This Blog Is Full Of Crap

Pardon the navel-gazing posts, blogging about blogging that bloggers always do when they change platforms, recover from a disaster, or whatever. The most important thing to a blogger is their blogging, you know, so if I'm going to mock the entire blogging lifestyle, I need to mock this aspect of it as well, too.

In the rework of the templates for this site, I tossed the Sitemeter counter off of every page but the main pages.

In the end, it doesn't really matter how many people read this garbage, where they're coming from, where they're going, yadda yadda yadda.

It doesn't even matter where the links are coming from, really. Half the time it's just some random Google search deep-linking something that's years out of date, anyway.

Tell me this: how much revenue does window-shopping make for the retailer?

ANSWER: Zero.

In fact, it costs them in terms of additional wear-and-tear on the facilities, having to repackage things they try on, dealing with shoplifting, additional security...

So, in the end, all that really matters as to whether a post is generating "buzz" or conversation is comments or feedback.

If something here inspires a post of your own, don't bother with Trackback - that's just bot-fodder for grinding your server to a halt these days. Just post something in the comments saying "Hey, you convinced me to post on this!" and folks will follow the link to your site.

Or not. See if I care.

By the way, blogging will be light today because I'm busy celebrating the 60th anniversary of the United Nations resolution establishing the division of the British Mandate into Jewish and Arab area, leading to the creation of the world's first and only Jewish state.

Take that, you motherfucking, cow-worshiping Hindus!

I'm gonna eat me a big old hamburger and send the spirit of your ancestor back into the reincarnation crapshoot.

Woohoo!

Apparently, Roy Horn thinks there's still two deathwishes in the genie's bottle:

Four years after retiring, illusionists Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn say they may just reappear.

The German-born performers' long-running "Siegfried & Roy" production ended in October 2003 when Horn was critically injured on stage by a tiger.

"A good magician never lets the cat out of the bag," Horn told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Friday for a story about the pair's possible return to show business. "Act surprised when you hear about it."

How much of the paying audience will be there just to see if Roy gets mauled?

How much of the press will be there just to see if Roy gets mauled?

Richard Justice appears to be wavering on the Adam Everett campaign...

Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman is reporting that the Astros and Giants are among the team that have expressed an interest in Miguel Tejada. He wrote that the Orioles probably would like to have Michael Bourn, Adam Everett and prospects.

Tejada? Amazing!

I think Bourn's going to be the next Preston Wilson on the downslide, and giving up Anderson to get him was a huge mistake. But at least we're discarding Preston Wilson, Jr. before he reeks at the plate.

In previous conversations, the Orioles have asked for so much that trade talks went nowhere. This time could be different because Andy MacPhail is now running things in Baltimore. Nevertheless, Tejada isn't going to come cheap.

But he'll want to deal him anyway, so he's not going to be too expensive, either.

Everett, on the other hand, was way, way overpriced. Same with Lidge. There's going to be a bit of room there now that Bagwell's $7 million isn't a factor, and Qualls closing is much cheaper than Lidge closing.

He would dramatically upgrade the Astros at shortstop, but he comes with warning labels. His power numbers have declined dramatically in recent years, and he has been linked to steroids through Raffy Palmeiro.

A waning Tejada is better than a surging Everett on any day. I'm glad that Justice finally recognizes that Everett's not Mister Perfect at the plate or on the field.

As far as I know, he has never tested positive for anything, and there's no way of knowing if he'll be named in the Mitchell report. My guess is this deal can't be done because the Astros have so few attractive prospects. If the Orioles would do it for Luke Scott, Chris Burke and Adam Everett, it would be a slam dunk. If they insist on Hunter Pence, Troy Patton or Juan Gutierrez, I'd tell them no thanks.

Ditching Burke has got to be Priority Number One, because with Matsui in the hopper, Burke's morale has got to be in the shitter whether he shows it or not.

Must suck being paid a million dollars a year to wait a year and another... waiting for the old man to retire, only to find someone getting offered five million to do it right.

Oh well. He was toast in Spring. Even if Purpura didn't see it, glad that Wade looked back and appears to be taking absolutely no chances.

By the way, Jennings wasn't offered arbitration.

Good riddance to rubbish, I hope.

All of you out there fantasizing about Andy Pettitte coming back to Houston to chase Roger Clemens into the clubhouse as a paid layabout can go pound sand for another year, God has finally told Andy what to do.

And, once again, it ain't "Show some hometown loyalty" either.

The Hendricks Brothers have convinced Steinbrenner's family to pony up for more moolah while the old goon continues to drool into his pudding in private:

Andy Pettitte, who contemplated retirement this winter, has told his good friends, a few former Astros teammates and some current Yankees teammates that he will return to the Bronx for the 2008 season.

Last month Pettitte declined his $16 million player option for 2008 because he wasn't ready to commit to another season. But Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and Yankees senior vice president Hank Steinbrenner told Pettitte they would wait for him until February, if necessary, so he could take his time to make a decision.

That wait is over, and the Yankees have been informed of the decision by Pettitte’s agent, Randy Hendricks.

How long before the Andy Fans start gibbering with delight over the fantasy of an even more raggedy Andy coming back to Houston for 2009?

I mean, if the guy's following in Roger's footsteps, he's got to come back when he's a walking medical report of sprains, tears, pulls, and breaks.

That whole "three years in Houston" thing was just him taking that path far too literally, way way too soon.

For those of y'all who get off on calling President Bush some kind of chimpanzee slur or Chimpy McHitlerburton...

Never mind that TV show that asks if you're smarter than a fifth-grader. Is your memory better than a young chimp's?

Maybe not.

Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in two tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won.

That challenges the belief of many people, including many scientists, that "humans are superior to chimpanzees in all cognitive functions," researcher Tetsuro Matsuzawa, of Kyoto University, said.

"No one can imagine that chimpanzees — young chimpanzees at the age of 5 — have a better performance in a memory task than humans," he said in a statement.

I'm surprised that the Chronicle didn't attempt a Bush-bash in the piece, but they appear to be just copy-pasting the important stuff from Associated Press these days.

You know, because they're sooooooooooooo ready for today (which is why the side of the building with that ad on it is covered with plastic and scaffolding).

This shatterball thing always catches my eye when I see it.

It would be fun to have a temporary-adhesive version you could stick on a laptop or a monitor as a prank. Or a fishtank.

I think Matthew Ebel will be streaming his live hijinks today at 14:00 Texas Time here, but I've been known to be wrong.

If you haven't heard him before, I'd suggest using this hour wisely to enjoy his music and ponder picking up a tune or two of his via iTunes.

Apparently, telling people not to chop down trees just to throw them out a few weeks later isn't enough for the eco-nuts. Now they feel like they need to harass the Jews with token and meaningless "environmental" conservation measures.

In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment.

The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.

Forsaking the entire consumer-driven nature of the holidays entirely would make more sense, eh.

I'll be lighting one extra candle tonight. I've got her collar on my wrist right now, and I hear the jingle of the bell when I type.

Has it been a year?

Feels so strange. (Or maybe it's the pills.)

Moxie's hitting the weirdness with Phoebe and Puff like I sometimes do with Nardo and Frisky. Although I think Nardo would rather I not pick him up, turn him on his back, and tummy-chin-rub him until he wants to chew my fingers off and escape.

Part of me wants another Birman as quickly as possible, and another part of me never wants to love that much again to prevent feeling this kind of pain when the inevitable end arrives.

I looked at the shelf behind Piper's chair and thought "Who's ashes would go where?" this morning.

I figure Nardo - Piper - Frisky - Edloe... that's how we arranged cat carriers in the back seat with all four when going to the vet. Piper and Frisky very rarely sniffed noses or acknowledged mutual existence.

I don't think I'd want a cat that looked like one I'd lost. Even remotely. Not that it's particularly easy to find lookalikes for three of our four (Aside from the big fat feet, people send me URLs of Nardo clones all the time).

I'm thinking that we'd end up getting a solid black cat named Dan and a solid white cat named Eddie. Or a grey fuffball. Or a Maine Coon that can go out and hunt Chihuahuas. Or...

How about I just concentrate on the ones that interrupt my sleep right now, okay?

I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end

if I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

After visiting nearly every other country in the region multiple times during his administration while requiring Israeli leaders to come to him in Crawford or Washignton or New York, President Bush finally decides it's time to go to Israel:

US President George W. Bush is expected to visit Israel for the first time since he came here as Texas governor in 1998, Channel 2 reported Tuesday evening.

Bush is slated to discuss the Iranian threat and also to encourage negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians following the Annapolis peace conference which took place last week.

Bush is expected to arrive mid January.

Is Sderot on his itinerary? What about the non-existent U.S. embassy in Jerusalem that Congress has repeatedly ordered the State Department to build, but Bush keeps hitting the snooze bar on?

Sure, I may be getting an hour or more back of my life per day when the office moves Downtown, but there's some people who will be losing up to an hour of their lives with having to brave the congestion and nightmare of joining the ugly flow of vehicles into the city.

Sucks to be them, man. Sucks to be them.

We'll probably lose some of those folks, like we lost people when the office moved up here. Hopefully, some of those people end up in the Datacenters in order to raise the intelligence level and tech support awareness factor there a bit.

The company's offering up free monthly passes. But not Q Card credit, like METRO would like every employer to do, right?

Strange. Is it because the Q card system is a huge unreliable pain in the ass, or it takes some kind of equipment purchase on the employer as opposed to cheap disposable stacks of passes, or...

Whatever.

It took over 2 hours to get home last night.

The 9 that was supposed to be at the DTC at 5:14PM was *passed* by the next one.

And the next one was driven by an oblivious cunt who was jabbing on her cell phone through the whole trip.

My camera snapped a photo of her, but it was too blurry.

Damn.

At least I said "Get off the damn phone" as I left the bus.

Space Casey is back with Episode #2!

And this time around, the guy playing the part of Karstoo was blitzed on Jack Daniels instead of Guinness!

Yeeeeeehaaaaawwwwww (thud)

You know, I kinda feel like unleashing a "quick discharge of frustration in the form of violence" upon the Archbishop of Cantebury.

Anybody else wishing the Chair of St. Augustine was electrified?

Remember, folks - the Archbishop of Cantebury is the biggest bastard of the talent pool who's traumatized all of boys he's molested into silence or suicide so there's nobody left to squeal to the media and block his ascent to power.

