If you don't use your turn signal...

you are a selfish jackass. Don't give me your excuses about how you don't need it when "there's nobody around." Just because you don't see me trying to back my car out of my driveway or pedal my bike through an intersection, doesn't mean I'm not there. If you really can't be bothered to spend half a second flicking your wrist to show your fellow travelers where you are going, you are a narcissist and a borderline sociopath, and you shouldn't be allowed to drive.

Snorter In Chief

A diturbing review of Dubya's free ride.

Pro-lifers whif again

When I heard about this on NPR, I thought that maybe, finally, someone in federal government was going to do something practical about the abortion problem. While giving money to pregnant women and people who adopt babies is fine, why don't the right-to-lifers want to try to prevent unplanned pregnancies -- which often result in abortions?

If right-to-lifers really wanted to make a difference, they'd be handing out condoms in high schools and funding ad campaigns telling people how to use birth control. For reasons I can't fathom, they skip over this step in their head.

We somehow managed to convince people that smoking is bad -- even people who won't quit know it's bad for them. Why can't we convince people that having sex without birth control results in pregnancy?

I hate the freaking TSA

Arthur got these fabulous shoes for his birthday. They are so freakin' adorable.
If you're unfamiliar with Robeez, they are soft leather and openings are stretchy and the soles allow for a little bit of traction for those just learning how to stand up. Again, these are totally soft, nothing hard or stiff or metallic or even rubbery in any way involved.

Enter the Transportation Security Administration.

The TSA chuckleheads at all the airports we flew threw last week actually made us take Arthur's shoes off. Yes, the little soft leather Robeez could be the apparel of the world's youngest shoe bombers. As we come out of the assembly line of terrorist victory (aka, airport security at St. Louis) only one shark shoe comes down the conveyor belt. One has apparently been eaten by the x-ray machine. Bastards.

Grandma will be going home through there tomorrow, and she will check the lost and found, but I'm not holding out much hope...

Examiner (in Baltimore) hires disgraced journalist

Shocking!!

(yes, this Examiner is affiliated with the SF version)

Bah *$?!in' Humbug!

Well, my first mistake, I suppose, was going to Best Buy. (Well, first was probably waiting till the last minute, but I can blame my husband, the master procrastinator, for that.) Then I requested help from an employee.

Me: "Can you check to see if any other stores have it?"
Her: "Sure... Sunnyvale has one, but by the time you get there, they won't have it any more! *giggle*"
Me: "Can you check other states?"
Her: "Other states? You're going to another state?"
Me: "Yes, I'll be in St. Louis on Saturday."
Her: "St. Louis?...(looks at computer screen) We can check Nevada, Utah, Montana, Idaho..."
Me: "It's in Missouri. Can you check Missouri?"
Her: "Um, I'm not very good on my states."

I really hope this chick doesn't go to one of the high schools where I might end up sending my kid...

Shocking.

Most Americans have had premarital sex.

Even more shocking is the fact that someone from the Bush administration spoke conflicting statements!

This from today's article:

Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, ... insisted there was no federal mission against premarital sex among adults.

"Absolutely not," Horn said. "The Bush administration does not believe the government should be regulating or stigmatizing the behavior of adults."

Then there's this, from a couple months ago:

"The message is 'It's better to wait until you're married to bear or father children,' " Horn said. "The only 100% effective way of getting there is abstinence."

The revised guidelines specify that states seeking grants are "to identify groups ... most likely to bear children out-of-wedlock, targeting adolescents and/or adults within the 12- through 29-year-old age range." Previous guidelines didn't mention targeting of an age group.

GnR!!

That's right, I was at the Guns n Roses concert in Oakland last night! It was exactly what you would expect from a GnR concert: lots of fights in the crowd, the smell of marijuana thick in the air, and Axel appearing ready to pass out after most songs. There was also a lot of pyrotechnics and even columns of fire ("Yeah, yeah, cool! Heh heh!) that warmed the crowd. Not exactly a big crowd, but, hey. It has been, oh, 15 years since they came out with an album.

Lucky for us, they decided to focus on that new album after this concert date. But we got to rock out in a swanky box close to the stage, thanks to Regan's awesome job! So, no, I did not actually spend money to see Axel Rose and some other guys who kind of look like the original members of Guns n Roses.

