guiltypleasure

movin' on

2005-11-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

movin' the blog: thatantonguy.com/blog/

i've got sunshine in a bag
i'm useless, but not for long
the future is movin' on
the future is movin' on

news! and commentary!

2005-11-26T08:08:00.000-08:00

Even Supporters Doubt President as Issues Pile Up. who are these people? it isn't as if anything has actually changed in the last year. all of these issues were on the table a year ago.

Who is thankful today? The people of Jackson, Mississippi. "an increase in the purchase of guns and jewelry". excellent use of taxpayers' money.

distorted intelligence. duh.

the cristian right.

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”

THOSE WORDS, PENNED IN ARTICLE 11 of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, are as succinct a statement as we have from the Founding Fathers on the role of religion in our government. Their authorship is ascribed variously to George Washington, under whom the treaty was negotiated, or to John Adams, under whom it took effect, or sometimes to Joel Barlow, U.S. consul to Algiers, friend of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, and himself no stranger to the religious ferment of the era, having served as a chaplain in the Revolutionary Army. But the validity of the document transcends its authorship for a simple reason: it was ratified. It was debated in the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President Adams without a breath of controversy or complaint concerning its secular language, and so stands today as an official description of the founders’ intent.

indeed. the brilliance of the system isn't that the people may enact it's will via the vote of the majority but that there are limits to what the majority may do. that is, there can be no tyranny of the majority over the minority.

2005-11-25T14:47:00.000-08:00

ah yes, thanksgiving. pretty standard fare here in spokane with michelle's family.

the stuffing had cornmeal and sausages. it was damned good. nothing touches my mom's cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie. nothing. the cranberry sauces takes two or three days in the crock pot. ah yeah!

i went and lifted real quick today. michelle went for a run and now she's playing lord of the rings on xbox with shakey jakey. it's a cool game, but i prefer the fighting games that are first person. i think we're going shopping.

i'm trying to deploy MovableType on thatantonguy, but it is being difficult. hmm...maybe i'll ask.

shakey jakey just said "fuck". now i'm going to get shit for it. damn. fucking kids.

spokane tv is pretty awesome. just saw an ad for a pawn shop. ha ha!

photos

2005-11-23T19:45:00.000-08:00

pictures uploaded to thatantonguy in the gallery section. check it out.

chainsaws, medina, chainsaws.

2005-11-21T08:21:00.000-08:00

man. take a guy who hasn't worked a lick in almost a year. then send him out into the forest with a chainsaw and a big truck and make him cut and haul trees for 12-15 hrs a day. good times. i was getting up at 500 and on the road by 515, getting home at 730-930. wednesday and thursday we were working near menlo, wa. how's that for a drive? it was really pretty once off I-5. but man, i am sick of I-5. friday we worked around chehalis and morton. saturday was out in the belfair area. pretty cool. and then yesterday was back to chehalis and mossyrock, which is near morton. never got to do that nice sweet straight shot from morton to seattle though. always had to get back to chehalis first. i don't even know how many miles i logged. well over 1K.

i have a little meeting with a temp agency. i was going to get my hair cut this weekend. i was supposed to be home by 300 yesterday. i was home at 900. no time for hair cuts.

i'll give you all some extended entries later. i took some pictures too.

thatantonguy.com

2005-11-15T11:18:00.000-08:00

got my own website now. thatantonguy.com. not much up there now. just got the account going today. we'll see what i do with it. i could move my blog over there, but there are a number of advantages to blogger. $10/month for the website. not so bad, i suppose.

i can set folks up with email addresses. RC2K@thatantonguy.com. how's that for a ring?

tombomb put up a stellar post yesterday. full of gems, like "religion doesn't exist" and "ethereal candyland". oh man oh man oh man. finally, i'm getting my money's worth out of his tuition. but he forgot about the dancing jesus! i love the hate mail that sites like that get. so-called christians threatening his life (and legs). man oh man. get a grip, folks!

