Ode to a Beauty Queen

Dear Carrie Prejean,

You're alright in my book. I know you've been getting a lot of heat for your comments on same-sex marriage but I'm okay with that. Well, I'm not exactly okay with that, but you're so hot that I'm willing to let it go. I was disappointed to hear that you were going to turn this opposite marriage thing into a movement or something, going around the talk shows, giving speeches and making appearances and all that, but that's only because I don't think that's what Carrie Prejean, the brand, should be all about.

I mean, look at you. That swimsuit proves to me, if not to Perez Hilton, that you're more than deserving of being a beauty queen. That tan? My god, to be that tanning booth for one session!

And your dentist? An artiste, a modern-day grandmaster. He created a Da Vinci in your mouth!

I know puberty didn't give you those boobs, but I'd sure like to meet the guy who did. Just so I could shake his hand and thank him for his good work.

You are every man's dream woman. Taut, tanned, and totally fuckable. Perez Hilton doesn't like you only because he wishes he was every man's dream woman.
And you know, he should have never asked you that question. He should have asked if you could do the splits.

Because that's what Carrie Prejean the brand should be about. The hotness. The opposite marriage stuff? Boring! It's a little too early to start talking marriage anyway. Maybe I should take you to dinner first. Then you could tell me all about your views on opposite marriage...as long as we go swimming afterward.

Truly yours,

Yours truly

Power

Dear Scrub,

In order for an electronic device to work, it must have electricity.

Signed,

The 21st Century

(I hate working Saturdays.)

A Few Things

Bristol Palin has been in the news lately speaking about, wait for it, abstinence. I think it was Alanis Morrisette had in mind when she was thinking about irony. The unwed teenage mother telling you to keep it in your pants. I suppose it would be like me telling my nephew not to smoke, even as I light up another cigarette, you know...wisdom from hard-earned experience. But why?

To help her Mom build a better national profile? That's not going to help her Mom with anything. To talk more shit about Levi, which then will prompt more shit talk from him? (Maybe they could both go on Larry King, the baby sitting on the middle of the table, and they could fight it out like adults.)

Go away, Bristol Palin.

I've heard some rumblings in some quarters about Obama nominating a gay Latino woman to the Supreme Court to replace Justice Souter, although I haven't really paid attention to all that stuff. Supreme Court? Yaaaawn. I'm sure to some people this trifecta of minority-ness is making some people mad. "Does she have to be gay?" they say. "A Latino? Like Alberto Gonzalez? She better be legal," they say. "We already did the woman thing," some others might say. "Let's get another dude in there."

I don't care one way or the other about any of that identity politics stuff. None of it should be shocking anymore. And consider this: If the first gay woman of color were appointed to any major federal positions by Obama she wouldn't really be the first. Condoleeza Rice beat her there a couple years ago under Bush.

Did your bank pass the stress test? Mine had mixed results. One passed, one failed. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but at least the one that passed is the one that holds my mortgage. No doubt their health is due in no small part to my timely payments.

Speaking of timely payments, Manny Ramirez was suspended from the MLB for 50 games for using a banned substance. I know a Red Sox fan at work who will get a kick out of that. He's still mad at Manny for ditching on Boston.

Oh, and the face transplant lady! It's a medical miracle and I'm happy for her. She'll always look weird, but now...not as weird, I guess. But still, it makes you think. I'm not sure I'd want to survive a mutilating, but suriveable, injury like that. The guts to keep going, with your face a ghastly hole, I can't even imagine.

Red Meat for the Faithful

I know some people who are going to love this...

Because they hate Obama.

For Metal Fans Only

My Mom tells me that she skips the metal posts on my blog, so I devised a strategy to use this to my advantage. If I want to talk about something personal, something maybe Mom doesn't want to know about, I'll just hide it in the meat of a metal post.

Example:

If you want to talk about great rock drummers, you can't leave Abe Cunningham of the deftones off the list. Abe's ability to pound the skins is only surpassed by Bonham in his prime, John not Jason. So last night I went to a hooker I met on Craigslist. She had a lot of blow and might have stolen my debit card...

You get the idea.

I get to blog about the crazy things in my life, although they are rarely that crazy and Mom will never know.

Only now the cat is out of the bag and now she'll be forced to read all of my metal posts, just in case I've hidden some lurid details in my brilliant music commentary.

