Does It Get Any Better Than This?

George Bush and the Republicans repudiated, Rumsfeld gets the can, Democrats control the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate. Does it get any better? Yes, it will get better when they impeach Bush and Cheney.

I'll say it now: If the Democrat controlled House of Representatives does not impeach those two criminals, I'm finished with the Democrats for good. They've acted like a bunch of pussies for the last 6 years, and if they don't get some balls soon we'll all be eunuchs!

Gotham City: Part IV


Tuesday in NYC we went to Times Square and bought tickets for the Gray Line's Downtown Loop. It starts at Times Square goes to the Empire State Building, Macy's, thru Union Square, the West Village, Soho, Little Italy, Chinatown, Wall Street, stops at Ground Zero, the UN, Waldorf Astoria, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, and probably some I forgot. The tour is a hop-on hop-off trip which means you can get off the bus at any stop and get on another bus later to continue to the next place.

We went to the top of the Empire State Building, and the Goddess actually went out onto the observation deck (she has acrophobia). She didn't stay long, but she did go out there. After that we rode thru several stops before we got off at the Southport Mall where the Goddess bought some tennis shoes. Our guide on this leg of the tour was from Brazil who speaks Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, Italian, German and a little Swedish. He's a UN interpreter. Pretty interesting guy.

After the shoe purchase we rode back thru several more stops back to Times Square. We got another bus to ride to Union Square to meet Kirsten for the Halloween Parade. We went to the end of her block to watch the parade come up 6th avenue. The crowds were heavy, and we didn't get to see a lot, but I saw a few funny get ups: A guy dressed like Jackie Kennedy in a bloody pink dress with a pink pill box hat, the "Pope" being kidnapped by two Palestinian martyrs, a "toilet" with a sign that said, "George Bush speaks, then you flush."

We even got back to the hotel in time to see the news story about the Halloween Parade.

Gotham City: Part III


Monday was the Goddess's birthday. We started out at the Sunlight Diner which is run by a couple of grouchy Greeks. The food was good and the ambience was stereotypical. Pure Queens. We took the 7 train out to Flushing, because Mayor Bloomberg suggested riding the train with the most diverse passengers in the world. I have to agree. We got off at 82nd and Roosevelt where there are dentists almost every two doors. Not only that, but it looks like a Latin American city that was picked up and put down in the middle of Queens with a little of Korean mixed in.

From there we caught a bus out to La Guardia and transferred to another bus to Astoria. We caught the N train back to the 7 and back to the hotel.

That evening we went to meet Kirsten at VH1 before going to the Broadway show Rent. That's where we met Flava Flav. Oh yeah! We ate at Frankie and Johnnie's restaurant. Steak mostly. We all enjoyed the show, and afterward went to Junior's where cheesecake is king.

Gotham City: Part II

Montague Street
Sunday we met Kirsten at her apartment and went to eat at French Roast. It's a cafe in Greenwich Village that is a quaint sort of European restaurant. We had a very good breakfast, then headed for the subway and Brooklyn.

The sun was bright, but it was cold and windy. The wind blew up to about 40 mph and right thru almost everything we had on. We went to the Transit Museum which is near Borough Square. The museum has lots of good exhibits, but the ones I liked the best were the old subway cars. The oldest ones are from around the beginning of the 1900s. They all have the original ads up above the seats.

After the museum we headed over to Montague Street, a sort of restaurant row in an old but gentrified part of Brooklyn. We ate at Armando's which is an Italian restaurant. The food was great and not any more expensive than the same dish would be here in Austin.

We rode the subway back to Manhattan and Union Square. I brought my suit to wear to Rent, but I forgot a tie. We stopped at Filene's Basement which is actually two stories above street level. I bought a tie, and the Goddess bought a feather pillow (the hotel pillows lacked suitability).

We started back to the hotel thinking it was kind of late because the sky was dark. I checked the time once we sat down on the subway and it was only 6:30. Whatever the latitude is there, the night comes on faster than we're used to.

If Only George W. Would Follow Suit


"I am a deceiver and a liar."