Frank Wilson is hurt. Deeply hurt.

His relationship with the Feds is on the rocks. They think he can't build or run a rail line right.

So, he's taken to looking out the window, longingly...

Wilson said he was particularly perplexed by a sentence in Little's letter stating that Metro must demonstrate its technical capacity to build and operate a light rail line.

"Just look out my window," he said, nodding toward the Main Street rail line that his office overlooks. Wilson said the Main Street line, which opened in 2004, carries 45,000 riders daily, a volume it was not projected to reach until 2030.

If you look out Wilson's window and squint really hard, you can see the red light of the Downtown Transit Center's southbound Q Card reader.

Almost every time I'm there, it's either damaged or showing a date several weeks ago.

Have they fixed it yet?

San Diego took Morgan Ensberg. WOOHOO!
San Diego took Jason Lane. WOOHOO!
San Diego wants to take Luke Scott?

The Houston Astros and San Diego Padres appear to be in discussions involving right fielder Luke Scott.

The Padres would likely offer minor leaguers, although their top two prospects are not available.

*sigh*

Biggio's retired.
Luke's trade-bait.

Maybe I should just buy my wife a generic Astros jersey?

Relax, Frisky. Your mommy's coming home tonight.

Kofi's replacement, Ban Ki Moon, demonstrates that John Bolton was right about his suggestion to radically renovate the United Nations Building:

The Secretary-General is extremely concerned about the continuing delay in the election of a new president in Lebanon, which has extended well past the constitutional timeframe. Over the past few days he has spoken to key political leaders in the country to urge a solution, including Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, Speaker Nabih Berri and Majority Leader Saad Hariri. He believes it is now time for this matter to be resolved without further delay.

The Secretary-General will remain in close touch with Lebanese political leaders who bear, both to the people of Lebanon and to the future of the country, the responsibility to find a solution.

What's Korean for: "Hurry up and finish rigging the election so we can keep pretending your a functioning democracy!"

There is only one true freely-elected democracy in the Middle East.

Although all the other governments pretending to be freely-elected democracies there, it's pretty amusing to see the political, religious and social gymnastics they use to make their claims of democratic rule.

I once took a Ted Rall poster and improved it to demonstrate the various ways how Middle East Countries (and one terrorist group wanting to be a country) chose their leaders.

Lebanon was "Whoever Syria tells us to choose."

Considering how much difficulty they appear to be having rigging their own elections right now and the "term limit by car bomb" syndrome going on with anti-Hezbollah and anti-Syria parliamentarians, I'm not convinced that's changed all that much.

The Risen Chronicle Jesus has this to say about Big Fifty:

The Astros may wind up acquiring a closer, but rest assured that many folks in the organization are really high on Chad Qualls and strongly believe that he could be a quality closer.

Well, they're certainly high on something there, Risen Chronicle Jesus. They must have finally gotten around to cleaning out Phil's and Tim's offices, discovering what kept those two coming up with genius moves like "Burke's batting less than a dime and Pence is tearing the cover off of the ball at Spring... LET'S GO WITH BURKE!" or "Morgan Ensberg isn't injured at all. No. Really."

You mocked me for getting a Qualls jersey, World.

I look upon your mockery with pity and scorn.

"Hey, can you add this DNS entry right now!"

Done.

"I mean, reverse DNS entry right now!"

Done.

"Oops, I spelled the domain wrong! Can you fix it right now?"

Done.

"I gave you the wrong IP address, too. Can you change it now?"

Done.

AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Seven more days of suffering The Commute From Hell.

I have 42 hours of Paid Time Off stored up.

I have 16 hours budgeted for Christmas Eve and New Years Eve.

That leaves 26 hours.

The temptation to burn three of the remaining seven days isn't just overwhelming. I can feel my internal organs twisting like a puzzle-box at the possibility of burning three of the next seven work days.

I take a moment to sense my current state of health to determine if there's anything wrong with me that can translate into three days off that don't require a doctor's note.

Maybe my wife will come home with some kind of bug from New Orleans and I can be, like sick then not-sick and then sick and not-sick... pass the sniffles back and forth kind of thing?

"Hey, my internal organs are twisting around like a puzzle-box. Insurance doesn't cover it, so I'm going to need to hire an exorcist to remove the demons from my duodenum. It'll take two days, maybe three for the rituals to work, so, keep my seat warm until I get back, okay?"

Knowing my luck, Theodoric of York will show up at the door, ready to bleed me dry. (Which is no different than my doctor when a procedure or test isn't covered by a simple co-pay.)

I know that next Friday, I'm going to be, like, totally overjoyed at it being the last time. Spitting-on-the-102-bus joytastic, in fact. Maybe even Making-rude-comments-at-the-102-bus splendiffic, but I'm not one to overhype a feeling for marketing purposes.

And Wednesday is a required Open House kind of thing to get a tour of the new building.

"This is where you'll clock in so we know exactly how long we've had you as a willing slave. This is where your soul will be crushed. This is where your future ends. This is where you're supposed to be trained on new procedures and policies, but we're thinking of putting in a sauna for management. And here's the bathroom... but let's keep the hiding and whimpering limited to the stall on the left, okay?"

