And now I'm off

So there I go.  I'm off across the pond, at least virtually, to the land of haggis, kidney pie, and Tony Blair:

http://journals.aol.co.uk/ber144/Skelligrants/

Yes, you'll now find me in the land of Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Kew Gardens.  But no ads across the top of my journal, at least for now.  When they finally desecrate the UK journals like the have in the states, then I'll be off again, to who knows where.

It will take me some time before I get used to dropping the "h" when it's at the beginning of the word, to say "bollox" instead of "%&#@, and measuring distance in meters instead of yards.  Please, no comments on the occasional extra "u" in words.  I have to adhere to certain flavours now, you see.

Come 'round for a pint sometime.  The Guinness is fresh over here.

What took me so long?

I'm still here

Well, it's been eight days since I shut down.  It's been very hard to maintain radio silence.  I need to write.  I have a lot of things to say.

I have fooled around a bit with other blogging sites.  I'm not too fond of any of them.  I don't want to change.  I feel like I am running out of options.

I still cannot believe that no one from AOL has had the cajones to speak up and let us know what the hell is going on.  Unbelievable.  I've done some research on the state of AOL since this whole thing started, and frankly, the end is nigh.  I won't have to worry about having to choose to leave AOL soon, I fear.  I think the choice is going to be made for me.

Still, it would be nice to be acknowledged by someone there.  Instead the company hides behind two of its spokespeople, who I am sure have been chugging aspirin left and right for the last week.  What a stand up company.

There are supposed to be disclaimers that appear beneath the ads saying that they are not an endorsement of the author.  Not good enough.  I don't want them.  My wife works for a major cell phone company, and every other time I go to my journal page, I see an ad for Verizon.  That is not the company she works for.  I don't want that ad on my page.  Bank of America?  Don't know 'em, therefore don't trust 'em.  Don't want them on my page.

Today I see some message disguised as a call-out to support World Aids Day, but it's really just an ad for a drug company.  Disgusting.  Don't want their ad on my page.

Quizno's?  Hate 'em.  Sorry, but it's true.  Their sandwiches taste like crap, plus those commercials with the hand rats or whatever the hell they were supposed to be left me scarred for life.  Don't want their ad on my page.

Don't currently own a home.  If I did, I wouldn't choose to refinance my mortgage from a pop-up ad banner.  Don't want the ad on my page.

I don't want ads on my page from companies that contribute to the GOP, just like I am sure that my fellow conservative bloggers don't want ads from companies that contribute to the Democrats.

A few months ago, I was up late at night flipping through the channels, when I came across "Terminator 3" on one of the 57 HBO channels on our digital system.  I watched for a while.  Near the end (I think, I really don't remember much about the flow of the movie), Tim Stahl, Claire Danes and Ah-nold are escaping from one of the bad guys when there is a wreck involving a full-sized semi that jackknifes in the road.  On the side of the truck, you can clearly see a HUGE ad for Xenadraine, one of those quick weight loss pills.  I laughed out loud.  What slim credibility the movie had disappeared quickly.

So for this last week, when I have gone to my journal page, I have felt like a truck just slid across the top of it.  I hate it.  I am so beyond the initial feelings of disgust, anger, and overall sadness that just when I was getting large amounts of readers, AOL decided to relieve themselves all over my journal.

By the time I finish this, it will be Thanksgiving.  I have so much to be thankful for this year, so much that this inconvenience is minor, but still, it's just isn't right.  And the worst thing about it is the continued silence.

The silence of this page.

The silence of the higher-ups at AOL, whose continued refusal to give us any explanation speaks louder than any word they could ever speak.

I will (not) go quietly

Every once in a while, I have a day where I am busy enough that I am not able to get on to the Internet until evening.  Today was one of those days.

Inbox:  50+ pieces of new mail.  Most were alerts for new journal entries.  Wow, people are feeling prolific today.  I start checking them out.  I see the same thing, over and over and over again.  Anger.  Lots and lots of anger.

