bush says world to end soon

Today, El Presidento Bush, announced that the world will end on January 20th, 2009. It was the third such announcement from the bully pulpit, and despite criticism from others that it might not actually happen, Bush, claiming “a great intel discovery” led him to this conclusion, insisted that no this time, it really, really, really will happen.

xmas, where x = green

Holiday decorations are down this year. Lot's of reasons, choose one: 1) sub-prime mortgage collapse; 2) stagnating economy; 3) colder than normal weather; 4) warmer than normal weather; 5)the writer's strike ;6) grumpiness. Could be any of those reasons. Doesn't matter, they're down, and holidays are suffering because of it. Don't fret. There's still plenty of time for a remedy.

In the old days, the remedy for the holiday blues might be a few glasses of eggnog, Nat Cole, or a drive around town to see the lights. Yeah, lights. Crazy yard displays. As long as we don't have to put them up, take them down, or deal with the traffic, they are great. Except yard lights aren't very environmentally sensitive, but there are still plenty of 'em of there. And here's how you can take advantage of them, without adding to the carbon budget.












To save gas and to spread a little holiday cheer WARRIOR ANT PRESS is officially announcing Xmas, where x = green. Xmas,where x = green is a carbon neutral holiday lights tour that requires no car trips around town to complete and view. It also doesn't consume any more resources than what's already out there in the public display. Warrior Ant Press has been documenting and posting holiday displays for the last several weeks on our website. These we discover during dog walks, work commutes, and weekly errands. We document them with our digi-cam, post them on a web-sharing site, and then feed them to our blog. We will continue to add to this display throughout the season and now we're inviting your participation. And it's so easy. Easier than shopping for your dad.

Here's how it works.

First. Document your own holiday display. Or walk around your neighborhood, town, or village and document the BEST displays of others. You know where they are and if you don't then by walking around town, you'll soon find out. They don't have to be extravagant. Some of best displays are the most simple. Alternatively, you can capture 'displays of opportunity' during your holiday travels. But if you have to drive 30 minutes out of the way to see it and document it, then you're defeating the carbon neutral purpose.

Be creative with your photos. Just keep them on topic. You can try to capture the one, true essence of the display. Or you can go for the panoramic view.

Please avoid overtly commercial displays. Where x=green is about another green altogether than money.

Second. Post the photos on Flickr or Picasa with the tag "carbon neutral xmas lights tour". Your photos will be appearing within a few minutes.

You can also setup your own slideshow on your blog and feed these same photos by choosing the keywords option instead of the user option. Use the keyword "carbon neutral xmas lights tour" and soon your sites will be displaying all the slides with that tag.

thanks,

Peace, Joy, and Prosperity to you this Holiday Season,

the staff @ Warrior Ant Press

don't try this at home

Fried chicken. Who doesn't love it? Ok, animal rights activists, vegans and vegetarians probably don't. But what about free-range, sustainably harvested , small family-farm-raised, pan-fried chicken? Doesn't that sound great?

But frying chicken at home? Not encouraged. Like smoking indoors. For a few minutes of satisfaction, it's just not worth subjecting your family to the grime and aftertaste. Warrior Ant Press set out to find if it was possible to create the taste of homemade fried chicken without the grease, feathers, and fry daddy.

Here's how we did it.

Procure some chicken from a local farm. Because we are fond of drumsticks, we got ours from Drumstick Farm, a specialty outfit that produces only drumsticks and wings for sale to the public, the rest of the chicken being distributed solely to a fine dining establishment that utilizes only the breast and thigh meat but that is another story altogether. Also from said local farm we obtained some heavy cream. Only chickens were harmed in the frying of this chicken. No lard was used.

Deep-fried chicken without the fryer

For this you will need.

10 chicken legs (or 1 cut frying chicken) raised on Proust, caviar, and progressive politics.

1 cup unpasteurized, heavy cream from folks who read Proust to their chickens.

2 cups Martha White self-rising cornmeal (facilitates the intersection of high and low culture).

Salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, and paprika to taste.

Several tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

Wash, drain, and dry the chicken legs (or parts). Bring to room temp.
Blend together well the cornmeal, salt, pepper, and spices.
Pass the chicken pieces through the heavy cream and into the cornmeal spice mixture. Coat all sides evenly then place the chicken pieces in a casserole dish coated liberally with olive oil.

Bake the chicken, uncovered at 350 for ~30 minutes. Turn the chicken at least once to facilitate browning and crisping of the coating. Remove, let stand for a few minutes, and serve with mashed potatoes, steamed green beans, and lots of sweet iced tea.

