aimee

Or see http://comics.com/luann/2009-08-09/ if it gets cropped.

For all the Finals Week sufferers out there - lifted from Joe Straubhaar's Facebook.

The Onion on the new Star Trek movie - "borrowed" from Mark Bernstein's LiveJournal account.

"About three years ago, our US Navy Ceremonial Guard Silent Drill Team was invited to compete in an International Tattoo in Norway . The Navy competed against military units from all over NATO and won first place. Once you see the video you'll understand why they won."

Very cool; courtesy of Mark Bernstein's Live Journal, who said: "The opening sequence of "Fiddler On the Roof" . . . in Japanese. (Granted, it probably helped that, having been in the show twice, I knew exactly what they were saying.)...I've read that when "Fiddler" first opened in Japan, someone asked one of the original producers how the show could have been a hit in the U.S., since it was so very Japanese.

This is very fine!

So I get a call from the dealership on Wednesday that the car was ready to pick up, after being repaired due to being rear-ended. We take the check from the insurance agency and trundle on down. The people at the body shop - who are very nice people, and pretty together - pull out the paperwork and I look it over; it looks fine, if expensive (this is where deductibles become annoying) and Susan goes and gets the car form the back lot.

It looks beautiful, just like new at least around the back end, and the doors all open and close properly, and so on. We go back into the office to finish up, and a tech asks me for the key back to move the car out of his way, which he does. Financial transactions later, we shake hands with Susan, walk over to the car, start it up, put it in gear - and the Master Fault light comes on, as well as every other warning light on the dashboard.

Wow, is that embarrassing for Susan. I have to walk back over and say "it's not working". They can't even get it to turn OFF.

So we spend 15 minutes wandering around the lot admiring Yarises (Yari?) and conversing with the sales manager, then we huddle up with Susan et al again and they say they'll have to have a tech run diagnostics on it.

I heard from them a few minutes ago - it's now Friday - and Susan says the car is now ready to pick up. It was making them absolutely crazy. It appears that while the car was opened up for repair, a leaf got in amongst its works and acted like the proverbial bug in ENIAC.

There will be no charge for this repair. I wonder whether they actually removed a leaf and suddenly everything started working, or whether this is a Gee-I-Wonder-If-A-Leaf-Was-The-Problem conclusion.

I sure hope it's the former, we'll go pick it up as soon as Tim gets home from a meeting.

[in response to whether we voted for "an African American man"]

...I voted for a deeply intelligent, thoughtful, determined person with demonstrated ability to bring people together and a great team already building around him, who also seems to have priorities I strongly agree with.

Something I found bizarre about the whole Palin attraction was people saying "I like her, she thinks just like me" and my response is usually "Yep, and I wouldn't vote for you either". Not because I didn't like any given person - leaving out my personal opinion of Ms Palin here, which is beside the point - but because governing requires talent as well as skill which derives from, and then feeds, knowledge and understanding. Voting for "someone that thinks like me" is very odd; I want to have a leader that is WAY smarter, more knowledgeable, and more skilled at leading than I am. That usually means someone who does NOT think the way I do, beyond basic principles.

There can never be too many of them. Their gender or race or age is immaterial. I believe Mr Obama is one of those people.

YMMV -

Current Mood: thoughtful

Walked next door to the school at about 10, did the thing, then timmoran and I drove over to Starbucks to claim our coffee.

How 'bout everybody else?

Quote from the New Yorker, a remarkably lucid summary of the presidential candidates on a wide range of fields.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/02/elections-obama-mccain-yorker-democrats

So there timmoran and I were, on our way to Target to get some workout pants for me, sitting in stopped traffic, when there was a very long sliding sound and a Dodge Diplomat cannoned right into the back of my Prius.

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Current Location: Home

Slightly disturbing and yet fascinating YouTube bit:




(If you haven't seen the Ok Go original YouTube clip, it's cool too:

Current Location: Home
Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Ok Go

Awesome clip.

Borrowed from Dave Stein's page -

Current Mood: bouncy

"Smoke on the Yangtze". My. It *is* in English, nominally.

This is just a staggering display of athleticism and grace.

- by Tim Moran

Dogs of the press, it continues to be a banner week for news, and the most recent
Alpo is a deliciously juicy statement from FEMA.

The Centers for Disease Control (another in the continuing plural-name hits of Our Proud Government) has informed the public that emergency housing trailers sent to the Gulf Coast to help recover from Hurricane Katrina by occupying former farmland in vast parking lots of pork-barrel purchases are loaded – LOADED – with bonus formaldehyde.

Unlike the rest of us, who are ecstatic when we get free extra formaldehyde with our purchase of plywood, particle board, carpet padding or other building products from big-box centers such as Lowe’s or Home Depot, the CDC folk appear to feel that this is a Bad Thing.
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NOTE TO TIM-READERS: Tim now has his own LJ site! From here out, Tim's columns will appear at timmoran.livejournal.com. I've posted this column there. - Aimee

-by Tim Moran

Newshounds, start your barkers – it’s a banner week for headlines, and it must be the influence of that ancient Roman holiday itself, when women are lovingly whipped through the streets to assist in fertility, that has led to gems like these:

• After dragster blew up, driver mulled quitting
• Child OK after getting stuck in washer
• Family sheds more than 500 pounds
• Former Miss Nevada USA Arrested
• Deputy dumps quadriplegic out of wheelchair

These are only a sampling, mind you, culled from a quick look at recent media and indicative of the general trouble we are all going to be in if some alien life form has been receiving our broadcast news for lo these many years since Marconi made it possible for Gilligan to eventually bestride the globe like a Colossus. Because that alien life form is going to be really, really confused when and if it eventually arrives seeking its K-tel products and hoping to meet Lucy.

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- By Tim Moran

A note to those campaigning in Florida: Do not argue with the 85-year-olds.

Norberto Fernandez has an important safety tip for those who would come to Florida and attempt to walk away with anything, like a vote or possibly Social Security benefits: Do not peeve the plus-80 set, especially white-haired grandfathers or little old ladies in tennis shoes.

Mr. Fernandez, 28, operates a property repurposing business on the streets of Miami’s “Little Havana” neighborhood in which Mr. Fernandez spots objects of value in other people’s possession and repurposes them into being objects of value in his possession. Conservative free-trade advocates would recognize this as being the same business that Enron and certain recent mortgage debt consolidators have engaged in on a larger and more computer-based scale entirely.

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