The Employment Drought Ends - Temporarily!!!

Yes, an employer has finally been guilted into hiring me! For a few months, at least.

Now, I'm sure that, once y'all have recovered from the shock of such unexpected news, there will be questions. You know, "Who are you working for?" "Do they actually pay you?"  "Do they actually pay you in cash?" and so forth. So I'll try to answer some of those questions now. I've only been employed two days, so there will be updates.

1. Where are you working?

  Seattle.

2. Okay, smartass, for whom are you working?

  This is where things become complicated. I'm sure that everyone has read or heard various theories about the Government (federal, state, county, city, grange hall, etc.) being a hideous conspiracy to oppress the rich. Well... it's true. Whether it's making them pay livable wages and Social Security for domestic help (instead of offering room and board for escapees from Central America) or trying to tax them to pay for the freeways built so they can enjoy their Hummers and BMWs, the Government is all about oppressing the rich.

Some of you are saying, "The President/Governor/Mayor/Grange Hall President is rich! Why would they be interested in oppressing themselves?" Think of professional sports leagues - baseball or football, for example. Notice how there's an American League and a National League? Yes, they're all rich, but still, there are two leagues. Well, it's pretty much the same in government. Two leagues, both rich. So whichever league is winning (or running the government) wants to take at least some money from the league that's losing (or not running the government).

And that's where my job comes in. I'm a foot soldier in CORPS - Coalition to Oppress Rich PeopleS. It is a secret govt. agency, to be sure. I may have told some of you that I work for Roads and Bridges, or Housing for Indigent Mammals - and in a way I do, indirectly. But mostly I'm going to be about this:

If our training materials are to be believed, usually when we get a rich person to this point in our proceedings they'll agree to hire registered aliens or pay an extra $500/yr to repair the bridges they drive over every day.

I know this makes me sound like a class warrior. But I'm not. I'd love to be rich. I just wouldn't try to cheat the poor, that's all. Because we all know the poor control everything.

3. You actually get paid for this?

  Yes. Cash, health & dental, vacation and sick leave, and a bus pass.

4. This really sounds as if it should be a volunteer job...

  They tried that at CORPS and had 50,000 applicants. Too many to weed through. So they made it a real job. There were over 800 applicants for the platoon that was just hired on (of which I am a member).

5. And they really do pay you in cash?

  Some of my readers may wonder why the hell I'm making a big deal out of this. But my friends and former coworkers at Megadynecorp Technologies appreciate my obsession with cash. MDC Technologies paid in bags of expired croutons from the Marie Callender's restaurant up the road (cases of them if you were a unit manager) and belly button lint.

Oh, I almost forgot Binder Clip Day (BCD)! Once a year at MDC T we'd get to fill one pocket with all the binder clips it could hold. I would rent a kangaroo for the day, stick a plastic trash bag in its marsupium, and enjoy a binder clip bonanza! (So now you guys know why I always looked funny and refused to speak on Binder Clip Day.)
 
Other details about the job - 1 hour for lunch, two 15 minute breaks, non-stop snacking opportunities. And there is decent coffee (and a sucky restaurant) within a five-minute walk. And we get chairs at our desks, instead of having to construct our own out of busted-up shipping pallets and staples (thanks for all the splinters, MDC!).

My fellow platoon members all seem quite nice - in fact, they've elected me the most sadistic member of the group - woo hoo! But it's an intelligent group of people - after all, in the Puget Sound area, the rich generally do not advertise by wearing tiaras and floor-length mink coats. We have to be able to tell the shabbily-dressed rich from the shabbily-dressed working class.

I've met a couple of our IT folks - yes, we use the Interwebz to hunt down people - and they  seem really nice, friendly, competent:

One thing I want to mention - I've reported some MegaDyneCorp Technologies policies here in an unflattering light. These policies do not reflect on my friends and former coworkers there, who suffered as I did under the crouton and lint policies!!! I just want to make that clear.  I hold CEO Torquemada Johnson responsible for such policies, him and his Bored of Directors...

Anyway, as stated above I've only been working two days, so there's not much news yet... but I'll keep you updated on all the fun at CORPS!  And hey, you guys at MDC Technologies - save me some croutons, if you can spare them. I kind got used to them!

I'm rich! Rich, I tells ya!

Fresh from my adventures of being an unwitting spammer (can we say "AOL has no defenses against hackers"?), I was happy to see my luck improve with the announcement of a fine, large inheritance:

From: Mr. Thomas Glasgow

Remittance Manager

Barclays Bank Plc.

Phone Number: +44-762-419-0409

Attention: Beneficiary

 

This Is To Officially Inform You That We Have Verified Your Contract Inheritance File Presently On My Desk, And I Found Out That You Have Not Received Your Payment Due To Your Lack Of Co-Operation And Not Fulfilling The Obligations Giving To You In Respect To Your Contract /Inheritance Payment.

