November 2008 Archives

Study Finds Link Between Red Wine, Letting Mother Know What You Really Think

Health experts have long known that drinking red wine can have such positive benefits as reducing blood vessel damage, lowering the risk of heart attack, and preventing harmful LDL cholesterol from forming. But researchers at the Northwestern University Department of Preventive Medicine have recently found that the consumption of four to six glasses of red wine, most notably at dinner or a family function, may be linked to totally going off on one's mom...

...The positive effects of wine consumption were seen in as little as three hours, with 86 percent of participants showing greater resistance to unsolicited career advice, 77 percent displaying increased mental function in the area of the brain devoted to reminding you why Dad left you in the first place, and 60 percent demonstrating less concern to "play this little happy-happy game anymore."...

...The Northwestern team is currently in the process of securing funding to determine what ingredient in bourbon enables one to finally wrestle one's stepfather to the ground.

Happy Day After Thanksgiving!

RULES FOR DACHSHUND OWNERS

1. Dachshunds are never permitted in the house. The dachshund stays outside in a specially built wooden compartment named, for very good reason, the dog house..


2. Okay, the dachshund can enter the house, but only for short visits or if his own house is under renovation..


3. Okay, the dachshund can stay in the house on a permanent basis, provided his dog house can be sold in a yard sale to a rookie dog owner..


4. Inside the house, the dachshund is not allowed to run free and is confined to a comfortable but secure metal cage..


5. Okay, the cage becomes part of a two-for-one deal along with the dog house in the yard sale, and the dachshund can go wherever he pleases..


6. The dachshund is never allowed on the furniture..


7. Okay, the dachshund can get on the old furniture but not the new furniture..


8. Okay the dachshund can get up on the new furniture until it looks like the old furniture and then we'll sell the whole works and buy new furniture, upon which the dachshund will most definitely not be allowed..


9. The dachshund never sleeps on the bed. Period..


10. Okay, the dachshund can sleep at the foot of the bed..


11. Okay, the dachshund can sleep alongside you, but he's not allowed under the covers..


12. Okay, the dachshund can sleep under the covers, but not with his head on the pillow..


13. Okay, the dachshund can sleep alongside you under the covers with his head on the pillow, but if he snores he's got to leave the room..


14. Okay, the dachshund can sleep and snore and have nightmares in bed, but he's not to come in and sleep on the couch in the TV room, where I'm now sleeping..

test

It has been the week for people's dogs dying.

First, Scipio lost Bomilcar and I just got an email from TA who discovered that Lucy had a tumor growing into her sinuses and brain so he had to put her down.

I was already depressed today.

That just put me over the edge.

:-(

An open apology to boomers everywhere (Salon.com)

This is a great "letter".

Unlike the general gist of Havrilesky's comments, I am incapable of throwing my loyalty to anyone outside of my family without extreme suspicion.

But I definitely understand what she's saying.

Then I read:

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me ... answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

Oh my god!

"we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house"

I'm starting to feel a sense of satisfaction about my vote.

It looks like California's small experiment with gay marriage will likely come to an end.

I know that this topic has been major issue for many of my acquaintances in California and especially in San Francisco but really I'm not all that surprised at the likely passing of proposition 8.

Now it is true that I don't support gay marriage.

Most people assume I do and I don't.

I don't even really believe in heterosexual marriage so I obviously can't be keen on gay marriage.

Maybe in the 2100s this kind of thing will pass.

But not today.

Not in our lifetimes.

Probably not in the lifetimes of generations beyond us.

This isn't the same thing as the issue of race in this country.

Unless you clear the belief in magic away it will never change.

In looking at an interactive map of Ohio at the New York Times, it amazes me how all of the counties with the largest metropolitan cities went to Obama. Even some rural counties out on the eastern side near West Virginia went to him.

Glass City, so dear to my heart, still never ceases to amaze me.

64.5% for Obama to 34% McCain in Lucas County.

Toledo's soul is blue-collar and Democrat and is pretty much the core of Lucas County.

Sure Toledo votes in intensely bad crazy mayor every now and then, but let's face it, look at the outgoing President of the US who was voted into office in 2004.

In those amazing numbers in Toledo is seen the thing that the city so badly needs to be proud of.

That's Toledo! Blue-collar! Democrat!

Try to be the best blue-collar democrats you can be!

Don't try to be any other city in the Midwest!

Be the best Toledo you can be!

And you'll become something not even my great-grandfathers' could possibly have imagined!

While I was never a real supporter and have yet to be made a fan and convert of Barack Obama, the fact is that his election win last night is of major historical significance for the United States.

And I can appreciate that on levels that most people don't even think about.

In all the "We did it!" euphoria of last night there still remains the fact that unless the core values of this country evolve, it will go the way of all other empires.

Just looking at a recent map, with some states still undecided, shows what I mean.

If you cut the country off at the Mississippi river, it pretty much looks exactly like the United States did 145 years ago. (Except there were a lot less displaced New Yorkers in Florida then and Virginia's changing demographics have shifted that once red state.)

The United States must evolve in the 21st century.

I know, if you believe in magic then you don't believe in evolution, but the fact remains that buried deep into our animal brains is nature's simplest imperative: change or die.

And that applies to culture just as much as it applies to the individuals that make up the society that the culture holds together.

The players have temporarily changed but the game in this country remains the same.

Don't forget that.

The game needs to change if we are to survive the coming decades.

Yay! I have a Hallowe'en light exactly like one of the lights I grew up with in the 70s.

The NalaMatka found a reissue of this one somewhere in Glass City and bought it for me.

There's a ghost and another jack o'lantern I want to find.

These sum up Hallowe'en for me more than any modern kind of decoration.

SuperArjun spent the evening trick r treating here in the Clintonhood.

From the looks of it I'd say about 80% of our block was giving out candy which is pretty high.

Jen and Arjun were joined by some friends who came to beg around our neighborhood and they came back with quite a haul.

As the kids cleared out, we ended up going down the street to a neighbors and sitting around drinking and talking until pretty late.

Well. If you consider 11 late. For me that's practically 3am!