Maybe I can ask someone to Fight Club me. "Hit me as hard as you can!" kind of deal and WHAM I'm out like a light and it's totally not my fault.

Um... I fell down some stairs. I walked into a wall. I tripped over a cat.

Sound about right?

Actually, I've been couching and sneezing since I got home and Gina was getting in the door at the same time.

Maybe some goddamned illegal on the bus brought their Mexican Plague or Guatamalan Gut-Buster Bug or whatever.

Whatever. I'm just looking forward to the new office location and getting an hour or two of my life back every day.

Blogging will be light today.

You know, I should start a feature called Waits Of The Day.

Today's Waits is Bottom of the World.

Yeah, that's good Waits.

Regular blogging will resume tomorrow.

Just in case there's still anybody out there questioning the basic fact that Hamas wants to destroy Israel, let's just look at the latest action by the action of that terrorist group's political agents:

The Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council Thursday passed a law that makes any concessions on Jerusalem illegal.

That's concessions as in giving up any part of Jerusalem at all.

In fact, to them, Jerusalem doesn't exist. To them, it's Al-Quds.

So, now that we're clear on the terrorist group Hamas, what about the terrorist group Fateh?

Well, they weren't in on the vote:

The PLC session was boycotted by many members of the rival Fatah faction in protest against Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last June.

However, boycotting the vote was not a means of protesting the fact that Hamas wants to destroy all Israeli and Jewish hold on the territory. In fact, Fateh believes pretty much the same thing as Hamas:

However, many Fatah legislators have made it known that they too support the law, which states that Jerusalem is a Palestinian, Arab and Islamic city and that it is totally forbidden to give up or conduct negotiations about any part of the city.

The boycott was just their way of avoiding going on record in favor of obliterating Jerusalem, which would wipe out any claim Fateh has as a terrorist group Bush and Condi Rice can talk to and send money to, but they also avoided having to vote against the bill, because that's not what the Palestinians who elected them want to hear their "representatives" saying.

The Palis want it all. They want Israel destroyed.

So, what about the Chief Asshole of Hamas, Yasser Arafat's old puppet?

Abbas continues to blither the usual nonsense that he thinks the surrender-minded Americans and Israelis want to hear:

Abbas also revealed that he and his team rejected the idea of establishing a Palestinian state with temporary borders for fear that the borders would one day become permanent.

"The Palestinian people want a state in the 1967 borders, including Jerusalem," he stressed. "We also want a solution to the problem of the refugees in accordance with the Arab peace initiative and United Nations resolution 194."

However, by going to the polls and voting for Hamas as well as Fateh members who utterly reject any negotiation over Jerusalem, I think the "Palestinian people" have spoken quite loudly in opposition to Abbas' delusional assessment of their wishes.

Is there a candidate in the 2008 election who sees through this bullshit and will end this "terrorists we can work with" madness once and for all?

Blogging will be light today because I so looking forward to this weekend that I don't have time to look at the here-and-now and blog about it.

Speaking of which, how about some Tom Waits Of The Day?

Let's have a little something to nosh on, shall we?

I guess I'll see if I can keep this going.

Regular blogging will abba zabba dabba dooo...

The two burglars blown away by Joe Horn were illegal aliens and, pending an investigation that doesn't involve just wobbling a Magic Eight Ball at a desk, were a part of a crime ring.

Dammit, how many times have I said that these no-good illegal alien criminals are taking jobs away from decent, hardworking American criminals?

My condolences go out to any bounty hunters who missed out on picking these two mooks up instead of just watching the coroner's office scrape them off the sidewalk.

Maybe this is a good use for those overprices greasebags that City Council approved to keep the sewers unclogged? Just chop 'em up, stuff 'em in the bags, put a few dozen stamps, and mail 'em back to Colombia.

And... hold on. Didn't Q-10 drag out their family members and parade them in front of the cameras or something?

If these guys were illegals from Colombia, how many of those folks Q-10 used as props were illegals themselves?

*sigh* As for those of you that were surprised that Deskmerc and I weren't grabbed by Immigration and the FBI instead of them, keep in mind that he and I are mistaken for three illegal alien gun-running narcoterrorists, not two. If there had been a third on this botched burglary run, okay, then Deskmerc and I would have been rounded up.

See how that works?

The first ten Google results for "Laurence Simon" are either by me or about me.

ROYAL FLUSH!

The eleventh Google result is a book by a guy named Laurence Simon about Psychotherapy.

Which, really, is still about me, I suppose.

I've dropped in rank for "Laurence" down to #8 after the retool of the templates.

The pressure of being the #1 or #2 Most Laurence of the Laurences was just too much, I admit.

I think #8 is much more comfortable, and I'm happy with it.

Doesn't my menorah look pretty?

Okay, so that belongs to Rahel.

Mine, which she gave me, is a sloppy, oil-soaked mess with burnt-out failed wicks and burnt cat hair.

I won't post any photos of it, but I will show off Nardo's electric menorah in the catcams.

Feeling good this morning, so I'm hitting the air with Garf and Mike The Magic Moderator.

Hit the HTT site for the videoconference. It cool-a-riffic.