Secondly, You Are Hereby Advice To Stop Dealing With Some Non-Officials In The Bank As This Is An Illegal Act And Will Have To Stop If You So Wish To Receive Your Payment Immediately. After The Board Meeting Held At Our Headquarters, We Have Resolved In Finding A Solution To Your Problem, And As You May Know, We Have Arranged Your Payment Through Our Swift Card Payment Centre In Europe, America And Asia Pacific, Which Is Then Instruction Given By Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

This Card Centre Will Send You An Atm Card Which You Will Use To Withdraw Your Money In An Atm Machine In Any Part Of The World, But The Maximum Is (Ј15,000.00) Five Thousand British Pound Per Transaction. So, If You Like To Receive Your Fund This Way, Ј15,000 Gbp For You To Withdraw For A Day And Each Transaction Is Ј5,000gbp Minimum Which You Have To Withdraw Ј15,000 Gbp For One Working Day Also Be Informed That The Total Amount In The Swift Atm Card Is Ј14.6 Million Gbp.

(1) Your Full Name:

(2) Your Address Where You Want the Payment Centre to Send Your Atm Card.:

(3) Phone and Fax Number:

(4) Age and Occupation:

(5) Your Nearest International Air Port in Your City Of Residence:

We Shall Be Expecting To Receive Your Information You Have Stop Any Further Communication With Anybody Or Office. On This Regards, Do Not Hesitate To Contact Me For More Details And Direction, And Also Please Do Update Me With Any New Development.

Thanks for Your Co-Operation.

Best Regards,

Mr. Thomas Glasgow

Remittance Manager

Barclays Bank Plc

Barclays Bank Plc. Registered In England. Barclays Bank Plc Is Authorized And Regulated By The Financial Services Authority (Fsa). Registered No 1026167. Barclays Insurance Services Company Limited Is Authorized And Regulated By The Fsa. Registered No 973765. Registered Office For Both: 1 Churchill Place, London, E14 5hp. "The Woolwich" And "Woolwich" Are Trademarks And Trading Names Of Barclays Bank Plc. Barclays Business Is A Trading Name Of Barclays Bank Plc. Barclays Bank Plc Subscribes To The Lending Code Which Is Monitored And Enforced By The Lending Standards Board And Is Licensed And Regulated By The Office Of Fair Trading For The Provision Of Credit Products To Consumers And Related Services.

See? Good things can happen to all of us. I, for example, am going to send a copy of this along with my resume so they can see I'd produce much better written unsolicited emails than this one. Sooooo many things wrong with this I don't know where to start. But I'm intrigued by the idea that you could get 14,000,000 pounds from ATM machines.

If you have any suggestions on how to spend this munificence, please let me know. I expect to get my card any day now, as soon as I send them my SSN, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and send them the deed to my mother's house... 14 million pounds is nothing to sneeze at, after all!

Happy Tuber Year!

This little goody is sold by the Royal Society for the Abolition of Tuber Blights. A catchy little image, what?

I admit, I've been neglecting y'all. I've been cheating on this blog with my knitting blog, mostly because those folks know to expect old crap - old photos, old movies, old knitting patterns. Y'all want modern stuff, consarn it!

The last part of 2009 can be summed up as "too poor to do anything but stay home and re-write history." My holidays have been a combination of nasty cold and back spasms. My only solace these days is the Charlie Chan dvd set, requiring neither mental acuity nor heavy lifting to watch them.

I promise you, though, if anything interesting happens to me that I haven't made up from sheer boredom, I'll post again. But right now, Charlie is about to nab the killer, so I'll catch you later.

Happy New Year!

Captain Kirk's Compensation issues

A screen shot from Star Trek: TOS.

Capt. Kirk obviously feels his own equipment is inadequate to the task. I wonder what Spock would say? (Suggestions welcome.)

How The Unemployed Spend Their Saturdays

• I had a knitting project I wanted to finish.
• I have neither cable nor fancy new converter rabbit ears setup thingy to watch broadcast TV.
• That leaves me with streaming video.
• hulu.
• And TJ Hooker.

This show debuted in my last year of college. I did not see many episodes during its short (I think it was short) run. I do remember a few things about it – bad 1980’s clothing (there was a reason I was a punk), baaaaad acting (with William Shatner leading the pack), horrible scripts which seem to involve violence to scantily clad women.

Watching the five episodes on hulu, my memories were refreshed – and it was worse than I recalled.

If you’re going to watch just one episode (and I really think you ought to, particularly if you’ve been wishing you were 30 years younger), I recommend the pilot episode. Here are some frame grabs (I’m not very good at these, but I think they’ll do the trick):

Here’s Adrian Zmed busting a move on the dance floor. And we’re talking busting a move. He’s the rookie who becomes Shatner’s partner for the rest of the season (or longer – told you, I didn’t watch the show much).

Talk about your disco infernos - this guy would have to be a disco pyromaniac!

Next shot is of a deceased gang member. Notice the colors he’s wearing.

Far as I know, there would have been only one group in California in the early 1980’s who would have chosen lavender for their colors. And the name of the gang on the TV show made me wonder if one of the writers was trying to get something over on the audience (consider – The Purple Stallions). Perhaps they thought the Lavender Stallions was more obvious than they cared to be, but with the gang colors they were sporting, anyone under the age of 40 would have guessed.

{I really want to make some comment about purple helmeted warriors of love riding the purple stallions, but I can't think of anything clever enough for posterity.}

Final shot is of one of the characters in tight short shorts at the squad picnic.

For god’s sake, please please please – I don’t care how tight your arse it – nobody come to the MDC picnic in this outfit!

A Plea to my Friends

In today's news:

TOLEDO, Ohio - A man held a woman captive in handcuffs and an adult diaper for three days while he read Bible passages to her, police said.

