Must Read Of The Day

I don't write about politics all that often. For one thing, if I did, who would chronicle my poker exploits or the other mundane details of my existence? For another, there are often others who express what I am feeling much better than I could. One such person is John Rogers of Kung Fu Monkey (link in sidebar). Rogers is a professional writer for tv, movies, and comic books. He also writes succinctly and directly from a political viewpoint I almost always agree with. Case in point - his post today, Wait Aren't You Scared?, about the terror ring British officials broke up. Go, read the whole damn thing. I was tempted to quote it all, but will just excerpt a bit.

“Wait, Aren't You Scared?"

Errr, no. And if you are, you frankly should be a little goddam embarrassed.No false bravado and it's not that I don't take terrorism seriously. I do, which I why I voted for the guy who believed in securing our ports and fighting terrorism with criminal investigation methods -- which is, if we may remind everybody, how this particular plot was busted.

I am just not going to wet my pants every time some guys get arrested in a terror plot. I will do my best to stay informed. I will support the necessary law enforcement agencies. I will take whatever reasonable precautions seem, um, reasonable. But I will not be terrorized. I assume that the terror-ists would like me to be terror-ized, as that is what is says on their nametag, rather than, say, wanting me to surrender to ennui or negative body image, and they're just coming the long way around.

…

I am absolutely buffaloed by the people who insist I man up and take it in the teeth for the great Clash of Civilizations -- "Come ON, people, this is the EPIC LAST WAR!! You just don't have the stones to face that fact head-on!" -- who at the whiff of an actual terror plot will, with no apparent sense of irony, transform and run around shrieking, eyes rolling and Hello Kitty panties flashing like Japanese schoolgirls who have just realized that the call is coming from inside the house!

…

Maybe it's just, I cast my eyes back on the last century:

FDR: Oh, I'm sorry, was wiping out our entire Pacific fleet supposed to intimidate us? We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and right now we're coming to kick your ass with brand new destroyers riveted by waitresses. How's that going to feel?

CHURCHILL: Yeah, you keep bombing us. We'll be in the pub, flipping you off. I'm slapping Rolls-Royce engines into untested flying coffins to knock you out of the skies, and then I'm sending angry Welshmen to burn your country from the Rhine to the Polish border.

US. NOW: BE AFRAID!! Oh God, the Brown Bad people could strike any moment! They could strike ... NOW!! AHHHH. Okay, how about .. NOW!! AAGAGAHAHAHHAG! Quick, do whatever we tell you, and believe whatever we tell you, or YOU WILL BE KILLED BY BROWN PEOPLE!! PUT DOWN THAT SIPPY CUP!!

and I'm just a little tired of being on the wrong side of that historical arc.

A Thursday Song

(Maybe it's just my computer at work, but You Tube seems to be running slow.)

You Can Never Be Too Motivated

Via the Newsarama Blog (Newsarama being a comic site you can find linked in the sidebar), Star Trek motivational posters from echosphere. (Ack! Nothing but the first pic is opening up in a window. I guess I need to put the captions after the pictures.)

(You want to know why they argue all the time? Because the make-up sex is incredible.)

(If you're afraid of the transporter... If you have nothing but contempt for computers... Maybe outer space isn't for you, dude.)

(Don't worry. They'll come up with a way to dispose of her by the end of the episode.)

(Yes, it is perfectly understandable that Kirk had the know-how to make the gunpowder and put together the bazooka to defeat the Gorn. That's why he's the goddamm Captain.)

(To be fair, he was green blooded and he did have pointy ears...)

(We're going to pretend this never happened.)

And for the proprietor of Minions

(Landru means never having to say you're sorry.)

Linkage Tweakage

Added two new links to the comics section - Chris' Invincible Super Blog and Random Panels. If you like comics, and you have a sense of humor, be sure to check them out. In fact, check them out even if you just have a sense of humor - you might enjoy them.

From The Obvious File

From today's Press Citizen:

Derek L. Butterfield, 20, and friend Terry Holmes were on their way to Iowa City when their car ran out of gas about a half-mile west of the I-80 overpass of Highway 6. Butterfield and Holmes started to walk along the interstate to get help. They decided to cross the median area when Butterfield, apparently unaware he was on a bridge, jumped over the concrete barricade and instead of landing on the median fell to Highway 6 below. Holmes witnessed the fall and officers responded about 2:17 a.m.

Police think alcohol might have been involved,...

Really? No way!

So to recap, jumping off bridge into river and then going over the dam is dangerous, but can possibly be survived. Jumping off bridge onto paved highway, not so much.

Why? For the love of God, Why?

Are there no powdered sugar donuts in the vending machines? And no Snickers in the candy bar machine?

My God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Dweeze's Poker Prayer

God save us from idiots who don't know when to fold.

So anyway, playing a 90 person 2,000 chip sit and go. Doing okay, about a half hour in, get dealt pocket aces, Ac, Ad. I'm first to act, and raise it 200 chips, or five times the big blind. Five times the big blind, which should chase all but good hands. I get called by three people, including the small blind. So we go to the flop with about 850 in chips.

Flop comes down 2c, 5c, 3s. I don't like this flop. Small blind checks, I go all in with about 1,400 chips. First person after me calls - he's the chip leader and this is about a quarter of his stack. Second person to act also calls, but it puts her all-in. Small blind mucks.

Cards are shown. First person to call has 9c, 10c, and is playing for the flush. Second person has Qh, 4h, and is playing for the straight.

PLAYING FOR A FUCKING STRAIGHT!!!!!!!! ALL-IN FOR A FUCKING STRAIGHT DRAW!!!!

So of course she won, hitting a 6 on the river after a the turn was 3d, which took the other two Aces out of play for the straight.

Later on, a different table, I get dealt pocket Ks. Again, raise pre-flop of five times the big blind. One person calls. Flop comes down 8-8-Q. Now, I figure there's a chance the caller might have A-Q or a small pocket pair. So I go all in. She calls, shows Qc-8c, and I'm meat unless a King comes up. Which it doesn't.

Here's the thing. Both times I did the right thing pre-flop. Good size raise, should have chased anyone with crap. It didn't, but it was the right thing to do. And in the first hand, the huge raise on the flop again should have chased anyone thinking about drawing to a hand. Again, it didn't, but it was the right thing to do.

Of course that, and $1.00, will by me a bottle of Pepsi at work.

Only One Thing To Say

Fuck it's hot.

End transmission.

Keep It Gay?

Interesting little story on Talking Points Muckraker:

“I posted yesterday about a decorated Army Arabic linguist who was kicked out for being gay.Among other questions posed to him by an Army investigator attempting to confirm his gayness, Sgt. Bleu Copas of the 82nd Airborne Division says he was asked if he was involved in community theater.”

The army kinda gives a non-denial denial

"I expect that that question was not actually asked, but there are more than one million Soldiers in the Army and at my level we work Army policy, not specific cases, so I know nothing about this particular case."

Hmmm. So many thoughts about this one. I think it best to just turn it over to Mel Brooks.

ROGER:
Do it? Of course not.
The theatre's so obsessed
With dramas so depressed
It's hard to sell a ticket on Broadway
Shows should be more pretty
Shows should be more witty
Shows should be more...
What's the word?

LEO:
Gay?

ROGER:
Exactly!

No matter what you do on the stage
Keep it light, keep it bright, keep it gay!
Whether it's murder, mayhem or rage
Don't complain, it's a pain
Keep it gay!

CARMEN:
People want laughter when they see a show
The last thing they're after's a litany of woe

ROGER & CARMEN:
A happy ending will pep up your play...
Oedipus won't bomb...
If he winds up with Mom!
Keep it gay!
Keep it gay...
Keep it gay!

And of course, much later in the song is the ICCT motto:

CARMEN:
Comedy's joyous, a constant delight
Dramas annoy us and ruin our night.

Is It Me

Is it me, or is there something incongruous about seeing a lavish spread of leftover food from management meetings being placed in the breakroom for anyone to eat right next to the place where people are putting food donations for “Thanksgiving in July”? I mean, couldn’t someone find the time to set a good example and drive the leftover food to the homeless shelter?

Stones Would Play

I keep forgetting to mention this. Not sure why, probably because of that whole
"I don't want your pity" thing I discussed in an earlier post.

As some of you know, I develop kidney stones relatively frequently. As a general rule, they pass without treatment besides good drugs to help me with the pain. The first time I got one, the pain was so intense I figured I had to be dying. Now, after several years of developing them on a more or less annual basis, the pain is as intense, but it is a familiar pain, one I know the cause of and one I usually don’t think twice about except when my supply of percoset is running low.

That may have been part of my current problem. I see my urologist a couple of times a year, but I am not as faithful about that as I should be. In fact, when I went most recently in May I had skipped since last summer. Perhaps if I had gone sooner he would have discovered sooner what he discovered in May – that I have a huge, or as he put it, abnormally large, kidney stone in my system.

That’s right. I have an inch diameter stone in my kidney that, as the good doctor put it, is not going anywhere by itself.

I know, I know. It's teh Internets. Guy says he has an inch kidney stone, he probably has a half-inch kidney stone, maybe 3/4s. But my doctor said it was an inch, not me. And really, he has no reason to lie.

My urologist gave me five options. First, try to shrink the stone to a size where it will pass. There are chemical methods by which stones can be shrunk. However, these take months, if not years, and are not always successful. He didn’t recommend that option.

Option two is traditional surgery. Put me under, cut me open, cut open the kidney, take out the stone. Fairly effective at solving the problem, fairly invasive and effective at causing new problems. For instance, it’s tough to completely stitch a kidney up. Again, not on the recommended list.

Option three is lithotripsy. Under lithotripsy, doctors bombard the kidney with sound waves, breaking the stone up sonically. I’ve had this procedure done before, and while it removed the stones (none quite as big as the one currently residing in my kidney), I was in the hospital for several days as I passed a lot of little tiny stones. Further, with a stone the size of what I currently have, the doctor thought I would need two treatments. The process would be go in the hospital, have the procedure done, be in the hospital a couple of days, go back for a CAT scan the next week to see how much was left, then go back into the hospital for a second round of lithotripsy. No thanks.

Option four involves a relatively new procedure. A small hole is cut through my back down to the kidney. A camera is inserted until it locates precisely where the stone is. At that point, a suction tube is inserted to suck the kidney stone out. Recovery time is a bit more extensive than lithotripsy (probably three nights in the hospital), but the stone is pulled and nothing is left to pass. It’s also far less invasive than cutting the kidney open.

There was a fifth option, but we both rejected it out of hand. Under this option, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, and a crew of oil company drillers would be shrunk, injected into my body, work their way to the kidney, then drill a hole in the stone and plant a teeny-tiny nuclear weapon. The bomb would go off, blowing the stone to bits. We rejected this option because who wants a teeny-tiny nuke going off in their kidney? Certainly not me.

After reviewing the options, I agreed with my doctor that option four was probably the best. So, I need to have surgery sometime in the next month or so. I’ve been putting it off until Lesa comes back because a: I need someone to look after the dogs for a few days, b: I need someone to look after me for a few days, and c: I really don’t want to spend three days in the hospital by myself. However, the frequency of pain has been increasing over the past week or so.

I’ve been having incidents every day, several times a day if I do any strenuous work, like mowing the lawn or vacuuming the pool. For instance, I spent about a half hour this morning working on the pool after I first woke up. Not that I am usually a hard worker at 7:00 am, but the temperature for working on the pool was the best it has been for several days. Plus, the chlorine I put in yesterday really cleared the water up, making it easy to identify where I needed to vacuum the most.

The drawback is that I have had pain since I got done, and I still have it. It’s tolerable if I just sit in one place, but as soon as I get up and walk around it gets bad. I started this post around nine, it’s almost three (work gets in the way sometimes), and I am still in pain. My evening is clear and I may go home to take a perc and rest. Problem is, if I take a perc, I’m pretty much non-functional for the next four-five hours. So I have to measure that factor against the extent of the pain.

I would not wish kidney stone pain on anyone, and I worry that Ethan will suffer from it someday. It tends to be hereditary, and my father was in fact a sufferer. It’s a dull, throbbing pain – it feels like someone is hitting me in the side with a ball peen hammer every five seconds. For the past seven hours. I had a female former coworker who had two children who was a kidney stone sufferer who told me that as far as pain goes, childbirth had nothing on kidney stones.

So if you see me walking, hunched over like a 70-year old, that’s why.

Is This A Guy Thing?

So I’m at the local pool supply store, taking in a water sample to be tested and picking up some chemicals. The employee on duty, who I believe is the owner’s daughter, is quite hot, in an unpolished way. Do you know what I mean? She’s someone who probably would not look comfortable, or maybe even all that attractive, in an evening gown, but in a bikini top and shorts, which is what she was wearing, she looks good. Damn good. Dayum good. Especially since the bikini top was filled with nicely sized, perfectly tanned breastesses.

So, of course, during our conversation my eyes kept moving downward. I caught myself several times talking to said breastesses, gave myself a mental kick, and readjusted my line of sight. If she noticed, and she would have had to be the densest person on the planet not to notice, she didn’t call me on it, which was good, because I would have had no defense.

Now here is what I am wondering. Two things, actually. First, is there any comparable phenomena for the ladies? Are you ever talking to guys and find your eyes wandering to a specific body area? Cause all men, except for those of the gay persuasion and even including some of them, talk to the breastesses when the breastesses are as nice and as present as these were. Don’t deny it guys. You do it. Accept it, admit it. But do women?

Second, if you wear a bikini top to work, and you have nice breastesses to put in the bikini top, do you do so with some expectation, and further, with some acceptance of the fact, that said breastesses will get ogled at some point? Help me ladies. Help me.

More Poker Boringness

Yesterday was a pretty fruitful poker day for me. I placed 60th in a satellite tourney of 1,200 players, qualifying me for a tourney in August where first prize, indeed the only prize, is a entry package for a WPT event at the Red Rocks Hotel in Reno. I also did fairly well in several other tourneys. So what stands out for me? A hand I lost, which would have brought out the Mr. Rant in me if it hadn’t dumbfounded me so.

It’s in Full Tilt’s daily 500+25 chip tourney. We are down to around 70 players from the 900 that started, and we have all placed. I’m sitting about 20th with over 15,000 in chips when I get dealt A-K spades in the big blind. I raise 3,000 pre-flop, get two callers. The flop comes down Ac, Kh, 3s. I check, the second person to act bets 2K, next person calls. With the antes and the blinds, there is now over 15K in the pot. With my bets and the blind, I am down to about 11K. There is a straight draw on the table, so I decide to just take down the pot right now if I can. I go all-in. The first person to act, who had bet the 2,000 after the flop, calls. She has about 9,000 in chips, so, as they say on the WPT broadcasts, her tournament life is on the line. The other person folds and I get about 2K in chips returned to me. Our cards are flipped over and I show my A-K. She shows pocket 7s.

That’s right, pocket-fucking-7s. Pocket-fucking-7s when there is an A and a K on the board and someone has just reraised you all-in. It was a mind-boggling, stunningly-insane call, which of course paid off for her when a 7 came up on the turn. There was no A or K on the river, and I was effectively crippled.

Using the poker odds calculator at cardplayer.com shows that I still had better odds of winning the pot after she made her set (my odds of winning at that point were 9%) than she had of winning when she made the call (her odds of winning at that point were 8%). Even if I only had an A or a K instead of both, she was still only a 9% to win. The only way she becomes favored is if she thinks I have a pair smaller than hers or if my two cards include neither a A, K, or 3. There is no other scenario. The only way she makes that call is if she is, as Goth said in a comment to the last poker post, only playing her cards and not giving any thought whatsoever to what I might have.

It’s one of the most aggravating things about the game. A person makes an absolutely idiot call and gets rewarded for it. Nine times out of ten – correction – eight times out of a hundred – she loses that hand and is knocked out of the tourney. Yet she won’t remember that, she’ll remember that pocket 7s paid off for her very nicely one time and she’ll continue to bet them in the future.

Song For Ethan

I know this was probably written as a song to a lover, but it really captures how I have always felt as a parent.

When You Come Back Down
Nickel Creek

You got to leave me now, you got to go alone
You got to chase a dream, one that's all your own
Before it slips away

When you're flying high, take my heart along
I'll be the harmony to every lonely song
That you learn to play

When you're soaring through the air
I'll be your solid ground
Take every chance you dare
I'll still be there
When you come back down
When you come back down

I'll keep looking up, awaiting your return
My greatest fear will be that you will crash and burn
And I won't feel your fire

I'll be the other hand that always holds the line
Connecting in between your sweet heart and mine
I'm strung out on that wire

I'll be on the other end,
To hear you when you call
Angel, you were born to fly,
And if you get too high
I'll catch you when you fall
I'll catch you when you fall

Your memory's the sunshine every new day brings
I know the sky is calling
Angel, let me help you with your wings

When you're soaring through the air
I'll be your solid ground
Take every chance you dare
I'll still be there
When you come back down

Take every chance you dare,
I'll still be there
When you come back down
When you come back down

Dottie Ray

Nice article in the PC about the Dottie Ray show. I did Dottie’s show several times during my years as ICCT President, and it was always a delight. You can’t slip anything past Dottie.

