Unborn Blog
Favorite new catchphrase, from THE UNBORN
“Jumby wants to be born now.”
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Our friend S just had her hip replaced, and is out of commission. Her mother is in town to watch over her for the duration, and I have been entrusted with S’s car –since she can’t drive it, and S’s mother is scared to drive in Oakland. So I drove S to the hospital, took her home, picked up her cat from the vets, went to the grocery store…. Like that.
This morning, while taking S’s mother to church, I hit a major pothole (Broadway and MacArthur: drivers in that vicinity, look out), which blew out the right front tire.
S’s trunk is full of many useful things, but tools are not among them. There was a jack, but it was one of those unhelpful cheap jacks that come with the car, and it did not have a lever. And she did not have a lug wrench. Being car-free myself, I had none of those things either.
So I called a tow truck. A very good looking young Israeli man showed up, changed the tire, and charged me 125 dollars for it. I couldn’t find my credit card, so I went in the house to look for it, and still couldn’t find it; I wound up using the Dread Bride’s card.
That being done, I went to the Safeway/Wells Fargo where I had last used my card. None had been turned in. So I cancelled that card, and not only ordered a new one, I started a new account.
So that’s been my Sunday. Now the landlady's brother is painting the house. The landlady is supervising, unhelpfully. Happy New Year!
Yesterday…
The Fearsome Wife and I left the house, she to buy some ReMent (miniature foods and such), I to buy ANTATHEM, the new door stopper novel by Neal Stephenson.
As I was paying for the book, we noticed a PEANUTS anthology at the country. My wife said something about it, to which the clerk responded that her grandfather had been one of the animators for the PEANUTS specials. His name was Frank Smith. His granddaughter told us that he told her that Linus was the hardest to draw. Now you know.
Bono in the New York Times, going on about something or other….
“Now I’m back in my own house in Dublin, uncorking some nice wine, ready for the vinegar it can turn to when families and friends overindulge, as I am about to. Right by the hole-in-the-wall cellar, I look up to see a vision in yellow: a painting Frank sent to me after I sang ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ with him on the 1993 DUETS album. One from his own hand. A mad yellow canvas of violent concentric circles gyrating across a desert plain. Francis Albert Sinatra, painter, modernista.
“We had spent some time in his house in Palm Springs, which was a thrill — looking out onto the desert and hills, no gingham for miles. Plenty of miles, though, Miles Davis. And plenty of talk of jazz. That’s when he showed me the painting. I was thinking the circles were like the diameter of a horn, the bell of a trumpet, so I said so.”
What is that, that “Plenty of miles, though, Miles Davis?” Is that free association? A pun, or something? Beats me.
Headline form AlterNet
“Why Atheism May Be the Best Way to Understand God”
Well sure, if you don’t believe something exists, understanding it is a snap.
From a link somebody sent me….
“Bold Nazi Candle Designs… Adolf Hitler wishing you a Merry Christmas!”
“Each 3 inch x 6 inch pillar candle comes in a variety of pleasing scents (we choose) and colors white, beige, red, pink, green, cinnamon, orange (we choose but you may state preference in comments section of checkout) with a lead free wick that will burn 50 - 60 hours.”
Of course, THEY choose. They’re Nazis!
Oh boy! Ann Coulter and L. Brent Bozell III! Together at last!
L. Brent Bozell III, writing about Ann Coulter’s new book, GUILTY, which I gather is about how liberals are pretty much to blame for everything: “Call Coulter outrageous, call her a bomb-thrower, even state she goes beyond the pale of civility, if that's your read. But do not assign that label to Coulter and then present your on-air love, kisses and giggles to all the public leftist hate-spewing that far exceeds any perceived incivility by Coulter. That is utterly transparent liberalism, and utterly transparent hypocrisy.”
Harry Smith, on CBS’ EARLY SHOW, asked Ann Coulter some relatively pointed questions when she was plugging her book there, to which Bozell (III) responded: “Harry Smith hosted Maher on CBS just months ago on his faith-mocking movie RELIGULOUS and didn't say one discouraging word to him about his caustic remarks about Cheney or his hateful anti-Christian bigotry. Not one word.”
So there you go.
Associated Press
... had a feature about “biohackers,” that is amateur scientists, tinkerers “…working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself. Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering.”
Whatever happened to, I dunno, making a bookshelf, or a ship in a bottle?
One DIY biologist told the AP that “…amateurs will probably pursue serious work such as new vaccines and super-efficient biofuels, but they might also try, for example, to use squid genes to create tattoos that glow.”
