this and that

Reading: Just finished Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming. I only wonder why she didn't mention Dave Neiwert, who has been talking about many aspects of this for years. Just started Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy. I must be a complete glutton for punishment. Next up are Glenn Greenwald's How Would a Patriot Act? and Chalmers Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire.

Listening: What does it mean when I listen to Gary Numan's Jagged one direction of the commute, and an Ella Fitzgerald collection in the other? And then today, OMD's second album, Organisaton followed by an Elvis Costello collection. Just for the record - I do like Jagged. I wandered over to Numan's website a week or so ago, and it was great to see how happy he sounds, how great he looks (at 48!), and I love the pic of him with daughter Raven, she in a carrier strapped to his back. I was very sorry to hear that his and wife Gemma's second child, Persia, didn't make it (someone really ought to update the WikiPedia article).

I spent most of the weekend getting over a dose of food poisoning. Yes, I know exactly where it came from. Yes, I'm going to damn well let the health department know. Dipshits! Don't they know they're supposed to refrigerate those sandwich makin's in between, and not let them sit on the counter all day? What about checking those use by dates, huh buddy?

Also, my parents found out this week that they will most likely have to put their beloved, 8-year-old, Scottish fold kitty Sarah to sleep tomorrow. Sarah, of the soft, soft fur; who likes to play in a stream of tap water running into the sink; who licks your hand when you brush her; who likes to hide in the bushes in front of the house. She is a very sweet kitty. We think that a prolonged course of antibiotics for an inner ear infection may have damaged her kidneys. She has basically stopped eating and is shedding weight, and there probably isn't anything that can be done to reverse the damage. We will find out tomorrow, and if nothing can be done, they will put her to sleep rather than have her suffer, and bury her where her brother Angus can visit her if he is so inclined.

Hmm, a lot of sucky sucky stuff going on. The only bright point is the trailer currently parked in the parking lot behind our house. This normally could be a slight annoyance (I don't really like strangers peering into my bedroom). But I would actually be grateful if they stay for a couple of days. Because a camper trailer will cut down on the number of shitheads who will come and light their fucking fireworks (all of them illegal in the city limits) towards my house and yard. We have this issue every single year, and the police do absolutely nothing. I don't know why the city council even bothers to enact an ordinance that won't be enforced.

And don't get me started on my batshit crazy neighbor, who is one step above (or is that below?) an arsonist. On New Year's Eve, one of the embers from the shit he was firing off landed in the tall pine next to his house. I watched that ember try to catch fire in that tree for three or four minutes before giving up. I watched the tree for 40 minutes to make sure it wouldn't flare up. I hate assholes who think they have to light things on fire or blow shit up to prove how much of a man they are. I'm a chemist, and I don't even like explosions. The closest I ever got was model rocket club - which is now considered so dangereous, they are trying to take that, a supervised teaching activity, away from kids. Oh, but it's alright to watch your drunk shithead dad send some illegal bottle rockets towards the neighbors'. Don't even get me started on the neighbor, man.

Oh, and you kids - get off my frickin' lawn!