MoS and Ricky Ricardo pulled out some sweet rides at the state cross race this weekend. love that podium shot of Ricky.

picture by hyun lee

gotta go dig out my long underwear and warm clothes for tromping through the christmas tree forests of adna, wa. yeah, that's fucking out there.

wild and crazy bitch

2005-11-14T10:24:00.000-08:00

lookin' at a big week this week. gotta go and get some trees. god, i hope it isn't rainy and shit. that's fucking miserable.

anybody seen blogshares.com. interesting concept. cycling soup and i are both worth $1K. i don't fully understand the whole thing, but something about blogs are valued by the number of incoming links. players "buy" the blogs with fictional money and it's a sort of market. although i imagine that he has more incoming links. not much content though.

speaking of very little content, medina seems content to let his dribble pass as blogging.

want a big tree for christmas? come to buchanan family trees in bellevue. remember when i tried to sell a tree on ebay? can't seem to find that picture. yeah, we'll try that one again. good trees there at buchanan though. lots of big ones too. huge. 15' or more. even tall-ass medina can't reach the top. the president of the mariners bought one. delivered it to their place. his wife is really nice.

so, we dogsat this weekend. sadie. sadie the golden retriever. she's a bit neurotic. she sleeps on the bed. or at least wants to. she also doesn't chew her food. it's amazing. she'll eat dry food by just swallowing. it's one of the most fascinating displays of eating i've ever seen. the simpsons got nothin' on this bitch. well, she is a bitch, isn't she? she's not really a barker. she groans a lot, but not so much barking. but she can get a bit excited. saturday or friday morning, something got her going and she barked right next to my head and woke me up. oh man, i wasn't too happy. what're you going to do?

nice day for a ride on saturday. looks like today is pretty sweet too. i'm going to head downtown to lift. we'll see what happens to all that when i start working the christmas trees.

i'm looking into getting a website and all that. any ideas on domain names? as much fun as pleasuresite.com or siteofpleasure.com or siteofthepleasure sounds, i think i need something a bit more professional. put some ideas in the comments, yo.

out until later

aint it the truth

2005-11-11T10:47:00.000-08:00

Woodland Park plan bids farewell to bunnies. great quote here:

Since all it takes is one male and one female rabbit to make more rabbits, the city and the House Rabbit Society would continue to trap rabbits after the initial round-up, DeCaro said.

yep. it only takes two. true enough.

Early deaths plague homeless. yep. a friend saw one being carried out of woodland park last saturday.

Courtroom fight follows sentencing. who are these people?

It's time we curb votes on transit. laughing stock of canada indeed!

no title

2005-11-11T09:18:00.000-08:00

been weight lifting. man, that's tough stuff. i'm not ever working hard. i'm doing an adaptation cycle of easy lifting. 3 sets of 15 reps at low weight. i'm not going to exhaustion, so it isn't so bad. but man, i was sore after the first session. hips and strange muscles i'm not accustomed to working. discovered the my right hamstring is significantly weaker than the left. it got absolutely worked after the first session and now it's super tight. i can barely reach and touch the ground, which i can normally do with my hands flat.

the funniest thing about cyclists lifting is that we can't hardly carry the weights around. it's exhausting to get the weights we need for our legs. my poor little arms.

lifting has also exposed me to something i'm not accustomed to: day-time TV. judge brown. soaps. man, it's bad. so bad. where do they get these people for judge brown? trailer park trolling? good god. i remember wapner. judge wapner. we watched him a lot as kids. and the price is right. my little brother would have made a killing on the price is right. maybe he still can.

gotta go cut down trees next week. yeah, lots of hard work goes into getting those pretty little trees to your living room. be sure to tip your sales person!

more walmart

2005-11-10T11:10:00.000-08:00

why subsidies are a bad idea. it ain't capitalism, that's for sure.

check out this booming real estate market. jesus.

