eyes of the beholder
I think flies are cute.
There’s a Party in My Pants
Wednesday, September 3
11:40AM Yes, I got here late. What a night I had. Three women at my hotel asked me if I wanted a massage. I thought they were hookers but it turns out they were delegates from Indiana. One in particular had skills — and strong hands like a farmer’s wife. She told me she attended her first GOP convention in 1972 when Nixon won his second nomination. Unlike that sordid affair, last night had a happy ending.
[Insert prosperous, free country here]
McCain looks like he’s speaking in front of a blue screen (was green for a while). Someone didn’t check out that TV angle, I guess. I keep expecting the 5-day forecast.
from the comments
Amos:
I believe one possible interpretation could be suave-by-proxy, in much the same way as Ms. Palin is learned in foreign policy via her home states proximity to Russia.
Let’s take the first part of the license plate - SUAVE - which is an unmistakable declaration that something is suave. The second piece of the puzzle reveals what the adjective is modifying - 73, which we could assume, but don’t need to as we are told, is the year the car was made, 1973.
Thus, his license plate could be read as declaring his car is suave, but, and here is the by-proxy piece, a suave car doesn’t drive itself. It takes a suave eye to choose a suave car. He is, in effect, suave himself because of his judicious choice in automobiles.
All this assumes other people realize his car is a 1973 Monte Carlo, as opposed to another year. I’d submit most people would not know the car was made in 1973, or even that it is a Monte Carlo, unless the model is prominently displayed. Assuming it is not prominently displayed, then most people probably see the license plate and think “douche.” The implied message, whatever it may be, is sadly lost in translation.
Of course, if Olly is correct and Michael is just asking for “a friend” then I’d say this license plate speaks highly of the owner. I and my car are suave. It’s a bold choice of plate. As one of the Bibles tells us, “No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar nor under a basket, but on the lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light.”
How dare he?
Is it just me or does any one else think Giuliani has spent his time equally divided between laughing at his audience and explaining black and white?
what’s the word for amusing if it wasn’t sad
Anybody watching the conventioneers ignore Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman?
Short version: Who are these women and why are they talking to me?
Chicks
I’ve realized that I can’t seem to refer to any female of my age group as a woman. Recent comments have found me using the term girl with surprising regularity in reference to my XX-chromosomed peers. At what age do girls become women?
Fish Feeding
Other monkey business and musings on the meaning of “vacation”…
Amy watching the Republican Convention
Dudes, you’d get a lot more pussy if you were Democrats.
faith based birth control
Let’s say you were the governor of an American state at the beginning of the 21st century. For argument’s sake, let’s imagine you don’t accept modern biology and oppose abortion in the cases of incest and rape. Let’s say you oppose sex education for high school students and are against birth control [update: it may be that she isn't against birth control in general, just in terms of telling young people how to protect themselves]. Just to make it interesting, pretend you have five kids and one of them is a teenager. What do you think the odds are she might end up pregnant?
It occurs to me . . .
. . . that I may have been in one of them hypnagogic states you hear tell of.
Note to self
Don’t wear yellow shirt to Ikea.
Catering the Rapture
Special Report — I think about food too much. I know I do. I acquired the tendency honestly.
When I was a little critter growing up in the compound, my mother elected herself nutritionist for our entire breakaway republic. There’s no telling what Mom would have achieved as Dietician-General if our fifty-two member group had seceded from the United States.
Just a thought
I imagine the sound inside a small aluminum room filled with first year violin students tuning while seated in wooden rocking chairs surrounded by long tailed cats in heat would be just like Neil Young’s voice.
Lower Stories: Mr. Starks and Mr. Green in Dayton
Starks and Green were nightshift high school custodians. They feared the terrible power of the daytime maintenance men. Sherman Starks looked like an earlier version of B.B. King and drove an immaculate blue 1970 Buick Electra 225. Jim Green was an older, more grizzled man with a steel wool mustache and a twinkle in his eye.
Starks wouldn’t say anything without taking a quick look to see if the maintenance men or some white people were listening. He’d laugh without showing his teeth so he wouldn’t get caught.
Jim Green didn’t care who heard him. He talked about prison and how he got there. “Yeah, I killed that sombitch. Then I dug him up and stuck a knife in his heart.”
Privacy Anywhere
In the car dealership’s crowded service waiting room today, a woman’s phone rang loudly. She was seated right next to a sign that asked people to please step out of the room to accept phone calls. But, she answered her phone loudly, and began to speak loudly:
“Oh hi it was me called Bob’s got a tumor behind his eye! … No they’re not going to take it out they say you do that it’s everywhere. … The shoes? Oh I got the beige ones if I had known about this I would’a got the blue….”
This went on for quite some time, and included lunch plans and much talk of other recent purchases. I considered writing a note to slip to her, asking her if the tumor was shaped, perhaps, like a cell phone.
thoughts on last night’s speech
From Kevin Drum:
Tonight Obama made a start on a campaign that’s based not just on talking points (though there will be plenty of those), but on a sustained assault on modern conservatism and a sustained defense of modern liberalism.
But it was only a start. He needs to keep pressing both halves of that game plan, even if it means occasionally saying some hard things. If he takes a few chances and does that, though, he’ll not only win, he’ll win with a public behind him that’s actively sold on a genuinely liberal agenda. This is why conservatives have so far been apoplectic about his speech tonight: if he continues down this road, and wins, they know that he’ll leave movement conservatism in tatters. He is, at least potentially, the most dangerous politician they’ve ever faced.
tonight at Norma’s
waitress: get the chicken tetrazzini, it’s got cheese on it.
customer: I don’t like chicken.
waitress: well chicken don’t like you either. now order something — I got customers to tend to.
today in the classroom…
student (muffled voice due to covering nose with a tissue): “Mr. Hobson? Can I step into the hall to blow my nose?”
me: “Pardon?”
student: “Can I go to the hall to blow my nose?”
me: “Sure.”
gobsmacked
How breathtaking to hear the former Vice President acknowledge the shame of the United States’ policy on torture. Breathtaking both for the simple acknowledgment and the silence surrounding our shame. We are burdened by eight years of bankruptcy. Gore’s simple acknowledgment underscores the magnitude of our immorality. Any thoughtful person has the responsibility to articulate the importance of this election. We are eight years too late.
Today at Lunch in the Hospital Cafeteria
At the table to my left, a woman was going on at length to her companion about her diabetes. I glanced over–her lunch consisted of two corn dogs and a huge basket of onion rings.
A slender woman of about 60 took the table across from me. Her lunch consisted of a piece of chocolate cake and a small tub of vanilla ice cream. She ate it very slowly. I wanted to think of it as a treat, as something happy, but I know that it was not.
To my right, three Latino hospital workers ate pizza and spoke to each other in Spanish. One of them referred to his boss as a pinche culero (which roughly translates to fucking asshole). They all nodded earnestly.
a question.
Twice in the past 5 years, I have heard a voice whisper my name in my ear. This happened as I was in bed, waking up. I was awake so it wasn’t a dream. I’m pretty sure the voice was female, and no, I’m not schizophrenic. Anyone else ever experienced anything like this?
Dear Clusterflock
Nobody lays it out like Bill Clinton.
Update: Where was this John Kerry four years ago?
my apologies
One last round.
something, 19
The drawings we did were a symbol of her love for us. I know it was hard but we haven’t even got there yet.