Deserved anger, I will add, and now I will add my anger, too.

AOL decided to place ad banners at the top of everyone's journal, starting today.  There was no warning about this.  File that under " 'tis better to ask forgiveness than for permission."

I'm an idiot-I pay a monthly fee for AOL along with a fee from another ISP for high speed access.  The ONLY reason I haven't fully canceled AOL is because I want to keep this journal going.  When I started it, I was still using AOL for dial-up Internet service.

I don't want advertisements here.  I have devoted entries in the past about how much I hate when a popular song shows up on a TV commercial.  I respect what advertising brings to the consumer world, but I don't want it here.

So, I am not going to stand for it.  This journal will remain silent for the next few days, and if the ads have not disappeared, I will have to go elsewhere.

It's really as simple as that.

AOL boggles my mind.  They are clueless to the fact that a lot of folks have done the same thing I have-needlessly sent them money just so they could keep their journal going.  People are pretty passionate about their journal space, and they feel violated.  There's a ton of anger about this.  I want to believe that they will listen, see that they have made a lot of good people upset, and change it back.

But I'm guessing that in about a week, I'll be back here leaving a link to my new location.

Oh well, at least this didn't happen last week, just before I got the chance to connect with so many new people during my stint as guest editor.  I'll always be grateful for that.

AOL, do the right thing.

Or I'm outta here.

The one where I pine for the fjords

1. You are invited to spend a night, alone, in a large house that is believed to be haunted.  A close friend of yours whom you trust tells you of his or her own experience, and you have sufficient reason to believe that there may be a genuine haunting going on there.  Without promise of any kind of reward for staying the night, would you agree to do so? Nope.  I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is.  I would consider doing it as part of a group, but only if sufficient amounts of liquor were involved.

2. What do you most enjoy about your job? The fact that I don't have one?  When I did, I think what I enjoyed most was seeing people who normally did not think much of themselves become successful.  I'll change the question to what I most enjoy about grad school, which is sort of my job now.  I love the fact that I have intelligent, thoughtful classmates.  I was worried that I was not going to mix in well with the other people in my classes.

3. Who was the last person you had a conversation with?  What was the main topic of the conversation? My wife and I had our normal Sunday wrap up session a few hours ago, before she went to sleep.  We always talk Sunday night about what is coming up this next week, and anything that went on this past week, and anything else we think we need to talk about.

4. Take this quiz:   What kind of "smart" are you?  I'm "All Around Smart" but I am "confused as all get out" by this thing.  It says that my intelligence is 20% theoretical and 20% learned.  OK, in theory, and from what I have learned, my intelligence characteristics should add up to 100%, so where is my remaining 60%?  And what categories do they fall into?  Must I assign them myself?  OK,I will.  20% falsified, 20% street, and 20% what I picked up in prison.

5. What was the last food that you totally ruined -- to the point that it was inedible -- when trying to cook?  I don't really attempt to cook anything that can be destroyed.  The last time I remember having to abort a meal was the first time I microwaved soup.  I did not put a cover over the bowl, and it blew up about a minute into the cooking time.  The only way I could have eaten it was by sticking my head in the microwave and licking the sides.  That's the only time I microwaved soup.  It's on the oven or nothing for me now.

6. STRANGELY-OBSCURE QUESTION #1:  If you had to do over again, would you change anything?  Hell yeah!  In many, many ways.  But here's what I consider the top three:  1) I would have been a billion times more aggressive with the ladies during my formative years; 2) I would have gone to college straight out of high school; 3) I would have started writing earlier.

Reason #472 why my wife rocks

I have a story due for my class tomorrow.  I tend to write my stories in my head over time, and then get it all down on paper at a later time.  I work better with deadlines.

So I started writing this story on my computer Friday afternoon.  When it's done, it will be about twenty-two pages, give or take one or two.  I use Microsoft Word.  It came with my laptop.  I don't know all that much about Word.  I'm not the type of person who reads all about things before he uses them.  Give me the keys, save the owner's manual for later-that has always been my philosophy.

