Archives for the month of: August, 2010

My dear friend Michael ruined my night the other day by pointing out to me how Google’s automatic definition giver tackles the word “literally.”

lit·er·al·ly/ˈlitərəlē/Adverb

1. In a literal manner or sense; exactly: “the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the traffic circle”.

2. Used to acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling.

What the hell, Google. You are literally killing me with this horseshit second definition business.

In other news, I find it a little uncomfortable to tick off “the power of America’s example” in a list of our virtues literally minutes after expounding on the oft-neglected qualities of George W. Bush. Oy gevalt.

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I said “Tracey Ullman.”

Speaking of satire, I really hate in any way noticing his existence, but I was disheartened to notice in this article about Glenn Beck’s Sunday-after attacks on Obama’s “liberation theology” a mention of Republican concern that all this aggressive rhetoric could backfire. I would always sooner prefer these sorts of people rush headlong into disaster without tarrying to check for it up ahead. Quotes like this

You see, it’s all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation… It’s a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it.

and his March rant against any church that dare promote “social justice” strike me as pretty astoundingly out of touch with the basic tenets of, I don’t know, Christianity. Oh well— I know better than to expect Americans to notice pretty much anything that isn’t blinking and neon. At least the Tea Party is still good for rib-ticklers like that in the last thirty or so seconds in this Morning Edition piece.

So Friday I had the day off and decided to get a little hair cut. I got bangs and I like them a lot. When Devin came home I asked him how he felt about the change and this is the conversation that followed

S: Did you notice I got my hair done?

D: Uh-huh.

S: So what do you think?

D: You look like that one ugly girl, but better I guess.

S: What?! You think I’m ugly?

D: No, I like them. (long pause) I like them because you look like Garth.

S: So I look like an ugly girl or I look like a man.

D: Uh, you look nice.

This is the man to be exact:

A quick note in treehugger news— a coworker said something about genetically engineered salmon this morning, and I just looked it up. Sure enough, the FDA is holding hearings on both the permissibility of and potential labeling for genetically engineered salmon.

I went looking for some more and found this:

Unlike ordinary salmon, AquaBounty’s genetically modified fish grows during the winter as well as the summer, so it reaches an 8-pound market weight in 18 months instead of 36. That’s accomplished by inserting part of a gene from an eel-like creature called the ocean pout into the growth gene of a Chinook salmon, then injecting the blended genetic material into the fertilized eggs of a North Atlantic salmon.

Here’s an ocean pout for reference.

We got an underwater camera in a gift bag from a dear family friend during our wedding. We almost forgot the gift bag at my house but were able to coordinate a handoff at SeaTac the next morning with a different dear family friend.

Most the pictures turned out pretty blurry and indistinct (like this attempt to capture the awesome transverse tidal dunes).

Some (an extreme minority) turned out really well.

A select few are cute beyond words.

With a title that sexy, you knew it had to be something boring.

I was really glad the Citizens United thing didn’t take me by surprise (thanks, Warren). Between the initial comments on the Burlington Coat Factory Mosque and the willingness here to call Citizens United the big stinking pile of shit it is, I’m happy to see that the Fierce Advocacy of Every Now and Again isn’t getting buried on the way to midterms.

Speaking of which— my folks didn’t sound too down about the recent primary, but it was a fair sight scarier everywhere but Seattle. Round these parts, our incumbent D (and chair of the State’s Ways and Means Committee) is advancing in second place, while Rick Larsen looks vulnerable to ultraconservative John Koster, a no-abortion-even-for-rape-and-incest sort with really irritating deficit hawk-baiting signs peppering I-5. I’d say I hope more folks read sentences like the below between now and the election but, well, clearly, it didn’t help Stan Rumbaugh.

John Koster physically flinches when asked about the prospect of two gay men kissing at the altar.

Happy Sunday!