What you will discover when you are finished is that although you may have prepared an adequate dinner, tasty, not altogether without some nod to sustainability, it will be no substitute for pan-fried chicken. There isn't one. Except fried chicken.

Recommendation. If you really want the flavor of pan-fried chicken you'll have to go to Stroud's. Strouds, whose motto is "We choke our own chickens", and who has never meet a chicken joke they didn't like, is a James Beard Award recipient. Not bad for a restaurant that only serves fried chicken. And Stroud's which closed its flagship store to make way for progress (read a road through the middle of it) has announced plans to open a new restaurant in Fairway, Kansas by the end of the year. Fairway, as the name implies, is a fair place, if you're white and middle class - sorta like Iowa which also loves pan-fried chicken and a good chicken joke. Here's one.

Q. Why is the Brownback campaign like a flock of Rhode Island Reds.
A. They both laid eggs in Iowa.

green eggs and lamb

huckabee to headline halftime show

Everything that is hard to obtain is easily assailed by the mob - Ptolemy.

The primary system is much like the Bowl Championship Series, largely serving a demographic - white, rural, and wealthy - that continues to exert a greater extent on the politics of the country than they rightfully deserve. So on January 3rd, when Iowans shuffle home from their precinct meetings, after having caucused on the future of about 1 percent of the delegates to the national conventions, the country will have suffered through nearly 30 bowl games, more bowl games than presidential debates. Regardless, within a few days of the New Year, no one will be the wiser as who will occupy the highest office in the land or who holds title to No. 1. Most won't care.

elseswhere:

iowa straw poll results

huckabee to headline orange bowl halftime show

just one word for you son, ''protein"

Last week, I was briefly reacquainted with the influenza virus, which for those of you who haven't lately had the pleasure of an evil house guest from another planet (like Dick Cheney) designed to prepare you for the last days of your life when you've lost complete control of your bodily functions, then that's influenza. In short, Fever. Aches. Chills. Spills. Prayers to Jesus, Mother Mary, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The problem with the flu, as we so affecionately like to call it, is that it's very hard to kill and likes to replicate at your expense. Pretty much the script of Alien, although not nearly as entertaining. It commandeers your 'good' cells and turns them into their 'evil twin' resulting in a take down faster than Rey Mysterio's The 619.

Viruses are everywhere and like the WWF they seem to express themselves at inopportune times, like when there's nothing worth watching on television. As with the WWF, they are hard to take out, although there has been some promising advances in the last few years. One real hope seems to be research that works on the protein pathways of the viruses used to transfer fluids into the good cells and turn them into hordes of screaming, big-haired, bad actors in clownish attire surrounded by an arena full of angry fans jonsing for meth and PBR. By breaking the replication cycle, you can destroy them. That's the good news. The bad news is that we are likely years away from developing an antiviral drug to rid of us the common flu. Or HIV.

Today is International Aids Awareness Day.

Globally, around 11% of HIV infections are among babies who acquire the virus from their mothers; 10% result from injecting drug use; 5-10% are due to sex between men; and 5-10% occur in healthcare settings. Sex between men and women accounts for the remaining proportion – around two thirds of new infections. (source: avert.org)

Two plans that absolutely WON'T stop the spread of HIV worldwide. Abstience education as touted by the Bush Administration, and sacrificing a virgin if one is already infected. Propronents of both approaches are sadly misinformed.
elsewhere:
proteins matter

world hiv and aids stats

world's largest lesbian craft fesitval

This weekend, the 23rd edition of the World's Largest Lesbian Craft Festival, shows their holly holly holly at the Westport Roanoke Community Center, just downstream from the Worldwide Anthill Headquarters of Warrior Ant Press.

These felted, or more properly fulled, xmas trees, wasn't made by a lesbian, although they could have been. They are environmentally friendly enough for eco-pagans (aren't all pagans by definition eco?) because unlike the mayor's xmas tree, no old-growth douglas fir trees were felled in their making, although a number of green sheep were shorn.

Other environmentally friendly things you can do this season:

*vote a Republican from office
*take our carbon neutral xmas lights tour instead of stringing your own
*buy lesbian instead of chinese

Above:
m.o.i.: felted xmas trees. Found objects, some felted, some knot. 2007. Dimensions vary. ~12 x ~5 x ~5

feds to cut rates again!

Citing concerns over the falling dollar, limited supplies of precious resources, and "a hankering for the good ole days", the Federal Reserve announced plans to replace the widely popular U.S. States series of quarters with wooden nickels.

If the wooden nickel turns out to be as popular as the state quarter series, the Bush Administration believes this may be a viable option to pay for the war in Iraq.


