Monday, May 30, 2005

Friday Beer Review - Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre

Raison D'Etre

I'm a big fan of the regular column. Here's a stab at getting one started: The Friday Beer Review (lame name subject to change). It will chronicle my ongoing quest to taste test every beer at HEB. If you've tried a beer I review or have a suggestion for one to try, comments are appreciated. Oh yeah, also, I had this typed up on Friday, I just didn't get a chance to publish until today. So it's legit. Here goes...

I had read good things about Dogfish Head, but quite frankly, never expected to find it in Texas. Thus, you can imagine my surprise when I found not one, but two offerings at the local heeb: Raison D'Etre and the 90 Minute Imperial IPA. I chose the Raison because the 90 Min was almost 9 bucks for a four pack. Tight-wad.

The box says it's the American Beer of the Year for 2000, so I'll take it's word for it. The label on the bottle is simple, with nothing more than a picture of the logo and a description of the beer itself: "A deep mahogany ale brewed with Belgian beet sugars, green raisans, and a sense of purpose." Cheers to that... I love purpose. However, the thought of beet sugar and green raisin was not really initially appealing.

It poured a dark brown with hints of red (mahogany?) with a large but quickly dissipating head. The aroma was malty-raisiny blend. Pleasant. Flavor is very unique, I could definitely taste the raisin, which gave it a pleasant sweetness. Also tastes of banana, plum, spices, maybe roasted almond? Very little carbonation. The texture is difficult to pinpoint. It was smooth and soft as a baby's ass, but heavy. Almost felt like a Smoothie King going down. The word I would use to describe the aftertaste is clean. Like the beer entered your mouth, mopped up your tongue and teeth, and didn't leave a shred of evidence.

That said, I loved it. It was really fun to drink. Each time I raised the glass to my lips a little bit of pee came out from excitement. The flavor is just so damn good and intriguing, you can't help but want more. And more I had. But future drinkers, beware: at 8% alcohol by volume, a six pack is a fair match. And you can't even taste the alochol. It wasn't until I awoke today with that very distinct morning after feeling that I realized, "Wow, I was a small bit drunk last night." I would recommend drinking this as a "transition beverage" when switching between straight booze and beer. I bet that would work well.

So, Final Review, on the homemade Vince scale....

Appearance: 7/10
Taste: 9/10
Enjoyability: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Clone Wars

blastocyst, early stage of life

I'm absolutely positive most of us will never agree on neither the ethics nor morality of embryonic stem cell research. Therefore, I'm going to take the low road and base my argument on pragmatic grounds.

As we've all no doubt heard by now, the House has passed a bill to expand federal support of embryonic stem cell research. Bush's veto notwithstanding, a Senate vote is likely imminent.

The vote came in the wake of news that South Koreans had succesfully extracted stem cells from a cloned human embryo, an effort to advance therapeutic cloning. Obviously, one word springs to the public's mind: cures. And why shouldn't it? After all, the word is associated with EVERY headline and editorial they see regarding embryonic stem cells. Pavlov's dog and all that stuff. Still, with promise after promise from both scientists and politicians that we are on the verge of discovering what would amount to the proverbial fountain of youth, I remain ever skeptical. Just how much do those ESCs have to offer us?

First of all, it must be noted that NO, I repeat, NO major medical breakthroughs or human benefits have occurred as a result of ESC research. That said, this article sets to lay out the top four reasons why cures of any sort from therapeutic cloning (the culmination of ESC research)are decades away, if ever. I highly recommend that you read it. The author ignores the obvious problems facing TC, namely teratoma formation and genetic instability, and focuses on less intuitive issues. I'm going to summarize them here, and intersperse them with a few original ideas.

Reason number one is an economic one. Part of the hype of the South Korean breakthrough is that the scientists were able to use the somatic cell nuclear transfer method, enabling them to produce stem cells that are identical gentic matches to those of the donors. This could possibly allow for a rejection-free stem treatment. Okay, all well and good, except it took an average of 17 tries - that's 17 eggs - to establish each stem cell line. That's far greater efficiency than previous attempts, but those kind of numbers don't exactly put treatment on the drugshelf. That's at MINIMUM two IVF cycles necessary to produce just the raw material for a single patient. That in vitro business sure ain't cheap, and neither is what the Doc has to do each attempt he makes at cloning your little cell. Don't expect your insurance to cover it.

