Still on the Andrew Wilkow

Even though I posted Andrew Wilkow: My New Pain in the Ass back at the beginning of March, it's one of those posts that just won't die: every week or so I get another comment, usually from a conservative troll, sans grammatical or linguistic ability, too afeared to post anything except as Anonymous.

This week was no different. Anonymous first seemed centerist, argued that aesthetic traits (whiny) are irrelevant to any argument against a person. Then:

"Most liberal statements are, in all truth, irrelevant, or crafted in a manner which simply appeals to aesthetics and the dog-like qualities."

Ah, to the crux. I replied:

Most critical conservative statements are generalizations, based on untruths, peppered with obfuscation, and punctuated with one thing the ignorant masses can hang onto, such as "he's a commie!"

Liberals also tend to be more internet savvy and understand the importance of signing posts and owning your own words.

And on a sidenote, aesthetics carries a great deal of relevance, especially when all you have to go on is the voice itself. If your word choice, tone, temperament, and speech pattern peg you - in my mind - as a collar-popping guido douchebag, there's not much you can say that can break through that. Lynn Samuels has a voice like nails on a chalkboard interrupted by a smoke detector. Hence, I don't listen.

Finally, tips for credibility. This is for you, trolls! Want to come across as intelligent? Here's how:

• Post using your username and claim some responsibility for your words
• Grammar and spelling are important; Firefox has built-in spellcheck.
• Make a substantial (or humorous) post without devolving into "ur a stupid librl whoz stupid n stuff"

I know. That last one is probably asking a bit too much.

Back & Damien Jurado

I'm back, but my head's still not in the game. Heard a new artist while I was away: Damien Jurado.



Yeah, that's the tone of my aura at the moment.

I did get an unsolicited DVD of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West in the mail today from The Clarion Fund. I'll have to take a look at it. Soon. Soon.

Vader Lovin

This from Gizmodo, who is having a caption contest on this most disturbing image.

My fav? McCain/Palin '08!

Brilliant.

(p.s. This is my 666 post)

Grandpa

I got the call this morning. He died in the night. (previous post) Off to Cleveland for a few days. Wake on Saturday, funeral Monday. Just about the only thing Catholics don't do on Sunday is bury their own. We'll have to get drunk instead.

I guess the weirdest part for me (and for everyone who goes through the death of someone close) is the sense of isolationism, like the temporal bubble in the sixth world in Braid for Xbox 360 Live Arcade. For those living outside of Kingdom Dork, it's slipping into another world, returning to family, sharing a time, sharing a space completely unique to you and your loved ones; dramas will erupt, sadness will prevail, flippantly change sex mid-stream to joy, and quickly revert, and no one else knows about it. No one else is privy to that chunk of reality. And you might catch a glimpse of that outside world, some snippet of television news, and say "meh, that doesn't concern me" because you're in that subjective bubble and you're not wrong for pausing, the world's wrong for going on and you just want to fucking shake it and scream "Goddamnit, STOP! Look! Here! Take a fucking second and recognize that a wonderful man has died, forever dedicated to his family, a war hero that killed not one living person, saved lives as a firefighter, then prevented deaths as a fire inspector, someone who has inspired two generations going on three. Grandpa. Stop. Look...."

But I guess there is solace in the fact that when I get back, John McCain will still be a douchebag. Some constants will weather the temporal bubble.

And I'm going to need some solid, positive energy come Monday morning. I'm apparently the only grandchild giving a eulogy. And if you've been reading a while, I can be an emotional disaster.

Thanks in advance.

I'll post when I can.

Today's Special - A Whole New World

My friend Brent sent me a lovely link to Today's Special that talks lovely smack about Palin's Pad in Alaska. It's a wonderful blog that I will soon Linktastica! for posterity, something it could have garnered simply because of being called Today's Special and having a picture of Muffy (Nickelodeon fans of yore unite!).

