I'm not dead!

Hi again friends (all three or four of you!) I'm not dead, I'm just suddenly way too awesome and important to find time to blog.

But I'm back now (assume from that what you will) and I'm so flattered by all the interesting and intelligent people who have come by to find the answers to life's great mysteries here on my blog. How did these modern day geniuses find their ways here? Let's have a look!

Google search #1: "Can you slaughter a goat in Georgia?"

First of all, I think I'm channeling my second grade teacher here because I feel the need to point out that of COURSE you can slaughter a goat in Georgia! The question you need answered is MAY you slaughter a goat in Georgia. That one is a little trickier, but since I love my readers with every inch of my bitter, withered heart, I'll try my best to answer.

The law seems spotty, at best on this. An example from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution:

Sometimes the clash with the law stems from a simple dispute among neighbors
--- with a cultural twist. In several metro Atlanta communities, immigrants have
been accused of animal cruelty by neighbors who witnessed them slaughtering
livestock in their yards. In November, a Hispanic family tied a goat to a
neighbor's fence in Smyrna. The neighbor called police. Officers told the
Hispanic family it could not have livestock in the city. "They resolved the
problem by killing the goat," said Smyrna Officer Tony Leonard. "They invited me
to have a piece." A dispute erupted in Suwanee in 1998 when a couple tried to
slaughter and barbecue a goat in a subdivision. "That usually tends to end up
registering complaints from neighbors," said Gwinnett Planning and Zoning
Director Mike Williams. "They just don't know. Once they're informed, they're
usually pretty cooperative about correcting the problems. Most of the immigrant
population wants to follow the rules."

Judging from this, I'd have to say that if anything, you'll have to worry about local ordinances more than state laws. Worst case, it's against some codes, but probably weakly enforced unless you slaughter it in the middle of downtown Atlanta with a group of wide-eyed schoolchildren looking on in horror.

Onto the next search!

I'm number four on the google list for "what do djiboutians do everyday?" I'm not sure what kind of answer the searcher expected from this. If someone asked me "What do Americans do everyday" I could reply with anything from "paint ceramic baby jesus figurines" to "watch scat porn" and both answers would be right. In the interest of not stereotyping the regal people of djibouti, I'd say they probably breathe.

For more exciting info on Djibouti, see http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Costa-Rica-to-Georgia/Djiboutians.html

Onto the next search!

Someone wound up here after searching for "Prince William does not like garlic."

I can't imagine what they were expecting to find with that search. I think all the information you could possibly need on the topic has already been stated by the searcher.

And on that note, I think I'm done for the night.

Newsflash: Republicans hate the environment

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/18/global.warming.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency -- five Republicans and one Democrat -- accused the Bush administration Wednesday of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems.

"I don't think there's a commitment in this administration," said Bill Ruckelshaus, who was EPA's first administrator when the agency opened its doors in 1970 under President Nixon and headed it again under President Reagan in the 1980s.

Clearly, the important thing to note from this article isn't that even republican environmental experts are condeming the inactions of the Bush administration, but that a man named Ruckelshaus exists.

I mean really. Kick. Ass. Name.

New Blog, More Balls!

Really. Lots more balls.

I've been bored with this blog for a while now, obviously. I felt it was time for something new. The winds of change were blowing and I decided to set course for testicle jokes. It's a departure from feminist rants and random cursing, I'll admit. But there'll be something for everyone. Oh- and that something will be in limerick form.

So stop on by! Say hi to my new blog at http://metalballs.blogspot.com

The man from Madras thanks you!

Do I still have a blog?

Apparently I do!

Some of you may have noticed my absence of late. My bad, yo. What can I say? I haven't really had much to talk about. I would rant about the news, but honestly, it's been making me quite happy lately. Let's run it down.
FEMA is getting shit-talked.
Rove and Libby are getting shit-talked.
Delay was *arrested.*
Bush's approval rating is in the shitter.
And his nomination for SCOTUS who, as far as I can tell seems to be a fundie, is getting shit-talked by the *right wing* for god's sake.