So I'm on page eighteen.  I'm starting a new paragraph, and the screen goes blank.  Zip.  Nada. There's nothing there but a blank white page.  I feel my chest tighten.  Must...stay...calm.  There's a logical explanation for this.  The story has to be somewhere.  So I minimize the page thinking I might have inadvertently started a new session.  Nope, that's not it.

Eyes are starting to bulge.  I click on the file tab and go to open.  I find the name of the story and try to open it, thinking maybe that I inadvertently saved and closed it.  Nope.  All that comes up is a blank page, under the story file.

Arteries constricting; breathing becoming shallow; where the &%^ is my story?  I have no clue.

So I do what all sane, rational people do in this situation.  I yell, and I yell loudly.  The words that come out of my mouth repeatedly are short and to the point: "NO!"

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!

I've lost the story, at least the physical evidence of it.  It still exists in my mind, but there is no way I am going to be able to re-write it in time for tomorrow.

I've reached DEF CON 5.  The "NO" is becoming louder.   The missiles are leaving the silo.  My wife comes downstairs and asks me what the problem is.  I explain between breaths into the paper bag.  Relax, she says.  You emailed me the first eleven pages this morning so I could read them, remember?  They are still on my computer.

My breath becomes a bit more controlled, and we descend to DEF CON 4.  But the email was sent seven pages ago, which means I would still have to re-write a whole bunch.  I decide that is not acceptable and start to rant again.  Kristen tells me to settle down and moves me away from the computer.  Don't touch anything, she says.  What did you do last, she asks.  I tell her that I don't know, obviously, otherwise I would have been sure not to do it.

This does not help.  She resists the urge to knock me through the wall.  A fate I would have deserved and understood, by the way.  Instead, she looks at the screen and points the cursor at the "undo" tab.  I have never heard of this option before.  As soon as she clicks on it, my story, in all of its full glory, reappears.  Everything is highlighted.  With a simple click of the cursor again, everything returns back to normal.  I call off the missiles and my breathing returns to normal.  Thank God for the fact that I met a woman who knows all about Word.

She thinks I am a raving loon, especially when I am writing.  I do not disagree.  You know what they say, behind every insane man is a rational woman who tends to go prematurely gray.

And upon investigating the cause of today's drama, I know what the culprit is.  It's the control key.  Well, maybe not the control key itself, but the fact that it is located directly below the left shift key.  Clearly, an insane man came up with this keyboard design, that would allow you to almost demolish a full piece of work because you actually hit control D instead of shift D.

And it's obvious that the insane man who did this has yet to meet his rational woman, because if he did, there's no way she would allow his keyboard to stay this way.

Just call me Chernobyl, 'cause I can create meltdowns

Remember last month, when I said I was done commenting over at Armand's?  I lied.  I stopped for a while, but in that time, there have been one or two things that I just could not resist commenting on.  I'm weak.  I'm sorry, I've let myself down.

Anyway, you may have heard that today President Bush made a speech in which he said: "while it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began."

Poor guy.  I won't even get into it.  That's not what this entry is about.  Suffice to say, I hope the folks in attendance at the speech had large boots on.  It had to be flowing mighty thick there.

I wasn't aware of the speech until I saw an entry at Armand's entitled "He finally said it."  I couldn't help myself.  I just had to comment.  Here's what I said:

I was hoping for "I quit."
Comment from ber144 - 11/11/05 10:50 AM

Two words.  Two words that have caused a complete and total meltdown over there.  What the hell is wrong with me?  Why can't I learn from prior experience?  When will I learn that there are people in this world who lack the ability to perhaps think someone is being snarky?  It's gone Chernobyl over there.

See for yourself.  Hurry though, before it all disappears in a radioactive poof.

So many links, so little time...

File this one under "I guess they'll let anybody do this..."

