Year: 2006

I goofed up my taxes for 2003 and 2004 (and only figured out they were wrong when I did the 2005 return!) so I had to file some corrective paperwork with the IRS. The resulting envelope of goodies was pretty hefty, so I figured I’d slap two stamps on it and send it on its way. Yesterday I received the envelope in the mail with a note that I owed nine cents of additional postage.

Luckily for me– because I was in a smart-aleck mood– I had a bunch of one-cent stamps laying around.

“The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.”

— Charles Bukowski

So today I had a conundrum: it’s Thursday, which means (of course) there’s pickup ultimate at lunch time. But I went to Zack’s preschool “graduation” party, and then Alex and Kyra’s last-day-of-school party, and wasn’t going to be able to catch the e-mail saying whether the game was a go. (We use an advanced system whereby everyone RSVP’s to a single guy about the game, and then he reports if we have enough players.)

Thinking about how I might find out the result, the light bulb of inspiration was lit and I created a mail filter that forwarded all ultimate-related e-mail messages to my cell phone– which of course I had with me at the parties. So there I was, sitting on the school lawn with the kids, and my cell phone chimed with a text message “game on”. Woo hoo!

I’m so clever.

I’m creating a flyer for an ultimate league, and went to my trusty graphics companion software, the GIMP. When I chose “Create New Image” and looked at the list of template documents, I realized one of the options is Toilet Paper (US, 300dpi) which struck me as extremely funny.

First, what kind of person would design a document to be printed on toilet paper (and how the heck do you feed that into your printer, anyway)?

And second, this is apparently the US format of toilet paper– does that mean other countries have other standard sizes? I had no idea.

Yesterday President Bush was in Chicago speaking about (surprise!) immigration and (even more surprise!) the “war on terror”, and he said this:

Wow, you can just smell the irony dripping from his lips, can’t you? He speaks of property rights (hello, eminent domain!) and human rights (hello, rendition and waterboarding!), goes on to recall justice (hello, PATRIOT Act, goodbye habeus corpus!) and “transparency” (hello, state secrets!), and finally ends with concern about the erosion of democracy (hello, PATRIOT Act again!).

Do people really believe anything he says any more? In my mind, the United States has lost so much face with the international community that for us to stand up and preach to other countries about democracy and justice and human rights is not only ironic, but insulting.

From today’s Washington Post (emphasis mine):

It just gets worse and worse. Why is the Bush administration so afraid of the truth?

“Okay, maybe I’ll take a break from writing about politics and write about something more fun next time. Like puppies.”

— Moby

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”

— Ayn Rand

Below is an awesome (real) sign from someone’s Flickr photoset. There was a contest on Fark to caption it, and some of the results were riotous.

Don’t transport pebbles in your mouth; you could sink the boat.

When that rolling tire slams you into the rail, you’ll surely blow chunks.

No running on the deck! We have determined the precise “ball racking” height of the guardrails.

Danger! Do not run into groin-level railing when escaping.

Be careful not to bump your head on minor constellations.

Here’s an awesome shot of the International Space Station: