Twisted Spinster

I was going to set up a stylesheet for this blog with this picture on the header, but I made it too big, and I’m too tired to figure out how to make it small enough for it to fit in the blog header without taking over the page but not so small that they can’t see my little joke:

(Click for the full picture.) On the other hand, my joke might be too obscure for most people and they’ll just think I’ve gone to the other side, so it’s just as well. Maybe if I mention somewhere that Obama has his own Dish Network channel?

Update: actually, it doesn’t look bad in reduced size. Hmm…

I don’t know how long this will last, but gas prices are dropping like a stone. In some places in the Orlando area regular is below $3.00 per gallon. Makes me wish I had waited a few more days to fill up. (Oh well, I was nearly on empty anyway. I like to live life on the edge, man.)

Could someone tell me just what is so darned special about the Buckleys? Frankly I never really got what was the big deal about William F. — I could never get through any of his articles in National Review, I always found them over-ornate, meandering, and pompous (what I could read before I went into a boredom coma). And his son, Christopher, strikes me as being an almost perfect example of insubstantiality in human form. Here is his opinion, in the usual Buckleyesque cascade of verbiage, of Sarah Palin. Apparently she is just too, too, too common, though not too common for way too many words.

Yup, I have another one! (Ignores chorus of groans.) It’s not that I haven’t had anything more to say on the subject, I’ve just been preoccupied with other things. This one will be short, though. (Ignores sighs of relief.) Anyway… now, I like the new series a lot, but it’s not perfect. And among the many imperfections of the new series is the apparent attitude on the part of the new show’s creators that Rose Tyler was the “perfect companion” to the Doctor. Excuse me, I think not — while I think Rose was a fine character she had lots of flaws, and if you ask me her effect on the Doctor was not a good one, despite what current production team might think. She might be the favorite companion among those who have only watched the new series, but anyone who cut their teeth, so to speak, on the old “classic” Who will tell you the perfect companion now and forever will remain Sarah Jane Smith. (And I think the new series people know that, which is why I suspect they fobbed her character off so abruptly at the end of the Season 4 finale. I mean what was up with that — she just runs off? After all, Donna wasn’t jealous like Rose was; she would have been glad to invite Sarah Jane into the Tardis for a cup of tea or something. Anyway, the whole ending of the last episode was bizarre — I’ll get into that someday.)

Sorry folks, but I have just been beat. This ear thing is really getting me down — I am starting to think that I have an ear infection, not just an ear stuffed with wax. It’s possible — ear infections were my childhood scourge, and I have memories of hot oil being poured in my ear, having to lie down with my ear on a heating pad, feeling like someone was stabbing me in the ear with a skewer, etc… I don’t have any pain, but I feel more tired than I should. Or is that the cold medicine I’ve been taking?

Also, I decided to start going through all my stuff to separate what I’m going to get rid of, hopefully by selling it, and now I am surrounded by piles of books, boxes of Pampered Chef items (I so want to get rid of that junk), typewriters — I am only keeping the smallest portable, the rest of the collection is being sold. (I belong to a typewriter collection email list so I am sure I will find buyers.) The worst are the books: I have decided to get rid of all but a few very essential volumes. Most of what I have are scifi and fantasy paperbacks that frankly it’s time I let go of (yes, bad sentence construction there, I don’t care). I’ve read most of them a thousand times anyway. But when I move up north I want to move with practically nothing, just the cats, some clothes, a few household essentials. Nothing I own is irreplaceable except for some jewelry (and none of that is valuable). But dang, right now I wish a fairy would sweep down and whisk all this stuff away and leave a bag of gold behind.

Okay, I’m going to try and eat something and see if that makes me feel better. At least my appetite, which had almost vanished, came back.

You know, if someone from, say, Fox News had written that Obama’s campaign plane smelled bad, what sort of reception do you think that would have gotten?

(Via.)

Update: well, apparently someone is calling the reporter “racist” for not saying that the Obama campaign plane smelled like Chanel No. 5, or whatever. I don’t know who is saying that — it’s just a comment on a blog, without citation. I certainly hope the commenter doesn’t mean me. For what it’s worth, I don’t think the reporter was being racist, I think (or rather, thought) that his liberal credentials as a member of CBS News would get him a pass on what would get hoards of shriekers down on a reporter from a perceived “right wing” news organization such as Fox News. If the liberal news media Teflon shield is starting to wear down, maybe the Obama contingent is starting to eat its own like left wing organizations tend to do.

Update 2: well, there’s a comment on the original article about three comment pages in:

This is a despicable attempt by a McCain journalist to suggest that Obama would be an inferior president based on the state of his press plane. It suggests that “The black guy”s plane is disorganized and smelly so that means he”s going to be a disorganized and smelly president.”

(I can’t connect to individual comments on the CBS News blog page.) There are also some less coherent accusations of racism from other commenters, in all caps and such. On the whole the commenters to professional news blogs seems to be of rather lower quality than to “amateur” blogs. I wonder why that is.

Oh God, the whining… “McCain was booooring!” “We’re gonna lose!” “Welcome to your new socialism, start stocking up on ammo…” “OMGWTFBBQOBAMAWONTHEDEEBATE!!!ELEVEN!!!” Verdict: you signed up expecting entertainment, and got boring old politics. Oops!

