May 13, 2005

Pelosi's Pinko Pump Found!

So Nancy Pelosi lost her shoe running out of the Capitol. It always sucks to lose a shoe, but luckily for the San Francisco congresswoman, hers was found!

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May 12, 2005

Useless Bugle Boy Blogging

If he can't blow a note unless the bass and guitars are with him, i ask you, what good is he?

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Overheard On Renee and Kenny's Wedding Night?

Hellooo Mummy!*

Seriously i wish them luck.
_______________

* If you haven't seen Bridget Jones' Diary, move along.

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Just Curious

i'm perplexed.

How can Voinovich justify his opposition to Bolton by saying Bolton lacks "common decency" on the one hand -- then say he's met Bolton, likes Bolton, and that he believes Bolton is a "decent" man?

Just curious.

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May 11, 2005

Wednesday Is Poetry Day: Ginsberg

[Dreadfully sorry about the tardiness thing. Finals you know.]

A Ginsberg poem has been overdue for quite some time. Here's one that references Ken Kesey: beat author, champion wrestler, CIA guinea pig, author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and a man who arguably inspired today's rave scene with his Electric Kool Aid Acid Tests of the mid-sixties, which in turn launched the careers of Tom Wolfe and The Grateful Dead.

Here's how his friend, Allen Ginsberg, described one of Kesey's infamous get-togethers in 1965:


First Party at Ken Kesey's with Hell's Angels

Cool black night thru redwoods
cars parked outside in shade
behind the gate, stars dim above
the ravine, a fire burning by the side
porch and a few tired souls hunched over
in black leather jackets. In the huge
wooden house, a yellow chandelier
at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers
hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles
Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths
dancing to the vibration thru the floor,
a little weed in the bathroom, girls in scarlet
tights, one muscular smooth skinned man
sweating dancing for hours, beer cans
bent littering the yard, a hanged man
sculpture dangling from a high creek branch,
children sleeping softly in their bedroom bunks.
And 4 police cars parked outside the painted
gate, red lights revolving in the leaves.


If you look, Kesey's name seems to pop up everywhere. The Who and The Beatles wrote songs about his antics. Hunter S. Thompson introduced him to the Hells Angels, who became regular fixtures at Kesey's parties in the hills west of Palo Alto. (That is, until September 1966, when several of them beat him up pretty badly.) Timothy Leary and Jack Kerouac met him, but were unimpressed. Neal Cassady and Robert Pirsig were close friends. Kesey was like the Kevin Bacon of the beat and hippie countercultures.


More poetry: Steve celebrates his new OS with a little Blake.

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May 10, 2005

Status Update

i have two more finals to go. My best and worst subjects, torts and property, respectively. i can't believe the first year is almost over. This year has flown by.

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May 07, 2005

Now We're Talkin' Real Pizza

My previous attempts at homemade pizza dough didn't turn out good at all. The bottom was never crispy enough, and the toppings made the top soggy. Boboli was a reasonable alternative, but it's not real pizza. So i was on the lookout for a better way.

Here's what came out of the oven tonight.

oven

The secret is the pizza stone. i can't emphasize enough how essential this kitchen item is. Stick it in the oven first and preheat that bastard up to 500°, then sprinkle some cornmeal on it and slide the pizza on top. Then turn the heat down to 425° and cook for 18 minutes.

pizza closeup

That's mozarella, sun-dried tomato, pepperoni, mushroom, pineapple and crushed red pepper.

Perfecto. Bellisimo. Molto buono. Grazie T.S.!

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Things You Find On eBay

This is pretty funny.

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May 05, 2005

Aircraft Humour

This may be apocryphal, but it's funny.

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.

Speedbird 206: " Frankfurt , Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."

Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."

The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"

Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"

Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, -- and didn't land."

Thanks to Shelly for that one.

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Paula Hits The Road With The Hot Tub Friends... Again

This time she's on a mission.

Paula's car


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May 04, 2005

Silly Texas Bill Update

Back in March i alerted you to the silly Texas bill that seeks to outlaw suggestive cheerleading routines. As a former high school cheerleader this is an issue close to my own heart, although i will admit the routines have gotten racier in the ten years since i used to shake it on the track. But i'm still a libertarian on this issue.

i'm sure there's a heck of a lot more urgent problems that they could be worrying about in Texas than sexed-up cheerleaders or even this lowlife? Both are symptoms of bad parenting - a failure to teach kids the meaning of "respect" - but not a reason for the state to crack down on freedom of expression.

The committee's revised bill was weakened somewhat, removing the former draconian punishment of suspending the team for the rest of the school year and the punitive reduction in the offending school district's funding.

Instead, the revised bill gives the school district the authority to "take appropriate action against the performance group and the group's sponsor, as determined by the district." Pretty vague, but of course the whole law is hopelessly vague, in my opinion.

Speaking against the bill at the March 29th hearing were two ACLU representatives (see trolls? i can agree with the ACLU sometimes), including eighteen year old high school senior Margeaux Goodfleisch (that's got to be a stage name, right?), who made this quite reasonable point:

I agree that sexually suggestive performances are inappropriate for school events and school-sponsored competitions, but exactly what is a sexually suggestive performance? It could be someoneÂ’s opinion that any time a group of young, attractive girls dance, itÂ’s sexually suggestive. If you put on paper those moves we specifically cannot do, we would be more than happy to comply.
Well, you had to know that the legislature wasn't going to do that. Too much work and too easy to get around. A law like this has to be written vaguely or not at all. And the vagueness is what makes it so ridiculous.

Texas House Bill 1476 was voted out of committee by a vote of six to nothing, with three committee members absent. Today the Texas House of Representatives approved the bill by a vote of 85-55 with three present but not voting. Next, it goes to the Texas Senate for consideration.


See also: Grits For Breakfast with props for Margeaux.

Yet more: Blogger Jason Plotkin was apparently in the chamber for the debate and recorded these fun snippets:

What was funny is how they also had the song 'shake, shake, shake, shake, shake your booty' in the background at one point, I'm assuming, someone in the gallery played it.

. . .

'This is a ridiculous bill. I don't know how it got to the floor,' said Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston in a Chronicle article. 'We don't have any business mandating anything. We are spending time on "2-3-4, we can't shake it anymore." It's an embarrassment.'

. . .

Rep. Carter Casteel, R-New Braunfels, who agree legislators should not be legislating morality or telling people what to do, but she voted for the bill.

. . .

'When I was 15, anything a cheerleader did was interesting to me. When I was 17, I knew better' said [Rep. Rene Oliveria (D-Brownsville)]. Oliveria brought up how President George W. Bush, Governor Rick Perry and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson were cheerleaders and we should recognize them to vote no.

i should "revise and extend" my previous comment regarding the Democrats legislating morality with this bill. Despite being introduced by a Democrat, it appears that on the floor quite a few Dems were on the right side of this one.

Finally, In The Pink Texas gives us a timely warning about what happens to cheerleaders gone bad. And Frank J makes the connection between terrorism and slutty cheerleaders... sort of.

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Psst, Wanna Buy Some Pee?

Some sick entrepeneur dug Brittany's pregnancy test out of a dumpster and sold it for 5 grr!

'It's hard to put a price on Britney Spears' urine,' Golden Palace spokesman Drew Black told The Associated Press Wednesday.

Golden Palace says it purchased the test from Ottawa radio station Hot 89.9, which insists the test was retrieved from the trash outside Spears' Los Angeles hotel room months ago. The station didn't leak news of the test until Spears and husband Kevin Federline revealed her pregnancy to the public last month.

Student loan funds are running low, so i was toying with the idea of putting up some blog ads for extra money, but fuck that. There's easier money to be had!

i am now in the pee business. Any sickos wanna buy a tube of annie-urine, the bidding starts at five hundred a jar!

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Idiots Shouldn't Breed

So Cameran Diaz and Ashton Kutcher Timberlake are finally getting married?! Well, i sure hope they don't breed.

And i'd like to get in on the divorce pool, too. i'll pick sixteen months.

While their eventual breakup is a metaphysical certainty, i'm still waiting for Cameren to recant her ridiculously ugly prediction, made on the Ofrah show last year, that if women didn't vote (i.e. if Bush won) rape would become legal in the United States.

Well, as far as i am aware, the Rape Legalization Act has yet to be introduced into either house of Congress, despite the Republican majorities and the religious theocracy i keep hearing about. Oh, and i'm still waiting for Cher's prediction to come true. You know the one where we Republicans are supposed to round up all her gay friends and exile them to some remote state somewhere.

Still waiting. Idiots.

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Wednesday Is Poetry Day

This 1992 poem by Jo Shapcott makes me want to open my refrigerator and apologize.


Vegetable Love

I´d like to say the fridge
was clean, but look at the rusty
streaks down the back wall
and the dusty brown pools
underneath the salad crisper.

And this is where I´ve lived
the past two weeks, since I was pulled
from the vegetable garden.
I´m wild for him: I want to stay crunchy
enough to madden his hard palate and his tongue,
every sensitive part inside his mouth.
But almost hour by hour now, it seems,
I can feel my outer leaves losing resistance,
as oxygen leaks in, water leaks out
and the same tendency creeps further
and further towards my heart.

