Insert Joke Here:

I'm a muse

My sister just emailed me to inform me that I am the subject of a song.

This morning AJ was zooming his little red car (that he won at Chuck E. Cheese's) singing, "Uncle Andrew, Uncle Andrew, Un-clllllle Andrew, Uncle Andrew...

Attaboy...

Hard To Handle

Graf: Do you think Firedog will hear some song we sing but change the lyrics to and think, "Hey, that's the ____ song!"

Me: I was thinking about that the other day, actually. I was listening to the Toots & The Maytals version of "Hard To Handle" and thought there's a lot of people who just think that's a Black Crowes song. Then I was thinking about what songs Firedog will be listening to when he's a teenager or something, and some new artist will cover some song from 20 years ago, and he'll think it's something totally new.

Graf: Yeah, and we'll have to say, "No! You've got to hear the ORIGINAL Givin' Up The Nappy Dugout. That's waaaaay better!"

NE Ohio flooded

Graf's family is very lucky to only have a bit of water in their basement. Some of their neighbors...not so much. Never a good sign when you can jet ski down Main Street. And I hear the Chipotle is flooded! Send in the National Guard, people!

Mother Nature 1, Lake County 0.

The Graf family lives on this road.
In Mentor, Hodgson Road between Lost Nation and Rt. 306 is impassable.

Gawd Bless Uhmurica

This afternoon, stuck in post-Cubs game traffic on Irving Park Rd. Behind me, two middle-aged guys in a red BMW convertible. Next to us in the crawl, a ginormous Hummer H2 burning approx. 40 gallons/block. At some point the BMW and the H2 were side by side, and the driver of the H2 reaches down and hands an issue of Playboy to the guy in the passenger seat of the BMW.

Middle-aged jocularity ensues.

*pssst*

Chris and Anne are getting married today. If you're in Central Park, say hi.

Ghetto-fab

He's rockin' the fake fur with style, but what you don't see is the best knock-it-all-out-in-one-go neck tattoo evar.

Yep, I'd say that pretty much covers it.

A life well lived

Lil Stinker

Sorry, but this is a Shameless Uncle Post™. How friggin' cute is my nephew?!?! Now, imagine him dressed up like a pumpkin tonight.

AJ Luna: Media Darling

My nephew AJ (okay, Sarah and Alex, too) made the Rockford Fishwrapper today.

Put your money where your heart is

http://www.choosetheblue.com

Sounds like a pretty good plan to me. I've already tried to do this to the extent that I know about particular companies, but this site makes it pretty easy to see which company is on which side of the fence.

I actually wanted to do a site like this myself, but I haven't found the time. Now I don't have to, someone else did it for me. :-)


From the Choose Blue main page:

OH HAPPY DAY!

With delusional pride Ashcroft wrote (in his five-page resignation handwritten on election day), "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."
uhhh.... sure!

The reign of the DA who never met a civil right he wasn't willing to trample to warp the country to his paranoid rightist agenda & who thinks black cats are Satan, is over. His stupid reign in some other position awaits. Perhaps they are maneuvering the asshole into the Rehnquist seat on the Supe court.

Related Story: Talk is that support for Arlen Specter is lukewarm. He may not gain the disputed position.

From 2 to 92

Everyone likes a high five.

Congratulations Seth and Tatiana!

Other than a wedding cake that went MIA, it was a great weekend in NorCal. Seth's brother Josh saved the day with an emergency Krispy Kreme run for 100+.

Have I mentioned I love the Internet?

The Hole.

via tmn

Baby D!

Congratulations Ryan and Melinda! Norah Jane was born last Saturday. Organ lessons begin "late next week," according to the father.

I'll be in Chicago This Week

After a short illness, my grandmother died this morning. She came to America in 1928 just in time for the depression. Last year, she relived the experience of leaving Ireland for me. She said as her train pulled out of Sligo her dad was crying because he knew he'd never see her again, and he never did. She met my grandfather (from county Antrim) in America and although they were married about 35 years, he died in the early 70s, She ended up being a widow longer than she was married.
She was 94! She was very cool and super sharp till the end.

If you've been craving a vist from me, I will be in Chicago tomorrow through Thursday.

Forget about Bush - We got Flowers!

Sarah noticed these on the way out this morning - don't worry about the monkey president 'til Real Time with Bill Maher comes on tonight - get outdoors!

Aug. 13th- NATIONAL UNDERWEAR DAY!

I am so glad I got transferred!