Unfortunately you'll no longer be able to use your wooden nickels at Moe's Frontier Bar because it's now closed after 65 years in the biz.

elsewhere:
last call for alcohol

good answer

Those nutty Republicans. What will they think of next? A YouTube debate?

After the debate, if you can possibly figure out which one of these gentleman is the most white, the most Christian, and not the Devil (good luck), and you live in North Carolina, and if you still want to vote for one of them, well, first you'll have to take a pledge of allegiance to the Grand Ole Party.

"One nation under God." Right answer.

The next test is waterboarding! GOP asks the questions and you supply the answers (we know you will). Hey, if John Asscrotch is willing to be waterboarded in defense of freedom, then you should be too. Except, wait, when Asscrotch had his chance to try water-boarding, he had an assistant at the Justice Department do it, "just to see what it felt like." Bosses are still torturing their subordinates on the job, and it's still legal. When will it end?

strike this post!

Happy endings? Those are for the movies.

Strikes. They are boring. Anyone who's walked a picket line for a week knows this. Strike pay? It's donuts and a refresher course in juvenile delinquency. That said, if one is reasonably assured that the strike won't carry on for a month or more, and that both sides are serious about negotiating, and if you got this months' rent covered along with pleny of food in the fridge and more in the pantry, then walking the picket line can elicit a certain sangfroid. This is especially true when the strikers are typically held more captive by a keyboard than the boardroom. Producing a couple of paragraphs of exquisite prose is enough for most writers to imagine they've been martyred in the process. It's rough business.

There is only ever one issue in a strike and that is MONEY, although there are several variations on the issue (i.e. salary, benefits, residuals). For some reason both sides frequently go to great lengths to insure us that "it's not about the money". Bathroom breaks may still be a problem in junior high and prison, but in the work place, money is more pressing. So after the issues have been discussed and with 7 hours and 45 minutes of picketing left in the day, it's easy to see why strikers develop novel ways to get even with the man. Besides, the MAN needs an occasional ass-whupping. If only we were better at it.

Back when KC was a union town, which is about as long ago as it was a jazz town, I was a member of the Retail Clerks Union which for those of you who live in a right-to-choose state or the 21-st century, means that when I belonged to this union and worked in a grocery store checking, bagging, unloading trucks, stocking shelves, working staggered shifts, nights, weekends, and most holidays, and generally providing you dear reader with the food and staples that you consume weekly, AT LEAST then as a union member I actually made ENOUGH money to rent a modest 1-bedroom efficiency apartment, pay my bills, take night classes at the local university, and plot my escape from said drudgery. My current status as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists indicates that the plan did work, even if the execution was somewhat messy and interrupted by numerous work stoppages. After 6 months as a labor union member, I was allowed to obtain health insurance and after 1 full-year of working was entitled to a paid 2-week vacation, at which point I discovered that there was more to life than working. That was over 25 years ago. We've made so much progress since then.

In 4 years as a trade unionist, I walked 3 picket lines. Once as clerk. Once with the meat-cutters. Once with the teamsters. Before these unions, excepting the teamsters (who just had one of their balls and/or ovaries handed to them) were crushed by bar-code scanners, factory farms, and mindless Republicanism, the careful staggering of union contracts coupled with the duty-bound honor code of not crossing another union's picket line meant that a combined strike by the United Food and Commercial Workers and Teamsters could seriously jeopardize your ability to pick up a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk on your way home from work. Americans take bread and milk for granted, just as they do the nightly network offerings. The work around for the absence of all three is easy in theory and difficult in practice because it involves self-restraint from the American consumer, a curious creature so misinformed that it thinks beer shouldn't have carbs and that reality can be discovered in an island off the coast of Borneo.

So with energy to burn, members of the Writers Guild of America are throwing their creative efforts at the new (read, now old) media of the internet which is at the heart of the labor disagreement. And WGA is finding it simultaneously easy and excruciatingly difficult to mine the medium. It's easy because they tend to have the basic tool, intellect, that made the internet interesting in the first place and they are adept at stringing together cogent sentences, complex thoughts, and tweaking your emotions. As their web presence indicates,they do these things for a living .

They also know when to pull STAR POWER (as frequently as possible!) because most of America and this includes the media really think they might have a chance with Laura Linney (or Don Cheadle), if only they could just have a few minutes with her/him over a glass of wine and a nice dinner. They, if anyone, would see us for who we really are. If the opportunity doesn't arise this week, well then, perhaps a short video (shhh! no talking, I want focus on the physicality of it!) is the next best thing to sex with a movie star. Maybe it is sex with a movie star.