Gotham City: Part I


We arrived at JFK on time or a little early. I had made prepaid reservations with the SuperShuttle to take us to our hotel in Queens. I called them from the special phone near the C4 baggage carrousel. The guy that answered said give me about 30 minutes. After more than 30 minutes I called back and he said the driver was at T4 and it would be about 10 minutes. Later, I concluded that T6 is where we were waiting. Anyway, the driver showed up. He said, "You're going to La Quinta in Manhattan, right?" I answered, "No, Queens." The driver muttered with exasperation, "Oh my God!" He asked if I knew the address, and I gave him the print-out of our confirmation. He called his dispatcher to get directions.

We stopped at some of the other terminals and picked up more passengers. Some of them were a family from Germany. I talked to the mom a little bit. Her English and my German were about equal (meaning pretty bad), but I explained we were visiting my daughter.

We drove for a long time and then I realized we had arrived in the general vicinity of the hotel. I called my daughter who had come over to the hotel to meet us. She was already there, and said, "Oh yeah, you're just around the corner." The driver didn't know that of course, and he turned the wrong way. It turns out we went about 40 blocks in the wrong direction before he called his dispatcher. He turned around and headed in the right, went past the hotel, and had to turn around to come back. Okay, it took about twice the amount of time it should have.

By this time we were starving, so the three of us went to eat at Vicky Punjabi Haandi and had tandoori chicken. Later we rode the subway over to Manhattan, walked around Union Square, and saw Kirsten's apartment. Later, we rode the N to Queensborough Plaza and switched to the 7 to get to our stop at 40th and Queens Blvd.

Cultural Learnings of America


Borat! Borat! Oh, yeah! Glorious Benefit for Kazakh Nation! $26.4 million? I feel this country big love.

Back to Laid Back


We're back in Austin. Got here just a few hours ago. Austin has the reputation as a laid back kind of place, and it's well deserved. New York has a reputation as exactly the opposite of laid back. What would that be...leaned forward? I don't know, but it's well deserved too. It's a great place, but I have to admit that by Thursday the incessant noise and unending crowds started to get on my nerves. I'll write up more of exactly what we saw and did, just not right now. I'm too tired.

Dave's Show

Well, I hope you don't stay up tonite (or didn't stay up last nite depending on when you read this). The show was pretty lame. Gary Sinise, JoAnn Carson, and Jim Norton. JoAnn Carson is the first ex-wife of Johnny Carson. Not so good. Gary Sinise is pretty lame all the time. Jim Norton is a stand-up comic, and he's pretty good.

Dave and Paul were good, and so was the band. They didn't even ask me to come up on the stage and tell them about Flava Flav. Doesn't matter that I didn't tell them, they should've known. I tell ya, the air's pretty thin up here ;-)

Tomorrow I think we're going to Central Park, because the leaves have turned. It should be really great.

I Have Reached the Summit!


Yes, it's us and Flava Flav. Funny how you just run into these folks. Actually, the Goddess and I were visiting my daughter at her office at VH1, when Flava and his entourage showed up for a "meet and greet." So, we greeted and meeted. Yes, that's a Viagra jacket he's wearing. Oh my!

We're still in NYC. Last night we went to see Rent. It was very good. Today we took a tour of Downtown Manhattan, and saw all the requisite sites. This place really is the Capital of the World. So far, I've had the opportunity to speak English, German, Spanish, French, and Portuguese (or at least a reasonable facsimile). By the way, Flava speaks English.

Dave Letterman's Show


The Goddess and I travel to NYC on Saturday. We'll be visiting our daughter there. There's a lot we want to do, and today we found out that we've got tickets to see The Late Show with Dave on Wednesday night November 1.

To get in you have to prove your identity (they suggested a passport), and you have to pick up the tickets yourself. No one can pick them up for you. Then you probably have to take your shoes off, go thru a metal detector, and be interviewed. It might be easier to get on an airplane. Oh well, it ought to be fun.

That's Enough to Make You Want to Commit Suicide


Mary Carey, pornstar and Gubernatorial candidate, has dropped out of the race to be with her mother who tried to kill herself in September. Now, it wouldn't have been because her daughter was a pornstar. No, she's been a pornstar for a long time. It must have been because her daughter had become a Republican politician. I sympathize.

What Do Benin, Bolivia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina Have in Common?

