…means “no good” if you’re wondering at home, relatives also reading Brendan’s fantastic travel blog — aka the best blog on the Internet from the author of the critically self-acclaimed author of the “most important book of the twenty-first century.” Please, buy the app and support an itinerant scholar and unofficial American ambassador.

Remember— only the United States of America could bring you both Little Boy and Vince McMahon in the same month. Happy Fourth— please do not blow off your fingers.

The Boehner Bungle reminds me of an effort to lose as many elections as possible for the Republicans. Everybody’s harping on the “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon” line which, yes, minimizes the economic collapse (“ant”) while wildly overstating the financial reform bill (“nuclear weapon”). Reminds me more of a Band-aid on cancer.

Anyway. I think the Dems are missing a great opportunity by not focusing on the rest of that original interview. As Boehner has it, the retirement age should be raised to 70— and means-testing should be employed to weed out the older folks with “substantial” income— to make sure we have enough money for our wars. Compound that with the sentiment that Obama overreacted to the spill and you’ve got a political sludge gold mine.

There’s a partial lunar eclipse overnight— or rather in the very early morning.

It’ll be to the southwest and low to the horizon— sets up here right around 5 o’clock. Sam and I realized that’s only an hour before we’ve been getting up these days, so we’re going to make a go of it.

Lately I’ve been noticing people are getting pretty bummed about the state of well, lots of things. The economy is creeping along, oil is chugging out of the bottom of the ocean and we can’t seem to stop it, politicians are being their usual selves and my mom has had to replant her garden twice already this year due to inclement weather. I think we are all in need of some good news or at least some good laughs. This post is dedicated to everyone and only includes funny-happy-uplifting things. (Now that I think of it, most of our posts are pretty non-negative, but this one is especially silly/saccharin.) I hope you laugh a little bit more by reading this!


peace out home-slices.

I’m surprisingly okay with the idea… but I take umbrage with the “app for that” line. It reminds me of a joke a generic lame coworker would make- the guy whose cubicle is covered with Dilberts and is still answering the phone with the Budweiser “what’s uppppp?”

Addendum: My mother upbraided me via email along the lines that the Democrats need all the help they can get and that I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth— and I couldn’t agree more, Mom. I like that they’re waving the flashiest thing they can find in front of idiots who would spite vote against Democrats because Obama didn’t make their mean neighbor’s dog into a unicorn that shits ice cream and babysits for free. It is astounding to think that it’s been less than two years since the 2008 election; less than two years for everybody to forget every reason not to vote for Republicans. I keep hoping there are two things that will Keep The Bums Out— Obama’s secret plan to win the war in Vietnam and the Republicans themselves and their Democrat-like ability to screw up royal. I was really interested to hear on my favorite news program today that pundits on both sides are rightly marking up the Petraeus Hail Mary as a political masterstroke.

My Dad and I were musing this weekend about how close or not my brother is to the massive flooding in China. Noticing another reference to Jiangxi Province in that latest Xinhua article, I decided to do some sleuthing.

That’s him in the green building. Most of the worst is way to the south and east of him but that latest big dike burst (the wavy lines) is only about 160 kilometers to the south. If there was flooding in the Maple Valley today, would I be too worried? So, no immediate concern— but, really, can water be far from your mind in a city named Nine Rivers?

(Before anybody jumps on my back— yes, there is another, bigger city named Fuzhou closer to the coast but that’s not the one the Fuhe River goes through. Finding Chinese locations in Google Maps is pretty frustrating for this honky, though; place names seem to appear and disappear at random and others seem to show up in multiple, widely separated places. How could anyone ever cope?)



We went on a camping trip a few weeks ago. It was beautiful.

Duh.