It's difficult for WGA because the worst foil in the world in one that does nothing in response. The silent ogre in the battle is AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers), which in reality stands for Giant Soul Sucking Machine. Unlike the military, but almost as powerful, Hollywood has never been good with acronyms. AMPTP has more people, world-wide, addicted to their products than Big Tobacco and Big PHarma combined and they are just as benevolent. They make twice the money and have ten times the global influence, and much of it is not in our best interest. None of this is the fault of the writers.

It's also difficult for the WGA because the internet is full of the same wildly addicted personalities that can't get enough of CSI, Access Hollywood, Dancing with the Stars, Lost, 24, and the NFL on CBS pre-game show. As long as there's product that's reasonably entertaining and less stale than yesterday's bagel, many viewers (and much of APMTA) are happy enough. Product sells. Salvation does not. Silky Kumar was a shill. For a while no one knew. Now it doesn't matter. He's a star!

In a few short weeks WGA has been able guide about 60,000 people a day to their website, United Hollywood, which might be described as a sort of multi-plex of strike-related blogs. Sixty-thousand unique hits sounds like a lot until you discover that some unicycle dude has had a quarter-of-a-million page hits, your daughter loves Phil DeFranco more than Raymond, and more than 5 million people have seen the greatest hockey fight ever. Like sex for most Americans, these experiences rarely last more than 10 minutes uninterrupted, but unless you're fond of Masterpiece Theatre or have Showtime, nothing on your tv does either.

Soon. Hopefully. Eventually. The writers will get their 8 cents worth, that's all they're asking for and they deserve every penny of it and more, but this is Hollywood, not Disneyland. AMPTP doesn't give a damn dime when a nickel will do.

Once a deal is struck they'll be shouts and murmurs enough for wall-to-wall coverage for a week on all the networks. Star reaction to follow. Unless of course, it coincides with the onset of OJ's latest trial and we all know that story, ABSOLUTELY, will be the lead. Why? Because content providers don't own the medium. Content providers only have a tiny say in the medium. The one medium content providers do (or did?) own by proxy or sheer numbers, the internet, is quickly being purchased by those who want to sell it back to them. That rogue television channel, YouTube, now offers scrolling add bars. In the interest of truth-in-advertising can we change the tag line to Broadcast Someone Else or has that web site already been taken?

elsewhere:
united hollywood
speechless: the vlogs

and even farther away:
the greatest unedited fight in the history of motion pictures


an in another galaxy altogether:
Giant Soul Sucking Machine

m.o.i.:strike this post!

bush administration to bake chocolate chip cookies for christmas travelers

And who doesn't like a warm cookie? Citing budgetary constraints, and possible allergic reactions by a subset of the population, administration officials nixed plans to also serve warm milk with the cookies.

Turns out that El Presidento Bush, who so thoughtfully allowed his humble servants, use of 2 (that's right 2) additional routes through restricted (well it's kinda restricted, before 8 pm anyway) airspace was pulling the wool over our eyes. Or was the wool being pulled over his eyes, and he too myopic to see through it?

The issue with flight delays has never been about air space, but about ground space, both inside the terminals and on the runways. This was another meaningless sacrifice by the Bush Administration on the alter of reality. This is why Americans who flew last weekend, encountered the worst airline delays in history.

world's greatest powerpoint presentation

Al Gore finally got to prove to El Presidento Bush that although he's no longer an official guest of the White House, he's a lot smarter because of it. Bush, like the school yard bully who's finally received his comeuppance seemed wooden during the official press greeting between the former sparring partners. When asked if the President felt threatened by Gore's intellect, White Press Secretary Perino said, “This president does not harbor any resentments. He never has.”

three degrees of separation

Lot's of hot-shot chefs want you to believe that unless you know what to do with organ meat, or tripe, or stomach fat you're part of a lesser breed of chefs. Bullshit. Try serving brain to your friends and family one night and see how far you get.

No. A much more challenging venture is what to do with leftovers. I grew up eating leftovers which is maybe why I'm so fond of them. We had cycles of lefovers. First the holiday ham. Then ham and cheese grilled sandwiches. Followed by beans and ham with mustard greens. Lastly, bean soup with hot, buttered cornbread. Each one was just an iteration of the previous. And each was better than the last.

If you cook all (or most) of your meals, and you want to eat healthy, you'll have to find a way to deal with leftovers or you'll spend all your time in the kitchen. I had a girlfriend once who was previously married to a chef and restaurant owner. She refused to eat leftovers and didn't cook often. She was very labor intensive. We parted ways.