And I made my first goof in the opening segment: JetBlue goes to JFK, not Charlotte.

Stupid map.

Apparently, Harry Reid's getting goofy:

As if there was any doubt that Congress was on the verge of devolving into a carnival atmosphere, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, on Thursday proposed doing cartwheels down the center aisle of the Senate chamber to draw attention to Republican efforts to block legislation.

If only they did nothing efficiently and inexpensively, I'm all for a "leadership" that does nothing.

John McEnroe fears that the Mafia is infiltrating tennis.

"THAT BALL WAS OUT... but they keep pulling it back in!"

Mark Loretta accepted salary arbitration, so he's coming back.

Bye bye, Chris Burke.

Trever Miller appears to have noticed the problems in the bullpen and saw dollar signs, because he's turned down the offer of salary arbitration.

Since Mark Loretta's shortstop days are long behind him, when does Miguel Tejada sign on the dotted line and make Adam Everett vanish?

Yeah yeah yeah - they need pitchers. Let's hope they don't shuffle off Wandy and make the starting rotation even weaker.

(I still think that Wandy's elevated run support came from the fact that he pitched to the not-Ausmus of the day instead of Ausmus all those years.)

The headline reads:

Olmert: Israel will expose Iranian nuclear weapons program

So, the Mossad and other agencies will be revealing the evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons?

Well... um...

No.

"Israel will work with the International Atomic Energy Agency to expose the Iranian plan to develop nuclear weapons, despite the limitations that Iran is setting," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday.

Olmert said the new US intelligence report concluding that Iran has given up its nuclear weapons program will not change Israel's view that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, his first comment on the report.

The IAEA's Mohammed El-Baradei has done his best to capitulate to the Iranian regime and do absolutely nothing to expose developing nuclear programs in countries like Libya and Egypt.

Despite the IAEA wandering around and sniffing the sand for years, Libya only revealed its activities after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

El-Baradei has gone on record multiple times with the Arabist and Islamist position that Israel's nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to peace in the region, let alone the world.

You know, because they're been calling for the elimination of other countries in the region, the extermination of millions, revering historical figures like Hitler blah blah blah.

When it comes to investigating Iran, the IAEA isn't just a spotlight with a burnt-out bulb, but anyone delusional enough to repair or steer its non-existent beam is likely to get electrocuted.

Yet another blatant lie from the terrorist group Hamas:

"Many people make the mistake of presuming that Hamas has some ideological aversion to making peace. Quite the opposite; we have consistently offered dialogue with the US and the EU," Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas official, said Sunday.

In an open letter to US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Yousef, who serves as senior political advisor to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said that his movement did not have any "ideological arguments" with the West.

"We are not anti-American, anti-European or anti-anyone," he explained, adding that the time has come for Washington and other Western countries to talk to Hamas.

In case you need reminding:

Hamas on Thursday called on the UN to rescind the 1947 decision to partition Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs.

The group said in a statement, released on the 60th anniversary of the UN vote, that "Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem... there is no room in it for the Jews."

Sounds pretty anti-something to me, motherfuckers.

Andrew Young doesn't think Barack Obama is old enough to be President...

"I want Barack Obama to be president," Young said, pausing for effect, "in 2016."

"It's not a matter of being inexperienced. It's a matter of being young," Young said. "There's a certain level of maturity ... you've got to learn to take a certain amount of (expletive)."

Young went on to say that Obama needs a protective network that he currently lacks - a quality that could hurt him if he were to be elected. He said Hillary Clinton already has that kind of network, including her husband to back her up.

"There are more black people that Bill and Hillary lean on," Young said. "You cannot be president alone. ... To put a brother in there by himself is to set him up for crucifixion. His time will come and the world will be ready for a visionary leadership."

In 2008, Barack Obama will be 47.

You know, when Andrew Young was 47, he was meeting with PLO terrorists and then lying about those meetings.

Maybe Andrew thinks that Barack needs a little more seasoning in the appeasement department or something?

Atlantis will remain on the ground for a while longer...

NASA looked to early January at the soonest for further attempts to launch the shuttle Atlantis to the international space station after an intermittent fuel gauge problem brought a halt to hopes of lifting off this afternoon.

Jan. 2 would be soonest the space agency would make a third launch bid, said NASA spokesman Allard Beutel .

"We need to figure out why these sensors are not working," Beutel said. "We are planning a round of troubleshooting."

Maybe I'm just projecting, but when you've got a mishmash of sixties and seventies technology with an ungodly amount of retrofits and patches up there on the launch pad, doesn't it get kind of disheartening when they walk by the drawing boards and see the amazing and cool ideas they're cooking up, but still gotta hurl that bucket of bolts up in the sky every few months when it's working?

I mean, when I know a new technology is coming, I kinda look at the current technology and totally lose that "Gee whiz!" factor.

I guess the best example of it was: The moment Windows 95 hit the shelves, Windows 3.1 was dead to me. That and Office 95 and Plus 95 and a new video card and motherboard and memory and hard drive and...

And then all those Indians and Chinese and Russians are working on some moon missions while Pakistan yips at their heels saying they will, but we all know that Pakistan will be chaos by the end of next year when Musharraf and Bhutto have their motorcades vaporized.