Wow. That was remarkably snark free.

On Dogs

Dogs are always happier to be in a car than you are. Think about the happiest you’ve ever been in a car. Maybe it was the first nice day after a long winter and it felt good just to be able to drive with the windows down. Maybe it was driving around town at 3:00 am trying to get your newborn son to go to sleep. Maybe it was losing your virginity in the front seat of your parent’s 75 Buick LeSabre to a girl whose name escapes you right now, but before anyone starts accusing, it was almost thirty years ago, and sometimes at this age you forget what you had for lunch yesterday. But I digress. The point is, no matter how happy you were at that moment, if a dog had been in the car with you, the dog would have been happier. A dog’s life is pretty good, but any dog would trade it all for the right to get a driver’s license and opposable thumbs.

A Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sub from Subway, for those interested.

Linkage Tweakage

Did some severe linkage gardening. Added the soon to be ever popular Kissing Suzy Kolber, the always hilarious How To Write Screenplays Badly, and personal faves I Deserve Everything That Happens To Me, Father Knows Shit, and The OT Blog Roundup. Enjoy!

Driving Tips - Because I Care

To the guy in the white Range Rover:

If within seconds of the two-lane road you are driving on becoming a four-lane road five cars pass you, then perhaps you weren't going fast enough. Those signs with the numbers on them? Don't just treat them as an indication of how fast you can go, look at them as an indication of how fast you should go.

A driving tip. Because I care.

Dweeze



To the elderly lady driving the tannish sedan:

I know making a left turn can be somewhat intimidating, especially on a road that is somewhat busy. And I'm sure it doesn't help that there is a line of cars behind you getting impatient. But one of the things the road people do to alleviate these concerns is to install what they refer to as, in their technical jargon, a left turning lane. See, that way, you can sit in that lane waiting to turn while all the other cars who don't want to turn can keep driving and no one will ever start honking at you. That's why there were signs and those arrows with the word "Only" painted on the road.

A driving tip. Because I care.

Dweeze

You May Already Be A Winner

No maybes about it my friend. I am a winner. I AM A WINNER! So to those of you who laughed at me, who said I would never amount to anything, who said "Dweeze doesn't have what it takes to be the eighth caller", HA! WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?

You know, the advantage to having your clock radio go off at 6:15 is that 6:15 is just before when KXIC has their first give away of the morning. The other advantage is that at 6:15 it takes a lot longer to get eight callers than it does at, oh, say 9:15. Or 5:15, for you Who fans. So you can think about it a minute, grab the phone, and still wind up winning the free passes for next week's John Deere Classic. Sure, the restraining order says I have to be at least 100 feet away from Michelle Wie, but that doesn't mean I can't stand 101 feet away. And I will. Oh yes. I will.

Status Update

So, I hear a lot of you asking, how are you Dweeze? What's new in your life?

I know what you mean by this - you want to know when the pool will be ready and when you can come over. Bastards!

Heh heh. Just kidding. For reasons I'll detail below, a pool party sounds like a blast.

Anyway, we had a slight setback on our way to pool readiness. The filter motor burned out, meaning we were unable to run the filter for a couple of weeks until our landlords got in replaced. So, this allowed the tadpole population to revive slightly, necessitating another large scale liquid chlorine attack. Many tadpoles knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the liquid chlorine that day, I can tell you.

However, this put the whole cleaning process back a couple of weeks. Things were further complicated by the fact that, while the chemical levels in the water are fine, more than fine, the water is still incredibly cloudy. I finally deduced that the reason for the cloudiness is the large amount of leaves that got into the pool over the winter. I had scooped out a ton, but there were still a lot slowly decaying into dirt and silt. Thus the cloudiness of the water. I am in the process of vaccuming out the bottom of the pool, but it is somewhat slow, tedious work. Further, because the best time to do it is when the sun is directly on the pool (which allows me to better see which areas need cleaning), I can't do much during the week. So the process is going slow.

See, over the winter a lot of leaves got in the pool. The answer to the problem for next winter is for either our landlords or us to spring for a hard cover for the pool. The landlords put a tarp over it this last year. This was bad for two reasons. First, a ton of leaves fell on the cover. Because it was a soft cover, and because there was still water in the pool (except for the most northern areas, it is recommended that you leave water in an outdoor pool over the winter) I was unable to clear the tarp. Then, when it snowed, the weight of the snow drove the tarp out of it's holdings into the pool, effectively dumping the leaves into the pool. Where some of them still are. But I'm getting them. Oh yes. I'm getting them.

The pool is probably swimmable now. In fact, I've been wading into it to clean it, due to the fact that, well, it's easier to clean a pool that way. It would be like swimming in a chemically treated lake. You wouldn't want to swallow any water because of the dirt and silt, but you really shouldn't swallow the water in a pool anyway. As I've mentioned before, it is amazing the amount of chemicals that get put in a pool on a daily/weekly basis. Enough chemicals, as I've written, to kill a nation of tadpoles.

So why would a pool party be fun? Because we are now in week two of Dweeze in empty house. Lesa and Ethan are gone for the summer. Lesa was gone last summer, but Ethan stayed. She left again a week ago, and now it's just me, the dogs, the cats, and the fish, and, quite frankly, the fish really aren't that much fun. I went three days over the long weekend without talking to anyone in person other than a clerk in a store.

The empty house isn't the worst part. The worst part is being without Ethan. This is the longest stretch I've been apart from him since he was born. Prior to June 27th, there had only been 11 nights since he was born in October 2002 where he and I didn't sleep under the same roof. Now there's been 11 nights in a row, with more, perhaps a lot more, on the way. Hell, there is probably a possibility that this will be the rest of my life, several month-long stretches where he is not around.

Now, I'm not telling you this because I want sympathy. I hate pity parties, hate them even more when I am the guest of honor. I'm tempted to not have comments on this post, because someone is going to post a "hang in there"or a "I'm thinking of you" or something like that. No need. I don't want it. If you're one of the folks with my email and want to drop a line, fine. But not here, not in public. Give me mock. Give me snark. Just don't give me pity.

That being said, this is tough for me. When I think of myself, the first thing I think of is father. Not son, not brother, not friend, employee, co-worker, or even husband. I think of me first and foremost as a father. But right now I am a father without sons. Drew is at his real father's for the summer. Ethan is gone. I still feel them both, particularly Ethan. I've had to deal with Drew leaving before. I haven't had to deal with Ethan being gone. I miss him. Terribly. I miss how his vocabulary increases each day. I miss him singing "You've got a friend in me" along with Toy Story. I miss reading to him, playing with him, hugging him, putting him to bed. I don't want to go all Shane Powers on you, but I can understand how a father would regard his son as his best friend. I don't feel that way - after all, it would be a little bit creepy for a 46-year old to have a 3-year old (almost 4) as his best friend. But I understand how having a son, or any child for that matter, completely changes your life, completely changes your outlook and, at a more fundamental level, who you are. I am a different man than I once was.

Right now I am basically living the life I used to live, able to do what I want when I want. There are two differences. One, now I'm living that life in a great house instead of a one-room apartment. Two, I hate it. I didn't know before what was missing from my life, and now I do know, and I hate it. I want my son here.

Sure, as he grows up it's becoming obvious he isn't going to be an ace pitcher or a quarterback like I hoped. He doesn't love throwing a ball as much as he did when he was younger. No, now it's obvious he will be a linebacker. He loves to run full speed head on into anything - people, the dogs, walls - bounce off, then run full speed into them again. But a linebacker is okay, and really, it's far better to be delivering the pain than receiving it. At least that's what my dominatrix says.

But I miss him, and can't wait til he gets back, whenever that may be. I miss Lesa too, and want her home too. I want my family in one place and the problems we've had for the, oh, past 20 months to resolve. And yes, I realize how that sounds. But it's what I want.

I don't want pity, though. So bring the hurt. Do it now, for free, so I can cut back on my "getting the hurt" spending.

Oh, forgot to include this when I first posted. It's the lyrics to Godspeed, a Radney Foster song that the Dixie Chicks recorded on their Home CD (and later rerecorded on the Top Of The World Live disc). If I recall correctly, Foster wrote it for his son when he and his wife got divorced. I sing it every night now, even though it always makes me cry. It's beautiful. It was beautiful before, it's even moreso now.

Dragon tails and the water is wide
Pirate's sail and lost boys fly
Fish bite moonbeams every night
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

Rocket Racer's all tuckered out
Superman's in pajamas on the couch
Goodnight Moon will find the mouse
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

God bless mommy and Matchbox cars
God bless dad and thanks for the stars
God hears "Amen," wherever we are
And I love you

Godspeed, little man
Sweet dreams, little man
Oh my love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed
Godspeed
Sweet dreams

Another Boring Poker Post

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "So Dweeze, seen any cool poker hands lately?"

