Food. Work. Life.

Pest Control Journal #6: Questions

2012-02-21T23:01:00.000-06:00

In this video I answer a few questions that I often get from customers.

Pest Control Journal #5

2011-12-16T23:21:00.001-06:00

Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T18:10:00.000-06:00

Christopher Hitchens is dead.

Some people are moved by powerful emotion when looking at great works of art on canvas or in bronze. For me, Hitchens' writing was like that. It was more than just the idea or ideas he was expressing, which I did not always agree with.

Hitchens had more than a simple love for words, he had a passion for them, he was intimate with them.

Reading anything he wrote always left me with the impression that I could feel that love, that passion, that intimacy. It didn't matter if I agreed with his point of view or not, because the artistry and technical mastery overwhelmed, inspired and touched me. The creation was beautiful in and of itself, regardless of what specific notion it expressed.

When Hitchens used big words, it always felt like they were not "big" for bigness sake, but because they happened to be the right word, just exactly the right word. But, more than that, I felt like he was showing me a personal treasure, like a child showing me his favorite marble.

I believe that a child's joy over his bestest best marbles was exactly the joy Hitchens felt regarding words, really good words, words that fit not only in meaning but in nuance. Words that were special enough that they would send some of his readers scampering for a dictionary, where they could begin to discover Hitchens' own refuge of loveliness, mystery and power. Because, I also felt that he was challenging me not only to grow, but to discover, enjoy and revel in the same love, passion and intimacy that he knew.

Christopher Hitchens was the unattainable pinnacle of writing and continued to gain height with every essay he wrote and year he lived.

Hitchens was in no manner aesthetically gifted. Yet, the world will have less beauty in it because he's gone.

Pest Control Journal #4: Rich Makes Right

2011-12-14T17:04:00.002-06:00

Pest Control Journal #3: Put Your Damn Pants On

2011-12-13T17:50:00.002-06:00

Pest Control Journal: Mmmm Nasty

2011-12-12T00:04:00.001-06:00

Eugenics in America, 1930s - 1970s: We Did This to Our Own People

2011-12-11T11:55:00.001-06:00

Here's an article in the NYTimes about eugenics in America carried out from the 1930s to the 1970s. In fact, very nearly until the 1980s.

To summarize, boys and girls, children, occasionally adults, where held in institutions based on any of three charges: Low intelligence; Low income; Victimized by rape or incestuous rape.

These people, mainly children, were then told, or their parents were told, that they would never, NEVER be released from this detention, unless they consented to be sterilized, or their parents consented to having them sterilized.

Should they choose lifetime imprisonment? Or disfigurement beneath a surgeons blade?

Like dogs at a shelter. Death? Or the removal or their reproductive organs?

Because you're too stupid to be allowed to breed.

Because you are too poor to be allowed to breed.

Because your father raped you when you were 12 years old and continued raping you until he made you pregnant at the age of 16 and he doesn't want to deal with that inconvenience again, so he's happy to have you sterilized, the better to serve his lust.

This sterilization surgery, being sanctioned by the State, was at least done with professionalism and integrity, right? Not always. Their were botched surgeries that, if done on the wealthy, would have been met with malpractice lawsuits. Botched surgeries that caused pain and health issues into adulthood and old age.

But, these were the poor, the poorest, with no ability or opportunity for redress, no prerogative to fight, so no privilege of professionalism and no right of dignity.

The subjects, due to their stupidity, their lack of sufficient income, or their status as incest / rape victims, deserved no better.

We needed to protect ourselves, our society, our land, from the burden of the low born, the unintelligent, the uneducated and the unfortunate. The rights and the prerogatives were ours, and ours to exercise in a manner that would best defend our designs on what did and did not constitute "desirable" to good and descent Americans.

How did this happen in America? How did it manage to persist after our struggles vs Adolf Hitler and Nazism in WWII? How did our Liberal establishment, from social workers to news media, to Presidents, the very people we are to believe champions of the poor, the mentally challenged and the victims of rape and incest, come to orchestrate and carry out these atrocities?

Where were the Conservative voices against them? Where were these "Right to Life" crusaders? These haters of abortions and of birth control? Where was their righteous indignation?

For that matter, where was the righteous indignation of ANY person or entity exerted on behalf the stupid, the poor, the victims of rape and incest? Where were their advocates anywhere in America?

How did this seed of Nazism and Communism (also branches of Liberalism and the Left) become planted in the fabric of American culture and spread by the warriors of American elitism?

Now think of how cleverly elitists transitioned us from forced sterilization to voluntary abortion. Read this from the comments section of the same article:

"Brad:

Did you know that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a proud Eugenicist? Yup, so is it any wonder that PP is located mostly in black and hispanic neighborhoods providing "abortion services" to minorities...

Also, in her "Plan for Peace," Sanger outlined her strategy for eradication of those she deemed "feebleminded." Among the steps included in her evil scheme were immigration restrictions; compulsory sterilization; segregation to a lifetime of farm work; etc. Birth Control Review, April 1932, p. 107"

I entirely support a woman's right to choose, though I find abortion a repulsive practice.

But, isn't it interesting that legalized abortion was helped in coming about, not to help women, but to reduce the number of children produced by stupid people, poor people and by victims of incest and rape? And not for the protection of the victims, but for the "protection" of society from those victims?

Then I read the comments attached to the article by readers, to find:

Liberals pretending the eugenics projects were created and run by conservatives; Conservatives hailing the practices of eugenics as good and reasonable; Assertions that the victims are crybabies and are undeserving of recompense; Assertions that the victims deserved what happened to them.

All of it, the article, the comments, the past and continued elitist "justification", made me feel ashamed to be an American. For the very first time in my life, being a citizen of this country made me feel dirty and disgusting for my association with it.

I remain amazed at how no one seems to see the real nature of the crimes we committed in the name of protecting our country from the idiots among us, the groveling unclean among us, the grotesquely tainted by parental lust among us.

The act of sterilization, of preventing men and women from eventually having children, is only a fraction of crime against these people.

The degradation, the humiliation, the forced and wrongful imprisonment. Those are the crushing weight of our sins against them.

Should there be restitution? Absolutely. But it should not be based solely on the perceived value of the ability to have or not have children. It should be heavily slanted toward the punitive, toward repayment vs the totality of the many crimes and levels of crime we committed.

It should be based on the fact that our society, at all levels, conspired to remove any form of basic human rights and human dignity from those among us who had the least ability to protect themselves from our barbaric designs upon them. It should be based on the fact that we treat our pets with more compassion and humanity than anything we demonstrated or currently demonstrate toward these people. It should be based upon the fact that it was our job to protect the weakest among us when they were unable to protect themselves, and that instead we chose to rise up against them as if they were an enemy whose eradication our very souls depended upon.

We were no better than Hitler's Nazis or Stalin's Communists. Not in our motivations and not in our behaviors and actions.

The eugenics of America's 1930's - 1970s is an albatross around the necks of American Liberals, who pretend to stand against such abhorrent behaviors, and a scarlet letter upon the breasts of American Conservatives for their silent consent and tacit support.

Pest Control Journal: Pest Control Gourndhog Day

2011-12-10T19:46:00.001-06:00

Trash on da Ground

2011-12-09T23:15:00.001-06:00

My very first youtube movie / video.

Observations at: McDonald's

2011-11-05T17:45:00.001-06:00

-- Motorcycle girl in snow pants and high heels, wearing her helmet as she orders.

-- Old Guy 1 "I don't like the Yankees"

OG2 "They got allll the money in the world. "

-- OG1 "McDonald's is one of the largest toy manufacturers. One of the LARGEST toy manufacturers. Can you believe it?"

-- OG1 "The Bears should give Forte a bonus. Just give him a god damn bonus. I mean, Christ, he's playing better than Walter Payton."

-- OG1 "There's a fly on your shirt, Marty."

OG2 "Huh?"

OG1 "A fly. You have a fly on your shirt."

OG2 "Oh"

-- OG1 "Look at what happened to Joe Namath. He's got that big ole hump. And would you look at that nose? That's a big nose, now."

Smart Meters: 24 / 7 Surveillance of Your Life, and Cancer Cause

2011-11-05T16:36:00.000-06:00

UPDATE*

Here are a few of my own thoughts, plus summaries of some of what you'll see and hear in the embedded videos.

When I first heard about the extent of the data collection for smart meters and the potential for abuse of this information, I considered it a conspiracy theorist's dream.

But, with the nationwide installation of these meters barely under way, the conspiracies have proven accurate.

Power companies already sell personal data collected via these meters to any interested party. Police are already using that same information to figure out who is running unlicensed home businesses and who is growing pot at home.

You may think, "cool, those people deserve to be caught", and in reference to the scumbag drug users I even agree with you.

The problem is, if you consent to allowing that type of surveillance on your neighbors, you don't get to say, "Oh no, but you can't use that to spy on ME!".

What are other uses?

Bill collectors can monitor this information to know when the best time to call you or even show up at your door.

Telemarketers can do the same thing.

What about those sites that offer to show anyone all of your publicly available information for the low, low fee of $9.99? Soon they can include smart meter data, too.

Anyone, a stalker, a thief, a rapist, could target your home with this information, knowing EXACTLY when you are home, when you're out, when you're sleeping, when you get home from work, when you've left for vacation.

You know, just like criminals are already doing with Google Earth, only on a far more intimate level of information.

None of that even touches on the health risks of smart meters. It also ignores malicious manipulation of news agencies in the presentation of health related data.

I believe in and love the capitalist system. But, the health aspect of this (which ties strongly to the cell phone industry and broadcast industries) is a perfect example of what happens when companies are given an unregulated atmosphere,are allowed to dictate related laws, are allowed to make all decisions based on profit and are not required by law to consider public health and safety.

The first 25 minutes of this next video address related health issues, the remaining 8 minutes discusses privacy issues related to smart meter usage.

In case you don't make it to the 25 minute mark I'll share one more bit of data.

It may make logical sense that a smart meter would know when you've turned on any individual device. But, it knows WHAT that device is (by the signature and properties of its electrical usage), how long it's on, how often it's on.

THIS may not be something that you'd consider a possibility, but it is.

Your smart meter can detect and record when you turn on and for how long you use your BATTERY OPERATED devices. Like your vibrator, your RC car, your cordless drill, etc, and it infers what device is used because it (or the power company) knows the signature and properties of specific items and item types, as well.

Those last two points make this data of incredible value to companies marketing all things electric or electronic: washers / dryers, TVs, stereos, iPods, computers, hair dryers, etc.

When manufacturers make "smart" appliances, those appliances talk directly to your smart meter. Lobbiests are attempting to make smart appliances a legal requirement in future manufacturing.

The next generation of smart meters and appliances could gather much more specific information:

-- Your specific viewing habits, like how much porn you watch, of what type, what specific movies.

-- What websites you visit, like have you read any information that would indicate a lack of loyalty to the current President or whichever political party is in power? Have you been looking up information on growing or manufacturing drugs? Your porn history.

-- What documents you've printed or scanned.

-- What photographs you've taken, printed, uploaded.

-- What video you've shot.

-- Your phone records, including full voice recording.

-- The complete history of your texting.

Eventually, smart meters coupled with smart appliances will be used to determine when and for how long you're allowed to use those appliances each day. You want to make a loaf of bread for dinner tonight? Sorry, we can't allow that right now. Try again in a few hours. Need to get a load of laundry done so you'll have clean underwear when you get dressed in the morning? Nope, can't allow it at the moment, maybe tomorrow. Need to put a charge on your new fully electric automobile? Mmmmmm, how about we allow you half a charge? You're welcome.

*UPDATE

Here are a few more thoughts.

With power companies selling the data they gather via smart meters to any interested party, that means they already have staff dedicated to that task.

But, think about what that means.

They aren't just selling general information. For the data to have its highest possible value it must be targeted, just like sales leads are targeted by companies that sell your personal data now.

Proctor and Gamble may call and say, "We want all your data from customers whose Power Use Profile indicates use of a blow dryer."

Which requires a guy to go to the database and pull that targeted information.

What will this guy do during his slow time? He'll pull up things like, "all households whose Power Use Profile indicates use of a vibrator". Just for fun he'll show that to his friends and together they'll sit in front of the computer like Beavis and Butthead searching through the data to see who in their neighborhood, which of their friends and which of the rotten bitches who've pissed them off seem to use a vibrator.

What are the possibilities once they've gone this far?

They COULD just have a laugh and let it go.

At a minimum they'd likely spread some of that information around, making their chosen target look slutty, or silly or in some other way negative.

As a result of that, maybe that person or those people become targeted. Maybe this group of guys starts to "casually" follow some of these women, hitting on them for dates.

Or, maybe, being classy guys of obvious high intelligence, they label some of these women as sluts and whores who deserve to be hurt, deserve to be sexually harassed, deserve to be sexually assaulted, deserve to be raped, deserve to be murdered.

Think of the places that "Oh my God, dude, this bitch uses her fucking vibrator three times a day! We have GOT to fucking see this one! We fucking got to, dude." can lead.

They find her, they follow her, "Fuck, dude, look at her, look how she walks. She thinks she's so fucking hot. She's just a stupid fucking slut. She can't even get a real man. We should show her what real men can do to that hot fucking body of hers. Snotty ass fucking bitch deserves it."

Or.

"Dude, no wonder she uses that thing so much. She's fucking disgusting! Look at her? What's she weigh, 400 fucking pounds? What do you think she'd do if she walked in her house later and found three hard c***s waiting for her? Dude, she'd fucking love it! With the last time that fat fucking bitch had a real man, she'd fucking love it!"

Or, XYZ Sales and Marketing could call and ask for "Information on all customers in zip code 60XXX who arrive home between 5 PM and 6 PM Monday through Friday".

But, what this company or a person at this company, really wants to know is, "who is out of the house all day long on weekdays", because once they know which houses are empty all day long they can use an app like Google Earth to figure out which homes offer the best cover, the most obstructed view, and target you for daylight robberies with the highest possible chance of success.

It sure would make things easier for guys like John L. Wilson.

Once the abuse starts, and it starts the moment a smart meter is installed on your home, there is no logical end to how far it goes or how brutal the results will be.

Review: Alone in the Dark

2011-10-30T17:38:00.001-06:00

Great cover. Ok movie. Sketchy logic.

Hot research assistant (Tara Reid) can't act, but is very nice to look at. Some obvious stuff is ignored, like, "Um, what does this writing by the gate mean?"

A good story that could have been great.

Review: Soups

2011-10-30T16:43:00.003-06:00

Meijer brand Chunky Chicken and Sausage Gumbo is surprisingly delicious.Cambell's Chunky Split Pea with Ham SUCKS

Observations at: McDonald's

2011-10-30T16:42:00.002-06:00

300 pounder in see through yellow stretch pants. no panties. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK.
they may not be see through if with 100 or so lbs less stretch in them

big bellied, no ass guy wearing belt AND suspenders, yet still can't save us from his ass crack. he should go sit w/ Mz Yellow Stretch Pants

ninja nurses, exit stage right

70 yr old guy in violently pink Members Only style jacket

My visits to McD's are shared live on Twitter (@Bikezilla1) and are often followed by a series of unfollows.

Indian mom w/ towhead babyNurses wearing white scrubs w/ karate belts.

Occupy Big Oil

2011-10-09T18:31:00.000-05:00

UPDATE*

There will be no recovery until gas prices drop below $2 per gallon and stay there.

When Bush 43 was President, we were rightly pissed off that he and the Republican establishment allowed their friends in Big Oil, and friends who control investments in Big Oil, to rape America and destroy our economy.

When Obama took office, even those of us who are against him thought, "Well, at least this issue will be taken care of.". Because, Democrats had beat the drum loudly vs Bush and Republicans over exactly this problem.

But, Obama and other key Democrats have openly stated that it is in their favored interest to keep gas prices high, so that we are forced to develop alternate energy sources. They allow Big Oil to continue raping us, to support their own political agenda.

This might be a defensible stance if such a source were within reach. But, at this time it doesn't even exist. There is NO affordable, readily available, comparable source of fuel that can compete with gasoline. Ethanol is a sham. It delivers only 1/6th the power of gasoline and the cost savings at the pump is so small as to be meaningless. Hydrogen is no better and no more promising a replacement, nor are electric vehicles, or even any combination of the above.

Economists and politicians play a shell game with Americans. They wage a phony war with each other, alternately claiming that increased revenue (code for higher taxes) or job creation is what America needs.

All the while they pretend not to be aware of one driving force behind the destruction and continued depression of America's economy: Big Oil and crushingly high fuel prices.

Increase taxes on a pool of tax payers that unemployment continues to make smaller and businesses that are failing at an increasing rate to do the failed and failed economy? Create jobs for goods and services that won't be used or purchased because fewer and fewer people and businesses can afford them?

It's a propaganda war against the America people, making sure that our focus never lands where it belongs.

Both "jobs creation" and "higher revenues" are red herrings, intended to distract us from the real culprit that prevents America's economy from turning around: Big Oil and its protector politicians on both sides of the aisle.

