Month: December 2011

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Yikes!

This desert rat doesn't know from 8 degrees, but he's loving it!

My mom was born and raised in Wisconsin.  As a young man, my dad resided in New York. Both have lived with snow and cold weather. But nothing in my own experience has prepared me for days and days of living, working, and driving in it.

Surprisingly, I think I'm adapting pretty well (a few incidents notwithstanding).  Of course, I'm not stuck outside waiting for a bus every morning like my Ben, but it seems that much as in Phoenix when the temperature goes over 110 it starts to feel all the same, when the temp here drops below freezing, it works pretty much the same way.

The barely-used fleece-lined jacked I purchased about a dozen years ago (for the color, not its supposed warmth—I was living in San Francisco at the time) does live up to its advertised qualities, and has kept me comfortable enough through this that I don't foresee having to replace it with anything else.

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Quote of the Day

"Newt Gingrich's mind is in love with itself. It has persuaded itself that it is brilliant when it is merely promiscuous. This is not a serious mind. Gingrich is not, to put it mildly, a systematic thinker. His mind is a jumble, an amateurish mess lacking impulse control. He plays air guitar with ideas, producing air ideas. He ejaculates concepts, notions and theories that are as inconsistent as his behavior. He didn't get whiplash being a serial adulterer while impeaching another serial adulterer, a lobbyist for Freddie Mac while attacking Freddie Mac, a self-professed fiscal conservative with a whopping Tiffany's credit line, and an anti-Communist Army brat who supported the Vietnam War but dodged it." – Maureen Dowd

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Trust Me

Trust me, I'm the man that will probably land you in the most danger you have ever experienced, ever. This may include: extermination, deletion, the loss of your daughter, your daughter melting, and you falling hopelessly in love with me and me not reciprocating.  In addition, if  you're named Rory you'll probably die seven or so times, I'll steal your girlfriend, you'll turn gay for me, your planet will explode, you'll turn into adipose, you'll crash into the sun, you'll get killed by Kryptonites while I reference Harry Potter, and you'll basically have to run fucking everywhere. So yeah…you can totally trust me. Even if you don't you'll probably be drawn in by your curiosity to find my eyebrows or by an inexplicable desire to fuck me.

And you won't regret a moment of it.

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Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Republican

From Down With Tyranny:

Tiny little North Carolina fascist Patrick McHenry still hasn't been officially outed—even if everyone in DC knows he's a raging closet case. Neither have Trent Franks (R-AZ), Adrian Smith (R-NE), Miss McConnell (R-KY), David Dreier (R-CA), Mark Kirk (R-IL) nor even flamboyant DC men-about-town Lindsay Graham and Aaron Schock… or a dozen other furtive, frightened GOP dick-lovers. Republicans who have been caught red handed and dragged out of the closet, like boy rapist Mark Foley (R-FL), Jim Mcrery (R-LA), Larry Craig (R-ID), Ed Schrock (R-VA), Robert Bauman (R-MD), and Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), have been forced out of Congress and into retirement. But no matter how frequently the media covers these tragic outings of virulently anti-gay right-wing closet case phonies, the cavalcade of clowns never seems to end. This week, stage center moved to Arapahoe County, Colorado. Patrick Sullivan, once a major donor to homophobic fanatic Marilyn Musgrave's political career—and once the "straight as an arrow" fascist sheriff of Arapahoe County who—turns out to be a drug dealing boy chaser, like virtually EVERY Republican who runs around screaming how much they hate gays.

Former Arapahoe County Sheriff Patrick Sullivan's arrest in a meth-for-sex case left longtime law officers at a loss for words Wednesday, though court records paint a picture of a man who has been living a double life.

Sullivan, 68, remained behind bars in a jail that bears his name, accused of trading methamphetamine for sex with a man Tuesday, a transaction monitored by deputies working with a confidential informant. During a brief morning court appearance Wednesday, a judge doubled his bail to $500,000.

The arrest of the married father and grandfather sparked shock– even bewilderment– among longtime law officers.

…Wednesday evening, a man who owns a home in Centennial said Sullivan was a frequent visitor this year to the house, where he would consume drugs and have sex with young men living there.

