Check it out:
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Yummy
One of my favorite things ever is Peach ice cream eaten with Sour Cream and Onion potato chips. It’s totally heaven- sweet and salty and so simple and fresh. Yum! It’s hard to find peach ice cream, so it isn’t a delight I get to partake in often. Kevin thinks it is gross, but what does he know?\
What are some of your wacky cravings? -
Holy crap I’m old!
I just realized that I have been getting my period for over twenty years. Which, yea, makes sense given my age, but when put that way makes me feel very, very old.
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Let’s Boogie!
How funny is it that after reading Rolling Stone’s list of most annoying songs I had to go to iTunes to make sure I wasn’t missing any of my faves?
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Dear Mr. President
(I sent this to comments@whitehouse.gov. I just couldn’t stand it anymore.)\
Dear President Bush,\
You, sir, are a failure as a president. You have disappointed me over and over again the past six years, and it’s only fitting that your most disgraceful act as the president of our country comes on the anniversary of the act I consider the most ridiculous thing any public figure has ever said in public.\
Four years ago, while talking about insurgents in Iraq, you told them to “bring ’em on.” Since then, over 3,500 America soldiers have died, over 30,000 soldiers have been wounded, and untold thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have died (who, like all your other problems, your administration have just ignored by not bothering to count their deaths). You and your administration have constantly failed to admit your mistakes, correct your course or do more than make excuses and beg for more time. You’ve said over and over again that you listen to your commanders on the ground, yet it comes to light more every day that anyone who disagrees with you is shuffled off to retirement and someone more agreeable to your illusion is put in place.\
That act was a disgrace – the act of a bully who doesn’t fight himself, but puffs himself up with tough talk. But you’re worse than a bully, because it’s not you who’s in the line of fire, it’s the thousands of American troops over there who take the punishment for your mistakes and empty threats – mistakes you can’t admit and refuse to correct.\
You talk tough about the rule of law. Your party supports mandatory minimum sentences for citizens for even the most petty of crimes. Your party is supposedly the party of “law and order”. Yet today, you commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby – who was convicted of a crime. He was sentenced in accordance with the law, within in the sentencing guidelines. Yet, for some reason, you don’t support the rule of law for him, and nowhere near mandatory minimums. You, sir, are a hypocrite. You are a liar, and should be impeached. Why? In the aftermath of Watergate, the judiciary committee released the following:In the \[Constitutional\] convention George Mason argued that the President might use his pardoning power to “pardon crimes which were advised by himself” or, before indictment or conviction, “to stop inquiry and prevent detection.” James Madison responded:
\[I\]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds \[to\] believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty…
Madison went on to \[say\] contrary to his position in the Philadelphia convention, that the President could be suspended when suspected, and his powers would devolve on the Vice President, who could likewise be suspended until impeached and convicted, if he were also suspected.
Scooter Libby was acting on either yours or the Vice President’s orders. Either you, or Mr. Cheney, need to resign or be impeached (take your pick, if lying about an extramarital affair constitutes a high crime or misdemeanor, what do your multitudinous bad acts constitute?). If the series of articles in the Washington Post published last week is the truth, this was all Mr. Cheney’s doing, and you’re just a patsy. How frightening is that? The President of the United States of America is a patsy to a shadow government running out of the Vice President’s office?\
You deserve no less than to be run out of office, even if that means making Dick Cheney president. You should pay some price, under the laws you continually flout and except yourself from, for all the pain, misery and disgrace you’ve brought to your country, its citizens and the world.\
I know that you don’t care what I think. You’ve proven over and over again that reality and the truth have no effect on you. I don’t expect this to have any impact on anything, other than me using my First Amendment rights and putting a stake in the ground that I find your actions unacceptable and a disgraceful use of your authority as president. -
Don’t tell Kevin, whatever you do!
Bush Commutes Libby’s Sentence.\
My reaction: OMG! OMG!!! Why are people just letting Bush completely F*CK over this country? Why am I? Ahhhhhh. -
Let’s jam!