This is what I have come to in my job as a hard news television journalist...covering the push to make Aug. 13th National Underwear Day. Freshpair.com feels that for the amount of money people in the US spend annually on underwear (over $12 billion) it should get more respect and recognition. Thus, they are sponsoring National Underwear Day, when everyone can showcase a small part of their underwear for a day. They have a petition available and today I followed 20 models around New York City, surveys in hand to help influence people to electronically sign their petition so that they can get the day enacted nationally.

(what missle launcher?? we're talkin' undies!)

National Do Not Call Registry

Hallelujah and pass the peanuts!

via Squara

Congratulations Roberta and Carlos!

Bala bala bala!

Dust off those gas masks and fly your freak flag high. Join the Avrilution and take back your pop culture.

via boing boing

SARS Q&A

A good Q&A about SARS, the exception being their claim about the life of the virus. It now appears that SARS lives outside the host at least 24 hours (most viruses live about 2-3 hours)

Also, the statement that SARS is not viable in an airborne state seems suspect.

So if your mailman sneezes on your mail, well, it's been nice knowing you

Going against the flow

Picuruta Salazar rides the "Pororoca," a wave that flows upstream and reaches a height of 4 meters on the world's second longest river, the Amazon, in Brazil, in this undated photo. The Pororoca happens every year between February and March when the ocean whips back on the heavily drained Amazon and creates a giant swell that flows upstream for hundreds of miles. Salazar, a Brazilian, rode the dirty brown wave for 37 minutes, traveling 12 kilometers through the rainforest.

via MSNBC Week in Pictures

Family Day at Camp Pendleton

This is MSNBC's caption:

Role reversal
U.S. Marine Reserve Corp. Carlo Saldana holds his 5-month-old daughter, Ava, as his wife, Veronica, sights through the scope of his shoulder-fired multipurpose assault weapon Feb. 7 during a family day at Camp Pendleton, Calif., for A Company, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. Some 140 Marine Reservists from the company are being activated, meaning they have to leave their civilian jobs and live on base training while awaiting deployment, as the U.S. military continues to prepare for a possible war with Iraq.

Yours may vary.

"Honey, we could really use one of these back at the house. It'd sure keep the neighbor dogs out of the trash!"

Elsewhere, life continues, unaware

"Nobody was even talking about it," Garippa said. "There was a rumor that Eminem died, that was the big thing today. We found out it wasn't true."

Here's my favorite bit: the need to "qualify" Eminem.

Eminem is the edgy rap artist popular among young people.

Thanks, New Jersey dot com!

via obscure store

Darwin Award Nominee

In a bizarre case of road rage, a 20-year-old Poolville man was struck and killed north of Weatherford on Monday night after he exited his car and kicked and pounded another vehicle...

Peaster volunteer fire Capt. Mike Norris, who responded to the accident scene, said: "To me, it was a big case of the brain not functioning. Road rage is that way."

via obscure store

Rest stop caretaker to be evicted

Stories like this always make me wonder what the Charles De Gaulle Airport guy is up to these days...

(But in truth, it's a shallow excuse to get in on the cheese eating surrender monkeys action.)

via obscure store

Hobos Fight Gingivitis

Hobos learn the wonders of mouthwash...not only does it make their shakes go away when they can't buy booze, but it's legal to drink in public, has more alchol content than wine and leaves them w/ minty fresh breath.

via obscure store

Luck.

There's Good Luck.

There's Bad Luck.

Dead or Alive?

Lemon juice = HIV Killer?

There's got to be a "When life gives you lemons..." in there somewhere.

Update: Q sez: "...make a battery."

via boing boing

Puppetry of The Penis: The Ancient Art of Genital Origami

Drudge says these guys are booked for Wednesday's Leno Show.

Hoax?

Hooray!

Last night on my 32nd birthday I asked the lovely Becky to marry me and she said yes! I couldn't be happier. This one goes out for you Becky. I love you!

Pastor Beaten After Blunt Eulogy

Reverend Calls Deceased 'Drunkard And A Fornicator'

The pastor was no lover of sinners, like the Rector of Stiffkey.

Nor would he be fond of The Earl of Kimberley .

-------------------

As for me, I'm following the "Thumper Rule" from Bambi:

Thumper's Mother: Now, Thumper, what did your Father tell you?

Thumper: If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

-------------------

The modern equivalent, of course, is "If you can't say anything nice, come sit next to me"...

Cultural Landslide

I think that we as a nation have finally recovered from the September 11 attacks.

