I don’t even know if people can leave comments here, anymore. The spam got so ridiculous that the anti-spam plugins are locked down tighter than a Thai Ladyboy on Sunday morning. And by that I mean, very tight in an undesirable way. I hope.

Anyway, here are three examples of why I hate anything I hate. You may need a stiff drink.

So, Tila Tequila bought a $250,000 Lamborgini Galardo. The flaming wreckage that we’ll see in a few months should generate the loudest, and shortest, Meh from CNN ever. If you look at those pictures, though, the only really confusing part (to me) is the crazy diaper-blouse thing she is wearing. Yes, it shows off her ample cleavage, and despite having a vague knowledge of her public life, I still find that part attractive. Now, the weird mauve diaper part? I’m not sure what to think about that. It almost makes her look like a tranny in the first picture, and ruins the Brittany cooter shot in the other.

Palin says that Obama doesn’t have “the cojones” that Jan Brewer does to take care of immigration. Also, she only believes poll numbers when they suit her. And some asshole reporter is fueling the fire and making her seem relevant when she isn’t by moving in next door. She’s still an idiot, and I’d like her to enjoy the rest of her life in relative silence, be happy with her family without bothering the rest of us. But no, apparently too many other people want to keep the fucking jester around.

And then there’s this:

Which makes me suspect that all the family-advocacy groups and internet teetotalers might be on to something about scrapping the internet and starting over. Or beating children and forcing them into wage slavery at an early age to curb this behavior. Then again, 4chan provides content that is worse by levels of magnitude (although much of that is at least entertaining). There is zero artistic merit to this. Moobies. That is all.

Fuck you, Internet. You’re not what the scientists promised me!

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It’s probably the lack of nutmeg to make really great French Toast with.

Or, failing that, the fact that what they’re getting is barely enough to sustain themselves without the opportunity to improve the living conditions. And also, no meat.

But hey, the situation is so polemic and tragic that I just can’t help but feel bad.

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It would be suicide not to follow my dreams.

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• Siege mentality –
• The wide world of fictional drugs –
• Language-related efforts to help out in Haiti – Note also the use of distributed technologies (twitter, etc.)
• Why condoms don’t offer real protection from STDs –
• Defending the Planet: NRC Final Report

If this goofy WP plugin works the way it is supposed to, these tidbits will be automagically generated from my Google Reader shared items page.

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Best Video Game:
Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’10. It has literally sucked entire work-weeks out of me.

Best Movie I watched in 2009:
Primer. I’m behind the times.

Best Movie from 2009:
I don’t know. Every movie I saw in the theater kind of sucked. I never saw District 9.

Best Doctor:
Doctor Wang who diagnosed my broken foot as gout.

Best Coffee:
New Moon Cafe on Broad street.

Best Television Show:
LOST. And unless J.J. Abrams does something stupid in season 6, it will most likely be next year’s best tv show again.

Best book:
I don’t get to read for fun anymore. Blood Meridian was really good though.

Best drink:
Oban single-malt Scotch Whiskey.

Most consumed drink:
Vodka & tonic

Best beer:
Dogfishhead IPA.

Most consumed beer:
PBR

Best place to get said drinks:
It’s really a tie between LimeLite and Metro. One has great people, the other has lots of good looking younger women. I live closer to the latter.

Best shirt:
The blue & white striped dress shirt that has managed not to lose any buttons or collect any tears or cigarette burns.

Best pants:
The khaki cargo pants from PacSun that I had for three years that I had to finally stop wearing because the holes got too big.

Best cigarette:
Camel Turkish Gold. All the flavor, half the harsh.

Best drug:
There isn’t a best drug. They all deserve equal love.

Best club:
Sky City for being bigger than anywhere else and cramming even more skanky college girls into one place.

Best Girlfriend:
Although 2009 was bountiful in the area of women, there were no serious relationships or ‘girlfriends’ per se.

Best Cigarettes:
Camel Turkish Gold. However, the cheapest I’ve found that are reasonably smokable are Pall Mall Blue. One gave my roommate a massive headache though. Sadly a true story.

Best New Album:
Lagwagon – I Think My Older Brother Used to Listen to Lagwagon. I really wanted to give it to Propagandhi, but the whole of Lagwagon’s album is better.

Best Blog that Fires me up into a seething rage about the U.S.:
The Agitator. Who else could do that but Mr. Radley Balko himself?

Most Memorable Attention-Whore Moment:
Balloon Boy. It was pretty amusing.

Best Sandwich:
Crawfish Po’Boy at T’Boyz Po’Boyz on Broad Street. The homemade root beer is kick-ass also.

Best Religion:
None. Always has been, always will be.

Best Laundry Detergent:
Tide with the fucking Febreeze in it. Man, even after smoking all day my sweater smells pretty good!

Best Haircut guy:
Gene at the Great Clips in West Augusta. Man he does a good job (Yo, Gene!)

Best friend:
Oh no, I’m not playing this game. Yes, it’s Marty. By a landslide for discussing politics with me regularly and being able to keep up and sometimes knowing more about current events than I do.

Best Parent:
Dad. Sorry mom.

Best web browser:
I am disappointed with all of them. Lets bring back gopher.

Best Opensource Project that made my life easier:
ZoneMinder. Too bad all computer hardware has hated me this year.

Best grocery store:
Kroger. I just like it.

Best place to make-out:
Riverwalk by the bamboo garden. Always will be.

Best investment I made this year:
Netflix. Instant streaming on the Xbox 360 has taken me to new levels of laziness. And all 5 seasons of LOST are on there.

Best morning-after line from a girl:
“I can’t believe I just slept with a Red Wings fan.” They lost, but I won.

Most-often heard morning-after line from a girl:
“I don’t normally do that.”  Of course they don’t.