Well you know what I say to that? I say b'scuse me mother fucker, do I look like I could eat all that chicken by myself?

Okay, I don't say that. But if I did, it would be more than appropriate for you to respond with a hearty shut up bitch, I don't know your life.

With that out of the way, there are a couple of hands I want to talk about, one I was in and one I watched. The hand I watched was notable for what happened, the hand I was in notable for how someone reacted to it.

First the hand I watched. I was in a 90-person tourney, about a third of the way through (meaning about 30 people had already busted out). There were three big stacks at the table, all three with more than 5,000 chips, one with more than 7,000. Hand starts and I get dealt crap in the big blind. The first three people to act muck and we get to the big stack. He raises 500 chips. Next person to act folds and we get to the second largest stack. He re-raises 1,000. Next person to act is the third stack, and HE reraises another grand. Small blind folds, I fold, back to the big stack who smooth calls the 2,000 chip raises. The second stack rereraises all in, the third stack calls as does the big stack. So we've got a 15,000 chip pot at stake. The cards reveal and we see the big stack with A-Q hearts and each of the other players with pocket kings. The two sets of cowboys aren't in bad shape. True, the only way to improve their hands is to hit a flush, a straight, or a boat. But A-Q needs to hit either the heart flush, an ace, or a set of queens to win. So what is the flop? Queen of spades, queen of clubs, queen of diamonds. Big stack flops quads.

I don't know if it's ever happened to you - it's occurred a couple of times to me - but there a few things as nice in poker as flopping quads. Flop quads and you can pretty much consider that hand yours. In fact, as long as there is no straight flush draw or another quad draw on the board, you can't slow play quads too much. Let the betting come to you, or, if you feel compelled to bet, just make little value bets that give people the right odds to call. (One of the best way to improve the flopping quads experience is to have someone else at the table decide to represent that THEY flopped quads. This has happened to me twice, and both times I was able to bust the person by calling their raises after the flop and the turn. As someone said once, you can't bluff quads out of a pot.)

But the wierdest thing about the hand was yet to come. The turn comes up an Ace. The river also comes up an Ace. So not only does the guy flop quads, he also flops a set of Aces. Showing on the board at the end of the hand were four queens, four kings, and four aces and that was just with three people in the hand. Talk about your impressive boards.

As to the hand I was in, it's a 18-person tournament that pays four places. There are six of us left, and I was in fifth place but well within striking distance of both fourth and third. I get dealt K-8 on the button. First person to act, the fourth place chip holder, calls as does the next peson, the chip leader. The next person mucks, I call, the small blind folds. The big blind checks.

Flop comes down 5-5-K. Big blind checks, next guy raises 250. Big stack calls, I call, big blind folds. I figure at least one of the two others in the pot has a 5, but I'm getting pot odds to call with my two pair.

Turn comes out another K. I've hit a boat, Ks over 5s. Doesn't matter now if one of them has a five - in fact, I hope they both have fives and I'm the only one with a K. But even if I'm not the only one with a K, I'm still almost certain to split the pot.

First guy to act bets 500. Big stack reraises 500, I don't hesitate to call. First guy to act then goes all in, with quick calls from both the big stack and me. This means both first stack and I have our tournament lives on the line. Big stack shows K-10 for a full house Ks over 5s. I show my K-8 for a full house Ks over 5s. Next guy shows 9-5 for a full house 5s over Ks. He's meat, unless of course the fourth five shows on the river. Which it doesn't. What does show is an 10, meaning big stack takes the pot with a full house Ks over 10s.

I'm out, but I stick around to wish the guy a nh. We had been talking throughout the game and I felt I owed it to him. However, the first guy, the guy with the 5s over Ks, starts ranting about getting beat by the river. I helpfully point out that he didn't get beat on the river, he got beat on the turn. I got beat on the river. Guy keeps ranting, calls me an idiot noob poker player. I point out the need for him to check the hand history and that, if he does, he'll see both big stack and I had better full boats on the turn and that he was beat at that point. He must have checked, cause a moment later he comes back with "Well I had a set on the turn and you guys called me," a statement that provoked a round of "lol"s from the people at the table. I pointed out that at the time he was probably ecstatic that we called him, that if he hadn't wanted us to call him he should have made a huge bet that we couldn't call, and that if you can't handle the fact that people will sometimes hit their draws, you shouldn't get greedy and make value bets that people will call, but by that time he had already taken off.

See, the thing is, if he had been paying attention he would have gotten more than enough information to make the right move at that point. But he didn't pay attention to anything other than the fact that he had a full house, 5s over Ks. If he was paying attention, he could have deduced when we called his initial bet that we were calling with either another 5, a K, or an over pair to the 5s or the K. Those latter two events were unlikely considering the pre-flop action (or lack thereof). And because he already had one of the 5s, if he was thinking he would have known that at least one of us had a K.

Then, after the turn, when big stack not only called but raised, he should have known that, with all probability, big stack had a K. At the very least, big stack was representing a K. Once I called, he had to know, if he was paying attention, that at least one of us, and probably both of us, had a K. Maybe you bluff-raise and represent the K, but you don't call that raise without actually having a K. Breaking it down, there were five possibilities.

The least likely is that big stack and I were both bluffing and neither of us had Ks over 5s. Like I say, extremely unlikely, but the best possibility as far as Mr. Rant was concerned. If we are both bluffing, Mr. Rant comes out no worse than a split pot (in the unlikely event a third K hit on the river). This scenario is one of only two where Mr. Rant's all-in makes sense, and, like I said, it is the least likely scenario.

The second possibilty, also unlikely, is that one of us was bluffing and one of us had 5s over Ks. While this is also unlikely, as no one paying attention would call the bluff with just 5s over Ks, Mr. Rant called with just 5s over Ks so I can't discount it completely. This is split pot between Mr. Rant and whoever had 5s over Ks (with, again, the possibilty of a third K on the river giving a split pot between everyone). Mr. Rant's all-in makes sense under this scenario, because the person with 5s over Ks might think Mr. Rant had Ks over 5s, but again this is an unlikely scenario.

The third possibility is that one of us was bluffing and one of us had Ks over 5s. In that event going all-in would chase the person bluffing, but it would not chase the person with Ks over 5s. At that point, Mr. Rant would be all-in against a better hand, needing the unlikely fourth 5 to stay in the game.

The fourth possibility is that one of us had 5s over Ks and one of us had Ks over 5s. In that event, going all-in might chase the person with 5s over Ks, but it would not chase the person with Ks over 5s and, even if it chased the person with 5s over Ks, Mr. Rant is still dead because the only card that would win the pot for him, the fourth 5, got mucked when the other person with 5s over Ks mucked.

The final possibility is that both of us had Ks over 5s. In that event, going all-in chases no one and Mr. Rant is, for all practical purposes, drawing dead, needing the fourth 5 to win the hand.

So, five possibilities, only two of which give him any reasonable chance to win the hand. The two least likely possibilities.

What then should Mr. Rant have done? Well, he could have just called, checked the river, and then folded at any sign of a bet from big stack or me. He could have also made another small rereaise, say 500 chips, an information gathering bet to see how the two of us reacted. If one or both of us were bluffing, we would fold. If one or both of us had a boat, we would call or reraise. At that point Mr. Rant could act accordingly on the river.

But he didn't, and for the sake of this blog, he shall remain forever as Mr. Rant. To Mr. Rant!

The Devil Went Down To Iowa

The following thought prompted by Charlie Daniels playing the Fourth of July Concert in Coralville this year. (And, in all seriousness, props to the Coralville folks for mixing it up with their music in the park selections: George Clinton and Funkadelic, America, Kansas, Charlie Daniels - the only thing in common is that their earning power has dropped drastically over the years, which means they are available to play a free concert in Coralville, Iowa.) (Oh, and to the clerk who excitedly told me that friends were saving her seats at the concert. If you are excited about seeing Charlie Daniels, we really don't have anything else to talk about. Although in terms of full disclosure, I did see Charlie Daniels at an Iowa Jam in 1978 along with the Marshall Tucker Band, the Climax Blue Band, Firefall, and Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. At least I think I did. It's been 30 years and I can't find a listing for it online anywhere and, well, I was a touch messed up at the time. But I digress again.)

Anyway, who judged that damn fiddle contest - American Idol voters? The devil was more technically sound, more musically capable, and overall did a better performance. Johnny had a backwoods charm, was a better showman, but musically was derivative and bland. Yet he won. Rigged I tell ya. Rigged.

To Bill Brasky!