news and commentary

2005-11-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

so, senators want to consider a windfall tax on oil companies who've made enormous profits this year. i'm not so convinced. the oil companies respond (rather correctly) that its a market situation. they've had lean times and now they're getting their due. but, if they want free markets, why don't they give back the subsidies? you know, the enormous tax breaks? give 'em back. if they want to benefit from the markets, they ought to make the markets truly free.

same for walmart. their mantra has always been about the efficiency of markets. they decry any sort of union or regulation because it is inefficient. but they too get subsidies. where's the efficiency in that?

incidentally, corporate subsidies (corporate welfare) costs taxpayers considerably more than welfare ever has. so many profitable companies don't pay any taxes. scandalous.

end of bushism. bush learned well from the handlers of reagan. project an image of strong morality and good leadership and voters will back you, regardless of ideology. what happens when you are no longer coated with teflon?

bush and co's mantra "who would have known", just doesn't wash when you consider that all the anti-war protesters knew. duh. the same with katrina and the nahlans levees. they've been saying for years that they needed more money. the administration cut it.

tomdispatch has some good content.

i got your decoder ring right here...

2005-11-09T16:18:00.000-08:00

man, those intelligent design folks in dover got their asses handed to them. ah yeah! don't need no decoder ring to understand that message.

i don't know what it means for the trial though. i'd be pretty pissed if i were a tax payer in that school district. if the district loses, they could be liable for the legal costs of the folks suing them. and those folks suing them have a good case. a really good case. turns out that the folks behind the whole ID thing have pushed a lot of other religion in government causes, with undermines their argument that they're pushing ID 'cause its good science (which it isn't).

interesting notes from the elections. has the republican "revolution" run it's course? perhaps in virginia. and in ohio? not that the republicans ever came through on many of their promises. not that the democrats are worth a whole lot either. shit, the only reason kerry had any chance last year was because outside groups like moveon.org waged a spirited campaign. kerry brought nuthin' but being "not george bush".

this lighting in from the bombings in jordan (new york times) spookily resembes goya's "third of may" painting.

texas bans marriage

2005-11-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

texas bans marriage. indeed, they did. even for hetero's.

scooped!

2005-11-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

damn, tombomb scooped me on the pirates of somalia! but, he didn't provide links! must provide links! that's what i get for listening to my girlfriend and "getting my nose out of my computer". and to think that i made fun of www.venganza.org back in september for postulating the existence of pirates.

pass the pleasure around. it's italian. its? it's? i can't remember. i know RC2K doesn't remember.

breaking news

2005-11-08T12:11:00.000-08:00

sellin' christmas trees again in the '06 christmas season. ah yeah!

that means that this guy is comin' back:

whatcha got to say about that, medina? sold your mom a christmas tree last year.

medina sez:

2005-11-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

medina has a new blog. medinasays.blogspot.com. nice template. not much content.

team ride on saturday. fuck. coldest most miserable ride. after about 10 minutes, i almost turned around. should have. it was about 40 degrees and dumping. it wasn't so bad, but then we got two flats within 50 minutes of eachother. i got really cold and started shivering and chattering while on the bike. i killed it for 10 minutes just to get going. my feet were long frozen and my hands were quickly following. made it home and peeled everything off in the garage and hopped into the shower. oh god, it itched. itched back. i don't know what's worse, the thaw or the cold. the aread between my leg warmers and my jerseys was bright red and cold to the touch. my feet were blue and cold to the touch. my feet swelled up after the shower and were super painful. i was planning on lifting in the afternoon. that didn't happen! shoulda turned around. i need to get one of those yellow rain jackets that everybody says is so water proof. the team jacket just doesn't cut it.

i checked out internet radio this weekend. i found a good reggae one at creation steppin' radio. kexp.org is one of the best, really. steaming archives. listen to their solid blues, reggae, world or whatever shows anytime you want. independent radio, yo. it's a solid station. check it out.

i've been checking some of the links that refer to my blog. lots of "women for god" and what not. not many references coming from tombomb. cyclingsoup is the leader. oh, and pinche tomâs, i know that you check several times a day. thanks.

