Happy 4th of July!

I hope everyone enjoys some freedom today, and every day.

Have a drink for me, I'll be working.

It Gets Worse

I'm not normally a Daily Kos reader, but I happened to click on this link, and decided to share. I like the title's play on the "It Gets Better" campaign.

It. Gets. Worse.

You've got "the sky is falling."  You're telling people that same sex marriage will destroy things.   We've got Vermont.
And New Hampshire.
And Massachusetts.
And Connecticut.
And Iowa.
(Yes, Iowa).
And New York.
And we've got those states as examples of places where same-sex marriage is not only legal, but where it's just there, and soon enough will fade into the background.  No one seems to be confused these days when I fill out forms indicating my status as "married" and have a woman's name listed as my spouse. 

QFT. Read the whole thing.

Your Gathering Storm leader

We Are Family!

Congratulations, New York! Look for a recall against the republicans who had the strength to do the right thing.

Meanwhile, Minnesota will be voting whether to go backward and ban gay marriage, which is already illegal under state law. If it's really about letting the people decide, make the amendment yes or no to legalizing gay marriage. Just sayin'.

Maybe by the time The Spinoff is old enough, if he's gay he'll be able to choose a partner based on love, like his parents and grandparents did.

Celebrate your Pride this weekend. It should be a doozy!

Your Fabulous For a Day leader

Remember Those We Have Lost

Our real heroes.

Workin' My Way Back To You

Time flies when you're taking care of a baby.

The Spinoff and I have been having a wonderful time this past month-and-a-half that I've been home watching him. He certainly enjoys listening to Sirius/XM "60's on 6," the most when Daddy sings falsetto along with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. We've come to an agreement on napping, and that the Spinoff promises not to repeat to his mother any of the language he hears while watching "Deadwood" with Daddy.

I've been complaining about the bibs the Affiliate has been buying for him, though. It seems the inexpensive bibs that absorb spit-up the best also have to come with little writings like, "Jock," "Flirt," "Li'l Dude" and "Tough Guy." Quite frankly, not wanting to raise a dude-bro is high on my list of goals. I'd prefer an array of bibs with things like "Scientist," "Genius," "Li'l Scholar" and "Smart Guy," but nerd bibs are pretty expensive. Alas, his D&D onsie is the best I've been able to provide so far.

The video game world has been all atwitter about this post written by some guy who doesn't like that there are gay characters in video games. He feels that since he is a straight male, anything that doesn't interest him should be removed from his games. The game in question is "Dragon Age 2." I've written highly about the 1st game in the series, "Dragon Age: Origins" (Which also had possible homosexual relationships). I haven't played DA2 yet, because I have a baby at home and other games to finish first.

Anyway, one of the game's creators, David Gaider, responded with a defense of the game, saying that the relationship options in DA2 were for everyone, including, but not just, straight males. My favorite line was, "You can write it off as "political correctness" if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority." Simply seeing privilege of the majority discussed in such a forum was both surprising and refreshing. I'm sure Mr. "Straight Male Gamer" has never once noticed a lack of options for gay or female gamers who want to play characters closer to their real-life selves. Of course, for reasons I can't fathom, the increase in options to include others is often seen as the oppression of the majority.

I ask this, however - Why wouldn't a straight male gamer choose to play a homosexual character in a video game? I have no problem being an elven wizard from Denerim, three things which I am not in real life. I also wonder why the simple act of having a gay character make an advance on a straight player is seen as an affront. Apparently the player can say no, just like with any other in-game romance he or she decides not to pursue.

In the end, there are plenty of video games aimed at the young straight male demographic, with plenty of boobies thrown in so they can be sure to know they are really straight males. Please leave the adult games with intelligent stories and decisions to make to those of us who aren't scared of catching The Gay from a line of computer code.

Well, the Spinoff has awakened and is politely inquiring as to why he has not been fed yet. Until several months from now, when I post next.

Your Bottle leader.

Extreme Makeover: Blog Edition

A long needed template change. Nothing else needed to say about it.

A month ago I mentioned that things were looking up in Egypt. So I've got that to live down. Hopefully the people get their democratic elections without too much bloodshed.

Packers fans will be especially unbearable for the next few months, until they finally sober up. Just remember that the Packers wouldn't have made the playoffs without 2 seriously botched calls in the Pack's 1st game against the Vikings, one call that even the NFL declared to have been wrong. So that's out there.

