicle was treated at the local parking garages. $35 an HOUR??? We found parking on the street and entered the consular offices, which look very much like any other office except you have to go through a metal detector first. This search wasn't quite a thorough as it could have been. They checked my messerger bag and Rossana's purse but they did not search my large jacket, whoch could have held and UZI and a vest bomb for all they knew.

We handed over our passports and application along with $45 each and were told to come back after 2:30. With nothing else to do I consulted Daniel (who can operate on battery power) and found the Chicago Art Institute not far away. After a bit of culture we picked up our passports and tried to go home. Alas, Daniel seemed to have suffered some kind of annyurism and couldn't find satalite signal for a while, then told us to get off 90 only to have us get right back on again. I hive Daniel a C for the trip home.

Today was errands and paperwork. We leave for Florida tomorrow where I pray there is some moisture. So.... dry...