Speaking of...this riff has been blowing my mind. It's from a song called Naked Burn by Mastodon.

(As in, a Craiglist hooker stealing your debit card.)

117-105 - Nuggets Lead Series 2-0

Dude...

I think the Nuggets are going to make it to the 3rd round.
I hope I didn't just jinx them.

Looking good, though, looking good.

Not the Money, but the Principal

So...today's, what, the sixth? And my mortgage payment finally posted?

Here I am, waiting on pins and needles for it to post -- they've had the dough since last Tuesday -- and it takes almost a week.

This is one of the big ones, the ones with an extra payment. In one fell swoop you knock chunks as big as boulders from your principal.

When you're grinding away at a 30 year mortgage that's the only way you can think of it if you want to survive.

No Jury Duty

Well that was fun. I didn't get selected for the jury, alas, but I think that's actually a good thing. One of the witnesses might have been part of Officer Dickhead's posse back when they tried to railroad me with that little theft charge.

And whatdya know, the trial today was for a theft case.

Someone didn't like my answers to the attorneys' questions because I was one of the first three jurors dismissed. I wasn't trying to get dismissed, but I wasn't going to protest.

Jury Duty

I've got jury duty today, one of the side benefits of going through all the drivers license hoopla I went through earlier this year. My last stint on a jury was a federal criminal case (documented here) but this time it's for the City of Aurora, so if I do end up serving, it will probably be for something more mundane than a prison shanking.

If I do get seated, I hope it's for an illegal trash dumping case. Can you say, "Acquitted?"

Don't Trend on Me

It's well known that I'm a gardening fanatic, so it should also follow that I'm perfectly okay with these "gardening trend on the rise due to the recession" stories that keep popping up. But I'm not.

They annoy me.

Part of it is my aversion to trendy things. But the other part of it is the weird disconnect from reality. Before I sink the knife in and twist, though, let me just say this. Trendy or not, gardening is an unalloyed good, even if you do it for the weak reasons in the trend stories.

Myth #1:

You can NOT feed a family with your garden. Oh, you might feed them more salads for a couple months, maybe even make some pickles. You could supplement your meals with fresh-grown spinach, maybe make a side-dish of squash, a desert of pumpkin pie. But chances are, you're not growing wheat, rice, or corn, and even if you were, you're not growing it in quantities that will allow you to reduce your grocery bills by very much. A can of corn is pretty damn cheap. Besides, it doesn't make any sense to reduce your grocery bill if all you're going to do is increase your water bill. Which brings me to myth #2.

Myth #2:

You will not save money growing a garden. Most likely, you will spend money on seeds, soil, water, and other accouterments of the garden like pots, stakes, labels, etc. It's not something you do to carve a little space out of the budget; it's something you budget for.

Myth #3:

It's easy. No, it ain't easy. The patience, care, and back-breaking work involved in maintaining a garden used to be humanity's primary occupation before we all got cars and jobs and TVs. You may think that all that is required is dropping a seed into the ground and waiting for harvest, but there is more to it than that. It's hard work, even for the hobbyist.

So grow your victory garden, but do it with no illusions. You won't save money, you won't get much food, and it will be tough. You'll be sweating in the sun with dirty hands many a day, and as the days wear on you will, without a doubt, start to see diminishing returns. Only until next season, when the whole grueling process starts over again.

Gardening's rewards are spiritual, not economic, and its cyclical up and down nature does not owe itself well to recession trends.

109-95 - Nuggets Take Game 1

The Nuggets played their first day game ever at the Pepsi Center yesterday afternoon and since it was on ABC, a caveman luddite like myself was actually able to watch it. (ABC also has the NBA Finals this year, so I'll get to watch those too. Who says broadcast TV is dead?)

The first quarter looked a little scary. Dirk Nowitzky was sinking every shot he threw, Melo got into foul trouble, the Mavs started getting ahead. But then Nene started hitting his stride and the Denver defense started kicking in.

If you watch the highlights, check out the last play in the reel, starting around 2:23. It looks like something the Harlem Globetrotters would do!

On a breakaway, Smith dishes it to a wide open Carter. But Carter doesn't take a shot, he zips it right back to Smith who by now is under the basket, face to face with a defender. So Smith dishes it behind his back to Melo, who comes up behind him for a slam.

Oh man, it was beautiful.