Copacabana

Welcome to my world

posted by Lola @ 10:46 AM 1 Comments

Idiot filter

You know what's annoying? People who act like they don't know what you're talking about so they can maintain a sense of superiority while they wait for you to butcher the thing they already know (and boy doesn't it just irritate the hell out of them when they disover that you're just as informed as they and so the hole in the argument never materilaizes and they're left looking kind of dumb for acting like they didn't know what was going on? Unplanned self-sabotage sucks, eh?)? Here's a hint dude: if you have to act uninformed in order to feel like the smartest one in the room that's just ... man I can't even finish. It's obvious why this is a stupid tactic and I won't waste my finger strength. (To The Man: Sorry for yet another cerebral post. I can't help it...)

posted by Lola @ 10:20 AM 0 Comments

Double standard reversal

(Thanks The Man)

One morning, a husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, his wife decides to take out their boat. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and takes out her book. Along comes a game warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?"

"Reading a book," she replies.

"You're in a restricted fishing area," he informs her.

"I'm sorry, Officer, but I'm not fishing, I'm reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start
at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says
the woman.

"But I haven't touched you, " says the game warden.

"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know, you
could start at any moment."

"Have a nice day, ma'am," he said...and quickly left.

MORAL: NEVER ARGUE WITH A WOMAN WHO READS. IT'S LIKELY SHE CAN ALSO
THINK

posted by Lola @ 3:08 PM 0 Comments

Can you spot the contradiction?

I love Google. I really do. But they just left the door open to the room with the big red button.

According to this article, they are working with Chinese officials to modify their search engine code so that content the Chinese government deems undesirable (read: threatening to Chinese power structure) will be blocked.

And then, oddly, they are, according to this article, refusing to cooperate with the U.S. government in handing over statistics related to customer habits that will, ostensibly at least, be used initially to track online child pornography (and no, I'm not naive enough to think that our government doesn't have further interest in this information...).

But here's the rub: Oh so principled Google, you refuse to let Americans be spyed upon but you'll help the Chinese government keep their countrymen illiterate and subjugated. A little consistency in your principles would be nice. Or, is just because one involves money coming in and the other (potentially) money going out...? Never mind. You are being consistent.

posted by Lola @ 11:52 AM 0 Comments

If I'm to run the future, you've got to let the old world go

"One Beat" is such a cool song. Sleater-Kinney is somewhat an acquired taste but man, I like this song. My friend Ellen says they sound Siouxsie and the Banshees-ish. I like their grown-up punk rock tendency. Here's a byte:


I'm a bubble in a sound wave/ A sonic push for energy/ Exploding like the sun/ A flash of clean light hope/ All you scientists can hold your breath/ Can I decide to show myself, oh oh/ (Take me to the source of chaos let me be the butterfly/ oh my, imperfect symmetry has underlying poetry in rhyme)


If you think like Thomas Edison/ Could you invent a world for me/ Now all that's on the surface/ Are bloody arms and oil fields/ Could I turn this place all upside down/ And shake you and your fossils out, oh oh/ (You can't predict everything with Newton like certainty, why/ Oh my, cause it floats around all we see with oscillating energy on high)

posted by Lola @ 9:46 AM 0 Comments

No offense; it just messes with the economy...

So, Mexican officials are halting the border map hand out because they're afraid that the maps will alert border patrol to where illegals may be crossing, and not because people are catching on to the fact that they are providing road maps for illegally entering the United States? Riiiiiiight...

posted by Lola @ 1:45 PM 0 Comments

Research your software

(Thanks Lord Somber)

Dear Tech Support:

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0. I soon noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself into all other programs and now monitors all other system activity. Applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Football 5.0, Hunting and Fishing 7.5, and Racing 3.6
I can't seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my favorite applications. I'm thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0, but the uninstall doesn't work on Wife 1.0. Please help!

Thanks, Troubled User

Dear Troubled User:

This is a very common problem that men complain about.

Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING!!! It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 7.0. It is impossible to uninstall, or purge the program files from the system once installed.

You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings-Alimony-Child Support. I recommend that you keep Wife 1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application "Yes Dear" to alleviate software augmentation.


The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway.
Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance. Wife 1.0 comes with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0, Cook 1.5 and Do Bills 4.2.

However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5 . Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0!
WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3. This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system.

Best of luck,
Tech Support

posted by Lola @ 4:11 PM 0 Comments

Kinky politics

Meet Kinky Friedman. He's running for Texas Governor. He's Texan, Jewish and an independant. He's been invited to both the Clinton and the Bush White Houses -- apparently naming his dog pen after First Lady Laura Bush (she's reportedly a supporter of that move). A quick browse through his website proves a very liberal streak (he's a huge supporter of the the Utopian Animal Rescue and simply the word "utopian" says something of unrealism. But animal rescue? Who can't get behind that effort, unrealistic or not?)