When the cost of fueling our vehicles increased 5 fold, that rise didn't only affect American families, it affected every level of government, from the smallest towns all the way up to the federal level. It isn't only Jane and Joe Smith fighting increased gas prices as they try to keep their personal vehicles fueled so that they can get to and from work each day. It's mail delivery, police and fire vehicles, planes, tanks, Hummvies and car pool vehicles, every fleet maintained by any government or agency for any reason, all had to absorb the additional cost, and continue absorbing it.

Are we supposed to be happy that we're only paying 3.5X the price for a gallon of gasoline now above what we paid when George W Bush took office, rather than 5X of just a couple years ago, or the 4X of just a few months ago?

Big Oil is the force that collapsed America's economy and Big Oil is the force that keeps it depressed.

If you want to "Occupy" something meaningful, occupy the offices of Big Oil and the offices of the politicians who allow them to continue raping America.

Because, right now, you're wasting your time and effort, focusing your attention in a direction that can and will have no meaningful effect. If just being able to say that you did something is good enough, fine, keep showing off for the cameras while accomplishing nothing.

But, if you actually give a shit about making a difference, refocus your efforts. Aim at taking down Big Oil and those who protect it. That's how you're going to save America.

*UPDATE:Here's a supporting article from a different perspective, published on another blog two days before I published this here, on my Wordpress blog and on the Occupy Wall St website.

Words

2011-08-30T00:32:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I said the words, "Brab died nine years ago."

As they came out of my mouth I felt like I'd been slapped.

Days later and that pain lingers.

Amy Winehouse

2011-07-24T14:06:00.000-05:00

I don't buy the "pain of life" bullshit given as a reason for why addicts use drugs, as Russel Brand would have us believe.

They didn't begin using drugs to escape the "pain of life" but because it was cool, fun, exciting, forbidden.

Addiction was the gamble they thought they couldn't lose, that they were too smart to succumb to, it is the gamble they lost.

They rubbed their parents' and society's faces in their drug use, fought tooth and nail to continue it, because, dammit, it was the mark of their freedom, their independence, their maturity, their coming of age, their intelligence, their open-mindedness, the proof that they were their own person, that they were not bound by their parents' and society's stupid, pointless rules and morals, that they were bigger than their parents, society and the law, smarter, tougher, that they had the upper hand, that they were in control, on top of things, powerful.

The "pain of life" is what they caused themselves and the people around them through their drug use. Addiction is the price they paid for their arrogance.

They flaunted their drug use in front of us, mockng the law, challenging us to judge them, taunting us with their "free spirit".

Then, when the addiction has hold of them, we're supposed to feel sorry for them, see them not as criminals but as sick people in need of help.

Then they want to blame it all on a disease, as if they were born with an innate need to consume cocaine, heroine, alcohol or some other substance. They want us to forget that their addiction is the result of their own actions, of their bodies being driven by self-induced chemical manipulation.

It's not their fault! They had no control of the way things turned out!

Except that it IS their fault and they had chance after chance after chance to take paths other than those the lead them to drug use, then to continuing that drug use until it became addiction.

It was not a disease that made them take that first hit, snort that first line, inject that first needle full of dope, cook that first rock or drink that first beer. It was an act of will, a personal choice, a point of pride, a statement of independence, a challenge to authority.

Amy Winehouse was a voluntary drug user, time and time again she actively, intentionally, willfully chose the path she trod. Her addiction was her own doing. She chose to throw away her wealth of talent and her life. It wasn't stolen from her.

Jonathan Vaughters Interview: Postscript: The Article About the Article

2011-06-11T19:03:00.002-05:00

Part 1, Part 2, Postscript

The Interview

Back near the end of Februrary (2011) I was in a multi-tweeter conversation between Jonathan Vaughters, me, and several other people. During that conversation JV invited me to interview him, and he gave me the email to his media rep, Marya Pongrace.

I asked what form JV would prefer the interview to be in, and said that due to the sensitive nature of the questions that I'd be happy to submit it via email to give him a better chance to consider his responses before replying.

That was the option he chose, and so a few days later I emailed Marya a longish interview entirely centered on JV's personal experiences with doping and with his general knowledge of doping within professional cycling.

After two weeks there was no response. I started sending weekly requests to Marya, asking for an approximate response date, or an indication that JV had chosen not to respond.

To each of these emails I received not so much as an acknowledgement. And after each silent "fuck off" I cursed a wicked stream of curses at Marya and at JV and what I perceived as a total lack of courtesy and professionalism.

But at the two month mark there was a glimmer of hope. Marya wrote to say that she could not find the interview email and requested that I resubmit.

Whew. Ok. No big at all. I mean, I can't even keep track of my wallet and Marya undoubtedly handles, directs and keeps track of myriad calls and emails every day.

I almost felt bad for all the mean things I'd thought about her.

Hence the process began again of weeks with no response and no acknowledgement to any of my emails.

I was feeling frustrated and played with. Angry. More curses ensued.

Eventually I asked JV, via Twitter, if he might know when he could reply, or if he could tell me that he'd chosen not to. It ended with another re-submission.

And another round of no responses and no acknowledgments to follow up emails, and so more curses.

I was about to give up and publish the "interview" with questions and background, quotes and links to supporting articles, when, POOF, JV had started following me on Twitter and sent me a Direct Message (DM) to discuss comments I'd tweeted regarding The List.

This conversation ended with him calling me an asshole, but providing his direct email and again telling me to contact him "whenever" for an interview.

That was just before the Amgen Tour of Cali, where JV was going to be playing DS, so I decided to wait until the week after the race.

But when I contacted him about it he seemed reluctant: "You'll just tear me to pieces." he said.

I don't know if he was joking, because I don't know him well enough to tell when he's screwing with me, especially via 140 character blurbs, and when he's serious.

But to sooth his possible concerns, and to quiet the cursing inside my head, I offered to send him an outline / script of the interview, and he was ok with that.

He gave me his phone number and I set things up for that Thursday.

I was leery. When I called, would it be Marya answering? Would she give me a run around? Would I have to play this game on and on regardless how I contacted him?

It was tough to hold back the cursing in my head, but I managed to fight it off.

But, the number he gave me was actually his personal Blackberry number. I was relieved and maybe just a little surprised.

Now I have to say that the interview I ended up doing was not the original interview. It contained the first part of it, but left a lot still on the table. Why? Because I could cover more ground, include more general information, and I could also approach the main subject without jumping right into it and have JV feeling pummeled or ambushed from word one.

And if I'm to be completely honest I also understood that JV didn't really have any reason to trust me with the full original interview, especially considering that I've beat up on him several times on Bikezilla.

So I thought that if I cut things short this time, maybe some time down the road I could get to what I really want to talk about with him either as a subject or a source.

Providing that outline to JV helped out a lot, in the end. Because, since he already knew the content and context of what I wanted to get at, I could simply say, "Ok, I'm at this point in the outline." and then just give him the basic idea of what I wanted to discuss, instead of going over every single word and quote and idea at length. So it helped shorten things up considerably and made it all a lot less frustrating (at least for me).

The outline also kept me focused. As the interview progressed, the conversation and the questions became more sensitive, and I could tell that JV was more on edge, maybe a little defensive. But I didn't have to hem and haw and think about how and where maybe I should back off, or get flustered and start forgetting things. I just had to stay focused on the outline and let it guide me through the discomfort and the tenseness.

As things became more sensitive and tense, JV could have hung up on me at any time, or said, "Dude, you know what, you're just a fucking peon blogger and I don't need to take this shit from you.". But he didn't. He stuck with me and remained focused and respectful.

I was impressed, and again pleasantly surprised.

I wasn't done being surprised.

JV contacted me again via Twitter DM to fill in some info that he left out because "The way you asked that ? made me a little defensive". Then, not once but twice, he called me back. The first time I was certain it had to be an accident, a pocket dial.

But no. He wanted to give me some off the record information that would explain some things and, as he would say, give me "some perspective".

The interview itself was flat on a personal level. There was no real connection there. But I hadn't expected one. It was what I had anticipated.

The process, from late February until completion, was long and more than frustrating. In fact, it had me outright pissed off for weeks at a time.

But it was also rewarding on several levels.

But the phone call (singular, because I missed the call the first time) was different. It felt comfortable, easy, like I was hanging out in the backyard and talking to one of my friends.

Internal Conflict

The post-interview DMs left me feeling a little lost. They weren't officially "off the record", but some of them were sensitive, and because they were in DM and so intentionally not in public view, and not in a common response media like an email, I made an assumption that they were intended to be off limits.

They, plus portions of the interview itself, left me feeling conflicted, and as I've mentioned before, it's tough to honor both the subject and the topic, and tougher when you like and respect the person you're interviewing and not wanting to violate the trust they've placed in you, but not wanting to puss out, either.

Thankfully Twitter has allowed me contact with several people who've done far more interviews than I have, and who've done more "big" interviews.

So I sought advice from one of them and got some great guidance without being told what to do.

That guidance helped me balance my thoughts and obligations as a human vs my thoughts and obligations as a writer. It also gave me the following thoughts on JV and his continued refusal to give an unequivocal, "Yes I used peds".

"I don't need a full accounting from JV. He participated in that doping culture, in that era, got sick of it, left, tried to come back and do it a better way. I don't need him to address
when, how many times, with what, with who.

"I dispute the fact that every sinner must disclose every detail of every sin. Would you?

"Think of the most vile acts of your life, your own part in them, and think of telling not just someone closest to you, but the whole world, having your worst moment of weakness live
on then as your legacy for relatives or grand-grand-grand children who never
knew you to know you by. Not just that you did something wrong -- which I think
is often best to admit -- but the most minute details of how and why and when
and to whom and with what disregard you did it, and how you later lied about
(because we all have), and to find out that you are no longer a human who did
something human and tried to go on from ere, but that you are forever now a
liar, a cheater, an adulterer, whatever."

My Opinion

My opinion of JV hasn't changed. As I've said before, I think he's "a pirate and a good man".

JV provided this:

"Piracy was never solved by the Royal Navy. Corruption prevented solution. Henry Morgan, a pirate, or former pirate, was the single most responsible for the end of piracy in the Caribbean, after he was hired by the Royal Navy."

There are serious issues that raise questions against his ethics and integrity. The two most glaring, for me, are:

1. His SCA deposition, where it seems clear to many people (including me) that he perjured himself with damned near every word he said, at a time when he could have blown Lance Armstrong and doping right out of the water, but chose not to.

CORRECTION:

JV:

"I was never deposed at SCA. Ever. I signed an affidavit saying I had no first hand knowledge of doping in 2005.

I did not have first hand knowledge of doping at usps in 2005. How could I? I was retired and out of the loop.

Never deposed. Never subpoenaed. Had nothing to do with SCA."

2. The Trent Lowe / Matt White issue. The stories never matched up, and JV's own account did not seem consistent, and why he never reported Lowe's irregular blood values to WADA or UCI. There's something ugly swimming beneath the surface, and neither Vaughters nor Lowe nor White is eager for us to learn about it.

I've been asked why those issues weren't covered in this interview. It's simple, either of them could consume an entire interview on its own. I could not have done them justice, here, and they would have been threads off of the path I'd intended to follow.

In short, they just didn't fit.

But, if you take those suspicious issues into consideration, and you look at JV and then at his peers, who among them all would you most readily see in JV's current position of influence? Who would you put the most faith in as our crusader against the evils of doping and the corruption in the system?

Johan Bruyneel? Lance Armstrong? Bill Stapleton? Jim Ochowicz? John Lelangue? Bjarne Riis? Kim Anderson?

If you didn't scream, "FUCK NO!" after every name on that list then I can only assume that you're either one of their mothers, or you're smoking crack as you read this.

I'll take Vaughters over any of them, and breathe a sigh of relief that it's him and not them championing our cause.

If you distrust Vaughters, how far do you take that?

He's sang the praises of Roger Legeay and Legeay's ethics and integrity. Yet Legeay himself was
busted for taking amphetamines in 1974 at Paris - Nice.

Do you erase Legeays credibility, too? Is there an association of dishonor that makes both men doubly damned by their links to each other?

For those of us who have trouble reconciling Jonathan Vaughters philosophy with our own, here's what I see as a great and reasonable evaluation.

To sum that up, JV follows an insiders strategy that is a slow route to change, but one that doesn't risk destroying or humiliating the sport, or scaring away sponsors, to create change.

It's a patient, intelligent strategy, but still leaves JV open to criticisms and concerns regarding his ethics, honesty, integrity and his commitment to anti-doping. And I think all of that is entirely fair.

That is obviously a price he's willing to pay, though just as obviously it's not a price he pays with any joy.

I think that while he accepts that he's left himself open to questions and criticism and he is largely ok with that, there are times when it stings him, hurts him, when it really leaves him bleeding.

In conclusion, I fully believe that JV was a dope sucking weasel during his time at U.S. Postal and when he set the record for climbing Mt Ventoux, that he lied under oath during the Lance Armstrong vs SCA trial, that something smells like rotten fish around the Trent Lowe affair, that the
opening to his personal statement on the Slipstream website is a crock-o-crap and should be amended, and that there are times when he blatantly bullshits us and plays us for fools.

But I also think that he's a good man and genuine, that he is sincere in his desire and efforts to clean up cycling from the inside without tearing it apart first and that, overall, he is worthy of my trust.

What Would Mom Do?

2011-05-11T21:49:00.000-05:00

In difficult times, when I'm feeling tossed about and unsure of what to do, I always ask myself, "What would Mom do?"

The problem is that the answer is always, "She'd get drunk, stoned, have sex with teenage boys and beat me with her brush."

None of those things is the least bit helpful.

Thanks, Mom.

Next life I'm coming back as an amoeba, or a quark, or a bit of vacuum.

Dead 2

2011-05-11T10:42:00.002-05:00

Last night I saw a brief video interview that Bill Strickland did with CNN about Wouter Weylandt's death and effectiveness of safety measures in professional cycling. In it, CNN seems to be trying to bash professional cycling for not doing enough to protect its riders, yet they offer no solution.

Considering the extraordinary and nearly immediate medical response to Weylandt's crash, and that there is no practical solution for avoiding incidents like Weylandt's, this is just sniping based not on real concern for Weylandt, nor for professional cycling / professional cyclists, but strictly for the sake of sensationalism.

These were the same people who wanted Strickland to comment on the Weylandt crash as it relates to doping, with both being "black marks on cycling".

Fucking scumbags.

A lot of the response to Weylandt's death makes me feel like that. Bloggers writing about it, then tweeting, retweeting and reretweeting about that article. Tweeters making grand announcements that they're "speaking seriously now".

It all seems like grandstanding to me, all for show, all a sick, mad grab for more readers, or to make themselves look sensitive, wise, caring, important, relevant, appropriate.

The phoniness of it fucking pisses me off.

In that Strickland / CNN interview Bill reveals that Wouter died instantly.

This really hit me.

It reminded me of that OKC bombing photo of firefighter Chris Fields carrying the body of 1 year old Baylee Almon.

When I saw that picture I was sure (or maybe just unreasonably hopeful) she was alive. It was a couple of years before I found out differently.

During that time I would frequently remember that image and wonder what happened to the little girl in it. I kept waiting to hear about her first concern as a middle school violinist, or her first prom, her upcoming wedding.

In fact, I remember having conversations with coworkers and my (then) wife about exactly that.

Instead I eventuall saw an interview with Chris Fields where he said that Baylee was dead in his arms.

There was more to the interview, but that was all I heard. The rest was lost in the sound of the earth splitting in two (to paraphrase a line from the movie Spanglish).

It was like being pummeled by a giant fist. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe.

Hope was crushed. One of the few rays of goodness to come out of the OKC bombing was snuffed.

That's how I felt when I heard that Weylandt had died instantly.

The image of him laying there, unmoving, and the blood, too much blood, were eased by the reports of the medical aid and the rumor that his heart was beating when he was loaded on to the chopper.

It didn't make him any less dead, but it was hope that he could have lived, that at some point he actually had a chance.

It probably shouldn't make any difference. But it does.

Dead

2011-05-09T19:21:00.000-05:00

Today I took an early lunch, partly because I was going to spend the rest of my day in an area I was unfamiliar with and partly because I'd hoped to catch a little piece of Stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia.

The first thing I saw when I got onto Twitter was that that Wouter Weylandt had crashed and it was bad. Something about medical personnel massaging his heart for 15 minutes prior to him being taken away in a helicopter. Supposedly he'd been revived.

Turns out, not so much.

He had massive head injures and was beyond help.

There are times during the season, for instance last year when I watched Ezequiel Mosquera fight his way through the Vuelta's mountain stages, when professional cycling can lead me to the edge of crying.

Learning of Weylandt's crash had this effect on me.

I couldn't even put a finger on why.

When I heard that he had died it overwhelmed me. I had to leave McDonalds for fear of embarrassing myself.

Again, why?

He wasn't a rider I followed, nor that I knew much about. He was on a team I didn't even like because I suspected that, as a group, they were dopers and because their manager, Bjarne Riis, had definite ties to and knowledge of doping and would not expose those he knew to be guilty.

