We Like Very Much

While I write my (now patented) Completely Uniformed Oscar Picks, I give you this via Joe. Funny, funny stuff.

New Links

I have added some new links to the right of some blogs focused on politics. The amount will no doubt grow, but those are the ones I could thing of off the top of my head.

Overheard At Work

"I don't like footballs, they are so unexpected."

Snowboardcross

Speaking as a snowboarder myself:

SNOWBOARDCROSS IS THE MOST AWESOME SPORT IN THE WINTER OLYMPICS!

Seriously, Snowboardcross is amazing. If you don't agree, you are brain damaged. Really. Brain Damaged! You! Look in the mirror. See that person looking back? That's the picture of brain damage. Look up "brain damage" in the dictionary and your picture is right there.

Snowboardcross shows the elegance of snowboarding crossed with the possible cool wipeouts of The Indy 500! And the wipeouts even look better than those "two-planker" losers with all that flailing of arms and legs as they crash down a slope. Serously, have you seen what the two-planker look like when they crash? They look like a frog being electrocuted in mid jump. No, snowboarders know how to wipeout with grace and style, too.

Gawd, I need to go snowboarding! Anyone living in San Francisco with a car want to go? Really. Anyone?

Vacuum

Now many people have asked me why I like to vacuum (the guy I'm dating thinks I have a vacuum fetish. That is inaccurate). The reason I like to vacuum is, are you ready for it? Here it comes… I like to vacuum because I want my neighbors and friends to know I am better than they are. There, I said it. I vacuum because I am better than the lesbians that live below me (a side note to said lesbians: for the love of Pete, please lower you damn voices! That's all I’ll say on that subject. Except this: are all lesbians loud? Just wondering. Seriously, lesbians in the apartment below, SHUT UP!) Anyway, I am better than all my friends, neighbors and all relatives simply because I vacuum. There is also an altruistic reason to why I vacuum; I want to spread the joys of a clean carpet and the joys of having a clean carpet in the home to the world. I figure if I vacuum, my neighbors will hear me vacuuming and when they see me in the halls of the building or on the streets of San Francisco smiling broadly, they will, no doubt, put two and two together and realize my happiness stems from vacuuming. They will think, "my goodness Michael is always so happy. It must be because he vacuums." And they would be correct. I would not be such a happy guy were it not for the sucking power of vacuums! Ahh, yes. The sucking power of my vacuum…yes, the sucking of my vacuum…sucking…vacuum…sucking...powervacuumsuckingpowersuck...suck...suck...ahhh. Oh, sorry. Where was I? Oh, yes, I can sense the admiration of the lesbians below me as I start my vacuuming at 5:30 in the morning. I just know they are filled with admiration as I vacuum my carpet, and I know they wish they could be like me, a lofty goal, to be sure. And I can appreciate the fact that they, and many others, want to be like me, but, alas, this will never be. You may ask why? Well, you may, but the explanation is much too complicated to venture into at this time. Anyway, I don’t have time to explain, as I must to vacuum.

Overheard In San Francisco

"Do you really think it's a good idea to name your baby Damien?"

MEME

Got this Meme from Mikey. Here's what you do:

Grab the nearest book
Open the book to page 123
Find the fifth sentence
Post the text of the next 3 sentences (#5,6,7) on your blog, along with these instructions.
Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! Just grab what is closest. No cheating.

Here's mine from David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.
This was not right next to me, but in a bookcase around the corner from my computer. Now I never finished the book but, and this is the weird thing, when I turned to page 123, per the instructions, the bookmark I used when I read the book was on page 123!! How freaky is that?

Now, I am going to do something a bit different to what Mikey did. The way I read the intructions, it seems to me that one is to choose the next three sentences after the fifth sentence. Feel free to quible about my interpretations of the instructions.

Here are my sentences:

...A Midwestern child of academics gets trained early on to avoid these weird-eyed eager rural Christians who accost your space, to say Not Interested at the front door and No Thanks to mimeoed leaflets, to look right through streetcorner missionaries as if they were NYC panhadlers. I have erred. The woman more or less throws me up against the Covenant Faith counter, on which counter is a fine oak box, yay big, with a propped sign: "Where Will YOU Be When YOU Look Like THIS?" "Take a look-see in here."

Wow.

Call me

I called a friend of mine earlier.

Me: Hey

friend: What's happening

Me: Why does your voice sound like you're in a tin can?

friend: Oh, I'm in the bathroom

Me: You answered your phone while you are in the bathroom?

friend: Well, I'm just sitting here not doing much, so...

Me: I can think of two things you're doing!

friend: ha, ha.

----

Hope everyone has a nice weekend

Now if we could just have a blow job, then we got ourselves a scandal!

Depends on what you mean by "superiors".

New York Times:
I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, told a grand jury that he was authorized by his "superiors" to disclose classified information to reporters about Iraq's weapons capability in June and July 2003, according to a document filed by a federal prosecutor.