Headline, AFP
“CIA give Afghan warlords Viagra in exchange for information on Taliban”
Keep those caftans loose, boys.
Part of a highly-convincing email I received from Robert Mueller III (any relation to Brent, I wonder?), of the FBI
“WE BELIEVE THAT THIS NOTIFICATION MEETS YOU IN A VERY GOOD PRESENT STATE OF MIND AND HEALTH. WE THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) IN CONJUNCTION WITH SOME OTHER RELEVANT INVESTIGATION AGENCIES HERE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HAVE RECENTLY BEEN INFORMED THROUGH OUR GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE MONITORING NETWORK THAT YOU PRESENTLY HAVE A TRANSACTION GOING ON WITH THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA (CBN) AS REGARDS TO YOUR OVER-DUE CONTRACT PAYMENT WHICH WAS FULLY ENDORSED IN YOUR FAVOR ACCORDINGLY.”
Slate review of THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX, by Emily Bazelon
Another alarmed Mommy with too much time on her hands: “Why, given this likely audience, did the moviemakers feel the need to include extended sequences with fear-pumping music; a giant menacing cat that charges after Despereaux in a gladiator ring; and Botticelli, the torture-obsessed leader of Rat World? And what's the point of a G rating if movies like Despereaux fall into that category? This movie confirms my feeling that it's past time to replace G with better age-tailored guidance.”
Gumby wants to be born now.
Mona Charen’s Christmas column:
“It's Christmastime and the Fox News Channel, the most conservative of the major media outlets, is running an ad for PajamaGrams, ‘the only gift guaranteed to get your wife or girlfriend to take her clothes off.’ The ads feature soft porn images of women disrobing and tossing slips and bras to the floor. The ads run at all times of the day and night. Thus do we usher in the season supposedly devoted to the Prince of Peace and the Festival of Lights.”
In a related vein, Jay Nordliner in NRO
“Two seconds ago, ‘Merry Christmas’ was about the warmest, nicest, most joyful thing you could say to someone. Now, it can be borderline hate speech.”
So: Happy Horny Daze everybody! Oh wait - it's over? Thank God, or thank Jumby, or some other non-existent entity that I, like, understand totally.
“Jumby wants to be born now.”
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Our friend S just had her hip replaced, and is out of commission. Her mother is in town to watch over her for the duration, and I have been entrusted with S’s car –since she can’t drive it, and S’s mother is scared to drive in Oakland. So I drove S to the hospital, took her home, picked up her cat from the vets, went to the grocery store…. Like that.
This morning, while taking S’s mother to church, I hit a major pothole (Broadway and MacArthur: drivers in that vicinity, look out), which blew out the right front tire.
S’s trunk is full of many useful things, but tools are not among them. There was a jack, but it was one of those unhelpful cheap jacks that come with the car, and it did not have a lever. And she did not have a lug wrench. Being car-free myself, I had none of those things either.
So I called a tow truck. A very good looking young Israeli man showed up, changed the tire, and charged me 125 dollars for it. I couldn’t find my credit card, so I went in the house to look for it, and still couldn’t find it; I wound up using the Dread Bride’s card.
That being done, I went to the Safeway/Wells Fargo where I had last used my card. None had been turned in. So I cancelled that card, and not only ordered a new one, I started a new account.
So that’s been my Sunday. Now the landlady's brother is painting the house. The landlady is supervising, unhelpfully. Happy New Year!
Yesterday…
The Fearsome Wife and I left the house, she to buy some ReMent (miniature foods and such), I to buy ANTATHEM, the new door stopper novel by Neal Stephenson.
As I was paying for the book, we noticed a PEANUTS anthology at the country. My wife said something about it, to which the clerk responded that her grandfather had been one of the animators for the PEANUTS specials. His name was Frank Smith. His granddaughter told us that he told her that Linus was the hardest to draw. Now you know.
Bono in the New York Times, going on about something or other….
“Now I’m back in my own house in Dublin, uncorking some nice wine, ready for the vinegar it can turn to when families and friends overindulge, as I am about to. Right by the hole-in-the-wall cellar, I look up to see a vision in yellow: a painting Frank sent to me after I sang ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ with him on the 1993 DUETS album. One from his own hand. A mad yellow canvas of violent concentric circles gyrating across a desert plain. Francis Albert Sinatra, painter, modernista.