I had no ill will toward Weylandt, but great suspicion about him because of his team and his manager.

But his death still touched me and left me penetrated by sadness.

Since then, as I learn more about him, that feeling becomes stronger.

I know for certain that part of my sadness is empathy for those whose life he touched, who knew and will miss him.

He was Tyler Farrar's best friend, and Tyler Farrar is a rider who I respect on a personal level possibly more than any other in the peloton. That Tyler placed his faith in Weylandt told me that he was probably a guy of high integrity.

Taylor Phinney shared a memory of Weylandt being kind and gracious. Others that he was always friendly to everyone.

Learning of his quality increased the weight of my sadness.

Over the course of the day I've been mostly disgusted by Weylandt's well-wishers, yet not to the point that I'll tell any of them how to mourn him or how to express that.

The first to disgust me was one who is a constant whining complainer anyway, threatening to "unfollow" anyone who didn't express things in a manner that he saw as "appropriate".

He's the kind of guy that if you knew him in person you wouldn't hesitate to tell him to shut the fuck up, nor to punch him in the mouth if he got bitchy about it.

He ranted that someone dared post something so banal as a race report, but tweeted an endless list of stupidities himself.

Petty of me? Yes. And evidence that I run out of patience quickly when I'm in emotional distress. Because normally I'd blow this guy's silliness off and not give it a second thought. It is who he is. No big deal.

The rest got under my skin for even dumber reasons.

That they made a show of expressing their grief on Twitter. To me it was just that, for show.

But there was more to it than that.

When Barb died it was all I could do not to scream in the face of anyone who offered me condolences. They all seemed trite and pointless and empty, Trite, pointless, emptiness was nowhere on the list of things I needed right then.

My stepmom is the sweetest woman I know and it just happens to be her habit, a totally innocent and unintentional habit, that she tends to speak in cliches.

More than that, she loved Barb, too, and had her own real pain she was dealing with. But when she would offer comfort all I wanted to do was jump in her face and scream, "shutupshutupshutupjustshutthefuckup!".

Even Non, who I adore almost as much as I adore Barb, set off the same internal reaction.

Thankfully, I never let any of it escape, though I did explain to Non how I felt. As she always does, she understood.

This is what I was feeling today, though Weylandt does not mean 1 millionth of what Barb means to me.

Maybe it has to do with the beauty and the passion of cycling. Maybe, as someone observed, it has to do with my close connection to the professional cycling community through my writing and through Twitter.

I honestly have no idea. I'm guessing that I'll never know.

But writing it all out has helped to ease things for me.

I don't even feel like screaming at anyone.

A Conversation With Bill Strickland:Postscript

2011-05-06T19:24:00.000-05:00

Part 1, Emma O'Reilly's Anger at Bill Strickland, Part 2, Part 3, Bill Strickland's NPR Interview, Part 4, Part 5, Postscript

This is Part Final; The article about the articles.

But more than that, what came before this was my conversation with and interview of Bill Strickland. That ended with Part 5: The Damning Question.

This is my conversation with you, my readers.

Before I began talking to Bill Strickland I'd had a couple disappointing experiences with interviewing cycling professionals or cycling celebrities.

Jonathan Vaughters, owner of Slipstream Sports and Garmin Cervelo invited me to interview him, then blew me off (and going on 2.5 months he's still blowing me off).

Then I was invited to interview Greg LeMond, but my interview happened to reach him just as he was preparing to take a long trip out of the country, along with his wife, Kathy, to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

That one, of course, is entirely understandable. But, damn, talk about frustration.

It was starting to feel like the Universe had set in motion this evil plot against me, where no one I contacted ever got back to me. The maintenance crew here at my apartment complex got in on it, the Realtor I wanted to talk to got in on it. Even the loan guy I tried to contact got in on it.

Then this opportunity came up and I was thinking, "Ok, great, another hotshot blowing smoke up my ass."

I fully expected to, again, be blown off.

It's not paranoia if they're really trying to get me, right?

-- Bill Stickland's access to Lance Armstrong has brought him a lot of success. It's also the originating point for a lot of the grief he endures. Because, it looks like he's betrayed the truth and forgotten his obligations as a journalist on behalf of that access.

One thing that helped me sympathize with Bill, though it didn't sway my opinion, is the idea of access vs no access and how when you don't have it, it's no big deal, but when you do have it, it quickly comes to matter.

Being close to someone big can soften your view, or your willingness to present or pursue the topic aggressively.

I have those two big (that is, big for me) interviews going (though it's been an excruciating lesson in patience). The one with JV and the one with Greg LeMond that I've already mentioned. Then this interview / extended chat with Bill.

You come to like and respect them more, partially for the access, partially because you've gotten to see and understand more of them.

In the (planned) interview with Jonathan Vaughters there are things that I specifically wanted to ask him about, things that were the entire point of wanting to do the interview (which is about doping and his history in and around it). But once the opportunity was there . . . "Damn, if I ask this, will he tell me to get fucked?".

I was surprised that I found myself in a debate with myself over whether or not I should be so bold regarding what I knew were very sensitive but also critically important issues. Should I ask what I really needed to ask?

Again, with the LeMond interview. Once I was able to send the questions I wanted to ask, that I thought and still think need to be asked, I wasn't sure that I should.

In both cases I had read and researched and found out certain things that required questions. But once I had the access to ask those questions I had to push myself at times not to be softer where things were potentially contentious, ugly or unpleasant. It's hard to be fair to both the subject and the topic.

You'll have to be the judge as to weather or not I'm every successful at that.

It's a lot different writing about real people when you're actually exchanging words and thoughts with them, than when you're simply analyzing this and that about them independent of their input (as I frequently do in writing Bikezilla).

It's easier to be courageous and "in your face" when you have nothing to lose, nothing at stake.

I first emailed Bill about our interview the Friday before Easter. I didn't expect so much as an acknowledgement until at very least the following Monday.

But Bill got back to me that night. Not his secretary. Not his assistant. Not his media rep. Him.

He thought he would even be able to get started on our interview by Saturday. When he couldn't he wrote me to let me know that he got tied up with other obligations, and that he'd reply to my thoughts within a couple days.

I was shocked. I was impressed. And expecting "a couple days" to drag out to a couple weeks, or even a couple months.

But he was true to his word.

That set of circumstances went a long way toward building my impression that I could trust him, and toward leaving my mind open to the possibility that he wasn't lying about what he knew about Lance Armstrong and when he knew it.

I wasn't even close to belief, but I felt I had reason to leave that door open.

I was even more impressed because my writing about him, and my initial conversation with him on Twitter were antagonistic, even belligerent.

He as easily could have told me to piss off. Or just ignored me entirely.

His level of courtesy, consideration, professionalism and respect by themselves reduced the level of irritation and distrust I felt toward him.

He never spoke to me as if I was just some pissant blogger (which I am) and he was an important magazine editor (which he is). Just the opposite. It was almost as if I was the important writer and I was doing him a favor by writing about him. He was that polite, considerate, respectful and available. Seriously. No exaggeration.

It was the antithesis of my experience with Jonathan Vaughters.

Bill never knew and never asked what my intent was with this interview, nor with any individual part of it. He didn't ask or know where the narrative was going or how it would get there. He had no information until each part went up. Just like you.

Early on, Bill let me know that certain things he told me would be off the record. Some of those things were sensitive, but most of them were because he doesn't feel that it's right for a writer to debate his writing with his readers. It's a quirk of his, and one I had to work with or around.

That made the writing interesting and difficult at times.

At some point during almost every part of the interview series I ended up pushing those "off limits" boundaries.

There were times when I simply leaned hard against that invisible line. There were others where I not-to-stealthily tip-toed across it.

Only once, when I knew that the ground I wanted to tread was especially sensitive and forbidden, did I write him to discuss what I wanted to do.

As a courtesy, and so he would not feel that I'd ambushed him, after publishing each part I always gave him a heads up about where I pushed things and how. But except for that once, I didn't ask ahead of time. He never wrote and said that he wanted to see something prior to it going up. He never chastised or berated me for my choices and decisions.

That one time when I did write to discuss using "off limits" material, he responded by expressing his reluctance, but still giving me more than what I'd requested.

In every instance Bill handled things graciously, even generously.

He'd told me from the beginning that he trusted me to be fair, and he never backed away from that.

-- As I was putting the parts of this series up I heard some great comments and had some interesting conversations about peoples' thoughts on Bill.

I finally came to the realization that no matter how I objective I am, or no matter how lopsided I might instead choose to be, that people feel so strongly about Bill, about his failure to admit or realize that Lance Armstrong is a doper, or their view that he betrayed Lance, that I won't be changing any minds in either direction.

I'm ok with that. I never wanted to tell you that you should or shouldn't believe Bill. I wanted to give you the information. You can use and interpret it the way that best satisfies you.

But I did begin the interview series with a definite mindset: Bill was a liar and I wanted to "hear" him tell me the truth.

Really, that was the one driving force and regardless of my opinion at any specific point in the interview that never changed. I wanted one unequivocal answer. No hedging.

But, I wrote most of the series with mixed feelings. On one hand, I got my unhedged, unequivocal answer. On the other, I couldn't use it. It was "off limits".

You have no idea how many times I muttered "shitshitshitshitshit . . ." under my breath as I went over things with the knowledge that I couldn't include that one all important piece of information.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Going in to the interview, I felt like Bill thought of me, and of readers in general, as fools, suckers, like he could play us and we wouldn't notice it because we were too stupid. I resented that. A lot.

Though it was difficult to understand, to "get my head around", as I think I mention during the interview series, I did eventually come to accept that he honestly believed, or at least that he tried and wanted to believe, that Lance had raced clean.

He wasn't trying to cheat us, he wasn't lying to us, he really believed.

I presented some of what convinced me already, throughout the interview, and I won't waste time going over it again, here.

A great big part of the rest, and maybe even more of an influence, was realizing that Bill STILL believes, really in his gut believes, some things that just make no sense to me.

He still believes that Lance rode clean during his first Tour, and that even Lance's most critical detractors believe that, too.

I believe that Lance doped from as early as 13 and that THAT, in fact, was the cause of his cancer. I also believe that it's almost impossible for a thinking person to see it differently.

Yet, Bill does.

He also believes that Lance rode Comeback 2.0 clean.

I think Lance just knew how to beat the system and did so with microdoses of EPO and with undetectable autologous blood transfusions, and with some help form UCI (for instance, during the 2009 Tour de France, Astana was always tested last, UCI once delayed testers for 45 minutes when they were already with Astana, and Astana members frequently stalled testers). Again, it seems to me that no thinking person could possibly believe differently.

Yet again, Bill does.

-- During the interview, one thing Bill never did was tell me that I was wrong. And he never said or implied that I was stupid, nor that I didn't know what I was talking about.

He always acknowledged that my views were every bit as valid as readers who believed him, readers with opposite views, and his own.

In short, he was never defensive and he never gave me reason to be defensive or feel like I needed to guard or protect my views and opinions. That made it easier to honestly evaluate and consider his views and opinions.

-- When I found myself believing him, it caused me a problem.

I began this interview with a certain intent and in a certain frame of mind. What's more, the majority of my readers were already attuned to my way of thinking and my way of presenting things.

It would not make sense, nor would it be credible, if I were to write this series from the standpoint of belief. It just wouldn't work.

But, accepting that he didn't lie didn't change that I don't "get" how he can still believe some things. And, even in my previous angry state I had resolved to write as objectively as possible, to try to present not only my side of the debate, but Bill's.

I wanted to do both in a way that was respectful of my subject, but that still honored the topic and that didn't force any view or opinion down readers' throats. I want to allow them (you) to make their own decisions and choose to believe what they would.

I decided to present the interview in an approximation of my own journey from angry and accusing to perplexed understanding and reluctant belief.

I didn't come to accept that Bill was misguided but truthful and that Bill didn't lie to us about what he knew, all in a breath. I couldn't go into the writing assuming that my readers would accept it any more readily than I did. Why should they, just on my word, especially when the last thing they knew was that I was not a fan of Bill's version of journalistic integrity or ethics?

I had been incredulous (at very least) until very deep into my conversation with Bill. So that's how I would go about revealing everything to my readers.

It wasn't that hard. Because my feelings were already laid out in the questions and statements of the interview. I just had to do was be true to them.

-- If there was one great difficulty with this interview, it was the conversation style and tone.

It would have been easier to edit a straight Q & A piece, with related sections all neatly clumped together and flowing one into the other.

But the way this interview was done I had to match things up and then shuffle them around so that they would make sense.

I've said that I wish I could share everything with you, so that you'd get to see and evaluate all the information that I had available to me. Purely as a matter of discovery that's true.

But from a writing perspective that was a bad idea. There's a lot of gabby junk in there, a lot of asides and rambling, from both of us, that would make a piece this long and involved drag on mercilessly (and some of you may think that it already has).

What made it in is a majority of the most readable stuff, the most interesting bits, the most accessible relevant thoughts.

It doesn't have the full breadth and depth of the entire exchange, but it's a lot easier to follow and understand than if I'd posted the uncut and unedited content of all our emails.

There will always be things that I wish I was able to include, or that I wish I could have shown you in a different way. But what came out is pretty close to what I'd hoped it might be.

And of course, I happy, because in the end I was able to not only have, but print the equivocal statement that drove me throughout the interview.

True, it wasn't the identical statement that I was chasing when things began, but it explains the same thing; what Bill Strickland really believed about Lance Armstrong and Armstrong's history of doping.

I accept it to be the truth.

Obama Admits On Camera That He Was Born In Kenya

2011-04-07T22:39:00.000-05:00

The Obama Presidency is illegal, invalid and fraudulent.

Remove him from the Whitehouse and put him in prison.

Now. Today. Immediately.

Burn the Quran: Part 2

2011-04-02T18:47:00.002-06:00

Part 1

Last September I wrote about pastor Terry Jones, a Jim Jones type of spiritual leader who has spent the length of his holy leadership abusing and tormenting his flock in the name of God.

At the time, Terry was planning to burn dozens of copies of the Quran, but backed away from it while reserving the right to light the bonfire at any future date.

Just a few days ago, on March 20, 2011, Terry took a single copy of the Quran and torched it.

Regardless of what Terry Jones burns, he's a fucking scumbag and, honestly, I'd love for someone, anyone, to remove him from this earth in the most painful and humiliating way imaginable.

But burning the Quran doesn't even make the list of reasons why he deserves to have ninjas and mob enforcers paying him a visit.

As I mentioned before, regardless of your opinion on the actual act, it IS protected free speech, just like Jesus on the Cross suspended upside down in a glass full of urine is (award winning) free speech, and burning the American flag is free speech, and burning "Satanic verisons" of the bible is free speech.

It's also 100% non-violent. And it isn't only some handful of "extremist Christians" who share Pastor Jones disgust with Islam and desire to burn the Quran as an expression of their disgust and anger.

Now let's take a look at the type of violent and abhorrent behaviors that have Pastor Jones and others so incensed that they would ever feel the need to burn The Pedophile Prohopet's holy book.

Since Marh 20th our Muslim "allies", fueled by President Hamid Kharai, in Afghanistan have:

-- Sent 3 suicide bombers to a NATO base.

-- Murdered, "four Nepalese guards, a Norwegian, a Romanian and a Swede" at a U.N. compound in Mazar-i-Sharif.

-- Murdered at least 11 people, including at least 7 U.N. employees in Mazar-i-Sharif.

-- Instigated violence in Khandahar that has killed at least 9 people and injured at least 80 more.

Yet it will be Jones and his destruction of a single book, a mere collection of bound together, ink stained pages of paper, one inanimate object, that American and European Liberals will express their indignation over.

To recap:

-- Extremist Christians demonstrate extreme anger, outrage and disgust by burning a book.

-- Average everyday Muslims demonstrate anger, outrage and disgust by rioting, burning, killing, bombing and murdering, causing the deaths of dozens of innocent victims and injury dozens or hundreds more.

In Gaza they don't just burn bibles, they burn churches and convents.

Where's the outrage?

In Pakistan Muslims burn Christians; not merely books, but living, breathing, innocent people, for no crime greater than following a religion that American and European Liberals tell us makes them worthy of being tortured and murdered.

Where's the outrage?

Personally, I'm still a big fan of wiping my ass with every page of The Pedophile Prophet's "holy" book.

I'm only about halfway through my copy and happy to say that, so far, it hasn't clogged my plumbing.

Single Guy Clam Sauce

2011-03-13T19:10:00.000-06:00

The basic recipe:

1 can whole baby clams

1 can minced clams

1 jar of clam juice

Dump it all in a pot and heat it on medium heat till it's steaming.

The two different styles of canned clams gives you layered textures and slightly varied flavors.

How to spruce it up:

Remember, you don't have to use all of these ideas if there's anything you don't care for.

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 pinch thyme

1/2 teaspoon onion powder (granulated onion is good enough)

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder (yep, granulated garlic works fine, too)

1/4 teaspoon of black pepper

A little grated Parmesan cheese for on top

How to keep the sauce ON the noodles, not just pooled on the plate:

We're gonna make a variation of a roux again, and if you're going to thicken the sauce, then add in the clams last, in order to keep them from getting overly tough.

