wherein I tell you things that are the things that happen

1. The battery in my cell phone doesn’t really hold a charge anymore. The phone is 3 years old, which in disposable technocrap years makes it a fossil already. So, okay, I need to go to tmobile and pick a new phone and re-up the contract. I start looking at the phones and I start getting weird. I used to think I was turning into a grumpy curmudgeon type whenever I got upset over the phones but yesterday I realized to my great horror that I was actually channeling Bill Cosby!

The Simpsons – Cosby Show Guest Star Season: 6The best video clips are right here
oh yes, there I am looking at the various phone options and it starts happening, “all I want is a phone, a phone on which to engage in calls….pffft now it’s all touch screens and video and music, why do I need my phone to have music? my god! what is wrong with people?!”
Now, it’s pretty bad to start channeling a guy with questionable decision making skills when it comes to sweaters, but it is actually much worse than this. The very first few phones are pretty much exactly what I want, Nokia, flip phone (because I never lock my keys and that can cause…issues), takes photos and probably has a calculator (the calculator on my phone gets used all the time when I am yarn shopping and I am trying to determine price per yard for yarns). There are like 3 of these phones, each slightly different but each pretty much offering nothing more than I need AND…THEY ARE ALL FREE WITH A CONTRACT!!!
Seriously, there is no reason for me to even look at the other phones! The phone that I want is right there and yet I go see what else there is and suddenly I’m possessed by the demon of the quiescently frozen pudding based treats.
Just pick the first free phone and be DONE. I know I don’t want a blackberry or a google phone and Motorola phones can go suck it twice and puke in the gutter. Just get the first phone.
2.

hell yeah

3. I had some stuff to say about Bobby Jindal, but, you know, too easy…

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office, I’d never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: “Well, I’m the sheriff and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me!” I asked him: “Sheriff, what’s got you so mad?” He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters.
The boats were all lined up ready to go — when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn’t go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, “Sheriff, that’s ridiculous.” And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: “Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!” Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.
There is a lesson in this experience: The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens.

um, seriously? You’re using Hurricane Katrina as a metaphor for national responsibility? really? oooh, wait, it doesn’t matter because that anecdote never happened
4. Dear Jermaine Dupri, perhaps if musicians started producing solidly good albums instead of crap with glitter we’d want to buy the whole album. I think consumers are pretty clearly saying that they don’t want all that you have to offer.
5. Got sick over the weekend, had a bit of a fever. started taking my temp regularly to see how it was going. I’ve discovered that my temp fluctuates between 97.4 F and 99.5 F all back and forth during the day. I meant to chart it today to see if I could find a pattern but I got distracted by Anna and some chicken and David Attenborough.

