Because I've been all sun-fried and hung-over this weekend, not to mention having spent all of my time studying up for tomorrow's big Fantasy Baseball Draft (yes, I am a geek and yes, you try and make it through a weekend of reading scouting report after scouting report for the Milwaukee Brewers without wanting to go out drinking), I haven't really written anything blog-worthy this weekend.

Instead, I actually posted something up on my poorly neglected Web site, The Israelites. Continuing in my sudden desire to write sketches, it's a sketch wondering just how it is that the Israelites managed to get themselves lost in the desert for forty years way back when. After all, it's not really that far from Egypt to Israel. Was Moses really just bad at directions or did someone just forget a map?

What, you want me to post more about the war?

And here's another Public Service Announcemt from Hooray for Anything concerning Public Transportion Safety:

If you're part a large group of people trying to hop into a BART train at a station, please look to make sure that there's not anybody trying to get out before bum-rushing the doors like a bunch of coke-heads at a Who concert. Being the one and only person trying to get off said stop is slightly on the difficult side when twenty people not only do not see you trying to get off, but don't really particulary care that I'm trying to get off. Please people- see me, feel me, don't run over me.

Wow, I just got my first, full-on proposition from a crack 'ho. I'm so flattered.

See, I knew all the yoga I've been doing was eventually gonna help me look better.

Absinthe makes the heart go fonder......

not to mention one bad-ass hangover.

To dramatic music, exciting graphics appear on the Screen. "Operation Keep On Rocking In the Free World" appears, with the American flag in the background.

Anchor: Good evening and welcome to the War on Iraq Highlight show here on LOX News. Remember, we report the truth, you believe it. It's been an exciting day of warfare, with lots of action going on in Basra, Al Fawr, and the race to Baghdad. Here's a roundup of today's events with a report from the action in Basra. We'll take you there, live to our Embedded Reporter, Joe Badden.

Joe: Thanks Tony. It's been an exciting day here with lots of fire-fighting as a troop of Allied Marines were caught by surprise by some Iraqi guerilla's. Here's a satellite shot of the action

(screen shows a troop in one location with an Iraqi force a mile away. Joe talks over the photo and with a telestrator)

If you look at the photo you can clearly see Marine Troop F over here. And over here is the Iraqi squad. They do a little snake manuever and- boom!- they attack from behind this barn over here. So the Allied Forces scatter around in a classic pinch move and -bang!- they kill all 50 troops. What a move!

Anchor: Thanks Joe for the report. And now, here's Scott Stuart reporting from the action at Al Fawr.

Scott: Thanks Tony. The Allied Troops were moving casually along the road today when they too got a little sneak attack from snipers up on a hill. After scattering for cover, the troops called in the Air Force who came by and dropped an OU812 missile on them. The Iraqi troops were defeated and the troops able to move along.

Tony: Thanks Scott. Now….here's an up-close-and-personal look at the OU812….

(cut to computer generated graphics of a missle, spinning around to techno music. Tony does a voice over).

The OU812 Missile is one of the latest weapons in high-tech weapons built for the US Military. The missile is not only guided by radar, but trash talks all the way down to it's target. The missile was built by the Halli Crossing Corporation for only $2.5 million per missile, 1 million for the actual missile and a million and a half to lobby congress. The missile is actually one of the cheapest missiles deployed by the Army as the head of the company now works for the State Department.

We now go back to Scott with the exciting footage released by the Pentagon of the missile in action.

Scott: Thanks Tony. From this footage you can see the missile being launched by one of our planes and it slowly cruises down to it's target. It gets closer and closer and then- Booyah!

Tony: Thanks for the footage, Scott. That's a pretty impressive missile, isn't it Scott?

Scott: It sure is. You should have seen the damage it did to a market in the center of town, accidently killing tens of…..

Tony: Thank you for the report, Scott. And now here's a report about the progress of the 8th Division as they march on Baghdad. For the report, here comes Chris Snerman.

Chris: Thanks Tony. We got a report today The Allied Forces central commandar, Tommy "Beans n'" Franks about the progress of our convoy. According to Tommy, the troops are making significant progress towards Baghdad. In fact, Donald "Gin" Rumfield says that the troops are on pace to break the record for most miles traveled by a tank battalion, shattering the record held by the ole Desert Fox himself, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. That would be quite a feat, Tony.

Tony: Do you think it's possible for the troops to break the record?

Chris: Well, it's going to be tough, those Iraqi's are proving to a bit peskier than we originally thought what with their fighting back and all, but the President's Press Secertary Ari "Scary" Flieshcer thinks it's definitely possible and that it would be unpatriotic to think otherwise.

Tony: Okay Chris, thanks for your report. And now we'd like to bring in our LOX experts for their take on today's events. First off, Retired General Will Balton. Will, what do you think of how things are transgressing?

Will: I think right now that our plan of attack is hoorible, just hooorible. Why, if I was still General, I'd never extend our front line out like that so fast. We're just completely exposed in the rear and the decision of Command Central to move out that fast is the worst possible thing we could do.

Tony: Hmmm. And here's our LOX commentator and editor of the Weenie Standard, Thurston Howell the IV.

Thurston: Will, I completely disagree. The plan was obviously put in place because of the knowledge that the Iraqi's will be so thrilled with our invading their country, that they'll do nothing but welcoming us with welcome arms. After all, how could anyone hate us?

Tony: Okay, that's all the time for now. Coming up next, a debate on the war. Representing the Pro-War side will be George Will and representing the anti-war side, Carrot Top.

Man, is there anything worse than a Skinemax movie that tries to have a plot? Even worse, one that tries to pawn itself off as a poignant look at married life?

Uhhh, anyways……

If you ever feel a little bit cocky about things, I highly recommend the front row of your friendly neighborhood yoga place. Nothing like side and front mirrors to destroy any notion of weight loss. And nothing like being able to watch yourself move dispel any notion of moving any more gracefully than an elephant shot up with a Keith Moon dose of elephant tranquilizers.

Yes, I know, the world has gone crazy, but cheer up, folks- we're saved, it's Festival of Radical Puppetry Time!. War is over if the puppets want it.