Reason number two: egg donation is dangerous. Potential donors must be warned about that, especially at this stage in the research. Who is likely to donate? Young women needing to make an extra buck and family members of those who might one day benefit from TC. The family members are an extremely vulnerable group, and should be adequately informed of the risks they are taking in becoming a donor, especially in light of the fact that any donation they make will only go to research at this stage - not treatment. Two American bioethicists who reviewed the work of the South Koreans commented that, in their opinion, a good doctor would actually advise women against exposing themselves to the risk of egg donation. It's tough to do research when it relies on people putting their lives on the line.

A third reason that cures are a ways off is that the safety and efficacy of TC has yet to be seriously researched and invested in. The author quotes British stem cell scientists who point out that "the premature use of cell therapy could put many patients at risk of viral or prion diseases unless systems are in place." Potentially, a single stem cell line could be used for hundreds to thousands of patients, amplifying possible risk of disease transmission from a single infected donor. Memories of HIV transmissions to people with hemophilia and Hepatitis C infection via blood transfusions should make us wary of jumping right into a method of treatment that lacks sufficient contingencies. Again, more things to research, more money, more time.

The final problem is the "specter of human reproductive cloning - to which nearly all voters are opposed." For anything to happen, Congress still has to pass a law to even allow therapeutic cloning... a tough feat, but not impossible. Still, the bottom line is that the only difference between TC and full-blown, all-out human cloning is whether or not the development of the embryo is interrupted - a small, small step indeed at that stage of the game. Of course, any scientist worth his his spit knows this, but cloning is such a hot-bed issue that those who are in favor of TC keep their jolly little mouths shut about it (hence the widespread use of the term "somatic cell nuclear transfer" rather than the synonymous "cloning"). I HAVE to believe that cloning is the real reason that scientists and politicians are pushing TC so hard. After all, it's not like science hasn't established that adult stem cell research has been extremely productive. The myths promulgated about the inadequacies of ASCs have been dispelled time and again, and they have proven effective in curing diabetes, treating liver disease, even curing blindness and hearing impairments, and have REAL promise for much much more. Of course, lots of research still needs to be done. So why choose to invest in ESCs over adult stem cells? C-c-c-c-cloning. That's it. That's the conspiracy, the hidden agenda. Those who hope that cloning can and will be done have the perfect trojan horse with which to sneak it in, and you can bet they won't let out their little secret until it's come to fruition, quite literally.

I'm not really excited at all about the idea of little freak clones running around getting experimented on to holy hell, but it's the inevitable end of the current line of research. Granted, it's going to happen eventually, but the least we can do is keep our tax dollars from funding it. If the "experts" are so convinced that therapeutic cloning is the wave of the future, I'm sure it shouldn't be too hard for them to convince giants like Pfizer to allocate some of their $8 billion dollar a year research fund toward it. Hell, I'd be willing to bet that they're already fitting at least part of the bill. Soooooo, write your Senators. For real. I'm not just saying that. Tell them to treat ESC research like the money pit that it is, and vote against federal funding for it. Tell them that if they feel the impulse to fund any sort of stem cell research to make sure it's the already proven and established adult variety. That is all.

On a completely unrelated note, this is really funny: premature evacuation

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Speaking of Advertising Whores...

(link in title)
Of course the Parents Television Council is crying child corruption. They've presented two brilliant arguments
  1. They never know when the commercial will pop up and make their son/daughter(yessir!) a slavering hedonist.
  2. It's aired during teen television (O.C., Desperate Housewives, The Apprentice, sports programs) introducing sexuality to pubescents at a point they might not be ready for it.
Tyler Durden's practice of splicing single frames of hardcore porn into Disney animated features springs to mind. It's still funny. Sorry folks, just don't let your kids watch TV or some shit. I subscribe, and always will, to the "My God this wouldn't matter if your kids knew the rules and that you loved them" paradigm.

Onto the inherently paradoxical second argument. Teen = physically ready for sex. Most 13 to 16-year old boys will tell you, being physically ready for sex usually nets nothing more than sticky sheets and the pleasant surprise of unsolicited classroom erections. I was lucky enough to have an older friend lay down grand expectation for me so sagaciously, "Man, once you get your first pube, you can start jerking off." Hot diggity dog that was an exciting prospect.

