I wasn’t going to blog today, until I saw an amazing story: a gang of obese women has turned into a bit of a “shoplifting team” down in South Africa. Apparently they cause a commotion with all their fatness, and then people just start grabbing stuff and throwing it in bags.

Since they already have flash mobs, I wonder if maybe someone could assemble a “flash shoplifting mob” and just rob the shit out of a department store and then head off in separate directions. Interesting.

GO SHARPTON! GO SHARPTON! GO SHARPTON!
Last night, Sharpton ripped it up at the DNC with a kick-ass speech that drew multiple standing ovations. No, he wasn’t the surprise presidential nominee, as I had hoped. Still, I just talked to a woman at work right after reading the transcript, and she said “You know who really was a great speaker? Al Sharpton.” Preach on, sistah. Probably the best quote of the night was this: The issue of government is not to determine who may sleep together in the bedroom, it’s to help those that might not be eating in the kitchen. AMEN! If only people would listen.

It appears that Bush talked out of his ass once more, this time in an attempt to slam Castro. Bushie-poo, at least have the common courtesy to just sit back and let yourself be the puppet you are. See what happens when you take initiative? Here’s a summary quote from the article: Castro admitted that prostitution does exist in Cuba, as it does here, but tried to defuse the matter by pointing to the country’s high health and education standards. This is hardly “welcoming sex tourism” as Bush claims. He also lifted the quote from a college student’s essay, and completely transformed it to serve his own purposes. Damn, Bush… way to prove that even Castro can be trusted further than yourself.

So there was an orange barrel on the east shoreway in Cleveland today, and the news scooped it up as a story. People were nailing it with their cars as it rolled around in rush hour traffic. My question is, why did some asshole photojournalist snap 6 photos of the barrel instead of walking out and moving it out of the way?! He even got a few shots of people sustaining damage as they drove into it. Hey asshole, you could have saved those people some money if you’d just waved your arms a bit and quickly shoved the barrel back to the side of the road!

A woman took 27 dogs out for a ride in her car. The side and rear windows of her Renault Laguna estate were steamed up by dogs’ breath and when police finally got her to stop, 15 miles after signalling her to pull over, they had to back away because of the smell. Not only that, but she was smoking and had a Coke between her knees. Lady, you got class.

Pointless comparison of the Dodge logo to the anatomy of a vagina.

It’s finally time for a certain Simpsons character to come out of the closet. Who will it be? How can I stand the suspense?! The way I see it, there’s only one option: Waylon Smithers. Some suggest it’s going to be one or both of Marge’s sisters, but they’re clearly straight. They love Richard Dean Anderson. Who else could it be? Maybe it’s Flanders! Nah. Knowing them, it’s probably going to be someone like Otto or Gil.

This is the most incredibly lame excuse for a news story I can think of: Mom is upset over Garfield toy’s obscene gesture. That’s right, she thinks it’s giving a midfign.

I took my ‘back route’ to work today, across the Detroit-Superior bridge. What’s up with all this rain lately? I think we’ve had around 5 days of nice, summer weather. If I were in school still, and this was supposed to be my vacation, I’d be livid. Maybe it’s sunspots. I read there’s one the size of the earth right now.

At the Democratic National Convention, protesters are starting to get really pissed over the “free speech zones”, as well they should. Since I’ve already gone on a brief tyraid about this, I’ll just post this series of pictures showing the designated area itself. It looks like a freakin’ concentration camp.

Unemployment in Iraq has reached 70%!!! Ahh democracy. Enjoyin’ it over there, guys? Yeah, us too.

So what’s Saddam up to, now that he’s not controlling a nation? Well, you know, just writing poetry and gardening. The usual.

Let it be known that Iran is no longer fucking around. They’re now saying that if Israel makes some kind of move, that “Tehran’s reaction will be so harsh that Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth and US interests will be easily damaged.” Hmm, I don’t like the sound of that.

If you’re headed to the dentist any time soon, make sure that’s not semen he’s squirting in your mouth! Sick as fuck. This dentist was apparently squirting man juice into his female patients mouths, and two of them had chugged enough cum in their day that they instantly knew what it was!

