ammendment - my apologies to the swedes
Mood:  cool
Now Playing: arrested development - shock and awe
how amerocentric am i? i took one look at the word "sweden" and thought "swiss" instead of "swedish." i'm so busy praising allah and thanking jesus for making this country the greatest place in the universe, i can't even keep my european countries straight (not that, with the european union, it matters much anymoe anyway--am i right?)

so, my apologies to the swedes. bin laden was right. you haven't done anything untoward. you give us meatballs and blonde girls; how can that be bad?

we all know it's the swiss who are ruining the world

vote no on everything
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: kevin and bean show on kroq 106.7
there's some sort of election going on today

apparently, it just may be the most important election in the history of mankind (and that includes all of future history). seriously, they would have us believe this election could end in the destruction of the earth itself, or the glory of earthly paradise, with all nations standing together in democratic wonder, singing kumbaya

cause democracy and the right to have your voting status questioned by "challengers" is the way to go, THE way to live. every human deserves the right to have trouble figuring out where the hell his polling place even is, since his supposed absentee voter status didn't get him a absentee ballot for this latest election (really, i'm not talking about anyone in particular. did you think i was talking about anyone in particular, rambo? (two points to anyone who gets that reference)). see, it's supposed to be in the high school a couple blocks west of here. officially, it's in the high school, and i'm all for finding legal reasons to enter high schools and all, but you'd think there'd be some sort of sign out front saying--i don't know--VOTE HERE. seems sorta obvious

but, i guess that's too easy

in other news, bin laden thinks we're more intrusive on his part of the world than sweden is. everyone knows sweden shoves its culture down the throats of the world's populace. i mean, not a day goes by, not a day, that there aren't swatches being dropped on the unsuspecting citizens of at least one nation, not a day that heathens and infidels the world over are not introduced to the greatness that is lederhosen, not a day that the children of the world aren't forced to learn the words to Schweizerpsalm...

or is that just us that do that?

of course, it's not JUST us. but, being the "most powerful nation on the planet" comes with some privileges in addition to the responsibilities (those ones we shirk when we decided to get into arbitrary wars instead of actually trying to fix the world's problems). and, those privileges include the right to be sure that garfield the movie makes it to pakistan as well as bavaria, that new episodes of joey can be seen in south africa as well as taiwan, and that free elections can be contested by all the candidates and their attorneys in every nation from afghanistan to iraq

what's that government where the smart people rule? meritocracy? why don't we try that for a while to be different? why let the common man, who seem to get stupider every year in this country, pick which major party gets to designate who gets to bomb the third worlders this time? or how 'bout we drop the whole thing and elect bush emperor or right hand man to god? afterall, he thinks god is behind what he does and just may believe he's put us into the middle of armageddon with iraq, which at least would make the whole thing a little better, i suppose. at least we'd know it ends well, after the years of bloodshed and pain

seriously, though, isn't it time for a revolution? and, a peaceful one will do just fine. it's too late, i'm sure to get a third party involved in the office of the president for this election, but why don't we try, in four years, to not treat the "third party" candidates like useless trash, distractions to steal votes from the real deal? why don't we pretend for a while that there is a third party and a fourth party and a fifth and a sixth and... well, however many are actually involved. there are a hell of a lot more than just two, and some of those don't even want us to kill people and posthumously label them as terrorists or complicit bystanders. some of them don't want to spy on us and restrict our rights and tells us who we can and cannot marry, who we can and cannot abort

perhaps, with a little effort, we could slide out from under mother culture's boot and make a new go at living productive lives that don't destroy everything around us

or we could make sure the next law & order spinoff can compete with the next csi spinoff for key demographics in egypt and kuwait and "liberal" can remain another name for evil instead of a relatively value free adjective

watchlist for today:

• one episode of arrested development left on the dvd from blockbuster, then i'll rent the third volume to watch in time for the second season premiere
• random bits of news coverage
• the daily show indecision 2004 special
• veronica mars "the return of kane"
• life as we know it "partly cloudy, chance of sex" (and chance of dropping this show if it doesn't make itself a little more interesting

and i've got to work on writing some of clubhouse blues today (when i get offline in a few minutes) and vote and have lunch with sarah and take her to class after work and read a little of my ishmael or the three unread comics on my desk (powers, amelia rules! and strangers in paradise), plus look after the kids and make something good for dinner and... i'm probably forgetting a few things. it's a busy, busy tuesday

quote for today: the most dangerous man, to any governmetn, is the man who is able to think things over for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. and even if he is not romantic, personally, he is very apt to spread discontent amont those who are. - h l mencken

the day of the dead
Mood:  spacey
past week, i got bored of my message board. too much of me rambling and no one responding. so, there's this, where that's the accepted format

saw the machinist yesterday, and thought 90 percent of it was great, a fantastic, complicated-bordering-on-confusing little film, 10 percent was okay, that ten percent being the end. somehow, the explanation for everything just couldn't hold up to all the build-up. christian bale was great, and crazy to have done what he did for that role (losing more than sixty pounds,for those of you that don't know, by eating little more than an apple a day, drinking whiskey and smoking a lot, plus getting only two hours of sleep a night, for three weeks or so)

the wire is about to get even more fun, with avon back and wanting his corners and string standing back, looking oddly powerless. one of the best shows on television, this one gets better and better

american dreams takes itself in so many directions at once, but it does it well, stringing together disparate storylines into a cohesive whole. my only complaint of late was with last night, gunny and the other soldier were beaten so badly they've only got one usable eye between them, but jj still has both his eyes? i think we can reocgnize him swollen, so let's up the ante and hurt the guy

boston legal was good. the direction has calmed down, the cases are getting more interesting, though there could be a little less quirky going on, more the practice, less ally mcbeal. great centers to this show though, in alan shore and denny crane (james spader and william shatner, respectively), and they can keep this up for a while. still needs to lose that BL behind the title, change the theme song, get new background music and calm the editing/direction even more. this show would benefit from being less hyper, making the quirky bits rarer and thus even more noticeable and potentially jarring

haven't watched the season finale of dead like me just yet cause of halloween

yeah, i went out for the trick or treat (don't you dare call it trick or treating, lest the grammar gods be set down upon you) with the kids, hayley as a vampire (sans fangs, though, cause the plastic ones were a little big and we had some trouble with the denture glue on the nice ones), kieran as a wizard, saer as a cat (cute enough for double candy at more than one house), plus hayley's friend vanasis as a witch. sarah and i didn't do costumes. i meant to go as the sandman or death or something dark like that, but i couldn't seem to find my cape beforehand. lots of candy begging, lots of candy received, and after a few days of enjoying the stuff, it'll be time for me to get back to exercising daily again (aside from my usual walks, which do great in maintaining my weight where it is but don't do much to lower it). since a year ago, i've lost something like 40-45 pounds, but that was in a couple bursts, with long plateus between. it's time to drop off another plateau and get below 200 pounds (for the first time in over three years). damn candy will make it difficult but not impossible

also, i like food. and, since this is the first entry in this here blog, i should mention i like to cook and i like the food network's good eats. the science stuff and cooking details are great. in recent weeks, sarah's schedule's been a bit busy, and since she can't drive, that makes my schedule busy and dinner planning a little hard sometimes. haven't prepared anything too interesting of late. invented my own chili recipe a few weeks back--had a little too much beer in it but i'll fix that on the second go, whenever that may be. entered one of my chicken recipes in the eatchicken.com contest. won't know if i get to go to the competition until later this year

dora the explorer on the television now, for saer (just shy of two years) and kieran (4 1/2). arrested development season one, disc two and touching the void rented from blockbuster on the movie pass and waiting to be watched

dead like me, life as we know it and about an hour of bravo's 100 scariest movie moments waiting on video to be watched

nothing much on television tonight. might watch that unconstitutional documentary on sundance

and, tomorrow is election day. i'll be voting for the libertarian candidate, badnarik, for president. if i were in a swing state, or one not pretty much guaranteed to vote democrat, i'd vote kerry. i tend to go with the cynic vote, the anyone-but-bush side of things. neither kerry or bush will be great, so i'll take the new guy. better new shit (or at least a new angle on it) than the same old crap