I don’t know what else to say. I will just quote extensively from this news report from KSN News 3 on May 25, 2011.
Sometime in May Representatives in Topeka, Kansas “were debating a bill that would ban insurance companies from offering abortion coverage in regular health plans. The bill, that was signed into law Wednesday, means women will have to buy a separate health policy to cover abortions.”
During the debate, Barbara Bollier, a Kansas lawmaker “pointed out that abortions would not be covered, under the new Kansas law, for cases of rape and incest.”
Kansas Pete DeGraaf responded by saying, “We need to plan ahead, don’t we, in life?”
Bollier then asked, “And so, women need to plan ahead for issues that they have no control over with pregnancy?”
Are you ready for DeGraaf’s response to this question?
“I have a spare tire in my car,” said DeGraaf. “I also have life insurance. I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.”
I am so glad Mother’s Day is finally coming to an end. In less than 30 minutes.
I was not going to write anything about Mother’s Day today. Apparently I have written several posts on how and why I hate Mother’s Day ever since I started blogging. The act of “Oh I don’t really care if you guys do anything for me on Mother’s Day” is painfully obvious to me yet maddeningly unrecognized by the others in this house. The angst is palpable.
The good thing is: The Husband happened to be out of the country for a big meeting attended by hundreds of engineers (yes most of them men) every Mother’s Day for several years now. This actually helped me relax. If he is not here, well, he cannot be expected to bring me breakfast in bed, can he?
To be fair, he did surprise me with a package from FTD this year:
I was not expecting anything, and fortunately I recognized the FTD logo on the box and decided to open it right away.
I remember the last time I received a proper bouquet was in 1995 when we graduated and moved into an apartment together. Giddy with excitement at the sight of these flowers sitting on the kitchen table, I was content with half an hour of this this morning and considered today a success…
Really, life is what you make of it. Make no big deal out of today, then today is not a big deal.
I cooked. I cleaned. I did the dishes. I picked up the house. I did the laundry. I folded and put away clothes.
Except that I am happy for The Husband that the following conversation did not happen today. Well, because he is not here so he could not have on Mother’s Day.
“Look at my arms! They are not that flabby, right?” I pinched my right forearm with my left hand and show it to The Husband. I continued, “I wonder why my arms always look so HUGE in pictures! They are actually kind of firm when I do this.” I then pinched my forearm some more.
“Maybe it is like the Kobe beef,” he said, after declining my invitation to pinch my forearm and see for himself.
“Huh?”
Pause. “Made with muscles and fat.”
5 seconds after I hit his face with a pillow…
“How about you treat me like Kobe Beef [sic]…”
“What?”
“Feed me beer and give me a massage!”
I did neither. It was not Father’s Day.
p.s. I do sincerely wish all the mothers, grandmothers, foster mothers, guardian angels out there a Happy Mother’s Day. I hope your day was full of relaxation and joy. More than that, I wish you a Monday After with NO increase in workload.
It seems that this is one of the criteria to be working at a Fox News network station… Worse than the mistake above that could have been a simple, innocent, typo, the video below shows a slip that really makes you go, “Huh. I wonder how long he’s been practicing saying that?”
This is a cheap shot and oh so predictable. But I need to pay homage to the latest Interweb sensation and not only an awesome Internet meme in the making but a generous provider of meme material.
Yes, my friend. I am talking about Charlie Sheen. My apology indeed. I know most of you are tired of hearing/reading about Sheen’s latest antics by now, but allow me to have some fun.
For two days now my co-worker and I have been saying,
Duh. WINNING!
to each other when something, um, AWESOME, happened at work, i.e. we have been saying this to each other or playing the sound wav. file a lot.
Many of you would argue that this man is far gone, that he needs immediate medical assistance. But I read the highlights of his rants and I cannot help but be impressed by his creativity and command of metaphors:
What they’re not ready for is guys like you and I and Nails and all the other gnarly gnarlingtons in my life, that we are high priests, Vatican assassin warlocks. Boom. Print that, people. See where that goes.
I’m an F-18, bro. And I will destroy you in the air. I will deploy my ordnance to the ground.
I wish him nothing but pain in his silly travels especially if they wind up in my octagon. Clearly I have defeated this earthworm with my words — imagine what I would have done with my fire breathing fists.
These insults are the rocket fuel that lives in the tip of my sabre.
… People that don’t have tiger blood, you know, Adonis DNA.
I’m extremely old-fashioned, I’m a nobleman, I’m chivalrous. I believe that chivalry is not dead, it’s just been in a coma for a while.
I’m sorry, man, I got magic, and I’ve got poetry in my fingertips.
And yes, you have all heard this golden nugget:
I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available because if you try it once you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.
And seriously, these gems, if they had not been spoken by Sheen, would have been on a t-shirt or coffee mug somewhere:
Can’t is the cancer of happen.
Dying is for amateurs.
There is something to be said about this unabashed optimistic confident outlook on one’s own life and oneself.
I am not bi-polar. I am bi-winning.
I cured it with my brain, with my mind.
The only thing I’m addicted to is winning.
To be 100% honest, once in a while, I’d like to be able to say something like this without any trace of irony in my heart:
I’m tired of pretending like I’m not special. I’m tired of pretending like I’m not bitchin’, a total frickin’ rock star from Mars.
