Happy Birthday, Pentameter!

YAY it is my friend Pentameter's birthday! Thanks Pentameter's Mom and Dad, your kid is an awesome friend!

As you all may know, I am not a bajillionaire, so I am currently limited to how many millions I can lavish on my friends to celebrate their births, but I WISH I could spend zillions and also give them private planes and pilots so we could all visit each other ALL THE TIME and it would be great. (PS - Kids, don't ever go to college or write on the Internet. You will meet cool people and they will live in places like "Europe" and "Washington State" and "Pennsylvania.") Anyhoodle, if I was a gajillionaire (soon!), this is what would be arriving on Pentameter's doorstep today.

It would probably also arrive on time, because I would have a personal assistant to counteract my tendency for procrastination and forgetfulness. It is a deadly combo.

The Cirrus SR22 is not only snazzy looking in the extreme, but is also the SAFEST available small aircraft thanks to it's superawesome, industry-leading whole-plane parachute, which ensures that as long as you do not direct your plane into a tree, you will not be smushed, EVEN if your engine conks out in midair. Includes pilot.

If you need an explanation as to why I would give these to ANY friend, you are dead to me. If you need help understanding why I cannot give these to Pentameter, I can help - they are Christian Louboutins and they cost over $700.

Charm bracelet from C.H.A.R.M., which is a rilly rilly cool charm store that I cannot really afford for my own or my friends' charm bracelet needs. I would start Pentameter out with this bracelet and these charms...the shoe, boot, and corsety thing to appeal to her fashion instincts, sewing machine for her craftiness (and any repairs on the run if necessary!), Passport so she can do lots and lots of travel without worrying about nefarious foreign persons ganking her identity, baseball player because we know the secret of the Rivalry (hint! Don't act like a moron all the time!), Italy because the woman couldn't BE more Italian, and the little hearts on a bench and the door mostly because I think they're neat, and shopping for stuff we like personally in order to find something for the giftee is never a wrong choice with Pentameter and I.

Brooch from Kristen Grace, not only because it would look fucking fly on a nice winter coat, but also because it is called "Indira" and Pentameter and I are all about the GIRL POWER and the getting overly agitated from reading feminist blogs.
Just because I know she could rock it.

This dress by Jay McCarroll from the first season of Project Runway, and an occasion to wear it to, because seriously...wow. PENNSYLVANIA PRIDE!
Tim Gunn, who is back in our good graces after cancelling our planned rendezvous, to provide endless guidance, fantasticality, and general fun. (Confidential to Tim: Don't worry, the delay just gives us more time to figure out how to cajole you into coming out with us for drinks after the book signing.)

Finally, the Harvard Coop, the bestest bookstore in the whole wide world, ideally minaturized for storage in a magical bag for transportation, a la Merlin-in-Disney's-Sword-in-the-Stone or Hermione-in-the-Deathly-Hallows, depending on your personal vintage. Full of both academic and fun books, as well as many awesome reading-oriented tools and knickknacks and a yummy cafe, this bookstore is sure to keep Pentameter busy and happy until roughly the end of the universe.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WOMAN!

Let's Just All Stop Allowing Sexism to Be Okay and See What Happens.

Some of you may know about my weird habit of listening to Rush Limbaugh.

Yeah you heard me.

It's not an intentional thing, but occasionally I go to Hannaford for some of their delicious fresh sushi, and the station that I listen to on my morning and evening commute plays Limbaugh's show in the afternoon. So that's what's on, and most of the time it's fine since I can either get all bent out of shape about whatever he's spewing, and we all know I like a good hate-on, or I can feel intellectually superior to him thanks to his schtick of pretending to not get the difference between left-wing fringey nutbars and average liberals. On a brief tangent, I would have a SHITLOAD more respect for the guy if he would just once in a while address an actual sane liberal concern, or take a call from a liberal who doesn't wear a tin foil hat to protect him from aliens. But he doesn't, so I feel safe in my decision to consider him a self-aggrandizing, pompous douchebag who perpetuates the shitty clip-show style of reporting that makes everyone so pissy. Not all issues can be summed up in one sentence, y'all. Stop pretending they can.

So anyway I was listening to his show on the way to Hannaford today and he took a call from Cathy in Tennessee. The intro went like this.

Limbaugh: [Hi Cathy!] Which by the way is one of my top ten favorite female names.
Cathy: Oh! Well I'm so impressed...thank you...I'm so impressed that I'm speaking with you, I'm almost speechless...and if you knew me, you'd know, that's [not that common an occurrence]...
Limbaugh: Probably because you're a woman!
Cathy: Well, ha ha...maybe so...

