No matter what else he does, a Commander In Chief cannot send mexed missages.

Just in cased you missed it (or will miss it?), the AP has posted a summary/recap of tonight's upcoming Bush/Kerry un-debate, that has apparently already happened.

Impressive.

Salon reports on man-shaped pillows in Japan. They're shaped like a torso with an arm sticking out. The woman they interviewed gave it pillow a big thumbs-up:

'I think this is great because this does not betray me.'

Via Alas, A Blog:

"While we here in the US struggle for the right of all people to marry, thousands of South African women (and a few men) are fighting for their right not to be married. At least, not without their knowledge.

Over the last 3 years, at least 3,387 women (and a few men) have discovered that they are married. Married without their knowledge or consent; married to men (or, in the case of the men, to women) they have never even met. In the last month alone, nearly 800 more cases have been discovered."

Hmm.

alicublog:

"'Before blogs,' he said, 'tendentious cranks such as myself had no outlets for our ill-informed opinions, besides Letters to the Editor and soapbox rants at parties that were winding down. Also we could not count on our reputations as fuckwads to extend much past the physical borders of our respective communities.' He broke the seal on a fresh pint of Jim Beam and took a long swig. 'But now,' he continued, 'we can all write Letters to the Editor round the clock, and see them published immediately, unedited and misspelled. And at three in the morning, we can get drunk by ourselves, and vomit forth our prejudices without having to yell 'hey, where ya goin'?' at people who suddenly decided they have to get home before the sitter gets nervous. And our names are curses on the lips of people who never even met us. ' He raised his bottle grandly. 'To technology!' he roared. 'All hail the mighty microchip and modem! All hail the --' He looked at me, surprised. 'Hey,' he said, 'who're you?'"

In the style of McSweeneys, Ted at Crooked Timber makes a list of things he recommends. Sounds like fun. So, reader(s), here's a short list of things I like.

• Spoon. "Anything you want" just might be the best 2:16 ever.
• The iPod. It sure beats carrying a new stack of CDs to work every day. Now make one with a battery that lasts at least 12 hours!
• McIntosh apples. All other apples are insipid, compared to a good Mac. Unfortunately, Macs are extremely delicate and easily bruised. They're also somewhat rare in NC and are susceptible to all the typical apple maladies: grainyness, sourness, thick rubbery skin, etc.. But when they're available and perfect, nothing compares. No contest.
• Marzetti's Caramel Apple Dip. Now available in handy single-serving sizes, so you can throw one in your work bag with a Granny Smith apple (which are more consistent than Macs, but are too sour to eat without caramel) and have yourself a sweet treat - as soon as you find a knife to cut up the apple.
• CAMP maple syrup. It tastes like a maple tree.
• Something Awful and their Photoshop Phriday's, but especially their recent Christmas in Middle Earth. Also good right now, A Week in the Life of The Sims 2. Rude, crude and adolescent, and side-splittingly funny.
• Fafblog. The world's only source for Fafblog.
• Antiques Roadshow. No matter how many times the Tiffany lamp ends up being worth $10,000, I'm still surprised.
• Seagrove, NC. A small town in central NC, that's home to dozens and dozens of small potters (over 80 of them). We drove out there for the fun of it last weekend, happened to show up on a day when 45 local potters were having a festival at the elementary school - beats driving around to all their different studios. We left with a trunkfull of stuff. If we had more places to put them in our house, we'd have bought twice as much.
• Sept 28^th. birfday.

The World's Shortest Blog is offering a large, and constantly growing, reward for the first person to complete one rather simple task.

Standing in the bathroom at work, minding my business, I'm listening to the muzak, and Peggy Lee's "Fever" is playing. Apparently, I'd never really listened to the lyrics of this thing because when she gets to this verse, I break out laughing and narrowly avoid causing a scene (saved by my exceptional handling, ahem, of the situation) at the sheer silliness:

Romeo loved Juliet
Juliet she felt the same
When he put his arms around her
He said, "Julie baby you're my flame"
Thou givest fever
When we kisseth
Fever with thy flaming youth
Fever - I'm on fire
Fever, yea I burn forsoothe

It was the "Thou givest fever" line that got me. She sings it with the same rhythm and sultry delivery that she uses when she sings the familiar "You give me fe-ver" line: "Thou giv-est fe-ver". Yeah, verily. Suddenly, instead of a revved up sex kitten purring about how hot she's running, she's a 15h^th century strumpet and I'm wondering if the fever she's going on about isn't the Black Death; "Prithee madam, hast thou pustules?"

She couldn't have knocked me out of that song any quicker if she'd done the verse in Cantonese.

I hope the other guy in there knew what I was laughing at.

Oh, how I love VH1 Classic. Outside of an iPod shuffle, I don't know where else I could hear the following sequence of songs:

Morrissey : Sing Your Life
My Bloody Valentine : Soon
Spencer Davis Group : I'm a Man
REO Speedwagon : Roll With the Changes
Fleetwood Mac : Sara

Now, it's not that I actually want to hear REO Speedwagon (ever again), but the fact that a sequence like that can even happen makes me smile. And yes, they changed from one 'show' to another in the middle of that, but still: juxtaposition is magic.

The MBV video was a revelation as I didn't know they had done any - MTV would've only showed this on their stupid alternative ghetto show that I could never stay up for (midnight Sunday/Monday? stupid). It wasn't much of a video, just hazy overlayed shots of the band members playing, with the disembodied head of Kevin Shields singing in the bottom layers - hey, just like the song! But, the sound had been compressed for TV and came out even denser and punchier than the original. It's a shame I only had my little 4" TV speaker to hear it through. In honor, I will listen to Loveless on my iPod now, even though it's a very sleepy Friday AM.