Innocent Bystanders

Mrs. R. G. the Horse Whisperer has a horse that gives hugs.

Thought you should know.

Retired Geezer sent me a video. It got a “wow!” out of Mrs. Skinny so I’ll share.

I did a quick google news search and found a link to the story. Supposedly no one was hurt.

Back when I was in undergrad and sometimes coherent, I all but lived on Hot Pockets. That lava hot cheese. That ambiguous “meat”. That funky sleeve thingy. All for $1.50 for two of them. That meant more money for alcohol, so you know, being the Biz School man I was, I allocated my resources properly and filled my freezer with Hot Pockets so that the essentials would be perpetually handy. And that fucking do-gooder down the hall complaining of the smell and flatulence? Go bite my ass, fuckface! I’m eating and boozing and getting laid. And you?

*ahem*

Anyway, I read with much sorrow today that there has been a recall of a shitload of LeanPockets, the “diet” spinoff of HotPockets.

About 200,000 pounds of the products, a spinach artichoke chicken package with two sandwiches, are affected.

This prompted a recall of the greatest stand up skit not featuring the late George Carlin (PBUH):

Anyway, what’s a lad to do while waiting out the recall? Here are a few suggestions:

Ponder whether or not Batman could really exist.

What’s most plausible about portrayals of Batman’s skills?
You could train somebody to be a tremendous athlete and to have a significant martial arts background, and also to use some of the gear that he has, which requires a lot of physical prowess. Most of what you see there is feasible to the extent that somebody could be trained to that extreme. We’re seeing that kind of thing in less than a month in the Olympics.

Thanks to Wisergenius for the above.

Go out and exercise.

Steve Striker of Edwardsville planned to eat at least 24 doughnuts. He was working on 20 doughnuts when he reached the Worden pit stop.

“I don’t think I’ll make my goal. It’s tough to hold it back now,” Striker said as he was shoving five doughnuts into his mouth.

First-time participant Blake Stevens of Edwardsville said the ride was fun.

“I got to see some guy puke after eating 25 doughnuts, so that was interesting,” Stevens said.

Cope with the InBev buyout of A-B:

Q: What should I drink instead?

A: You have several options. You can drink Miller Lite, which is fucking terrible. You can also drink Coors Light, which is also fucking terrible. But at least Coors Light is an offical sponsor of the NFL. Also, when you open a Coors Light, a big fucking silver train comes from out of nowhere! And you can see your breath! And girls with big tits show up out of thin air! Awesome.
…
Whatever you do, DO NOT drink any Belgian beer. Belgium is renowned for making delicious dubbels and trappist ales that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. THIS IS A TRAP. It’s right there in the name: “trap”pist. You know who makes those beers? Bloodthirsty Belgian monks, who employ the beer as a sedative before FUCKING THEIR VICTIMS UP THE ASS. You keep that Chimay away from my family, you perverts.

Or, you could engage in some “bonding” with the USC Football Team.

You could drive scooters in Columbus, OH (I hear that is popular with some on this site).

It’s difficult to get an exact estimate as to how many scooters are being operated around the city, but some estimates are as high as 3,000.

“With the fuel injection engines, it should get about 100 miles per gallon under normal use,” Beam said.

But there are drawbacks.

Scooters are now mixing into the flow of traffic.

Dave Hughes and his wife have started riding scooters to and from work.

“It’s more of a respect thing and ‘you’re in my way kind of thing,’” Hughes said.

But as the price of gasoline remains high, scooters may not always be the vehicles that are “in the way.”

“We’ve been absolutely inundated (with a) 35 scooter backorder right now,” Beam said.

With a higher demand than supply, Central Ohioans should expect to see more and more of them as more are built and available.

Or, you could hang out with some Canadian Football Cheerleaders.

Folks, the choice is yours. Choose wisely.

I have about a 20 minute work commute, depending on whether or not there are a lot of deer on the road and if I hit the one traffic light in the county just right. So, (I’m pretty sure I don’t need Geoff to check my math on this one) I’ve got about 40 non-competing minutes to embiggen my intellect each work day.

I have access to quite a few audio books and have been listening to “classics” that I never got around to reading–or have started several times and never pushed through to the bitter end. I was looking at what was available today and thought you would naturally want to know my thoughts on the subject.