Yes, I have the honor of being this week's Guest Editor.  Direct any and all complaints to Joe, who I'm sure is starting to regret reading my email right about now.  Nah, not yet.  Joe rocks, and I thank him for giving me this opportunity.

A little about myself: well, there's the picture of me, which you can see on the journals page.  I refuse to put it here because 1) I don't know how to do it (and yes, I realize there are about a billion instructional entries out there on how to do it, but welcome to my world, where things like that don't work, ever) and 2) I certainly don't want to look at it all the time.  I'm 38 and I live in Park Ridge, Illinois which is about ten miles or so northwest of downtown Chicago.  If you've ever flown into O'Hare Airport there's a decent chance you've gone right over Park Ridge.  I'm a graduate student, going for my MFA (decipher that if you dare...) in creative writing at Roosevelt University in the loop.  A quick synopsis of the last decade or so of my life:  Boy graduates from college and embarks on career in retail management because it's the only thing he knows; Boy sleepwalks through most of the 1990's while working in some truly unique neighborhoods in the city; looking back, Boy regrets not having blog back then, because it would have some interesting tales in it;  Boy has "epiphany" in 2002 (or you could call it an extremely early mid-life crisis), chucks career out window, sells house, and decides to travel until either he gets tired of it or the money runs out; Boy spends next two years visiting 45 states and five countries; Boy decides he can write for a career and goes back to school.  This is where the story ends.

Well, except for the most important part, which is Boy meets the Girl and gets married.  Kristen and I took the plunge back in April of this year.  I can split my life into two parts: before I met her and after (April 12, 2003).  If I hadn't met her, I'd probably be in the middle of the Pacific trying to canoe myself around the world or something.  She's the best thing that has ever happened to me, and it isn't even close.

OK, I'm getting off topic.  On to my picks:

Francesco's Life:  I can't remember how I came across this journal, but I remember wishing I had a long time ago.  I'm a sucker for stories abut fathers and sons/daughters, and Mary does it better than anyone I know.  If you stopped reading this entry and spent the rest of the day over there, I'd understand.  In fact, I kind of expect it.

Midlife Matters:  As I said before, I don't include pictures in my journal.  Fortunately, there's a virtual bevy of places in J-land that do, and this is one of the best.  Take a look at the ladybug photo from November 3 and make a list of the one thousand words.  And if that's not enough, the writing is pretty magnificent as well.

The Wizard of Ahs:  Bruce won a VIVI last week for "Best Political Journal", but that's not why I am including him on this list.  Sometimes you read a person's words, and you understand that he or she has "it," a certain perspective on the way the world works that makes more sense than most everyone else.  Bruce definitely has "it."  My only wish is that his VIVI inspires him to write more!

My last three picks go outside the realm of J-land, and I'll explain why when I'm finished:

Josh Reads the Comics:  At the age of 38, I still am the type of person that has to read the comics before any other part of the newspaper.  I got that from my father, who used to drive me nuts on Sunday with his methodical reading of the Tribune comics section.  Anyway, Josh has an opinion on just about every comic out there, and he's hysterical.

Blog of a Bookslut:  Hey, hey, hey--its not what you think.  Step away from the TOS key please.  I love books, and I love writing.  Bookslut is like a bible for me, and Jessa's blog is the best part of it.  If after reading a week's worth of entries you don't have at least three additions to your reading list, you're not paying close enough attention.  I have decided that my life will not be complete until I am somehow mentioned in the bookslut blog.

Change of Subject: We have two papers in Chicago: the Tribune and the Sun-Times.  I've always been a Tribune person.  My favorite Tribune columnist is Eric Zorn, who writes about anything.  He's also been writing this blog for the past two years, and while some of it focuses on Chicago, there's enough of the other stuff in it that it doesn't matter where you read it from.  I'm not sure if his blog falls under the Trib's registration process.  If it does, well, have you met Bug Me Not?

