Brain Fart.

Last night, I answered the phone and found myself the subject of a public opinion poll. It doesn't happen often (maybe only ever two or three times before for me) so it was a nice opportunity to, in some small way, let the world know just how badly some of us think the Bush administration is fucking up the world.

There were a lot of questions and things were rolling along smoothly until the pollster got to the question, "For which presidential candidate did you vote in the last election?" For some reason, my brain just froze. I don't know if it was the fact that I've been a little under the weather lately, the fact that it was late and I was tired, or the fact I've tried to block any thought of a Bush victory out of my brain. Whatever the case, I "um"ed and "uh"ed for what seemed like an eternity before I could finally get my brain to spit out the name of whats-his-face... you know, that guy... the Democrat... um... oh yeah -- John Kerry!

Sheesh. I must've sounded like a complete idiot.

More Military Mischief.

I suppose you could toss this foolishness in the dustbin next to those old CIA plans to assassinate Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar.

Although, given the tenor of the current administration, it's hard to imagine them passing up the chance to develop the "turn-the-enemy-gay" bomb. Maybe they thought it would be promoting that darn "homosexual agenda" again.

Geeks on the Court.

Calling it a "beat down" would be too kind.

Last night, ULV's women's basketball team opened up conference play against the SCIAC's perennial whipping boys (and girls), the Caltech Beavers. Games against Caltech in any sport are always a trouncing (except maybe in tennis, the one sport the geeks can play fairly well), but this one was especially bad.

The final score? 74-10.

Freshman sensation Lindsay King led the Beavers' "charge" by scoring eight of those 10 points -- the only starter to score at all. They shot a dismal 11.4% from the field, were 0-for-8 from three point range and 0-for-4 from the free throw line. They only sank one basket the entire second half.

I know Caltech has a long record of futility and doesn't exactly attract the best athletes. But still... How does a team get nearly shut out in a basketball game? I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one...

It's Meme-a-licious!

Over at the somewhat insular, yet still interesting Live Journal community there's a new "year in review" meme going around that I decided to crib from the lovely and industrious Kass. Basically, you create a post from the first sentence of the first post you made for each month of 2004. Since I only started this blog back in August, mine will be a little shorter than theirs, but here it goes anyway:

"While we're all waiting for me to get this blog up and running -- here, enjoy this picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head. With the nation deteriorating daily under the leadership of George W. Bush and his neocon henchmen, the future is indeed looking bleak. After a pretty miraculous run, the 2004 season has finally ended for my beloved Dodgers. Damn, what a disappointing election that was. I haven't done any sort of conclusive survey of the rest of the nation, but here in SoCal, Christmas lights sure have changed a lot since I was a kid."

Well, then. I don't know why, but that cracks me up.

Happy Birthday to Me.

I turned 34 over the weekend. Here are some of the highlights:

• Sarah got a cold. She's been a little trooper in between all the sniffling and coughing, but even though the fussing has been kept to a (relative, for a toddler) minimum, she still needed constant attention and affection. Poor dear.

• On Saturday morning my jaunt to the shower was interrupted when I slammed my foot into a door frame and stubbed my toe (the middle one, left foot). It hurt like a mofo, but I've stubbed my toes many times before (the by-product of have such big feet and gangly digits) so I sucked it up and went about my day. Later, after a few hours of limping through the grocery store, I came home and took off my shoe to find it swollen and black. Since I can still move it, it's not broken, just really, really fucked up. A lot of time with an ice pack and my foot elevated (not to mention lots and lots of Tylenol) have helped it feel better, but there's still some healing to be done.

• While at the supermarket (a Vons in Claremont that was celebrating its grand re-opening) we stopped at the KOST-FM booth where they were doing a remote and got to meet one of Southern California's leading kings of smarm for the past two decades, Mike Sakellarides. He gave Mary Ann a KOST compact mirror, a KOST bookmark, a tube of KOST lip balm, some KOST stickers, and -- the piece de resistance -- an autographed bio/headshot. He gave me a hearty handshake and told me I have a beautiful daughter. He told Sarah to "have a nice life." I suppose this encounter will have to do until we get to meet Shatner or Adam West someday.

• On Sunday (my actual birthday) the torrential downpours we've been having for weeks knocked out our power for close to 12 hours. Since that meant no electric stove, Mary Ann couldn't cook that big birthday breakfast she promised me, or anything else for that matter. We have to eat whatever we could straight from the package. With an electric thermostat, no power also meant no heat and just a tinny little Hello Kitty radio for entertainment. But since several people have lost their lives to this storm already, I suppose it could have been worse.

• My dad gave me a new car stereo to replace our current piece of shit. Of course, this doesn't do anything to change the piece-of-shitness of the vehicle surrounding the stereo (Have you ever heard Adam Sandler's "Ode to My Car"? It's kinda like that.), but at least we can pump the tunes without worrying whether the CD will play or not, and actually be able to see the display as well.

Anybody got any Tylenol?

Those Darn "Anonymous Groupies."

You can always rely on the New York Post to give you the news you need...

Speaking of the New York media, the Daily News gives us this, one of the all-time best headlines.

Anybody up for a weiner and one-liter Pepsi?

Commentations.

Those sharp-eyed readers among you will notice that I've added Haloscan comments to this blog to replace Blogger's less elegant comment system. However, little did I know that doing so would also erase all the previous comments. So, if you've commented on something before and feel strongly enough that your comment needs to be restored -- well, there's not much I can do for you at this point. But feel free to leave that comment again and I'll promise to do my best not to erase it again.