I wasn't helped by being forced to choose between a rapist and the Green Bay Packers. I chose to cheer for the referees. (Let's go, Black and White! Get that Instant Replay right!) They did quite well, I'd say.

The game started out bad, but ended up being somewhat exciting. Which was good, because the best commercial was an NFL commercial that put team colors on a bunch of old TV characters. And when I say "best," I mean one of like 3 even interesting commercials.

And the commercials were high art compared to Christina "Xtina" Aguilera, the washed up and completely irrelevant pop star getting the words wrong in a National Anthem performance that could have had Roseanne Barr turning down the volume.

As for the halftime show ... sigh ... um ... OK, I'll start again. As for the halftime show, it's time for the NFL to give up and just put pee-wee football kids out there at halftime for the Super Bowl. Black Eyed Peas put on one of the worst performances I've ever seen. The mics didn't work, the special effects didn't work (They should have changed the lyrics to, "Where is the V?") and as someone on Twitter said, it looked like what people in 1983 thought the 2011 halftime show should look like. And BEP themselves have always been over-hyped. Their songs that don't suck are just OK, Fergie can't sing and one of the guys looks like Weird Al with straightened hair. (Alternate Joke - "One of the guys looks like The Rock decided to grow his hair out") Also, Fergie, if you're going to imitate Axl Rose, you really need to do the falsetto.

So, yeah, let's try something completely different next year. Those little kids running around always get big cheers from fans at the Dome. They certainly can't be worse than the shit this year.

To sum up, last year, I missed the Super Bowl because I was busy getting kicked in the nuts. Tonight, I was feeling nostalgic for last year.

Your There's Always Next Year leader.

And More Than That ...

A quick update to an earlier story I posted on. I hope the posters at Jim Hoft's site read this story about Egyptian muslims protecting Egyptian christians on Egyptian X-mas.

That's the coolest thing I've read in a while. It's a start, anyways.

Your Sometimes Hopeful leader.

Honey Dipped Flim Flam

Although I thought this was already done, Andrew Wakefield's autism study has been declared a fraud. Not just mistaken; out-and-out fraud. Anderson Cooper interviews him and gets to the point. Wakefield sees a conspiricy against him and is standing by his work, facts be damned. He also keeps pitching his book, which is standard scientific procedure, I'm told. Cooper has a golden line when Wakefield tells him to read the book for more information; "If you're lying, the book is also a lie." Anyway, it's a good takedown. (Edit: Link to the actual article)

Of course, the anti-Vax folks continue to support Wakefield, despite the medicine being against them, because they don't care about facts. The folks at Science Based Medicine, as well as Elyse Anders of SkepChick and Parenting Within Reason have been wonderful about countering anti-Vaccination claims and showing them to be false. Make no mistake. There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism, and there is evidence that they save lives by lowering the incidence of disease.

Now Wakefield is peddling his bullshit to the Minnesota Somali community. Hopefully they will understand that Wakefield is a fraud and a charlatan and will tell him to go to hell.

Well, I'm off to go over my finances and see if we can afford to keep the Spinoff and still survive. Seeing how hard it is to make it on $250,000 a year, I'm not sure how we can possibly get by on 1/2 of that. Anyone know if I can sell my spleen?

Your Two Posts in One Week? Must Be Bored leader

Happy New Year, 2011

I've found it's much harder to type with a baby on your lap than a cat. Coupled with a just plain awful Vikings season, I haven't been blogging much. I'm sure that won't change, even when I'm staying home with The Spinoff.

On the other hand, the Internet is so full of mockable idiocy.

Like Jim Hoft, who says President Obama made up dead muslims in an attack on a christian church in Egypt. Of course, what Obama actually said was there were muslims who were "victims" of the attack. Which, since 8 muslims were injured, is true, unless Hoft thinks you have to be killed by a bomb to be a victim of it.

It takes 50 comments on Hoft's site before someone mentions that muslims may possibly have been injured, mostly because everyone is busy calling Obama a muslim, a terrorist sympathiser and a "towelhead" (which makes no sense because even if he were a secret muslim, everyone knows Obama was born in Kenya, and they aren't necessarily known for towel wearing). Of course pointing out the injured muslims makes no difference to the folks in the comment section, because to them all muslims are terrorists and it's good if they get hurt.