CATHY! WHAT THE FUCK, WOMAN??? GOD! Like we don't have enough assholes like Limbaugh out there who think it's okay to be sexist jerks right to our faces! Don't encourage him by being all passive about it! Tell him to go FUCK himself and furthermore, if you feel so inclined, throw the studies that say women and men talk about the same amount in his big smug stupid face. GET A BACKBONE, LADY, GOD!

It Doesn't Feel Like Worcester

New post up on WCPL! Review of Via Italian Table, the new and awesome restaurant from the Chophouse/Sole folks.

Viva la Worcester!

Autobots, Roll Out!

Transformers mini-review over on WCPL.





Hint: Go see it right now.

Go on, get outta here.

News at 11: Mysterious Horsemen Spotted in Holden

Yo, you guys, what is up with me liking the hell out of Michael Moore these days?

If you read this blog, chances are good I have emailed you the clip of Jon Stewart ripping the Crossfire boys a new one for, and I quote, "hurting America" by pandering to politicians and not asking tough questions of them, which Stewart says (correctly, I think) is in direct contrast to their stated point, that being a news outlet. Let's just review the awesomeness of that rant.

And let us also reflect on how freakin' hot Jon Stewart is.

Soooo anyway as you have probably heard by now, Michael Moore pulled a Stewart on Wolf Blitzer the other day, and took him to task about the segment that ran before Moore's appearance (which refuted several of the claims in SiCKO) and then proceeded to go on about a variety of things, including the number of claims in Farenheit 9/11 that turned out to be true after the movie's release, and a similar concept to what set Stewart off on Crossfire, that the mainstream media doesn't report news so much as what their sponsors want them to report on.

It's freakin' GOOD, y'all.

Now, Michael Moore has historically irritated the crap out of me, because I feel he has a tendency to step all over his own valid points and stretch them too far. PLUS, the bastard is a compelling filmmaker, so he does this in a very convincing manner, which means millions of people go see his movies, start parroting the over-stretched points, and thus provide groundswell support for the...development of a system that ensures I'll spend every Conservative vs. Liberal argument explaining that the people swallowing that stuff whole are crazies who don't read enough and thus do not have the whole story. Then I have to explain that I am not in fact one of the crazies, and as a bonus, Rush Limbaugh gets his Crazy Liberal Spank Bank refilled so he has more fringey, ill-informed nutbars to point at all "LOOK AT THE CRAZIES THEY WANT YOU TO BE ON WELFARE AND HAVE ABORTIONS AIIIIEEEEEE."

Thanks, Mike.

But I went to see SiCKO - and wrote about it here - and holy crap you guys, he learned to shut up. Now, SiCKO's argument is not perfect, although I personally do think we should have universal health care, but for a scant two hour feature film, it covers an awful lot of ground and makes an awfully strong case for the benefits of universal health care. But god, watching a Michael Moore flick without the annoying snitty voiceovers, and without Moore's goofy face in front of the camera all the time...thing of BEAUTY. THIS IS HOW TO DO IT, MICHAEL! KEEP IT UP!

PS - SiCKO brings up a lot of interesting etymological issues in my mind, although they are not mentioned in the film. It's interesting to watch people's knee jerk reactions to any reference of socialized health care...the SECOND you throw the S-word in there, people freak, and of course this is why its detractors always use it in their rhetoric. I know I connect every damn thing to the Horrible State of Education in This Country but I really do think that the virulent reaction to mere words like socialism, communism, etc. says a lot about the way history is taught here. I believe that American schools teach a certain degree of propaganda in this regard - big bad horrible countries like RUSSIA are communist, not AMERICA. We haven't really tried the Great Communism/Socialism Experiment on a large scale here in the US, so there's no bad taste in our mouths that could trigger the reaction, nor are socialism or communism INHERENTLY evil bad concepts...just probematic ones. Why do we get so scared and angry, then, when someone mentions the idea of socialized ANYTHING? It's because of the countries and regimes we associate them with, and that's not where we should be. We should be able, as an enlightened society, not only to accept that you can have care/things for all citizens without turning into a bunch of pinko commie fascists, but also to realize that a thing can fail without being evil.

Yet Another Person Who Makes My Life As A Liberal INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING Simply By Existing

Shut. Up. Cindy. Sheehan.

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/politics/index.ssf?/base/politics-0/1183943662143450.xml&storylist=electionmi



Seriously, I am not exactly shot in the ass with Nancy Pelosi these days, but Cindy Sheehan is an effing whackjob.

Look, I think Bush has absolutely done bad things and unfair things and stupid things and most likely illegal things, and I DEFINITELY believe he has ALLOWED bad/unfair/stupid/illegal things to happen under his watch but here is your challenge for the day:

Articulate, in real, non-made-up words, the illegal things that would be sufficient to get Mr. George W. Bush impeached, right at this very minute.

