"My entire life was changed because of a fish."

When she's on her best behaviour
Don't be tempted by her favours
Never turn your back on mother earth*




* Or, 200lb, 8ft long, armor-plated prehistoric fish.

Can't stop listening to today:

Ladytron "Destroy Everything You Touch", from Witching Hour.

Also in heavy rotation recently:
  Depeche Mode "John The Revelator", from Playing the Angel
  Nelly Furtado "Say It Right", from Loose
  The Killers "Read My Mind", from Sam's Town
  The Knife "Like a Pen", from Silent Shout

This one time, I had to listen to Love and Rockets "Haunted When The Minutes Drag" at least 2-3 times a day, for like, a week.  Loud.

Questione Tyme

Wife: Do you know what your blood type is?

Me: I dunno... F? For "Fucking Awesome".

A guy with a stroller wants nothing more than to flip cars with his bare hands.

Liked this bit from the Achewood blog:

My little girl is almost two. Those who are parents know well enough how that feels. The scaffolding of language, the surprise when imagination shows up out of nowhere. Those who aren't parents can sit around in their smoky apartments and drink corporate beer; I won't act better than you. You can wear your pants and talk about cable television shows with your single friends. That's good, that's fine. You're hardcore, you spent $63 on vodka tonics last night. I have a kid, and I walk around in running shoes and jeans. My t-shirt often has the name of her pre-school on the front. Do I look soft? You bet. Am I soft? Charge past me the next time I'm trying to enter a crosswalk with my stroller. I WILL flip your Saab 9-3 like a turtle. You think I care if a car is upside down? Watch me buy a bagel, from your upside-down car. Watch me eat the bagel, and share some with my kid. A guy with a stroller wants nothing more than to flip cars with his bare hands. Bonus if there are people inside. Let's move on. I can also flip your Saab lengthwise if the timing is right.

That’s not a hair question. I’m sorry.

Shouldn't that be our principle?

"If an adult in this country, with his or her own money, wants to engage in an activity that harms no one, how dare we prohibit it because it doesn't add to the GDP or it has no macroeconomic benefit. Are we all to take home calculators and, until we have satisfied the gentleman from Iowa that we are being socially useful, we abstain from recreational activities that we choose?... People have said, What is the value of gambling ? Here is the value. Some human beings enjoy doing it. Shouldn't that be our principle? If individuals like doing something and they harm no one, we will allow them to do it, even if other people disapprove of what they do."

 

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) talking back to Rep. Jim Leach, one of the main forces behind the prohibtionist anti-gambling legislation that passed last week.

[Thx: Hit and Run]

Creature from the Miso Lagoon

Sarah found a creature in her soup:

The miso soup, on the other hand, started off very promisingly. The flavor was hearty and they didn't stint on the seaweed. And I loved the tofu chunks--they had been deep-fried and thus had a little bite to them instead of being tasteless and crumbling. But then I encountered a little creature with big round black eyes on the side of his head.

My first thought was that she was taking this way too calmly. I never, ever want to be eating a dish and find that SOMETHING WITH A FACE has bobbed to the surface. Unless I ordered something with a face, then I'll be disappointed if it's eyes aren't dewey and plaintive.

Then I read Judy's comment, and was somewhat mollified. I guess it was supposed to be there. Although, Sarah's description of this little creature sounds alarmingly like some sort of parasitic worm that would try to burrow into my ear and make me want to climb ladders all the time.

Here is what would have happened had this been my miso:
creature: [blurb]
ringloss: Gah!
creature: [stares]
ringloss: (to proprietor) Excuse me sir, why does my miso HAVE A FACE!?!?!?!?!?!
proprietor: Sir, that is a _____ [translates as "tasty squid creature"]. It is very good for you, lots of vitamin A.
ringloss: [bashful silence] [contemplates saying "Vitamin A? More like Vitamin I!", but is too cowed by smothering sense of own cross-cultural ignorance] [stares blankly thinking about that one X-Files episode with the giant flukeworm/human hybrid] [hides creature in wadded napkin]