Tonight I will be driving up to Alexandria to catch a flight out to Kingsland, where my cousin Mal is getting married. By “tonight” I actually mean tomorrow morning, sort of. I plan to leave at around 2-3am to get there in plenty of time. I’m not going to bed tonight. I’ve been gradually shifting my bed-time to account for this. I will be sleeping on the flights and maybe the drive from airport. Since I’m going to lose a couple of hours, that should put me tired at right about the right time. Soon they’re going to know me by name at the airport.

When we flew down to Delosa, I had a similarly early flight. I drive up to Alexandria the night before in a hotel room that Clancy as kind enough to reserve. The whole idea of the hotel room was to help her out so that she wouldn’t have to get up at two in the morning. As it turned out, she had to get caught up on medical records and wasn’t even able to come up until… 3:30 in the morning. It was just as well as the hotel was pretty sketchy. We had talked about asking the hotel managers if we could leave my car there to avoid parking costs at the airport. Some hotels in Cascadia will let you do that because parking at the Zaulem International Airport was a ridiculous $25 a day. Since parking in Alexandria is $6, they don’t advertise it. Anyway, when I got there, I decided that I would not want to leave my car in their care anyway.

The other thing going on for that flight was that there was some road construction on the state highway. They had this setup where you had to stop at Point A and a state pickup would lead you across the area of construction. It was basically a speed-reduction measure. Kind of annoying at 3 in the morning when there is no actual construction going on. When she got back, Clancy decided to detour through Redstone, adding a half-hour to her trip but also adding some peace of mind after a long day of flying.

I am also debating on what I’m going to do about food. So many options! Alexandria has an IHOP, which both Callie and Redstone (the nearest “city” to Callie) lack. So I leave earlier and stop there before going to the airport. There’s also a great Mexican place in the airport that I’m going to be laid over in with outstanding breakfast burritos. But the breakfast burritos are huge and greasy, so I’m not positive that it’s the best idea. But man are they good and so I think that’s what I’m going to do.

The weather in Kingsland is ludicrously hot. I’m not sorry that I don’t have a suit that fits since I would be burning up in it. I don’t have much at all in the way of nice clothes. I have one dress shirt that is about the right size, but that’s about it. I need to go shopping. Mom seems confident that for the rest of the trip I should not have to worry about having really nice clothes. She tends to know these things, though her sister’s family is pretty upper-crest and I would hate to be in a situation where I am wearing cargo pants and a polo shirt when everyone else is wearing something nice. Oddly, though, one of the dinners is a BBQ. Not what I would expect. Our rehearsal dinner involved crawfish and we still get a kick out of my aunt’s horror at the thought of picking those things apart. So I didn’t expect BBQ, though I guess that’s not as grubby as something that involves picking apart dead crustaceans.

Mom is looking forward to getting some good east coast crabcakes. She’s all but stopped eating crabcakes west of the Appalachians because they put so much breading in there. It’ll also be good to see my cousins again. Mal and Gregory were there with me the night before I got married when my brothers Mitch and Ollie, my ex-roommate Karl, and my friends Clint and Web drank some beer and chatted. We’re kind of separated by the lifestyle differences that come with wealth (Mal was deciding which really expensive big city in the northeast to move to, knowing that his parents would pay for whatever he decided and probably hook him up with a job). On the other hand, I had a great deal of fun at Gregory’s wedding in Deseret. Rich people can afford neat weddings. This wedding will even include alcohol.

When was the last time you went anywhere without a commonly accepted form of identification on your person? On purpose?

It’s one of the things I see at court on a frequent basis, but never see in society at large: People without identification. Something comes up where they need ID, and they don’t have it.

I don’t mean they pat their pockets and look shocked, either. They didn’t forget it in their other pants. They never have it. It’s just how they live. If they lose it, or the cops confiscate it, or it gets stolen — which seems to happen a lot — they don’t hurry to get a new one. If they do have one, they didn’t bring it. Why not? “I dunno, just didn’t. Didn’t know I needed to.”

Or — this is one I really don’t understand — someone else is holding it for them. These are adults, mind you. We’re not swimming, we’re not hiking, we’re not dancing in a club in a tight little dress with no pockets. We’re hanging around a court hallway all day.

Or they left it in the car. On purpose. When was the last time you left your wallet in your car on purpose? At the beach, maybe? Not at court, where there are armed officers in the hallways and guarding the doors.

And they’re not lying about not having it. How do I know? Because this comes up not just when, for example, they need ID to drug test, but also when the ID is necessary to get them something they want, such as release of their kids. Anytime someone needs ID, it will be more likely than not that they don’t have it on them.

Poor people don’t drive, either. Or at least don’t have valid driver’s licenses. But that makes sense, because it’s pretty expensive to maintain a car, insurance, registration, and pay tickets promptly. It’s the tickets that really kill them. Still, even if your license is encumbered, it’s a valid ID. Or you can get a state ID that looks just like a driver’s license, except you can’t drive. And people do this. They often have one, somewhere. They just don’t have it on them.

I leave today for my fact-finding mission in Estacado. There was a vacant lot near our house and my mission is to see what, if anything, has been done with it since we left. My secondary mission will be to see just how good my friend Kyle’s new video projector is. It shouldn’t interfere too, too much with my blogreading since my social obligations will be at a minimum.

Update/Note: I must have put the wrong date on this post. I was wondering why it hadn’t come up yet. Ahhh, the perils of forward-dating.

I believe that nearsighted people (at least under, say, 35, when everyone’s eyes start to go) tend to be smarter than people who aren’t nearsighted. I’ve been told there is some data to support this, although I don’t have any to link to. When I meet a guy with glasses, I semiconsciously award him “smart” points until proven otherwise.

But I also believe that when people don’t have above-average intelligence, if they are nearsighted — at least if they wear glasses — they’re more likely to be weird. In a bad way. They’re more likely to have mental disabilities or at least substantial dysfunctions.

This alleged perp’s picture reminded me of that. He’s 16, and accused of raping and strangling a 5-year-old.

In person, I’ve seen a few other underage or youngish sex offenders who look like this. The heavy, pasty face, the buzzed hair (why the buzz, I don’t know) and the glasses. And never any evidence they’re smart, usually the opposite. Lots of trouble with school.

Think back to grade school. Can you remember anyone who wore glasses who wasn’t either really smart, or really weird?

Clancy and I have decided that it’s worth the extra money to get Economy Extra seating, which allows for extra leg room. It doesn’t make the seats any wider. Ordinarily that’s not a problem, but the gods have apparently been reading my defense of overweight people and decided that it would be just to sit me next to a guy who spills over by a few inches. It’s not just that there was a lack of room, but the tilted way I had to sit made it so that I couldn’t type on my computer (one of the reasons I like the extra leg room - besides the obvious - is that it gives me enough room to work on my laptop) nor could I get comfortable enough to sleep.

Apparently, at some point Sonic became ubiquitous in Delosa. I know this because Sonic was not what we were interested in as we drove from the airport in Colosse to Genesis in eastern Delosa. Nothing against Sonic’s food, but it’s friggin’ hot outside and we wanted a restroom. Some Sonics have a restroom that you can use, but it’s not as clearcut as just about any other fast food place you can figure on. But I swear, every small town had just a Sonic and maybe a Church’s chicken stuffed in a convenience store (there’s never any reason to eat at Church’s if there is a Popeye’s). I have never seen so many Sonics in my life and I’ve been noticing them everywhere ever since.

My chief complaint with the state of Arapaho is that the weather is so dry and the water so hard that it wreaks havoc with my skin. It was the one thing I was looking forward to about the Gulf humidity. The problem is that Genesis has a serious chigger problem. My skin, already being up against a wall health wise, absolutely did not need bug bites of any sort (much less the nefarious chiggers). You avoid chiggers by putting sulfer powder in a sock and tapping it around your ankles. I put so much sulfer on my legs that I am not sure, a week later, if it’s all off. But it worked.

The thing about coming home is that I end up eating so dang much. Far more than I want to, but given the combination of restaurants and establishments I don’t get to eat at every often and social meet-ups often involving food, I don’t have a whole lot of choice. I suppose it’s a good sign that my system is so irritated with me. My stomach and I both look forward to going back to Arapaho.

My tolerance for urban traffic apparently dissipates quite quickly. I haven’t been gone from Cascadia for long and I already find myself getting really anxious when surrounded by cars. The same thing happened when I moved to Deseret.

It’s funny how the economics change when you’re on vacation. I spent $11 on a bottle of beer and don’t regret it in the slightest. I don’t even like beer all that much.

My parents’ wireless sucks. I keep getting disconnected. Not due to a signal problem - there’s always more than three bars - but for some reason I am connected to the router and not the Internet. But the Internet connection is fine on the wired computers. I feel kinda bad since I am the one that bought him the router. I think I am through with Linksys.

I didn’t bring any toothpaste, figuring that I would mooch off Clancy. I forgot that I would be here a week after she left. So I’ve used some guest toothpaste my folks keep in the front bathroom. It is this odd brown color with this odd brown taste. Very unpleasant, even as far as toothpaste goes. Their mouthwash is the same color and with a similar taste. I know that Dad can be even more oblivious to taste than I am, but come on… I should have just bought some 99c toothpaste (I realize as I am about to leave).

Visited my old college roommate Hubert and his wife for what turned out to be a relatively uncomfortable evening. This is the second time in a row that Hubert stuck me with the bill. The first time I was really caught by surprise when we the register at the fast food joint rang up at significantly higher than expected. This time I was planning to offer anyway (I picked up the food myself to-go) and was less surprised that they didn’t offer to pay me back.

On the other side, I had dinner with my friend Tony one night. There I knew I had to pre-emptively offer to pick up the tab (last time we had lunch, he did) and even then he insisted on paying the tip, which he tipped at 50%. That was one lucky waitress. Dinner with Tony went really smoothly mostly because he pre-emptively (and without annoyance) answered all of the questions he knew I had because everyone else had asked them. Yes, the divorce has been finalized. No, she still doesn’t accept it. Yes, he is sure that they’re not going to get married a third time. No, he’s not dating anyone. I didn’t ask about the girl on Facebook that it seems clear would sell her right arm to be his second/third (depending on if you’re counting marriages or people married) wife.

On the third side, I completely forgot my wallet when I met my friend Al in downtown Colosse. By sheer luck, there was a $5 bill sitting in the car so that I could pay for parking. But then I had to play the mooch (I offered to pay back, obviously) for what was easily the most expensive meal during my stay in Delosa.

{Editor’s note: this post contains discussion of some topics which are a tad controversial and also some terms that evoke a certain amount of ickiness like buttsecks. Try to keep comments appropriate and logical.}

GLAAD is attacking the TV show The View recently. In an oddity, it’s nothing to do with the usual items, and everything to do with commentary from cohost Sherri Shepherd and guest D.L. Hughley regarding the HIV epidemic in the black female population and its relationship with a phenomenon sometimes referred to as “the down low“. GLAAD, after this discussion, has been placing ads demanding a retraction from the show, as well as claiming the CDC has “debunked the myth”, and says the co-host and guest were “spreading false information about African-American gay and bisexual men.”

Of course, it’s not that simple. The CDC’s actual numbers (subpopulation estimates) show that only 17% of black women with HIV trace the infection to IV drug use; 83%, meanwhile, trace it to sex with infected men. Meanwhile, for males, 63% to 67% of the black male population are catching it from homosexual contact, with another 20% from heterosexual contact. That 20% number is also somewhat suspect, because the CDC’s numbers are based on self-reporting, and there exists a reasonable probability that it is skewed by men who acquired the virus through homosexual contact that they are unwilling to admit to.

The studies don’t track female-to-female sexual infections, partly because female-to-female oral contact (in whichever mode chosen) leaves almost zero risk of HIV transmission, and partly because no infection has ever been proven to have occurred on that basis.

Add to this basic risk factors. San Francisco Aids Foundation, following existing research, has a fact sheet regarding the risk of various sexual behaviors. Finding the precise numbers was not easy (link for that is About.com, and I’d prefer to have a more scientific link), possibly because of pressures from groups like GLAAD.

Based on the numbers, however, it’s hard to see how GLAAD reaches the conclusion that the CDC has “debunked” the idea that at least a sizable portion - if not a majority - of infected black women are being infected by closeted gay and/or “bisexual” black males. The highest risk of HIV infection is receptive anal sex, followed by insertive anal, followed by receptive vaginal, followed behind (by a full order of magnitude) by insertive vaginal. In other words, the idea that the 33% of infected black males contracting via heterosexual contact or drug needle sharing are somehow managing to account for the 80% of black women being infected, simply doesn’t stand up to logic.

On a more general topic - regarding the word “debunked”, I am so tempted to put the following audio clip on my phone, just so I can interrupt people and play it when they use that often misunderstood word…

Over on CNN, a lively “bullet points” discussion on when, if ever, one should not leave a tip ensues.

I personally was taught, growing up, that a 5% tip was the norm, with 10% earned for going a bit above, or more for being stellar. When I had a job as a teenager, the institution had a “no tipping policy”, but paid us roughly 30% more than the next highest-paying facility in the area to compensate. Today, whenever I see an etiquette guide, it seems to indicate that 15% is the “minimum” for a waiter/waitress.

As another oddity, it seems that restaurants are one of the few places able to get away with paying their employees far below minimum wage, on the basis that the tips “make up the difference” towards minimum wage. Some of the waiters/waitresses in the argument use this point to say that failure to tip is “stiffing” the waiter/waitress of expected wages, though I would make the point that if a restaurant sees an employee failing to make tips regularly (and the restaurant then having to make up the difference) while other employees on the same shift are doing fine, it should be an indication to the management that someone is leaving dissatisfied customers.

It also strikes me as quite a strange, annoying thought that I am going to go into a place that is legally required to list their prices on a menu, and then pad my estimation of my budget not only with sales tax, but with another 10-20% “expected” gratuity that isn’t calculated into the meal price.

There have been a few occasions where I have not left a very good tip due to bad service, and a few times where I have left a good tip for a waiter/waitress at a place I regularly went, when the mistake was obviously the kitchen’s and they went above and beyond (including having the manager comp part of the meal without prompting). On the other hand, only once have I had to do the “2 pennies in an upturned water glass” trick. The situation occurred at a Bennigan’s, where I and a number of SoTech friends were trying to get a meal during finals week. We hit the restaurant at around 2pm, a normal time to get quick service in a quiet restaurant, being well between normal lunch and dinner rushes. Instead, we got to watch for 45 minutes as our waitress ignored us, flirted with her boyfriend the cook through the kitchen door, and then brought us our obviously-cold food and tried to tell us the manager was “out sick today” when we asked to speak with him.

End result of her negligence: 2 pennies, in an upturned water glass, with the placards and placemats and other nearby items that could have been slid under the glass to reverse our little trick cheerfully relocated to other parts of the restaurant.

Some people don’t care about lyrics. Mr. Tone doesn’t. Before we got married, he had Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” on his alarm clock for more than a year. Didn’t depress him at all to wake up every day at 6:30 a.m. to “And YOOOOOOU could HAAAAYAVE it AAAAAALLLL, MYYYYYY emPIYRE of DIRT…” He’s not the kind of person who relates everything he hears to himself. I am.

Anyway, below is a dance song that’s been used a lot on various TV shows and commercials. French President Nicolas Sarkozy used the song for campaign purposes and got sued.

Even before I saw the weird video of the monsters chasing the toddler with the slutty teen-looking mom, I could not figure out why this song would be good for politics. When I first heard it, I thought it might be some sort of green-earth anthem, but I’m pretty sure that’s not it. Here are the lyrics:

You were a child,
crawlin’ on your knees toward it.
Makin’ mama so proud,
but your voice was too loud.

We like to watch you laughing.
You pick the insects off plants.
No time to think of consequences.

Control yourself.
Take only what you need from it.
A family of trees wantin’,
To be haunted.

Control yourself.
Take only what you need from it.
A family of trees wantin’,
To be haunted.

The water is warm,
but it’s sending me shivers.
A baby is born,
crying out for attention.
Memories fade,
like looking through a fogged mirror
Decision to decisions are made and not bought
But I thought,
this wouldn’t hurt a lot.
I guess not.

Crawling on your knees toward what? Take only what you need from what?

Drugs? Sex? Collective consciousness? What?

While we’re at it, here’s one from my single days. I’ve always had a thing for whiny men with messy hair, so you can see how I’d like The Verve. This song always intrigued me because he references a female friend, which is uncommon in pop culture, despite its commonness in real life.

Some people say he must be in love with the female friend, but it doesn’t seem like that to me. It seems that he’s just marveling at her ability to love. If there is an issue of love between them, it seems he’s warning her away from it.

My friend and me
Looking through her red box of memories
Faded I’m sure
But love seems to stick in her veins you know

Yes, there’s love if you want it
Don’t sound like no sonnet, my lord
Yes, there’s love if you want it
Don’t sound like no sonnet, my lord
My lord

Why can’t you see
That nature has its way of warning me
Eyes open wide
Looking at the heavens with a tear in my eye

Yes, there’s love if you want it
Don’t sound like no sonnet, my lord
Yes, there’s love if you want it
Don’t sound like no sonnet, my lord
My lord

Sinking fast within a boat without a hull
My lord
Dreaming about the day when I can see you there
My side
By my side

Here we go again and my head is gone, my lord
I stop to say hello
‘Cause I think you should know by now

Will’s having some issues regarding flashenlights.
A while ago I wrote about das blinkenlights, in my search for a way to actually darken my bedroom for sleep.

Since then, of course, I no longer room with John Fustle. I’ve bought my own house, and these days my bedroom is Mine. While being almost as big as the one I previously rented, it is by virtue of being Mine and therefore not requiring me to compartmentalize my life to it somewhat, curiously devoid of most of the clutter and itemage that previously made up my bedroom.

The best note is that the computer - a source of both light and noise - is now safely ensconced in its own room, my office. The downside is that I still keep a TV and dvd player, for relaxing and watching something before sleep. I’ve pondered on a few occasions whether I’d get more sleep without it, or whether I’d simply get to the bedroom later.

However, I’ve still been doing a round of hunting for light sources. I have blackout curtains, which mostly deal with the fact that there’s a streetlight shining onto the window. There seems to be an “on/off/fault” light, or combination thereof, on every single surge strip known to mankind. Most of these are INSANELY bright. As mentioned previously, televisions seem to love to have a little red light to tell you they are “off.” No idea why.

My bluetooth phone headset lights up with a creepy, freakishly bright blue blinking light to indicate it’s charging. My cell phone likes to turn the screen light on and beep at me just to indicate it has reached full charge, which generally happens around midnight and is damn annoying. In fact, they’re so annoying that if I can work out the details, I’m thinking of moving the charge station to the office. The downside there is that if they’re not in the bedroom, the chance of my heading to work in a zombielike, autopilot state without picking them up increases.

The worst irritation these days, however, is the fact that when getting up in the morning, it’s rather difficult to ensure enough light to wake up. I’m one of those people that likes it dark for sleep, but needs a certain amount of light to get me going and wakeful again. Maybe I do finally need to give in and purchase an alarm clock with a full-spectrum daylight bulb or something, just for that purpose.

I voted recently in the primary. I knew that I lived in a Republican county, but was somewhat surprised to discover that there is not a single Democrat running for office in Dent County. And nobody is running for County Attorney on either ticket.

I’ve been watching a number of cop shows lately. It’s getting to the point that if there is a Catholic priest involved, it’s a plot twist if pedophilia isn’t an angle.

I wish that Microsoft would let me just update all of the Windows updates required over a sustained period of time. Like, I say “update to current” on my laptop and let it sit in the corner over a weekend and then it will be done. I want to be updated and I can go a while without using it, but it can’t seem to just do one without the other and I don’t want to have to hand-hold it.

I upgraded one of my laptops to Vista and that thing is going to be upgrading until next year. Plus, it’s Vista. Wish me luck.

I’m going to keep saying this until I am blue in the face, but that Google Docs cannot handle documents greater than 500kb makes it impossible to take it seriously. Come on. 500kb? From the same people that trailblazed 2GB worth of email space?!

I would be remiss not to point out iPhone’s latest failing. But it’s not a failing, says Steve Jobs. As long as you hold it with three fingers while standing on one leg and hopping up and down it works perfectly. Non-issue. Somehow this is AT&T’s fault.

Arapaho, like Deseret, does not rely on air conditioning the same way that the south and southwest does. We happened to get a house with AC in it anyway. If the last few days have taught me anything, it’s that air conditioning will not be optional in the future.