I can see the scene now-

GW: Dick, Rummy, I gotta problem.
Dick: Yes, Mr. President.
GW: Well, I was reading the paper today and…..
Rummy: Uh, Mr. President, we told you not to read that thing, it'll only confuse you.
GW: What about the Sports section?
Rummy: Well, of course, you can read the sports, but that's about the only thing you can read.
GW: Not even Marmaduke?
Dick: No Marmaduke, no comics, no nothing. Just sports. You know how it is whenever you try Jumble.
Rummy: Dick didn't we tell the President's Secretary not to give him nothing but the Sports section?
Dick: Yep. She must have forgotten. I'll have her detained to Guantanomo tomorrow.
GW: Anyways, I was reading about this thing in San Francisco…
Rummy: Oh no
GW: and they had this puppet show.
Dick: Puppet show?
GW: Yeah, like Kermit the Frog and all that stuff.
Dick: Kermit the Frog?
Rummy: Some kind of hippy-dippy70's stuff. Sang songs about being green and rainbows. Total Communist Propaganda.
Dick: Stupid hippies.
GW: Wait, now listen to me, guys. This had nothing to do with Kemit the Frog. Not even Fozzie the Bear. It was, well, it was about me.
Dick: What? A puppet show about you?
GW: Yes, and they said some nasty things about me. They even made a puppet that looked like me and made him to be really dumb.
Dick: No! Not a puppet!
GW: Yes, a puppet! And they had a puppet of both you and Dick. Condi too.
Rummy: Those bastards! Not puppets! Anything but puppets!
Dick: Were they French?
GW: No?
Rummy: Hmmm, must have been lesbians, then
Dick: ahem
Rummy: Oh, sorry, Dick..
GW: Well, anyways, they had this puppet show in which we were characters and they said bad things about us. And I read what they said about us and what we've been doing.
Dick: Yes? What about it sir?
GW: Well, they said some bad things about us and, well, it made me think about a few things.
Dick: (under his breath) uh-oh
GW: Like, you know, if we cut taxes for rich people, the government takes in less money and so they'll be less money for poor people.
Dick: (sighs) Remember what we keep on telling you about that? That poor people have dividends so that if we cut taxes on dividends, all the homeless people will have money to buy houses.
GW: Yes, but maybe that's not right. Maybe cutting taxes on dividends won't help poor people. And here's another thing. You know, maybe we actually need other foreign countries and that we can't go around threatening to blow up people who we don't like.
Rummy: Oh, Dear God.
Dick: Damn puppets.
GW: And you know something else? Maybe fossil fuels are bad for the environment and that conservation……
Dick: (pulls out cell phone) We got a Code Red here! Code red!
GW: In fact, those puppets made me realize that maybe I've had an easy, charmed life. It made me think that maybe I shouldn't run again in 2004 and go to Africa to help fight AIDS and then maybe go to……
Dick:NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rummy: We're ruined! Ruined! Damn you Radical Puppeteers, damn you all to hell!

Tickets are going fast so call for them soon.

Well, well, well, it looks like we're not alone in this here war thing. Turns out we got Polish Special Ops Forces helping us out.

Yay?

Insert your own Polish Joke here.....

Somewhere in Southern Iraq, a Marine Corporal strains to hear the crackle of a radio over the sound of gunfire. As he gets the call, he yells out to his comrade-at-arms the word from HQ. "Hey, Arizona beat Gonzaga in double overtime." Under a nightime sky light up by artillery, a troop checks their Brackets.

Back in the store buying various odds and ends and heard another song turned into a dance remix- "The Boys of Summer." Okay, not a bad song, relatively, but still, not a song that instantly makes you think, "hey, this song'll make people wanna go out and boogie!"

Will people really dance to anything if it's got a good beat to it?

What's next, a dance remix of "We Built This City (on Rock n' Roll)?

Years ago friends and I tried to come up with the Worst. Song. Ever. This meant that not only was the song bad, but it had absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. By this, I mean that the song doesn't even work in a cheesy way. Think about it. "Muskrat Love," for instance may suck, but how could you not love a song with lyrics that go "Muskrat Susie, Muskrat Sam/Do the jitterbug/
Out in the muskrat land"? Or the "We Are the World". Suck-ass song, but worth listening to just for the Springsteen/Dylan growlfest towards the end of the song. Or Journey's "Separate Ways," a song pretty much summed up by Beavis when he yelled out ""C'mon Butthead, turn this crap off!" Pretty fucking fun song, actually (as is all Journey) and how can you not love the video?

The one song all of us admitted that had absolutely no redeeming quality, plain sucked so much that it sucked all the fun out of it, was "We Built This City." Throw in the fact that it was made from the embers of a once great band (Jefferson Airplane) and you have the Worst. Song. Ever.

There is no argument.

Which reminds me of another contest I had with coworkers, that being the worst possible song to have running through your head. There is, of course, numerous contenders for this one. So many (not to mention so dangerous to even bring up) that I won't get into it. The song, however that won (and a song I dare to even bring up for fear it might cause just the mere mention of it to get into your head and like the Ebola Virus, spread):- Phil Collin's "Easy Lover."

Don't believe me? Just think about those opening, utterly cheesirific chords that start the song.

Or better not, don't think about it.

Can someone please tell me if Chicago is really that good? I mean really?

I saw The Two Towers again today, for the third time (yes, I'm a geek). You know the scene towards the end where Gandalf appears with the Riders of Rohan and there's a shot of the Riders riding down the side of the valley with the sun shining down behind them and a battle raging in front of them?

Was there anything in Chicago that awe-inspiring, that audacious, that beautiful?

Now that's what I call movie-making.

My first year in the City, the whole Rodney King thing happened. My roommate and I watched the riot going down in LA from our living room and then staged a little mini-riot in our apartment. During Bush Sr.'s address to the nation, we threw anything that could be thrown at the TV in anger at the sheer unbelievability of it all. As we watched the news, we saw that there was a protest (riot) going down in our City by the Bay. Which made sense because, you know, if something happens to the African-American community in LA, there should be rioting up here too. Because we were young and jaded, we thought "how cool, there's a riot going on" and we walked down to Market Street to catch the goings-on. Total here we are now, entertain us.

When we got there we saw the usual assortment of protestors- the freaks, the punks, the professional protestors, the hippies- standing around, face to face with cops in riot gear, shouting nasty things at the cops. An occasional window was smashed and various things that weren't quite fastened onto the ground were picked up and thrown. As we walked past a small alley, we saw two cops, trapped in a store opening, surrounded by protestors. The Cops were standing there, in riot gear, deflecting thrown beer bottles with their batons and riot shields. You could see the fear in the cop's eyes as the crowd closed in on them.

What I saw was not a protest. It was not a statement. It was held mainly by a bunch of white upper-middle class kids whom, in the mighty words of Butthead "had never been to Compton and were not down with any homies. There was an anger there I felt and heard, an anger directed really at nothing in particular. It wasn't the SF cops involved in Rodney King, it wasn't a SF jury that let the cops go. Nor the storeowners whose windows got smashed or all the people who got caught in the wake. It was just a bunch of people, angry with daddy or what have you, using what was going on as an excuse to smash things up. It was nothing but a mob, drunk on their own self-righteousness and giddy at the thought of being able to do whatever they could.