4 tablespoons of butter

3 tablespoons of cornstarch

In a sauce or frying pan, melt the butter and heat over medium or medium high heat until it bubbles and starts to brown.

Use a fork to add and mix in the cornstarch.

As soon as the cornstarch and browned butter are completely incorporated, add the roux to your clam juice, seasons and spices (if you've decided to add any).

Heat the clam juice / roux mixture over medium high heat, so that it bubbles heavily.

Stir every couple minutes to keep the cornstarch from burning onto the bottom of the pan.

When it reaches the thickness you desire, add in the clams.

Heat for another 3 minutes, just to heat the clams up, and you're done.

The Real Cost of Owning a Honda Civic Hybrid

2011-03-09T16:30:00.003-06:00

You think that paying a little more for a Honda Civic Hybrid is worth it, at least partially because you'll save some money in gas and, over the life of the car, that'll balance.

But they don't tell you that the car "seems" to be maliciously engineered specifically to transfer maximum cash from your wallet to Honda dealer service garages.

For instance, the Honda Civic Hybrid has struts all the way around. Replacing the rear struts will cost you $600, because the labor involves removing portions of battery and the hybrid drive.

Replacing the front struts will cost $300, for similar reasons.

How about that $20 headlamp? It'll cost $100 to replace, because, again, a battery will have to be removed to get to it.

If your hybrid battery takes a dump on you the day after its warranty expires, it'll cost you $3,000 to replace it.

Why? So you can experience the joys of 38.9 MPG (something short of the 56 MPG quoted on the sticker).

Next time you have to choose between replacing the worn out shoes your kid is wearing and making a repair to your Honda Civic Hybrid, because there's no way you could possibly afford both, send Honda a thank you note for it's "seeming" malicious engineering practices.

Single Guy Gravy

2011-02-06T12:11:00.003-06:00

I love gravy, but I've never been very good at making it.

My dad can get a gallon of the most amazing gravy from a cup of drippings.

I can take a gallon of drippings and get barely a cup of merely okay gravy.

This kind of sucks when rice with gravy is one of my all time favorite foods, and any kind of meat is better to me with gravy than without it.

So I've learned a few tricks for making passable gravy that's fast and easy.

-- There are four parts to building gravy.

1. Fat

This can be fat from meat drippings and the like (I'll explain that soon), or it can be butter. Usually it's butter.

2. Thickener

There are lots of different thickeners, but we'll be using two, flour and cornstarch.

3. Base

This can be drippings and the like, but for us it'll be stock, bouillon and other "base" products that are related to bouillon.

4. Water

Ok, I get that you're a single guy and you're reading this because you don't know how to cook. But, please, tell me I don't have to explain "water'.

Onward.

You're going to use some version of a "roux" for every recipe I give you today.

This will see our "fat" and our "thickener" combined together.

It'll also greatly reduce any instance of lumpy flour in our gravy. In fact, I'll be bold enough to say that use of a roux will entirely eliminate lumps in your gravy.

What is a roux?

A rue is simply melted butter mixed with flour (though we'll learn a couple variations).

How much of each?

The most basic roux is simply 1 part melted butter + 1 part flour.

It's actually 1 tablespoon of melted butter + 1 tablespoon of flour, per 1 cup of base liquid (stock or broth, for instance).

But many recipes call for a mix of 1.5 or even 2 parts melted butter + 1 part of flour.

Fat = flavor, so our roux is going to be 2 tablespoons of butter (or fat) + 1 tablespoon of flour.

Here's your rue recipes:

Basic Roux:

2 Tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon flour

Melt the butter over low to medium heat.

As the butter begins to brown, slowly add in your tablespoon of flour and mix with a fork.

Bam, that easily it's done.

From now on, I'm just going to include "roux" in the ingredient lists and use the term "roux" in the instructions.

But first here are your variations for later:

Variation #1:

-- Replace the butter with animal fat. This stuff makes the best gravy, short of full blown drippings.

How do you get it?

Sometimes when you make other things, like braised beef or lamb, or soup or stock of any kind, when you refrigerate the liquid you get a mass of chilled fat collected on the surface.

Or maybe you aren't good enough to make those things yet, but your mom or gramma or someone you know and see often is. What usually happens is that they throw that chilled fat away. Ask them to save it for you.

Variation # 2:

-- Replace the 1 tablespoon of flour with 1/2 tablespoon of cornstarch.

No this may not technically be a rue. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's kind of cheating the term.

But cornstarch makes for a clearer gravy, you use less of it, AND (best of all) you don't get that "flour" taste if you use a smidge too much.

Begin with using the 1/2 tablespoon that I recommend. If you find that it makes things too thick, too fast, cut it back to 1 teaspoon or less in the future.

Recipes:

# 1.

-- 1 8 oz can of stock or broth (I honestly couldn't tell you what the difference is between "stock" and "broth" and I use them interchangeably. I prefer the "lower sodium" version.)

-- Roux

Since you already have your rue going and it's hot, slowly pour in your can of stock or broth and stir the mixture with a fork until it's smooth (the mixture, not the fork).

Once you pour the stock / broth in, turn the heat up to medium or so. You want a nice, easy bubble going. Technically, you want at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit, sustained for several minutes. But, seriously, who freakin' measures that?

Keep stirring until gravy reaches desired thickness.

For my money, this is not only the easier, but the better tasting recipe when using the "basic roux" from above.

# 2.

-- 1 cube of bouillon, or one teaspoon of meat "base" (like "Better Than Bouillon")

-- 1 cup of hot water

-- rue

Mix together the bouillon or meat "base" with the cup of water.

Slowly add the mixed base into your hot roux, stirring with a fork until it's smooth.

Once you pour the "base" in, turn the heat up to medium or so. Remember, you want a nice, easy bubble going.

Stir until gravy reaches desired thickness.

Variations on the base:

-- I've found that the most delicious results come from mixing base sources.

For instance, 1/16 of a teaspoon of meat "base" mixed in with a can of stock / broth.

-- The juices from braised meat also make for an amazing base liquid.

Go. Cook. Be happy.

Winter Emergency Kit for Your Car

2011-02-02T17:50:00.001-06:00

Now that our biggest snowstorm in decades has come and we're already struggling with it's aftereffects, and the opportune moment has passed, I think I'll post about my winter emergency kit.

I first heard of this in a training / safety film when I was in the USAF.

You'll need some basic things, but they may not be used the way you anticipate.

-- Food. Something easily opened, but not easily destroyed by time, cold or even heat.

Pretzels, Pringles, instant hot chocolate mix with marshmallows, instant soup mix, bulk granola, trail mix, dried fruit, granola bars or bulk granola, candy bars.

Of course if you keep the kit in your car for summer, which is a good idea, you'll want to be more careful with your food selections.

My favorites are instant hot chocolate with marshmallows and instant soup mix, because you can mix them with water or eat them straight from the envelop.

-- 1 Gallon of water.

-- Toilette paper. You may need it if you're stuck long enough that you need to answer nature's call.

-- A big plastic cup, in case it's too cold to pee outside.

-- A blanket, or at least a sheet.

This isn't to wrap yourself in.

You pinch this either in the top of the back windows or (better) in the top front edge of the back doors, so that it runs like a divider from the passenger side of the car to the driver's side of the car, just behind the back seats.

This will minimize the amount of space you need to heat.

-- A second blanket.

This one's for you. Wrap up, baby.

-- A candle. Make it a big candle, wide and tall, but nothing fancy or intensely scented.

Don't get the kind in a glass, because you don't want to worry about it breaking.

And this isn't for light, it's for warmth. You'll be amazed at how much heat it can provide in that small, closed off front or back seat.

A heavily scented candle, even one you normally like, may overwhelm your sense of smell in a small, enclosed area.

-- Matches and a lighter.

-- A large mettle coffee can.

When I was a kid these came in 1 lb and 5 lb sizes. I don't drink coffee so I'm not sure exactly what the weights are now, but the larger size is better.

You use this to place the candle inside of.

-- Aspirin

-- Plastic drinking cups.

-- Plastic utensils.

-- A flashlight.

Preferably one with an LED bulb, because they're the most gentle on your batteries.

-- Spare batteries.

Don't go cheap on any of your batteries, either in this flashlight or the spares. If you do you're likely to discover that they're dead when you finally need them.

NOTES:

If your car still runs, don't leave in on constantly. Run it for short periods, just to help keep warm.

You may want to crack a window just a tiny bit, to prevent carbon-monoxide from the candle from accumulating.

If you're a little more adventurous, you might want to add a can of sterno, a sterno burner stand (it's just a folding pair of legs that the sterno can sits beneath and will support a pot, so you can heat the water), and of course a tea pot to use with them.

If you go with the sterno, I recommend that you only use it outside of the car, both for reasons of the fumes and gases, and to prevent an accidental car fire.

Any ideas of your own? Anything you think I missed? Add them in the comments. If I really like them I'll edit them into the article.

NOTE: Remember, this is not a general safety kit, it's specifically for surviving cold conditions while you're stranded in your car.

But, please, go ahead and include your ideas for a general safety kit (Andrea's red flag / towel shirt to mark your car for emergency / rescue crews to see). Maybe I'll write a second article for that, later.

Co Q10 and Grey Hair

2011-02-01T16:14:00.000-06:00

At the start of last summer I had, um, well, NOT "grey" hair, but some noticeable stress blond at my temples.

I recall not having any prior to dating C2, and hardly any until dating LP, so I entirely blame them for it's appearance and spread.

As summer progressed so did the stress blond (thanks, girls), until both sides of my head were completely, gr . . ., er, stress blond.

Then in, I think September, work put out a notice that it was time to go in for our flu shots if we wanted them (work) to pay. So I did.

Now that has absolutely nothing to do with anything, except that while I was at Walgreens for my shot, I spotted a sale on Co-enzyme Q10, which I'd never tried before and didn't really know anything about except that it's considered a very powerful antioxidant.

So for $6 and at a buy 1 get 1 deal I brought home two 30 100mg bottles.

By the end of the first bottle I noticed something that I wasn't sure I really noticed; close to half the gr . . . stress blond on my sides was gone.

Now, ok, maybe it was due to something else (lack of C2 and LP?). Maybe. But I don't use any kind of hair coloring products and I hadn't made any other health or dietary changes. So, in my mind, this was it.

Now you can say, "Co Q10 doesn't affect melanin or pigmentation in any way.", and you'd be right.

But the cause/s of gre . . . stress blond hair are not known (beyond that fact that women often trigger it in men). So if the, or A, cause is oxidation, then maybe that helps explain my good fortune.

Anyway, on with my silly little story.

By the time I ran out of my supply of Co Q10 the reduction in stress blond had slowed considerably.

And as luck would have it, when I went to stock up the sale on those 100 mg tablets was over (duh), but they had a sale on 200 mg tablets. So, ok, I got those.

And the stress blond started to vanish again.

I don't take it every day. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I forget for days at a time. But I always catch up, but I never take more than two days (400mg) at a time.

It did seem that once things reached where they were at the start of summer, that the process stalled. I'd thought that was that and maybe because this was established gr . . . stress blond, that it was beyond "repair".

But eventually the process started again. Now I have maybe 1/3 of what I'd started the summer with and it's still going away ever so slowly.

I tried to investigate online and all I could discover was that most TOPICAL products that claim to reduce grey hair (not that I have any grey hair, as we've already established) contain Co Q10.

I haven't attempted using the gel capsules topically, so I have no idea if it would work faster or if it would be a waste of time and money.

And I'm not saying that I know you can get rid of your grey hair if you take Co Q10. I can't even pretend that my experience is in any way a scientific finding.

I'm just telling you what my experience is and saying that maybe it's worth consideration.

If you try and it doesn't work, you still come out of it all just a little healthier, so it's a situation you can only win.

All Enemies Foreign and Domestic

2011-01-30T18:04:00.000-06:00

The Constitution gives us (Americans) the right to defend ourselves, our families, our communities, our property and our Country from "all enemies, foreign and domestic".

If you're in, or have EVER been in the U.S. military, that right is elevated to an obligation.

Who defines "enemy"? What is the standard?

That is left entirely up to the individual.

During the George W. Bush Presidency, there were many Liberal leaning message boards openly calling for the assassination not only of Bush 43, but of his entire family.

There was no outcry against this. No call of alarm. No Liberal stand against the "crazies" in their midst. Liberals saw this as an entirely sensible approach, and had such a plot unfolded successfully, they would have danced in the streets.

Was it their right under the Constitution to plot in such a manner?

President Barrack Hussein Obama is seen as a true and growing threat to America, an evil intent on destroying our beloved nation from the inside out.

Is it our Constitutional right, and possibly even our obligation, to act on this threat?

Or are those who embrace this notion simply insane?

How to we mesh the right granted by the Constitution and the obligation entered into via military service, with the stigma and revulsion against it (at least if you fall on the Conservative end of the spectrum)?

And why is it justified to use force and murder to accomplish your political goals if you're Liberal, but abhorrent to do so if you are Conservative?

Perhaps because the Left has a long history of worldwide bloodshed in accomplishing their goals; China; Russia: Germany: Cuba?

Is it right? Or is it wrong? Not merely for one side, but as an absolute.

The Destruction of the U.S. Economy by Big Oil: Part 3

2011-01-22T12:33:00.000-06:00

The housing and credit card markets had issues, to be sure. But those issues were sustainable barring outside influence.

Big Oil was that outside influence and is directly responsible for the housing and credit collapse.

But Joe and Jane Average don't want to look at the at the man behind the curtain.

Politicians, Republican and Democrats, see him. But he's The Wizard, and provides them with many good things. So they aren't going to pull away the curtain and expose him, nor will they reveal the nature of his trickery.

Here's Part 3 in the re-posting of The Destruction of the U.S. Economy by Big Oil: Originally posted October 1st, 2008.

Truth is nothing. Only wealth and power matter.

--

Eight years ago it cost $12.50, or less, to fill your gas tank if you had a ten gallon tank. Today that same tank cost $40.00 or more to fill.

Most people don't have ten gallon gas tanks, they have more like a 16 gallon tank, so the real numbers are more like $20.00, or less, and $64.00, or more.

If you use a typical auto lease plan of a 15,000 mile per year allowance you're traveling about 288 miles per week, using about one tank of gas. So gas alone is costing you a minimum of $198 per month ($44 per week x 4.5 weeks) more now than it did 8 years ago.

If you live tightly within your means, or have over extended yourself and are struggling to get to the next pay check, where does the extra $200 per month (again, as a minimum) come from?

Can't take it from groceries. If you're even a week late on your cell phone bill it'll be turned off (and God forbid you should have to do without THAT). You simply can't do without cable TV (or Satellite). You can't work if your car is repossessed. But it'll take months to even get the foreclosure process begun and months more before any real action is decided and taken via the courts. By that time, surely, you'll be on your feet and able to recover, to make amends with your mortgage company.

The mortgage company (and the car company) knew you were stretching yourself when you made this purchase. They knew that if push came to shove that they might end up holding a flaming bag of poop rather than your payment, yet they made the deal anyway.

I don't feel sorry for them. Not even a little. They were trying to push just one more penny into an overflowing piggy bank and it burst on them.

But this banking / mortgage crisis is 1. A super big breath of fresh air for the oil industry, because now they can point and say, "SEE! It isn't all our fault!" and 2. Very largely the fault of big oil.

Everything happening now relates directly or indirectly to the insanity of gas and oil prices and the even more insane profits that big oil has been so merrily sucking up.

Let's say that we bail out the banks. Things still won't go back to the days of milk and honey that middle and upper class Americans enjoyed for so long. Because the money is no longer available. It's STILL being merrily sucked up by big oil and this banking crisis is turning all heads away from that problem. So it won't be changing anytime soon.

Crazy!

2011-01-20T17:43:00.000-06:00

I paid my phone bill through my phone this month. Oddly, I lost service and it was like my number never existed since then.

Come to find out, someone stole the number AND pin right out of the damned air during the transaction.

So if you've called or texted me in the past few days and got no answer or something completely out of line, it wasn't me!

If Boost didn't require that you enter you pin to pay your bill this never could have happened.

Why do they give a shit if you prove that you're you as long as the bill gets paid? Anyone anywhere in the world should be able to pay that bill for you at any time without exposing your personal information.

Destruction of the U.S Economy by Big Oil: Part 2

2011-01-19T18:47:00.000-06:00

In the original article for Part 2 I mention two things that I need to wonder about now.

1. Why haven't Democrats, who screamed and whined and cried the loudest against W and his oil policies and his whoring America out to Big Oil, moved to re-regulate Big Oil?

2. When Big Oil has seen over a decade of record profits, with Big Oil refusing to reinvest in itself (still no new refiners planned) and after Democrats wailing and gnashing of teeth over the injustice and unfairness of it all, why have Democrats not moved to end government subsidies for Big Oil?