so, i'm thinking of getting a real website going. mostly, it would be nice to have some server space. probably, i can accomplish everything i want with free services. i guess, i just want to build my own website. wish i knew more html. i'm experimenting today, and damn it if firefox and explorer don't come up with totally different displays of the same code. jesus.

like i said

2005-11-04T16:58:00.000-08:00

in guantanamo for political satire. it's almost funny. but these guys lost three years of their lives. what did you do in the last three years?

canadians are weird

2005-11-04T14:43:00.000-08:00

latotita.blogspot.com/

man, these folks are weird. they're aparently a couple from halifax. they're adopting some little girl from columbia and so they're writing a blog, in spanish, from the point of view of the little girl. que extraña.

they even have pictures of clothes that they've picked out for the little girl, titled "Mis primeros vestidos!!!!" (my first clothes). weird.

que piensas, pinche tomâs.

news and commentary

2005-11-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

'cause i'm an expert.

is it a gulag yet? indeed. a lot of the discussion on guantanamo and torture has been a little misdirected. a lot of people seem to think that the left is concerned with protecting terrorists when people of concience are really concerned with being certain that punishments are meted out to those who are certain to be terrorists. there seems to be an assumption that if a person ends up in custody, they're guilty. it just isn't true, and so i think everybody involved ought to be interested in sorting the guilty from the innocent. it serves our interests.

more on intelligent design.

"America's culture has been influenced by Christianity from the very beginning," Mr. Thompson said, "but there is an attempt to slowly remove every symbol of Christianity and religious faith in our country. This is a very dangerous movement because what will ultimately happen is, out of sight, out of mind."

ah ha! so there we have it! i think his prediction of the consequences is pretty ridiculous. but it is very telling. so, they want to keep christianity in government because they're afraid of losing ground to other religions? so, their motivation is indeed the promotion of religion. and that's exactly what the founding fathers DIDN'T want. further, he misrepresents the goals of the separation movement. the goal is to keep religion out of government institutions, decisions and what not. we are not concerned with the activities of churches and religious organizations. in fact, many are in fact religious. separation of church and state protects religions more than many realize. america is a land of vibrant faith. that is in a large part due to the spearation of church and state.

FEMA fashion god

2005-11-04T13:56:00.000-08:00

Disturbing e-mails from FEMA chief released (news.com)

November 3, 2005 5:07 PM PST

Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon posted to his Web site unflattering e-mails written by former FEMA Director Michael Brown.

The e-mails show that, while the Gulf region of the United States was reeling in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Brown exchanged e-mails with several of his coworkers about other pressing issues-namely, fashion. On the day the hurricane hit, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs, Cindy Taylor, wrote to Brown that he looked "fabulous." Brown replied, "I got it at Nordstroms...Are you proud of me?" The exchange is just one of a handful on the topic of men's shirtwear in the days surrounding the catastrophic storm. In another e-mail shortly after, Brown proclaimed himself a "fashion god".

But even more unnerving are the e-mails related to the relief effort itself. A message sent to Brown on Sept. 2 offering help with patients on ventilators went unanswered until Brown forwarded the original message on to someone else four days later.

The e-mails (see PDF) are part of over 1,000 messages handed over to a House committee that is investigating the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. And they are just the latest reminder that e-mails-especially those written at work-can come back to haunt you, even if you are a fashion god.

me me me

2005-11-04T08:41:00.000-08:00

the posole turned out well. there was a lot of liquid, so i just cooked it a lot longer than it specified. check it out.

applying for more jobs today. volt. that volt website is a bit frustrating. i've wasted a lot of time trying to upload my resume. it butchers it. grrr...

i wonder what cyclingsoup has to say today. i still think it could be RC2000, but i'm doubting it. actually, i'm almost certain it isn't RC2000. RC2000 never types "it's". he always types "its". it's annoying. but we love him anyway. actually, my favorite is "your" instead of "you're". he aint got nothing on some of terry's typos. terry's typos are never a pattern, however. he's just going too fast to get it right. cyclingsoup is missing a key cycling blog. drunkcyclist. yeah, what's up with that? he races sometimes.

