This is one of the funnier things I've read in months.

"Raiding the Icebox" by Peter Carlson of the Washington Post

It's about America's formerly secret plan to invade Canada, a concise history of the border relationship, and the potential for future hostilities.

The best parts are the quotes from real people.

I do wonder if this Peter Carlson is related to famed Canada-hater Tucker "I suck at life" Carlson.

I know what anybody who might read this will say, "Three years... So what?"

I agree really. It's a bit of a shame I let this place go into shambles. Oh well. There were employment reasons, and no time for this new fangled blogging stuff.

Well now all that has changed. I am looking for a job (just graduated) and I have a whole lot of time on my hands. Good thing I got a TiVo for Xmas! Gotta set that thing to record ALL CSPAN ALL THE TIME (West Wing too. And Scrubs. And LOST. And... And...... And there went all that time I was talking about.). Drool.

You gotta be kidding me! The Wendy's ranch tooth is for sale!!! That's just incredible. Current high bid is $1,781.00.

Check it out here. Never seen anything like that, on many levels.

"Excuse my French everybody in America – but I am pissed."

[...]

"And I'll tell you, man, I'm probably going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I'm probably going to get in so much trouble it ain't even funny. You probably won't even want to deal with me after this interview is over."

[...]

"But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man."

[...]

"Organize people to write letters and make calls to their congressmen, to the president, to the governor. Flood their doggone offices with requests to do something. This is ridiculous.

I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.

Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country."

- excerpts from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's radio address this morning.

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when this guy had Bush standing next to him. I wonder if anybody ever talks as honestly as he does around the president.

Watch the Wendy's "RANCH!" commercial. Hilarious.

You may have to copy and paste the link into another window yourself for some reason... http://www.adwired.com/content/spot_stream.jhtml?f=plain&key=20419&WebLogicSession=QvvOKYGkZsiXMLPVkulWuqYn5XmaTtK7hS8YS1xQOjC1s7HEj1jY

Also, check out this Honda ad (thanks to Tommy for the link). Read their description too.

According to his biography, he's a hoax. No PhD...

Though he did graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater --- UWWW! That's cute.

It's really quite rare that someone you happen upon makes a fictive and lasting impression the first time you meet. Sidney Drazin was that kind of guy. I was only in his store, 4 doors from my own here in D.C., 3 times, but each time was a special experience. He seemed to have an amazing passion for customer service, a premium these days in the nation's capitol (see previous post). I walked by today on the way back to my apartment after picking up my drycleaning and noticed candles, flowers and notes piled outside the door. I stopped to read and was shocked that Sid had died. Just last Saturday, apparently his 55th wedding anniversary, Tristan and I visited to pick up two bottles of wine. He recommended a bottle of "2004 Elio Perrone Piemont: Sourgal, Moscato d'Asti" that was particularly good. The first time we were there he recommended a different bottle of Moscato d'Asti that was just as good. He told us about the muscat grape and how "exquisite" it was. He sold every bottle of wine with a unique guarantee - "If you don't like it, just bring it back, cork in the bottle, and I'll give you your money back."

He was just one of those nice guys that the world needs a whole lot more of.

One month and one day until opening day of the Major Leagues! You excited? I'm excited. I'm excited because I have a new home team. That's right, now I can aim my bitterness and annoyance at a new time other than the Brewers... The Washington Nationals! $5 says they'll still have a better record than Milwaukee.

This all happened last night around 7pm at the Blockbuster Video that's right next to my building. Please join me in boycotting Blockbuster. I am going to send this store, and the corporate headquarters a letter, just to see if anything happens.

I went to the blockbuster next door to me last night with my girlfriend Tristan to rent a movie.

We stood in the long line for quite a while. When we got to the front, I asked to open an account. I filled out the form with my permanent address, like it asked.. I figured it had to match the ID and the billing address for the credit card. The manger I handed it to came back over and says, "Um. You got a local address?” in a very ridiculous voice that was not his.

I said, "Yeah, but that's my permanent address, like it asks for."

He said, "W-what? You're giving me a headache - just write your local address on there,” still in his idiotic voice.

So I wrote it in an open space separated by commas. He said when I handed it back to him, "You could have put it in the open lines," and then turned to Tristan and said something like, "You put up with this?"

At this point I was getting slightly peeved.

He shook his head, walked back towards his computer, but came back before he got there and said, "You got a local phone number?"

I replied, "No, that's my cell phone. That's the only number I have."

He again said something to Tristan in that voice and I could not understand all of it, "you really..."

He then said to me, "What the crack number is that?"

I start to say, "920--"

He cut in, "--that ain't no nine. That's a seven or somethin’."

He scoffed and said something to Tristan, then walked away from us and said, “Can’t write neither.”

I threw the movie onto the counter and said, "Know what? Just fuckin' forget it."

I started walking away, Tristan said, "Get your cards."

He didn't want to give them (my drivers license and credit card) back to me, so I had to rip them out of his fingers. Then we walked out.

He crumpled up the application, started laughing, threw it somewhere and started laughing.

So what does a guy have to do to get a little customer service?

http://www.randyriver.com/games/tetris.htm

I got 595 lines today. My previous best was 367. Can you beat that?

