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Drooling on the Pillow

Saturday, July 30, 2005

In Truth, I Was Dazed and Confused. Naturally. 

According to this quiz:

You scored as Loner.

Punk/Rebel


44%

Drama nerd


44%

Loner


44%

Stoner


44%

Goth


38%

Ghetto gangsta


31%

Prep/Jock/Cheerleader


31%

Geek


19%

What's Your High School Stereotype?
created with QuizFarm.com


I expected drama nerd, but the fact that ghetto gangster scored higher than anything has got to improve my street cred.
Posted by: Sluggo / 11:26 PM
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New Jersey Weblogs 

I ran across New Jersey Weblogs about a week ago and blogrolled it a few days ago. I just figured it was another one of those parties I was pulling up to after all the fun people were headed home, but I see by way of Jim and Ken that it is something new. It surfs all listed New Jersey blogs for the latest posts and excerps the first few lines with a screen shot and a link. What a great idea. If you're not listed, get listed by emailing them at njweblogs@snet.net.
Posted by: Sluggo / 8:17 PM
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Friday, July 29, 2005

Brave, Blind and Very Tasty 


It started with a post at one of my favorite sites, Mick Hartley, about zombie chickens. Mick was musing on the possibility of developing a chicken with only enough neural activity to keep itself alive and whether that would represent a moral advance due to abbreviated suffering, or an ethical nightmare for Mary Shelley reasons.

A commenter provided a link to a web page devoted to Mike, The Headless Wonder Chicken, who, it is asserted, lived for 18 months after decapitation in Fruita, Colorado. This was in 1945. You don't want to miss the Mike's Story page. It's got pictures.

They have a festival in Fruita commemorating Mike's amazing will to live on the third weekend of every May.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting my Greyhound ticket tomorrow.

Let's see. The election was only about nine months ago. Senate Democrats are half-way to Mike's record.
Posted by: Sluggo / 2:46 PM
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Thursday, July 28, 2005

A-Borking We Will Go 

Sluggo has made a seamless summertime conversion from provider to consumer and just asks that as soon as you're done here, get back to your blog and post.

I'm okay with staring at the wall, but, as long as the air conditioner is working, I'd really rather have stuff to read.

For my daily gesture toward blogging I note some quacking in the New York Times letters section:
To the Editor:

Re "Skirmish Over a Query About Roberts's Faith"
(news article, July 26):

If, as appears undeniable, the administration and many
conservatives support Judge John G. Roberts for the
Supreme Court at least in part because they believe
that his Catholic faith will lead him to more conservative
conclusions on issues like abortion, why is it somehow
improper for the Senate to ask Judge Roberts whether
his faith will influence his conclusions on issues like abortion?

Simon J. Frankel
San Francisco, July 26, 2005
A few things. Grant Mr. Frankel his premise that one of Judge Roberts' selling points is the fact that he's a Catholic and likely anti-abortion. It should be pretty obvious why that fact doesn't lead logically to a Senate inquisition into his faith.
Clause 3: The Senators and Representatives before
mentioned, and the Members of the several State
Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers,
both of the United States and of the several States,
shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support
this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever
be required as a Qualification to any Office or public
Trust under the United States.
It's hard to imagine how the old boys could be any clearer than that. It's also obvious how important they thought this point was.

I'd love to hear a reporter, on one of those rare occasions when a Democratic senator takes a breath from screaming "Radical! . . . extremist! . . . out of the mainstream!", ask a question about some of the historically radical moves made by his party recently; from filibustering circuit judges to instituting ideological tests for confirmation.

I'm rather moderate myself on the abortion issue, but it's getting tiresome to point out that philosophical differences with "settled law" cannot be a disqualification to appointment and if it were (1) we would be living in a pre-Brown v. Board of Education world and (2) we would quickly devolve into a situation where only statist dolts could be confirmed.

For a group that yelps so much about a "living Constitution" the Democrats seem determined to put one right between it's eyes. In their drive to criminalize conservatism they seem perfectly oblivious to the situation they're creating for themselves for the day they regain the majority. The Republicans took a deep breath and helped confirm Ruth Bader Ginsburg by 96-3. But if the Dems don't take a step or two back you can be sure that nothing like that will ever happen again.