Here’s another shot of the house next to our bass player’s house. Ken, Ev.. we gotta go take pictures of this place.

This weekend, starting on Thursday night, was a dude-fest if I’ve ever been part of one. John, Atheir and I were hanging out Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday. After work Friday, I met them for “lunch” at Nate’s, a middle-eastern restaurant on W.25th. Then I went down and picked up my motorcycle with its fancy new tires. That night we went out to the Blind Pig downtown, briefly, and were all dismayed by the crowd it had attracted. After a few beers, we retired to Atheir’s, and drank ourselves to sleep. Saturday we went to Unique thrift store, the West Side Market, and then watched ‘Deliverance’. (I give it a rating of … blowey.) We had band practice, then retired to our pads.

Sunday was the SmittyTour, where I completely bombed all 18 holes. I’m not sure what was wrong… perhaps a curse of some sort. I had a few good shots, but mostly I was just along for the walk. There was an “island green” on 17, and because I failed to get on it after a couple shots, I said I wasn’t going anywhere until I landed one. After about 8 strokes, the others in our foursome advanced to the drop point (where you go if you sank your ball). I grabbed about 6 more balls and proceeded to keep trying. Finally, after correcting my stance, I smacked my 7-iron up there, literally 2 feet from the hole. I sank the put. If only that had been my first shot, that’d have been the only birdie of the day on 17!

Although they’re saying it wasn’t intentional, someone violated the Crawford Ranch airspace this weekend. The funny thing is, the genius secret service agents detained the wrong pilot! The pilot who made the mistake got away. Homeland Security: 0 Random Guy: 1.

At the Democratic Convention, the government is once again setting up their “free speech zones”. Personally, I don’t care if they’re obnoxious pro-lifers or not, they’re being held in cages. It is described as a maze of overhead netting, chain link fencing and razor wire and is located over a block away, out of view from anyone that should take note of them. To me, the most offensive part of the article was that they are only ALLOWING 1,000 protesters, instead of 4,000. Wait just a fucking minute. Who says how many protesters can be at any given rally?! Talk about backward logic. In this case, it was because of fear of overcrowding, but that doesn’t excuse a damn thing.

Take a look at the poll on AlJazeera’s website today: Is the US building a case for war against Iran? … The result? So far, 65% say yes. I also just read an article on Antiwar.com entitled “Iran’s next”.

Oh, I almost forgot this. A man died at Southwest General hospital, in the waiting room! Most of my friends and I were born there. I know how slow the service is there, but this is utterly ridiculous! In their defense (which I am extremely hesitant to provide), the man was asleep. However, absolutely nobody checked on him until it was discovered that he was dead. Many hours had passed at that point. Whether or not he was in need of medical care is irrelevant to me… I think this shows how fucked up our health care system is. My poor mother was passing a kidney stone once, and when I took her to the hospital I practically had to beat someone over the head to get them to see her. She’s had insurance for decades, and they had no reason to refuse her or delay her. Even when she was finally admitted there, they make you go through the entry process while you’re writhing in pain and can hardly talk. I did most of the talking, but I will never forget how fucking demented those assholes were that day.

Last night I went down to my friend Abby’s house with a bunch of peeps and MAN was it huge. In truth, it’s her parents house, and it was extra cool because they were on vacation. They have an in-ground pool with a pool house and a huge deck, plus like 9 acres of property and the mansion-esque house. The only shitty aspect was that we only had a functioning RADIO, and boy does radio suck. I’m addicted to WRUW 91.1, which didn’t come in down there. It was either 105.7 (oldies) or 98.5 (classic rock). AWFUL. The commercials were dreadful too, and since the radio was a short walk away, it was pointless to go change the channel during commercials. It’s been a long time since I was in a situation where I had to endure continual bombardment by commercials. I don’t recommend it for those who wish to keep their sanity.

The biggest news to me today is that Kucinich has dropped out of the presidential race and is now backing Kerry. Clearly, the only choice is Sharpton. What to do, though? For now I’ll just wait. There’s bound to be plenty of developments in the next few months.

