Every day, millions of lights across this country are needlessly left on, the result of CCFR. Every day, millions of watts of energy are wasted. Every day, dishes are left scattered across the table and counter, muddy footprints are tracked through houses, and family pets go without water. All the result of CCFR. CCFR, or Children Can’t F***ing Remember, strikes almost every household in America, afflicting at least 99.99999999999997%, and possibly up to 300% of all children under the age of 27. This debilitating illness must be stopped. And with your help, it will.

For an initial donation of $59.99, you will receive your own Child Motivator Stick, 16 inches of lovely polished oak, inset with attractive brass studs in the head. This heirloom quality tool, when gently applied to the backside of a child afflicted with CCFR, will remind them to remember, overcoming the CFR portion of CCFR.

After you have received your Child Motivator Stick, you can continue with the program for $20 per month, receiving timely emails and notices on when and how to help motivate your child to remember. No more skateboards on the stairs. No more pizza slices in the couch. Your child, like tens of others in our great nation, will finally overcome near-terminal laziness, and finally remember. So please, give to Stop CCFR. Do it for the children.

My conversion to the Dark Side is complete. I watched my wife go over and scoffed at her, how easily-led she was, how willing to lock herself in to a predetermined path. Then came Vally, showing me the power and ease of using the dark side. I liked my freedom, liked being able to do things my own way and on my own terms, but the structured world they offered was tempting.

Something is seriously wrong with you, boy . . .

After years of struggling on my own, dealing with the aftermath of unmatched freedom and competing ideas, I finally did it: I bought my own MacBook Pro and joined the Dark Side. And I have to say, I love it. A trackpad that actually works? A trackpad that provides useful navigation and input? What novel ideas! A UI that is stable, and programs that don’t mysteriously crash or include text that matches the background (I’m looking at YOU, VLC on LXDE!!!)? What a novel idea! Yes, I still love my various Linux laptops, but I think I’m stuck in the beauty and simplicity of the Mac world for a while now. I’d better be, now that I have the wireless trackpad, keyboard and number pad.

Spastic Avenger

Okay, I’m hiding this image before it gives my viewer (viewers?) siezures.

The Spastic Avenger Strikes Again!

I’ll eat pie if I want to, pie if I want to . . .

Oh Marmaduke, you’re such a card . . . what are you doing no- f**k me, is this thing on? Oh hey there . . . so, what is today’s topic? Oh yeah, California versus Idaho. I like California, I really do. But I also like paying a dollar less per gallon of gas, half per kilowatt of electricity, and not having to dodge piles of shi… feces while walking in public places.

So, California, or more precisely, Humboldt County, California: Majestic redwoods, foggy mornings and sunny afternoons, beautiful windswept beaches, and the mighty banana slug. I do not think I could give up the ocean again. Humboldt is beautiful, but suffers from a poor economic base and the high cost of California living. Everything from land to gas to milk to taxes is more expensive here, even though so many here are poor. Maybe if we weren’t paying $4.47 per gallon of gas, we would have more money for more important things, like cookies.

Idaho, or Coeur d’Alene anyway, is flat and cold and filled with people who believe the current President is a Kenyan Marxist Socialist Nazi Communist Manchurian Candidate (i.e. “the sheriff is near”). It is also quite affordable. And unlike Humboldt, Kootenai County has no shortage of doctors and great libraries. It may not have as many breweries as Humboldt, but it does have Trader Joe’s, Lowes, Home Depot and Spokane, WA nearby. I would sell my wife for a Trader Joe’s in my area (hey, TJ’s people, are you listening?) . . .

If I switch to driving a UEV and move the family into one of these, California might just match Idaho on the affordability front. Idaho will never match California on the oceanfront and banana slug front, however.

Drinking away the moments that make up a work day
You stagger and puke the hours in an awkward way.

Stumbling around on a piece of ground in your home bar
Waiting for someone or something to blow you away . . .

Not only do I smell like goat, but some days I feel like him. Fortunately, the exhausted, vomiting girl-child lying on the couch behind me shows me that it could be worse.

There are many advantages to a home office: Short commute, no gas costs, no traffic jams, a comfortable work environment, no pants . . . Unfortunately, there are also disadvantages. The refrigerator is only a short walk away. It is easy to forget to shower, or even get dressed for the day. Six dogs in a small house inevitably leads to the overwhelming aroma of dog flatulence . . .

It is Friday . . . what are you going to do? I am going to step out into the sunshine, walk to the beach, then come back and finish work. I need the sea, I need the sand, I need the breeze. I need to quit spending my work breaks listening to the best and brightest the GOP has to offer explaining why segregation is good, access to safe, affordable abortions (and health care in general) is bad, drunk driving is a treasured American way of life, and the President (you know, the secret commie muslim socialist nazi Kenyan) is creating his own private army, with socialisms and health care. Something I come away with is that perhaps we need some better ethics laws for our elected representatives. And that perhaps it is time to let the Republican party have what they want. Do these people really believe any of what they say, or is the idea to come up with the most outrageously stupid idea and see if they can get people to believe it? Surely it is time that the self-proclaimed Party of NO, the “cow on the tracks”, find somewhere that embraces their concept of religious law, child labor, no environmental or social protections and spirit of rugged (and short-lived) individualism. I hear Somalia is beautiful this time of year. And this will put them closer to all the good elephant murdering hunting grounds, so win-win!

Perhaps I am old and addled, but I thought that, at one point, there was something called a “fiscal conservative.” This mythical beast actually was supposed to believe in fiscal responsibility (which one would assume includes not starting wars and then giving everyone tax cuts specifically so that we could not pay for said wars) rather than focusing so much on uteruses, gays and the dreaded threat of socialist Kenyan muslim nazis. Yeah, I must be old and addled.

So anyway, happy damned Friday. Enjoy your day. And yes, we had another lamb at the end of March. This brings us to a total of nine for this year, seven in just last month. And at least one of the three remaining pregnant ewes looks like she is ready to pop at any moment. Of course, we’ve been saying that for a week now. By the time she DOES give birth, the lamb is going to be as large as she is. I am afraid the birth will look more like a very gruesome metamorphosis.

Well this is disturbing: Two of the top five searches used to reach my site appear to be attempts to get to child pornography, beating out the search for “flushmaster plungers.” I wish the stats page would show who actually did these searches. I guess I could look through my access logs, but that would require too much effort on my part. Anyway, for you folks trying to get to “preteens” and “preteen Topanga” you have reached the wrong site. Unless you are here to hear me discuss my preteen days in Topanga, sacking up for nude tennis. If so, you’re welcome. And for the rest of you, I will try to make brain bleach available to rinse that image from your minds.

Sciatica? Really? When did I turn old?