Ok, so at the end of the day, I guess the above serves as further proof he’s manic–depressive. However it turns out, I am going to be WINNING-ing in the office in the near future. Beats the Sad Trombone that we have been routinely using.
p.s.s. I found many applications for this new Internet Meme of WINNING: for instance, I used it this morning when I found the parking spot right next to the train station entrance empty even though I got there late. It could also be used sardonically to explain what some people were thinking when they said something that made everybody else go “What what?!”
This could be used to explain what these people were thinking when they said something that made everybody else go "What what?!"
Double L for Loser
p.p.p.s. You know who gets to say WINNING for realz? Robert Downey Jr. That’s who.
The REAL Comeback kid from drug rehabs and embarrassing arrests
I received the latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek this Saturday and I could not have been happier.
Such a great antidote for Valentine’s Day Blues.
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Cover of Bloomberg Businessweek, 14 February 2011.
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After reading the well-written article, “Cheating Incorporated”, still aghast and shaking from the get-go by the tagline “Life is short. Have an affair”, I went and checked out the front page of the website, and the front page only. I swear. There is NO wink wink this time.
I don’t know what to say. I feel like crying but not the self-pitying kind wont to happen on Valentine’s Day. No. I feel like crying because I am so tired. I feel besieged.
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"Affairs Guaranteed"
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Well, I guess now we know what many people would be doing the day AFTER Valentine’s Day…
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Now we know what people do the day AFTER...
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I am rather intrigued by this chart really, what would your hypothesis be for the reasons for the spikes?
Honestly, I would not have been so indignant if they hadn’t made such a big deal out of Nathan Lane’s 55th birthday as “THE BIG THING” for February 3rd. Nothing against Nathan Lane: Love him in The Birdcage. And it is very easy to forget about Chinese New Year when you are not surrounded by other Chinese people; I myself have done so a few times and forgot to call my parents even. But come on. It is not even his 60th! I even checked to make sure that I didn’t miss the news of his untimely demise. So the Chicago Tribune folks sat around in the News Editing Writing Brainstorming Room and Nathan Lane’s 55th birthday is what they managed to come up with.
FAIL.
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The year of the Rabbit is coming whether Chicago Tribune acknowledges it or not. Beware of Angry Bunny. Just sayin’
Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head today when a gun man fired allegedly 15 to 20 bullets into a small crowd outside of a grocery store during a meeting held by Ms. Giffords with her constituents. The gunman killed six people, including a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge, and wounded 13 others. (Live update can be found on HuffPost)
First and foremost, let’s pray and/or send loving, healing thoughts for the victims and their families. There have been lots of conflicting report on the condition of Ms. Giffords. Politico reported that she has been out of surgery and in good condition and has been able to recognize her husband, Shuttle Discovery Commander Mark Kelly. Let’s pray that this is the case.
Amongst all the tragedies in AZ today, the most heart-breaking is the death of the 9-year-old girl, Christina Taylor Greene, born September 11, 2001. She was newly elected to the student council and went to the meeting today so she could learn more about government processes.
RIP Christina Greene.
RIP All Those Who Lost Their Lives Today.
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Updated: I was all ready to hit the publish button but I came across a video on YouTube featuring Fred Phelps thanking the gunman for doing god’s work in Arizona today. I have also been seeing reports from Glenn Beck’s and Conservative Christian’s websites that Westboro Church has announced their plan to picket the funerals of the victims in the shooting. Please, let’s pray that THIS IS NOT THE CASE. What has the world come to?
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News media and the Internet, including the social media, are abuzz with the potential motivation for such brutality and violence and fingers have been pointed and shouts have been fired.
The first person to offer an explanation (or unfair blame, depending on where you are coming from) was surprisingly Arizona Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik:
When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.
He did not specifically name names. Even if some critics may not like what he had to say above, we should be able to agree on what he had to say about the current state of the so-called media:
Let me say one thing, because people tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that… That may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences… It’s time that this country take a little introspective look at the crap that comes out on radio and TV.
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Although I have some thoughts in response to Mr. Dupnik’s strong statements, I don’t want to hijack this tragic event with my psychotic foaming. At least not tonight. I do want to quickly share a piece of fact with you: Sarah Palin and the Tea Party were somehow specifically mentioned in the reporting of this tragedy. Why? Here is the context:
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Post on Sarah Palin's Facebook in March 2010
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It is chilling now to see Rep. Giffords’ name on the (literally) targeted list. Of course, it is unfair, even I have to agree, to blame Palin for the gunman’s action based on this picture. However, it does show how the extreme elements on one side is leaning more and more towards relying on violence and the rhetorics of it and at the same time the respectable members within that side are not doing anything to revert that trend.
Newly discovered evidence of alien civilization in Cambodia?
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This is a computer keyboard after I took the caps off.
But why? You ask.
Can you see a hint of pink in the picture? That’s not because of lighting or exposure, THAT, my friend, is the remnant of strawberry smoothie that my 7 year-old spilled all over my laptop.
You know why? Hubris.
He has been using regular glasses (instead of plastic cups with lids that we kept from numerous family-friendly chain restaurants) without incidents. What can go wrong this time?
Oh my goodness, I thought to myself when ThinkPad made a big to-do about their new and improved spill-proof keyboard, what kind of slob will be making big enough a mess to warrant a spill-proof keyboard? Sheesh!
He is watching cartoons on YouTube now, I am just going to do something for myself and go work out. He’ll be ok for 30 minutes without having to yell for me.
Life is indeed better now that the kids are old enough to take care of themselves and I can start enjoying my evenings.
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Guess what's going to be my evening and weekend project for a while?