(more…)

I just thought I’d share a sign we saw at a beach on Lake Erie, when we were on vacation a couple of weeks ago. Note the little addition some very creative person made to the sign:

The whole family got a laugh out of it.

UPDATE:

I’ve been asked by Michael to include the social relevance of a post like this:

I’m assuming that your picture of the pooping dog sign will be accompanied by an insightful explanation of how this relates to matters of public importance. It seems to me, for example, that dogs pooping on beaches are a metaphor for a reckless and irresponsible consumer culture that has led to the Crisis of Global Warming™.

Yes, that…and also the distressing inability parents have these days to control their kids’ behavior.

And, oh…if you don’t like this post…blame Eddiebear, he told me to do it.

The public seems to be evenly divided about how to withdraw from Iraq:

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds the country split down the middle between those backing Sen. Barack Obama’s 16o-month timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and those agreeing with Sen. John McCain’s position that events, not timetables, should dictate when forces come home.

Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, will deliver what his campaign is billing as a “major address” on Iraq today in Washington, part of an effort to convince voters that he could serve effectively as commander in chief. The public is also evenly divided on that question, with 48 percent saying he would be an effective leader of the military and 48 percent saying he would not.

Poll: Voters split on Iraq-pullout positions - Washington Post- msnbc.com

The country is “split.”  Maybe we could benefit from an artistic representation of this divisive trend, from Australia.  Here is a compelling performance of the Banana Split Show.

Why can’t we all just be friends?

Aussies came up with this dance routine.  This confirms my belief that Australia may be the last best hope for the preservation of black American culture.

You need a rabbit.

Lonely days are gone , , ,

Had this story happened in a certain pool in Texas, we may be reading about a Kimber helping facilitate some new steaks on a new grill. But, instead, we read about a bull escaping in England and landing in some guy’s new pool.

Apparently, the bull, named Broombrae Tramp, was brought to a farm to “mingle” with the female cows. From there, the young lad decided he wanted to make a break for it, only to land in the new pool of some businessman. And pool owners being pool owners, they could only think of themselves and be useless.

“I don’t think they were terribly pleased with us - we stood in the garden with glasses of wine and shouted unhelpful suggestions.”

Mr Stewart’s children Samantha, 12, Lucy, 10, and Finbar, 7, were delighted with their unusual party guest.

But all is not lost. The pool can be saved.

The outdoor heated pool, designed by Alba Pools, will need minor repairs and to be refilled.

Oh well. In true European Nanny-Statism, the bull was helped out of the pool and allowed to live another day, instead of winding up on somebody’s plate, which is what would have happened here in America. Just as long as the pool owner doesn’t blog incessantly about the repairs to the pool, or the missed opportunity to unload a magazine into a cow, all will be good.

I guess.

Yeeeehaw!

We have a house under contract in Dallas. I think this deal is going to go through.

Of course, the single most important criteria in our home search in Dallas was:  Would this house be an appropriate place for an Innocent Bystanders Super Bowl Party?

When Mrs. Michael and I are house hunting, she does the initial screen (she looked at over 30 homes this week).  Then she shows me the finalists.  We give names to the finalists so we can keep them straight and talk about them.  At first, we were going to bid on the “Turret House” because it was a very nice new home with little market risk.  The “Crepe Myrtle” house was a close second.  They were both safe choice; normal houses that would hold their value.

Then, we changed our minds overnight.  We have always bought somewhat unusual houses.

So, we bid on the “Barcelona Whorehouse and Gay Dungeon” in Irving (Las Colinas area), which is a much more suitable venue for an IBSBP, and we settled on price with the owners today.  It’s a financial stretch for us, but I think it’s a great house.

I empathize with the current owners.  They recently spent a ton of money on refurbishing this place to make it their dream retirement home (way more than we spent in Ohio) and then they got relocated to New York.  Everything from the floors to the kitchen to the pool finish to the covered patio to every bathroom has been redone.  It has  been on the market for a long time and is vacant, so it does not show well.  With nobody there, they had some sprinkler system problems which browned off some landscaping.  A trivial issue, but the home did not show well.

I love finding a house like that.  It has a pier-and-beam foundation (a major plus with Texas soils) and a lifetime concrete tile roof (which means the entire structure is more sturdy to bear the weight — good news in tornado season).