As San Francisco seems to be ground zero of the anti-war protests, I think back to that moment a lot. Protesting war is fine. Protesting war is good. But a lot of what has been going on reminds me of that moment- more of a mob scene than a peaceful protest. People have all the right in the world to protest but the moment they lose their right is when they trample on other people's rights. That's what this country is all about, isn't it? The claim that it's alright to do that stuff because "there just accessories" or that they have no right to complain because people in Baghdad are going through worse is nothing but sheer arrogance. They make think that, but does the guy stuck in traffic for an hour, late for work think that?

A friend wanted to know where I stood and chided me for not taking a stand. He's been in the streets, not doing the obnoxious stuff, but just in the streets and attending the marches. He's right in a way. When things come down, people gotta declare themselves on one side or another. But what if you're not on either side? What if you both sides are wrong?

…I'd join the movement
If there was one I could believe in
Yeah I'd break bread and wine
If there was a church I could receive in
'cause I need it now

If Iraq is this big huge, evil country threatening the world, why are they putting up such a weak fight? All that pre-war hype and all they've done so far is launch a couple of measly scuds at Kuwait. This war is turning into one of those heavyweight fights in which the Champion takes on some loser that nobody's ever heard of, everyone knows is a patsy, but in order to sell the pay-per-view is hyped as the Next Big Thing. It's Kentucky vs. IUPUI. And where all those WMD we keep on hearing about? Is it because Saddam just hasn't used them or is it because just maybe, he didn't really have any?

And speaking of which, does anyone else think all the stories about us knowing where Saddam was and trying to take him out and all the stories of him being led out of the compound in a stretcher a little on the BS side of things? How could we know that? How could we even know where he was? If we had that great intelligence on him, how come we couldn't have, say, taken him down earlier? Or why couldn't we find where all of his WMD's were? Oh wait, was it just because we just didn't want the U.N. Inspectors to know? Or maybe we've just been making it all up?

If you were an Iraqi would you know all was lost the moment Saddam showed up to give that speech in those big, huge ugly glasses and then proceeded to give his big, defiant speech while reading from a memo pad? And if you were some poor Iraqi scrub forced into fighting, wouldn't you surrender as fast possible?

Why are our forces being called "Coalition Forces" when it's mainly just us and a few token Brits? Can something be considered a "Coalition" if it's really just two countries? Are there other countries fighting? Are the Canadians out because they didn't agree with us or because they don't want members of their army to be blown up by a bunch of hoped up American fly-boys? Are the Spaniards, the Italians, and the Poles fighting? And if so, do we really want them to fight considering none of them have a stellar reputation for fighting? Isn't Italian Army an oxymoron? Wouldn't it be like the ex-Cub factor. What about the Uzbeki's and the Albanians? Do they have troops there? Are they fighting or are they like on the bench? You know, like Spain is the 2nd string catcher and Uzbekistan the 3rd string catcher who never suits up unless someone goes on Injured Reserve? Or maybe they're the like the 12th man on a basketball team, the dorky white guy who never plays but whose main job is to jump crazily and high-five the stars whenever something exciting happens? Are they just part of the coalition just because they said "go nuts" when asked by us and so get to sit around being considered our homies while all they do is sit and watch it on CNN like the rest of us? Do you think George W. is watching the news this weekend at Camp David or watching the Tourney? Do you think there's an inter-White House NCAA Tourney Pool? I'm pretty sure there had to have been when Bill was President. Am I the only one who thinks that Jimmy Fallon bugs? And as the fat guy on SNL, does Horatio realize it's his destiny to eventually die of an overdose? It's like being the drummer in Spinal Tap.

Is it me or is it kind of unseemly to be all "U-S-A!" "U-S-A!" because we're kicking butt in the war? Is having the biggest, coolest bombs really something to make you swell with pride? Yes, I do like the fact I live in a country with the most powerful, kick-buttingest army but it's not something that makes me want to listen to "I'm Proud to Be an American" with tears welling in my eyes. The fact that we allow millions of people from all over the world come to our country and live free and be able to make something of themselves fills with me pride, but not the fact that we build cruise missiles that can not only hit the target it's aiming at, but knock on the door, go down the hall, and blow them up while they're sitting in the bathroom taking a shit. Speaking of which, if we are the greatest democracy in the world, why don't our leaders walk on down to Congress and debate them on the eve of the war, in front of an entire nation like (bless his heart) Tony Blair did on the eve of war? Why is the Stock Market up and do people who are responsible and making money off of it now feel the slightest bit of guilt? Did the cast of "Friends" make a million each for Thursday night's episode that was mainly just flashbacks to past episodes?

Which is more annoying- when somebody accuses those who are practicing their right to dissent as unpatriotic and traitorous or when those people who practice their right to dissent shut down a city street and self-righteously tell the people's whose lives were majorly put-out that they have no right to feel that way? Why does it make sense that if Bush is bombing Iraq to shut down San Francisco? Isn't most of San Francisco firmly against the war? Shutting down San Francisco makes about as much sense as all the inner-city rioters who riot through their own neighborhood instead of in the neighborhoods of the people who are putting them down. Can we make all the protestors pay for the millions of bucks that we had to shell out to deal with all the protesting going on? Can we force one of them to become a teacher or fireman or something else that we'll have to lay-off due to budget constraints? Did anyone else lose whatever little sympathy you might have for the protestors after reading the article in the Chron about how all the protestors who were arrested whined to the paper about how the Cops didn't treat them all that nicely, that they weren't fed when they wanted to fed and when they were the food wasn't that good, and that their beds were uncomfortable? Why do a lot of San Franciscans who protested think that they send the message that the U.S. doesn't support the war when everyone who lives here lives here because it's not like the rest of the U.S.? In fact, it's pretty much a given that anything that happens in San Francisco is definitely not what is going on in the rest of the country. Haven't they read the polls? Did anyone of them vote in 2000 and how many voted for Nader?

And finally this- while it's a great thing that things are going so well and that injuries and death appear to be at a minimum, am I the only one who kind of wishes things weren't this easy only because it'll only encourage certain people who think this was a smart thing to do in the first place. The wisest words I've read about this whole thing was in one of those "Voices of the People" segments in the Chron about people's reactions to the bombing of Bagdhad- a Mr. William Drake said this: "I have two reactions, pride and fear. Pride that we have the military capability to do that. Fear that we have the military capability to do that."

In a world grown increasingly dark, a ray of light shines through.....

Baseball Tonight is airing again on ESPN.

And F/X aired "Once More with Feeling" tonight. There's nothing like coming home from a long day at work, totally fried and burnt out, and settle into a good hour of Buffy reruns. I'm totally serious when I say that the episode just might be the most brilliant thing ever put on Television. I'm serious.

Where DO we go from here?

In all honesty, I have nothing to say today. I'm tired and things. Work sucked (again) and there's helicopters constantly abuzz overhead with the occasional police siren whailing down the street thrown in for good measure. What can you say about a day in which not only is your country at war, but the city you live in has turned into a madhouse and you find out about company wide layoffs. That's hitting the trifecta right there. Then there's this whole weird thing at work where I'm supposed to be a secret- under the radar as it were- from the Big Head who runs the company and almost got my cover blown. Strange days indeed.

I could post the usual stuff and I do have the usual stuff ready to go- lots of fun stuff about women at parties and singles events and snarky comments about hippies but I'm just not up to it. Things are just too weird right now. Somehow making twisted observations about people just doesn't seem appropiate. I don't know what's appropiate or what to say or what to do other than try not to give into the temptation of watching the news and drinking screwdrivers to calm myself down.

I'll leave today's thoughts with a poem my dad sent out this morning, one by William Yeats. For some reason, my dad thought this poem summed things up better than War Pigs, but what does he know?

"...Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerers of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds.
Oh lord, yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.

Time will tell on their power minds,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgement day comes, yeah.

Now in darkness world stops turning,
ashes where the bodies burning.
No more War Pigs have the power,
Hand of God has struck the hour.
Day of judgement, God is calling,
on their knees the war pigs crawling.
Begging mercies for their sins,
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings.
Oh lord, yeah!
Black Sabbath, War Pigs

So ummm, yeah, tomorrow at this time we'll probably be at war. You know, it's easy enough to debate the merits of going to war when it's not going to happen, but an entirely different thing when it's about to happen. On the eve of war, all I can say is this- What the fuck are we doing?

Man, what a craptastic day. In fact, on a scale of craptitude, this day is an eleven. It put the ass in suck-ass. How bad was it? I spent an hour and a half writing legal copy in French. And I'm not even a lawyer nor fluent in French. And the project was cancelled anyways. Of course, my problems don't really amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, what with us going to war tomorrow (what the fuck?), but screw it. It's my blog page and you can cry if you want to.

Anyways, here is the second annual (I think) Hooray for Anything Oscar Predictions.

Best Picture- Okay, this one is tough because I haven't seen most of the movies which kind of puts me at a disadvantage. Let's go through them one by one, shall we?
Chicago - Haven't seen it. Being a straight male in San Francisco means you can't go see musicals by yourself. You have to rent them.
Pianist- I know this is a really good movie and it looks really interesting, but I can't get myself psyched to see a Holocaust movie. It's hard to go get psyched to see three hours of dreary depressing and there's nothing more drearily depressing than the Holocaust.. Hell, I never saw Schinderl's List until it was on TV and for years, I'd get the straight out of Seinfeld "oh my God, you haven't seen Schindler's List! You have to see Schindler's List! from my relatives as if it was somehow one of the biggest sins I could commit as a Jew).
The Hours- Haven't see this one either. Super-depressing, uber chick-flick and who wants to see that?
The Two Towers - Of course, it's obvious that my heart lies with because, once again, making super depressing chick-flicks is easy compared to making a movie featuring the most kick-ass (and longest) battle scene ever filmed, but it won't win. I'm just hoping that the talk is correct and that next year is the year Peter Jackson is gonna take home oodles and oodles of Oscar's for the trilogy as a whole. I mean, if you film The Godfather of Sci-fi/Adventure/Fantasy movies, movies that are gonna go down as one of the most impressive and spectacular feats of movie-making ever done, you better get your props.
Gangs of New York- a movie I liked and would probably prefer to win, but don't think it will.

Thinking it's gonna be Chicago only because that's what everyone else is saying. And what the hell, it's supposed to be good, although we all know that as ground-breaking and well-done as it's supposed to be, Buffy's "Once More with Feeling" is the be all and end all of musicals.

In case anyone's wondering, the movie I thought was the best movie of the year, the movie that should win it (even above The Two Towers) is Bowling for Columbine. That movie went deep into the heart of things and nailed it. As this country turns into a huge ball of scared paranoia, becoming closer and closer to a gated community of a country, the movie is that much more relevant. The movie was funny because it's true.

Best Director- It looks like it's all about Scorcese here, although apparently there's a backlash against it because- shockingly- some people think it's a "flawed movie." And we all know, flawed movies never win an Oscar. Most people are saying it's gonna be Marty not because Gangs of New York is that great, which it was in a way, but because it's kind of a career thing. The basic thinking is that Scorcese has never won an award and he is one of the best director's on the face of the planet so let's give it to him. To which I say, go Marty, go. The guy did Goodfellas. He did Raging Bull. He did Taxi Driver (fucking Taxi Driver!) for crissakes. Give him an Oscar. Spielberg wishes he could direct movies as half as cool as that. Is there anyone on this planet who hasn't seen Goodfellas? Is there anyone on this planet who doesn't think it's a great fucking movie? Is there any angst-ridden, alienated teenager who didn't think Taxi Driver didn't speak to them (and who didn't go shoot the President because of it)? Basically, if someone's gonna give Marty an award, you go. And if Peter Jackson doesn't win it next year I'll never watch the Oscars again.

Best Actor- Jack Nicholson's nominated mainly because he was in a movie in which he wasn't Jack Nicholson. Yeah, he was great in it and I liked the movie, but he's always nominated. Nicholas Cage was great too, but if he wins this time, it'll only encourage him to make more crappy movies. Man, has any actor sullied his image more than Nick? He went from Leaving Las Vegas to ConAir and Face/Off. Man has he sucked. The only actor whose sucked it harder than Nic is Travolta. Pretty much, if you see a preview or a trailer for a movie starring Travolta, you know it's gonna suck. Michael Caine? Yawn. Didn't see the movie (read the book) and I don't think anybody did. Adrien Brody? I'm sure he was fine and the movie was fine, but didn't see it. Which leaves us with Daniel Day Lewis for chomping the scenery all over the place in Gangs of New York. Wasn't Leo supposed to be the main guy in the movie? Eh, give it to the scenery chomper. It was a pretty fun performance to watch. And the movie would have sucked without him.

Best Actress- Let's see. We have Diane Lane. Wasn't she in a lot of bad '80's movies? Didn't half of them star Michael Pare (as in whatever happened to?). Iyick. Didn't see her movie either. Then there's Salma baby, my brand-new Hollywood girlfriend. She's nominated for Frida, a movie I really do want to see and not just because of naked Salma sex scenes. Really. Then we got Renee Zellwigger who is cute as a button and adorable but am I the only thinks she was cuter as Bridget Jones and not as the super-skinny waif she is now? That whole thing was kind of lame, if you ask me. She makes this big deal about "gaining weight" (ie, putting on the same weight that most women are, then makes an even bigger deal when she takes it all of. It's like she was saying- hey, don't worry, I'm really super-skinny. I'm not fat. I'm not like you, really). Love her, but don't think she'll win. If she wants to go out for drinks, though, I'm free. That leaves us with Juliana Moore and Nicole Kidman. Gotta love Juliana Moore because she's been in so many cool movies of the past ten years. Hell, she was in Boogie Nights, one of the greatest movies ever made, but I'll say more about that later. She won't win, though. Who will win is Nicole Kidman. How could she not? Her character cries a lot and dies tragically. Plus, everyone's oh so impressed that Nicole Kidman bravely put on a prosthetic nose to maker herself less attractive in this movie. What craft! What bravery! What dedication to her art! Why, it's just like when deNiro put on all that weight for Raging Bull. Whatever. And is it me, or has Nicole Kidman only become "Nicole Kidman" because of her divorce for Tom? Was that a great career move she made or what?

