iterate sexy experiences.

Ya gotta love the Web Economy Bullshit Generator.

TRUE STORY:

CNN Reporter in New Orleans: Ma'am, How have you coped with the destruction of so many churches around New Orleans?

Lady on the Street: Oh, that don't affect me cause I get all my chicken from Popeye's.

CNN Reporter:

This made me cry.

A first-hand account of home-grown terrorism. A grim reminder that there is, indeed, true evil in the world.

EUROPEANS MISSING THEIR KYOTO TARGETS

Hmm. How did that happen? According to this report, only Britain and Sweden are honoring their commitment to cut greenhouse gases. How can that be when all of Europe cares more about the environment than the USA? All I have ever heard or read from Europe is that they care about the environment whilst Americans despoil the planet for plunder and luxury.

It's time to admit that some ugly qualities Americans/liberals/conservatives/etc have are simply ugly-assed human nature, and not exclusive to one political affiliation or ethnic group or organized country.

Living up to the name, one hankie-full-of-mucous at a time...

Sick over Christmas, and having a good time in spite of it. I only feel bad from the neck up anyhoo, so now's the time to SHOP! Woohoo! How do booze and cough suppressants mix? Same thing? Ok.

Today (yesterday) driving home from a supply run out to Rockwall, I sashayed back to Dallas listening to Monster Zero from Voyager One. It's 2 days before Christmas, 70 degrees outside and the traffic was remarkably light at 4pm. Sparse clouds formed and dragged milky trails across skies of chalcedony as I listened to this dreamy music(go to amazon and listen to track 3 - it's amazing). Jangly guitars are airy and stratospheric, underpinned by a bass that is more a feeling than tonal, a slip of spaghetti western trumpet weaves in and out with the occasional cello. The audio equivalent of the sound of ozone--like you smell at airports--we're all heading somewhere, and it can't be all bad. Beautiful.

Sometimes something hits you over the head when you least expect it. I was about an hour into a French film Jeux d'enfants when I realized the comely Marion Cotillard starring in the film bore remarkable resemblance to my sister. Seriously, they could be twins, Marion the dark haired yang, and my sister with bewitching hazel eyes and blond hair is the yin. They were born almost exactly a year apart, which is a funny coincidence, I think. Anyhoo. Pretty women- ya gotta love 'em!

OK. It's almost boring to point out such obvious bias, but I remember being infuriated about this about a decade ago, and people thought I just had it in for Bill Clinton. Now that a Republican is in office, the media is suddenly rife with righteous indignation for the compromise of individual freedoms by the federal government in the pursuit of terrorists. To wit, in 1995 the Clinton administration basically did to our personal freedoms what everyone is whingeing about the current administration doing in the form of the Patriot act, and in the full knowlege of current senators and representatives on both sides of the aisle. If now knowing that the Clinton administration did the exact same thing and yet you are only angry at the Bush administration about this issue, you are contradicting yourself. If you are honest and open-minded, you need to consider the possibility that you may have been biased for emotional reasons rather than fact or logic. It's that simple. Denny Crane.

You Are Dasher

You're an independent minded reindeer who never plays by the rules. Why You're Naughty: That little coup you tried to stage against Santa last year Why You're Nice: You secretly give naughty children presents.

Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?

Gardener's Pornography. High Country Gardens has the best stuff, and is ideal for planning blooming spaces outdoors in water-starved places like Texas. They have pre-planned xeric gardens, and here's a hint - these make incredible gifts for aging parents who can't get out to water as much as a typical garden needs, and you can plan a garden specifically to attract butterflies and/or hummingbirds. Give this to a parent or grandparent, along with the gift of helping them install the plants, and they'll have a year-round treat to remind them what a wonderful human being sprang from their loins.

