1. I used to daydream that I was a secret love child of Han Solo and Princess Leia, sent to Earth to save it with my as-yet undiscovered Jedi powers.
2. I used to self-intoxicate by spinning in circles. I guess everyone's done that.
3. My parents bought a dishwasher AFTER all of us had moved out; I missed play practices and speech team practices because I was doing dishes.
4. I missed out on going to Paris in high school because I didn't want to burden my parents with a request for money.
5. I want to re-live the years 1984-1995 and do it right this time.
6. I frequently think about giving myself a pedicure yet never do it.
7. I forget about paying my car insurance bill until "The Daily Show" announces the night's date, then I can't fall asleep because I'm thinking I should pay the car insurance bill.
8. I never have any socks. Where the hell are all my socks?
9. I should really throw out 80 percent of my underwear and buy new stuff.
10. I wish clothes were disposable.
11. I want another cat.
12. I want to name him Noodles.
13. I want to know how to tile. I want a backsplash in my kitchen and to de-hillbillify the upstairs bathroom wraparound shower liner.
14. I don't really hate Nick.
15. I don't understand people who hate Halloween. or any holiday for that matter. It breaks up the monotony, people!
16. I hate monotony and routine. I would rather take on a daunting challenge than do laundry and pay bills.
17. I like daunting challenges.
18. I've never punched anyone. But I did get chicken pox from biting my brother when I was 4.
19. I dread getting the mail. I hate the mail. My mailman is nice, though.
20. I love looking at catalogs, even though I realize they're just trying to con me into buying stuff and that trying to evoke a feeling through purchasing things is idiocy.

That's 20.

Dr. Zaius has visited my blog, and correctly surmised that I have run out of blogging material. So he gave me an assignment. Thanks, Dr. Z! Just what I always wanted... a meme. And, the thing that makes me love memes so very, very much: RULES! I love rules. Just like Aunt Bee.


The Rules
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So, six random things:

1. I was named Outstanding Senior in Social Studies when I graduated from Downers Grove South in 1987. (Yes, I now live in Downers Grove once again. By choice, even!) My picture was on the wall of the school and everything -- even after I graduated! I'm a Downers Grove celebrity! Like Denise Richards and Randy "Macho Man" Savage!

2. Miss Muffin left in October and never came home, and I still look for her when I open the door. I think someone stole her, but they won't come clean. Cat napper!

3. I don't bear many scars from my abusive first marriage, but I still remember that asshole haranguing me about the correct way to hang the toilet paper roll. Now, deliberately hang it the "wrong" way sometimes, out of sheer defiance. Dilf has yet to notice, I think. Nor care.

4. I find the music on Kids Place Live very soothing. It takes me to a happy place. Don't judge me.

5. I am constantly torn between wanting to be less negative and wanting to tell the truth.

6. I am constantly torn between the realization that fashion is total bullshit and wanting to wear pretty clothes.

Am I done now? Can I go?

Oh, wait. Six people: Randal, Dean, Nick (like he'll do it), Brooke (like she'll do it), Darth Roker (he'll do it, he's a blog whore), Todd (will he do it?)

This is what I meant to say in my last post:

It cheeses me off when "pundits", or whatever you want to call people that manage to get their stupid opinions covered by the media, say the Wall Street/bank investment guys who screwed up by getting greedy should continue to be paid exorbitant amounts of money so they, the "best and brightest," will stay in their current positions.

Who says the "best and brightest" shouldn't be scientists, or artists, or doctors, or writers or whatever instead?

So, CTK, I think the coercion that should force these people from their unmitigated greed should be facing the consequences of their actions. They aren't the "best and brightest," because if they were, they wouldn't have brought the banking system crashing to its knees.

Maybe I'm changing my mind. They aren't the best and brightest, they may cause more damage in other sectors than they have in the financial one, and they need to be rehabilitated.

I think I'm going back to my Aunt Bee plan.

I may or may not have posted that video before, but it bears a passing relevance to today's angry rant.

Since the Baby Boomers were precious little coddled infants until now, America has survived on a diet of pure bullshit of platitudes like "You can be whatever you want to be!" and "If you dream it, you can be it" and "Follow your dreams" and other various bits and pieces of feel-good nonsense. It's boiled down to people thinking they should have whatever they want, and to keep bulldozing selfishly ahead until they get it.

Maybe Obama's slogan should've been, "No, you can't." But he wouldn't have been elected.

No, you can't sustain a top-heavy economy. No, you can't indulge unbridled materialism without destroying your environment. No, you can't treat people like they don't matter and expect them not to push back.

We can still fix our problems; I've seen it happen. But we have to put our minds (and bodies) to it. That means our minds have to be on something besides ourselves and our own selfish pursuits. That means we need to change our goals and ambitions from what we want to have, to what we want to give.

"Speculators" have been caught destroying the market system. Let's be honest, prices aren't based on reality anymore (for instance, the price of orange juice isn't based on a deep freeze or hurricane or growing conditions, but on the whims and fancies of traders). We saw this with the recent spike in gas prices. Supply and demand or natural forces have been replaced with simple greed and sociopathic selfishness.

So, these "top performers" should be removed from the financial sector/trading arena immediately. They are ruining everything for everybody else with their malfeasance. But where should they go? Do you want someone like that as a doctor? Or a garbage collector? Or anywhere they could wreak havoc?