Honestly, I can't think of a single rant. I couldn't be happier if I had made the news up myself. I know this makes me an evil partisan so-n-so but you know what? I feel like I've been dunked in a huge tank of liquid happy, then rolled around in sprinkles of joy.

Oh- and to add to that, there's still a slight possibility that hurricane Wilma could come on through. Now, normally that would make me sad, but considering that I have a presentation on Tuesday, that involves me talking about orbital mechanics in front of a doctor from NASA... you know? I'd like some more time to flip through those notes, thanks. So if we could get just a little cat 2 action this way, just enough to cause university closures on Monday and Tuesday, but not so much that I have to pay another renter's insurance deductible, that would be FABULOUS.

I am so unedumacated

Did you know that there's a small island country in the middle east called Cyprus? I didn't! I've spent the past few hours taking quizzes such as this one: http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/euroquiz.html
and failing miserably.

Miserably, I tell you.

It's appalling. There are entire *countries* that don't exist in my brain. What happens in Cyprus? I don't know! For all I know, unicorns could control parliament and people shit gold bricks.

Oh, but the real shame, my friends, was taking the US quiz. I am truly an embarassment to every geography teacher in this country. Good lord there are a lot of squarish states somewhere 'round the middle.

Not surprisingly, though, I was able to find Djibouti on the first try. Come on. That's a great name for a country. I wouldn't let you down, Djiboutians.

Bow Down Before the Flav

He shall be exalted! All the lands sing his praise! For Flavian got a perfect score on Karaoke Revolution's "Under Pressure."

Behold!
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/6298/up2md.jpg

In the wise words of Flavian: "Seriously, fuck that guy that just says 'bee bee do bo dop!' all the time."

Preach it, brother flav. Preach it.

The Holiest of Trinities

I really wish I knew a guy with 3 balls. Then I could nickname him trinity and everyone would just assume it was Matrix-related when really, it's scrotum-related. How hilarious would that be?

The Flav has informed me (hopefully jokingly) that I could give him the nickname Singularity if I wanted to. Ew.

In other news on the Flavian Front, his birthday was last weekend. Happy b-day, Flav!

We got together and had dinner and drinks. I thought I did a good job of holding my liquor. The next morning, Scott informed me that I had been stroking The Flav's foot and talking to it. What's worse, The Flav was drunk enough to make his foot answer back in an english accent.

The foot has been renamed Lord Shropshire, in case you're wondering.

Shout out

Just wanted to give a shout-out to my homies at Lowe's. Whazzaaaa?!? Hardware reprazentin! Appliances in da hizzous!

I used to shop at Lowe's a lot. My husband and I would play a game called the $5 bong. It's pretty self explanatory. You have to make a bong out of stuff for sale in the store and you can only spend $5. It's not that hard until you run into the helpful staff. This requires quick thinking at a time when you're maybe not thinking so quick, and it usually goes about like so:

helpful staff: "So, what size PVC pipe are you looking for?"

me: "Ummmmm... about this size: (makes an "o" with mouth while giggling hysterically)"

helpful staff: "Okaaaaaay... is this for a plumbing project?"

me: "ha ha ha you said 'plumbing.' (giggling, but thinking fast) Um no. It's for... an art project. Or something."

helpful staff: "Okaaaaaaay. What type of art project?"

me: "The kind that requires pipe."

helpful staff: (suspiciously looking at bizarre assortment in cart)"You're making a bong out of this, aren't you?"

me: "No. NO! (drops pipe and runs)

You can see I'm suave. I don't think I've ever made it through a whole $5 bong game without running out of the store. Somehow, that fair-weather friend that I shop for also causes me to believe that a Lowe's employee actually has the power to arrest me. They haven't caught me yet, though!

Exodus! Movement of Jah People!

Okay, maybe not quite what Bob Marley had in mind...

http://www.christianexodus.org/

That's right. There's a Christian organization dedicated to upping the already mindboggling concentration of people with Strom4Life tatoos in the state of South Carolina.

It's as if these people sat around thinking to themselves "What could possibly make Ryan hate South Carolina more than he already does? A-ha! Let's ask a bunch of delusional right wing fundies to move in to the state and threaten to seceed from the union! That worked so well for us last time around."