So there's my list.  The reason I went outside J-land for half of it is because most of the folks that I read here are already very well known.  People like Jennifer, Albert and Mrs. L.  Armand, Remo and Candace.  Tara, Patrick and Cynthia.  Private folks like Amy and Paul.  Every single one of them deserves the following that they have created, as they are writers with exceptional talent.  And I know I have missed many, many others.

(Like my compadres in the "Best Kept Secret" category: Penny, Gigi, Nelle, Dawn and Jessica; I don't think any of us are a "secret" anymore.)

In January I will have been doing this for two years.  Simply put, I would not be where I am in my life right now without this.  It's given me the inspiration, and most importantly, the courage, to do what I believe I was born to do: write.  The best thing about it has been the discovery of the writing and creativity that is out there, the people who make up this part of the blogosphere.  I am continually blown away by the words and pictures that I see on my daily strolls through journals.

It has been and will continue to be such a pleasure.

Questions

Do you have any idea how hard it is to sneeze when your mouth is shot up with Novocain?

Ever see "Marathon Man"?  I just spent the morning with Laurence Olivier.

Is it safe???

Yes, it's very safe...

Now I'm going to bed for the rest of my life.  I'll be back tomorrow with something much more worthy, promise.

The one where I try to be first, again

1. What is the last big "gift" you bought for yourself...either for your birthday, Christmas, or any other holiday? In my life, every day's a holiday.  That being said, I've been sorely neglectful of buying big things for myself.  I can't remember the last thing I bought for myself.  Maybe my house, back in 1998, but that's gone now. 

2. Of the official Vivi Award Categories, if you had to nix one of them, which would you choose? "Most Missed" Frankly, who cares about someone who doesn't write anymore.  I'm not saying there isn't a good reason behind it, but if there's nothing being written, there's nothing you can do about it.

3. Which category would you add that isn't on the list this year? Best use of Irish phraseology in a journal title!

4. Take this quiz:  Which soap opera does your life most resemble? The Young and the Restless.  Never seen it.  I may be still considered young, but I would hardly call myself restless.  Too bad there isn't a show called "The less-than-splendidly-motivated as they appoach 40." 

5. Have you ever heard a song and thought, "Whoever wrote that must know me?"  If so, what song was it, and do you still feel that way? Not really.  I hear plenty of songs that I identify with and see how it could relate to my life, but I am having a hard time remembering anything specific.  Wait, that's not accurate.  Pete Townsend put out a CD in 1985 (I guess technically it was an album then) called "White City" which mirrored how I felt my life was going at that time.  I have worn out copies of this CD, and will do so many more times before I die.  Nine songs, all very intense.  I can listen to it today and feel exactly the same way I did twenty years ago.

6. If your birthday had to fall on a holiday each year, which holiday would you choose and why?  (For this question, assume that holidays like "Thanksgiving," which fall on a different date each year, would fall on the same date to accommodate the question.) July 4th.  I'd want it to be as far from Christmas as possible.  I know some people with birthdays in December and a few years ago they tried to celebrate their half-birthdays instead, which I thought was brilliant.  It didn't catch on though.

BEST. HEADLINE. EVER.

I bow in complete and total greatness to The Onion frequently, but I have never had to pick myself off of the floor before after reading one of their headlines, until today:

New Custard Could Cause Worldwide Flandemic

Play SCOTUS for me

Sending this out to Samuel Alito.  Enjoy . . .

The more I see
The less I know
About all the things I thought were wrong or right
& carved in stone

So, don't ask me about
War, Religion, or God
Love, Sex, or Death
Because....

Everybody knows what's going wrong with the world
But I don't even know what's going on in myself.

You've gotta work out your own salvation.
With no explanation to this Earth we fall
On hands & knees we crawl
And we look up to the stars
And we reach out & pray
To a deaf, dumb & blind God who never explains.

Every body knows what's going wrong with the world
But I don't even know what's going on in myself.

Lord, I've been here for so long
I can feel it coming down on me
I'm just a slow emotion replay of somebody I used to be.