Best Supporting Actor- Consider John C. Reilly. He was in three of the movies nominated for Best Picture. Not too shabby. He's also been in a lot of great movies over the years and been great in all of them. But he is and will always be, however, Reed Rothchild (aka Chester Rockwell) from Boogie Nights. And for that, just like Juliana Moore, I will always root for him. That movie is just that good. Basically, if you find yourself in a movie playing a character like Reed Rothchild in a movie like Boogie Nights, you will always be cool. It's the same thing with Steve Buscemi. He was in Resovoir Dogs and Fargo, two movies better than say Tom Cruise has ever been in. And then he went and starred in Ghost World- a trifetecta of super-cool movies if ever there was (get that man an Oscar, stat). And it's the same way Thora Birch will always be cool because she was Enid. Some actors/actresses have been milking off cool roles in cool movies for years. Wynona Ryder has always been kind of living off Heathers and Beatlejuice, but probably lost it with the whole shopping thing. Not to mention starring in an Adam Sandler movie. Samuel L. Jackson, despite all of his best attempts to lose it, still has a lot of love out there for Pulp Fiction (Travlota? Forget it). John C. Reilly will always be cool in my book because of being Reed Rotchild. Another nominee, Christopher Walken, is like that too- he's been in so many good movies and so good in so many of them that everyone loves him. Who doesn't love Christopher Walken, especially after the Fat Boy Slim video. Too bad neither are supposed to win. Instead, Chris Cooper, the redneck Orchid lover in Adaption is supposed to. And you know what? Fine by me. It was a great role- part redneck, part zen-master. He was a hoot (did I just write that?). And hell, how can you not root against Ed Harris or Paul Newman either? Anyone who wins is fine by me here.

Best Supporting Actress- Because the idea of Queen Latifah winning an Oscar is pretty darn whack and Catherine Zeta-Jones is even whacker, I gotta go with one of the three remaining nominees. You know, the weird thing is that Meryl Streep was actually kind of hot in Adaption and I don't think anyone has ever put Meryl Streep and hot together. Maybe it's because she never uses an accent in it or doesn't seem so uber-repressed. And the movie was kind of cool too. Thinking Juliana Moore gets it, though, because she won't win Best Actress. Which is fine by me. Rock on, Amber Waves.

Best Song- All the fun is gone here knowing that Eminem isn't gonna appear (it would have been sweet, but would have been so out of place that it just should not be meant to be. Kind of like hearing the Clash played at the Grammy's.). Usually, you got go with the worst song or the one nobody in their right mind has heard, and give it to them. Who the hell even knows any song that won, let alone bought a song that won? But we all know it's gonna be U2 this year because they're so damn sickingly P.C. and so damn innoffensively hip that CNN Headline News is using their music for their outro's. And not even noticing the irony of playing the drum beat from "Bullet the Blue Sky" in between stories about the impending war in Iraq. Has anyone heard the song that's been nominated though? It's kind of shite. And if they do win, which I think they will, it'll only mean another Bono speech. Oh, the humanity.

I don't think anyone who reads this runs a company, but if you do, just a word of advice:

If the company's sales are down- way down- and every department is scrambling to cut money and there's a bunch of contractor's who've been promised to be allowed to go full-time but haven't because there's supposedly no money and a bunch of people who've been laid off too many times are starting to get that "uh oh" look in their eyes- don't show up to work and park three of your Lamborghini Murcialagi's in front of the office.

Because we all know that when it comes down to it, if the CEO is presented a choice between giving contractor's benefits and selling off a $100,000 car, the CEO ain't gonna go for dental plans

(Lisa needs braces).

I accidentally wore green today, completely forgetting, of course, that it's St. Patrick's Day. I hate when I do that. Everyone thinks I'm getting into the whole St. Patty's spirit when I'm not, I'm just wearing green. Not that I have anything wrong with St. Patrick's Day (I have had my fair share of fun during the holiday) but I'm not gonna be sporting the green.

Obviously, the main reason is because I'm not Irish. Again, nothing against the Irish because I do love the Irish and had way more fun than humanly possible while in Ireland, but the Irish aren't my peeps. Besides, do people wear blue for Hanukah to get into the Passover spirit? Nope. And yeah, I know, you don't have to be Irish to wear green today, but I'm just so not that type of person. Which is why I hate the fact that all day I have to sit around and tell people that no, I'm not wearing Green because it's St. Patrick's Day, damnit.

By the way, if anyone cares, my boy Brian Murphy on ESPN.com's Page 2 had a great bit about what St. Patrick's Day means to you during your various stages of life.

So the President issued some 48 hour type ultimatimatum to Saddam. How very Dr. Evil.

I wonder if somewhere in the White House is a big huge clock counting down the seconds?

From today's paper-
Bush out to derail appeals of Medicare denials- New laws, rules would blunt power of judges:

The Bush administration is planning major changes in the Medicare program that would make it more difficult for beneficiaries to appeal the denial of benefits like home health care and skilled nursing home care.

Aaack.

Do we suck or what?

And speaking of aack, my toilet's been acting up for the past month. I even had all the inner-working type thingies replaced, but when the new stuff was put in, the apartment handy-man totally biffed the fixing upping. As a result, I came home last night at midnight, after being out partying since 2 in the afternoon, only to find that the toilet has been leaking all day and my entire bathroom was about an inch deep in water. Do I even have to say how much it sucks to have to spend an hour mopping the floor at midnight after a day of drinking?

Oh, my droogies, it's been a long three weeks. It's the ole sick/stress Catch-22- work is stressful, stress causes sickness, need relaxation to get better, but work is stressful, stress causes sickness and so on and so on. Throw in a couple of other fun things (see story below) and you got yourself a past couple of weeks that did nothing other than suck-ass.

As I thought about ways out of the vicious cycle I find myself in, it suddenly occurred to me there might just be a way out of the vicious cycle- a massage. A full on, hour long, deep-tissue massage with lots of oil and whale calls in the background (who makes those tapes anyways? Are there people who specialize just in making CD's for massages? Is it a lucrative business? Is listening to Kyuss during a massage not a good thing?)