And that's just what they're trying to do.

Ol' Flavian weighed in on the matter, with his usual supportive enthusiasm:

"Whatever floats your boat, guys. If you're getting South Carolina the hell out of this country, be my guest."

So, not much objection from the local liberals at this point.

You may be asking yourselves why they want to do this, though. Well let me tell you! According to the website:

-Children who pray in public schools are subject to prosecution
-The 10 Commandments remain banned from public display
-Preaching Christianity will soon be outlawed as "hate speech"

In summary, they're doing this because they love making hyperbolic lists.

But truly, I understand. You just can't understand true oppression until you've lived a life of lonely isolation- where people of your kind are merely the vast majority of elected and appointed leaders. Where you can shit on other religions, but you can't quite smear it around as much as you'd like. Where people will occassionaly look at you funny when you make blatantly racist or homophobic statements.

In the inspiring words of Mr. Marley (a man who is certainly rotting in hell):

So we gonna walk - all right! - through de roads of creation.
We the generation
trod through great tribulation.
Exodus!

Welcome to my desk. Now stop being a douchebag.

I was, coincidentally enough, reading an article on xenophobia at my desk when I found myself staring at it. In t-shirt form.

"Welcome to America. Now speak english!" was the friendly request. I really think that in cases like this, there should be a standing exception to general professionalism guidelines. I'd really love to have given him the finger, but I had to settle for passive aggressive methods.

I started with my favorite mode: the stare and roll. I took a long, hard stare at his shirt as if he had a shit stain on it that only I could see. My next move (and this one I have down to an absolute science) is where I pretend like I don't want the subject to see me roll my eyes, when I actually do. Sometimes I'll let out a faint sigh if I think they're not looking.

He proceeded to try to hand me something, which I naturally pretended to not notice, until he finally gave up and set it on my desk, clearly bewildered.

Do you see all the effort I have to go to to snub someone in a work environment? Wouldn't it have been a more efficient use of my time to just flick him off and get on with business?

Somehow, I doubt I'll be able to convince my boss of that, but I think the benefits of a free-to-flick office are clear.

"white guy. fancy that."

I'm too lazy to write anything on this anti-french fry crusader that Bush has nominated to the SCOTUS, so I'll let the following conversation be my in-depth political commentary on the situation. Russia is my pinko-feminist-liberal friend who's currently in Russia, because she kicks that much ass.

Russia: who is it?
Russia: the nominee

Me: some utter douchebag
Me: john roberts jr?

Russia: a man?
Russia: wasn't expecting that.
Russia: white?

Me: yup. white guy

Russia: fancy that

Me: uh huh
Me: and he seems to be anti-roe, anti-labor, anti-affirmative action, etc etc

Russia: yup, i just skimmed an email to that effect
Russia: did harry reid give him as a nominee? is he supposed to be one of those that gets an easy confirmation?

Me: I don't really know. The dems haven't come out all "Rabble Rabble Rabble" yet, but they seem to be cautiously ticked.

Russia: my soul hurts

Me: hahaha I know, right?

Russia: so melodramtic but it's true

Me: I'm in the wacky denial stage right now.
Me: Like "hahaha! he nominated a douchebag! Oh that bush, when will he learn?"

Russia: so, the silver lining: at least the liberals have some credibility. we've been saying since 2000 that an evil person would be nominated and that's what happened.

Me: yup- it's some consolation
Me: the "told you so" factor is big with me.

Russia: nothing like regressing to a five year old to make you feel better.

John Roberts Jr

It's being said that the name John Roberts Jr. has been leaked to NBC as Bush's nominee. Who the deuce is he?!?!

When placemats attack

So someone found my blog while searching for "painless geography placemats." I have NO idea what kind of sadistic geography placemats this lost soul is currently dealing with but there clearly needs to be a better way to attain geographical information while eating potroast, people! If they ended up at my blog in search of help, they're clearly running out of ideas. I fear that time is a factor here. This time it's just a map of the earth. Next time, who know? It could be planetary placemats after your ass. And that just isn't something I'll stand for.

Wankershanks 4SCOTUS!