On one level all of fine dining is based on a series of leftovers. What is consomme but leftovers thrice removed? So then what to do with the leftover leg of lamb from Thanksgiving?

Here's my shot at it.

Lamb and carrot soup.

For this you will need.

1 quart of lamb stock. Most of the work for this dish goes into the stock. I did this the day before Thanksgiving so today, it's really only a matter of finishing the dish. But here's how it's done. You can substitute chicken stock if you must. Store bought stocks are no good for soups. Too salty. Plus they lack the proper acid balance. Also, leftovers (like a cooked turkey carcass) should never form the base of any stock unless you're making stock for gravy or to flavor stuffing. Not for soups. Soups are different. You can add a few leftover scraps to an ongoing stock, but for a real, vibrant stock you're going to want to start from scratch.

Ask the butcher for some stock bones. You can mix some pork neck bones with the lamb bones (or shanks) to save a little money. In a large roasting pan, place the bones along with several whole cleaned carrots, the end of a celery stalk, 1 large onion, skin on and split in half, and one whole garlic bulb in the husk. A few beets are fine as well. 3 or 4 tomatoes yes, but only if in season. Sprinkle all the ingredients liberally with cracked pepper and sea salt. Roast the ingredients uncovered at 375 for 45 minutes until brown turning as necessary.

Pull the roasting pan from the oven and dump them into a large 12-quart non-oxidizing stock pan and cover with cold water. Season additionally with fresh rosemary, tarragon, and parsley. Bring to a boil. Then turn down the heat and let simmer. Skim off the fat as it comes to the surface. Turn the heat down as far as it will go on your stove without the fire going out. Pull your pot to the side so that only about one-third is touching the flame. Let the stock simmer overnight. First thing in the morning. Remove from the heat, pull out all the large pieces and strain everything into another stock pot or large Pyrex bowl. Clean the grit from the sides of the dirty stock pot. Now strain the stock again, this time through a chinois or fine mesh filter lined with a clean tea towel, coffee filters, or paper towels back into your original stock pan. Of all of these, the coffee filter is the most likely to clog. All of the flavor has been extracted from the ingredients so at this point you are trying to concentrate and intensify the flavors. Impurities will eventually impart off flavors during the final reduction as the proteins begin to break down. Let the strained stock cool for an hour. Then skim off all the fat that comes to the surface and discard.

Place the stock back on the heat and simmer on medium for 2 hours with enough vigor to reduce the orginal volume by half. If there were no tomatoes in your original ingredients, you'll need to add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste to balance the stock. If you've done your skimming and filtering well you can increase the heat but don't go crazy with it. This seems like a lot of work and it is but a fine stock can form the basis of many meals. There is no substitute. And it will keep for at least a week in the fridge.

To finish the dish.

Bone out the remaining lamb from the leg. If it was initially cooked mid-rare (and it should have been) then place the boned meat in some heavy-duty aluminum foil and sprinkle several tablespoons of the stock over the meat, seal the foil, and place in a 325 degree oven for 25 minutes. The meat should be steaming when you pull it from the oven.

While you re-heating the lamb, in a non-oxidizing sauce pan, for every 2 cups of lamb stock, add 1 cup of fresh carrot juice. Bring to boil. Stop. Cover. Over cooking will cause color loss.

Place 1/4 cup of the meat in a bowl, cover with stock, garnish with bowtie pasta or homemade croutons (also made with leftovers! recipe to follow) and serve.

lott's retirement stops cheney's heart

Again. He's expected to fully recover after shock treatments.



It was the 8th heart attack that Cheney has endured since taking office one short of the record held by Puss n' Boots. According to the team of medical doctor's that travel 24/7 with the VP, Cheney has exactly one life left.

border war

"This will be the only present that you get."

"You know I don't care about stuff. I-pod, cashmere sweater, a new metal driver. None of that shit. This game, though...it matters."

"No, it doesn't. It's a game played by boys - for boys."

"You're wrong. I can see it mattering years from now. Life's struggle against it's own experience."

"That's crap. It's a football game. I don't care about the money, it's not the money. But that is a lot of money. We could fly to New York for that amount."

"We've been to New York. Plenty of times. New York will wait for us."

"New York doesn't give a shit about us."

"Besides the stagehands are on strike. The only shows you can see are The Grinch and The Rockettes Do David Letterman but Letterman is being played by a stand-in because he's also on strike so that leaves a musical about a children's book starring a man in a green costume. Wasn't that Cats? What's next? A musical based on a play based on a movie?"

"That was a book of poems. And it's movie, play, then musical. Or is it play, movie, play again? I can't remember, but you loved them all."