Always wear your helmet

I went to visit my sister down in Metropolitan St. Louis last weekend.  She'll be mad at me for saying that she lives in metro St. Louis.  She lives 45 minutes up I-55 from the city, in Illinois, and gets annoyed when people think of her as being from St. Louis. 

Technically, she lives smack dab in the middle between Springfield IL and St. Louis, pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  I'd give you exact latitude and longitude if I were very much concerned about it, but alas, I'm not.

My sister is also upset with me for not including her among the people that I was happy for last week when the White Sox won the World Series.  I had said that while I was eating my heart out as a Cubs fan, I was happy for the few people I had known in my life whom I considered long time, rabid Sox fans.

My sister only fits one of the qualifications.  She's been a Sox fan for many years (hence the term "long time") but I cannot quantify her as rabid.  First, she became a Sox fan because everyone else in the house we grew up in was a Cubs fan.  Sis has always been a feisty little number.  She will deny the reasoning I give for her being a Sox fan, which is her right, but I've never been convinced otherwise.  Still, I give her credit for maintaining her Sox bravado lo these many years.  At least she did not forge her allegiance to Chicago and cross over to the dark side which is the St. Louis Cardinals.  Sadly, not everyone in my family was able to avoid that fate . . .

I do not consider my sister to be a die hard Sox fan because she can't tell you five players who are on the team.  She might still think Carlton Fisk is playing.  I'm throwing myself to the sharks here, I realize, and I am not trying to mock her, but I just feel that there are different levels of fandom.  My good will towards the White Sox extends only to those who live and die by them, because that is how I am about the Cubs.  Only someone who has kept up a ridiculous amount of allegiance throughout their life can understand what I mean.

Anyway, live it up, sis.  Get yourself a few T-shirts, a mug, and maybe one of those pennants that has the roster on it, so that you can always remember those that brought this championship to you.  And don't be mad at me.  I'm not changing my mind, and I know that you will never agree with me.  I'm not calling you artificial or hypocritical.  I accept that you are a Sox fan, have been for a while, and as such, it must be nice to finally see them win, but there are others who I think deserve this feeling just a bit more, and since I have only a limited amount of happiness for Sox fans, you get to go towards the middle of the line.  But you'll still get a nice Christmas present from me.

Back to St. Louis:  On Friday I tried, for the third time, to get up to the top of the St. Louis Arch.  I have a funky relationship with the Arch.  First, up until the time I saw it in person for the first time (1999, I think), I thought it spanned the Mississippi River.  I was a little disappointed to see that it did not.  And no, I am not ashamed to admit this; I've been wrong on a lot of obvious things before.

I was placated by the fact that you can go to the top of the Arch and look out over the city and the river.  I love going to the highest observation points of cities and gazing out at the neighborhoods.  Unfortunately, the first time I visited the Arch was shortly after a fire had rendered the transport system inoperable.  A year or so later, we went to the Arch in the middle of summer.  The transport was working this time, but the air conditioning was not.  You could go to the top, but it was over 120 degrees.  I passed.  Had I gone up, I would have passed out.

This past Friday happened to be the 40th anniversary of the dedication of the St. Louis Arch, and in the late afternoon we made our way over from the north side of town, where we had eaten in a throw back ice cream parlor.  After seeing a great movie about the Lewis and Clark expedition in the early 19th Century, we made our way over to the line to go to the top of the Arch.

It's quite an interesting system they use to get you to the top of the Arch.  It's an enclosed roller coaster that goes very slow and only takes 40 people up at a time, five people in eight cars.  It's not for the claustrophobic; there is only a small window in a small door to see out of, and an average sized adult feels their head scrape the top of the car as you move along.  It's like riding in an egg.

When I got in for our trip up, I hit my head on the curved top as soon as I sat down.  It got my attention.  The trip up took about three minutes, and it was amazing to be up at the top of the Arch.  To see out the small windows that look East and West, you have to lie prone a bit on your stomach.  You can look down ninety degrees and see nothing beneath you except Earth.  I don't recommend this if you have ever had a spell of vertigo.  One person in our party was at the top for a grand total of two minutes.