What makes me say that?

Well...

Robert Blake, TV's Baretta, has been arrested for murdering his wife. No word if OJ Simpson has offered to help track down the real killer. But I say, if the bird shit, you must acquit.

Roman Polanski will face sex charges, although the object of his affections is probably old enough to be a grandmother by now.

Madonna and Courtney are fucked up. Madonna's gonna be OK, but Courtney probably isn't.

And, to top it all off, Volkswagen now has a car that gets 239 miles to the gallon and looks like a Beetle that got squished betwixt two semi-trucks.

Hot damn tamale!

Fifty-two Things They BDo Better In America

41. Unambiguous, literal (not symbolic) traffic-control signs: "Don't Walk!", "Wrong Way!", "Slow!".

or maybe

52. Timeouts in spectator sports like basketball (you have a chance to pee and not miss the highlights).

Dan Lewin (The First Victim)?

Daniel Lewin
31 years old
Chief technical officer, Akamai Technologies Inc.

Before he turned 30 years old, Danny Lewin had several lifetimes of accomplishment. He had done prize-winning work in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He had been a captain in the elite Israeli special forces. He had co-founded Akamai Technologies Inc. and become an Internet billionaire.

On the morning of Sept. 11, wearing his usual T-shirt and jeans and carrying his laptop computer in his backpack, he boarded American Airlines Flight 11 in Boston, heading to Los Angeles to
speak at an Internet conference.

Friends speculate Mr. Lewin may have been the first victim. He was sitting in business class where the hijackers sat. A flight attendant reportedly called her supervisor and said a "businessman" had been killed.

Marco Greenberg, a New York public-relations executive and close friend since Mr. Lewin's high school days in Israel, says: "I'm convinced that given his character and military background, Danny probably got out of his seat" to battle the terrorists. At a memorial service, Mr. Greenberg said: "Our friend is quite probably the first fatality in the first war of the 21st century."

Mr. Lewin's friends say they find it poignant that the technology he invented for Akamai helped keep the Internet running smoothly on Sept. 11 -- a day when millions relied on it for information and communication.

Mr. Lewin's mathematical algorithms, or complex calculations, helped prevent bottlenecks on the Internet by distributing material to Web servers located near users.1

Mr. Lewin grew up in Denver, but at 14 his family moved to Israel. Although he initially struggled with the language and the culture, he gravitated to the gym, becoming Mr. Teenage Israel as a body-builder, Mr. Greenberg says. While doing compulsory
military service, Mr. Lewin was selected for the elite commando group. One of the unit's training tasks is to cross 100 miles of desert in three days. Mr. Lewin did it twice.

He earned two university degrees while working full time in the Haifa computer labs of International Business Machines Corp., then went to MIT for a master's degree. Tom Leighton, an MIT math professor, recalls that as his graduate assistant in a course on parallel algorithms, Mr. Lewin "asked for hard problems. ... Most graduate students want to do easy problems, write their thesis and move on."

He developed the algorithms for a research paper, and then wrote a business plan adapting the algorithms to the Internet for a contest for MIT students. The plan won second prize, and Mr. Lewin
persuaded Mr. Leighton to pursue the idea. "We decided the best way to have an impact with the technology was to create a company," Mr. Leighton recalls.

Mr. Lewin became the quintessential Internet entrepreneur. Technically brilliant and driven to succeed, he was able to get by on four hours sleep a night. He challenged associates to work harder, friends recall, leaving their offices with the mantra, "You're behind."

In 1998, when told it would take three months to install Akamai's first network of servers, Mr. Lewin "went out over Christmas vacation and installed 200 servers in 11 cities," Mr. Leighton says.

In October 1999, Akamai went public, rising a spectacular 458% on its first day. By January it had doubled again. Mr. Lewin's stake alone was valued at as much as $3.2 billion. Paul Sagan,
president of Akamai, recalls that two years earlier Mr. Lewin had been living in married-student housing at MIT with a wife and two children, and he didn't even own a credit card.

As the Internet-stock bubble burst, Mr. Lewin sold about $50 million worth of stock, according to filings. In Akamai's latest proxy filing, he had 7.3 million shares valued at $26.3 million. Besides a house, his major purchases were two fast motorcycles.

The day Akamai went public, employees gathered in the early afternoon to watch the stock soar. After 15 minutes, "Danny barked out the order to get back to work," Mr. Sagan says. "He said it really didn't matter. We had to build the company."
--William M. Bulkeley

I know this is a long and unusual posting for House8 but I felt that since we owe our livelihoods to his technology we shouldn't forget Dan Lewin. I wish the fucking media would focus on this instead of congratulating themselves for being anthrax targets.