Troy Brisport, 34, was charged with kidnapping and felonious assault. Bail was set Tuesday at $400,000.

He picked up the woman Wednesday night in Detroit after she told him she had nowhere to stay, and brought her to his home in Toledo, about 55 miles (88 kilometers) away, police told The Toledo Blade newspaper.

The woman told police that after she fell asleep Brisport handcuffed her wrists and ankles, gagged her, undressed her and put her in an adult diaper, then read Bible passages, said police Capt. Ray Carroll.

She apparently was not sexually assaulted, Carroll said.

However, court documents alleged that Brisport tried several times to suffocate the woman using a pillow and blanket.

I sent the following plea to one of my friends, but I figure I better send it to everyone - consider it insurance:

If I end up homeless, please let me put up a tent in your backyard. I'll work for shower and laundry privileges, and I'll sit in my tent with my iPod on loud when you want your private time in the yard, I promise. I don't want to end up in a diaper listening to bad recitations from the Bible. Please.

{The text was changed to protect the names of the innocent.}

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's, folks!

First, flowers from a friend:

Gifted in advance of, and not because of, Valentine's Day - but still, lovely to have some roses here next to the futon. Lovely colors and scents to brighten up the weekend. And nice to have someone think of giving me flowers - thank you!

Next, a box of gifts from a knitting pal - our first anniversary, in fact. We had our first swap VDay last year, and had so much fun (and got on so well) that we've had quarterly swaps ever since. Chocolates, yarn, booze, and a book on lace knitting:


So I spent an hour cruising the internet for knitting patterns for my yarn...okay, more like 2 hours. That's why I recommend Valentine's Day swaps for knitters, single or no. And Gypsygirl, my swap mate, is appreciative of my unemployed status, so I didn't need to spend extravagant amounts on yarn or other goodies. Knowing that I'll be doing swaps during the year allows me to look for mark downs on yarns and books. And then there's the Daiso $1.50 store in downtown Seattle - that place absolutely rocks! Much, much better than American dollar stores, I actually find some useful, crafty things there - and non-crafty, too! See, the Japanese like their cheap stuff from China, too, but they still want quality and a pleasant aesthetic, so you get much nicer things there. And if you're willing to spend $5 you can get some super fun vintage Japanese tunes! Anyway, Gypsygirl still raves about the onion bag I gifted her with back around Halloween, all courtesy of the fine folks at Daiso!

There were many vintage valentines being sent around on Ravelry (don't bother even clicking the link unless you knit or crochet). Some of them had very interesting images, and got me pondering what message they would convey in the 21st century.

I really liked the following image:

But notice the shackle this poor fellow is wearing - an indication of a co-dependent relationship, at the least, if not some sort of serious top-bottom relationship (don't click unless you want TMI).

This must have been intended for the Lawrence Welk generation - lucky for you, I'm too lazy to link this to some really bad accordion music (which I've got in spades).


Here's one for the person concerned with global warming - or hot flashes - or some sort of hemorrhagic fever:


Do you know anyone who's into steroid use? This one's for you, A-Rod!


I hope this little girl got a raise in her allowance:

Mind you, I actually like the Post Office. They're far from perfect, admittedly, but if you've spent as much time arguing with UPS as I have, you'll understand why I like to go postal.

Anyone who has known me for very long knows I appreciate things piratey; and I'm not some poseur who thought they were cool only after Johnny Depp donned his eyeliner. I was a pirate for Halloween a year or two before the first movie came out. However, even I have to wonder exactly what message you're sending your sweetie when you've got a heart (theirs? yours? the last person you got in a bar fight with?) on your dagger.

"Arrrrgh, lassie, them wot don't dates me be the lucky ones," he seems to be saying. You know, I'm going to bet on the bar fight scenario - he's wearing a sword, so I bet he cut his enemy's heart out with his eating knife. What a little terror this laddie is!

For the next one, I'm just going to say "Lumberjack Song" and leave it at that.
Now, now, before you make that joke about Idaho, where men are men and sheep are scared, remember, I'm a knitter - I like wool - I like sheep only in a completely platonic sense. Okay, I do appreciate lamb when cooked nicely, and of course, there are some fine sheep cheeses out there - but they won't let you shear them if they think they'll end up in a curry when you're done.

You're on the Titanic. You're lucky enough to obtain a life preserver and hope like hell that the North Sea (or wherever the hell they were - no, I don't care, I'm not looking it up) doesn't freeze you to death before you're rescued. I'm pretty sure the word 'nice' wouldn't be how you'd describe your life preserver.

Hey, I like kitties. Nothing snide here, just a cute kitty.


In the 21st century, if you use the words "horn" and "butt" in a valentine, you know it's all about teh booty call.

The next one's for you, Noisy:


This last one is just weird. Is it the heart-ball? Is it the kid's big arse? He looks like he could be doing 'roids with A-Rod...I dunno, but it definitely bothers me.

Happy VD, everyone!

Why Wasn't I One of Those Chosen for That Mission?

I'm sure that no one who reads my blog would consider me to be a McCain supporter, and indeed they would be correct in that assessment. It's not that I think Obama will be our Saviour, but McCain's got much bigger issues, even if it turns out Obama is as bad as Marion Barry (otherwise known as my favorite pie filling - I love being able to purchase a piece of the Mayor!). However, I don't wish to fill up bandwidth with lots of ponderous pontification on matters politick - I'm not nearly up to date on my readings to do it with any confidence, for one reason.