Granted, sex is a little ridiculously used in advertising (in fucking tire commercials....Firestone Tires), but who gives a shit? We think about sex all the time because, basically, it's the only reason we exist. Yes, yes, human, intelligent, given to a higher calling, blah blah blah. When you're going through puberty, you're either whining with an exaggerated sense of self-importance or trying to have orgasms. Let the commercial air. Give budding boys something less ridiculous to choke the bishop to than a breast rendered Picasso by line static.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

This is funny

the weezer

I was reading album reviews this morning and found this gem from Coke Machine Glow about Weezer's Make Believe:

"Make Believe finds Cuomo donkey-punching the formaldehyde-soaked corpse of his former glory."

Greatest quote EVER.

Friday, May 20, 2005

Newsflash: "Marketing whore" has a literal translation

Some broad in Jersey is selling her body on Ebay as advertising space. Actually, this is her second time to do it in a week. She's definitely riding her five minutes of fame like there's no tomorrow, God bless her. Who needs all the dead weight added on by inconveniences like self-respect, dignity, and modesty.

selling your body is fun

She says they're real. Please pass the salt.

See: blog buzz, her blog

After reading some of her fanmail she had posted on her site, I felt it appropriate to provide an authoritative exegesis. Enjoy.

---------

"Hi, with such beautiful full breasts that you have been endowed with, have you everconsidered sending some pictures of them to playboy ? You have the looks and thekind of body that make men's mouths (and other parts)drool!! You should go for itbabe, good luck with the auction."

The first thing to note is the use of the term of endearment, "babe." Often used religiously by guys who wish to become more than "just friends" with their hot acquaintances, this ambitious young chap hopes he can get the hint across in a single email. I'm skeptical. Also, sticking out like a sore thumb is the "you're hot enough to be in Playboy" compliment, meant to butter her up before moving in for the kill. Look buddy, this one might have worked once or twice for you on a semi-conscious, alcohol-poisoned coed, but in general, when girls realize that we think about them naked they give us a mental kick in the balls and forever equate our names with the word sleazy.

--------

"Would you consider any topless and/or nude advertising as long as it was in goodtaste?(i.e. an ad on your butt and/or breasts while at a nude beach)?"

Wow, transparency abounds. I'm surprised this guy failed to mention that HE's the "ad agency." Read: "I would LOVE to jerk off to you. Please please please please please please send me naked pictures of yourself or let me know ASAP where/when such pictures will be released. Whoops, speaking of release..."

--------

"people don't understand most young women have nice boobs you are 21 my girlfriend is 33 and still has nice boobs but they are not as nice as when she was 22 but still nice - people forget there are bras and bikinis that push up some also which even makes them look better more rounded people need to know not everone needs inplants to have nice boobs"

Okay buddy, so you've been dating your "girlfriend" for at least 11 years, her "boobs" are not as nice as they once were, and you're an expert on the miracle bra. Here's my advice to you: throw away the porn, move out of mom's trailer (after you give her back her underwear you stole), and find a job worthy of the 45 year old man you are.

--------

And the grand finale, from the queen of humility, the broad herself.....

"I get noticed everywhere I go."

I'm working on a thesis for this one. It's called "The female species and delusions of grandeur."

Thursday, May 19, 2005

More Fun and Games

it's tough bein' a brotha

Caption writing contest. Go.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Down with Mapquest

Hands down, Google is one of the top three best things to ever happen to the internet. Obviously, porn is number one. The coolest thing about Google is they are always adding more awesome, free tools and services for us to use. Witness: Picasa, Toolbar, Desktop Search, Froogle, Image search, and on and on and on...

Well, it is time to add to the list Google Maps. I've been using it for a couple of months now and I can't get enough. It's still in Beta, but man, Mapquest who? The aesthetic appeal alone should convince you to jump ship join the Google Map love.

Why would you want to look at this:

what a piece of crap

When you could look at this:

google maps rule

The curves on that Google Map make me want to do naughty naughty things.

PLUS, Google Maps lets you click on an area of the map and drag the entire map across the screen, like the little hand grabber thing lets you do in Adobe Acrobat Reader. This feature alone is worth its weight in gold. It's as intuitive as scratching your balls, and almost as much fun.

DOUBLE PLUS, you can use search words like "in" or "near" to identify types of places in a certain area. For example, searching for "starbucks in austin" will flag starbucks locations on a map of austin. Try "chinese food near friendswood, tx" and get random chinese places in the vicinity that you never even knew existed. So rock and roll, it's not even funny.

HOLY SHIT I NEVER NOTICED THIS BUT I JUST FOUND IT: you can even switch from looking at the map to looking at actual satellite images. There's my house!So go tell all your friends, Mapquest sucks, make the switch to Google Maps. Your life will never be the same.