UPDATE: Thanks to Bob at eCache for pointing me to Cardinalpark's post at TigerHawk which notes that there are three Catholic justices now for whom Papism was not a confirmation issue and the first Catholic justice was confirmed in 1836.
Posted by: Sluggo / 12:12 PM
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Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Sliders 

Amid all the research into Snail Darter habitats and alternative fuels, Radley Balko find some news we really can use:

A GQ reporter embarks on a quest that would give Michael
Jacobson a case of the hives:

Alan Richman traveled 23,750 miles and consumed
more than 150,000 calories while taking the measure
of 162 burgers across the country with one goal: to
find you the best damned assemblage of ground beef
and buns this country serves up.
Mr. Balko has his own list, which indicates that 60% of the best American burgerfications occur in St. Louis. I went to college there and can attest to the high quality of the burgers offered by that town. The surprising thing, in a city with a large Italian population, is that it has the worst pizza in the universe. Think Campbell's tomato soup on a large round matzo, with dabs of white Velveeta here and there.
Posted by: Sluggo / 12:16 PM
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A House Is Not A Home. Sometimes It's Barely A House 

The iPod is very clever at throwing up the perfect tune at the perfect time. This morning I was feeling melancholy, but a kind of happy melancholy where you're enjoying the mood and could hop out any time you want. It's great mood to watch a noir movie or read a hard-boiled detective story by.

So I strap on the music injection system and it gives me Diana Krall singing Garden in the Rain. How do you do it, Mr. iPod?

In other news, the house is also catching my mood. The pipes started howling last week. Actually one pipe, somewhere vaguely basement rear. But you have to be standing next to it to know exactly which one and it only does it a couple of times a day. No evident relationship to water use. I've gotten all the advice I need; sediment, brass to aluminum fittings and the ever popular air pockets. But you and I both know it's just a matter of being completely over the heat wave.

And the front storm door refused to open yesterday for about half an hour. It was stuck in a way that forestalled conversation. It wasn't going to discuss the situation and it most definitely wasn't going to open. And then it did. Just as easily as ever.

Speaking of conversations, the stairs will not shut up. Walking up the steps is like talking to my Aunt Myrt. You call her up and ask how she's doing and she'll say "Don't ask!" and then take you through a forty-five minute tour of her body; every ache, every pain, every leaky pipe.

My house is getting as crabby as me.
Posted by: Sluggo / 9:25 AM
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Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy, But Mostly Lazy 

Clicking around the blogosphere, I see I'm not alone suffering from postus interruptus. I admire those who keep thumping out stuff day after sweltering day, but I'm very okay with a slower, sparcer summertime schedule. It's true I don't feel like blogging or thinking or working or much else. The beauty part is I don't feel like eating either and I've been losing weight.

Let's just go swimming. Fishing's too much work.
Posted by: Sluggo / 12:15 PM
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Sunday, July 24, 2005

Tillie's In The House 

If you haven't seen it yet, get over to Fausta's The Bad Hair Blog for the 10th Edition of the Carnival of the New Jersey Blogs.

It's blogolicious!
Posted by: Sluggo / 7:08 PM
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Getting Gracie 


Last week a co-worker and her husband came over for pizza and beer. They were thinking of going to China to adopt and wanted to meet Grace and talk to us about it. They asked amazingly intelligent questions. I remember the whole two and a half year process as pretty much a well-documented lurch into the future. Our decision was based primarily on personal prejudices. The Goddess thinks Chinese people are good looking and I think they're intelligent. Once we made the decision, the whole thing became a blur.

When I got back I spent another couple of years of trial and error and credit cards getting the equipment, software and some of the expertise to turn all those reels of VHS into a DVD of our trip to China to meet Grace. The raw footage was one of the major problems because with the jet lag and the two years of anticipation and the extreme anxiety of beginning this whole new life as a family, I was in no fit state to think things through, shot-making-wise.

Also, I was pretty new to using the equipment and I forgot that the microphone is about four inches from the mouth of the person holding the camera. Even I got sick of hearing myself talk.

But I got it together and I thought it was pretty cool and I made a bunch of copies and sent them off to family members and friends and people who had helped us.

Mistake Number Two. Everybody loves Gracie and everything, but, after all, it was just a combination vacation movie and baby pictures and the response, when I got one, was a little more tepid than I had anticipated. Live and learn.

So it was a shot in the old auteur arm when my friends asked, no, demanded to have a copy.

Such a thing couldn't be found, however, and I discovered, when I went to burn another copy, that in moving the project from one hard drive to another some things got lost. Like the music, half the transitions and some of the titles.

It only took a few hours to put everything to rights again and it was certainly more fun than than just banging out another copy.

Those hours, days, and months when we two became three, when Gracie effortlessly stepped away from being an orphan and became a daughter and when Lane and I faced a much steeper learning curve in becoming parents kind of got lost in the blur of the events. Putting the movie together forces you to dwell on the moments and you begin to fill in the times between the shots. It may be a crumby movie, but it's a distillation of the best thing I ever did and the movie in my head just keeps getting better and better.
Posted by: Sluggo / 3:03 PM
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