This does not prevent me from posting the more humorous offerings of this late political season - and believe me, there's plenty o' silliness to be had out there, passing itself off as discourse. For example, enjoy the following right-wing theory about the financial disaster being a left-wing conspiracy (no one mentions all the Republican supporters at the top of the corporate and banking chains who are still coming out of this with their several homes and apartments - yeah, they weren't diverted into taking out subprime loans)...sorry for the digression, here's the conspiracy theory as presented by the Right:

Why the crescendo of economic collapse right before the election? Why didn’t the media and congress act just as concerned some time ago or wait until sometime after the election to go into crisis mode? The timing of the current financial crisis seems too planned and calculating to be just a coincidence. Polls show that people’s number one concern right now is the economy and that for the most part, voters believe Democrats are somewhat more likely to help with the economy. Could it be that the liberal media and those in Congress, knowing that, is blaring the bad economic news from the rooftops in order to manipulate voters into voting for a Democrat? If so, it won’t be the first time.

Well, to answer that question, Barbara Ehrenreich presented the following on her blog:

October 21, 2008

Report from the Socialist International Conspiracy

Surely you have heard by now of the imminent socialist takeover of America, and if you find the prospect unlikely, ask yourself: How many socialists do you know who lost millions in the recent stock market crashes? Just as I thought—none—and that's not only because you don't know any socialists. The truth is that we, the Socialist International Conspiracy, not only saw this coming, we are the ones who made it happen.

The plan took shape during a particularly intense criticism/self-criticism session at our 2000 annual convention in a booth at an Akron IHOP. We realized that we'd been recruiting no more new members per year than the Green Bay Packers and that, despite all our efforts, more Americans have been taken aboard UFO's than have embraced the historic promise of socialism. So we decided to suspend our usual work of standing on street corners and hissing, "Hey, how'd you like to live in a workers' paradise?” Instead of building socialism, one worker at a time, we would focus on destroying capitalism, hedge fund by hedge fund.

First, we selected a cadre of crusty punks from the streets of Seattle, stripped off their Che t-shirts, suited them up in Armani's and wingtips, and introduced them to the concepts of derivatives and dental floss. Then we shipped them to Wall Street with firm instructions: Make as much money as you can, as fast as you can, and as soon as the money starts rolling in, send it out to make more money by whatever dodgy means you can find – subprime loans, credit default swaps, pyramid schemes – anything goes. And oh yes: Spend your own earnings in the most flamboyantly gross ways you can think of -- $10,000 martinis, fountains of champagne – so as to fan the flames of class resentment.

These brave comrades did far better than we could have imagined, quickly adapting to lives of excess and greed punctuated only by squash games at the Century Club. But we could not have inflicted such massive damage to capitalism if we hadn't also planted skilled agents in high places within the government and various quasi-governmental agencies. When all this is over, Phil Gramm, for example—the former senator and McCain economics advisor -- will be getting a Hero of Socialism award for his courageous battle against financial regulation. That's the only name I can name at this moment, but I will tell you this: If you happened to have been in a playground in the suburbs of DC any time in the last few years, and noticed an impeccably dressed elderly man poking around under rocks, that was a certain Federal Reserve Chairman, looking for his weekly orders from the central committee.

Things were going swimmingly until about a week ago, when the capitalists suddenly staged a counter-coup. We had thought that the nationalization of the banks would bring capitalism to its knees, but instead, the capitalists were craftily using it to privatize the government. Goldman Sachs, former home of Henry Paulson, has taken the lead, planting its agents so thickly about the erstwhile public sector as to earn the nickname "Government Sachs." Among the former Goldman Sachs operatives now running the country, in addition to Paulson, are the president's chief of staff, the chairman of the New York Fed, the man appointed to take over A.I.G., and the 35-year-old boy wonder selected to oversee the bail-out program.

According to the New York Times, "Goldman supporters" insist there is no "conspiracy" and not a black helicopter in sight – just a bunch of public-spirited investment bankers sacrificing their normal 8-figure salaries for the good of the nation. But we socialists know a conspiracy when we see one, and some in our ranks are complaining bitterly that as capitalism began to collapse, the bankers seized the life raft that was intended to save the laid-off, the foreclosed-upon, and the exploited masses in general.

Ah well, we socialists still have the election to look forward to. After months of studying the candidates' economic plans, we have determined that one of them, and only one, can be relied on to complete the destruction of capitalism. With high hopes and great confidence, the Socialist International Conspiracy endorses John McCain!

Nice to see that the Socialists are out there doing something besides scaring young college folk, but I was one of those crusty punks on the streets of Seattle in 1999 - why didn't I get a call up?

Bubbles!

Paul Krugman linked to a wonderful piece in the Onion about America's urgent need for the next investment bubble - a piece I highly recommend reading. The article included a lovely graph which I'm reproducing here for your edification:

© Copyright 2008, Onion, Inc. All rights reserved.

Personally, I'm hoping for Postmodernism. It's (mostly) all about nothin', as it's supporters maintain. (I'm not convinced of that, but that's another discussion.) Jacques Derrida futures - ha!

