A Great Weekend

This weekend is the Food and Wine show in Kohler, Wisconsin. Ben and I have plans to attend. In addition to all kinds of food and wine tastings, educational seminars, good eats, there are shows too. Ilan and Hung, winners from Top Chef seasons two and three will be having a cook-off. I met a woman who attended last year who said her only complaint was that the tequila tastings were at ten in the morning. Whoo-hoo. The in-laws are on their way to pick up Lotta and Ima. They are going back to Grandma and Grand-dads for a Halloween party and weekend o' fun. Up whose alley does this whole thing run? Mine, dammit.

Until I woke up this morning with pinkeye.

Crap.

(On the bright side **not too bright, the lights hurt** I will have the house to myself for the whooooooole weekend).

Help Shape the Debates

Free Press is looking for a few good men and women to provide instant feedback on how the media is presenting the debates. If you sign up you'll be asked to watch whichever debates you want and respond on how you feel the debates are being covered. The data will be used to provide media and moderators with a scorecard on their own performance. If you don't sign up a horrible recession, war, famine and a Britney Spears comeback will surely follow! Help.

Here's the link: www.freepress.net/debates

I think the Packer management did the right thing.

Hey, it's not a popular opinion, but then I recently got up the guts to announce my true hidden feelings about the Beatles.

Talk amongst yourselves. I'll berate your dumb opinion love to see what y'all've got to say when I get back.

(Time for some vacation).

Short Video from Greenwald - Condi & Torture

The link is Condimustgo.com

There is a petition there and I know this is the second petition that I've posted this week regarding this subject. But you know the rightie fundies have used this tool to very good effect. I think we should use it to take our country back.

/soapbox.

Go West to Hollywood, YoungMiddle-Aged Man Wundrun

I won the freaking contest!!! I am going to Hollywood to enjoy the new restaurant by Gordon Ramsay! (His new season of Hell's Kitchen premieres tonight on Fox - no, I wasn't required to say that but it only seems fair). I don't know any of the details yet, but we get airfare, hotel stay and a $250 tab at Ramsay's restaurant.

Yayayayayayayayayayayayay. And whoo-hoo.

Don't ask, I'm taking Ben.

I will send postcards, if you send me your address!

(I wonder if any shops on Rodeo sell items Made in the USA?...)

There's something wrong with the Spitzer investigation

Let me say up front that I despise Eliot Spitzer's hypocrisy the same way that I despise that of the myriad republicans caught in their torrid sex scandals. I would also like to add that the behavior of republicans at this point outshines Spitzer's own hypocrisy by several degrees. The pearl clutchers at National Review Online are aghast at the sheer numbers of democratic governors who have been caught in these sex scandals, pretending that they are piling up like cordwood behind the barn. Of course they are referring to Spitzer and to New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, whose scandal is now approaching four years old, for a grand total of two. They fail to mention David Vitter. Or Larry Craig. Or Mark Foley. Or even the DC Madame. They've failed to call for the resignation of Vitter. But I digress.

There is something that doesn't add up about this investigation. Look up at my title bar. You are at a blog called "I was just wondering" because I have more questions than I have answers and this is definately one of those times. If you have any answers, by all means post them in comments.

Let's start with this statement:

"Gov. Eliot Spitzer's role in a prostitution scandal grew out of a public corruption inquiry triggered by his movement of large amounts of cash from several bank accounts to one that operated by a call-girl ring, a law enforcement official said Tuesday.

Spitzer was the initial target of the investigation and was tracked using court-ordered wiretaps that appear to have recorded him arranging for a prostitute to meet him at a Washington hotel in mid-February, the official said.

But that doesn't jibe with these reports:

"When discussing how the payments would be arranged, Client 9 told Lewis: "Yup, same as in the past, no question about it" —- suggesting Client 9 had done this before.

And how did the Governor pay in the past, 'same as before'? Cash.

Here's the report:

"On February 11, 2008, at approximately 10:53 p.m., Temeka Rachelle Lewis, a/k/a the defendant, sent a text message to Cecil Suwal, a/k/a the defendant. ... In the text message, Lewis wrote: 'Pls let me know if (Client-9's) 'package' (believed to be a reference to a deposit of money sent by mail) arrives 2mrw. Appt wd b on Wed." (Call 3728C). Suwal sent a text message back to Lewis, stating: 'K.'"

