Barrels and barrels of monkeys. Send an e-mail.
The following photograph further confirms the greatness of 1) Mark Cuban's blog site, from which we stole this photo 2) Shawn Bradley and 3) Big and Tall stores.
Mark Cuban enduring an armpit sandwich standing between Shawn Bradley and Pavel Podkolzine, the Mavs 7-foot-5 first-round pick.
If Michael Moore thought the Secret Service were persnickety when he stood outside the Saudi embassy, I wonder what author Nicholson Baker will come up against when he publishes his new book – Checkpoint.
The title sounds mundane enough, but the book is actually about two guys who sit around and discuss ways of assassinating Pres. George W. Bush. They never try in the book, but I wonder how many will buy and read this book wanting to live this drama at least vicariously.
In fact, this book's popularity and the widespread reaction could be an indicator of this country's political health. Will those who disagree with our president be willing to open their imagination to killing him? After all dissent is celebrated, but murderous thoughts (if only imagined) should be denounced.
This from the Independent of UK explaining the views of the book's protagonist:
Jay says he hasn't felt so much hostility against any other president - not Nixon, not Reagan. Jay says of Mr Bush: "He is beyond the beyond. What he's done with this war. The murder of the innocent. And now the prisons. It's too much. It makes me so angry. And it's a new kind of anger, too." At one point, he calls Mr Bush an "unelected [expletive] drunken OILMAN" who is "squatting" in the White House and "muttering over his prayer book every morning." At another point, he calls Mr Bush "one dead armadillo".
One favorite rallying cry from F9/11 and echoed throughout the Democratic party is that the Iraq war was more about good business than good foreign policy. But in order to prove war profiteering, there has to be profit.
Wall Street Journal today (A3) reports Halliburton, the boogy-man company to the American left, took a $815 million hit in the second quarter of this year. Part of that was difficulty with an offshore drilling rig in Brazil. Another was unexpected costs from Halliburton's asbestos-litigation fund it inherited when it bought out Dresser Industries a couple years ago. But another factor is the most interesting.
According to the WSJ, Halliburton isn't making money in Iraq. That's right. All that talk about war profiteering? Must be bunk. There's no profit. It seems the marketplace, though, has come to Iraq. The Army has switched several contracts with Halliburton over to cheaper local companies from around the Middle East. And now Halliburton might lose its biggest deal: being the military's mess tent. Dining hall contracts may soon be bid out to cheaper Iraqi companies.
If dems can't attack Halliburton in Iraq, can they bag on the military for outsourcing?
Liberals like to squawk about Pres. Bush's mild dyslexia. Why is it that I find listening to Sen. John Kerry even funnier. Now, I took a grammar, spelling and punctuation test in college, but I think I still know when it's ok to bend or break the rules. Not Sen. Kerry, though.
Maureen Dowd quoted as the prim Sen. droned thusly: "Who among us doesn't like NASCAR?"
This is not exactly the way to lure Southern voters, or even Northern voters who haven't gone to Yale. Believe me, my Philly cousins don't talk like that. Who among us uses the phrase "who among us?" One NASCAR fan took offense at the weirdly-phrased quote. Among his suggestions to the Democratic contender:
And, heck, if Senator Kerry wants to talk about the economy, he could probably pick up some good NASCAR-flavored sound bites, like "We need more parity in our economy" or "It's time to take the restrictor plates off our economy" or "You can't race without trading a little paint."
My love of stupid eating contests and my love of Google came together to find this awesome website. The Bay Area high school, Miramonte, hosted a milk drinking contest in 2002 and recorded the results on their website. Two HS students faced off for the traditional gallon of milk challenge. Vomit ensued. The rules:
1. Drink the gallon of milk in an hour.
2. Don't vomit until after the hour is done.
3. Don't spill.
You'll need Windows Media Player to check out the two videos of the results. Anyways, it's a pretty good show.