This is from Ask The Bunny, a regular feature at Wizard Magazine’s (a comic book industry magazine) Web site.

Bunny, How different would “Lost” be if Jack Bauer was on that plane?
Tom

Well, for starters, the whole thing would be over real fast. It would take about a day at the most. (Funny, most things in Jack’s life are like that.) Jack would probably find a way to crash the plane into the Others whilst scattering debris on all of the island’s other mysterious threats. With no people left to talk tersely to, Jack would then take a polar bear hostage and force it at gunpoint to tell him all of the secrets of the show, the Dharma Corp. and the island. Jack would then just start walking to Los Angeles—underwater, like Godzilla, except cooler because Godzilla doesn’t carry a rad messenger bag and rarely shoots suspects’ wives in the thigh. Stupid Godzilla.

To Jack Bauer!

This?

Really brings the funny. It's a good blog anyway, well worth reading, but this goes beyond the normal level of funny into extreme funny. Rapebear funny.

Lyle Lovett Week Is Here!

It’s Lyle Lovett week here at Corn’O’Copia. Pay attention – there may be a theme!

If You Were To Wake Up (from the album Lyle Lovett and His Large Band)

If you were to wake up
And I were beside you
Would you gently smile dear
And whisper my name?

And would you remember
The way that I held you?
And would you want me
To hold you again?

Time reaches to you
Just like a willow
That bends to the water
And clings to the shore

And there was a time dear
That once you did love me
And there was a time when
You loved me no more

Rain on your window
Light on your pillow
The way you lie sleeping
Is it like before?

For there was a time dear
That once you did love me
And there was a time when
You loved me no more

Somehow

I imagine alcohol played a part in this.

Local authorities launched a rescue effort early this morning after receiving a report of a man who fell into the Iowa River off the Burlington Street Bridge and went over the dam.The search for the man halted after about three hours — when he called police to say he was OK.

Yes, 23-year-old Jonathan Fasselius of Coralville did indeed fall off the Burlington Street bridge about 2:19 a.m. And yes, he was immediately swept over the dam beneath said bridge.According to a press release from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, Fasselius said he was looking for a friend on the eastbound side of the bridge. He then decided to cross over to the westbound side, not realizing that the two sides are actually two separate bridges. You can guess what that led to.

It was then that Iowa City resident Kimberly Fensterbusch heard a splash, and saw Fasselius in the water yelling for help. She called 911.

After hitting the water just up river from the bridge, Fasselius then went over the dam and underwater for a period of time. Amazingly, he was able to make it out of the water downstream. Unaware that anyone even saw him go in, let alone called for his rescue, Fasselius walked home.

Meanwhile, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, Iowa City Police Department, Johnson County Ambulance Department, Iowa City Fire Department, Hills Fire Department, Coralville Fire Department and Johnson County Emergency Management responded and got to work on a search and rescue mission for a man who was toweling off back at his pad in Coralville.

About 5:30 a.m., Fasselius called Iowa City Police to say that he had heard they were looking for someone in the Iowa River, and that he just might be the guy they were looking for.Fasselius suffered minor injuries.

My favorite line there? You can guess what that led to. Next favorite? got to work on a search and rescue mission for a man who was toweling off back at his pad in Coralville.

“Toweling off back at his pad”? Yeah baby! That’s shagadelic!

Seriously though, this is gold. Guy presumably gets very drunk, drunk enough to be walking along the eastbound Burlington Street bridge looking for a friend. Guy decides friend is not on the eastbound, then decides to look on the westbound bridge. Guy decides to just climb over the rail from the eastbound bridge to the westbound bridge, apparently not noticing the six-seven foot gap between the bridges where there is nothing but air and, after a 15-20 foot fall, the river. Just above the dam. Guy hits the rvier, presumably after saying fuck at least once, goes over the dam, goes underwater, somehow manages to get to the surface, gets himself to shore, then walks several miles home like nothing happened, yet somehow manages, three hours later, at 5:00 am in the morning, to find out that police and emergency services are looking for someone in the Iowa River, as if that knowledge just got beamed down into his brain somehow, at which point he calls the cops and says "uh, you might be looking for me". I love this story.

Meme Time

I don't usually do the Meme thing, but this was kinda fun. It's courtesy Side Notes, who got it from 2 Hot Chicks, who got it from someplace.

Type “(Your name) Needs” into Google and list the results. Here are some of what I go:

Some are concerned about my health and well being

David needs a liver.
David needs help with his medication
David needs to protect himself
David needs to lose weight and build muscle
David needs a Tylenol
David needs a break

Some are worried about my personal hygiene

David needs a bath
David needs a new makeover and he asks you to help

Some sound like a performance review

David needs to show some evidence to support this
David needs to give more attention to making the team successful
David needs to see if he can get practical support
David needs help in dealing with his difficulties with comprehension

Still others can’t really be classified

David needs a family that would be willing to love and care for David
David needs three
David needs to relax when the music calls for it
David needs lots of attention
David needs to know who you are
David needs to consistently finish in the top five each race
David needs to collect five smooth stones in the stream

But in the end it doesn’t really matter, because as we all know:

David needs no introduction

(Note: I got no results with "Dweeze needs". So I had to go with my real name.)

OMG

Pete Townsend has a blog. Pete Fucking Townsend has a blog.

You can have the Stones, cheap posers that they are. You can have the Beatles, geniuses that they are. I’ll take the Who any day of the week and twice on Sundays. The only artist higher in my personal music pantheon is Bruce, and long before Bruce became Bruce, Pete and the boys were the Who. Long Live Rock!

Random Stuff

Not enough worthy of a whole post, but hey.

Sad day here in Dweezeland. Drew left this morning to spend the summer at his dad's. That always makes for a depressing first few days, and a sense of loss the entire time he is gone. He is always happy to go, though, which makes it much easier. It's hard to believe he is going to be a third grader when he gets back - I could swear kindergarten was just last week.

Some happy news for Iowa Citians in general, though. The Randi Rhodes show is coming to KXIC radio. It will be the first Air America syndication in the area. Her show will air right after the Hanity show ends. I'm hoping that once KXIC's current contracts with Hanity expire they will add on more Air America broadcasts. It's strange to say KXIC is my favorite radio listening spot, but I do like the morning show mix of news, weather, sports, and local events; I do like listening to Jim Rome during the noontime hours; and of course, KXIC is the official local home of all Hawkeye sports broadcasts.

Courtesy of MJ's Big Blog, a hilarious bit Idol's Kellie Pickler did for the Tonight Show. I can't get blogger to embed it, so follow through the link at MJ's.

Finally, tangentally Idol related, the Daily Show ended their coverage of Al-Zarqawi with a retrospective of his career put to the Bad Day song Idol uses to close out their show. Priceless!

Poker In The Back

I know that you, my loyal readers, are wondering how things have been lately pokerwise. Dweeze, you ask, how the cards treating you?

Pretty good, thanks, and is that a new hairdo? It looks nice.

Anyway, played in my first live tourney last week. It was the freeroll at the American Legion, and Greenman, Tanman, Matt, and I entered as something to do before the midnight showing of X3. Ja and Josh, other regulars from our weekly game, showed up as well.

I was a little nervous as I sat down. For one thing, they didn’t identify the chips when they handed them to me. I wasn’t sure what was what amount. For another, I wasn’t sure what it would be like to play face to face against strangers.

The chip thing solved itself immediately. I got an ace when cards were dealt to see who would deal, resulting in me being the first person to deal. Because I wasn’t in the blinds right away, I could see how others were using their chips and figure out the denominations that way.

The second thing was fine, too. I guess I’ve played enough games online against complete strangers to get a quick comfort level. The big difference, of course, is that you can watch and read other people’s reactions. But the basics of play were exactly the same, and I was fine.

There was another area where playing online helped. Because it was a freeroll, with $3 rebuys for the first hour, there were a lot of people pushing, going all in with low pairs or draws on the theory that they could always buy back in. This was similar to what happens in online tourneys, where people push all in with little because it didn’t cost them anything to enter the tourney. What I learned online, to sit back and bide my time, mucking a lot of playable hands yet playing the hands I chose to play aggressively, helped a lot here. In that first hour I only entered three hands when I wasn’t in the blinds and I won all three, taking down another player (who quickly bought back in) each time. Not only did I not have to rebuy, I came out of the first hour with a nice stack of chips.