It’s my lack of talent that is my talent

I’m a news junkie, really, I am. The internet is the single greatest bong for the news junkie. Instead of reading a local newspaper every day, I have access to hundreds of news sources, information resources and brain vomitoria! Being a news junkie helps my social life! On several occasions I have been able to maintain a conversation with other people for up to seven minutes without having to refer to my butt! Reading the news helps me take my mind off my butt!
Anyway…
So, I read a lot of news and I’ve noticed this curious trend. It seems as though many newspapers are trying to add more humor to their regular rotation a la The Onion. The really weird thing about it is that I keep seeing the same damned joke over and over in the various paper from the NYTimes to the Wall Street Journal (though, WSJ has been freefalling into a bit of a rag lately). I’m sure you’ve seen this joke too. It’s the one about how wall street can’t cap the salaries of their executives because they’ll lose all that ‘talent’.
I mean that’s funny, right? Talent? It’s funny to refer to the people responsible for your company’s insolvency as ‘talented’! That’s humor 101 right there.
Except then I realized they weren’t joking. These people were serious. Perhaps their definition of ‘talent’ differs from mine? This is a possibility. I would not use the word ‘talent’ to describe the act of selling insurance on a product to a person who does not own the product against a possibility that would not affect the person buying the insurance.
Right?
You have a car, you have insurance. This helps cover unforeseen accidents and whatnot. You pay in, you get into an accident, the insurance pays out. It covers your losses. It’s a nice blend of capitalism and socialism, everyone pays in so that those who have a need will be covered. Nice (well, except that more often than not, lately, people pay and pay and pay and then find themselves not being covered). Using this model, you would not take out insurance on your neighbor’s car. That would be foolish, you have no risk to cover, you do not own the car or drive the car. If the car gets into a crash and is totaled this would not affect you financially. So, you do not need to be insured against possible risk.
If you own a lot of stock in a company, you can take out insurance on that stock in case they tank. You pay in to cover potential risk. If the stocks never tank, then the insurance company has made money, if they do tank, your loss is covered to some degree. Still, this is making sense, these are good ideas, take some risks but wear a life preserver.
But, of course, the ‘talent’ of wall street had this awesome idea, it was like gambling only more…retarded?
You could buy insurance for stocks you didn’t own to cover a risk that you were not taking. Get that? You’ve insured your neighbor’s car even though you have nothing to do with the car! You have to pay giant premiums of course, so you have to hope the stock tanks so that you can get a good return on this investment. Except it isn’t an investment, it’s just gambling. Then it gets better! In order to cover the premiums you have to pay for the insurance on something you don’t own, you can sell insurance to other people for the same items that they also do not own! And they will pay giant premiums to you and you will shuffle that money along to pay your premiums (minus the profit you keep) and when the company goes belly up, you get your giant payday, which you share to a lesser extent with those who bought insurance from you.
And eventually there is exponentially more dollars covered than the actual company is worth. It all goes shitacular when a place like Lehman Brothers has insured more than they can pay out! So when Harry’s Hairy Chicken Butts dies, they can’t pay! and the next person in line can’t pay their people, and the pyramidical domino effect explodes!
Now that’s what I call talent.
Then there’s short selling, selling stock you don’t own and buying it back later for less than you sold it. except you don’t own it.
And lending money to any warm body that passes by! No need to assess risk, you’ll just bundle up those loans and sell them off. Sure, some might default, the interest rates should cover it….right?
This is the talent we don’t want to lose.
And who could forget John Thain, the Merrill Lynch CEO that spent $1million of bailout money to redecorate his office. Part of the redo was that dirty little $1200 trash can.
I could dry hump a thesaurus all night long and still never come up with enough words to describe the brilliant irony of this. A trash can, a receptacle for waste, purchased with semi-filtered (through BoA) public money meant to help plug up the leaky dike that is wall street talent. He spent $1200 on a trash can! Moliere himself could not produce anything near the level of this self consuming satire!
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
BUT! What the hell am I going on about? Losing talent, keeping talent, salary caps, hordes of obviously retarded wall street skullfuckers wandering around in their Ferragamo ties! WHAT?
Look, I’m a motherfucking genius when it comes to shortsighted decision making and bad ideas! I’m practically BRIMMING with terrible notions that will cause much harm. So this is my proposal to wall street! Fuck the ‘talent’, I’m every bit as terrible as they are but I’m willing to work under the salary cap! I can guarantee you that within 6 months I will bring your company into insolvency! I will use a fiscal trepan to open the economy’s skull and I will hump it to death with my metaphorical penis of bad ideas!
Seriously, I can get you a constant stream of bailout money and I work cheap. Call me.

oh. a meme.