Or perhaps it's like the developers of old software that still runs, runs pretty well, has a few "personality issues" where it just needs tender loving care, or like an antique car that's fun to take out on the weekends and meet up with all the other aficionados.

Pfeh. I have no idea what I'm talking about, do I?

Whatever.

How not to start a Scrabble game:

Simple strategy lesson: You can run the rail with ALUMNA with 14 tiles (12 E + 2 blanks) instead of the usual 6 (4 S + 2 blanks). Not a good move, eh.

Damage after 2 turns = 154 points.

I don't think I've done three all-outs in a row to open a game, but the tiles I've got now lend themselves to a possible triple-slam if they don't block my spot.

Are you up for a challenge?

I play through Facebook, eh.

Pardon me a moment...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

“The time for confrontation has come for me,” Cynthia McKinney told about 60 supporters on December 4. Launching her quest for the Green Party Presidential nomination, McKinney compared her “revolution” to Haiti, Venezuela, and war-torn Cote d’Ivoire.

“Cynthia,” as she prefers to be called, spoke to a crowd of about 60 gathered at the Paige Library Building on the Campus of Texas Southern University, a primarily African-American college in Houston.

Arriving 10 minutes after the 7 p.m. scheduled start time, McKinney sashayed through the crowd smartly dressed in a colorful pants suit and scarf. Personally greeting each attendee, she handed out pastel flyers emblazoned with the words, “Leading a Peace Slate to Reclaim our Nation.” She looked each potential supporter in the eye, with a big smile, and said, “I really need your support.”

A crowd of sixty?

TSU has hosted more than its share of deranged bigots-in-progressive-clothing nutbars over the years, but McKinney takes the cake.

Thank you, Cynthia. You're doing more than your fair share of keeping up the comedy while the Writers' Guild is on strike just by being you.

Hell, I may just send a few bucks to your campaign to prologue the insanity just for the entertainment factor.

Winston Churchill once said that it's not the size of dog in the fight but the size of fight in the dog.

Michael Vick has 23 months to ponder that wisdom, minus time already served and time off for good behavior.

Think he'll come out a cat person?

What. A. Day.

When there's a massive problem going on, I'll work up a boilerplate response, get it approved, and send it out to the flood of tickets and emails coming in.

Often, that boilerplate asks someone if they can provide their current IP address as well as a traceroute from their current location to their server.

Now, I'll give them whatismyipaddress.com for the IP checking, but doing a traceroute from their system depends on the system.

Some systems use traceroute. Others use tracert. Some use just trace.

Here's the thing: if you're buying your own server and running it, you should already know rock-bottom basic things like how to run a traceroute.

Or, barring that, how to look up "how to run a traceroute" on google.com or answer.com or askjeeves.com or any number of search engines.

It's like being in the middle of a disaster, a doctor says for you to stick out your tongue and say AAAAAAAH, and you reply "How do I do that?"

It really is. And it's something that you're going to need to know how to do.

Sure, I've got step-by-steps for running traceroutes. When I'm not in disaster mode, I send those out to people to help me help them.

And every so often, I get back a response "Can't you do that for me?" or something to that extent.

That's when my soul dies a little more.

How the flying fuck do you accidentally snort enough cocaine to kill you?

The death last month of Kevin Dubrow, lead singer for the 1980s heavy metal band Quiet Riot, has been ruled an accidental cocaine overdose.

Clark County coroner spokeswoman Samantha Charles confirmed the cause Monday after toxicology results were received Monday.

Did he mistake the stuff for sugar?

Did he do a triple backflip, hit his head, and land face-first in the blow?

What the fuck?

Here's the best part:

DuBrow recorded a solo album in 2004, "In for the Kill," and the band's last studio CD, "Rehab," came out in October 2006.

Looks like Rehab didn't take, and now he's on the charts in the coroner's office.

Three more morning commutes from Hell.
Three more evening commutes from Hell.

You see, there's some kind of Open House at the new office on Wednesday.

They're shipping us down to the new office in the afternoon to check it out, so that's one less opportunity for METRO to screw me over on the 102-9 transfer.

Four more lunches at the deli left, unless they bring in food.

Of course, all these counts are reduced by one if I take a sick day or two this week.

You know, because people get sick. (Of horribly long commutes when a shorter commute is less than a week away.)

In case you're not watching the catcams...

You're missing stuff like this.

And I'm not shutting them down in solidarity with the WGA for their strike.

If Reality shows are real, then why do they shut down when writers are on strike?

Participating in that kind of bullshittery pisses me off, eh.

One of the things I love most about Second Life is the sheer creative insanity in it.

Anybody else miss the snowman madness of Calvin and Hobbes?

Martin Luther King, Jr. preached unity and togetherness and equality. Or something.

Kinda makes you wonder about these two goofballs who can't come together and unify their parade efforts:

Ovide Duncantell, executive director of the Black Heritage Society, wants to produce his 30th annual procession on the day the nation honors the slain civil rights leader while Charles Stamps of the MLK Parade Foundation is planning the competing MLK Grande Parade.

A coin toss this week will decide who gets the 10 a.m. holiday slot.

As I've said before (1 2, 3, 4), I'm strongly in favor of letting both parades run at the same time as long as you start each at opposite ends of a common parade route.