At any rate, the Onion piece reminded me of this long-ago favorite from www.satirewire.com - a site I considered to offer the best social/political satire. This is the site that gave us "The Axis of Just As Evil" (for those who believed it was from a Pythoner or some other famous comedian, nope - it was Andrew Marlatt). From 2002, folks - some people definitely saw the real estate disaster coming. Enjoy!

RECORD 75 MILLION AMERICANS NOW
PRETENDING THEY OWN THEIR OWN HOMES
Low Interest Rates Help Many Fulfill The American (Banker's) Dream

Minneapolis, Minn. (SatireWire.com) — Showing no ill effects from a weak economy, housing numbers released by the National Association of Realtors today showed that a record 75 million Americans are now participating in the mass self-delusion that they, and not their banks, actually own their homes.

"Home ownership is the fulfillment of the American (banking industry's) dream, and we are proud to announce that more Americans than ever have been able to (help lending institutions) achieve that dream," said NAR President Richard Schicter.

After putting 20 percent down on a $235,000 house yesterday morning, Minneapolis pediatric nurse Stephanie Doogan officially became the 75 millionth American to take part in the widely accepted fantasy.

"Ever since I was a little girl, I've wanted to (deceive myself into believing I could) be a homeowner," said Doogan, 35. "Well, look at me now! Me, little Stephanie Doogan, I actually have a place I can call 100 percent (minus 80 percent) my own!"

Across the country, other (people in denial concerning their status as) property owners expressed similar satisfaction.

"There's nothing like taking a walk around your (bank-owned) house, then going outside and kneeling down in your (bank-owned) lawn and grabbing a handful of (the bank's) dirt to make you realize how precious (their) land is," said 28-year-old Matt Jackson, who('s bank) bought a $210,000 home on New York's Long Island last year. "It makes me feel as though I really have something that no one can take away from me (unless I miss so much as one mortgage payment)."

Added Devon Knight, who recently thinks he purchased a condominium in Baltimore's Inner Harbor: "When I was renting an apartment, if the furnace went out, I had to get the landlord to fix it. But now, if the furnace goes out, I have to fix it!... hold on, I'm losing the illusion here... why is that good again?"

"Equity," said Jay Harrington, Knight's mortgage broker at First Union. "Just remember, you have equity. And next to the right of every single American (major corporation) to have a say in who gets elected, that's the most sacred thing you can (pretend you) have."

Copyright © 2001-2002, SatireWire.

Wheels!

I've been a pretty slacking blogger recently - apologies, dear readers (all three of you). Since I'm not posting as regularly anymore, I'm going to add a subscription bit to the right-hand column; you'll be able to enter your email address, hit subscribe, and get the most recent post in your inbox. Woo hoo.

I've still been enjoying the financial meltdown - enjoy might not be the best word choice. It's rather like watching Godzilla rampage through the world economy instead of Tokyo. And I'm pretty sure most people outside of Japan would rather Godzilla were rampaging Tokyo. Soon enough my mutual fund will be worth so little that I won't be able to by a newspaper with it, even a weekday edition. It was a gift, though, so it's rather like free money - all I can end up with is nothing, which is what I had before it was given.

I do have an extremely simplistic question about the market. It seems to me that if everyone quits selling, the stocks will quit going down. Right? I realize that there are occasions where that strategy doesn't pay off in the end, for example, if you had stock in WaMu or Lehman Bros (were they actually a publicly traded company?). I do understand that not tanking the stock market won't resolve the bigger issues of banks holding paper that's losing value at a depressing rate, or the credit freeze that bollixed up commercial paper, etc. But if you've already lost 30-50% of your worth in stocks, why does rushing to sell the rest of it off seem like a good idea? If any of you send me an explanation I can understand, I'll post it.

Then there's the fun of playing the unemployment game. Quel surprise, I screwed up my application and had to call the Unemployment Insurance (UI) office. The woman on the other end was exceedingly helpful, and we got everything straightened out. In fact, I was able to report that fact to a friend of mine just yesterday...but I spoke too soon. I checked my mail and found that their system did not like something, so I have to complete some paperwork and send it in. Feh.

Speaking of fun, the Presidential/Vice Presidential debates are over. I must say, Barack Obama seems to have gotten his act down, and I mean that in the performative sense of the word. One of my friends and occasional readers compared McCain's performance in the previous debate as remniscent of Grampa Simpson, an analysis with which I agreed. Last night, he still reminded me of ol' Abe Simpson, and I fully expected John McCain to say, "I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missouri," or some other such nonsense as we usually hear from Grampa. In fact, I had summarized the first three debates (Prez & VP) thusly:

See! Sarah Palin act like a Barbie Doll! Hear! Joe Biden try not to say something studip! Watch! John McCain wheeze his way around the stage, talking to all his friends! Enjoy! The immaculate hang of Barack Obama's silk suit!

I spent a couple of days with The Mater last week. The most exciting aspect of that was going to a book sale where, for $15, I brought home many more books than I should have been allowed to buy all year. Bad Viviana!

I spent Saturday evening in the company of a poet. Previous experiences with poets were less than inspiring, part of that due to the fact that they weren't very good poets, and thus were tedious companions. This poet, however, is exactly to my taste - no crappy love poems, no bad beat poet imitations, but his own voice and a love of words that I'm sure surpasses my own. So there was plenty of conversation, some reading of poetry...and single malt double wood 16 yr old Oban. Now, I have to admit, I'm just a wee bit fonder of the Lagavulin; it's the peat. I love the scent and taste of the peat smoke in such a smooth and delightful delivery system as the 16 yr old Lagavulin. However, were I stuck on a desert island for the rest of my life with 20 crates of 16 yr old double wood Oban, I wouldn't shed a tear for my lost Lagavulin. I've always enjoyed the 12 yr old Oban, but the 16 yr old was delightful, smooth as anything. So please let me recommend - Oban 16 yr old double matured (as it is officially named). Super tasty stuff.