The success of Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 caused Travis to drop a Bush tirade and is also proving how divided our nation is right now. Ticket sales are not being driven by curious Republicans. It's an almost entirely Democratic crowd, folks. Think of how a CNN documentary of Bush's first term would have been received by crowds. Moore, just like conservative talk radio hosts discovered years ago, learned that preaching to the choir is both easier and more lucrative. Who among a liberal audience would say, "I think you're being unfair to Bush here."
Would any open-minded but fair individual walk into F9/11 and appreciate the bull Moore was spreading? Most would balk at how he patronizes the presumably liberal audience. Most of these open-minded but fair individuals would react similarly if they listened to Rush Limbaugh or any other Republican bomb thrower.
Atlantic's P.J. O'Rourke writes about this new persuasion method in this month's edition. O'Rourke says he finally realized who Rush Limbaugh was yelling at all this time: Republicans. All of conservative talk radio is, as O'Rourke put it, convincing the convinced:
I wonder, when was the last time a conservative talk show changed a mind? ... Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, seems to have gone out of fashion with everyone. I'm reduced to arguing with the radio. The distaste for political argument certainly hasn't made politics friendlier—or quieter, given the amount of shouting being done by people who think one thing at people who think the same thing.
Text messaging is far too slow for me, what with having to press '7' four times to get an S (five times for a 7). But it seems that folks in Singapore have practiced enough to get rather quick at text messaging. And then there were the fastest fingers in the far east. 23-year-old student Kimberly Yeo needed only 43.66 seconds to type this phrase on her phone:
"The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."
From the politically ridiculous file: some New York investors have formed a conservative response to Heinz Ketchup for this election year. Their calling it W Ketchup, though the W doesn't stand for George W. Bush, but rather George Washinton. Of course John Kerry's wife is bears the name of the ketchup and pickle empire.
I'm betting this catches on quickly in places that serve freedom fries rather than french fries. Will Hunt's Ketchup allign with Nader?
Ol' Strong Bad over at Homestar Runner dot com has a new hilarious email. The writer asks SB about the impending Dangeresque 3. SB admits he's not yet made the feature length motion picture, but as a consolation, shows a jacked up version of Dangeresque Too. Click on SB's shades at the end for a surprise. This is by far the best SB email in a while.
Apparently comparing elected United States presidents to dictatorial and genocidal maniacs like Hitler and Mussolini still is out of style. Thank goodness, because, for a while I was wondering.
Federal Judge Guido Calabresi of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals compared Bush's rise to power to Hitler and Mussolini's rise in Germany and Italy. Calabresi went on to tell the convention of the American Constitution Society that the voting public should vote out Bush to cleanse democracy. The Clinton appointee who took his position in 1994 later apologized
This is our American judicial system.
Now that I have my own blog, I can do stupid stuff like this. Here's the official Mavericks balance sheet in regards to their fantastic trading series involving Derek Harper.
September 24 1997
Traded guard Derek Harper and forward Ed O'Bannon to the Orlando Magic for Dennis Scott.
February 18 1998
Traded Dennis Scott for forward Cedric Ceballos.
August 29 2000
Traded forwards Cedric Ceballos and John Wallace, guard Eric Murdock and cash to the Detroit Pistons for forwards Christian Laettner and Terry Mills.
February 22 2001
Traded forwards Christian Laettner, Loy Vaught and Etan Thomas and guards Hubert Davis and Courtney Alexander to the Washington Wizards for forward Juwan Howard and centers Calvin Booth and Obinna Ekezie.
February 21 2002
Traded forwards Juwan Howard and Donnell Harvey, guard Tim Hardaway and a 2002 first-round pick to the Denver Nuggets for guards Nick Van Exel, Avery Johnson and Tariq Abdul-Wahad and center Raef LaFrentz.
August 18 2003
Acquired forwards Danny Fortson, Antawn Jamison and Chris Mills and guard Jiri Welsch from the Golden State Warriors for center Evan Eschmeyer, forward Popeye Jones and guards Nick Van Exel, Avery Johnson and Antoine Rigaudeau.