Monday, May 16, 2005

The Phantom Professor

we love yuppies

So there was this adjunct professor at SMU. She anonymously started a blog a few months back, and called it "The Phantom Prof." Her first post offers insight into the nature of future content. She related personal stories about her students and fellow faculty members, and offered her (often scathing) opinions about them. Of course, she would change names to protect their identities.

The problem is, you tell enough stories about enough people on an isolated campus, and someone is bound to catch on. And inevitably, someone did. Word worked it's way up to the higher administration, and she was fired (well, technically she was not re-hired). There is a big detailed writeup about it here if you want all the details.

Okay now, this is a tough one to work through. I mean, yeah, First Amendment rights and all that crap, but she practically laid her head on the chopping block. You publish detailed stories about students, detailed accounts of local current events, detail your school's demographic profile, and it's only a matter of time before someone scratches his head and says, "Hey, wait a sec, this sounds familiar...." You simply cannot stay anonymous at that level of specificity, and this is where the problem arises.

A favorite target of hers were spoiled rich kids. A student pointed out to her that she was discriminant against affluent students, and she responded:

Come to think of it, I guess the rich have been unfairly segregated by society. All their lives they've been forced to ride at the front of the bus. They live in gated communities designed to restrict their freedom of movement. Their clothes are tagged with identifying logos -- little Polo players and crocodiles -- that tell the rest of us who and what they are. Their children attend separate schools (and wear uniforms!). Where is Amnesty International? Why isn't the UN working to liberate these rich people and let them mix freely with the rest of us? ... Maybe they could organize a Million Billionaire March that begins at the Dallas Country Club and ends in the parking lot at Neiman Marcus.

Hilarious? Yes. Accurate? Of course, we've all witnessed it. Appropriate? Well now....

The thing is, she's talking about her students in a negative light -- publicly. These yuppies type of kids know exactly who they are, and now they know exactly what their writing professor thinks of their way of life.... the contempt is obvious. And let's be real, from that point forward, any mutual respect in the classroom (critical for learning and development) is completely shot to hell. Obliterated. Not only that, but I'm sure many would be afraid to even speak to her, in class or out, knowing that they could possibly be quoted. The teacher-student relationship is soured forever.

I guess the bottom line is that it was a very un-professional and imprudent decision to include details about students in her postings. She put herself, her students, and the administration in a very awkward position, so that not receiving an offer to teach next year was only the smoothest way to end things. Sure, she has the right to publish whatever she wants, but like my momma used to say, just because you can don't mean you should.

And I while away my hours at work

Ahhhh celebrity.

That'll be my posting muse.

"I'm drunk."

The conventionally-dressed black male deadpanned to me this morning as I walked home from Suzanne and Frankie's before work (meaning, 5:20 in the fucking morning). Needless to say, black males are treated with a certain amount of caution on dark, empty streets by small, empty people.

The rundown: was at party for Dell at Spiro's, drunk, lost wallet, tried walking and decided it was too far, needed cash for gas.

I, of course, turned him down as I do anyone who solicits money on the street with the old standby "I'm sorry, I don't have any cash on me (lie). I usually just use my debit card (truth)." Clever fucker that he was, tried to get me to an atm. Pulled out the have-to-be-at-work card and ran away.

Now, I recognize this anecdote is neither particularly amazing or rare, given a West Campus setting, but as I finished my walk home, glancing over my shoulder a few times like a big, paranoid pussyfaced pussy puss puss, I became pensive. Would I have given money to a white guy? Asian? Admittedly, all I had was a $5, and we all know what that gets, so probably no. But, if I had two $1's:
  1. Black Male: No
  2. Hispanic male: probably not either (sorry Vince)
  3. White male: No, fuck whitey
  4. Asian male: No, fuck other Asians that don't prepare contingencies.
  5. Indian male: No....uh...they're hairy.
  6. Black female (ghetto): No
  7. Black female (not): yes
  8. All other females (BMI under 30): yes
And the bottom line of Richard's altruism is: The penis mightier.

(A lot of links, I know, but you fuckers demanded posting. But hey, clicking on a link with your scroll wheel opens it up in a new tab in Firefox. Voila! Clicking on the tab with your scroll wheel closes it. Voila! When I found this out, a little come came out. Voila!)

Friday, May 13, 2005

Audience participation time

idiot!

To those of you who won't be spending the weekend in Austin with us: don't feel left out. Instead, we offer instead this first attempt at direct reader interaction.