So... 9pm tonight is the big announcement. Someone, probably Arlen Specter said that he hoped someone with varied life experiences would be the supreme court nominee, not just someone with legal expertise.

I'm hoping this will be a good sign for me. I was crushed when I lost my bid for pope, so hopefully this will pan out for me. Justice Wankershanks has a *great* ring to it. I'll let you all know as soon as I get the call.

WTF?

O'Conner is retiring? No no no. That's one hell of a typo, Mr. CNN Guy. That's supposed to say "Rehnquist." Really.

Can I get a big "dubbleya tee eff" from my homies? Really. WTF?

The only good thing to come out of this is that my friend Rachel (aka Wyzardess, aka the most awesome girl in the whole world cause she's in Russia right now and simultaneously working with Ohio NARAL on some kick-ass pro-choice stuff) has informed me that it's okay to use Supreme Court justices as verbs, as in: "I'll brb. Me and Aaron are still O'Conner-ing."

I'll probably be O'Conner-ing the rest of the day. That sounds a lot more fun than it is.

recipes 4 life

I clearly should not be allowed around impressionable people. Here's a conversation between myself and my 14 year old cousin (the sexy hero!) Jessica:

Jess: Pro-lifers are really great.
Me: Whaaaaaaa?
Jess: Well, if you cook them just right.

ha! I probably should have said something about it being morally wrong to broil your political opponents in a nice marinade of lemon and garlic. Maybe a little fresh thyme. Fresh ground pepper... little splash of olive oil....

Anyway. It's wrong. But do I say that? No. I laugh. I guess I'm one of those morally bankrupt liberals I keep hearing about. But come on. You would laugh too.

Bad Move...

My boss left the keys to his Aston Martin here at my desk for the weekend. What was he thinking?!? Of course, I'd never actually do anything immoral/illegal with these keys, even though we all know that this is definitely the only opportunity I'll have in my middle class life to drive one of these. But I wouldn't, because I'm just that trustworthy. And because I fear the cold embrace of a jail cell. But mostly, it's my refreshing honesty and high moral standards that prevent me from doing anything exciting.

Still, I keep staring at them obsessively as if they're going to walk out of the office if I don't stare hard enough. It could happen. I open the drawer every five minutes to grope around for them, lest they skip town on my watch. Perhaps it's a good thing that I'm destined to have a moderate income for the rest of my life. If I'm this stressed over holding the keys to a nice car for a few days, I'd probably die a painfully premature death if I did it everyday.

Speaking of nice things, and why I'm not allowed to have any:

We just moved into a new apartment. It's bigger! It's better! It's in the "nice" section of town. As far as I can tell, the "nice" section of town is official douchebag central. We spent two years putting in our time at the crappy apartments in the high crime area with the loud parties and the drunken college dropouts. It was an okay place. The toilet didn't always flush properly and the ceiling leaked once or twice. But the neighbors was good people. The woman next door would offer me a cigarette and tell me about her child support troubles with her ex. The guy upstairs would tell us about his difficulties finding work as a pakistani-american. Joe from downstairs would always smile and wave as he rode his bike to work. And the guy to the right of us, well, he usually littered the porch with beer bongs and played music loud enough to vibrate our kitchen appliances, but he could chug a guiness faster than I could say "go."

But we're in the "nice" place now. It's gated. It's got alarm systems in every apartment and cameras in the parking lot. And what happens the first night there? Someone hits my parked car and leaves no note. I'd like to know how they rationalized that. I keep imagining some monacle-wearing, lexus-driving jackass swerving into my econobox after a night of overpriced mint juleps... probably thinking to himself that a mere thousand dollars worth of damage was hardly worth stopping for.

I did meet one woman who was nice... in a cluelessly priviledged kinda way atleast. As we were looking for a place to park the U-haul, she informed me that it was okay to park it in the handicapped spot directly in front of the door. 'Everyone does it and it's not like there's any handicapped people here anyway.' huh. Is this how the upper middle class makes small talk?

So, with that in mind, the Aston Martin keys stay firmly in the drawer. Maybe rich douchebaggery isn't contagious, but I don't want to take any chances.