October 20 2003
Acquired guard Tony Delk and forward Antoine Walker from the Boston Celtics for guard Jiri Welsch, forward Chris Mills, center Raef LaFrentz and a 2004 first-round pick.
June 23 2004
Traded Antawn Jamison to Washington for Jerry Stackhouse, Christian Laetner and the No. 5 overall pick.
Balance sheet (players still on Mavs roster or still in the NBA)
Mavs give:
John Wallace, Etan Thomas, Hubert Davis, Courtney Alexander, Donnell Harvey, Evan Eschmeyer, Popeye Jones and a late first-round pick.
Mavs get:
Tariq Abdul Wahed, Danny Fortson, Jerry Stackhouse, Christian Laetner, Tony Delk, Antoine Walker and the No. 5 pick in this year's draft.
And of course, this is all designed to get at Shaq, which gives me liscence to post this:
Reading about the demise of Lollapalooza, I can't help but wonder what is counter cultural anymore. I mean, if dozens of piercings, tatoos and blue hair aren't out there enough, what is?
To reset just a bit -- Lollapalooza is the big alt-rock festival that tours across the country. They used to get acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam and draw huge crowds in the early 1990s. But now no one is buying tickets. What happened to the popularity of alt-rock?
It got too popular. That's right. Something as blatently and forcefully counter cultural as grunge of the early 1990s can survive a lot, but not its own popularity. Maybe Green Day killed all the momentum. (Someone queue up that song... you know the one.)
So what's counter culteral now? I mean, even Manson is more socially acceptable than Newt Gingrich, right?
So often, when Mike Tyson speaks, my jaw drops. Imagine my delight when I checked out the New York Times this morning and discovered a Tyson profile. The following quotes are the highlights:
"Don't rob me of my hate, It's all I have left.''
"When I had money, I was an animal."
"I was so belligerent, I was so cantankerous, so persistently disregardless. I wasn't that nice of a person. Just because you buy mansions and cars doesn't mean you know what money is worth."
"My life has been a total waste.''
"Life's lessons are priceless. There isn't enough money to purchase the lessons I've learned."
(that's a funny statement considering Tyson is about $23 million in the hole after making $400 million in his career)
"I miss the Louvre. I was there three days. I still haven't seen everything!"
Nothing like Tyson's own self-hate to make you feel good about yourself.
To everyone who is about to watch Michael Moore's new movie:
I'm imagining the average viewer of Fahrenheit 9/11 will enter wanting to believe the worst in George W. Bush. I don't begrudge them that. It's an election year and these are trying times to be an American. Everyone says they are regarding the world with an open mind. But lest you forget: The purpose of an open mind, like an open mouth, is to close on something solid. Ingesting Moore's docudrama (for things aren't as they seem) will be like eating a bag of Cheetoes. Satisfying, if you like that sort of thing. But not necessarily healthy, despite all the claims of low fat or low sodium.
Few people worry me like Michael Moore. He has an unbelievable ability to do four things. Call it his schtick.
1. Play the victim. Remember the Disney debacle. Or all the times he's claimed to be blacklisted from shows?
2. Present facts and drawn lines to connect them as equally verifiable. Dots on a page, like facts, are stubborn things. But the lines that connect them are up for debate. People who connect the dots with a magic marker should not be trusted.
3. He knows, and practices very well, the art of making assertions that are very hard to disprove. He writes about personal phone calls, personal encounters, etc. And if the second party disclaims it, it's simply a matter of he-said, she-said. Those who have believed Moore thus far will believe him some more.
4. He has it both ways, all the time. Moore will give you a reason to believe that since X is true, Bush sucks. But he'll also say about five minutes later when we've forgotten, something tantamount to, since X is not true, Bush sucks.