I have an idea spawned by the "Aunt Bee the Warden" episode of the Andy Griffith Show. Put them under house arrest with parents and grandparents with a history of effective discipline.

I am ready. Oh, and they have to wear shock collars. Did I forget that part?

Curse you, Caitlin! Whoever you are, you infected my whole family. Myself included. I am the only person to have vomited at 4:14 a.m. Wednesday morning without alcohol being involved. Totally unfair. Yes, I looked at the clock.

Then, like dominoes we fell. Dilf. Elder. Younger.

In other news, I really don't care about Oprah's puppy. But I am sorry that Natasha Richardson died from a skiing accident.

That is all.

Irish history and Irish-American history deserves better than the drunken sweeping under the carpet that occurs every year. That's not to say I don't celebrate it and get drunk. Well, not tonight.

Just to be a pain in yer arse, here's some history for you:

Too bad, you're gettin' one! Bwah ha ha ha .... bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha

I could be worried and anxious about any number of things. Need I list them? I could elaborate and get upset, or I could post a video of a chimpanzee who has mastered martial arts:

I really should be cleaning my house. And taking the dog to the groomer. Instead of doing this. Whatever "this" is.

My Chicago Tribune pissed me off YET AGAIN this morning. Really, is the caffeine in the coffee waking me up, or the adrenaline rush from reading the local fish-wrapper?

What is it this time, my eye-rolling, long-suffering may ask. It's this.

Really, Mr. McNamara? "Go cry on your useless business cards?" A local liquor store should provide free rot-gut whiskey for the unemployed? Or drugstores offer free (prescription) anxiety drugs? Or (this is a real knee-slapper!) camping gear retailers should offer bank-robbing gear because (hee hee!) people are so DESPERATE? That's HUMOR to you? While you do give FedEx a throw-away compliment so you can use it as a segue, do you realize what a serious matter job loss/job searching is?

Of course, you can afford to go shopping at the Michigan Avenue Eddie Bauer for shorts because your spectacular writing earns you such a splendid living. For now.

We'll see how you cry on your own worthless business cards as the newspaper business continues to collapse.

I have to write my idiotic school newsletter today, so allow these words to suffice for my own today.

I think that's what bothers me so much about what passes for "conservatives" today. It's not ideological differences, although I have some of those. It's not the differing opinions about how problems should be solved, because I think those can be healthy sometimes. It's the downright lying that bothers me.

And when someone like the current RNC chairman tries to get away from the lying, he's shouted down by those who enjoy the "'win' at all costs" attitude.

It wouldn't be so disturbing to me if so many people didn't believe the lies.

My experience serving on the jury has taught me one thing: the D.A.'s job is to prevent the jury from hearing anything of any interest whatsoever.

Did that man (or boy -- he looked like he only started shaving last week) not take into consideration the entertainment value of the evidence?

This was the state's case:

D.A.: "Could you describe what happened to you the evening of October 31?"

Witness 1: "Someone broke into my van and stole my purse."

D.A.: "Did you see who did it?"

Witness 1: "No."

D.A.: "Could you describe what happened to you the evening of October 31?"

Witness 2: "Someone broke into my van and stole my wife's purse."

D.A.: "Did you see who did it?"

Witness 2: "No."

Jury: Zzzzzzzz.....

D.A.: "Who threw the rock through the window and stole the victim's purse?"

Witness 3 (who was actually caught using the stolen credit card and is being charged with theft and forgery in a separate but charge): "The defendant."

Defense Attorney: "Are you addicted to heroin?"

D.A.: "Objection!"

Now, that was the single most exciting thing brought up at this trial, and that jerk has to have it stricken? Without us getting the details?

Defense Attorney: "What was in the letter you sent the defendant while he was in jail?"

D.A.: "Objection!"

Defense Attorney: "Why did you send the defendant a letter while he was in jail?"

D.A.: "Objection! That is a material and an elephant!"

Dammit, asshole, what was in that letter? I want to know. And that judge could've overruled it, too, for the sake of our purient interests. But noooo... Everything that trial was lacking -- intrigue, sex, and perhaps even mayhem -- was probably contained in the pages of that letter, I just know it.

Long story short, there were no fingerprints or evidence of any kind that proved that kid threw a rock through a van window and snatched a purse, other than what that girl said. And she was the one caught with the swag. (That's my 1940's criminal jargon for the day.) So, even though he clearly hung out with a bad sort of young adult who engaged in petty theft and drug use, the charge was not "hanging out with a bad sort of young adult who engaged in petty theft and drug use," it was "Criminal damage to property" and "entering a vehicle without permission" and "theft from a vehicle." Thus, we found him not guilty.

It was not nearly as exciting as one of them there crime shows what I watch on the TV.

After a rough day sitting around waiting for my number to be called (I am not a number! I am a human being!), eating what passes for a chicken salad sandwich in the DuPage County Courts building (really, if this is what they feed innocent prospective jurors, what on earth do the feed the prisoners?), and trying to read as much of The Watchmen as I can before the movie comes out, I come home to this:



Why do you do that to us, Dr. Zaius? Don't even bother trying to explain this to a nauseated public: