Strange Happenings in Franklin Field

TvDetective and I did something highly unusual yesterday for lunch: we went to the cafeteria at the University Museum.  She wasn’t hungry, actually, so the plan was for me to eat while she watched interestedly.  But our trip to the museum took us by Franklin Field.  “What are all those people doing in the stadium?” we asked as we walked by the seemingly crowded venue.  But TvD noticed that nobody was moving.  In fact, all those fans in the stands turned out to be inflatable dummies (not unlike some of the actual attendees of the university, but that’s a different topic.)  Well, after a very tasty chicken parmesan with linguini, I ran back to my office and grabbed my D70 before heading back to the stadium to take photos.  Here’s some of what I saw:

      

Apparently they’re filming a movie called “Invincible,” a movie about former Philadelphia Eagles wide reciever Vince Papale and starring Mark Wahlberg and Greg Kinnear.  Gotta get me over there and get my photo with Marky Mark.  Maybe he’ll do me while he’s at it.  Hey.  A guy can dream….

To clean the impossible clean

I did it!  I wasn’t even sure it could be done, but I did it—possibly because Fishy is out of town  (Kidding, Fishy! Kidding!)  After discovering ants in the house, I made a vow to clean the house totally, utterly, and completely.  Fishy didn’t believe me, I don’t think, but I was—and am—dead serious.  As proof of concept, I proudly present my living room, before and after:

  

  

You may now congratulate me.  Next stop: the bedroom.

Weakness

In another moment of bubble tea weakness, I bought another bubble tea.  Jasmine Green, non-latte.  Mmmmmm.  Non-latte…  Actually, it wasn’t so much a moment of weakness, because i’d been planning it for two hours ahead of time, but if I call it a moment, I feel so much less guilty.

Hmmm.  I was just going to say that I deserve a bubble tea as a reward for biting my nails less lately (I’ve been biting my nails less lately.  In fact, I’ve been barely biting my nails at all.)  I started wearing a rubber band (just a plain brown one from the mail room—not a WWJD or Lance Armstrong one) on my wrist so I could snap it every time I caught myself biting my nails, and that really seems to have done the trick.  But not long after I started wearing it, I also stopped drinking caffeine and sugar drinks.  So it just struck me that possibly the lack of sugar and caffeine is related to my decreased nail-biting! 

Either way, with actual fingernails at my disposal again, Fishy will have almost no reason to bruise me anymore.  Not that he really needs an excuse…

Caf-fiend

I am trying SO FREAKING HARD to give up caffeine and sugar drinks completely, but it is so much more difficult than I’d imagined.  I’ve successfully gone a week without coffee, but I had a Jasmine Green bubble tea today (thanks to Melba Lee for introducing me to those bad boys) and MAN did it hit the spot. I wish I’d gotten a jumbo instead of a regular. The sugar is almost harder to give up than the caffeine.   But I’m pretty much off soda entirely (although there are those times when you just need a Coke, like at a picnic or something like that), and I haven’t had a snapple or similar beverage in months.  When does it get easier??

Buzz...Buzz...BITE!

I got bitten by a mosquito inside my own home last nite.  I completely blame Fishy for this outrage.  If he’d been home, the mosquito would’ve gone after him instead.   I never get bitten when Fishy is around.  Um…except by Fishy, of course.

 

No offense to Catholics but...

You may remember that Pope Benedict XVI—formerly a member of the Hitler youth, and a man whose anti-contraceptive policies have directly caused the infection and death of thousands and thousands of Africans from HIV ( In South Africa alone, 600-1,000 people are thought to die every day because of Aids. )—referred to gay unions as “anarchic.”  Now the Catholic Church—known for its criminal conspiracy to cover up the ongoing rape of small children for several decades in order to protect its own reputation and bank account— has “attacked Canada's legalization of gay marriage, calling it a distortion of God's plan for the family.”  Just thought you should know God’s representative on Earth is upto these days.

 

 

TvDetective Quote #6

“I wish I could show you my inner thigh—I have bug bites in the shape of the big dipper.”

Ann Coulter, Plagiarist

It’s always good to see Ann Coulter getting recognized for the lowlife she really is.

New Nominee pt 2.

Ok, I’d like to amend my earlier prediction.   I’ve decided that Roberts will get confirmed.  Despite his almost non-existent record to judge him by (which should be a reason to keep him off the court on its own, IMHO), there’s not much in the way of good reasons to vote him down or filibuster him.  So now i think Roberts will be confirmed, and that Gonzalez or someone similarly moderate (on the subject of abortion, anyway) will be nominated when Renquist steps down or dies.

Consultation

Bush was just saying that he consulted with over 70 members of the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans.  Now, what the heck was the point of that?  He picked someone that any liberal in their right mind would despise (from a political standpoint, anyway).  So what was all that consulting b.s. about?

New Nominee

As we all know by now, our President has nominated John G. Roberts as his nominee to the United States Supreme Court to fill the slot recently vacated by Sandra Day O’Connor.  Not surprisingly, he has chosen a devisive nominee rather than a consensus candidate.  Since the Presidnet hasn’t even given his speech yet, we don’t know a lot about this man other than the fact that he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. and is pro-corporate and anti-environment.

Given that such a justice would tip the balance of the court in the other direction.  This serves two purposes in my mind: First, it will overjoy the religious right who form the core voters that got Bush and his cronies (or is that the other way around?) into office.  Second, it will all but ensure a filibuster in the Senate, and Bush will ultimately have to nominate a more moderate candidate.

Bush knows this.  In fact, he’s depending on it.  The last thing that the GOP wants is to do is overturn Roe v. Wade.  They need it as a rallying issue.  Without abortion, the religious right won’t vote in the same numbers.

I could be wrong.  In fact, I hope I’m wrong—more on that later—but that’s my prediction: Roberts won’t get confirmed, and a more moderate candidate will be nominated.

Sunset

I acknowledge that we are living in exceptional times, and that given the nature of crimes of terrorism, exceptional measures need to be taken.  That is, more-or-less, the rationale under which the so-called Patriot Act was passed.  But let us not forget: these are exceptional measures.  These are *clear* violations of our civil rights—violations which Americans have agreed to because they are willing to make a temporary sacrifice in order to insure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense.

But since they’re exceptions, since they are blatant violations of the principles we hold dear, why not have sunset provisions for them?  Why would you want to make such morally offensive laws permanent? If the Patriot Act remains both effective and necessary, then Congress should gladly extend the expiration date a few more years at which time we can reconsider it. If not, then they will gracefully expire.

As for the argument that these provisions don’t NEED an expiration date, that Congress can repeal them any time it wants, I don’t buy it.  The sunset provisions force the Patriot Act back onto the agenda, force the American people to discuss it and to reevaluate whether it’s still necessary.

Republicans of all people should be more than glad to put an expiration date on laws that extend government’s power to such a ridiculous degree.  But instead—either out of blind loyality to their party leadership, fear of their party leadership, or out of sheer ignorance—they’re pushing the Patriot Act harder than ever.

 

 

Holy mother of crap it's hot!

You’re probably wondering what all of us here at the Itchy Lot are doing to beat this swampy, oppressive heat storm we’re all suffering through here in the city of Philadelphia.  Well, not having been brought up by our mommas to be fools, we’ve taken a multi-pronged approach:

1. Air Conditioner.  We have window units (although I’ll be glad to accept any donations toward a central-air installation) in 3 rooms.  In the interest of saving money, however, it’s also advisable to spend as much time as possible at Borders or Barnes & Noble, where you can spend hours reading books and enjoying a far more enjoyable climate, all for the cost of a bus token.

2. Ceiling and window Fans.  Where A/C is not possible we use the ceiling fans installed by previous residents. Window fans can also be highly effective if you open windows (yes, Fishy, I know: open more than one window on each floor.) and the air outside is cooler than the inside.

3. Eat cold food.  My favorite way to stay cool is to eat a dish of frozen grapes when I come in from the heat.  You don’t want to let these suckers thaw too much because they get mushy.  But a good, sweet, frozen green seedless grape is a thing of wonder.  You can bet the early American settlers heading west in the summertime would’ve killed for a treat like this.  Even Fishy, who once dismissed frozen grapes as “just wrong,” now enjoys them along with me, meaning I have to keep more on stock since they disappear that much faster. 

The other great cold food I like to eat is frozen watermelon.  You get a nice ripe sweet watermelon, cut it into cubes, and freeze it.  Then, when the heatwave strikes, you dump the cubes into a food processor and grind it into watermelon waterice.  Of course, this requires a bit more work than just rinsing some grapes and sticking them in the freezer for later enjoyment, but it’s worth it.  Also, because of the extra work involved, I don’t have to worry about Fishy eating it all on his own.

Biden for Prez! (Not!)

From “Seeing the Forest”:

“I have three sound reasons for despising Senator Biden. The first is his singular role in passing the legislative abomination that was called bankruptcy reform. The second reason is that he is a warmonger lite Democrat who has been spinelessly supportive of Bush's Iraq war. The third reason I despise Senator Biden is that he continually refers to George Bush as a "good man." George Bush is not a good man and Senator Biden is contemptible for saying he is.”

I’ll agree with that, but I’ll throw in one more reason (there are more, but I have to stop somewhere):  When Howard Dean came out and started criticizing the Republicans (FINALLY!!), Biden was one of the Democrats who criticized DEAN instead of standing behind him. For Pete’s sake! The GOP is running our country into the ground and Biden decides to criticize other Democrats instead!

Biden is no friend to the American people.  If he’s going to cozy up to the administration the way he’s been doing, he may as well just switch parties while he’s at it.

 

My Mean Boy

The similarities of Fishy with this Mean Girl, Annie, are almost disturbing.  Two quick examples:

1.  Annie: I wish I was strong enough to break your arm in half!

2.  Chris: Ow!
     Annie: Haha—whatever you did!

Those of you know Fishy understand.

Cingular Signal Sucks in City of DC

Sorry, couldn’t figure out a way to alliterate that last word.  We’ve been having a lot of problems (read: every single phone call) with Fishy’s phone in Washington, DC.  We’re both former ATT customers, and therefore now we’re Cingular customers. And every time we’re on the phone together, the call gets dropped. Doesn’t matter if he has 1 bar or 5 bars.  We know it’s his phone and not mine because it even happens when I’m on the land line.  My phone is an older, TDMA Nokia, and I love it.  It has no color. It has no camera.  It has no mp3 ringtones.  But it makes phonecalls, and what the hell else do you really need a phone to do?  Fishy’s GSM Motorola V60 (which neither of us have been happy with, even though we were looking forward to it for months before it’s release) does all sorts of crazy stuff, but drops calls left and right, at least in DC on the Cingular network.  We’re talking about switching to Verizon as soon as we can.

I was going to ask if anyone out there was having the same issue (not that anyone EVER leaves comments) but apparently we’re not alone in this problem.  A quick google search brings back plenty of recent problems with Cingular dropping calls or kicking you straight into voicemail all over the country.  Here’s a recent post on Engadget.  One person even thinks it’s a scam to get customers to use more minutes, constantly calling each other back plus checking their voicemail for the missed calls.  Seems highly doubtful to me.  Providing shitty service (as Cingular is currently doing) is no way to endear yourself to customers who have proven themselves (as a group) more than willing to switch to a different Network if it suits their needs at the moment.  Especially now that we can take our numbers with us.

Anyway, I told Fishy to call Cingular and find out what’s up.  If customers don’t complain and start switching networks, then they really don’t have much motivation to fix the problem.  So if you’re having dropped calls with Cingular, call them and complain.

Paper Mario, Finished at Last!

  It has been a day of finishings.  First, I finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince—an accomplishment of 650 pages in 36 hours (less, actually, because I was at a family event for a lot of that time).  Then, tonite I finally finished Paper Mario: the 1000 Year Door.  Joe lent it to me and I’m proud to say I finally conquered is after 85 hours of game playing.  Don’t let that discourage you from playing it yourself.  It would be easily doable in more like 60 hours but i spent a lot of time exploring.  Anyway, it’s good to have it done.  That leaves just two more games in my queue: Metroid Prime 2 and the new Zelda game, the latter of which isn’t out yet and the former of which Joe isn’t done with yet.  This makes me happy because i have a wonderful sense of accomplishment for having finished a fun game, and it will make Fishy happy because i’m out of games to play and no longer have any excuse not to clean the house.  Hmmm… ok, so maybe I don’t have as much reason to be happy as Fishy does about this, but at least for tonite i’m in a good mood about it.  Tomorrow, I’ll clean.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Noddy and I reserved our copies of the new Harry Potter ahead of time so we didn't have to wait in line as long as the people who didn't reserve theirs. (We were #164 and #165 in a line of at least 400-500 people at the Barnes & Noble — or “Barnes and Nobles,” as Fishy would say.). They started selling the books right at midnight (the whole store counted down the last 20 seconds together). There were reporters both from newspapers and at least 2 tv networks interviewing enthusiastic customers:

        

I had finished the 650–page book about 36 hours later, spending every free moment with my face buried in the pages.  At one point, as my family drove back from Slower Delaware in the dark, I had to resort to reading in the back seat by the light of my iPod.)  As you have probably heard, another character dies in the book, so, as with #5 (Order of the Phoenix), I wanted to read it before I heard about it from someone else, or accidentally read one of the many spoilers already out there on the web.   (The Wikipedia already has a full chapter-by-chapter plot summary of the entire book, along with cross references, and the book hasn’t even been out for 2 days yet!)

The homeless in Canada are so much more creative

We saw this guy on Yonge Street in Toronto. I don’t know if it’s something in the water or air or the culture, but when’s the last time you saw someone in THIS country holding a sign like this:

He was actually in the background of a photo I took of Fishy, but I cut Fishy out of the photo so he wouldn’t get mad at me.  (Are you happy?? Huh?? Are you??)

TvDetective Quote #5

Here’s the second one:

“If I were a guy, I would totally want to date a slut like me.”