The man and I caught a bit of a 60 Minutes interview with him where he was asked about comparing himself to Jesus, something he apparently did that upset some staunch Texas Christians. He responded by saying that both he and Jesus were Jewish, independantly minded and traveled around the country irritating people. Like it or not, it's a shallow but fair comparison.

And in Texas, even liberals are still basically conservative in comparison to the rest of the country. That's just how they grow 'em in Texas. I was particularly interested in his support of renewable energy, namely biodiesel, the use of which hurts no one "except OPEC."

Oh yeah, and he has his own salsa...

posted by Lola @ 8:21 AM 0 Comments

Maddox

The Best Page in the Universe. Just read it...

posted by Lola @ 4:51 PM 0 Comments

Sister, you been on my mind...

I had a good friend in college named Mary. Mary was a corker of the finest sort. Beautiful woman who had men falling at her feet and exceptionally bright to boot. So bright in fact that she got a six figure job in Seattle right out of college in a field she had no real knowledge of (financial planning. she got a psych degree) and earned really good cash for a year. So smart that, at the end of that year, she called me at 2 a.m. and told me she was selling her soul to drive a nice car and was chucking the whole deal. She moved back to Atlanta, got a job with Coca-Cola (some kind of executive position) and married a nice Southern man.

Mary had a saying: "We girls have to look out for each other because we all know how it feels to be dumped on by a man. We have to watch each others' backs because men will not do that for us. We need to take care of each other."

I wish more women thought like that. I miss you Mary.

posted by Lola @ 2:42 PM 0 Comments

You can't handle the truth

I have always maintained that the NASA Space program has been doing more up in the final frontier than they let on -- it is a tragic fact that humanity tends to operate under the mass hysteria umbrella, giving governments reasonable excuses to keep potentially scary information out of the general public knowledge base.

This article from NPR about emerging methods for knocking asteroids off their potential collision courses with earth is fascinating to me. Not so much because the technology exists but because we all want to delude ourselves that this technology is being developed on the fly. Um, maybe Reagan called it Star Wars as a nice, big, fat red herring. We can handle warfare but not uncontrollable, against-all-odds, natural phenomena that could exterminate us quicker than any nuke. War in space? Yes, that's what we're preparing for...uh-huh...I'm comfortable with that.

It reminds me of my theory of American propaganda, i.e. the ability of interest groups to fund certain films as a way to get the information out to the general public in a less threatening, more exciting and big-bugdet blockbuster kind of way. Case in point: There were at least two movies that I remember coming out within a few years of each other wherein an asteroid hit earth and the race to save humanity was on. Armegeddon and Deep Impact, I think. Anyway, I remember thinking at the time, "That's random." That kind of topic was even off my radar and I kind of go the extra mile, ya know?

Morgan's known about this for a while...

But here's the thing -- it wasn't too long after that that it was obscurely published in a science journal (you'll have to google this one because I can't remember -- and please correct me if I'm wrong!) that there was -- guess! -- an asteroid that had been on a trajectory toward Earth that had thankfully not smacked us. And --here's the best -- they had been watching this bugger for many years. It's just an interesting timeline is all I'm saying...

No it's not paranoia! It's dissemination of information. And a very effective method at that.

posted by Lola @ 8:49 AM 0 Comments

Photoshop can make you a living

Wheelchair Basketball Players Stunned by Thunderous Slam-Dunk


Where would we be without The Onion?

posted by Lola @ 3:42 PM 0 Comments

Carlin Rules

Thanks to Bored Athenians (who credit the lovely Nariman) for this post. Catholicism WOW!

George Carlin's New Rules for 2006

NEW RULES for 2006 by George Carlin




New Rule: Stop giving me that pop-up ad for classmates.com! There's a reason you don't talk to people for 25 years. Because you don't particularly like them! Besides, I already know what the captain of the football team is doing these days: mowing my lawn.

New Rule: Don't eat anything that's served to you out a window unless you're a seagull. People are acting all shocked that a human finger was found in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Hey, it cost less than a dollar. What did you expect it to contain? Trout?

New Rule: Stop saying that teenage boys who have sex with their hot, blonde teachers are permanently damaged. I have a better description for these kids: lucky bastards.

New Rule: If you need to shave and you still collect baseball cards, you're a dope. If you're a kid, the cards are keepsakes of your idols. If you're a grown man , they're pictures of men.

New Rule: Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone. Here's how much men care about your eyebrows: do you have two of them? Okay, we're done.