Why a massage? Besides the whole self-evidence of why not getting a massage, the stress of the past couple of weeks has caused my shoulders to turn into one big huge sailor's knot, my lower back is getting to the point where I've been in full old man mode, and I've been averaging about 4-3 hours of sleep a night.

Most importantly, the idea behind getting the massage is because all of this stress and sickness has made me realize that it's a sign that all of it has put my body way out of balance. I've fallen so far away from the feeling of centerdness, of oneness, that I couldn't see it without a pair of binoculars. I'm in the Siberia of centerdness. And there's nothing like a massage to realign the balance, get the flow going, unblock everything to get the positive energy back into your system, and…..

Oh, Dear God, it is finally happened. I am now officially a Californian.

There's nothing left for me to do but to get it over with and start eating whole weat sprout sandwhiches with avacado and mayo that I know is my destiny.

God damnit, nothing ruins a good horror flick (Ringu, the Japanese version of The Ring) like a band playing next door at a party. And there's nothing that ruins an attempt at trying to have a good night's sleep like a band playing next door at a party.

Who has a party with a band anymore anyways? I thought the kids were only into DJ's these days.

Hmmm....maybe I should call the cops. I'm old enough to be the cranky neighbor who calls the cops all the time.

It's the usual story.....

Boy goes out on date with Girl. Boy is typical nice guy
Girl is really cool. Has done a lot of amazing things in her life. Is Jewish
And Girl is really hot
Girl subtly admits lesbian phase
Boy is okay with it. Thinks it's cool. Makes her that much hotter.
Girl flirts with Boy
Girl keeps making body contact with Boy and talks about doing things in the future with Boy
At end of date, Girl plays with Boy's jacket and gives Boy good night kiss. Says she had great time and wants to go out again for a romantic dinner
Boy goes woo-hoo! and has happy thoughts
Boy in love
Boy starts planning next date
Girl starts playing games. Starts being aloof
Boy keeps trying
Girl stops responding to e-mails
Boy sends heart-felt e-mail. Tells her he wants to know what's up and what's with the games. Boy kind of pissed
Girl responds, tells Boy blah-blah-blah, father in town, busy.
Then Girl explains that she's still in lesbian phase, still plays for both teams.
Girl thought Boy played for both teams. Dug him that way.
Girl realizes Boy plays for one team. Doesn't like boy that way, wants to be friends.
Or something like that
Boy is gobsmacked. Had thought he had heard everything. Kind of liked Girl.
Boy reels from the rare double back-handed compliment (two handed backward compliment?) and wonders if he just got the craziest rejection in the history of dating.
Boy wonders what he did in past life to have stuff like that happen to him

In case it hasn't been made clear yet, we, as a country, now officially suck: French Fries Get a New Name in Congress

Yessiree, French Fries will no longer be called French Fries in congress, but "Freedom Fries."

1) Boo fucking hoo, the French don't agree with us. Of course, if anyone in congress or most of our country would notice, most of the fucking world doesn't agree with us either. Even countries that support us, like England or Spain, don't really support us. Or at least the people don't. And in most cases, only because we're either buying them off or threatening them with everything under the sun. Of course, to realize this, it would mean not obsessing over Joe Millionaire and actually not only watching the news (because TV news sucks) but reading the news.

2) French Fries are not French. They are and have never been something served in France other than in McDonald's. Whatever they are, they are called "Pomme Frites." Of course, once again, it would mean actually getting our collective heads out of our ass and learning something about another country. Getting back at French by not calling French Fries "French" is like getting back at the Scots by refusing to call Scotch Tape Scotch.

3)Doesn't congress have like five billion other things they have to do right now? Like debate what the hell we're gonna do before, during and after the war? Or fix the economy? Or health-care? Instead of cutting all the inevitable programs that will be cut because of our increasingly huge budget- aka programs for the poor- can we just cut out salaries for lame-ass, redneck, maroons living off of our dime by working in Congress?

4) Can we come up with something more retarded then "Freedom Fries"?

Because the columnist on Slate already pointed it out, I'll just give you the link to the discussion on what this means for things like French Tickler or French kissing.

For further proof of just how much we suck as a country, consider this poll in the New York Times. Despite all the fuck-ups and all the screw-ups and all the muck-ups diplomatically, the numbers are increasing for people who support going to war without U.N. approval. Meaning Bush has managed to make everyone believe that it makes sense to go after a country that defies U.N. Resolution's by defying U.N. Resolutions.

Hello?

But then, on the other hand, " 45 percent of Americans said Mr. Hussein was "personally involved" in the attacks" despite the fact that there's no fucking proof. Are people only watching Fox News? Do people even read anymore? Should every person who runs a News channel or News show quit immediately for not doing a very good job?

We so suck.

It's a funny thing about work. The office is about 75% male. Or, most of the high profile positions are all male. Most of the women who work there, other than my boss and the Art Director are all women in their 20's working on their 2nd child. There's about four or five women there who'd even be considered slightly attainable. In other words, despite all of the male testosterone running around- and there's a lot of it- there's not many women all that testosterone can be used to attract.

Since there's maybe one or two women who most of the guys would even consider being attracted two (and all but the two-face with the drop-dead body and shellacked mascara, they're all in my department), none of the guys have a reason to care about how they look.

Throw in a loose atmosphere, tons of apathetic disgruntlement, and a tone established by one of the high-powered mid-to-late 30's executive who favors retro-Jerseys (the Rainbow Astros look is his favorite) and sideways matching retro hat, you gotta bunch of males who've given up any pretense of wanting to look good. People go days without shaving. Shirts are untucked. Shorts are worn. The standard look is long-sleeved shirt underneath short-sleeved t-shirt, with beanies barely above eye-brow level on their closely cropped, rocker boy haircut heads.

And now that I've passed the whole first impression stage, not to mention figuring out how things go and how things work there, I'm down with it all. I shave about twice a week know and wear nothing but long-sleeve t-shirts underneath short-sleeved t-shirts. No beanie yet, but I've discovered an appreciation of Motorhead I'd never thought I'd have.

Wait for it. It's gonna come. It'll happen soon enough.

Classic Rap stations.

If it's not already happening, it's on the way. We're talking nothing but Salt N' Peppa. Not to mention PE and Run DMC. Some old skool LL and even classic Dre and Snoop. Cause all we wanna do is zoom-a-zoom-zoom-zoom and a poom-poom.

And ya wanna know who wants to hear it? Nothing but 30 year old/late twenty white boys still trying to stay with it. White boys with a lot of disposable income. White boys straight out of Walnut Creek.

Hell, I'd even listen to it.

And if anyone isn't coming up with this idea, reads this and decides to give it a go, just remember who gave you the idea.

Today I didn't even have to use my A.K. I got to say it was a good day (shit!)