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Well I just finished working field on the Kerry campaign/Democratic Party of Wisconsin and I think it's now safe to say how I feel about all that. I started this year interning in Senator Feingold’s D.C. office. I came back to WI in May and was hired to intern on his campaign in Green Bay. John Kerry came to Green Bay sometime late in May and I gave my resume to the state field director – a few weeks later I was hired. I was sent to Sheboygan, made office manager of the Sheboygan office, and field coordinator for Manitowoc, Sheboygan, and Ozaukee Counties (until "ConnectiKate" showed up to take over Manitowoc County ops for me.).

After all that, am I alive? Well, more or less. There was a lot of sniffling around the room during John Kerry’s concession speech in the Madison office on November 3rd... but then we killed the sad the brain cells that night at Club Mystique. One of the senior staff compared what we as staff are experiencing to post traumatic stress disorder. I think that's fairly accurate in many ways.

On the night after the election, Governor Doyle invited the Democratic Party staff to his residence for a cocktail party. I chatted with him for a while and that was very uplifting. I found irony in that the first time we met, I was in sixth grade, graduating from the D.A.R.E. program. He gave a very good speech about how we can't be ashamed of ourselves. We built a structure for future campaigns that is unmatched anywhere in the country. We kept the best senator in the business in office. We kept WI blue and doubled our margin of victory.

If JK had won Ohio, the Sheboygan office would have been written into the history books. As it is, we'll be forgotten. We were the best performing office in a battleground state that stayed blue. So does that make us the best performing office in the nation? Hrmmm... Goals were never high enough for the office. We smashed our contact goals, crowd goals, and volunteer recruitment goals.

The fact that we did so well has made me extremely frustrated with the end result. We did keep Wisconsin blue, return the best senator in the business to D.C., etc… but we did not get a new president. That is very frustrating. As long as I keep busy, and watch some comedies, I'll be fine. It is going to take a while for my body to adjust. I haven't slept all this year. My eyes look like I got in a hefty fight.

It was, overall, a hefty fight. As long as guys like me are getting blown up in Iraq, people are being discriminated against in this country for any reason, the nation is being bankrupted, our environment being shat upon, kids going through school with half an education, jobs being created that are half-assed compared to those that were lost, and people out there who want to kill us but aren't being sought after well enough - we shouldn't give up this fight. We started an amazing movement and there's no reason for it to slow down or stop.

I made friends with a lot of people of all ages that I will stay in contact with and never forget here in Sheboygan, all across northeast Wisconsin, and all over the country. There is a surprising number of really good people in this world. The emails, calls and visits I received in the days following the election were truly amazing - from the Governor to a reverend, from the state representative to the local UAW president, from ward leaders to the13 year old twice weekly volunteer who carved John Kerry's face into a pumpkin. There are too many good memories to dwell on the loss right now. We have four years for that.

I have an interview Wednesday with the state coordinated campaign's director - my boss's boss's boss. He's a very well connected man and hopefully I can find something interesting to do in D.C. this spring through him. I feel very sorry for those who put their lives on hold to work for the campaign, and have nothing to return to, and little to look forward to. A lot of the staff was banking on getting D.C. jobs if we won - and they would have. We did breed a lot of very confident, well-qualified, talented young campaigners - that will be a great asset next time around.

What can we expect in the next 4 years? Well, social progress may be set back 250 years with the appointments of a new chief justice and the potential for three new justices. I doubt there’s much hope in getting universal health care for all Americans. I doubt we’ll see responsible environmental policies that test our ingenuity by seeking energy independence and new alternative fuels. I doubt we’ll see a change in foreign policy or respect from our traditional allies. I doubt tuition increases will be matched with aide increases proportionally, or No Child Left Behind become less than a cliché. I doubt we’ll see an increase in minimum wage. I doubt we’ll catch, or even relentlessly pursue those terrorists who threaten us. I doubt we’ll give all veterans in need the basic benefits they earned. I doubt we’ll see any semblance of fiscal responsibility. I doubt we’ll see tax cuts for the middle class. I doubt stem cell research will continue to its full potential, or HIV/AIDS funding will continue to countries that are desperately in need. We sure were fighting for good things, huh? I’m not a pessimist, these are all realistic concerns.

We’ve had four years of a Republican president, two of those years with both houses of Congress controlled by Republicans, a Republican leaning Supreme Court, a majority of state legislatures controlled by Republicans, a majority of governors were Republicans. When will enough be enough? 2006. In those four years, moral values voters have gotten next to nothing of what they want – nothing on gays (except the eleven who banned it – we’ll see how those hold up in court), nothing on guns (assault weapons ban was repealed – boohoo, it didn’t do much anyway), nothing on abortion (partial birth ban was deemed unconstitutional).

There are a lot of reasons we lost, chief among them are the stupid people that vote on these things. While I won’t argue that these are important things to dicuss – they were NOT ANYWHERE NEAR THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES OF THIS ELECTION. Whoever it was that said, “It’s the stupidity, stupid,” was mostly right. That person was referring to Bush’s unintelligence, but it applies to his supporters. I guess it would only follow that stupid people would vote for a stupid person, and there sure are a lot of stupid people in this country… a little over half in fact. If they want their politicians to be puritan-like, fine – but if they know even a shred of truth about politics – they’re in for a rude awakening. John Kerry would have been a great president, and George W. Bush has already been nearly the worst. Hopefully we won’t see just how fucked up things can really be.

tired.

you?