New Rule: There's no such thing as flavored water. There's a whole aisle of this crap at the supermarket, water, but without that watery taste. Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored water? Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt. That's your flavored water.

New Rule: Stop f***ing with old people. Target is introducing a redesigned pill bottle that's square, with a bigger label. And the top is now the bottom. And by the time grandpa figures out how to open it, his ass will be in the morgue. Congratulations, Target, you just solved the Social Security crisis.

New Rule: The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the asshole. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a "decaf grande half-soy, half low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n'-Low and one NutraSweet," ooh, you're a huge asshole.

New Rule: I'm not the cashier! By the time I look up from sliding my card, entering my PIN number, pressing "Enter," verifying the amount, deciding, no, I don't want cash back, and pressing "Enter" again, the kid who is supposed to be ringing me up is standing there eating my Almond Joy.

New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't make you spiritual. It's right above the crack of your ass. And it translates to "beef with broccoli." The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant. You're not spiritual. You're just high.

New Rule: Competitive eating isn't a sport. It's one of the seven deadly sins. ESPN recently televised the US Open of Competitive Eating, because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too damned exciting. What's next, competitive farting? Oh wait. They're already doing that. It's called "The Howard Stern Show."

New Rule: I don't need a bigger mega M&M. If I'm extra hungry for M&Ms, I'll go nuts and eat two.

New Rule: If you're going to insist on making movies based on crappy, old television shows, then you have to give everyone in the Cineplex a remote so we can see what's playing on the other screens. Let's remember the reason something was a television show in the first place is that the idea wasn't good enough to be a movie.

New Rule: No more gift registries. You know, it used to be just for weddings. Now it's for babies and new homes and graduations from rehab. Picking out the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you isn't gift giving, it's the white people version of looting.

New Rule: and this one is long overdue: No more bathroom attendants. After I zip up, some guy is offering me a towel and a mint like I just had sex with George Michael. I can't even tell if he's supposed to be there, or just some freak with a fetish. I don't want to be on your web cam, dude. I just want to wash my hands.

New Rule: When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to know in months. "27 Months." "He's two," will do just fine. He's not a cheese. And I didn't really care in the first place.

posted by Lola @ 11:05 AM 0 Comments

Howl at the New Orleans moon

After Katrina hit, I listened to the song "Lakes of Pontchartrain" quite a bit from this fantastic group The Be Good Tanyas. The song itself is an old folk song and these Canadian ladies do it a great deal of justice. It makes me yearn for those lakes ... and I've never even been to New Orleans.

It was on one fine March morning when I bid New Orleans adieu/I was on the road to Jackson town, my fortunes to renew/I cursed my foreign money -- no credit could I gain/which filled my heart with longin' for the lakes of Pontchartrain/



So fare you well my bonnie ol' girl, I may never see you no more/I won't forget your kindness and that cottage by the shore/And at every social gatherin', a golden glass I'll drain/And I'll drink all health to the creole girl on the lakes of Pontchartrain/

~ The Be Good Tanyas

posted by Lola @ 9:15 AM 0 Comments

Stones at glass houses

So I was watching a bit of the Alito hearings today at lunch (went home for the ham sandwich because I make a mean one) and was struck by Ted Kennedy's viciousness in speaking to Alito. I don't know much about the judge, and even less about the nature of these hearings, but Kennedy was spitting and flinging and hurling accusations and then never allowing any response time. The general tone of his speech was pure disgust. Kinda weird given the fact that most who know Alito and have worked with him -- across party lines I might add -- regard him as a very fair, decent and magnanimous person and colleague. Pretty good qualities for a judge, I'd say. But Kennedy -- man he makes no concessions

Pretty funny that he doesn't given that he OWES HIS CAREER AND HIS FREEDOM to some pretty massive ones made on his behalf. Maybe he just forgot...

posted by Lola @ 12:56 PM 1 Comments

Wolves in sheeps clothing

Okay, so what is it with those lovely assets to humanity who instantly become, as we say in the South, "puddin' sticks" (instant pudding stick, hee-hee...) when they are dissatisfied with their own situation in life? Why must you stir up trouble in an attempt to bring everyone else down? Is it so the level of competition is lowered and you feel like you're one of the lucky ones? I'm serious, what is it? How can I help without succumbing to your nasty game? I'd prefer a solution where I don't end up mourning the death of compassion if it's all the same...

If you don't believe these folks are out there then do what I did: drive to your work one morning on a college campus with a mysterious and joyful little smile on your face and see how many ridiculously angry, rich young girls cut you off and how many lonely eyes in other cars try to get your attention to distract you from whatever distraction is causing the little smile. It's depressing man.
Especially when all you want is to cut up, laugh at yourself, be a little nutty, figure out how to exist on this orb and have a little fun in the process. Is this too much to ask? No more meddling, please...

posted by Lola @ 4:32 PM 2 Comments

The other woman...