I continued to build on that stack for awhile until that table got broken up. (After the first hour, as people got busted and the number of people remaining in the tourney shrunk, people were reassigned to other tables so that there were always at least 6-7 people at a table.) At that point I got sent to a table where Greenman and Ja were sitting. I wasn’t the big stack, but I was in okay position. It stayed that way for awhile, but I then hit a streak where I wasn’t able to consistently build on the stack. I ended up calling a couple of all ins that I lost, though I have no regrets about the calls. One time I called a A-10 with A-J and the 10 hit. Another time I had Q-Q and lost to someone who hit their A. So it wasn’t bad calls on my part, just poker. Still, I remained in the game as the number of people dropping out grew.

Our weekly game represented itself well, too. Eighty people started the tourney, six from our game. All six made the final twenty-five. Four of us, including me, made the top ten. And three of us, including me, made the final table. Unfortunately for me, I went out eighth and the tourney only paid six spots. I was on the lower end of the chip count when the final table started, and I couldn’t catch anything. My all in hand was Js, and I was close to doubling up, when the chip leader, the only person to call me, hit her A on the river. The bad thing was, not only was it a river loss, but she was one of the people I had knocked out during the rebuy period. But again, that’s poker. The other two members of the weekly game to reach the final table, Tanman and Greenman, finished fifth and second respectively.

There’s tourneys at the Legion every Tuesday and Thursday, and I may go again tonight. It’s a pay tourney, $10 with no rebuys, but they pay more places. So we’ll see.

Another poker story, from playing last night. I don’t believe in bad beats – any cards can come up at any time, no matter the odds against it happening – so any beat is possible. But I do believe in hard beats, and I saw an incredibly hard one last night.

It was at a 10,000 chip 18 person sit and go. These pay four places. It was down to five people left, and the play got very tight because no one wanted to miss the bubble. The chip leader had about 10,000 in chips, second was about 8,000, third about 7,000, I had around 1,500, and the short stack had 500. Blinds were at 250/500, and the short stack was about to hit the big blind. The big stack was small blind, second place the big blind. The big stack called, second stack raised, big stack called.

The flop comes down 8s-Ks-Qh. Big stack acts first, bets about 1,000. Second stack calls. Turn comes down Qd. Big stack checks, second stack bets 2,000, big stack calls. Right now there is about 8,000 in the pot. Turn comes down Js. That makes a flush draw and a straight draw on the board. Big stack checks, second stack goes all in, big stack calls. Second stack shows Q-J, for a full house queens over jacks. Big stack shows a K-Q, for a full house queens over kings, knocking the second stack out and putting the rest of us in the money.

Think about that. There you are, thinking you have the best hand (at least from the turn forward), then making your boat only to discover that you never had the best hand, you were behind from the start, and the person with more chips than you not only had a bigger boat, but they had it a card earlier. That’s a hard beat.

Blog Motto

The new blog motto was spoken, then sung, sometime during last Saturday's poker night. Not really remembering how we got to it, but the conversation it sprang out of began as such:

Side Notes: Every year my grandmother puts out

Tanman and Dweeze (interrupting simultaneously): Your grandmother puts out?

Greenman: Should have seen that coming

I Am Dweeze

I am Dweeze, destroyer of tadpole nation. I am Dweeze, whose name in the ancient tadpole language means “Cleaner of the Pool.” Tadpole wives grieve for their husbands lost in the pool attack of 2006. Tadpole mothers mourn sons they outlived. Tadpole children ache for fathers they will never see again.

I am Dweeze.

Somewhere, wherever the tadpole war crimes tribunal sits, they are writing a bill of particulars against me. My main crime is chemical warfare, dumping eight gallons of liquid chlorine into what was once a thriving tadpole metropolis. This chemical attack wiped out an entire tadpole colony, leaving no survivors.

I am Dweeze.

My name will be used to frighten future generations of tadpole children. Lamentations will be sung, horror stories told, nightmares created due to my efforts.

I am Dweeze.

Chatting With Barbaro

Via Deadspin, here’s a link to a chat robot that pretends to be Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro. Here is a chat I did:

Q - What was it like working with Gabe Kaplan on Welcome Back Kotter?
A - Much the same as working with Gabe Kaplan on Welcome Back Kotter would be for you.

Q - Oops, I'm sorry. That was Barbarino. Who are you again?
A - Oh. Do you really mean it? I thought it was too. Once more? I am Barbaro. Who are you?

Q - Dweeze. I am Dweeze.
A - I lost my train of thought. What are you wearing? Good gossip: you are Dweeze.

Q - Why do you want to know what I am wearing? What kind of sicko are you?
A - My prime directive is to collect new knowledge. What kinds of sicko are you are there?

Q - The usual kind. You know, tentacle hentai.
A - Is that a fact. I know very little about tentacle hentai. Tell me more.

Q - Well, it's, uhm. Well. Can we talk about something else?
A - How about that. Really. uhm is? Well what? Sure we can talk about whatever you want.

Q - Who do you like in the Belmont?
A - It's going to be a tough race for me. It's a little farther than I'm used to.

Q - That and the whole broken ankle thing...
A - Let us try to break it down into parts.

Q - Too late for that, huh? Know what I mean?
A - Yup. Too what? Oh I get it. Thanks for explaining that. What.

Q - You know what they say, a nudge is as good as a wink to a blind horse...
A - That's a good question. OK I will say "a nudge is as good as a wink to a blind horse" to you.

Q - You're with me, Brittle Ankles...
A - I will tell my botmaster you said I am with me Brittle Ankles.

Q - I'm sure he or she will appreciate that. Bye now!
A - I get it. User or she will appreciate that. Right now? Thanks for chatting, User.

Chicks Coming Home To Roost

The new Dixie Chicks cd, Taking The Long Way, was released today. Buy it. You'll be glad you did. Pick up the Wreckers Stand Still - Look Pretty too, while you're at it.

Chicks Coming Home To Roost

The new Dixie Chicks cd, Taking The Long Way, was released today. Buy it. You'll be glad you did. Pick up the Wreckers Stand Still - Look Pretty too, while you're at it.

Chickens Coming Home To Roost

You know, the chickenhawk line really seems to work young conservatives up. The following is a transcript of a conversation between Randi Rhodes and Ben Ferguson, a young conservative pundit.

RHODES: Listen, you should be in Iraq. You’re 22. When I was 22, I was in the military. Why aren’t you there?

FERGUSON: I’m 24 years old.

RHODES: Why aren’t you there? Then go.

FERGUSON: And just because I support something doesn’t mean I have to always go fight.

RHODES: You go. You go. Go ahead. You go and then you come back because you know what happens when we come back?

FERGUSON: I support the Yankees doesn’t mean I wear their uniform.

Here’s what I would have said back. First, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he meant to say “Just because I support the Yankees doesn’t mean I wear their uniform.”

Here’s the thing. You can’t join the New York Yankees. You can’t. There isn’t a local New York Yankees recruiting office where you can go, fill out the paperwork, take a physical, pass the intelligence tests, and then join the Yankees.

On the other hand, you can join the Army. Or the Navy. Or any of the other divisions of the Armed Services. If you are of the proper age range for military service, there is a local recruiting office where you can go, fill out the paperwork, take the physical, pass the intelligence tests, and then join the military. Now I can understand why the physical and the intelligence tests might scare you off. I understand that completely. But they are getting pretty lenient about that stuff these days. Hell, there was an episode in Oregon recently where a recruiter got an autistic kid to sign up and then, when his parents complained, the recruiter refused to release him from the commitment. So, if they will take an autistic kid, I’m sure they will take you.

Here’s the further thing, the reason for the chickenhawk appellation. If you truly believe that the threat posed by Islamofascism is the greatest threat facing our country, and you are of proper age to serve in the military, and you choose not to do so, you choose not to face the greatest threat posed to our country, then, well, the word that comes to mind first is coward.

Quote Of The Day

From the Rude Pundit:

Watching the President is a little like watching the last marathon runner at the Special Olympics. Gosh and darn, you want the limping fella to make it to the finish line, but mostly we just want him to give up so we can go home and get on with our lives.

Strange Days Indeed

So I'm driving home at noon the other day, going down Front Street. In the distance I can see a woman pushing a stroller and walking an animal on a leash. As I get closer, I can tell that she is older, somewhat heavyset, and that the animal on the leash is a cat. As I get even closer, I can tell that there are two more cats in the stroller. And as I drive past her, I see she is wearing a bay carrier with a fourth cat in it.

For Your Reading Pleasure

It’s been a while since I linked to him, but John Rogers has a great post about the NSA scandal. Here’s a nice long section from near the end.

Oh, and to save some time in the Comments section:Comment: You can't ask the President to protect us, and then not let him do his job!

Answer: There is nothing stopping the President from doing his job. That law may well be the easiest law in the world to follow, subject to the loosest court in the land. To boil it down mathematically, if you had an arrangement by which you could fuck other women, then three days later tell your wife, and 98% of the time your wife said "Sure, whatever," you would still be working under stricter rules than the FISA law.