It seems that someone from Baldwin-Wallace College (located in the city I grew up in) has begun researching the accuracy of George Bush’s campaign ads. Not surprisingly, they found a few discrepencies.

If you ever find yourself listening to Bush, and thinking that he’s just not saying what you wish he would… then just use this website to make him say it!

So they’re trying to make a WMD vaccine? Guess who “backs it”? Oh yeah.. GW. Talk about pie in the sky bullshit. This goverment will do everything to escalate fear in us, and give us a false sense of protection… but when it comes to addressing the real reasons behind why someone would want to use WMD on us in the first place, they can’t even bring themselves to admit there IS such a reason. You can forget about resolving our differences with other countries from now on, especially with Bush in the White House. He’s yet to admit he’s made a single mistake, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t believe he has. So, in a sense, it’s probably good that we’d have a vaccine… because there’s no way people AREN’T going to want to blow us up with a dickhead like Dubya behind the wheel. Though, I’m sure the vaccine will just give you AIDS anyway.

When reinstating the draft no longer seems feasable, giving away free fake tits should probably attract ‘a few good men.’ Or, ladies in that case. That’s right, we are all now paying for military personnel to have plastic surgery. From 2000 to 2003, there were 496 boob jobs done.

If you ever find yourself driving a rental car with 88 bags of heroin in the center console, don’t forget they’re in there.

You know, Ween always said “don’t shit where you eat, my friend.” But when the time comes, will you know the difference between your own fecal matter and a delicious meal? Find out by taking this quiz!

This fly came with me to work on my dashboard today. I once heard that flies only live for around 48 hours, so I figured he’d probably rather be downtown for his last few hours on Earth. He jumped out right by the Van Roy Coffee Co. and the Mental Health board office, but he was pretty close to the Flats at that point.

In case you haven’t noticed, my blog has been experiencing some technical difficulties lately. That’s because the server where all of my images are stored is down. It’s hosted by a friend of mine, and I’m not really sure what’s wrong with it. You also won’t be able to reach my band site or e-mail me at my main addresses. I’m sure when it gets back up and running, I’ll have around 40000 e-mails to clean out.

Kofi Annan says that Bush is incorrect; the world is not safer than it was three years ago. We all knew that Kofi, but thanks for reiterating.

This may be of little interest to people, but Verizon is rolling out fiber to residential and business customers, promising downstream bandwitdth as fast as 30MB. Right now I have cable internet at home, and I think the cap is around 8MB. That never happens though. Fiber optics would be a major improvement, and will probably be the next big thing in broadband already. It seems like it’d be pretty cheap, too.

There’s a bit of a murder mystery going on in Cleveland lately. Witnesses said a loud bang and screams were heard coming from the lake off Saybrook in Ashtabula County at about 5:30 a.m. I don’t know what exactly happened, but they reported today that the steering wheel was tied up and the throttle was engaged. Iiiiiiinteresting.

Welcome to the jungle, we got fun ‘n games… we got everything you want…
Sorry.

I just now overheard that a guy who works here gives his dog Pepto-Bismol! Crazy!

So what’s up with this Sandy Berger fiasco? I haven’t heard much about it, but what I gathered was that he ganked some documents related to terrorism reports from the Clinton administration. I think that the reason he took them is to prevent neocons from finding and destroying the evidence. What evidence? Evidence that government officials were aware that al Qaeda planned to attack us, even when Clinton was in office. Meh, hell if I know.

Once again, it’s time for me to proclaim the end of the world is coming soon. This time it’s because Bush said “Nobody wants to be a war president. I want to be the peace president.” Okay, I’m not going to bother looking back in my blog, because I’m certain that he said he was a “war president” just a few months ago! First off, the manner in which he ‘dumbs down’ his role to either one or the other term is just disgusting. It’s like he’s playing cowboys and indians or something. Maybe the end of the world isn’t coming, but the end of America sure seems to be. I say so because people are going to lap this up like kitties drinkin’ milk. When the people say they disapprove of the war, what does he do? He steps away… this isn’t MY war! If I had written a description of the worst president I could possibly imagine, I couldn’t have ever come up with the disgusting lies and propaganda that the Bush administration has. The sickest part of all is that I bet we see a swing in the polls now. Instead of taking note of all the failures of this presidency and choosing someone else in November, they’d rather forgive Bush for his shortcomings. Well, my friends, that’s the end.