Ok, on to the re-posting of The Destruction of the U.S. Economy by Big Oil: Part 2

-------

A few days ago I wrote that W is allowing oil companies to raise fuel prices to suffocatingly high levels so that such intense pressure would be placed on the American people that they would scream to allow drilling off shore and in ANWAR, because W made that promise to the oil companies during his initial run for President.

Here is a quote from an article posted by Rueters just today.

" "Sooner or later, the American public will get so tired of high prices, that they will put pressure on politicians to make changes," Larry Nichols, chief executive officer of Devon Energy Corp, an independent U.S. producer, told Reuters. "

Republicans believe the time to make their move on behalf of the oil companies has come and W has lifted a Presidential ban of off shore drilling, pointing the finger at the Democrat controlled congress to lift it's own off shore drilling ban (which would then leave the choice up to individual coastal states).

Part of me says, "F*** that. Clamp down even harder just to teach them a lesson." But part of me wonders if that is the equivalent of cutting off America's nose to spite her face.

I think Republicans and oil companies are nervous about a Dem gaining the White House, because of the potential for re-regulation of the oil industry coupled with the likely evaporation of oil company subsidies. This move may be the last chance they have to manipulate the system and the American people in their favor.

Destruction of the U.S Economy by Big Oil: Part 1

2011-01-17T19:19:00.000-06:00

This was originally posted on July 10th, 2008.

At that time it was easy to finger George W. Bush and the Republicans as Oil Whores, and the Democrats as willing but powerless to change the status quo.

Obama played the BP spill in the Gulf to his advantage, stalling cleanup efforts in order to maximize damage so that drilling off shore and in ANWAR could be manipulated toward Democratic policies.

And it's clear now that Democrats are no more concerned with taking down Big Oil and saving middle America than the Republicans were. There's just too much political money and power at play.

But on to the re-posting of The Destruction of the U.S. Economy by Big Oil: Part 1

--

A few years ago I was a political junkie. The problem is that while following political happenings is wonderful brain fuel, it's a fairly dysfunctional world. There's nothing very uplifting about political discourse. It's just ugliness piled on top of ugliness.

So for the last maybe three years I just don't get too deeply into all of that. It's not positive or constructive enough to spend my time on. But there's something that really eats at me and it's a problem that bothers me more almost daily.

Overall I'd have to call myself a conservative. Not a Republican, but certainly more Right than Left, especially regarding the War on Terror.

In that respect I think W has been spectacular and that his policies have protected Americans at home in a way that no Democratic President could, or would even care to.

But there's another issue that I want to talk about that I don't feel so positively about.

Oil.

When W was running for his first term he made a promise; He would open up the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Not a lot of it, just a tiny percentage and there were things either in place or that would be in place to ensure that ANWAR remained pristine.

I believed, and still do, that it was a sound plan and should have been implemented long ago.

But I'd be against it, today, simply on principal of what I believe to be a huge betrayal of America. Because that promise that W made regarding drilling in ANWAR was not made to the American people, but to American oil companies and we're being manipulated into capitulating.

Do you ever wonder why when gas first topped $2 per gallon Bill Clinton's heart to heart with corporate oil quickly lead to a return of $1 per gallon gas; Yet with the price per gallon heading toward $5 W is powerless?

Arguments about a "War Premium" and an uncertain oil supply and inadequate refining capacity don't fly. When W took office, profit per gallon of gas was at about thirty-two cents. Today it's over one dollar.

American oil usage is declining (due to high prices), so refining capacity is less an issue today than it was a year ago and it continues to drop.

Oil company profits are at sick all time highs and the oil companies still cry that prices are where they are in part because of their own failure to build new refineries, but refineries are insanely expensive to build, they say.

Well with record profits and profitability, have they begun construction on even a single new refinery? Just one? After all, the money is there now.

But the answer is, no. And none are planned.

The war, uncertain supply and lack of refining capacity are all red herrings. Excuses.

High prices are a function of, yes profit, but it's more than that. W promised access to drilling in ANWAR and with prices screaming higher by the week the pressure is on and drilling not only in ANWAR but in offshore areas that are currently prohibited is looking really good to some. John McCain is already pressing this issue in his campaign, so don't expect it to go away.

I respect and agree with W's running of the war, and honestly believe that he is the reason for the absence of terror attacks on U.S. soil post 9/11.

But he's allowing, even promoting, what amounts to economic terror instead.

If the American economy can remain fairly well afloat under this kind of pressure, can you just imagine how it would be screaming along if the oil companies had been held in check? Rather than slowing gradually but steadily for the past few years, rather than sitting now on the brink of what could be a monstrous recession, this economy could be screaming along at a pace that has never been seen before.

But while W has great and genuine concern for our physical security, he has no concern whatsoever for our economic security.

I do understand that, fiscally, he is a true Conservative and believes in a free and open market. I also believe that in a capitalist society, profit is NOT evil.

But when an unbridled free and open market means that profit comes at the expense of the every day living of average Americans, there's a problem. A big problem.

Where I sit right now I'm not sure what the greater evil would be; To allow a Democrat in to the Presidency and just wait for the certain eventuality of another terror attack;Or to put another Republican in the office and allow the economic ruin of middle America.

There seems to be only bad choices.

Destruction of U.S Economy by Big Oil

2011-01-16T18:50:00.000-06:00

This group of articles has been brining in a lot of readers. But, they're older so my Kindle readers don't have access to them.

So I'll be re-posting them starting tomorrow, one every 2 - 3 days.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww Count

2011-01-14T07:06:00.000-06:00

Up to 9 for the month!

Another guy answered the door in his panties . . . 1 Ewwwwwww point

. . . and pinched and rolled his lil ding ding like a 3 yr old would . . . double Ewwwwww points!

Why can't hot women do stuff like this?

Is it you? Or them?

2011-01-12T21:48:00.000-06:00

Something I never understand about online dating is the flatout meanness of some people.

For instance, why they feel the need to write and insult you if you don't look the way they want you to look, or don't believe what they believe, think what they think, vote like they vote, communicate the way they communicate.

Let's say you're overweight. It doesn't even matter how much. And God forbid that your profile and pictures should demonstrate that you're heavy AND full of self-confidence, that you actually LIKE yourself, who and how you are.

At some point you can expect a bullying email (actually several) full of rudeness and derision, belittling you for being fat and for, omg say it isn't so, thinking you're "all that".

Why?

What is the motivation behind that kind of attack? You can bet it isn't honorable.

Why is it that people like this can't just pass you by and click on the next profile?

Do they think they're "helping" you? Like if they heap enough insults upon your head you'll jump off your chair and run to the gym so you can fit their own personal definition of beauty?

No matter what you look like, no matter what type of personality you have, there are people, lots and lots of them, who are going to love exactly that, others who will hate it, and still more who just don't care at all.

Or does this type of person honestly believe that there's only on standard for beauty? Theirs?

Of course, weight is just one example of what I'm talking about. I see the same thing regarding politics, religion, sports and even what type of pet you own or like.

Regardless of what the issue or the reasoning, I can never quite grasp the purpose of this behavior.

I think it's really more about who THEY are, the kind of person THEY are. About their emotional issues, their personal forms of mental illness, their childhood traumas and adult deficiencies. Doesn't it really speak of their malice, their pettiness, their self-absorption, their insecurities?

When another person reacts to you, well or poorly, it IS about them. You've touched some part of them that compels them to come toward you, for good or for ill. But you shouldn't be forced to take the good with the bad, to sacrifice your dignity because you fall short of another person's image of the Ideal Man / Woman.

What bugs me most is that these people, at their cores, are just bullies and they actually get pleasure in thinking that they've hurt you.

Because if five people write to say, "OMG you're freakin' gorgeous!", if five people not only accept you exactly as you are, but adore you for it, and one just one person writes to say that you disgust them, it's always the ONE that sticks with you. They know this and revel in it.

It isn't an issue about whether or not fat is beautiful or disgusting, or if so and so is an arse, or if Right or Left is right or wrong, or dogs are better than cats or golf is a real sport. It's an issue of the true motivation behind announcing your disgust, anger or hatred and how pathetic it is that it's not likely you even have the guts or integrity to admit it.

It costs nothing, I mean absolutely NOTHING to be kind, courteous and respectful, so why is it so hard for some people?

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww Count

2011-01-12T14:12:00.001-06:00

My Ewwwwwwwwwwww Count (the number of really gross things I see at work) for the Month of January '11 is at 6, so far.

-- 3 old men answered the door in their underpants.

When I tell them to get their pants on they either stare at me blankly or act like I haven't spoken.

-- 1 of those wouldn't stop pinching and rolling his penis like a three year old (that earns double Ewwwwwwwwww points).

When I told him to stop playing with himself, he did . . . for about three seconds.

-- 1 old lady answered the door in her underpants.

She at least pretended modesty by half-heartedly holding a shirt in front of her legs.

For Love of Twitter

2011-01-11T18:54:00.001-06:00

I've been wanting to write an article about Twitter, but dragged my butt until I found this article that says everything I'd hoped to say.

Or most of it.

Most of you think of Twitter as a sad and pathetic passtime where nothing worth reading or that could ever be worth reading is ever said. You think that it's like a poor man's version of Facebook, where silly little Mr Smith writes draw-droppingly inane updates regarding his day to day life; Things like, "Taking the family out to Happy Burger. Man do I love their chocolate shakes!"

But no. In fact most of what I find on Twitter is not at all like that.

Twitter, as Mastering the Uphill Shift mentions, is a place of real community, a ridiculously convenient and time-saving source of news, a treasure trove of useful information that you won't find ANYWHERE else, and a comfortable connection between the Big Fish of whatever interests you and their fan base.

Seriously, what other venue allows fans to interact directly with the stars of whatever activity is their passion, where there is always a reasonable chance of a personal response?

Twitter saves me sometimes hours per day of searching for relevant articles. Instead of having to visit a handful of cycling news sites and searching through the articles of each one, I just view my Twitter account, and there I find links to individual articles posted by those news sites.

Personalities from all levels of professional cycling (which is my primary interest on Twitter) area available and giving insider commentary on the ins and outs of cycling.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter is not a mindless, relationship destroying time-suck. It's useful and actually helps me to better manage my time by putting much of the information I seek in one, easy to use location.

If you have a serious interest or passion about any topic, you'll be doing yourself a very big favor by signing up for Twitter and seeking out the related community.

Peeves

2011-01-09T20:17:00.000-06:00

This one is yours, sent in by Andrea.

Bad spelling, such as the spelling frequently found on Food. Work. Life., and on Bikezilla.

"Those round , doughnut-shaped hard rolls that are often paired with cream cheese, they are spelled ... B-A-G-E-L, not BAGLE."

Oopsy.

Now if I could just find where the hell I put it.

Thank you, Andrea, for not letting that go. Hysterical. Just hysterical.

Single Guy Chilimac

2011-01-09T17:52:00.000-06:00

Ya know how Sandra Lee does the 70% homemade, 30% boxed thing? Well screw that. It's waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much work for most of us single guys.

So we're going with something easier, faster, a whole lot less healthy; 100% store bought ingredients.

We'll even throw in the perfect single guy side dish!

All you need is:

1 box of ANY brand macaroni and cheese

1 can of chili (hotdog chili, chili with beans, chili with meat, whatev)

1 pack of saltines

1 big pat of room temperature butter.

Optional (to be sprinkled, shaken or plopped on top of your bowl of chilimac):

Hotsauce

Sour cream

Finely chopped cilantro

Grated sharp cheddar

I know that these options may make the whole dish just a wee bit too complicated, so feel free to option out of them.

You've probably already figured this out, but we'll cover it anyway, just for those of us who suffer not only from bachelorhood, but from dimwittedness.

-- Prepare the box of mac and cheese per the instructions on the box.

-- Stir in the can of chili (yes, open it first).

-- Spread the room temp butter on the saltines

BAM, you have yourself a homemade pot of yummo chilimac!

Peeves

2011-01-08T20:09:00.000-06:00

This one plagues me, and it seems to be a chick thing; Coworkers, girl friends, even radio DJs do it ALL the time, and it just makes me crazy(er).

If something is really, really funny, it's "hilarious"

If a person is intensely, irrationally emotional (say, screaming and crying, completely out of control with fear or anguish), they are "hysterical".

The two words are NOT interchangeable, they are NOT synonyms.

Update

2011-01-08T08:40:00.002-06:00

Sorry, but work informed me on the 6th of January that I'm scheduled to take my State test on the 20th. With barely 2 weeks to prepare I'm in a panic studying and most of the time I'd normally spend following cycling and writing has been replaced with study time.

But I will get something up this evening after I get in from work.

Thanks for coming in. See you soon.

Tom / Bikezilla / Food.Work.Life.

Best Compliment Ever . . .

2011-01-04T00:25:00.002-06:00

. . . was being told "You are completely your own person" (thank you, A).

I have a sister, we'll call her "Tami" (because that's her name), who I don't get along with and I don't even like.

But one thing that I've admired and respected about her since HS, was exactly that; she is and has always been, entirely her own person. She's also a spiteful, vindictive, dishonest ball of hatefulness, with fidelity and substance abuse issues, but that's for another time.

Anyway, Tami never cared what the rules were, what the "flow" was. She still doesn't. If what she wants requires her to swim ten miles upstream, the bitch swims. If that means getting cut by rocks, pummeled by submerged logs and tossed by rapids, so be it.

She doesn't care who else is swimming in that direction or if anyone is there to give her a hand up the bank and help tend her wounds when she reaches her destination. She's going where she thinks she needs to go.

Tonya has always had the same quality, which I've also come to greatly admire and respect.

It makes me wonder how the hell it happened. Our parents never encouraged us to grow and become strongly independent. In fact, they never encouraged anything beyond staying out of their hair so that they weren't forced to do anything that actually required them to parent.

The compliment, of course, did NOT make me feel any sort of connection to Tami (I already have a great connection with Tonya). But I never really recognized that I shared that trait with my sisters, though I'd spent decades envying them (especially Tami) for it.

I'm sure A didn't realize it at the time, but despite the simplicity of her statement, it was possibly the most perfect compliment anyone could have given me.

Peeves

2011-01-03T17:20:00.000-06:00

A "Complement" is something that goes well with something else; Salt and Pepper, James Carville and Mary Matalin, Peanut Butter and Jelly.

A "Compliment" is something nice someone says about you (or you about them).

The one with the "I" is personal.

My Resolutions

2011-01-02T11:53:00.000-06:00

I resolve, once again, to eat more eclaires.

I resolve to begin learning how to bake (though I'll never top my dad's cream puffs nor Nan's pie crust).

I resolve to spend more time socializing and being near, around and with other humans.

I resolve to at least attempt to ignore that Monty Python voice in my head shouting "Run away! Run away!".

Alfredo Sauce

2011-01-02T01:51:00.001-06:00

I used to loooooooooooooooove Olive Garden for their aldfredo sauce. While damned near every other restaurant and all store bought "alfredo" sauces were really cream sauces with little or no Parmesan, OG's was deliciously cheesy.

But no more. It seems that as cost cutting became more important than pleasing customers, OG's alfredo became just one more ho hum cream sauce.

So began my quest for the perfect alfredo recipe.

Ingredients:

4 -5 oz (by weight) grated Parmesan cheese. -- I strongly recommend using a kitchen scale to accurately measure this. You can pick up a mechanical kitchen scale for less than $10.

8 oz / 1 cup (liquid measure) heavy cream

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon lemon or orange zest OR 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice OR 1 teaspoon of orange juice

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter

What to do:

Grate the cheese and set aside.

Set up a double boiler on medium low heat.

Add in all the ingredients EXCEPT the cheese.

When the butter is melted begin adding the cheese one small handful at a time and mix it in with a fork.

If the cheese is too stringy and gooey and not properly liquefying so that it sticks too much to the fork and will not blend in with the cream, up the heat just a little.

Continue adding the cheese one small handful at a time until it's all incorporated into the sauce.

MISTAKES, CORRECTIONS and VARIATIONS:

Variations:

1. Cheese: You can substitute Romano or any other similar cheese in the same amounts to give a lighter or sharper flavor.

Don't adjust the flavor via changes to the ratio of cheese to cream. I'll tell you why below.

Variation 2:

Most recipes you'll find on line, for instance on the Food Network, will have you make the entire sauce but NOT add in the cheese directly.

Instead, they have you add the cheese into your noodles and THEN pour the sauce on and mix it all together.

This, however, will NOT duplicate the taste and texture of the formerly glorious OG version of Alfredo.

MISTAKES:

1. Sauce "hardens" into either a "glue" or a rubbery solid.

You've used too much cheese.

Once you pass 4 oz (by weight) of cheese you're sauce is gonna start getting "gluey" as it cools.

Once you pass 6 oz (by weight) it'll start turning into that rubbery, gooey mass as it cools.

This is another reason to use variations in the type of cheese you use to adjust the intensity of the flavor rather than altering the amount of cheese.

2. Noodles are sticking together.

As we ("we" being me) mentioned, one reason for this to happen is that you've used too much cheese.

But that's been covered. So . . .

