Considering Bush has been selling America to the Chinese over the past seven years, it makes sense he’d ask for SOMETHING in return besides loans for our Global War of Terror. Funny, I always thought one of the pillars of the conservative movement was personal responsibility. I guess that doesn’t extend to war money.

Sigh . . . if only the pretzel plot had succeeded . . .

Why did I think electing a Dem would bring back the illusion of the separation of church and state? I wish I could quit you, Obama, but there’s still no way in hell that McCrone is getting my vote. Hey Barry, quit compromising, dammit!

I have built an awesome BlackBery speakerphone amplifier. Unfortunately, marketing may be a bit difficult. If you are like me, you are not happy with the tinny sound you get from your BlackBerry speaker. Well, be unhappy no more! With my miracle amplifier, you will have a fuller, deeper sound for your calls.

Step 1: Grab a roll of toilet paper.
Step 2: Put the roll of toilet paper on your desk with the tube standing vertically.
Step 3: Put the BlackBerry on the toilet paper roll, speakerphone pointing into the tube.

Yay! You now have a Nathan Oliphant Original BlackBerry Amplifier (NOOBA). Amaze your friends and family with the improved sound quality! Impress your co-workers with your creativity! Just make sure you replenish the toilet paper holder before your wife steps into the bathroom if you didn’t grab a fresh roll from the supply closet for step 1.

The joys of owning an older home are many-fold. I am learning all sorts of skills I would have never considered before just to keep this thing from collapsing around our ears. I am able to stimulate the economy frequently with my trips to the hardware store, checks to various contractors, and extra booze from the liquor store to provide an occasional sense of oblivion that lets me escape the question “What’s going to break next?” Over the past three years I have replaced every toilet in the house (two by necessity, one just because it was too damned hideous to keep), replaced the roof and the occasional window (yes, single pane glass seems a bit silly in a climate that ranges from 0f to 110f), dealt with various plumbing nightmares and have been constantly reminded of the previous owner’s (or PO for the rest of this) love of PVC. When I am not repairing something, I am usually out trying to eradicate the noxious weed sanctuary that is our yard. Five acres of knapweed, milkweed, thistles and more! Joy.

This week, two months and two years late, I decided to learn how to maintain sprinklers. Sure, I’ve replaced the occasional sprinkler head, had to replace a hundred yards or so of PVC in the lawn when the tissue-thin variety PO so very loved burst under pressure, the occasional shovel strike or the sheer weight of boredom, discovered how NOT to wire automatic sprinklers and replaced the occasional solenoid. But beyond blowing out the lines at the end of the season, or replacing something when a sprinkler quit working, I’ve never really maintained my sprinklers. Turns out you can get them to work better if you clean their filters, or at a minimum, clear the gravel from the pipes when things clog. Now our sprinklers are clean and working properly. The sprinkler system is, in fact, better than it was when we moved in, as long as you don’t count the one we can no longer find in the front lawn and are really hoping we didn’t install the fence directly over it. Hooray!

Well, almost hooray. It seems someone has stabbed one of the sprinkler lines, so now we have a beautiful fountain on watering days. Fuck. I am ready to move to a condo. No sprinklers, no mowing, and no knapweed. At least I have something to do this evening beyond read and weed.

Finally, Joe Cocker makes sense:

My Linux laptop was murdered today. Video now consists of a black screen with several white horizontal lines. I am fairly confident that the boy-child is the culprit. Grrrr. I’d be more annoyed, but I am currently preoccupied with a shower faucet that has decided to turn into a fountain. Joy.

The girl-child and wife are in the Tri-cities area for some sort of horse training seminar, so the boy-child and I are enjoying a mellow rainy weekend at home. We watched Kung Fu Panda yesterday and he spent the rest of the day playing Metal Blob Solid and SuperTuxKart. It’s going to be a shock when we get a real video game console and he gets to play games that don’t have penguins, blobs and beta gaming engines.

Oh joy, Tom Delay is making news again. Might as well link to his first blog attempt, then. Shouldn’t he be in prison by now?

Only one more week until we haul the kids up to Vancouver and then ship them off to Alaska. I’m almost glad that we aren’t going with them for that final bit of the journey, as I am fairly confident the girl-child will be seasick most of the trip. On the way up, we will hopefully see Tanya and Jeanie. And, since the bastards still refuse to open up in Spokane, Trader Joe’s in either Seattle or Bellingham.

Maybe 40 is old after all. I spent 5 minutes this morning searching for my cell phone. It took a bit longer than usual to find it as I had only one hand free to sift through newspapers on the table, clothes scattered on the bed, etc. in my quest for the phone. My other hand was otherwise unavailable, holding my cell phone.

There are benefits to getting older. My children seem to be aging as well, so now I’ve got yard-slaves. Sure, they are even lazier than I was at that age, but I can usually get one of them to mow at least half a lawn and maybe pull some weeds. I would say my kids and their peers are a bunch of spoiled brats — the worst ever — but I am pretty sure (assuming you believe the Christian creation myth) that the first parents to make that statement were Adam and Eve. And every generation of parents since have echoed that sentiment. So, are they really that bad, or is it that with age and wisdom comes self-delusion and selective memory?

Actually, Adam and Eve, the incestuous freaks that begat us all*, were children of God. Perhaps credit for first complaining about “kids these days” should go to him. In spite of all their flaws, my children are quite biblical. They are constantly tromping through the garden (usually crushing garlic or seedlings), and come summer, I’m pretty sure they’ll be out there stealing apples. We don’t seem to have any snakes around us, so they will have to content themselves talking to wasps instead — we have plenty of those. My son may not be able to walk on water or turn water into wine, but he is a whiz at turning water into urine and passing water on the roses. And every time I find my tools and various pieces of once-useful lumber out in the yard, both children are as innocent as lambs.

* Yes, I am once again making an assumption that you either believe the Goddite stuff or have at least heard the fables.