Jenna Bush stuck her tounge out at the media…. from her daddy’s fancy ass limo. Bush, not only would I ride your daughter for prestige, but I’d use my influence to sway her so far to the left that you’d have to confine her with John Ashcroft for ten years just to get her back to the right! Mwahahahaa! Actually she’s a skank ho and I wouldn’t degrade myself like that.

So what the hell? Is China going to attack Taiwan for real? It sure seems that way. They’re both flexing their military muscles as of late, and nobody seems to be backing down. Look Taiwan, I love ya and all but, China will annihilate your ass. They’re freakin’ huge! If any country could take over the world, it’d be China. But Taiwan, I hear what you’re sayin’. You can’t bow to their oppressive Beijing authority. I sincerely hope that not a single round of ammo gets fired here.

In a move nobody I know cares about except me, the FAA has finalized their new Sport Pilot license, which will make it extremely easy to fly light airplanes. The maximum amount of passengers is only 2, and the maximum speed is 115 knots (that’s 132.34 mph), but still! This is a serious breakthrough for many homebuilt pilots. I wonder if places will offer any kind of instruction for just that path of certification. Anyway, it still needs to be approved by some White House Office of Management and Budget or something. Let’s see… anything I would support is automatically not supported by Bush, and Bush is in the White House, so…. by my calculations, this proposal will get shot down for no reason! Sweet!

You know what blows? I can’t clear my throat after I eat sometimes. I’ll sit here for 30 minutes “aheming” away, but to no avail. I’m certain it’s annoying, but there is a legitimate build-up of phlegm in my throat and dammit, I have to get it out.

Yesterday my new Ibanez Tube Screamer arrived and boy does it kick ass. No more inaudible solos for me, bitch!

The news is quite ho-hum by my standards today. The new iPod just came out, a link between Iran and al-Qaeda has supposedly been discovered and GW will not be doing anything about it, a man raped a 5 month old baby, Lance Armstrong is winning the Tour de France, and Linda Ronstadt got booed off stage for praising Michael Moore during her Vegas performance. Big whoop.

When all drugs fail to get you fucked up, you can always resort to dosages of electricity. That’s what some guy in India did, anyway. After reading the article, I realized I was having difficulty getting past one particular line: the 54-year-old saint admits he started taking a cocktail of stimulants, including ganja, bhang and liquor after renouncing the world at the age of 10. Renouncing the world at 10?? What did that entail? Tell me more, dammit.

Here’s something shocking: there was a character named Homer Simpson back in 1975! Of course he was in an obscure movie called ‘The Day of the Locust’, but still! If you click the link, he’s the first character in the the cast list.

Last night John and I finally bottled the ‘California Common’ beer we made. It smelled pretty delicious, but we have to wait two weeks before we can test it out. I’m browsing for our next beer as we speak.

Speaking of beer, I added three beers to my beer log today. On Saturday, we were going to go down to the AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days at Mid-Ohio, but it was all rainy and shitty. We decided to get some Cycle Trader magazines and get drunk instead. The Celebrator doppelbock is totally boss. Super rich and malty! On Sunday, we went down to the mororcycle fest really early and saw lots of cool bikes. I’d post some pictures, but nobody I know cares about motorcycles!

Down in Maryland there is some kind of crazy hyena-looking animal that nobody can identify! It’s running around a lot, but it hasn’t harmed anyone, and one woman even said her cats got along with it fine! Check out the pictures!

Schwarzenegger calls some lawyers “girlie-men”! Unbelievable! I bet he gets re-elected for that kind of ‘hip’ representation.

When you’re in Florida, there’s no better weapon than the ever-handy aligator.