PS- as an addedndum to yesterday's posting...

Guess who also thinks Georgie Boy is screwing up royally, Pere Bush. You gotta be wondering where the hell he's been all this time and what he's been telling his son.

And isn't it sad to know that the one thing that maybe prevents us from war is daddy reprimanding Junior?

Okay, let's get all of this straight.

On the eve of war, The U.S. has done such a good job of maintaining allied support that Canada- Canada!- hates us now.

In fact, we're so desperate for support that we've taken to bullying Mexico- Mexico- into supporting us (and not very well, I might add).

And a country we're willing to pay $15 billion dollars ($30? The number keeps on changing everytime I read about it) to host our troops, that being Turkey, of course, won't even back us.

We do, however, have Albania backing us.

Of course, it would all help a bit if we were better at the diplomacy game to begin with. It would, for instance, help if anyone in the U.S. government were to actually visit other countries instead of making others come here. Sign of respect and all that. Not happening (and no, I don't have a fancy link for the comment, I've just read it in a few columns and it seems pretty well duh evident). Nor, does it seem worth the government's time to even pronounce the names of people we're engaged with correctly.

Nor does it help if it turns out we're bugging all of our fellow delegates at the U.N.

Doesn't matter, right? We still know what Saddam has and we know what he's up to and it's the world's problem they just don't get it.

Oops. Turns out we made up a lot of the stuff about Saddam trying to get Nuclear Weapons.

And the State Department? They can't be making anything up, can they? Wrong about that too. In his resignation letter, long-time diplomat John Brady Kiesling states that: … we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam.

And the army? We can trust them. Except for the fact, the White House doesn't. Claims by one of the Chiefs of Staff about hundreds of thousands of troops having to be used to mollify a post-war Iraq? Pshaw.

But wait. What about the U.N. Inspectors? They should be able to find something, wouldn't they? Well, they would, except for the fact that we either aren't giving it up or we really don't have that much.

Oh, and that call for making Iraq a beachhead for democracy in the Middle East? Oops, That whole crazy stability thing. Oh, and by the way, out of all the countries we've initiated "regime change" over the past century, "only five produced democracies; and of the five unilateral actions, only one produced a democracy -- Panama."

One more thing. Guess whose gonna be getting all those contracts to rebuild the Iraqi oil fields? Wow, how about that. It's Dick Cheney's old company Halilburton. Quelle surprise.

Okay, so I was ambivelant about the war. Maybe at times pro-war. But right now, it's looking like we're about to make the biggest mistake this side of David Caruso leaving NYPD Blue. A drafting Ryan Leaf over Peyton Manning kind of mistake. A Michael Jackson still admitting to having little boys sleep over in his bedroom kind of mistake.

I might not be marching in the streets, but God help us all. I gotta bad feeling about this.

My regular e-mail account is on Hotmail. Hotmail is, of course, owned by Microsoft (aka Great Satan) and has it as part of their "MSN Network." Whatever that is. As a result, whenever you log into Hotmail, you first get a page that lists a whole bunch of articles that are of supposed interest and will get you to log onto other sites in the "MSN Network." At the top of it, there's usually a major headline, followed by several other stories.

The big hook today is this- "Sexy & smart? Match wits with Mariah Carey!"

Do I even have to make a joke here or is the joke so self-evident that I don't need to make one?

I saw Punch Drunk Love last night. I know, supposed to be a good movie. Or so they say.

First of all, love Boogie Nights. One of my favorite movies of all time. The director though, Paul Thomas Anthony Hall or whatever his name is, is getting way too cute for his own good. Enough with the magical random surrealistic occurrences. And random stuff going on in the background is occasionally cool, but not in every scene.

My main problem with the movie though is the whole romantic part of it. Which is kind of a problem since the movie is a romantic comedy (well, kind of, but that's another story.)

Years ago, I saw As Good As It Gets with my mother. Hated it. I sat there the whole time completely annoyed and pissed off that the Helen Hunt character would fall for the Jack Nicholson character. He was manic-obsessive, which is okay I guess, but he was kind of a jerk. Throughout the movie he never really stopped being a jerk and never showed any redeeming quality. Oh, and he was also about thirty years older than Helen Hunt, but it's Hollywood, so what are you gonna do about it? I kept on sitting there wondering how this could be considered romantic. He's a majorly screwed up character, so what does it say about the female lead if she winds up falling for the guy. I envisioned the sequel of the movie in which the Helen Hunt character goes on Sally Jesse Raphael for the "Women Who Make Bad Romantic Decisions" episode. When the movie ended, and while all the couples looked lovingly at each other and my mother looked all teary and sentimental, she noticed that I was scoffing. "Oh," she'd say, "you're just not a romantic." I am a romantic, it's just that the movie sucked.

Anyways, Punch Drunk Love was like that. The Adam Sandler character was part Rain-Man, part The Waterboy. Yeah, he was kind of a nice guy and lonely and a bit hapless and hen-pecked, but you never get to see him as anything but that. There's nothing there that makes you think, hey, there's a really great guy under there. And as the movie goes on and he falls in love, he never really changes. He's still Rain Man/Waterboy. Yet the female character falls madly in love with him because I guess she sees something in him nobody else does. Oh, and he comes from a big family and she's an only child.

I hate movies like that. There's no reason in the world why the Emily Watson character would fall for the Adam Sandler character. Keep in mind, at one point, when they're having a romantic moment, he tells her how much he'd like to smash her face in. And she giggles and thinks its cute. No woman would ever fall in love with someone like the Adam Sandler character.

And besides, it always ends happily ever after. The woman character never decides she just wants to be friends. Never comes out a week later and says she's going through a lot and has suddenly decided that she's not in a good space for a relationship. Or just got together with an old boyfriend or still heartbroken over the last one or realizes that it can't work out because the guy is too dark or doesn't back them up after every neurotic breakdown or only liked them because they thought they were bi when they're so totally not.

Damnit, I wanna see a realistic romantic movie.

From Slate.com, courtesy of an article in the New York Times-
" In last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, George Packer reports that when Bush met in January with top Iraqi exile-dissidents, they had a hard time explaining the differences between the Sunnis and the Shiites. The president seemed surprised that the two groups existed, much less that they had conflicts."

Jane, get me off this thing

As we all sit around waiting for the damn war could start just so we can get it over with, a bet a bunch of you are sitting around wondering what I'm wondering: if the U.S. claims that Iraq is building W.M.D but Hans Blix and the U.N. is having trouble finding W.M.D., why doesn't the U.S. just tell them where we think they are?

After all, wouldn't that not only allow the world to see what Iraq actually has up it's sleeves, but if they do have W.M.D, wouldn't that lead to them getting destroyed? Kind of a win-win, don't ya think?