He could sense she was tiring. "Life is about the experiences embedded in it, and what we take from them. Isn't that what you always say."

She thought back to last year when she had drained most of her checking account to buy the Tiger Woods Grand Slam Metal Driver that he had so dearly wanted. "Wait. I thought you loved the driver?"

"I do. It was great. It is great. You know that. But more than the thing, it was the experiences it generated." He was moving to close the deal. "Remember last summer when I told you that Robb had been beating my ass every weekend on the golf course and once I got that driver and got my slice corrected, how the tables had turned? You should have seen the look on that fat-fucks face when I finally crushed him. He was up fifty and wanted to press, so I said ok, back-to-you buddy, just like that, no emotion, "back to you buddy". You know Robb, once challenged, he feels threatened and when he feels threatened he makes bad decisions. "Press again, and call." That's when I pulled the Grand Slam from the bag, he hadn't seen me use it yet, and when I buried that drive on the front edge of 17 you should have seen his face. "Holy shit man, what was that?" he'd yelled. But once he realized that $200 is a lot to lose on one hole of golf, he shanked his approach shot. He had to borrow gas money from me just to get home."

"Robb has never forgiven you."

"Fuck him. He's taken that much and more from me over the years. He deserved it. Plus, this is my way to make it up to him."

"You must have a lot of guilt. Five hundred dollars? For two tickets to a football game."

She drove to the ATM. It was Black Friday, that's what everyone called it but, Chuck called it Black and Gold Friday after his team's colors. She pulled off the traffic way, made the circle in the lot, and queued up behind a Silver Volvo SUV. It had a flag flying from the window, the university colors of the opposing team. "That makes no sense" she thought. She tried to relax. Holidays were stressful enough. Before long, a hand extended from the driver's window holding what appeared to be a can of beer. The driver dumped the contents of the beer can on the ATM, then forcibly crushed it against the machine, flipped off the hidden camera and spun off. "Morons," she yelled out the window.

She drove forward. She loved this part. After she inserted her card a voice with a slight English accent spoke to her. "Welcome. Please enter you pin number number." She punched in the number and then said to the woman, to the camera, to no one, "That's the reason not to let your children borrow your car."

Bad at math, her checkbook was seldomed balanced correctly, so first she did a balance inquiry to make sure that there was enough money in her account for this debacle. $1374.62. Whew. Good. She was always afraid that she had made a double payment. Or put the wrong check in the wrong envelope. Once she put the mortgage check in the credit card statement and those assholes had cashed it. Just like that. It took her account months to recover. She went through the routine again, then hesitated at the amount. OK, how much? The ticket broker wanted 500 dollars for 2 club level seats in the end zone. She decided on six hundred. That would give her pocket money for most of the week. At the end of the transaction, the voice came on and said, "We're sorry, we cannot process you request at this time." What? She ran through it again. This time for $500. Again the same voice. Fuck. That's why those assholes were going crazy. It's out of money. The day after Thanksgiving and all the out-of-towners and holiday shoppers had bled it dry. Fuck. FUCK. FUCKKK! She screamed. Then apologized to the machine. "Sorry."

Now she would need to go to the other ATM, the one in the shopping district. She knew traffic would be a terrible down there. And parking. Non-existence. This was turning into a nightmare. Afterwards she still had to drive to the ticket broker. This is going to shoot my whole day she thought. Maybe she should just bag it, make up some story. She got to the broker and the tickets had been sold. Chuck would never know. He would complain bitterly, but he would never know.

She drove toward the shopping district. As she approached the area she could she that cars were backed up through 2 lights. Oh jeez. She looked over and saw a place on the street, then quickly pulled over and parked. She'd have to walk, but it wasn't far, only 5 or 6 blocks. She could use the walk-up at her bank and not have to go inside. It would do her good. Maybe the walk would her calm down.

The shopping district was teeming with happy-go-lucky types, all ready to drop some money on Christmas presents. Earlier NPR had been doing a story on how important this day was to the economy. "Well, this should make Bush happy" she said to herself.

She didn't come down here enough. It was always changing. Her favorite store, a toy store, had been replaced by an I-Store. Next to it was a Lucky Jeans store. You could put your five-hundred-dollar phone in your hundred-dollar jeans pocket. The sidewalk in front of Sharper Image was crowded with hordes of young people dressed in blue. God. Who are these people? Who shops here? And what do they do for a living? It took her a minute to realize this was the opposing team cheerleader squad. That makes sense, she thought, prepare for the big game by shopping.