Come one, come all! The ToB wants your list of the five all-time greatest covers. Greatest means the best... EVER, so they don't necessarily have to be your favorites. In fact, if you list that shitty redneck version of Gin and Juice, we will hunt you down and peck out your eyeballs with pretzel sticks. No explanation is necessary, but it might help convince others that you're not completely insane if you can rationalize your picks a little.

So anyway, start digging through your cd's, music folders, playlists and other depositories of goodness and get' er done. We'll announce the definitive list after we figure out that you really don't care. Happy listing!

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

The Decline of Western Civilization (The Little League Years)

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

It's going to be tough to top Vince's last post. So I won't even try. So I says to myself, "this is going to take a series of posts." Honestly, I said that. So let me introduce the first installment, in true Penelope Spheeris fasion, of my "The Decline of Western Civilization (Insert clever title here) series.

Yesterday, I drove past a place that was home to many of the glories of my early life. This place is called Huffines Park. Huffines Park was the first place that I ever played baseball. It was the home of my first ever home run (a grand slam to beat the dreaded and feared Rangers, in the bottom of the last inning). It was home to my first attempt at third base, and lastly, it was my first place to pitch. It is the pitching subject that I will foray into in this post. As I drove past the park, I noticed something that I had heard of, but never witnessed in person. To be honest, I wish I had never seen this abhorration.

What I refer to with such ferver was Coach Pitch Little League. Middle aged men, pitching the ball to the opposing team's 8 year olds. Being an open minded individual, I can see the arguments as to how this can be considered "sport."
1. It lets the batters face actual strikes, so that they may hit them. This increases offense which keeps ticket sales up and the season ticket holders happy.

2. Grown men get to live out their fantasies of striking out a hell of a lot of fucking batters! I can hear the gloating now, "Dude, I totally struck out this fucking dude with my wicked slider."

3. ....Well, thats all that I can see.

I know that I speak for more than myself when I say that I began my baseball life playing tee-ball. Now that was an honest sport. You could not strike out, it taught you how to hit the ball, it basically taught you how to win and lose....AGAINST A TEAM OF YOUR PEERS!!!

What are we showing our youngsters with coach pitch?
-Are they not adequite enough to face competition of their own age?
-Can 8 year olds not pitch a ball over the plate?
-Has your dad moved slightly beyond just living vicariously through you?

How about this, join me in my fight. My fight to keep parents off the field of play. My fight to have 8 year olds play 8 year olds. And most importantly, my fight to develop pitchers at a younger age. It's no wonder that team USA loses in the Olympics every year.

Math time!

Yeah, it's a week old, but this kind of snuck in under the ol' radar...

House moves to raise US debt ceiling

Washington, DC, May. 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. House has sent legislation to the Senate that would raise the federal debt limit to nearly $9 trillion, a $781 billion increase.

The House agreed to the increase under an automatically executing provision in the 2005 budget resolution approved by the House and Senate late last week.

The House officially sent the Senate a separate piece of debt-relief legislation increasing the limit as mandated by the self-executing provision in the budget resolution.
For now, we'll avoid trying to understand just what kind of "self-executing provision" smoothly allows us to slip another trillion bucks into the red. And let's not even get into this. Suffice it to say that irrationalities are the nature of the beast.

Let's play a game instead. We've all heard the little factoid that "if dollars were seconds, our deficit would put us back in the Ice Age." Yeah, you know what I'm talking about... I worked it out, and that's still accurate, although not for long. Anyhow, if half a trillion'll take you back there, why not see where a $9 trillion federal debt goes? Take a ride with me on the dimensional analysis gravy train.

9,000,000,000 sec * (1 hr/3600 sec) * (1 day/ 24hr) * (1 yr/ 365 day) = ......

285,388 years and some change. Decent.

The last Ice Age began about 20,000 years ago. From that number, we deduce that the "Ice Age" quip would have been accurate back when the national debt was a paltry $700 billion - during the late '70's. Cool. Now, where would almost 300,000 years back put us on the geological timeline? Right at the end of the reign of Homo erectus, our adventurous predecessor. Rock and roll. You may come back with "that's not so long ago....," but shit man, I can barely remember what I did yesterday. It's a long time.

richardus erectus, translated as 'horny little asian man'



Let's pretend that we cut spending now, totally. I know, we're already making absurd assumptions. Then suppose each of the 300 or so million people in this country agree to split the bill and drop ten bucks a month. That comes out to 36 billion a year. Hey, that's a hefty chunk of change, we'll have this thing paid off in no time! Wrong. Try 250 years. Not gonna happen.