Before you go into his new movie, you have to consider a few things. If Michael Moore is right on the points, why does he have to use stunts, staged acts and downright contortions of events to get there?
Moore tells people what they want to hear. All of us -- on both sides of the political aisle -- believe more readily things that inwardly we already believe. If you already look at the world the way Moore does, you will be more than willing to jump from the ground of solid fact to presupposition without ever questioning.
There are a great many people who question Moore's work. (And interestingly, when Moore is pinned in a corner, he claims to be a satirist rather than a documentarian. After all, documentarians must visually present the truth of the matter. Satirists are held to a much lower standard of conduct.) Before you watch, you should consider these:
Regarding Moore the human.
Wall Street Journal wrote a piece detailing
Moore's publicity stunts at Cannes. Funny how he never talks about this kind of stuff on American TV.
New York's city journal profiles Michael Moore in a more in-depth way than any publication before it. Did you know Moore was an Eagle Scout?
Again, Ben Fritz steps out and shows why the American left deserves a better spokesman. Why do liberals let this guy do the talking for them?
Michael Moore endures some criticism from across the pond, and from the Guardian, of all places. What was that about him and Disney? This is a one-on-one interview with Moore, the control freak.
Regarding Bowling for Columbine.
Apparently Moore can dish it out, but can't take it. He charged Spinsanity with libel. Big mistake.
Gun enthusiast Larry Pratt wrote an article for gunowners.org. You know that scene where Moore walks into the bank and walks out with a gun? Completely staged. What was that about documenting the truth?
Tech Central Station tells Michael Moore to lay off Dick Clark.
This is the best of them all. A former Fish and Wildlife Service attorney carefully sifts through every bit of BFC, fact checking not just that events happened, but that they happened the way Moore says they did. Unsurprisingly, they didn't.
Regarding Dude, Where's My Country?
Again, Spinsanity takes a stab at double checking Moore and his "iron-clad" research. Problems abound in Dude…
Regarding Downsize This!
Salon.com, hardly the conservative outlet, rags on Moore and his body of work up to Downsize This! You really didn't think he was really just a union guy from Flint, Mich. did you?
Regarding Stupid White Men (an autobiography?).
Moore uses one of his tried and true tactics of telling lies that are hard to disprove when he tells of a phone conversation with Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard. Problem is that Fred Barnes isn't to be trifled with.
Once again, Salon.com writer Ben Fritz takes Moore to task for shoddy research. Why is it that Moore talks about independent fact checkers so often when his research is so transparent?
Regarding Fahrenheit 9/11.
Here's Slate's review of Fahrenheit 9/11. In it, you get a picture of Moore: a man who will not be dissuaded from purpose by facts. Highlight: The innuendo-laden first part of the movie plays up the fact that bin Laden's family escaped on a private jet following the attack. But Richard Clarke says he, and he alone, authorized those flights. It wouldn't be so bad if Moore didn't paint Clarke to be the moral hero of the film. He's not some Bush lackey. And besides, the rest of the film portrays Bush as befuddled by 9/11 so completely. Either he was befuddled and couldn't act, or he was canny and got his friends, the bin Ladens, out of the country. Which? Because it can't be both.
Here's a column from the LA Times that you would have to pay to get. But www.moorelies.com has reprinted it here. The author, a self-avowed dove, really questions Moore's ability not to stretch facts into his agenda.
Finally, if you watch the movie and leave saying that you were surprised by nothing you saw, it's because you were willing to, and perhaps already believed, everything he presented. It should be not shock that some people are quite willing to believe the worst in others, whatever the truth may be. That is Moore's audience. And the fact he knows it so well scares and annoys me equally.
What's wrong with Moore's viewers is that they never read any of this stuff. No one does.
What would you call a formula that says Kobe Bryant is overweight and Shawn Bradley has a normal body type? I'd say it was a formula that needed some obvious work -- the U.S. government says it's their preferred measurment to determine weight problems. By the Center of Disease Control's figurings, Bryant, Karl Malone and Ben Wallace are all obese. Shawn Bradley (7-foot-6, 280 pounds) is normal. You can check your own body stats here.
