1. Don’t waste your time.

Some friends invited us over. Luckily for me I was driving so didn’t drink much, because they kept pouring the wine. Some neighbors were visiting them. I walked into the room, saw them and thought: religious crackpots. Jehovah’s Witnesses or Seventh Day Adventists. (No offense to my Witness & Adventist readers!).

But it was far worse.

Continue reading →

Scene I:
[Telephone rings]
Miguel: Hello?
Alpha: Beta maxed out the aptitude tests she took today at that counseling thing.
Miguel: Of course.
Alpha: The psychologist said she could…
Miguel: Do whatever she chooses.
Alpha: She could be a brain surgeon. Medical aptitude, among other things. Very well-rounded.
Miguel: Cool, she can remove the stitches from my shoulder. They’re scheduled to come out today.

Scene II:
[Miguel sits on edge of tub with shirt off. 13-year old girl stands beside him with tweezers and small scissors]
Beta: Sure I’m not hurting you?
Miguel: No, no. Can’t feel a thing.

Mission USA
In the new year, Rooting Out Evil will be sending a team of volunteer weapons inspectors into that greatest of rogue nations, the United States of America.

We have selected the US as our first priority based on criteria provided by the Bush administration. According to those criteria, the most dangerous states are those run by leaders who:

1) have massive stockpiles of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons;
2) ignore due process at the United Nations;
3) refuse to sign and honour international treaties; and
4) have come to power through illegitimate means.

[Thanks Riley Dog]

Go read this, and scroll up.
[Thanks Jessica]

Punch is what children drink at parties. Punch is something harmless, usually. Well there was that one time at the Jim Jones/People’s Temple theme party back in college where we added lots of vodka and spray painted cars and buildings on the way home and thought we’d dreamt it until we saw the building a couple days later and a car drove by and proved we hadn’t.

Here, though. Punch is part of winter. In the Christmas season, most town squares have little villages of little wooden huts before which you can stand around tables drinking mugs of mulled wine or punch. Charities sell the stuff. I had my first punch last night with Alpha and the girls. I ordered a Feuerengel Punch. “Fire Angel Punch”. Beta said it must be the best because it was the most expensive. I asked the guy what it was and he said, “a little stronger.” What he did when I paid was pour me a regular punch – which is hot – and then added another shot of rum to it.

You wouldn’t want to drive after even one of those punches. It’s quite a nice tradition. The square is decorated in Christmas fashion, with lights and boughs and things. Some of the stands sell ornaments or other crappy doo-dads and knick-knacks. And people in winter dress are standing around, their breath condensing around them, getting shitfaced on punch and mulled wine as their young children tug on them and pull on them and whine that they want to finally ride on the carousel finally you promised.

But we stopped at one (Alpha had a mulled wine, Beta a Kinderpunch, Gamma too I guess) and had Japanese food instead, at the local Japanese restaurant, which of course is run by a Chinese couple.

Hello to everyone coming here from Blogdex today. Have some Christmas cookies, careful of the poinsettia. Feral Living relaunched a year ago today apparently, and so we’re on the Blogdex “A Year Ago Today” link list in the sidebar because of the design theft hoax back then. Go buy some shit at the store, how about that?

The redesign hoax was mostly D’s idea, anyway, the clever bits at least. So if you want clever go to his site instead.