Have you ever wondered why alfredo seems always to be served with linguine? Well, there actually is a simple and logical reason for it, and it has nothing to do with tradition.

Heavier noodles are more forgiving of the cooling sauce. They resist being "glued" together, which means you have a smidge of wiggle room in your cheese to cream ratio when you use heavier noodles than when you use something like angel hair.

Of course, you may also have overcooked your noodles, but we aren't getting into that today.

3. The lemon or orange flavor is too strong.

Duh, you used too much zest or juice.

A very small amount of either, especially the lemon, goes further than you might think, at least in this sauce.

4. The cheese isn't binding to the liquid.

You cheated and used milk instead of heavy cream.

There isn't enough fat in milk, not even in "whole" milk, for the cheese to incorporate properly with it.

You might get away with 1/2 & 1/2, but your best option will always be heavy cream.

5. The cheese is getting gooey and sticking to my whisk and I can't get it all out.

Which is why I told you to use a fork.

6. The oil is separating out from the butter and settling on top of the sauce.

The heat is too high.

Remove the pot from the burner, reduce the heat, let the pot cool just a little, then put it back on the heat. You'll probably be able to reconstitute the oil back into the sauce.

This will be a problem in reheating, too.

I recommend gentle reheating, also in a double boiler.

Food. Work. Life. Now for Kindle

2010-12-19T15:26:00.001-06:00

You can now read Food. Work. Life. on the train, the plane, in the car, ANYWHERE!.

I'm so happy for you.

::sniffle::

Lime Cilantro Rice

2010-12-19T14:47:00.001-06:00

Lime Cilantro Rice:

-- Two cups cooked rice

-- 2 - 6 tablespoons lime juice

-- 1 bunch cilantro (washed)

I'm a big fan of the food at Chipotle, but I discovered and fell in love with lime cilantro rice at an ex-girlfriend's, and stumbled onto the two mistakes you're likely to make, back then.

Yes, she is a horrible, awful person, but if not for the merciless trauma of that relationship I might not have discovered the joys of making lime cilantro rice at home.

So . . .

To start with, which rice you use is completely a personal choice. Some of you couldn't care less about what kind you use, whatever is cheapest is just fine with you. Some of you are very particular and have a definite favorite or favorites.

Whatever your preference, whether it's the cheapest thing you can find, gorgeously scented jasmine rice, sticky rice (my current favorite) or any other variety, start by making two cooked cups worth.

-- While that's cooking, chop the leafy portion of the cilantro off of the bunch, throw away the stems and divide the leaves.

You're dividing the leaves because smaller batches / bunches are easier and less frustrating to deal with.

So take between 1/4 and 1/3 of the cilantro leaves, place them on your cutting board and make a fine chop of them.

Keep that process up until you've chopped the entire bunch, and hopefully have not removed any fingers, fingertips, or fingernails.

-- With your rice finished add in about 2 tablespoons of the lime juice and mix it in thoroughly. Taste it and, if needed, gradually add in more lime juice until you've reached the level of flavor that you like.

Be be careful adding the rest of the lime juice, because it's easy to go from "just right" to "ewwwwwwww, too much" and you can't take it back.

-- Now start adding in the cilantro about a handful at a time until you again achieve the flavor that you're looking for. It'll probably take a bit more than what you think it will or what "looks" like it should be enough.

MISTAKES AND CORRECTIONS:

1. Adding the lime and cilantro while the rice is cooking.

If you add the cilantro while the rice is cooking, it will become bitter, sometimes so bitter that you can't eat your lovingly prepared rice.

While it may only be in my head, cooking the rice with the lime juice seems to also add a little bitterness. Whether that's so or not, it's impossible to judge if you have too little or too much until after the rice is cooked, so there's no harm in waiting to add the lime juice.

2. What happened to the cilantro taste in the leftovers?

Once you've added your cilantro to a heated dish, it's life expectancy clock has started ticking rapidly. By day two you'll barely be able to taste it.

What to do? Easy. Chop a little more and add it to the reheated rice. Remember, only add it AFTER you're heated the rice.

Bikezilla Helps the World (for FREE!): Part 3

2010-12-19T14:10:00.000-06:00

Taken from the glorious annals of Bikezilla, more world-bettering insight and wisdom.

-- And because I know you're starved for it, more advice and worldly wisdom from your dear Bikezilla.

Questions via Formask.com, all asked me by really really smart people.

Q: How many cockels are in the human heart?

A: None, but there are 37.2659347 cockles.

Q: Does mrs. claus go bar-hopping, that one night that santa is away?

A: No, she comes straight to my place.

Q: Do you cry at movies?

A: You mean like when Spock died?

I totally refuse to answer this.

Q: Is my girlfriend pregnant, her boobs hurt, she can smell a lot of things, foods make her sick and she has mood swings really bad?

A: Depends. Are her eyes glowing red, too?

Q: What color bra should my girlfriend wear?

A: I wouldn't mind seeing her in the red one. I mean, I like her in the black one, too, but . . .

Q: When you convert to another denomination or faith how does it affect your relationship with your family?

A: Again, depends. What are you converting to / from?

For instance, if you convert from Judaism to Islam, you're required to blow you're whole family up the next time they visit Starbucks or ride the bus.

Q: Can you bl** me?

A: No, but while we're on it, would you mind telling your mom "thanks" for me? She was totally worth the $5.

Bikezilla Helps the World (for FREE!): Part 2

2010-11-27T10:25:00.001-06:00

Once again I effortlessly dwarf Fatty's efforts at world betterment, by selflessly dispensing my wit and wisdom.

Cry, fat man, cry! And all you mewling little Fattyophiles, too. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!

-- Q: What does it mean if a girl touches you many times during math and acts like it's an accident or mimics you?

A: Duh, she's interested in you. She lacks the maturity or confidence to be open about it. She's scared either of what you'll say and how you'll react, or of what others will say and how they'll react.

Regardless of your interest or lack of interest, you're a f**kin' dou**e bag if you use this opportunity to embarrass or humiliate her.

-- Q: Did you have an exciting last weekend?

A: You stand before the wise and powerful Bikezilla and THIS is the best question you can come up with? ::SIGH::

Fine.

If by "exciting" you mean, did I go to the grocery store, cook, clean, read and watch movies, then my weekend was an adrenaline rush.

Happy?!

-- Q: Should you move in with your boyfriend when you're only 18?

A: I don't think living with someone before you're married is ever a good idea. But, 18 yr olds are supposed to do stoopit shiite, and we already know that whatever relationship they're in at that age is doomed to failure anyway, so what's it hurt?

And the sooner they leave mommy and daddy and get out on their own, even if "on their own" is with a bf or friend, the sooner they start collecting meaningful life experience and growing.

So don't just "allow" them to move in with their doomed-beloved, boot they azz out da door, with a hearty fare-thee-well, Dawg.

-- Q: When dog food is new and improved tasting, who tests it?

A: My ex wife, and if there's any leftover, children between the ages of 3 and 7.

My little sisters were professional dog food testers at that age.

-- Q: What is your favorite time of day?

A: Nap time.

-- Q: Have you ever faked sick?

A: Yes, but I've never faked sick and tired.

-- Q: Who’s your favorite director and why?

A: Sebastian Gutierrez "Rise". Lucy Liu. Naked.

-- Q: How do you make a banana split?

A: Tell it to leave. They're usually pretty cool like that.

-- Q: Should I tell my ex that I still like him?

A: Probably not. This is almost always a stupid idea. How many exes have you gone back with?

How many times did it last? None, that's how many.

But, is it gonna turn into an obsession that destroys your next relationship if you don't?

You should at least make an honest evaluation of why you aren't with him, first, then ask, "will things be different or will the same poison destroy us again?".

-- Q: Why is Friday 13th considered unlucky, considering that the Last Supper was on Thursday?

A: Friday the 13th has a long and tragic history.

Friday the 13th is the day that ho, Eve, tricked poor, sweet Adam into biting the apple; It's the day the great flood began; The day Maximus was betrayed; The day Wonka's factory shut its gates FOREVER; And the day I met my ex-wife.

It's enough to make ya cry.

-- Q: Name the most terrifying moment of your life so far.

A: After my truly evil foster brother, Doug, suck started a shotgun, I was laying in my bed one night and heard him come down the stairs, walk down the hall and enter my room. I pulled my blanket over my head and could SEE him silhouetted in the doorway. I tried screaming so my dad would come save me, but my throat was so constricted from fear that barely a sound came out. I stayed there with my head under my blanket, trembling for hours and wouldn't sleep alone in that house after that.

-- Q: If you could have a dinner Party with any 3 people in the world, who would you invite?

A: Lucy Liu, Natalie Mendoza, Kelly Clarkson.

-- Q: Do you ever feel like you are incapable of loving another person?

A: No, but I have so many other issues that maybe God thought dumping this one on the heap would have been just a bit too much.

Q: How in the world is it possible to have a civil war?

A: Easy. You spend all day killing each other, but before you break for dinner, you shake hands and congratulate each other for a battle well fought.

-- Q: Do you ever worry about becoming old, alone and referred to as "the weirdo with all the cats"?

A: It occupies my every waking moment.

-- Q: What is the most venomous or poisonous animal?

A: My ex-wife.

-- Q: Can you tell me in a few seconds what is a brick useful for?

A: Throwing through windows, holding down paper, propping a door open . . oops, time's up.

-- Q: What is the lint in your navel called?

A: Disgusting.

-- Q: What is your worst dating experience?

A: All the dates that lead to getting married.

-- Q: Do you think you’re cute?

A: Cute? Biatch, I'm smokin' azz hot.

-- What is the one thing you never say to an ex?

A: "Hello"

Bikezilla Helps the World (for FREE!): Part 1

2010-11-26T16:09:00.002-06:00

Ya know how Fatty does all this fund raising and is always giving away ridiculously hot bikes while he's also collecting insane thousands of $$$$$$$$ for cancer?

Well, to mangle a Denzel Washington quote; Fatty. Ain't got nothin'. On ME!

Because, I, dear people, am about to grant you my ageless wisdom regarding many amazingly important life issues and I'm not even gonna make you ride your bike on a trainer for 100 merciless and godawful miles.

Plus, I'm still recovering from being dumped (unfollowed) by my hottest Twitter follower and I need a distraction to help mend my poor, traumatized heart.

So here are some fabulous insights to the workings or my brilliant mind, plus the answers to all your most probing questions about life, the universe and everything, kindly asked to me by some anonymous pest on FormAsk.com.

--Q: What is "life after death"?

A: Divorce.

-- Q: Are there any small non-aggressive fish that may be kept in a tank with your betta?

A: There are bunches of fish that are compatible with bettas.

No ciclids, no fish with big fins (angel fish, butterfly fish). Ciclids have anger management issues. They are nasty, aggressive, violent fish and should only be kept with other nasty, aggressive, violent fish that also suffer from anger management issues. They do marvelously well with the dreaded Ex-Wife fish.

Your betta will eat the fins of those others.

But back to your question.

Any kind of tetra or loach is great with your betta, so are plecos, suckers, catfish, swordtails, mollies and any type of false shark (black shark, iridescent shark).

-- Have you had an erotic dream? What was it about?

Yes, I've had several. They were about sex. Duh.

-- Is there something about my BF that I hope to change?

Yes, you wish he was me. And, if you're hot I'm totally available.

-- If you and your spouse have disagreements about child rearing,what methods do you use?

I prefer the "The Man is Always Right" method of conflict resolution.

-- What kind of wife do you want?

The kind with mad ninja skills and mob connections, so she can assassinate my ex wife, but only after breaking her knees.

-- Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

Hell mofo yes.

-- What was the name of Cesar Chavez's first baby?

Blank'N

-- What do you do in leisure time?

Answer stupid auto-generated and anonymous questions on FormAsk.

-- What do you think of women wearing high heels?

Is this a trick question? I LOVE it! Unless they walk like Frankenstein in them.

-- I spend all my time with him? Nothing is ever good enough for him? Is it worth staying?

Do you have even an ounce of self-esteem? There are worse things than being alone. Being treated like you're second rate is one of them.

Cheer up. As soon as you try to leave he'll promise it'll be different. That'll give you a chance to be his practice dummy, until he knows you aren't leaving anyway, then you can go back to being his punching bag.

Put on your fookin' big girl pants, get out, learn how to be on your own and happy by yourself.

Or stay and keep whining about how unfair it all is while not having the guts to do anything about it. Whatev.

-- How do you choose your friends:

Russian roulette.

-- What is your greatest weakness?

Fresh ham with crisp skin, but my Dad's homemade cream puffs are right up there.

-- Who is your dream date today?

The same woman it would have been yesterday.

-- How do I move on when he's still in my life, and when he still loves me?

For $80 an hour we can talk about that.

-- Do you use Yahoo messenger?

Yes, but I don't feel bad, because it uses me, too.

-- Why do lizards to pushups?

To show off for girl lizards.

-- What should I do if I injure myself with a used needle?

Start running down your bucket list.

-- What were the names of the Wise Men?

George, Thomas and Benjaman.

-- Are you tired of hearing the term "reverse racism" and "reverse discrimination"?

I'm a white male over 45. I'm tired of LIVING reverse racism / discrimination.

-- Were you a part of the popular or elite crowd in your high school? Why or why not?

I thought all the "crowds" were stupid, pathetic losers. Some things never change.

-- Should boys be treated the same as girls? Should they have the same rules for conduct? Should you have the same expectations for their sexual behavior?

Boys are evil. We should all be destroyed. In our defense, we can't help it. It's a pe**s thing.

Yes. Yes.

-- What is the meaning of life?

A Monty Python movie, which was not as good as "The Holy Grail".

-- Right handed or left handed?

Yes.

-- Have you ever thought of someone who you would consider "hot" or "cute" to be creepy?

Once the creepiness creeps in the "hot" vanishes. Interesting how they can't co-exist in the same organism.

-- Does hell exist?

Why do you think I got divorced?

And so ends Part 1.

Fund raising. Bah.

Jerseylicious: Movin' on, Movin' Up.

2010-10-31T17:06:00.001-06:00

The Battle of Tracy vs Olivia.

Or, the battle of Flaming Psycho Uber C*** vs Sweetness.

Or it could have been.

There's a dimension to Jerseylicious and this battle that no one really pays attention to, at least not on this end of things.

That's the battle of Who Gives a Damn BETWEEN Tracy and Oliva.

First, while Tracy may not have the brains to be the next Nobel Prize winner, Oliva is just flat out stupid. She makes Tracy look like Einstein. Sure, an evil, demented, entirely self-absorbed Einstein, but . . .

But it goes further than that.

It seems that the producers of Jerseylicious thought that Twitter would be a great way to promote the show by allowing the girls to interact with the fans directly, yet at a safe distance.

Olivia, too lost in her silly world of partying and primping, has blown that off completely.

Tracy? Tracy, in all her magnificent evil glory, has enthusiastically embraced the whole Twitter fan experience and has been an outstanding ambassador for the show.

Fans that love her, fans that hate her, she includes them all in her Twitter roamings, and does it all with a pretty even hand.

Say something nice and she'll retweet you. Say something mean and she'll probably give you a catty but not overly abusive (for her) response.

Ok, yeah, when she tweets the same sponsorship message about self-tanner every 15 seconds you may want to slap the shiite out of her. But the girl is working it and seems to enjoy it.

She GETS that her career at Jerseylicious is a limited engagement and she's laying the ground work to keep her in the spotlight well beyond the show's expiration date.

Olivia? Being the ditz that she is she really sees this as the End All. Jerseylicious alone will catapult her into our hearts and minds, while her delicious good looks and charm will keep her fastened there.

Or not.

When Jerseylicious is done and gone, I predict that Tracy will move on to bigger, or at least different, things, while Olivia will sink back into the muck of obscurity.

New Blogs in Favorites

2010-10-23T10:12:00.003-05:00

UPDATED*

Confessions of a Pioneer Woman

She just won some stupid award for best writing and blah blah blah on a blog.

Jerks.

They obviously haven't read Food. Work. Life or Bikezilla, right?

Uh, right?

Guys?

Anyway, she only won because she's hot.

Hot girls win everything.

Hate her.

And read her.

AND

Again, feel free to hate. But read.

Hyperbole and a Half.

Elixir

2010-10-17T13:50:00.000-05:00

Hillary Duff "co-wrote" the young adult (YA) novel, Elixir? What that means is that the no-talent Duff gets all the publicity and most of the money, while "co-author" Elise Allen did all the writing.

The stupid skank flopped as an actress and as a singer, so now she's pretending she can write.

Hate'er.

Hate'er even more because the rest of us wannabe writers have to become bloggers.

What Would Barb Do?

2010-10-07T23:05:00.000-05:00

The only person that I've ever known who I've actively, consciously used as a measuring stick vs other people is my sister, Barb.

It was about this time of year when I found out that Barb was sick.

I believe it's coming up on ten years, but there are times when it feels like yesterday.

At times when I'm floundering, when I'm utterly lost and can't figure out even where to next place my foot, I wish that I could just answer the question, "What would Barb do?".