Kobe Bryant, overweight.
Shawn Bradley, normal body type.
Driving home from Illinois, I discovered one major truism. Illinois is covered in corn. From just outside of Chicago to the bogs surrounding East St. Louis, the state is one big corn field. So why is Nebraska the corn husker state?
Am I missing something here? While Russia stood opposed to the war, their intellegince agency gave America information saying Iraq was planning attacks on the United States and American interests? Was Russia's intel. services giving reason for war while their government remained opposed? From the NYT.
In Peru, Illinois for a wedding this weekend, I decided to kill some time at Starved Rock State Park. Legend has it some Indians starved up there while another Indian tribe seiged them from below. Anyway, the point is that our park system has gone crazy.
The park ranger, an intern from ISU (whatever that is) told me we couldn't take a step off the trail. This is a little bizarre to begin with. What are you doing at a park if you don't want to get off the beaten path? Then, while walking around their marked paths, I discovered that they're all paved with gravel, stone or wood. So, I basically went to a state park and wasn't allowed to walk on any dirt. This, they told me, would lead to soil erosion, which apparently is more of a problem than me enjoying my time in the park.
We then took a guided tour of the "Starved Rock" which is a miniture version of Enchanted Rock overlooking the Illinois river. Again, we walked up stairs to the top. Some sort of trail was right out. The whole top was off limits except for the wooden walkway that encircled the top of the bluff. What's wrong with this picture?
Folks in Thailand aren't satisfied with a men's bathroom and a women's bathroom. What do they want? The good 'ol transvestite bathroom. This strange story out of Thailand leaves me wondering what kind of bathroom sign these people will use?
I'm officially obsessed with Moneyball, the book glorifying Billy Beane in all his sabermetric glory. I've been having some problems with it. First he ran off Grady Fuson because he drafted Jeremy Bonderman, a pitcher who every other GM around the league would love to have. Second, the players he glorifies in the 2002 draft aren't really amounting to much.
And here's the part I really can't understand. From reading Moneyball, you'd assume it was the A's selective hitting that made them as good as they are. This is simply not true. Their hitting in 2002 and 2003 -- the years when Beane went loco -- was some of the worst in the AL. In 2002 when they won over 100 games, there were only six teams in the AL that scored less runs. One year later, they were the 9th worst run producer in the AL.
Even look at what Beane and DePodesta did with what they call their most important catagory - on base percentage. In 2002, they were fifth in the AL. In 2003, they were 10th with a pathetic .327 team OBP.
Why do the A's win (and this point is the elephant in the living room of Moneyball -- something that is obvious, but not talked about)? Three words: Mulder, Zito and Hudson. The last two seasons, the A's have led the AL in ERA with three starting pitchers who could all find their way to the hall of fame.
I'm reading Moneyball, the book that made Billy Beane and his weirded-out way of selecting young players. I'm still laughing that he fired Grady Fuson because he selected Jeremy Bonderman. But even funnier is the book's focus on a former Alabama catcher named Jeremy Brown. Reading the book makes it sound like Brown is the next Mike Piazza, even though scouts said he was too fat to play. Guess what? Brown is hitting .223 this year at AA Midland. And for all those Moneyballers, he strikes out more than he walks.
UPDATE
Went to check out Nick Swisher's AAA numbers with Sacramento. You know the guy. According to Moneyball, he's the next Stan Musial. Or something like that. But it seems our man, now 23 or 24, is batting below .250 in the minors. Last year he hit .230 at AA Midland. To be fair, Swisher has shown some power at the low levels and continues to walk. But I wonder if he can walk himself to the majors. He might try.