And finally - wheels. I bought me some wheels. A Diamondback bicycle. She's a nice little bike; I had to get the shrimpy sized frame (14 or 15). And panniers, helmet, gloves, dayglo jacket. It's not the lightest frame in the world, and I think it will be a few weeks before I can safely lift her high enough to get her on a bus bike rack (don't want to destroy my back), but I'll have enormous biceps once I reach that point.

Tell me, did y'all think I'd bought meself a car? Huh? Huh? I'm unemployed. I can't afford a car. Honestly, I'm not sure I can afford anything more expensive than a pair of discount running shoes, but I bought a bicycle anyway.

My social calendar is a little full the next four days - damn, how'd I get so popular? Anyhoo, I'll update y'all early next week.

Data

For those who like their information in graph form for quick and easy comprehension, here's an analysis of the current bailout plan:

Blogging in the Lap of Luxury

Bwa-ha-ha-ha! While you peasants toil away, I'm luxuriating under my furs, snug and warm.

The astute reader may recognize the cloak-cum-throw from my Lucrezia Borgia halloween costume. Faux fur, but still warm and snug.

I've not been blogging so much lately - a lull in my external life has left me little of interest to blog about. My internal life is even less interesting to document than the external, so be glad of the relative silence.

The horrific soap opera that is the world economy has been keeping me entertained. Many cliched comparisons come to mind - train wreck, horror film, the Titanic, the Hindenburg - you get the idea, my friend*. The sinking/burning & crashing of the US economy was something I've been expecting (although, except for some canned beets, I can't claim to be prepared). I would love to say that I knew this was coming, sooner or later, because I have such a keen grasp on economics. If I said that, I'd be the worst sort of liar - a stupid one, because it would take almost no time to disprove such a claim. However, I read. I read authors whose analyses prove correct most, if not all, of the time.

Ted Rall is one of my favorites; I always enjoyed his writings, but when I read his "Generalissimo El Busho" (yes, that's the title of the book), I was astounded at the accuracy of his predictions of the first four years of life under Bush. Mike Whitney (not the cricket player) is one who has been commenting on the financial madness for a couple of years at least, and his articles often have pretty good explanations of how the system works and why something might be a bad idea. Paul Krugman, of course, has been firing shots across the bow of the Bush Administration for years; I recommend not only his op-ed pieces in the NYT, but also his blog, on which he provides nifty pdfs with extra information about economics and finance.

Noam Chomsky is of course the hardcore of current economic and political critique. His books from the 1980s and 1990s were dense, but again he is one whose observations and predictions on economics and politics have proven quite accurate; once you grasp them, it's not difficult to understand where things are going and why. I remember reading in one of his books over a decade ago the observation that the US was headed to a Brazilian model of society - a few superrich, and the rest of us living in ditches and fighting bears for the right to eat grubs. Paul Krugman recently showed how this has come to pass. If you ask me, that's some good predicting on Mr Chomsky's part.

So there, kids - if you want to understand how the world works, you can start with these fellows.

I spent the weekend attending writers workshops up in Edmonds. An exciting commute, to be sure. I enjoyed being downtown on Saturday for the big storm; at lunchtime I found a bench on a bluff that overlooked the ferry dock, and enjoyed the view more than I did my sandwich. I've said this to many people now, so please forgive me if you've heard this from me already, but it's depressing how many people are planning on writing bad thrillers. I heard more than one bad thriller plot over the weekend. Baaaaaad thriller plots. And mind you, my expectations of genre fiction are not all that high. It reminded me of working in LA, where everyone is working on a script. You hush out there - my script is nothing like theirs, it will be good! At least I don't talk about it, okay? Anyway, because of the workshops, I'm reading "Bleak House" now, rather than putting it off for six months like I originally planned. It's a thick book, and makes me wonder if it was the inspiration for the phrase, 'the dickens' - I'd hate to have to search through this massive tome looking for a word, phrase, character, event. Where in the Dickens is that passage where Ester meets her mother? Who in the Dickens is Lady Dedlock?

I must fix some sort of breakfast now - I've been up awhile, and I'm very hungry. Your homework assignment is to submit to me your bad thriller plots - I'll try to make something entertaining of them. 50 words or less, kids.

*I caught that phrase from John McCain, who sneezed it out 21 times, from the first count I could find; it's highly contagious. I hope to hear everyone addressing each other by that phrase at least once in each conversation, all parties saying it at some time or another. Just imagine how much livelier cocktail conversations could become!

When I Read Things Like This, I Understand Why I'm Single

(From today's Washington Post)

White married women are particularly likely to see Palin as in touch, as three-quarters said she understands their concerns. At the same time, a majority of such women do not think Palin has enough experience to be a good president. (White married women support the GOP ticket by a 20-point margin.)

Gag.

Stay Away From My Ferrari!