The national debt is against actual monies spent. Where did it all go? Who cares! Where will the money come from to pay it off... now you're asking the right questions. I'm convinced that it's an absolutely insurmountable feat to reduce it at ALL, given our federal governments spending habits. Eventually the government will owe enough money to enough people that even the harshest tax measures won't be able to generate revenue for payments. Thus, I predict complete and utter world destruction via the collapse of the American economy when the state goes bankrupt and pulls us all down with it. I hope I'm alive to see it, because it's gonna ROCK!


P.S. True to Triumvirate form, I'm going to have to cross the Rubicon and kick some ass to get my fellow conspirators to post more often. Both plebs and patricii grow weary of Caesar's verbosity. Admittedly, the roles of Pompey and Crassus are difficult to play, but their voices are essential for maintaining legitimacy. Et tu, Gizmo?

Monday, May 09, 2005

A friend with a cleft asshole?

bring it on

First, check out the Austin City Limits Festival lineup. Then buy your tickets.

Second, get your sixer of tall-boys ready for Suns/Mavs game 1 tonight. This matchup has more ins and outs than a porno flick. Expect defense to fly out the door at tip-off.

Public challenge: Giz, I'll put a pack of smokes on the Suns for the series.

Third, cry, cry, cry. I'm going to be in stunned disbelief until this weekend when I see this in effect.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

What the....?!?!

Something made me think of Howie Mandel the other day, and I wondered what he was up to these days, so I found his website. Imagine my surprise when a picture of Marlon Wayans was splashed on his homepage:


Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Holy crap!

Also, I just found out that Bruce Willis is buddy-buddy with Ashton Kutcher. What the hell is going on here?

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Sister Christian

Are you kidding me, kitty?

As I was driving home tonight Night Ranger came on the radio, and it reminded me of one of the all time greatest scenes in cinema history... you know, the one in Boogie Nights where Dirk, Todd, and Reed are at Alfred Molina's house and Molina does more blow than red-headed-stepchild in a trailer park? And he switches tapes and Night Ranger comes on playing Sister Christian, and it's playing so loud in the background? It's totally one of those scenes where you completely empathize with the characters: stuck at a place where someone is WAY too fucked up and you are stone cold sober and the tension mounts as they start to wig out and drag you into their vortex of addiction and distopia and eventually it escalates into a situation that is completely out of control and panic sets in until you end up splitting the hell out of that place and the whole drive home you are thinking "damn, how the hell did i ever end up there..."

I LOVE that scene. "Motorin'"

So fat, they bleed mayonnaise.

I'm a genius.

Ok, here we go. Logic that cuts glass and withstands bombardment by Helium nuclei.

A great proportion of people in America are fat => Fat people makey da big poo (a la "Great Big John toilet") => poo got da fiber and undigested amino and fatty acids and stink => these things burn => burning makes energy => world peace, and uh.....skinny people. I'm still working on this last link.

Ok. Yes, we're not pachyderms. No, I don't want to see that amicable Mr. Hankey immolated for his precious energy content. But shit guys, the wealthy are starting to get fat too, and they don't have the excuse of multiple hourly wage jobs, poorly stocked inner city groceries, and the effect of gang-ridden streets on the length of morning jogs. Let's try burning the poo.

and oh yeah. If my fiance ran out on me like this . I'd demand anal and then donkey punch her. Twice.

Quick outs

the decemberists


  • "Do you have any white country gravy?" Brother Byrd will forever hold a special place in all our hearts. I think it is safe to say that no other building in Austin reminded us so much of him as the Marimont. In perhaps a strange twist of fate, they are leaving this world together. R.I.P. Bill.

  • Need a job? Try the oil industry. The age gap at oil companies right now is mindboggling. From what I've seen so far, for the most part professionals are just shuffled around between rival companies. There is very little "new blood," so to speak. They are desperate to hire recent college grads, but kids still aren't that interested in oil. What I would give to have stuck with engineering and be making twice as much as I do now... Stupid math.

  • Shit.

  • Double shit.

  • Finally, by and away the coolest news of the week. Saturn frickin' rules.

EDIT: For those of you too LAZY to register for free to the Statesman Online (see link #1), the article was about the Marimont closing down after 30 years of goodness.

Sunday, May 01, 2005

A thing of beauty

want to touch the hiney

Awwwwww shiiiiiiiiit. The Bears running game is back in town.