pat o'brien is nasty. and very list-oriented.

(warning: this post is not remotely safe for work)

but if you listen to this now-notorious group of voicemails from the man behind "access hollywood," doesn't it sound like he's making a grocery list?

wanna go crazy with you

wanna eat you

pick up dry cleaning

have c*ck sucked

have girlfriend eat you

yogurt -- the fat-free kind

suck your t*ts

get a phone that takes messages

get lots of coke and go crazy

well, that last one could be on a legitimate grocery list, i guess.

terry schiavo lives on endor. now that does not make sense!

jesse jackson has entered the schiavo story. on the side of the parents, no less.

and i'm very, very confused.

***

it's proof that politics is far more complicated than most of us think. i have some coworkers who are rabid liberals -- i've seen the inbox of one, today actually, and right next to the work-related emails were some rabidly pro-dean/pro-democrat/anti-bush emails. which is this guy's right, and i'd defend it to the death.

for many of them, it's "chimpy mchitlerstein" versus "the reality based community." so i think that if you predicted a prominent democrat (former candidate for president, and the man who declared that the vote in ohio in 2004 was rigged by diebold) would enter the fray, most of them would assume that he'd be on the side of dean and reid.

but he's not. he's declared this to be "a moral issue and it transcends politics and family disputes," which is exactly what i'd expect to hear from a man of God, and a baptist minister to boot.

it causes my skin to tingle. it always does when someone takes a forceful stand on the side of the Lord. and jackson, love him or hate him, is one of the most eloquent speakers in public life today.

***

but does it mean that i agree with him?

i don't know. i can't say that i do, but it's a very confusing issue for me. i believe that each human being has the right to decide when and how he is to be kept alive in such cases. so if terry schiavo wanted to be left alone to die, then society and the legal system should respect that wish.

but nobody can prove without a doubt that she wanted to be left to die. and in the absence of that evidence, i think the correct decision would be to let her live, as long as she can. it's always good to (warning: cliche ahead) err on the side of life (cliche alert over).

the fear, though, is that terry did want to die gracefully and without extraordinary effort taken. i think that's what drives many people who favor the removal of her feeding tube. and think about it -- put yourself in that position. it's just like that metallica video from the late 80s. you'd be thinking but unable to communicate ... and you'd be trapped in that hell forever.

***

i believe both sides are genuine in their beliefs on this. and i'm not sure one side is right, and one side is wrong. all i know is that why would a wookiee -- an eight foot tall wookiee -- want to live on endor with a bunch of two foot tall ewoks?

that does not make sense!

what does that have to do with this case? nothing. ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! it does not make sense! none of this makes sense.

if chewbacca lives on endor, you must acquit! the defense rests. dammit!

'cause jesse jackson's on my side (kind of), the pope might need a feeding tube, and johnnie cochran is dead.

none of this makes sense.

give juice a chance

i'm no fan of cheating, steroids, drug use in general or agreeing with jayson stark all the time. and yet, in this case, i gotta agree with everything he wrote about mark mcguire, steroids and the national obsession with juiced players:

The primary argument against McGwire, obviously, is that he cheated. And at this point, it's almost impossible to assume he didn't.

But you don't even want to know how many players are in the Hall of Fame who cheated in some way, shape or form. With sandpaper or cork or Vaseline.

And baseball looked the other way and let them do it. Every one of them. So for me, McGwire -- like virtually all the members of this number-inflated generation -- probably gets lumped into the same category as Gaylord Perry.

Gaylord Perry was allowed to cheat, wrote a book about cheating, even made a video about cheating. And people not only looked the other way, but thought it was hilarious. So all we could do, when he appeared on our ballot, was vote on what he did on the field -- which was have a Hall of Fame career.

leave barry, mark and sammy alone ... while i'm not proud of their behavior, and i think it greatly diminishes their accomplishments, it's very very hard to say "these kinds of cheaters over here are fine, but those over there are bad" -- both used means not in the rule book to gain an advantage in playing* the game.

to start making distinctions now seems to me to be awfully hypocritical, unless we clean out cooperstown at the same time.

and if we did that, we probably could fit what's left of the HOF in the back of my beetle.


* "playing" differentiates these cheaters from, say, pete rose. that kind of cheating has no place in any player considered for the HOF.

this is a cruel joke (for supreme court nerds only)

i've found the only automobile repair shop that believes that car owners "have no rights which the auto mechanic was bound to respect."

rows and rows of nothing

cubicles are the ultimate in drab conformity. it's the corporate uniform writ large, fuzzy and usually beige (though mine are an odd shade of cobalt blue). the large overhead fluorescent lights ... the faux-wood desks ... the generically created name placards, placed in metal holders allowing for easy replacability for the next occupant ...

if there is anything at all inviting about the modern corporate work environment, it must be created by the cubicle's owner.

i've blocked out the overhead lights, added three lamps with warm bulbs, and put up some of my favorite artwork and photographs. it's enticing to me, very relaxing and almost like home.

but then i get up to go to the bathroom and on the way back, i'm reminded: no matter how colorful and interesting it might be on the inside, it's just a fucking cube.

how to translate instapundit

the original post.

and the translation:

project

in the department where i work, everything is about "projects." all you hear in the elevator:

"how's your project?"