To extend the metaphor, if you told me you can not get laid enough under that relationship, I can only surmise that is because you are up to some very, very dodgy stuff. The legal equivalent of furries. Trek Furries. Scat Trek Furries. With Electro.

Comment: "This is no big deal, and you have to trust the people in power to do the right thing."

Answer: Ahem. The entire FUCKING POINT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS THAT YOU DON'T "JUST TRUST SOMEONE" BECAUSE THEY ARE IN POWER. Thomas Jefferson would stab you in the neck with a spoon if he heard you say that.On a more specific note, there may be some Administrations I would barely consider trusting with this sort of behaviour. The one with Karl Rove in it? Not so much. Even if there's no malice aforethought, these are the people who fucked up New Orleans. These are the people who fucked up Iraq. They are just very bad at their jobs. If they were at least efficient, I would sleep better. As far as I know, a list of all my phone calls are currently sitting in a dumpster next to the name of the guy carrying the nuclear football.

Comment: "We need to catch the bad guys, and anything is worth --"

Answer: Have you secured the ports yet? Secured the chemical plants? Figured out a way to scan all the luggage on US flights? Worked out the kinks in the retarded "No Fly" list? Started buying up some of the 2,000 loose nukes in Russia? Gotten first responders the equipment they need in case of emergency? Fixed FEMA and Homeland Security? Caught Osama Bin Laden? Tell you what, nail down the jobs that don't require you to wipe your ass with the Constitution first.

The Evolution Of Dance

Via Side Notes, who is, by the way, a very fine poker player. Are we playing this week?

Be sure to watch with sound on.

Etiquette Question

What's the appropriate number of times to thank someone for sending you information? That is, I requested several pieces of data about printing capabilities from a colleague. The colleague responded with three separate emails. Do I say "Thanks!" three times? Or just once? I'm leaning towards once, but don't want to offend.

The Wages of Fear

Matt has a great post up about fear and how it has driven the country. Nice post. Within in it, he quotes a Bush supporter.

First, you need to understand my one fundamental assumption: that Islamic Fundamentalism must be stopped now, and that any price we pay now will be less than the price we pay if we do not confront immediately and aggressively....

Going back to my fundamental assumption, you have to understand that I feel we're in a time where we may have to do a great many shitty things to come out of this alive. You're worried about moral high ground, and I'm worried about Americans everywhere still being able to suck oxygen.Any temporal, ethical, or spiritual price we pay will be terrible, but it will be infinitely less terrible than the price we have to pay if we continue to ignore the wolves at our door. All in all, it would seem that my willingness to do the exact opposite of what I was taught would make me a pretty poor Christian. I'm not happy about that, but I accept it. If it means that the next generation can finally have a chance to grow up in an era without fear, then I'll support any number of ruthless deeds without hesitation.

Two problems here. First, this shows a basic misunderstanding of Islam and the threat posed by Bin Laden and his forces. Simply put, there is no monolithic Islamic threat looking to tear down the west. None. Never has been. Our actions, including torture and abuse, have done far more to grow the size of the threat against us than anything Bin Laden ever did. W. is the single biggest recruiter for Islamic terrorism in the history of the world. He couldn't have done more to create and incite an enemy against us if he had tried.

Second, the statement shows a glaring lack of knowledge of U.S. history. There has never been a generation to grow up without fear, and there will never be a generation to grow up without fear. Further, the threat we currently face is nowhere near as significant as threats we have faced in the past, and yet we didn't have to resort to these sorts of measures (at least not on this scale) to prevail. There are no wolves at the door, at least not any wolves more dangerous or more frightening than the wolves that have been at the door in the past. For just one example, no one with any sense or knowledge of history can reasonably claim that the threat from Islamic terrorist is greater than the threat of nuclear destruction posed during the Cold War. And yet we didn’t completely abandon our principles and freedoms to fight that threat. We didn’t need to; we don’t need to now.

Further, it’s not just that going against what you were taught is proper conduct makes you a bad Christian, it also makes you a bad American. The freedoms and rights in the U.S. Constitution don’t just make America different from other nations – these are the things that make us the greatest of all nations. How can one sell out these freedoms and rights and still make a claim to being an American? There is no America without them.

Shortly after 9-11, the popular statement was that the terrorists hated us for our freedoms. It's not true, obviously not true. It was our actions, not our beliefs, that made us a target. (Let me insert the mandatory disclaimer that our actions around the globe did not justify the attacks on 9-11.) The past few years have shown that the people who truly hate our freedoms are the Administration and their supporters. But if the terrorists truly hated us for our freedoms, wouldn't we want to do all we can to support and celebrate and encourage and protect those freedoms? If they truly hate us for our freedoms, isn't restricting or eliminating those freedoms actually a form of caving in to the terrorists?

True Crime Thoughts

Not to diminish in the least what happened to these two girls, but how can anyone seriously be surprised that a guy with numerous arrests and citations for violent behavior killed a couple of people? I mean, isn't a guy who once pointed a shotgun in the face of another person over a game system and who beat a stranger in the WalMart parking lot over some perceived slight that happened in the store precisely the sort of person you would expect to commit this type of crime?

Summaries

I had to pull double duty on summaries this week, pitching in for others who couldn't. See TAR here, Survivor here.

Movie Thoughts

Who else has seen a commercial for the new movie The Wild? (It might help if you are in regular association with kids or just like to watch Nick.) Who else can't hear Kiefer (who is the voice of the lion whose son is taken) say "We're getting my son back!" without thinking "Those zookeepers shouldn't be pissing off Jack Bauer." I hope there is a scene where the lion grabs someone by the neck and throws him/her against a wall. It won't be the same if there isn't one.

The Importance Of Punctuation

The song Jesus Take The Wheel takes on a lot different meaning if you add an exclamation point after Jesus and wheel. Try saying it.

Jesus! Take the wheel!

Sounds like something from Family Guy’s version of Passion of the Christ 2, doesn’t it?

FYI: Miranda Lambert was Carrie Underwood first, except Miranda writes her own songs, plays her own guitar, is a better singer, and is hotter. Giggity.

Touch A Touch A Touch Me

Here's the thing. I would never have played a touchplay machine if the nervous nellies of the Iowa legislature hadn't decided that the damn things were the source of all evil on the Earth and needed to be removed from all locations post haste. But because the bulk of the early part of the legislation session was spent on this one issue, I decided to play. And it was nothing special, just a variation on a slot machine, the lowest and boringest form of gambling. Did they need to be banned? Nope. Maybe tougher restrictions on placement, but no need for banning.

The interesting thing is, many of the legislators braying the loudest about this are also among those braying the loudest about the need to strengthen Iowa's laws vis emminent domain. That is, those most worried about government's ability to take some one's private property were the one's most willing and most eager to inviolate the private contracts - the private property, if you will - of business owners. Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

Music For A Tuesday

This? One of my all-time favorite songs. It's one I can listen to over and over again, just set the repeat button and go. Like I am doing right now. Great lyrics, great sax, great guitar. Granted, that applies to a lot of Steely Dan songs. Bodhisattva. Doctor Wu. Everyone's Gone To The Movies. Josie. Peg. Rikki Don't Lose That Number. But my all-time favorite Steely Dan song is this one, My Old School.

I remember the thirty-five sweet goodbyes
When you put me on the Wolverine
Up to Annandale
It was still September
When your daddy was quite surprised
To find you with the working girls
In the county jail
I was smoking with the boys upstairs
When I heard about the whole affair
I said oh no
William and Mary won't do

Well I did not think the girl
Could be so cruel
And I'm never going back
To my old school

Oleanders growing outside her door
Soon they're gonna be in bloom
Up in Annandale
I can't stand her
Doing what she did before
Living like a gypsy queen
In a fairy tale
Well I hear the whistle but I can't go
I'm gonna take her down to Mexico
She said oh no
Guadalajara won't do

Well I did not think the girl
Could be so cruel
And I'm never going back
To my old school

California tumbles into the sea
That'll be the day I go
Back to Annandale
Tried to warn you
About Chino and Daddy Gee
But I can't seem to get to you
Through the U.S. Mail
Well I hear the whistle but I can't go
I'm gonna take her down to Mexico
She said oh no
Guadalajara won't do

Well I did not think the girl
Could be so cruel
And I'm never going back
To my old school

My Bracket Was Gone

With apologies to the Pretenders

I looked in at Yahoo
But my bracket was gone
There was no Wisconsin
There was no MSU
Indiana had disappeared
All my favorite picks
My bracket had been pulled down
Reduced to empty pages
Cough, choke, way to go Iowa