Down here there´s not much action,
just me and another, even limper, lettuce
and half an onion. The door opens so many,
so many times a day, but he never opens
the salad drawer where I´m curled in a corner.

There´s an awful lot of meat. Strange cuts:
whole limbs with their grubby hair,
wings and thighs of large birds,
claws and beaks. New juice
gathers pungency as it rolls down
through the smelly strata of the refrigerator,
and drips on to our fading heads.

The thermostat is kept as low as it will go,
and when the weather changes
for the worse, what´s nearest
to the bottom of the fridge starts to freeze.
Three times we´ve had cold snaps,
and I´ve felt the terrifying pain
as ice crystals formed at my fringes.

Insulation isn´t everything in here:
you´ve got to relax into the cold,
let it in at every pore. It´s proper
for food preservation. But I heat up
again at the thought of him,
at the thought of mixing into one juice
with his saliva, of passing down his throat
and being ingested with the rest
into his body cells where I´ll learn
by osmosis another lovely version
of curl, then shrivel, then open again to desire.


More food poetry: Kevin posted something about the beguiling food-like substance, Nutella. With pictures here.

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May 03, 2005

She Was Gonna Do What They Said Cain't Be Done

bandit

There's a lot we don't know about that runaway bride from Atlanta. More will come out in the next few weeks, and i'll bet you, say $80,000, that her little trip involved a dude in a black Trans-Am. The clue is right there in the song:

The boys are thirsty in Atlanta and there's beer in Texarkana.
And we'll bring it back no matter what it takes.
"Atlanta." See? Coincidence? i think not.

She was westbound and down. Seriously, i'm tellin' you there was a dude involved that we haven't heard about yet.

More: "US, Italy Disagree On Runaway Bride"

Update: i was right.

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Undies Quiz








You Are Boy Shorts!



You're stylish, trendy, but not over the top.
You know how to look good - without looking like you're trying too hard.
Men think that you're cute, friendly, and approachable.
And you've got a spunky, fiesty side that comes out after a while!




What Kind of Panties Are You? Take This Quiz :-)




Find the Love of Your Life
(and More Love Quizzes) at Your New Romance.



Well, that was a very revealing quiz, i think.

Via Inter Alia.

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May 02, 2005

Don't Panic

This weekend, i re-rented The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, the cheesy 1981 BBC version that i used to rave about. i won't be doing that anymore. It does not hold up to a second viewing.

The fact is, i only saw it once before, many years ago, when a friend let me borrow the videotape. i was really blazed at the time. i seemed to remember thinking the low budget special effects (none) were much funnier than they actually are.

The BBC version, in fact, is pretty sucky. Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect seem gay. The chick who plays Trillian is simply annoying and unpleasant to watch, as is Zaphod Beeblebrox, who can't decide what accent to use. i wanted to strangle Marvin the depressed robot by the end of the three hours.

Zaphod Beeblebrox's extra head is comical. It moves on its own, but it looks worse than a papier mache replica. It's really bad.

i did like the little interludes when the narrator read from the Guide. These are illustrated with typical 80's videogame style graphics that seem to still work for me. The narrator delivers the funny lines with perfect deadpan timing. All the scenes on the Vogon spaceship were well done and funny too. The Vogon captain's poetry was classic.

i also detected a slight British high-brow anti-Americanism, which i hadn't noticed the first time i saw it. i'm more sensisitive to these things now. For instance, a couple of the characters spoke in caricatures of American dialects. Some guards talked like they were from Brooklyn, and Trillian sounded like a gum chewing waitress. And when Ford and Zaphod sing a death song in one of the later episodes, the melody is the Star Spangled Banner. Why is it that the Brits all know our national anthem?

That's something that has always bothered me about the British intelligentsia. They love us, yet they hate us. They act superior, yet we give them an inferiority complex. They're obsessed with us. It's kind of pathetic.

Anyways, i don't recommend the old BBC version, except to Dr. Who fans, who are all desensitized to bad sci-fi effects already.

i'm a big fan of the book, and i do plan on seeing the newest feature version. i think Douglas Adams is a modern day Swift.

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May 01, 2005

Right Wing News Favorite Columnists

Right Wing News has a new poll of bloggers' favorite columnists. i participated, and my list included:

Ann Coulter
Charles Krauthammer
Dick Morris
John Podhoretz
Victor Davis Hanson
Jonah Goldberg
Peggy Noonan
Rich Lowry

The winner was Mark Steyn, deservedly, even though i forgot to put him on my list.

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