Then, you could sell tickets at the midway point.

Ever tell yourself that you're eating the last (food) in your life?

Today, I ate the last lasagna in my life.

You see, I hate lasagna. Really hate it.

It's something from my childhood. My moth's homecooked lasagna taught me to hate lasagna.

She cooked a lot of good things, mind you. But she also cooked a few things that should have been burned to a crisp to use as building materials.

Boiled carrots or other vegetables, for one. I like raw carrots and vegetables. Especially on salads. Or dipping them into light ranch dressing.

If I want a vegetable cooked, it will be on a pizza or steamed. Or grilled. Especially grilled asparagus.

But the worst of the worst was lasagna. That was a night to chow down on side dishes...

Oh. Wait. Those were often boiled.

DAMMIT!

Well, today, it was my last chance to order lasagna on Lasagna Day at the deli, so I ordered it.

And...

Once again, this is the last time I will ever eat lasagna in my life.

Don't try to put lasagna in front of me and say "Oh, come on. Here's my lasagna. It's good."

You'll be wearing it.

I want Matthew Ebel's album right now, dammit.

Click... click... click...

Downloading. Pollution-free, too.

What? He's going live in a few minutes?

DAMN THAT MATTHEW EBEL FOR INTERRUPTING MATTHEW EBEL!

Sheesh!

Here's a goofy question: if Roger Clemens turns out to be on the Mitchell Report list of players suspected of using banned performance-enhancing substances, should Uncle Drayton tear up the personal services agreement?

So, which former or current Astros do you think will be on the list?

My guesses:
Ken Caminiti - The guy took everything, man.
Roger Clemens - Duh.
Morgan Ensberg - Explains his crash and box-slop numbers.
Richard Huidalgo - Explains his crash.
Darryl Kile - Might as well speak ill of the dead, since we're trashing Cammy.
Andy Pettitte - Roger see, Andy do.

Maybes:
Jeff Bagwell - I still wonder about that shoulder.
Chris Burke - Explains his crash, but he hasn't really bulked up.
Luis Gonzales - Got big fast, I agree with JP on this.

I'd also say Gary Gaetti, but that guy couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, let alone a vein.

The Mitchell Report might name a few names, but it'll have very little bite to it.

Why?

Let's face it: Mitchell's very good at being a professional patsy. The Senate gig's over, and now he's looking to collect checks by selling his name on various documents with a lot of bluster but no real force to them except a foundation of sand to build collapsing cases on.

In my book, he lost all credibility when he willingly accepted Michael Eisner's offer to be a puppet-replacement chairman on the Disney board, as much of a oversight factor as Achmed Queri and Mahmoud Abbas were under Yasser Arafat.

He. Is. A. Tool. And. Nothing. More.

Selig will smile for the cameras, maybe bark enough to get those named to bark back and sue the league, but in the end cheating scum like Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire will end up in Cooperstown, asterisk or not.

If you were worried about Annapolis being Olmert's opportunity to give everything away before he's hauled off to jail, well, the same old shit is seeping out of Ramallah again:

"This operation is a severe blow to the PA leadership and moderate Palestinians," said one official. "We believe that this is a deliberate attempt by Israel to foil Wednesday's negotiations with the Palestinians."

No, you asshole, it was a deliberate attempt to kill the shit out of some assholes who were trying to kill Israelis.

And it was a severe blow to the assholes that the PA leadership and moderate Palestinians should be killing the shit out of themselves.

Do I really need one of these?

My experiments with a camera lashed to the USB missiles worked out well... except for the cat who happened to be sleeping in the chair they were aimed at, I suppose. (FYI - I never actually tagged Piper with one of these. I may have fired a few shots over her bow, but never at my little girl.)

Does it have IR lighting like the Bourbon Street Cam?

Yesterday evening, was late for lighting the final menorah lights because METRO blew the transfer.

This morning, was way late because the 102 was way, way late. Or maybe it was the next 102 that was early?

Either way, it's as if METRO were some demon clawing at my back, trying to get in its last blows before I take away it's power to suck time out of my life with botched transfers.

I will outlast you, demon.

Tonight, we're being shown the new building Downtown. No opportunity for METRO to bend me over and nail me for another thirty minute wait in the rain because I'll already be Downtown.

Tomorrow, we'll see if I go in or if I burn another sick day. I'm thinking "Fever For The Flavor Of Pringles" will be my excuse.

Friday, well, I plan on hitting Cabo's and getting so bombed, people will mistake me for a Lebanese Army General's car.

Who's with me?

Why is it that HPD can be ordered to turn the other way when it comes to illegal aliens, but they can't be told to refuse to enforce vandalism against public eyesores?

On the heels of an agreement with the one of area's largest outdoor advertising firms to reduce the number of billboards in Houston, city leaders are hoping other companies will pull down some of their signs, too.

Under a proposed ordinance, billboard owners could remove some signs in exchange for relocating other ones, city officials said.

The exchange would be based on the size of the signs. For example, owners would be allowed to remove three 100-square-foot signs, then relocate a 300-square-foot sign, city officials said. The billboards could not be relocated to scenic districts.

The City Council is expected to consider the plan this morning.