“We had spent some time in his house in Palm Springs, which was a thrill — looking out onto the desert and hills, no gingham for miles. Plenty of miles, though, Miles Davis. And plenty of talk of jazz. That’s when he showed me the painting. I was thinking the circles were like the diameter of a horn, the bell of a trumpet, so I said so.”
What is that, that “Plenty of miles, though, Miles Davis?” Is that free association? A pun, or something? Beats me.
Headline form AlterNet
“Why Atheism May Be the Best Way to Understand God”
Well sure, if you don’t believe something exists, understanding it is a snap.
From a link somebody sent me….
“Bold Nazi Candle Designs… Adolf Hitler wishing you a Merry Christmas!”
“Each 3 inch x 6 inch pillar candle comes in a variety of pleasing scents (we choose) and colors white, beige, red, pink, green, cinnamon, orange (we choose but you may state preference in comments section of checkout) with a lead free wick that will burn 50 - 60 hours.”
Of course, THEY choose. They’re Nazis!
Oh boy! Ann Coulter and L. Brent Bozell III! Together at last!
L. Brent Bozell III, writing about Ann Coulter’s new book, GUILTY, which I gather is about how liberals are pretty much to blame for everything: “Call Coulter outrageous, call her a bomb-thrower, even state she goes beyond the pale of civility, if that's your read. But do not assign that label to Coulter and then present your on-air love, kisses and giggles to all the public leftist hate-spewing that far exceeds any perceived incivility by Coulter. That is utterly transparent liberalism, and utterly transparent hypocrisy.”
Harry Smith, on CBS’ EARLY SHOW, asked Ann Coulter some relatively pointed questions when she was plugging her book there, to which Bozell (III) responded: “Harry Smith hosted Maher on CBS just months ago on his faith-mocking movie RELIGULOUS and didn't say one discouraging word to him about his caustic remarks about Cheney or his hateful anti-Christian bigotry. Not one word.”
So there you go.
Associated Press
... had a feature about “biohackers,” that is amateur scientists, tinkerers “…working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself. Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering.”
Whatever happened to, I dunno, making a bookshelf, or a ship in a bottle?
One DIY biologist told the AP that “…amateurs will probably pursue serious work such as new vaccines and super-efficient biofuels, but they might also try, for example, to use squid genes to create tattoos that glow.”
Headline, AFP
“CIA give Afghan warlords Viagra in exchange for information on Taliban”
Keep those caftans loose, boys.
Part of a highly-convincing email I received from Robert Mueller III (any relation to Brent, I wonder?), of the FBI
“WE BELIEVE THAT THIS NOTIFICATION MEETS YOU IN A VERY GOOD PRESENT STATE OF MIND AND HEALTH. WE THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) IN CONJUNCTION WITH SOME OTHER RELEVANT INVESTIGATION AGENCIES HERE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HAVE RECENTLY BEEN INFORMED THROUGH OUR GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE MONITORING NETWORK THAT YOU PRESENTLY HAVE A TRANSACTION GOING ON WITH THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA (CBN) AS REGARDS TO YOUR OVER-DUE CONTRACT PAYMENT WHICH WAS FULLY ENDORSED IN YOUR FAVOR ACCORDINGLY.”
Slate review of THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX, by Emily Bazelon
Another alarmed Mommy with too much time on her hands: “Why, given this likely audience, did the moviemakers feel the need to include extended sequences with fear-pumping music; a giant menacing cat that charges after Despereaux in a gladiator ring; and Botticelli, the torture-obsessed leader of Rat World? And what's the point of a G rating if movies like Despereaux fall into that category? This movie confirms my feeling that it's past time to replace G with better age-tailored guidance.”
Gumby wants to be born now.
Mona Charen’s Christmas column:
“It's Christmastime and the Fox News Channel, the most conservative of the major media outlets, is running an ad for PajamaGrams, ‘the only gift guaranteed to get your wife or girlfriend to take her clothes off.’ The ads feature soft porn images of women disrobing and tossing slips and bras to the floor. The ads run at all times of the day and night. Thus do we usher in the season supposedly devoted to the Prince of Peace and the Festival of Lights.”
In a related vein, Jay Nordliner in NRO
“Two seconds ago, ‘Merry Christmas’ was about the warmest, nicest, most joyful thing you could say to someone. Now, it can be borderline hate speech.”
So: Happy Horny Daze everybody! Oh wait - it's over? Thank God, or thank Jumby, or some other non-existent entity that I, like, understand totally.
posted by Merle Kessler at 2:52 PM
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