The following day, Lewis called a prostitute whom Emperors Club marketed as "Kristen." The women then discussed the time Kristen would take the train from New York to Washington. Lewis confirmed Client-9 would be paying for everything — train tickets, cab fare from the hotel and back, minibar or room service, travel time, and hotel. Lewis also wasn't sure if the man's deposit had arrived because Client-9 would not do traditional wire transferring. In a subsequent text message that night, Lewis wrote to Kristen: "If D.C. appt. happens u will need 2 leaveNYC at 4:45pm. Is that possible?"

Kristen wrote back: "Yes."

Certainly I must be off-base. I mean, the federal government would never wire-tap its enemies. At least not without probable cause.

Bass Practice

Jesus sent me this video. We're like, total im bff's.

A Patch of Black Ice

Black ice is the kind that you cannot see when you approach it. It's dangerous and can send your car spinning out of control with no warning. It is a menace here in Wisconsin and it usually forms when the weather has been fairly mild with a sudden drop in temps.

I've hit a patch.

Yesterday I took my daughter to preschool, the first day back after a snow day. Due to the snow day she didn't get the reminder sticker sent home to remind me she was "snack girl". Having forgotten her snack, I wound up crying uncontrollably in the director's office. I only cried a little standing in front of the yogurt section at the grocery store.

Yesterday I went to the OB/Gyn to have my IUD removed. Then I went shopping at the mall across the street. The IUD removal ruptured a blood vessel and I ended up bleeding uncontrollably and crying uncontrollably in the JCPenney's. I went back to the doctor who sent me home and told me to stay off my feet for the rest of the day. At Christmas time.

I have a tenant who is a very sweet young man. His girlfriend left him. He has stopped paying his rent. He won't answer his phone. This doesn't make me cry, but starting eviction at Christmas time makes me not sleep.

Two weeks ago our sweet cousin died in an accident. He was thirty. I sneak little cries in the car. During his eulogy of a handful of stories, two of them recounted were stories about me and him. One involved him throwing up all over me in a bar once and one involved an incident with a Jamaican lady of questionable repute when he came to my 40th birthday bash in Negril. We were going to Arizona next week to see him for Christmas. Instead we saw him last week in his casket. We will still go out there for Christmas but there will be a space at our table that will not be filled. Not ever again.

Then there's all the busyness and stress that a regular Christmas entails. Then there's the very short days that bring on the blues. And the cold that brings on cabin fever. Then there's - then there's-.

The most comforting thing I have read lately is mattyboy's post dissing Nietzsche's 'that which does not kill us' trope. I am not killed. I am not defeated. But I am diminished.

I hope the spinning stops soon and that this car wreck lands softly in a snowbank.

Maybe he should put little stickers on the insoles

to tell the left shoe from the right shoe.

It works for my 4yo.

(Image swiped from Commander Other's Otherwhirled)

Update: I think Franiam has helped solve the dilemma: Bush is so far right he refuses to wear the left shoe.

Look what BAC made

This is pretty cool. BAC at Yikes made it. Yay! Yikes!



So true. And she can do a "Laura" episode too.

Let's hope Bravo doesn't blend its shows

because ProjectTopRunwayChef would suck!

If you want to know about there, go here

If you haven't already seen the amazing vlog series "Hometown Baghdad" you need to spend some time watching it.

It is about a group of young twenty something men and their friends and families. These are guys who are trying to get through dental college, play in bands, play basketball. You can watch and sometimes forget that they are not young Americans.

If you want to understand why the professionals are leaving Baghdad in droves, watch. I was going to say if you want to understand their anger at Americans, watch. But, there is not as much out and out anger as you might expect. In one webisode the subject is the death of a favorite uncle in an ambush at a busy intersection. There is anger, sorrow, grief but not rage.

There are about 38 webisodes in all. Each one fills in the missing spaces that our sad lack of coverage of the Iraq occupation leaves out.

The humanity.

Hasn't this been done?

I understand that Snoop Dogg* is the latest celebrity to sign on for his own reality TV show.

My first thought: isn't that being done?

*Actually, from his bio it seems that Calvin Broadus is a pretty decent guy who gives back to his community, coaches his kids' football team and generally has time to think of others besides himself. This is a really unfair comparison for Snoop and I should apologize.