Friend David Sessions has created a new blog featuring comments on music contemporary and old. Right now, Listening Sessions features a muse about one of Nashville's most Rhinestone of cowboys, Conway Twitty. Says Dave: "That scratchy, cigarette-coated voice, that over-the-top, staccato phrasing, that white man's afro."
Of course when I was younger and addicted to Sunny 95 FM, I loved Conway. Besides the obvious hits like "Slow Hand" and "Tight Fitting Jeans," my favorite song was "Hello Darlin'." For years I was convinced the opening lines to that song were:
Hello Darlin'
Nice to see you
It's been a long time
You're just as ugly as you used to be
I'm starting to wonder if Fred McGriff will be baseball's first 500-home run player to be shunned by the hall of fame. The automatic plateau for hall enshrinement used to be 400 homers until scribes thought Dave Kingman and Darrell Evans were too pedestrian.
And if critics complained about Rafael Palmeiro's bland stat roll, what will they say about the Crime Dog? The only thing he's ever taken a bite out of has been insanely consistent seasons. Every season McGriff would bat about .280, hit about 33 homers and grab about 90 RBIs. Then, he'd punch his time card and do it again the next season.
In McGriff's favor:
Twice led the league in homers (89 and 92)
Playoff experience with the Bravos and Blue Jays
Plays first base, a surprisingly under represented position in the hall
One of the last great nicknames
Not in McGriff's favor
When he led the league in homers, he did so with just 35 and 36. Once he hit 37 homers. Folks nowaday might hit 30 by the All-Star break.
The most unflashy star of the 1990s. He makes Tim Duncan look exciting.
His pathetic comeback with the D-Rays. He's made it plain he's just coming back to reach 500. But how long can he do that if he's only batting .208?
It's been so long since I've been to Six Flags (Arlington), I hardly remembered how much the Texas Giant hurts. Some rides scare you. The Giant traumatizes riders and leaves them like a boxer who spent a round or two with George Foreman. If you raise your hands, the side of the car pounds into your side like a kidney punch.
On my most recent trip, a team of eighth graders and I rode it about five or six times in a row. By the end, I felt they should hand out gauze and Motrin as you exited the cars. Anyway, some FWST writer also waxed on about Six Flags. Here 'tis.
Spent the last few days in Alabama, where keeping a blog roll is near impossible. Lookout Mountain in Alabama is a place where jumping off a bridge into Little River provides about the most trouble any kid can get into. But it's also a place that, from what I could tell, mourned Ray Charles passing about like Ronald Reagan's. All around camp, patriotic persons would play their recording of Ray singing America the Beautiful.
Last month I brought you the thrilling news of David Hasselhoff's impending rap album and hip hop makeover. I think he's really bought into it. To prove it, Hassel the Hoff has been arrested for drunken driving.
Apparently Hoff was living the thug life as he swerved around a highway in the San Fernando Valley in his vehicle (not KITT, who doesn't swerve). Then, the 5-0 followed the Hoff into a McDonalds where he "caused a stir at the drive through." A city attorney said the rap and film star sat at the window, but wouldn't order anything. Was he just free-stlying to the first window?
Cabana rapper!
In this day and age, who doesn't like a good scam? My favorite current email scams are the audacious letters sent from "widows of African dignitaries" or other Nigerian doctors or researchers. I've always wanted to respond to one, so two weeks ago, I did (here are the letters). And now, I've gotten my response. The scammer even responded to my love of the Lagos State Colonels football team. Read on for his letter and my response:
Dear brother,
Thank you very much for your mail. That is interesting to know that you are a big fan of the Lagos State Colonels football team.
This is to inform you that we are going to be taken care of the cost of this transaction arising from our side until the final approval is given to you for your payment and then you become the legal beneficiary of this money. firsly, we will have to register your name/company as a consultant to our institution. So, you forward your contact address. You will see that i call you my brother now,this is because in Africa,your brother or sister is the person that comes to your help when you need one,not really because the person has biological affiliation to you,so i look forward for us to have a brotherly relationship.