Follow up:

Document it.

The basic facts of the matter are that the sheer amount of time it would take to even gather evidence against him - which I have no doubt is there - would take us WELL past the elections in 2008, and the changing of the guard in January of 2009. Furthermore, you'd really need to collect evidence on the entire Administration because we ALL know that Cheney's office and many other powerful members of the Bush Admin have been pulling strings, to the point where people occasionally question Bush's actual autonomy...that's a scary thought in and of itself.

I think Bush is an utter disgrace, and that he SHOULD be punished for his transgressions of both law and moral compass, but right now there is simply more to worry about. Education's in the shitter, you guys. People are hungry and the economy is strong but uneven. International policy is too widespread and ineffective as a result. There is discord from every angle in our relationships the world over. And there is the Iraq war, which has GOT to get dealt with before there's no one left who doesn't want to take the US out. I don't buy this argument of "oh you set a date and the terrorists will just wait until then and then move in for the kill." I used to. I freely admit it. Part of that is because it's true. But it will ALWAYS be true. If we pull out tomorrow, Iraq will explode. If we pull out in 30 years, Iraq will explode. It's a region and a country rife with theological and cultural strife, and it's going up no matter what we do. The Iraqi "government" has demonstrated again and again that it wants to use the US as a crutch, not a means to an end. The security forces aren't up to snuff, and the government wants a summer vacation? Not that everyone doesn't need vacation, but...this isn't the time, y'all.

No matter when we pull out, there is going to be chaos in Iraq immediately afterwards.

I don't mean to be pedantic or to oversimplify the matter, but Favorite Online Writer Sarah Bunting talked about the unwillingness of baseball fans to accept change gracefully in her article about Barry Bonds, to wit:

Things change, and we all know this, but as much as the general population resists and is uncomfortable with change, the average baseball fan is even worse. The designated hitter rule came into effect before I was born; baseball fans still bitch about it. The strike zone changed, like, ten years ago; I still bitch about it. The Dodgers left Brooklyn two generations ago, and there are people who have still not gotten over it and never will, and if you give them even the tiniest opening, these people will bitch about it for an hour without pausing for so much as a sip of beer and then they will spend the next hour trying to convince you that buying a three-inch chunk of Ebbets Field on eBay for four hundred dollars is not crazy.

And that's baseball, people. I know that for some it comes close to being a religion, but it's a sport. And anyone who is a baseball fan KNOWS these people, the ones still bitching about changes years after the fact, has run into them at a game or a bar or on the bus and knows that they are deathly serious. And it's...baseball. If it's possible for humans to get this overwrought about a sport, why should we be so foolish as to presume that they'll easily relinquish the theories of religion that have been and are the foundation of their lives and government for CENTURIES? Our troops' presence there is barely holding off the fight, as evidenced by the DAILY reports of sectarian violence and suicide bombers.

And let me tell you now - the next person who tells me I'm not supporting the troops because I think the war sucks is getting punched directly in the mouth. I want the troops to come home because it is a stocked POND over there, guys...Bush keeps sending them to replenish the ones who have gotten killed already. It is wildly insulting to say that Bush in any way respects our troops - he keeps sending them over to continue carrying out his unchanging and clearly ineffective strategy that he REFUSES to adjust, and keeps bullshitting and giving checklist speeches. To hell with that. You want to really demonstrate your respect for the troops? Get them equipment and a theory of war that will work or else unveil your withdrawal plan.

And here's a question for all y'all...where's Osama bin Laden?

Remember? The guy who TOOK CREDIT for September 11th? The guy whose organization took out 3,000 Americans who were just going to work that day? What happened there?

Oh right...we put him on the back burner to take out an aged dictator. Not that taking out Saddam Hussein was a bad thing, of course, but Saddam Hussein did not have anything to do with September 11th. Are you kidding me? The only thing that guy cared about was continuing to oppress his OWN people and do some sabre-rattling on the side. Again - atrocious individual. Should have been taken out of power. But we went to war under false pretenses, and did it too fast, and now here we are. Hooray for Bush.

But let's not forget that undue speed was what got us in this mess. We went overseas with too few Arabic speakers and too much crap. We need a solid, reasoned plan to get out, and we DON'T need to focus on impeaching Bush when we have thorny and pressing issues on our plate. As I said above, I'm not 100% in love with Nancy Pelosi either, but if you want to run, just run, Cindy Sheehan, don't go with this combative crap, because Nancy Pelosi has at least one thing straight - we need to focus on the war right now, not impeachment.

Do Not Sign Anything This Child Gives You.

The child on this lampshade would clearly have struck fear into the heart of even that creepy little possessed child Damien from The Omen.

Wow.