I haven’t written anything of (no) substance in a while since all my time is spent drafting wool, swearing and watching baby porcupines on youtube. So, in lieu of anything important, let’s do a meme…
Talk about your partner…
What are your middle names?
My middle name is Lee. David’s middle name is…David! His first name is John but he goes by his middle name. Fun.
How long have you been together?
4 years, since October 2004
How long did you know each other before you started dating?
um…hm…Well, we met on an internet dating site. We talked via email and on the phone for about a week before our first date.
Who asked whom out?
I responded to his ad, so I get to say I asked him out.
How old are each of you?
I’m 35, he’s 34, we’re 9 months apart.
Whose siblings do you see the most?
David has one sister in Alaska and one in town. We see his sister Julie (the one in town) a couple times a year, though I should really make an effort to hang out with her more often, she’s a lot of fun. We get to see Mary-Alice (Alaska sister) about once a year-ish. I definitely see April more often. Her work schedule can get hairy and I’ll realize I haven’t seen her in a while and get sad, but then I will bring her a pie and things get awesome!
Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
Money issues related to my depression (crazy brain). I think it caused more trouble in the beginning because I didn’t trust him and worked so hard to hide things. Once we got through that and I learned that he was a good and okay kind of guy things got better. I am truly humbled by his patience with me!
Did you go to the same school?
Nope, not even close.
Are you from the same home town?
I was born in and grew up in and never left Minneapolis.
David was born in Corvallis, OR and lived in Peru, Kenya, Miami, Virginia, Louisiana, Guatamala, some places I am probably forgetting and then Minneapolis.
Who is smarter?
He is. He has a very concrete and logical thought process whereas I can be very abstract and nebulous. He can definitely break down and solve problems in a much more linear fashion than me. On the other hand I am the undisputed queen of useless trivia!
Who is the most sensitive?
Sensitive like sensing what the other person feels or sensitive like being crazy and taking things the wrong way? Oh right! Doesn’t matter! ME!
Where do you eat out most as a couple?
I want to say Original Pancake House, but that could just be me, I eat there a lot. We eat a lot of burritos too.
Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
New York or New Orleans, I had to go look. It looks like New Orleans is about 20 miles further away that New York if you start from my house. BUT! We flew to NYC together, every time we have gone to New Orleans he has driven down there ahead of me and I have flown down to meet him.
Who has the craziest exes?
huh, I have more exes than him so I might win by playing the numbers. But neither of us really has crazy exes.
Who has the worst temper?
I get crabbier and pissier more often, by a long shot, but I am one of those silent angry people. I just sit there silently imagining your tanned leather hide decorating my walls. Then it passes and I’m thinking, “ha! I was crabby for no reason!” and then I go apologize to him for being crabby and he didn’t even know! I’ve really only ever seen him truly mad once or twice. It wasn’t scary like “oh my god! TEMPER!” it was more like “oh my god! he is really feeling a lot of anger!”
Things were obviously harder when we first started dating because we had so much to learn and get used to.
Who does the cooking?
This place nearby call Pineda Taco! They make the best burritos!
Barring that, we sort of either take turns or have a contest of wills to see who is hungrier first.
Who is the neat-freak?
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…oh my god! let me catch my breath here…ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Who is more stubborn?
I just had to ask him, we’re not sure…um…yeah
Who hogs the bed?
The dogs.
Who wakes up earlier?
I do. On weekdays I will get up before him and start his coffee and help him get up for work. On the weekends I’ll sleep later and he’ll bring me my coffee.
Where was your first date?
Dinner at the Chatterbox and then coffee at Plan B on Hennepin. Just now, for the life of me, I could NOT remember the name of the Chatterbox. It was right there on the tip of my tongue and I could not remember. So I went to google maps and found the street corner and went to ‘street view’ and swung it around until I could see the name on the sign. See! I don’t have to be smart, I just have to know where to find the answers!
Who is more jealous?
I have had exactly 2 minuscule moments that sort of qualify as jealousy but really don’t because they were like 2 seconds each. Then they passed. If he has had jealousy moments he’s never mentioned them.
How long did it take to get serious?
I think he was serious before I was, but I went into the relationship with the understanding that I was going to sell my house and leave the state and Oh! Wouldn’t it be fun to date someone in the meantime. Our first Christmas in 2004, he drove to Louisiana and then I flew down a week later. When I saw him at the airport after that week apart it struck me so hard, this feeling that I always wanted to be with him forever. That was when I got serious.
Who eats more?
Him, by a damned long shot! I can go for days eating one bowl a cereal a day or something insane like that, he can’t. He definitely consumes way more, but he is way more active than me and needs more calories.
Who does the laundry?
The person who runs out of underpants first.
Who’s better with the computer?
He’s definitely more logical about figuring out computer issues, but I’m more intuitive and can say things like “i think the computer is just upset right now” and mean it.
Who drives when you are together?
More and more often I make David drive even though we take my car. It keeps him from fiddling with the treble/bass fade/balance Dolby/3channel buttons when we are listening to the radio. Also he’s a better driver.

Dogs!

Today I read and article about a pit bull and then read the readers’ letters, and oh isn’t that a fun peek into societal views! Many of the same tired old arguments about ‘inherently aggressive’ pit bulls were trotted out and paraded around. In the spirit of aggressive ass dogs, I just wanted to share this again…

Have a lovely weekend!

it’s sort of like high school…

…except, you know, with actual effort!
I have been spending my spare time researching the ‘war on drugs’, the rise in paramilitary style raids by local law enforcement agencies, the prison industrial complex as a lobbying machine the perpetuates the war on drugs in order to perpetuate itself (it also lobbies hard for mandatory sentencing laws and ‘3 strikes’ type laws), the huge glob of money wasted on this ‘war on drugs’, the lack of effect it’s had on real hard criminals, the deep and everlasting damage it has done to small time users who have broken no laws except the drug laws, the lies put forth about the effects of drugs, the cynicism felt by a generation of kids raised knowing the adults were lying about the effects, Nancy Reagan, the incentives small local police forces gain by perpetuating this mythic war
and so on and so on.
Seriously, it’s like I’m in high school or college but I’m actually putting all this effort into this and this is not for a graded paper! No! It’s just something that has been bothering me and I wanted to write about it here. Yeah, a blog post slathered all over with my opinions about the war on drugs.
The problem is that I don’t have the time or energy to write it all up. I will soon, but not right now. Suffice to say, whatever the goal was in the beginning, presumably to keep the citizens safe, healthy and prosperous, we’ve lost sight of it. When the police forces stop focusing on “to serve and protect” and start worrying about filling quotas and getting funding grants for paramilitary equipment they don’t actually need, we’re lost.
Yeah, I got opinions! Great big lathery (yes, lathery, not leathery) opinions and I’m gonna share them with you just as soon as I am not trying to figure out my Minnesota State Tax ID# (so I can collect sales tax on the things I sell at festivals) and creating a Limited Liability Corporation so that I can protect my personal lack of assets from attacks on Bubbo Designs (and vice versa, wouldn’t want someone coming after me and walking away with a pile of orange roving and a needle felter!). Now I have to order 16 pounds of roving and some jade green dye!
Go small businesses!