You know what, people? Desperation isn’t impressive. Another name for it is flop-sweat. But by all means, let’s go into hysterics now. Oh yeah, and stay home in a snit instead of voting because McCain wasn’t entertaining you enough. That’s my favorite. It’s also called “a vote for the opposition.” You know, those of us who can’t afford a cabin in the mountains all stocked with guns, ammo and Maker’s Mark are the ones who are going to have to suffer through at least four years of your revenge-against-the-GOP party. So by all means write in “Mitch Romney” or “Ron Paul” or “mah dawg” in that ballot. Criminy, lefties aren’t the only ones making this a nation of fragile-nerved ninnies.

(Via: all the blogs.)

It’s still stuffed up, but it’s not as painfully stuffed — either the wax is starting to soften and the swelling is going down, or I’m just getting used to the situation. Now instead of feeling like half my head is made of concrete, it feels a bit like it’s made of impacted, semi-dry oatmeal.

In other news, I still don’t have a job — though I admit the way I’ve been feeling I haven’t been very actively looking. I can see myself on a job interview with this ear thing: “Excuse me, could you speak up? I can’t hear you.” (Digs in ear.) Yeah, that will impress people. Anyway, I’ve updated my resume and applied through Careerbuilder for a few things. What I find frustrating is the way so many links to “jobs” are actually links to other sites where you have to set up an account and log in and post your resume and then you get a list of jobs, and then you try to apply and find you have to sign up and log in and post your resume… and let’s not even mention all the come-ons for “continuing education” like the “University” of Phoenix that you have to click through. No I DON’T want to sign up for your Pretend School so you can charge me lots of money for a fake degree in Marketing Management or whatever the hell it is. I’m thinking I’d be better off printing off a box of copies of my resume and going from door to door. Thanks, internet, for nothing. [/END GRUMBLE]

In the further antics of Our Betters in the Media, their latest “Sarah Palin is a big dummy!” salvo failed, and when I say failed I mean like Epic Fail. But we should keep watching the tv news and reading the papers for our info, not those inaccurate, biased blogs. Yeah.

You know, I am in a very bad mood because I have a plugged up ear (and the slightest bit of physical discomfort really irritates me; I will be the first to admit that I am not good at being stoic). So it doesn’t help that just about every one of my favorite blogs has gone into Full Whine mode about the election.

It goes like this:

“Wa-aaah! McCain won’t talk about the issues I want him to talk about!”

“Wa-aaah! Obama is up in the polls!” (Oh, those magical, mystical polls, none of whom have ever been right. Remember the 2000 election that was called for Gore?)

“Wa-aaah! Sarah Palin didn’t pull a 185+ IQ out of her hat and totally wow Big Brained Geniuses like Maureen Dowd into loving her!”

“Wa-aaah! McCain isn’t going to pull in the swing-voter vote!” (A.k.a. “the intellect of jellyfish washed up on the beach voter vote.”)

“Wa-aaah! McCain’s gonna lose because–” (he isn’t hammering all the “ex”-terrorists Obama pals around with, or the fact that the mortgage mess is the fault of Democrats holding the “we’ll tell everyone you’re a racist and you’ll be shunned by all the cool people oh and also fined and jailed” gun to the heads of bankers, or that Obama is just a big jerk who wants us to all die.)

“Wa-aaah! Obama’s gonna win and we’re all gonna end up in a Gulag run by Bill Ayers and the faculty of the University of Chicago!” Never mind that what’s actually more likely is that, should the election turned out that way, I give it less than a day before his constituency, led by the eternally faithless crew that runs the mainstream media, turns on him like sharks turning on a bucket of fresh chum. You know why? Because they’ll realize that the world did not immediately turn into a utopia filled with puppies, rainbows, and rivers made of caramel syrup. You want to know how I know this? Because I was witness to the 24-hour-old Failed Clinton Presidency (thus branded by Dave Barry after the post-inauguration hangover set in and everyone in the news media woke up and realized they still had to work for a living despite the fact that the Dems were in control).

Lord love a duck. I don’t want that hollow race huckster in charge of the country any more than you do, but whining about Doom! Doom! We Are All Doomed! just plays right into the hands of his whacked-out followers and his terrorist mentors, who want people like us to be in a state of perpetual misery and self-hatred because the world isn’t turning out like we want it to. Don’t do that, don’t be that guy — that’s the “progressive” way, to hate reality because it doesn’t conform to our standards.

And one more thing: stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop… stop trying to impress Democrats. You know who you are — you’re the people who keep complaining that, for dredge up an example, that Democrats are still making fun of Sarah Palin. I have some news for you, people: Democrats will always make fun of Sarah Palin and people like her (that’s people like us, by the way, which is why some of you are so worried about this — come on, you know it’s true) because they don’t like people like her. And they won’t like her even if she pulled out a PhD in Intergalactic Philosophy or whatever those documents are that these people trade off on each other at their little parties. They would make fun of her even if she sounded just like them and parrotted their ideals. So it’s no good worrying about it. Be more secure. Show some spine. We are the vertebrates in this evolutionary scheme. Stand up straight. And remind yourselves that to have enemies like this is good, it’s a good thing these people don’t like us. I wouldn’t want to be liked by Bill Ayers and his ilk, would you?

Update: see? And now there you are, under your porch with your revolver stuck in your ear, looking like a fool. And to make it worse, the neighbor’s lab puppy just squeezed under there and is licking your face, and the neighbor just stuck her head down there to call him and she saw you. Remember to go quietly when the ambulance people get there — at worse you’ll just have to stay in the psych ward for one night for 24 hour observation.