Cigarettes, ice cream...

[matthew]

http://snipurl.com/3q711

[Poop Fresh-Herbed Pickles]

Fey as Palin is perfect of course, but is she planning on appearing every week? 

Anyway she has that weird Canadian lisp of hers down better than I expected.

[Bizarro]

Damn, David Foster Wallace died.

Fuck...How?

Suicide by hanging, sadly.

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

[Bizarro]

Scary fact of the day:
Intrade.com, a gambling site that takes bets on political futures, has it at McCain 53, Obama 47.

Those aren't partisans or even pollsters saying McCain is going to win. Those are bookies.

[Bizarro]

Heard y'all mention Hawkwind 'round these parts a few times then ran into one of their albums, Warrior on the Edge of Time online. For prog/spacerock, it isn't half bad. Have to admit I only gave it a chance to hear Lemmy, though.

It's inherently silly, but they really do nail the weird, expansive, space sound they're after.

[Bizarro]

Another thing I'm listening to today is an alternate take of "Gimme Shelter" with Keef singing.

[Doctor Rock]

In short:   asteroid.

Or "big bang" machine.




And no, I'm not talking about the Hitachi magic wand.

you talking about this?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM[/youtube]

That little dumb rap incorporates more info on physics and the LHC than all the news on the LHC I have seen on TV and the net (with the exception of the scientific mags) during the last year put together.  The news coverage has been pathetic: they either went on to blow up the "end of the world" bullshit out of proportion, or they gabbed on and on about "the gawd particle" crapola.   

[Bizarro]

RIP, my grandma.  She's been near death for a while and she's been suffering, so it's really a good thing, and even my dad is okay with it.

I am waiting a few hours to check on my aunt though, because I think she's going to need some time to get herself together. This will hit her the worst.

No PMAs necessary on this one: grandma's better off and we were expecting it. By the end, she had two broken hips, two pacemakers (one that didn't work but was too grown over by flesh to be removed), various failing organs, and eyes that couldn't open because of an ongoing infection. Her husband, sisters, cousins, and friends were all dead. She'd been in assisted care for a decade and had been handicapped for 15 years longer than that.

I am a little bummed out by my pretty religious family's incessant chatter about how she's in a better place with grandpa, etc., now. It seems insulting and disrespectful of the life she lived. But that's just me, I guess.

[Poop Fresh-Herbed Pickles]

We went through the same thing with my Grandma recently...and even with the inevitability of it, it's still painful to say goodbye for good.  So my thoughts are with you.


Everybody has their way of dealing with mortality.  Those words from your family are what help them cope.

[Bizarro]

Trying to find a peaceable, respectful way to relate to my family's religious tendencies, despite my unwavering belief that such notions are at best asinine, and at worst, actively impeding them from understanding and functioning in the world around them, is one of the recurring challenges of my adult life.

It's probably a remarkably similar problem to the one my family feels about how to deal with my "non-religious"^* status.

^*Preferred gentle euphemism in my family for atheism.

[Doctor Rock]

not that I've been watching the news ALL day but it seems like all they're talking about is Ike and the footage I'm seeing just doesn't look all that bad.   Surely something else in the world has happened today..

I was going to make a crack about americans and navel gazing, but I think I'll abstain... This time. 

[Moetown]

You did make a crack about it. What am I supposed to gaze at, my shoes? 

[Just Some Girl]

Hey, Jeff, sorry to hear about your grandma. Even if it is expected (and even a relief i some way), it's still a loss for your family to deal with... feel for ya.

On an up-note, just back from visiting my nephew for his 5th birthday -- he's doing really well, just off a steroid week, so his cheeks are still puffy, but he's a-dorable. All the other kids went swimming, but he wasn't up to it, so we spent some time on the swing-set together instead. That kid's quite the chatty cathy. As I mentioned last night, he started kindergarten last week...trying to imagine how the teachers are gonna handle that chatterbox.

And got to meet my new niece, too. (Her two-year-old brother wouldn't even look at me...guess he got my shy genes. Or he hates me. haha!) My bro is supposed to send pix of Juliana and I soon. No pics of the other kids today, except one of me helping Mitchell "hold" Juliana.

My 15-year-old niece is about 4 inches taller than me, and her 12-year-old bro -- who looks 15 now with his new hipster glasses -- is also taller than me now. sigh.

Two nieces, six nephews... full house. (And bonus: I didn't have to birth anyone to make my folks happy!)

[Poop Fresh-Herbed Pickles]

Crazy winds over here.

Our power just came back on.

[Bizarro]

Our county is in a state of emergency officially now, but really, it's not so bad here at all. I guess it's the slightly higher elevation and substantial green areas that are helping us avoid additional flooding. Well, that and not being close to any of the rivers that are washing out.