Besides all of their names starting with a "B"? By the way, Benin is a little country in western Africa, Bolivia is a very poor country in the highlands of South America, and well, Bosnia is where they had ethnic cleansing. What do they have in common? They all rank higher on the press freedom ranking than the USA according to Reporters without Borders. Yep, we're tied for number 53 along with (get this) Botswana, Croatia, and Tonga. You remember Botswana don't you? That's the country that had the highest percentage of AIDS in the world in 2001. How about Croatia? Well, besides siding with the Nazis in WWII they also have an affinity for ethnic cleansing. Tonga? Hell, who knows anything about Tonga? We all know one thing about Tonga - they have the same press freedoms that we do. Oh my God! Does the word impeachment ring a bell?

Which Part of "Arrogance and Stupidity" Did He Mean?


Alberto Fernández, a senior US diplomat, said in an interview on Al-Jazeera Saturday, that "there was arrogance and stupidity" on the part of the US regarding Iraq.

Now, he has retracted his statement. He says, "those words do not reflect my opinion nor that of the State Department." Uh, yeah right! You don't choose words like that by mistake. You especially don't if you're a diplomat. No, I think he did mean exactly what he said.

Mr. Fernández says that after he read the translation of his appearance on Al-Jazeera that he "realized that I had spoken mistakenly when I used the phrase 'there was arrogance and stupidity.'"

At first the State Department said that there must have been an error in the translation, but later had to admit that what was wrong wasn't the translation. Mr. Fernández even reiterated his statement on CNN when asked about it that same day. He said, "nothing I said is a revelation." Well, that was then, this is now.

I think I would recant too, if I had a hot poker shoved up my ass! You know something like that happened.

¿No Tenemos Suficientes?


Dicen que Kate Moss está embarazada. ¿De quién? Pues, de su novio por supuesto, Pete Doherty. Pero...¿es que no tenemos bastantes modelos y drogadictos ya? ¡Que Dios lo/nos proteja!

Are They Going to Draft Them?


Annemarie Jorritsma, mayor of Almere in the Netherlands, has proposed that the army send prostitutes along with the troops where they are serving overseas. She says this would do away with "sexual tension" between male and female troops. Sounds like a pretty good idea, and it would give new meaning to the words "camp follower." But, how are they going to get the hookers to agree? Conscription? And would the army pay them by contract, or by "piece work"? Just wondering.

I'd Give My Left Nut...


That's what we used to say back when I was younger. We said it in the context of doing something that we very much wanted to do. For example, I'd give my left nut to have her...well, you know what I mean. But, would you have your left nut nailed to a roof just to keep your balance? Maybe, if it meant not fall off.

August Voegl of Austria did just that, only it was an accident. He was repairing a roof with a nail gun in his hand, when he lost his balance and accidentally shot a nail thru his left nut. But, that's not all. He actually nailed (ahem) "himself" to the roof. He had to stay that way until an ambulance arrived.

Borat


The Deputy Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan has invited Borat to come visit. Rakhat Aliev invited Sasha Cohen to visit Kazakhstan to see that "women can drive cars, wine is made from grapes, and that Jews are completely free to go to the synagogue." He claims that it's smarter to invite Borat to come visit than to try to sue him. It would just make Kazakhstan look worse, and Borat better.

Mob Justice

Just some advice...don't go to Oaxaca and piss anybody off. It turns out that the huge "plantón" (sort of an occupation of the main square) in Oaxaca has taken to handling matters of justice. See, the whole city (and some other towns) are completely ungovernable. The Governor has authority in name only, and the striking teachers are demanding that he be removed by the federal government or that he resign. He won´t. Anyway, in the meantime regular crimes happen, so the "population" has taken to dishing out its own justice. From El Universal:

En las primeras horas del miércoles varios sujetos fueron detenidos por la población que se hizo justicia por su propia mano, debido a la falta de seguridad. Juan Cruz Vázquez, un presunto violador, y otro individuo, al parecer asaltante, fueron amarrados a un poste y exhibidos en la vía pública.

The Spanish says: "In the early hours of Wednesday various subjects were detainted by the people who carried out their own form of justice, due to the lack of security. Juan Cruz Vázquez, an alleged rapist, and another individual, suspected of assault, were tied to a post and exhibited in public."

Sounds like what the Pilgrims used to do to lawbreakers back in colonial days.

Hey, I Know That Guy!


British researchers foresee that humans will evolve to be taller and to live 120 years. But, we will also divide into two genetic classes: the genetic elite, and the genetic underclass. They also think we'll get larger heads and bigger dicks.