The funny thing about this house is the extravagent draperies and lighting fixtures, and really unique wall finishes.  The prior owners had a gay decorator who was really making a statement.  It’s a hoot.

Brett Favre

Of course not. She’s a stupid, cold-hearted little troll. Be that as it may, the subject of one of her incoherent radio rants is dividing Packer nation.

Brett Favre, understandably, is having second thoughts about his retirement. I’m not sure how you can do something your whole life and then simply walk away from it. However, his tactics and timing leave much to be desired. The local fish wrapper published a very revealing time line this morning. He was given every opportunity to come back and when he finally, finally decided he was going to stay retired, the Packers went into the draft convinced they would be Favre-less. Now, he is waging a very un-subtle PR war with the Packers and I think its beneath him. I’m not sure you can imagine what a stir this has caused up here in the frozen tundra but trust me when I say about 50% of the fans have lost a little respect for Brett because of the way this is being handled.

It was the first thing I heard this (already gloomy, drizzly) morning. My husband announced the news before I even got out of bed. And all I could say was, “oh nooooo,” fighting tears. I was so hoping he’d beat it.

What a transparently good and decent man Tony Snow was. That came through to anyone with an ounce of discernment, whether you were listening to him on his radio show, on Fox News, or as Bush’s Press Secretary.

Ed Morrissey has a nice memorial post at Hot Air along with Brit Hume’s tribute video.

Michelle Malkin’s post includes this poignant column written by Snow for Christianity Today, well worth the read.

RightWingSparkle got to meet Tony Snow at a Media Research Research Center event last March; her impressions are here.

And here are some thoughts from NRO thus far from: Shannen Coffin, Byron York, and Kathryn Jean Lopez.

More tributes will be trickling in at Memorandum throughout the weekend.

Now from the dark side. Not surprisingly, there are some who would waste no time to use the death of a political opponent to slam him. That Daily Kos would allow such a vile diary to stand, is unconscionable. Even the folks at The Democratic Underground had more class than that. And Huffington Post had the sense and decency to close comments on their Tony Snow Post. FireDogLake hasn’t seen fit to put up a post, yet.

I don’t understand the mentality behind the need some have to viciously attack people after they’ve died. There are only a few people who deserve that kind of treatment, and they belong to a special club of bloody tyrants, mass murderers, and the like. Not political opponents. If someone you didn’t necessarily like dies, you can always express sympathy for the family, or just say nothing. But there is this disturbing pathology on display every time someone on the right dies. It happens every time, and it’s truly despicable.

Cross posted at Nice Deb

Look, ending a sentence with a preposition may be poor grammar, but who the hell cares? I’m here to list a few things for which I am grateful, given the shitty state of things out there.

Yeah, I could talk about family, health, and all that crap. But that should be understood. If not, we need to get our collective heads examined upon removing them from our collective asses.

No, I am here to express gratitude for some of the little things out there that make a weirdo like me happy. So, here goes:

• That leftover strawberry shortcake given to us by that old lady next door. Hey, toots. I appreciate that you felt compelled to give us some store-bought leftover strawberry shortcake from your daughters’ visit a few days ago. That shit was to die for. But I have a problem with that plastic container thingy it came in. IT TAKES UP NEARLY HALF THE FUCKING REFRIGERATOR!! How the hell am I going to store my bread, cheese, and dead hobo parts? And you want it back when finished? Are you shitting me?!? We’re not in The Great Depression II yet! Besides, I wouldn’t want to eat anything you store in that plastic after my ass gets finished with it. Good Fucking Grief!
• Awesome Vacation Ideas That Cheat Death. A cage hanging over a shitload of crocodiles? Sign me up!
  

  Just 4cm of acrylic will separate brave punters from the jaws of Choppa - a feisty saltwater croc.

  Top End tourists will climb into a clear box before being lowered into Choppa’s lair.

  They’ll then spend 15 minutes inside the 2.8m high cage and watch Choppa, who lost both front feet while fighting other crocodiles, trying to take a bite out of them.

• Bald Squirrels. Fuckers deserve it after tearing into my petunias.

• And Finally, Women’s Tennis, Especially Serbian Players.

What A Time To Be Alive!