Two days in a row I’ve gone to the local barber shop and two days in a row I’ve been told that they can’t see me today. They don’t take appointments. Maybe I’ll just grow my hair out shaggy. When it gets cooler, that is.

It seems that whenever I am travelling, I do so in bunches. I’m heading out to Delosa as we speak to spend time with relatives and see friends in Colosse. Then, two weeks after I get back, I’ll be flying out to the east coast for my cousin’s wedding. I’ll go from not having seen my parents in six months to seeing them twice on two different coasts!

The party’s over. I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life being one of those people who grills chicken breasts and eats salads for my main course. Oh, and white wine spritzers. I’m sure a lot of it is the liquor.

I think I’ve been kidding myself that the type of calories made a difference. This is classy, expensive fat I’m wearing. Sushi fat, foie gras fat, gourmet home cooking fat, fancy cocktails with muddled homegrown herbs fat. And lots of vegetables! Unfortunately, vegetables don’t have negative calories.

I had figured after I had the last baby, the weight was just going to drop off. Or, I’d find all kinds of time to work out on maternity leave. But, no, I’m going to have to waddle back into a courtroom full of Size 2s next week and face the music in whatever suits still fit me.

The times in my life I’ve been thin, I didn’t work all that hard at it. My lifestyle just kind of made it happen. More natural activity; fewer opportunities to eat. I was figuring that eventually, things would shift my way again. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I’m just going to have to be less fun. A low-fat life. Maybe even non-fat.

Isn’t a big part of the good part of being married coming home to a nice meal, with your wife shaking up cocktails? I bet no one fantasizes about coming home to a salad. Well, maybe Phi does. Maybe he’ll give me his Mediterranean Chicken Salad recipe.

If only I were married to this guy. My husband is an ectomorph who jumps rope in the living room at 6 a.m.

The thing about nowadays: Anywhere I go, I’m in good company. I don’t know if there’s anywhere with all skinny people anymore. Maybe Manhattan? But certainly not Los Angeles. Even trendy Los Angeles, even rich Los Angeles. Hollywood, Rodeo Drive*, even the opera. Lots of women of all ages rocking the Meghan McCain look, or more.

————————————————————————–

*I was there buying cheese.

Since getting my new widescreen TV, I am torn on the virtues of widescreen video versus regular video. I am coming around to widescreen. However, it really does a number when there are subtitles. They have to put them all over the faces of the characters.

One of the funny things about Facebook is discovering the political leanings of people you had no idea. On at least a couple of occasions, I’ve found myself saying “Wait, you’re a Republican? No way!” (two girls I didn’t know very well but still wouldn’t have guessed and one guy I knew reasonably well but was a socialist back in high school) and on one occasion was stunned to find out that a guy I knew was (a) a Mormon and (b) extremely liberal. That frankly surprised me more than the high school buddy I found out was gay.

Verizon placed a $40 for “Verizon Wireless’ and Other Charges & Credits” with not much in the way of explanation. The description they gave, which was pretty vague, left me with the impression that this was going to be a regular thing. Like “Yeah, we got towers to build and so we’re passing the charges on to you.” Which is sorta the kind of thing you want to know before you sign a contract. So I waited to get my bill and found out that, whew, it was a one time charge. But it was a restocking fee for having replaced my phone. The thing is, I replaced the phone because it wasn’t working. I replaced the phone with the exact same model. I thought that was uncool and wrote Verizon saying so. They wrote back within a day and said that the charge had been removed. Well, it shouldn’t have been there in the first place, but I’ll take the result.

Shame on the makers of the car air fresheners who release different smells with the same color. I thought I was buying something piney but now instead the car smells like there’s breeding Jolly Ranchers inside.

I can’t seem to get the hang of the whole “going to bed” thing. I’ve been staying up really late and sleeping till noon. This isn’t very much like me, but every night I plan to go to bed around midnight and something gets lost between 12:30 and 3:30 and by 3:30 I start getting a second wind. I need to start taking my melatonin earlier in the day.

I was at Walmart the other day. The closest one is in Redstone, an hour away, so it’s a big deal when I get to go and I have to make a list and everything. One thing that’s always on the list is Dove Sugar-Free Dark Chocolates, which Clancy absolutely loves. The last three times I’ve gone they’ve been out. This time around they had a bunch of them there. But they were out of them as soon as I left the aisle. Clancy is well-stocked for some time to come.

It’s really annoying how people that genuinely like vegetables tend to believe that just about everything but vegetables will kill you.

I was eating at a fast food restaurant in Redstone the other day. The place was empty. So why did the group of loud young people feel the need to sit in a booth adjacent to mine? Seriously, they had the whole place! Muttermutter.

I’ve been making more regular trips to Redstone lately. I think it’s in part because the audiobook I am listening to got really interesting.

I think The Hangover is one of those movies that I’m going to end up watching once a year or so.

I’m on season five of the TV show Las Vegas. Sam Marquez, one of my favorite characters, is getting more screen time to compensate for some cast departures after season four. Unfortunately, I can’t even enjoy her increased presence because for some inexplicable reason they’ve got her wearing nail polish all the time. Boo.

Via Dear Old Prudence. Question in a moment - but first, my take: Prudie is trying to let the girl down gently, but wow, is she off base.