But this is good. I actually read back to April of this year because it was so wonderful and caught this gem. Watch it all the way through.

Electric Slide - Cincinnati Style - YAY!

Well, it's been done: our little part of Cincinnati got back on the juice and not only that, but Time Warner wasn't a total wanker, and I'm writing this to you on my computer! On the internets! Yay!



I, of course, mean that apprehensively. Yay means over 200 emails to slush through, an angry company out-of-state that doesn't have understanding or empathy outside a 20 mile radius, and lots of catch-up.

It also means that I have and others do not: still, hundreds of thousands are without power, and trying to find lunch - let alone a place that takes a credit card machine - can take you ten miles out during a gas shortage in the area.

Pictures tomorrow. Must reconnect.

Mobile - Cincinnati Darkness Again

500K still out.

I was driving around, hunting for lunch today and snagged this pic. May have to click on the biggie, but there's a street sign attached to that mound.

Fridges and freezers out everywhere, spotty power, but Duke's pulling NC resources to join the TX callback and hoping I can join the living sometime soon.

More tomorrow on the Cincinnati Ike 2008 mess.

Tons of pics when I get the internets.

Mobile - Still Darkness in Cincinnati

Yesterday, we pulled out the camping stuff and grilled some eggs and ham and toast before it all went bad. Everything else in the fridge found the bottom of a garbage bag.

We spent about three hours clearing debris from the yard, took a couple walks, found a sole mom n pop place with a very limited menu.

And then the novelty wore off. I know - spoiled, whiny. I think if I had to hunker down and truly get into survival mode (like when the zombies come), I'll be good. But we keep hearing on Little Miss Shambles' battery operated, lime green radio of an unnamed ten thousand that has power and I keep thinking 'we're next.'

Last numbers sometime yesterdsy were 2 million homes out in Ohio, still over 500,000 out in Cinci area, with Hamilton Co. In an official State of Emergency.

And yes, I'm only posting because I pulled a charge from the car.

More later. After we find some food.

Mobile - The Darkness in Cincinnati

While the damage in Texas is still being assessed, Sunday saw much of Ohio - Cinci in particular - bitch-slapped by the back hand of Ike. No rain; all wind.

This image is a car across the street with a tree on top. Dozens of streets were closed due to power lines and trees. Our power went out around 3pm to add to the grand total of an estimated 680,000 in the Cinci area without power. And it could be 3-4 days before everyone's back.

As of 4am, jockey on the oldies station (only one I can get in, of course) said Duke Energy said it was down to 603,000, but was quoted as saying this is like nothing -evar- that they'd seen.

Mobile updates if I can, but have to preserve the charge on the phone. Thank goodness I just got a car charger. Gas = blogging; how green is that?

One last bit. The car in the image is a Saab with temp tags, purchased on the 7th. We met the owners yesterday evening. Turns out it was only parked there because the clutch on their new car had gone out.

It could be worse; I could be that guy.

The Employee Free Choice Act

Here's some delicious from Brave New Films promoting the Free Choice Act.

Love it.

Everyone's Going Totally Apeshit Over Ike! Yowza!

Looks like Ike's going to bring it to Galveston and Houston like he did to Tina, were he in a trajectory of a parallel universe where he could smack one Tina, then the other. Or something. It's going to happen in about 12 hours and it will not be pretty. And I have nothing to say about the "We jus goan hunker down" idiots.

A woman I work with in North Carolina said everyone's going apeshit: gas is up over a dollar a gallon from yesterday, gas lines at every station for blocks, backing up traffic, gas rage, everyone's angry, cats and dogs living together...mass hysteria!

Across the river from Cinci here, Kentucky's governor is evidently seeing a problem, because he's declared a state of emergency, invoking KY's anti-jelly - I mean anti-gouging law.