We were the last group allowed up that day, so we got to see the sun setting low in the western sky, a great look at downtown St. Louis (memo to the Cardinals, though, the new baseball stadium looks a lot like every other that has been built in the last decade.  And I think the folks who built SBC park in San Fran might want to see if their blueprints are still locked up) and a long look at the Mississippi.  I loved it.  It was worth the wait to finally get to the top of the Arch.

I would suggest one improvement, though.  They should either cover the walls of the capsule that takes you up and down with padding, or pass out helmets before you first get on.  I managed to crack my head about ten times harder on the way down than I did on the way up.  I was a little loopy(er?) for the rest of the night.

I do enjoy St. Louis.  Too bad I don't know anyone who lives there... 

The price of high comedy

I'm feeling a bit politically feisty tonight.  First, your joke of the day:

A man died and went to heaven. As he stood in front
of St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall
of clocks behind him. He asked, "What are all those
clocks?" St. Peter answered, "Those are Lie-Clocks.
Everyone on Earth has a Lie-Clock. Every time you lie
the hands on your clock will move."

"Oh," said the man, "whose clock is that?" St. Peter
replied, "That's Mother Teresa's. The hands have never
moved, indicating that she never told a lie."

"Incredible, wow!" said the man. "And whose clock is
that one?" St. Peter responded, "That's Abraham
Lincoln's clock.  The hands have moved twice
telling us that Abe told only two lies in his entire life."

"So where's George W. Bush's clock?" asked the man. St. Peter said,
"Bush's clock is in Jesus' office.  He's using it as a ceiling fan."

Thank you.  Don't forget to tip your waitress!

I'm amused by the implosions that this administration has seen recently.  First, Harriet Myers get shuffled on back to Buffalo (is there a Buffalo, Texas?), and if you thought it was her decision solely to withdraw, I have a few hanging chads to sell, cheap.  Then the very next day, Scooter Libby, our esteemed VP's closest aide, gets indicted for perjury, among other things (side note: he deserved an indictment at least for being an adult male yet going by the name "Scooter"). 

I find it interesting, nay, amusing, that there were GOP talking heads all over the spin shows this weekend trying to convey that perjury is not that big of a deal, yet when it was Clinton charged with perjury last century, we were reminded by that same GOP that perjury was just about the worst thing someone could be guilty of.

I LOVE THE SMELL OF HYPROCRISY IN THE MORNING!!!

All this spinning is making me dizzy.  So dizzy, that I haven't yet mentioned the fact that the American soldier death toll in Iraq is now over 2000, and shows no sign of slowing down.  Of course, that number won't make a difference when we all start kicking off from bird flu, which was one of the two topics that Our Fearless Leader has publicly spoken about in the last two days.

The other was the announcement that our next Supreme Court Justice will be a WHITE MALE!  Can you believe it?  This is a bold step for equal rights.  What a uniter this President is, stepping up and making sure that a group that has been passed over far too many times in history is finally represented on the judiciary.

Both sides seem to be drooling over Samuel Alito, though for completely different reasons.  I don't really care whether he gets on the bench or not.  I love the far left wackos who express disdain towards Bush for this nomination.  What would you expect?  Frankly, if W didn't name someone who pandered to his precious base this time, I'd think that he had finally gone off the deep end.  The President has the right to name whomever he wants.  Clinton didn't name any neocons during his term, why should Bush appoint Abbie Hoffman?

They'll be plenty of hypocrisy to come before Alito takes a seat on the bench, from both sides.  The right will be shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, that he will be expected to answer specific questions from Democrats during his confirmation hearings, while the left will be equally stunned that Alito once said the words "pro" and "life" within ten minutes of each other once.

And as long as the comedy keeps coming, I don't really care what happens!