As we all know, Yahweh is awesome because if you believe in him, you don't have to be bothered with pesky stuff like facts and science, as this Facebook believer so aptly demonstrates.She says, "Fact- if the earth was 10 ft closer to the sun we would all burn up and if it was 10 ft further we would freeze to death... God is amazing!" (Note: Nothing in that quote is a fact) Someone responds, rather politely explaining how the Earth's orbit actually varies by quite a lot more than 10 feet on a regular basis. So the original poster thanks the guy for correcting her mistake, right? Not quite. Instead, she comes back with, "Okay thats cool and alll but dont ever comment on my status telling me that i am wrong everrrr again. I didnt ask you did i? Answer: NO" How dare someone try and correct her mistake! If she says god did something, then none of your liberal "scientific knowledge" and "facts" are needed, mister. Go back to your ivory tower!

I keep hearing right-wingers talk of anti-Christian bigotry that is rampant in America. If correcting statements that are just plain wrong is anti-Christian bigotry, then I can see where they're coming from.

And with that, I have a baby to feed. Good Night, reader.

Your Facts-Schmacts leader.

Merry X-Mas!

The X-Mas Story. Sort of.

May Santa Cthulhu eat you first.

Your Happy Merry leader.

The Spinoff Has Arrived

K.G. was born today at 0321 hrs. I'd post a picture, but there are people out there with no shame or sense of human decency who like to act in uncouth ways, even when children are involved.

So you're getting a baby tapir instead.



Anyway, we're very happy and healthy. Thanks.

Your Happy Dad leader.

Tell Her No

Who knew that a Zombie Pub Crawl could become too commercial. Well, it did. Selling tickets to a Zombie Pub Crawl? Are we going to charge kids to go trick-or-treating this year too? Anyway, if you're not sure if you are a zombie, and wondering if you should go, there's a quick test here to tell you if you're a zombie.

Of course, no amount of organizing will stop the zombies in the end, and somehow they got me chained to the Precinct desk yet another year for the Crawl, so I won't be there to stop them. In case you didn't know, here are some tips to help you fight the zombies. Good luck!

Happy * Day!

Happy * Day! Hopefully you don't have to work like I do.

(*Due to the Affiliate's condition, I'm not allowed to use the "L" word.)

Do You Know How Lucky You Are?

Ladies and gentlemen ... Brett Favre ... We got him! (Again)

It's been a while since there's been zombie news, but this investigative story should have us all sighing in relief.

Unfortunately, that list doesn't take into account people in their 20's apparently being completely worthless. This seems inevitable. Adulthood has been moving later as our lifespans get longer. You couldn't wait for 25 to be an adult when your average lifespan was 28. I'm not saying this is a good thing, of course. This is partly parents allowing their kids to stay with them longer than maybe they should. Not to mention that there are a lot of people and not many jobs. I think it's high time we start moving folks to the moon.

Speaking of the moon, I'm curious if any muslims out there can tell me how one would determine when Ramadan starts if one was living on the moon, since determining the start relies on seeing the moon.

Apparently having a nationwide radio show is bad for free speech. Laura Schlessinger is upset people called her a racist for saying racist things, so she's quitting. She wants her "1st Amendment" rights back. Come January, Dr. Laura will be free to say whatever she wants. Hopefully, no media carries what she says. We wouldn't want her rights violated.

Your Say It Loud leader.

The Heat Was Hot and The Ground Was Dry

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!! No word on whether Brett "Baby Cheesus" Favre will be playing this year. More on this developing story as it develops.

Someone who will be playing is Hussein Abdullah, who has a plan for Ramadan, since he is fasting during the day, which means he can't eat or drink, even water, during the day, even when practicing. When Bud Grant was coach, this was SOP for all players. Of course, back then, the players weren't downing massive amounts of diuretics to mask all of the steroids they weren't taking, so it wasn't as big of a deal.

The real question is whether Abdullah will be allowed to play against the Jets. After all, the New Meadowlands is only about 12 miles from lower Mahattan. Will New York conservatives allow a devout muslim to get that close to Ground Zero?

Your Waiting For The Season To Start leader.

These Are The Ways The World Will End

In case you aren't a Facebook friend, and you care, we're having a boy.