As a person with a cousin on death row in California's San Quentin, I say "God bless Arnold Schwarzenegger." I think fiscally and socially Arnie has made great strides in improving the future for California, and I think it was daring for him to take the tremendous pay cut to serve the public as a state official. I believe he has more important things to worry over than whether to bow to political pressure from nattering nabobs in his hometown of Graz Austria. Considering how people in other countries - particularly France - crowed smugly about how the national (but not the local or state) government didn't respond to help Katrina victims in NOLA, and considering the US press was WAAAAYYY more deferential to France when their little social problem erupted into terror in the suburbs of Paris, I think a more critical view need be taken of what other countries say about us, rather than using this as "constructive" criticism. Unlike letters to editor in most publications I read blaming our federal government for racism and elitism in its "non-response" to Katrina, I have yet to read a single letter or hear pundits on news programs crowing about similar cracks in the veneer of French society as indicated by the riots. Incidentally, I saw a news article last week that said that most fatalities from Katrina where white - fancy that! Therefore, I think we are wise to keep our own counsel with regard to the way the US handles everything. Democracy is the one true hope for the prosperity, health and general wellbeing of everyone in the world, and I don't see anyone but us and sore few others striving to spread the notion of individual liberties throughout the world. We should continue to send workers to help innoculate people against disease, install safe water and irrigation systems, and sponsor literacy programs throughout the world. By the way, if you'd like to make a small (or large) gesture to help someone in a lesser-developed nation, I think Heifer International is one of the best charities I've ever heard of, and I intend to give some bees to a family through that organization, and plan to do so in years to come. Haters. They're out there. I say we stick to doing what we do best and let the haters squirm as we improve the world and win the hearts and minds of those we help.

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Um, I guess they didn't have an option of Dominatrix in that list??? Anyhoo - last of the beastly shopping for the party done, I marched triumphantly out the last store, billions of shopping bags in tow. Necessary evil of heading back to WalMart, I admired but did not touch Buck. The sickness abides in me - still want that animated trophy. Shit - did I take my medicine today???

OK. Since Big Dick gave me shit about the deer head thing, this will probably cement his opinion of me as a tacky bitch, but I LOVE this paint-by-numbers wallpaper. Big kitsch factor here, and I can see all these patterns done up in Clockwork Orange colors for a mod/retro mindfuck thingie. Remember what the brilliant James Lileks said: Nothing says yesterday like something that said tomorrow.

OK. Holiday retail hell. Urgh. I do most of my Xmas chopping early in the year. It's just that I'm such a procrastinator that the only sensible thing for me to do is start early and avoid the mad last-minute dash. Now I'm entirely responsible for eats, drinks, music and decoration for the company Christmas party on Sunday, so I just had a rigorous reminder of why I like to avoid stores in general and at Christmas in particular. Beside the issue of an environment lousy with tubercular third-world nationals, the squalling infants in WalMart make me want to stab someone in the neck with a pencil. From afar I saw an item I actually wanted - Buck, the singing deer-head trophy - the irony of it singing "on the road again" was a nice touch - but was too tired of the whole bidness to sashay over to the display and drag it to the cart. Maybe someday I'll get my deer trophy cousin of Billy Bass. Maybe I'm too tired to make that financial choice right now anyway. Will I still love Buck tomorrow?

We're down to the last two days of bachelorettehood, me and the doglet, since husband comes home from the wilderness of Canada on Friday. This morning she came bounding across the terrain of bedclothes like a little antelope in the veldt. Most fetching, my little bitch.

This barcode scam is in the news today, but as is common, the most interesting nugget in the story is buried and not expanded upon. A kid at uni in Boulder downloaded a home-grown barcode program and switched the barcode on a $149. ipod for a $4.99 barcode, and Target busted him. In the article it mentions another guy in Reno stole more than $200,000 of Legos with a barcode scam, and that is what I'm really curious about. Sniffing around a search engine yielded this information, and I'm just baffled someone would be so brazen and get away with it so long - they must not be hiring bright souls to fill their red shirts. He went to Target stores in about 5 or 6 states and bought up Star Wars Lego sets with a cheaper bar code and then re-sold the sets online. He apparently netted about $600,000 before caught. These were devious uses of barcode, but I think barcode tampering can be a lot of harmless fun. Take for example the shenanigans of Rob over at the magnificent http://www.cockeyed.com/ -take an hour or two there - you'll thank me. Rob is scintillating wit who asks why things are the way they are and then bites back in a jovial way. Anyone who sent him a self-addressed envelope received a barcode identical to his to stick over their safeway club card which tracks customer purchases. So in one day, his card might be swiped for kitty litter in San Francisco, Jim Beam in Arizona, and tampons and froot loops in New Jersey. It was a thing of beauty. Reviling as I do the store "club cards" which compel you to exchange personal trackable information for savings, I think more of us should share barcodes, just to addle corporate demographics.