She walked past the Starbucks, past the Barnes and Noble. There was a Salvation Army bell ringer near the entrance. As she waited for the light to change she watched him. People came and went through the entrance, but no one stopped and put money in the pot. How does he do it? Stand the noise of that bell all day. For what? A few dollars for the needy. He looked calm though. Oblivious to all the rat race. Then she noticed the headphones. He's listening to music. On an i-pod! No wonder the bell doesn't drive him crazy, he can't hear it. He looked up, saw her watching him, and nodded to her. She looked away and crossed the street.

She glanced over her shoulder as she approached the ATM. The were so many people on the sidewalks she didn't feel threatened, but the last time she'd been here, after she taken out her cash, a panhandler had asked for money and then loudly cursed her when she claimed not to have any. It had creeped her out and made her feel guilty at the same time for not helping. She realized that she didn't like not being able to ignore the poor. It was so much easier that way.

She punched in the numbers. Out came $600 dollars. "Nothing like the magic money machine, you push the buttons, out comes the money" she said out loud and spun on her heels. The was a man right behind her wearing a Packers letter jacket, one of those gaudy things with all the patches. Super Bowl XXXI. Super Bowl I&II on the sleeves. MVP. Hideous. Must have cost a fortune.

"Can you help me?"

"What?" she didn't understand.

"Anything?"

"No. No. NO!" She shouted at him. Several passersby stopped and stared, unsure of the exchange. She settled down. "I wish I could. I really do, but not today."

"Tickets. You want tickets."

"What? NO. I have to go. Please." She tried to push past him.

He held out his arm blocking her path. "Tickets. I have tickets." He pulled 2 tickets from his pocket and held them to her face. "I'm selling tickets. To the game." Then she saw that the elbows of the jackets were grimy and she recognized the man. Kansas City's resident homeless asshole.

"No way. You're kidding me. Are they real? They don't look real." They were too big, too colorful.

"Yeah. Real. They're real. My daugther gave them to me. For Christmas. She goes to the university. Said, go make some money. Get yourself off the street for a while."

"Your daughter. Yeah. Right. You stole them didn't you."

"No, it's true. Look at em. They're real." He shoved them at her. "These are great tickets. Thirty-five yard line."

Reluctantly she looked at them. Field Box. Section 130, row 4. Maybe they were real.

"You didn't steal these did you? If I buy these, I get burned won't I, I'll show up at the gate and they'll arrest me for stealing and I'll be out a bunch of money and not tickets."

"I'm not a thief. I'm fucked up, yes, but I'm not a thief."

"How much?"

"Thousand."

"A thousand dollars! You're out of your mind."

"Maybe. But I'll get that before the days out. Look," he waved his hand at all the shoppers, "all these people, money to burn."

"Five hundred. I'll give you $500. That's all I have." She pulled the money from her purse and counted out 5 bills. When she came to the sixth, she crumpled it up and put it in her pocket. "I need that for food. Five hundred. Here. Take it."

"No. A thousand."

"Can't do it. That's too much."

"Got to have a thousand."

"Can't to do it."

"Take it or leave it." He turned away.

"Asshole" she muttered under her breath. He heard her and turned around. "Fucking asshole!" she said it directly to his face.

He ignored her. She watched him walk away with the tickets held over his head. He didn't go half a block before someone stopped him. They chatted for a few seconds and then he moved on.

By the time she found him again he was in front of the McDonald's several blocks away. He was speaking to the legless man on a crutch who had claimed this spot as his own. The were both eating a burger and fries. He looked up when he saw her, but he didn't say anything. She pulled the envelope from her purse and held it up. He pulled the tickets from his jacket. For a few seconds they just stared at each other, unsure of the next step. She motioned him toward the alcove. The whole thing felt seamy, like a drug deal, if this is what they felt like. She was nervous. The smell of pickles, onions, and fryer grease made her stomach churn.

"You ready to do this?" he asked.

"Yes. It's all there." She put the envelope in his hand. He held the tickets out to her. She grabbed them, quickly put them in her purse, backed away, then headed off toward her car.

"Bitch! Fuckin' uptight white bitch" he called after her and she could hear them both laughing.

She stopped. She wanted to return and demand her money back but she knew it was too late. He'd never do it and it'd be a fiasco. Worst than this one. No. She should cut the loses now. She didn't know what he'd do with the money and she didn't care. Chuck would be estastic with these tickets. They were much better than the ones he found online and now she had the better part of the day ahead of her. Maybe she'd catch a movie. Chuck didn't expect her home before three so a matinee was a definite possibility. That Dylan movie was playing at the Tivoli. Maybe she'd just head over there and see what transpired.

another doping scandal

This one involves M.D.'s.