Well I went back to Yahoo
But my bracket was gone
I read all the game scores
I had few teams left
I was stunned and amazed
My careful picks
Slowly swirled past
Like water in the toilet
Cough, choke, way to go Illini

I went back to Yahoo
But my pretty bracket
Had been torn down the middle
By college teams that had no pride
The teams of the Big Ten
Had been replaced by other squads
And sadness filled the air
From gyms to dorm halls
Cough, choke, state university of Ohio

Blame Canada

I'm in the office on a Sunday, having been here since 9:00 am, on an all-day (8-hour) conference call for a bid for a contract with the Canadian government, and we're already an hour behind schedule, and I can't imagine we're going to pick up time, indeed I am certain we will continue to lose time, and I've got a kernel of popcorn stuck in my teeth from seeing V for Vendetta last night which I will try to review tomorrow - the movie, not the popcorn, because who would review popcorn? - and it's really annoying me right now - the popcorn kernel, not the movie, which was actually good though not great - and I'm trying to get at it with a toothpick, and we're partnering with a couple of Canadian firms so the accents on the call are rather amusing at times, but all in all I can think of a lot of things I would rather be doing, and we're almost at the point where we are going to review the section I storyboarded myself, though I have to stay on because I am the proposal manager on this effort so I have to hear comments on all of our (and when I say our, I mean my company's) sections, and those sections are spread throughout the document, and maybe I can head home and do the rest of the call from there though it will be touch cause the boys will want to be talking, and it's weird to look out my window to the front parking lot and see a car pull up every now and then and see some other unlucky soul who has to be working on a Sunday morning come in, and it sucks to think that there are almost six more weeks on this bid, and I never knew that Canada used the term aboriginals to describe native groups, and I almost coughed right then without hitting mute first, and again we're almost at my section but the main commenters keep talking about the section right before mine, and I wonder if this post has gotten really annoying yet for you the home reader, and did I mention we are an hour off schedule in fact at this point we are an hour and fifteen minutes behind schedule, and I can't believe that the only comment I got was that I didn't get into enough detail on my storyboard because the reason I didn't go into more detail is because it is a fucking storyboard and storyboards are supposed to be in a bullet-point outline format that gives reviewers an indication of the sort of detail - DETAIL - you will write about when you actually write the section and perhaps that is the reason why I didn't spell out the acronyms I used and my fucking God how can we have been at this for almost three hours and still have covered ONLY two sections that are ONLY worth 4% of the total fucking score possible on this bid and now we just went through a section that is worth 20% of the total response in 20 minutes. ARRRRGGGHHHHHHH!H!!!!!H!H!H!H!H!HH!

The Chicks Are Alright

The Dixie Chicks have a new album coming out in May. (Does anyone even call them albums anymore? Is that a word that automatically dates you? New CD? New release? Anyway…) The first single was released to the Web yesterday, and it’s great. Absolutely great.

Now, I generally don’t factor in someone’s politics when I decide whether or not I like their music. I was a Chicks fan from the moment I heard Wide Open Spaces. Their political stances after the invasion of Iraq neither increased nor decreased my liking for their music. (Similarly, while I can’t stand the song Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue, the politics behind it, or some other statements he has made, I still like Toby Keith and I still think How Do You Like Me Now? is one of the best songs released in any genre in the past ten years. But I digress.) Nonetheless, I would be lying if I said that their political stances didn’t increase my appreciation for the Chicks as people. The new single, I’m Not Ready To Make Nice, increases that appreciation. It’s a no-holds barred statement about what they experienced. Here’s a sample from the middle section

Made my bed and I sleep like a baby
No regrets and I don’t mind saying
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger

And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter saying that I better
Shut up and sing or my life will be over?

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time
To go round and round and round

Click over to MSN and listen to the song here. It’s not very countryish – not countryish at all, if you ask me.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

How can Yahoo have a link in their sports section to full coverage of the Iditarod but have nothing about the NCAA Wrestling Championships? I would think that interest in the latter would clearly outweigh interest in the former.

Oh, and Go Hawks!

New Links - Get Yer New Links Here

I’ve added a sports link column, and put Deadspin, SportsBiz, and Sportszilla in there. Also removed some links (Dark Horizons, Fourth Rail), added some (Comics Should Be Good), and updated others (24 Insider). Finally, I added a contests column for Filmwise and Screenplay, two very fun movie games. Filmwise takes screen shots from movies, removes the people, and then you have to guess what movie the shot is from. Screenplay has five different quizzes that update each week. My name at Screenplay, coincidentally enough, is Dweeze, so you can see how I score each week. If you sign up, post your name in the comments so we can track everyone's scores.

(Note: I really did update the links, though Blogger isn't being very accomodating about it right now.)

Murphy's Law

So, I finally get some spare time where I can write some posts. And what happens? Blogger goes down.

And not in the good way.

Obligatory Work Is Heavy Right Now Post

That's why posting has been light. And fluffy.

Arrrgggh! Arrrggh!

A passage at the end of this article had me spitting mad on Saturday. It’s an article about Roger Bentley’s sentencing hearing for his conviction for raping and murdering Jetseta Gage. The passage is describing the point in the hearing where the victim’s mother, Trena Gage, spoke.

The Gage family has become less trusting of others since Jetseta's murder, Trena Gage said.

"Don't trust anyone," she said. "Unless you know that person, their history or anything else, don't invite them in."

What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK? Jesus Fucking Christ, what more did you need to know other than the fact that Roger Bentley was the brother of the man who repeatedly raped your daughter over a three-year period? I mean, if that fact by itself wasn’t enough to make you stay away from anyone else in the Bentley family, it should at least have been enough to make you wary, to make you maybe talk to the police and check into Roger’s background a little. "Unless you know that person, their history or anything else, don't invite them in.” You knew all you needed to know, Trena. You knew all you needed to know.

You know, I do not believe in the death penalty. But let’s add “knowingly, willingly, and recklessly putting your children in contact with a sex offender” to the short list of crimes I could be convinced should be punishable by death (along with election fraud and Enron-level defrauding of the public).

Idol Thoughts - Separated At Birth?

More Reasons I Love My Job

Our insertion devices are equipped with thickness detectors.

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words, or Even 14,000

I was cleaning up my hard drive (no, that's not code) and found a bunch of pictures from various things. The following is worth posting, though it's old and you may have seen it before. It was from a realtor.com listing, and I can't remember where it was I originally found it. See if you can spot the, uhm, animal friendly feature this house has!

Spoilers. Beware!

I know I shouldn't be suprised - after all, if it can be spoiled, it seems like it will be spoiled - but I just discovered that there are AI spoilers to be had. See a list of the possible top 48 here, and the same list with speculation about the final 24 here.

Required Reading

Here's a great post from Glenn Greenwald that summarizes why the FISA/NSA issue is so important.

WTF????

President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, February 6, 2006

Don’t believe me? Watch him say it here at Crooks and Liars.

Four Things

Side tagged me with this, so blame her if you want. Course, Simplicity tagged her. Will the circle of tagging never end?

Four Things

Four jobs I've had:

1. Test Scorer
2. Video Store Manager
3. Grill Cook
4. Corn Detassler (Note: Mandatory job for kids growing up in small town Iowa)

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Casablanca
2. Incredibles
3. Bull Durham
4. Joe Vs. The Volcano

Four places I've lived:

1. Williamsburg, Iowa
2. Iowa City, Iowa
3. Coralville, Iowa
4. North Liberty, Iowa

Four TV shows I love:

1. Lost
2. 24
3. Amazing Race
4. Celebrity Poker Showdown

Four highly-touted TV shows I detest:

1. Apprentice
2. Desperate Housewives
3. Office
4. Fear Factor

Four books I'd recommend to anyone, anytime:

1. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (fiction)
2. The Secret Parts of Fortune, Ron Rosenbaum (essays, perhaps my favorite form of writing)
3. The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes (nonfiction)
4. WE3, Grant Morrison (comic series collected as tradepaperback)

Four places I've vacationed:

1. Walt Disney World
2. Branson
3. Mt. Rushmore
4. Yellowstone

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Plate
2. Saucer
3. Bowl
4. Satellite

or else

1. Stuffed Green Peppers
2. Grilled Iowa Chops
3. Authentic Jamabalaya
4. Kung Pao Chicken

Four sites I visit daily:

1. Firedoglake
2. Kung Fu Monkey
3. Dave's Long Box
4. Viva El Birdos

5. Circle Of - considering I'm a partial founder and a mod, I do need to pimp the place

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Home
2. New York City
3. Walt Disney World
4. Anchorage

Four bloggers I am tagging:

1. Alice
2. Carey
3. Jo
4. TanMan (yes, it's a blatant attempt to get him to blog again)