"oh, it's projecting fine. yours?"

"still projecting away."

my project is a projectile, positively punk'd-ing my purported career plan practically into the pisser.

grace under pressure

this woman truly is the defintion of "courage" ...

"You're here in my apartment for some reason," she told him, saying he might be destined to be caught and to spread the word of God to fellow prisoners. She also read the bible to Nichols, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Acosta.

"He told me I was his angel, sent from God, and that I was his sister and he was my brother in Christ," said Smith.

He eventually put down the guns police say he took when he overwhelmed sheriff's deputies, putting them on the floor and later under a bed.

When morning came, Nichols was "overwhelmed" when Smith made him pancakes, she said. They watched television news reports about the slaying and the manhunt for Nichols.

wow. what that breakfast must have been like ...

best sports advertising i've seen in a long time

'cause, see, it's, like, great (los angeles) dodger pitchers from the past to the present! it's, i think, gagne, hershiser, drysdale and koufax (in reverse order).

you know, come to think of it, i don't think that's koufax, because he's wearing a "b" on his cap -- for the brooklyn dodgers.

for fun, do the following:

click on the button at the upper-right window. you can see some interesting things. some templates don't support the button, so you might have to go back to go forward (as is always the case, isn't it?) ...

and my gut reaction: teenage asian bloggers use the weirdest templates.

things to think about

i can't write anymore.

i sit down and stare and stare and stare at the screen, and the only worthwhile output is the drops of blood on my forehead.

maybe it's because of exchanges like this:

journalist #1: the italian reporter states this was not the case.
journalist #2: the question is, why can't we get a roadblock right after a year?

could you please, maybe, just shut the fuck up a bit? a year ago, i'd have went on and on about media bias, how this was evidence that everyone was against the president, etc. but i got so tired of myself making those arguments that i killed my last blog. one thing i promised myself on this one -- no more of that.

i can be lazy -- i'm typing to no one. but someone who's paid to type ... well, it's inexcusable.

***

so work is driving me insane.

i took on a project ... well, kind of inherited it ... that could have large political benefits, insofar as corporate politics have beneficial outcomes, but also comes with large political risk -- namely, completely pissing off all the people it will touch.

i could bitch about my manager, but for the most part she's been cool. today saw both sides of her -- the GoodCop who gave me an unexpected pat on the back, and the BadCop who looked at four months of work and said "gee, this isn't easy to use at all!" and now i have to think about redesigning the whole thing.

i could bitch about my coworkers, but what good would that do? some of them even read this, and would know i was bitching about them. i think the ones i'm not writing about know that i'm not writing about them specifically, so guys -- smile.

i could bitch about the hours i'm putting in, but that's like bitching about how early the sunrise comes. not much you can do about that ... when a project has to be done and done right, you can either put in the hours necessary or you can accept failure. i'm not about to do that.

but the emotional cost of these hours is amazing to me. i've always believed that you can't make one choice and just assume that you'll still be able to make all other choices as well ... sometimes, the choice you make necessarily makes other choices for you. so when i choose to work like this, a lot of other decisions are made for me.

like free time with a. like time to get things done around my house, which i'm more convinced daily is just too damn big for two people. like time to write -- and wasn't i talking about that earlier?

and something to consider:

when a large, at-least-20-lb mirror drops on your head ... and it doesn't break ...

wait. i'm lost. what was i saying again?

little known saturday-afternoon facts

every lite rock station in america must play "landslide" by fleetwood mac (or, in a pinch, the dixie chicks) twice a day, or risk having the FCC take their license away

"that should be easy to install" means "no fucking way i'll ever get that thing to work"

"i shouldn't have listened to her" means "i can blame the painter woman for me messing up the toilet"

if you're barrel-chested, but that barrel has moved south, you're more ralph kramden than mr. incredible

richard gere = bad movie

susan sarandon = really bad movie

j.lo + richard gere + susan sarandon = i'm pouring cyanide in my eyes

when you're at home depot at 7 p.m. on a friday night and the loudspeaker announces "attention home depot shoppers -- we're having a how-to workshop in the plumbing department on everything (insert your name here) doesn't know how to do" ... well, maybe god is telling you something

i'm wondering what's wrong here

Just came across this story and it got me to thinking.

the best research i can find shows that the age of consent in massachusetts is 16.

my first thought: but what does the law say about this if minors are involved? i can't find anything on google, but it does get me to wondering ... if these actions were consensual, would the fact that all were under the age of 18 change things? if she were 16, would it be a crime still?

my first answer:

[T]he boys were between 16 and 18 years old. In Massachusetts, a 17-year-old can be charged as an adult, said David Traub, spokesman for Norfolk District Attorney Wiliam R. Keating, whose office is assisting in the investigation.

Under state law, anyone who has sexual intercourse or ''unnatural sexual intercourse" with someone under 16 can be imprisoned for life for statutory rape, even if the sex is consensual. "There is no mechanism in the law where someone can consent before the age of 16," said Traub.

is this right? should it be? the boys were between 15 and 17 ... assuming everything was consensual, why would the state have an interest in this?

maybe i'm jaded, or forgetting what life was like when i was 15. but i find it hard to believe that one year's difference in age makes for that much difference in the ability to make an informed, mature decision about whether or not to have sex.