Timmerov's Blog
funds
the democrats are playing the funding bill wrong. they're trying to attach a timetable for the withdrawal of troops. instead they should attach an admission of error. undermine the president's projected infallibility. that's a much bigger win than bringing the troops home. the text could be something like this: by signing this bill that funds the iraq war and the separate war on terror the president of the united states acknowledges with the benefit of hindsight that maybe, just maybe, starting them under the best of intentions or otherwise (ie false pretenses) was pretty fucking stupid.
monkey high
newsweek published their ranking of high schools. that's cool. except they used a brain dead ranking system. the worst high schools come out on top. my collidj buddy ed felten
wrote about it with more panache than i'll ever muster.
cops
murder rates in u.s. cities are up. not all that surprising if you think about it. turns out the type of person that would be a cop is the same type of person that would be a soldier. so with this endless war thing going on, a whole lot of people who would be policing us are on the other side of the world trying mightily to not get kilt. seems to be turning out the people who sent them there didn't think about it.
strange fiction
we watched the movie stranger than fiction. i really had kinda low expectations. but it turned out to be pretty fun. it was kinda weird watching emma thompson play an ellen degeneres like character. i'm used to seeing her play shakespeare parts. as a bonus it's got more gratuitous naked men in it than one normally sees in a flick.
super bugs
the boys on b's baseball team were horse playing. there was a collision. the next day one of the kids was in extreme pain and couldn't walk. he had fractured his pelvis. and worse, he had an infection. poor kid. we went to see him at the hospital. he had an iv. and was pretty snoozy. and really didn't want company. i warned ben to be careful not to touch his nose or put anything in his mouth. we washed our hands when we left. call me paranoid. but the most likely place to pick up an antibiotic resistant super bug is the hospital. and that would suck. big time.
saris
am i the only one that thinks saris are ugly? they reach amazing heights of grossitude when worn by ugly women. the other day i saw a fat lady in a sari. it had a top thing and skirt like thing. her back was exposed. her coloration and body fat made the exposed flesh look like a giant ass crack. it was a far far worse sight than any plumber's butt ever crawled under my sink.
mental ball
one of the kids on b's baseball team is extraordinarily skilled. his technique is amazingly good for a 9 year old kid. inexplicably he stopped hitting the ball early in the season. then he stopped even swinging at it. baseball is a mental game. you think it's all about skill. but that's the easy part. it's a mind game. so i thought i had this kid figured out. he obviously learned this stuff from his dad. and maybe his dad was pushing him too hard. and he was more afraid of succeeding and being pushed harder than he was of failure. so i played it that way. he confided in me that he didn't want to play baseball this year. oh. swing batter. so next game i thanked him. some kids on the team whine and complain about everything. they don't try. and they drag the team down into the dumps. but not him. he always gave me his best. with very little resistance. he is after all, only 9. i told him how much i appreciated that. and how much that means to the team. it seemed to work. he went 3 for 3 that game. including two hits off the opposing pitcher. i hope it carries over into the all star tournament.
trip
we're back from our two week trip to ecuador and peru. miss me? best. trip. ever. it will take me a while to get things orgnaized and posted here. so be patient. in the mean time i've got a queue of previously written blogs to flush. peace.
update: raw pictures
here.
machu picchu
we are leaving for our first big vacation in 3 years bright and freaking early tomorrow morning. actually, i expect it will still be quite dark. but i digress. the boys are staying with grandma and grandpa while we go galavanting off to ecuador and peru to see the galapagos and maccu picchu. we'll take a camera. and maybe i'll update my home page so you can enjoy our trip vicariously. haven't done that in forever. anywho, no blogs until june 24th or so. peace.
hit/miss
sometimes my blog topics hit. sometimes they miss. i learn a lot about you dear reader by what you tell me is funny and what you tell me is offensive. there's two ways to make people laugh. quality stuff. or swing a lot in the hopes that something hits. obviously i'm in the former group.
tarts
i was staring at some teeny bopper's ass the other day. she was wearing hot pink short shorts with FUCK ME! written across the back in big letters. no it didn't really say fuck me. but that's the message advertised to every adult male in sight. she was at some event with her family. apparently her parents approved of her attire. and given her age they probably bought it for her. i was wondering what the hell they're thinking. this is our daughter. she's a tart. oh! you must be so proud. we hope she'll be a slut some day. this is our son. he's a binge drinker. we think he's gonna be a recovering alcoholic some day. maybe even president of the united states.
contist
i was sitting in the dentist's chair thinking about cons. i really need to believe my dentist isn't scamming me. but if i were to run a dentist scam it would go like this. train the hygienists to pull the patient's gums away from their teeth. not much. just a little each time. use tools to measure their pockets that actually make the pockets worse. both techniques allow more bacteria deeper. cover your activities by telling the patient that they don't do a good enough job brushing and flossing. nobody does. everyone believes this. eventually the bacteria does its thing. and now you can recommend laser treatement to blast the plaque off their teeth. for a fee of course. but don't worry. your insurance will pay for most of it. you can also augment the process by seeding the patient's mouth with bad bacteria that eats teeth faster. soon we're in the wonderful world of surgery, implants, and profits. i am gonna be so rich.
little rules 2
i think next year i'm going to lobby for a modified infield fly rule. in the majors this rule keeps the fielders from getting a double (or triple) play on a fly ball to the infield. the rule assumes the fielders can catch the ball every time. which is not exactly true for farm league. pop flies are often double plays. whether they're caught or not. the runners usually just run. they don't think should i go? should i stay? it's beyond them. simplify it to always run. if a pop fly is caught the batter is out. runners return to where they started. we can explain it to the kids after the play. when they can think about it leisurely. they can't think during the heat of the play.
little rules
we play little league baseball with some really wacky rules. it's farm division. coaches pitch the first two innings. then the kids pitch. until they walk three batters. which doesn't take long if we tell our batters not to swing. or the innings end because our batters swing at everything. sigh. the most bizarre rule is that an infielder can stop play just by holding up the ball high. runners get the next base if they're more than half way. otherwise they have to go back to the previous base. i guess the idea is that the kids can't throw the ball faster than they can run. and even when the ball gets to the base before the runner, it isn't caught. so the runner can just keep running. which is both pathetic and exciting. but so what? there's another rule that says you can only score five runs per inning.
dis-ables
we went to gilroy gardens this weekend. formerly bonfante gardens. we arrived early before the heat. and left when the crowds arrived. the parking lot was mostly full. the handicapped parking spots were mostly empty. i'm not opposed to helping out those who lost limbs serving their country, with birth defects, accident victims, or ravaged by disease. however i think we've gone too far with a good thing. it's politically really hard to take away from this group. even if it's something small like lowering the number of blue spots from 20 to 10. instead it's easier to expand the population of people who can use the blue spots to include the obese, the old, and the lazy. it's just wrong. and a waste of resources.