The problem is that I'm so barren of all the things that made her beautiful that the question is . . . unanswerable.

Leaving

2010-10-07T22:49:00.000-05:00

I have a gift for leaving.

I suppose that compared to what came before, it's a fairly positive thing.

When I look back on all my relationships since leaving my ex I can see, even in hindsight, that leaving was a good and healthy thing to do with many of them, though I still wish for closure on a couple.

As a personal heuristic I guess it's served me well enough (duh, or it wouldn't be a heuristic).

But there are still those few relationships that when I analyze what happened . . .

Destruction of U.S Economy by Big Oil

2010-09-20T21:10:00.000-05:00

Destruction Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

It's still happening.

Burn the Quran

2010-09-08T17:35:00.012-05:00

This is NOT a defense of Terry Jones, who has spent his life using Christ, the Bible and his position as a trusted head of the Church to bully, abuse, manipulate and control his flock in much the same way that Jim Jones did.

But the fact that he is a scumbag of biblical proportions doesn't change the protected nature of this act of free speech, nor the fact that many who are entirely unrelated to Stewart and many who are not even Christians feel enraged enough over Muslim attacks against America that the burning of Qurans is seen as a righteous and deeply personal (and, oh by the way, non-violent) expression of their outrage.

Christ on the cross, submerged in a glass of urine is free speech. It is, in fact, award winning free speech.

Burning "Satanic versions" of the Bible is free speech (it was hardly worthy of notice nationally and got not even so much as a yawn internationally).

Burning the American flag is free speech.

Burning the Pedophile Prophet's holy book, the Quran, is free mofo speech.

But, because it is not a Christian text the entire country and all the world is outraged and offended that any cretin would stoop so low or could be so garishly, needlessly vulgar.

Oh the horror of it all. Surely the world itself will stop spinning and all life be instantly extinguished should such blasphemy, such disrespect, such arrogance, such an absolute atrocity as this should be allowed to occur.

We daren't be so insensitive, lest we offend our Muslim brothers (who at least have the decency to not be Christians) and lest the understandably (after so many other injustices have been heaped upon their wee innocent heads) more radical of their number should take serious offense and retaliate with violence and fire and murder and bloodshed (which we, of course, would be totally deserving of after allowing such an unspeakable abomination to occur).

Or not.

Freedom is NOT freedom from being offended.

I know that some of you are a bit slow, so I'll repeat that.

Freedom is NOT freedom from being offended.

"But if we make them angry they'll try to kill us!"

1. So you're acknowledging that Muslims are so petty, childish, vile, violent and utterly void of morality and self-control that their only possible reaction to any offense is to commit large-scale acts of violence, destruction and murder?

2. You maybe haven't noticed, but they're already trying to kill us. So, this would change what, exactly?

"No, now they'll REEEEALLLLY try to kill us!"

And they were just pretending, before?

Idiots.

Can anyone tell me why there is less outrage over this Spring's failed suicide car bombing in New York than over a few books being destroyed?

I guess dozens or hundreds of human (mostly American) lives are worth far less than some bits of paper with ink on them, at least when those bits are connected to a non-Christian religion.

Again; idiots.

Burn the Quran? Only after I wipe my ass with it.

Jerseylicious: Season 2: Episode 1

2010-09-06T13:16:00.000-05:00

Here's the review.

I have to wonder if Olivia is as stupid as they make her look.

Regarding having kids she says:

"I honestly love working with little kids. I can't wait 'til I have a family one day. Well, one day, not near future, like future future, like years future. Actually not even years, like centuries future. I don't even know how long a century is — is that 12 years?"

Is that just joking around? Is it one of those momentary brain farts that they've edited in to exaggerate her ditziness? Or is she really a complete bimbo?

Maybe it's cosmic balance. She was gifted with almost impossible good looks, so God / Fate / The Universe sucked 40 or 50 IQ points off the top, just to even things out.

The way Alexa Prisco couples her obsession with sex trafficking with Christy's prego photo shoot (which I find incredibly sexy) makes me wonder if Lil Miss Do Me developed a crack habit during the break.

Tracy? Not just your run of the mill, white trash, flaming, psycho c**t anymore. Now she's violent, too.

Can the girl sink any lower?

Jerseylicious Kicks Off Tonight on Style Network

2010-09-05T14:49:00.000-05:00

Are you kidding me?

The ever hideous to behold (does anyone else look at that face and think "sleestack"?), flaming psycho c**t, Tracy DiMarco from Jerseylicious thinks Jersey Shore psycho c**t jr, Lori Michaels needs to be locked up in a padded room?

Maybe Tracy is giving us a hint at her own sexual preferences and really meant to add, "with me".

DiMarco can only be the "bigger person" if you're considering the size of her mouth (physically and metaphorically) and the amount of garishly applied eye makeup she wears.

Tracy actually brags about being a flaming psycho c**t, proudly admitting to being "spiteful" and "vindictive", wearing her rabid immaturity on her sleeve.

She does it again, here saying, "I’m 22 years old and I am a true Scorpio, and in case you didn’t know, it is the most evil sign under the zodiac."

The girl just feeds on hate and malice. She's poison to anything and anyone around her. Yes, she still makes Gayle look like a dimwitted chump every moment she (Tracy) remains employed at the Gatsby.

It's too bad she hates Olivia so much, because she (Tracy) could desperately use some makeup tips.

Meanwhile Jerseylicious costar Alexa Prisco, who spends most of her time on Twitter begging for some multicultural d**k, finds it "insulting" to be compared to "Jersey Shore".

Alexa, baby, maybe you haven't figured it out yet, but people watch the show to laugh AT you, not with you. They tune in to either show for exactly the same reason that they can't resist slowing down to see the aftermath of a really bad car wreck.

Alexa's best advice for up and coming makeup artists? "Screw everybody else. I screwed everybody else."

And if you follow her Twitter feed you can believe it.

About Olivia, how can anyone that otherwise perfect have hair that godawful bad? It's like she and Tracy stuck their heads in the same mixing bowl while it was turned on "high".

Do any of these girls understand that the one thought in every viewer's mind as they watch this show is, "White trash!"?

Check out some Season 2 Preview videos on YouTube.

Bed Bugs: Good Advice, Bad Advice

2010-08-30T19:51:00.002-05:00

Read the article here at Pest Control Journal.

Puppy OUCH

2010-08-08T15:46:00.001-05:00

I'm soooo totally against violence. Really, totally.

But I just want to let the ~~psychos~~ people at PETA know that it was my ex wife who invented the electroshock dog collar AND that she laughs hysterically every time she thinks of all the poor little puppy dogs getting ZAPPED.

I've heard that she's working on an invention a gazillion times more hideous AND, just as a side note, that she also collects those soda 12, er, 6 pack connectors from all of her friends just so she can throw them in the ocean to kill poor, sweet, innocent little dolphins.

Again, totally, totally against violence. I'm just sayin', is all.

Jerseylicious

2010-08-04T22:19:00.000-05:00

I've been following the Jerseylicious girls on Twitter. Kind of.

Only Alexa and evil azz Tracy seem to use it at all.

Someone tell Tracy, ok, we freakin' get it already, you're sponsored by the self-tanning dorks. She can stop tweeting about how great it is every five minutes and pretending that she just thought of it.

And she does seem nicer on Twitter, but you know it's all a big fat, orange-self-tanned lie and no one who spells like tHiS has all their marbles.

Alexa does post more pictures. She's no Olivia (she's not even a Gigi) but she's not ugly, either, so "thanks", I guess.

Google Abandons "Do No Evil" Policy

2010-08-04T19:16:00.002-05:00

Google has finally declared publicly that it doesn't give a damn about your individual right to privacy and little things like your right to free speech.

But this is only a public announcement of what they've been doing behind closed doors for at least a year.

But it doesn't stop with the story at that link.

Since then my Google hits had crept up from zero to between 30-40 per day.

Once the Tour de France started they were hitting 60-80 and climbing. Still nothing like they were before the attack from Lance and Google, but improving.

Until one day I posted an article I called, "The Lance Experiment".

In it I openly criticized Lance Armstrong and told him that there wasn't one damned thing he could do about it.

What do you think happened?

Within hours of that article going up my hits from Google literally dropped to zero again. NOTHING. And this at a time when cycling related searches are coming in at a frenzied pace.

Since then I get 3 or 4 per day from Google.

Odd that prior to the biggest race in cycling I got ten times as many Google hits as I get now, and that during the biggest cycling race in the world and just after I challenge Lance, they again utterly vanish.

Odder still that they now come in at barely a trickle, rather than returning to their former rate.

If they can attack one little blogger like this, how many others have they "punished" on the word of Lance or some other celeb or part owner?

Google was never the happy-faced good guy of the internet, that's just what they wanted YOU to believe. Now that they have a near monopoly on myriad internet services they've dropped the mask.

Now we see the real face of the villain.

Jerseylicious Video

2010-07-30T11:47:00.000-05:00

Olivia gets to slide her claws out of their sheaths without fear of Tracy retaliating . . . at least not right on the spot.

And is Olivia wearing that ridiculously mismatched outfit as a "fashion statement"? Or because her five year old niece dressed her and she thought it was so cute she didn't have the heart to change before going to work?

Since we all know that Olivia is perfect, it can only be the second answer.

Endurance

2010-07-29T16:07:00.000-05:00

Some people can hold their breath for more than a minute.

Some can run near world record speed for 10 seconds.

Some people can ride a bike up the most merciless climb for an hour.

My mom can go fifteen minutes without a shot of Jack.

Yay Mom!

Lance RageGate: Lance Armstrong Assaults Fan Post-Stage 16

2010-07-27T18:36:00.002-05:00

If you're tired of Lance Armstrong having a "get out of jail free" card, pass this article on. Assault is assault, even when it's done by the rich and famous.

NOTE: A couple days ago I posted an article that showed Lance Armstrong assaulting some old guy after Stage 16 at the Tour.

Here's the related links: Lance RageGate and Tour de France 2010: Stage 16, Rest Day #2

Via @Cycletard all of that is now known as "Lance Ragegate" and can be followed in Twitter with #lanceragegate . END NOTE

Here's the video again:

As a response to those articles "Anonymous" (yes, I do believe that that is really his name, why would anyone lie about a thing like that? Though I suspect he's also know as @Cycloid who tweeted me something similar) left me this comment:

"Do you even ride? Ever ride a bike at very slow speed?

He didn't shoulder-check the guy - he overbalanced and bounced off the guy.

Then he stops, looks back to see what the outcome was, and gives some kind of wave or gesture.

It could easily have been a "hi, sorry" wave.

The youtube doesn't show any middle finger. Unless there's a better copy somewhere that you have seen I don't think you can justify all the drama you're imagining."

Let's take a look at that scenario.

1. Lance Armstrong, a guy renowned to be not merely an adequate bike handler, but an extraordinary one, can't manage to keep his bike upright while traveling at approximately 10 MPH and pedaling.

2. He knocks a guy into a fence, then stops and stares at him. Instead of saying "I'm sorry" or "Are you ok?" he merely tucks his hand in close to his chest so that the guy is the only one with a really clear view of it and then "waves" or "gestures" "I'm sorry"?

3. Lance, unable to ride his bike in a safe and controlled manner, chooses to wobble recklessly through a throng of pedestrians, putting their health, safety and wellbeing at risk, actually managing to "accidentally" knock one of them into a fence.

Well, that's certainly plausible.

By the way, this has been picked up by The NY Times. Now maybe some responsible journalist AT the Tour will have enough balls to ask Lance for an explanation of his assault on this poor guy.

Why has not even a single "journalist" had the guts to ask Lance Armstrong for an explanation of his assault on that old man?

If it was anyone else there would be questions for the assailant, the victim would be found and interviewed, witnesses would be interviewed. But it's Lance, so he gets a free pass.

Even if you spin it in Lance's favor, it's something deserving of journalistic investigation. Instead all fawning "journalist" Lanceophiles stick their heads in the sand and pretend it never happened for fear of losing access to The Boss.

It's pathetic and disgusting.

Jerseylicious on Twitter

2010-07-26T22:03:00.000-05:00

I'm a Twitter junkie so you can't even imagine how excited I was when I found evilazz Tracy's Twitter page, and then SHE tweeted a few other cast Twitter pages, which almost makes me think she has a soul. Almost.

Jerseylicious: @Jerseylicious

Tracy: @Tracy-DiMarco

Olivia: @OliviaBloisSharpe

Gigi: @GigiLuv

Alexa: @TheGlamFairy

Gayle: @GatsbySalon

Sister: @Fitt1

Lance Armstrong: He's Earned More Than Bad Press

2010-07-18T01:31:00.001-05:00

Lance Armstrong is hated by many people. A lot of them hate him for the likelihood that he is and has always been a doper, that he's betrayed their trust and the trust of millions, that he's shat upon the most beautiful of sports and thinks it is his right to do so.

Or at least they tell themselves that.

Fact is that while there is a mountain of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence, there's not one shred of real, hard physical evidence. Yet.

No, what most of those people, and many others, hate Lance for, is that he's a lying, controlling, manipulative weasel, that he has enormous power and he gladly and readily uses it to crush not only anyone who is a threat to him, but anyone who so much as annoys him for the briefest moment.

Here's the story (also linked below) of how Lance unleashed his deceit and malice upon Alberto Contador during the entirety of the '09 Tour de France.

It happened on Thursday, a few hours before the Annecy ITT.

Contador came downstairs to the entrance of the Palace of Menthon, the luxurious Astana hotel. The Tour was on.

He looked right, then left. Nobody, nothing. No Astana cars or helpers. Cold sweat.

Quick time check. Where are they?

The hotel is several kilometers from the start. There he was, the leader of the Tour, in flip-flops, bag in hand and alone.

He went to the hall looking for an answer: Armstrong had ordered the helpers to go pick up his wife, kids and friends to the airport.

Contador left his room last because he was the last one starting the ITT. Armstrong had managed to take away his means of transportation.

The straw that broke the camel’s back. Hot flashes, he was rabid.

He called his brother Fran. He came to pick him up by car and took him to Annecy in a private vehicle.

He left last and finished first. His best victory. In the ITT. In solitude. The same way he has won his second tour.

Contador’s toughest climb was not recorded in images. It was narrated by others.

It was fought in the hotel and the bus: during one stage, Armstrong sat his guests at the very back of the bus, right in Contador’s usual seat.

One more provocation. Armstrong to the luxury suite. Contador to sleep with Paulinho, the only ally. Same deal during the entire tour.

Mouth shut, listening to Armstrong’s jabs: “It doesn’t take a Nobel prize to figure out what happens with side winds”.

Contador didn’t reply in the hotel. He did on the road. He attacked in the first mountain finish in Arcalis. Without permission from Bruyneel, Armstrong’s DS.

That night the Astana hotel was a funeral. Red eyes from the Texan (anger? crying? not sure).

The first cyclist that stood up to him. And he did it in silence."

Not in the article – apparently LA did not attend the team dinner in Paris to celebrate Contadors victory.

Anyway, last April Bikezilla.blogspot.com was barely something I did to amuse myself.

Back then I had a daily readership of about ten (on a good day). Of those, three were regular, one of those three was a "freebie", since she's also a blood relative.

The other seven? They could only have been accidental. You know, people looking for a good website with interesting, well written and well edited articles, who just happened to get a twitchy finger just as their cursor moved over my link.

Sorry, guys. Better luck next time.

When Lance came out of retirement, oh gosh, oh golly, I was nearly wetting myself with excitement. The King was back!

There were days when I'd be on my bike and pumping out a massive 13 MPH avg speed over a 20 mile ride on the local rail trail and my legs would be aching like they were inhabited by evil hammer-wielding midgets trying to beat their way out. And dammit if I didn't keep on pushing because in my sick little head I was Lance Armstrong fighting my way past rivals and up hills that were all out for my blood. Lance wouldn't stop, and dammit, I wasn't gonna stop, either.

For my own amusement and the entertainment of my three loyal readers I began a series of articles titled, simply enough, Lance Armstrong vs Albreto Contador.

Holy jeebus, what a surprise I got. By the time I posted Part 3 I was up to 300 hits a day, almost entirely for those articles.

Included within those 300 hits were multiple hits per day from the same Blackberry IP, which had me truly excited, because I'd read "Lance Armstrong's War" and knew that 1. Lance was a Blackberry addict and 2. He had EVERY article with his name in it sent directly to said Blackberry.

OMG, OMG, OMG! Lance mofo Armstrong himself was reading MY junk. It was the coolest thing ever (ok, after my daughter).

Some I come in from work one day just before I'm about to write Part 4 and I check my stats. First thing I notice is that one of my hits if from Capital Sports Entertainment.

I know this because it had not only a static IP, but a dedicated IP. It actually SAID, "Capital Sports Entertainment"!

NOTE: CSE is jointly owned by Lance Armstrong and his agent Bill Strickland END NOTE

So, again, OMG, Lance loved my junk so much that he told Bill Strickland about it and Bill, who I admired no end after reading about the way he stuck by Lance when he had absolutely no logical reason beyond friendship to do so, actually came in to MY blog to read MY articles!