Most awkward moment:
Waiting to pick someone up from the abortion clinic. Not my fault, I was just the driver, yo.

Most interesting evening:
Getting arrested.

Worst morning:
Waking up in Cell-Block E.

Worst hangover:
Kratom. It felt like my insides were decomposing. Never again.

Most interesting text message received:
“Sweet! Time to get a cold, hard speculum shoved into my meow-meow.” I deleted a much more entertaining one about anal sex much earlier in the year that I should have saved, thus disqualifying it from the running.

Neatest website I found:
couchsurfing.org

Biggest time-suck:
Mafia Wars on Facebook.

Most annoying Facebook App:
Farmville. People need to stop inviting me.

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I was on vacation in Atlantic City – a two-week break from my year-long deployment in Iraq. At about 3 a.m., I ran into and eventually had drinks with a woman who I eventually brought up to my room, thinking this was going to be a mere casual hook-up, things that people do on vacation and in bars. Come to find out, before I initiated sex, and we were flirting, she told me that she is an escort and spends time with men for money. In short, it was the beginning of a business for pleasure transaction.

Though my mind was fogged with alcohol, red flags went up – firstly because I’d felt horrible that I’d taken an hour of this woman’s time already, just talking to her, with the full intentions of having sex had she not been a sex worker. Secondly, I had never been in a situation like this before, and didn’t know exactly what to do to tell her I had to intentions of buying her body for my own pleasure.

Having already wasted an hour of her time, with her assuming I knew she was an escort (a term she says she prefers), I made a deal: while I was most certainly sexually attracted to her, my values wouldn’t allow me to actually pay to have sex with her. I would, however, pay for her time to listen to her story and learn something from a group of people I’ve spent to much learning about, yet never had never actually sat down and spoken with.

So there we sat, in my hotel room, and over Jack Daniels, talked about her life, choices and perspectives. She is new to the escort industry, she said – and became an escort after much careful consideration – mostly for the stigma that comes with sex work, but also consideration for the dangers she faced, and the way society and the government look upon her.

I don’t even know where to start, but I’ll lay a few things out to get the ball rolling:

1. Being a war vet does not make you manly. This guy proves it.
2. Sex workers of the sort he met do it because they choose to. Exploitation was not part of the equation.
3. His vagina still had sand in it from his deployment.
4. Prostitution is amoral. Get off your fucking high horse.

There is nothing wrong with respecting a whore for her work -she puts in the time and effort to produce a satisfactory product. There is also nothing wrong with acknowledging a whore as a person because they are people. Big whoop. There is something wrong with patronizing them and being condescending.

If he doesn’t find hiring a prostitute kosher, he should have just said, “oh, well, not interested,” and went back out to find a normal girl. Instead, he sat with her, blue balls crammed up in his pantyhose, and talked.

Of course, if you really believe it is immoral and should be outlawed and that women who choose to go into the profession are secretly coerced, then you probably respect the guy. I think he’s lacking in testosterone.

(Anti-prostitution laws were passed as health-care measures, at least superficially. The real reason was ugly women who wanted to put an embargo on imports. If you get my drift. And my drift means intercourse. For money. Penis. Vagina. Cash.)

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Even the reader unconvinced by my arguments should find that, in the process of maintaining and supporting his view, he has clarified and deepened it. Moreover, I like to think, intellectual honesty demands that, occasionally at least, we go out of our way to confront strong arguments opposed to our views. How else are we to protect ourselves from continuing in error? It seems only fair to remind the reader that intellectual honesty has its dangers; arguments read perhaps at first in curious fascination may come to convince and even to seem natural and intuitive. Only the refusal to listen guarantees one against being ensnared by the truth.

- Preface to Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick.

Having read some things that I fervently disagree with yet have a difficult time arguing has made me open my eyes a bit. When I opened this book and read that, I knew why.

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MILWAUKEE (AP) — A Milwaukee man whose DNA authorities say linked him to the slayings of nine women since 1986 has been charged with two counts of homicide, with more charges expected later this week, police and prosecutors said Monday.

Walter E. Ellis, 49, was taken into custody after a struggle at a motel on Saturday, days after police served a search warrant to obtain a DNA sample, police Chief Edward Flynn said. Ellis was charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and more charges will be filed within the next few days, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm said.

The land of beer, cheese and serial killers. Ahhh, home.

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Yet I act like him and after someone saw a picture of him, even went so far as to tell me that I look like him, and that I was lucky that I would look so distinguished and handsome when I age. Ah, to know that I will age gracefully is a comfort, at least.

Yet, for all the disagreements I have with him, we get along very well. It just bothers me to realize that my little behavioral ticks (this little humming thing I do when I’m waiting for something to load on the computer, for instance) are so similar. It makes me feel like a strange little clone.

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The United States welcomed John Pham in 1979 when he was a child and had moved from Vietnam to make a new life. Now Pham, owner of Ninh Kieu restaurant in Swatara Township, wants to return the favor.

“This country has been good to me,” said Pham, 40. “Now the economy here is bad. Unemployment is up. I want to give something back to my country and community.” That something is a bowl of Vietnamese soup, offered for one penny to those who have lost their job in the current economy. The beef noodle, shrimp or chicken pho (Vietnamese name for soup) is served to the unemployed all day Wednesday and from 9 to 11 a.m. and 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday.

While the motivation to do this is fantastic, I sort of disagree with the implementation. With few exceptions, it is nearly impossible to starve in this nation. There is not one homeless person in my city that goes hungry unless they choose not to shuffle down to any number of soup kitchens.

On the other hand, this is great for the unemployed who are out job-hunting and cannot afford to wait in line at a soup kitchen/shelter or only eat at a specific time. Also, Pho is awesome – I want to drive to Atlanta now.

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