That's nice, but why not just tap some taggers on the shoulder and whisper "If you decide to mess with a few billboards instead of freeway barriers or businesses, we won't mess with you."

Costs to maintain that particular location will skyrocket, advertisers will consider it a dead zone, and you can then get it torn down, right?

Forget the so called "civic leaders" in this case. Go with the delinquents.

Sometimes, problems solve themselves:

A murder suspect dubbed "the cannibal" was found dead in his prison cell of an apparent suicide today, two months after police found cooked and seasoned bits of his girlfriend's corpse on a fork and plate in his apartment.

If he were sentenced to death, could he ask that his last meal be himself?

Let's say your moving a domain from one box to the other.

You get everything backed up, shuffled to the new box, configured... it's all ready.

Then, you switch the DNS settings.

During the propagation time, some mail goes to one box, then the other.

Hrm... not good.

Solution: forward the mail on both of the boxes to a gmail.com account and pick it up from there.

Then, when you can kill the old box, you drop the forward and you're ready to poll the new server's mail server.

See? Simple?

Sure there's better ways to do this, but I've found this works.

Space Casey Episode 3 is up.

Sure, it's not as good as the first two, but that's only because it doesn't have any... any... well, me in it.

Don't worry, though. Kartsoo will be back eventually.

Yay, evil purple nasty low-level meddling alien bureaucrats!

Enter Tejada. Exit... um... the back of the 2008 rotation and Luke.

No. Really. Do we still need a pitching coach now, because Roy doesn't need any help, Wandy's uncoachable, Woody keep forgetting to change the batteries in his hearing aids, Backe will injure himself just thinking of pitching, and... and... anybody left?

Apparently, the Orioles don't want Burke or Everett.

Can we put them on Ebay?

JP: "Are they planning on using a machine to pitch to these guys?" hahahahaha

Sarfarte? The guy who pitched triple-digits and smoked the side in September?

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?

Is Tejada ready to be the double-play sponge for Chad Qualls as closer or setup man?

ROTATION: Roy, Wandy, Woody, Backe, Sampson.

Backe gets hurt, then... um...

So, what's 2009 looking like?

He's the reason why Hillary is in the Senate.

Yeah, prostate cancer sucks. Must be why Fred Thompson dropped out of the race, waving his hand at the camera and telling everybody to leave him alone and all.

Yeah, getting reamed for being a philandering scum, sucks. I guess that's why Bill Clinton stays off of the campaign trail.

Still, he could have played that crap to victory and beyond. Especially with the help of his criminal friends... oops, I mean advisers and hirelings.

As for him saying he woulda, shoulda, coulda deported a bunch of illegals, well, that's as empty as Rick Perry's bluster during the campaign for governor down here in 2006.

What he did during 9/11? Besides walk around and keep the cameras on himself so that the people who do the real work had less cameras and reporters to trip over while doing their jobs?

crickets

Oh. Wait. He was on a lame SNL episode.

Bully for him.

What pisses me off the most about the guy is the We are all New Yorkers line.

Fuck you, Rudy. I'm a Texan, dammit.

My heart can go out to the victims. I can volunteer and contribute as best I can.

But I will never, ever be a New Yorker.

So go ahead, Joe Scarborough. Bring it on. I dare you to put me on the level of worthless piece-of-shit Holocaust Deniers.

I carry a vial with dust from Dachau in my bag, you unholy media fuck.

It would have been really cool if Gene Norman were going to be doing the weather right down the street, but if he's heading to 11, that's cool too.

I love how the Chronicle is sourcing NewsBlues, but.... um.... not seeing the headline.

There's discussion threads at tvspy though.

Wherever he goes, I hope he gets the tools that he needs as well as the tools that he wants.

(And maybe a few toys, too.)

Professional Racist Al Shapton's aides are being pressed to hand over the huckster's financial records.

Teams of federal agents swooped down on up to 10 close associates of the Rev. Al Sharpton Wednesday, demanding the flamboyant clergyman's financial records since 2001.

Sharpton's former chief of staff said he was roused at his Harlem home about 6:30 a.m. by two FBI agents who handed him a subpoena to bring the records to a federal grand jury the day after Christmas.

Several employees of Sharpton's National Action Network also got wakeup subpoenas to testify before the Brooklyn panel, the rabble-rousing reverend's lawyer said.

The FBI and IRS are investigating whether Sharpton improperly misstated the amount of money he raised during his 2004 White House run to illegally obtain federal matching funds, a source familiar with the probe said.

I'm not sure if it's still in the archives, but when Sharpton ran for president, I immediately called it a way to swindle taxpayer funds.

Looks like I was right.

I wonder how many millions of taxpayer funds ended up in his suits, hair, and endless campaign to get his face in front of cameras.

(And, for the love of God, please make Jesse Jackson next on the list.)

Sharpton's angry.

As many as 10 Sharpton associates were subpoenaed Wednesday to testify before a federal grand jury in Brooklyn Dec. 26, his lawyer told the Daily News.

How much you want to bet that Sharpton will be spending some of that charity loot on shredding services?

Rocket juiced.

Looks like Pettite and Tejada did, too.

Anybody else?

If Pete Rose is smart, he can lead the campaign to take down Selig and the ban against his enshrinement in the Hall Of Fame.