So cool.

Up until then, and I don't know why, those "Lance vs Alberto" articles were coming up in the top 3, top 5 at worst, in Google searches no matter how I worded the search.

So the next thing I notice, wow, so odd, is that I had just 40 hits for the day and it had been hours since ANYONE had come in.

In fact, within 2 hours of Strickland visiting, the hits dried up completely. I checked the searches and suddenly I wasn't even in the first ten pages.

Could any of that be a coincidence?

I don't believe in coincidence.

Damn, talk about devastating and humiliating.

The guy who was my idol was so controlling, so malicious, so petty, that he actually felt the need to crush a tiny blog that a week before hadn't been noticed by more than three people worldwide.

Could he possibly be so threatened by a small handful of very fair articles that saw equal parts of blame for both he and Alberto?

No, that couldn't be it. It was simply that what they said against him was found to be an irritation and that was enough. It was simply his personality to attempt to stomp it out without a second thought.

It pleased him to crush me and my little blog. It made him feel strong and powerful and verified to him my utter lack of worth not only as a writer but as a human being. In his mind I totally deserved to have the life smashed out of me and I should be thankful for the abuse.

How many other insignificant bloggers have annoyed Lance and been crushed by him through whatever control or contacts he has within Google?

I completely understand how anyone might be sickened by Lance, not for doping, which has never been proven and may never be proven, but for who and what it is that can and has been proven.

Lance recently said that he's done too much good for too many people. Ok, he has been inspirational to many thousands of people, and not just cancer patients. His LiveStrong organization has added many more thousands to that.

But if you aren't a part of Lance's Cause and you aren't a member of his Merry Band of Slaves on Team RadioSkank, then Lance has no hesitation in destroying you for no more reason than a whim.

If you help one guy it gives you carte blanche to cause harm to another? I'm thinking that that is not the way the great karmic wheel works, that good deeds and bad deeds are not intended to be a balancing act, that a wealth of one does not mean a licence for the other.

Lance is hated by many, many people, but I don't think the possibility of his doping has much to do with it. I think a lot of people simply know Lance for what he is: a despicable, self-centered, ego-maniacal, ruthless, malicious, petty, spiteful, immature, controlling, manipulative child with a martyr's complex.

Most Famous Picture of Lance Armstrong

2010-07-07T17:45:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of Lance Armstrong being his typical jerkoff self, screaming at and bullying Alberto Contador.

It's also a picture Lance has gotten removed from at least one site.

So, save it to your own computer, email it to friends, post on your blog or website.

Don't let Lance succeed in having this picture removed from the internet.

Awwwwwwwwww

2010-07-05T22:53:00.000-05:00

The recession is hitting everywhere and even mom is cutting back (at least on the days when she's spending her own money). Her alcohol consumption has gone WAAAAAY down.

This time when she was pulled over her blood alcohol level was only 4.2 times the legal limit.

Jerseylicious

2010-07-02T17:18:00.000-05:00

Talked to sister this morning. as usual she is trying to ruin my life.

First she tells me that reality tv may not be entirely . . . real.

Then she says that Tracy . . . no, i can't even repeat it, it's such an obvious LIE.

To heap all of that on top of "Olivia wouldn't marry you in a million, billion, GAZILLION years" . . . It's just too much.

All i can say is: Your are a nasty, evil, lying BITCH.

And I love you.

Blah.

Tom's Good Times Holiday Memories

2010-06-24T23:10:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite holiday memories has got to be mom's examples of charity and the notion of selfless giving.

Every holiday, be it Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, July 4th, really EVERY holiday, mom would spend hours getting ready, doing her hair, her makeup, picking out just the right outfit, digging out her best bottle of perfume. Why? Because if you're gonna donate your time, she'd always say, you want those people thinking that they're just as important as anyone else you'll see out on the street.

Then she'd pull out at least one of the bottles of Bud that Dad had so loving replaced the turkey legs with, take a big ole swig and walk, in any weather she'd head out the door and walk a full mile (I remember one Christmas when we'd just had a blizzard and as Mom left that night there was sleet knifing down) down to the whorehouse where'd she'd spend hours and sometimes days working as a volunteer.

It was the epitome of selflessness.

oh my God, I'm so choked up right now. I haven't thought about this in years.

More, More Jerseylicious

2010-06-22T23:52:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention:

Sister took some pics with The Evil One (Tracy), Olivia and Gigi.

Gigi has gone from "kind of cute" to YUM. Lost weight, changed hair (Tracy and Olivia might want to take styling advice from her).

Ok, I read an interview with the psycho. On one hand she's whining about how unfair it is that people think she's an evil, psycho, witch. On the other, she brags about being . . . an evil, psycho witch, "a true scorpio, the most evil sign" and if I remember correctly even calls herself a bi***.

Please, God, if there is any goodness and fairness in the world, give Gayle a spine and make her fire that flaming . . . that woman and piss on the sniveling producers and their wringing hands.

More Jerseylicious

2010-06-08T11:19:00.002-05:00

Wow, Tracy goes miles beyond narcissist and drama queen and right to flaming, psycho c***. If Guidos are a caricatures of Italians, then Tracy is a caricature of a Guido. Tracy takes Guido to such an insane level that she should have been born Jewish.

I understand how her Psycho Factor is probably a huge ratings booster. In fact, it's saved her from being fired when she really should have been. I can see the panicked producers running to Gayle almost in tears saying, "Look, you have to find some way to save face and bring her back." and they really had to stretch it.

But her professionalism is below zero and she's a total embarrassment to the salon and to Gayle. Day after day after day she puts her own self-righteous indignation over every imagined petty slight above and before any sense of professionalism, before the salon's needs and before anything that's even remotely good or positive for Gayle's reputation.

Keeping Tracy on the show makes Gayle look like a dimwitted chump.

Olivia, on the other hand, is a dream in every sense.

Olivia, baby, don't listen to my evil sister. You totally should marry me. I'm not above begging.

Jerseylicious

2010-06-07T19:39:00.001-05:00

Sister is gonna have a recurring appearance on Jerseylicious beginning today, though the shows won't air until August.

Never saw it or even heard of it until now. So I had to watch some You Tube videos.

Gayle is really beautiful, but she looks like a 12 year old puts her eyeliner on for her.

Olivia, again, bad hair, how'd she get to be a stylist, but aside from that is OMG freakin' flawless. I want to bear her love child.

I hope my sister makes Tracy cry and shoves her head through a monitor.

Tom's Good Times Holiday Memories

2010-06-02T19:17:00.000-05:00

I'm starting this as a new feature. It's all of my fondest, most touching memories of holidays past.

::sigh:: One thing I really love is how Dad will always rip off the legs of the turkey at Thanksgiving, and then jam a bottle of beer into each side of the bird. That way we can all pretend that Mom's actually eating something.

See, this is the kind of thing that gets me all misty-eyed.

In Defense of Southpark (Comedy Central)

2010-04-24T14:25:00.005-05:00

Mohammad was a pedophile. He faked a "dream" about marrying Aisha (his favorite wife) and forced her father to give the child over to him, giving a promise of not having vaginal sex with her until she had her first period.

Instead, he ass raped and hand raped little Aisha and forced her to go down on him.

She was so terrorized by his actions that she began losing her hair soon after this abuse began.

Because of this forced sexual activity, Aisha began her first period at age 9, when the pedophile prophet of Islam promptly married her.

Muslims are instructed to emulate Mohammed in all things, and "thighing" a child is an accepted practice.

The Ayatolla Khomeini said that having vaginal sex with even infant girls is acceptable, but if the girl is ruined and cannot have children, then the rapist must take care of her for all of her life, though she does not count as one of his wives. Very noble shit.

So beware of leaving your own little Aisha alone with your friendly neighbor Mohammed.

Bleep that.

YES! . . . uh . . .noooooooooooooooooooooooo

2010-04-11T15:09:00.002-05:00

Made the two most perfect over-medium eggs I've ever cooked, today.

Then I remembered that I was supposed to be cooking an omelette.

Crap.

7.2 Quake Hits California

2010-04-04T20:26:00.003-05:00

I bet we can expect all kinds of help and support to start pouring in from Haiti any day now.

Haiti?

2010-01-22T20:37:00.002-06:00

Why do I want to help people in Haiti when I can't walk into McDonald's right here without 5 guys who havenv't eaten in 2 days asking me for money?

And what the fuck did Haiti send us the last time we had an earthquake? Oh, right. NOTHING.

Home

2009-12-29T21:24:00.000-06:00

Sister flew me home to NJ for Xmas.Just got back last night (28th). Was so nice to be away from IL, see my family and eat REAL pizza.

Hunter-Lynn's b-day was the 27th. She would have been 6. Sister seems to be doing well this year.

Worked out with Sister. The bitch is effin nuts. I felt like I got punched in the ribs the next few days.

Going back the end of Feb for almost a week.

Oasis of the Seas

2009-12-02T19:51:00.000-06:00

. . . which is the world's, "newest and largest cruise ship", looks like a disaster waiting to happen.

Oh the movies to be made!

Barb

2009-12-01T22:51:00.000-06:00

. . . was sick during this time 8 years ago.

I got to go home to see her, twice, before she died. It wasn't enough.

Boost Mobile

2009-11-29T16:45:00.004-06:00

I've been using Boost Mobile for a few months now.

I like:

$50 per month, and if you re-up online rather than at the dealer you really only pay $50 per month. All fees and taxes are included. NO other carrier currently has that.

Included web service. I check my email from work a lot.

No roaming charges. Cricket may seem cheaper at a glance, but they're local coverage (at least around Chicago) is spottier than Boost's and they nail you with roaming charges every time you cross into one of the many poorly or uncovered areas. For me that could mean crossing in and out of five roaming zones just going to and from work everyday.

No activation fees. Cricket has some nice options for different levels of service, but if you need or want to switch between levels, they're gonna nail you with an activation fee every time you upgrade or downgrade service.

I don't like:

Shoddy network. Expect lots of digital noise and lots of dropped calls. In fact, you can be sitting in the same place for an hour with perfect reception, then suddenly you barely have signal, you get lots and lots of noise and you call finally drops.

Slow web service. Expect it to take a couple minutes just to open up your first email, then several more to scroll through even a brief email.

Lousy browser. If you need to do more than check email, you're screwed. The browser just barely handles email chores and can't be upgraded.

Lack of phones with QWERTY key pads. They have one, but it's no better for web stuff than any of the others and it doesn't have an MP3 player.

No 3G service.

No smart phones. They do offer a $300 phone, but it's not a smart phone. It's just a really expensive phone that has all the limitations that I've listed above. I'm not sure if a smart phone would perform with this service, but if it did the improved browsing features alone would be worthwhile.

Overall:

It's still a pretty good deal. They're not at all open about the problems you're gonna have with the phones and the service. But they also don't nickle and dime you to death like other carriers.

Les Miserables

2009-11-29T11:51:00.003-06:00

Watched it last night (Geofrey Rush). Really good movie. I'll probably finally read the book because of it.

But it doesn't really explain the change in Inspector Javert. He'd been shown mercy previously to no effect.

The movie also glosses over Valjean's transformation from bad to virtuous.

Crash

2009-11-28T23:25:00.002-06:00

As in "Crash", the movie.

I have some questions.

Is Matt Dillon's character redeemed by the end? Has he changed? Or are we just seeing two sides of the same guy, who's gonna continue doing the same kinds of disgusting and noble things as situations arise?

The young cop who starts as Dillon's partner: How corrupted has he become? Can he still be considered virtuous? What happens with him?

Terrance Howard's character: No good options when his wife is being sexually assaulted by a cop. Do nothing and she feels betrayed, do what he had to wish he could and he ends up in jail or dead. How's that weigh on a guy's heart and mind?

As a from GF noticed, the only people who do nothing wrong are the Hispanics. Why?

The Persian store owner: How's he getting off free and clear? What a scumbag asshole. He deserves every bad thing that happened to him and more.

Don Cheadle's character: Desperate for his mother's affection and approval, but pushes away the women who is clearly longing to be his shelter. Why? If he can't have or isn't worthy of Mom's love, then he won't or shouldn't have anyone else's?

Danger from Food Network Products

2009-11-21T15:19:00.003-06:00

Do you know those Godawful ugly orange knives with Rachael Ray's name on them? Well they don't have full tangs (the metal of the blade doesn't go all the way through the handle), just a short, skinny "rat tail" of metal which the handles are then glued to.

No big surprise, the handles come off. Kind of dangerous.

Paula Deen's cookware, according to that report, may "crack or shatter", leading to possible "burns and lacerations".

Actually, I've heard that it EXPLODES.

Why is Food Network, which makes money hand over fist, so totally unconcerned with product safety and quality?

People love their shows and personalities and buy these products TRUSTING that, because of the attached names, that these are high quality, safe items. They're repaid with cheapness and a total lack of concern for value, safety or quality.

It's sickening.

Treat Women Like Crap?

2009-11-19T18:10:00.002-06:00

Here's my opinion (thank you for asking) on what's really meant when we're told not to be too nice to women and why women like "bad boys".

If you're overly fawning, too available, too in-your-face emotional, you'r also too much the woman. You become, in effect, an extension of her. Unfortunately, since she already has all of "her" that she can handle, she doesn't need you.

She needs someone with their own identity, their own way of being, their own opinions, their own thoughts and feelings, their own space, their own set of rules and boundaries and maybe even a place or two that she doesn't have easy access too within him.

She needs you being YOU.

THAT is what bad boys offer. They aren't her, they are all themselves, all in their own way.

She doesn't need you to be a jerk, she doesn't need you to be abusive, she doesn't need you to be mean. She needs you not to become her, because she's got all of that she'll ever need.

Appropriate Parent / Child Interaction

2009-11-02T17:17:00.008-06:00

Since I've been accused of being the "Right and Wrong Cop" and told that I "don't get to decide what's right and wrong for everyone" regarding this, I'll open it for outside opinions.

Is it appropriate to allow your 15 year old opposite sex child in the bathroom while you shower?

Is it appropriate to call them into the bathroom while you're showering?

Is it appropriate to lay in bed with them?

Is it appropriate for them to ask you to lay in bed with them?

Is it appropriate to walk out of your bedroom, in plain view of them, while you're nude?

Is it appropriate to undress with your bedroom door open while they're in the house?

Is it appropriate for a mother to sit topless when she knows they're about to enter the room she's in?

Is it ok for them to be obsessed with having their mouth on anything that yours has been on, is on or will be on?

Is it appropriate for them to show you a hotdog, then push the meat out of the bun like a growing erection?

Is is appropriate for the child to have his or her hand up the back of your shirt and in your wasteband caressing you?

NOTE:

I found something on "covert incest" where the parent making the child too much the best friend, allowing the child to see them nude, speaking and behaving in a sexual manner around the child, can cause the child to develop a sexual attraction to the parent and feel like they're the parent's sexual partner rather than the child.

That sounds like the beginnings of the situation I saw, though I strongly doubt that it remains "covert".

I can't help thinking that if these (and other) things happened with me present, what happened whey I wasn't?

Easy

2009-09-28T22:08:00.003-05:00

If you want an easy, conflict-free relationship all you have to do is . . . not give a shit.

Remain distant. Don't invest yourself emotionally. Stay ready to walk away.

The more emotionally entangled two people are, the more likely that there will be conflicts.

Your perfect relationship isn't likely to be conflict free. It's likely to depend on how well and respectfully you resolve the conflicts that come up.

If you do have a conflict free relationship, maybe should think about why.

Cooking Together

2009-06-27T16:19:00.004-05:00

The point of cooking together is not to cook, it's to be together. I don't need a prep chef, I can and enjoy prepping the food myself. What I need is time with my partner. So if the food gets ruined, the pots get burned and the plates get broken, it's still been a good night.

Border Crossings

2009-04-23T00:15:00.002-05:00

Relationship boundaries are not usually crossed in leaps.

They're crossed a wiggle at a time.

Huh

2009-04-18T08:49:00.001-05:00

Fly like a stone

As I break every bone

"Lesbian" Defined

2009-04-07T00:00:00.002-05:00

When a woman learns that another woman is a lesbian she thinks, "Oh, she's into women."

When a man learns that a woman is a lesbian he thinks, "Oh, she's into women . . . and me."

It's True

2009-04-05T22:19:00.000-05:00

Liberals worship the Devil and eat live babies.

Yes, human babies.

Rachael Ray or Kelly Clarkson

2009-04-02T19:12:00.001-06:00

Another of life's impossible choices.

Damn the universe!

Curling

2009-04-01T22:14:00.001-06:00

Curling is NOT a sport. Curling is shuffleboard for people with OCD.

Co-Parenting

2009-03-22T20:16:00.003-06:00

That is, cotinuing to live in the same house during and after a divorce "for the children's sake" is stupid and really just an excuse to not have to get out and start a big scarey life in your own place.

Same enviroment, only now mommy and daddy hate each other AND they have bf's / gf's.

If you're that freakin' worried about "the children", don't get a divorce.

Selfish, slack-jawed, lazyass freaks.