To the left, you can read Kevin’s recap of the roller derby. Here is mine:\
I went to my first Roller Derby bout last night! It was fun! The first half an hour I was too amazed with all of the hot chicks there to really pay attention. (I kept making Kevin email a friend to tell him what he was missing.) They were in little gaggles and dressed to the 7’s, like they had gotten lost on the way to some club. I never did figure them out. There was also a huge contingent of computer nerds, goths, bikers, and families. It was surreal.\
The derby itself was kind of insane. It was a flat-track derby, with no rail between the participants and the fans. The first row was called the “suicide seats.” Yeah, we didn’t sit there. I had no idea what the rules or objective of roller derby was but after awhile, I figured out some things and could appreciate when someone made a good maneuver. It’s a rough sport, with lots of falling and elbows. Four girls from the roughly 45 players were recovering from serious broken bones. Youch! The basics are: This is a sport played on roller skates, which leads to all kind of craziness. Each period is 20 minutes (I am not sure if there are two or three periods per bout.) Within each period are several “jams,” where four girls from each team skate in a “pack” and one girl from each team initially skates behind them. These lagging skaters try to maneuver through the pack to be in front and then skate around the track to try to get through the pack again and again. They get one point for every opposing player they pass. These jams are at most two minutes long, which makes for lots of quick action and restarts with fresh skaters. There was some trash talking, elbows flying, and penalties all over the place. One girl even lifted her skirt and patted her ass a few times, to mock the skaters behind her. The audience laughed, the opposing skaters didn’t.\
The players have awesome names. That was probably one of the most fun things about the night. They also have really fun uniforms, with the shortest skirts in the world, that they embellish when not competing. The referees even have fun too. There was a guy in a clown face named John Dewayne Gacey and Refsputin, who would send you to hell if you disagreed with him.\
By the end, I was really getting into it. I felt like if we suddenly moved to somewhere exotic, that in a few short months I would be cheering for their wacky sports too. Cuz watching sports isn’t really about the love of the game, IMO, it is about the appreciation of a tough skill, the opportunity to root for your favorite team, and to be with other people.\
Roller derby is weird! But I enjoyed it anyway! If you ever have the chance, check it out! There is a probably a league near you! -
DC Roller Girls
Jen and I went to see the DC Roller Girls roller derby tonight! I wouldn’t call us roller derby people, but we had a lot of fun. I’m thinking of taking Max to the July 21st double-header!\
My favorite thing about the roller derby was the diversity of the crowd. There were, as Jen put them, “hot chicks” in small groups. There were several families with 6-12 year olds. There were older couples, lots of roller girl parents (with some great t-shirts declaring their maternity or paternity of their particular girl), a whole biker gang in full leather, several lesbian couples, some with kids, lots of nerdy couples, and even a couple goths. It was great! I think roller derby could bring world peace… bringing the world together for good clean fun and bruises.\
My second favorite thing? The names!! Here are a couple of my faves:- Speedy Gone-bra-less
- Inconvenient Ruth
- O-Face
- Madelaine Allfight
- Helena Handbag (her mom sat in front of us and politely cheered for her girl with the broken tailbone)
- X-abitchenest (like several of them, recovering from a broken ankle)
- Mason Vixen (my personal favorite – she was tiny, but in there kicking ass, blocking out ladies twice her size)
- Blondie Danger Slut\
So… wanna go next time? July 21st at Dulles Sportsplex in Sterling. I’ll be there – either with Max or Jen. Come on, you know you wanna.
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This Week’s Ficlets
I’ve been writing ficlets at night after work as a way to unwind and do something creative outside of writing code. It’s been fun! I’ve been trying to write sequels to other peoples’ stories as an exercise in trying other styles, genres and voices. I think I’d call the results mixed, but fun.\
Here are this week’s:- The Devil in a Shop Window – I seem to do tragedy pretty well. This is a sequel to a story about alchoholism and hitting rock bottom. The original provided a perfect setup.
- Shokran Gazillan – I had to do research for this one (looking up “thank you” in Arabic). It’s a sequel to a story about a soldier in Iraq on patrol stumbling on a wounded Iraqi child and his brother.
- Basil, Rock God – A sequel to a hilarious story about an accountant who wakes up in the body of a rock star. Lots of questions to answer, but all I wanted to write about were leather pants and his stupid non-rock star name.
- Keeping the Peace? What Peace? – I re-read Shokran Gazillan and had to write a sequel to figure out what happened next.
- God’s Fist – A sequel to a great Deep Impact~~style story about an impending comet impact. Reminded me a lot of the first ficlet (oddly enough called The End) (which has spawned a surprising number of sequels~~ it’s actually got a bunch of threads coming off of it!).\
Jen came downstairs earlier and asked me if I was working (before I started writing, I was checking on stats, checking for reported stories, and wander). I gave her a blank look… was I? She laughed at me and told me it was OK if I was working. I shook my head and told her I was playing with my “toys”.
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Hugs for the AOL Daycare
Max just finished his first week at Summer Camp for school-aged children at the AOL Daycare Center. He had a fun time and was glad to be back. This week’s theme was Deserts. They learned about people and animals who live in the deserts and got up close and personal with a variety of real live reptiles. The week was finished with a trip to the pool. YAY! And it was an indoor pool, which is even better in my opinion. (Cuz the sun is my enemy. It should fear me, yet it does not. Boooo.)\
I love the AOL Daycare Center. I’ve only experienced their Summer Camp, but the infant, toddler, and kindergarten programs sound fabulous too. I joked with Kevin that we should have 10 more babies, just so we can send them there. The full time care is a bit expensive, though, so poor Brian is hanging out with me and attending cheaper (but still nice) classes at the community center this summer.