As you already know,my name is James Nakanda Momoh,I am a Nigerian,medical consultant and a lecturer,am a christian by faith and have three children,two girls and a boy all in their teens.
Let me also know a little about you my great friend and brother.
Thanks And God Bless.
Momoh.
Dear Brother Momoh,
Thanks for your quick response. Firstly, please give your children my best. Life can be difficult for teenagers.
Now to business. You may reach me at XXXXXXX XXXXXXX or by telephone at XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX or by fax at XXXXXX XXXXX.
I made my fortune selling pet rocks (an American fad) during the 1970s. Since then, I've brokered squatters' rights settlements with the Navajo tribe of the Sandusky.
Looking forward to working with you,
The Orthogonian
TxDOT, that warm and fuzzy Texas Department of Transportation, has unleashed a cadre of lawyers on anyone trying to make a buck off the state's biggest catch phrase. Already the University of Texas has agreed to stop printing shirts with the slogan (good thing I already have one).
As only few of us here in the Lone Star State know, "Don't Mess With Texas" was actually TxDOT's anti-litter slogan, or as department official Doris Howdeshell said, "it's a litter prevention message, it's not a macho message."
Of course Doris is wrong. It is a macho message. Didn't you see the original commercials? One I remember from my childhood involved Austin rocker Ian Moore walking down a litter-strewn highway. While playing some hot licks on his guitar, he also sent lightning bolts from the head of his instrument blowing up trash. Or there's the one with the car about to be bombed by what looks like a B-17 all for throwing his Whataburger bag out the window. Check out all the commercials and tell me they aren't major machismo.
Driving back from Central Texas today, I wondered why all the flags were at half staff. I always get an ominous feeling when I can't figure out why the flags have been lowered. I thought perhaps Ronald Reagan had died. He did. When you're in elementary school, the president seems larger than life. And before I forgot what Reagan meant to the nation after Watergate, Vietnam and the hostage crisis, I re-read about his life. The National Review, a right-wing magazine, euligized the former president. The Nation, NR's political opposite, sat silently by.
A little book I found at the library has an interesting decorative tip. Nancy Dunnan writes in "Never Balance Your Checkbook on Tuesday"
A color photograph of the President is yours if you send your name and address to: Office of Correspondence, Room 94, The White House, Washington, DC 20500. If you're not a friend of Bill's, you can order one of the First Lady, Vice President Al Gore, Tipper Gore or the completely apolitical Socks, the First Cat. That's one less decorating item you'll need to spend money on.
Rather than blogging recently, I've been ducking and covering with our recent bout of thunderstorms. After stepping over a powerline in Highland Park Tuesday night, I moved some branches out of the street to clear the way to drive home. Once there, I discovered our fence had blown over. Today, we just let the fence lay in our yard knowing tonights storm might bring some more fence down. Now if we could only get the neighbor to pay for a new fence.
Walking into Old Navy yesterday, I was faced with a choice. The fire alarm had been set off inside the store, making shopping for shorts a bit more of an ordeal. But since no one inside the store seemed bothered, I decided I could tough it out.
But this was no ordinary smoke detector alarm. This was the same fire alarm sound you might find in junior high -- so loud, even Michael Brown wouldn't have pulled the fire alarm as a joke. But according to Summer the still-perky cashier, one little girl had. Summer said the little girl was sitting in a shopping cart and as they slowly passed by the alarm box, the little girl pulled it. The mom, looking back at Summer, made a quick decision and bolted out the front of the store.
As loud as it was, it seemed not to affect anyone. One woman took a half-step inside, heard the noise and rethought her decision to come in. But after just a moment, she came in, as if to say, "I know it's loud, but swimsuits are 25% off, and who could pass up that deal?" Even closer to the piercing sound as I was checking out, one lady, perhaps a friend of Summer, strolled up and asked how she was doing. "Oh, I'm good, what about you? Are you OK." The lady said she was. I ran for the exit.