BTW, the city of New York lists the first official victim of the attacks as Father Mychal Judge.

And this is (c.) The Wall Street Journal, 10/11/01. Posted for education and discussion only.


via Wall Street Journal

The Most Important Weapon of All

ABOARD THE USS CARL VINSON
(Reuters) -- The essential ingredient of "beer night" was loaded Friday onto this U.S. aircraft carrier stationed in the northern Arabian Sea for the American bombing raids on Afghanistan, and one could detect a sense of relief all around.
Crates containing almost 10,000 tins of Foster's, Heineken, Coors and Budweiser beers were ferried over from a supply ship, cruising parallel to this immense floating fortress, for the night next week when those aboard can have a beer.

Rush Limbaugh goes deaf

Over the past 3 months, Rush Limbaugh has quickly lost his ability to hear. He can still hear certain voices at certain frequencies, but figures that within a month he will be 100% deaf. Crazy.

via dan says...

I am very tired.

But I have 4 words for anyone that cares to read them:

"Crushed Ice On Demand"

Here's 4 more:

"Automatic Garage Door Opener"

And just 1 final word:

"Mortgage"

Danger on The High Seas

Most people probably think that alcohol and bad weather are the biggest dangers in boating. Think again.

"Potential Explosion Hazard Exists for this Buoy"

Explosive hydrogen gas can accumulate inside the hull of 3-m discus buoys.

This dangerous gas is caused by batteries corroding due to water intrusion. While a remedial plan is being developed, mariners are asked to give this, and all other 3-meter discus buoys, a wide berth. The buoys are 3-meter discus shaped, typically with a yellow hull and a 5-meter tripod mast. All buoys are identified by the letters "NOAA" and the station identifier number, such as "46050" and has a group flashing (4) 20 second, yellow lights.

Please do not trespass, tamper with, or tie up to any NOAA data buoy. "

Make sure to click the link so you know what one looks like.

Dang of the Day

I was just called a "fucking idiot" by the biggest ex-frat, sporty fuck i've ever met. I played a voice file that I created to entertain my friends at work, and he was apparently on some big shot important phone call. By the way, this is the same idiot who doesn't know the first thing about process or working with people. But he licks a fine executive ass. Anyway, he called me a "fucking idiot" under his bad breath, but I heard him anyway. Go Jocko, Go!!!!!! Or, in my true words, GO STICK IT!!

via Me

lowbrow.dot.com

Lowbrow.com let's users post their own lowbrow moments. Here's a sample entry:

When I was about 13, I asked my dad, "What's a cult?". He said, "Well son, they give all sorts of strange rules to follow, and you can never question what the leaders say. They try to take your money, and sometimes they might wear strange outfits or chant things over and over again."

Dad was speechless.

All Patels, All The Time

"It is the first time it has happened that everyone in our two teams was called Patel. The last time we played Amarmilan there were 20 Patels.
"This time there were 22, but that was by accident not design. One regular member of our team, Yash Dave, who is a good batsman and wicketkeeper couldn't play so we played all Patels.

Harrison Ford, True-Life Hero

A lost Boy Scout found a new hero after actor Harrison Ford rescued him in Yellowstone National Park Tuesday.

eggpants

i like these drawings. kinda reminds me of my wisdom teeth when they were yanked. shelly, this one goes out to you! good luck with your surgery.

via the morning news

Everyone's replaceable!

That's right, ladies and gents of the internet consultancies out there--you are all replaceable. The head honcho, Bob Michelson, of iXL steps down today and provides us all with the friendly reminder that we are all replaceable. Brilliant, I say. Just f-ing brilliant. He couldn't of said it better. So long!!!!

You Don't Know Squat

The way some people go to the toilet could be a matter of life and death. This is according to a study conducted in Calcutta and presented at the World Congress of Neurology taking place in London.

This may concern something a lot of women do. Some women hover over the toilet; they donÕt put their butts down. That hovering could be harmful -- first, because the bladder isnÕt fully emptied and now, it appears to raise the risk of stroke.

One-third of stroke deaths occurred while people were squatting. In India, itÕs traditional for people to squat instead of sit or stand. TheyÕve found that not only do one third of strokes occur while squatting, the risks go way up if the people are squatting and doing their business. Fascinating.