And I just ran up to the gas station hearing all this (not to feed the madness, only in case we have to make a quick funeral run to Cleveland this weekend), and I topped off at the UDF. There are 4 pumps and there were only 3 cars. No waiting. And gas? At an only moderately unreasonable price of $3.67.

So I ask you: where's my chaos? Where's my drama? Since when was Cincinnati reasonable?

Bugger!

Barack on McCain's Bounce

From the always-lovely Blue Gal, who stole it from Blue Herald, etc.

One can wish...

Darth Vader Being a Smartass

It's always nice to be reminded of the classics (via Cinematical):

Juneau - Coming Soon

Not mine: another shout-out to my friend Brent, who found this, who still doesn't think he's got enough to say to have a blog - and therefore gets no link love, his labour, lost. :(

The Lipstick Dipstick

This post goes out to Obama, Biden, McCain, Palin, and any other other poor bastard who loves a colloquialism.

I think Chozick's Washington Wire piece sums it up well:

Obama:

says the John McCain-Sarah Palin policies don’t represent change, they’re “just calling the same thing something different.”

“You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” Obama said during a town-hall style event here Tuesday night.

Now everybody's all sanctimoniously pissed (on the right) because Palin just said:

that the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom was lipstick, though the campaign said Obama wasn’t referencing Palin’s comments.

So they think he was attacking her, but if she calls herself a pit bull, it's okay? Then introducing Biden,

Missouri Rep. Russ Carnahan said Palin had “zero experience in national government, zero experience in foreign affairs. There’s no way you can dress up that record, even with a lot of lipstick.”

Oh, shit. Not more lipstick! McCain campaign fires back, calling it sexist, that Palin's the only candidate wearing lipstick, and then...and then Obama's folks uncover

a Chicago Tribune article published in 2007 during the Democratic primaries that cites McCain criticizing Hillary Clinton’s health care plan. “I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” McCain is quoted as saying about Clinton’s proposal.

This is all nothing more than sanctimonious bullshit. Talk about the issues, hit them on the backgrounds, get a small group together to stop the diarrhea of lies seething through the teeth of the right wing radio machine, but stop this petty tit for tat shit.

It makes me sad for our country to see that the Republicans have only gotten better since John Kerry: better at lying, attacking, and spreading unsubstantiated rumors. That, and the ignorant sponges across the country that sop that swill, is how they win elections.

Verizon Phone Sex One-Hump Chump

From Chicago:

Joseph Vaccarelli, 45, of Nutley, N.J. made approximately 5,000 calls, resulting in 45,000 minutes of call time, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said in a news release.

Do the math and ...wait for it:

Mr. V lasts only 9 minutes without a woman in the room.

Then again, if he's part of the Verizon network, it may have been a speakerphone orgy with him getting a reach-around from the Can You Hear Me Now guy.

The Real John McCain v.2

Why doesn't anyone else see this?

Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

Sarah Palin Dolls - I Mean Action Figures!

Of course you have to call them action figures. If not, all the pressed-suit, white, Republican boys might feel funny about picking one up for the bathtime antics of Palin and the Enormous Penis.

I eagerly await the Palin blow-up doll.


I want a girl with a short skirt and a loooooong jacket.

Intermittent Posting, Some Wisdom

Sorry about the intermittent posting. It's been an emotional couple of weeks as my grandfather slowly wastes away, now in a bed in his own home. Two days ago, he was down to methadone for medication, edema in the hands, kidneys starting to give out. Any just God would've taken the man already.

But enough of the sad; when he goes, it will be the right time. I can't live as Emotion's punching bag rag doll until it happens. I'll be enough of a mess when it does.

So in the loving vein of Good ol' USA killing dozens of kids in Afghanistan and the right wing of the radio and potential presidential campaign both deriding diplomacy and volunteerism, how about some Dali:

Real peace [is] not just the absence of violence or of war... A mere absence of war is not genuine, lasting world peace. Peace must develop on mutual trust.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

How beautiful would the world be if everyone thought that way?