Here's what Rummy said to the Washington Post:
"If the inspectors have found something, the argument might then be that inspections were working and, therefore, we should give them more time."

Once again, we have a brilliant zen koan courtesy of our Administration- how to find W.M.Ds without actually finding them.

And you wonder why Turkey is so into this war that they actually turned down $30 billion bucks.

There's this great new Johnny Cash video out, one for the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt. It's a great video, one that's gotten written up in Slate and Rolling Stone (which I would set a link to, but the site sucks) because it's so good. And the song's really good too, especially once you get over the shock of the fact that Johnny Cash (Johnny Cash) is singing a Nine Inch Nails song.

According to Rolling Stone the video is so good and so well received that it's going into deep rotation on VH-1 and MTV2. It even says it's one of the best videos created in a long time. No mention, however, of it being on MTV. You know, the station that supposedly plays music videos. The station that's initials stand for Music Television and not Crappy Reality Show Television. The station that at one time actually made and broke bands.

I know, Johnny Cash ain't exactly as hip as, say, one of the guys from the Backstreet Boys whose got a new solo CD out. Nor is he as cute as Justin is. But still, it's Johnny Fucking Cash. Just once….once….wouldn't it be cool if the video actually made TRL and as it played they'd show all these 16 year old girls saying something like "I love Johnny Cash cause he's so cool and I just want to say hi to my dawg's at Roosevelt High!" Wouldn't that rock? Wouldn't that be a sign that maybe things were allright in the world?

Eh, forget it. It would never happen.

One day when it was raining, I saw a homeless man, fast asleep on the street. As I stepped over him on my to BART, I couldn't but admire the guy. I mean, it's raining out and he's lying on a sidewalk with hundreds of people stepping over him. Yet he's still fast asleep. How does he do it? There's no way in hell I could sleep in those conditions.

The thing is that I'm a total Princess in a Pea. Or Princess with a Pea. Or whatever the hell the name of that damn fable is. I can't sleep in new beds, I can't sleep on floors, I can't sleep in any position than other than on my stomache, and yet here's this guy whose sleeping on a sidewalk. In the rain too. Amazing.

It's just another reason why I'm pretty sure I wasn't meant for the army. Those poor guys often have to sleep in the worst conditions. Like in a desert or a jungle or some bombed out village. And it doesn't matter if it's raining out or snowing out or there's big ass scorpions running around everywhere. Remember all those scenes in Platoon where the Platoon was trying to sleep at night? No way in hell would I be able to sleep like that. Yet they have no choice. It's not like they can quickly hop to a Motel 6 or something. And I don't even want to get into my insomnia or occasional anxiety attacks in the middle of the night.

If I were in the army, I'd totally be the guy who gets his entire company ambushed because I'd fall asleep at the point after not sleeping for a week.

I am so not an Army of One.

What a crazy world we live in these days- everyone's agreeing with the French, England and the U.S. are pissed that Germany doesn't want to fight a war (isn't this a good thing? Do we really want to encourage them?) and people are upset that Pacific Bell Park, a baseball stadium named after a phone company, is going to have to be changed to SBC Park. Think about it- everyone absolutely hates when stadiums or arenas are named after corporate sponsorship, yet people in SF are upset that they're gonna change the name of the stadium from one corporate name to another. And I'm one of them. Pacific Bell Park, aka Pac Bell, just rolled off the tongue. It worked. There was a rhyme to it. SBC Park- nothing.

And wouldn't it be funny if starting next year, people refuse to call it SBC Park and keep calling it Pac Bell? People here refused to call Candlestick 3Com after it got named 3Com and it's gonna be the same thing. Except people refused to do it because they didn't want to give into the corporate sponsorship thing and, well, you get my point.

I totally love the photo of the terrorist guy we just caught. Besides the whole Ron Jeremy look, the expression of his face is total grumpy, they just woke my ass up from a nap look. You have to look at him and wonder, though, this is the guy? This is the mad terrorist, the evil terrorist? In the photo he just looks like your typical short, fat schlub of a guy.

And, yes, it was let known that upon hearing the news, W. is said to have said "fantastic." Again, not that he didn't say that nor do I doubt he was excited, but how much cooler would it have been if Ari Fleischer had gone up to the Press Corps and announced to the world that upon hearing the news, the President had said "dude, that's fucking sweet."

I don't know about you, but there's nothing I can't wait for more than the new Queen Latifah/Steve Martin movie, Bringing Down the House. First of all, Queen Latifah andSteve Martin? That's genius. Brilliant. It's the best movie pairing since Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins in that comedy movie that came out over the summer (you know "When Do We Pick Up Our Paycheck?" That movie). Who hasn't sat around and said, "you know who I'd really like to see partnered up in a movie? Steve Martin and Queen Latifah!" Why, it's Bogie and Bacall. It's Kermit and Miss Piggy. It's Afleck and Damon.

Second of all, the plot: hip-hopping African American enters life of uptight white person and helps them get jiggy with it. Why, it's comedy gold! It's always funny!

Oy.

Stupid flu bug. Keeps on tricking me into thinking it's gone, then reappears the moment I get cocky and decide to actually do something with my life. Think....I.....need....to....take...another....nap.......

I went to work on Friday, still sick. I have a weird thing about being sick and work, that no matter how sick I am, I should go into work. It has nothing to do with guilt either, it's more of a macho thing. You know, like I'm so tough that even though I have a104 degree temperature, puss coming out of my ears and pox marks all over my face, I'll still make it into work. I even take pride in it in a perverse sort of way. In fact, traditionally, most of my sick days have been more mental health days. There's a lot of three day weekends, trips to Tahoe, and various misadventures at water-slide parks on days that I was supposedly sick. My suspicion too is that I'm not the only one who feels that way. I know at my work, there's definitely a macho contest going on to see who can do the most work possible while dealing with working pneumonia. Which is probably why I always feel like I'm always constantly on the verge of being sick since I've been there.

In my working career, I have gone into work after tearing a knee and after various sprains and nearly-broken bones. I've gone in after not sleeping for days and right after visits to the hospital. I've been flu-ridden, allergy attacked, and miserably hung-over, but I've still somehow made it in. Can't say I've done my best work on those days, but damnit, I still made it in.

All of which is rather silly, actually. Cause is it better to be sick during the week, when all you lose out on is work or the weekend when all you lose out in is parties and hanging out with friends? I'm just wonderin' cause while I made it into work two out of three days I was sick, I'm spending my Saturday night writing this here blog, having bailed out on a party due to the fact that despite the fact I've slept for about 20 hours over the past 36 hours, I still can't swallow anything without feeling like I'm swallowing glass.

In a speech the other day, President Bush called Saddam Hussein a "master of disguise....".

Wow, Saddam really is evil. Don't want those Master of Disguises running countries now, do we? Maybe we shouldn't send in an army, but the Superfriends?