tour of california. should i send them my picture with the podium hat? maybe i can get in? i'm going to make a composite pro team. the pleasure rollers. yeah, we roll 'em fat. cause that's what we are. fat. real fat.

new york marathon this weekend. maybe watch it on tv? the man on tv claims that the economic impact of the race will be $150 million. whoa. i wonder what the impact of the tour is. a lot, i imagine. interesting. i wonder, is it profit generating or is there a charity component?

jimmy witherspoon. he had the blues.

one day, we got ham and bacon
next day aint got nothin'
aint nobodies business if i do

if me and my baby fuss and fight
and the next minute we alright
aint nobodies business if we do

i'm a roadrunner, honey! bo diddley rocks.

ah yeah, i got a hat! (and i look stoned)

random food

2005-11-03T14:42:00.000-08:00

posole, food network style. seems pretty reasonable. i'm making it tonight.

sopapillas by emeril. probably pretty good.

indan food recipes. it almost looks like they're being sharked from a book, but she appears to be indian, so its probably legit. who knows. plus she calls her husband hubby, which is really annoying.

naughty curry. not a very visually appealing site, but good recipes.

white people get stranger every day

2005-11-03T12:01:00.000-08:00

watched brother from another planet yesterday with my uncle. gotta watch it every couple of years, he says. john sayles. his directoral debut? not sure. damn funny though.

went to the gym yesterday. got a new membership at epicenter fitness. one of the guys answering the phones there doesn't get it that it isn't epic center. one word, dude. anyway, i was going to get a membership at the ymca in the university district cause that's where my lady friend goes. but she wanted to switch, so we got in at this place. nice place. they have one downtown seattle and one in bellevue. i was in early in the days, so it wasn't crowded at all. not much interest to me, but all the cardio equipment has dvd players! anyway, lifting is rough. i haven't done it in like 2 years. not since the night i asked my lady friend out back in '03. at the ymca. it was an easy work out too. just a little something to get the muscles adapted to what's going to hit them. well, i'm damned sore today. and riding up to my aunt and uncles afteward was a trip. my legs were awfully sluggish to get started. pedalling circles was about impossible. and i didn't have any acceleration.

got a package from michellin today.

Thank you for subitting your outstanding results. We are pleased to see that you are doing well this cycling season. Enclosed please find your coupon and/or cash prize check along with a special michelin Podium hat. This hat is to only to be worn by you. Podium hats are only given to those who have earned them. Looking at your results, you are certainly worthy enough to wear this podium hat.

ah yeah! i guess that's what you get when you win the state crit. and a check. gotta love getting checks for riding your bike! i'm worthy! finally!

RC2000 has a website.

creating good will for US in pakistan. really, its difficult to imagine a better and more timely chance to really win some hearts and minds in that part of the world. cause, you know, bombs in iraq and afganistan haven't quite done it.

bird flu. terrorism and bird flus are the fashionable fears. but really, the most dangerous thing we do everyday is drive. millions die every year in accidents, primarily caused by speeding.

doing business in arkansas

2005-11-01T15:56:00.000-08:00

trying out picasa.

news of the day

2005-11-01T15:30:00.000-08:00

walmart gets a sweet deal from the labor department. i have to really wonder about the motivation on that one. the times seems rather baffled that they violated their own handbook and got nothing in return from wal-mart.

excercise and cancer. nothing "stops" cancer (which is why i say there is no cure). cancer happens. the proper focus (and the research community knows this, although the reporting community consistently fails to understand it;) is on effective treatment and early detection. those two things together might consititute a functional "cure".

blame the liberal media for bush. it just isn't liberal. period.

exellent blog bit from mother jones about how the iraq war is increasing terrorism and bottom line, their aint no good options cause they fucked it all up from the start. illconcieved is the word, i think.

administration failing to meet security deadlines. they have to file about 260 reports a year. that's 5 a week!