Now, at the concert, I thought that the most amusing thing about the event was the fact that Axel needed teleprompters (FOUR of them) placed around the stage, just in case (including the "Hnh!" at the end of Welcome to the Jungle.)

But then, I read this.

It ain't the West Wing, but...

Is anyone but me still watching Studio 60? I wasn't really expecting it to turn into this romantic dramedy, but I kind of like it. Really, how could I not like anything with Matthew Perry and Josh Ly -- I mean, Bradley Whitford?

Also, does anyone find it confusing that Bradley Whitford's character's name on Studio 60 is Danny, and Timothy Busfield's characters name on the West Wing was Danny? At least they made things easy in one respect by naming Matthew Perry's character Matthew.

Barney's Holiday Extravaganza

As cute as Barney and Miss Beazley are, I'm astounded by this... use of taxpayer money.

Weather anomalies

It seems that every time I talk to someone who has visited Chicago, they report having experienced excellent weather -- no rain or lightning, no unbearable humidity. Coincidence? Or is Daley somehow controlling the weather now, too?

Has this man had a surgical chin dimple scoop?

Nathan thinks so. More importanly, he's a tool and his continued employment is an American tragedy....

The fact that Fox allows Joe Buck to do the World Series when Vin is sitting at home is not only a crime but a slap in the face to one of the finest broadcasters of all time, one who has dutifully witnessed some of the greatest moments in baseball.

John Cusack, aka milkshake mofo

Last night we watched The Ice Harvest, an odd, but watchable movie. It reminded me of the milkshake quote, excerpted from this blog, found searching google for the milkshake quote:

I think Chuck Klosterman, in his excellent book Sex, Drugs, And Coco Puffs, summed up Cusack's appeal best:

It appears that countless women born between the years of 1965 and 1978 are in love with John Cusack. I cannot fathom how he isn't the number-one box-office star in America, because every straight girl I know would sell her soul to share a milkshake with that motherfucker. For upwardly mobile women in their twenties and thirties, John Cusack is the neo-Elvis. But here's what none of these upwardly mobile women seem to realize: They don't love John Cusack. They love Lloyd Dobler.

Lloyd Dobler, of course, is the hero from the 80s flick Say Anything. A charming, lovable and sometimes goofy teenager, Dobler uttered one of my favorite movie quotes of all time, in a scene in which he tries to explain his future plans to his potential girlfriend's father:

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.

No sex for anyone

This is, um, interesting.

Still more legal corporate scams

Don't get that extended warranty!

More corporations that want to hurt you

As this columnist says, this is a good time to think about how bad it really is to rack up credit card debt.

Priorities

This is the kind of anecdote that really brings home the disturbing nature of the consumer-focused American culture:

Charlo Sterio, a 58-year-old horse groomer from Miranda, about 55 miles south of Eureka, was first in line to wait for the doors to open at 5 a.m.

Having camped out in front of the store for 24 hours, Sterio passed up Thanksgiving dinner offers from friends in order to drive down in his RV and buy a $380 laptop, a $190 desktop computer, a TV/DVD combination unit and other gizmos at steep discounts.

"I'm pretty hungry," Sterio said as he was jostled in yet another line inside the store at the computer section. "I missed Thanksgiving dinner. I sacrificed that."

But Sterio had no regrets. "I can't be in two places at one time, and my first choice was coming to Best Buy to get the deals," he said.

"Black" Friday

Busy day, today! At one point there was cookie-baking, soup-cooking and candle-making going on simultaneously!

The only buying I did today was of lunch at Quiznos and some candle-making supplies at Michael's.

Turkey Day

I'm thankful that this baseball season eventually did end.

I'm thankful that OJ isn't going to get to be on TV again.

I'm thankful that I live in California and not here.

Mostly, I'm really thankful for my wonderful little boy, fabulous husband and cute doggie. Happy Thanksgiving!

I hate Trader Joe's, too

So I went to Trader Joe's today to get this special pumpkin creme pie for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner with our neighbors. I was also shopping for the rest of our Thanksgiving stuff. Trader Joe's failed to provide fully HALF of all the stuff on my list. I don't understand why people shop there! You can't actually do your shopping there. They don't have pop. They don't have Cheerios. They have, like, two kinds of soup. Ugh. How do they stay in business?