don't tell the reader, show the reader

Some of the staff like Tom Waits's music. Others don't understand why anyone would ever listen to that type of music.

However, all of the staff appreciated Mr. Wait's ability to inform people exactly how pissed off he was by what he viewed as an unauthorized use of his music in a car commercial:

"Commercials are an unnatural use of my work," the 55-year-old singer said in a statement. "It's like having a cow's udder sewn to the side of my face. Painful and humiliating."

link to article

You Go Girl

From that liberal, commie rag the New York Times*:

COLLETTE LEONARD would probably be the first to tell you that the premium denim thing is a little out of hand. She is aware of how loopy it is to lose one's senses in the quest for a neatly packaged posterior. She knows there is something fundamentally silly in indulging an obsession with foraging obsessively for the best, newest, most underground pair of five-pocket cotton trousers, of hoping to unearth the holy grail, jeans made by a label never yet photographed on Jennifer Aniston.

"It's just a pair of jeans, I realize that," said Ms. Leonard, who works for a liquor distributor in Manhattan. "But I wear two pairs every day, and I'd much rather go out and find something unique that you're not going to see on every girl in New York."

--snip--

"I don't balk at $500 for a pair of shoes," explained Ms. Leonard, who was shopping last month at Atrium, a boutique on Lower Broadway that is to premium denim what Barney Greengrass is to lox. "Why should I balk at that price for jeans that are special. "



It is absurd that this woman should have to defend herself for buying a pricey pair of jeans. After all, isn't that what we're fighting for in in Iraq.

We think if Mel Gibson were here he'd yell "Freedom!"

*we are not providing a link because you need a password for the NYT and then a week later you can't even access the shit without paying, so screw them and their liberal, commie pricing scheme. USA! USA!

Why didn't anyone tell us?

Why didn't anyone tell us about this god damn kick-ass cruise? Hello, people? You know where to find us. Apparently we have no real friends.

Last Thanksgiving, more than 1,000 fans paid up to $3,199 to sail away with Styx, Journey and REO Speedwagon on a seven-day Caribbean cruise.

Milk Toast?

A few of us here have at one time or another heard or uttered the derogatory phrase
"You milk toast, motherfucker!"

What is milk toast?

according to Mr. Breakfast.com

Milk Toast

(This recipe yields 2 servings)

• 4 slices of toast
• 4 pats of butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon and sugar
• 1/2 cup milk


Heat milk on low.

Butter toast as you usually would and sprinkle each piece with cinnamon and sugar. Tear the toast into bite-sized pieces and place in two cereal bowls.

Pour hot milk over toast pieces.


In the early 1900s, Milk Toast was popular fare for children and the ailing. It is still popular today among poor families and singles.

coming back for some more

We've been at the bar all day but around 3pm one of us finally made it to the op-ed section of the New York Times. Now, it should be mentioned that not all of the staff read the New York Times, it's just that it comes with the Volvo, so those of us who drive around in those safe-havens of liberal whateverness seem to always have NYTimes handy.

Let's just say that what we saw on the op-ed page did not shock us. It did not awe us. It did not even appal us. But, it did it did give us gastrointestinal trouble.

Fucking David Brooks! Will he ever try to perhaps change up the style of his articles? Christ! (Much thought was put into whether to actually write "Christ" or not. Some of the practicing(?) Christians among us don't really like the expression, but, in the end, they agreed that the expression can convey a unique emotion.) How long can he go on with the "there are two sides to every issue" thing? He's like a musician who keeps using the same three cords in all of his songs but just changes the lyrics around while the structure is always the same.

We've written about this before.
But, his article today did make us finally leave the bar and get to work, so we guess Mr. Brooks is good for something.

Here's the kicker from Brooks's article today:

The Bolton controversy isn't about whether we believe in the U.N. mission. It's about which U.N. mission we believe in.

From the start, the U.N. has had two rival missions. Some people saw it as a place where sovereign nations could work together to solve problems. But other people saw it as the beginnings of a world government.



It doesn't even matter what he writes anymore, we just can't read it with any seriousness after our eyes pass over the obligatory dichotomy.

Funny "Ha Ha", not funny queer.

God damn, we could spend all day reading stuff over at McSweeney's. Here's a bit of writing from those folks... (see the entire thing)

I am 21, approximately 6 feet tall, tip the scales at an even 180, and have a moderately athletic and muscular build.

Judging on these statistics and what I assume would be a natural ferocity that would spring forth in a moment of physical danger, I estimate that I could beat up seven 12-year-olds before they overtook me. Of course, these would have to be the aforementioned average-sized 12-year-olds. Future linebackers, NBA players, and all Scandinavian children would throw off this equation. On the flip side, if these were some wimpy, four-square-playing, future-jockey 12-year-olds, I imagine the number would skyrocket to anywhere between 12 and 15. It's simple exponential math.

This is also assuming that my opponents are smart enough to organize themselves into a circular attack instead of coming at me one by one. If it were an individual, king-of-the-mountain battle royale, I could endlessly pummel 12-year-olds without mercy. But we're assuming at least a sixth-grade education in a marginal public school as well as some exposure to kung-fu movies, so these kids would form a circle.

Finger in My Food

Everyone remember the finger in the Wendy's Chili? Well, the woman who found the finger is being investigated. Seems that she may have planted the finger or something. What this become a rallying cry for conservatives.

Wendy's maintains the finger did not enter the food chain in its ingredients. All the employees at the San Jose store were found to have all their fingers, and no suppliers of Wendy's ingredients have reported any hand or finger injuries, the company said.


link


Could this be yet another example of a small corporation being taken advantage of by the ever-powerful, scheming, money-hungry, lawsuit people?
We should really limit the amount anyone can receive in a lawsuit to maybe, $100 or $200, tops. That will stop people from putting fingers in their food. First we have patients purposely leaving surgical instruments inside of their own bodies and now we have fingers in chili. It's a slippery slope folks. What's next, frogs in your underwear?

Musings by others

"The thing about happiness is that it doesn't help you to grow; only unhappiness does that. So I'm grateful that my bed of roses was made up equally of blossoms and thorns. I've had a privileged, creative, exciting life, and I think that the parts that were less joyous were preparing me, testing me, strengthening me." -Lana Turner, Lana, The Lady, The Legend, The Truth


I'm tryin' to read your portrait, but,
I'm helpless, like a rich man's child.
-Bob Dylan, Temporary Like Achilles



That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Chronic pain is pain that goes on longer than six months. It does not respond to conventional medical treatment. In other words, chronic pain is pain that may not go away. What's more, chronic pain often has no concrete explanation and no tangible diagnosis. That does not mean that chronic pain is not real. It simply means that, using the information available today, modern medical specialists cannot define a "cause" for the pain. Chronic pain is pain that many people have to "learn to live with." -Our Chronic Pain Mission