And apparently Mark Dayton won the MN DFL primary. Which proves once again that the DFL endorsement process doesn't really find the person most DFLers will vote for. Of course, winning the primary hasn't led to too many victories lately either, so Dayton's got his work cut out for him.

Of course, Tom Emmer probably thinks Relativity is a liberal plot, so he's got that going for him.

So, I ordered the CD "Trebuchet" by George Hrab. Hrab was pretty smart. He put the CD up on his "Geologic Podcast" for free, without track breaks. There's not much chance I would have bought the disc, but after hearing it on the podcast, I decided to buy it.

Anyway, I thought I'd share what is the greatest e-mail I've ever received from a commercial website.

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, August 10, 2010.
We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Sigh...
We miss you already. We'll be right here at http://cdbaby.com/, patiently awaiting your return.

Awesome.

Anyway, check out the "Geologic Podcast." (It's not really about geology at all) Also check out "Trebuchet," which has some really good tunes on it.

I'll also take a moment to recomend the "Read It and Weep" podcast. It's a podcast about 3 guys who partake in the worst books, movies and TV and then rip the hell out of it. They made their bones on the "Twilight" series, but they do a good job on pretty much everything. It's really funny, even if you haven't read what they are critiquing.

On a side note, I started listen listening to "Read It and Weep" a few months ago. About 1 month ago, they started following me on Twitter, which was odd because I wasn't following them, nor had I contacted them in any way. Strange, this internet of ours.

Your Getting the House Ready leader.

Suaimhneas Síoraí

I've dealt with a lot of crime victims. I've spoken with family members and friends of people who have been murdered. I've never been one of those people before. Unfortunately, things change.

Growing up, my family spent a week at Gull Lake near Brainard every summer. We usually spent that week with The Malickis. Kristy was my brother's age. Her brother Barry is my age. Denny and Mary were close friends of my parents. (That's the weird thing in the news stories. I didn't know his name was Clyde. He's always gone by Denny, his middle name, I'm told.)

A lot of my childhood memories are from up at Gull Lake. I remember little things. My parents and Denny and Mary playing cards at night, drinking Jungle Juice (Apparently a lemonade/vodka drink). Cruising around Gull Lake in the big blue speed-boat we called the "Blue Baby," but that Denny would never officially name, listening to the Statler Brothers on 8-track. Playing mini-golf. Taking the boat to Taco Tuesdays.

I can't imagine what Barry is going through. I can't imagine how I would feel if I lost my whole family.

Suaimhneas Síoraí is an Irish phrase that translates as "Eternal Peace." We often wish peace to the dead, but I'd like to wish peace to the living. Barry, Kathleen Dorgan and Kathleen McHugh and all of their family and friends who will be missing Denny, Mary and Kristy. Hopefully they will find a way through this tragedy.

I wish I could write something profound and interesting, but I can't. Please do what you do to help those who have lost loved ones.

*Update* This says it right.

Happy Independence Day!

To Normal

And we're back to not caring for another 4 years.

It's the Dream That We All Share!

It was his idea.

NSFW!



If you don't follow Twitter, here's how the game went for me.

Pregame:
Am I the only one who thinks Landon Donovan looks like Michael Westin? about 6 hours ago via HootSuite

About 5 minutes in:
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH phew! Too close. #USA #ALG #worldcup

After an Algeria shot off the crossbar.

About 25 minutes in:
#USA keeps having goals taken away. It's a lot harder to win that way.

After another absolute shit offisides call to nullify a goal.

About 35 minutes in:
Put it in the GOD DAMNED NET! #USA

That was after about 3 missed open-net opportunities.

Halftime came and went, and I found myself having to Re-Tweet myself:
COME ON! RT @DiscordianStooj: Put it in the GOD DAMNED NET! #USA

That was after another 3 really good scoring opportunities.

At around the 90 minute mark:
2nd yellow card for #USA on a "handball" that didn't happen to go with the 2 goals stolen from them.

And then, less than a minute later:
GOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES! #USA 1:0 #ALG #worldcup

After 5 minutes to compose myself:
Ahem. ... Final result #USA 1:0 #ALG USA wins group C, joined by the Three Kitties #worldcup #eng

I'll probably never do the Tweet re-cap again.

Your Field of 16 leader.