And they are out there... I often wonder if it might be smarter to be her. They seem to have all the fun, not having to do the laundry or take care of the sniffles, etc. It's always the fun of the first date.

What's a girl trained toward the respectable institution of marriage to do? Hope for the best, I suppose...

posted by Lola @ 6:04 PM 0 Comments

More Wedding Crashers

John Beckwith: Hey, listen. What angle are you going to play here?
Jeremy Grey: I am going to go with the balloon animal display. For the kids. And then when she comes near, guess who is the broken man, haunted past? How about you?
John Beckwith: I am going to go dance with the little flower girl. Oh, and I might be a charter member of Oprah's book club.
Jeremy Grey: It's all deadly.

posted by Lola @ 4:19 PM 0 Comments

It's okay to look forward

Why am I still seeing Kerry-Edwards stickers on the backs of cars around town? Why? Let it go....

posted by Lola @ 9:17 AM 0 Comments

Tie Fried

It wuz wicked cool to be invited to the 18-Wheeler Super Jam ’05 at the Lexington Fairgrounds. Me and Weeze was just hanging out in front of Recycled Grinds Café and these bezerker rednecks start talking to us about their upcoming monster-truck-like show. They said they was still looking for the main event but thought we should check out the festivities. Weeze and me was really baked and I was a little sketched about the whole thing. But then Red #1 pulls a dank joint out of his pocket and dangles it like a carrot. “If you like it, there’s more at the show,” says he, and then chucked a coupla tix our way. Weeze looked like a demon after one toke on that stick, man. He really did. I almost killed him with a kitchen knife.

Needless to say, Weeze and me freed up our schedules. And dude did we get the Cheeba King treatment, getting backstage if you can call it that. The Reds fuckin’ loved us, man! It’s weird because one of em’, I swear, threw a PBR bottle at me once from his moving truck. We were still waiting for the main event when one of the dudes asked if he could take my picture. Cheeze, man…

posted by Lola @ 4:19 PM 0 Comments

Hahahahahahahaha

I stole this video link from another site (www.meltingdolls.com) because it totally brings the funny. Fans of the Beastie Boys (like me) will glory in the white boy rap....

posted by Lola @ 11:12 AM 0 Comments

It's funny because it's true

Alright, so I'm driving to work this morning (first day back after the holidays. Getting out of bed was a gradual slide into depression....) and I have the radio on NPR. Now, while I appreciate their willingness to cover the more interesting news stories, I am fully aware of the fact that they tend to pander to whatever news story the white man's burden- "How do I alleviate the guilt I feel for the relatively cushy life I live"- type listener might want to hear. This morning, they did not disappoint...

They did a story on Swarthmore College's efforts to "window" their new science center with glass that birds are able to see. Apparently the Pennsylvania college, that is, I believe, very near a dense forest (which used to cover the entire eastern seaboard. I think that is so cool...) has a bit of a problem with birds found dead on campus after head-on collisions with blurry and vague images of themselves. This is all fine and well and I commend the efforts of those willing to go the extra mile in trying to live harmoniously with the rest of the world -- it doesn't happen often enough. But here's why people don't trust the news --

NPR actually used hyperbole that stated the following: "Many birds have been killed by windows." And trust me, the tone of the report left no room to doubt that those bastard windows and their proponents hated birds and wanted them all dead! Down with birds!!! Here's a similarly-toned piece from MSNBC. Seriously, try to read it objectively. Betcha come away thinking windows are evil. They're windows, man! Inanimate objects! Whatever.

Okay, as a student of language (BA in English, man!) let me just say that using the active [ed note: this is actually a passive voice construction but does give the window an ability to kill...] voice in the personification of the window -- as if the window had any sort of dynamic ability to kill -- is just plain incorrect. And it's bad reporting. People know, you arrogant anchors, when they are being pandered to, and I feel sorry for those reporters who have convinced themselves otherwise. And yes, some may go along with the charade for awhile if it suits their particular agenda, but insincerity is generally resented in the long run. I'm just saying....

It reminds me of the news reporter I saw on CNN recently, with all his upper-middle class, perfectly coiffed hair gleaming under the studio lights, giving a report on a groundhog. The animal's owner had made the effort to have the rodent's teeth straightened in preparation for an on-camera celebration of groundhog day. And this reporter, the whitest man in America, his baritone-voice completely devoid of irony, looked at the camera and said, never cracking a smile: "He needed that teeth straightening. It looked like he was throwing gang signs before."

Jesus.

posted by Lola @ 9:18 AM 0 Comments