Q. Interracial Relationships: My long-term boyfriend recently informed me that, because I’m white and he’s Indian and Muslim, I could never be a good parent to children (that don’t yet exist) that are half his. Basically, he didn’t want to continue our relationship because he believes that Indian/Muslim children should have two Indian/Muslim parents, not one white parent and one Indian/Muslim parent (although if we had children, obviously half of their genes would come from me). When I tried to counter his arguments, he called me racist and said that I would never understand. I had to break up with him, but I’m still so enraged—I would be a great mom to any children, and I seriously think he’s wrong. I think he’s afraid to talk to his parents about our relationship (they have relatively firm religious beliefs, whereas he is nonreligious but values Muslim cultural traditions), so he decided that ending things was the best plan. How should I have reacted, and how do I react now, since he still wants to be friends? (Note: This isn’t about religion. He is quite firmly against organized religion, so he would never ask me to take up any religious beliefs, and offering to do that wouldn’t help the situation, as it would fly in the face of his beliefs about organized religion.)

Prudence, for whatever reason (based on previous columns, she’s perfectly capable of launching into a rant), softpedaled her answer to the point where it was almost inapplicable. So, here’s what I consider a better answer than Prudie gave:

Let’s look at a few things.
- First, he doesn’t want to have kids with you and says you’d be an unfit mother.
- Second he’s “Indian/Muslim”, and wants to raise any kids he has that way, yet has told you that he is “against organized religion.” Something here does not add up.
- Third, you didn’t “have to break up with him.” He broke up with you.

Now for the type of brutal honesty you need to hear. In addition to being a complete dupe, he’s used you for years of sex. Obviously, he’s found something better now. Either his parents arranged a marriage, or something else has come along for him.

When he says he “still wants to be friends”, he’s trying to get you to have postrelationship sex with him. You’re still being used.

Get over him, and be grateful you’re not like some women (much more common than many believe) whose Muslim husband drags her off to his home country and only then informs her that his previous description of how life would be was, well, a bunch of hooey. Your next step is to cut ties with the jerk and find someone far better.

Here at HC, we occasionally discuss the death penalty, its application, and the idea of finding a sympathetic vs. unsympathetic defendant.

Will is on record as being generally (for a moral position) opposed to the death penalty, but occasionally has admitted that certain defendants probably deserve it. I’ve no idea what Sheila’s position is yet.

That being said, another interesting case is coming up - the case of Gardner v. Utah.

This is a weird one. The facts aren’t even remotely in doubt: Gardner was in a courthouse in 1985, being arraigned for the murder of an employee of a bar. He eventually plea-bargained this to 2nd degree manslaughter later. On the day of this hearing, he managed to get an illegal firearm smuggled to him, attempted a breakout (one of numerous times he attempted to break out of prison/court custody), and in the course of his escape attempt, shot an attorney to death.

Whether you think the death penalty is a good or bad thing, the facts in the case leave little doubt - Gardner is a multiple-time convicted murderer, who shot an innocent bystander in cold blood. In other words, in many respects he’s the perfect candidate for the death penalty.

One oddity I find in the case is the latest line of his attorney’s attempts to file appeals; they are now claiming (after years upon years of appeals, hearings, and filings, a tactic often deliberately misused by the defense side to play for time, in hopes of either acquiring a sympathetic judge by roulette, or of stalling for a suitably left-wing governor who’ll impose a death penalty moratorium), that executing Gardner today after 25 years of appeals and delays is “too long” and constitutes cruel or unusual punishment under the 8th amendment.

Yes, this is correct. The lawyer’s argument is that giving the man as many appeals as possible - dignifying the lawyer’s own obvious stall tactics by granting every possible appeal possible its own hearing - is itself “cruel.” That’s what we’re down to. I find it very hard to dredge up sympathy for this argument.

One of the nuisances of living in Colosse is that the “homeowners’ associations” have way too much goddamn power. Almost nowhere that one can buy a house, is there not an “association” and deed restrictions, unless one lives 2-3 hours outside of downtown. The services provided by said “associations” appear to be largely meaningless, as well - my locality, for instance, has a set of public park areas paid for by the City (not the HOA), and we have no pool nearby; in Fustle’s old HOA, there had been a community pool, but the hours it kept and the fact that it was only open between Memorial Day and Labor Day made it next-to-impossible to use effectively.

The problem, in Colosse at least, is that HOA’s don’t actually operate as an association of homeowners. Mine has yet, to my knowledge, to actually hold a damn meeting. Instead, what they do is contract out “inspectors” to drive various neighborhoods, and contract a scum-sucking shyster snake (aka “lawyer”) to send out threat letters telling people to mow their grass or edge their sidewalk.

Of course, these letters are sent out in bulk post, usually arrive 5 days after the date of “please get this done by X date… OR ELSE, FUCKING PEON” on the letter, and are generally as impersonal and insulting as possible. I got my first one yesterday. Ironically, I’d already edged my sidewalk earlier that week - it was just that with the daily rain happening during that week, the grass was growing like weeds.

On the other hand, these are lawyers, the scum-sucking snakes of the human world. So, just in case, I edged the damn driveway and sidewalk again to be sure it looked freshly done if they came by again.

Normally I count on Half Sigma to say something about this kind of stuff, but apparently he’s too busy playing with his new kitten to care about the annihilation of his gender.

The Atlantic loves to do these doomsday articles. We can count on sites like the good ol’ Spearhead to reward such efforts by shrieking hysterically and wringing their hands about the pending downfall of society, thanks to us meddling feminists.

Jezebel points out they had a similar article last year about the putative “end of white America,” and notes that the top is still full of men. Omega Man agrees, albeit in the typical Spear-sphere fashion of acting as if women have no problems except those they create for themselves by competing for the local whipping boys, those dread alpha males:

I hate the Atlantic. It represents the kind of elitist liberalism that makes life miserable for the unchosen, such as me and my audience. A key point to remember about this is it shows not the rise of women, but the rise of alpha males and their fawning harems. The author notes with puzzlement the few women at the very top- duh, those jobs are now held and always will be by alpha males. Women are pushing out beta males, becoming single mothers … [Sheila responds: Whoo-hoo, we get to be single mothers! Whose fault is this, Mr. 40-something Bachelor?]

For me, and you the omega or low-status male reader, the question is how do we get by in this sick world? As ever you must be the lone wolf independent contractor. Your relationship with your job, your boss and your coworkers can’t be one of being part of a family or a social group, because in such a relationship you are powerless and dependent.

I don’t buy Omega Man as a prole or “low-status” for one second, given the way he writes. No matter how many motorcycle pictures he puts up on his site. But his focus on jobs and the economy (rather than blaming feminists) is appropriate. Average folks are losing out. Women just haven’t been as hard hit by the recession because we were farther behind in the first place. We’re not benefiting from the new economy either, points out the American Prospect:

Many of the fastest-growing, female-dominated industries, which do not require a college education, are among the lowest paid. And while there are a handful of female CEOs and senators, women have yet to crack the glass ceiling with any sort of critical mass. (Rosin’s piece, I should note, appears in The Atlantic’s annual ideas issue, in which only three out of 15 “ideas” articles are written by women. How bold of the editors to apply some affirmative action to advance the careers of men in the “thinking and communicating” magazine industry, where they are at such a disadvantage!)

In keeping with the college-cures-all-ills meme, the Atlantic article crows about the fact that most college graduates are women nowadays. We’ve discussed before in this blogosphere why that’s not necessarily a gain: People graduate with huge debt burdens, and much of the gain is due to the proliferation of low-status colleges that don’t get anything for their graduates. In other words, education inflation. The Atlantic even notes that men with only high school diplomas still outearn women with only high school diplomas.

The Prospect’s theme is that it’s not really the male gender that’s been dealt a blow — it’s lower-class (they call it “traditional” or “working-class”) style of masculinity. So we turn to the question of whether that’s a bad thing. If the economy doesn’t need that kind of man, does society? I was brought up to hold myself above lazy men, violent men, and most of all, dumb men. That didn’t come from shadowy gangs of feminist Illuminati. That came from a dad who grew up without an indoor toilet.

The MRA types can’t make up their minds: They alternate between ridiculing us for craving he-men, and flagellating us for emasculating them with our demands for sensitivity and toilet-seat-lowering. They want us to value, even worship, their superior earning power … except when they don’t have any. Then we’re scheming hypergamists.

At some point along the way, Will Smith (or his harpy of a wife) decided that his son should be an actor. But since nobody in their right mind would actually CAST the talentless little tard, well, he did the next best thing and bought his kid a movie.

This is not going to be a feel-good movie review. And admittedly, I am comparing the movie to the original classic. But the comparisons need to be made, because let’s face it, NONE of this movie stands up to the example set forth for it by its predecessor.

In the original movie, Ralph Macchio plays Daniel LaRusso, a kid uprooted from his hometown; Pat Morita plays the kindly Mr. Miyagi, the apartment handyman who sees members of the Cobra Kai dojo picking on Daniel, and steps in - teaching Daniel karate, and negotiating a “truce” long enough for Daniel to train for an upcoming tournament to face his persecutors.

In the remake, much remains the same, but at worse-off levels. Jackie Chan plays “Mr. Han”, again the apartment handyman. Mr. Han, instead of being a soft-spoken, kindly, respectable man who mourns for his wife and the son lost in childbirth, is instead a drunken-ass sot of a loser whose family was lost through much more personal mistakes. “Dre Parker” (the talentless Smith kid), rather than being a respectable kid who gets picked on, is a sassy kid who walks around treating just about everyone around him except for the Obligatory Love Interest as crap, and actually instigates the fight that “Mr. Han” has to break up.

Sprinkled liberally into the movie - very obviously, and quite disjointed from the rest of the film - are various little propaganda insertions. Apparently a condition of filming in China is having the film ruthlessly screwed with by Ye Olde Ministry Of Truth(tm).

The writing is so bad that they take the time-honored philosophical concept if “Chi” and throw it away to let the talentless Smith kid make a Jedi joke, which pretty much falls flat and had even the sympathetic audience (I saw the movie at a premiere showing which had a large number of kids and had an ACTUAL martial arts demonstration by a local, but very highly respected, dojang to precede it) wondering how the joke got into the movie, while I imagined the director grinning and saying “take THAT, history.”

Speaking of the director - the tournament sequence is basically unwatchable. The director’s got a love of barely-out-of-focus, highly zoomed in shakycam that was nasty enough to give half the studio nausea and/or vertigo trouble. For those who are susceptible, this is a usual thing (I have friends who couldn’t handle the Bourne movies, for instance). For me, and for most of the audience there, to have it? I have to wonder how the hell this EVER got past preview screenings, or if they noticed it in those but the director said “screw you, if you make me reshoot we go $xmillion over budget” and some studio bean counter decided they’d just take the risk.

Save yourself the money and aggravation: rent the classic.

Really, gamebois. Don’t make it this easy to rip on your clueless zealotry.

When I heard that Joran Van der Sloot, the Natalee Holloway suspect, had admitted to killing yet another young woman, I thought: I’ll bet I can find some sad twisted alpha-beta obsessive to beat on somewhere whining about how this happened because WOMEN DIG BAD BOYS! (They would have conveniently overlooked the part about the victim, Stephany Flores, was a lesbian.)

So I googled “Joran Vandersloot” and “alpha.” I figured I might find my whipping boy on some obscure blog, or a few hundred comments down on an msnbc story or something.

But no. The good old reliable Spearhead spoon-fed it to me, with Joran Van der Sloot: New Pinup Boy for Starry-Eyed Female Fans of Killers?” (Nice little weaselly question mark there, guys.)

However, despite what they say, women seem to be most enthralled with society’s most dangerous and violent men. In fact, convicted killers and rapists such as Scott Peterson and Richard Ramirez are far more likely on any given day to receive amorous attention from women than, say, some guy schlepping away day after day to provide a nest egg for a future wife and children. Scott Peterson received dozens of marriage proposals on his first day of incarceration.

Therefore, it is hardly surprising that Joran Van der Sloot, who has long been suspected of murdering Natalee Holloway, has had an active sex life since the teenage girl disappeared — most likely under the waves of the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Aruba. His success with women since the original case has been legendary: Van der Sloot has appeared in numerous sexually suggestive photos with women who are obviously deeply in love with him.

“Legendary, “numerous,” “sexually suggestive, “and “obviously deeply in love with him.” To back up these bold assertions, they provide three photos of Van der Sloot: One where he’s being chastely kissed on the cheek by two girls, one where a girl is hugging him, and one where a girl is resting her arm on him. They look like photos taken at parties.*

Let’s just completely ignore the fact that Van der Sloot was never convicted, or tried, of anything at the time those photos were taken. More importantly — and this is where gamebois really bug me — let’s pretend the guy isn’t rich, tall, and attractive. Most importantly — he’s rich (and so, probably, were the girls he was partying with.) But no, you don’t like to think any of that matters. It has to be his Bad Boy Game.

It’s beginning to look as if he’s a serial killer and a sociopath. If he is, well — sociopaths know how to charm people, don’t they? So he probably acted like the complete opposite of a jerk. Hell, if the young women he hung around with knew about the Holloway scandal when they met him, he probably milked it for sympathy for being unjustly accused. I’ll bet he even cried when he talked about it.

Isn’t that what you guys say attractive women are supposed to do — have sex with persecuted underdogs? They’re supposed to be the good guys, right?

It’s sad and sick that, effectively, they’re blaming this poor young woman for her death. And, they’re trying to contort her tragedy into ammunition to blast women for not having no-strings sex with the likes of themselves. In actuality, not only was Stephany Flores not attracted to him because of his putative killer status, it sounds as if he killed her in a rage for figuring it out.

But hey, don’t let the facts get in the way of your argument.
___________________________________
*Back in college days, there were a few times at conferences or parties that some strange guy would come up and just ask me to pose for a picture with him. I always did it. It was finally explained to me that the guy was probably going to go back home and claim he had sex with me.

Upon finding out about Henry Granju’s death, one of the thoughts that crossed my mind was that this was potentially very bad news for the guys that beat him up to begin with. Not just because the crime became more serious, but also because Mamapundit’s (and her family’s) attention was previously divided between caring for Henry and trying to light a fire under the Knox County Sheriff’s Office’s posterior and soon it will not be as divided. Now there’s nothing left but mourning and justice.

Sure enough.

Ms. Granju had complained before about getting the runaround from the investigators because without any statement from the victim there is no victim. After she explained that the victim in this case was incapable of speaking, they basically intimated that there likely would not be an investigation. My initial thought was that crimes like this are probably hard to investigate, but Granju provided names of witnesses and other people to talk to.

There are between 400 and 600 assaults in Knoxville every year and another 400 in Knox County. There are, however, less than thirty murders in the city or the county. It’s maddening that it takes a death to get their attention, but apparently it does. The fact that the deceased was an addict who was in a place he should not have been probably plays a role in their seeming indifference. But one thing we have to keep in mind is that whatever Henry’s mistakes, he paid for them. Those that beat the tar out of him have not.

I’d still imagine that a crime like this is going to be difficult to pinpoint and prove (depending on what exactly Granju was able to give them), but even prior to it being a murder irreparable damage was done. A kid shouldn’t have to actually die or have a blogger for a mother for the police to consider it serious enough to investigate.

The second saddest post was on MamaPundit, where she pointed out that her son, on admittance to the rehab facility last year, scored in the 99th percentile on verbal ability and comprehension. At the time of the posting, he was unable to speak or read.

The first saddest post contained no text and three pictures. Entitled: “Henry Louis Granju 1991-2010″