He said Sullivan intimidated him.

"I couldn't get rid of these guys because this guy named Pat Sullivan said you are going to let them stay for free," Derek Hendrickson said. "He said I said they could stay for free and it would hold up in court, and said, 'Do you know who I am?'"

"He was telling me he has a jail named after him." … A search Tuesday night of Sullivan's home, conducted after both the former sheriff and his wife consented, led to the discovery of "a fairly large amount of adult homosexual pornography."

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Michelle Bachmann: Still a Stupid Cunt

From Alexandra Petri at the Washington Post:

Jane Schmidt, a student at Waverly High School, in Waverly, Iowa, recently asked Michele Bachmann, "Why can't same-sex couples get married?"

"They can get married," Bachmann responded, "but they abide by the same law as everyone else. They can marry a man if they're a woman. Or they can marry a woman if they're a man."

(In Iowa, same-sex marriage is the law, at least for now, but never mind that.)

She later expanded on this in a response to someone else: "Every American citizen has the right to avail themselves to marriage but they have to follow what the laws are. And the laws are you marry a person of the opposite sex."

Really?

This is the sound of a thousand heads hitting a thousand desks.

I'm glad Bachmann wasn't there for history. "Why can't Rosa Parks sit at the front of the bus?"

"She can sit," Bachmann would say. "She can sit at the back of the bus."

I'm glad she isn't my waiter. "Is there a vegetarian option?"

"The vegetarian option is steak," Bachmann would say, not blinking an eye.

"Is there a way for people in wheel chairs to access the sixth floor?"

"There's a way. They can take the stairs," Bachmann would say, still not blinking.

"There doesn't seem to be an option for Republicans to vote."

"Republicans can vote. They can vote Democrat like everyone else," Bachmann would say, blinking a little in confusion.

"I'd like to find a synagogue."

"There's a synagogue right here," Bachmann would say. "It's a church."

"Do you have apples?"

"Yes, I have oranges."

At first Bachmann's remark seemed like a peculiar thing to say, coming on the heels of her sensible remark that, "I think we have forgotten what true tolerance means. True tolerance means allowing people to express themselves and their beliefs."

But then it made sense.

As Bachmann would say, "We allow you to express different beliefs. You can express different beliefs that agree with us."

I'm glad she's here to keep things straight.

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Friday Dance Party: La Flavour – Mandolay

Another song forever associated with a boy I dated back in the day.

Two things remind me of Brian Butcher: this song and a patchwork suede jacket I bought from the clothing store he was working in at the time. The last photo I have of him dates from 1982 (the one above is from 1979). We lost touch shortly thereafter and last I'd heard he'd relocated to Southern California. I often wonder if he's still among the living, and if so, where life has taken him.

The trouble with having dated men with fairly common names is that even in the age of the Internets it's impossible to track them down. Probably a good thing, come to think of it…

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What a Difference a Day Makes!

It was clear and sunny 24 hours ago…

The commute this morning wasn't all that bad. At least it wasn't as horrible as it was the last time it snowed. I fear this afternoon will be more of a problem, as the white stuff is supposed to continue coming down throughout the day (which it did not last time). Fingers crossed!

Don't get me wrong. I love the cold and the snow…I just don't like driving in it!

I asked a co-worker today if you ever get used to it.  Her response? "Never. I have a very healthy respect for driving in weather like this, and I've lived here all my life…and I ski!"

The prognosticators are saying it will be clear (but extremely cold, lower single-digits) until the middle of next week, when when another storm is scheduled to come through.

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World AIDS Day

Remembering:

Kent Kelly
Ben Walzer
Ken Cohen
Steve Golden
Dennis Shelpman
Philip Ruckdeschel
Jim Hagen
Peter Whitman
Chuck Krahe
John Trapp
Marty Kamner
Michael Nelson
Jim Nye
Ken Borg
Harold Gates
Jim Girard
Kevin Ohm
Scott Woods
Bobby Farina
Brian Lea
Fred Sibinic
Steve McCollom
Rick King
Tom Farrell
Chuck Mayer
Richard Gulliver
Ron Aiazzi
Keith Roseberry
Grant Neilsen
Ric Hathaway
David Koston