If you live in an urban area, one of the indices of a declining economy is the increase in 'street people' (I put the phrase in quotes as people living/hanging on the streets may or may not be homeless). There is also often a decrease in the mental health of said group, particularly if they are homeless. Living in the U District, I have had ample opportunity to observe these folks over the years. I noticed this during the dotcom crash and shortly after 9/11.

In recent months a younger man with dreadlocks has been hanging out near a shortcut I use to access The Ave. We've been saying "hello" and nodding and such since April. His mood and state of mind have been quite consistent until the last week, when he apparently developed a serious case of paranoia. Serious enough that, when I walked past him today, he yelled at me to stay away from his Ferrari, a request to which I acquiesced easily. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a Ferrari (although maybe that's where he sleeps), but what the heck. I said, "Sure, no problem." And he began to yell again, "You just stay away from it!"

"Understood!" I said as I was trying to make my escape.

"If you don't stay away from it, I'll have my military kick your ass, the military from my country. It will come here and kick your ass!"

"Yeah, no problem, you got it," I said with my most cooperative voice, hurrying to get away from him and vowing to never use my shortcut again.

And no, I did not call the police. They don't exactly patrol the U District religiously (in spite of what they might say), so even if they came and hauled the guy off, I'm sure he'd return. I don't care to risk calling and having him deduce that I was behind it (which would probably happen if the cops showed up on a call five minutes after he'd yelled at me). I have a friend who owns a nearby business who may do the dirty deed, but for now, I'm going to forgo my shortcut. And needless to say, if I see any Ferraris in the neighborhood, I will indeed steer clear of them, ten foot pole and the works.

In other news, the job offers are pouring in - if you consider being asked to be a test subject for a vaccination a job offer. Am I willing to risk my long-term health for short-term gain? You bet. If I get accepted, I'll get a minimum of $300. Since I bet none of my readers love me enough to give me $300 to keep me from being a human guinea pig, I'll risk turning into a 50 foot tall woman, or giant rabbit or reptilian creature of some sort.


To keep my readers apprised of each other's activities, I'm pleased to report that Goat Hostage's cunning plan to respond to the Prion News with vegetarian recipes was thwarted by the Cadbury chocolate recall. Yep, poison chocolate will take the fun out of a good taunt, rendering it very much a Pyrrhic victory. (For the full account, check the comments for "Not Enough Prion News In Your Life?".)

In final news, I understand that there have been payroll issues at MegaDyneCorp Technologies, the result being some folks receiving their compensation in the form of bushels of kohlrabi. Watch out, though - a kohlrabi much bigger than 5 cm in diameter can be woody. Hopefully the PeopleSuck software issues can be resolved and y'all will go back to being paid in wooden nickels.

Well Said, Blue Llama!

Blue Llama is one of my semi-regular readers and commentators, and left an excellent response to my "God's Away On Business" column, which I think worthy of sharing:

The song is an apt tune for our MDC. I hear a lot of "D*mn that last CEO" downstairs. People are reminiscing about the happy times of yesteryear and lamenting the instabilities of the future.

Well nothing is sacred at MDC. We knew that!

Yep - there's always free cheese in the corporate mousetrap - woo hoo!

Also, let me know if I should reset my Blogger settings to have the comments show up automatically, instead of youse guys having to click on them. It's not as if I get hundreds of comments, but I do get them, and some of them are enlightening.

Saturn's Day

I can't believe it - it's raining outside! Woo hoo! It seems like it's been months since we had rain here in the rain belt. I woke up quite early and thought I heard rain, but I've been fooled more than once with the sound of dirt softly blowing across the concrete being interpreted by my desperate brain as rainfall. I'd have gotten up at 5 AM (which is when I first awoke today) and stayed up if I'd known my precious rain had returned; instead, I crawled under the blankies and returned to the arms of Morpheus. It looks like rain again tomorrow morning - I'm very excited about that!

So yesterday, in the middle of blogging, Egon (MSG, to y'all) called me and asked for my help in choosing a birthday present for a mutual friend - her birthday celebration is today, and we are both attending. This worked well for me, as I was facing a long trek into Madison Valley today to fetch her gift, but instead, Egon kindly drove me down there - in icky Friday afternoon traffick, no less - so that I'd be spared the task today. I'm pleased that I was able to get my task completed. After our chores we went for dinner - more sushi. No sake for me last night, though. I'm looking forward to trying something tasty on the single malt menu at the place we're going tonight, so I thought I'd give Mr Liver a day off. Egon, however, had his first taste of Wakatake Onikoroshi and agreed that it was delightful and refreshing. We had the pleasure of running into a couple of friends of mine at the sushi bar, and thus had some delightful conversation to accompany the tasty fish.

My Freya day began under much more mundane auspices, though - I trotted up to Whole Foods for some dairy products (milk, yogurt, eggs - eggs count as dairy, yes? No?) and some fresh veggies. They also have these lovely bouquets of locally-grown organically-grown flowers, and the colors and textures were so gorgeous that I had to spend $10 of grocery funds on a bunch. My photo doesn't begin to do them justice (damned sun wouldn't get out of the way), but here goes:

As I said, the photos sort of sucks. But I've got them placed next to me here where I sit and type, so that I can enjoy them when I actually look away from the screen and around the room.