In Sunday's NYTimes magazine, Daniel Carlat, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and the publisher of The Carlat Psychiatry Report, reports on his life as doper. You've seen these dopes if you travel our friendly skies. Although they pride themselves on being undercover, they stand out like a cop in a fringed jacket and a beard standing on the corner.

Dopers seem to make up about one-third of the flying public. They are a nervous lot. They pace just outside the waiting area oblivious as a child with a Brio train to the noise their roller luggage makes on tile floor. Too busy to read. They stop frequently to check the CNN banner scroll. They mime the movements of tv detectives about the make an arrest as they pull blackberries from their waistbands. In an attempt to shore up the weak running game of their fantasy football team they swing last minute deals just as the plane begins to board.

They flirt with flight attendants who know them by name. They know more about wine than you although it's unlikely they enjoy it as much. They are better looking than mopes like you, but unlike you, they push dope for living and this gives them access to luxury boxes, frequent flier miles, and turn-down service.

How much money can you make dealing dope to doctors? More than the Colombians make. More than Afghan tribal leaders make. And a lot more than you make.

For example, let's use Carlat's numbers. Carlat the Dope Dealer is paid $750 cash, given 2 tickets to a Broadway play, two free nights stay in a midtown Manhattan hotel just to learn about the biz from his dope-dealing mentors at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. "It's easy, you'll never touch the stuff." At a minimum this one drug deal costs the drug company (Wyeth)$1500. Carlat explains that there are 200,000 doctors in the U.S. in the biz. Two hundred thousand times 1.5K equals 300 million dollars. That's the low end.

Before his guilt got to him, in one year Carlat was richer to the tune of 30 large. This is the curb appeal of Weeds. Sure it's questionable, but I need a safe place to raise my kids and if I don't do it, then someone else will.

Thirty large times all the dopers yields 6 billion dollars. That's the upper end. That is what is spent pushing dope in the doctor's office by drug addicts known as doctors. The 6 billion doesn't account for reps who work directly for the pharmaceutical companies. For every dope-dealing doctor, there's 2 paid reps. Estimates are this accounts for another $5 billion annually.

Carlat wants us to feel as though he's taken an ethical turn by moving past the cynicism of the drug deal gone bad. Sorry for him. Sorry for us. He pays cash for a new car and feels guilty. We finance over 6 years at 6 and 1/2 percent and are grateful. He golfs, gets comp tickets to THE GAME, and his teeth are white. You're a chump for riding coach, for sitting in GA, and for holding out for a better contract.

a leftover turkey sandwich

is almost better than the hot bird.

marion jones cleared

Sometimes the reason people don't tell the truth is that once they do tell, they begin to lose everything and very quickly, it all starts to fade away. Apparently, THE CLEAR really works.

Did anyone in sports ever have a better smile? and who has lost more?

today is black and gold friday

but THE GAME is tomorrow.

Both states are known for holier-than-thou Johns who were convinced that God spoke to them personally and granted them the right to start a war.

bush officials abandon sinking ship

Former White House press secretary Scott McCellan has become the latest Bush administration official to abandon the sinking administration. McCellan, who's publishing a book about what's it's like to tell bald-faced lies on national television, stated that he was just repeating the lies told to him by Bush, Cheney, and Rove.

The following day, his apologist editor was web-spinning like Spiderman to downplay the incident. Once written, words are hard to recall, and a little controversy always help to sell the product. Even if Rove and Cheney duped the boy, we have another line of evidence that El Presidento is misinformed on the issues and incompetent as a leader. Somehow Republicans view this as a stand-in for exoneration whereas the rest of America continues to view the last 7 years as an embarrassment and frequently find themselves quoting the title of McCellan's book, "What Happened?"

Breaking news: Harbormasters in the vicinity of the sinking ship have reported that thousands of rats are now swimming ashore.

white house claims al queda behind jellyfish attack

The White House claimed today it had evidence linking Al Queada to the massive jellyfish attack on a salmon farm off the coast of Northern Ireland. Over 500,000 salmon were believed to be killed in the attack. "These people will stop at nothing to disrupt our way of life," said President Bush in a statement released to the press.
"In 30 years, I've never seen anything like it. It was unprecedented, absolutely amazing. The sea was red with these jelly fish and there was nothing we could do about, it, absolutely nothing." John Russell, the managing director of Northern Salmon Co. Ltd., said.

However, the White House emphatically denied recent reports circulating on the Internet that a relative of Osama bin Laden was the mastermind behind the Kennedy Assassination and pointed to video of the incident posted on youtube by Abraham Zapruder as evidence that a lone gunman was responsible for the shots in Dealy Plaza.