Associated Press:
A former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney told a federal grand jury that his superiors authorized him to give secret information to reporters as part of the Bush administration's defense of intelligence used to justify invading Iraq, according to court papers.

Washington Post:
Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff testified that his bosses instructed him to leak information to reporters from a high-level intelligence report that suggested Iraq was trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction, according to court records in the CIA leak case.

Cheney was one of the "superiors" I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said had authorized him to make the disclosures, according to sources familiar with the investigation into Libby's discussions with reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Reuters:
Vice President Dick Cheney directed his aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby to use classified material to discredit a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq war effort, the National Journal reported on Thursday.

Court papers released last week show that Libby was authorized to disclose classified information to news reporters by "his superiors," in an effort to counteract diplomat Joe Wilson's charge that the Bush administration twisted intelligence on Iraq's nuclear weapons to justify the 2003 invasion.

via AmericaBlog

Um, to paraphrase former Republican Senator Bob Dole, "where's the outrage?"

An Apology

Looking back at past entries (is that redundent? Looking BACK at PAST entries? Mikey? Let me know.) Anyway, I was looking back at past entries and realized I have strayed from the irreverent (irrelavant?) entries I once wrote. I have been writing some rather banal and angry sounding posts lately, and for that, I do appologize. From this day forward I pledge to you, my tens of readers, that I, Michael of Try Not To Panic, will write more entries along the lines of this and this, or this. Well, you get the point. I hope this change will bring a smile to your smile hole.

I was going to write a reimagined version of Sixteen Going on Seventeen lyrics from The Sound of Music, but it turned out it was a bit racey, so I will only give you a hint:

---

I am sixteen going on seventeen
ready to burn some....

---

If you know the musical and the, um, club Rolf joins near the end of the movie, then you can, more than likely, know where the song was heading. I think you can see why I decided not to publish the song. Now Chad would have published, but he has more balls than me.

Disclaimer: I am dating a nice Jewish boy and harbor nothing but respect for the Chosen Ones.

Chris Daly - The most assinine jackass fucktwat to come out of San Francisco

Look what the dickstingueshed Stupidvisor Daly now wants to do. He wants to have a debate and "full investigation, impeachment or resignation'' of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney"

Now I can see why someone would want to do get rid of Chimpy McPresident, but this little show he is putting on just shows how Daly is simply an egotistical child in a mans body. Daly says he is just "being a good Democrat." Bull. He is just grandstanding and showing how he lacks the seriousness of an elected official in a city. Seems to me he is confused. Let me try to explain something to you Chris: You are not a member of the United States Congress. You are a member of the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco. This is a waist of time. Write your Senator and Representive; voice your feeling that way.

There are more pressing matters to deal with in San Francisco, after all. Like, say, this, or this, and, maybe, this? Okay, not the last one. At least San Francisco is not the only place that deals with things that are a bit silly.

He will probably sue me for libel now, or something equally grandstandish

/rant

Six Saturdays

I just got my bosses approval to take a Project Management course through Berkeley Extended Education. Now I didn't need his approval to a take the class, but I needed his approval so he would pay for the class. Ahh, it's good to have a goal.
2006 will be the year Michael becomes an adult(ish) and makes enough money to actually live in San Francisco, or, at least move away from San Francisco.

Oh, the title of the post refers to the six Saturdays the course will rob me of (rob from me?) Whatever.

Thinking Outloud

This is a busy day for blogging here at Try Not To Panic central, not a busy day at work, hence the blogging (MS Word thinks I want to spell blowing, bogging, bluing(! WTF?), or bolting – hah!). Anyway, usually when I have a busy blogging day, it is a slow work day (the powers that be, whoever you are, please know I am composing all this during one of the breaks that I take.)(Please also note that if I didn’t take a break, I might just go postal.)(Yes, I know, I do not work at the Post Office, and, therefore, theoretically, cannot go "Postal")(Relax, it's just a saying.)(Geeze.) Oh, now I've lost my train of thought. Where was I?....Oh, yes, now I remember. I was going to explain why I am writing so much today. The explanation is quite easy, really. I have short-timers disease. Which is interesting since there is no reason to have short-timers disease – I didn't get another job or anything, I just feel like a short-timer. This is, of course, not the best places to be in when one does not have another job in which to blame the feeling of being a short-timer; leads to procrastination and eventually firing. Being fired is not something I aspire to be at this time, or anytime, really – who wants to be fired? Ick, is what I say to that. Moving on…sorry for all the tangents, I really do have something to say. Really. What I should have said in the beginning is that there is a reason for this phantom short-timers feeling I have, but I can't say for fear of some Karmic retribution raining down upon me. What I can say about this short-timerness feeling is: cart, horse, in front of…if you know what I mean. Okay, I've said too much. I have to go to a meeting now.

The State of The Island of Dr. Moreau

Update: Well, it didn't take long for the t-shirt to appear.

We now know where the Prez gets his scientific facts.

I mean, really...
"Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos"

Again, WTF!!