I lost a few hours on Thursday and Friday to the Comics Curmudgeon. Excepting Dilbert, Boondocks, and the occasional Non Sequitur, I have considered daily newspaper comics a form of soporific at best, a form of torture at worst. However, Mr Curmudgeon has shown me that, in the right hands, daily comics can be a source of great amusement. I read about three months of entries before the site went from being hysterically funny to mildly amusing. I recommend visiting Jeff Curmudgeon when things at work get so painful (or painfully boring) that you desperately need a good, snarky laugh to improve the mood. And now that I'm no longer at MDC, folks, I know that the snark level has definitely decreased. (In some regions of the building, the backstabbing level has gone up - I don't think CC could help with that unless you can disarm your disgruntled coworkers with naughty remarks about Mary Worth's private life.)

I do want to say that I was seriously saddened by the suicide of writer David Foster Wallace; a man of great insight (I won't waste verbiage on shallow speculations that perhaps he had too much insight), he was full of wise quotes such as this:

"...learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. "

We've few enough thinkers around these days, and I always mourn the loss of one of their number.

I came across another interesting passage in the course of researching one of my many novels. I'm reading a book of letters written during the British expedition up the Scheldt River in 1809 (who says life isn't exciting when one is unemployed - look what I'm doing? I'm reading about obscure, failed military expeditions of the early 19th century!). The author is an excellent writer, his prose clear, and his world view is very liberal (as we would say now - I've no idea what adjective would have been proper back in the day). Anyway, I came across the following passage, and was impressed - and saddened that such arguments have been made for two centuries now and still fall upon deaf ears ultimately.

Congreve is very busy with his rockets. I need not inform you that we are not very much prejudiced in favour of this new invention. I really think that they are scarcely fair weapons; and the principle, that of the introduction of more destructive instruments into the practice of war, should not be encouraged. They must necessarily become common; both parties are men on a level, and humanity only will be the sufferer. War, already destructive, becomes more cruel. Such is our military opinion of Colonel Congreve's rockets.

Plus ça change, plus c'est le meme-chose.

Paris Hilton Update

I know you all will be pleased to discover that Paris vows not to write a book until she reads one first, and that she has some sort of prison ant farm. I'm unclear as to whether she has an ant farm in prison, or if she's started a farm for the prison ants; I'm not going to click on the spam link to find out, either.

The Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton

Today's jammie cam features me back at Chez Wilde, eating my beloved yogurt, checking email, doing a little yoga, and preparing for a day of making apricot jam. Yep, more canning, just in case the apocalypse comes sooner rather than later.

Checking my email includes quickly scanning my spam folder, and I see that Paris has been very busy this week. Below is the list of activities attributed to Ms Hilton:

Engaging in oral sex with the New England Patriots (I assume it's the football team, although I suspect poor Paul Revere would rather it were the original patriots);

Losing her vagina because of Dr Phil (I have no idea how that could happen; I expect some pathology journal will be having a huge write-up on this, because it must be a true rarity in the annals of medicine. I'm also curious as to how a second-rate psychologist could make it happen; I would think that major surgery would be involved);

Coming close to bankruptcy (the cost of vagina-removing surgery, perhaps? She should have asked the Patriots to help out with some cash);

Being asked to operate the LHC (the big ol' particle accelerator that potentially could produce micro black holes...who better to be involved, eh?);

I'll skip the one about her swallowing - it's probably related to the New England Patriots social event;

Oh, apparently the Patriots were not the only lovers she took this week, as she hooked up with some space aliens and is apparently having their love child;

And finally, she got caught not wearing any knickers (consider her sexual activities for the week, I'd be more surprised to find out she had any on).

So for those of you who think I'm having too much fun, my time since being off the job hasn't remotely compared to this, even whilst hanging out in the Bat Cave (I was watching Star Trek, after all). In fact, I've not gotten a single invite to the Large Hadron Collider events, something I'm mightily peeved about. Maybe I need to move up to a better class of Mad Scientist; although I think Egon has the potential to create a huge rift in the fabric of space and time, I'm not getting any younger. I want to achieve my goal of being a B-movie lab assistant - complete with angora sweater - before I end up needing a walker. I don't want my screams of terror to be mistaken for an attack of gout.

Below: Dolores Fuller from "Bride of the Monster" - I think I could get away with a similar look, don't you?

Staying Fashionable

One of my favorite sites, Vintage Stitch-o-rama, had a wonderful article on making your own Victorian hairpieces. I see a great opportunity here for unemployed yours truly - I can make old school hair extensions!


And what's better is that I found the entire volume from which these articles were taken on Google books. I could start my own industry. And no, I'm not going to tell you whether I'm collecting any of the hair I use from my bathtub drain - I refuse to give away any trade secrets. But I think I might want a finer mesh basket to go in the tub...and my friend's tubs...

Portrait of the Author - I wonder if he's wearing any homemade hairpieces?

Mad Howls

I just now had cause to try and explain why all my blogging refers to 'mad howls', and so I thought I'd share the reference with my dear readers, all four or five of them. It's part of a speech from Shakespeare's "The Life of King Henry V", Act III Scene iii. I have my bff to thank for this, since she made me watch the Kenneth Branagh film of the play 100 times or so.

Here's the passage whence comes the term:

If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.

One of my few subtle literary references, folks - it's what allows me to pass for an intellectual from time to time ;-)

And yes, Henry sounds not quite so nice when you see the words in print, rather than having them delivered by a young and charming British actor.